The Fields of Death (41 page)
Read The Fields of Death Online
Authors: Simon Scarrow
Philippon smiled sadly. ‘My lord, that is half the reason why men go to war, to postpone inevitable defeat, as you put it.’
‘Then such men are bloody fools,’ Arthur replied tersely. ‘Now then, I have no desire to prolong this discussion. I am here to offer you terms for the immediate surrender of San Cristobal. I do not desire to lose any more men in assaulting this fort, so if you refuse to surrender I will have my siege guns ranged against the fort and they will pound it to pieces. I will not take any prisoners.’
Philippon scrutinised Arthur’s unflinching expression. ‘You wish to discuss terms? Then I will surrender the fort, and my men’s arms, in exchange for free passage to Madrid.’
Arthur shook his head. ‘You misunderstand. I am not here to discuss terms, but to state them. In short, you will surrender the fort unconditionally. Your men will be disarmed and marched to Lisbon where you will be shipped to England as prisoners until the end of the war, or such time as his majesty’s government decides to exchange you. If you will not agree to these terms then you and your garrison will be destroyed along with the fort.’
‘I need time to consider.’
‘No. You accept or reject my terms now.’
Philippon frowned and looked down to conceal his anguished indecision. He shook his head slightly, then paused and looked up, resigned to his fate. ‘Very well. I accept.’
‘Good. Then your men will leave the fort within the hour and form up there to surrender their arms.’ Arthur pointed to the flat expanse of ground below the fort, close to the camp of Beresford’s Portuguese battalions. ‘You will make no attempt to destroy any supplies or equipment within the fort, is that understood?’
‘Yes, my lord.’ Philippon nodded as he stared at the Portuguese soldiers in their camp. ‘But I would rather surrender to English soldiers than the Portugese. In view of the . . . barbarity with which they have treated French prisoners before.’
‘I recall little difference between the barbarity of the Portuguese and that of the French under whom they were forced to suffer. In any case, I cannot afford to despatch one of my battalions to escort your men to Lisbon. I think you will find that the Portuguese, thanks to our training and example, will treat you with greater mercy than you have shown to many of their compatriots,’ Arthur concluded coldly. He lifted his hat. ‘I bid you good day, General. We shall not meet again. Make sure that the last of your men leaves the fort within the hour.’
Arthur turned his horse away and spurred it into a trot, a sour taste in his mouth.
It took four days for the soldiers to recover their senses and start drifting out of the city, nursing hangovers and clutching their spoils in loose bundles. The army’s provost general was all for disciplining them for being absent without leave, but Arthur ordered that no action be taken. Instead, fresh toops were sent into the town to fish out the last of the looters and eject them. Then the work of repairing the damage began. The sick and injured of Arthur’s army were carried into the castle’s barracks to be looked after by the surgeons of the units assigned to garrison the town.
A steady trickle of those who died from their wounds was added to the corpses laid out in a series of long graves a short distance from the walls. When each grave was filled, men wearing gin-soaked cloths about their faces to overcome the stench of the corpses shovelled earth over the bodies and then piled heavy stones on top to discourage wild dogs, carrion and human scavengers.
With Badajoz in English hands Arthur began to plan his next course of action as he waited for the latest reinforcements to reach the army. Despite the losses, his strength, when the fresh regiments and replacement drafts arrived, rose to over sixty thousand men. Enough to take his campaign into the heart of Spain, but - frustratingly - not enough to contemplate facing a combination of French armies. Therein lay the irony of his situation. The more successful the allied army became the more likely it was to provoke the French into concentrating their forces to march on Arthur and destroy him and his army once and for all.
There was another, constant, cause for concern. Having reinforced the Peninsular army the government back in England would expect him to take the war to the French. It was evident that only a small number of wiser heads in the government appreciated the game of cat and mouse that Arthur was obliged to play with his more numerous opponents.
The most obvious enemy force for his army to engage was the army of Marshal Marmont. The latest intelligence suggested that Marmont commanded fewer than thirty-five thousand men, and that decided Arthur.
