The Spanish Bride (39 page)

The advance was to be a general one, but no one in the Light division had much thought to spare for the proceedings of any other part of the army than that massed for the main attack on the French centre. The weakest point in the enemy’s defences was the opening between the two Rhunes and the Nivelle river, but the lesser Rhune formed an effective bar to an approach along this line. A wag, looking at the impregnable front of the mountain, said: ‘It’s a pity them fine new Sappers and Miners wot didn’t do any good at San Sebastian don’t blow up that bloody mountain, then we wouldn’t ’ave to go scaling up it.’ ‘We won’t ever get up it, will we?’ asked a young soldier, trying not to let his teeth chatter. ‘Ho, so that’s wot you think, is it? ’Ow the ’ell are we going to get at Johnny Peril’s lines if we don’t take the Rhune first?’

‘It looks an awful place!”

‘Don’t talk so cork-brained! Nice thing if the Light Bobs couldn’t kick the Crapauds off of their perch any day they felt like it!’ said the veteran scathingly. ‘You give over, now, and keep your eyes skinned for the dawn!”

‘I wish it would come quick!’

‘Well, it won’t come no quicker for your wishing. Stow your gab!’ The signal for the attack was to be three gun-shots fired from the top of the Atchubia mountain, away to the east of the division. Some firing was heard to the west a little before dawn, and the young soldier started at the sound of it.

‘Keep quiet, that’s ‘Ope,’ growled his companion. ‘False attack. If you’re alive this time tomorrow, you won’t be so green as wot you are now, that’s one comfort.’ All heads were turned towards the east. The dark mass of Mount Atchubia could be seen against the grey sky, but it was not until six o’clock that the first rays of sunlight stole over the summit. Almost at the same instant, the signal shots were fired. Orders ran down the lines; the men leaped to their feet, and formed up; and two companies of the 43rd regiment, of Kempt’s brigade, surged forward to plunge through the marsh, while the rest of the regiment advanced against the crags of the Rhune in their front Seven columns were launched against the Rhune, and so successful had the night-marches been that the attack took the enemy completely by surprise. During the rush from the lower slopes of the Grand Rhune, across the difficult ravine to the base of the Petite Rhune, the French were seen flying to man their formidable defences. A few pieces, opened fire, and from the top of the Grand Rhune were immediately answered by the mountain artillery placed there. Colborne, advancing simultaneously with Kempt, passed along the dead ground of the ravine on the southern side of the Rhune while the skirmishers of the 1st brigade were engaging the attention of the French on the lower slopes, and penetrated beyond the western end of the defences. The 52nd regiment, sweeping aside all opposition, went up the slopes of the Mouiz hill in an impetuous charge, to take in flank the breast-works and fortifications which the Riflemen were assailing.

Never had the Light division engaged on a more glorious action. The speed of their advance, and the bravery of their several attacks must have satisfied great little Craufurd himself. By eight o’clock, the key of the French position was won, and the way lay open for an attack against the main position on the Nivelle. Major Napier, with his pantaloons torn and singed by gun-fire, had led the 43rd regiment up on to the hog’s back in spite of every effort made to repulse him. Gunfire, musketry, and great boulders rolled over the craggy sides of the position were not enough to check the advance of the 43rd. Up they came, climbing over places that looked inaccessible, and one after another the three forts on the ridge fell into their hands. The casualties were appalling, but nothing could check the swarm of redcoats. A seven-foot wall protected the first of the redoubts, but it was scaled in the teeth of a murderous fire from the defenders. Major Napier was all but bayoneted as he tried to hoist himself over the top from a precarious foothold on a projecting stone half-way up, and was dragged down, much to his rage, by a couple of his subalterns. The men were so exhausted by the time the French fled from the redoubt, that they flung themselves panting on the ground, heedless of the fire from the second of the redoubts. As soon as they had recovered their breath, they rushed forward again, hike so many scarlet devils, stormed the Magpie’s Nest redoubt, and surged on, leaving their dead and wounded in mounds behind them, and formed up in some sort of order for an attack upon the Donjon, the last of the redoubts along the ridge.

From the Magpie’s Nest, a fine view of the whole field of battle could be had. Below it, a ravine separated the spur from the Mouiz height, which the 52nd regiment had reached. Up the ravine, Kempt was leading his Portuguese reserve, but it was Colborne’s swift advance which decided the day. Finding their flank turned, and themselves in peril of being cut off, the French on the Mouiz hill abandoned their trenches, and fled northwards in considerable confusion. The troops opposing the Portuguese caught the terror, and followed suit; and when the garrison in the Donjon fort on the Lesser Rhune saw the disordered retreat of their comrades across the ravine, they deserted the fort before Napier had finished forming his men up for an attack upon it.

