Swallowing Portugal Will Settle My Spanish Bellyache

by Geoffrey Watson

  Vere laughed out loud. “One of the penalties of high rank, Günther, is the pressing need to write accounts of your actions, with suitable praise for any of your men who deserve it. You have achieved something of great merit with your independent command, and most assuredly with your handling of this last little skirmish. Lord Wellington will need your report as well as mine when he calls upon us early tomorrow morning. We can write them together.”

  He found himself on the end of an incredulous stare. “How do you know –” a pause, “George! That Lord Wellington shall be here early tomorrow, when he knows nothing about our arrival yet?”

  Vere took pity. “Strictly speaking, Günther, I don’t, but consider; I was a member of his staff for some months and know his practices. Nothing happens in his command that he does not know of, usually before anyone else. Lastly, his headquarters are at Sobral, just a few miles from here and he rides this way every morning.

  I shall recommend you to share this table and prepare your composition. You can sit on this side and add your efforts to mine.”

  ***

  Although Lord Wellington liked to maintain an aloof attitude to all under his command, he had a preference for young aristocrats as members of his staff. Lord George Vere had been a particular favourite for some months after Talavera, until the expansion of the Hornets had brought him back to Welbeloved.

  The Commander in Chief arrived with a small entourage two hours after sunrise. If he was surprised to find all the men standing in review order, he concealed it very well. He was happy to be introduced to all the officers and spent half an hour looking genuinely impressed as he inspected the parade and made encouraging remarks to each platoon commander in turn.

  To the delight of the Hornets, he declined to inspect them. Instead, he addressed them all, with Roffhack interpreting, informing them that he had no need to satisfy himself about their professionalism when their achievements were already legendary.

  Afterwards, when he suggested that he should share breakfast with the officers, Vere tactfully suggested a toast instead, as they had quite exhausted the last of their supplies the night before.

  One of his young staff officers was despatched at the gallop to instruct Commissary Schaumann to have double rations for a thousand men at the camp by midday. Vere and Roffhack were whisked back to Sobral for breakfast and a discussion about the fate of the Hanoverians.

  CHAPTER 8

  To Thuner’s considerable chagrin, in the morning there was little to show for all his labours during the night. The blasts must have damaged several of the wagons and killed a number of oxen and drivers, but the circle of protective wagons was drawn up right in the middle of the area that Welbeloved had marked down as their preferred stopping place.

  Examination of the scene of the ambush revealed half a dozen graves and evidence of the butchery of a number of animals. The fallen tree was still in place. It had fulfilled its purpose by halting the convoy, but the French had found their way round it with no difficulty and taken all the damaged wagons for repair or firewood or to cannibalise the wheels and axles. Total losses were probably three or four wagons and teams and about ten men killed or wounded. Total gains were the slaughtered oxen. They were providing a very welcome addition to the breakfast rations for the hungry escort and drivers.

  While admiring French resourcefulness in carrying on as if nothing had happened, Welbeloved was not at all disappointed with Thuner’s efforts. Had it been daylight, the Hornets could have inflicted horrific damage on the stalled convoy. Thuner had learned much more about what his fireworks could and could not do.

  Tonight and tomorrow morning would be the true test of the French tactics. The next stage of the march followed the river through a valley of much less generous width. The hills pressed more closely onto the course of the Mondego, leaving only one ideal defensive area for the column, within a long night’s march.

  There were actually two areas where the French could camp and they were next to each other. They were two basin-like depressions somewhat like a figure eight, with the river carving a shallow gorge along the southern side of each. If the convoy was allowed to pass through the smaller basin over the half mile of connecting col into the wider area, they would be able to form their defensive screen of wagons and be out of effective range of anyone on the surrounding higher ground.

  Welbeloved sat his horse in the middle of the col with both companies of Hornets plus the new Portuguese company and explained patiently how he wanted the French to be persuaded to arrange their fortifications in the smaller basin. Ideally, he would like them to imagine that they made the choice for themselves; perhaps because they had been delayed by an incident similar to that of earlier this morning and had then found that natural forces made it impossible to reach the wider basin before the sun had risen.

  He directed Thuner towards the road leading to the entrance to the small basin and took Davison, Tonks and Gonçalves to look at the swollen stream, rushing down across the road into the Mondego, along the foot of the col as the road left the smaller basin. At one time, there had been a stone bridge across, but in recent years, the road went down steeply into the bed of the stream, through two feet depth of rushing water and steeply up the other side.

  He left the captains exchanging ideas and took all the lieutenants to the centre of the smaller basin. “I will say what is necessary, first in english and then hope that the rest of you can understand my spanish.”

  Lieutenant Dodds chipped in. “My comrades will understand your spanish, Sir, but Acting Lieutenant Pom can interpret what you say into Portuguese as you say it, should that be acceptable.”

  Welbeloved looked at the young boy with the innocent oriental face. “It would be helpful, Mr. Pom, if yew can manage it.”

  Pom nodded gravely and replied in nearly flawless english. “It is not a problem, Sir Joshua. I understand you perfectly, even though your inflection is not quite as I have been taught.”

