The Fields of Death

by Scarrow, Simon

  Somerset pulled the stopper from his canteen and took a swig as he glanced over the local people. ‘Hope our priest is a good performer, or this lot will be fast asleep before he speaks to them.’

  ‘Oh, they’ll listen all right,’ Arthur replied evenly. ‘I’ve spared the priest none of the details. I suspect he is more fearful over the fate of the church’s fittings and fixtures than he is for the people.’

  Somerset smiled.

  They waited a little longer. Somerset stoppered his canteen and eased himself back to rest against the peeling white paint on the wall. Arthur closed his eyes and tried to ignore the stifling heat and the irritating drone of insects as they hovered around his head, occasionally alighting and causing him to twitch or raise a hand to swat them away. After ten minutes he gave up and rose to his feet impatiently. The translator, the son of a Lisbon wine merchant, stirred as he saw Arthur stand up.

  ‘We’ve waited long enough,’ Arthur snapped, and nodded his head towards the priest sitting in the entrance of his church.‘Tell him that he must begin.’

  The translator hurried across to the priest and respectfully bowed his head before he passed on Arthur’s order. The priest looked round the square, where no more than fifty people had gathered, and shrugged. He stood up and strode over to join Arthur, followed by the translator.

  ‘Tell him to let his people know they are in the path of the French army. They will be advancing right up this road.’ Arthur gestured along the street that led through the heart of the village.‘Tell the villagers that I am the commander of all the Portuguese and British forces in Portugal, and I have seen with my own eyes the fate that the French visit upon those whose lands they pass through. Tell the priest to repeat what I described to him earlier.’ As the priest turned to his people and began to speak, Arthur murmured to Somerset, ‘If that doesn’t persuade them, nothing will, and then God help them.’

  The local people listened to the priest in silence, but as he continued some of them began to shake their heads, and Arthur felt his heart sink at the gesture. His gloom was interrupted when he noticed a rider entering the village, an officer, whose red jacket had become dulled by exposure to the elements and a liberal coating of dust. The man reined in beside the dragoons and dismounted, then handed the reins to one of the troopers and strode up the street towards Arthur.

  ‘Somerset, see that fellow?’ Arthur nodded discreetly.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I don’t want him distracting attention. Intercept him and see what he wants.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Somerset backed away and made his way at an easy pace round the small crowd and down the street towards the approaching officer. While Arthur stood still and listened calmly, but uncomprehendingly, to the priest, he watched as Somerset reached the officer and took him off to one side, out of sight of those in the square. A short time later they reappeared, and the officer hurried back to his mount, swung himself into the saddle and rode back down the road. Somerset came to the edge of the square and gestured to Arthur.

  Arthur leaned towards his translator and muttered, ‘Tell the priest to get to the conclusion. Swiftly.’

  The translator nodded and then whispered close to the priest’s ear. The latter glanced at Arthur with a frown, then shrugged and raised his voice, spoke quickly, and ended with a brief incantation and the sign of the cross. The local people were still for a moment and then some turned away while a handful clustered together to converse in low voices. Arthur thanked the priest and made his way across the square to Somerset.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Bad news, sir. One of Craufurd’s patrols reported that Almeida has fallen.’

  ‘Fallen?’Arthur’s eyebrows rose.‘How? Cox should have been able to hold out for weeks. What happened?’

  ‘The patrol was watching the French guns open their bombardment. Nothing untoward happened for the first few hours, and then there was an explosion.’

  ‘Explosion?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Seems that a lucky shot must have found a way into the garrison’s arsenal, and set their powder reserves off. Apparently the blast destroyed much of the town and damaged the fortifications. Can’t have done much for the defenders’ morale either. In any case, they surrendered before the day was out. Our men saw the French flag raised over the fortress.’

  Arthur considered the news quickly. Masséna had taken Almeida. Nothing now stood in his way. The road into Portugal was open.

