‘Still the same.’ Velarde laughed again. ‘I believe what I have said. I believe other things too. I fully plan to survive this war, and it would be nice to be wealthy. Is that what you want to hear, Guillermo? It is just as true.’
‘So what do you plan to tell the French tonight?’
‘That the Spanish position is impregnable from the front, but that the British Army is stretched thin and vulnerable. Is that not what your General Wellesley wants them to know? Cuesta’s men may panic again. If the battle is to be won then the British must do most of the fighting. None of that is a secret, or at least more than they could work out from their patrols. Yet it is enough to
convince them of my usefulness. You may see the note, if you like. It is in cipher, but that should not slow a man like you. Or I could just tell you the key if you do not relish the challenge!’
‘Sir!’ Dobson had noticed the darker shape of a figure stumbling down towards them from the crest. The man was running, making the long grass swish about his legs. ‘Up there, sir!’ Dobson was looking higher now. Silhouetted on the highest point of the hill were more figures – a lot more figures. There was a dense crowd of men where there had been none before and where it seemed none were supposed to be.
Dobson’s musket snapped up to cover the man, leading a little to allow for his movement. He was close now, and they could just make out the shape of a wide-brimmed hat.
‘Wait!’ hissed Hanley.
The running man stumbled, recovered and ran straight into Hanley, who grabbed him to hold him upright. He could see the whites of his eyes as the man looked up in terror. His head flicked from side to side, surprised to see three men where he had expected one.
‘Mapi,’ said Hanley. One of his hands was soaking wet and sticky as it touched the man’s side. The messenger was breathing only with difficulty and not because he was tired.
‘The French,’ he said, and then his whole body went slack.
A moment later dozens of muskets shattered the night with flame and noise.
‘T
hat will be the old Buffs making a blunder as usual,’ said General Rowland Hill wearily.
Wickham looked up towards the crest and saw the flashes, so very bright in the dim light. He and the general’s staff had ridden after their early dinner to find that the Second Division was in the wrong place, and were doing their best to sort out the mess. Now it looked as if chaos was turning into farce.
‘Well, Donellan, I’d be obliged if you put the Forty-eighth into line ready to occupy the hill.’ The order sounded like a polite request to a neighbour in the general’s beloved Shropshire.
‘Come on, we had better calm them down.’ The general clapped his spurs into his horse and set off like the bold hunter he was. General Hill – known as Daddy to not just his division, but half the army – looked like an affable country squire. Wickham had begun to realise that his kind nature hid an active and fearless commander. Reluctantly he followed the half-dozen horsemen as their mounts eagerly ran up the slope.
A battalion in open column of companies was beside them, the lines of men dark shadows. Beyond them another was deploying into line, while the third battalion from the brigade pressed up towards the crest, breaking up into clumps of men as it hurried.
‘Be careful. No sense being shot by our own fellows!’ called the general as he and his staff made their way through the dark and straggling line.
Wickham’s horse could never resist a race. He tried to hold the mare back, but it surged up until it was level with the general
and his brigade major. There were men scattered in front of the mass at the top of the rise.
‘Cease fire, my good fellows! Cease fire!’ called General Hill. ‘You are firing on our own side!’
Men milled around them. They had wider tops to their shakos than usual. One grabbed hold of the general’s bridle.
‘My God, they’re French!’ yelled the brigade major.
The gout of flame from the musket seared across Wickham’s vision, so that for a moment all he could see was the glow against pitch black. There was a soft thump and a gasp and the brigade major was flung from his saddle. General Hill yanked hard on his reins and his horse reared, knocking the French infantryman down and making him let go.
Another shot and a bullet smacked into the horse’s chest, so that the general felt it shudder beneath him. He rammed his heels against its flanks and pulled it round, and the animal leapt away from the cluster of French skirmishers. More shots and one of his staff cried out, but did not fall. Wickham rode with them, but his mare never liked going downhill and would not go faster than a slow and bumpy canter.
