Can No One Win Battles if I'm Not There

by Geoffrey Watson

  Welbeloved looked curious, but MacKay was not to be drawn. “Her Ladyship herself wishes tae show you and it is more than my comfort an’ peace o’ mind is worth tae spoil her surprise.”

  It was obviously an occasion to be approached with respect, when Welbeloved walked down to Roberto’s forge. It had always been the forge for the estate, but forge was fast becoming a euphemism for the extended workshops and manufactory that had grown there in the last two years. The firing range alongside left no doubt as to the main products of the talented smith.

  The formality of the occasion was emphasised by the dress of the Condesa and MacKay’s wife, Juanita. Less than a month after the birth of their sons, they had both squeezed themselves into their Hornet tunics and divided skirts. If nothing else, it was a statement that they had done their duty as wives and now considered themselves available once more for active duty against the invading French.

  In Juanita’s case it was practical as well. She had volunteered to compete against her husband, shooting against targets with a couple of Roberto’s French carbine conversions.

  As they knew it would, their plan captured Welbeloved’s entire attention. MacKay was almost as good a marksman as Welbeloved and the general would only grudgingly admit to having just Dai Evans and Algy Cholmondeley as his equals.

  Juanita had been taught to use a Ferguson and was very good indeed, but her husband had been using Welbeloved’s original rifle for over ten years and would always have the edge. Now, Mercedes slipped her hand into her husband’s arm and smiled at him with an expression that was probably more smug than MacKay’s had been, if somewhat better disguised.

  “Perhaps we shall have a small wager on the outcome of this contest, my dearling? They shall have five shots at one hundred yards and five more at two hundred. What odds do you offer on Juanita having more shots within a foot circle at both distances?”

  At that moment, Welbeloved knew for certain that this contest was not on equal terms. He temporised. “With what can we wager, when all I have is already yors and all yew have is mine?”

  “Why tokens, my love. I shall give you my token if Hamish has a better score. How many tokens shall you give me if Juanita gains the victory?”

  “Very well, Minx. Yew shall have a token for every shot that Juanita places inside the circle that is not matched by one from Hamish. Yew must give me a token for every shot that she does not match.”

  “You are less than generous, my husband, but I accept.”

  “Yew are more than devious, my dearling but we have a wager.”

  Hamish and Juanita chose their carbines and settled themselves. They fired five shots at one hundred yards and exchanged their weapons, which served to puzzle Welbeloved even more.

  The MacKays trudged back to the two hundred yard mark while Welbeloved Mercedes and Roberto went to examine the targets, both of them with groups that could be covered by Welbeloved’s stretched hand.

  He was thoughtful as they walked back to the firing point. He had been expecting some modification to the carbines, but they had exchanged those to demonstrate that there was no difference. He watched carefully as they both fired another five balls at the longer distance.

  He had not lost his bet, neither had he won it. Hamish had put his ten shots within a foot circle, but Juanita’s grouping was within ten inches. Mercedes smiled at him. “No one wins, but you should pay me for the closer group. I shall not claim it if you agree to let the wager stand for five more shots at fifty yards more.”

  “Of course, my love. After all, this is what yew have been leading up to, as in a good mystery play. I shall be watching Juanita carefully. Somehow she has been given an advantage and I fear I must wait for Roberto the magician to wave a wand and reveal all.”

  Roberto cackled with laughter, as Welbeloved had slipped into spanish for the last sentence. “The Condesa is the magician, Don Joshua. I am merely the magic staff that makes her thoughts material.”

  Welbeloved glowered at him. “You mean that you do as she tells you, exactly as the rest of us do.”

  Roberto laughed out loud. “That is exactly what I mean, Señor. My wife is the same. She always tells me what to do, but neither of them tells me how to do it. I have to let my hands do my thinking for me.”

  “Well Roberto, I am still trying to find out what my wife and your hands have been thinking, but I am becoming convinced that between them I am going to lose my wager this time.”

