Swallowing Portugal Will Settle My Spanish Bellyache

by Geoffrey Watson

  The amusement was short lived. Very quickly, the French broke formation and ran down the hill, making use of the scattered houses on the outer side of the road to shield them from the grape.

  MacKay stood with Major Jameson, watching the straggling, hurrying procession until it was quite out of sight, under cover of the lower buildings in the town. The enemy would be using everything with a roof as a shelter for the coming night, but for the moment they were making no attempt to communicate or be more aggressive than they already had. The garrison of the fort was being pointedly ignored.

  He scratched his head. “What dae ye make o’ that little show then, Major? Are the Frogs being serious or dae they reckon tae keep us quiet wi’ these few men while their army get on wi’ the job o’ chasing Freire out of the south?”

  Jameson used his glass to study the crest of the hill where the road came over the top. “I’ve counted no more than two battalions, Sir, possibly under strength. One of them is line infantry and the other is voltigeurs. There ain’t many more men out there than we’ve got in the fort.

  I shouldn’t expect cavalry, but no cannon have appeared. They can’t be serious if they haven’t brought artillery. They’ll need twelve pounders to make any impression on these walls, old as they are. Perhaps they’re keeping the rest of their force out of sight, waiting for the guns. Whatever they are, I’ll wager they have no proper siege train within a hundred miles.

  MacKay grinned. “We are agreed then, Major, that they are nae serious as yet but shall doubtless wish us tae think they are.” He turned to Sergeant Major Ryan and kept his speech formal for the benefit of Jameson. “Ye’ve heard what we’ve been saying, Mr. Ryan?

  A nod. “Aye Sir, serious they may not be, but tricky is what they always are. It’ll be askin’ me to send someone to find Mr. Colston and O’Malley, I’ll be bound. Captain Addenbrooke has gone off with Moore and Collins, so he has.”

  MacKay grinned. “You dae keep your ear tae the ground, Ryan. Even I didnae ken which platoons he’d taken. Dip the flag tae let them ken we want tae talk, then send a couple of men scrambling up the scree when it gets dark. I want tae know what support the Frogs are expecting and how close they are.

  If there is any chance that they hae been foolish enough tae cut themselves off frae Sebastiani’s army, Mr. Colston is tae block the road out and get O’Malley tae send ten of his Hornets and block the track over yonder headland.

  Nothing shall happen now until daybreak. I’ll dip the flag again if I want them tae become aggressive.”

  He smiled seraphically at Jameson. “Let us gae and hae a bite tae eat. I find it stimulates the appetite when we get an opponent who can make us think. Normally, everything is done frae their drill book. Tactics for every occasion, I wager, are written down in it.”

  In the morning, the French were in a relaxed mood. To judge by the amount of smoke, they had occupied every dwelling in the little town. Its chimneys provided evidence that cooking breakfast took priority over confrontation.

  Three hours after dawn, bugles summoned the troops to gather. It must have been informal for the most part. There certainly wasn’t enough safe, clear space for any sort of parade. All the houses on the road down into the town had been used for shelter and soldiers could be seen filtering downwards like runnels of rainwater after a storm.

  Lieutenant Colston and his men would be in position by now and MacKay decided to let them loose to start clearing the houses as far down as the bottom of the hill.

  He gave his orders for the flag to be dipped as soon as the French began their demonstration. Swarms of voltigeurs flooded out of the town and made for whatever shelter was afforded by the craggy rocks around the base of the spur on which the castle stood. Dozens of tall shakos and green uniforms competing for shelter from musket fire and finding it inadequate, even for half their numbers.

  It was tempting to let the marines try their skills and take them on, but MacKay bellowed for everyone to hold their fire when he saw fancy uniforms and gold braid advancing under a white flag along the narrow causeway to the fort, a bugler sounding something elaborate that could only be an invitation to a parley.

  He called for Jameson and Evan Davies to join him. A narrow portal let them out to meet Lieutenant Colonel Girard and his escort of a voltigeur officer and a grenadier sergeant.

  Girard was commanding the regiment of line infantry; Italians from the region around Genoa. This was fortuitous as he spoke italian and MacKay was much more fluent in that language than french. With a liberal sprinkling of spanish words he could manage to conduct a sensible conversation.

  They listened politely as Girard addressed himself to the most vivid uniform present, which was a waste of breath as Jameson had very little of any language save english.

  It was an admirable performance, nevertheless. MacKay had heard of senior French officers, who by sheer brass had terrorised certain Spanish garrisons into surrendering. Girard was doing his best, even to being magnanimous by promising to treat the two partisans as legitimate prisoners; at the same time waving dismissively towards MacKay and Davies.

  At length, MacKay grew weary and interrupted abruptly in his loudest voice, using a mixture of italian, french and spanish. “You have a very big mouth, Monsieur, and you use it to talk a great deal of foolishness.

