PART TWO
Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Wellesley urged his weary horse over the rise and then pulled on the reins to halt the poor beast. He allowed himself a moment to take in the view over Mondego Bay and permit the three young staff officers trailing behind him to catch up. Their horses were only marginally weaker than the grey gelding he was riding, but as always he pressed his mount just a little harder than anyone else, whether in a hunt or on campaign. Tomorrow should be better. Two of his own horses had been landed that morning and the grooms had spent the rest of the day helping them to recover from the weeks at sea.
He patted the gelding’s neck and could feel the animal breathing hard. It was a thin, half-starved creature, but the best the Portuguese commander could provide. Not that the man was any judge of horseflesh. Until a few weeks ago the worried, grey-faced man had been a professor of law at Coimbra University, until he and his students had taken up arms against the French and seized the fort overlooking the bay. After a few days, the Royal Navy had landed some companies of marines to provide a professional stiffening for this garrison. Wellesley was glad they were there, for it took a long time to raise and train an army and the Portuguese had only had weeks.
The students were a ragged-looking bunch. Only a minority had muskets, while a red rag tied around the arm was all that most of them had as a uniform. When he had ridden through the gates the enthusiastic salute offered by the young Portuguese volunteers had seemed almost a parody of the marines’ smart presenting of arms. He had acknowledged it anyway, just as if it had been done by Guardsmen in London. In the same way he had saluted and offered his congratulations to the former professor.
The Portuguese were not yet organised, but they were welcoming and very keen and that in the end was what mattered. Things had been so different in Spain. Wellesley’s original orders had been to take the army to Corunna and help the authorities in the province of Galicia. He had sailed ahead of the main convoy, but discovered no enthusiasm for the British expedition. The Galician junta welcomed English arms and money, but refused to accept any soldiers, let alone an entire army. With resources they could fight the French themselves, boasting of a major victory already won by a Spanish army farther south.
Disappointed, Wellesley had gone back on board the navy frigate and sailed to Portugal. At Oporto there was a bishop leading resistance to the French. The man was no soldier but seemed a talented organiser, and there was no doubting his zeal for expelling the French. It was the first taste of the greater willingness of the Portuguese to admit their weakness and co-operate, helped by the fact that there was already a British officer liaising with the bishop. The two countries were old allies, but Britain had done nothing to help the Portuguese the previous autumn when General Junot had led his columns into Lisbon. There had not been anything much they could have done, but that can have been little consolation to the Portuguese. Only the risings in Spain gave the chance of dividing the French forces in the Peninsula and making them vulnerable.
Oporto was too far from Lisbon and the main concentrations of French troops to be a good place to land the army. So Wellesley had gone back on board the fast-sailing HMS Crocodile and once again headed south. They could not land on the Tagus at Lisbon itself. The French would be bound to meet such a move on or near the beaches before the British Army was fully disembarked and ready. Added to that, there was the squadron of the Russian navy in the Tagus. The Tsar was an ally of Napoleon, and although his country was not actively at war with Britain, it was very hard to be sure of their neutrality. The Royal Navy were hungry for a fight, and hungrier still for the prize money it might bring, but Wellesley wanted to avoid any confrontation. It was enough having one enemy to fight.
Then the students had seized the fort at Figueiras-da-Foz at the mouth of the Mondego and resolved the problem.
‘Fine sight, eh, Bathurst,’ barked Wellesley to his Deputy Quartermaster General, who had just managed to persuade his exhausted screw of a horse up the last few yards of the slope. A young staff officer was beside him; the other had dismounted and was ruefully examining his mount’s front left hoof. The shoe had lost two nails and looked ready to come free. The officer hoped it would last for the next hour. None of the three men had been quite prepared for the pace set by their thirty-nine-year-old commander. They were sore and weary themselves, but guessed that it would be a long time before they rested.
