Beat the Drums Slowly (34 page)

‘It is a betrayal.’

‘It is business – and the man behind it will probably die rich and fat. He will never know the joy of sleeping in a snowdrift and being chased by the French!’ Pringle could see his friend still seethed with rage, so decided to be practical. ‘There are plenty of cordwainers and cobblers on the books. Perhaps we can get them to repair the wretched things?’

There was a shout from the engineers, gesturing at everyone to stand back and be careful. The last riflemen had run back across to this bank and were reforming on their regiment. An engineer captain lit the powder trail, dashed back to the shelter of a ditch and crouched down. When it came, the explosion was flat, and sounded as damp as the rain.

‘How very unimpressive,’ said Pringle.

‘And useless too.’ Wind quickly drove the smoke away and they could see that the blast had done no more than take a chunk out of the side of the bridge. ‘Oh, our friends are back,’ added Hanley. On the hills in the distance they could see the drab shapes of French dragoons, with their long green cloaks over their uniforms.

The march resumed and the pace stayed quick. Halfway through the day they came to another bridge, with four elegant arches which Hanley was positive were Roman. ‘It seems criminal to harm it.’

‘They must have heard you,’ commented Pringle, after another disappointing explosion had done little more than chip some of the stonework.

‘They built well, the Romans,’ said Hanley admiringly.

The next stream proved to be readily fordable for a hundred yards on either side, prompting General Paget to tell the engineers to save their efforts for more fruitful projects. All of the hussars had pulled back behind the reserve, their horses quite used up, and so the rearguard was formed solely by the infantry and the Horse Artillery Troop. In the afternoon, the general attempted a ruse, ordering the gunners to unlimber their six-pounders and then leave them in plain view as if abandoned. The captain Pringle had seen supervising the painting of abandoned Spanish equipment was today visibly enjoying the risk to his own cannon. The 28th waited, concealed on the far side of the hill behind the guns, while the grenadiers and Light Company of the 106th watched from a patch of woodland on the other side of the road. A few French dragoons forded the stream when the rest of the reserve moved off. They were reluctant to push any farther, and after half an hour, the general gave up and had the guns hitched back to the limbers and taken away. In the horse artillery all of the gunners had their own horses or sat on the limbers, so they moved off quickly, as the infantry trudged more sedately behind. In the next valley, parties of the 95th were waiting to resume their role as rearmost outposts.

Several times the Reserve Division halted again and formed up, facing the enemy. The riflemen fired a few times with little result, and the French replied with their carbines to even less effect. General Paget was everywhere, cursing the enemy, snapping at his own men and then urging them on or giving orders directly to captains and even subalterns. His staff, including Captain Wickham, trailed behind him, or dashed off on errands whenever the general had a mind to send them.

Wickham was cold and wet and found the day increasingly tedious. Neither side appeared to be achieving anything. Once the general sent him running to the top of a high hill to report on what he could see, and that made him wetter still because there was no shelter from the driving wind up there. Nor was there much more to see. The French were there, a few patrols half a mile or so beyond the 95th and the rest farther back.

When Wickham had half run, half stumbled down the hill, he found the general leaning against a wall as the 91st went past on the road. The Highlanders’ gaiters and bare legs were thickly covered in mud. None of them paid any attention when a very tall and extremely thin officer rode past them and reined in next to the general.

‘Pray, sir, where is General Paget?’ he asked in a strangely deep and very precise voice. He was clearly a man accustomed to neatness and efficiency. Even in the rain his skin looked dry, and he kept licking his thin lips. Wickham had to admit that at this moment Paget scarcely looked like a general. His drab cloak was stained and frayed around the edges, and his hat was both bare of any plume and considerably misshapen from exposure to the weather. It also lay on the top of the wall beside him. His hair was plastered flat against his head and his chin boasted at least two days of bristly growth. His patience was even more threadbare. Neither he nor any of his staff bothered to reply, or indeed acknowledge the man in any way.

‘Come, come. Where is General Paget?’

