Whose Business Is to Die (27 page)

Truscott managed to get no more than a couple of hours’ sleep, lying propped against the side of the trench and dozing in spite of the cannon fire. After that he went back to work, and kept on through the night as they armed the battery. When the sun came up he did not really expect relief, although he was so tired that he felt a dangerous fatalism coming on. The next strike by a French shot could not be predicted, and it was tempting to get on with things and accept whatever happened. The replacement of the work party with new men snapped him from his lethargy.

‘Good morning, sir.’ Sam was standing in front of him, hand raised in salute, and a broad grin on his face. ‘The Light Company reporting as work party.’

Captain Headley was in hospital, struck in the face by stones and dirt thrown up when an eight-pounder shot hit the rampart just where he was standing. Truscott had a brief nightmare that his brother was in charge of the detachment, and then with relief saw two more officers and, best of all, Major MacAndrews striding up to see him.

‘It looks as if the ball is about to begin,’ the Scotsman said cheerily. Major Dickson was peering over the top, making his final calculations and then calling out instructions to his crews as to the charge and elevation required. ‘Is not science a wonderful
thing,’ MacAndrews added. ‘Now, where do you want us, Mr Truscott?’

He led them along the extension of the trench to the right of the battery. While he was doing so, Dickson must have ordered the embrasures to be uncovered because there was the sudden thunder of one, two and then a third shot from the big twenty-four-pounders. The gunners raised a cheer, and then the sergeants yelled at them to get back to work. A minute or so later the howitzers fired, and Truscott could not resist peering over the parapet and watching as the shells lazily sailed up and then dropped down on the fort. One struck the edge of the ditch, while the other almost passed over the fortification to fall on the other side. It was not such bad practice for inexperienced crews with antique guns.

Then the French showed them how it was done. Guns boomed from the San Cristoval, and then more than a dozen from the walls of the castle in Badajoz itself. The range was long, but these were big pieces, eighteen- or even twenty-four-pounders, and in a much better condition and far better served than the Allied guns. They were also aiming at the flank of the battery and could not be opposed by any of the besiegers’ artillery. Truscott ducked as the gabion beside him shook from a violent impact. There were screams from one of the gun crews as a shell exploded above their heads, wickedly shaped pieces of metal spraying down on to the heads of the gunners.

The battle went on all day, but grew ever more unequal. Time and again French shot smacked into the sides of the embrasures and caused the earth to collapse so that it was impossible to fire out until it was cleared. Men died as they shovelled away to clear them, ripped to bloody shreds by the impact of heavy cannonballs flying with appalling force. The Portuguese worked hard, pulling aside the dead and wounded, and working the blood-spattered cannon, but they could not match the weight or the accuracy of the enemy fire.

After ten minutes one of the cannon was struck on the barrel, producing a strange ringing call and leaving the old bronze so
bent by the impact that it was useless. One of the howitzers went next, its wheel – the new one fixed on with such labour during the night – was hit and shattered. All around them the parapet was crumbling from blow after blow. Both the other cannon were put out of action before noon, one hit squarely on the muzzle, bursting it open like the petals on a flower, and the other had its carriage broken. The remaining howitzer fired now and again, until the damage to the whole battery and the terrible losses to the gunners made Dickson abandon the effort.

‘We shall have to repair as soon as we can,’ he told Truscott as they stared at the shambles that had been Number One Battery.

‘Not until nightfall,’ the acting engineer replied, and wondered how much could be achieved even then. Until something was done to suppress the enemy fire Truscott suspected that the position was untenable. ‘I’ll keep the men working to extend the trench. That should be possible as they have more cover.’

The French fire slackened, but never ceased, and throughout the afternoon the party from the 106th dug, and tried not to show any part of themselves over the parapet. They worked hard and a slow, steady progress was made. Most of the shot fired at them hit gabions and earth and did no great harm. The shells were more dangerous for they could fall anywhere. One plopped down in the middle of the trench itself, sending Truscott, MacAndrews and all the nearest men diving down.

