Текст книги "The Fields of Death"

Автор книги: Simon Scarrow

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Chapter 7

In the thin light of the first hour of dawn Arthur gazed steadily towards the east as, column after column, the French army formed up ready to begin their attack. The Portina divided the two armies as it flowed, almost straight, across the plain to the Tagus and the pickets of both sides were already withdrawing, with a few men exchanging final, fatalistic farewells with their opposite numbers. The sight briefly moved Arthur, who could not help wondering at the nature of men that they could be so civil to each other one moment, and intent on each other’s destruction the next. His body felt stiff after sleeping the last few hours on the open ground, covered in his cloak. He stretched his back with a slight groan as he surveyed the enemy’s dispositions with grim satisfaction.

As Arthur had hoped, the main strength of the French army had been drawn opposite the British. Over forty thousand of them, he estimated, while a few thousand faced the Spanish. It was an odd thing to have wished for, he mused, but the situation was such that the battle could only be won if the French were persuaded to concentrate their efforts on the British alone. Cuesta’s army was largely a spent force, and most of his men would only be onlookers in the day’s fighting.

‘Sir?’

He turned and saw Somerset approaching with a stoppered jug and a loaf of bread.

‘Thought you might like some breakfast, sir.’

‘Yes, yes I would. Thank you.’

As he watched the French gunners bring forward the first rounds of ammunition Arthur tore off small chunks of bread and chewed quickly. He swallowed, pulled the stopper out of the jug and took a swig. Instantly his face screwed up and he spat to one side. ‘By God, what is this?’

‘Wine, sir. I found it in a tavern outside the town. The French must have overlooked it when they passed through.’

‘Small wonder.’ Arthur put the jug down and nodded towards the enemy. ‘This is going to be a hard-fought battle, and the men know it.’ He glanced at Somerset. ‘I’ve seen their faces. They know the odds are against us.’

‘Then they will fight all the harder for it, sir.’

Arthur looked at him again and smiled. ‘I only hope they have as much spirit as you do. We shall know soon enough.’

A dull thud sounded and both men stared across the battlefield to where a plume of smoke eddied in the faint morning breeze as the French fired a signal gun. A moment later the main battery of enemy cannon sited opposite the ridge opened up, spitting flame and smoke before the roar carried up the slope like an uneven peal of thunder. The ridge was defended by General Hill’s division, formed up across the slope in two lines. The first shots began to strike home, smashing men into bloody fragments as they tore through the British ranks. The outnumbered British guns fired back, exacting a smaller toll of their own amongst the French infantry massed on the far side of the Portina. Arthur watched for a moment before he turned to Somerset.

‘Ride over to Hill and tell him to withdraw his men back over the crest of the ridge. Have them lie down, but be ready to rise up and advance at once.’

‘Yes, sir.’

While Somerset rode off with his orders for Hill,Arthur watched the French advance begin. As usual, the three dense columns of the attacking division were preceded by a wave of skirmishers who scurried from cover to cover as they exchanged fire with their British counterparts. As the enemy numbers began to tell, a shrill bugle signal recalled the defenders, and they began to give ground as they made their way back up the ridge. It was clear that the ridge was about to become the most vital part of the battlefield and Arthur decided that it would be best if he was at the heart of the fight, where he could control and inspire his men. He mounted his horse and rode forward to join Hill by the colours of the Twenty-ninth Foot. Besides the colour party, the only men between the officers and the approaching enemy were the skirmishers, and the French artillery was still firing over the attacking columns. Roundshot smashed into the ground, kicking up bursts of earth and stone, and Arthur had to steel himself not to flinch as a ball took the head off a sergeant standing at the end of the colour party line. The body collapsed like a sack of wet sand, the spontoon slipping from the lifeless fingers and clattering on the stony ground. An ensign who had been standing close to the sergeant grimaced as he wiped the man’s blood and brains from his cheek.

‘It might be as well for you to retire to a safer distance, sir,’ Somerset said quietly.

‘No. This will do. Besides, we must all lead by example today.’

General Hill nodded. ‘Aye, sir. The men will expect nothing less.’

