Send Me Safely Back Again (7 page)

‘Canteen, Dob,’ said Williams, and the veteran looped the strap of his wooden canteen off his shoulder and passed it down. The general managed to swallow a little of the water.

There was a drumming of hoofs and Williams looked up, fearing a new threat, but instead it was a handful of Spanish officers and three troopers from the general’s escort. Colonel
D’Urban was with them and nodded cheerfully when he saw the redcoats.

‘Well done, Williams, well done indeed. And you too, Corporal Dobson. Now we must get him away.’

‘What about the French?’ asked Williams.

D’Urban’s face became grim. ‘They are fully occupied killing an army.’

There was one spare horse, and the general was lifted into the saddle, one of the troopers holding him around the waist. Dobson and Williams jogged either side to help support him.

They saw no French for five minutes as they followed the riverbank and the low hollow cutting on the side of the ridge where Hanley had sketched and Williams had slept a few hours ago. A couple of hussars joined them, and as they climbed on to the hill they were amazed to see a few grooms and servants still waiting in place for their masters. The two redcoats were given horses.

Williams turned to look back across the plain before following the others as they began to move off. Three months ago he had watched as a Spanish brigade was caught in a hopeless position and massacred by French cavalry. Now the same thing was happening to an army ten or twenty times the size. Many regiments had dissolved into hordes of fugitives streaming to the rear. Hussars in brown and blue and dragoons and chasseurs in green rode among them, hacking down without mercy.

A few battalions held together. Williams shaded his eyes to stare at two well-formed squares of men in dark blue.

‘The Royal Guard,’ said D’Urban, who had come to fetch the ensign. ‘Good soldiers, but there is little they can do.’ The French were moving up artillery to shatter the squares at close range while the cavalry kept them in the tight, vulnerable formation. ‘We must go.’

They saw few French, and as their numbers grew, the enemy pursuers were reluctant to close and went off in search of easier victims. A body of some fifty or so dragoons threatened to do more, but then a line of white-uniformed grenadiers marched up
from a hollow and levelled their muskets at the enemy. They were led by the tall, bespectacled officer, who had lost his bearskin cap and had a bloodstained bandage around his forehead.

The French dragoons withdrew. After two miles they saw no enemies at all, and had gathered hundreds of stragglers. No French reached the army’s camp, but Baynes was waiting there to greet them. With him was Wickham, sitting on a camp stool, but with the reins of a Spanish trooper’s horse looped over his elbow. The man looked pale, and ready to retreat again, but was otherwise unscathed.

Baynes was not his usual genial self. ‘I fear there is bad news.’ He looked at Wickham, who looked more weary than sad.

‘Hanley has fallen,’ he said flatly.

4

W
henever the carriage slowed, Williams felt the heat of the sun and longed for them to be moving quickly again. At speed the wind kept them cool and he was willing to put up with the lurches and jolts as they raced along the better stretches of the rutted track. He clung tightly on to the brim of his straw hat, but could not risk removing the long brown coat and refused to take off his uniform jacket and so wore it underneath. Neither he nor Dobson would be mistaken for spies and risk being hanged or put in front of a firing squad and shot. That was prudence, but Williams also felt an instinctive distaste at the thought of the slightest association with so dishonourable a role.

Wickham was immediately swayed by the sentiment, regretting that he had not expressed it first, and so wore his red coat and overall trousers underneath his black priest’s robes. D’Urban did not try to dissuade them. Baynes was obviously amused, and yet showed no sign of offence.

‘As you wish,’ he had said. Williams now believed that the round-faced merchant was himself partly the spy. ‘I suspect it will be most uncomfortable, but I have no wish to tarnish your reputations in any way.’

‘Your hope must be in concealment,’ added Colonel D’Urban, as the plan was explained in the camp where Cuesta was rallying the broken remnants of his army. A day had passed since the battle and as evening fell they were on the edge of the mountains to the south.

