Whose Business Is to Die (39 page)

A gunner with a jacket styled the same as the English infantry but blue with red collar and cuffs and yellow lace came screaming at them, waving a rammer. He swung, struck Dalmas’ breastplate, the force making him jerk back. The cuirassier sliced down, destroying one of the artilleryman’s eyes and cutting through to his jaw. He pressed on, but another gunner appeared, wielding a short sword. The man slashed the blade through the air, almost catching the head of Dalmas’ horse and making the beast shy away.

Some of his dragoons were by the limber and team now, chopping the drivers from their seats. Dalmas feinted a cut, let the man raise his little blade to parry, and then kicked the horse so that it bounded forward and barged the gunner aside. As they passed he cut back, felt a moment’s resistance as the steel met bone, and then the blade sank into the man’s shoulder.

They were behind the Spanish line now. Ahead was a red-coated battalion, its march column closed up on the flanks to form a crude square, and Dalmas doubted that any of the cavalry were still fresh enough to risk charging it. A swarm of people on foot had followed the horsemen, some of them infantry from the embattled V Corps, but many more women and other followers eager for plunder. Even after so many years of campaigning
Dalmas remained amazed at how quickly such people appeared and then vanished.

‘Keep those bastards off!’ Dalmas screamed at the nearest dragoons as two women and a soldier in the grey of the supply train dashed up to the horse team, knives in their hands ready to cut the traces and steal the precious animals. One of the dragoons struck a woman in the face with the flat of his sword and snarled at her to keep away.

‘Kill the bitch if she tries that again,’ said a sergeant with a beard almost as thick as Gillet’s.

Dalmas stood as tall as he could and looked around. Four of the guns were captured, but already the looters were carrying off most of the draught horses. Two more teams were being driven away by the Germans, but as he watched carbine and pistol shots brought a couple of the horses down on the nearest one. An infantryman raised his musket and fired, plucking one of the drivers off the other team, but a bold fellow in a dark blue jacket sprang off his own horse and rode the other, taking the team to safety. There were fresh lines of redcoats approaching and no point in pursuing.

The charge was spent. He could tell by all that he saw and by how he felt. Men and horses were tired, scattered, and even the supporting regiment had no more energy left for a fresh charge. They had saved their own infantry, slaughtered the English, destroyed an entire brigade and captured a battery of guns, all with just three regiments of light horsemen, but now it was over. Fresh enemy reserves were advancing, there were no more helplessly exposed battalions to massacre, and so it was time to go back. It was over, although some of the fools did not realise it. Dalmas could see several dozen Vistula lancers galloping along behind the Spanish regiments.

‘Get that piece hitched up,’ he told the sergeant. Now that he had time to look he could see that it was a stubby-barrelled howitzer and had a twin trail unlike the usual single-block trail the English used. ‘You and you.’ He pointed at two of the dragoons. ‘Act as drivers. Sergeant, get a man to lead their horses. And take
poor Gillet’s as well.’ The lieutenant was still in the saddle, but his head was bent down against the beast’s neck and the scarlet front of his green tunic was dark with his blood.

‘And well done, everyone, that was the most perfect charge I have ever seen.’ He smiled and they grinned back.

‘Vive l’empereur!’
someone shouted, and they all joined in the cheer.

Baynes was with Marshal Beresford and his staff when the commander appeared back behind Zayas’ Spanish.

‘Where is Blake? Where is the damned man?’ The marshal made no attempt to hide his anger. The merchant saw looks of annoyance and a little distrust from the handful of Spanish staff officers.

General Zayas said something to one of his aides. ‘I believe General Blake is with General Ballesteros,’ the man said in very good English.

Beresford grunted, and then peered forward.

‘Your men fight well,’ the marshal said, the words a little less brusque than his usual manner. ‘Be kind enough to tell General Zayas.’ He repeated the compliment in Portuguese, in case that might help.

‘What is happening?’ Baynes had joined Colonel D’Urban. For all his frequent protestations of military ignorance, the merchant had witnessed several battles and was generally able to understand what was happening. Today in the smoke, rainstorms and chaos, he really had no idea what was going on and whether or not things were going well. The agitation of Marshal Beresford was scarcely encouraging.