The British skirmishers had reached the crest and were falling back to cover. A moment later the French guns ceased fire. Their skirmishers also fell back, between the dense columns climbing up the slope. The colour party, standing defiant on the crest, seemed to act as a beacon, and the centre column of the advancing French division made straight for the handful of redcoats.

Arthur cleared his throat and spoke calmly to Hill. ‘I think the time has come to bring your fellows forward.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Hill smiled and wheeled his horse about. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he bellowed over the crest of the ridge. ‘The brigade will advance, at the double!’

The three battalions of Stewart’s brigade that had been lying down just behind the crest rose up at once, as if out of the ground, and trotted forward in a line that stretched across the crest. They swept on, past Arthur and Somerset, and drew up a short distance in front of the colour party. Less than a hundred yards beyond, the head of the French column hesitated, and Arthur heard an officer shout an order to deploy into line. But even as the first men began to shuffle to the side, Stewart’s brigade levelled their muskets, aiming straight into the dense ranks of the enemy.

General Hill raised his hat to attract the attention of his officers, paused a moment and then swept it down as he bellowed, ‘Fire!’

At close range, over fifteen hundred muskets poured their bullets into the head of the French column. To Arthur it seemed as if the front rank simply collapsed as men toppled forward or crumpled to the side, leaving a narrow fringe of blue and white uniformed bodies sprawled in the dry grass. A second, and a third, volley cut down scores more of the enemy so that the dead and wounded now lay heaped one upon the other. By now the French were firing back, at will, since there was too much chaos in their leading ranks for the officers to organise a proper firing line. Despite outnumbering the British, they could bring only a limited number of muskets to bear and all the time fresh casualties added to those piled in the grass.

Arthur saw the column begin to give ground, slowly edging back down the slope. To the right and left the other French columns were being given similar punishment and endured little longer before they too were in retreat. Squinting through the powder smoke engulfing his line, General Hill saw that the gap between his men and the enemy had widened and gave the order to cease fire and advance. As the brigade moved on, they left their own dead and injured scattered across the crest, but no more than thirty or forty men, Arthur estimated. An acceptable loss when compared to the hundreds of Frenchmen who had been shot down.

Hill pursued the enemy with his brigade at a measured pace, stopping every so often to pour another volley into their ranks and press them back down towards the thin band of the Portina. As they reached the bottom of the slope Hill gave the order to charge, and with a hearty roar the men lowered their bayonets and ran towards the battered French column. Most of the enemy turned and fled across the stream, splashing through the water to the far bank and then back towards their guns. Before the British soldiers lost their heads a bugle sounded the withdrawal and the men hurriedly re-formed their line, then turned about and climbed back up the slope. General Hill urged his mount ahead of his men and rode back up to Arthur, greeting him with a barely suppressed smile and an amiable nod of the head.

‘The lads have seen ’em off, sir. But hot work indeed! Never seen them fire and move so smoothly.’

‘A fine performance, Hill,’ Arthur agreed. ‘But you can be sure that we have repulsed only the first attack.’ He drew out his pocket watch and glanced at it briefly. ‘Just gone eight. The day is young, gentlemen, and the enemy is still far from beaten.’

As the sun edged higher into a clear blue sky the slight breeze faded and the air began to feel hot and heavy. A lull had settled over the battlefield and Hill gave the order for his dead to be buried at once, so the heat would not corrupt the bodies. Lower down the slope, the British skirmishers had once again gone forward, but they held their fire as small parties of the French waded across the Portina to retrieve their wounded and the bodies of their dead officers. Once again, warily at first, the fraternisation resumed. Those who had little knowledge of each other’s language made signs and mimed to communicate, while others sat and talked, sharing drink and food, amid the dead and wounded of the earlier fighting.

‘Ought we to stop that, sir?’ Somerset gestured towards the Portina.

‘Why?’

‘One wouldn’t want the men to become too fond of their enemy, surely? Otherwise it might predispose them to be merciful when they should be ruthless?’

Arthur briefly removed his hat and scratched at his close-cropped hair. The heat was making him perspire freely and his scalp itched. He regarded Somerset thoughtfully. His aide was still young enough to have rather fixed opinions about the nature of war and experience had not yet tempered his judgement with a wider understanding of military life.

