Cochrane (23 page)

It was a tenable position, and as long as his men could hold it, the French regiments would be halted. They could not risk leaving Fort Trinidad and an attacking force in their rear, even supposing that they could bypass the fortress and the town. It was just possible to imagine that Cochrane and his crew might throw back the enemy advance into Catalonia, a feat which would have been more appropriate to a force the size of Sir Arthur Wellesley's new army.

As soon as the
Imperieuse
arrived, Cochrane and his seamen took possession of Fort Trinidad. He stationed about fifty of them there and reinforced them with his thirty marines. They were few enough to fight against a column of thousands of Franco-Italian infantry and grenadiers accompanied by cavalry and artillery. As he expected, the French soon mounted their heavy guns on the height above, training them on the middle of the leading tower, which was their most promising target.

During the first few days, his men endured a bombardment which was far worse than anything they had known at sea. The thunderclap of the enemy
24
-pounders,
300
yards away, was followed by the howl of shells, an earth-shaking impact, and an explosion which was almost drowned by the harsh roar of falling masonry. Worse still, at every detonation the granite blocks of the wall disintegrated into small, flying splinters, each of them sharp and lethal.

The interior of Fort Trinidad, even before the shelling began, resembled a scrap heap of military equipment. Midshipman Marryat, who acted as Cochrane's adjutant during the action, recalled, "Heaps of crumbling stones and rubbish, broken gun-carriages, and split guns." For days, and then weeks, the men of the
Imperieuse
made this their home. "We all pigged in together," said Marryat, "dirty straw and fleas for our beds; our food on the same scale of luxury." It had been hoped that boats from the frigate would maintain a supply of food, but the French had installed sharpshooters on every side, some of them dug in no more than
50
yards away, and there were days when the boats could not land. None the less, Cochrane insisted on having the hands piped to dinner, even when there was nothing but cold water to "dine" on. "Regularity", he observed was good for the character.

While all this was going on, Cochrane prepared for the inevitable French attack. There was no doubt that it would come by way of the breach which the gunners had made in the wall of the leading tower, and which proved to be
60
feet above its base. He evacuated all his men from this tower and concentrated the defence in the other two. But once again, as though it were an elaborate practical joke, he began to booby-trap the breach. He first knocked out an internal arch so that the attackers would find that the surface beyond the breach caved in under them. For good measure he used deal planks brought from the
Imperieuse
as a platform in the breach and then coated them with "cook's slush" or grease. No French infantryman would retain his footing for more than a few seconds on the slippery wooden surface before being precipitated
50
feet down into the "bug trap" as the English sailors christened the device.

Between the abandoned tower and the one behind it, where his sailors and marines were concentrated, he built a barricade, reinforced by sandbags which were filled during the hours of darkness and comparative inactivity. This redoubt within the fortress was also protected by top chains from the frigate to which large fish hooks had been securely fastened. As Cochrane enthusiastically pointed out, an enemy who tried to scramble over such a parapet would find himself impaled helplessly on the hooks and might be despatched at leisure.

Finally, Cochrane mined the breach, so that if the French succeeded in taking the outer wall and overcoming the obstacles, he could at least blow up the leading tower of Fort Trinidad and a good number of grenadiers before his little army was overwhelmed. He was joined by a few dozen guerrillas and some Irish mercenaries in Spanish pay, all of whom assisted in the preparations which he had undertaken. He won their allegiance not only by his almost boyish enthusiasm and energy for the great "game" with the French but also by his well-chosen dramatic gestures. On
25
November, some three hundred hits were scored on the massive walls of Fort Trinidad. In such a bombardment it was not surprising that the Spanish flag was brought down by one salvo and lay in the ditch before the fortress, directly in the path of the French artillery barrage and in the line of fire from their sharpshooters. With apparent unconcern, Cochrane walked out of Fort Trinidad and round to the front of the leading tower where the flag had fallen. He paid no more attention to the musket balls which whizzed about him than if they had been flies on a summer day. While the artillery salvoes hurtled overhead with the sound of the sky being rent apart, he stooped down, retrieved the Spanish flag and hoisted it triumphantly. Then, to the cheers of compatriots and allies, he walked slowly back. So far as the alliance with Spain was concerned it was an astute act of showmanship.