The general donned his hat. ‘I am General Paget, sir. Pray tell me, what are your orders?’ One of his eyes was half closed, and Wickham knew from experience that this was not a good sign.

‘Oh, I beg pardon, sir.’ The tone implied that the fault was not his own. ‘I am the Paymaster General …’

‘Alight, sir,’ Sir Edward interrupted. His right eye flickered.

The paymaster general hesitated, then drew his feet from the stirrups and swung himself down slowly, as if humouring a child. ‘I am the Paymaster General. The treasure of the army is only a short way ahead, but the bullocks are jaded and quite done in – absolutely done in. They cannot proceed farther, and so I must have fresh animals to draw the treasure forward.’

Sir Edward looked around him. When he spoke his voice was low. ‘Pray, sir, do you take me for a bullock driver or muleteer?’ Already the words were growing louder, as his face became redder.

‘Or, knowing who I am, are you coolly telling me that through your own neglect or total ignorance of your duty you are about to lose the treasure committed to your charge, which, according to your account, must shortly fall into the hands of the enemy? Those, sir, are French cavalry.’ The general was almost shouting as he pointed at a line of horsemen on the far ridgeline. ‘It is possible that you have never seen them before so do not recognise them. Had you, sir, the slightest conception of your duty, you would have known that you ought to be a day’s march ahead of the whole army, instead of hanging back with your foundered bullocks and carts upon the rearmost company of the rearguard, and making your report at the very moment when that company is absolutely engaged with an advancing enemy. What, sir!’

The paymaster general was crouching as if he could somehow shelter from Sir Edward’s fury, which continued unabated. ‘To come to me and impede my march with your carts, and ask me to look for bullocks when I should be free from all encumbrances and my mind occupied by no other care than that of disposing my troops to best advantage in resisting the approaching enemy!

It is doubtful, sir, whether your conduct can be attributed to ignorance and neglect alone!’

‘But, sir …’ All confidence had fled from the paymaster’s voice and yet his sense of formalities was still well enough entrenched for this weak protest.

‘But, sir! You God-damned rogue! How dare you, sir! You ought to be hanged, and if I could find a high enough tree I shall damned well do it myself!’ There was more, but Sir Edward managed to keep most of it under his breath. ‘Sir, attend to the duties you have so woefully neglected. Take what you can, but neither your money nor your carts will delay me for even a moment. If your bullocks block the road, we shall shoot them, and if you waste any more of my time I will bloody well shoot you as well. Now go, sir!’

Wickham told Pringle the story as the grenadiers pushed several of the carts over a low cliff not far from the road. The men were enjoying the destruction. As the wagons fell, some of the barrels split open, scattering shiny silver dollars into the snow.

‘Nineteen barrels, five thousand in each,’ said the subaltern in charge of the escort. He seemed overwhelmingly relieved to be rid of the responsibility. ‘God knows how many steps in promotion!’

Wickham watched the falling money with a desperate hunger. He had been pleased to be sent on this errand and had hoped to profit. There had been no chance, and so he watched the atrocious waste. The French would have the silver and many of them would become rich. Down that slope lay the path to comfort, security and respectable society, and it was so tantalisingly close that he almost wept. He looked around, trying to remember the spot, although he could not see any prospect of this being of real value.

The rearguard pressed on, passing over yet another bridge. The 106th were not at the very rear, so for a while heard only the sporadic shots of the riflemen, and the duller booms of the six-pounders as the French pursuers were made to keep their distance. They formed in a valley behind, but the short defence proved enough to slow the enemy, and when the horse artillery and 95th withdrew, the rest of the Reserve Division was able to march unmolested. They pressed on throughout the night, thankful that the rain slackened and then stopped. It was still dry when the sun rose and broke through the clouds.

The 106th reached Lugo around ten in the morning. All ranks were pleased to hear that for a while the reserve would not be called upon to provide outposts, and even the news that this meant continuing the march for another five miles before they could rest did not dampen spirits. They marched through the bivouac of the Guards’ Brigade. It seemed a different world. The men were in their shirtsleeves and trousers, sitting at ease around campfires and with jackets and belts newly cleaned and draped over bushes to dry. Cordial insults were exchanged on both sides as the dirty, mostly barefoot 106th marched past. Hanley was at the rear of the company and noticed that the men stiffened to march more formally, Sergeant Probert calling out the step. Half of them wore odd coloured bits of looted Spanish uniform.