Early in May, he left General Hill and eighteen thousand men at Badajoz, in case Soult decided to venture out of Andalucia, and marched back to Ciudad Rodrigo to organise his offensive against Marmont. As he waited for the final reinforcements to reach him from Oporto, he gave orders for his wagons to be repaired and loaded with marching rations from the fortress’s depot. The soldiers were rested, and given the chance to repair their kit in readiness for the campaign.
Late in the month, as Arthur was putting the final touches to the campaign plan, Somerset entered his office with the latest packet of despatches from London.
‘Left London on the twelfth. They’ve made good time,’ Arthur noted with satisfaction. He broke the seal, opened out the waterproofed covering and extracted the documents within. At the top of the pile was a small note from Lord Liverpool marked
Most urgent - read at once
.
Most urgent - read at once
.
Arthur raised his eyebrows, then with a slight shrug he pushed the rest of the letters towards Somerset. ‘Prioritise those for me, if you please.’
His aide nodded, pulled up a chair and began to open and sort through the documents, ensuring, as was customary, that personal and administrative missives were placed below more vital communications. Arthur sat back in his chair and broke the wafer seal on Liverpool’s letter, unfolded it and began to read. At length he folded the letter up.
‘The Prime Minister is dead,’ he announced evenly.
Somerset looked up from the latest document he had been glancing through. ‘I’m sorry, my lord, I missed that.’
‘I said the Prime Minister is dead.’
‘Good God. Dead? How? Accident or illness?’
‘Neither. He was assassinated. Shot in the lobby of the House of Commons. Some madman named Bellingham who blamed Perceval and the government for ruining his business, apparently.’
‘I say, that’s a bit much.’
Arthur raised his eyebrows. ‘ “A bit much” is hardly the apposite reaction, Somerset. The man has deprived us of a Prime Minister.’
‘Sorry, sir. I’m just shocked by the news. It’s not the sort of thing that happens in England. France or Russia yes. But England?’
‘Well, yes, quite.’Arthur raised his arms, folded his hands together and rested his chin on them.‘The question is, what impact does this have on the government’s policies here in the Peninsula? However parsimonious Perceval might have been in supporting our campaigns, he at least had the virtue of understanding their necessity. The danger is that his replacement may not share his views, just as we are on the brink of changing the balance of power here. Worse still, the government is weak and its opponents may seize on this as a chance to topple the Tories and push the Prince Regent to appoint a Whig administration. If that happens . . .’ Arthur did not need to finish the sentence. Somerset, and indeed most of the army, knew that any Whig government would seek to withdraw the army from the Peninsula as a matter of priority.
‘The government, any government, would be mad to abandon the campaign when it is showing such promise, my lord,’ Somerset responded, then he smiled. ‘It may take a little while for a new Prime Minister to emerge, or even a new government. Whether it be the Tories or the Whigs, you must use the time to inflict as many reverses as you can on the French, my lord. Make it politically inexpedient to recall the army.’
Arthur nodded. ‘By God, you are right. Somerset, for a fine staff officer, you make a decidedly formidable politician.’
His aide sat back in his chair with a shocked expression.‘Sir! I hardly think my suggestion merits such a slur on my character!’
‘Indeed.’ Arthur laughed. ‘I have to apologise, Somerset, else I am sure that you would call me out, and the army cannot afford to lose either of us.’
Somerset nodded, satisfied.
‘So then,’ Arthur stood up and looked out of the window, over the camp of his army.‘While we await word of poor Perceval’s replacement, we march against the French.’
Early in June, as the allied army set off from Ciudad Rodrigo, Arthur received news that Marmont had been reinforced and now slightly outnumbered the allies. On past French showing Arthur was prepared to accept the odds and the army continued marching into Spain, making for Salamanca, the enemy’s nearest base of operations.