The scene before them was certainly impressive. Longboats shuttled back and forth to the shore loaded with tightly packed rows of seated redcoats or boxes, barrels and sacks of supplies. Behind were some of the sixty-eight ships which had sailed from Cork. The sea seemed to have calmed a little, and the big ships scarcely moved at anchor, but the rowing boats were still sometimes tossed by the waves. One looked to be in bad trouble and was being carried away by the current towards the rocky out-crops near a small headland. Bathurst pulled out his telescope and focused on the dark, almost black longboat. The soldiers sitting in the middle still looked rigid and impassive, but he could guess at their growing nervousness. There was no noise, but he could see a naval officer with his hand raised – probably a young midshipman not old enough to shave and yet still calmly giving orders in a high falsetto to men twice his age. For a moment the boat resisted the pull of the water, but then it was jerked suddenly towards the rocks. Oars reached out to push away from the boulders, but with another swell the boat struck hard against the rock and tipped.
Bathurst asped. ‘Poor devils,’ he muttered as the little red figures and the white-shirted sailors were tossed into the grey water. Again, through the glass it was eerily silent.
The general watched intently, but without resorting to his telescope. His eyesight was good, and there was nothing he could do to help the men from up here. Other boats were circling as close at they dared, and already one or two survivors were climbing on to the rocks themselves.
‘Find out how many men we have lost today, as well as any supplies that have perished,’ Wellesley instructed the young ADC.
‘It could have been worse, sir,’ ventured Bathurst. He had seen the little blue figure of the midshipman being pulled on to the rock by a redcoat and was pleased by that.
Wellesley grunted. There was an hour of good light left, and after that they would need to cease landing men until dawn tomorrow. Fane’s brigade was already ashore. The Rifles had come first, little piquets of green-jacketed sharpshooters quickly forming all around the beach and linking up with the fort. The line battalions had strengthened the outposts. Now men from the other brigades were starting to join them. Some two thousand eight hundred men would be ashore by the end of the day, and that was a good start.
Judging that the others had now had enough of a rest – and that was the sole reason he had stopped for so long – Wellesley decided to move.
‘On we go,’ he said, and was already trotting down the sandy hillside. He needed to have a word with Brigadier General Fane and then ride back to the fort to receive the latest reports sent in by the Portuguese scouts. Bathurst and the two ADCs trailed behind, the one whose horse had a loose shoe going as gingerly as he could while still keeping up.
They passed a half-company of redcoats. Shoulder wings and white plumes on their shakos showed them to be grenadiers, and Bathurst then had to work out which regiment in the army had red facings to their jackets. As usual, the general was ahead of him as he nodded to the young lieutenant colonel who was standing talking to a group of officers beside the men.
‘Evening, Moss, glad to see the 106th are with us,’ called Wellesley as he sped past, somehow persuading his grey into a canter.
‘Thank you, sir,’ called Moss eagerly at the departing figure. ‘Always ready and always steady!’ It was a new motto he had come up with for the regiment and hoped to make popular.
Wellesley’s brief nod and gaze had scarcely been warm, but Moss knew that that was simply the general’s way. Bathurst smiled cheerfully as he passed. The two men had met during Moss’s service in Ireland.
‘Nice to be on dry land again!’ Bathurst called as he struggled to keep up with the departing figure of his chief. ‘Must go.’ He half turned in his saddle and waved back. ‘Don’t know where we can find a thousand mules, do you?’ he called back, and then was gone, followed by the ADCs.
‘Mules?’ asked Hanley, as he and Pringle stood together at a decent distance from where Moss, Major Toye and the adjutant were talking.
‘Bit like donkeys, only a lot more awkward,’ said Pringle. ‘Probably Welsh, I expect.’
‘Then they must be noble animals indeed,’ asserted Williams. ‘No wonder the general wants them on our side. If such warriors join the French then we might be in trouble.’
‘Curious thing to be worrying about on the day we have landed in an enemy-held country, though.’ Pringle shrugged and Williams as usual exuded utter faith in the wisdom of his superiors, but Hanley remained puzzled. ‘I would have expected the French to occupy his entire thoughts.’
Wellesley did think about the French, but it was not an immediate concern. The Bishop of Oporto had estimated General Junot’s army at fifteen thousand men. Fresher intelligence suggested that this was a considerable underestimate. Some thirty thousand French soldiers had invaded Portugal the previous autumn. Wellesley was confident that these were now spread widely across the country. Portugal’s people had risen in arms during the spring, just as the Spanish had done. The French had provoked them, for their soldiers looted freely, but there was a deeper rage at the invader who had so easily and quickly taken their land. Militias appeared all around the country. French patrols were ambushed and stragglers caught and killed, often after long hours of torture. The French response was savage, and Junot split his army up into smaller columns which marched through the valleys burning and killing.
