Beat the Drums Slowly (22 page)

‘He repeats his complaint at the misbehaviour of our soldiers,’ said Graham wearily.

Sir John forced himself to wait a moment, lest his rage become apparent. He also noted that the Spanish general had changed the subject and suspected that this was meant as a distraction from the main issue.

‘Tell him that as commanders we must each look to the discipline and welfare of our own men. That soldiers without food are inclined to take whatever they need.’

The Spanish soldiers were desperate. They broke into houses searching for food and drink. Others rifled the stores carefully prepared here to support both armies. The British quartermasters and commissaries were already struggling to prepare some of their supplies for immediate issue, others for transport and the rest for destruction, when the system was thrown into chaos by mobs of starving Spanish troops. His own soldiers – Moore had never before in his life believed that he could be ashamed that they were his – were quick to follow suit. They hunted for food and most of all for wine. Spanish and British soldiers threatened the townspeople if they did not get what they wanted. They were equally ready to turn on each other. There was fighting, and he would be surprised if no deaths had occurred.

‘His officers must take back control of their men, as my own will do with our soldiers,’ said Sir John. Privately he doubted that order would be restored until the troops left the town. At present it was simply too easy for individuals to vanish into the streets, and avoid the gaze of the regimental officers and sergeants who would recognise them and be able to inflict punishment.

Astorga was a grim sight, and the acrid smell of smoke was everywhere, filling Sir John’s nostrils. Fires burned on open patches of ground as stocks of stores were destroyed to deny them to the enemy. Dead horses and bullocks lay in all of the yards and even in the streets, killed because they were no longer able to go on. More animals were still waiting dumbly for execution. There had been sufficient order to issue a musket to every Spanish soldier who lacked one. Moore’s own men got less attention. Blankets, uniforms and boots so desperately needed were all too often burned instead of being given out.

La Romana sighed heavily, and then plunged again into another enthusiastic oration. Sir John waited for the translation.

‘He says that Bonaparte himself has left the army,’ explained Graham. They had already heard the rumour, but did not know whether it was true. ‘Surely this is a time to strike, when the French are without their leader.’

Sir John restated the impossibility of attacking, and the risk they would run remaining where they were. There were only two passes into Astorga, and in other circumstances he would have been happy to hold them. At present there was simply no useful object to be served. In the end, Romana gave up his wild plans with a most generous grace.

‘The Spanish artillery cannot use the road to the west,’ Graham summarised the general’s explanation. ‘So they must continue north to Lugo. The rest of the Army of Galicia will march to Orense, away from us.’

‘Express my thanks.’ That was good enough. Sir John had already decided to send some of his own brigades by the western roads, which in time would take them to the port of Vigo. It spread the burden when it came to quarters and supplies, and it would also give him a chance to hold the port open, should he have to shift the rest of the army in that direction.

One problem was dealt with, although he still had to decide how much of his army to send by the western route. Explaining his actions to London was unlikely to be so simple. He returned to a small room in the house chosen as his headquarters, trying to compose the letter he would write. If only the ministers could see the wretched state of the Spanish soldiers, starving and riddled with fever, or know what it meant to deal with such unpredictable and disorganised allies. How could he fight on his own, when the Spanish were so woefully unprepared? He was sceptical that the government, at such a safe distance, still in a comfortable haze of optimism and false reports, would understand the true position. Even if they did privately, politicians were unlikely to make public acknowledgement of the truth if it was personally inexpedient. Sir John’s own time as an MP had taught him that lesson most thoroughly.

Out in the streets of Astorga, Major MacAndrews almost screamed aloud as he saw boxes full of shoes perishing in the flames. He and Esther went to the headquarters of each brigade, asking in case anyone had news of his daughter. His wife was shrewd enough to know as he did that there was little hope. If Jane, or for that matter Williams, had made their way here, they would have sought out and found the regiment. They looked anyway. He knew that Pringle and Hanley were out and about on the same errand. Indeed, it had taken something close to a direct order delivered to the other officers via Brotherton to stop almost everyone else joining them.

There was no news, only the signs of looting and destruction. Most of the Spanish and other British troops had begun to move out earlier in the day, and so the streets themselves were less crowded. Despondently he returned to their billet, and found that he was ordered to attend General Paget.

Hanley and Pringle gave up at about the same time. The Grenadier Company was divided between two big houses, and once again the officers had no separate accommodation. When they had arrived, the town was too full to allow any more generous allowance. Pringle had felt it better for each of them to reside with half of the company, rather than together. Hanley would have preferred to stay with his friend. He felt like an intruder among the men and their families, unable to understand them. Some of the smaller children stared at him in a way that made him feel deeply uncomfortable. He felt a reserve among the adults, and was at a loss how to talk with them. It seemed so much easier for Williams, no doubt from his time as a volunteer serving alongside the men. Yet even Pringle was more at ease with the company than Hanley felt he would ever find possible. The redcoats seemed separate from him in every way, stronger than he was, while being as wild and unpredictable as infants.

The house allocated to his half of the company was quieter by the time Hanley returned, and had lost just a little of its Hogarthian quality. Most of the children were now asleep, or at least quiet, and the little wine the company possessed had already been drunk. His earnest hope that none had been able to drink to excess appeared to be doomed as he watched a burly fellow named Eyles strutting at the end of the room, next to one of the three locked doors where the owners slept and kept their valuables.

‘Br-br-bruck-buck-buckbuck.’ The impression was remarkably good, if rather startling in its unexpectedness. He tried again, leaning down to the bottom of the door. Moving on, he began to make more chicken noises at the next door.

‘What the devil …?’ Hanley began.

