“I think you may be right about the numbers, Sir. What puzzles me more than that, is where did they get the horses? We know that Marmont had half his cavalry without mounts and you discovered yourself that the Army of the North was very short of them.
Is it possible, do you think, that they have all had fresh horses from France and that this is a colossal exercise to help the beasts get used to cavalry manoeuvres?”
“Now that is a thought, Fernando! It is the only practical way o’ making up their losses, although we hae three companies resting and training at Santiago del Valle, who are supposed tae be keeping a watch for the passage of such replacements.
Let us assume that you are right. Then tomorrow morning I shall expect tae see a massive cavalry sweep tae find out where our army is. It takes at least six months tae train a young horse for cavalry purposes. We must look at them very closely when they ride out. It is nae difficult tae spot fresh mounts.
Stay hidden if and when they gae in the morning, but be ready tae stop any returning couriers. We cannae prevent them getting intelligence, but we can delay its arrival at Marmont’s headquarters.
For the moment, please send a report back and stress that Picton’s Third Division is all ahoo…” He paused thoughtfully, “Sorry Fernando, that is a naval expression. Tell them that Picton could have twa or three thousand cavalrymen riding through his camp by morning and that Colonel MacKay trusts they shall be ready tae receive them.
Suggest also that Captain Pom delivers Lord Wellington’s orders and comes back here wi’ your messenger. We can show him what we find is happening and he can report back equally as clearly as we could ourselves.
I shall gae back now, but shall try and meet ye here again, sometime after noon.”
* * *
Whether Gonçalves guesswork was correct or not concerning their new horses, first light saw four massive columns of light cavalry spreading as if to explore all the territory contained within the boundary of the River Agueda as it swept away from the frontier with Portugal in the south, passed close to Ciudad Rodrigo and rejoined the frontier thirty miles north. A roughly half-moon shaped area of fifteen miles radius.
Both MacKay and Gonçalves studied the composition of the columns with great interest and both of them relaxed. This could only be a reconnaissance. A reconnaissance possibly that would take advantage of isolated units caught unawares; but what they were mainly interested in was where? what? and how many?
There were no heavy units to be seen; dragoons or the even heavier cuirassiers, some of which had been spotted leaving Salamanca. As was to be expected, the majority comprised the workhorses – literally – of the French army, the chasseurs à cheval in their green uniforms, faced with the colours of their regiments.
Scattered among them were a few regiments of peacock hussars, the lightest and most flamboyant of the horse soldiers.
Observing more closely, there was confirmation that this was reformed and resurrected cavalry. Gonçalves had guessed right about them and the young, skittish, replacement horses that would need days and weeks of training before their riders could demand the discipline essential for cavalry control in any sort of battle.
Apart from the resting of the heavy cavalry, the other reassuring sign was the complete relaxation in all the infantry camps that could be seen. Rarely was anything seen quite so relaxed as an infantry regiment not under immediate orders. No matter what nationality, it was how most soldiers spent most of their time and they all developed relaxation into a fine art.
The French didn’t even bother to send out foraging parties. This showed partly that they knew there was nothing to find in any of this area, but also that they probably suspected that they would be moving off tomorrow, when the cavalry got back. Advancing into battle or retiring to Salamanca, back where they had started; it made little difference to the old sweats who had been drilled into numbness after years of marching all over Europe and beyond.
MacKay returned to the Vespãos early in the afternoon. Finding that the situation was identical to that in the area he had just left, he agreed with Gonçalves that the time had come to prepare to intercept any returning couriers.
During the afternoon, no less that three courier troops were trapped; cut off before and behind by lines of dismounted Vespãos. In each case, the French made the attempt to break through with their reports. In each case they lost over half their troop before they gave up.
MacKay was mildly concerned at this unnecessary loss of life: the French were each time outnumbered by at least four to one. He wondered if the enemy would surrender more quickly if the Vespãos remained mounted? Probably not, he concluded. Faced with large numbers of mounted men, the enemy would inevitably scatter and try to get away, perhaps with some success.
Cavalry would instinctively try to charge a line of foot skirmishers. All their training taught them to do so and the Vespãos were only too happy to let them. After what the French had done to their country, they would rather kill them than take them prisoner. As long as their enemy had a weapon in his hand, he was a legitimate target. That also included those that tried to retreat or look for another way around.
About twenty-five men from the three troops were taken prisoner, after which they were treated fairly, if not necessarily warmly, while being made to carry their dead and dying out of sight of any more couriers.
In this way, they could be reasonably sure that Marmont was kept in ignorance of the situation until all the cavalry returned, towards dusk. If he had known earlier, he could well have launched his infantry in a speedy attack on the scattered and unprepared Third Division.
That didn’t mean that his infantry would not be let loose in the morning. Captain Pom had been observing the French movements all day and was sent back with MacKay’s assessment and his own first hand views about the French capabilities.
