The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes (16 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN
T
HE
B
ATTLE OF
F
UENTES DE
O
ÑORO
, M
AY
1811—T
HE
A
RMY OF
P
ORTUGAL
C
IPHER

B
efore the first light of dawn, 5 May 1811, Captain Brotherton rode out with the guerrilla commander Don Julian to the farthest outpost, a couple of miles south of Fuentes de Oñoro, where some Spanish irregulars had been posted at this vantage point the previous night. His short trip took him eastward, through a copse of pygmy oaks and dense brush, across the stream that the locals called the
ribiera del campo,
and then atop the little tor that stood just to the east of it. There was patchy mist in the hollows, and as Brotherton arrived with the celebrated guerrilla at his side a nighttime chorus of bull frogs was giving way to the avian one of dawn. The small Spanish camp was already stirring into life that morning. While maintaining professional courtesies, Brotherton didn't entirely trust Don Julian, and the mission he had been assigned, manning the forward outposts of the army's right, was too important to be left to chance.

A couple of hundred yards behind the outpost, Brotherton and his
companion passed two squadrons of British light cavalrymen already sitting in their saddles, awaiting the sun's warmth on their stiff bodies. Their supports, two more squadrons from Brotherton's regiment, the 14th Light Dragoons, were also saddling their mounts nearby, readying themselves for whatever the day might bring.

As the gray gloom of the Castillian horizon began to brighten, Brotherton saw movement in the trees below their vantage point.

Don Julian, are those men yours? he asked.

Most certainly, Captain Brotherton, our forward pickets coming back from their patrol.

Are you sure, sir, they seem too numerous?

You may rely upon it, they are ours.

To Brotherton the silhouetted figures who appeared fleetingly between the branches seemed too many altogether for pickets. A few more minutes passed. The sun had crowned the horizon and was shining straight into their eyes, making it difficult for Brotherton to discern movement elsewhere in the copse. Men were leading their horses through the trees to their left as well as ahead of them. Familiar noises were beginning to surround them—the tapping of sword scabbards on men's hips, the jingling of horses' bits as the beasts swayed their heads from one side to another.

Captain Badcock, commanding one of the squadrons to Brotherton's rear, could hear the sounds too. And then the more ominous noises—men shouting in Spanish, the crack of a pistol shot. Badcock's troopers scanned the tree line ahead of them. Their squadron was drawn up in line, ready to receive whatever issued from the woods; since they knew the Spanish irregulars were ahead of them they could not just charge the first troops who appeared in front.

Then at last men began appearing from the trees a couple of hundred yards ahead of them. Were they French or were they Spanish, the men forming in clumps and then mounting their horses? Nobody knew. The shape of the shakos on the heads of these horsemen told the light dragoons nothing, since Don Julian's men were clad in the stuff they had stripped from the corpses of Frenchmen.

Eventually the squadrons ahead of Badcock's men began moving toward them at a gentle trot. It did not have the appearance of a charge, to be sure. The British troopers strained their eyes, scanning the faces of
the men moving toward them to see if they recognized any of Don Julian's scouts. Captain Badcock's horse stood alone, several yards ahead of the squadron, and he saw that the officer approaching them was ahead of his troops too. Badcock was at a loss: should he greet him cordially or draw his sword? As the other officer was closing in on him with just seconds to go, the unknown man suddenly drew his sword, stood in his stirrups and swung it with the practiced motion of a seasoned cavalry officer. It hit Badcock on the side of the face, slicing it open and breaking several of his teeth. His mouth was filling with blood—perhaps only the brass scales of his chin strap and a slight error in the Frenchman's aim had prevented Badcock's head from being taken off in one terrible motion. No doubts remained: the 14th Light Dragoons and the French sabered one another like possessed men.

Meanwhile, Brotherton and Don Julian were galloping through the copse, ducking branches and swerving around the trees with the skill of accomplished huntsmen. The Spanish troops around them had scattered through the undergrowth hallooing, firing and trying to grab a few scattered possessions. The English and Spanish officers galloped past two squadrons of British light cavalry drawn up on the French side of the campo stream. As hundreds of enemy horsemen emerged into the clearing the British officer commanding these 110-odd cavalry had the choice of fighting or fleeing. Since there was a stream and boggy ground to their rear and trees behind the Frenchmen, the losers would have their formation broken, and once cavalry became disordered there was every chance of a slaughter.

The British commander ordered his trumpeter to sound the charge. One officer of the 16th Light Dragoons related, “This is the only instance I ever met with of two bodies of cavalry coming in opposition, and both standing, as invariably, as I have observed it, one or the other runs away. Our men rode up and began sabring, but were so out-numbered that they could do nothing and were obliged to retire across the defile in confusion, the enemy having brought up more troops to that point.” Dozens of the British cavalry were hacked down.

