Beat the Drums Slowly (33 page)

‘Yes, but could we blow it up?’ asked Williams. ‘I am no engineer, but it looks pretty solid to me.’

‘Typical bloody Spanish; do a really good job when you don’t want them to,’ answered Groombridge. ‘To be honest, sir, I do not know. We don’t have that much powder.’

‘Well, get the artificers to have a look and see if they can prepare things. I do not believe we can rely on that, so we must prepare for the defence. We have to be able to hold them today and probably most of tomorrow. By that time the general will either have sent us help or told us to abandon the attempt.’

There was another obvious alternative, but none of them chose to speak it aloud. ‘Right, apart from the gun crews, we’ll split everyone else into three groups. The riflemen with half a dozen others will give us some skirmishers. Everyone else is split into two platoons. You will lead one, Sergeant Jowers, and Corporal Mulligan will take the other. Split them up any way you like. From now on keep them together. You’ll work as a group and fight as a group.’

Williams gave each of them their tasks before sitting down with paper and pencil borrowed from Groombridge to write a message. He thought for a while about how to address the commander of the army, and for a moment the impudence of what he was doing seemed appalling. He kept things simple and soon it was done.

Brandt carried the message, riding on Bobbie and leading one of the lancer’s mounts. As Williams watched him go, Jane looked up into his face and tried to read the officer’s thoughts.

‘You understand, I trust, why I had to remain,’ she said. ‘That hussar will be a better messenger.’

‘I had hoped to send him back down the road to look for the French.’ Williams told himself that his desire to send the girl back to the army was for a practical reason, and not simply because he wanted her safe. After a while, he added, ‘Yes, I do understand.’ He did not look at her, but watched the diminishing figure of the hussar. Behind them, they heard Groombridge’s voice bellowing out instructions.

‘The number seven stands to the right of the muzzle. His job is to ram the charge and sponge out the barrel. The number eight stands to the left …’

‘I could not hope to take the baby with me.’ Jane continued her explanation quietly, but firmly. ‘At least, not if I was to ride quickly.’ Williams had suggested that she pass the child to one of the women.

‘Yes,’ he said. He still looked away, afraid that if he saw her then he would not be able to stop himself from taking her in his arms.

‘And surely the dispatch will be treated more seriously if delivered by a dragoon.’

‘Probably.’

‘I do understand your concern, and know that your suggestion was a mark of trust, and also intended to remove me from danger.’

‘A lone ride through mountains in the midst of a war may not be entirely without peril.’

Jane was pleased to see the faint smile. ‘But I simply could not leave when others had to stay.’

‘They are soldiers.’

‘And the women, and the children?’

‘They’re followers.’

‘And I am the daughter of an officer, raised to understand duty. What would your men think if they saw me ride away to safety? They would think that you had no hope.’

Groombridge sounded frustrated. ‘The number nine stands between the right wheel and the muzzle. Before the gun is fired he steps back outside the line of the wheel. And if you don’t we’ll be scraping you off it!’

‘Most of them must realise already that there is little hope.’ He tried to shake off the doubt. ‘If we are lucky, and they do not come too soon or in too great force, then perhaps …’

‘So I will stay to show that I am confident of success. More than that, it shows that you believe in it.’

His smile became broader. She understood as well as he could possibly have hoped. ‘We had better win, then. I should be broken hearted to disappoint them.’ At last he turned to her, and Jane felt she saw more genuine respect mingled with his admiration than she had ever seen there before.

‘I should emphasise that my assistance does not extend to digging your ditches or learning to fire your cannons.’

‘Shame. I was rather relying upon you.’

She slipped her hand into his.

Corporal Mulligan stamped to attention and saluted. ‘Mr Williams, sir. Would you mind showing us where you want these stakes?’ He had sent a party away from the river, looking for timber. They found a farm, just under a mile away, but hidden behind the hills. The women and children, along with the sick incapable of fighting, were to go there and shelter. Most of the roof was still on the house. The barn was a ruin, and the men had pulled down as many of the timbers as they could and chopped them into six-foot lengths.

‘Certainly.’ The girl’s fingers uncurled from around his without any other visible sign. ‘I will come with you now.’

Williams tried to imagine how the French would come. The road bent sharply as it came down a deep cutting towards the bridge. The low rocky mound stood to the left, and gave them more cover to form up. It was the obvious place to occupy with sharpshooters who would fire at any defenders on or behind the bridge. To the right of the road was an open field leading up to the sheer cliffs which dropped down to the river. Anything forming there was in plain sight and had little cover. So if the French had only cavalry then they would form up behind the mound and back on the road and then charge straight across.

The bridge was narrow, and at most three horsemen could cross at a time. Once they were over, the road wound sharply left again, looping round the slope to which the little stone shack clung. There was another round hill on this side, larger and higher. The riflemen could go there, and with luck dominate any enemy skirmishers on the far bank. Behind the hill, beside the road and out of sight, would be one of the cannon under Cooke. Twenty yards back on the other side of the road the ground dipped a good five feet or so and Mulligan and his platoon would wait there. Jowers and the rest of the men would be on the road next to the gun, as would Williams himself. Groombridge and the other twelve-pounder would be in the lee of the shack. There was not quite enough room to hide the big gun, so they would try covering it with blankets, including the white sheet Williams had worn the previous night. The French would see something odd, but if they were not expecting to meet artillery they might not know what it was. Perhaps.

Williams had toyed with the idea of blocking the bridge with the wagon, but that would have given the enemy cover right on the crossing itself. Instead he wanted to lure them on, bring them across and then savage the head of the charge. To do that he needed to make sure that they could not spread quickly to either side of the road and swamp them with numbers. Hence the stakes.

