Beat the Drums Slowly

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  Some of the companies of Highlanders saw their relief coming, and so their officers took them backwards. Williams came up to Sir John just as he reached one of the retreating companies.

  ‘Why, sir, are you withdrawing?’ asked the general.

  ‘We have used all our cartridges,’ said a young, gap-toothed captain, ‘and must go to fetch ammunition.’

  ‘My brave Forty-second, join your comrades.’ He pointed down the slope to where much of the battalion was still engaged. ‘Ammunition is coming, and you still have your bayonets! Recollect Egypt!’ The last time the regiment had fought in a battle had been eight years before.

  The captain saluted, and Williams thought he saw him exchange a glance with one of his sergeants. ‘Fix bayonets,’ the sergeant called out in a voice tinged more by London than the Highlands. There was the familiar clicking sound as the sockets were screwed on to the muzzles of their firelocks. The company went back down the slope with quiet determination. To Williams they looked unstoppable. Sir John raised his hat in salute.

  ‘Fine fellows,’ said Graham. ‘Good Scotsmen,’ he added to one of the general’s English ADCs.

  Bobbie had been chewing the grass and now took the opportunity to rub green-tinged spittle all over the rump of the general’s cream-coloured horse. Williams felt his head shift, and glanced down in horror to see the handsome charger so abused. He was still pointing back towards the two columns of approaching Guardsmen, but now his main hope was that the general had not noticed what his mare was doing.

  Sir John Moore was jerked from the saddle and flung down on his back just by the feet of Colonel Graham’s horse. Williams thought he just glimpsed a blur of movement as the eight-pound shot whipped past. The general sighed softly, but did not cry out and seemed unscathed. Then he shifted, trying to push himself up, and Williams saw the blood on the left side of his chest near the arm. An ADC sprang down from his own mount and took the general’s right hand. Williams joined him. The blood was spreading quickly and they unwound Sir John’s crimson sash and tried to staunch the flow. With Graham and another aide, they lifted him as gently as they could – there was only the slightest involuntary hiss of pain – and laid him with his back resting on a soft bank of earth.

  ‘I must go and inform Sir John Hope,’ said Graham in a voice of forced calm. Moore gave a gentle nod of approval and the colonel left them.

  ‘How do the Black Watch fare?’ The general’s voice was weak, but had lost none of its confidence or precision. He was staring intently at the line of Highlanders as they charged once more. Williams assured him that the 42nd were advancing. Another shot hit the turf not far from them and skidded over their heads. The ADC gestured to Williams and with the help of a Highlander they took the general back behind the cover of a stone wall. A surgeon was near by, plying his trade in the shelter of a large boulder, and the man immediately came over.

  Williams watched as he examined the wound and his heart sank. Sir John’s left shoulder appeared smashed by the glancing strike of the ball. His arm hung by no more than a strip of skin. Much of his jacket had gone, exposing pieces of bone and bare muscle over his chest. The blood kept pulsing, even though it was hard to believe that it could continue flowing at such a rate.

  The doctor’s expression betrayed nothing of the hopelessness of the situation. He cut away a fragment of jacket and a couple of buttons forced into the ruin of the shoulder.

  ‘I can do no more at present,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you. But my good man, you can do me no good – it is too high up.’ Sir John’s face was very pale, but his voice was steady.

  ‘We should get him away,’ whispered the aide.

  ‘Sergeant,’ Williams called to an NCO of the 42nd. ‘Bring five men and a blanket.’ The Highlanders came quickly. They were big men, and two were old soldiers who had fought under the general’s command at Alexandria. Their touch was tender as they lifted and slid Sir John on to the blanket. The general gasped when his sword became tangled between his legs.

  The aide went to unbuckle it.

  ‘It is as well as it is.’ The instruction was firm. ‘I had rather it should go out of the field with me.’

  ‘You will need it again, before too long,’ said the staff officer. Williams tried to agree, but the words refused to come out.

