Whose Business Is to Die (14 page)

Morres took his hand with a grip like a vice and pumped it vigorously while the subalterns stamped their feet and called out ‘Hear, hear!’

‘Will you stay the night, Mr Williams? It is well after half past two in the morning, so I doubt that you will get any rest if you do not take it with us.’

‘Thank you, you are most kind, but I must get on. I have come to suspect that Colonel Colborne has little need for sleep and expects similar unceasing exertion from his staff!’

‘Well, goodnight to you.’

One of the lieutenants accompanied him out and called softly for a soldier to bring Williams his mare. Most of the squadron were asleep, huddled around the dying fires. Deep breathing and more than a few definite snores mingled with the shuffling of the horses. Williams noticed that they had taken the bridles as well as the saddles off and asked about this.

‘Worth taking any opportunity to give the beasts some relief,’ explained the lieutenant. ‘The Portuguese are ahead of us, so if the alarm is given we should have an hour’s warning. Half that time would be enough in a pinch.’ He grimaced when Francesca was brought over. ‘I trust she has a good nature.’

‘Well, goodnight to you.’ Williams hauled himself into the saddle and reached down to shake hands.

‘Good luck finding your missing brigade!’ came the reply.

10

A
tall French officer on a big horse watched as Williams bid his farewell to the lieutenant, but was too far away in the darkness to recognise a man he had once fought. Not that it would have mattered or changed his actions in the slightest, for he had the enemy at his mercy and had no intention of showing them any.

Jean-Baptiste Dalmas lifted the heavy helmet up for a moment and adjusted it. After all these years the major no longer paid much heed to its weight or for that matter to the awkwardness of the back- and breastplates of the cuirass he wore. The makers claimed that it would stop a bullet, but he had seen too many fellow cuirassiers shot down at close range to believe their lies. It would stop sword or lance, but since that was no protection to arms, legs or face it did not make a man safe. Yet there was something about the gleam of the steel armour that frightened opponents, and a frightened enemy was always easier to beat.

Dalmas did not wear his regiment’s uniform for that reason. Most cuirassier officers dispensed with helmet and armour when they were not in action or on parade, let alone if detached to the staff. Marshal Soult’s ADCs paraded about in hussar uniforms. Dalmas was an unofficial member of the marshal’s staff, but was sure that no one would question him if he aped them, or simply adopted a smart but simple and practical undress uniform. Instead he remained a cuirassier, and he knew that it was mainly through pride. The cuirassiers were an elite, the heavy horsemen who had ridden over all the armies of Europe, and he was proud to wear
their uniform. More than that, it showed the world that he was no pampered headquarters man, but a fighting soldier.

‘Draw swords!’ he hissed without turning around. Behind him came a series of faint scrapes as the hussars drew their curved sabres. Dalmas glanced to his right and could just make out the darker shadow of the other squadron about a hundred yards away. There were faint gleams as the sabres were drawn. The 2ième Hussars were a good regiment.

‘Walk,’ he said softly, and walked his horse up the low bank beside the lane and down into the field. Harness creaked and bits and buckles gave off soft metallic noises as the squadron followed him.

Dalmas wondered whether he would ever understand the English. They fought well – take them head-on and they would pound away at you and not give up – and sometimes they were clever. No one had guessed that Lord Wellington would fortify the approaches to Lisbon as he had done and then just wait for the French to starve. It was not very glorious, but it was effective, and Dalmas, like his Emperor, admired such ruthless calculation.

The English were tough. Not tough like the Russians, who fought like tethered bears – strong, ferocious, but unthinking in their rage. The Austrians made war scientifically, organised everything, and then lost scientifically because they never coped with chance or the enemy failing to do what was expected. Back in ’06 the Prussians had been brave, but so badly led that they never had much of a chance. Dalmas had fought and beaten them all, and since then ridden down Spanish and Portuguese armies more times than he could remember.