But the tall figure in the blue captain's uniform, complete with gold braid and cocked hat was unmistakable to the enemy. Later on, Cochrane noticed an ominous lull in the firing and went to investigate. This time, as he peered towards the French artillery, another shot boomed out across the cliffs, the sky rent again by the path of the shell, the flash and chaos of the explosion veiling the scene. When the smoke cleared, it was evident that Cochrane had been hit. His head was bowed and there was blood down his face and on his uniform. He stumbled back to the care of the ship's surgeon, Guthrie, who was acting as medical officer in Fort Trinidad. It was not the shell which had hit him but one of the flying splinters of granite from the tower wall. It had broken his nose and penetrated through the roof of his mouth.

Guthrie did his best to dress the wound and Cochrane, breathing through his mouth, resumed command of his little army. There was no leisure to convalesce, since the situation on either side of his fortress was deteriorating by the hour. After a week of bombardment the French had failed to dislodge him, but they had driven off the ship's boats which were approaching the cliff and so isolated him from the
Imperieuse.
Worse still, though the citadel of Rosas still held out, the French infantry had entered the town. The enemy was able to reinforce the siege of Fort Trinidad and on the ninth day he found five artillery batteries trained on his position from the high ground above him. On the same day,
29
November, he also heard that in Rosas itself the defenders of the citadel were cut off from all assistance.

Cochrane woke long before dawn on
30
November with a quite irrational conviction that the French had got into Fort Trinidad. This was clearly absurd, since as he lay there and listened, the entire building was silent. But the premonition was so strong that he could not sleep and in the end got up and went out to the rampart "half ashamed of having given way to such fancies". The rampart was defended by a single mortar. This had been carefully sited the day before so that its shells would land on the path which came over the height in the distance, down into the declivity and so to Fort Trinidad. It was the obvious choice of route for the French infantry when they attempted to storm the fortress.

Without any sufficient reason, Cochrane put a taper to the touch-hole and fired the mortar, the hiss of the shell was followed by an explosion on the distant path, the echoes dying away among the surrounding hills. But even before the last echo had died, Cochrane and his companions on the rampart ducked down as a volley of musketry "pattered like hail on the walls of the fort". The main French infantry column had advanced under cover of darkness and was within a few minutes of the point at which the storming of the fortress would begin.

Cochrane shouted, "To arms! They are coming!" and in a few moments the seamen, marines, and Spanish troops woke to the sound of the call, and scrambled for the places allotted them at the walls. Midshipman Marryat timed them and found that it took just three minutes for every man to be at his post. Looking out across the terrain between Fort Trinidad and the French positions he saw that the streak of fog which had filled the valley during the night, was now beginning to rise and the stars were fading in the first pale light of the day. Napoleon's grenadiers and infantry regiments were marching in strength against Cochrane's position. "The black column of the enemy was distinctly visible," Marryat recalled, "curling along the valley like a great centipede." But though it stretched so far back, the head of the "centipede" was already close to the foot of the leading tower with the breach in its wall. Since there was no further point in attempting a secret assault, the drums beat out the familiar "rum-dum, rum-dum, rumma-dum, rumma-dum, dum-dum," of Napoleon's legions marching to the attack. Ahead of the blue-coated infantry regiments strode the French grenadiers, their impressive height exaggerated still further by their tall black headgear. The first ranks advanced, firing as they came, towards the tower where the shells had brought down piles of granite to serve as a rough ramp upward to the breach. Other parties among the attackers were carrying scaling ladders with which they ran forward, attempting to position them and get the first wave of infantry through the breach and into Fort Trinidad before a defence could be organised.

