‘You slut!’ Hanley spat the words at the girl, stepping away from her in disgust. ‘You treacherous slut!’
For once Jenny Dobson was neither defiant nor mocking. She looked down as she took the purse and avoided Hanley’s gaze.
‘Perhaps, but she is such a lovely and clever slut that the whole world should be glad. She wants to be rich, and you cannot blame her for that. And you should be thankful that she betrayed you not simply to Dalmas, but to me as well.
‘Jenny, you had better go. You still have time to appear at the meeting place.’
‘Yes,’ she said softly. Jenny glanced at the British officer, but the intended words died on her lips and she walked away.
‘What is the point?’ Hanley asked. ‘You already have me.’
‘But Dalmas and the French do not.’
‘There is a difference.’ Hanley wanted to unsettle Velarde, but past experience suggested that would not be easy.
‘All the difference in the world, and for that, too, you should be grateful. Do not worry, friend Dalmas will have his catch. Or are you still worried for the woman you so gallantly protected with your body just a short while ago? No. Well, it does not matter, for Jenny is safe. A messenger will come to meet her, bringing information. I know because I sent one. The French will have someone to interrogate.
‘But we should not linger.’ Velarde stepped closer and used his free hand to pat Hanley’s coat until he found a pistol. The weapon went into the Spaniard’s own pocket. ‘That was the moment to jump me, if you had a mind to do so,’ he said, taking a pace back.
‘Would it have worked?’
‘No, and I might regretfully have had to kill you when I have no desire to do that. You look sceptical?’
Hanley spat, showing his contempt in the local way.
‘Very impressive. I am a loyal Spaniard whatever you think – and loyal to a Spain without the French before you say that. Why do you doubt this? We were on the same side last year, and you helped me pretend to desert to the enemy.’
‘Espinosa.’
‘He was betrayed, but not by me. Should I have died merely to give him company?’ Velarde lowered the pistol. ‘Know that I will kill you if you give me no choice,’ he said. ‘It may take you some time to believe me, and so you must know that I will do this thing. Now you have a choice. You can wait here and after a while the French will come and you will be asked many uncomfortable questions. Or you can come with me and help me.’
‘Help you?’
‘Yes, and Spain, and your own Lord Wellington. I need to get inside Ciudad Rodrigo.’
‘Marshal Masséna feels the same way,’ Hanley said.
‘That is why I need to go there. King Joseph has agents inside the city, whispering to powerful men that the war is his and they should join him to share in the rewards of victory. Some of them are planning to seize power once the siege is advanced, and then surrender to the French. I do not want this to happen, and so I must go there to stop them.’
‘Give me their names. I can get word into the city and have them arrested.’
‘On what evidence – the word of a French agent?’ Velarde threw back his head and laughed, shaking his head. Then his look was pitying. ‘I do not trust you enough to trust me that far. Not yet. So I must go, and since it is important to get there, I need your help.’
‘I have a choice?’
‘Between this and capture, certainly.’
‘Then I shall be delighted,’ said Hanley.
They left the city openly, riding past long lines of ox-carts piled with food, unoiled axles screaming piercingly, and the drivers jabbing with their goads to keep the poor beasts plodding on. The mud was dreadful, both from the rain and the churning of so many heavily laden wheels over so many days. Velarde kept his uniform covered, but his pass and orders took them past every sentry and questioning officer.
Not long after they left the main road and cut across country to meet with the guide Hanley promised, Velarde told him more of the agent’s purpose.
‘It is not just Ciudad Rodrigo that is at stake. When that hands itself over to the French and the leaders are praised and rewarded, it will be a gesture to others. The same man is working in Spain, and even, with some assistance, in Portugal.’
‘Almeida?’
