by Griff Hosker
We were both wearing uniforms but as we had buff facings on our blue uniforms, we were not garish like some of the hussars. That helped us to blend in. Neither of us were wearing our Tarleton helmets. Sharp had a forage cap and I had a cocked hat. Our heavy cloaks disguised us still further. The Portuguese knew we were English and we were welcomed. When Junot had retreated, after the treaty of Cintra, he had sacked the churches and monasteries. It had not gone down well and there was much anti-French feeling. So long as our troops behaved themselves then there was hope. A disgruntled, not to say belligerent local populace was the last thing an attacker needed. We left three of our horses in a local stable and paid for them to be fed and cared for. We pared down what we would need. Our pistols, swords, Baker rifles and a blanket were each essential as well as a water bottle. All else was a luxury.
We stayed a couple of days in Torres Vedra while we gathered intelligence and improved the maps we had. This would be somewhere that Sir Arthur could use. When we left we found a more desolate road and an emptier landscape. The road north twisted and turned through rough and inhospitable terrain. I reflected that this would be a good place to stop a French advance. I marked it on the map. We could have ridden faster had I not made frequent stops to annotate the map and to write in my notebook. We passed through tiny hamlets. Torres Vedras appeared to be the largest place we had seen since Lisbon. Looking at the map the next place of any size that we might see would be on the Douro! We stayed in poor inns but that did not bother us. The road took us close to the sea. There were many rivers but all of them were either bridged or had fords. We made good progress.
We were just twenty miles from the Vouga River and the small town of Fermelâ when we found trouble. Oliveira was a tiny village of, perhaps, twenty souls. There was no inn and so we had paid a local farmer to sleep in his barn. We ate with the family. It was simple fare but tasty and washed down with rough red wine. His son had been watching sheep on the hillside and he raced in excitedly as we ate. I could not keep up with his Portuguese. His father forced him to slow down. He managed to calm himself and told us that he had seen French horsemen. They were north of us and appeared to be scouting. He was an observant youth and had taken careful note of their uniforms, horses and weapons. From his description, they were Chasseurs à Cheval. I guessed from his words that they were the 5th for they had yellow cuffs. Showing him the map was of little use, he could not understand it, but I managed to get a good description of the place he had seen them.
That night as we lay in the barn, we spoke of what the news meant. “This was a stroke of luck, Sergeant. We might have ridden on north tomorrow, blissfully unaware that there were French ahead of us. We go slowly. We thought they had vedettes only on the Vouga. If they have Chasseurs à Cheval then that means they are there in force.”
“We go armed and ready then, sir?”
“Yes. We load the Bakers and keep a brace of pistols ready.”
He nodded as he took out the rifles. “I knew we should have brought the saddle holsters with us.”
“Hindsight is always perfect, Alan. Ask yourself what would we have left behind to bring them?”
“Aye, sir. You are right. Perhaps we might relieve some Frenchmen of them.”
The saddles we had were not cavalry saddles. They were Spanish and had a pommel. They were perfect for the Baker’s sling. We had loaded them the correct way which meant that it was highly unlikely that the ball would fall out. Once we were in action, of course, it would be different. We would ram them down any way we could. They were a secret advantage we held. Most cavalrymen used a short carbine. The range was relatively short and the effect of the Paget Carbine unpredictable. The Baker could send a lead ball three hundred yards and the gun was accurate enough to hit the target! I hoped we would not have to use them but it was a comfort knowing that we could hit the enemy well beyond the range of anything save an artillery piece.