It fizzed, exploded and Truscott felt his body shake as if struck by a great gale, and yet when the smoke cleared and each man stood up, hands feeling for injury, it was discovered that no one was hurt.

MacAndrews found a couple of holes torn in the tails of his coat. ‘That might have been unpleasant,’ he said, examining them, and there were a few thin smiles.

Most of the time the men laboured in silence, breaking it only to curse. Truscott had seen the redcoats cheerful on long marches and in the middle of fierce battles and yet had never seen this sullen determination.

‘They do not care for digging and labouring at the best of
times,’ MacAndrews said when he asked the major about it. ‘Think of it, a good half of them enlisted to get away from labouring. But it is more the lack of honour in this sort of business. They cannot fight back, do not know when the deadly shot may strike, and they are covered in filth all the time. I cannot quite say why, even though I feel it myself, but nearly all of them would far prefer falling in battle than being struck as they work here.’

The Scotsman was a tall man, and so bent his head down as he leaned against the wall of the trench beside Truscott.

‘I fear they do not care too much for engineers,’ he added after a few moments. ‘At least not at times like this. They become the enemy, every bit as much as the French, for it is their orders which may see everyone killed. Oh, I know it is unfair, but you cannot blame them.’

‘The engineers are doing their best,’ Truscott said. ‘Our best, I should say – and no one can claim they have not paid a high price.’

‘Did I not say that fairness does not come into it. You are one of the family, so give them time and take them away from this and they will be as merry and willing as you please.’

Five men were wounded, all by pieces of shell. Young Samuel did not do anything foolish, and that was a relief. Truscott kept expecting the boy to climb up on to the parapet and jeer at the enemy.

‘He is learning,’ MacAndrews told him. ‘In fact even as we speak.’ The young ensign sat with his back to the side of the trench and read from a book. It was the gift his older brother had sent him as soon as the lad enlisted –
The Complete DRILL SERGEANT containing the PLAINEST INSTRUCTIONS for the DRILL, MANUAL, and PLATOON EXERCISE, according to the latest regulations
and so on – the immense title ran down the entire cover. He should have become thoroughly conversant with such things before the 2nd Battalion sent him out here, but the boy’s memory had proved imperfect.

‘I insist that he studies at every opportunity.’

‘He is learning, as I say, and beginning to be accepted,’ the major assured him. ‘I know that it is an easy thing to say, but you should not worry. I believe the men are growing fond of him, and he has not done anything so very much more foolish than half the young idiots sent out to join regiments.’

They both ducked as a shell exploded in front of the parapet. Earth pattered down on their cocked hats.

‘Do you know that the other subs have given him a nickname?’ MacAndrews asked him.

‘The Complete Truscott.’ Billy Pringle had told him during that first night excavating. ‘I cannot quite work out whether it refers to the book or my own shortcomings.’

‘Both if I am any judge,’ MacAndrews said, and looked at him with some concern. ‘You really are quite fagged, my dear fellow. Get some sleep. I shall watch and make sure the work carries on.’

‘It is my duty.’

‘Captain Truscott, do you believe me incapable of making sure that the men dig a hole in a straight line! Sleep, man, sleep.’

Truscott felt himself blinking. He sank down, back against the rough wickerwork of the gabion, and the darkness came almost immediately.

21

H
anley took nine days to ride back to Elvas, changing horses regularly and going at what he thought was a good pace, even if it did not quite match the speed of Lord Wellington. Baynes did not let him have more than a short rest before he was given yet another mount.

‘I had feared that you would not return in time,’ the merchant told him when he arrived. ‘Another day and it would have been too late. Perhaps it would not matter, but this is not something we can try too often. Get some food, for we leave in an hour.’

‘We?’

‘Yes, I shall come some of the way with you, at least as far as Marshal Beresford and the army at Albuera. We will have the hussars for protection and a couple of others who may prove useful. I will explain it all on the way. For the moment, eat, rest if you can, and be ready to go.’

‘It would be nice to wash.’

‘As you wish, but on a day as foul as this it will not make a lot of difference once we set out.’