  The general leaned his head to stare at the wound. ‘No, Hardinge, I feel that to be impossible. You need not go with me. Report to General Hope that I am wounded and carried to the rear and place yourself at his disposal.’

  Williams appeared to be forgotten and so walked behind the Highlanders as they carried the general down the track. He had let go of Bobbie’s reins and could not see the mare anywhere. A sense of helplessness oppressed him, and he went with the general in the vague hope that his presence might serve some useful purpose or give even the slightest comfort.

  Bobbie ran for a long time, fleeing the noise and the stink of battle. She splashed through a little stream and ran on, weaving her way between the rocks and enclosures of the fields beyond. Hanley saw her first.

  ‘Isn’t that your disreputable mare?’ he said to Pringle. The Grenadier and Light Companies were in advance of and to the left of the battalion, occupying a boulder-strewn ridge. Ahead of them a long skirmish line formed by the 95th extended to the right. The greenjackets were pressing forward steadily, and there were puffs of smoke and shots as they skirmished with the French. The fight was moving away, but the flank companies of the 106th were ordered to stay where they were and secure the low ridge. The rest of the battalion advanced in column behind the 95th.

  Pringle followed Hanley’s gaze and saw the mare walking slowly now. He whistled and called her name. Bobbie stopped, and began to crop at the long grass.

  ‘Damned animal,’ said Pringle. The French were now some distance away, and certainly beyond the range of any accuracy. He jogged forward, calling to the horse softly. The mare turned its back, and then walked away from him.

  ‘Be like that,’ he said, and gave up, walking back up the slope to the grenadiers. He heard hoof beats closing rapidly and the mare was beside him, messily nuzzling his face, before he reached the company. ‘There’s a good girl. Mucky as ever. Now where have you been?’

  ‘We saw Bills riding him about an hour ago,’ said Hanley.

  ‘Yes, I should not think anyone else would have such barefaced cheek. Hope we haven’t lost him again.’ He looked carefully, but could see no traces of blood on the saddle.

  ‘He’s probably fallen off,’ said Hanley, but there was doubt in his voice. MacAndrews had mentioned that both General Moore and General Baird had been hit. It made everything seem less certain.

  ‘Oh, you bitch!’ Pringle had been inspecting the rest of the horse when Bobbie chose to lash out and caught him on the thigh, knocking him over. ‘Damn all bloody horses to hell!’ He got up, rubbing his limb. ‘I don’t know why I bought you in the first place.’

  ‘Must be for her charming temperament,’ suggested Hanley. ‘Or your looks, my darling.’ He smoothed her long head and then pulled his hands away to avoid her snapping teeth.

  ‘I sometimes wonder if she is still loyal to Napoleon at heart!’

  They turned to look as the 95th reach the low crest ahead of them. The brigade continued to advance, but the grenadiers were ordered to wait and hold their position and so they stood and watched.

  ‘We’re winning, aren’t we?’ asked Hanley, and Billy Pringle was once again baffled by his friend’s lack of confidence when it came to understanding the business of soldiering.

  ‘Oh yes, we are winning the battle.’ He thought of the ships waiting to carry them away. ‘What it has all been for is another matter, because it rather looks as if the war is lost.’ Pringle paused for a moment. ‘I do hope Bills is unscathed.’

  29

  ‘Look familiar?’ Pringle said sourly as they boarded the grimy little ship. It was the Corbridge, the same merchantman that had carried them to Portugal.
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  ‘That fellow does,’ said Hanley, to whom one ship looked very much like another, but who had noticed the man in a shabby blue coat and round hat. The ship’s master was a bald, inhospitable Northerner, who had only once invited the officers to dine in all the weeks of their voyage. Unable to forbid them all access to the deck, he had ensured his men made them feel unwelcome, constantly moving them aside to attend to urgent tasks. He was standing on the dockside, glaring at the ragged and dirty soldiers.

