Send Me Safely Back Again (43 page)

Hanley looked appalled as he came up.

‘They left it too late to change their minds,’ Pringle said.

Sergeant Probert leaned his half-pike against a caisson as he opened the chest and looked at the shot. ‘Wrong size for our guns,’ he said.

Pringle nodded. It would have been a surprise if the French, let alone whatever little German prince these men served, would use the same calibre guns as their own army. ‘Get the horses away!’ Dobson took charge and unhitched the team, before sending it and the drivers back behind the main British line. Then the grenadiers sweated as they dragged limber and gun out into the clearing. An engineer officer and a party of men were already there with hammer and nails to drive into the touch hole of this and other guns captured by the Fusiliers and the 53rd. That would render them useless for the moment. More permanent arrangements could wait until the end of the battle.

The drums began to beat. ‘Form, Third Battalion, form!’ Fisher’s voice echoed across the clearing.

Pritchard Jones rode along in front of the reforming line. ‘Well done!’ he said again and again. ‘Most truly well done! Sir Arthur sends to say that you are the bravest fellows in the world and that he does not have the words to express his full pleasure at our conduct. Well done, my brave lads!’ The colonel was beaming.

‘General Leval went in early,’ said King Joseph. Espinosa thought he sounded only mildly disappointed, as if someone had used the wrong fork at a dinner in the palace.

‘His orders were clear.’ Marshal Jourdan sounded defensive, as if expecting to be accused of dereliction of his duties.

‘Doesn’t matter a damn,’ insisted Victor. ‘He’s tying up the enemy on that flank and that’s what does matter. Hard to see much inside all those trees. Can’t blame the fellow for pushing on. We won’t win a battle by caution.’

Espinosa could hear the marshal’s frustration and his obvious dislike of his colleagues, but also sensed his excitement. The guns thundered on in the background, but he was surprised how used he had become to their noise.

‘The rosbifs on our left are busy,’ continued Victor when no one said anything. ‘The ones on the hill cannot move because of the threat to that flank. Now we smash the centre of this second-rate army. Don’t we, General Sebastiani?’

Espinosa noted the emphasis on the word ‘general’.

‘As Your Grace says,’ agreed the general with little enthusiasm. Yet when Espinosa looked down into the plain he felt his heart sink. He had helped to convince the French leaders to attack because the British and Spanish needed a battle. Even at the time he had realised that the French might well need one too.

Two divisions of French infantry stood side by side on the open fields beneath him. Twenty-four battalions of men who had trampled Austrians, Prussians and Russians beneath them before they came to Spain now waited to crush the British. They were in two lines, the supports several hundred yards behind the first, each battalion in its own column ready to advance. Ahead of them the gun batteries still pounded the redcoats. It was hard to believe that anything could live under such an onslaught. Harder still to think that the few stunned survivors could stand against the assault of at least double their number of French veterans. Espinosa was very afraid that he had helped to bring defeat on the cause he loved.

‘Quite a sight,’ said Velarde, limping up beside him. ‘I think this will be a day to remember.’

Espinosa still struggled to trust the man, even though he was sure the message he had brought was genuine. This is what the English general had wanted.

Guns slammed back on their trails, jumping as they threw solid
shot at the enemy lines little more than six or eight hundred yards away. They had been firing for an hour. Espinosa realised he was seeing the French Emperor’s way of war. There was an appalling violence to it.

‘With your permission, sire,’ said Victor in a tone that made it clear the request was a formality. ‘We shall order the main attack.’

‘Do so,’ said King Joseph, and ADCs flew off to carry the message.

The French guns thundered.

28

E
ach company of the 3rd Battalion of Detachments wheeled to the left, changing from line back into column. General MacKenzie’s ADC had come to summon them and now he led them to form up behind the Guards’ brigade.

‘Forward march,’ called Pritchard Jones. ‘At the double.’

Williams’ Light Company was at the head of the column, jogging through the long grass, packs and equipment bouncing as they went. The men’s faces were stained dark from the powder of their own firing. They were thirsty from the saltpetre in the gunpowder, which got into their mouths every time they bit off a cartridge, and their bodies ran with sweat from the brutal heat of the sun and the man-made warmth of musket and gun. Williams heard men panting, gulping for breath as they kept up the pace.

The French batteries could see them again when they came from behind the woodland. A bouncing shot kicked up muck from the earth just ahead of the Light Company. Another grazed the flank of the colonel’s horse, somehow missing his leg, but tearing flesh from the poor beast. The horse sank down on to its haunches, its immensely long tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth and its eyes rolling.

Pritchard Jones sprang off, staggered slightly as he hit the ground, and then recovered. Williams could see the tears in his eyes as the colonel pulled a pistol from his saddle holster and aimed it at the animal’s forehead. The horse stared at him, not moving, and Pritchard Jones pulled the trigger.

‘Keep moving! Keep moving!’ he yelled as the Light Company began to halt around the dead animal.

‘Come on!’ called Williams, and the men parted to flow around the corpse before reforming and jogging on. A shell exploded over to the right. Williams saw another lying in the grass unexploded and was glad it did not lie in their path because a careless kick might easily have reignited the fuse and set off the bomb.

Pritchard Jones ran at the head of his battalion, his sabre held up by his side to stop him from tripping over it.

‘Come on lads!’ He turned to run backwards, facing his men and encouraging them. The ADC trotted beside him and had to keep holding his horse back.

The Grenadier Company was at the rear, running past any of the men who fell. They saw the dead and wounded torn horribly by cannonballs. One man had been eviscerated when a shot hit him in the belly and his entrails, pale and already teeming with flies, were stretched across a good five or six yards. A grenadier was struggling so much to keep pace that he did not see the body and slipped on the wet meat. He staggered, staring down aghast, and then he was bending over as he vomited.

