Whose Business Is to Die (8 page)

They rode on, the Portuguese mingling with the British. Many of the light dragoons rode horses white with sweat, and yet still they ran on, eating up the miles. Hanley and his escort edged further and further forward, and so were among the leaders when they raised a shout at sighting new quarry. Ahead of them on the road was a long procession of wagons and heavy guns pulled by horses and mules. Soldiers walked alongside, but there was no sign of any formed escort.

‘Tally ho!’ The shout came from an officer riding a light bay horse which looked as if it had scarcely even warmed up.

‘Come on,’ Hanley said to the corporal. He felt his heart quickening again, realised he still had his sword in his hand, but fought down the urge to thrust it into another Frenchman. Now that he had some purpose to achieve, it was much easier to think.

The British light dragoons were scattered. Two of the Portuguese squadrons were in more or less dense masses, if not formation, but it did not matter. The French gunners and other soldiers fled as soon as they heard the shouts and saw some four hundred horsemen bearing down on them. A few muskets popped from far too great a distance, and then the men dropped their weapons and joined the rout. The British were first among them, slicing down with their curved sabres. Hanley saw the officer on the bay run down one of the fugitives. The man had lost his shako and had his hands clasped protectively on top of his head. The officer braced himself in his stirrups and raised his sabre, with its ornate oriental hilt. He waited for the precise moment and then sliced down, cutting through the gunner’s wrist with such force that the blade sank into his head. Momentum carried him
onwards and he swung his arm so that the sword came free as his victim dropped.

‘The guns!’ Hanley shouted at the man. ‘We must secure the guns!’ The man did not turn or appear to have heard. There were screams as more light dragoons caught up with the running French and heavy sabres slashed. Some of the blades were blunt now from use, so that Hanley saw more than one Frenchman bludgeoned to the ground by furious light dragoons, only to get up moments later, bruised and dazed, but not seriously hurt.

‘Sir!’ He saw the colonel of the Portuguese. ‘We must secure the French siege train. It is vital for the army.’

The man blinked at him, then seemed to comprehend, realising that an officer in a red coat like Hanley would be here only if he was a staff man. The colonel began shouting orders to rally his men. Many of the Portuguese were already swarming towards the guns and caissons, chattering to each other excitedly. There was no more resistance, as the surviving French were either in flight or huddled as prisoners, looking down at the ground and trying not to draw the attention of their captors. Many were wounded, with deep cuts to the head and shoulders, or gashes on their arms from where they had tried to protect themselves. Some could not stand, and from the look of their wounds Hanley wondered whether they would ever leave this place. He did not know how much time had passed, but most of the light dragoons paused for only a few minutes, before giving fresh chase to the stream of fugitives, led by all those with beasts to ride.

There was a wagon some way ahead of the main column, and that seemed odd. There was a knot of riders around it, and men moving about on the canopy. He saw a flash and a puff of smoke as one of them fired, bringing down the horse of the closest light dragoon. It took seconds for the sound of the shot to reach them.

‘Come on,’ he said to the corporal, and was not quite sure why, but the guns were secured and he was puzzled. His horse resisted the prod of his heels for a moment, shook its head, and then lurched awkwardly into a canter. Another man fired from the
wagon, missed, and two light dragoons were there hacking at the men. One fell, and even from this distance Hanley could see that he no longer had a head. The riders sped away, abandoning the vehicle and the men in it. A white cloak was bright as it streamed behind a tall man on a big horse. Then Hanley saw a rider in a green coat – not the dark green of the dragoons or the olive shade of chasseurs, but a vivid light green. He glimpsed another man in the same uniform, who appeared and then disappeared behind someone in a dark coat and a smaller figure in turquoise.

‘Sinclair!’ Hanley shouted, and he felt his blood racing again, but this was with a much more familiar excitement. Baynes’ informant had been right. Light green was the colour of the Irish Legion, and he had seen Sinclair in this uniform before. He kicked his horse hard, hit it again with the flat of his sword and yelled ‘Come on, lad!’ The gelding picked up the pace, leaping across the grass. With a scrape the two hussars drew their sabres – Hanley had not realised that they had sheathed them.

