Whose Business Is to Die (22 page)

Soult gestured to his chief of staff, who in turn nodded at the
chef de battalion
and Dalmas indicating that they should stay. Most
of his officers were used to such behaviour by now, but even so a few of the more senior men glared at them as they filed out, boots echoing on the polished floor.

‘I wish to repeat how important it is for you to watch the Spanish,’ the marshal told them once the door to the room was closed. ‘I need to know instantly if they join with Beresford. Now, what do you make of this Beresford?’

The
chef de battalion
gave a brief summary of the man. ‘He is the bastard son of an Irish aristocrat, an excellent organiser who has reformed the Portuguese army, and he has some experience of higher command, although this is the largest force he has ever led.’

‘He is hesitant, Your Grace,’ Dalmas added, when his colleague had finished. ‘Like all the British he will fight like a lion if you attack him head-on, but he will be slow to manoeuvre and reluctant to attack.’

‘Huh.’ The marshal’s grunt could mean anything or nothing. ‘And where is that rascal Sinclair?’

‘He has not yet returned, Your Grace. We have learned the names of more enemy spies and so he has taken a party out to catch them and persuade them to work for us.’

‘Hmm.’ Another grunt, and this time more obviously annoyed. ‘Does that mean that you will be asking me for more money?’

‘No, Your Grace. There should be sufficient for our needs in what you have already given us.’

‘I should damned well think so.’ Marshal Soult’s mood improved with the news. ‘So there will be other persuasion?’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’

‘Make sure it is nothing unnecessary. We have won the goodwill of many people because we protect them from the bandits, so we cannot afford to behave as badly ourselves. And what is all this money you have had buying us?’

‘More information than we would otherwise have had, Your Grace, much more, and our friends increase in number.’

‘You cannot buy Marshal Beresford’s friendship, can you?’

‘Sadly, Your Grace …’ Dalmas had used generous gifts to
weaken the resolve of some of the Spanish leaders in Badajoz and so helped the marshal to take the place. Then he and Sinclair had been given a smaller sum, much smaller, and had used it to deceive the British at Campo Major. The wagon they had abandoned was mainly filled with empty chests, and only one held silver. Sinclair had come up with the scheme, wanting to sell the British the idea that a fortune had already been spread to win over sympathisers. ‘Make them doubt all their friends,’ the Irishman had said.

Dalmas had liked the idea, but then the Irishman had come up with the whole scheme of using Bertrand and Jenny Dobson, and he had been far less keen. The engineer was desperate to escape his creditors and it did not take much to hint to the English girl that he might save himself by deserting. In a carefully arranged accident they let Bertrand have some of the most recent orders sent from Paris and other secrets and then waited. At Campo Major they did not arrest him, but insisted on accompanying him everywhere and so let the man worry until he made his bid to cross over to the enemy. It had worked, after a fashion, but Sinclair saw outwitting the enemy as a game, and sometimes became so caught up in it that he lost all sense of what it was for in his longing to win a hand. Dalmas was beginning to think him too elaborate. He had not been able to get a straight answer from Sinclair over whether or not Brandt had meant to kill the engineer officer or to shoot the Englishman Hanley, or simply to fire close to them and make it all look real.

‘I thought as much,’ Soult said. ‘In that case I must bring him to battle and smash this one-eyed Irishman, and you two must make sure I know when is the best moment to hit him. Dalmas, you go back to General La Tour-Maubourg and help him watch the British and Spanish. I need to know as soon as Badajoz is invested, and then we need to hit them sooner than they expect, so do everything you can to stop them watching us.’ The marshal flicked a hand across the tail of his heavily decorated coat and turned on his heel, ready to bustle off to the next meeting of the day.

‘Your Grace?’ Dalmas saw the flash of irritation in the marshal’s face as he turned. ‘I wonder if you have had a chance to consider my application.’

Soult frowned, and looked at his chief of staff. ‘Major Dalmas has made several requests to go to his regiment.’

There was another grunt, of amusement as well as annoyance. ‘Want to leave us, eh? Well, not at the moment, because there is too much to do. If you help me win a battle then I will consider the matter. Now, good day to you both.’