The dilemma with the country through which we travelled was the fact that there were many trees along the side of the road and the roads twisted and turned. The vineyards and cultivated land lay north of us on the Douro. I wondered if the Romans had ever been in this part of the world! Thus it was that we came upon the four Chasseurs so suddenly that we had no time to use our Baker rifles. Our horse’s hooves masked the sound of the Frenchmen speaking. We turned a bend and they were there just thirty paces from us. It was a Brigadier, what we called a corporal and three troopers. Sharp dropped the reins of the spare horse and his hand went to the pistol in his belt. I smiled and was about to speak when the Brigadier shouted, “Get them! They are…”
He got no further for my hand had drawn my pistol and I had fired it at him. It was not a service pistol. It had been made by one of the finest gunsmiths in London. When we had loaded the pistols, we had used perfectly spherical balls. It hit him in the chest and threw him from his saddle. Sharp’s pistol hit a trooper in the face. Pieces of skull and brain came from the back of his head. I spurred my horse. I had called this one, Donna. I was already drawing my sword. The trooper before me panicked. His uniform was covered in the brains of his comrade. I was merciful. I slashed him across the neck. We could afford no prisoners. I gave him a quick death. The last man put his heels to his horse and galloped back towards the Vouga. The Baker barked as Sharp reacted the quickest. The last trooper fell from his horse. His body bounced along the road held by one stirrup.
Unsure if there were more, I levelled my Baker and scanned the road. “Sharp, go and fetch back the last trooper and his horse.”
There appeared to be no one else. I did not hear the sound of hooves disappearing in the distance. I slung my Baker on the pommel and dismounted. I tied Donna and the spare horse to a tree and then gathered the other three horses. They were typical French light cavalry horses. They were much smaller than our horses. It was why I had been able to kill the trooper so easily, I had been able to slash downwards. I went to the dead Chasseurs. They were the 5th. The shepherd boy had good eyes. They had no papers on them. Their carbines were in their saddles and they had no pistols. Sharp came back with the dead trooper draped over the saddle. I pointed to a slope to the west of the road. It was rocky and covered with weedy shrubs. “Take the feet.” Sharp took the feet and I the head. We swung the body of the corporal and threw it toward the slope. It hit undergrowth and rolled down before stopping against a tree. We could not see it. We repeated the same thing with the other three. We could not see their bodies. Their sergeant would assume they had been ambushed by guerrillas. Villagers would suffer but there was little I could do about that.
Stringing the small horses behind our spare we headed down the road. I had seen a small side road and we would take that. We needed to find a camp and make a base so that we could explore the area around the river. There were Chasseurs who were present. Who else was there? We had planned on risking the few vedettes on the Vouga. Now it seemed it was defended in force. That changed everything. Before Sir Arthur could tackle the bridges over the Douro, we would have to deal with the Vouga!
The side road dipped and then climbed. There was a burned-out house a mile or so from the main road. I had a cocked pistol ready but the burned-out house looked to be abandoned. There were holes made by musket balls in the wall. I could picture the scene. There had been a skirmish here. Men had defended the house. The door and frame were no longer there. I assumed whoever had been attacking had brought up a small three pounder and blasted their way in. I hoped that the dead had been buried but I would not risk entering. That way I could assume that the victors had treated the defenders well. As I waved Sharp to follow me down the road, I realised that I was a hypocrite. We had just callously thrown four bodies down a slope. Was I any better?
The house would have provided shelter but I needed somewhere closer to the river. The road turned into a track and then a trail but it kept winding down the gentle, wooded slope. Ahead I could smell woodsmoke. There were men ahead. Were they on this side of the river or the far s
ide? When we came to the stream which bubbled down the hillside, I stopped. I handed Donna’s reins to Sharp and gestured that I would scout. I slipped the Baker from the pommel and cocked it. I took off my cocked hat and cloak. At a distance, my blue uniform might be taken for that of a French soldier.
I watched my footing as I made my way down to the river. I knew there was water ahead for I could hear it. Recent rains had made the slope a little more treacherous than it might otherwise have been. I was quiet. It was one of the things which had made me so valuable when I had served in the French army. I heard voices ahead and I heard splashing. Even before I saw them, I knew what I would find. These were soldiers washing their clothes. I moved even more slowly and edged my way through the trees and scrubby undergrowth. I had long since left the path Sharp and I had been following. I had to find a way through the undergrowth. I did not mind for it hid me from view. The noise of voices grew and then I spied my first Frenchmen. Two of them were beating their shirts against a rock. I dropped to all fours and wormed my way a little closer to the water. I found a fallen log. It was jammed at an unnatural angle and I had a clear view under it.