‘Somerset, those men down there know their trade and can be trusted to act as they must when called upon. War is a cruel, brutal business. If we are not to make brutes of those who are obliged to practise it, then we must indulge the better side of their natures whenever we can.’

Somerset was still for a moment and then nodded. Arthur sensed that his aide had not fully accepted the point. Perhaps he would one day, if he lived long enough. Arthur replaced his hat and resumed his consideration of the enemy’s intentions. The first attack had been repelled. The question was, would they repeat the attempt? If not, where would they press next? For the moment, the enemy’s formations stood their ground under the baking sun and waited for orders. Arthur pulled out his telescope from his saddlebag and began to scan the enemy’s positions until he located their senior officers.

He found them easily enough, a gathering of figures in neat blue jackets heavy with gold lace and bullion epaulettes, with feathered bicornes. Some of them were examining the British line through their telescopes and Arthur was briefly amused by the thought that they might well be trying to divine his intentions in turn. A cluster of senior officers seemed to be engaged in a heated debate, with much gesturing towards the British line. Arthur watched them a moment longer, then lowered his telescope and sent Somerset to tell Hill that he could stand his men down for a while and encourage them to find what shade they could for the present.

The lull in the fighting continued for the rest of the morning, and both sides took the chance to send small parties of men, loaded with canteens, down to the Portina to refill them. Elsewhere men, stripped down to their shirts, continued to dig graves and remove as many bodies from the field as possible. Arthur moved to the shade of a small grove of olive trees close to the crest of the ridge and sat and rested in the shade, leaving strict orders that he was to be disturbed if necessary. Overhead, the sun climbed to its zenith and the battlefield became a stifling cauldron of hot air and painfully bright light, infused with the irritating drone of flies as they swarmed over the corpses still awaiting the burial parties.

Arthur stirred as he became aware of a presence close by, and he blinked his eyes open to see Somerset standing over him. ‘What is it?’

‘Sir, the French are on the move.’

Arthur was on his feet at once, quickly rolling his head to ease the stiffness in his neck. He looked down the slope. Sure enough the French army was spreading out across a wider front as more cannon were brought forward from the reserve and manoeuvred into position a short distance beyond the Portina, ready to bombard the British line.

‘They mean to attack along the entire front,’ Somerset commented.

‘I have eyes and a brain of my own,’ Arthur replied tersely. As his embarrassed aide kept his silence Arthur quickly thought through the coming phase of the battle. The French were doing the right thing, he realised. Their earlier attempt to seize the ridge had allowed Arthur to redeploy men to meet the threat, but an attack along the entire line of his army would mean that there would be little chance to shift his outnumbered forces about to bolster weakened points. As before, the defences manned by the Spanish were being avoided as the enemy was determined to shatter the British army first. The hour of gravest danger was swiftly approaching.

Shortly after noon the massed artillery of the French army opened fire. Over eighty guns were answered by Arthur’s thirty in a one-sided duel. Once again, bloody gaps were torn in the thin red lines waiting to receive the enemy attack. The French generals were clearly impatient, since the bombardment was mercifully short. As the guns fell silent the drums of the French infantry rolled out, signalling the advance. The skirmishers waded across the Portina and fell in with their British counterparts in a brief exchange of crackling musket fire. Beyond the Portina Arthur saw that the main enemy formations were advancing with broader fronts, as he had expected. There was to be no repeat of a narrow frontal attack this time. The survival of his men would depend on their rigorous training. They would have to fire and reload faster than the French in a bludgeoning exchange of massed volleys.

Campbell’s Guards brigade, on the extreme right of the line, was the first in action, waiting until the French had closed to within eighty yards before unleashing their first volley. A moment later the enemy halted and returned fire. After the first few exchanges, the space between the opposing sides was filled with smoke and the combatants were obliged to fire blindly at each other. Watching through his telescope Arthur could see that the enemy were having the worst of it, firing no more than two volleys to the redcoats’ three.

Closer to the ridge, the French line closed up on Cameron’s brigade and the men of the King’s German Legion. Seemingly not to be outdone by the Guards, Cameron allowed the French to close to within fifty yards before unleashing his first volley. With a clear view of the target, and at such close range, nearly every bullet struck home and the French line stopped dead in its tracks as the front ranks were annihilated by the withering fire. Without waiting to let off another volley, Cameron’s men fixed bayonets and briskly advanced through the thin screen of smoke and charged at the disorganised French line.

