Run Them Ashore (3 page)

‘Hey,
coquin
,’ he said, urging his horse on. The animal slipped a little, dropping one shoulder, but again the hussar calmed it and came on.

Williams drew his sword and took guard, nearly losing his own balance before he recovered. The Frenchman stopped for a moment and smiled. Then he raised his sabre in salute, kissing the blade and at the same moment kicking his mare into a trot.

A volley of musketry split the night air as the hilltop above them erupted in flame and noise. There were cries and the scream of a horse from the road, and either this or the shots made the mare flick up its head. It stumbled, sand slipping away from under its hoofs, and then animal and rider were both falling, rolling down the slope.

Williams turned and ran, trying to bound on before his boots really sank down and started to slide. It did not quite work and he zigzagged along the side of the ridge, but at least Dobson had arrived in time to confuse the enemy. He saw Clegg waiting for him.

‘Back to the boats, lad!’ he shouted. ‘Tell them we are coming!’

A second volley came, a little more ragged than the first, and Williams could not understand how the marines could possibly have reloaded so quickly. He ran on and now men were spilling
down from the hilltop, marines in white cross-belts and with the tall brimmed hats worn by these maritime soldiers.

‘Well done, Dob!’ Williams yelled, and then used all his strength to go faster and get past the deluge of redcoats before they swept him away. He did not see his sergeant and had no time to look for him, but could trust him to get the men back down to the boats.

‘Halt!’ came the challenge as he struggled back up to the top of the ridge.

‘
Sparrowhawk!
’ he called, cursing himself for not thinking of a password, but hoping that the name of the ship would prove that he was not French.

‘Here, sir!’ A man in a marine’s uniform beckoned to him, and when he got closer Williams saw the two white chevrons on his right sleeve.

‘Ah, Corporal Milne.’

The corporal saluted. ‘Good to see you, sir.’ If anything Williams had the impression that the Royal Marines were more formal than soldiers from a line regiment. Milne’s six men were kneeling or lying flat, muskets aimed at the road below them. Each had another firelock beside him.

‘Mr Pringle’s idea, sir,’ Milne explained. ‘They didn’t have enough mules to carry all the guns.’

Good old Billy, Williams thought, and now understood the second volley from Dobson’s men.

‘Any minute now,’ he said, watching the road. If the French dismounted and skirmished along the slope then he would be in trouble, and he was glad that these were hussars rather than dragoons, who carried longer muskets and were trained to fight on foot.

Loud and rapid hoofbeats echoed up the roadway as a score of cavalrymen charged in a dense knot along the road, led by an officer on a pale horse a good two or three hands taller than those of his men. Williams smiled. You could always rely on hussars – especially French hussars – to be bold.

‘Wait for the order,’ he said, trying to keep his tone matter of
fact. Milne said nothing, but dropped down on one knee and brought his own musket up to his shoulder.

The hussars pounded along the road, fifty, now thirty yards away.

‘Aim low, lads.’ The corporal’s voice was steady. ‘We’re not at sea now.’

The French were close, and Williams blinked for a moment and licked his lips, for they felt as dry as sandpaper.

‘Fire!’ he yelled, and the seven muskets banged, smoke instantly blotting the French from sight. Williams ran to the side so that he could see what was happening. Two horses were down, their riders tumbled, and another hussar was clutching at his stomach. The officer was unscathed and pointing towards the marines.

‘Change muskets!’ Milne gave the order that Williams had forgotten, but the men were already lifting their second firelock.

The hussar officer spurred his horse off the road, and here the slope was gentle and the ground firm. Half a dozen cavalrymen followed him, while the others were still disentangling themselves from the chaos on the road.

‘Fire!’ Williams shouted, and the muskets flamed again. ‘Down the hill!’ he screamed at the marines, for the French were so close that any survivors would be on them in seconds. ‘Run! Run!’ Milne was bellowing at them, pushing at any who were slow. A musket in each hand, the marines set off down the valley side, the corporal following. Williams saw the French officer still coming through the smoke, but the chest of the pale horse was dark so he guessed that it was wounded. Not quite sure why, he raised his own sword to salute the hussar, then flicked the blade down and slid it back into his scabbard. Other hussars were coming on, and one was levelling a stubby pistol. Williams turned and ran. He heard a bang and almost immediately there was a hot stinging along his right thigh.

It was easier to go down than up, and Williams slipped and fell as much as he ran down the slope. More shots came from the top of the ridge, but none came close. His thigh felt wet, but
his leg still worked and he hoped it was just a nasty scratch. If the French were shooting then that was good, because carbines were notoriously inaccurate and at night the danger from them was small. What he feared more was the French charging down along the main track to the bottom of the valley, for they might easily reach the beach before his men.