‘Who are you, bloody harlequins?’

‘No, we’re soldiers. Who are you?’

The French arrived in the afternoon. Sir John Moore watched their advance guard take up positions facing his own army. The French were in considerable numbers, and he guessed that Marshal Soult had slowed his advance so that he could concentrate a bigger force.

Sir John scanned the enemy with his glass, comparing notes with his staff officers.

‘Two brigades of cavalry, a division of infantry already in position and one – perhaps two – more on the way. Assuming that there are two, what would you make that in total, Colborne?’

The ever-efficient staff officer already had the answer. ‘Twenty thousand, or perhaps a little more.’

The general nodded. ‘Yes, that is my guess.’ He had some nineteen thousand or so men. One fresh brigade, standing out in their neat uniforms, joined the army at Lugo. The rest were all very tired, and some virtually exhausted after an order had not been passed on and several brigades had been sent on an unnecessary diversion. Sir David Baird had given it to a dragoon to carry, and the man had got himself drunk. So the men had marched for more than a day over atrocious roads in appalling conditions before the mistake was corrected, and then had to come back the way they had gone.

Sir John knew that his soldiers were very weary. Their spirit was harder to judge. There had been more abuses in the last days, more theft and drunkenness. In anger he had declared that he would rather be a shoeblack than the general of such an army.

‘Many officers will be offended at such a harsh verdict on the discipline of their regiments,’ one of his brigade commanders had said.

‘Well, let them damned well be offended,’ Sir John replied coldly. ‘As long as they are shamed into doing their duty!’ Yet for all his rage, Moore could tell that something of the army’s mood had changed. He could see it as they rode through the encampment. It was not just the rest which was welcome. The entire army was keen to fight – even the men whose behaviour seemed the worst. They had all seemed to revive.

The position was not a bad one, and Sir John was sorely tempted to fight, at least if Soult was fool enough to attack. The elderly but ever-enthusiastic Colonel Graham did his best to foster this enthusiasm in his friend.

‘Well, Sir John, after we have beaten them, you will take us on in pursuit of them for a few days, won’t you?’

‘No.’ The general’s voice was firm. ‘I have had enough of Galicia.’

‘Oh! But just a few days after them,’ Graham pleaded. ‘You must take us.’

The colonel got no answer.

The next morning the commander and his staff again rode out to observe the enemy. Colonel Graham’s aggressive impulses remained strong, but he was preoccupied by instinctive flirtation with the two ladies who accompanied them. One was the wife of Colonel MacKenzie of the newly arrived 5th Foot, and the other was Esther MacAndrews. Graham was especially delighted that both were Scots, at least by marriage.

Major Colborne was the first to see the puffs of smoke from the far ridge. The French gunners judged remarkably well and two of the shot bounced so close that they frightened the horses as they skidded past. Both ladies calmed their beasts most handsomely. As the staff withdrew a little way, one of General Hill’s aides arrived leading a light dragoon from the German Legion. The man was swaying in the saddle and Sir John at first wondered whether another courier had got himself drunk on duty. Then he noticed that the man’s right arm hung limp and useless.

Brandt struggled to stay conscious. The pain in his broken arm burned him with every movement, but he was determined to take the news directly to the general and unwilling to trust anyone else’s assurances. It had been a hard ride, and the mare had shied at nothing more than a startled bird whirring out of a thicket, and when she bucked, she had come on to a soft drift and had fallen, taking him with her. The horse he was leading ran off. He was not sure how long he had been unconscious, but Bobbie had remained beside him. Getting into the saddle was hard with one arm, and riding harder through the night. When he reached the outposts of the army he had met with only suspicion and delay. Yet the army was the army, and his stubborn insistence had always ended up with him being passed on to ever-higher authority. At last he had done it.