The Fields of Death (34 page)
Read The Fields of Death Online
Authors: Simon Scarrow
Had there been sufficient time Arthur would have given the order to abandon the attempt on the fort and turned the army’s efforts towards the walls of Badajoz itself. However, the network of spies run by his quartermaster general, John Waters, had reported that Marshal Masséna had been replaced by Marshal Marmont, who was already marching his army south to join forces with Soult for another attempt to relieve the garrison at Badajoz. The French would be able to muster more than sixty thousand men against Arthur’s fifty thousand, a third of whom were Portuguese and Spanish. Such odds were not favourable, and unless Badajoz could be reduced quickly then the allied army would be obliged to withdraw.
As the sun rose over the rolling Spanish countryside, bathing it in a dusty orange hue, Arthur glanced down at his pocket watch.
‘Ten to six,’ he muttered.
Around him a small cluster of staff officers nervously glanced at their watches and some adjusted them to synchronise with their general. Arthur clambered up on to an upturned gunner’s tub to peer out of the embrasure. Ahead of him the trenches zig-zagged across the bare ground, scored by heavy iron shot. Only a handful of heads and hats bobbed up occasionally as the engineers risked a quick glance towards the fort. The men of the assault party, and the brigade assigned to follow them up if they succeeded in clearing the breach, remained out of sight, crouched down in the churned mud at the bottom of the closest length of trench. Arthur raised his telescope and scrutinised the defences the small force would have to overcome. There was perhaps a hundred yards of open ground to be crossed before the men would reach the base of the hillock upon which the fort stood. Then they would have to clamber up the slope, negotiating the abattis that had been placed at all angles to break up any assault. Then there was the fort itself, protected by thick walls twenty feet high. Expending the last of the ammunition, the siege batteries had succeeded in battering a small gap that ran most of the way down the wall. Arthur estimated that the breach was perhaps ten feet wide. Barely enough to be considered practicable for an assault, yet there was no choice in the matter. Arthur was running out of time. A few days from now Marmont would join forces with Soult and the combined French army could arrive before the walls of Badajoz in less than a week.
‘Let us hope that your men succeed this time, señor.’
Arthur turned to the neatly uniformed Spanish officer standing at his shoulder. General Alava was a slight man with a ready smile who had been assigned by the junta in Cadiz to act as Arthur’s liaison officer. Although Alava had only been on Arthur’s staff for a brief time he had already begun to win Arthur’s respect by offering a considered opinion when he was asked for one. He was also honest about the shortcomings of those who commanded the Spanish armies and the politicians who were supposed to pay and supply their soldiers. In short, General Alava was exactly the sort of man Arthur required to mediate between himself and the Spanish authorities, who promised so much and delivered so little. It was a great pity, Arthur mused, that the patriotic fervour of the common soldiers and people of Spain was so ill served by many of their leaders.
Arthur puffed his cheeks as he considered Alava’s remark. Three days earlier he had given orders for the first attempt on the breach. A hundred and forty men, weighed down by ladders, had dashed towards the fort, into the face of a withering fire of musket balls and case shot. They had not even reached the wall before half of them had been cut down and the rest had gone to ground. Neither their officers nor their sergeants and corporals could get the men moving again and Arthur had been obliged to have the recall sounded. Since then the aged siege guns had managed to widen the breach and the bottom of the gap was now within easy reach of the base of the wall. However, the enemy would be expecting another attack and casualties were bound to be high again. Arthur lowered his telescope.
‘They have a decent chance of success, General. Otherwise I would not have given the order to attack.’
Alava nodded, then glanced round the battery. The guns were well served with powder, but the racks of iron shot at the rear of the battery were nearly empty. He cleared his throat.‘I would imagine that the guns will be forced to fall silent within a day for want of shot, señor. Is that not so?’
Arthur was silent for a moment before he replied. ‘You are right. There is little more damage we can do to the walls of the fort. My men will settle the issue by cold steel.’