‘That’s the spirit!’ Arthur clenched his fist.

The mкlйe was brief, and then the French gave ground and began to retreat across the Portina. Cameron’s men, overcome by the excitement of breaking the attack, streamed after them, thrusting their bayonets into the fleeing enemy, or clubbing them down with the heavy butts of their muskets. Some cooler heads paused to reload and fire on the enemy, thereby inadvertently contributing to the loss of cohesion of the brigade.

Somerset sniffed with derision. ‘What do those bloody fools think they’re doing? They can’t take on the whole French army by themselves.’

Arthur’s jubilation of a moment earlier turned to dread as he watched the tiny figures in red dissolve into a formless swarm as they crossed the brook and pursued the French into their own lines. Already another enemy line was moving forward to counter the British charge, and their beaten comrades flowed round them to the rear, where their surviving officers began to steady them, and re-form their units. As the screen of fleeing Frenchmen thinned out, the soldiers of Cameron’s brigade suddenly found themselves confronted by a new enemy force. While Arthur watched with a sinking heart, the French halted, made ready and unleashed a lethal volley. The redcoats were cut down in swathes, and while a few men returned fire it was clear that most were momentarily stunned by the sharp reversal of fortune. Another volley sealed their fate, and leaving their stricken comrades on the far bank of the Portina the survivors hurried back over the brook, losing more men as the French skirmishers rushed forward to pursue the broken British formation.

It was clear that there was no question of Cameron’s rallying his men, and their foolhardiness had left a gaping hole in the centre of the British line. Arthur turned to Somerset.

‘We must fill the gap at once! Get you to Mackenzie and order him to move his men across and stop the French. Go!’

While his aide spurred his horse down the slope towards the brigade waiting in reserve, Arthur galloped across the crest and reined in at General Hill’s side. The sudden spray of dirt startled Hill’s mount.

‘What the devil?’The general looked round irritably until he saw his commander.

‘Hill, Cameron’s brigade has broken. I need your men.’ Arthur gestured to the Forty-eighth Foot, on the right of Hill’s command. ‘Whatever happens you must hold your ground here.’

‘I will, sir. Have no fear of that.’

‘Thank you.’Arthur touched the brim of his hat and turned his horse to the south, thundering along the rear of Hill’s brigade until he reached the colonel in command of the Forty-eighth, where he gave his orders breathlessly.‘Double your men to the right. I want them in a line to take the French in the flank.’ He pointed out the French pushing Cameron’s chaotic brigade across the Portina. ‘If they are not stopped and sent back, then the battle is lost.’

‘I understand, sir.’ The colonel saluted and turned to shout the necessary orders. Arthur stayed with him and led the regiment down the side of the ridge at a steady trot, the men’s knapsacks and bayonet scabbards slapping and jingling as their nailed boots trampled down the dry grass. As he watched the French attack press forward, into the British line, Arthur willed his men on. The enemy had to be stopped swiftly before they managed to cut his army in two. To the right he saw the two thousand men of Mackenzie’s brigade trotting across the plain to head off the French column.

‘Not enough,’ he muttered softly to himself.

Mackenzie’s men faced at least a division of the enemy, ten thousand of them, as the French, scenting victory, marched more men into the breach. Mackenzie’s brigade halted, and turned from column to line as they prepared to face the onslaught. Cameron’s survivors flowed through the gaps between the companies ahead of them and paused a safe distance beyond, breathless and shaken as their officers rallied them. The British line fell silent as the French came on, drums beating while the men in the rear ranks sang lustily. Those at the front held their muskets ready as they paced towards the waiting redcoats, who were standing still, muskets grounded, as if they were on parade. As the enemy closed, the order to make ready echoed down the line and with well-drilled precision the muskets came up, the weapons were cocked and the men took aim. As the first volley was fired, Arthur halted the Forty-eighth and wheeled the formation into line, perpendicular to the head of the attacking French column.

‘Advance!’ he ordered and the men, two deep, marched forward to add the weight of their fire to that of Mackenzie’s brigade.