  After they had fired another five rounds, he purloined one of Juanita’s cartridges and studied it carefully, as all five of them walked to examine the targets to discover that two of Hamish’s shots had wandered just out of the circle. All fifteen from Juanita were within a foot circle and Mercedes was triumphant. “You owe me two tokens, Joshua. I shall let you know when I wish to collect them.”

  Hamish collected all of Juanita’s remaining cartridges and went back to the two hundred and fifty yard mark. While they watched, he put five shots into a ten-inch circle.

  Welbeloved tossed the cartridge in his hand. “There was no difference between the two carbines, as was demonstrated when they were exchanged. Juanita’s carbine had a crisper, flatter sound to it, but I have difficulty believing that such a dramatic improvement could have been achieved solely by this cartridge.

  Logic dictates that the powder charge cannot be altered greatly, so it has to be the ball. Yet this one appears perfectly normal?…perhaps more securely fixed?…ah…I am beginning to suspect…I think yew had better claim yor glory, my dear, before I smoke your secret.”

  Mercedes hugged him. “I knew you would smoke it out before I could be totally triumphant. After all, it was your own stories of your fights at sea that gave me the idea in the first place.”

  Welbeloved’s brain raced. Fights at sea involved the great guns most of the time. Such was her fascination for the power of gunpowder, he remembered he had explained to her how they had discovered what to do to prevent the power of the charge escaping round the sides of the cannonballs by putting a plug of wood behind them. Doing so nearly doubled the range of the short-barrelled carronades.

  “Yew’ve put a wooden plug behind the ball! I can feel it now in this cartridge. What a good idea and what a capital improvement it has made to the range. All that would concern me is the quality of the French barrels. Have yew had to strengthen them at all and have yew proved them with the new charge?”

  Hamish and Juanita came up in time to hear the question. They had powder-blackened faces, streaked round their mouths where they had washed out the results of biting the back off so many cartridges. Hamish raised an eyebrow to Mercedes to see if he should answer and got a nod.

  “The barrels are sound enough, Sir Joshua. The plug is only a quarter of an inch long, but the cartridge has that much less powder and still gies far greater speed tae the ball as it leaves the muzzle. I suppose that is what keeps it straight for the extra fifty yards. After that, the performance is only slightly better than the standard cartridge.”

  Welbeloved had his mouth half open to speak when MacKay continued. “You shall want tae know if we hae tried the idea wi’ the rifles and yes, we hae done so. It has nae proved practical as yet. Feeding in the ball and the plug reduces the rate o’ fire, giving nae appreciable improvement in accuracy or range and clogging up the rifling.”

  Welbeloved smiled happily. “Yor mind reading skills are deserting yew, Hamish. I anticipated the loading problems and even the powder residue clogs the grooves. No, I was merely wishing to enquire how soon may we issue the new cartridges in quantity?”

  MacKay’s accent thickened. For once he had anticipated Welbeloved incorrectly and was annoyed. “I should hae expectit ye tae ken the difficulties wi’ the rifles an’ kept ma mooth shut. Tae answer y’r ither question though, full production starts frae today. Everyone wi’ a musket can hae ten new cartridges by the end o’ April, after which a’ supplies shall hae the plug fittit.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Six months
ago, when Masséna and his Army of Portugal had invaded Portugal, they had fought a battle at Buçaco in order to cross the tall, granite ridge onto the plains above Coimbra.

  Fernando Gonçalves remembered his first big battle and the spectacle of thick columns of French infantry emerging from the morning mist and fighting their way up towards the summit.

  The French were supremely confident and they had every right to be so. They had never been beaten by the Portuguese and knew little about the British. The army they were facing was half-and-half and all they had to do was stroll up and over the ridge, destroying the Portuguese while pushing the British into the sea.