  ‘By God, the enemy could already be advancing on us,’ he said softly. ‘Somerset, there’s not a moment to waste. Send word to every element of the army. They are to fall back and concentrate on the ridge at Busaco.’

  ‘Busaco. Yes, sir.’

  As Somerset dashed towards his horse,Arthur took a last look around the village. In a matter of days the French would be here. They would devastate this place, and bring hunger and death to its people. Then they would march on Lisbon, and only the outnumbered men of the allied army would stand in their way.

  Chapter 16

  Busaco Ridge, 27 September 1810

  ‘Damn this mist,’ Arthur grumbled as he stared down the slope. Even though it was past six in the morning and the sun had risen well above the horizon, a thick mist shrouded the foot of the ridge, concealing the French camp below. The allied army had moved to their appointed positions along the ridge the evening before and had slept in the open. They had stirred and formed before dawn and were now in an extended line that ran just below the crest of the ridge, out of sight of the enemy. The only troops visible to the French were the riflemen of Craufurd’s division, and a battery of six-pounders covering the road that climbed to the ridge and passed along the walls of Busaco convent. Arthur and Somerset had ridden forward to the riflemen who had occupied the village of Sula. Resting his telescope on a crumbling wall, Arthur surveyed the point where the road dissolved into the mist. Only a handful of French soldiers were visible. Pickets most likely, Arthur decided.

  ‘Can’t see anything of their main force.’ Arthur lowered his telescope and slowly tapped his fingers on the top of the wall.

  ‘May I?’ Somerset gestured towards the telescope and Arthur passed it to him. ‘If Masséna intends to fight his way over the Mondego, then he will have to take Busaco first, sir.’

  ‘True enough,’ Arthur conceded. The French army was down there somewhere, in any case. Shortly after the British and Portuguese soldiers had stirred, the enemy drums had beaten the reveille and the bellowed orders of the sergeants had carried clearly up the slope. Since then, the only other sounds had been the rumble of iron-rimmed wheels, and the occasional neigh of a horse and crack of a whip as the French guns were moved forward. Now all was quiet, and it was hard to believe that Masséna’s army was formed up somewhere along the base of the ridge, ready to assault the British line. The latest intelligence put the size of the French forces at over sixty thousand. As Arthur had hoped, the enemy’s initial strength had been eroded by the sieges and the need to leave strong garrisons behind to protect Masséna’s communication lines.

  Arthur was silent for a moment before he nodded his head and muttered, ‘Masséna will attack us here, I am sure of it. I dare say that he will see our riflemen and assume that there is nothing but a rearguard at Busaco. A force that he will be able to brush aside before continuing his advance into Portugal.’ Arthur smiled. ‘It is my intention to disabuse Masséna of that perception.’

  Somerset returned the smile briefly. ‘As long as the men stay out of sight, sir.’

  ‘That is so. But I shall only reveal them when I must.’

  ‘Let us keep our French friends guessing for as long as we can, eh, sir?’

  ‘That is the idea,’ Arthur replied, and then gestured towards the mist obscuring the low ground in front of the ridge. ‘However, it plays both ways, Somerset. We have too few men to cover the entire length of the ridge. Until the French reveal the direction of their attack, I cannot know where to concentrate our fellows in or
der to repel the enemy. Still, I’m sure we will not have much longer to wait before Marshal Masséna reveals his hand.’

  A faint popping of musket fire away to the right drew their attention. There was no sign of any movement above the edge of the mist. Arthur held out his hand.

  ‘My telescope, if you please. Quickly now.’

  He raised it and squinted into the eyepiece. A mile or so away the forward slope of the ridge was covered with sparse patches of heather between small outcrops of rock. At first he could see little sign of life, apart from a handful of riflemen dotted amongst the rocks. Then, a figure in a dark uniform emerged from the mist and scurried a short distance uphill before taking cover behind a boulder and reloading his weapon. Others followed suit, and then a few moments passed as the first of the French skirmishers cautiously picked their way up the slope in pairs, one man shooting while his comrade reloaded. Craufurd’s riflemen returned fire and tiny puffs of smoke instantly blossomed across the slope. Every so often a man on either side would topple over and disappear from sight amid the grass and heather. As the exchange of fire continued the French worked their way forward, pressing in on the riflemen until the latter fell back to a new position.

