Whose Business Is to Die (2 page)

The officer watched the column come closer, and saw the head of the second company following on behind. He did not know these men, for he had arrived with the brigade only three days ago, but he knew plenty like them. Back in ’08 he had joined the army as a volunteer, a man considered a gentleman but without the influence to secure an officer’s commission or the money to purchase one. He had carried a musket, worn the uniform of a private soldier and done duty in the ranks while living with the officers. Those had been strange days, ending only when he survived Vimeiro and was rewarded with an ensign’s commission, and they had left him with a deep respect for the redcoat as well as an affection almost idolatrous in its intensity.

‘Anything to show more fair,’ he repeated under his breath. Was it Byron? It sounded sufficiently overblown for the aristocratic poet, but he did not think that was right. His taste stretched far more to the classics. Miss MacAndrews would know, and would tease him for not knowing. The thought of the girl brought back the familiar pangs of anger and despair. Keep occupied, he told himself, work until exhaustion blots out all feelings and thoughts. Think about poets or any other nonsense when there was nothing else to do.

Well, whoever it was would no doubt have raised a perfumed nosegay to shield himself from the sight and the wet earthy smell of the approaching light infantrymen. They were small men in the main, many young but aged by wind and weather, trudging along, not wasting any effort on unnecessary movements or chatter, not even thinking very much about anything. Williams had been on plenty of marches like this one, had known the discomfort of
the issue pack which always hung heavy and too low so that its straps burned into the shoulders and pulled at the chest. Just keep going, place one foot in front of the other, loosely in step, not for the look of it, but because it was unconscious habit and made it easier not to tread on the heels of the man in front.

No one back home would ever see them like this, dirty and dishevelled, the locks of their muskets wrapped tightly round with rags to keep out the damp. Like the rest of the army they were bound to be infested with vermin from living in the fields or sleeping on filthy straw in dirty houses and barns. All too many of them would drink themselves senseless at every opportunity, duty and suffering alike forgotten for the moment.

No one back home would ever see them standing in ranks as friends dropped around them, ripped to shreds by shot and shell, or watch as they went forward into the smoke, faces pale but determined not to let each other down. He had seen such men fight and win when all seemed lost and, if they were not pretty, then they were magnificent.

Maybe it was better that Britons never saw them like this, he thought. No one at home had earned the right.

‘Morning,’ Williams called as the officer led the first company up to him. The man nodded in acknowledgement.

Williams turned in the saddle and pointed. ‘Bear right at that tree, follow the wall of the orchard and then cross the stream and form in column at quarter-distance on the slope beyond it. An orderly dragoon is waiting there to mark the spot.’ The only response was another nod. Williams was new to the brigade and not yet one of the family.

He nudged Francesca and set her trotting back past the column, before veering off up the side of the valley.

‘Goddamned dandies!’ Someone swore as he passed and he realised too late that he must have flicked mud up over the marching men. He regretted his lack of care and laughed at the thought of being dubbed a dandy. Any officer on a horse who was not from their own battalion was always treated with suspicion. Men might wonder what folly had been cooked up
for them by the powers on high, but they would not wonder for long because there was nothing that they could do about it.

Williams reined in at the top of the slope and looked back, pulling down the tip of his hat as he squinted into the distance. The last of the four companies at the head of the brigade was just beneath him. About three furlongs beyond them was the dark mass of another, larger column. He wished he had his old telescope, but did not bother to fish out the cheap replacement from his saddlebags. He did not need to see the slightly greater detail this would offer. Everyone was where they should be and now he needed to report this to his commander.

Riding back the way he had come, Williams took care to pass the marching men at a safe distance. Even so he half heard a flurry of comments, and was pretty sure that he caught a cry of ‘Missed us this time, yer booger!’ in a North Country accent. A good officer knew when not to hear things. He could tell that the men were in good spirits, and guessed that they realised the march was almost over. They always seemed to know, even before the formal orders had reached their officers.