‘Sam’ll have ’em soon,’ Sergeant Probert replied. ‘He grew up on a farm.’ It seemed an inadequate explanation, but none of the expectant soldiers was inclined to add any more. At the third door, Eyles tried again. He stopped to listen and then clucked even more loudly. The answer was faint. He repeated the call and again came the reply.

‘Right, lads, that’s the one.’ Probert sprang towards the door as one of the men tried to use his bayonet to get into the crack and spring the lock. ‘Out the way, let Salty have a go.’ The sergeant was one of very few genuine Welshmen in the 106th, in spite of their official designation as ‘The Glamorganshire Regiment’. At his bidding Jim Salt, a man whose military career began at the suggestion of a magistrate, crouched down over the lock, a curiously shaped piece of metal in his hand.

Hanley was too fascinated to remember that as an officer he should probably be preventing this. They had the door open in less than a minute, and as Eyles repeated his call, a cockerel and half a dozen hens processed into the main room. The speed and savagery with which each was seized and its neck wrung dismayed him, after which it seemed too late for any protest. This was not the opinion of the owner of the house, who must have been drawn by the strange noise. His complaints were shrill, although he did not risk coming fully into the room packed with the frightening foreign soldiers.

At that moment Corporal Atkinson from the battalion headquarters appeared, informing Hanley that officers were summoned by the major. He was glad to go, feeling there was nothing to be said. If the redcoats didn’t take the owner’s poultry then the French surely would. Hanley wondered about giving him some money as payment, and then realised he was too tired to care.

‘We are now the rearguard,’ MacAndrews told his assembled officers. ‘The light brigades are marching to Vigo. The hussars are staying with us for the moment, but the burden of the work is likely to fall on the Reserve Division. It is the usual form. The rest of the army will be between one and two days’ march in advance of us. Our task is to keep an eye on the French, and stop them from getting too forward.’

Hanley was yawning when he got back to the house. A boiled chicken leg was presented to him almost immediately. Eating it reminded him of just how hungry he was. He was also so very tired that even the bare stone floor in a crowded room seemed the height of luxury as he lay down, covered himself in a blanket and was quickly asleep.

The next morning the battalion went only five miles along the grand road, built not long before by the Spanish to connect Madrid to the north coast. A convoy of carts blocked the road ahead of them for a long while. Each wagon was full of sick and wounded Spanish soldiers, whose numbers had swamped the few surgeons in their army. Hanley had never before seen so many faces of people so obviously waiting for death.

The division was to stop for the night and for once the 106th were comfortable. The village did not look much, but the remaining inhabitants were welcoming, and their houses showed every sign of being well maintained in spite of their poverty. There was ample chopped straw to keep the fires going, and more that provided the most luxurious bedding they had enjoyed for a long time. If there was less food than they would have liked, then that was merely a proof that life was not perfect. The officers at least were content to discover very little wine in the place. On the whole the battalion was happy. Hanley was not surprised when he heard the grenadiers singing.

The drums beat to muster ten minutes later. Hussars were falling back past the houses as the Reserve Division mustered in the fields outside. The French were coming and there would be no easy night. As the redcoats stood in formation, big flakes of snow began to drift down, settling for a moment on the tops of shakos before they melted. Soon the march resumed, but it was good to be on a road that had a firm rocky bed, leaving behind the sucking mud of so many miles. Steadily, the route wound upwards, into hills already covered with inches of snow. There was no wind and Hanley soon found that he did not notice the cold. He marched at the rear of the Grenadier Company, and the steady tread of their boots on the hard road became the only sound in the world. No one sang, and no one talked. They were marching at ease, and yet habit and convenience kept them all in step.

Hanley woke with a start as he fell against Murphy’s wooden-framed backpack. The battalion ahead had stopped for some reason, and so the 106th had also halted.

‘Are you all right, your Honour?’ Private Murphy had wrapped his shoeless feet in rags for warmth, and he must have been as tired as everyone else, as well as worried about his wife and child, walking with the baggage. He still looked as if he were merely out for a gentle stroll on a summer’s afternoon.

‘I am so sorry,’ stammered Hanley, still dull witted. He could not believe that he had fallen asleep while marching.

‘It takes you that way, sometimes,’ said Dobson. The veteran had been much less withdrawn since recovering from his drunk. ‘Trick is to make the most of it.’

‘Ten-minute rest.’ Pringle passed on the order. Most of the men took off their packs and sat on them. Pipes were lit. One or two men slept.

By the time they moved again, Hanley was starting to feel the cold. The road continued to climb, and as it did, the temperature dropped. The gradient was designed to allow carts to pass, but even so he found his legs were aching with the steady climb. He was hot when they were moving, and had to pull his heavy cloak tightly around him whenever they halted. Pringle came to chat for a while, and then returned to his place beside the front rank. Hanley did his best to keep his mind occupied. He thought of paintings he liked, and tried to remember any where the landscapes were covered in snow. None had ever looked as bleak as these hills. Then for some reason lines of the
Iliad
came to him, and so he tried to recite softly all that he could remember of the poem, with all its vigour, horror, jealousy and friendship. It seemed more immediate to him than ever before. A cynical part of him wondered whether Achilles and Ajax were as scruffy and tired as the men around him. It would have been dust rather than mud and snow, but no doubt the plains of Ilium were uncomfortable enough in their own way. He thought of men in bronze helmets and armour with brazen shields, fighting and dying while infested with lice and weak from dysentery.

They marched all night and into the next day. Major MacAndrews had known a few uncomfortable New Year’s Eves in the past. He had been not quite sixteen when they were called out in the dying days of ’76 to chase George Washington. He told himself that that cold had been worse and that he was getting soft now. Most of the time he walked rather than rode, using his horse only if he needed to go quickly to the rear of the battalion or was summoned by one of the generals.