‘I want a line either side of the road. Put them about a yard out, leaning towards the road, and then sharpen the tops.’ He thought for a moment. ‘How wide is a horse?’

Mulligan pondered for a moment. ‘Couple of feet, I suppose.’

‘I want it so that a cavalryman can’t squeeze through between them.’

‘How about we put them a yard apart and then have another line a couple of feet back and in the gaps.’

‘Excellent. The ground’s hard so it won’t be easy.’

‘We’ll manage, sir.’ The corporal was holding a bulky sledgehammer.

‘I got the idea from Agincourt,’ said Williams.

Mulligan shook his head. ‘Don’t know the gentleman, sir.’ The officer was not quite sure whether the man was serious.

Williams walked on to the bridge. The two artificers had prised up one of the stones. Underneath was hard-packed gravel.

‘Going to be hard to shift,’ said the older of the two men.

A shot split the peaceful air. ‘Cavalry!’ shouted the sentry up on the rocky hill. Williams looked and spotted a lance pennant just above the point where the road dipped into the ravine to come down to the bridge. Far too far even for a rifle shot. ‘Two of them, sir!’

So much for surprise, he thought wearily. It was only a patrol, but they would have seen red coats and blue and would know that there were soldiers – British soldiers – around the bridge. Maybe there was one more surprise. Williams turned back to the artificers.

‘Make a trail of powder leading back from this hole. Do it so that they can see you.’

‘What’s the point, sir? We haven’t even made space for a charge, let alone put one in place.’

‘Yes, but they won’t know that, will they.’

And perhaps, Williams thought to himself, just perhaps, it will make them rush.

I
t was raining again, and the drops spattered on to the churned soil as Murphy piled up a little cairn over the grave. His wife’s tears flowed as quickly as the rain could wash them away. It was a terrible thing, and maybe worse for a woman, although he knew that he would miss the little chuckles of the boy. He had been growing, and it seemed every day he was more aware of them, and alert to what went on around him. Mary tried to sing, and the words choked so he sang for her as he had heard others lament at funerals. He knew she would have liked a priest, but he had not been able to find one. They had arrived in the dark and left the straggling village before dawn. The child had died some time during their short hours of sleep. Mary had been so weary that it was only when she woke that she realised what had happened. The other women had gathered, and some had tried to rub life back into the little body while others comforted the mother.

In not much more than a day the reserve had marched forty miles, through sleet and later the driving rain. There was little food and no shelter, and no wagons left with room to carry the women and children. Esther MacAndrews was walking as often as she rode, letting one of the exhausted wives sit uncomfortably astride her horse to give them some rest. The major’s wife was starting to look old and drawn, but she still fussed over the children and encouraged the women along. She had wept when she saw the little corpse, and pushed her way through the others to embrace poor Mrs Murphy. Esther remembered the black despair of burying her own children.

There were corpses all along the road. The horses were heaped on either side, some cut by hungry men looking for meat and others gnawed by vermin. Dead men were getting more common, almost as frequent as those lying incapably drunk. The cold had killed a lot. At one cluster of bodies, the grenadiers had been sent to rout up any they could. The men had become more brutal, kicking at the prone figures or even prodding them with bayonets. Hanley had walked over to a cluster of red shapes around a shattered cask. They lay in a circle – three men, a woman and a boy of no more than ten. Some of the rum from the barrel had stained wide patches of ice a darker shade. All five of the people were dead, and he struggled to understand the thoughts of such desperate, hopeless folk as they lapped at the drink until they fell asleep where they lay and never woke up. Later they passed corpses fallen in the road and trampled into the mire by men too weary to step around them.

The Spanish guns and transport that had taken this road had nearly all given out in this last stretch. Some of the collapsed animals lay in their traces, tongues lolling out and eyes rolling madly. General Paget ordered parties of men to put them out of their misery. The men of the Royal Horse Artillery were busy painting or chalking ‘SPANISH’ on each of the abandoned carriages, for they did not want Bonaparte claiming to have taken their guns. The stuff was washing off in the rain almost as soon as they applied it. Pringle had not had the energy to wander over to the officer in charge and ask him whether he really thought it would stop the French Emperor claiming whatever he wanted.

Among the debris of the Army of Galicia’s train were carts piled high with uniform jackets and trousers, greatcoats and blankets, and the even greater prize of boots. Quartermasters rode among the mass of soldiers from the reserve calling out for them to leave the stores for their allies. The Spanish were not there, nor likely to be before the French, and the men were in need now. MacAndrews listened to the complaints of one captain from the Quartermaster General’s department with every mark of respect and sympathy. He assured him that the 106th would take nothing, and enthusiastically damned the rogues from other regiments who so readily resorted to plunder. At the same time he let his officers turn a blind eye, and it was only when the order came to press on quickly that they drew the men away. There was a rumour that a French column was pushing round the flank to cut them off and so the march continued through the night.

Dobson kept his old worn-out boots and put them in his pack when other men tossed theirs away with a curse. He also took some for Murphy, who had been barefoot for days. Three hours of marching destroyed almost every pair of the new shoes. Uppers came away from soles owing to bad stitching. Worse were the shoes, where two wafer-thin layers of leather sole were padded out by nothing more than clay.

Hanley’s disgust vented itself as he stood with Pringle and watched the engineers completing their preparations to blow up the stone bridge outside Nogales. ‘Is it not shameful?’ he said bitterly as he saw Murphy once again with his feet merely wrapped in rags. ‘To supply such trash to our ally.’

‘The stuff we get is not always much better.’ Pringle was equally gloomy, but had little appetite or energy for anger. ‘I dare say some noble man of commerce decided that there was even less likely to be a complaint if the goods were being shipped off to another country.’