‘The French are between us and your detachment under Mr Pringle,’ he continued, his slim face keen and earnest. ‘Marshal
Victor has led most of his regiments down towards Merida, and only a few squadrons of cavalry have followed us. He does not have enough men to occupy the whole area, but there are bound to be patrols and foraging parties. He will not find it easy to feed his men and horses. God knows, General Cuesta has had enough trouble. This was a poor region, even before armies started marching through it and eating everything in sight.’

Baynes took over, feeling that his military colleague was wandering from the main point. ‘If you try to go straight to Badajoz and north from there, you will be moving through the heart of the French army. Major Velarde has gone to take a message to your Mr Pringle, telling him to take his men even farther north beyond the Tagus, where you will join him.’

‘And what of the stores we were sent to find?’ asked Williams.

D’Urban could not decide whether the man was desperately unimaginative or trying to assert a stubborn independence. ‘As far as we can tell they were taken on the road to Madrid. Velarde will make more detailed enquiries at Badajoz, and assist in any other way.’

‘It is quite possible that the local authorities have already taken or destroyed them,’ added Baynes. ‘Or the French may have them. That would be regrettable, but you all have an opportunity to perform a great service to our allies and ourselves.’

‘Of course, we understand our duty,’ said Wickham. ‘Although I will regret being unable to assist you here.’

‘We shall miss you, of course.’ Privately Baynes could see little sign that Wickham had been or could be useful as part of their delegation. ‘But this is a task requiring a man of experience and rank.’

Williams loathed the thought of being placed under Wickham’s command, but the army never gave a man choice over such things. The latter’s account of his flight from the battle and the loss of Hanley sounded plausible enough. In the confusion, there was every chance that a man might fall behind and could not be rescued. His instincts told him that Wickham was hiding something. Williams had hoped to gain a clearer account from
Velarde, but the Spanish officer had ridden for Badajoz before there was a chance to see him privately.

‘Travelling as part of the household of the Doña Margarita you should be able to pass unmolested by the enemy,’ continued Baynes. ‘Her late husband was the younger son of the Conde de Madrigal de las Altas Torres, one of the great families of old Castile. The war had already taken both of his two older brothers and made him the heir to the title and the estates.’

Wickham’s interest became all the more evident, and he sat straight and eager on the folding camp stool he occupied.

Williams was sceptical. ‘Does wealth bring safety even in the middle of a war?’

‘It never does any harm,’ chuckled Baynes. ‘At any time.’

‘Doña Margarita’s father-in-law is a very old man, as well as a wealthy and influential one,’ explained D’Urban. ‘His political inclinations remain unclear, but you can be sure that they will carry great weight. So he is courted by all sides, and his family treated well. Doña Margarita carries letters of protection signed by Joseph-Napoleon himself, as well as others bearing the seal of the Duke of Astorga, of General Palafox, and many other men of note in Spain. She can move almost at will throughout the country. A few weeks ago she resided in a family house in Toledo, in spite of the French occupation.’

‘Is she safe from marauders?’ asked Williams. ‘They may not trouble themselves to read any letters.’

‘She has her servant, who was an hussar in her husband’s regiment,’ replied Baynes, pleased at this sign of intelligence amid the suspicion. ‘But that is why you will be performing such a service by protecting the lady and that which she carries.’

‘The child?’ Williams had glimpsed the heavily veiled Spanish aristocrat only from a distance as she climbed down from her carriage and was ushered to a tent. It was clear that she was heavy with child, and that brought back memories of the terrifying hours back in the winter when Dobson’s daughter Jenny had given birth in a tumbledown shack. Williams, Jenny and Miss MacAndrews had been cut off when the army retreated. For that
night Jane MacAndrews had taken charge, and ordered the nervously clumsy officer outside. To his immense relief the boy was born sound in limb and voice, and the mother survived the ordeal in robust health – so robust, indeed, that she absconded and left the child in the care of the other two. Williams had no idea what had become of Jenny.

