Flashman in the Peninsula (5 page)

Chapter 4

Lisbon, when we finally arrived, looked a bright colourful place from a mile or two out to sea with its red tiled roofs and whitewashed walls. But as we got closer to the harbour the poverty, dirt and then the smell became all too apparent. It was a strange place, the capital of large and once powerful country, but now empty of most of the people of influence. Just two years before, as the French first arrived, all the wealthy merchants, the court and most of the government had sailed to Brazil, a Portuguese dominion. The people who were left were generally those too poor to purchase their passage to the New World, and others who had moved to the city after being made destitute from the French pillaging of the countryside. We sailed into the mouth of the river Tagus and past the
Tower of Belém
to dock by the Black Horse Square. The citizens were gathered in crowds to welcome the return of their British allies, doubtless wondering if our army would cut and run when the French attacked like we had the previous year.

General Craddock, the commander of the small British force that had remained from the previous expedition, welcomed Wellesley and his officers onto the quay. We were ushered into a nearby palatial building and provided with refreshment, while Wellesley and Craddock retired to the next room to discuss matters in private. Soon afterwards I saw several grim faced officers of the local garrison being ushered into their room and a few of us newcomers began to deduce that all was not well. Eventually the doors of the inner sanctum were thrown open and Wellesley himself invited us in with the words,

‘Gentlemen, you had better hear this for yourselves.’ We trooped in with a feeling of foreboding and gathered around a large table covered with maps in the middle of the room. ‘It seems our Spanish allies have suffered something of a setback,’ Wellesley coldly continued after we were all settled. ‘Colonel D’Urban, you were there, perhaps you would be so kind as to give my officers a first-hand account.’

‘Certainly sir,’ replied D’Urban, moving forward to the table and re-arranging the maps. It was the first time I had met Ben D’Urban and I got to know him quite well while in Spain. He was a capable soldier and later administrator, especially in South Africa where they have named a town after him. Now, he briskly directed our attention to a large map showing the fork of two rivers near a town called Medallin. To cut a detailed briefing short, the Spanish under Cuesta thought they could trap and attack Marshal Victor’s forces. Cuesta had the advantage of total numbers with twenty-three thousand men against Victor’s seventeen and a half thousand, although Victor had slightly more guns and cavalry. The French were trapped in the fork of the two rivers while Cuesta arrayed his army in an arc of four ranks of infantry between the riverbanks, with cavalry on either flank. The plan was to simply march them towards the French.

‘What reserves did Cuesta have?’ interrupted Wellesley.

‘None sir,’ said D’Urban awkwardly. ‘He thought that as he advanced and the rivers got closer together, his ranks would thicken as his men had a shorter distance to cover.’

Wellesley gave a snort of disgust and continued his interrogation, ‘How was he expecting the French to react to his attack? Did you not suggest keeping some force in reserve to address any French response?’

‘To be honest sir, I am not sure he had thought that far ahead, and General Cuesta is a very difficult man to give advice to, sir.’

‘Dear God,’ groaned Wellesley, ‘What an ally he is likely to be. Go on then, tell us the worst.’

‘Well sir, to start with things seemed to go well with the forward French positions retreating towards their main force and the Spanish advancing steadily. Then one of the French cavalry regiments seemed a bit slow to retreat, and the Spanish cavalry on the left flank advanced to speed them along. The French, who had started to ride away, suddenly turned in the smartest manner and charged at the leading Spanish regiment of horsemen... who seemed to get startled,’ he added lamely.

‘What do you mean, startled?’ demanded Wellesley.

‘Well sir, it seemed that some had not faced a charge before and instead of meeting it they turned and tried to retreat through the other Spanish squadrons of horsemen behind them causing confusion.’

‘Christ,’ exclaimed one of our cavalry commanders as he imagined the resulting chaos.

‘So,’ continued D’Urban ‘one French cavalry regiment succeeded in routing all three Spanish cavalry regiments on that side of the battlefield, and the other French cavalry nearby charged in to support.’

‘What did Cuesta do in response?’ asked Wellesley.

‘He galloped in front of the retreating cavalry to try and get them to rally, but they just rode him down. He was knocked from his horse and trampled by his own side and then by the pursuing French.’

‘Is he dead?’ asked Wellesley with what seemed a note of hope in his voice.

‘No sir, I took a spare horse to him with a couple of his cousins and we managed to get him from the battlefield. He had taken several kicks, but was only badly bruised.’

‘So I am guessing that the infantry formed squares against the horsemen and fought their way out?’ asked a Scottish infantry colonel.

D’Urban looked exquisitely embarrassed and I guessed we had still not heard the worst. ‘Err, no sir. Most of the infantry officers were on horseback and when the Spanish cavalry fled the infantry officers joined them, leaving their men to fight for themselves. The Spanish infantry ran in all directions, with the French cavalry riding among them slaughtering until they were too tired to raise their bloodied swords.’

There was a stunned silence for a moment as we all struggled to take this in. I may be a lily livered coward but I don’t think even I would have run in those circumstances. Oh, don’t get me wrong – this would not be due to any sense of honour, but sheer practicality. A well organised infantry square is a much safer place to be with rampant enemy cavalry about, than fleeing with a pack of witless fools. You could retain most of your men and your reputation with a fighting retreat. Thinking back to my time with the remnants of the 74th Highlanders in India, I could not imagine running out on them like that; not least because Sergeant Fergusson would have tracked me down and gutted me with his spontoon if I had.

