I Think I Really Do Have an Ulcer

by Geoffrey Watson

Roffhack smiled upon him. “If the wood is not wet, George, you can always set fire to it!”

  Light dawned. “What an excellent idea, Günther, I am sure the tirailleurs shall appreciate that. Get some sleep and rest your horses. I shall see you again tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 18

  It was the third time that the British and Portuguese army had laid siege to Badajoz. The first two attempts had ended in failure, partly due to the energetic defence by the governor, General Phillipon, partly because the siege train available had been inadequate and partly because the French marshals had been able to gather together enough force each time to relieve the fortress and make the besiegers retire.

  On this, the third attempt, the governor had repaired all the damage and improved the defences to the extent that had they been in existence during the first two sieges, Wellington would still have been denied entry, whether the French relief armies had appeared or not.

  The French defenders might be comforted by the impregnable nature of their defences, but there was little else for them to rejoice in.

  After taking Ciudad Rodrigo, Wellington could use the heavy guns of his siege train against Badajoz. Not only those, as the French had stored their own heavy artillery within the walls of Rodrigo and the addition of these gave the besiegers almost sixty siege guns to batter breaches in the walls.

  Successes elsewhere had also added to the size of the Anglo-Portuguese army. A newly confident government at home had sent many additional regiments of infantry and heavy cavalry. Sixty thousand men were gathered together to seize Badajoz. Wellington split them into three groups. Generals Hill and Murray were each given one of these groups and sent to the south to stop Soult and d’Erlon interfering.

  Twenty thousand men were committed to the siege and Wellington drove them as relentlessly quickly as he could. The only thing that could possibly cause him concern would be the arrival of Marshal Marmont and his Army of Portugal to combine with d’Erlon and Soult. Together, they would equal, or almost equal the size of his own force and he was not yet ready to risk his only army against equal numbers in a pitched battle. The French could afford to lose and come back to fight again. He couldn’t.

  His entire intelligence network was now devoted to giving him warning of any move south by the army of Portugal. All the Spanish guerrilla bands were on the alert and the Hornets had arranged a courier service every two days from the Beira frontier by Ciudad Rodrigo.

  He trusted Welbeloved more than any other of his commanders and when he said that Marmont was moving into Portugal with several divisions, he really wanted to believe him. The difficulty was that Marmont was far too good a general to do something quite so stupid as that, when the whole French strategy relied on him combining his forces with Soult.

  It had to be a ruse! Any day now, the Army of Portugal would be back in Spain and storming down from the north. Well, not quite any day! He couldn’t possibly get down here from the Beira frontier in less than a week. It was becoming vital that the attack on the breaches should be made before then.

  It was certain to be costly. The two main breaches were not as yet big enough for an assault and they would not be really suitable within the week. It could not be helped. Ready or not, time was running out.

  The breaches at Rodrigo had not been ideal either and for the same reason; lack of time. He had been just as anxious then to take the town before Marmont could interfere. He only succeeded because the French put all their defenders to hold the breaches, so that the diversionary attacks on other parts of the walls found few men instantly available to oppose them.

  Badajoz had more defenders than Rodrigo, but most of them were likely to be defending the breaches. The town walls were more than two miles around. What had worked before might be worth considering again. Was not Captain Pom in charge of some of the Hornets who had helped out before?

  Captain Pom Bal Li was indeed in command of a small, mixed squad of men from both the German and the Portuguese Hornets, together with nearly twenty Portuguese Wasps, who were manning the four mortars that had accompanied the Vespãos from the north.

  The Wasp gunners had already made themselves useful and obtained valuable experience by lobbing standard shells into the area behind the breaches and hindering French attempts to make repairs.

  The mixed squad of a sergeant and four men from the Vespãos and a sergeant and two men from the Hornissen, was experienced not only in climbing; having been trained by Lieutenant Thuner, the Swiss mountain man; but also knew more about mines and petards and the handling of gunpowder than most of Wellington’s Sappers.

  Not that expertise in explosives was going to help them at Badajoz. It was the ability to scale high walls, clandestinely at night, preparing the way for a standard assault party and their ladders.

  Pom had already led them on a complete tour of the perimeter walls, other than at the area of the breaches. The men had prepared themselves for night work by blacking faces and muffling weapons and harness likely to rattle or clink. They moved like ghosts in the dark, knowing that alert eyes were peering down, ready to drop a flaming carcass to light up any suspect movements, or even imagined ones.

  If it had been solely the Hornets trying to get into the town, the north wall was a tempting prospect. For a stretch of over half a mile the defences had been, not so much neglected, but disregarded. This was because the River Guadiana ran alongside and made the approach by masses of soldiers very awkward.

  Pom realised very quickly that the river was an insuperable hazard to en masse assault in the dark and urged the men to explore elsewhere. The castle was built at the northeast corner and offered possibilities, but the walls were higher and stronger at that point and Pom couldn’t believe that the French would leave it without a very strong guard.

