Flashman in the Peninsula (11 page)

‘Where is the mine?’ I shouted, thinking that there had only ever been one way out of this.

‘It is under the first arch, but we have to await orders before we can fire it.’

‘I have orders,’ I replied, while patting my pocket to check that my tinder box was still there, and then I slipped around the end of the parapet and started to slide down the slope.

‘Captain Flashman, come back,’ called Charles behind me but I ignored him. I knew that if I didn’t blow that bridge then we would be pounded to mincemeat, and right now the only totally safe place from the French bombardment was under the bridge itself. But no sooner had I started to slide down the steep hillside than there was a renewed crackle of musketry from the far bank. Looking up I noticed too late that Victor had posted a company of infantry on the very edge of the far bank, obviously with orders to stop anyone trying to blow a mine under the bridge. The wily fox must have guessed that there would be one. If they had used rifles I would have been dead, but even at the one hundred yard distance that it must have been, muskets were not accurate against just one man. Balls smacked into the rocks all around me but it would have taken longer to go back up, so I continued to slide down the hillside until I was level with the first arch. There I saw that Marshal Victor had another surprise planned.

The floor under the arch was covered with fuses, either cut or yanked out of the four large barrels of gunpowder that were placed against one of the walls. Of more concern however was the huge soaking wet Frenchman who was straining to push one of the barrels over the far edge of the arch. He must have been well over six foot, a grenadier company man from the look of him and judging from the way he was moving the barrel, hugely powerful. He must also have been a good swimmer to get across the river in the strong current and climb up the ravine.

His only weapon seemed to be a large knife which was resting on the top of a barrel, and I am proud to say I did not hesitate when considering my course of action. If this was a romantic novel I would have called to my gallant foe to give him a chance to defend himself, but that ain’t the Flashy way, especially when the cove looked as if he could beat me to a pulp. As I ran through the arch the noise of the surrounding battle covered any sound I made. In any event the great brute was too busy pushing and straining to get his barrel over the edge. He succeeded just as I reached him. As he peered over the edge to see the result of his handiwork, I shoulder charged him in the back to tip him over the edge as well. His flailing arms almost got a grip on my jacket to drag me over too, but I wrenched myself free and with a scream he toppled over the edge. I watched him fall and with a sickening thud he hit a rock head first and then somersaulted a couple of times before splashing into the river. A flurry of musket fire from the opposite bank told me that a company of infantry were defending the arches on both sides of the bridge, but I had just enough time to check that there were no more swimming grenadiers before I ducked my head back into the relative safety of the arch.

Looking around I saw that originally a bundle of fuses had led from the arch up to the roadway so that the mine could have been fired from above. That, however, had been cut by the grenadier. The surviving combined fuse was now much shorter and then it split into four separate strands. It was a matter of moments to push these individual fuses back into the barrels so that they were embedded in the black powder. I just hoped that the remaining three large barrels would be enough to blow the bridge.

The battle was still raging above me with the enemy cannon thundering away. I could hear screams of men as the cannon balls hit home. If I could just blow the bridge then neither side would have a reason to be here, and both could withdraw. Lisbon and Wellesley’s flank would be protected and more importantly I would not be killed by vengeful French infantrymen when they inevitably stormed across. I opened my tinder box and struck the steel. The tinder caught first time and with some gentle blowing I soon had a flame. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘I am firing the mine,’ but with the noise of battle I doubt anyone heard me. I was not concerned as I would warn anyone still near the end of the bridge when I climbed back up. I touched the flame to the end of the combined fuse and it took with a roar.

There are times in my life when I really should have thought things through a bit more before I took action. Lighting that mine was one of those occasions. To be sure fuses burn at varying speeds, and if that had been a slow burning fuse my plan would have worked brilliantly. It wasn’t. The flame took off down its track like a scalded whippet. I stared at it transfixed in horror for a moment as the implications sank in. I would not have time to climb back up the hill and get clear before it blew. To pull the fuses back out of the barrels would leave me back in the soup. I could not stay in the arch and that left only one option – sliding down into the river. A sudden burst of flame from the fuse as it separated to go to the individual barrels seemed to break the spell and spur me into action. There was no time to worry about the company of infantry on the opposite shore, I had to take my chances and get out of that arch. I was out and running down that hill in a heartbeat. I was only dimly aware of the renewed crackle of gunfire from the French bank. I could not afford to look up as I had to concentrate on my footing. One slip and in a few seconds tons of rock would fall on top of me. I was halfway down the hill when I realised that it was taking too long. There was nothing for it but to step out onto a rocky outcrop and just jump into the water.