In the British army such brazen cowardice would leave a man ruined. Take it from an expert in these situations; you have to be a bit more creative. Helping a wounded soldier to the rear always looks noble, unless you are the commanding officer. Rushing from the command post pretending you have an important message gets you away quickly, or if things are really desperate – hiding under the corpses and hoping to be left for dead. As I was to discover in later years this last course is not recommended when the enemy are Iroquois warriors with a penchant for scalping, or a certain African tribe who take the wedding tackle from the dead and dying for trophies.

The Scottish infantry colonel interrupted my thoughts by muttering, ‘The bastards left their men in an exposed line for cavalry to slaughter. They deserve to be shot.’

‘The Central Junta has put some of the cavalry commanders in front of a firing squad for cowardice sir.’ D’Urban said quietly.

‘Good thing too,’ muttered Downie, but even he looked shaken at how easily the Spanish had been defeated.

‘How many were killed?’ asked Wellesley.

‘The Spanish lost eight thousand men killed or injured sir, with another two thousand taken prisoner. They also lost most of their cannon. French killed and wounded were less than a thousand.’

‘And this was the army that was supposed to block any advance on Lisbon while we advanced to attack Soult in the north,’ grumbled Wellesley. ‘A detachment of army wives armed with camp kettles and skillets would give more protection.’

‘There is still the Loyal Lusitanian Legion, Sir Arthur,’ said General Craddock, the Lisbon commander. He did not seem to notice a couple of the staff officers wince as the name was mentioned and turn to look at Wellesley, whose face clenched in icy disdain. ‘They only have twelve hundred men,’ continued the hapless Craddock, ‘but with some Spanish forces they have been holding off twelve thousand French at Almeida for the last few months. We might have had to evacuate Lisbon without them.’

‘The
Loyal
Lusitanian Legion,’ barked Wellesley with a sneer, ‘is only loyal to its commander, and Sir Robert Wilson is no friend of mine.’ I looked up at that for I knew Sir Robert, but a slight shake of the head from Campbell and the venom in Wellesley’s voice warned me not to admit the association. ‘I would rather have the army wives guarding my flank,’ growled Wellesley, before calling the meeting to a close.

Most of the officers took this first opportunity to explore the town and I was joined by Campbell who had organised some soldiers as escort to keep the local beggars and hawkers at a distance. It was strange to be back in uniform again and getting admiring glances from the few half decent looking women on the streets. This time I had a proper captain’s commission confirmed by Horseguards in the 31
^st
Regiment of foot. I was only nominally attached to that unit as a staff officer and was excused all regimental duties. With the comradeship amongst the staff it was a bit like rejoining a family as there were several familiar faces, like Campbell, from my Indian days. While I was new to others my reputation for being a cool hand, ill gained though it was, earned me respect. My only memento from those earlier times was my sword, which I had captured, mostly due to luck, from an Arab soldier in India. It was a beautiful thing and while I had been forced to sell the precious stones from the hilt, for various sentimental reasons I could not bring myself to sell the sword itself. It was at my hip then as we strode through the streets and if we had thought that the Black Horse Square was full of poverty and dirt, we soon found that this was in fact one of the smarter parts of the town.

While some officers went to the local taverns and others piled into a whore house that from the outside looked as clean as a Turkish sewer, Campbell wanted to visit a church. It was not my cup of tea but I tagged along as we followed the directions he had been given, The city had been completely destroyed by a massive earthquake and tidal wave fifty years before so most of the buildings were new, although often built of old stone. Here and there were still some ruins or half repaired dwellings, but the church when we found it, was from the outside quite impressive. Inside was a different story; all the ornate decoration had been looted, even the wood furniture had been stolen for firewood, the place was virtually bare apart from a stone altar and a wooden cross.

‘Hell’s bells,’ groaned Campbell looking around. ‘I thought Calvinist kirks were depressing places to worship in, but they are positively flamboyant compared to this.’

‘It could certainly learn a lot from Indian temples for decoration,’ I agreed. There was an archway that had previously housed a door long since torn off its hinges, and beyond it a staircase leading up to one of the church towers. We headed up to see the sights and emerged on a rooftop with panoramic views over the city.

‘I take it you know Wilson then,’ Campbell said as we stood alone together looking over the rooftops to the countryside beyond.

‘Yes, I went on a diplomatic mission to Russia with him a couple of years ago. I found him a pleasant and resourceful man, but evidently Wellesley does not agree. What is this Loyal Lusitanian Legion?’

‘It is a private army that Sir Robert set up a year ago in London from the émigrés who fled there from Portugal after the French invaded. They joined the first British expedition to Portugal and were supplemented with British officers who trained the men.’

‘Why didn’t they evacuate with the rest of the British army at Corunna?’ I asked.

‘They spent time training and when they tried to join the British army they were cut off by the French. The British officers were told that they could abandon their men and disembark at Lisbon, but they bravely chose to stay with them.’

‘Quite right too,’ I agreed, remembering the Spanish abandoning their men, but thinking I would have been on the first boat home.

‘They decided to hold up in the fortress at Almeida with around twelve hundred men, but they managed to convince both the French and the Spanish that they had ten times that number. Over six thousand Spanish troops, thinking that there was a large British trained force to support them, gathered and garrisoned the nearby town of Ciudad Rodrigo. The two fortresses guarded passes that led to Portugal and Lisbon. Between them they stopped an army of ten thousand French invading the south of the country.’

‘So why does Wellesley hate them?’ I asked.

‘When the Loyal Lusitanian Legion arrived in Portugal, one of their first duties was to oversee the evacuation of the French troops with their loot. Understandably the Portuguese soldiers took it badly and Sir Robert wrote to his influential friends in London complaining about the generals, including Wellesley, who had agreed to the terms.’