  It finally came down to a choice between the west and the southwest. The farther west they went, the farther they ought to be from the breaches and the castle; surely the most heavily defended areas? The San Vincente, San José and Santiago Bastions in the far west had not been battered by artillery and their walls and the walls in between had not been disturbed by besiegers for many years. Weather and normal wear and tear during that time had left many a gap in the mortar, into which iron spikes could be driven.

  Pom reported back to Lord Wellington. After being present when Welbeloved and MacKay had been over-confident in their claim that Marmont would not hear of the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo for two or three weeks, he was careful to state only what his men could do. That was only to rig the wall with handholds that would enable them to reach the top. That was really all he could guarantee. If the French had overwhelming strength at that point, it would be no easier to carry than anywhere else.

  Everything depended on emphasis. If these were to be diversionary attacks, as at Rodrigo, they would be made in order to draw French troops away from the main assault. It was a fortunate error at Rodrigo that had delayed the start of the diversionary attacks until after the main assault. No defenders were then available to deal with the diversions that got into the town with relative ease.

  Lord Wellington would have learned from that and only he could dictate the policy to be adopted here. At the moment he was fretting. He had before him the latest despatch from Welbeloved that told him that Marmont was ‘lost’ in Beira province of Portugal with three divisions of hungry soldiers and that his other division was still sitting around Ciudad Rodrigo and probably just as hungry.

  Everything told him that Marmont was no danger to his siege at Badajoz, but nevertheless he kept glancing towards the northwest as if expecting him to come bursting onto the scene at any moment.

  He was not nearly as concerned about Soult in the south. He knew that the marshal would be coming, just as soon as he could scrape together as many men as could be spared.

  However many he brought, it was almost certain that it would be less than his own forces, commanded by Hill and Graham. That also took into account the two or three divisions of d’Erlon that wou
ld undoubtedly join him, probably at Llerena and that was seventy or eighty miles to the south.

  After reading the despatch just brought to him by young Captain Pom, he wondered whether Soult would be keen on crossing swords, even if Marmont were to appear miraculously.

  The German Hornets were on their way here with over a thousand prisoners to be sent through Lisbon into captivity in England. Lord George Vere and the Portuguese Hornets were moving south, looking for Soult and d’Erlon. He smiled with appreciation at the pragmatic action as set out in the footnote.

  Prisoners were always a problem for a highly mobile unit such as the Hornets and it was only the unwounded men that Roffhack was bringing back. All the several hundred wounded were going south in their own wagons, shepherded by the Portuguese. Vere felt that French medical services were better than our own. They had had much more practice. He assumed that they would be happy to look after their own men.

  That it would be a drain on French food supplies for no return, rather than ours, was where Vere’s pragmatism was demonstrated.

  All this meant that he had another five clear days, according to his calculations, during which the enemy could not interfere with the siege in any way. It was probably longer than that, but dare he take the risk?

  The breaches would not really be wide enough and, as with Rodrigo, it was likely to be expensive in lives lost. That could not be helped. He really felt that he could not afford to wait more than another five days.

  It was strange how the army viewed this siege so differently from their last success at Ciudad Rodrigo. Usually, they tended to regard the French as good soldiers who just happened to be on the other side. Given the opportunity, during pauses in previous battles, they had been known to fraternise with each other in the most friendly way.

  Here it was not the same at all. For a start, this was the third time that the army had besieged the place and they had already lost thousands of men for no success on either occasion.

  For a garrison of three to four thousand and without serious loss to themselves, the French had managed to kill and wound their equal in British and Portuguese soldiers and were so damned cocky about it. The butcher’s bill was going to be many times more before the town fell and if and when it did, the besiegers would be in no mood to accept a last minute surrender. The garrison would be expected to pay; whatever orders the commanders gave their men.

  It was unfortunate, but the Spanish inhabitants were also regarded with little affection, though most of them were innocent of giving any offence. They had been let down badly by their army and its generals.

  The town had been surrendered to the French in a most disgraceful manner. Soult had routed a much larger Spanish army on the nearby heights of San Cristobal, alongside the River Gévora. Then, after pounding the walls for two weeks, eight thousand men of the garrison had tamely surrendered.

  It was inexcusable as they had food for another month and knew that a relief column under General Beresford was only days away. It caused great resentment among the British and Portuguese besiegers that they were being made to suffer to recapture a town that should never have been lost in the first place.

  God knows, the rewards for being a soldier and risking death or mutilation while fighting and marching through hostile or inhospitable countries were little enough. You were half starved much of the time and pay was frequently several months in arrears.

  When the town fell, it was a long established right to seek rewards, otherwise denied, in a period of pillage. Any Frenchman that survived was likely to be shot out of hand or stripped naked and lose everything he owned. It was a short step from there to feel that the liberated townspeople should contribute something to the welfare of their liberators. If that something should include stocks of wines and spirits, then a state of aggressive, violent and beastly drunkenness helped to make a soldier forget about the hardships of his life.

  * * *

  Two days later, news came back from Lord George Vere that Soult and d’Erlon had joined together at Llerena, making a fighting force of about thirty thousand men.

  It was less than Wellington had been expecting, but there could be more on the way and they surely wouldn’t be there at all if they were not expecting Marmont to appear from the north?