‘If it proves to be a boy, then the child will be the grandfather’s heir,’ said Baynes. ‘In the case of a girl, then I believe the legal situation is less straightforward. But I did not speak of the babe, for all the joy of new life. In addition the lady’s confinement is not expected for several months.’

Williams was relieved. He was also a little puzzled, since the lady looked very large for someone still in the earlier stages of pregnancy. Yet the relief was by far the stronger emotion, for the suggestion of another delivery terrified him, especially without Miss MacAndrews’ reassuringly capable presence. The thought of the girl brought the usual pang. Wickham had confirmed that the rest of the regiment had reached Portsmouth without incident and that Major MacAndrews and his family were safe. He was reluctant to ask more closely, since he strongly suspected that the married Wickham had displayed an unhealthy interest in Jane.

‘The Doña Margarita carries something of far greater value for the course of the war,’ said Colonel D’Urban. Wickham’s arms pressed against the frame of the stool as he listened intently. Baynes and D’Urban exchanged glances.

‘She carries news,’ said the merchant after a long pause. ‘And that can be beyond price.’ Wickham’s grip slackened and he sagged slightly, sitting again more comfortably.

‘The Iberian peninsula is extensive, and much of it mountainous,’ D’Urban explained. ‘Bonaparte has sent more than two hundred thousand men to occupy it and they operate in half a dozen armies. Much of the time we have little idea of where these are. We may watch those closest to us, although even then mistakes are made. It was believed that Marshal Victor had fewer troops than proved the case.’

Williams doubted that numbers had been the cause of the
previous day’s disaster. In the end, raw youngsters were sent against hardened veterans and that was all there was to it. Numbers would not have made enough difference unless truly overwhelming. The French were simply better led and better trained.

‘We do not know where King Joseph’s reserve is stationed and whether he moves to support Victor. Ney is in Galicia – we think – and Mortier perhaps in Leon. Marshal Soult is somewhere in the north, but whether in Spain or Portugal no one knows.’

‘Except the poor devils fighting him,’ added D’Urban after a moment.

Baynes ignored him, once again feeling his military colleague was wandering from the main point. ‘Nor do we know much more about our own side. Many of the local juntas and generals are unable to communicate quickly with the Central Junta at Seville. Some choose not to. As far as we are concerned Aragon and Catalonia might as well be on the moon for all we know of events there.

‘How much were you told, my dear Wickham, of the situation in Spain before you left London?’

The elegant officer looked surprised, and took a moment before giving his reply. ‘Well, I had been on General Paget’s staff and so saw a good deal of the last campaign.’

Yes, but from as safe a distance as you could manage, thought Williams to himself.

‘Yet I would say that more recent information was vague,’ continued Wickham, speaking the truth, but also aware that the colonel expected him to reply in this way, and he had never been one knowingly to disappoint a superior. ‘Indeed, I was told very little. The plans of the Ministry seemed unformed, with a definite desire to assist in the liberation of Spain, but uncertainty over how to achieve this, or whether indeed it was practical at all. Our army will take time to recover from the rigours of the winter. The cavalry in particular.’ He added this last comment knowing that the colonel was a light cavalryman himself. ‘Very
few horses were embarked. However, there are confident hopes that Austria will declare war on Bonaparte.’

Williams had heard such rumours before. He hoped that this time it was true, as a new threat would prevent the French from focusing all their attention on Spain.

Wickham gave an easy smile. ‘It was also understood that events might change during my journey, so from the beginning they were wise enough to trust that the members of the British mission to General Cuesta’s army were likely to be best informed about the current situation.’

D’Urban snorted at the idea of wisdom in his country’s government. ‘Well, as you now know, our best is by no means satisfactory. The Spanish are unaware of much that happens, and tell us less than they know.’

‘In fairness, Colonel D’Urban,’ said Baynes, ‘the Spanish often do not tell each other all that they know. And it is not as if we hold no secrets back from them. Your magical shrapnel shells, for instance, Mr Williams.’ He stared at the ensign. ‘You have come from Lisbon not long ago?’ Williams nodded. ‘How large a force does General Craddock dispose?’