Whose Business Is to Die (33 page)

‘Remember, sir, squeeze the trigger, do not yank it,’ Scott told him.

The dismounted hussar had run forward, sabre drawn, to rescue the corporal, but the three riders ignored the downed man and rode on. A dash brought him close enough to slash at the last of them, Brandt, cutting him across the side before he passed. The sergeant’s jacket was already covered in blood from the wound to his face. Hanley saw the man slump in the saddle, almost fall, but then he recovered and rode on.

Hanley waited, muzzle trained on Sinclair. For a moment Brandt blocked his path, and he was tempted to fire because the man undoubtedly deserved killing, but he knew that Sinclair was more important. The Irishman appeared, then vanished again behind the other rider. By the time the three spread out and he had a clear shot the distance was well over one hundred yards.

He fired and to his relief the powder in the pan went off and the main charge exploded, the butt slamming back into his shoulder. Smoke blotted Sinclair and the others from sight, and when Hanley ran to the side he saw that all three men were still riding away.

‘You hit him, sir.’ Scott told him. ‘Saw the bugger shake from
the blow. Reckon you got him in the body. That’s not bad, sir, not bad at all, especially at this range and riding away.’

Hanley said nothing, but undid his sash and began to take off his jacket. The girl was sitting now, shivering again and hunched up as she tried to cover herself. He passed her his scarlet coat. The wool was wet, but it should still be warm, even if it dwarfed her slim figure. Sinclair was wounded, perhaps twice, and that was something, but even so he felt the weight of failure. They had learned very little, still did not know whether the French plot was real or an empty bluff, and on top of that he and most of his men were wounded or dead.

‘You need to warn the army, sir.’ Corporal Scott interrupted his thoughts. He was tying a piece of cloth around his leg. ‘That Irish bugger said that the French were going to surprise them. You have heard the guns going off for hours now. It might be too late, but then it might not.’

The German corporal came up, looking dazed. ‘He is right, sir. If any of the horses are left you should ride to the army. We can take care of things here until you send help.’

Once again it seemed that the NCOs were taking over. Hanley’s arm ached, but he could move it well enough. The ball through his boot did not seem to have touched his foot, although no doubt there was a bruise. They had the horses the two riflemen had tethered behind the wood. Not the best animals, but good enough.

‘I will send aid as soon as I can. Take care of the girl,’ he added. ‘The poor child has been through enough.’ Gutiérrez still lived, but his breathing was laboured and he was unlikely to last long.

‘No fear, sir. She will be safe with us.’ Hanley wondered about that, decided that it was probably true and that even if it was not the NCOs were right and he needed to ride back to Baynes and the army. He took the remaining hussar and left the two corporals to tend to the wounded.

‘Schwartz needs a surgeon,’ Scott told him before he left. ‘He did well, sir, very well, and I hope you will tell them as much
whatever happens.’ Hanley had forgotten the sentence hanging over the Brunswicker and his brother.

‘Of course,’ he replied.

Scott used his rifle as a crutch and managed to stand up. ‘Good luck, sir.’

Hanley rode off, his sash retied around the waist of his loose white shirt. The rain had stopped and ahead of him he heard a steady rumbling of guns.

26

G
eneral Blake still had his doubts. ‘One of the attacks is a feint, that much is clear, but I suspect their aim is to draw strength away from our centre so that they may pierce it more easily.’

Von Schepeler had reported French columns crossing the stream to their south, and then they had all seen the cavalry coming across the ford and riding in that direction. Baynes had been pleased to see that the Spanish commander immediately sent the information on to Marshal Beresford, yet otherwise he had done nothing.

‘If they come at us from the flank in strength then there will be the devil to pay, sir,’ General Zayas said.

‘As there will be if we all start running around to face south and then they hit us here. Damn those trees, we cannot see where their real strength lies. If they are waiting behind that woodland they could be back crossing the bridge and fords in half an hour, before we could turn again to face them.’

The other generals and staff officers watched their commander weighing up the decision.

‘Don José.’

‘Sir,’ General Zayas replied.

