Flashman's Escape (14 page)

Chapter 14

March 1812

We had lost enough men capturing Ciudad Rodrigo, but Badajoz was going to be a far tougher nut to crack. The river Guadiana ran along its northern ramparts and along that stretch it was nowhere less than three hundred yards wide. The town was surrounded by a wall some thirty feet high with a castle and seven smaller bastions built into the walls. Spies had told us that it had rations for two months and plenty of ammunition, while the five thousand men in the garrison had seen off British and Spanish assaults in the previous year. They had spent the intervening months strengthening every aspect of the fortress and laying mines in anticipation of our trench work that would cause carnage in the weeks ahead.

We didn’t know about the mines then, but a child could work out that thousands of men would die trying to take the place. By the time I arrived, work was already underway digging out gun batteries and assault trenches. I realised then that I had been fortunate to have been stationed in Albuera during the preparations for the siege the previous year. It was back-breaking and brutal work, not helped by more torrential rain. There was a foot of liquid mud in most of the trenches, which made moving heavy things like siege guns almost impossible. They were often up to their axles in the ooze and had to be hauled slowly over thick planks, which then had to be dug out of the mud to use again.

But you would be a fool to get out of the trenches, for the enemy artillery had plenty of ammunition and knew its business. Countless men lost their lives to a well-aimed cannon ball at Badajoz. I remember the first time I was given a tour of the siege works. The French must have noticed that a group of officers was moving forward and found us a tempting target. Four of their guns fired simultaneously. I had been nervously watching their gun embrasures and saw the first plume of gun smoke before I heard the discharges. I was diving behind some sandbags when the balls impacted. At first we thought no one had been hit as there had been no screams or shouts of pain. But as I pulled myself up from the muddy trench floor I saw Major Thompson’s legs lying still over the edge of the parapet. When we pulled him back into the trench we found he no longer had a head.

Eventually the British batteries were established and work began on breaching the walls. But even then the French fought back with vigour. They seemed to have guessed in advance where we would make our assault and had dug tunnels that reached under our trenches. Twice huge mines were blown up under our earthworks, killing many and burying others alive under tons of wet mud. By the end of my first week outside Badajoz, everything I owned was covered in mud and I was plastered in it. As I was not an engineer there was little I could do to help proceedings. I volunteered to take some despatches just to get away and see a green landscape again.

So it was that on my way back a few days later I found myself on the road through Albuera. I had not meant to visit the battlefield, but once I was in sight of that ridge on which I had so nearly died, I felt myself drawn to it. The village was deserted as I rode through but I sensed I was being watched. Certainly some of the villagers had come back as there were signs of repairs to the buildings and some fields had been dug. I did not stop but pointed my horse up the ridge. There a scene of decayed devastation met my eyes. The ground was littered with grey bones, some lying loose on the ground, others protruding from mass graves. In one ditch there had been an effort to cremate some bodies but there had not been enough fuel. The head is the hardest part of a body to burn and a pile of blackened skulls lay in the bottom of an ash-covered pit. I saw the area where the men of my company had been buried, but I could not bring myself to go close to it. I preferred to remember them at peace being buried. I did not want to see that the grave had been disturbed by wild animals like most of the others.

I was in a macabre mood when I returned to the siege works, which was not improved by what I found there. Word had come through that the French were gathering their armies to lift the siege and Wellington had decided to launch the attack without further delay. The assault was set for ten o’clock that night and I cursed myself for coming back a day too soon.

All the talk at the headquarters was centred around whether the breaches were yet large enough for an attack to be successful. Several of the more experienced hands, including an artillery colonel, were insisting that they needed at least another three days to guarantee a safe assault on the city. But with rumours of Marshal Soult approaching from the east and possibly Marshal Marmont from the north, Wellington could not afford to give them that long.

The gunners were still pounding away when Campbell and I rode down to look, from a safe distance. As I levelled my telescope at the city walls I could see that there were already three breaches but only two were big enough to consider. All of our guns were now concentrating on those two breaches, giving the enemy the clearest signal which ones we were planning to use. In front of the wall was a stone-faced ramp called a glacis; this was intended to deflect shot from the bottom of the wall. Normally an assault would not be started until the glacis had also been destroyed in front of the breach. Once a glacis was flattened the gunners could get at the bottom of the fortifications and fill in with rubble any ditch between the glacis and the wall. While it was pock marked with shot holes, the glacis in front of all the breaches was intact, which meant that the lower part of the wall behind it was as well.

“I would not want to be part of the forlorn hope that goes first into those,” I declared with feeling. The men first into a breach were volunteers, who were known as a forlorn hope. If they survived then they could expect honours and promotion.

“No, it promises to be a bloody affair,” agreed Campbell. “But we took Ciudad Rodrigo with the glacis still intact and so we should be able to do the same here.”

“Where will you be tonight?” I asked.

“Wellington has asked me to watch the first assault and then report back to him on how it is going.” The brave oaf actually sounded disappointed to be missing out on more of the action. Then he brightened and turned to me. “Why don’t you join me? Then one of us can go back with a first report, while the other watches a bit longer.”

My first reaction was that I wanted to be nowhere near that assault party tonight. But then I thought that if I did not join Campbell, I could be given a far more dangerous duty instead. Wellington was under the impression that I liked nothing more than risking life and limb on a daring mission. If he knew I was back and available for orders, he might give me command of the forlorn hope as some kind of treat! In comparison to that, acting as an observer sounded relatively safe. We would be standing to the rear and I would volunteer to be the bearer of the first message, which would get me safely away from the action. So I agreed, and if the next few hours turned out to be a living nightmare, well at least I am still alive to talk about them, which is more than can be said for many.

