Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 (59 page)

But next day—January 16, 1809—though their drums beat early to arms and a battery of eleven twelve-pounders had appeared during the night on a rocky eminence overhanging the British line, the French made no move. During the morning, while the last stores and baggage were embarked and Mr. Robinson of
The Times
paid farewell calls in the town, the scarlet lines waited unmolested under a cloudless sky among the Monte Mero rocks and heather. At midday, when it seemed clear that the enemy were not going to attack, Moore gave orders for the Reserve to embark during the afternoon and for the rest of the army to follow as soon as it was dark. Among the white houses of Corunna two miles away Crabb Robinson, going to dine at the hotel, found the table d'hote packed with departing English officers.

But between one and two o'clock, just after Moore had observed to his secretary, " Now if there is no bungling, I hope we shall get away in a few hours," the French began to move. Soult, supposing that his enemies were breaking formation, had decided to destroy them as they went down to their ships. He had a score of heavy calibre guns to their eight light six-pounders, a superiority in manpower—16,000 or more to their 15,000—and far greater forces coming up over the mountains in his rear
. The ground and all the circum
stances

¹
Schaumann reckoned it
370
miles.—Schaumann,
136.
289

were in his favour. He waited no longer but launched his troops at a run down the mountain side in three columns, with a cloud of voltigeurs swarming ahead into the valley below the British lines. At the same time the great battery of heavy guns on the rocks opposite the British right opened with terrible effect.

Down by the harbour, as the firing broke out, everything changed. Crabb Robinson looked up from his dinner to find that the red
-
coated officers had all left. Crowds of people gathered in the streets and on the roofs to hear the musketry and watch the smoke rising like mist from the nearby hills. The Reserve, marching down to the quayside with thoughts set on England, halted to a man as if _ by word of command at that compelling sound; a few minutes later an aide-de-camp came spurring down the road to recall them. Perhaps the most astonishing transformation of all was that of a fatigue party digging entrenchments near the ramparts under the orders of Lieutenant Boothby of the Engineers. All his efforts had failed to induce the men to lay aside the air of extreme weariness they had assumed. Each shovel of earth approached the top of the bank as slowly as the finger of a clock. Boothby was therefore considerably astonished at their behaviour when an order came for them to join their regiments marching to the field. "They threw down their tools, jumped to their arms, halloed and frisked as boys do when loosed from school, these poor, tattered, half-dead looking devils."

Meanwhile the French had taken all their first objectives. Pouring down the hillside in a torrent, 600 voltigeurs under old General Jardon—a true, foul-mouthed, gallant son of the Revolution who never changed his linen and always marched on foot with the leading files, carrying a musket—drove the defending piquets out- of Elvina village. He was closely followed by General Mermet with the main column. Another phalanx on its right made for the British centre. Behind, the guns of the great battery pounded cannon-balls over their heads into the British lines. Here, on the extreme right of the ridge above Elvina, twenty-six-year-old Charles Napier, commanding the 50th Foot, walked up and down the ranks making his men shoulder and order arms to distract their minds from the round shot, while his piquets fifty yards below disputed with the French skirmishers.

Suddenly above the thunder of musketry and the cries of "En avant, tue, tue, en avant, tue!" of the French column, he heard the gallop of horses and, turning round, saw Sir John Moore. " He came at speed," he wrote, " and pulled up so sharp and close he seemed to have alighted from the air; man and horse looking at the approaching foe with an intenseness that seeme
d to concentrate all feeling in
their eyes. The sudden stop of the animal, a cream-coloured one with black tail and mane, had cast the latter streaming forward; its ears were pushed out like horns, while its eyes flashed fire, and it snorted loudly with expanded nostrils, expressing terror, astonishment and muscular exertion. My first thought was, it will be away like the wind! but then I looked at the rider, and the horse was forgotten. Thrown on its haunches the animal came, sliding and dashing the dirt up with its fore feet, thus bending the general forward almost to its neck. But his head was thrown back and his look more keenly piercing than I ever saw it. He glanced to the right and left, and then fixed his eyes intently on the enemy's advancing column, at the same time grasping the reins with both his hands, and pressing the horse firmly with his knees: his body thus seemed to deal with the animal while his mind was intent on the enemy, and his aspect was one of searching intenseness beyond the power of words to describe. For a while he looked, and then galloped to the left without uttering a word."
¹