The English could fight and they could be clever, and then they did something like this. He had been with the cavalry outposts for the last few days, growing ever more angry because no one senior would take the decision to attack when the enemy were divided as they crossed the Guadiana. Until this afternoon the English light dragoons had done a good job of watching the French on the roads to Olivenza. Then a fresh regiment took over – Portuguese by the look of them, but surely English-led.
Dalmas had watched them riding along opposite their outposts until he was sure. There was a gap, a great wide empty space of more than half a mile, on their left. As the sun set he took two hussars and rode in for a closer look. The fields were dotted with copses and woodland, offering plenty of cover, and there was not an Allied soldier to be seen.

At midnight he led this raid, moving carefully, for part of him still struggled to believe that the enemy could make such a mistake. Once again he rode ahead with only a few men, and let the squadron columns follow. They found a campsite, embers still glowing and warm.

‘Six hours,’ was the verdict of a corporal with drooping moustaches, a pigtail and braids or
cadenettes
on either side of his forehead.

They went on, and still no challenge came. An hour later, they spotted the fires, and then he and the corporal walked close enough to see the enemy camp. It took time to go back and bring up the main force. Even this little expedition had tired the horses. In Spain and Portugal the French cavalry never got any rest from patrols, outpost duty, escorting convoys and chasing
guerrilleros
. Weeks went by without the chance to unsaddle, for all too often the squadrons slept at the ready. The horses were tired, badly fed, plagued with sores on their backs. The 2ième looked after their horses better than some, but even so the animals were small, unhealthy beasts compared to the fine mounts regiments like this had ridden in Germany and Poland just a few years earlier.

Dalmas halted. ‘Form line,’ he called. The English were two hundred yards away and no one stirred. He could see the officer on horseback talking to the one on foot, but it would have been hard for them to see past the firelight into the dark night beyond.

Glancing back, he saw that the hussars were ready, with one company of fifty men in two ranks and the second company of the squadron behind them. He could not see much detail, could barely make out the silhouettes of the men in their flat-topped shakos, let alone see the fat grass bellies of their little horses.

Dalmas turned back to face the enemy camp. There was no point waiting for they were perfectly placed. His job these days was to help outwit the enemy, seeing through their deceptions and fooling the English with lies of their own. For the moment, it was mainly a matter of delay – slow the enemy down and so allow just a little more time to repair the walls of Badajoz and be ready to resist their attack.

Yet at heart he was a cavalryman, a schoolteacher turned soldier who had discovered that he was very good at his new profession. The Emperor rewarded talent and so the conscript cavalryman had become an NCO and then an officer. Dalmas longed to be given his own regiment of cuirassiers and let loose against the foes of France.

He raised his sword above his head.

‘Charge!’ he yelled, and before he nudged its sides his big gelding was cantering.

‘
Vive l’empereur!’
The cry split the night air.

In battle a cavalry charge should start slowly, gain speed by stages to keep the ranks in order and only for the last short stretch reach an all-out gallop. That was against a formed enemy ready to meet the attack. Here his enemies were helpless, taken completely unaware, so all that mattered was speed to complete their destruction.

Men stirred in the camp. He heard the first shouts, then a challenge.

‘
Vive l’empereur!’
The hussars were surging around him, all order gone, but it did not matter.

The shouts became louder as drowsy men in the camp woke to the horror rushing towards them. A man sprang up from behind a bush, his bare bottom very white in the darkness as he clutched at his trousers. He fled, lost grip of his pants and then tripped and fell, saving him from the slash of a hussar’s sabre.

Dalmas reached the camp, thrust at one of the enemy, driving the tip of his sword into the man’s neck and then riding on. He saw the shape of another man appear and this time cut down into his skull. All around him he heard screams and the grunts of the
hussars as they swung their blades and drove them through flesh, muscle and bone. There was a shot, just one, the flame appallingly bright in the gloom, but few of the enemy showed any signs of fight. In the glow of the firelight he saw the mounted officer waving a pistol, as the one on foot leapt barebacked on to a horse. Dalmas spurred towards them, but a knot of men were in his way. One had a sabre, the blade glinting red, so he pulled on his reins and kicked the sides of his horse so that it rose in a well-practised move, hoofs flailing in the air. The men spilt up, and Dalmas cut down, slicing through the man’s eye and cheek. His horse was back on all fours, and as the soldier screamed and clutched his face, Dalmas thrust neatly into the man’s chest, feeling metal grate on rib before it slid past.