It was deep and cold and probably saved my life, for it moved me down the stream in a fast current. As I surfaced I was gasping with the shock of the icy water but I was already twenty yards away from the bridge. The mine blew. There was a thunderous roar, a huge plume of smoke and seconds later chunks of masonry were splashing in the river around me. For a moment I was jubilant, I had done it, I had escaped and saved Lisbon and Wellesley at the same time. Then, as the smoke started to clear, I discovered that I had been thwarted by a long dead man called Lacer.

I found out later that his name was Caius Julius Lacer. He was a Roman architect and he built damn strong bridges. As I drifted around a bend in the river I had a last look at the bridge and could clearly see that the end span was still standing. I also got a glimpse of the Lusitanian soldiers pulling back away from the river. I drifted and half waded down the river for a quarter of a mile but with my sword and pistols weighing me down, once any air trapped in my clothes had gone it was impossible to swim and I looked for a place to climb up the steep bank on the Portuguese side.

It was late afternoon when, soaked through and freezing cold, I climbed to the crest of a hill that overlooked the bridge at Alcantara. I still had my telescope in my pocket and while some water had got into the tubes I was able to watch the Lusitanian rear guard pulling back to the next bridge that they planned to defend. They had got most of their cannon away and left just one on the bluff to hold the bridge until they departed. Marshal Victor seemed happy to let them go without incurring further casualties; it was the bridge he wanted, and thanks to me he had it. As I looked down, the first of his troops were coming across and the dead and wounded on the bridge were being carried away. The first French infantry and cavalry were moving across in single file.

They would pursue the Lusitanians I thought and destroy what was left of them at the next bridge, which meant that rejoining those brave green jacketed troops was not for me. My urgent need was for warmth and so I walked half a mile away from Alcantara to an abandoned shepherd’s hut, where I soon had a fire blazing to return life to my limbs and dry my clothes. The next morning I expected to awake to the sound of a distant battle but there was nothing. I had slept in the hut and made plans on what to do next. With Soult likely to be holding off Wellesley in the north of Portugal until Victor arrived either in Lisbon or on Wellesley’s flanks, going north or west back into Portugal seemed a dangerous option. I could not go east as that was French occupied Spain, so south seemed the best idea. I could get to Seville or Cuesta and while the despatches had been ruined by the water, they would be obliged to help a British officer get to safe territory. But first I had to wait for Marshal Victor’s army to get out of the way. Later that day I climbed up my hill again to see how things were proceeding and there I saw an astonishing sight. Instead of proceeding west to capture Lisbon, Victor’s men were turning around and heading back the way that they had come. I was amazed, puzzled and proud; against all the odds, the tiny forces of the Loyal Lusitanian Legion, ably assisted by one T Flashman, Esquire, had somehow managed to turn back a French marshal and his army.

The big question that we were all asking over the next few days was why the French had turned back once they had secured the bridge. Some British sources later dismissed the matter by claiming that Victor must have got word that Wellesley had beaten Soult at Oporto, but that doesn’t wash. The victory at Oporto and the defence of the bridge at Alcantara both took place on the same day, the twelfth of May. I know French messengers would be better at navigating than Downie, but it must be well over one and fifty miles taking into account the rough terrain and avoiding the partisans. There is no way that they could have done it in much less than four days, even with fresh horses at each stop.

Colonel Mayne suggested that one of the reasons was the heavy casualties that the Lusitanians had inflicted on the French. He estimated French casualties at 1,400, more than a tenth of the French infantry, against which the militia regiment lost around fifty killed and wounded before they ran away, and the Legion had one hundred and eight killed and a hundred and forty six wounded, which still left them over three hundred men and most of their guns to defend the next bridge at Seguro.

I on the other hand have another theory, and I speak with some authority as I was probably the only one watching the French at the bridge on the day they decided to turn around. I saw lots of infantry and cavalry cross that damaged span, but not one of the heavy twelve pounder cannon. There were officers, presumably French engineers, studying the bridge and going underneath where the mine had been placed. I am pretty sure that I even saw Marshal Victor ride across in the afternoon to inspect the damage for himself. I don’t think that last arch of the bridge was strong enough to take the guns and Victor certainly would not have wanted to advance without his artillery. My hypothesis is supported by the fact that the damaged span collapsed completely a few weeks later.