Here the other two columns were attacking the British line which ran for about a mile along the scrubby ridge to the marshes of the Mero on its left. On the fringe of the latter the easternmost column had driven Lieutenant-General Hope's outposts out of Palavia Abaxo village and was coming on towards the slope at the double. But it soon became clear that the real danger was to Baird's division on the other flank opposite the great battery, and particularly to its extreme right where Lord William Bentinck's brigade—consisting of the 4th, the 50th and the 42nd—was holding a small knoll above Elvina. A further French column, supported at a distance by cavalry, was now surging round the western edge of the ridge into the valley which ran down behind the British position towards the harbour two miles away. To protect the latter the 52nd and the Rifles had been hastily extended, screening the rest of Paget's Reserve which had taken up its position in the suburb of Airis behind the British lines. Though the French were swirling all round the knoll on which he was posted, Lord William—an habitually placid man—was ambling about on an old mule, which seemed as indifferent to the fire as he, and talking to every one with the utmost good humour. "I only remember saying to myself," Charles Napier wrote, "this chap takes it coolly or the devil's in it."

Presently Moore returned and joined the group on the knoll. A round-shot struck the ground close to his horse's feet, causing it to spin round, but he never took his gaze from the enemy. A second shot tore the leg off a 42nd Highlander who started screaming and

¹
Charles Napier, I,
95.
See also Leith Hay, I,
123
-4.

rolling about, much to the agitation of his comrades. "This is nothing, my lads," Moore called out, "keep your ranks, take that man away; my good fellow, don't make such a noise, we must bear these things better." His sharp tone had the calming effect intended, and the ranks closed again.
¹

The battle was now reaching the climax he had foreseen. While Baird's and Hope's battered divisions continued with their sustained musketry to hold the ridge against frontal attack, the French— deceived by appearances—were pouring into the valley towards Airis and the approaches to Corunna, imagining that they had encircled the British right. They had completely failed to realise, that Moore had two unused divisions behind his lines. He now gave the order for the rest of the Reserve to reinforce the 95th and 52nd and expel the intruders and for Major-General Fraser's division, lying back near the port on the Corunna-St. Iago road, to move up in support. At the same time he launched the 4th Foot from the right of the ridge against the flank of the incautious French and sent the 50th and 42nd forward against Elvina.

In the smoke-filled valley on his right everything went as Moore had intended. As Soult's troops surged forward they encountered Paget's advancing line and discovered—for the first time—the real right of the British army. Enraged by the memory of all they had suffered on the retreat and supported by the enfilading fire and bayonets of the 4th, the veterans of the Reserve quickly turned the enemy's advance into a rout and, carrying all before them, surged up the valley towards the great battery itself. Meanwhile, led by Napier and his young fellow major, Charles Stanhope—Pitt's nephew—the 50th cleared Elvina and dashed on in a rough, scrambling fight into the stony lanes and fields beyond. Owing to a misunderstanding, however, the Black Watch fell back to replenish their powder; on seeing this the general rode up to them, exclaiming, "My brave 42nd, if you've fired your ammunition, you've still your bayonets. Remember Egypt! Think on Scotland! Come on, my gallant countrymen!"
²
Then, sending back young George Napier, his aide-de-camp, to bring up the Guards in support, he remained erect and motionless on his horse, watching the development of the attack on the French battery. At any moment now the guns would be his; the 14th Foot on his left had retaken Palavia Abaxo; the discouraged enemy, their ammunition failing, were everywhere giving ground. Behind them lay the swollen Mero and the solitary bridge at El Burgo. The experienced eye of the great Scottish soldier

¹
Charles Napier, I,
96.
¹
Blakeney,
121.

told him that victory was his; the sufferings he and his men had endured for so long were about to be avenged.