No couriers had been sent back to report from any of the cavalry columns other than the one exploring in the vicinity of El Bodón and Picton’s division.
MacKay was willing to wager that this concentration of troops would prove an irresistible temptation for the enemy and he brought the three companies of Hornets to join the Vespãos overnight. All except one company would retire in front of tomorrow’s cavalry thrust and do what they could to impede any assault on the Third Division.
Algy Cholmondeley and A Company would stay behind with MacKay until they knew for certain where the infantry was being directed.
It was a dangerous decision to make, which is why he chose only one company to remain behind. He reasoned that they were small enough in numbers to keep out of sight when four or five thousand horse soldiers led the attack on the scattered British division.
Of course, if the Third had any sense, they would have heeded the warnings that Pom had carried and be withdrawing at their best speed. They couldn’t move as quickly as the cavalry, however and in the morning, if the cavalry forced them into squares until the French infantry could come up with them, then Picton was in a scrape and would need all the help that Gonçalves and five companies of Hornets/Vespãos could provide.
The French cavalry columns duly obliged by streaming past the hidden company at first light, but to MacKay’s amazement, the infantry stayed where it was. It was as if Marshal Marmont could not credit what had been reported to him and was waiting to be reassured that such a succulent prize was really there and not one of Wellington’s devilishly clever ruses.
Something was certainly happening. The noise of musket volleys and light horse artillery guns could be heard from several miles away, but there was no movement of infantry until well into the afternoon, when they all started to move at the same time.
A Company moved out at once. They would have to be careful as they moved through country full of hostile cavalry regiments, but MacKay was more concerned with thinking up some way of slowing down the advancing infantry, to give the Third Division a chance to escape in the darkness of the coming night.
Whether
anything could be achieved by just over a hundred men against the thousands that were in motion seemed highly unlikely, but he moved his horse alongside Algy Chumley and started thinking out loud.
* * *
The three companies of Vespãos and two companies of Hornets together came to well over six hundred men. It was more men than Major Fernando Gonçalves had ever commanded in his life and every one of them was a highly trained, specialist fighter.
Being senior officer present did not make him any more confident. The two company commanders of the Hornets had already been captains when he started to build up the Portuguese battalion as a lieutenant commanding one of their platoons. In all justice, they should in fact be senior to him.
This uncomfortable fact seemed in no way to affect their acceptance of him as their temporary commanding officer. All it did was make him feel diffident about exerting his authority by giving them any orders.
It was that very thought that caused him to relax. The very nature of the Hornets meant that actual orders were very rarely given. His task now was to guide his temporary command in countering the threat from the two great columns of cavalry that were already causing his men to move at a brisk trot in order to keep ahead.
He signalled for all the captains to ride with him. “Much as I enjoy your company, Gentlemen, I see no point staying together as a single unit and seeking combat with ten times our strength.
There can be no doubt now but that the French have discovered the Third Division in a sad state of unreadiness, and are about to take advantage of that. My latest information from Captain Pom is that the Third is moving south-east in some disarray, to try and join with the rest of Lord Wellington’s army.
Obviously, they cannot move as quickly as the cavalry and shall be caught. Our best plan now is to spread out in company strength and assist the stragglers in the extended withdrawal to keep moving, rather than halting in a defensive square until the enemy brings up his infantry.
Paul and Percy! Do you please take your companies to our right wing and do what you can. I shall take the centre with da Silva and have Dodds and Richter on my left. It were perhaps best if our line extended no more than a mile. The Third should have closed up within that scope by this time.”
He looked round the five of them. “Any questions or suggestions?”
Tonks grinned. “Not from me Fernando. How about you, Paul?”
Davison shook his head. Seems about all we can do at this stage, Fernando. Do make yourself obvious when you approach our division, though. You don’t want them taking you for Frogs!”
Gonçalves grinned back. “Absolutely not! I should never get over the insult. Off you go then.” He turned to his own men and became a little more formal. Captain Dodds! Captain Richter! Please take the left wing and try and keep within half a mile. Da Silva! Go straight ahead and I shall join you shortly.”
He watched the Hornets canter away and heard Dodds’s loud voice. “Do you fancy the houter station, Richie? If the Third ‘ave closed up you can halways move in and share the same flock of sheep.”
Richter looked bemused. “Sheeps? Oh ja, I see. We are to become shepherds, is it not so?”
Some of Picton’s division had indeed moved off to the south-west, but the town of El Bodón was being used as the rallying point for the scattered division and the hills and valleys around the town were full of regiments still forming up and making ready to march out. There were even a couple of batteries of guns still emplaced for defence on the ridge above the town.
They had suffered very little damage from the cavalry sweep yesterday, but it had galvanised them into concentrating their force and preparing to hold their ground, before further orders had come in from Lord Wellington, instructing them to fall back six miles to a defensive position at Fuenteguinaldo, already occupied by two of his divisions.