He passed a musket dropped by one of the marines, but could not blame the man because it must be difficult to carry two of the heavy weapons down the side of a dune. He scooped it up and went on. The slope was gentler now and Williams saw a line of half a dozen men formed on the beach itself. Behind them was the cutter and gig, and men were busying themselves to get them ready.

‘
Sparrowhawk
!’ he called out.

Cassidy was chivvying the men aboard, the cutter much less full than when it had come ashore.

‘Hurry up, lads,’ he called. ‘Mr Williams, if you please.’

Williams hurried, merely nodding back when Dobson grinned at him from the darkness. Sailors pushed at the heavy boats, helped by the rising tide, and then climbed aboard as they came free. In the prow of the gig, Williams sat beside Dobson and let himself relax. The sergeant looked quickly at his thigh and then grinned.

‘Could have been an inch or two higher and a lot worse, sir,’ he suggested.

‘Thank you for that kind sentiment.’

‘It’s nothing, Pug. How did you get it?’

Williams shrugged and as usual found it hard not to confess everything to the sergeant. ‘I lingered to salute a brave enemy,’ he said, trying and failing to make it sound sensible.

‘Ruddy officers.’ Dobson shook his head.

The steady rhythm of the oars had already taken them some way out in spite of the tide. Williams smelled the salt air and felt at ease, but also guilty because he was leaving his friends as they went further into danger. Pringle and the others had been given a good head start and should get away. Yet the arrival of
the hussars was one more coincidence and he liked the whole business less and less the more that he thought about it. Williams worried that he would never see his friends again.

2

‘
F
ortune shines brightly upon us,’ Major Sinclair declared as they came out of the shelter of a knot of pines and into the sunlight. The mist had burned away and Billy Pringle was glad of the warmth. They were high up now, having ridden throughout the night, most of the time climbing, and morning had come with a damp and chilly fog. No doubt it would soon be oppressively hot, but for the moment it was pleasant to feel the sun on his face. Pringle ordered ten minutes of rest before they continued the ascent into the mountains. Their mules did not have saddles and he suspected that Hanley and Murphy were as sore as he was. Billy took off his hat and looked up into the sky, breathing in the rich scent of resin from the trees. It was nice to enjoy a few moments of peace.

‘No doubt many of my countrymen would say that it was all the luck of the Irish,’ Sinclair continued. ‘Is that not right, Sergeant Murphy?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the sergeant said dutifully, and then waited for a moment before smiling. ‘All of us, just born lucky. Hush! Calm yourself, you donkey,’ he added, turning to soothe one of their mules as it brayed and tried to shake off its heavy load. His own beast lashed out with its hind legs at the one behind, nearly unseating the Irishman. ‘The problem with a mule,’ he said once he regained his balance, ‘is that the beast will serve you well for ten years just so that it can get the chance to bite you.’

Pringle was weary after a hard night, and suspected that Murphy was not only tired, but troubled by his barely healed wound. The left side of his own face was sore from the rubbing
of his glasses. Pringle’s good pair had been broken during that desperate fight at the River Côa a month ago – not by the French, but by the clumsy boot of Lieutenant Williams – and he had failed to find a replacement during their brief stay in Lisbon. These were his old ones, the lenses still good, but the arms bent badly from heavy use and always pressing too hard on his skin.

‘Hush now, me darhling.’ Murphy had thickened his accent and started to play the part of a stage Irishman. For those who knew him, this was a clear indication of his contempt for the strange officer. The sergeant soothed the mule, stroking its muzzle, and then began to whisper into one of its long ears. ‘Calm now, me dear, there’s no sense in going on so much and saying so little.’

Sinclair gave no sign of spotting the barb in that comment. ‘That is us to be sure, blessed with luck and the goodwill of all God’s creatures, especially the stubborn, contrary ones which so mirror our own characters.’ The major had barely stopped talking throughout the long night’s march into the Sierra, untroubled by the lack of response from his companions. It was clear that he enjoyed talking and, after so long a time with the partisans, most especially speaking in English. Nor was he short of opinions, and it was just as well that the three Spaniards with them did not understand the language, for the major had offered plenty of disdainful opinions of Catholics. Sinclair was Presbyterian – ‘No damned candles, confessions or popery for me,’ he had informed them early on, as if in answer to a question no one had asked, ‘just poor old Eustace Sinclair doing the best he can for God, King and Country.’

Pringle had often wondered why so many Irishmen felt obliged on the slightest acquaintance to inform strangers of their faith and allegiance. It was not universal, there were several Irish officers in the 106th, and plenty in the army as a whole, many of whom lacked this belligerent urge to declare themselves. Nearly all were Anglos, some more English than the English, but he had met men like Sinclair before, although at least the major was not so crass as to proclaim that he was a gentleman. Yet there was still
an inherent challenge in his words, aimed partly at the world in general, though most, it seemed, at his fellow countrymen.