The general and his staff vanished into the darkness ahead of him.
More flame and a deeper-throated boom than that of a normal musket and something hit him hard on his right arm and shoulder, flinging him sideways. His mare lost her footing at the same moment, stumbling forward, and Wickham was falling, spinning as he dropped to land flat on his back in the grass. His arm hurt savagely and there was blood on his cheek. The frightened mare ran on.
Wickham looked up at the starry sky, for the moment stunned and so dimly aware of what was happening that he felt no fear, only pain. A figure loomed above him, dark against the sky, and it raised in its hand an axe which glinted faintly and looked small, but very heavy.
‘Bastard,’ hissed a voice in strongly accented English.
Wickham had just the strength to plead. ‘No, please, no.’
A shot struck the ground just beside him.
‘
Prisonnier! En avant, mes braves!
’ came a voice from farther away, and there was the sound of men trampling the grass as they ran.
The man standing over him vanished, fleeing into the night.
‘
Eh coquin, un officier
!’ said one of the French infantrymen. Wickham hissed in pain as another began to run his hands through his pockets.
‘I’ll wait for you here,’ said Velarde.
‘We ought to help, sir.’ Lance Sergeant’s Dobson’s tone stopped just short of being a command.
Hanley and Dobson ran along the slope. Volleys slashed the darkness on each side. There were screams and shouted orders. Darker shapes came up the slope and then seemed to stop. Men fired, but the heavier volleys came from higher up.
‘What the hell is going on?’ shouted a voice ahead of them.
‘Who is in charge?’ This time it was another voice – a distinctly Scottish voice.
They got closer. Men fired again, and for an instant Hanley saw the silhouettes of two ranks of men clearly as they shot up the slope at the French.
‘Don’t fire!’ came a voice. ‘We are Germans!’
‘Bugger! Damn it all! Sergeant Hawkins, cease firing, they’re ours. Where the hell are you, Hawkins?’
‘We’re Germans!’ came the cry again.
There was a break in the firing. Hanley and Dobson heard the rattle of ramrods in the barrels of muskets.
‘Who the hell is in charge?’ It was the Scotsman again. ‘Give us orders.’
Dobson held out an arm to stop Hanley. ‘Down, sir,’ he hissed. They were almost behind the end of what seemed to be the British line, but now that the shooting had stopped the veteran had spotted movement coming up at an angle behind them. There was a dark mass, the head of a column and smaller shapes flitting ahead of it.
‘Look out, French to the rear,’ yelled Dobson.
‘Who the devil are you?’
‘
Españoles! Españoles!
’ shouted a higher shadow – an officer riding at the head of the column. Hanley thought the accent distinctly French.
‘Lying sods,’ whispered Dobson. He eased his bayonet out of its scabbard and fixed it to the muzzle of the musket lying beside him.
The column pushed up the slope and the skirmishers were flowing around the back of the British line.
‘Surrender, you are our prisoners,’ called a voice used to command.
‘They’re bloody French!’
‘Drop your muskets! You are prisoners.’
‘I’m bloody not!’ There was the sound of fighting and blows with the butts of muskets. The British formation broke up. Shots flamed in the night as some fled. Others were being hustled to the rear as prisoners. Some still struggled as Frenchmen grabbed their collars and dragged them down.
Farther along the slope, another row of flames stabbed up the hill. Closest to them the line had gone, but elsewhere parts of the battalion still fought.
‘Give us an order and we will dare anything. For God’s sake give us an order!’ The shouting was more distant now.
Men ran past them.
Dobson sprang up. ‘Stop, you buggers!’ he commanded in a voice unmistakably British.
‘Who the hell are you?’ asked a voice, but already a dozen men had stopped.
‘Who is loaded?’ asked Dobson, ignoring the questions. No one answered. ‘Then fix your spikes, lads.’
Hanley stood and drew his sword. He did not feel he could do anything better than the lance sergeant, but wanted to show willing. There were more shapes coming towards them, but it was harder for the French to see down the slope than it was for them to pick out the shapes above them.