  A movement at the edge of the bank of mist caught Arthur’s eye as a French column emerged into view, a standard swirling slowly above the leading ranks. There was a brief sparkle of light as the sun caught the gilded eagle atop the standard. Arthur lowered his telescope.

  ‘The first attack of the day, I think. Masséna intends to turn our flank.’

  Somerset nodded. ‘Yes, sir. But they’ll not get far. If they continue to advance in that direction then they’ll run into Mackinnon’s brigade. And there are at least a dozen guns that can be brought to bear on the French column.’

  Arthur continued to watch as the British skirmishers fell back towards the crest, keeping up a harassing fire as they did so. He was pleased to note that they were careful to target the officers leading the French column, and every so often a figure urging his men on with a gleaming sword held high would fall. As they reached the crest the riflemen ceased fire and hurried back to join the neat lines of their comrades on the reverse slope. No doubt sensing victory, the head of the French column surged towards the crest.

  ‘There they go,’ Somerset muttered as the allied line advanced up on to the crest; a battalion of redcoats with Portugese battalions on either flank. Arthur watched keenly. This was the first major action for the Portuguese infantry, recruited and trained by General Beresford and his officers. They had every advantage over the Frenchmen before them and if they survived their baptism of fire, then they would be confident enough to hold their place in the line on any battlefield. A battery of cannon was positioned just beyond each flank of the brigade and the crews made ready to fire.

  The head of the French column hesitated as the three allied battalions appeared over the crest of the ridge, halted, and then lowered their muskets to deliver the first volley of the battle. With a crash that carried clearly along the ridge to Arthur, the brigade struck down the leading ranks of the attacking column, leaving bodies heaped and writhing along the front. Then the guns on each flank blasted out. Grapeshot swept through the densely packed ranks, cutting down scores of men as heavy lead balls smashed their way through flesh and bone.

  Despite this savage punishment the French soldiers in the rear ranks edged forward as sergeants and officers desperately ordered them to form line. Under fire from three battalions and the cannon, there was little chance of the change in formation being carried out with any sense of order. Instead, those at the front continued to fire and load as quickly as possible, shooting blind into the bank of gunpowder smoke that hung in the air between the two sides.

  ‘Those fellows are made of sterner stuff than most of the Frenchmen I’ve seen in action,’ Arthur commented. ‘By God, they can take everything that Mackinnon’s brigade are giving them.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’ Somerset nodded. ‘They’re bearing up to it, for the present. But they’ll break, soon enough.’ He paused, then squinted at the slope, closer to their position, before thrusting his arm out. ‘Sir, look there! Another column, I think.’

  Arthur’s gaze followed the direction indicated and he saw the enemy, a screen of skirmishers emerging from the mist. They were headed up at an angle from their comrades, following a shallow gully up towards the crest of the ridge, halfway between Mackinnon’s brigade and the track leading towards Busaco convent. A quick glance told him all he needed to know.

  ‘There’s no one to turn them back if they don’t change direction.’

  Somerset glanced at the crest, and saw that there was no sign of any allied officers to indicate the presence of their men on the reverse slope. ‘You’re right, sir.’

  ‘There isn’t much time.’ Arthur turned away from the wall and hurried towards the orderly holding the horses. With a lithe step up into the stirrup he swung his leg over the saddle. Somerset scrambled after him as Arthur spurred his horse into a gallop. They headed out of Sula and made their way along the crude road that had been cleared along the ridge by Arthur’s engineers. As they rode, Arthur kept glancing to his left to keep track of the approaching column. No doubt Masséna had sent both columns forward to take the crest, but they had become separated in the mist, and had continued up the slope in widely diverging directions. Now, by sheer bad luck, the second column was heading for an undefended stretch of the ridge.