The first volleys had caused the French to stop and now they began to fill out their flanks as they formed a firing line. The quicker they could do it, the quicker they could overwhelm the firepower of the last line of British infantry standing between them and victory.

‘Keep moving there!’ Arthur called to his right as one of the companies began to lag slightly behind the others. The men obediently quickened their pace and pulled back into position. Ahead of the regiment Arthur could see the faces of the men on the right of the French column, glancing anxiously towards the new threat closing on their flank. He had time to reflect that this was further proof of the inferiority of the French system. Once their columns were unleashed they were unwieldy giants lumbering forward and unable to manoeuvre freely enough to cope with threats from either flank or the rear.

The two sides closed, and all the while Mackenzie’s brigade continued to exchange fire with the head of the column, pinning the French in place while Arthur came up with the Forty-eighth Foot. A handful of French skirmishers had run forward to interpose themselves between the column and the approaching British line, and opened fire. A handful of men went down, one after another, and Arthur heard the faint whip of a bullet close by as they closed to within a hundred yards of the enemy. This was the moment, he decided, and filled his lungs.

‘Forty-eighth will halt! Make ready to fire!’

The line ceased its advance and the front line shifted a pace to the right to present a staggered wall of men, all of whom could now bring their muskets to bear. As soon as he saw they were ready Arthur called out, ‘Take aim! Fire!’

Those skirmishers still standing were struck down, and then their comrades in the flank of the French column, wheeling round under the impact, toppled. As the redcoats hurriedly lowered their muskets and reached for the next round, Arthur heard a faint groan of dismay and fear from the French ranks.

‘Pour it on, boys!’ shouted the colonel of the Forty-eighth. ‘Pour it on!’

The flank companies of the French column began to shuffle round, their progress being held up by the bodies underfoot, but another volley swept into them, striking down more men and creating further chaos, and the attempt to present a firing line to Arthur and his men collapsed. The men of the Forty-eighth methodically loaded and fired with a ruthless efficiency, cutting down swathes of Frenchmen with each volley. Yet the column stood its ground, hemmed in by the bodies of its fallen. At the front their losses had been grievous, but then so had the losses amongst Mackenzie’s brigade, Arthur saw. Perhaps a third of his men were down already and Arthur knew they could not stand much more punishment. If the French could hold their nerve for a few more minutes then victory was surely theirs. Behind Mackenzie’s men the remains of Cameron’s brigade were still re-forming, and could play no part in the action at this critical moment. Arthur was seized by frustration at his powerlessness to affect the outcome. All now depended on which soldiers endured this terrible punishment for longest.

Then a movement caught his eye. From the saddle he could just see over the mass of the French column to the ground beyond. Through the thin smoke wafting back from the men firing along the front, something flashed. And then again, and more – sunlight reflecting off polished steel, he realised. Fresh hope stirred in his heart as he saw a line of cavalry sweeping in against the far side of the column.

‘By God, it’s the Light Dragoons!’ he exclaimed through gritted teeth. ‘Ride on. Ride on and break them!’

Attacked from three sides now, the less spirited of the Frenchmen began to back away, seeking escape from the sweep of British bullets and the slashing of the dragoons’ swords as they carved at the enemy’s left flank. More men backed away, and despite the frenzied encouragement and fury of their officers the contagion spread and the column lost what little cohesion it had left as the men broke, falling back in a frightened mass towards the Portina and the greater safety of the far bank. The battered regiments of Mackenzie’s brigade followed up, pausing to fire volleys whenever the enemy retreat showed any sign of slowing. The sight of the fleeing enemy gave heart to Cameron’s survivors, who hurried forward to join the flanks of Mackenzie’s line.

Arthur left orders for the Forty-eighth to remain on the plain and then, when he was satisfied that the danger had passed, turned and galloped back up to his vantage point on top of the ridge. The rest of the line had held off the French, who had pulled back to re-form their savaged columns. Looking over his own men,Arthur was shocked to see how many had fallen. Almost every battalion had closed its ranks, leaving large gaps along the line. If the French launched another attack then it would surely smash through the exhausted and bloodied redcoats.