They passed the wagon, the headless corpse lying next to the wheel and another man draped over the tailgate. A light dragoon was inside, another holding the reins of the man’s horse.

‘Empty bloody boxes!’ came a shout from under the high canopy. ‘Get the mules, Tom, at least there’s prize money there!’ The Army did not pay out rewards on the same scale as the Navy, but there would be a little for captured animals.

Hanley kept going. They were among the leading light dragoons now, the knot of Frenchmen only three or four hundred yards in front of them. Just one of the 13th was ahead of the pack, closing rapidly on the fugitives. It was the officer on the bay, and the beast raced on. Hanley saw the man raise his sabre high and yell with sheer delight.

The man with the bright white cloak looked back, and then spun his big black horse around with remarkable ease. He had a helmet much like the dragoons’, but steel rather than brass, and as he turned and flicked back his cloak, Hanley saw a gleaming cuirass.

Dalmas! Hanley had never seen the man close up, but knew
that this was surely the cuirassier officer, and if he and Sinclair had both come to Campo Major then there was certainly something dirty going on.

The light dragoon officer gave a flourish of his sabre as he and Dalmas sped towards each other at a gallop. His opponent already had his straight sword at the charge, arm raised in front of him and the point spearing forwards. The Frenchman was silent.

They closed so fast that Hanley did not see clearly what happened. The light dragoon was screaming out a challenge; his sabre glinted as it cut and glanced off the Frenchman’s armour. There was a grunt and the officer arched his back. Dalmas was already past him when the Englishman slid from the saddle, sabre hanging from his lifeless wrist. He fell to the left, but his foot caught in the stirrup and so he was dragged along, head bumping on the ground as his terrified horse ran on. Dalmas raised his sword above his head and was turning again, no more than a hundred yards away. The closest light dragoons growled in anger and urged their mounts on to catch the Frenchman.

A shot erupted, the noise of the discharge sudden and loud. One of the French horsemen dropped, and two of the others, the man in the dark uniform and the one in light blue, had turned and were rushing towards the British. Someone shouted. It was Sinclair, and Hanley could see the Irishman clearly as he turned and came after the other two. Another man in a plainer version of his green coat stopped his horse and jumped down, unslinging a firelock from his shoulder.

‘Prisonnier! Prisonnier!
’ shouted the leading rider as he flung his empty pistol back over his shoulder. He was dressed in very dark blue, breeches and jacket alike, with his cocked hat tied tightly around his chin. Hanley guessed he must be an engineer or artillery officer, and one who lived well given his plumpness. A few strides behind him was a slim figure in a hussar-style uniform of tight breeches and dolman and a round fur cap. The turquoise fabric was so covered with silver lace that he must be an ADC. The face beneath the cap was smooth and young, so no
doubt this was a relative of some important man. Dalmas was still turning away, unable for the moment to change direction again.

Another shot, this time from Sinclair, who had stopped and aimed his pistol with care. The turquoise hussar’s horse staggered and then sank to its knees, throwing the rider, who tumbled into the grass and fell, cap rolling away and long fair hair shaken loose. The other man glanced back, but only for a moment.

‘Prisonnier!’
he shouted. ‘I surrender. I am prisoner!’ The words were clear even if the accent was strong.

‘Stop, man!’ Hanley yelled at a light dragoon who was lifting his sabre ready to cut. ‘He is surrendering.’

The Frenchman reined in beside him. Hanley struggled to stop his own horse, and the gelding went round one side of the engineer officer’s mount and halted behind him. He smiled. ‘I accept your surrender, sir,’ he told the man, repeating the words in French.

‘Merci, monsieur, je suis Major Bertrand et je …’

Something hummed past inches from Hanley’s ear and he heard the crack of a shot a moment later. The left lens of Bertrand’s glasses shattered, his eye vanished in a smear of red as his head jerked back and the man went limp. Some of his blood flicked on to Hanley’s cheek.

There was a little cloud of dirty smoke in front of the kneeling figure of the man in the green jacket.

‘Get him!’ Hanley yelled at the nearest light dragoons, pointing at the man on foot. ‘Kill the bugger! Kill him! You two, stay with me,’ he added to the hussars. ‘Come on.’