A shot punched the air and ripped through the epaulette on his right shoulder. Dalmas swayed with the impact, saw that it was the officer who had fired, and cut down at another of the soldiers near him. The two British officers turned their horses and fled, the man riding bareback with hands gripping the animal’s mane. A screaming figure ran into the neck of his horse, and he had raised his sword to strike when he saw the long hair and terrified face of a woman looking up at him.

Men raised their hands and shouted out that they surrendered. Many of the hussars still sliced with their sabres.

‘They’re English, take them prisoner!’ a hussar captain shouted, his deep voice carrying over the chaos of the captured camp.

‘Get those horses!’ Dalmas yelled, pointing with his sword. ‘Don’t let any get away.’ The animals were a far more valuable prize than any prisoner, useful though those might be. The British had the best horses in the whole Iberian peninsula – some said the best in the world. They were certainly better than any remount ever likely to come the way of the 2ième Hussars.

‘Stop, man!’ Dalmas passed a sergeant grabbing the sword-arm of one of the hussars. ‘It’s over.’

A flurry of shots rang out as the other squadron fired into the night.

‘Some of them are hiding in a marsh,’ their captain explained. ‘Can’t follow them, but we might get lucky and hit a few.’

‘Any losses?’ Dalmas asked.

The man grinned and shook his head. It was the same with the other hussar squadron.

‘Are we going on, sir?’ the captain asked.

Dalmas felt the temptation. It had all been so easy, and here they were inside the enemy outpost line. They could ride on, seeking more prey while the English still had no idea what was happening.

‘No,’ he said. They were only two squadrons and could not take on an entire army, no matter how surprised. ‘Secure the horses and the prisoners, and let’s get away before they realise we are here. Who is this?’

Two hussars were leading along a figure on foot, a bareheaded British officer with his jacket undone.

‘And you are, sir?’ Dalmas’ English was clear if accented and slow, learned years before from Jenny Dobson.

‘Morres, sir, major in the Thirteenth Light Dragoons.’

‘Then, although I regret to say that you are now our prisoner, I am otherwise pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Major Dalmas of the Thirteenth Cuirassiers.’ There was no harm in courtesy to a beaten enemy. ‘If you will give me your word not to try to escape, you may have your sabre.’

Morres’ eyes flicked from side to side. There were still three or four hours before dawn, and in the darkness a man might be able to slip away. Dalmas knew that the man was thinking about it, just as he would have done in the same position.

‘I cannot, sir.’

‘I understand.’ Dalmas switched back to French, ‘You two, keep a close guard on him and the other officers.’

Dalmas walked his horse away to join the two squadron commanders.

‘Gentlemen, a very good night’s work. These are the Thirteenth Dragoons, so we have some vengeance for Colonel Chamorin and his dragoons.’ The hussar officers both smiled. ‘Well done,
all of you. Now let’s make it a better night still by slipping away without being seen.’

Dalmas wiped his sword on his horse’s mane and slid it back into its sheath. Reaching up, he felt the damage to his epaulette and wondered whether the Englishman had been aiming at him for any reason other than that he was leading the charge and bigger than anyone else. There had been that fellow at Campo Major – the one Sinclair said was the elusive Captain Hanley. It was hard to be sure in the darkness, but he did not think this was the same man.

Well, for the moment it did not matter. Such thoughts could wait for tomorrow, when he went back to scheming. Enjoy tonight, he thought to himself, and relish the sheer joy of leading cavalry into battle and crushing the enemy.

Around him the two squadrons had formed up, with hussars detached to lead strings of captured horses and escort the prisoners. The captured woman was bandaging her husband’s arm and would go with them. Three of the British were so badly wounded that they would have to be left.

‘Right, lads,’ he said, ‘let’s go home.’

‘Two officers, a sergeant major, five corporals, two each of trumpeters and farriers, and forty private soldiers. In addition sixty troop horses, a brace of mules, and about a dozen horses owned by the officers.’ Williams finished reading out the list and folded the paper away. He had noted the figures down because he could still not quite believe what had happened.