‘Well, it appears …’ D’Urban began and then Baynes saw the colonel’s stare widen in surprise. ‘Look out!’ he called, and tried to grab the reins of the merchant’s horse. At the same instant Baynes felt a terrible pain in his thigh.

D’Urban led go of the reins and whipped out his own sword. Baynes turned, but could not move his leg, and there was another appalling surge of agony. A man was a few feet away, dressed in a
dark blue tunic and grey overalls and with an odd-shaped hat. He was holding a lance and the point was driven into the merchant’s leg so far that it had come out the other side and stuck in his saddle. The lancer struggled to free it, until a Portuguese ADC raised a pistol and shot the man through the head.

Two more lancers rode in among the staff officers. One stabbed at a major, giving him a wound to the side and pitching him from his horse. The other rode at Marshal Beresford, leaning as he aimed the eight-foot spear.

Beresford yelled, a great bear-like bellow of anger. Dropping the reins, his huge left hand moved with remarkable speed, fastened round the spearhead and pushed it aside. His horse did not move as the lancer came at them, and then the army commander had the Pole by the throat and lifted him bodily out of the saddle. He shook the man as if he were no heavier than a rag doll and then hurled him on to the grass.

‘Goddamned cheek,’ he said, as one of his staff leaned over and shot the man dead.

The last Pole took some killing, two of the officers hacking at him until another produced a pistol and finished the job.

‘Stop them! Stop them!’ General Zayas shouted. Another straggling group of lancers was riding along behind his men. One of the redcoated battalions advancing in support saw the enemy and either did not see or did not care about their allies because they halted and fired a volley.

Baynes groaned. D’Urban tried as gently as possible to free the lance.

‘For God’s sake, fetch a surgeon,’ he ordered, and an ADC galloped away.

‘Hold on, old fellow,’ the colonel said as soothingly as he could.

Beresford galloped off, yelling with even more than his usual anger at the redcoats and telling them to stop firing.

Williams stirred as the weight above him shifted. There was a shot, close by, and a convulsive jerk shook the corpse lying over him. He pushed as hard as he could and to his surprise the dead
lancer rolled off him. The man already felt cold to the touch, even though Williams suspected he had not lain there for more than a few minutes.

His amazement was as nothing to that of the French infantryman who had just shot the wounded horse to put the animal out of its misery. Its final death throes must have shifted its weight off the dead lancer.

Williams rose from under a corpse, his face and chest smeared in dark congealed blood. As he stood he grabbed the axe and the hilt of his sword.

The Frenchman ran, dropping a bag of plunder he had gathered from the dead and wounded. Williams ignored him, for just ten yards away three horsemen in dark blue and with square-topped hats surrounded a tall man in a red coat with yellow-green facings. It was Colborne and he was obviously a prisoner. Further off parties of redcoats were being shepherded to the rear and other horsemen were drifting back towards their own army. Some British heavy dragoons in red jackets and cocked hats appeared lower down the slope and their presence made the French retire more quickly.

Williams jumped over the dead horse and charged straight at them. The sword felt light in his hand and he whirled the axe to loosen his wrist.

There was a cry, and one of the Poles, a junior officer judging by the silver epaulette on his left shoulder, was pointing and shouting at his men. The nearest one turned, trying to urge his horse into a canter, but there were too many bodies in front of it and the animal refused, stepping to the side and only walking forward.

Williams yelled, his lips hurting and blood and spittle spraying from his mouth. The horse did not like this strange sight and tried to pull away. Williams bounded forward, smacked the animal in the face with his sword and blocked the sabre-cut with the shaft of his axe. The beast bucked, surprising its rider and lashing out with its hoofs so that the mount of the second Pole sprang back out of the way. As the rider struggled for balance, Williams
thrust the sword into his stomach, twisted the blade free and ran on.

The second Pole had a carbine. He calmed his nervous horse and the beast responded. The muzzle looking very big as Williams ran on, still screaming, and he saw the man settle his aim. The rider squeezed the trigger, the hammer snapped down, but there was justice in the world for the flint did not spark well and perhaps the powder was also wet because it did not fire.

