Beat the Drums Slowly

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  It was too late. The French cavalry were not inclined to burden themselves with too many prisoners. Perhaps they were also angry at their repulse by the British days before, or contemptuous of such a rabble. The 106th were too far away to hear the screams. They saw the glitter of swords being drawn, watched as the horsemen broke up and rode among the mob of fugitives, hacking down efficiently and without mercy. They killed men, women and children alike. Pringle had passed Williams’ telescope to Hanley, and so he saw more detail as one green-jacketed chasseur chopped down to fell a plump woman in a drab and tattered dress, then urged his horse on, passing a fleeing soldier and decapitating him with a single cut. He snapped the glass shut, and wished he had never looked. He could not see Hatch, who must have been back with his own company, otherwise he would have asked the ensign whether French captivity still appeared so comfortable.

  ‘Bastards.’ Hanley heard Dobson’s angry comment beside him, interrupting his thoughts. For once, that particular insult did not seem so distasteful to him. The grenadiers were gripping their muskets tightly in silent rage. None of the fugitives reached the safety of the reserve. The French came out of the town, but formed up warily when they saw the British rearguard. There was no attempt to molest the withdrawal, and the enemy simply watched, shadowing them from a distance. Battalions retired alternately until they reached the crest, so that several were always formed in case the enemy pushed on. They did not, and soon the whole division was marching together, leaving the hussars and some outposts of the 95th to cover the rear. Twice more in the day all or part of the division stopped, when it seemed that the enemy cavalry was coming closer. Nothing happened before they again resumed the retreat.

  In the early afternoon the 106th were left behind. The road curved around a spur, and this, combined with a straggling patch of woodland, allowed them to form line so that they would become visible only when the leading Frenchmen turned the corner. The battalion eagerly anticipated the volley they would pour into them when they did. The rest of the division marched on, moving as noisily and visibly as they could, and only a few patrols of hussars remained behind, for the valley was too narrow for the cavalry to operate effectively in any numbers. It was no doubt this that made the French cautious. After half an hour the hussars came to report that the enemy had halted. Reluctantly, MacAndrews took his men back to rejoin the rest of the reserve.

  No one paid much attention any more to the dead horses, oxen and mules which lay by the roadside. There were human corpses as well, some of them women, and a few the tiny forms of children. It was a long time since anyone had thought of stopping to bury them. Nor was much attention paid to the stragglers from the divisions ahead of them, some sitting mutely, staring into nothing, others stumbling on with feet wrapped in bloodstained rags.

  ‘Better hurry, boys, or the French will get you!’ called Murphy to some they passed. The sergeants more formally yelled at them to press on and rejoin their regiments. The lucky ones were given lifts behind one of the hussars, but they were few.

  Hanley counted nineteen milestones before they stopped, outside the village of Cacabellos with its bridge. They formed up again in columns at quarter-distance facing towards the enemy, but the French failed to appear. The men were allowed to stand at ease, and he heard more talk than had been usual in the last few days. They knew the rest of the army was in Villafranca, just five or so miles farther on, and there were hopes expressed that it contained plentiful food, good billets and a rest. Best of all were rumours that the general would at long last let them loose on the enemy.

  ‘He’s been biding his time,’ said Murphy. ‘Luring them on before we hit ’em hard.’

  ‘We’ll show ’em ,’ said a private named King, whom Murphy disliked intensely. Today his overall goodwill permitted him to accept the man’s support.

  ‘Sure we will! Just like Portugal. Mark my words, our Johnny-boy will give them a drubbing they’ll long remember.’

  ‘Bastards need a lesson,’ was Dobson’s only comment, but Hanley thought his tone was dubious.

  Johnny-boy himself arrived not long afterwards. His horse was lathered in sweat, and his normally impassive face alight with cold rage. Sir John had just come from Villafranca, where all the worst indiscipline of Bembibre was being repeated. The redcoats broke into homes, stealing and threatening the inhabitants. They broke into army stores, scattering, destroying or spoiling as much as they took. Doors were ripped off hinges, anything wooden prised away and burnt. Nothing and no one appeared to be safe in this drunken rampage. Hearing that even the Reserve Division was shedding stragglers and had left men behind at the start of the day, Sir John was determined to shame at least these back into order. He reined in his light bay with some savagery, making the animal rear in front of the battalion columns.

