Vere had stocked each company wagon with grain, shamelessly pillaged from Beresford’s supplies. With the two day’s rations that each man carried, the battalion could afford to be away for ten days and eat adequately. Half rations after a week would see them through for fifteen days, unless their hunting skills brought in a deer or two, or perhaps a mountain goat.
The Sierra Morena might still contain peasants, herding sheep and goats, but with both French and Spanish armies tramping through over the last two years, the chances were very slim indeed of finding any.
The squadrons spread themselves out into an extended line of troops. Each troop remained as a compact unit, notionally in sight of one another over a stretch of six miles. For the first two days they travelled easily, acting as unofficial escort for supply wagons supporting Colborne’s brigade on the Andalucian border. On the first two evenings they extracted an escort fee in food and drink; anything to extend their search time.
Two days after leaving Colborne, caution dictated that their pace was slowed. On the extreme left, Otto Fischer and B Squadron had just negotiated one of the many small rivers flowing westward to join the Guadiana, when their advance scouts reported enemy cavalry, two or three miles ahead.
It was the western edge of the sierra, so the hills were more gentle. All that meant was that even a large body of men could be concealed over a ridge or behind the curve of a hill.
Having only just crossed the river, the squadron was concentrated by the ford and they now advanced warily in column of troops. Captain Fischer cantered ahead with the scout, to see for himself the strength of the opposition.
A single trooper cantered west along the riverbank to warn Lieutenant Colonel Roffhack, if he was still riding with Captain Müller and C Squadron.
Most of the larger streams in this region eventually flowed westward to join the Guadiana, but most of the hills were high enough to have springs of their own and the water flowed on whichever side of the hill it had started.
The enemy chasseurs were discovered in a large, natural amphitheatre, with streams coming down from the hills in all directions before merging and flowing vaguely westwards, through a village of twenty or thirty dwellings and a small church.
It was unlikely, even if the villagers were still there, that the French would find food and drink to provide a meal for more than a fraction of their men, but in this inhospitable land, any habitation was worth a look.
They had been in the village when the scout had first reported, so that over an hour had elapsed while they were searching. It seemed a very long time for all those men to spend searching thirty houses and a church. Admittedly, the French were the undoubted masters of Europe in searching out hidden food, but they seemed to be going to extreme lengths in this case.
Fischer’s small telescope showed parties of men probing with their sabres in the ground around the cottages, reminding him of similar search parties he had observed in Portugal. The peasants there habitually buried all their surplus grain to hide it from tax officials and church clerics, who between them could confiscate more than half their harvest.
There also, the French flooded suspect areas and watched to see where the water drained away quickly. However, it was much wetter in Portugal and they would have to divert the stream here to have the same effect.
Probing with sabres was not proving effective either and it looked as though they were giving up, apart from a party demolishing the outer wall of one of the houses. They had been striding up and down outside and presumably inside, measuring to find a concealed compartment; another Portuguese ploy.
Their efforts must have been in vain, because bugles were sounding and the chasseurs were mounting, ready to move on. Fischer had just finished counting; nearly four hundred mounted men; three large squadrons or four smaller ones.
Roffhack reined in beside him. “What have we found then, Otto? It looks like a serious number of chasseurs, but are they looking for the Dons or are they only foraging?”
Fischer touched his hand to his helmet in salute. “Since I have been watching, Sir, they have been wasting their time trying to forage in that village. It looks deserted by the Spanish and I haven’t seen anyone find anything.
I should have thought the place too small to bother with. They’ve about four hundred mouths to feed and even if the peasants had still been there, I’d have rated it at about one mouthful for each man.”
Roffhack grinned. “Can I take it, that is your professional judgement, based on your experience in the Légion?”
Fischer grimaced. “We went hungry more times than I care to remember, but I do not recall being desperate enough to try such a small and unpromising place.
I should wager on this being routine reconnaissance. I have searched for supporting units and found none. They are now moving west, but don’t seem committed. Their intentions are not clear, but they are not acting as if they are searching, only looking.”
“Then I too have a problem, Otto. We could leave them to continue looking, but the Guadiana is only twenty miles west of here and their looking might easily change to finding. I should like to leave them to their ignorance of our presence, so that they shall not get excited about this region.
The risk is, however, too great. Oblige me by following on their heels without being discovered. I shall try to bar their way with C and D Squadrons. If we can catch them in one of the valleys between all three of our squadrons, the least we can do is make them more careful with their explorations.”
He cantered away to find the other two squadrons. Fischer sent three scouts to keep the chasseurs in sight and followed on with the rest of the squadron. Close inspection of the French depredations in the little village gave no indication of their success in finding food.
B Squadron trotted easily onwards, being fed information at all times by one of the three scouts. It was a warm day in early spring and new green was showing everywhere. The land was still getting the occasional shower of rain, but the chasseurs were nonetheless raising enough dust for the Hornets to be confident that the main body was not far ahead.