  I do not know how you reached your present rank, when, without basic reconnaissance, you march less than eight hundred men down a single road and hope to attack a well defended castle with only your muskets. A new recruit would not be so stupid. This is a big bottle that you have marched them into and my men who have been following you have just put a big cork in it. You cannot get out again and my cavalry reconnaissance tells me that there is nobody within a day’s march who can help you.

  I am willing to accept the surrender of your command, though personally I would rather you tried to escape first. The more of you we kill, the fewer we have to feed afterwards. You are their commander though. It is you who must be the judge of the value of the lives of your men and how many must be sacrificed for the sake of your honour.”

  Quite obviously it had not occurred to Girard that all the British were not inside the fort. He started to bluster, but MacKay cut him short and addressed all three of them. “Go back to your men and tell them that they are the ones under siege. Make up your minds how many of them you wish us to kill before you feel that it shall be honourable to surrender, then come back under a flag of truce and I shall instruct you on how to lay down your arms.”

  He turned to Jameson and Davies. “Come along, Gentlemen. It’s time tae leave the poor wee man tae his thoughts and gae back before he tries tae take his revenge in advance. He shall need tae dae something with all the voltigeurs that he has lying about all around us.”

  They turned and marched away, leaving Girard arguing volubly with the voltigeur officer, who had understood everything that was said and wanted to get his men away from their exposed positions now that he realised how miserably their cheeky ruse had failed.

  The voltigeur won his argument and bellowed to his men, who dashed back to the shelter of the nearest buildings.

  ***

  All the men in 2 Platoon, B Company were still regarded as newcomers. They were not yet Hornets. They were trained up to the high standards required by Brigadier General Welbeloved, but without the experience in action that would enable them to claim that coveted title. They were still known as Wasps and although Lieutenant Derek Colston tried to convince himself that he was not nervous about the action that was now imminent, he was deluding himself.

  It was a great relief that Sergeant Major O’Malley was providing a modicum of stiffening with ten of his veteran Hornets, the other ten having been sent with Sergeant Green to cover the path over the headland.

  The steep and only road down into the town was wide enough to permit two wagons to pass each other, but no more than that. A long line of dwellings squeezed themselves together in the space between the road and the
descending hill, most often cutting back into the hill itself. The road ran close up against their front doors.

  On the other side of the road there were spaces every so often where it had been possible to squeeze an extra cottage, but on a lower level with only the roof on a level with the roadway.

  The forty men led by Colston and O’Malley took their time moving down the road, clearing each cottage one at a time, making sure that all the French had left before moving on to the next one.

  The last cottage on the harbour side and the last three backing onto the slope before the bottom of the hill were now converted into small forts of their own. Holes had been made in the thick walls and the tiny window frames had been removed.

  Half the force was within the cottages and the other half was scattered around the buildings and overlooking a steep scree which might be climbed by a reasonably agile mountain goat.

  Sergeant Green and the other ten Hornets had made themselves comfortable at the top of the cliff on the headland overlooking the harbour. This was the other way of escape; a winding cliff path that could be climbed, almost without using ones hands, but not easily by anyone carrying pack, musket and cartridge pouches.

  Colston and O’Malley had heard the bugles that sounded for the French to assemble and then the calls that sent the voltigeurs on their show of strength, before the parley. They didn’t know what they signified, but were quite happy to wait while the French made up their minds to attack the fort or try and come back out of the town.

  When the first of the voltigeurs appeared, climbing warily up the slope out of the town, Colston forgot his nerves and training took over. The shakos appeared first, toiling up the steep slope less than fifty yards away, well within the deadly range of even the converted carbines that his men carried. It couldn’t be described as sporting, but the men gave no thought to that whatsoever.

  However cautious the French were, they were restricted by the width of the road, they were almost at point blank range and they were a very large target. The first dozen to come into sight were slaughtered. It was the only way to describe it. Nobody else ventured into the killing zone, not even with a white flag to collect their dead.

  It must have given the enemy pause to reflect on the tales they had heard and probably not believed about the Hornets. Peering around the corners of the buildings, they could have no doubt that moving into that section of road was a sentence of death.

  There could be no doubt either that all the men were dead, yet nobody could recall hearing more than a scattering of shots fired. Normally, a volley fired by half a company at point blank range would leave one or two survivors running or crawling back to safety. This casual, yet utter deadliness was frightening. It was not war as they knew it and the road was the only way out of this trap.

  There was, of course, the track over the headland, but the now distinctive cracks of the Fergusons; picking off men who were helpless targets while climbing without cover; demonstrated that the road really was the only way out. It had to be forced if they were to escape.

  It was the turn of the line infantry. The road was only the width of two wagons. Any more than eight men abreast would be too close to each other to be effective. A column, eight men wide, trotted into sight up the slope and broke into a panting screaming charge.

  Colston prayed that his novices would remember their training for situations like this. His thirty men were split into pairs and would normally fire two fifteen shot volleys. Now, they ought to deliver three, rapid, ten shot volleys.

  O’Malley’s high tenor anticipated the possible confusion in their minds. His voice rang out as the first enemy shakos showed. “Wasps hold! Hornets! Volley of ten! Fire!”