Gonçalves saw no point in redeploying his own forces. He reported his presence to Picton, told him to expect four or five thousand cavalry inside an hour and sent a message to each of his company commanders to make the most of whatever natural defences they could find and deal with the cavalry in the way best suited to their individual position.
Not that it was the best cavalry country from the French point of view: typically Spanish hilly country in fact. Not mountainous, but high enough to qualify as foothills between the Sierra de Gata and the hills of the Portuguese frontier.
There may have been as many horsemen against Picton as there were men in his division, but all was not lost if his infantry could keep together and present a bayonet bristling front against all assaults. Usually this was achieved by forming battalion or regimental squares that by their very nature were not manoeuvrable. Here, the wide valley down which they were to retreat offered numerous places where the infantry could block it completely, with their flanks anchored to steep slopes or thick woods. For the moment they were intent on holding a temporary line at El Bodón until everybody had withdrawn from their bivouac areas.
The first regiments of chasseurs arrived before the defences. They came in several squadrons that rode up and down the lines, looking for any weak spots that could be exploited. All they could see were solid blocks of infantry that would be suicidal to attack. In some cases they were faced by a hill but were in no doubt that regiments of infantry were lurking out of sight on the reverse slope over the top.
It was a classic stand-off of cavalry against infantry. It did not matter that there were massed squadrons of cavalrymen. Unless they could make a gap in the defensive screen, large numbers of riders only got in each other’s way.
The Hornets were welcome additions to the strength, but were not actually needed. There were too many French horsemen for them to confront directly and their skirmishing skills were not called for in an infantry/cavalry duel.
They sat their horses quietly behind the lines of infantry and watched for any opportunity that might present itself.
Captain da Silva’s company was the only one that saw action and even then, their intervention was timely, but not necessarily essential. A battery of guns on the ridge was overrun by a squadron of chasseurs who had charged almost straight uphill. The gunners had abandoned their charges and come streaming downhill towards the infantry drawn up in line, with C Company of Vespãos waiting behind them.
There was a very real danger that a way would be found of turning the guns round on their own infantry and clear a way for a cavalry breakthrough.
How the chasseurs had managed to climb and reach the guns was a feat in itself, but da Silva reasoned that they must have exhausted themselves doing it. He blew his whistle for the men to dismount and led them on foot through the standing infantry and up the two hundred feet of hill toward the ridge.
As he passed the group of officers standing in front of the troops, he yelled in his broken english. “We shall stop them taking the guns away, but shall obliged be for your help.”
Half way up he heard orders being roared by a startled lieutenant colonel and two companies in line began to double march after the Vespãos.
Welbeloved’s obsession with fitness now bore fruit. The Vespãos raced up the two hundred feet to the plateau, where the guns were already being manhandled round to face the other way down the hill. Most of the chasseurs were standing, tending to their steaming mounts, which were quite exhausted from the steep climb at full speed.
There was little point in skirmishing. All the targets were in point blank range and the men fired from standing or kneeling positions with devastating effect, concentrating firstly on the men by the guns and then on the rest of them as they rushed to get mounted to attack these impertinent interlopers.
Attacking would have been a disaster for them. They had already lost thirty men to the guns of the Vespãos and their horses could not have raised more than a trot. They were actually saved by a line of redcoats with fixed bayonets, who ran past the Vespãos and sent the chasseurs fleeing back the way they had come.
The lieutenant colonel ha
d ridden to the top, leading his troops. He paused and peered at da Silva. “Demned quick thinking there, Captain. Maybe a trifle eccentric attacking cavalry on foot, but I’m certain that this affair shall be talked about. You can leave it all to us now. We’ll have the artillery johnnies back here in no time.”
Da Silva struggled with the english, but the tone seemed approving and he saluted respectfully. “I take my men back down hill now, Senhor? You – er – tidy up?”
The colonel roared with laughter. “Your men are all Portogeese, Captain? By all means leave us to tidy up. Wait ‘til I tell General Picton about this.”
He was still chuckling as da Silva led his men back to their horses. He was just in time to see his commander greeting MacKay and A Company, who had somehow sneaked through all the enemy cavalry with the news that the French infantry was finally on the move and to be expected in no more than a couple of hours.
Picton immediately gave orders for everyone to march out. They had about six miles to cover to join Wellington at his new defensive position at Fuenteguinaldo. Three hours to a precarious safety, if they could hold off the cavalry while they were doing it.
The two battalions of Hornets now came into their own. MacKay and the First Battalion covered the left flank and Gonçalves and the Second Battalion guarded the right. Never before had so many Hornets been in action at the same time in the same place.
They could not, of course, prevent some interference by independent cavalry squadrons who had taken a wide sweep and come into the valley over the ridges. This was not an easy option and the cavalry units of the Third Division kept them out of too much mischief and quickly drove them away.
The road down which Picton’s men were retreating, followed the lowest points of the country and was generally without bends, other than gentle curves when it rose over higher ground. Most of the distance to cover was through a wide depression that could be described loosely as a valley.
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