  The route veered off towards the reverse slope and a quarter of a mile ahead of them Arthur saw a company of redcoats, then the rest of the battalion, in an uneven line, spread across the undulating side of the ridge. The nearest men turned to look as their commander and his aide came galloping up. One of the soldiers raised his shako and gave a hoarse cheer, taken up by a handful of others as Arthur thundered by. There was little more than ten minutes before the French skirmishers reached the crest and realised the opportunity that was there to be grasped. If they could break through the allied line then each half could be destroyed in turn. Even though Busaco was as fine a defensive position as Arthur had seen in the Peninsula, that had always been the danger in trying to defend the ridge: too few men to hold its ten-mile length.

  The colonel of the Eighty-eighth Foot, Alexander Wallace, saw the two riders approaching and trotted his mount forward to meet them.

  ‘Good day to you, my lord.’ He bowed his head. ‘And to you, Somerset.’

  Arthur nodded briefly and pointed back along the crest. ‘There’s a French column coming up from the mist. They threaten to cut through our line. I need your men half a mile to the north there. At the double.’

  ‘At the double, yes, sir.’

  Arthur fixed him with a steady look. ‘You must hold them at all costs. There may be an entire division of them. Do you think your fellows can do their duty?’

  ‘Aye, sir. They will,’ Wallace replied soberly.

  ‘Good, then see to it, as swiftly as you can.’

  They exchanged a salute and Arthur wheeled his horse round and galloped back along the ridge towards the point threatened by the French column tramping steadily up the slope. At first they could see nothing of the enemy as they rode, and Arthur wondered if they had withdrawn, or changed direction. Then he saw the fold in the slope where the gully dropped away, concealing a wide breadth of ground within. The first pairs of skirmishers were already in view, cautiously moving up the slope, looking for the first sign of their opposite numbers, but the ridge ahead of them was empty beneath a warm morning sky as larks flitted low over the heather.

  ‘My lord, over there!’ Somerset called out from behind.

  ‘I see them.’

  Arthur reined in and stared at the French skirmishers, then twisted round to look along the track. The leading company of the Eighty-eighth was still nearly half a mile back, musket barrels chinking from side to side as they trotted along the rear of the crest, kicking up a faint haze of dust in their wake. It would take them at least anothe
r ten minutes to reach their new position, directly in front of the French. Turning back, Arthur saw that the skirmishers were less than a quarter of a mile from the crest. Ahead of them, the steepness of the slope increased before abruptly flattening out a short distance from the top of the ridge.

  There was still time, he decided. Just enough time, if Wallace’s men kept up their pace.

  ‘Somerset!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Ride back to Wallace. Tell him to form the centre of his line some two hundred yards on from my position. His light company is to contest the ground in front of the enemy column to buy some time for the rest of the regiment to form up. Go!’

  Somerset tipped his gloved hand to the brim of his hat, swerved his horse round and spurred it down the track. Arthur turned his attention back to the enemy. The glint of a gilded eagle revealed the position of the main column, following in the wake of the skirmishers. The sound of hooves pounding over the ground caused Arthur to turn. Somerset was returning, and beyond him Wallace rode at the head of the men of his light company. The men were breathing hard, sweat dripping from underneath the brims of their shakos.

  Wallace judged the spot where he should be, then ordered the men to fan out over a hundred yards behind the crest. When they were ready, he sent them forward. Arthur watched as they crested the ridge and came in view of the French skirmishers, not fifty paces below them. An enemy officer shouted, muskets rose up and several shots cracked out. None of them hit their targets and the light breeze that had picked up along the ridge quickly dispersed the puffs of gunpowder smoke. The light company began to fire back and the air filled with a steady crackle of muskets. The skirmishers halted, and behind them the head of the column slowed momentarily as the leading ranks anticipated the coming action.