  The recognition was mutual, as was the lack of goodwill. ‘Told you I’d be back to collect you,’ said the sailor bluntly. Britain’s military adventures in the war with France had more often than not ended in disappointment and evacuation. Pringle, Hanley and Williams all found themselves reluctant to walk up the gangplank and board the ship. The optimism of the summer and its victories made the sense of defeat stronger. They had beaten the French at every meeting, but Spain had fallen to the enemy anyway, and no doubt Portugal would follow soon enough.

  ‘Have we failed?’ asked Hanley suddenly.

  ‘Someone has,’ said Williams, ‘and no doubt there will be scoundrels in London who will blame a fallen hero, unable to defend himself.’

  Pringle looked surprised. ‘I do believe you are becoming political, young Bills.’

  ‘The general was a great man,’ he said with belligerent devotion.

  Billy Pringle patted him on the shoulder. ‘Yes, he was, and he will be universally mourned. I do not feel any fault was his.’

  Williams had rejoined them only that morning, as the detachment was moving down to the quayside. He had waited with the general throughout his final hours, watching as his staff did their best to comfort him.

  ‘Are the French beaten?’ Time and again Sir John addressed the same question to every new arrival. He seemed desperate for reassurance, and it appeared to be his overwhelming concern. Williams had been moved when the general’s French servant burst out crying on seeing his master, to be told simply in his own language, ‘My friend, this is nothing.’

  Closest to him was Colonel Anderson, who sat by his side, holding his hand, once the surgeons had abandoned a brief attempt to examine him more thoroughly. The pain they caused was too great, and nothing they could do would change the outcome.

  ‘Anderson, you know I have always wished to die this way.’ Williams only just caught the whispered words. ‘Are the French beaten?’ The question was to Major Colborne, who had just arrived.

  ‘Yes, in every point of the field. You have won.’

  ‘We have won. I hope the people of England will be satisfied.’ His breath was coming with more difficulty, but the voice was still strong. ‘I hope my country will do me justice.’

  One of the few chaplains in the army prayed in the long spells of silence. At times, Sir John revived. He asked always after his aides, and his staff hid the truth that one lay dying and another was feared dead. He told Anderson that they must ensure that Colborne was made a lieutenant colonel, and then he tried to give a message to his mother, but lost the thread of his thoughts and trailed off into silence. When Graham and General Paget arrived he did not know them. The light in his eyes was failing. From the expressions of the others Williams guessed that his words were making less sense.

  He did see Stanhope, and the last words were definite. ‘Remember me to your sister.’

  A gun boomed out from the flagship in the harbour. Anderson closed the general’s eyes. ‘Eight o’clock,’ he said. One aide was sobbing, and most had tears in their eyes. Williams wished that he could cry. A sense of duty and courage made him feel that a man should rarely be moved to tears, but bear things with fortitude, and yet at that moment he felt it must be a great release.

  He waited, eating listlessly when food was set before him, and he heard some of the staff talk of the jealousy of the ministry and its failure to support the campaign. When dawn approached they went up to the citadel. A few of the staff wondered who Williams was, but Graham and Colborne spoke for him. He was not sure why he stayed, and mourned so deeply a man he barely knew. They laid the general to rest inside one of the bastions of the fortress. A fresh grave was already there, for one of the brigade commanders of the Reserve Division had died almost as soon as they had reached the safety of Corunna.

  There was no coffin even for the commander of the army. Sir John was still in his uniform, and then the body was rolled in a blanket like that of any soldier and lowered into the grave. His cloak was put across him. The service was short, for as the light grew the French artillery started to bombard the British outposts. A party of redcoats began to shovel earth over the cloak, and at first they worked with a tender care, until Graham told them to hurry. He knew his friend was not one to stand on ceremony or worry about himself when the good of the army required so much to be done.

  Williams left them and wandered on his own through the streets, looking for his regiment. Battalion after battalion was moving down to the harbour, and he realised that he must look for them there, but he walked in a daze. Hanley saw him first and prodded Pringle, and then they had both halloed heartily. Pringle needed to be cheered up. There was no room for horses unless the mount was of high quality or belonged to someone of seniority. The orders were to kill all the others, but he had not been able to bring himself to perform the execution and forbade anyone else to do it. He had unsaddled the mare, patted her on the neck, dodged her teeth, and then let her loose on the beach.