The French would have had to have been deaf and blind not to have known that an assault was coming that night or where it was directed. All day we had poured shot towards the largest breaches. While they had got a little bigger, there was still a very steep pile of rubble leading up to the gaps in the wall that were halfway up its height. Most of the gun fire ceased at dusk when it was hard to see where the shots landed, but one or two continued to deter the French from interfering with these breaks in their defences. Lanterns could be seen moving about on the piles of rubble in front of the breaches as the garrison prepared for the anticipated assault.

If the French were showing lights, they were not the only ones. Our attack force had started to assemble at dusk, when there was still some light, to avoid the deepest puddles in the trenches. But it took ages for the men to work their way forward, slipping and sliding in the mud. Soon countless lanterns and torches could be seen making their way across the muddy terrain. Like a swarm of fireflies in the darkness, they gradually congregated in the trenches dug for the assault. They made an irresistible target for the French gunners, and while they could not see where their balls landed, they kept up a steady fire in the direction of the lights.

I left it as late as I could before we made our way down to the trenches. By then it was pitch dark and the mud in the earthworks was so churned up by the men who had gone before that it was easier and probably safer to walk on the ground above. We had a shaded lantern to show the way and we managed to get to within a few hundred yards of where the men were gathered before we found a trench blocking our route. As I held the lantern over it to see how deep it was a sea of nervous faces stared back up at me.

“Good luck, you fellows,” called Campbell cheerily. “Is there a way down?”

The men reached up and helped us into the trench. The sides were slick with wet mud, and once we were in it we could not easily climb back out. We had no choice but to walk along its length. Campbell led the way and was positively jolly with everyone he met, slapping men on the back or shaking their hand and wishing them well. I was sure that he genuinely envied them their chance for glory. We could not see their faces clearly, but most we met were quiet in nervous anticipation. They knew that a good number of them were likely to be dead in the next few hours.

We made slow progress through the crowded trenches, but then I became aware of a movement in the men behind us. There were shouts of “Make way!” and I could see people squeezing themselves to the sides of the earthwork to make room for someone important. At first I thought it was Wellington come to take a final look at the preparations for the attack. But then the last few men parted and standing in front of me was the scowling face of Picton. At least this time he was properly dressed in his general’s uniform; the last time Campbell and I had seen him face the enemy, at Busaco, he had been wearing a nightshirt and cap.

“You two again, eh,” he growled while he surveyed us with his steely blue eyes. He was a frightening figure and even then he made me feel like we were doing something wrong. “What the devil are you doing back here?” he barked in an accusatory tone.

Even Campbell gulped slightly before replying. “We are observers, sir. We are to report to General Wellington on the progress of the attack.”

“Well, you are not going to see a damn thing back here. Follow me.” With that he pressed past us and, like the red sea parting before Moses, the red ranks parted before Picton. We hurriedly followed in his wake.

“Aren’t you commanding the diversionary attack on the castle, sir?” asked Campbell as we splashed along behind the general.

At first I thought Picton would ignore him, but at length he muttered over his shoulder, “Yes, but a diversion must be co-ordinated with the main attack.”

In no time at all we were at the forward trenches, with men hissing at us to keep quiet until they saw who we were with. Picton left us then while he went to talk to the commanders of the main assault. Campbell and I found a good position at the edge of an earthwork from where we could see what was happening. We were still some five hundred yards away from the city walls, and while the French must have known that an attack was coming, things were now quiet. All cannon fire from both sides had stopped. The only sign of any activity was the throwing of burning balls of straw into the breaches every few minutes by the French. This was to light the area and check that no one was approaching.

Picton was soon making his way back to his own men and the rest of us stood quietly, waiting for the appointed hour to pass. Even though I was not taking part in the attack, I could feel the tension from those about us. There was a quiet murmur of prayers and the occasional chuckle as people tried to ease the strain with humour. Every so often a man would step out of line to vomit in some corner. The forlorn hope were gathered in the next trench and I guessed that most were now regretting whatever had possessed them to volunteer in the first place. They had seen the breaches before dark and must have known that chances for their survival were slight.

Eventually a church bell clanged the hour of ten, which was the signal to start the attack. With whispered good wishes the forlorn hope started to move forward. There was the odd clatter and oath as the men hoisted scaling ladders onto their shoulders and then they were off into the darkness. More soldiers moved into the now vacant trench to wait and we all listened for sounds that the attack had started. My mouth was dry and I winced as someone in a rear trench screamed and then was reprimanded by some sergeant. It seemed loud enough to be heard in Ciudad Rodrigo, never mind Badajoz, but the garrison showed no sign of alarm. A few minutes later they tossed more burning balls of straw onto the breaches. While they saw nothing of concern, against the light we could make out the silhouettes of soldiers lowering ladders down the glacis into the ditch beyond. Once through that ditch our soldiers would have a hundred yard dash over exposed ground to reach the breaches.

The attack was going better than I had dared hope, but then I heard a crackle of musket fire in the distance. It was the diversionary attack by Picton’s men on the castle built further along the wall. There were no breaches there and the poor devils were planning an escalade: running forward with ladders and hoping to get to the top of the walls on them before they were shot or pushed off. There was shouting then from the French covering the gaps in the wall. They were experienced defenders; they knew that the main attack was likely to come in their direction and that we might try a diversion to distract them. More burning bales of straw were thrown down the slopes and this time they illuminated the first few of the forlorn hope climbing up the rubble. All hell seemed to break loose then.