‘The plan is bigger than that. They are in touch with people near the Regency Council in Lisbon. King Joseph wants to give his brother a victory greater even than he expects. Portugal will fall, but it will happen so quickly that cities will be closed to the British. Lord Wellington may have trouble getting his army away. And if the British lost thirty or forty thousand men, would they ever dare to come back to Europe? So he pours out gold like water, and not far from the top in any country there are always plenty of greedy men. Ciudad Rodrigo is meant to be the start. That is why we must make sure it is really the finish.’
Hanley made no comment on that, but pulled his horse up.
Velarde looked puzzled. ‘This would not be a good time to jump me.’
‘Not that. Espinosa?’
‘That poor fat fool.’ Velarde sighed. ‘I have already explained. I do not know who betrayed him. I did not.’
‘What about his people?’ Many of Espinosa’s sources and messengers had been arrested, tortured and killed.
‘I named no one the French did not already know – presumably from whoever betrayed Espinosa himself. Those were dead already, regardless of what I did, and so I informed on them like a good little afrancesados and was rewarded with a commission and a good deal of money by King Joseph. What would you have had me do?’
Hanley shrugged and rode on.
19
Williams walked down the stairs to the lower cloister and shivered when he came into the cold night air. It was cloudy again, and he was glad of the burning torches that gave some light to the arcaded corridors around the little courtyard that led into the main one. Sergeant Rodriguez was waiting, smoking a cheroot, and the officer gestured for the man to finish when he moved to throw the cigar away. Williams was a few minutes early and there was no sense in wasting tobacco in a city where supplies were bound to grow short. He shook his head at the offer of taking a puff. Then the world exploded.
With savage violence the gate beside the chapel burst into fire, noise and flying debris, the big timber doors themselves shattered into fragments and all the heavy boxes and sacks piled to reinforce them were flung back and high into the air, scattering around the far end of the courtyard. One sentry was caught and his head smashed by a great smoking beam of timber.
Williams and Rodriguez were sheltered at the far corner of the high-walled compound, but even so felt the wash of the blast.
‘Get the men up!’ yelled Williams. The French had taken the Convent of Santa Cruz once already in the siege, but the fortress guns had pounded the place and forced them to withdraw. The scars of that barrage were all around them, and had left none of the roofs intact for its new garrison of the Avila Regiment and Williams’ company. ‘Put half in the windows of the upper cloister and guard the stairs. Then bring the rest to me down here.’ Rodriguez threw down his cheroot and dashed off, already shouting out the alarm, not that anyone could have missed the explosion.
It seemed the French were coming back.
Williams ran towards the chapel, drawing his sword. He wished he was carrying his musket, but he had only expected to do the rounds of his sentries and had not come fully armed.
There were shouts, and figures surged through the open gateway, bayonets long and glinting in the torchlight.
‘Sir!’ He looked back and saw a man in a white shirt without a tunic. It was Corporal Rose, and the NCO had the Spanish corporal and six recruits with him. There were shots and chaos at the far end of the courtyard. A crash, less violent this time, and suggesting axes, brought the other gate down, and more cheering Frenchmen were charging into the convent.
Williams ran to the men, and pointed back inside the smaller courtyard
. They formed a line, sheltered from sight and ready to flank any mass of French coming through the low arched entrance. Williams heard Colonel Camarga shouting to the men of the Avila Regiment. There were more of them near the main courtyard and he would let them deal with that fight for the moment.
‘All loaded?’
The Spanish corporal nodded in confirmation. The young recruits looked nervous, but then a man would be a fool if he was not at a time like this.
‘Fix bayonets!’ No one dropped any of the long triangular blades and they slotted over the muzzles with satisfying clicks.
Williams heard running feet pounding on the flagstones towards them and gestured to the men to raise their muskets. The first through the entrance was an officer in a bicorne hat, his sword raised high and his long-tailed coat flapping behind him. Bunched behind him were half a dozen men carrying muskets and wearing shakos.
‘Fire!’ yelled Williams, for the Avila Regiment wore cocked hats and not shakos.
Eight muskets slammed back into the firers’ shoulders as the men pulled their triggers and fired at the French. There were screams and men were falling, one already writhing on the ground.