  ‘All my life I have been proud to be a soldier of Britain. This red coat,’ he stretched his arm out wide, ‘is as much a badge of honour as my sword.

  ‘Now I am ashamed. Ashamed to wear the same uniform as men who so forget both honour and duty as to misbehave so very disgracefully in the very face of the enemy.’ Graham did not believe that he had ever seen Moore so publicly angry. ‘Men lie drunk instead of attending to their duty. They steal and destroy instead of listening to their officers. Some of those officers neglect their men and permit them to perpetrate such abuses.’ MacAndrews was unsure it was quite proper to criticise officers in front of their men. Such damning verdicts, even if justified, were hardly likely to encourage obedience to those very men. Yet he understood the fury and shame of the general. The 106th behaved better than most, and that consoled him, but he confessed that even in the battalion there were more abuses than he would have liked.

  ‘So many men were left behind at Bembibre. I have never wanted one of the men under my command to die or fall into enemy hands without great need or useful purpose. Yet now I cannot envy the French. What sort of victory have they won over hundreds of British cowards – for none but unprincipled cowards would get drunk in the presence, nay, the very sight, of the enemies of their country. What a rare prize for Bonaparte!

  ‘Such conduct is infamous, utterly infamous. I am ashamed to be the commander of such a parcel of cowardly rogues. Sooner than survive the disgrace of such infamous misconduct, I hope that the first cannonball fired by the enemy may take me in the head!’ MacAndrews was not unusually superstitious, but the phrase struck him as unlucky.

  Graham followed the general as he galloped off, back along the road to Villafranca. The battalions of the reserve remained in column.

  ‘Poor old fellow,’ Dobson muttered, even though he and the general were of an age.

  ‘Don’t think we’re to blame,’ whispered Sergeant Rawson in reply. ‘Sergeants not doing their jobs in other regiments.’

  ‘And officers,’ chipped in Murphy.

  ‘Hush, man! It’s the sergeants that matter. Now quiet yourself, here comes our own ray of sunshine.’ Rawson had noticed General Paget walk his horse forward. Now that Sir John had disappeared, their own commander, a man to whom temper came naturally, would take over and let his men know that they had crimes enough of their own.

  ‘I have nothing to say about the other divisions of this army. You are the Reserve Division, the corps chosen to occupy the place of honour. When a single one of you gets drunk, it brings shame on your regiment and shame on your country. The French are over there!’ He pointed down the road along which they had come. ‘If any one of you gets drunk, his dishonour threatens disaster to the entire army. We cover the retreat, and you cannot damned well do that if you are lying stretched out in your own puke.

  ‘I don’t care what you rogues think you have done in the past. Every moment now you must consider yourselves in the place of greatest honour on the field of battle. There can be no excuses, no pardons. As a reminder, the division will camp here, outside the village. You have all damned well lost the right to sleep under roofs and can bloody well make do with the bare earth and the sk
y for covering. This is your punishment. I shall share it with you, but the worse punishment is to lead men such as you. You shall not disappoint me again!’

  As they were dismissed, Murphy let out a long breath. ‘Do you think we have upset him?’ Privately he worried about his wife and baby having to sleep in the cold.

  Orders arrived that no soldier would be permitted among the houses unless at all times commanded by an officer or NCO. Work parties went in for food and fuel. The commissaries were able to organise a reasonable amount of both. Food was again mainly meat from slaughtered bullocks.

  It stayed dry, but the temperatures dropped and Pringle distinctly saw the frost gathering on Williams’ backpack as it lay beside him. Each company managed to make one decent fire, and in turn the kettles from individual messes were supported over the flames to cook.

  Pringle was visiting the sentries when they heard an unearthly sound of mingled moans and slithering. The nervous grenadier crossed himself and then aimed his firelock as they saw a dark shape crawling towards them on the ground. His companion reached a more optimistic conclusion.

  ‘Wild hog,’ he said, and licked his lips.