‘Mister Hanley.’ A familiar voice called out to him, but not a voice he would expect here. Bertrand’s name rang a bell, but for the moment he could not place it. Dalmas and Sinclair were fleeing as more and more light dragoons headed for them. The man on foot was running, but his horse had decided to trot away. ‘Kill him!’ Hanley yelled again, for he knew who the man was.

‘Mister Hanley.’

The man in green threw his rifle away – the sharper noise could only have come from a rifle – and ran, grabbing the reins
and scrambling on to his horse with a light dragoon only a few yards away.

‘Bloody hell, Mister Hanley, have you got cloth ears?’

He looked down, and there was Jenny Dobson looking up at him with her big brown eyes, dyed blond hair dishevelled and loose from the fall. The turquoise hussar uniform clung to her, so tightly tailored that it cannot have been easy to put on. Even with her sash and hessian boots there was nothing remotely military or masculine about her looks.

‘Well I’m damned,’ he said, wondering why he had not recognised what and who she was more quickly.

‘If you like,’ the girl said, and winked. Only Jenny would wink in the middle of a battle.

‘Jenny,’ he said, still not quite believing his own eyes.

The girl reached back to rub her behind. ‘Bugger me, I’m sore,’ she said.

It was definitely Jenny, daughter of Sergeant Dobson from the Grenadier Company of the 106th, who had fled from the army to the enemy to become a whore and then a mistress. That was why he knew Major Bertrand of the engineers, for he was the girl’s keeper, and last winter she had stolen secrets from him and sold them to the Allies.

Yet there was no time to linger with reunions. ‘We’ll talk later, Jenny,’ he said. ‘Corporal, give the lady the major’s horse and look after her. Take her back to that wagon. I will meet you there. If you can, stop it from being looted.

‘Private,’ he said to the other hussar, and wished that he had taken the trouble to learn the man’s name. ‘You follow me.’

‘Lady,’ he heard Jenny say softly as he bullied his horse into running again.

6

I
t was more than a mile before Hanley and the hussar caught up. There were not many French fugitives still running along the road to Badajoz. The slow ones had been caught and were cut down or captured. The gamblers had split off to the side, giving the pursuers more chance of catching them for a minute or two until they got out of the way. Only the determined ones on the best horses were still there, some fifty or sixty dragoons and a dozen or so from the convoy. Hanley doubted there were even a hundred light dragoons left in the chase and half as many Portuguese. No one was yelling any more, or calling out hunting cries. Men and horses alike were panting, struggling with the effort, and pursuers and pursued went as fast as they still could in silence apart from the drumming of the hoofs. They were spread out, each going at his own pace and without the slightest order.

After another mile the land began to rise gently up to a ridge. Hanley was about to give up, and go back to find out what he could learn from Jenny, when he spotted something white far ahead among the leading French. As he rode on he stared ahead of him, searching for men in green, and saw one not far from Dalmas, and another among the last of the French.

Brandt, he thought, and wished Williams were here. Brandt was a soldier who had served in a foreign regiment recruited from prisoners and deserters. Williams caught him trying to rape the wife of a partisan chief, but the man had escaped, deserting again and fighting for the enemy. The man was an excellent shot, especially with the British Army’s issue rifle. Sinclair must have
enlisted him in his own regiment, hence the light green coat, the latest in a long succession of uniforms the man had worn.

The French reached the crest of the ridge and spilled over, vanishing for the moment. Hanley’s horse revived as it went up the slope, bounding ahead, so that he was one of the first to reach the crest.

‘Bugger,’ he heard the light dragoon next to him say.

To their left was a small fort, little more than a tower, but perched on a hillock and surrounded by ditches. Back some way from that was a much larger and more formidable fort, the San Cristoval, guarding this bank of the River Guadiana. Ahead was the defended bridge, crossing the great river on high Roman arches, and on the far bank, looming up on its hill, the great fortress city of Badajoz.

They must have chased the French for almost eight miles, although Hanley could scarcely believe it. The sight of sanctuary stirred the French on to a last great effort. Some of the British and Portuguese slowed and stopped, but more did not, and pulled on their last resources of strength to catch the enemy.