The scars of the past ran deep, and the great rebellion of ’98 was not really so long ago. Pringle had been fourteen then, and could remember that nearly every day a fresh story of massacre was being reported in Liverpool. His father and brothers away, only he and his uncle had been there to comfort his mother as she worried about the Irish population of the town running amok and slaughtering women and children. Twelve years on, that all seemed a distant memory, even if, he would guess, the wounds remained fresh for those caught up in it all.

Pringle had never been to Ireland, although he guessed at some stage there was a fair chance that the regiment would be sent there, and he would be the first to admit that he knew little, and thought less, of its troubles. Things seemed peaceful now, and ’98 had had as much to do with the contagion of revolutionary plots as religion, so that it seemed unlikely to be repeated. The dream of joining Napoleon’s empire was far less intoxicating than the cry of liberty, equality and fraternity. Men like Murphy were common in the army, and provided many of its best soldiers. Plenty of the officers were also good, the rest no better or worse than anyone else, and Pringle was convinced that more than a few were discreetly Catholic. Every year Parliament passed an Indemnifying Act, so that the law requiring proof of allegiance to monarch and the Church of England was quietly ignored. There were plenty of nonconformists like Williams who were equally glad of this provision. Pringle rather liked belonging to a country whose government routinely chose to deceive itself.

‘One might incline to the view that genuine good luck would have caused us not to bump into the French patrol in the first place.’ Hanley’s voice snapped Pringle from his thoughts. His friend was never at his best in the early mornings and now sounded distinctly ill-humoured. In fact it had surprised Billy that Sinclair’s near-continuous monologue had not prompted him to argue. Hanley had a near-insatiable appetite for disputation,
eloquently arguing for the joy of it even when he did not believe a word he was saying.

‘I beg your pardon, Hanley.’ Sinclair stood no more than five foot five inches tall, dwarfed by the other redcoats, none of them much less than six foot, for the grenadiers were chosen from the biggest men in the battalion. Yet the major cut a neat, athletic figure and possessed the confidence of a giant. His eyes were the palest Pringle had ever seen, so faintly grey as to be almost transparent. His face was impishly handsome and constantly amused, which was the all the more surprising given the militancy of so many of his statements. ‘I do not quite follow, my dear fellow.’

‘I merely wondered whether we might boast a better claim to luck had we landed and not met French cavalry?’

‘Ah, a philosopher, I see. Then I am all the more glad to make your acquaintance, Captain Hanley, and look forward to exploring many deep questions with you.’ Sinclair’s smile was so broad that he was almost beaming. ‘But for the moment I will simply say that I believe you have mistaken the nature of Irish luck. We need constant difficulties and scrapes otherwise we would never know how lucky we are to come through them! An Irishman free of problems would be a very dull Irishman indeed. Isn’t that so, Sergeant?’

Murphy laughed this time, a genuine roar of laughter. ‘Your Honour’s talking sense,’ he said. ‘And with that sort of wisdom, you can see why we need all the luck we can get.’

Sinclair bowed to honour the sentiment, and even Hanley was smiling.

‘Well, at least we got away,’ Pringle said. ‘And now that we are a little rested, we should get away again and keep moving. With your leave, of course, Major?’

‘Certainly, my dear fellow, certainly.’ Sinclair had insisted that he was there to assist and not to take command. ‘Just here to pave the way, old boy, and I shall be off into the shadows again once I have seen you to our destination.’ He spoke in the rapid Spanish of the south to the two muleteers he had brought with him, telling them to check the loads before they went on. Hanley
said something more quietly to the guide, who kept himself apart from the other Spaniards as well as the British. Sinclair had somehow arranged for the man to meet them, but confessed that he knew neither him nor the band he came from. ‘We need to meet them,’ he had said, ‘and learn how best we can aid each other against the common foe. But the reputation of Don Antonio Velasco and his band is truly splendid. I suspect that I have heard more songs sung of him that any of the other chiefs.’

The guide was small, blind in one eye, and said no more than was absolutely essential, but had led them along tracks which they would never have found in broad daylight, let alone at night. What little he said, he said to Hanley, and this did not include his own name, or that of the leader.

‘
Ya veremos
,’ he said, and nothing more. ‘We shall see.’

So they went on, the major chattering away, the bell on the collar of the lead mule ringing as it toiled up the steep paths, the other five pack mules following and now and then baying in protest or whatever it was that prompted mules to give voice. The riding mules were as awkward and contrary as most of their kind. Hanley fell more than once, and Pringle only stayed on by copying Murphy and keeping one hand entwined in his beast’s mane.