  There was little need for precise aim and the volley crashed out almost as one. Colston’s voice bellowed, immediately after the front file was blown away. “Wasps! Rapid volleys of ten! Fire!” Mentally, he thanked O’Malley for his presence of mind and counted the seconds between volleys.

  It took the men less that fifteen seconds to reload their modified weapons and the theory was that four squads could fire continuous volleys every four seconds.

  The Italian infantry were already having to step over the bodies of dead voltigeurs and the first four of their files piled up to create an obstacle that not even hardened veterans could be persuaded to clamber over. They fled, fighting each other to get away from the terrible hail of bullets.

  CHAPTER 15

  F Company was complete again. Colonel Lord Vere had moved the four German squadrons-in-waiting to São Martinho to continue their training and take over responsibility for the watch on the roads through the Serra da Estrella.

  Lieutenant Figueredo and 4 Platoon rode south to join their comrades in the seemingly hopeless task of stopping the great French convoy.

  Its progress was slow but remorseless. The skirmish at the strong point had delayed it half a day, no more. After the fighting, they had camped on the site while they demolished the obstructions through the walls. They moved on early the following morning.

  The explosives teams had reported that four of the five avalanches had been successful. The largest pinnacle had been just too stubborn to move, but hundreds of tons of rock slid down into the valley, much of it reaching the road and crushing draught animals, men and wagons quite impartially.

  Possibly a dozen wagons and teams were destroyed, but the goods they were carrying were switched to other wagons and the convoy moved on.

  Before it did so, the French executed another six Ordenança that their cavalry had captured. Whether the captain had not reported the conversation with Gonçalves or whether it was revenge for the ambush, or merely to make the point that they intended to execute anyone who tried to stop them; it was not possible to say. It was observed by some of the avalanche team and redoubled the fury in F Company.

  The French had absorbed the lessons taught by their losses in the skirmish. Much of their escort of cavalry now probed several miles ahead of the toiling infantry and heavy wagons. They did not intend to be caught out by any other blockages along the route. Not knowing the strength of the Hornets, they opted for caution and sent two squadrons; that made up a complete regiment of chasseurs or dragoons; to make sure that the road was clear enough for them to force their way through.

  The Hornets selected vantage points along the route and watched how they carried out their task. Basically, they kept their squadron formations, one acting as vanguard with a troop half a mile in front, the other trailed them by half a mile and kept a troop as rearguard, another half mile behind.

  Those Hornets not on observation duty, kept a couple of miles ahead of the vanguard troop, but Dodds and his platoon were several miles ahead, searching for any position that could be used to advantage to delay the French.

  Three more days without delays would see the French out of the mountains and into the hilly country above the plains between the rivers Tagus and Zézere. From this point, the Zézere flowed south to join the Tagus and the convoy would have to cross it somewhere. It was the last big obstacle before they would be able to join the Armée de Portugal with the supplies so desperately needed.

  Gonçalves thought over the problem. Dodds’s direct approach at the strong point had proved; if it still needed proving; how superior was the breech-loading musket and the converted Baker rifle to anything that the French used. His company had killed or wounded more than three times its own strength without a single casualty of its own.

  It had to be faced though, the enemy had so many men involved that their losses in the action were no more than inconvenient to them. He had too few men to be more than just such an inconvenience and there were no more defences built along the rest of the route through the mountains.

  At this moment, Dodds was investigating the only place left where something substantial might be attempted. If it proved unsuitable, they would have to wait until they got onto the plain. They would then have to think in terms of night attacks when the French camp was
far less concentrated than it was forced to be in the hills.

  The bridge that Dodds was examining certainly offered possibilities. Built across a torrent running through a small gorge to join the main stream, it was a narrow, arched structure of some antiquity, maybe back as far as Roman times, but well built and old were all the adjectives that Dodds concerned himself with.

  What really caught his attention was that wagons could not continue on this road if the bridge did not exist. In summer, men could scramble across the dry bed and there were places where a horse might get down and up the other side. In the winter, at the cost of a soaking, a man might cross. A very determined horseman might even be successful, but Dodds would never attempt it with his own mount.

  The Hornets always carried tools that a travelling blacksmith would use to keep horses properly shod. If they started using them now, it was possible that they could loosen enough stones to make the bridge impassable by the time the French reached it. What they really needed was gunpowder and most of their stock had been used to blow the cliffs down.

  His platoon set to work to try and dislodge some of the keystones and a message was galloped back to Gonçalves to ask for every last scraping of powder, other than that needed for their weapons.

  Gonçalves got the message and realised that it was the only major chance left to them before the French left the mountains. He had no illusions. It would only cause a delay while the enemy contrived another bridge using the timber that was becoming available the farther down they travelled. That, though, might take a couple of days and would buy the Hornets time to think of something else, when they were in the easier country, south of the mountains.

  He sent back word to Dodds to assume that powder would be available and to do his best to make the bridge look intact until the charges destroyed it.

  All the spare powder had been used to make the landslides, but he was prepared to pool up to half the cartridges from his men in the last resort.