Flashman in the Peninsula (13 page)

Chapter 10

The first planned battle of Talavera is probably unique in the annals of military warfare in that it did not happen because one of the armies overslept!

Cuesta and Wellesley had agreed that they could not allow Victor more time to pull further back and join the rest of the French army. They had to take him on while they had a numbers advantage. Accordingly they drew up a plan to attack him at Talavera at dawn on the twenty-third of July. The larger Spanish army would approach Victor’s army from the north west forcing the French to face them in a battle formation, and then the British would hit their flank from the south west. Another Spanish army commanded by a General Venegas was supposed to move in from the south east and attack any retreating French soldiers trying to escape in that direction. In theory it was a good plan and Victor’s army would have been trapped and destroyed... but there is a big difference between theory and reality.

On the twenty-second both armies set off in the direction of Talavera, camping out of sight of French forces but within a comfortable early morning march of the enemy camp. I spent the night with the British army, which was the wrong decision. I would have had a much more comfortable and uninterrupted sleep with the Spanish. Wellesley had his staff officers up at two in the morning and the army marched quietly to a position from which they could launch their attack. The Spanish were supposed to leave at the same time but Wellesley confided that he fully expected them to be late, which was why he had set the time to start the attack at six.

‘If they are ready to attack by nine it will still serve, it will only take two hours for them to march into position.’

‘Do you think that they will put up a fight with the French?’ I asked him as we rode along.

‘They don’t
need
to fight,’ Wellesley replied. ‘They only have to look as though they
might fight
to force the French to form against them. We will do the bulk of the fighting, but if we can catch the French in a flank attack it will give us an advantage.’ He gave one of his barks of laughter and added, ‘Who knows, if they can see we are winning they might join in.’

‘You don’t rate their courage then?’

‘Oh, Cuesta is undoubtedly brave. He is as brave as he is stubborn, proud, petulant and without a wit of strategic thinking. No, you cannot fault him for courage, but his army is another matter. They are largely ill trained and lacking any form of competent leadership. Speaking of which, ride back to the Spanish camp, will you, and let me know if they are actually moving.’

I found Chapman and Doherty who were now permanently allocated to me as escort riders. With all the supply skulduggery it was not safe even for an officer to ride alone. We swiftly covered the three miles back to the Spanish camp and, well you can imagine what we found there.

Instead of a hive of activity and marching men, we found that even the sentries were asleep near their braziers and nothing at all was stirring. We rode through the vast bivouac and a few looked up at the sound of our horses but then turned over again. I headed towards the huge carriage in the centre of the camp and there I did find some people awake; a dozen burly Spanish soldiers who had orders to ensure that their general’s sleep was not disturbed. Cuesta, obviously expecting protests from the British, had left the men and a harassed lieutenant to keep us at bay. All my entreaties and threats of retribution had no effect. It looked as though we would simply have to report to Wellesley that the Spanish army was still in bed. Then Chapman spoke up.

‘Perhaps Ernesto could help us, sir.’

‘Who the hell is Ernesto?’ I snapped at him, frustrated at my lack of progress with the stubbornly persistent guards.

Chapman shifted awkwardly. ‘He is my main buyer, sir.’

I had expected Ernesto to be another commercially minded private soldier but he turned out to be Major Ernesto Caballo and one of Cuesta’s staff officers. I realised afterwards that only officers would be able to afford Chapman’s merchandise.

‘Cuesta does not trust the British,’ Caballo told me when we had found his tent. ‘He thinks it might be a trap and that you will leave the French to destroy his army. He does not trust anybody. He even thinks that General Venegas will betray him.’ Caballo looked me in the eye and added, ‘The general is also resentful that the plan was proposed by your Wellesley rather than him. Cuesta is very jealous of your commander and his recent victories over the French.’ Well, that did not leave a lot of room for negotiation and it was clear that the Spanish army was not going to move that morning.

We rode back and gave the news to Wellesley. By then it was six in the morning and Wellesley was livid. He had spent the previous day agreeing every detail of the attack with Cuesta and now the Spaniard was just ignoring the plan. More significantly it was only a matter of time before Victor found out how close the allies were to his new position. Wellesley even considered attacking on his own, but a straight frontal assault would see much of the fighting effectiveness of his force destroyed. In the end he called for his horse and went to confront the general. A bleary eyed Cuesta emerged from his carriage and explained that he and his men were tired after the march the previous day. He claimed he had not had enough time for reconnaissance and that he was worried about the strength of the bridge his men must use. In the end he promised that they would be ready to attack tomorrow.
Mañana,
he repeated, as with considerable self-restraint Wellesley walked away without striking the old fool. They both knew that the French would not still be there
mañana
.

People think that wars are conducted by generals, but sometimes, by chance, a common soldier can alter a campaign. Such a chance came later that day. After his return to the British camp, Wellesley discovered that the French army was pulling back again, and the opportunity to attack Victor on his own had been missed. He came to a decision; he would advance no further into Spain until the supplies promised by Cuesta were provided. It was simple retaliation and I was sent back to Cuesta to deliver the ultimatum. This time he did see me and brooded over the message. He must have realised that if relations broke down completely with the British then the Central Junta would probably seek to relieve him of his command. In the end he decided that a conciliatory gesture was necessary and ordered his carriage to be driven to the British camp. Just outside the British lines, the coach stopped again and his horse was brought forward. Cuesta was sixty-eight and had not fully recovered from being trampled by his own cavalry earlier in the year. Now he had to be lifted into the saddle, but he was determined to make a more martial appearance on horseback to the British than appearing in his coach.