‘And if they fail to take the breach?’
Just beyond Alava, Somerset stirred irritably. ‘They will take the breach. Our men are amongst the best in Europe, and certainly the best in Spain.’
Alava did not react to the implied slight to his countrymen and nodded sombrely before he replied. ‘Of course. But, for the sake of argument, what would your intentions be if the attack failed?’
‘Then we will be obliged to give up the siege. Without ammunition for the guns we can do nothing, and by the time any more could be found Marmont and Soult would be upon us. Our only hope is to take the fort and turn its guns on the town to blast our way through the walls.’
‘I see.’ Alava nodded. ‘Then we had better pray for success.’
‘Pray if you like,’ Arthur said quietly. ‘But this matter will be settled by cold steel and stout hearts.’
The blast of a whistle pierced the cold dawn air. At once the volunteers of the Forlorn Hope clambered out of the trench and began to dash towards the wall, burdened down by their ladders. Their distant cheers carried thinly as they ran forward over the torn-up ground. Arthur felt his pulse quicken as he stared towards the fort, waiting for the inevitable reaction. Already a drum was sounding the alarm, a tinny rattle that brought the tiny figures of men scrambling up from inside the fort to man the wall. A tongue of flame leaped from the muzzle of a cannon mounted in the nearest bastion. Arthur saw a patch of earth ripped up as the blast of case shot tore up the soil and felled one of the attackers, who was slammed back on to the ground as if he had been kicked by some invisible titan. Another gun opened up, cutting down another two men. Then a series of small stabs of flame and puffs of smoke rippled along the wall as the defenders opened fire with muskets, adding the crackle of their shots to the booming roar of the cannon. More of the redcoats were struck down, some killed outright, while others lay wounded and a few began to crawl back towards the British trenches, desperate to escape the enemy fire that flayed the approaches to the fort.
‘Keep going forward,’ Somerset muttered through clenched teeth. ‘Forward, by God.’
The scattered figures of the assault party dashed on, gaining the foot of the slope leading up to the fort. There they bent forward, using one hand for support as they struggled up the steep incline. All around them were the abattis with their savagely sharpened wooden points waiting to impale the unwary. Arthur felt a surge of relief that the French guns could no longer be brought to bear on his men. But now the wall either side of the breach was bristling with muskets as the defenders continued to pour their fire on to the hapless figures struggling up towards the bottom of the breach. Arthur estimated that a score of men had fallen on the slope, in addition to another thirty or so who had been cut down after leaving the safety of the trench.
Those that remained had reached the foot of the wall, clustering against it for shelter while the lieutenant commanding the party helped to plant one of the ladders below the breach. Drawing his pistol he scrambled up the rungs. As he reached the breach he heaved himself on to the crumbling masonry filling the gap, only to be shot down the moment he stretched up to his full height. The body fell back, arms outstretched, and landed in a crumpled heap to one side of the ladder. But there was already another man on his way up, musket slung across his shoulders as he mounted the rungs. He was shot down even before he reached the breach. Five men were lost in this way before the rest refused to climb the ladder and crouched against the wall, occasionally risking a shot at the defenders above.
‘Damn them!’ Somerset balled his hands into fists. ‘Don’t just stand there. Get up the bloody ladder, you fools . . . you cowards.’
Arthur frowned. He turned to look at his aide with a flash of anger in his eyes. ‘I’ll thank you not to accuse our men of such a base sentiment. Especially as we are standing well out of range of their guns.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘In future you might care to endure what they do before you pass judgement on them. Now be so good as to have the recall sounded.’
Somerset saluted and hurried away down the communication trench leading towards the fort. Arthur watched him for a moment, until he disappeared from view. Then he raised his telescope and examined the situation of his men at the foot of the wall. For the moment they were relatively sheltered from enemy fire, since the defenders had to lean out from the top of the wall to take aim on those below, and thus expose themselves to fire. Then Arthur saw one of the French near the breach drop something. A moment later there was the flash of an explosion close to the ladder and three of the redcoats were flung back down the slope, where they lay motionless.