‘Get back in rank!’ called Dobson, who knew that it was better not to brood.

With a gentle thump a shell landed in the grass at the man’s feet, spun for a moment, sparks flying from the fuse, and then erupted into flame, smoke and flying metal. The grenadier was ripped apart, limbs, flesh, blood and pieces of equipment flung amid the shards of casing.

Dobson and Hanley had their legs knocked out from under them as they were sprayed with blood and flesh. The officer could feel an appalling stabbing pain in his right thigh and he heard himself whimpering like a child. Dobson rolled over, pushing part of the dead grenadier’s arm off himself, and grasped at the wounds in both of his calves. He tried to get up, but immediately the pain seared through him and his legs folded.

‘Goddamn it,’ he hissed.

The Grenadier Company ran on, following the battalion.

Hanley was stunned, and could not quite believe it as the
redcoats kept going, without anyone even looking back. He called out, but his voice was hoarse and weak and lost in the noise of the French guns. Pushing himself up on his hands, Hanley tried to rise, but there was simply no strength in his right leg. He slumped down, sobbing, and then rolled on to his back because that eased the pain a little.

The 3rd Battalion of Detachments doubled on through the dry grass. For a moment one enemy battery was almost perfectly positioned on their flank and a single shot bounced down the rank and took the heads off half a dozen men from Truscott’s company. The next man was left unmarked but stone dead and the man to his side was unconscious. Redcoats coming up behind dodged the corpses and doubled on.

‘Here!’ The ADC raised his arm to mark the spot.

‘Sergeant Rudden, put the left marker there!’ shouted Williams as the Light Company wheeled back into line. The rest of the battalion did the same. Sergeants kept the men moving and then jostled and shouted at them to redress the ranks.

‘Reload!’ Some of the men did not move, for their muskets were still charged, but most went automatically into the well-drilled routine, made a little more difficult because bayonets remained fixed.

The artillery fire slackened suddenly, leaving ears stunned and struggling to cope with the heaviness of silence. A few shells fell for a minute or two more, but then the battery commanders decided that even the shells fired high by the short-barrelled howitzers risked hitting the advancing French infantry, and they ordered the crews to cease fire. A twisted piece of casing from one of the last shots wounded Lieutenant Hatch in the face. Two men began helping him to the rear until a sergeant bellowed at one of them to get back into the ranks and not use this as an excuse to escape from the field.

Williams saw the Guards battalions stand up in front of him. French batteries still pounded the slopes of the Medellín Hill, but that noise was distant. Shouted orders came from behind him to
the left, and he looked back to see the 45th and the 31st advancing to form line level with the 3rd Battalion of Detachments.

Then he heard the drums. ‘Old trowsers! Old trowsers!’ he said softly in time with the beats and drum rolls of the French
pas de charge
– the rhythm of the attack. Rudden looked at him oddly. ‘Takes you back to Vimeiro,’ he said, and the sergeant nodded in acknowledgement.

The drums came closer. Williams could not see the French columns beyond the Guards. Dust came up to add to the gently drifting smoke as the only trace of the enemy. The drums were louder and closer, and chanting that had only been indistinct now came as phrases.

‘
Vive l’Empereur!
’

Everything was louder and stronger than in Portugal the previous summer.

‘
Vive l’Empereur! Vive l’Empereur!
’ More men marched and chanted in this attack than there had been in the entire French Army at Vimeiro. Far fewer redcoats waited for them.

‘
En avant! Vive l’Empereur!
’ The shouting was close now, and Williams saw the Guards begin to march forward to close the distance with the enemy. From farther down the line came the sound of volleys and cheering. Williams waited for the Guards to fire. They did not.

Without warning the Guards cheered and went straight into a bayonet charge.

‘Typical bloody Guards,’ he heard Rudden mutter. ‘Have to do it their own way.’

Williams could not see it, but the French must have given way. The Guards rushed forward a couple of hundred yards, their neat lines becoming ragged as they went through the Portina stream. Only then did the battalions halt and begin firing on the enemy. He saw their front blossom into smoke. Then the Guards were going forward again.

Up on the hill with the French commanders, Espinosa had watched the French attack close with the English. There were
twelve battalions in the lead, each column separated by enough distance so that they could form into line if necessary. Voltigeurs ran ahead of them and sniped at the little dots that were the English skirmishers.

The twelve battalions went forward. Soon the light troops ran back on either side and the French closed with the thin line of redcoats.

‘My lads have broken two of their brigades already,’ said Marshal Victor almost absent-mindedly.

Then things happened quickly, far faster than Espinosa expected. Some of the red lines fired at close range and then all were charging. From the distance the columns seemed to stagger, some firing back while others tried to deploy. A few men ran from the back of the formations, and then it was dozens, and in a moment entire columns turned into a loose swarm streaming to the rear.

The redcoats came after them. Espinosa saw the little flashes of colour as their flags streamed behind them.

‘Damn,’ said Marshal Victor.

British battalions became crowds of men almost as confused as their fleeing enemies. They came on, across the stream and on to the plain beyond. Below them, in front of the great battery, some redcoats were even running up the slopes of the big hill.

‘Ruddy fools think they have won,’ said Marshal Victor, his assurance returning.

The fleeing French infantry came through their own gun line. Crews had already loaded with canister, and were waiting for this moment. Officers shouted orders, but the targets were getting so close that they were scarcely needed.

‘Fire!’ yelled battery commanders. Guns slammed back and sprayed the lethal swarm of musket-sized balls at the enemy. Redcoats fell as men were snatched back by the blasts of canister. The battalions stopped in their tracks. Men started to load and fire back. Then the guns fired again and more men dropped into the dry grass.