It is possible that Soult had been sending messages before the battle with Wellesley expressing doubts that he could defend Oporto, but other messages he sent indicate he was confident he could defend the city. I like to think that it was my forestalling the grenadier from destroying the mine and then firing the damn thing that saved the day. As you will read from the following account, there are not many things that happened to me in the peninsula that I can take a sense of accomplishment from, but that is one of them. After all there cannot be that many men who can say that they have turned back a French army single handed.

Much later, Colonel Mayne and I were both made Knights of the Military Order of Alcantara by the Spanish, recognising the part we played in stopping the French advance. It is an old order that dates back to the Middle Ages and the battles in the region between Christendom and the Moors. Like most of my foreign tinware and awards it won’t get you into Whites or the Reform Club, but I still wear mine with pride.

You will only find passing mentions of the defence of the Alcantara Bridge in many of the history books, which is down to pure spite in some cases. Wellesley never gave the Legion credit for anything and officers writing memoirs in his lifetime took care to follow suit so as to avoid his wrath. Cuesta and the Spanish were similarly furious that the bridge had been blown as it added weeks to communications, although they had only been bothered to send fifty cavalry to help defend it. Equally the French felt that they had little to shout about from the action. Apart from mine, the most detailed account you will find of the action was written by the other man at the heart of it, Colonel Mayne. He has written a very readable history of the regiment including the Alcantara action; although the old bastard evidently resented the fact that I blew the bridge without waiting for orders and does not mention me at all.

Editor’s Note
.

The book Flashman refers to is
A Narrative of the Campaigns of the Loyal Lusitanian Legion
by Colonel William Mayne. A copy is available to read online at the website of the Portuguese National Library or
Biblioteca Nacional Digital
. See the Historical Notes section at the end of this book for further information.

Chapter 9

Generally speaking my account of the Peninsular Campaign does not reflect well on the Spanish soldier, so I should make a point of recognising the bravery of the fifty Spanish cavalry that Cuesta had sent to support the defence of the bridge at Alcantara. With Downie and the British dragoons on foot they were the only mounted soldiers covering the withdrawal and by all accounts they fought well, as shown by the fact that there were only twenty survivors.

The Legion cautiously returned to the bridge the day after the French withdrawal. I went down to rejoin them but Mayne was damn cool with me as I had not been given his order to blow the mine. I pointed out that if I had waited, the grenadier would have heaved the entirety of the mine in the river and the whole French army would have been marching to Lisbon, but he took little notice of that. Admittedly six of the Legion had been killed by falling masonry when the mine blew without warning, which partly explained it.

Mayne thought that Victor might now try to attack Lisbon by going further south and passing through the area Cuesta was guarding. Having just escaped Victor’s forces once I had no wish to meet them again. I thought that the French would sweep through Cuesta’s diminished army like a pack of foxes in a henhouse and we had yet to hear of Wellesley’s victory at Oporto. When Mayne asked for someone to take news of our victory to Wilson I jumped at the chance. Not only was I keen to meet my old friend again, but to find him I had to travel west, away from the French. Doubtless because he was keen to get rid of me, Mayne agreed.

This time with a small escort of dragoons I followed the better travelled route along the river. The journey was without incident and we arrived at a town called Tomas on the fifth of June. There we found Wilson and learned of Wellesley’s victory at Oporto. When I revealed how Victor and his army had been turned back by the Legion, Wilson was jubilant. News of Oporto was already being circulated around the Portuguese army, and a message about Alcantara was sent to Wellesley so that this could be circulated among the British. Privately Wilson admitted to me that he was sure Wellesley would do no such thing.

It was good to see Wilson again and he told me how victory in the north had been achieved.

‘Wellesley managed to find some wine barges and cross the river to a convent on the opposite shore,’ he explained. ‘They were able to fortify the convent to hold the French off until they had enough men across to attack the town. The French were taken by surprise and Wellesley sat down to a dinner that had been cooked for Marshal Soult.’ He gave a shout of laughter and slapped his knee. ‘Two famous victories against the French on the same day eh? Napoleon will be furious when he finds out. Mind you,’ he added with a grin, ‘Wellesley had over twenty thousand men to defeat his marshal. We sent our marshal back with just the few hundred in my regiment.’