‘Grenades,’ Arthur muttered distastefully. ‘Infernal devices.’
‘None the less effective, señor,’ Alvara replied. ‘Let us hope your aide orders the recall before too many more men are lost.’
Arthur nodded and watched as two more grenades burst close to the wall. A short time later the shrill notes of the bugle signalled the recall and the men at the wall fell back, half running and half sliding down the slope as they sought to escape the renewed firing from the defenders. Several more were lost before they reached the bottom of the slope and began to sprint back across the open ground towards the shelter of the trench, pursued by renewed blasts of case shot from the guns mounted on the bastion. The last of the survivors of the attack dropped out of sight and the enemy guns fell silent, not deeming it worth the powder to kill the handful of wounded men who were still staggering or crawling back to the allied lines.
Arthur snapped his telescope shut and turned away from the scene. He strode through the battery towards the horse lines, swung himself up into the saddle and spurred the mount back towards his headquarters.
‘What was the butcher’s bill this time?’ Arthur folded his hands together as he looked up at Somerset.
The latter glanced down at his open notebook.‘A hundred and forty men this time, my lord.’
‘A hundred and forty? With the ninety casualties of the first attack and the two hundred and fifty that we lost while the men were digging the trenches, that’s nearly five hundred men.’ He sucked in a quick breath. ‘We have lost the best part of a battalion and achieved nothing here.’
Somerset kept silent. It was not his place to criticise Beresford’s plans for the siege.
There was little choice in the matter, Arthur reflected. The attempt to take Badajoz had failed. There was no shot for the siege guns, and without them the outwork of San Cristobal would continue to defy any attacks Arthur launched. Finally, a report from a cavalry patrol revealed that Marmont and Soult’s force was no more three days’ march away. Their combined armies outnumbered Arthur’s. No choice then. He looked up at his aide.
‘The army will break camp at first light. We will withdraw to the north. Have the orders drawn up, and make sure that the head of the commissary sends his men ahead to purchase rations.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘One final thing. I want the siege guns returned to Elvas. If they are moved quickly they should reach Elvas before the French can catch up with them.’
‘Why take the risk?’ Somerset shrugged.‘We could roll them into the river, to ensure that the French don’t capture them.’
‘I cannot guarantee that they would not be retrieved. Besides, the guns belong to our Portuguese allies. It would be unseemly for us to allow them to fall into French hands.’
‘Why not let the French have them, my lord? They are more of a hindrance than a help. Let the enemy have the burden of them.’
‘No.’ Arthur shook his head.‘We shall return the guns to their proper owners, if only as a token of our goodwill. Make sure the appropriate orders are given.’
Somerset nodded and made a note with his pencil.
Arthur sat back and wearily eased a hand through his close-cropped hair. ‘Next time I will be my own engineer, by God. There will be no more hasty decisions and half-measures. I will have a proper siege train, and when we lay siege to a fortress we will pound it to pieces and make damned sure that we take it. Once we have all the frontier forts securely in our grasp there is nothing that the French can do to force us out of Spain.’ He smiled at his aide. ‘Every small step matters, Somerset. No matter how long it takes, we will wear our enemy down and drive him back across the Pyrenees.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
Arthur picked up the report from the cavalry patrol.‘For now, we are obliged to retreat from Badajoz. Once we have rested the men and gathered enough force together we will turn and face the enemy.’
For the rest of summer, and on into the autumn, Arthur was powerless to intervene as the French resupplied and reinforced their frontier forts. The months passed in frustration for Arthur. While he was free to threaten the enemy at any point along the frontier between Spain and Portugal he was still obliged to retreat when the French gathered superior forces to repel the allied army. To add to his frustration the enemy seemed to have learned the lessons of earlier battles and now refused to attack whenever Arthur found a good defensive position and turned to fight.
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