02 - Keane's Challenge (21 page)

Pereira nodded. ‘We have practised it in drill, sir. We will do our best.’

‘It had better be your best, lieutenant. You won’t have another chance.’

He watched as Pereira shouted the command in Portuguese to form square. Aided and prodded by Dominguez and Heredia, the militia began to form what looked like a line, two deep and thirty-five men wide. Dominguez took position eight men in from the left while Heredia walked in to the sixteenth man from the right. Pereira gave another command and pushed by each of the
sergentes
, the man facing each of them turned, one to the left, one to the right, followed, somewhat haphazardly by his comrades until two sides of what would be the square stood at right angle to a third. Finally, Heredia came round to the halfway point of the longest side and directed the man there to walk to their rear. Keane was impressed. They had completed the square and it had not taken as long as he had expected. Of course on a field of battle it would have been a different story
and they would not have stood a chance, but here they had managed it. He trotted across and, creating a gap, walked his horse through to the centre to find Pereira and the others.

‘Well done. Not quite parade-ground stuff, but well done all the same. Right, have them fix bayonets.’

‘Sir, some of them have no bayonets.’

‘Well, have them use whatever edged weapon they have. The front rank at least can manage it.’

Within a few minutes each of the front ranks of the four sides of the tiny square presented something of an obstacle of steel. From bayonets to pikes and the occasional sword, all manner of sharp weapons projected beyond the wall of men.

Keane gave the order to load. And it was taken up by Pereira and his two
sergentes
. The men fumbled into cartridge boxes, haversacks and pockets and, bringing out cartridges, bit off the ends and poured ball and powder into their barrels before ramming them home. They primed their pans and stood ready to receive the enemy. Well, thought Keane, as ready as they might ever be. He wondered if they would stand when the assault came. He did not have long to wait. They heard the dragoons first. They came with a great rumble in the earth and then a jingle of harness and the whinnying of horses. Commands in French drifted across the stillness and then they were in sight. A ragged, galloping mass of green-coated horsemen, emerging on the opposite ridge and sweeping down towards the abandoned mill. Keane tried to count them and reckoned there must be two squadrons. The Portuguese were hopelessly outnumbered and he hoped that a bloody nose from the Ordenanza, followed by the surprise of the hussars and lancers in the wood, might be enough to drive off the dragoons and buy time for their escape.

The French galloped up from the mill, huzzaing and whirling
their sabres as they saw the tiny Portuguese square. Keane could almost smell the elation and disbelief in their minds as they increased their pace, eager to destroy this ludicrous enemy.

But they had not counted on the new fire in the spirit of the militiamen.

Dominguez and Heredia gave the order. ‘Present. Make ready.’

Keane growled in Portuguese from inside the square. ‘Wait for it. Hold your fire. Wait… wait.’

The dragoons were close now, too close perhaps.

‘Fire!’

The first volley brought down four. It was not enough to stop them, thought Keane, but it slowed the onslaught.

‘Fire!’

The second rank fired and more of the French fell. This time the front rank of dragoons reared up, the horses reluctant to attack the wall of bayonets and spikes. They wheeled and turned, for the most part slashing in vain, too far away from the men in square. Two of the dragoons managed to make contact, and three of the Portuguese fell with sabre cuts to their heads. But then, as the dragoons stood and it seemed for a moment as if they might break into the square while the second rank fumbled to reload, there was a yell from the left and the hussars and the lancers broke their cover and poured out on to the hillside and into the right flank of the milling dragoons. The lancers came first, driving their weapons into the French, pig-sticking one man after another before dropping their lances to leave them hanging and drawing their swords. The hussars slashed down, cutting deep into flesh and severing limbs. And the French were unable to respond. Turning, trying to pull round, they seemed to Keane to be floating in maelstrom of carnage in front of the Portuguese lines. Heredia called out, ‘Steady. Don’t move.
Steady.’ And the Ordenanza did not move. Most of them. One youngster threw down his pike and ran back into the square, but Keane stopped him with his hand and grabbed the front of his tunic.