‘Charge!’ Williams dashed forward, his sword held in a lunge, and the little line followed him. More French spilled through the archway into the smaller courtyard. All had epaulettes on their jackets, and most had the big moustaches of veterans. The officer was down, his white breeches now stained dark with spreading blood. A tall slim man came at Williams, blocking his first thrust, and then swinging suddenly with the butt of his musket so that the Welshman had to jump back, yet still he felt the swish of the heavy brass-plated stock as it flicked past his chin. Beside him one of the recruits had stabbed a Frenchman in the throat, and the boy was twisting his bayonet to free it. Another of the recruits was down, crying out to his real mother and the Holy Mother as he tried so desperately to pull the enemy blade from his own belly.
The Frenchman facing Williams stamped forward and lunged skilfully, forcing him back again, and he could tell that the man knew what he was doing. In such a fight the man with the longer reach of bayonet and musket would most likely win. He waited for the next thrust, but instead of going back he threw himself forward, grabbing the Frenchman’s bayonet with his left hand and using all his weight to push it down and aside. His right punched at the man’s chin with the hilt of his sword, and although the blow lacked real weight, Williams was a big man, and the shock and surprise were enough to unbalance his opponent. Feeling himself falling, he swung his weight to the right and gave a vicious backhanded slash with his sword, the slight curve in the blade rolling as its wicked edge sliced through the man’s collar and neck. Coughing, the Frenchman fell and Williams fell with him, vulnerable to any new attack, but for the moment the enemy had vanished.
Williams pushed himself up. The felled recruit was sobbing as he tried to hold in his own entrails. Another’s left arm was bloody and useless, but there were two Frenchmen dead on the ground and four groaning from wounds, and for the moment the attackers had pulled back. He looked into the main courtyard; there was still fighting, but there were far more figures wearing shakos. A Spanish voice was yelling orders to fall back to the cloister.
‘Come on,’ said Williams. The corporal had propped the badly wounded boy up against the wall. They helped the other man to come with them and hurried back. Williams could see men in the windows overlooking him and that showed that Rodriguez had been active. The sergeant himself with Dobson beside him was just coming down the stairs.
‘Back!’ Williams shouted. ‘We’ll take everyone to the upper cloister and make sure we can hold that if nothing else.’ The building was big, and he doubted their thirty or so could hold both floors.
‘Sir!’ Murphy shouted from an upstairs window. ‘The colonel, sir!’ He pointed. There was one other stairway leading to the higher floor and he guessed that Camarga and his men were going there.
‘Tell him we have this one!’ Williams shouted back.
They hurried upstairs. Williams was last and all the pounding must have been too much for one of the old boards forming the stairs, for it snapped and gave way beneath his foot. He stumbled against Dobson ahead of him, and both men had to put out hands to the wall to stop themselves falling.
‘You’re putting on weight, Pug!’
‘The sauce of the man,’ muttered Williams automatically.
‘Sir!’
Williams noticed Dobson staring down at the steps.
‘You’re a genius,’ he said as he understood. ‘Use your bayonet!’ He turned to call behind him. ‘Sergeant Rodriguez. Get the men to prise out the boards from the steps between every third one.’
The Spaniard looked puzzled, but only for a moment, as Dobson, grunting, ripped up the old wooden steps. With care, a man would still be able to climb the stairs, but it would be dangerous to run and harder still to rush up them with a group of men.
The sky glowed red.
‘The chapel!’ shouted someone from further up. ‘The chapel is on fire.’
There was another explosion, not so violent this time and somehow duller, but suggestive of greater power. The flash came from the side facing the French, and Williams guessed that they were blowing a big chunk of wall down so that it would be easy to get into the convent in the future.
Shouts echoed across from the far side of the building. One or two of Williams’ men in the furthest windows fired. He ran along to see what was happening.
‘They’ve made a rush at the colonel,’ Murphy said, and then raised his musket to aim. A shot came back, whipping between them to flatten against the wall behind.