They would be happy at the prospect of halting, hoping for the chance to rest – veterans like these could make themselves comfortable very quickly. They might be called upon to fight, for the French were close, but that was something they could worry about if and when they were sent forward. At least the rain had stopped. Only a fool or a cavalryman wanted to fight when it was wet. Just a few drops of water seeping into the frizzen pan of a musket turned gunpowder into a dirty sludge no flint would spark into life. So the light infantrymen were glad it was dry – their very lives might well depend on it.

Tired, uncomfortable in their sodden greatcoats, these men were nonetheless indeed in good spirits, and Williams knew that the same enthusiasm spread throughout the entire army. For once, for the first time in years, they were advancing and the French were going back. At this rate there would soon be scarcely a French soldier left in Portugal, save for the prisoners crammed in the transport ships off Lisbon. Spain was another matter, but at
long last the inexorable advance of Napoleon’s legions seemed to have slowed and then stopped. They were retreating for a change, and Williams had enough grim memories of the long retreat to Corunna to know how rapidly confidence faded into despair, and just how easily an army of brave soldiers could fall apart.

Five minutes later the grey mare cantered up the last slope and Williams joined two other officers sitting on horseback overlooking the wide plain.

‘The Light Companies are up, sir,’ he reported. ‘The Sixty-sixth are half an hour’s march away and the guns just behind them.’

Lieutenant Colonel Colborne nodded. He was a slim, handsome man in his early thirties. At six foot he was just a little shorter than Williams and in many ways he was a slighter version of the Welshman, his darkly fair hair flecked with grey.

‘Look, sir, they are moving.’ Captain Dunbar was pointing at the French column formed little more than half a mile away on the old highway running east towards the Spanish border. Beyond it was Campo Major, its medieval walls showing the scars of cannon strikes. Its defences were old, in poor repair, and not designed to deal with the assault of a modern army, and yet an elderly Portuguese officer and a garrison of volunteers had held it for a week before being forced to surrender. ‘They deserved a better fate,’ Colborne had said, but no aid could reach here until several days too late. Now three divisions of infantry and a strong force of cavalry had come to take the place back, less than a week after its fall.

‘Perhaps seven or eight hundred horse and two or three battalions of foot,’ Dunbar said, ‘so two thousand all told?’ The French were formed with cavalry in the lead, then a darker, denser mass of infantry, and more cavalry bringing up the rear.

The colonel nodded. ‘That is my estimate.’

‘Cannot blame them for not wanting to make a fight of it in that old ruin,’ Dunbar added.

When they had all arrived, the British and Portuguese would number more than eighteen thousand men, and so the French column was lost, but only if enough of the Allies arrived in time.
For the moment they could almost match the enemy numbers, but not with a balanced force. Williams saw the colonel lower his glass and glance at the two regiments of redcoated heavy dragoons formed up to their left. Beyond them, almost a mile away, there was a dark smear moving slowly over the rolling ground, following the path of a little river. The colonel did not need to use his telescope to know that these were the British light dragoons and the Portuguese cavalry – everyone said that Colborne had the best eyesight in the army.

Until last summer the lieutenant colonel had commanded only the second battalion of his own regiment, the 66th Foot, one of four battalions in the brigade. Then the divisional commander had moved to higher things, and their brigade commander had in turn moved up to lead the whole division. Colborne’s rank as lieutenant colonel had been gazetted before that of the men leading the other three battalions, so overnight he had jumped to lead the brigade. The post was not permanent, but in the last seven months no general had appeared from Britain to take over. A few days ago Williams had arrived to replace his aide-de-camp, who had got his step to major and gone back to his own corps. The Welshman was now acting ADC to an acting brigade commander and had no idea how long this would last.

In the meantime Colborne kept his two staff officers busy. Dunbar as brigade major was given the greater responsibilities, but often both men found themselves trailing along behind the colonel, who slept little and employed every hour of the day to the fullest extent.

‘We must do everything within our power, Mr Williams,’ the colonel had told him when he first arrived, ‘and not spare ourselves if a little more effort helps to ensure victory and spare the lives or preserve the health of our men.’