  Williams’ expression made it clear that he was scarcely likely to lighten the mood. He told them briefly of the general’s last hours and his burial.

  ‘We were wondering whether we had lost you again.’ Hanley explained how they had found the horse.

  ‘I should report to the major,’ said Williams.

  ‘Not practical, old boy. He’s already taken most of the battalion to another ship.’ Pringle appreciated his friend’s sense of duty, but suspected he had another concern. ‘His family were already on board.’

  ‘I know.’ Williams thought of Jane and that plunged him into deeper gloom.

  A harassed and weary-looking Captain Pierrepoint came through the press and ordered Pringle to take the Grenadier Company on board the Corbridge. ‘No time to be lost,’ he called, and then was gone back into the teeming press on the docks. Two other companies from the 106th would join the grenadiers. That was the same allocation as on the way out, when the Corbridge seemed crowded. Pringle guessed that it would be more roomy this time, in spite of the fifty of so stragglers from other units who were already below decks. The 106th was not much more than half the size it had been just sixth months earlier. They had lost dozens of men in the retreat, although a lot fewer than many of the regiments in the army. Compared to Portugal, there were few dead and wounded from the previous day’s battle. Only one of the grenadiers had been hit in the fighting, and several others helped Eyles on board. He had been shot in the leg, but had every hope of recovery.

  Little was said as the three officers followed their men.

  The next company came after them. Williams chanced to look back and returned Scammell’s nod. Just for a moment he also spotted Hatch staring at him with a look of pure hatred. The man caught his glance and gave a smile with just a hint of mockery. They had exchanged no more than the briefest of greetings since his return, and he had to admit that the other ensign continued to baffle him.

  The men were sent below, and after claiming a tiny room for themselves and the officers of another company, the three friends returned to the deck and watched as the ship moved out into the bay. They ignored the less than subtle hints from the captain that their place was to be stowed away with the other cargo. After months of campaigning, they were far less easily bullied.

  Dobson marched along the deck, his gaze defying any sailor’s inclination to stop him, and stamped to attention beside the officers.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir,’ he said to Pringle, ‘but may I have a word?’ His voice was at its most formal. Jacket stained and patch
ed, his trousers torn, and with a thick beard far darker than his grey hair, the old soldier still stood with drill-book precision.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, sir, it’s just that I would like to ask your permission to marry.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Pringle before he could stop himself.

  ‘Mrs Rawson and I have grown close. Annie … I mean Mrs Rawson, would like to have it done soon.’

  ‘Good God. I mean … I am sorry.’ Pringle thought of the prim and religious sergeant’s widow. ‘Of course, of course, if you are sure.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Congratulations, Dob.’ Williams was even more shocked than Pringle, and yet he found himself beaming like a fool and pumping the old veteran’s hand. His friends quickly followed his example.

  ‘Would you ask the captain for me, sir?’ asked Dobson. ‘Annie would prefer a chaplain, but God knows when we’ll see one of them.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Pringle thought that this should ensure an interesting encounter with the ship’s master.

  ‘Thank you, sir. Well, I had better go and tell Mrs Rawson the good news.’ He stiffened to attention, saluted, did a perfect about turn and marched away.

  ‘Well, well …’ said Pringle, for the only other things he could think of saying were profane in the extreme and he knew that Williams disliked such loose speech.

  ‘It seems a little sudden,’ ventured Hanley, although he guessed that life as a soldier’s widow was unlikely to be easy.

  ‘Often the way in the army.’ Pringle smiled. ‘Have you heard the old story? An officer met a pretty young woman just a few hours after a great battle. She was sobbing, and he told her how sorry he was that her husband had been killed. “Thank you,” she says, “but it’s not that. I have just this moment received a proposal from a sergeant, and it is not twenty minutes since I accepted a corporal.” ’ He roared with mirth.

  ‘They do seem most unlike in character …’ began Hanley, still finding the whole business odd.