Brotherton and Don Julian galloped two miles to Poco Velho, with scores of French cavalry at their heels. “As I approached,” wrote Brotherton, “I saw [Poco Velho] occupied by redcoats and began to breathe and feel secure.” For some reason, however, the infantry were not opening
fire. “I rode up to the first officer I could approach and asked him why he did not fire and stop the progress of the enemy. He replied with astonishment, ‘Are those the French?'”

The right of Wellington's line had been completely surprised. Between Poco Velho and Nava de Haver, a village almost two miles south, around thirty-five hundred French cavalry had erupted from the tree line. The British general had stretched his men over a dangerously long distance and now his light cavalry and the 7th Division, holding Poco Velho, were paying a very heavy price. A cry of “No quarter!” was going around the British cavalry, in truth more an attempt to give them courage than a reflection of who might really be taking whom prisoner, as a couple of hundred troopers tried desperately to stem the flow.

Among Wellington's staff, about two miles away near the center of the Allied position, initial reports of these events caused deep alarm. “The consequence [of the French attack] was that there was a general, I might say, flight, but the disorder was really terrible,” Major FitzRoy Somerset wrote home with a candor that would be absent from the official account, “and it was at one time to be decided that during this disorder the enemy cavalry might advance and not only destroy ours but put our infantry out of a situation to resist them.” With the survival of Wellington's right wing in question, some members of the staff set spurs to their horses and galloped across to Poco Velho to try to save the situation.

Captain George Scovell was one of the first to appear, trying to rally the cavalry who had been broken by the initial French onslaught. Don Julian Sanchez's guerrillas were attached to Scovell's Corps of Guides, in any case, so he had every reason to be there. He rallied some troopers around him and led them back into the hand-to-hand fighting. “It was,” wrote Edward Cocks, captain of the 16th Light Dragoons and sometime intelligence officer, “complete confusion: Spaniards, French and British all mixed together hacking and sabring.” Many of those fighting were soon drenched with blood, for they delivered and received wound after wound without the death blow being given. Scovell noted in his journal later, “I saw several men receive 5 or 6 cuts fall on the arms and shoulders without any impression.” Many a British horseman was learning belatedly that only a razor-sharp weapon could disable another rider swiftly.

Brotherton meanwhile had joined his own squadron of the 14th in
time to witness an untimely order from another member of the staff who had just arrived on the scene. Major General Charles Stewart had ridden up and directed Brotherton's little squadron to attack the French. It was, the junior officer wrote, “an injudicious order … a dangerous step,” since the tide could only be turned by using the few remaining British squadrons in concert, not committing them piecemeal. Brotherton, however, had no choice but to obey the adjutant general, a senior cavalry officer who should have known his business, and order his men forward “at a brisk trot; for, in action, the least hesitation or slowness in executing an order is inexcusable in an inferior officer.” His squadron had only covered one hundred yards when Wellington himself “rode up to me and asked me where I was going. I told him of the orders I had received from [Major General Stewart]. He made no further observation than ‘Go Back!'”

With Wellington's arrival, Stewart's irresponsible intervention was at an end. The British commander quickly assessed the situation. The 7th Division, securing the southern, or right, end of the line was too far from the main group of his forces, farther north along the same ridge. French cavalry was swarming around the open plain between Nava de Haver and Poco Velho. Wellington needed to rally his cavalry and bring back the infantry of the 7th Division north, closer to his main position. This would be a delicate operation; any unsteadiness during these maneuvers and the French horsemen would pounce. Wellington ordered forward his crack troops of the Light Division to cover the withdrawal of the 7th. As the light troops came up, the French would be distracted from pressing home their attacks on the battalions abandoning Poco Velho.

Fortune at last began to smile on the British. The French horsemen had been charging about and slashing away for an hour or so. Their sword arms were leaden, their horses gasping for breath and lathered in sweat. Some troopers had become faint from the saber wounds that had drenched their uniforms in blood. They needed immediate support from infantry and guns if they were to maintain their pressure on the British. When these reinforcements did not appear quickly enough, however, the 7th Division began making its escape through the squadrons of exhausted enemy horsemen.

The Light Division, meanwhile, having drawn off much of the
pressure, were ordered to turn around and return to the safety of the main British position. If the French cavalry wanted to pursue them there, right to the mouths of several batteries of British cannon, they were welcome to try. Before the light troops could reach this haven, though, they would have to march one and a half miles across an open plain with swarms of French horse milling about them. When faced with the prospect of a charge, the infantry's best defense was to form a square, the troops facing outward with fixed bayonets, so defending themselves from assault on any side. Since a square was an immovable thing (soldiers could not walk backward or sideways in this formation), the Light Division had to move its men toward the main position in battalion boxes with all soldiers facing the direction of march. Whenever the enemy threatened a charge, the light infantry, who were the most highly trained foot soldiers of Wellington's army, would stop, face outward with their bayonets pointing at the enemy, and deter any further onslaught. When the cavalry moved away, they would once again turn to face the direction of march, and continue onward while maintaining themselves in a square. This feat of drill and steadiness won the Light Division the admiration of many spectators.