Peasants ought to be about everywhere, preparing their land and fattening their cattle. Instead, the ground was lying fallow and the blossom on many of the tree and vines had set into the beginnings of fruit, quite unattended.
Fischer studied the slopes and rejoiced that any confrontation around here would suit the Hornets admirably. The valleys were wide and the slopes mainly gentle, but trees, shrubs and small woods and thickets grew in sufficient profusion on the higher slopes to confine galloping cavalry to the shallow gullies, ranging from two to three hundred yards in width.
He received the signal from his scout that enabled him to lead the squadron into the next long stretch after the enemy rearguard had cleared it. The ground sloped downhill for quarter of a mile and the stream picked up speed and hurried through a bed dotted with all sizes of rocks and boulders. It kept well to the left of the valley and created another obstacle to horses with a steep bank and sharply rising ground beyond.
It was to be hoped that the next stretch or two conformed to the same pattern. He would willingly take on three times his squadron strength in country like this. He grinned to himself when the thought came that he might have to. He quickly qualified his reasoning. It only applied to cavalry. Twice his numbers in good, skirmishing, light infantry would be quite enough to keep B Squadron occupied.
One of his scouts at the end of the stretch was signalling energetically and another was galloping back with news. He cantered ahead gesturing for Lieutenant Bruch to join him.
The scout was grinning all over his face. The next stretch was half a mile in length. A squadron of Hornets was deployed across the track at the other end and the French had stopped half way along. At the near bend, another stream joined this one at an acute angle. Stated with due deference but with considerable conviction; it might be advisable to hasten and block this possible escape route.
Hardly waiting to think,
Fischer signalled for B Squadron to advance at the canter and led them round the bend to deploy quickly ahead of the confluence of the two small streams.
His glass showed him Captain Werther and D Squadron with two troops still mounted and in echelon in two lines, exactly as he had just deployed B Squadron with two troops in front, spread over the width of the open space before them.
A shrill whistle from his right announced the arrival of C Squadron, picking their way down the narrower valley, following the stream until it joined the main flow.
He spurred towards them. “Well met, Helmut! We beat you by ten minutes only. Siegfried and the Colonel have stopped up the other end of this valley and the French have not yet decided what to do. They can’t get up the slope on the left across the stream, but the right hand slope might be an escape route. Shall you consider spreading your lads along the ridge at the edge of the trees and scrub? I know they still have a taste for running up hills since Buçaco.”
Müller made a rude gesture. “Only because you got here first, Otto and of course you have first claim as you were the one who found them.” He surveyed the slope. “It does appear to be the obvious thing to do.”
He bellowed orders and C Squadron dismounted and exchanged their helmets for bonnets. Leaving their horses, they went up the slope as if it were a race for the top and disappeared into the scrub and trees, spreading out down the valley along the ridge.
At the other end of the valley, Roffhack sat comfortably in his saddle, studying the chasseurs and pondering their apparent lack of aggression. George Vere had told him of their face-off against the cavalry at Campo Maior and had speculated that the enemy horsemen had had such bad experience against Hamish MacKay and his men in Andalucia, that they had lost their feeling of invincibility and were treating brown uniforms with unusual caution.
Whatever their reasons, the delay suited Roffhack. B Squadron had now blocked the other end of the valley with commendable promptness and nipped in the bud any French decision to retreat.
On reflection, Vere’s explanation had to have merit. All the French could see in front of them was a thin line of sixty horses and they themselves had the best part of three large squadrons. It had to look like a trap when the Hornets were flaunting themselves quite so confidently.
There! A bugle was sounding. A decision had been made and the chasseurs were forming up. Only part of them apparently; most of them were moving back, leaving a large squadron dividing itself into two half squadrons of seventy or more men each. Two columns of men, six horses wide and a dozen deep began to trot, aiming directly at each wing of the waiting Hornets.
Roffhack had intended to bellow “Open fire at a hundred and fifty yards!” but the chasseurs were almost there. He blew a long shrill blast on his whistle instead and the two leading files of the charging columns went down, followed five seconds later by the next two or three.
Horses and men had both been made targets and had fallen in front of others, bringing many down. Ordered ranks disappeared as the riders behind swerved to avoid disaster. Both columns were now but a mob of horsemen, charging and only fifty yards away when the next volleys from the skirmish line, together with the mounted Hornets followed each other with hardly an interval.
The mounted line holstered their muskets and drew their swords, but Roffhack restrained them. Less than forty chasseurs were still in their saddles and spurring away as fast as they could. The ground in front of him was strewn with dead and dying men and horses, with riderless beasts running in all directions, some few being pursued by unwounded, dismounted chasseurs, desperate for a mount to help them escape.
Roffhack watched the French move back up the valley and pondered the lesson he had learned. He wondered whether it had been obvious to his enemies, but decided that the rout of the squadron had probably concealed the truth that the charge had only just been stopped in time. Double the numbers, or even half as many again could have ridden all over them.
A charging horse moved too quickly to allow many volleys from their present weapons, which had a reliable range of only two hundred yards. He really must press Sir Joshua to release some of the modified Baker rifles for the Hornissen and he must be more careful about the ambushes he laid.