There Arthur found that the French garrison had abandoned the city, leaving behind a few hundred men to fortify the convents that dominated the bridge over the river Tormes. While the main bulk of the army made camp on the hills to the north of the city, the engineers set to work besieging the convents by digging approach trenches and constructing batteries for the small number of siege guns that Arthur had brought with the army.
As Arthur had hoped, Marmont advanced towards Salamanca to attempt to relieve the defenders, but the allied troops on the hills barred his way. There followed a few wearing days when Arthur had the army stood to in the dust and the heat, waiting for a French attack that never came. For his part, Marshal Marmont contented himself with regularly sending a few batteries of horse guns together with some skirmishers to fire on any allied troops who were exposed on the forward slope. Arthur responded by ordering the greenjackets forward, and after a short duel the skirmish broke off and the two armies sat and watched each other as before.
The convents quickly surrendered once the siege guns began to pound the walls to pieces, and as soon as the last of them had been taken Marmont began to withdraw north, towards the protection of the river Douro. The allied army followed, camping on the southern bank. Arthur inspected the enemy through his telescope in frustration. A thin screen of pickets patrolled the far bank and the main enemy camp, its position marked by trails of smoke from camp fires, was beyond a low ridge that ran along the river for some way. His spies had told him that Marmont had already been joined by another division and was waiting for yet further reinforcements.
Then, on 15 July, a band of Spanish resistance fighters rode into the allied camp in an excited state, demanding to speak to the English general. They wore bandannas, short-cut jackets over their shirts and breeches, which were buttoned below the knee, and heavy boots. A formidable selection of carbines and pistols were visible in their saddle buckets, and swords, clubs and knives hung from their belts. The two sentries on duty outside Arthur’s headquarters, a disused barn, eyed the new arrivals warily as Somerset brought General Alava out to speak to them. After a few words, Alava beckoned their leader to dismount and follow him and Somerset into the barn.
He rapped on the weathered doorpost and Arthur looked up from the map he had been studying. ‘What is it?’
‘One of the local fighters, my lord. He says he has captured some enemy despatches and wishes to sell them to us.’
Arthur puffed his cheeks. ‘Very well. I can spare him a few minutes. Bring him in.’
A moment later the leader entered, carrying a saddlebag over one arm. Arthur rose to exchange a bow with him as Alava made the introductions. ‘Señor Jose Ramirez, or El Cuchillo, as he claims to be known along this stretch of the Douro.’
‘What has El Cuchillo,’ Arthur smiled at the man, ‘got for me, exactly?’
Once Alava had translated, the resistance leader stepped forward and laid the saddlebag over Arthur’s map. Arthur noted a dark smear on the casing and assumed that it was the blood of the hapless courier who had been intercepted by El Cuchillo and his men. With a flamboyant gesture the Spaniard unfastened the strap and flipped the bag open. Inside were a number of sealed documents. One immediately caught Arthur’s eye - larger and bearing a more ornate seal than the others. He gestured towards the bag and the Spaniard nodded. Arthur drew the document out and saw that it carried the seal of King Joseph and was addressed to Marshal Marmont. He broke the seal and opened it, quickly scanning the contents before he looked up.
‘King Joseph is marching to join Marmont with thirteen thousand men.’
Somerset shifted uncomfortably. ‘That will give Marmont nearly twenty thousand men more than us, my lord.’
Arthur nodded. ‘More than enough to make a difference, I fear. The question is, has Marmont had a copy of this message? It is possible he may not know that Joseph is marching to join him.’
‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ Somerset said doubtfully. ‘Though the French tend to send out two or three couriers by different routes, given the danger presented by the partisans.’
Arthur folded the despatch and tapped it on the table.‘General Alava, please ask our friend if he has seen anything of the enemy recently. Any sign of a column on the move.’
The general translated the question and El Cuchillo nodded, and then there was a lively exchange of comments before Alava turned back to Arthur with an excited glint in his eye. ‘He says that he saw a large force crossing the Douro at Tordesillas. They could not get close enough to estimate the number because of the enemy’s cavalry pickets.’
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