‘Sadly the spirit of patriotism seems undeveloped in the mules of Iberia,’ Sinclair said as he watched Hanley climbing back on to his mount after another fall. ‘A sorry state of affairs, and one that surely reminds us how brightly that spirit burns in the human inhabitants of these lands. They hate with a passion. And at least the mules have given no welcome to the invaders. According to the best reports they are as inimical to the French as they are to the rest of humanity!’

Pringle smiled at that. The other men said little, the guide nothing at all unless prompted, and then just, ‘You will see.’ He indicated the route solely by gestures.

‘You ride well, Sergeant,’ Sinclair said a mile or so on. ‘You remind me a lot of a man named Murphy who used to deliver the coal in Ballymena. The resemblance is striking.’

‘Probably my uncle. He was just like me except that he was small, fat and with red hair.’

‘That sounds like the same man,’ the major said happily. ‘I am sure of it. And how is your good uncle?’

‘Well, as far as we know. Apart from being dead.’

They went on for hours, and saw no one, but since they were led through pine forests, little valleys and dells, that was not so surprising. These were paths taken by those who did not wish to be seen. That was good, and showed that the man knew his business, but as they went on Pringle’s worries only grew. From the start he had not cared for his orders. It was good to be busy, for he knew his own nature well enough to know that he needed to be kept busy. When he was not then he all too easily slipped back into old habits of drinking far more than was prudent. It was a fault that had seen him fight a duel last year from a mixture of wine-driven anger and frustration at the drabness of day-to-day life. Pringle liked the army, but liked even more the clear purpose of campaigning. Sometimes he feared that meant that he actually enjoyed war, but if so then there was probably little he could do to change, and if he kept busy there was scant time for such melancholy thoughts. War brought him friendships closer than any he had ever known and the all-encompassing, though essentially simple, problems of overcoming the enemy and remaining alive.

Pringle wanted to be back with the battalion, now that the 106th were returning to the war, although no one seemed quite sure whether they were heading for Cadiz or Gibraltar. Either way it would be good to be back in the family of the regiment, surrounded by men he knew, and with most of the great decisions made for him. Plenty of people said the war was lost, with Marshal Massena’s great army poised to eject Lord Wellington from his toehold in Portugal. Pringle was not so sure, but, even if the war was lost, he reckoned it still had enough life in it to offer amusement for some time to come. He would prefer to make the most of it back with the regiment rather than stuck
out here in the middle of nowhere with only the vaguest sense that he might be doing anything useful.

‘How much further?’ Hanley asked the guide.

The man shrugged. ‘
Ya veremos
.’

Hanley was behind it all, of course. While the party of the 106th returning from detached duty had been waiting for a ship at Lisbon, Lieutenant Hanley was summoned. He returned to them a captain, and with the news that he had new orders, sending him off to the guerrilleros here in the south. Pringle, Williams and the two sergeants were to go with him for protection, to help manage the supplies he was to take, and so that they could help judge the military prowess of the bands they encountered. Billy was unsure whether Hanley had volunteered their services, or whether the man giving the orders had chosen them. Mr Ezekial Baynes was a civilian, a trader in wines and spirits, and one of the most important masters of spies working for the British in the whole Iberian peninsula. He was a portly, red-faced, bluff and jovial old fellow with a razor-sharp and ruthless mind. Even Hanley was sometimes shocked by the merchant’s willingness to play games with the lives of men, and admitted to trusting no more than Baynes’ commitment to the cause and his shrewd intelligence.

Billy wondered whether he was fretting unnecessarily. Plenty of officers were sent out to meet with the partisans. Sinclair was one, but there were dozens of others in Granada and the neighbouring provinces – indeed, so many, and often sent by different commanders without consulting each other, that there was real danger that this would only foster the lack of coordination between the different bands. Hanley said that part of the aim of their mission was to see how best to unite the various leaders and their British and Spanish liaison officers so that a greater sense of purpose could be brought to the
guerrilla
, the ‘little war’ fought by the irregulars. That made good sense, and were it not for too many little things, he might have been content.

It had been unlikely, to say the least, that they should have been brought on his brother’s ship. It had been good to see
Edward again, even if the circumstances were sad for it was the first time they had met since his brother’s wife had died giving birth to a son who lasted only a few days more than his poor mother. Meeting the French hussars so soon after they landed was a greater worry. Williams, Dobson and the landing party had done a fine job of letting them get away, for they had seen no trace of pursuit as they began the long climb into the hills. He hoped that the others had not paid too high a price, and it was frustrating that they would not know what had happened until they were picked up in a week’s time. If they were picked up.