  According to Welbeloved, Marmont was wandering around east central Portugal with only three divisions and although he trusted Welbeloved more than any other general; could it be that the old fox Marmont had tricked him and was moving south through Portugal to help Soult?

  He decided that it was a risk that he did not want to take and put his commanders on notice to commence the assault in three day’s time, starting at ten o’clock in the evening.

  The breaches in the southwest were to be the targets for the main assaults by the Fourth and the Light Divisions, while Picton’s Third Division staged a diversion by attempting an escalade on the castle itself, over walls that were higher than elsewhere and that had not been damaged in any way by siege engines.

  The castle was only four or five hundred yards from the breaches. It was to be a diversion, but a serious diversion, intended to draw defenders away from the breaches. General Picton was a foul-mouthed, cantankerous Welshman, but he was a fighting general and would make sure that his men pressed their attack to the limit.

  He was furious that his division had not been selected for the glory of the assault on the breaches and suspected; with some justification; that the attack on the castle was only given to the Third as a sop to his feelings.

  Captain Pom Bal Li was also aghast. He had been careful to be as factual as possible in his report on the very real possibilities of escalading the eastern walls, but there was no mention in the orders of any attempt to be made. He knew he could put men onto the walls and keep them there until an escalading party arrived with their ladders. Was it that Lord Wellington was only thinking in terms of diverting men from the breaches before the main attack took place? Surely, large numbers of men in control of the eastern walls would achieve that in a most satisfactory manner?

  His language skills were not in great demand at the moment and Wellington, apart from being very occupied, was indulging Pom, as one of his favourites, by letting him enjoy the command of the small detachment of Wasp gunners and Hornets.

  It was, therefore, the following day before he had the chance to talk to his master, who was thankfully in a more relaxed mood now that all his orders were given.

  He had to be very careful. Once his orders had been given, Wellington was never willing to listen to other suggestions, even from his senior commanders. Pom was only a very young man and a mere captain. Fortunately despatches had come in from Welbeloved in the north and Vere in the south.

  “There are two pieces of intelligence freshly come in this morning, My Lord. They may serve to ease your mind in three respects.”

  Wellington smiled at the thought of Pom offering to relieve him of some of his cares. “Whenever information comes in from my Naval Division, Pom, it eases my mind. Whether the news is good or bad, it is almost invariably accurate and that is a prize above diamonds. Give me the news from Sir Joshua to begin with.”

  “Very well, My Lord. The company of Hornets that is following Marshal Marmont report that he has followed the River Côa and has been resting at Sabugal since he reached there. This report is dated two days ago and says that half his freight animals, both wagon and pack, have been slaughtered for food and that most of the cavalry horses are starving and unserviceable.

  It does not appear possible that his army can do more than retreat to Spain, where the division that he left to watch Rodrigo has had its supplies cut off by Colonel MacKay and is constrained to return to Salamanca or starve.”

  Wellington stroked his long nose and looked quizzical. “It may ease my mind, as you suggest, Pom, but when a most capable marshal does something so uncharacteristic and inexplicably unsound; one is led to suppose that he has other options about which we know nothing. What news is there f
rom Vere?”

  “Soult and d’Erlon have joined forces at Llerena, but the Vespãos cannot count more than five divisions. Colonel Gonçalves has taken two of his companies south to see if there are any more coming.”

  Pom had now given all the information in the despatches and knew that Lord Wellington did not appreciate unsolicited opinions from even senior officers. Sir Joshua himself was always very careful to word his own views in the most tactful manner.

  He decided to take the risk if it would give him the chance to lead his little band of Hornets onto the walls. “These despatches, My Lord, show Marmont with only three divisions, a hundred miles north of here. They put Soult, with five divisions, fifty miles to the south. Should they join together by some unimaginable manoeuvre, they shall still have only two thirds your force. Surely that is sufficient to ease your mind to some extent?”

  Wellington glared at him. Pom contrived to look innocent. Wellington grinned. “Don’t think you can get away with things I would not permit from my generals, Pom, I won’t stand for it, d’ye hear?”

  Still innocent---“I should not dream of it, My Lord. How have I given offence?”

  “No offence, young Pom, but you are up to some mischief and I am trying to keep you too busy for that. Come on now, what is that bee, or rather Hornet, that you have under your bonnet?”

  That caught him at a loss. He removed his bonnet and looked at it. “It is something we say in England, Pom. What is that idea that is buzzing about in your head under your hat?”

  “Oh I see, My Lord. That is a very clever way of asking. I must remember that. I am sure I can use it in any language I speak.”

  “Yes, yes, Pom! Just answer my question.”

  “Certainly, My Lord! It is just that I was wondering last night, when I was standing on the wall near to the San Vincente Bastion, whether I had worded my report correctly about that possible way into the town?”

  “Stop there, Pom! I do not remember giving you permission to climb onto the wall! I asked you to get your men to locate suitable places where an escalade would be possible, as a diversion, as at Rodrigo. I read your report, but as there are so few of you I do not consider that a similar success shall attend you as it did previously.”