Williams slashed with his axe because it was closest, felt the head sink into the man’s leg, and then he thrust up with the sword, striking the man’s belt plate with enough force to unbalance him. The Pole lost a stirrup, was leaning heavily to the left, and Williams wrenched the axe free and hit him twice in the side with it until the man fell off. There was more blood on the Welshman’s face.

The officer looked at him, then at Colborne, and turned his horse round to flee. Several heavy dragoons chased him, but failed to catch up.

The lieutenant colonel stared down at his ADC.

‘Where did you get to, Mr Williams?’ he asked with a wry smile, but his face was ashen pale.

Williams clambered on to the wounded Pole’s horse. The colonel still wore his sword, which suggested that his captors had accepted his word as a gentleman that he would not try to escape. Well, he had not, and there was no obligation to remain a prisoner if freed.

‘Dear God, my brigade,’ he said, staring at the corpses, the wounded and in the distance the hundreds of prisoners.

For the moment the colonel seemed too stunned to move.

‘Let us go, sir,’ Williams said in as kindly a way as he could manage. At the same time he wondered whether the battle was already lost.

31

T
he rain slackened, the sound of drops falling on leaves diminished, and Hanley strained to hear the guns. He stopped for a moment, and gestured to the hussar to do the same. There was a faint sound, but nothing compared to the intensity of an hour ago. They had gone a good two and half miles, and should be getting closer.

The KGL hussar tapped him on the arm and then raised a finger to his lips for quiet. He gestured through the thinning trees towards the field beyond, and Hanley saw horsemen. There were only four of them, but the shape of the brass helmets and long horsehair crests left him in no doubt that they were French. They would have to find another way. Hanley and the hussar doubled back the way they had come and began to loop around to the west.

On another road, perhaps a dozen miles away, a small party of horsemen also noticed that the sound of cannon was quieter than it had been.

‘What do you think it means?’ Esther MacAndrews asked the officer, while her eyes flicked towards the sergeant and indicated that she would value his opinion.

‘May be all over, worst luck,’ Cornet Lillie said. Mrs Mac-Andrews was well aware that the seventeen-year-old had not seen any service.

‘Maybe, sir,’ the sergeant said, ‘but they are more likely shifting position before they have at each other again.’

The officer was in nominal command of a draft of replacements and returning convalescents for the 4th Dragoons. Hearing
that there would most likely be a battle – the rumour had spread quickly in Elvas – Esther and her daughter had secured permission from the regiment’s commander to accompany the party as it went to join the army.

‘You must go, Mrs MacAndrews,’ the colonel’s wife had insisted. Mrs Dalbiac followed her husband everywhere on campaign, and was now nursing him back to health after a bout of fever. ‘I could not bear the thought of not being there if Colonel Dalbiac were in danger, and I am sure that your sentiments would match my own. Do not worry, the colonel will arrange everything.’

Jane was keen, even if she suspected there was more to it than simply the desire to see that her father was safe – or, if it came to the worst, to tend to him as best they could. Mrs MacAndrews did not bother to ask Jenny Dobson whether she wished to join them. The lure of an estranged father was a weak one, and Miss Dobson, or the widow Hanks or whatever the woman was called, showed no sign of wishing to leave her comfortable lodgings. Esther also doubted that Hanley and her other keepers would be willing to let the woman roam. It was hard to say just what plans they had, but so far she and Jane had done nothing untoward. They tried to add a little polish to Jenny’s manners and appearance. Jane had spent several happy days with Miss Dobson discussing clothes and putting in orders for materials. Esther liked Jenny, but that did not mean she altogether trusted her, or indeed the schemes of Hanley and the others. Yet she was grateful that he had arranged for them to come to Elvas, since this now gave them the chance to go to the major’s side.

It was a good twenty mile ride, but with the escort of the subaltern, sergeant and a dozen troopers they ought to make good time and be safe. The weather was foul, but both she and Jane were experienced riders. They would make it. She just hoped that her husband was safe and sound when they arrived. At least they carried some good news. Yesterday Mrs Murphy was delivered of twins, a boy and a girl, and the mother and babies were doing well.