Hanley thought for a moment of forgetting food, bath and rest and instead calling on Jenny Dobson, but before he decided he found that he was helping himself to the bread and ham laid out on the merchant’s table. It tasted better than anything he could remember, and he ate with a fierce intent. Even the thought of standing up felt like too much effort, and a brief reflection made him suspect that his saddle-sore loins were scarcely up to vigorous activity.

The rain fell steadily as they rode out of the main gate on
the Badajoz road. Apart from the hussars, he was surprised to see Corporal Scott of the 60th wearing his greatcoat and looking uncomfortable astride a horse. Beside him was a dark, silent man in a drab uniform.

‘I will tell you all later, but first I must have your own news from the north.’

Hanley told him as best as he could, sometimes having to raise his voice when the wind gusted hard so that the rain drove into them. He explained that the partisans had killed the captive before he arrived, but that he doubted that it was Sinclair.

‘Your friend Williams captured a few men in the uniform of his Irish regiment. Did not see the fellow himself, but he is surely out there somewhere and up to no good. That is why we have to set out in such haste.’ The merchant explained that he had fed information to Gutiérrez. ‘I have asked him to meet with you and with the priest from Nogales outside the old convent of Santa Cruz near the village. He is to bring all the information that he has about Marshal Soult’s army and also be prepared to find cattle to feed General Blake’s divisions when they arrive. Even if nothing else comes of this business we shall at least fool them into thinking that the Spanish are several days’ march away.’

‘Are they not?’

‘If all goes well Blake should join Marshal Beresford by sunset tonight – well, what passes for sunset on a day like this. That will give him at least ten thousand more men than the French. Who knows whether Soult may risk attacking at those odds? That is not our concern for there is no more that we can do about it.

‘Gutiérrez will have reported to the French all that I have told him. I have given him a couple of pieces of entirely accurate information in the last fortnight. Too late for them to do the French any good, but it ought to have added to his credibility. So they should believe this and no doubt pay the fellow well, or even return his daughter, though somehow I doubt that. Be hard to get to her anyway, if she is still inside Badajoz.’

‘Do you think Sinclair will come?’ Hanley asked, struggling
to follow it all because he was tired, wet and cold and wanted only to sleep. ‘Or Dalmas?’

‘We would risk it, would we not, for the chance of taking one of those rascals? They may be elsewhere, may not get word in time, or any number of other things might stop them, but if they see such an opportunity then I doubt very much that they will not take the risk. That will give us our chance to take them as they try to trap us.’

‘You mean as they try to trap me.’

‘Oh yes, I am far too valuable – not to say far too old and corpulent to have any chance of escape if things go wrong. Thus it falls to Captain William Hanley to be our bait.’ They rode ten yards ahead of the others, so that even when they had to shout to be heard it was doubtful that their escort could have made out one word in a dozen.

‘I know that you would have preferred assistance from your own regiment. They would do it well, I am sure, but it is not possible to get them, at least not in time.’ The merchant had sketched out his plan. ‘Corporal Scott you know, and he strikes me as a good steady fellow and almost fully recovered from his wound. The other one is named Schwartz, and is from the Brunswick Corps. The provosts caught him and his brother lifting silver plate from a church and both are sentenced to hang. I offered him the chance to accompany you and promised that as long as his conduct met with your satisfaction then they would both be pardoned. His captain assures me that he is an excellent shot and a fine soldier even though he is a thief. That gives you two riflemen and that offers a distinct advantage, even if Sinclair brings the murderous Brandt.’

‘You think it will be Sinclair?’

‘Yes. I do not know why, but for some reason I do.’

‘Then what if he comes with a squadron of dragoons – or a regiment?’ Hanley felt that the scheme relied too much on guesses.

‘You will see them coming. The hussars will come with you and you can trust them to spot any large force with plenty of warning. If he does that then more fool him, for you simply ride
away and do not look back. Gutiérrez will lose some money – his life too if he makes them angry – and we will be no worse or better off than we were.’