  Five thousand casualties later, they were that much less confident and desperately seeking another way around the obstacle. They would not be treating their opponents with quite so much disdain in future, though they remained fully convinced that their army was by far the best in the world.

  A long, cold, wet winter, starving in front of the fortifications of Torres Vedras, had reduced their numbers by up to thirty thousand men and the weak, despondent and desperate remnants of the Armée de Portugal were on the defensive themselves. Forty thousand of them were stretched over four miles of high ground to the east of the headwaters of the River Côa, still maintaining a precarious foothold in the country for which their army had been named.

  Half of Wellington’s army was with Beresford near Badajoz, but there were close to forty thousand of them to the west of the Côa, preparing for a confrontation aimed at clearing the French out of Portugal altogether.

  Yesterday’s council of war at Wellington’s headquarters had set the strategy for the attack. Two divisions would demonstrate near the town of Sabugal in the middle of the French line.

  While they were distracting the French, the light division would lead thirty thousand men against the left wing of the enemy.

  For the very first time, two hundred Hornets would be in the forefront of an attacking army. Brevet Major Gonçalves was leading his two new companies; two hundred Portuguese Vespãos; around the bend of the River Côa to harass the French flank as soon as the light division opened fire on their left wing.

  General Erskine, commanding the light division in the absence of Black Bob Craufurd, had made a determined attempt to have the Hornets placed under his orders. He had not succeeded. He was not to know that Wellington considered him mentally unstable and had placed the Vespãos on his flank as a kind of insurance policy against him getting the light division into a scrape.

  The attack was planned at dawn, when everyone could see what they were up against. Gonçalves had started even earlier. He was determined to be in position well before the first British troops started to cross the river.

  While he was on his way, certain similarities between Buçaco and this engagement became clear. Unfortunately, little else was clear. Thick, damp mist blanketed everything. The attack would certainly start late. It would be barely possible to find the way through the fog in daylight. In the dark and mist, everyone was effectively blindfold and it was only by finding the river and following it upstream that Gonçalves was able to arrive at where the horses were to be left while the Hornets crossed the river and climbed to the attack on foot.

  The sun had risen by the time they were over the river and ready to move upwards. Visibility was still no more than ten paces, but at least they could see where they were putting their feet.

  Bugles were sounding above them as the French camp came to life. Gonçalves had wanted his men at the top, prepared for action by now, but the delay meant that any vedettes posted would be fresh, from the daytime roster. They should still be rubbing sleep from their eyes and wondering what was the point of standing sentry go when they couldn’t see an army if it was more than twenty-five yards away.

  Gonçalves spread his two new companies out over half a mile of the river bank, with Captain Richter on the left and Captain Dodds on the right. Along this stretch there were half-a-dozen tracks leading upward to the higher ground where the French army was encamped.

  It was fortuitous. The number of paths matched the number of platoons in the Vespãos. They all wound up the steep slopes in an irregular zigzag, allowing the platoons to keep their hands and weapons at the ready.

  They also allowed squads of French down to the river with canvas buckets to fetch water for cooking and washing.

  The mist and the scrub covering the cliff face helped the Vespãos to scramble off the paths as soon as they heard the noisy details descending. They were all subdued quite quickly. Any sound of scuffling and sudden surprise was only slightly louder than was already audible and certainly would not carry through the mist to give any sort of warning.

  At the top of the cliff, the ground quickly changed into a rough plateau with gentler slopes continuing to rise for a hundred yards before it was comfortable enough for a bivouac. At this height, the mist was thinner, revealing that none of the enemy was occupying the first fifty yards.

  They had placed a couple of vedettes at the top of each path, but when the Hornets erupted from the mist, none of them had time to discharge their muskets and nothing else was going to raise the alarm.

  The Vespãos made themselves comfortable just below the rim of the cliff, gazing up into the deserted area visible in the swirling strands of fog and the moist, fine drizzle of rain that made them glad that they had retained their riding cloaks to keep their weapons dry.