  Was there perhaps the slightest imperfection in the way he pronounced the ‘r’? Welbeloved nodded gravely. “Thank yew, Mr. Pom. I tell myself as the years pass, that my colonial accent is diminishing, but my wife still teases me about it; and she is Spanish.” He pressed on quickly as the lad started to apologise for seeming impertinence.

  “Gentlemen! If we are successful tonight, there will be a fortified French encampment in the middle of this pleasant valley. They will imagine that they are safe because their line of wagons will be beyond their conception of the accurate musket range of the high ground all about them.

  We have to convince them that they are wrong and yor captains shall be giving yew yor orders in due course. For now, go out and make sure yew find the best positions for our purpose and then come back to the ford to see how we can encourage our enemy to camp where we want him to.”

  Pom finished his translation almost immediately and Welbeloved nodded his thanks; amused to see a look of almost parental pride on Dodds’s face.

  The Hornets set to with a will. As the object of the exercise was only to delay the enemy for a few hours, Thuner merely used small charges and standard slow match to drop half a dozen mature trees across the road at different places where they would cause the greatest problems. There was no easy way round them and the use of draught animals to haul them out of the way should delay the convoy for two or three hours.

  At the ford, Welbeloved had dallied with the idea of cutting back the banks to make it too steep for the ox-carts. Captain Tonks had other ideas that appealed to the big children he was leading to a much greater extent.

  All proper boys love playing with flowing water and the big boys in D Company were no exception. They hauled rocks and tree trunks to the confluence of the stream and the river and built a splendid weir that damned the stream to a depth of over eight feet, way back by the ford.

  They were even exclusive about their recreation. Assistance from C Company and the Portuguese was refused politely, but pointedly and the result was a wor
thy reflection on their skills and construction expertise. Back at the ford, the stream was twenty yards wide and deep enough to swallow a couple of the French ox carts, driving one after the other.

  Afterwards, they stood and admired their handiwork and made plans on how they should enjoy breaching their weir when they had dealt with the French.

  The great advantage for men waiting to spring an ambush was that they had a good idea of when their intended victims were likely to show up. The French had already set the schedule by their night marches and the Hornets could be certain that they wouldn’t be pitching camp until shortly before dawn. Then again, if Thuner’s fallen trees delayed them further, it would not be necessary to be in position until daylight.

  It was a positive luxury to be savoured, to be able to crawl into your blankets at the end of an enjoyable day and know that your sleep would not be disturbed for eight long hours. A man could ignore the cold and clothes that had at best been damp for days, if he could enjoy a prolonged period of restoring sleep.

  The veterans among them who had become accustomed to a shipboard regime, would probably waken after the standard four hours to the happy realisation that there was no need to turn out, then turn over and sleep for another full watch. There would even be time for a cold breakfast before the unpleasantness started.

  ***

  The French changed the order of march after their experience on the previous night. Nothing that they could do would have made much difference on the first occasion, but they split the convoy into smaller units and put squads of infantry between them. A company of voltigeurs went well ahead and a squadron of light dragoons walked half a mile in front of them.

  It did save time. When the dragoons were halted by the first tree they returned to the convoy for ropes and the voltigeurs had it ready for hauling out of the way by the time the first draught beasts arrived on the scene.

  Thuner and a couple of his men watched the lantern-lit activity and the efficient removal of the tree. They quickly revised their estimate of the French timetable. If the enemy were to work out a decent routine, the six trees would add hardly an hour to their march. The three Hornets trotted on to examine two of the felled trees where the ground was rockier and the surface of the road mostly free of soft mud.

  A couple of the Condesa’s special grenades were cocked and lodged securely in the branches of each tree. Disturbed and falling onto the rocky road would surely be enough to spring the lock. It would cause the soldiers tying the ropes to be a lot more cautious, even if they escaped injury the first time. Caution meant delay, which was the object of the whole exercise.

  A couple of hours later, two explosions and a scream assured them that the French would be very circumspect with the rest of the trees. They trotted back to camp for a few hours’ rest, content that their efforts would have added up to two hours to the French night march.

  Everyone was rested, fed and in position when the sun rose. In the mountains, under clear skies, they would have been able to see the dragoons arrive. The skies were not clear and the sun was hidden by cloud and large masses of rocks. The dragoons were well into the open before the Hornets could be certain that they were there at all.

  At least, they were no longer having to feel their way in the dark. They trotted briskly across the open space, only to halt, spread out and survey the broad, deep river where only a stream with a ford was supposed to be.

  A quick reconnaissance up and down the stream showed them that it could be crossed by everything at some point, save the ox-drawn wagons. The only way they could possibly get over was by the ford, after the weir was destroyed and the stream back to normal.

  It would be half way through the morning before that could be achieved. The Hornets watched and waited in their concealed positions on the heights, while the wagons plodded into position, making the best they could of the restricted space available.

  They assembled their fortress using the river as a moat that would stop any attack from that direction. It could actually be forded at this point but was fast flowing and about four feet deep. Any attacker would not be in any position to tackle any resistance once he had dragged himself out onto the bank. They just didn’t see any need for a defensive wall of wagons along the bank when they could be used to reinforce other areas.