He signalled for Captain Werther to advance with the mounted men and take up skirmishing positions a couple of hundred yards farther on, while the present skirmisher line reclaimed their mounts and exchanged roles with the other two troops.
He swore mildly when he saw that the French had decided not to try further conclusions with B and D Squadrons and had put their horses to the slopes on his left, with every possibility of making their escape.
The swearing stopped abruptly when the edges of the scrub erupted into clouds of powder smoke and the French came down much more quickly than they went up. He silently commended Fischer and Müller for their intelligent initiative and well!, for being Hornets and doing what was expected of them.
Fischer had used his initiative again, to advance his own skirmish line. The chasseurs were trapped between B and D Squadrons, within killing range of each and with C Squadron sitting in cover, less than a hundred and fifty yards above them.
Roffhack tied his kerchief to his sword, blew his whistle to stop his own men shooting him and walked his horse slowly forward to suggest that there was no point to further resistance.
CHAPTER 10
Masséna’s Army of Portugal was advancing and looking for a fight. Only three weeks after he had been ignominiously ejected from Portugal with his sick and starving army, he had reorganised them and he had fed them. All this from the reserves of food and equipment built up and stored at Salamanca.
It hardly seemed possible, but Masséna was a desperate man. He considered himself to be the best of Napoleon’s marshals and his reputation last September was high enough to give credence to his opinion.
Since then, he had been outfought and outthought by Wellington, in command of a smaller, less experienced and mixed army of Anglo-Portuguese troops. He had been stranded in a land stripped of food, throughout one of the worst and wettest winters in memory. Nearly thirty thousand of his men had been killed, captured, starved to death or succumbed to fevers or disease.
Now, according to despatches captured by the Hornets, he was to be replaced by Marshal Marmont. Relieved of his command by a younger marshal whom he hated.
Before Marmont arrived though, he could and would have a last tilt at Wellington and relieve the two fortress towns of Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. The Army of Portugal must be handed over with at least a foothold in the land for which it was named.
Tactically, the move had caught Wellington on the wrong foot. He had received reinforcements and his army was now half as big again as six months ago. Nevertheless, he had quite underestimated the French powers of recovery and had convinced himself that they could not possibly be a threat in the next six months.
Half his army was, therefore, besieging Badajoz, more than a hundred miles to the south and at the same time waiting to be attacked by Marshal Soult and another French army.
On the Portuguese frontier, where he was supposed to be resting the other half, he would be fortunate if he could scrape together thirty five thousand men, including two thousand cavalry. The French were reported to have ten thousand more than that and more than twice as many cavalry, including fifteen hundred reinforcements on loan from the Army of the North.
Hamish MacKay and two companies of Hornets had been watching Salamanca for over two weeks. He had reported on the regeneration of the Army of Portugal, but had confined the activities of his men to observation only.
The French knew he was there. He had encouraged Davison and Tonks, the young company commanders, to allow themselves to be seen. He rode with each company alternately and was quietly satisfied with the way the captains conducted their affairs; efficiently though with very little fuss and very few orders. Officers and men knew what they were about and accepted this as a period of relaxation; almost
in a sense recreation.
They all knew that the only danger they faced was in an ambush by cavalry and although there were probably five thousand cavalrymen in Masséna’s army, they had no more than three thousand horses between them.
There was no possibility that the French cavalry was going to be interested in any sort of contest, even with a single company of Hornets, blatantly poking their noses into other people’s business.
The situation changed after a week, when two brigades of cavalry arrived as reinforcements from the Army of the North. MacKay expected them to be more aggressive in their attitude and as Major Gonçalves had joined him with his two companies of Vespãos, all reconnaissance was then carried out in double company strength.
Only when the French army started to move towards Ciudad Rodrigo did he combine the men into battalion strength and start to fall back in front of them, maintaining an aggressive attitude that kept the enemy cavalry from free movement, other than in at least regimental strength.
It was not possible for one battalion of Hornets to delay the progress of the entire French army and it was something of a relief, when they were level with Ciudad Rodrigo, to be met by Lord Wellington’s new aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Pom Bal Li. He still wore his Hornet uniform with pride, but sported some rather gaudy decorations around his left shoulder.
He was acutely aware of MacKay’s and Gonçalves’ faintly disapproving glances and excused himself. “I regret that Lord Wellington insists that I wear this, Sirs. It identifies me as his aide, but I can have it off and into my pocket in a second if there is any chance of getting into action.
His Lordship asks me to tell you that he has withdrawn the Light Division from around Ciudad Rodrigo and suggests that there is little point in the Hornets staying out any longer. He shall welcome the chance to talk to Colonel MacKay before the French commit themselves.”
MacKay had not had a lot to do with the Vespãos since they had been a mere platoon, but Dodds had told him all about his protégé, with great embellishments about his achievements. He grinned sympathetically. The young boy was going to find life a great deal less exciting, tied to his lordship’s coattails.
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