‘
Merde! Les anglais!
’
Dobson fired. ‘Charge!’ he screamed, and rushed on through the smoke of his own shot. ‘Come on, lads!’
Hanley went with them. There was a hiss of pain as Dobson ran a French infantryman through the stomach, and then twisted the blade free as he kicked the man over. All around him men stabbed, hacked and struck at each other with bayonet and musket butt. One redcoat without a weapon pushed a Frenchman’s musket aside with his right hand and then punched the man with all his weight behind his left fist. Another British soldier died as an enemy thrust the muzzle of his musket against his face and then pulled the trigger. Hanley cut at a man with his sword. The blow was clumsy, for he had never really practised with the blade and all of his movements seemed so very slow. His opponent ducked beneath the slash, and then jabbed forward with the butt of his musket. Hanley gasped and struggled to breathe as he folded double. He collapsed kneeling on to the grass.
The French infantryman hit him again on the head, knocking him face down on the grass so that he did not see and only felt someone come and place his feet either side of him. With a clang the man parried the French light infantryman’s bayoneted musket as he thrust down to finish off the officer. Then something wet and hot flowed on to Hanley’s head, stirring him to consciousness as the Frenchman screamed in intense agony.
The French withdrew, leaving three of their number stretched in the grass.
‘Stay here, lads. Don’t follow!’ Dobson was still giving the orders, which meant that he was unscathed. ‘We can’t beat the lot of them on our own, but we can give time for our boys to come up and see ’em off properly. Now, kneel down and get them muskets loaded.’ Hanley felt a hand on his shoulder. ‘You all right, Mr Hanley?’
He pushed himself up. ‘I believe so.’ He saw a face that looked familiar kneeling beside Dobson and grinning at him.
‘It’s Ramón, sir. The Spanish lady’s coachman. Told you he’s
a handy lad. That Frenchie would have done for you if he hadn’t turned up.’
‘
Gracias
,’ said Hanley hoarsely. His throat seemed so very dry and there was a faint taste of vomit.
‘I hate the goddamned French!’ said Ramón, not bothering to use his own language.
Shots came from the darkness ahead of them. The volleys were aimed elsewhere, but there was clearly a line of skirmishers facing them. A redcoat was hit on the kneecap and cried out in pain.
‘Bastards. They hit me!’ He sounded surprised and angry more than anything else.
‘Lie down, lads, once you’re loaded. Only fire when you can see a mark clearly.’ Dobson patted a man on the shoulder. ‘You. Drag him back five paces and then come back here. We’ll look after you when it’s over, son,’ he said to the wounded man.
Hanley rubbed his throbbing head as Dobson gave the orders. The officer did not understand this, or see how men like Dobson – or Williams or Pringle for that matter – saw a shape to it all and a form which they could control. He was more comfortable with the cleverness and deceit of men like Baynes and Espinosa.
The firing grew heavier around the peak above them.
‘Who are you, lads?’ asked Dobson.
‘Second Battalion of Detachments.’ That explained much of the chaos. It was always confusing to fight at night, but all the harder with unfamiliar officers and sergeants in charge.
A heavy company volley lashed at the French column nearest to them. Then there was a distinctly British cheer and a line of men, clear and stark shapes in the growing starlight, ran straight at the enemy, bayonets reaching out and glinting dully. The French mass quivered and then broke up as men fled. Another cheer came from the far side of the crest and then the higher French column collapsed into rout.
‘Up, lads,’ said Dobson. ‘With your permission, Mr Hanley, I think we should go forward. Steady, boys. Don’t want to rush
and have some damn fool take us for Frogs. We’ll just clear up any of these light bobs who hang around.’
The French had gone, save for the dead and wounded. There were plenty of these, both British and French, dotted all over the slopes of the hill. Some moaned, or sobbed, or cried out for their mothers. The less badly hurt yelled for help or for their friends to come and fetch them.