  Billy Pringle told them to lower their weapons and ran to the shape, for he was sure now that it was a man. Later, as four men carried him in a blanket up to one of the fires, he was no longer so certain, and wondered whether he was looking at a corpse who simply had not actually stopped breathing. Hanley almost vomited at the sight. The man had dragged his shirt up over his head, whether for warmth or against the pain, and when they peeled it back it stuck several times on dried blood. His nose was split by a sabre cut, one of his ears gone altogether and the other a twisted remnant. Both cheeks were slashed open, and even his lips were hanging by slim threads of flesh. There were cuts to his arms and legs, and his jacket was slashed and stained in more places than they could easily count. They put him by the fire, and he thrust his fingers into the embers before he could feel any warmth.

  ‘Frostbite,’ Pringle whispered to Hanley.

  In an uncanny voice which had more of a wounded animal than a human being about it, the man told them that he had been left behind in Bembibre. When he tried to eat, the fragment of meat fell out from his mutilated cheeks. Some wine went down, although as much or more spilt in every direction. They carried him to the village, getting him to one of the carts soon to head for Villafranca.

  ‘Quite a day,’ said Pringle, sighing as they watched the man carried off.

  ‘Then make the most of it, tomorrow could be worse,’ replied Hanley.

  ‘What do you think, Dob?’ asked Pringle, noticing that the old soldier stood near by.

  ‘Biggest balls-up since Flanders, sir,’ came the reply. It was easier to laugh than to think.

  17

  Another shot rang out as Williams made his way cautiously up the last stretch of the slope. He held his sword high. It was his only weapon. He had left the loaded pistol with Miss MacAndrews, and told her to flee at the first sign of danger. Whether or not she would follow the order was another matter. There were boulders on the slope, each slippery with ice, and patches where he sank down into several feet of snow.

  It took a good five minutes to reach the top. Williams took off his forage cap and laid it down. Gently, he raised his head to peer over a large rock perched on the thin crest, and found himself looking straight into a man’s face.

  Williams flinched by sheer instinct, gasping out a startled yelp and ducking back down. At the same instant, he heard a flurry of robust, and definitely Anglo-Saxon oaths. Williams looked up again. The man wore the distinctive Tarleton helmet, with its high crest running from back to front. As far as he knew, only the British used the headgear, and then only for the light dragoons and some gunners. The man’s dark blue jacket had red facings and three rows of brass buttons trimmed with gold lace. His overall trousers were grey, with a red stripe and more brass buttons. They were also undone, and the man’s purpose in coming to this quiet patch sheltered by a cluster of rocks was immediately obvious. He noticed Williams’ red coat, and looked relieved.

  ‘Bloody hell, you gave me a turn, you daft sod.’ His accent had the burr of the West Country – perhaps even Bristol itself, where Williams’ family had lived for some years. His face was round, the cheeks ruddy, and the little hair visible beneath his helmet was close to the colour of straw. The impression of a slow-paced yokel was shattered, however, by the quick wit evident in his eyes and expression. He noticed the officer’s epaulettes. ‘Oh, sorry, sir. Didn’t expect to see an officer.’ The man stiffened to attention automatically. His hands were too busy to permit a salute. Steam rose into the air with the sound of a cascade impossible to stop.

  ‘That’s quite all right.’ Williams smiled and kept his gaze high. ‘You are something of a surprise to me, Driver …?’

  ‘Parker, sir.’ The uniform was that of the Corps of Royal Artillery Drivers, formed just two years earlier. Such men were attached to each brigade of foot artillery, in charge of the horses, limbers and wagons that towed and supplied the guns. In the old days these tasks had fallen to civilians contracted for each campaign, who had frequently proved unreliable. The corps was under the control of the Board of Ordnance, which also oversaw the artillery, although it remained distinct in uniform. In its brief existence it had also acquired a reputation for indiscipline.

  ‘Well, Parker, once you have finished, you can take me down to see whoever is in charge.’ Williams turned and waved to Miss MacAndrews, indicating that things were safe and that she should ride round the valley floor to join him. For one short moment he had dared to hope that they had stumbled on the main army, although it seemed unlikely that they should be so far east. A longer glance at the little column was enough to crush that thought. They were not yet safe.