We trotted slowly through the British army, Cuesta quiet and sullen, wincing occasionally at the pain being in the saddle gave him. The redcoats, deprived of a night’s sleep and an easier battle than what would now inevitably follow, glared back mutinously. It was as we were approaching Wellesley’s tent that a voice called out above the low murmuring from the other soldiers.

‘You’re a bluidy coward,’ shouted some unknown Scotsman from a group of men to my right. ‘An’ your whole bluidy army couldn’t fight its way oot of a stale puddin’,’ he added. The fellows around the heckler started to jeer the Spanish commander. While Wellesley undoubtedly agreed with the man, he could not permit such a lack of respect for an officer. He glared at the men while the nearby provost sergeant shouted for the culprit to be arrested. But it was too late, the laughter and jeering soon spread around the troops surrounding Cuesta.

‘What did that man say?’ Cuesta demanded, glaring suspiciously at the men around him.

I had suffered enough of the old general’s surly ways and was tired through lack of sleep too. There are times when diplomacy requires tact and evasion but I decided that this was not one of them. ‘He shouted that you are a coward and that the whole Spanish army are cowards,’ I told him bluntly.

Cuesta stopped his horse and stared at me as though I had slapped him around the face. Then with a look of fury he wheeled his horse around and returned in the direction of the Spanish camp. The humiliation of being mocked by the common soldiers of his allies must have burned Cuesta through that night. In contrast it gave those same allies much amusement and the man who had shouted the insult was quietly reprieved. The effect of that soldier’s words was not seen until the next morning, when the Spanish army finally marched.

It was good to see our allies moving, even if it was a day late. The problem was that no one knew where they were going or why. As it turned out Trooper Chapman was surprisingly informative on that point, having done some last minute business with his buyer before the Spanish departed.

‘Ernesto says that Cuesta is determined to show us that he is in command. The old general is marching after Victor on ’is own and ’e thinks that we will have to follow and support him.’

‘But Victor has thrashed Cuesta before,’ I protested. ‘And as well as Victor there are other French armies gathering out there under Napoleon’s brother, the new Spanish king. He has Marshal Jourdan with him who can bring the army stationed in Madrid, why – between them they must have nearly fifty thousand well trained men.’

‘That Spanish general called Vinegar...’started Chapman.

‘General Venegas,’ I corrected.

‘That’s ’im. Well he is supposed to be tracking the king and stopping the French armies joining up by drawing one of them away.’ Here Chapman leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Ernesto says that General Vinegar cannot be trusted and that Vinegar hates Cuesta and would like to see him get a proper spanking from the French.’

‘Why would one Spanish general want to see another defeated?’

‘’Cos then General Vinegar would be the top Spanish general of course,’ said Chapman, looking at me in surprise as though it was obvious.

‘The treacherous bastard,’ I said in disgust. There were rivalries in the British army of course, but I doubted that anyone would go so far as to engineer the defeat and destruction of a British army to secure promotion. They would never get away with it for one thing, with officers regularly writing to friends in Parliament. Wellesley was frequently getting enquiries from politicians at home questioning his decisions based on information they had received from friends.

I passed on this information to the man himself when we rode up to the top of a long ridge outside Talavera, from where we could watch the Spanish advance.

‘Where did you hear this?’ Wellesley asked.

‘Oh, I have my spies amongst the Spanish staff officers,’ I said airily. ‘I have not forgotten from my Indian days with you how to build connections amongst our allies.’

‘Quite so,’ Wellesley grinned, ‘and from what you told me before you might even be related to some of them. The head of the Granada Junta wasn’t it?’

‘That’s right, I will need to try and find the time to meet him at some point. He might be a useful connection for us.’ We both paused at the top of the hill looking down at the long dusty column of men stretching off towards the horizon in front of us. ‘I take it we are not going to follow Cuesta as he hopes?’

‘God no,’ said Wellesley. ‘If he wants to stumble blindly into a French army he can do so on his own. No, when we face the French we will do so on ground of our choosing. Let them come to us. We will be outnumbered and will need a good defensive position.’

‘Where do you have in mind?’

Wellesley looked around. ‘I have been thinking that this place would serve me well. This high ground dominates the plain in front. To our right, between here and Talavera there is that broken ground with olive groves that will break up any enemy advance.’ I looked afresh at the countryside around us, trying to see it from a general’s perspective. To the east, from where the French would come, there was a fairly flat plain, with just one smaller hill. Between that hill and the one we stood on a stream ran north to south through this potential battleground but it would be no obstacle to troops.

‘What would the odds be?’ I asked anxiously.

‘Oh, two to one against us,’ Wellesley grinned and slapped me on the back. ‘But after our time at Assaye against much higher odds I know you will not worry about that. In fact with the Spanish gone I can release you from your liaison role to see more of the action.’

I sat on my horse reeling for a moment at this very unwelcome turn of events. Assaye had been a damn close thing and we had only won because the enemy cavalry had refused to participate in the battle. I doubted that the French cavalry would be so obliging. Wellesley had been lucky then and it seemed to me that he was getting dangerously over confident now. I needed to get my safe liaison role back and fast.