Beat the Drums Slowly (32 page)

In the village where he had left his men, an old woman with long and filthy white hair screamed abuse at a lieutenant of cuirassiers. Three small urchins added their wails to the noise. She struck at his breastplate, yelling that her daughter had the fever and that no one should come into the little room with its pitiful fire. The tall soldier ignored the blow, and looked past her to see a hunched shape in a bed piled high with blankets. There was a smell of sweat and excrement. He stepped back, hands held up palm outwards to placate the old witch. He left, and told the men to steer clear of the little one-roomed house at the end of the alley.

The woman bolted the door and hoped none of the French would return. She walked to the bed and looked down at the face of the girl lying there. Her forehead was still hot, her skin waxy, and the long dark hair which might normally have been most becoming hung lankly around her.

It was not her daughter, but a stranger found by her grandchildren out in the fields. She had fallen from her mule and been barely conscious. When they took her to their house and laid her out on the bed, the old lady quickly spotted the traces of recent childbirth – presumably ending in tragedy since there was no sign of a child. That had been days ago, and the fever had soon come upon the stranger. The Spanish woman looked after her without thinking why, just as she looked after everyone else who came her way. No one in the village recognised the girl. In her dreams she spoke words in a language no one knew so it seemed that she was foreign – English most likely. That was one reason for hiding her from the French. Another was that they were invaders, who forced their way into people’s homes and stole their food or worse.

Soaking a piece of rag, she pressed it over the girl’s forehead. The fever would break in the next day or the girl would die. The woman said a prayer, and had asked the priest to do the same. There was nothing else to be done apart from watching over her.

Jenny murmured again without waking.

W
illiams inched his way through the snow. His arms were cold and stiff, and protested as he forced them to keep pulling him onwards. Somewhere behind him were Mulligan and three men, all with muskets and fixed bayonets. Farther back, on the boulders that stood at the bend in the road, were Jowers and another five. He wished he knew all of them better, and had to admit that he was not even sure of the names of some of the privates. Scammell was with Mulligan’s party. At least he could be relied upon for stealth if not for honesty of character. None of the muskets was loaded. He had insisted on that, fearing an accident which would betray their presence.

He was close now, and could see the silhouette of the man pacing beside the wall of the bridge. His hat was square topped, so presumably he was one of the lancers, although on this night he cradled a carbine with fixed bayonet.

Williams had a knife, and only that. To take a loaded pistol when he denied his men loaded firelocks would have been unfair, as well as unwise, since there was the same risk of it going off by chance. His sword was too awkward to take when he knew that he must crawl the last hundred yards. The knife had come from the village. It was long and narrow, of the sort the Spanish favoured, and the old man who had given it to him seemed genuinely excited by the prospect that it would be employed against the French.

The sentry turned and came back across the bridge towards him. Williams froze. He had cut a hole in a sheet and wore the thing over his head so that as he lay his jacket and part of his trousers were sheathed in white. Cloud covered the moon’s glow, and so the light was poor. He doubted that there was much chance of being seen, as long as he did not move too suddenly.

The lancer stopped. Williams heard a faint humming. It sounded like one of the fandangos the Spanish loved, so no doubt the man had heard it since coming to Spain. Williams knew something about the boredom of long spells on guard. He watched now as the Pole stamped his feet, and then turned to walk diagonally across the bridge.

Williams crawled forward. As his arms brushed against the snow the noise sounded deafening to him, but the sentry did not react and just continued his quiet singing. He turned again and Williams went still, trying even to temper his breathing in case this should give him away. He wished that he had Dobson with him, and then thought of poor Sally, and of Jenny, run off to goodness knew what fate. At least the baby was well. Williams tried to force his mind back to the task in hand.

It seemed to take an age, stopping and waiting each time the man’s pacing meant that he was facing in his direction. Williams was getting close. The dim light shone on the sentry’s bayonet when he turned, and his sabre clinked as it hung awkwardly. That sound must have been there all the time, and Williams wondered why he had not noticed it. He was almost at the end of the wall on the closest side of the bridge. The noise of flowing water was soft, but seemed to be coming from some way away. He hoped it would help to cover the noise he was making.

The sentry walked towards Williams and he could not believe that the Pole failed to spot him. The serious soldier in him was apt to despise a man who paid so little attention. Useless cavalry, he thought, and then struggled to stop himself from giggling because he sounded like some crusty old infantryman such as MacAndrews or Dobson. The Pole turned away.

Williams pushed himself up with one hand and drew the knife with the other. He stepped forward as quietly as he could. The Pole was still singing and then heard boots crunching on the ice. Williams dashed at him as the sentry began to turn, but the man’s movements seemed sluggish. The ensign’s left hand pushed aside the muzzle of the lancer’s carbine and grabbed him by the epaulette. The man gasped and then the slim blade slid underneath his chin, pointing upwards. It was less neat than he had intended, but he used all his strength to pull the man farther on to the blade. The Pole gasped, spitting blood over him, and more blood pumped from the wound in his neck. He let go of the carbine, and as it fell the bayonet stuck in the sheet. Desperately the man tried to grab Williams’ arms, but his strength was already going. He went limp, became dead weight, and the officer gently lowered the corpse to the ground.

The knife was embedded so firmly that he could not pull it free. As they had marched to the bridge during the night, Williams had tried to think of a way to deal with any sentries without killing them. He had not been able to come up with any plan that seemed likely to succeed. There was no time for regrets. He put the man’s hat on, and lifted his carbine, so that if anyone should approach they would assume the sentry was still in place – ideally until it was too late.

Mulligan was with him almost immediately, along with Scammell and one of the men from the 52nd. The other man had gone back to fetch Jowers and his men.