A broken bridge was rather a significant factor in our victory, I thought, but I did not say anything as Wilson was in high spirits and there was no need to dampen them. Wilson was the complete antithesis of the man he viewed as his rival British commanding general. While Wellesley was haughty and reserved, planning carefully and moving cautiously, Wilson was engaging and impulsive. He was convinced that a small force, led with daring and reacting quickly to circumstance, could do just as much damage to an enemy as a much larger army. ‘A rapier will kill you just as dead as a cannon,’ he quoted. ‘That is why I must always have freedom to act as I think fit.’ He was determined that his regiment would not be absorbed as just another unit in the British army… and particularly not under Wellesley’s command.

Within a few days word came through that Victor was also pulling back into Spain. He must have realised that he was probably the next French marshal that Wellesley planned to confront. This of course meant that I could now return to my original orders and visit Cuesta and take information on Cuesta’s army back to Wellesley. Despite his dislike for Wellesley or perhaps because of his liking for me, Wilson caught up with me again before I left. ‘Be careful of the old fox,’ he warned of Cuesta. ‘The Spanish Central Junta government does not trust him and he views them as impertinent opportunists. There are various feuds between the Spanish generals and they all hate Cuesta. I would not trust any of them to come to his aid if he was in a tight spot. But on the positive side he has an implacable hatred of the French,’ Wilson grinned at me before adding, ‘which probably only slightly exceeds his dislike of the British.’

With that endorsement ringing in my ears I set off. The original message I carried from Wellesley had been destroyed by my fall into the river but it was out of date now anyway. I carried despatches from Wilson and Beresford, the commander of the Portuguese army, to prove who I was and had six British dragoons as escort including troopers Chapman and Doherty. A week later and we found ourselves riding into Cuesta’s camp and understanding for the first time the plight of the Spanish army.

The camp was in one of the main passes between Spain and Portugal, an area that in recent years the French and Spanish had fought over frequently. As a result many of the local farmers, fed up with their women getting raped and their crops stolen, had moved on so that most of the farms were abandoned. The few peasants that could be seen still trying to scratch a living from the earth looked dirt poor and certainly not able to support the thousands of men now bivouacked nearby. We crested a hill late one afternoon and got our first glimpse of the Spanish army camp. It was June and the weather was already hot. Before us was a large olive grove and under virtually every tree half a dozen raggedly dressed soldiers could be seen lying in the shade. On the air was the stench of uncovered latrine ditches.

There were no orderly lines of tents or clearly marked regimental areas, in fact there were few tents at all, just the odd scrap of canvas strung up between trees to provide more shade. No sentries were in sight and we were not challenged. The men near us glanced up but showed no interest as we rode past. As we got closer to the centre of the camp, a file of cadaverously thin men could be seen marching along guarding a supply wagon. Their uniforms, such as the scraps of clothing that they still wore could be called that, were torn with some barely decent.

‘Jaysus,’ I heard Doherty mutter behind me as they marched past. ‘Would ye be lookin’ at them. Why their clothes would shame a Connemara tinker.’

My eyes were drawn to a riot of colour under an awning by a huge carriage in the centre of the camp. There, around twenty officers in uniforms of every colour and hue, except French blue, lounged on chairs and benches around a large table. They watched us approach and as we got close one tall thin officer in a green coat languidly got to his feet and walked towards us. On his head he had placed a tall bicorn hat adorned with an ostrich feather plume along the rim. It was by far the grandest thing about him. His green coat was patched on both elbows, the hem seemed to have been burnt at some point, while one leg of his breeches had been torn at the knee.

‘Look at his sword,’ Chapman muttered to the others. ‘The scabbard is covered with rust.’ Then expressing what was undoubtedly an expert opinion he added, ‘You would not bother to steal that even if you found it on the road.’ I grinned. Chapman was right, a man who could not bother to keep rust off the scabbard would probably not keep the blade free of rust, or sharp either. For this officer his sword was just another item of his tatty uniform rather than a weapon. He saw us inspecting him and me grinning and gave a look of haughty disdain.

‘What do you want?’ he asked, in heavily accented English.

‘I come from General Wellesley,’ I replied in my fluent Spanish. ‘He sends his greetings to General Cuesta. I also have despatches from General Beresford and General Wilson.’ He held out his hand and I passed over the despatches.

‘Wait here,’ he said curtly, and then marched back to the men near the carriage, leaving us sitting in the hot sun.