When he returned to the crest he heard the sounds of fresh fighting coming from the valley on the other side of the ridge. Fearing a new threat Arthur anxiously rode forward until he had a clear view of the fighting below. Three large squares of French infantry were slowly picking their way back towards the Portina, followed up by the cavalry of the King’s German Legion, and a Spanish regiment that Cuesta must have sent to aid the British. The artillery further down the slope was taking advantage of the large targets being presented by the enemy and firing roundshot through their ranks as they retreated, leaving a scatter of blue-uniformed bodies in their wake.

As the French passed out of range of the British guns, they fell silent one after another and the cavalry withdrew and re-formed further down the valley to wait for the next French attack. Somerset joined his commander shortly afterwards, his face ashen and streaked with grime from the powder smoke of the desperate fight down on the plain.

Arthur greeted him with a faint smile. ‘I was beginning to fear you might have become a casualty. Where have you been?’

‘I stayed with Mackenzie’s brigade through the attack, sir.’

‘Ah, yes, I must remember to tender my thanks to him. That was a fine stand he and his men made.’

‘Mackenzie is dead, sir.’

‘Dead?’ Arthur’s expression hardened. ‘A pity.’

Somerset cleared his throat and continued hoarsely. ‘Together with seven hundred of his men. Cameron is dead as well. He was shot on the other side of the Portina.’

‘I see.’ Arthur nodded sadly.‘This is only the start of a long list, I fear. But we have no time to mourn them now. Later, after the battle. The French may still be game enough for another attempt to break us.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Somerset stiffened his spine and sat as erect as he could in his saddle. ‘I understand.’

As he spoke there was a ripple of flashes along the French line as their cannon fired again, bombarding the men on the ridge and spread across the plain towards Talavera. It was late in the afternoon, and Arthur was reeling with exhaustion and a blinding headache from the glare of the day’s sunlight. He knew that his men must share his condition and would be in poor shape to continue the fight. As the sun sank towards the horizon behind the British, the shadow of the ridge stretched across the rolling landscape and over the French troops massed opposite. Even though the enemy guns continued firing, there was no sign of another attack. The enemy simply stood and waited as the light started to fail.

‘Do you think they will make another attempt tonight?’ asked Somerset.

‘It is likely,’ Arthur replied. ‘Hill’s division must stay in position in case they do. I’d be obliged if you would ride to him and let him know that he may stand his men down, but they must be ready to fight again at a moment’s notice.’

‘Very well, sir.’ Somerset saluted and turned his horse down the slope to Hill’s command post.

The French guns continued firing while there was light, and then fell silent. An uneasy stillness fell across the battlefield, and men whose ears had rung with the sound of cannon and muskets all day seemed stunned by the quiet of the gathering night. Only the faint cries of the wounded and the occasional whinny of stricken horses broke the spell. Then, as the men of the British army sat on the ground in their regiments, a faint glow flickered into life at the bottom of the ridge. Flames licked up amid the dry grass, and the fire quickly spread across the lower slopes. Some wadding from one of the French guns must have caused the blaze, Arthur realised. At first he welcomed the fire. It would show up any attempt by the enemy to take the ridge under cover of darkness, and possibly impede them. But then a thin wail of terror reached his ears. There were more cries for help and then screams of agony from lower down the slope.

‘It’s the wounded,’ Somerset said quietly.‘There must be hundreds of men out there, ours and theirs. We have to send men to save them, sir.’

‘No,’Arthur said firmly, and then swallowed to try to ease the dryness in his throat. ‘We cannot afford to have men looking for the wounded if there is another attack. There’s nothing we can do for them.’

As the fire spread the screams increased and cut through the night so that, even as exhausted as they were, few of the men on the ridge could sleep. Satisfied that there were no signs of a new attack being prepared by the enemy, Arthur made a quick tour of his command and offered words of encouragement to the gaunt figures he came across. Most of the men seemed too numb to continue the battle and when he returned to the ridge Arthur lay down on the ground and tried to rest. But his mind would not be still. When the morning came he had little doubt that his army would face another onslaught such as the one they had endured that day.

He rose just before dawn and stood, straining his eyes and ears for any indication that the French were preparing for another attack. As the eastern horizon grew more distinct the first bugles sounded from the French camp, and then the faint cries of command and the crack of whips as the artillery crews moved their guns.