  It took them a good five minutes to walk down the steep slope. Looking around, Williams realised that the valley they had been following led into a much wider one. Here the track was well defined and wide. A trail of hoof-prints and ruts led down as far as the halted column of artillery. There were two guns, each of them quite big by the look of things, with their limbers pulled by six horses. Four horses drew a long, four-wheeled wagon. A smaller cart was pushed to the side of the road and its team unharnessed. Two of the horses lay dead alongside it, and Williams guessed that the shots had dispatched the animals. About a dozen men stood around the vehicles.

  The man in charge wore the four yellow stripes of a quartermaster sergeant on his sleeves. ‘Groombridge, sir.’ He was short, very broad in the chest and must have been pushing fifty. He wore the uniform of the Royal Artillery itself, with its infantry-styled jacket in blue, and a shako.

  ‘Pleased to see you, Mr Groombridge. My name is Williams, of the 106th. Although I must say surprised as well.’

  ‘No more than us to see you.’ Groombridge was precise in his speech, and his face gave nothing away, all the time exuding absolute confidence. He was not about to be impressed by some raw ensign. ‘Didn’t think any of us were out this far.’

  ‘May I ask where you are going?’

  ‘Mansilla, sir. We’re taking these guns and equipment to give to the Dons. Beg pardon, sir, I mean the Spanish army.’

  ‘Mansilla fell to the French days ago. We saw it happen.’

  ‘We, sir?’ Groombridge’s voice betrayed the faintest trace of relief at this indication that the officer was not alone. At that moment, Jane walked Bobbie around the curve of the valley just over a hundred yards away.

  ‘I am escorting Miss MacAndrews, the daughter of my commander,’ explained Williams. ‘We became cut off when the army began to retreat.’ The drivers noticed that the rider was a woman. As she came closer it became evident that she was young and attractive.

  Groombridge concealed his disappointment well, and if he was surprised at an officer traipsing around the countryside with a young woman then this was equally well hidden in manner of all good NCOs. ‘Yes, sir. Very good, sir.’ His eyes
were pale grey, and still conveyed the innocence of childhood – at least until Mr Groombridge was roused. Then the rest of what Williams had said sank in. ‘Retreating, sir?’

  ‘How long have you been away from the army?’

  ‘Three weeks now. We landed at Corunna and then waited there for these nags to arrive. It meant we left in dribs and drabs. Lieutenant Simmons was in charge, but he fell ill ten days back, and told me to push on.’

  Williams tried to explain what had happened in the campaign, realising that much could have happened since they were cut off. He doubted the British Army had halted yet, and the massacre at Mansilla made it even more unlikely that Romana’s forces were in any fit state to resist the enemy.

  ‘I think it would be best if you came along with me, Mr Groombridge,’ said Williams, doing his best to adopt a tone that suggested no real alternative.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The sergeant rather suspected that the lone officer would be coming along with him. ‘We can’t push too hard, though, because of the horses. There never was much strength to them, and we have been short of fodder.

  ‘It breaks my heart, but we have to abandon the forge here.’ He gestured at the two-wheeled cart whose team had been removed, and the two dead horses beside it. ‘Poor things were lame.’ Williams noted that the sergeant’s tone made it absolutely clear that he was not about to abandon the guns or wagon to travel more quickly. In fact, he had dismissed that thought himself, at least for the moment, but it would be worth remembering that Groombridge’s respect for rank extended only so far, at least for the moment.

  ‘It’s a pity.’ The sergeant’s accent had a trace of Kent. ‘Because it’s the only decent bit of work among the whole lot. Those carriages are twenty years old if they are a day.’ He was pointing at the guns. Something had seemed odd about them from the beginning, and Williams at last realised what it was. They had twin trails, rather than the single, solid block trail now in use. ‘Reckon we’ve been giving the Dons all the stuff we don’t have a use for ourselves. And of course nobody much uses twelve-pounders any more, so the limbers and the ammunition cases are full of rusty old shot and charges of grape from the navy. God knows what they expect the dagoes to do with that. On a brass gun of all things. Won’t half knacker the barrels.’