It was Colborne who had led the others on the reconnaissance to find the route the main column would follow, looking for the easiest path, but also the one offering best protection from prying eyes. They had not seen a single French outpost, but then that was no surprise. The French kept their patrols and sentries
close for fear of the vengeance of local peasants on any man caught on his own. They tended to stay especially close when the weather was so foul.

While the stormy night had lasted the lieutenant colonel led the vanguard of the army, with his own brigade and some attached Portuguese cavalry. When dawn broke – even the grey dawn of a gloomy day like this – that responsibility passed to the commander of the Allied cavalry, although he was now under the eye of Marshal Beresford, who had come up with his staff. The marshal was in charge of this southern force detached from the main army under Lord Wellington. Regardless of rank, it was clear that Lieutenant Colonel Colborne remained eager to spur his seniors into swift action, before the French column escaped.

‘Captain Dunbar, ride to Marshal Beresford and inform him that the First Brigade has arrived, and that I hope to have Major Cleeves’ brigade of guns up soon.’

The brigade major nodded and set off at a canter. Williams noticed that he had changed to another horse from the one he had ridden during the night. An ADC could not perform his duties without at least two good mounts, but he doubted that the chestnut would recover for a week or more and might well prove prone to the same failing in the future. Williams suspected that he was a poor judge – certainly an unskilled buyer – of horseflesh and had been fleeced. Up here near the frontier there was little chance of finding another mount for sale. That left one obvious source, and it was clear that the colonel’s thoughts ran along a similar line.

‘Mr Williams, ride to Brigadier General Long and his cavalry and tell him that the infantry are up so he may press as hard as he likes. There is no reason for a single Frenchman to escape.’

‘Sir.’

‘And, Mr Williams, I do not require you back for a little while, but take care, for it would inconvenience me if you did not return at all.’ Colborne’s eyes sparkled.

Williams grinned, and set the grey off at a trot to preserve her strength. The British army was advancing, its spirits were high, and he was going to steal a horse from the French.

2

‘B
ills! Bills, you old rogue!’

Williams had hoped to pass Marshal Beresford and his staff without attracting attention. Then annoyance turned to pleasure when he recognised Hanley riding over to him and waving his hand in greeting. They were both officers in the 106th Foot, and had served together in its Grenadier Company when the army first came to Portugal.

‘I did not know you were here,’ Williams said after they had shaken hands.

‘Ever elusive,’ his friend replied, ‘flitting from shadow to shadow.’ Once an artist, then only with great reluctance a soldier, Captain Hanley was now one of the army’s exploring officers, riding behind the French lines – at times more the spy than became any gentleman. A few weeks ago Williams had sailed up from Cadiz with him, but the two had gone their separate ways after Lisbon.

‘Any news of Billy and the others?’

‘Yes,’ Hanley answered. ‘The battalion has come north and is to be attached to the Fourth Division. They may already have joined for all I know.’ Hanley had spent years in Madrid before the war, and with his black hair and tanned complexion readily passed as a native. ‘More than that I do not know. I fear my omniscience is waning!’

‘And the major?’ Hanley was an old friend, often a confidant, and no doubt guessed far more than he had ever been told, and yet even so it was difficult for Williams to broach so delicate a subject.

Hanley grinned, his teeth very white. ‘Major MacAndrews is well as far as I know, although still waiting for the promised brevet promotion to be gazetted.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And I believe it more than likely that his family will accompany him – to Lisbon at least, if not up to the frontier. You know the determination of Mrs MacAndrews.’ Major MacAndrews’ tall American wife was a formidable lady, held in awe and a good deal of affection by those around her, and she followed him to garrisons and on campaign alike. Only one of the couple’s children had survived to reach adulthood, and Williams was the devoted admirer of the girl – a secret shared only by the entire regiment. Jane MacAndrews was small, fiery of hair and character, and in his view the most perfect woman he had ever met. Just when he had dared to hope, it appeared that all must be over. Williams felt despair engulfing him again, something the constant activity of recent days had kept at bay.