‘Our turn next.’ Williams dashed back to where the stairs opened out into the wide corridor. Dobson and Rodriguez appeared, carrying piles of the broken steps.
‘We can throw ’em if the powder runs out,’ said the veteran, dropping the timber and unslinging his musket.
The Spanish corporal shouted out the alarm and then the order to fire. Muskets banged, although one recruit’s hammer slammed down and failed to spark.
The corporal cuffed the young soldier and screamed at him to put in a new flint. Williams went over and stared through the window, but did not go too far forward as shots were coming back from the courtyard.
‘Ten, maybe twenty have got into the colonnades,’ said the Spanish corporal as he reloaded his own musket. Once they were into the pillared corridors around the cloister, it was impossible to see anyone.
Williams returned to the stairs.
‘Reckon we made ’em think,’ Dobson said. ‘They came in shouting and screaming and then they stopped short! Won’t be long, though.’ The veteran, like Williams, had a healthy respect for the ingenuity and boldness of the French.
‘Ready, lads!’ Williams called in Spanish, and grinned at the half-dozen recruits waiting to load for Rodriguez, Dobson and Rose. It was better to let experienced men do the shooting itself.
The men at the windows were still firing, and then one was pitched backwards by a ball that smashed his teeth and lower jaw. The boy moaned and spat out gobs of frothy blood and fragments of tooth.
‘Vive l’empereur!’ A voice thundered up the staircase and a man athletically bounded forward, leaping from one step to the next with rapid precision. He was a long-limbed, tall officer in the blue coat and breeches of a light infantry regiment, his shako topped with a green and red plume, with a pistol in one hand and a curved sabre in the other. Behind came a file of men, and they came slowly, looking for the next stair, but that was the only sign of hesitation.
‘En avant!’ The officer shouted again, his voice deep, and unlike so many of Napoleon’s men he was clean shaven. Jumping forward, he almost missed his footing, but managed to recover and somehow keep going. The men behind were moving more quickly, risking leaps from one stair to the next.
‘Present!’ shouted Williams.
The officer was more than halfway up, and the man could see the danger and y
et kept coming, for he saw too that victory was close. He launched into another stride and levelled his pistol at the same time.
‘Fire!’ Williams shouted. The sound of the shots merged as the three NCOs fired, sending flame and more smoke rolling down the stairs.
The French officer’s body juddered as he was hit three times in the chest, but it was too dark to see his blood clearly against his blue tunic. He seemed to fold, all grace and balance gone, and then the body was tumbled backwards as new muskets were passed forward. Rodriguez was cursing because the Frenchman had fired his pistol and the ball had scratched his head and ripped off the top of his ear. He snarled when Williams gestured for him to go back.
‘Present!’ Williams shouted once again. There were clicks as the three men drew back their hammers.
The attack had stalled, one man missing his footing as the officer’s corpse rolled back down into him.
‘Fire!’ More smoke and noise echoing in the narrow staircase, and now one of the soldiers was down. He fell beside the officer, both bodies partly hanging through the gaps between the steps.
New muskets came forward. The noise had slackened from the far side of the cloister and there were no noises from inside, which suggested the men of the Avila Regiment were holding their own. The chapel was burning brighter now, with the flickering red light casting strange shadows along the corridors. Another building flared, and Williams guessed it was the one used as a storeroom. Neither were connected to the cloister and so there should not be any danger of the flames spreading, and as long as they controlled the windows it would be hard for the French to bring in combustible material in sufficient quantity to start a dangerous fire in this big stone building.
Williams took a walk along the corridor behind the men firing through the windows, telling them that they were doing well and the French were losing. He was back at the staircase only moments before another French officer, silent this time and giving no warning, sprang up the steps, taking advantage of the footing offered by the bodies left from the earlier attack. In the silence it seemed almost unreal.
All in Scarlet Uniform (Napoleonic War 4) Page 20