Dalmas was not surprised by the answer, but even so felt low in spirits as he left Seville later that day. For all the good he had done at the meeting he might just as well have stayed watching the British. Something was stirring, and it would be better to get the earliest possible warning of what it was. He wondered when Sinclair would turn up. The man had taken a dozen soldiers all dressed in the uniform of the Irish Legion, although in truth they were rogues from half of Europe. There had been no word for two weeks, and if that was not so very unusual it was inconvenient at the moment. He would need Sinclair’s help to discover the enemy’s plans and conceal the French advance, but sensed that the Irishman’s failure outside Cadiz made him reluctant to get involved in another campaign. Instead he was retreating to the more distant prospects and possibilities of the wider war – important, without a doubt, and difficult, but also worth nothing if the army was defeated.

Major Dalmas was weary of intelligence work and hoped that he would soon be free of it. At least for the next few weeks he would be with the cavalry outposts. It was not quite the same as being back with a regiment, better still leading his own regiment, but it was simple and he was good at it. He would go and help the marshal to win his battle.

17

T
here was still no sign of the rising sun, and although the grey light was growing, it was hard to see very far in the lingering mist. The air was damp and cold, and when Hanley ran a hand through his hair it felt dirty. They were a good three miles away from Fuentes de Oñoro, where the French had attacked with such determination the day before yesterday, and so far the enemy had shown no interest in this, the extreme right of Lord Wellington’s position.

‘There, Don Julian, see the shadows under the trees!’ Captain Brotherton of the 14th Light Dragoons was pointing to the spot, one of the many stretches of sparse woodland around the village of Nave de Haver.

Hanley knew the area well, having spent months in the country near Almeida before Masséna launched his invasion. The fortress, with its French garrison, was surrounded by Lord Wellington’s army, and Masséna had come back with all his might to open the road and take a great supply convoy to the city. If he succeeded, then the place would fall only to a regular siege of the sort the Allies were not well equipped to mount.

‘Are they your men, Don Julian?’ Brotherton asked. He was a bluff, eager fellow, quite short and stocky like a lot of light dragoons. He was experienced in the country, but it was clear that the man was suspicious of the Spanish in general and especially irregulars like Don Julian Sanchez.

Hanley peered at the dark shapes on the edge of the wood. The men looked to be on foot, and he thought he glimpsed a flat-topped shako, but that meant very little, since Don Julian’s
band of
guerrilleros
sported all sorts of captured uniforms. El Charro, as he was known, was a former sergeant in the Spanish line whose peaceful civilian life was shattered by the French invasion. He had raised a band of fighters, and harried the French for years, making it difficult for them to move in this border country unless they came in force. Hanley had ridden with the band many times and both liked and respected its leader. These days El Charro led some fifteen hundred men, infantry as well as cavalry, and had been granted the rank of general in the Spanish army.

‘That is one of my pickets,’ Don Julian said, his tone level. For all his reputation, El Charro was a calm man, who picked his fights with care and never wasted effort.

The sun broke through the clouds, its light pale, but growing, and the mist grew thinner almost immediately. Birds, perched in the stunted oak trees behind them, redoubled their efforts to welcome the dawn.

‘There are a lot of them.’ Brotherton’s voice was filled with doubt.

‘My dear captain, you may depend on it.’ Don Julian remained courteous. ‘That is one of our pickets.’ The partisan leader turned general was tasked by Lord Wellington with watching the far right of the Allied position. A little behind him, and stretched for more than a mile to the hamlet of Poco Velho, was the Seventh Division, recently formed and composed mainly of foreign corps and battalions new to the country. Brotherton’s two squadrons from his own regiment had arrived during the hours of darkness to reinforce this wing, but it was a small reinforcement, and at the moment they were dismounted and cooking breakfast. Hanley had caught the tantalising scent of chocolate as he passed them.