‘Turn one of your brigades to face southwards in case the attack there is real. The others are to remain in position and wait. Gentlemen, the regiments on your extreme right may adjust their position to support Don José’s new line, but no others. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. Move them immediately. I am going to take a closer look at the attack on the village and then I shall find Marshal Beresford and discover his intentions.’ Baynes could see that the French now held some of the buildings on the edge of Albuera, but from this distance it was impossible to tell more.

Five minutes after Blake left, Beresford arrived, looking for the Spanish commander.

‘Damn the man, what is he about?’

Baynes hoped that none of the Spanish staff officers near by spoke English, although only the most dense would fail to recognise his anger.

‘Ah, Baynes. Perhaps you can give me a straight answer?’

‘I shall do my best, sir, you may be sure of it.’

‘Some of the Spanish are moving. Is General Blake turning in force to face the French on our flank?’

‘A brigade is forming to face them, supported by a few regiments.’

Marshal Beresford was resting his right hand on his hip, an oddly elegant gesture for such a burly figure. Baynes noticed that his fingers were drumming against the air.

‘Damn it, not enough – not nearly enough! What is the fellow thinking?’

Baynes wondered at the ease with which the Allied commander had altered his conviction that the main French effort would come from the front.

‘No, it will not do.’ The marshal spoke so loudly that it was almost a shout, startling some of the Spanish officers, and frightening Baynes’ horse.

‘We must move the Second Division to meet the attack and drive it back,’ he said in a more controlled voice. ‘Come, let us find General Stewart. You come along too, Baynes,’ he added.

‘I am at the marshal’s service,’ the merchant replied with a beaming smile, growing more than a little concerned at the commander’s agitation. It would be best to be present in the hope of smoothing any offence he might cause to the Allies.

‘It looks like they have caught us on the hop,’ D’Urban whispered as they trotted away.

Behind them, General Zayas led some of his men into a new position on the nearer of the two knolls. They went in column of march, wheeling into line so that they stood at a right angle to the rest of the Allied army. His men were good soldiers, who had spent much of the last year training at Cadiz. On the right were the Irlanda regiment, a few still the sons and grandsons of Catholics who had fled from persecution in Ireland. Their jackets were light blue, with yellow fronts, collars and cuffs. Over half wore the bicorne hat of the pre-war army, and the rest had a motley selection of forage caps and shakos. Only a couple of the officers still had the white regulation breeches, and the men wore brown, grey or white trousers, usually patched or with gaping holes at the knees.

Next to them were two battalions of Royal Guards in deep blue jackets with red facings, and blue trousers. All save the senior officers wore wide topped shakos much like those worn by the French. There was a wide gap between the battalions, into which drivers urged the mule teams pulling a battery of guns – the only ones with Blake’s army. They were small pieces, four-pounders, their carriages painted blue, but the gunners who crewed them unlimbered the cannons and deployed ready to fire with a smooth efficiency.

General Zayas kept his remaining battalion, the brown-jacketed Navarra regiment, in closed column behind his right flank, ready to support the others and to provide some protection should enemy cavalry threaten his flank, which at the moment was wide open save for a few distant squadrons of Spanish horsemen.

His men were forming well, and already skirmishers were going forward just as he had taught them to do in the long weeks and months of drilling at Cadiz. Over on his left, two battalions from the other divisions, one in the traditional white of the old army – now much faded and patched – and another in brown, extended his line. He could not yet see the enemy, but he had
six battalions and half a dozen guns to stop whatever was coming from behind the higher knoll to the south of his position.

The thirty-nine-year-old General Don José Pascual de Zayas y Chacón uttered a silent prayer, crossed himself, and prepared to do his duty.

‘It seems God is against us,’ one of the staff officers shouted at Dalmas.

The French attack had formed up and begun to advance when the sky grew so dark that it seemed like evening rather than an hour or so before noon. Driven by a strong, cold wind, the rain swept in, slamming down on the tops of shakos and into faces. A moment later it turned to hail, and the grass turned white as the stones landed. Such was the violence of the onslaught that everyone stopped, the infantrymen as one turning round away from the wind, hunching their heads down into the collars of their greatcoats. There was not a single enemy in sight, but for the moment the attack had stopped.