  They did place them in a single line following the bank of the flooded stream and a double line out from above the ford and sharply bending to continue back to the river again. A defensive square with two sides doubled, one side single and the stream, the other side relying entirely on the shallow gorge and the fast-flowing and quite deep river.

  As such, it was still quite a formidable fortress. It was two hundred yards across in both directions. It had a thousand muskets and two hundred cavalry carbines. If the wagon drivers were armed as well, you could add another hundred muskets.

  Using the wagons as breastworks, the defenders ought to be able to hold off a conventional army of three to four thousand men and Welbeloved only had a tenth of that number.

  He was not even considering storming the place. It wasn’t part of his conception as a suitable task for the Hornets. Yes, they were a striking force, but not a battering ram. He had rejected quite a few brave men as candidates for the Hornets. Blind courage was not a qualification. They had to be able to use their brains as well.

  Between the road and the river was encompassed about a third of the defended area and this is where the oxen, mules and horses were contentedly grazing. Hundreds of tents and shelters were erected in the remaining space and fires were burning almost as soon as the convoy stopped.

  Two platoons of senior Hornets, commanded by Sergeant Major Dai Evans and Sergeant Major Johnnie Thuner were perched on the slope of the hills across the river, with a clear view of the entire enclosed area.

  They had been there when the convoy had first arrived and were high enough to shoot over the wall of wagons that they were expecting to be placed along the riverbank. Gaining height put them a hundred and fifty yards from the riverbank, a range at which the French would believe they would be wasting ammunition.

  All of them carried breech-loading Ferguson rifles however. With these weapons, each man was quite capable of hitting a man standing by a wagon on the far side of the camp. At nearly four hundred yards it would not necessarily kill him, but the lead ball was two thirds of an inch across and anyone hit by one was not going to pay much attention to anything for some little time.

  Not that their primary target was the French. Welbeloved wanted to stop the convoy and if he had to kill Frenchmen to do so, so be it. If not, so much the better.

  He waited until a large working party approached the weir with the obvious intention of destroying it. His signal was acknowledged by his riflemen, who opened fire across the river. Each man took deliberate aim and the two platoons took almost thirty seconds to bring down two oxen apiece. Eighty beasts laid dead on the ground and only drifting powder smoke to bear testament to the killers on the hill.

  The implications should have been obvious. Precision marksmanship and over a third of the heavily laden wagons were going no farther. A kicked-over anthill could hardly have reacted more quickly. Yells and shouts from the officers and sergeants. A concerted rush of several hundred men to the riverbank, ready to shoot at anything they could see.

  Not very much, as the powder smoke had dispersed by the time they got there. The patchwork of rock, soil and small snowdrifts on the face of the hill helped to conceal anything that was not moving. A few of the men just blazed away at random with little thought of a target, but the officers and sergeants quickly had them all lined up with muskets ready to volley at any sign of movement.

  The men on the hill braced themselves. The voltigeurs’ muskets would not be accurate at that range, but if four hundred of them all fired at once, there was a good chance that some of them would find a target.

  Welbeloved was aware of the danger. One platoon from each of C and D Companies had at last been issued
with Roberto’s converted Baker rifles, as had the original platoon of Portuguese Hornets. Sinclair and Woodward with their platoons occupied the hills on the far side of the camp and would need to fire over the double line of wagons at a range of over three hundred yards.

  He gave the signal and the men opened fire. They had an extended double line of voltigeurs as their target and every man found a mark and fired three shots in a total of six ragged volleys, then waited for further orders.

  The first two volleys took ten seconds and with men falling around them like skittles, the voltigeurs no longer had any interest in the hill over the river. Their attention was entirely concentrated backwards on the hail of death that seemed to be coming from the line of wagons at the edge of their own camp.

  That was when the Hornets across the river fired a couple more shots each.

  When all the firing ceased, there was not a Frenchman still on his feet by the riverbank. The voltigeurs were trained in skirmishing techniques and instinct told them that they were safer on the ground than standing upright.

  In the silence after the last shot, the bank of the river appeared to be edged with two ragged lines of corpses. Five seconds later, those that were still uninjured realised that the shooting had stopped. They scrambled to their feet and fled. The direction didn’t matter, as long as it was away from that terrible river and death that seemed to come for them from every direction.

  The fleeing men changed the scene very little. There were still two, long, scattered lines of dead and wounded men lining the riverbank and nobody up by the line of wagons was taking any interest in the plight of their comrades.

  They had heard the fusillade of shots passing over their heads and they could see the powder smoke from the hill, only a hundred and fifty yards from the wagons. There were two different reactions from the line infantry and the voltigeurs and chasseurs à pied.

  Two companies of grenadiers of the line stood or crouched behind the wagons, ready to move through, form up and advance on their attackers. Five companies of light infantry dashed through the barrier and swarmed out as a mob of skirmishers advancing on the cloud of powder smoke dispersing from the positions of the Hornets on the hill.