Cochrane gave the order to fire. From slits and chinks in the walls his marines and seamen opened crackling volleys of musketry on the swarming mass of the French infantry which was already beginning to scale the breach. But a hundred men with muskets could never hold off an attacking force of thousands. Muskets took too long to reload, a whole minute in inexperienced hands, and were notoriously inaccurate except at close range. There was no hope that such weapons alone would turn back a major assault of this kind.

Cochrane had guessed what the French would expect. They would assume that the defence of Fort Trinidad was based on a vain hope of driving back the grenadiers and infantry before they could clamber into the breach. They would hardly suppose that his true defence was concentrated inside the fortress.

Within ten minutes of the attack being launched, forty of the grenadiers reached the opening midway up the leading tower. Once there, they either found that they could not keep their footing because of the boards well greased with "cook's slush" and were duly thrown
50
feet down, or else they clung precariously, unable to advance farther than the breach, since Cochrane had demolished everything below them on the interior side. It was then that the men of the
Imperieuse,
manning the position between the two towers were presented with the French soldiers in the breach, silhouetted like targets in a shooting gallery. Except for those who fell to their deaths in the "bug trap" there was no advance, and the pressure of others behind them made retreat impossible. In several minutes of confusion and horror, the volleys of British musketry scythed among them, cutting down rank after rank, until the breach was clear.

While his men within the fort kept up their fire on the breach, Cochrane saw that the piles of stones and ladders leading up to it were crowded with French infantry waiting to follow and having no idea what caused the hesitation. It was under all this that he had laid his mine and, accordingly, he now gave orders for the fuse to be lit. In a moment more Fort Trinidad was shaken by the greatest explosion of the siege. Midshipman Marryat, watching the French advance, wrote, "up they went in the air, and down they fell buried in the ruins. Groans, screams, confusion, French yells, British hurras, rent the sky!"

The first French attack had been broken, but a second mass of infantry was pressing forward to follow over the dead bodies of its comrades. Cochrane had expected this. From the top of the tower he had suspended carefully-contrived bombs, which could be released, with fuses lit, on to the enemy below. He had also gathered up there his stock of hand grenades and had ordered his men to reserve some of their ball and powder for this second attack. There was always the danger that the defenders might exhaust their ammunition if the French attack persisted but after the fate of the first assault the infantrymen who followed it were less than enthusiastic.

As they approached the tower wall, Cochrane's crew greeted them with a volley of musketry which brought down the leaders, including the French colonel who commanded the attack. Then, like fire from heaven, the bombs and hand grenades fell from the tower above. Leaderless and unnerved, the second wave of infantry began to fall back. Marryat saw the retreat turn into a rout. The surviving French officers drew their swords and ordered their men back into the attack, but it was to no avail. They simultaneously led the men on and shouted "Suivez-moi!" as they tried to control the demoralised troops. Marryat even saw them driving their swords through the backs of men who turned to run. But the formations scattered. Marryat thought the French infantrymen "had had fighting enough for one breakfast".

The crew of the
Imperieuse
and their companions had, as it proved, thrown back an attack by an advance guard of
1200
infantry. The main body of French troops on the surrounding hills entirely misjudged the situation and apparently assumed that those grenadiers who had disappeared into the breach had taken possession of Fort Trinidad and that the battle was won. Accordingly, they marched from every direction d
own towards the scene of the deba
cle, drums playing and the early sunlight glinting on the Imperial Eagles. At their approach to the fortress, Cochrane gave the order for a concentrated volley of musket fire, which caught the columns in open country. They had no independent means of reaching the hole high up in the tower wall and were, in any case, expecting only to occupy a position which had already been captured by their advance guard. They halted and, as a second volley of musketry dropped a score of men in their leading ranks, the royal blue infantry fled ignominiously back to the cover of their position.