Seeing the ground white and the greatcoated men sheltering, Dalmas thought back to the freezing slaughter at Eylau. The hail rattled against his armour, some of the blows strong enough to shake the helmet, and he remembered the great charge, Murat at its head with a riding crop instead of a sword, as thousands upon thousands of cuirassiers, dragoons and Guard Cavalry trotted in one vast column and rode down the Russians.

‘I though the Emperor had settled things with the Pope!’ the officer shouted again, and the words had a magical effect for hail turned back to rain, and then slackened, the wind dropping.

‘En avant!
’ General Girard shouted, and the cry was taken up by officers and NCOs in each regiment. Drums struck up the steady beat of the advance and the columns turned about, straightened ranks, and stepped off once more. Two regiments were in the lead, each with two battalions in column one behind the other. Four companies of voltigeurs went ahead of them, half as a chain of skirmishers working in pairs and the rest as formed supports. A pair of four-pounder guns was driven along
on the flank of each regiment. More artillery followed with the second brigade.

Muskets popped from the top of the southern knoll. There were enemy light infantry there, but they did not seem to be in great strength. Dalmas saw one of the voltigeurs fall and roll back down the gentle slope. Another was helped to the rear by a comrade until a sergeant ran up and told the helper to return to his duty. The wounded skirmisher was lowered to the ground, where he sat, one hand pressed to his shoulder.

‘Is that the highest point, Dalmas?’ Marshal Soult asked, pointing at the knoll.

‘Yes, Your Grace. It is the key to the whole position.’

That key was soon in French hands. The voltigeurs were veterans and they outnumbered the defenders. The Spanish had done better than most Spanish skirmishers had ever done in the past, but they could not hold back their French counterparts, let alone the formed columns coming on steadily behind them. Dalmas watched as the right-hand voltigeur company’s supports charged forward, bayonets lowered. The Spanish ran, leaving a dozen crumpled blue bodies on the grass behind them. Voltigeurs chased them, their tall yellow and green plumes bobbing as they went. Through his glass Dalmas could see the yellow epaulettes which they insisted on attaching even to greatcoats to mark them out as the battalion’s elite. The columns marched steadily forward behind them, and soon their front ranks were going over the crest.

Marshal Soult reached the top of the knoll and took in the situation with one quick sweep of his delighted eyes.

‘I want guns up here, as many as we have, to cover the attack.’ The senior artillery officer galloped off to turn wishes into actions. Ahead of them the leading four battalions and their skirmishers had halted in the dip between the two knolls. The other two regiments from the division followed them until they too halted, one hundred yards behind. Their voltigeur companies ran forward to join the skirmish line.

Higher than the enemy, Dalmas and the French senior officers
could easily see the thin line waiting on the crest of the other knoll. He counted three battalions, with perhaps another on the flank. Two more lines were deploying at a painfully slow pace on the left flank of the others. He saw men in shades of blue, as well as white and brown.

‘No redcoats,’ General Girard commented. ‘Just Spanish.’ The words carried the satisfaction of a man who had led his soldiers to rout many a Spanish army. Their soldiers were sometimes brave, but never well led.

Behind the thin lines of Spanish were more Allied formations, a mix of lines and columns and all facing towards the river. There was movement among them, but no clear pattern showing that the enemy understood their peril and were trying to meet it.

‘British dragoons, Your Grace.’ Dalmas was looking to the left, across the flat valley bottom to the west, where a regiment or so of horsemen in red coats was forming. There were more brightly uniformed cavalry beyond them – surely Spanish and so unlikely to be of much account.

‘La Tour-Maubourg will watch them,’ Marshal Soult said, dismissing the enemy horsemen. Adding the British and Spanish together they did not have even a third of the numbers the French had massed on their left.

Drivers flogged horse teams up to the top of the knoll. Most of the batteries with the army had lacked the animals to bring more than a fraction of the guns they should deploy, but they had made sure that the ones they brought were drawn by strong teams in good condition and served by large crews. The nearest guns looked a little odd, and Dalmas realised that they must be the mountain howitzers, designed so that they could be broken down and carried on the backs of mules instead of being towed.