At that moment a cannon-ball from the threatened battery struck him from his horse, carrying away his left shoulder and part of his collar-bone, and leaving his lungs exposed and his arm hanging by a torn string of flesh. For a moment he lay motionless, then raised himself to a sitting position, and, with eyes kindling with their habitual brilliance, resumed his gaze on the smoke and turmoil ahead. So unmoved was his face that those about him could scarcely realise the deadly nature of his wound.

A little later Commissary Schaumann saw him being borne by six Highlanders through the streets of Corunna on a blood-stained blanket, with a little group of aides-de-camp and doctors walking beside. He had refused to be parted from his sword which he carried out of the field with him like a Spartan his shield. Though breathing only with intense pain, he repeatedly made his bearers pause so that he might look back on the battle. " You know," he murmured to his friend, Colonel Anderson,
"I
have always wished to die this way."

After Moore's departure—for Baird had also had his arm shattered by the great battery's raking fire—the command devolved on a fellow Scot, Sir John Hope. The latter, isolated on the left from the decisive events which had been taking place elsewhere, was unable to follow up the swift succession of blows planned by his fallen chief. The gallantest of men, pottering instinctively—as one of his officers testified—to wherever the fire was hottest,
¹
he was a little overawed by the weight of the responsibility that had suddenly fallen on him; England's only army was in his keeping and her fleet was waiting in a perilous anchorage. It was growing dark and, seeing that the French attack was broken, he called off the pursuit and ordered Moore's instructions of the morning to be put into immediate operation. It was certain now that the embarkation would be unmolested.

In darkness and weariness the men marched to the quayside while the rearguard piquets lit bivouac fires on the abandoned ridge. Hollow-eyed and covered with blood and filth, they looked so terrible that the townsfolk crossed themselves as they passed.
²
But the withdrawal was carried out in perfect order, so well had Moore's measures and a brush with the enemy restored the discipline of his tattered troops. Presently, on the dark, tossing water-front they were grasped by the mighty fists of the sailors and pulled into the boats. As they were rowed across the harbour to the waiting ships,

¹
Boothby,
219.

²
Schaumann,
141.

their General lay breathing his last on the soil of the land he had come to save.
"I
hope the people of England will be satisfied," he whispered, "I hope my country will do me justice." He repeatedly inquired after his officers, urging that this one should be recommended for promotion and begging to be remembered to another. "Is Paget in the room?" he asked, "remember me to him, he is a fine fellow." Then, as his wound congealed and grew cold and the agony increased, he became silent lest he should show weakness.

By the morning of the 17th the whole army was on board except for 1500 troops whom Hope, resolved to depart in dignity, had left under Hill and Beresford to cover the embarkation of the wounded. The Spaniards, stirred by the battle to a sudden ecstasy of generous enthusiasm, had volunteered to defend the ramparts while the fleet got to sea. The whole town, men, women and children had turned out; "everybody commanded, everybody fired, everybody halloed, everybody ordered silence, everybody forbade the fire, everybody thought musketry best and everybody cannon."
¹
"Thus, after all," wrote Schaumann, "we became reconciled to the Spanish character." About the same time Napoleon, having threatened to hang the municipality for the murder of a French soldier, was preparing to leave Valladollid for Paris. His eagles had not been planted on the towers of Lisbon after all. Nor had he destroyed the British army. As it began to grow light and the wind in the bay of Corunna freshened, a party of the 9th Foot with a chaplain and a few mournful officers could be seen making their way along the ramparts on the landward bastion of the citadel. They carried the body of their dead Commander, wrapped in his military cloak. Presently they committed it to the ground, and "left him alone with his glory."