  They were in position where they had planned to be, but perhaps an hour later than expected. About now, the light division should have crossed the Côa half a mile to the north, leading the army’s assault on the French left wing.

  There should be the sounds of battle, which would be the signal for the Portuguese Hornets to begin to sow alarm and confusion on the enemy flanks.

  All that could be heard at the moment were the muffled sounds of a French army settling down for the routine of the day and it should soon be expected that someone would be investigating the non-return of the water carriers, perhaps within the next thirty minutes?

  Gonçalves was new to his rank and increased responsibility. He was old in experience, because the Hornets gave that to their commanders at an early stage. He had the feeling that if his men had been delayed for an hour, then the incompetent General Erskine was probably hopelessly lost. Two hundred Hornets could not reasonably attack forty thousand Frenchmen. If nothing happened by midday, they would have to sneak away again.

  In the next two hours, his men captured a squad of relieving vedettes and a search party looking for their water carriers. Then they heard the noise of battle.

  Unfortunately, it was the distant sounds of battle. Obviously, the mist distorted perceptions, but it could not possibly be an attack on the French left wing, which was all camped within half a mile of where the Hornets were waiting.

  Dodds glanced across. “There’s rising ground and mist between us and that fighting, but I can’t believe it’s less than half a mile away. If that is the light division, I shall wager that madman General Erskine has got completely lost in the fog and is attacking Masséna’s right wing.”

  Gonçalves grimaced. “I shouldn’t shout out your opinion of the general if I were you. He may be mad, but he has a very nasty temper and is senior even to Sir Joshua. I can’t afford to lose an officer to a French bullet, never mind an insane major general.

  Also, I don’t think that fighting is much more than a mile away and that means that somebody has indeed got lost and is likely to be attacking the French centre by mistake.”

  Richter edged over in time to hear this last comment and nodded in agreement. Gonçalves addressed them both. “I think it is time to create some confusion, gentlemen. Anything we do has to be of help to our people. We shall advance in skirmish order, but be prepared to withdraw if they have the discipline to counter-attack with more men than we can contain. I count that figure as a thousand foot and six hundred horse. Move off, gentlemen!”

  Quickly, the two companies moved into skirm
ish order and trudged up the slope. As was to be expected, the sounds of battle had put the French on the alert and the first glimpse they had through the thinning mist was the confusion of a call to arms for both the infantry and cavalry units.

  There was little in the way of cover on the bare slope. The Hornets moved at the crouch on the convex slope until they were all on their bellies, peering at the gathering ranks of infantry regiments, with the cavalry in some numbers off to the right where the plateau opened out.

  It was perhaps fortunate that the French were preoccupied with the prospect of battle that the sounds foretold and imagined that they were secure on their opposite side, which is where the Hornets were lurking.

  Now within thirty yards, Gonçalves wondered whether he had left things too late. It became obvious that most of the figures he could see moving about were camp followers; women and children and even some men going about the business of packing up to follow the columns of troops who were already moving toward the sound of gunfire.

  To the right, the tail end of squadrons of cavalry was disappearing into the mist. Something had to be done quickly. He blew four sharp blasts on his whistle that brought the Hornets to their feet. Dodds was to his right. He bellowed orders for his company to volley all together at the retreating cavalry and go back to skirmishing order immediately afterwards.

  Richter, on his left, was told to do the same to the infantry, firing over the heads of those left in the camp. His company was then to move through the camp and prepare to stop the infantry if they turned to fight.

  The volleys started a panic among those left in the infantry camp. Everyone just grabbed what was most dear to them and fled towards the retreating columns.

  It provoked a medley of bugle calls from both the infantry and the cavalry. Both men and horses could be seen falling, but the mist made clear observation difficult.

  Richter’s company trotted through the debris of the camp, allowing the refugees to stagger along in front of them. They found what cover they could and waited to see whether the infantry would turn to face them and allow the refugees through their ranks to safety.