The French spread fear, but the hatred was even stronger and more and more people chose to fight. Junot did not have enough men to garrison every town and village and so his soldiers kept moving, and as they did they plundered and raped. Reports made it clear that the enemy were dispersed in several groups and that none was anywhere near Mondego Bay. They had at least a week before Junot might even contemplate launching an attack, and in the meantime there was so much to do. How many men the French could concentrate by that time was harder to estimate. Wellesley was confident that his soldiers would defeat the same number of Frenchmen. Still, no general chose to fight on equal terms unless there was no alternative.
That was the wider problem, but at the moment – and indeed for the rest of the campaign – he must devote a good deal of his attention to mules, and to horses, oxen and carts. Animals took up far more space than men in transport ships, and needed better treatment if they were to survive the voyage and still be useful. His lone cavalry regiment had brought more troopers than horses in the hope of finding mounts after they arrived. The artillery were the same; indeed, an artillery battery was almost more demanding of horses than a cavalry regiment like the 20th Light Dragoons. More than half of his guns had no horses to pull them, or the extra ammunition and other supply carts they needed to function.
Then there was the ammunition and food required by the rest of the army. Already the arithmetic was running through his head. Armies consumed food at a staggering rate even before they used powder and shot for fighting. Whether they fought, marched hard or did nothing at all, the men and horses ate and drank. Men needed meat and bread or biscuit – or if they were given grain then they needed the opportunity to grind it into flour and then to bake the flour into bread, which in turn required copious amounts of firewood as fuel. Army regulations also entitled each soldier to an issue of alcohol every day. Horses needed food and fodder and good treatment if their health was not to decline.
The years in India had taught him that before anything else a general must keep his army fed and watered if it was to achieve anything. Having the supplies stowed safely in the holds of ships, or piled high on land in a depot, was in itself almost as useless as not having them at all. Everything needed to be moved to where the army wanted it and then to be immediately available. That meant transport, whether by pack animal or draught animals pulling wheeled carts. Without these, he could go nowhere. Yet in turn the baggage animals must have food and fodder, and so transport was needed for this a the animals involved would in turn want supplying. Oxen were strong – he had used thousands of them in India along with many elephants – but desperately slow. Mules were quicker, but needed more attendants.
He was unlikely to get a choice. Once the second fleet had arrived from Gibraltar in a few days and disembarked, he would have almost fifteen thousand men. From what he had seen it would be a struggle to find enough animals and wagons to move even half that number. The Portuguese were once again willing, but the country was poor, and even if every animal could be gathered they were unlikely to meet all his needs. There was no vast force of shire horses like those of England. So it was not a choice between oxen or mules, but a desperate search to find as many of each as he possibly could. To this end the general and his staff devoted their greatest efforts and would continue to do so as the days passed. They would ask, cajole, beg and, almost as importantly, pay their allies for every type of pack or draught beast that could be found.
Wellesley and his staff had much still to do that night and would ride quite a few more miles. The young gentlemen of the Grenadier Company were not concerned with such great matters and moved far less. Two hours after dusk, the piquet formed by one half of the company was relieved by the other half under Wickham and Redman. The men went back to cook their meals at the battalion bivouac just above the beach. No tents had been brought in the ships for the regiments, so all would sleep under the stars. A few of the officers owned tents, but none of these had yet been unloaded, and neither had the larger one destined to act as the mess. No one minded, and there was a jolly, festive atmosphere as they sat on convenient stones or the ground. Just under half of the regiment’s officers were present as the rest were on duty. MacAndrews had rolled up in his blankets and was sleeping next to a large boulder. He would go on duty at 2.30 in the morning and be responsible for the battalion’s piquets. Anyway, he had seen landings like this – and even larger ones – before and had found the day almost routine.
None of the more junior officers was able to copy him, even though some would share the duty. They were all far too excited. The French were nowhere to be seen, but still they were now just a few long marches away and the prospect of a swift encounter with the enemy thrilled them all.
Derryck had received a visit from his cousin Lieutenant Bunbury of the Rifles and was eagerly introducing him to everyone. He proved to be a personable young man with a fine singing voice. They sang ‘Spanish Ladies’ once again, and laughed uproariously when someone tried to fit Portuguese to the verse.