The river was not wide, perhaps forty paces and there were small mudbanks showing that it could be forded. I made a mental note of that. I counted just twenty men by the riverside. There were more in tents beyond the treeline in the fields. They were line infantry. I guessed this was an under-strength company. That would make it about a hundred and ten men. I saw that they had defences. They had felled trees to make crude barriers behind which they could take shelter. I picked out some words as they bantered and joked, as soldiers do. The men were happy that they were not advancing but, as with all troops, bemoaning the fact that there was no town nearby. I had seen enough and I made my way back to Sharp. As I neared him, I realised that we could, after all, use the deserted house. I needed to investigate the river further west. I knew that it would be wider there. The slope down which I had just clambered was too steep for all but light infantry. An assault across the river there would be a disaster. I needed to find somewhere we could attack and for that, I needed a place where horse artillery could be deployed. If Soult had placed two hundred guns along the Douro then it was unlikely that he would have many to spare for the Vouga. He was using his Chasseurs and, probably, a battalion of line infantry, to act as a screen. It would give him advance warning and he could rush troops to the Vouga to throw back an attacker.
I uncocked my Baker and slung it on the saddle. Mounting, I gestured for Sharp to head back up the trail. I would not risk speaking until we were well away from the river. If the French voices could travel then so could ours. When we reached the wrecked dwelling, I entered the house first. There was no smell of death. The place had been ransacked but there were no bodies. We would have a roof.
As much as I wanted something hot to eat, I would not risk a fire. We ate cold rations. As I washed down the food with water from my canteen I said, “Tonight we take just two horses with muffled hooves, we can hobble the rest, and we head down to the river. There will either be a bridge or a ford. Daylight is too dangerous. Let us see what we can see, eh?”
We left after dark. Once we were on the road I stopped frequently to listen for signs of danger. There were none. The men we had killed would be missed but they would not search for them until daylight. I had a plan for that. I would lead them away from us. First, we had to discover the strength of their defences. The slope was a gentler one than the one I had had to negotiate. The trees had been cleared from the side of the road and I reined in. I could see the pinpricks of fires ahead and I was aware that we might be seen. I dismounted, as did Sharp, and we tied our horses to two scrubby bushes. We picked our way down the side of the road. By keeping to the side were almost invisible. The bushes and trees made us hard to see. Once again, I could hear voices. This time it was the sentries ahead and it proved that there was a bridge. I could hear the feet of the sentries as they clumped along it. The French had cleared the banks of the river to give a clear line of sight but there were still a couple of fences which would afford concealment. We crept closer and hid behind one. I was hatless and I risked peering over the top.
There were just two sentries and they were in the middle of the bridge peering into the black waters. The bridge looked wide enough for four horses to ride across it abreast. I could see that the vedettes on the other side had a campfire and there were six men seated around it. They were also, by their uniforms, line infantry. There was, in addition, a three-pounder cannon. I could not be certain of the calibre but that was the normal gun a battalion might have. It was light enough to be manhandled by a couple of men and, loaded with grapeshot, could decimate an attacker. It was useless against other artillery. There was neither the sound nor the smell of horses. The Chasseurs were further from the river. That was to be expected for horses needed grazing and they took up a lot of space, add to that the smell then it was obvious they would be away from the battalion of infantry.
We headed back to the house. We went to the captured Chasseur’s horses. One of the French saddles was covered in blood. We saddled one horse with the bloody saddle and, after taking the cloth from Donna’s hooves, I led the French horseback to the road. I crossed as quickly and quietly as I could. After using my sword to cut and hack at the bushes and branches of the foliage close to the western edge of the road I then headed down a small road which led towards the sea. I rode for no more than half a mile. I found a tree and twisted the reins of the French horse around it. The horse had been fed and watered. It could reach the grass and would not come to harm. When the French sought their men, they would find the horse and look to the west.