The disposition made it clear that Lord Wellington did not expect a serious attack in this area. For all their ferocity and skill in harassing an enemy, El Charro’s men were unsuited to fighting in the line of battle. Yesterday the French had done little, apart from staging a grand parade with bands playing to welcome the arrival of some regiments of cavalry from the Emperor’s
own Imperial Guard. Marshal Bessières had come to reinforce Masséna and since the two men did not care for each other, Hanley wondered whether this explained the enemy’s lethargy. Yet they could not simply sit facing the Allies indefinitely, and Lord Wellington suspected that today they would either withdraw or attack. The last seemed most probable and so the only question remained where they would advance. A threat to his right seemed less likely than elsewhere, for it did not offer a good approach to Almeida, but even so he had sent Hanley to ride up to Nave de Haver.

‘You know Sanchez as well as anyone,’ Colonel Murray had told him. ‘Just keep an eye on the fellow for us. Partisans like that can almost sniff the French long before they see them. Just make sure he gives us plenty of warning.’ Murray was Lord Wellington’s quartermaster general and with Baynes helped to direct the gathering of intelligence.

Hanley was due to ride south again, but was too useful to be allowed to leave until the battle was over. By the time he had arrived, Murray learned that the prisoner taken by the
guerrilleros
was dead, killed by his captors when they were attacked by a French column and he had made a bid for freedom. At least that was the story they maintained, and it would be hard to prove otherwise. They had left the body behind, so it was not even worth going to visit the band. Perhaps it was Sinclair, but more likely it was not, and his whole journey was wasted. They might not know until the fellow did or did not turn up again. Hanley wanted to be back in Estremadura, for he needed to speak to Baynes. There was something not quite right about the whole business, about the French money, the attempted desertion of Bertrand and the capture or turning of their sources. He could see plenty of smoke and not enough fire to cause it, and wondered whether his suspicions were getting the better of him. Murray did not know enough of the situation further south to feel himself able to judge, but did wonder whether they had all been humbugged.

‘Are you sure, Don Julian?’ Brotherton’s words snapped Hanley
from his thoughts. The mist was even thinner now, the sun turning red, and he caught glints from the dark shapes amid the trees. ‘It looks like fifty or more men to me, with others behind. Look! There on the left. Those fellows are holding horses.’

Once again Hanley was not sure what that proved, for many of the
guerrilleros
were mounted.

‘Madre de Dios.’
El Charro gasped the words. For a moment the wind blew and wafted away even more of the mist. They could see lines of men under the trees. They were in uniform, not odd pieces of many different uniforms, but all in the same dark tunics and trousers and with light covers on their shakos, and all of them held the reins of a horse. Hanley did not hear the order, but the figures moved, all climbing into the saddle.

‘Oh, damn,’ Brotherton said softly. ‘I knew it,’ he added, speaking loudly and looking more at Hanley than the partisan leader, ‘they are chasseurs. I must go to my fellows,’.

The French line sparkled as the chasseurs drew sabres. Brotherton sped away, and Don Julian glanced at Hanley before putting spurs to his own horse and heading for the houses.

Hanley watched the French come forward at a walk. There must be seventy or eighty of them in two ranks, and another squadron appeared in the gloom of the wood behind them. He wondered about drawing his rifle and taking a shot, and went so far as to reach back to the long leather scabbard he had got made and fitted to the back of his saddle.

‘Come on, Englishman,’ Don Julian shouted back at him, and he realised that he was being a fool so followed. Nave de Haver was small, but the garden walls of the grey stone houses were thick and at least shoulder high. El Charro’s men were spilling out of all the buildings, pulling on clothes and carrying their weapons. The
guerrilleros
knew how to move quickly, especially when the enemy was near. This time they had been surprised, but these were not easy men to catch.

‘Go! Go!’ El Charro bellowed at his men, his deep voice echoing in the narrow lanes. His men did not need more orders
than that. They bounded on to horses and mules and set off away from the enemy.

‘Will you not hold the village for a while?’ Hanley asked as he caught up with Don Julian. ‘They are only cavalry and will not find it easy to winkle your men out of this place.’

The partisan general looked annoyed and baffled that anyone could be so foolish. ‘No,’ he said, and then his expression softened. ‘No, my friend. The infantry will not be far behind and so they will charge in here and we cannot stop them.’