Williams knew that he would not be able to sleep and was happy to talk as long as anyone else was awake. It was almost a good thing to know that he would be back on duty at 2.30. He had hated the weeks at sea, but now it seemed strange to stand or sit on a surface that did not move and to be away from the constant creaking and moaning of a wooden ship. Today’s landing had been impressive and spectacular. MacAndrews had told them to expect organised confusion and that had summed it up well. Their ship apparently came into shore earlier than it was supposed to, but the captain robustly refused calls to haul out to sea again and eventually the longboats arrived to ferry them off. The three companies of the 106th landed hours before the rest of the regiment, and this seemed to have irked the colonel, who had selected them for extra duties on the piquet line and given Major MacAndrews the hardest of the shifts as duty officer.
Williams had been in the first boat taken off their ship. Wickham sat in the prow with the major. Neither looked tled as the boat rocked in the high breakers. The grenadiers’ captain was as elegant as ever, although when he looked closely Williams noticed that his gloved hands were gripping the side of the boat tightly. Oddly, the volunteer found the more violent movements of the small longboat less disturbing than the rolling of the big ship, but perhaps this was just the prospect of getting on to dry land. The old merchant captain had leaned over the side as they left, calling down that he would be back to pick them up again in a month if they weren’t dead by then. MacAndrews just raised his cocked hat in salute in reply at this reminder that so many expeditions to Europe had ended in failure.
It took twenty minutes to get ashore, and at one point the sailors at the oars seemed to be losing their battle with the current. They recovered, but as they managed to get back on course there was the grim sight of a corpse dressed in the red-faced green jacket of the 60th floating towards them. The man was face down, his long black hair still tied in its queue and his arms outstretched. For a while the body kept pace with them, bobbing just out of reach. Then came another wave and he vanished for a moment, only to reappear some way away. It looked unreal, and Williams found it hard to accept that the object in the water had so recently been a living, breathing man.
Only after they had landed did it wholly sink in that boats had been swamped and men drowned as the army was landing. Williams found the thought more than a little frightening and was disturbed by this reaction. He had always assumed that he would be brave, but now he was worried by the thought of drowning at the moment of landing, in spite of the fact that he had not. He felt horror – there was no other word for it – at the realisation that he could have died before battle had brought the chance of distinction and promotion. He was confident that he would succeed if the opportunity came, and that he would continue to rise in rank. Eventually he would be senior and wealthy enough to aid his family, and to ask Major MacAndrews for his daughter’s hand. It all seemed clear and straightforward, even inevitable, and then came the sight of random and pointless death.
Hanley and Redman had come in the second boat carrying the grenadiers. Their trip was smoother and more steady, but they too were accompanied for some way by the dead rifleman. Redman tried to smile lightly, but was unable to think of a joke to demonstrate his calm. Hanley wondered who the man was, but felt that at least he looked more peaceful than the hacked and mutilated corpses in Madrid all those weeks ago. He regretted the fact that they were not in Spain, and yet was also eager to see Portugal, and especially Lisbon. He had read that there was a Roman theatre there which had been uncovered in an earthquake and was eager to see it. Yet he was not sure whether the French were between the army and the city, and suddenly he could not help laughing at the thought that he was planning to visit antiquities in the middle of a war. It seemed to make as much sense as the war itself.
Pringle came in the final boat with the engineer officers. Billy was glad to be off the ghastly prison of the never stable ship. He was sure that he must have lost weight, and yet in the mirror that morning his face had looked as round as ever. Given that he had eaten so little and spewed up so much, this seemed unfair. The third boat was also escorted by the rifleman, who always managed to stay out of reach. Pringle agreed when one engineer muttered that some poor fellows have such dreadful bad luck.
The company formed on shore and was almost immediately approached by Brigadier General Fane with orders. Fane commanded the Light Brigade, with the 2nd Battalion of the 95th Rifles and the 5th Battalion of the 60th –he grenally the Royal Americans, but now recruited more often than not from Germans and other foreigners. Both battalions carried the Baker rifle, which was far more accurate, although slower to load, than the line infantry’s musket. For the moment the 106th was attached to Fane’s brigade, as were two other battalions that had joined the expedition just before it left Cork. Everyone knew the arrangement was temporary, but for the moment it had got them ashore early on in the landings and that was a blessing. Fane’s brigade major walked them – there were no horses ashore that early in the day – to the position reinforcing the outposts of the riflemen.