‘Don’t run now, boy. One gap in the ranks and they’ll come through. Stay with your friends. They need you.’

He looked up at Keane with wild eyes and then, seeing that there was no way out, turned and found his weapon.

The cavalry carried on, pushing the French along the line of the square and back down the hill. They gave no quarter, but the French fought back and Keane saw two hussars go down as well as a number of Sanchez’s men. Then, as fast as they had come, the dragoons had turned and were fleeing back into the valley and away up the hill. Von Cramm gave the order not to pursue and his men stopped where they were. The only cavalry, thought Keane, that he had ever seen do so. As the duke always said, once their blood was up there was generally no stopping them.

Led by Pereira, the Portuguese gave a cheer while the lancers walked across the French dead and wounded, sticking their lance points into the side or chest of any man they could see was still alive. It was not as Keane would have wished, but this time he thought it best to let it go. Besides, the last thing they wanted was wounded prisoners.

He turned to Pereira. ‘Well done. You managed that better than I could have hoped.’

‘Me also, sir, if the truth be known. It was you, sir. You inspire the men. They would not have done it but for you.’

Keane laughed and wondered if it had been his brawl with Foote that had endeared him to them so much.

He watched as some of the Portuguese walked out of the
line to gather up a souvenir from one of the dead dragoons. One man took a helmet, another an enamel cross pinned to an officer’s coat. All of them were grinning and seemed almost in disbelief at what they had done. Bt Keane knew that this was no time for trophy hunting.

He turned to Pereira. ‘Those would only have been the advance guard. There will be more where they came from, and worse. And their blood’ll be up now, when they hear about this. Come on. We need to move fast.’

With no great regard for formation, with the lancers to their front and the hussars once again forming a makeshift rearguard, the four of them herded the Ordenanza further up the hill and on towards the village. Don Sanchez had not been idle.

‘I heard the firing. We thought you must be killed.’

‘No. I don’t die that easily, and nor do these men, it seems.’

They went as quickly as they could away from San Pedro, in the direction of Almeida, hoping to find Craufurd’s force as they went. Keane presumed that they would have abandoned the position at Fort Concepcion and be making for the river.

There was no time to harness carts that would only delay them and so, much to Keane’s shame, there was no alternative but to leave behind a dozen or so men too badly wounded or sick to march or ride. They left supplies for those who might live and notes attesting to the fact that they were soldiers, not guerrillas, and deserved to be treated according to the articles of war. Keane very much doubted, though, whether such rhetoric would make any difference to their chances of not being shot, which he rated low.

They formed up as a column of march, with Keane and the guides at their head, accompanied by Don Sanchez. Von Krokenburgh and a half-troop of the hussars came next, and then the Ordenanza in two half-companies. Behind them came Sanchez’s infantry, whose ability to form column of march made the Portuguese look, in Keane’s eyes, like professional soldiers. The rearguard was found by another half-troop of
hussars, under cornet von Cramm. Sanchez’s cavalry provided the flanking screen, moving alongside the column but at some fifty yards distant, keeping an active watch through the mist for the enemy.

They went by the road, snaking down from the hilltop to the plain and then on towards Almeida.

With every step Keane thought they must be caught, but there was no sight of their pursuers and at length, after an hour’s march, one of the outriders approached him.

‘Captain, we can see a large force. Over to our right.’

‘What are they? French or British?’

‘I do not know, sir. It’s hard to tell.’

Keane rode across to the picket line and, taking his glass from his saddlebag, put it to his eye. The man was right that there was a considerable force to the south. He strained to make them out and then caught sight of a British colour, the Union Jack, flapping in the breeze as they marched. He counted two red-coated battalions, some others in brown, and ahead and on the flanks light cavalry and green-jacketed infantry, moving fast. The Light Division. ‘They’re ours, by God. That’s Craufurd.’

He was certainly abandoning Concepcion, and it looked to Keane as if he might be making to cross the river Côa. He wondered if he intended to stop by Almeida at all. It was perfectly possible that he would not. After all, he had approved Wellington’s abandonment of Ciudad.