When I returned to the farmhouse, I was exhausted. I unsaddled Donna and Sharp and I risked sleep without a sentry. We were lucky because no one came to seek us. The next morning, I added to the map we had brought. Sharp and I then headed back to the road. We went on foot and we secreted ourselves in the undergrowth. We would watch the road. We saw little traffic. That was not a surprise. North of the river was French territory and south was Portugal and the allied army. Who would travel such a road? It was mid-morning when we heard the hooves of the Chasseurs. There were ten of them. This time they were led by a very young looking sous-lieutenant and a grizzled old sergeant.
One of the sharp-eyed troopers shouted, “Sir, there are broken branches.” He leapt from his horse and ran to peer at the ground. He saw the hoof marks I had left. “There were horses, sir, and they headed west.”
“Well done, Trooper La Forge. The rest of you, draw your weapons. Let us be more careful than Brigadier Lejeune and his men.”
The sergeant said, “That is unfair, sir. We don’t know yet what happened to them. The Brigadier was a good soldier.”
“Then why did he not return? Come, we are wasting time!”
I saw the sergeant look over in our direction. He could not see us, we were too well hidden and his eye line was above us but he was a veteran. The young officer had made a mistake. He should have investigated both sides of the road. The patrol headed west.
An hour later they returned with the horse. “They were ambushed and their bodies disposed of. The colonel will take reprisals against those who live in this area.”
The sergeant was nothing if not persistent. “Sir, our men were good soldiers. We found but one horse. What happened to the rest? Where are their bodies, sir?”
“They have probably eaten the horses and we know what guerrillas do to men they capture and kill. It is probably as well we have not found their bodies. We return to camp!”
We had seen all that we needed to see. The Vouga was defended. There was at least one battalion of infantry there as well as a regiment of horsemen. They had artillery. I did not think it would slow down Sir Arthur but it would stop us from venturing further north. Until I could scout the Douro then we had done all that we could. We headed, slowly, back to Lisbon. I sold the French horses to the stables which looked after our horses but
I kept the saddles. We were in profit!
We reached Lisbon on the fourteenth. There was still no sign of Sir Arthur but transports had begun to disgorge his troops. Until the ambassador returned, we had free rein and we stayed in the embassy. I told the Colonel what we had discovered. “Soult has made a mistake. Too cautious that one. If Boney was in command, he would have taken Lisbon and then we would have had the devil’s own job to shift him! Thank God he is giving the Austrians hell.”
“He is beating them?”
The Colonel laughed, “He is destroying them. Their generals are still fighting as though it is fifty years ago. Even the French have a faster rate of fire than the Austrians.” He lit a cigar. “When we rode east, Angus and I discovered that the Spanish and Portuguese are harassing the French lines of communication. It might explain Soult’s reluctance to overextend himself. It will please Sir Arthur!”
Now that we had time to spare, Sharp and I dressed in our best and strode to the Royal Palace. We had helped to facilitate the escape of the Portuguese Royal family to Brazil. A Portuguese noblewoman, Donna Maria d’Alvarez, had helped us. She had said she would guard the palace until the King and Queen returned. The gate was open but I saw a man standing nearby. He had a musket. As we approached, he began to lower the gun to aim it at us. Then I heard a familiar voice bark in Portuguese. The man raised his gun immediately.
Donna Maria had a wide-brimmed hat and she had garden scissors in her hand, “Roberto! You are back! When I saw the ships arriving, I hoped you would be amongst them. And you, too, sergeant.” She nodded to the man with the musket, “You must excuse Giorgio. He is new. He is a bodyguard. We had people trying to steal from the palace. Giorgio discourages them. He is a good man but he is still getting used to my ways.”