That had been many hours ago, and the rest of the day had been spent mainly in waiting. They moved position twice as the outpost line was expanded. Williams had never known a sun so powerful or felt so very hot. Hanley was used to it, although it did remind him of how delicious a siesta was on such a day. It seemed pointless standing in formation away from the shade. At one point they were put in an orange grove, but, this being the army, they were almost instantly moved one hundred yards and out of the shade back into the sun. Williams’ face was almost as red as his jacket by the end of the day.
It was close to midnight when a single longboat ground ashore on another Portuguese beach. Two men had already sprung over the side and waded through the surf, holding their muskets high above their heads. They went forward, bare feet sinking into the gritty sand, until they reached a low mound of pebbles thrown up by the tide. Then they kneeled down and levelled their muskets, scanning the darkness for any threat. The moon had not yet risen, but the stars were bright, and over to the east was the dull glow of the lights of Lisbon itself.
The two men watched for more than a minute and then the one on the left raised his arm and gave a whispering call to those in the boat. One man jumped nimbly into the shallow water and strode ashore. Three more followed him, burdened down with backpacks, including those of the two scouts. They walked on to the beach and then piled the packs neatly and laid their muskets down on top of them. Then the three turned back and used their shoulders to push the boat out once more. The coxswain gave a few brief orders in a voice almost lost in the rolling of the surf. Expertly, the sailors brought the boat off a few yards and turned it, before rowing back to their ship, one of the Russian squadron anchored in the River Tagus.
The coxswain was glad to go. Normally, any time away from the hulking two-decked ship of the line, with its seventy-four guns and eight hundred crew, was a pleasant interval, but this had been different. There was something about the first lieutenant’s orders that had been uncanny. Rumour said that the captain was ill, and no one had seen him for days, but he was still sure that no instructions had come from the flagship for this special mission. Twenty years in the service had taught him never to question an order and so he had done as he was told. Even those years had not quite cured him of thinking at all.
It was hard not to speculate about his passengers even if he tried to avoid it. Their leader was a dangerous man. His uniform was that of a major in the Tsar’s own guard, one of the jaegers or huntsmen. That was enough to show that Count Denilov had grand connections even for an aristocrat. Yet the nobleman had the look of a killer.
The coxswain had fought in his share of battles, had hacked his way across decks crammed with sword-wielding Turks, and had battered many a man senseless in the fights in inns, alleys and on board ship that punctuated a sailor’s life. He was not easily impressed, but even he had to admit the count made him nervous. What the hell was an army officer doing on board anyway, and with five of his soldiers instead of the marines serving with the ship? Well, for the moment, that was not his concern – at least until they had to return at the same hour in six nights’ time and then on each of the next three nights. Three fires, spaced ten yards apart, would be the signal to come in and pick up the soldiers.
When one of the rowers missed a stroke, the coxswain decided they were far enough out from the shore to bellow a curse at the man. They were all nervous, he knew, but that was no excuse for poor seamanship. He tried to look on the bright side. There was supposed to be a war raging in Portugal, and maybe the count and his men would manage to get themselves killed. Sadly he doubted it. The soldiers looked more like killers than victims. The sort of men you could not just knock down, but had to finish off permanently, or one day they would be back at your throat. Cut-throats led by an aristocrat who would as soon flog a man to death as look at him was the coxswain’s judgement, and Portugal was welcome to them.
On shore the five soldiers put on their boots and then adjusted their packs, checking each other to make sure that their equipment rattled as little as possible. None of them spoke. The one-eyed sergeant tapped one man on the shoulder telling him to lead off. The sergeant followed, then the officer, and then the remaining three soldiers. All kept their muskets held loosely and ready to be brought up to the shoulder. The officer had thrust his double-barrelled pistol back into his belt and kept a grip on his sword to prevent the scabbard catching on anything. Almost silently, the six men slid into the night, intent on a theft that would restore the count’s fortunes. No one who mattered would ever know how Denilov would achieve this miracle. Deaths were also necessary, but that was not something that had ever bothered him.