Keane decided, however, that he would not share his thoughts with Sanchez. He turned and rode back to the Spaniard. ‘We’ve found Craufurd, colonel. He’s just down there, in the north valley.’

He was about to add ‘and another thing’, when there was a huge explosion. It came from away to their right, the north-east,
and it shook the earth around them. The air seemed to echo with the blast.

Sanchez looked at Keane. ‘What was that? More of your mills coming down?’

‘No,’ said Keane. ‘I would wager that was Craufurd’s engineers blowing up Fort Concepcion before Massena gets there.’

‘And now he’s making for Almeida? Do you suppose he will blow that fort to pieces too? Or will he just cross the river and leave the town to its fate, like Ciudad?’

Keane did not rise to the challenge. ‘No, I would say that he plans to draw a battle line beside the town.’

‘He will be crushed. How can he hope to stop Massena?’

‘Of course he cannot do that alone. But he can fight a holding action. That is my guess. For the last three months he has managed to hold off an entire French army with a division that is no larger than brigade strength. I don’t think he’ll give it up now, whatever Wellington might have ordered. We must join him.’

‘Must?

‘Colonel, if your men would join us, that is where I am heading.’

‘Is that in your orders, captain?’

‘No, colonel, but at this moment I don’t think my orders count for much. I am ordered to send back information, but the telegraph posts have been taken. I am ordered to break down the mills, but I cannot do so with the French on our tail. I am ordered to liaise with the
partidas
and in particular with yourself. It would seem most prudent, given that we have sixty thousand Frenchmen at our heels, to throw in my lot and that of the troops under my command with General Craufurd. May I count on your support?’

‘You may take your portion of my force. A half-troop of lancers.
I do not intend to stand in a set battle against the French army. I have better things to attend to.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘The hills. Where else? We are not made for setpiece battles, Captain Keane. And neither are you. Be careful, captain. I will keep a watch on what you do and I will find you again if you survive your battle with Massena.’

With that he raised his hand and called away his escort. Then riding down the column he found his infantry and within seconds they had broken ranks and were scrambling up the hillsides, followed by those of his lancers who had been scouting on the right of the column. Those on the left remained behind, as if nothing had occurred. Within a few minutes Keane had lost almost half of his force.

He turned to Ross, who was riding beside him. ‘Damn him, that man infuriates me. He operates in the name of no one but himself. To remove half of our force in such a way, just as we most have need of it.’

‘In truth, sir, they were never hardly our force, were they not?’

‘You’re right, sarn’t, but I was hoping that I might count on him.’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t do that, sir. Not never. Not on that one. Now the lieutenant back there, he’s a proper gentleman.’

It was curious, thought Keane, how such men as Ross recognized the nobility, and although they would not suffer fools, deferred to them when it was right, from instinct.

He gave a command and moved the column off down the hillside, on a dust road, in the direction of Craufurd’s men. He doubted whether the French would pursue them now. They would have seen the clouds of dust put up by the Light
Division and be uncertain as to their strength. To see Keane’s small command coming in on them would have confused their scouts even further.

*

They were over the river Seco now and in a plain well below the hills. Keane looked to his right and was surprised to see cavalry closing in on his flank as they descended. He shouted to von Krokenburgh.

‘What’s that there? French?’

On their captain’s command, six of the hussars turned and rode towards the advancing troops, then returned and found their commander.

‘No, they’re Craufurd’s pickets. But the French have turned them. They’re pulling back to the river.’

They had all come down now, and as they did so the retiring British cavalry caught up with them.

Keane found a cornet of horse. ‘Any idea what’s happening?’

‘The French, sir. Coming on in some force. More than we can manage. We’re falling back. Who are you?’

‘The general knows us. Keane and the guides and a troop of the German hussars.’

The young officer rode off and Keane watched him go, followed at a pace by his men, Light Dragoons in helmets like their own, and then the remainder of von Krokenburgh’s parent regiment.