‘Neat work, sir,’ hissed the guardsman. Williams passed the hat and carbine to the man from the 52nd and took his musket and bayonet. The man was reluctant to give them up, which was an encouraging sign.

Earlier they had seen light from a low building on the far bank. When all of them were on the bridge, Williams left their own sentry in place and led the rest towards it. Up close, they could see only a single door. The back of the building butted against the slope. There was a heavily shuttered window in the wall facing the bridge. Williams put a man either side of it. He gestured for everyone to load and found himself automatically going through the familiar routine. He had only a single cartridge, but if things worked there should be no need to reload.

The door looked less solid than the shutters. He tapped Mulligan on the shoulder and the big man took a step back. Before he could launch himself at the door, it opened, and the dim light of a single candle dazzled men who had spent the last hours in darkness. The man at the door grunted in surprise.

A musket flamed, so close that the yellow tongue touched the Pole’s chest as Scammell shot him through the body. Mulligan barged the dying man out of the way, tripped on the threshold and his bayonet impaled a man who was rising from beside the door. The lancer screamed in agony. Another of the cavalryman was pulling a pistol and Williams stepped through the door and fired, the shot appallingly loud in the small room. Mulligan forced himself up, wrenching the bayonet from the wounded man, who shrieked again with pain. Williams had the musket levelled, ready to stab at the slightest hint of resistance. The Poles raised their hands quickly, but their faces looked vacant, still stunned by the rapid onslaught.

Williams wanted to rest, and felt that he could easily lie down on the dirty floor and sleep for days, but there was so much to do. He gave orders to Jowers and Mulligan to deal with the bodies, treat the wounded man, and ensure that the prisoners were kept under guard. Then he took one of the Poles’ horses and rode back to fetch Groombridge and the rest of the little column. It took hours for the guns and wagons to negotiate the trackway as it twisted and turned through a series of ravines on the road down to the bridge. The horses were giving out altogether, and the ensign blamed himself for not having thought of this and brought the other horses taken from the Poles to add to the weary teams. The sun was rising when they finally arrived, and the task of organising began afresh.

In full daylight Williams looked at the little stone bridge and wondered whether it was worth it – and indeed would be worth what he felt might happen here. There was a patch of deep red among the ice where he had killed the sentry. That man, and the other two Poles who had died in the attack, were wrapped in their cloaks and laid out by the stone house. Now that the wagon and tools were here he must get the prisoners to bury their own dead. The man Mulligan had bayoneted in the stomach was still alive, although his chances seemed poor.

‘Eighty-seven men, four women, including Miss MacAndrews, begging your pardon, one child and two babies.’ Lance Bombardier Cooke gave the list in a monotone, without any trace of interest or insight. ‘Nine of the men sick and have trouble walking. Sixty-eight muskets, about eight hundred cartridges, as well as the ones in the wagon, and three rifles with forty cartridges, and they say powder and ball for another fifty or so.’

‘You can add eight carbines and one hundred and sixty cartridges to the list,’ said Williams. He and the four NCOs stood on the bridge. ‘How much ammunition for the guns, Mr Groombridge?’

‘Some,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Each has a chest with fifteen rounds of grape and twenty shot and charges ready for use. There is another two dozen of grape in the wagon, and the three barrels of powder. There was a big convoy carrying proper reserves of ammunition to the Dons. God knows what’s happened to it.’

‘Well, we shall have to make do.’ Williams was trying his best to appear supremely confident.

‘So you are planning on staying put, sir?’ Mr Groombridge’s tone contained no hint that such an order could possibly be disobeyed, but was scarcely a ringing endorsement of its wisdom.

‘General Moore is taking the army to Lugo. He is probably already there. The talk is that he may turn and fight. That may be true or it may not. He’ll be on good ground and it depends on whether the French have the pluck to attack him. From everything we have heard the army needs time to rest and pull itself together.’ Williams used a stick to mark out a rough map in a patch of snow.

‘We are upriver from him. This is the closest route for the French to cross and we know their cavalry are in the area and know about it. They wouldn’t have left anyone here unless they were coming back. The villagers told us about a squadron or two. They are bound to be fetching more men. If they get cavalry across here in any force then they can come round the general’s flank. They can do that quickly. It will not be too long after that that there’ll be infantry as well. If they are quick they can hit our lads in the flank before they know what’s going on. Whatever happens, it will mean the general will have to pull out as best he can and fight off the French from two directions.’

They were listening. Cooke showed no sign of comprehension, but the others looked intent, and that was something.

‘The only place to stop them is here. With our handful we cannot hope to delay them in the open. Here they’ll be packed together as they cross. They won’t be expecting to meet real infantry here, only local peasants. They certainly won’t be expecting cannon.’

‘We have guns, Mr Williams, but no crews.’ Groombridge was raising a difficult question, but it was encouraging that he did not see it as conclusively damning the plan. ‘There is only myself and Cooke here. The Wee Gees know how to drive horses, but they have never fired a gun in their lives.’

‘Then you will have to show them. You teach and lead one crew, and the lance bombardier will take the other.’

‘Yes, sir. Very good, sir,’ said Groombridge. Cooke’s expression remained unaltered. ‘How long do you reckon we have to achieve this?’ asked the quartermaster sergeant.

‘Hopefully most of today. Perhaps all?’

‘Well, that’s all right, then.’ Groombridge seemed more amused than despondent. ‘May I ask on what you base that guess, sir?’

‘No, you may not.’

‘Ah, I thought so.’ He considered for a while. ‘Sounds about right, though. We’ll have to use them close up. Can’t teach men to aim well in that time. Doubt we’ll be fast either. So, while I’m performing this miracle, what will everyone else be doing? I assume you have already thought about the other possibility, sir. If there is no bridge then the French can’t cross it.’