I decided that I was not going to be treated like some itinerant peddler by a bunch of dagos dressed up like a beggar’s circus. ‘Water and look after the horses,’ I said to Chapman after I had dismounted and passed him the reins of my mount. Then I walked over to the men by the carriage. I was a British officer, damn it, and they needed our help to beat the French. Whether their help was of any use to us was another matter. I looked the men sitting under the awning in the eye, daring one of them to challenge me, but they just glared resentfully back. I reached the table set amongst them and picked up an earthenware jug. Pouring what turned out to be wine into one of the silver beakers on the table, I slaked my thirst and I looked about. Ostrich hat was at the door of the carriage talking to someone inside. I could not hear what they were talking about but after a while ostrich hat turned towards me. Looking mildly annoyed that I was already at the table, he gestured me over to the carriage.

The interior of the coach was dark and gloomy with blinds over the windows to keep out the hot sun. As I reached a door I could see a bed along the far side, strewn with maps and other papers. To my left, in the shadow, a pair of eyes glinted at me; they belonged to an old man who had one leg propped up on the bed. Opposite was another seat facing the general. I guessed that they expected me to stand outside as ostrich hat had done, but to hell with that, I thought. I had spent a week getting here and the old buzzard was not going to simply dismiss me through a carriage door. Stepping up into the carriage I heard a grunt of surprise from the general who put out a hand out to try and stop me, but I pretended not to have seen it. I dropped into the vacant seat, causing the carriage to bounce on its springs. Cuesta winced as the movement disturbed his leg, which I now noticed was bandaged. Then he glared at me.

‘Officers speak to me though the door,’ he barked. ‘Even British captains.’

I decided that now was the time to play my aristocratic card. ‘My compliments sir, I am also the grandson of the Marquis of Morella,’ I told him. ‘Through his daughter,’ I added.

‘I doubt that,’ said Cuesta coldly, ‘his daughter is only twelve. I suspect that you mean the old marquis who died a few years ago. I take it then that you are not close to the family?’

‘I have not had that honour,’ I admitted. In truth I had not met any of them. They had ostracised my mother after she married an Englishman but the association had already saved my life once, when I had been captured by the Spanish back in ’01.

‘Then perhaps you also do not know that your cousin is the Marquesa de Astorga?’ He looked at me with a slight smirk before adding, ‘Her husband the marquis is the head of the Junta of Granada and one of the leading politicians of the Central Junta.’

‘I am indebted to you sir, I did not know that,’ I conceded, still puzzled why he thought that my newly discovered link with the Astorga nobility was amusing. I knew that a marquis was just one rank below a duke and Granada was a province that had largely escaped French occupation. So in theory my cousin should be married to a wealthy and powerful man. I was sure there was something that he was not telling me so I asked, ‘Is the marquis a popular leader?’

Cuesta gave a snort of disgust. ‘All of the juntas squawk and flap like a flock of hens to be popular with the mob. They confuse popularity with leadership.’ There was that smirk again as he added, ‘Your cousin’s husband is not too big for his boots like some, but he is no leader.’ Then he looked me in the eye and asked ‘Is your General Wellesley a leader?’

‘He is yes,’ I confirmed. ‘I fought with him in India and I have seen him take on an army five times the size of his force and beat it.’

Cuesta gave a snort of derision. ‘I have heard he can lead native sepoy troops against Indian princes. But here he is not fighting elephants; he is fighting the French with their cannon and veteran infantry and cavalry.’

‘Sir, he has just beaten Marshal Soult’s army of veterans,’ I reminded him.

‘Yes, but that is just one marshal and most of the veterans got away. There are several marshals in Spain at the moment. What will he do, Captain, when those marshals start to gather their armies together?’

I thought that whatever happened the British were likely to put up more of a fight than his Spanish army and glanced out at them through the doorway of the carriage. It was an unconscious gesture but Cuesta noticed.

‘I know what you are thinking,’ he said. ‘You think that your army is better than mine because it is better dressed and better equipped.’

‘No sir, no, not at all,’ I lied diplomatically.

‘Your army came to Spain before,’ Cuesta’s voice was rising now as he started to get into a passion. ‘They promised to stand alongside the free armies of Spain. We fed your army and prepared to meet the veterans the Corsican tyrant sent against us, and what did the British do?’ He was shouting now, ‘they ran away and left us. This army did not run away. There were no ships to take us away to full bellies and warm beds. This army fought on, through the winter, facing the marshals of France and their armies alone. When there was no food they fought, when there was snow and ice they fought, when rivers were in flood they fought. And now in the spring you came back from your warm beds and look down on my army because it does not look as smart as yours. Show me your army next spring, if it is still here fighting alongside us, and then you can judge my men.’