On the Mouiz height, Colborne was re-forming his men for an attack upon the main French position, north of the Lesser Rhune. All along the forty-mile front, guns were pounding the lines. It was a brilliant day, without a trace of fog in the valleys; Hope’s divisions could be seen threatening the French lines from the coast to the Rhunes; and on the sparkling waters of the Bay of Biscay the distant ships were so clearly etched against the sky that they looked like miniatures. Eastward, fifty thousand men were pouring down the slope of Mount Atchubia, their bayonets flashing in the sunlight. On the Mouiz ridge itself, the only French troops left were those manning a strong star-redoubt, placed on the edge of a steep hill. Colborne, approaching it along a narrow neck of land, halted the 52nd under the brow of the hill, for his experience told him that since it was isolated from the rest of the French army there was no need to waste men’s lives in an assault upon it. Kempt’s brigade was already turning it on the left, and Cole was coming up with the Enthusiastics to the rear; while Giron’s Spaniards, to the right of Colborne, closed in on the eastern side.

Harry, who had just changed Old Chap for his thoroughbred mare, joined Colborne on the neck of land below the redoubt. He had been in the thick of the fighting, but was unscathed. ‘Barnard’s been hit,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how badly: Simmons has taken him to the rear. Kempt’s wounded too, but they say he’s still on the field. By Jove, sir, there was never such a day! Do you mean to assail the redoubt?’

‘I see no need. It can’t hold out, and we should lose men for no purpose,’ Colborne replied, looking up at the steep hill above him.

The Spaniards on his right chose, however, at that moment, to make a demonstration against the fort. The defenders sent them quickly to the rightabout, and just as Colborne was observing their proceedings with a good deal of annoyance, Charles Beckwith rode up with orders from Alten for the brigade to move on.

‘Move on?’ said Colborne. ‘What do you mean by that? Does General Alten wish me to attack the redoubt? If we leave it to our right or left, it must fall as a matter of course. Our whole army will be beyond it in twenty minutes.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Beckwith, who was looking tired and harassed. ‘Your orders are to move on.’

‘Charlie, am I to attack the redoubt?’ demanded Colborne.

‘I tell you, I only know you are to move on!’ replied Beckwith, wheeling his horse, and galloping off. ‘What an evasive order!’ said Colborne.

‘Oh, sir, do let us take the last of the works!’ Harry said, his eyes sparkling. ‘It will be done in a few minutes!’

‘It seems that we must do so. Advance in column of companies !’

No sooner was the 52nd in motion, climbing the hill under the fort, than it was made plain to them that the French meant to defend the place. Such a murderous fire met the troops that the leading ranks were mown down. The regiment struggled on, Colborne at their head, and gained the crest, only to be brought up short by a deep, well-palisaded ditch cut in front of the redoubt. They recoiled before the fire of the defenders, and sought cover in a little ravine. As soon as they could be re-formed, Colborne led them forward again through a rain of shot and shell. Within twenty yards of the ditch, Harry’s mare was struck. He turned her quickly, so that as he jumped off her body should be between him and the enemy’s fire, and as he swung a leg over another shot hit her, and she fell, pinning Harry under her, her blood pouring on to his face.

Colborne saw Harry go down, but was too busy encouraging his men to pay much heed. Shells were bursting all round him, and the 52nd were suffering shocking losses without being able to make any headway against the redoubt. Tom Fane, dismounting from his horse, ran to him, and shouted. Tray get off, sir, pray get off! You will be killed in an instant!’ ‘No! This is absurd! They must surrender!’ Colborne exclaimed, and pulling out his handkerchief, rode forward, waving it above his head. As he approached the ditch, the fire slackened. He spurred right up to the brink, and seeing an officer within the works, called out: ‘What nonsense this is, attempting to hold out! You are surrounded on every side! There are Spaniards on the left: you had better surrender at once!’

He spoke loudly, and the French officer, thinking that he was trying to urge the men to surrender, leaned over the wall, saying indignantly: ‘You are speaking to my men!’ ‘That is all nonsense: you must surrender!’

‘You incite my men to desert me! Retire, or I will shoot you!’

‘If a shot is fired now that you are surrounded by our army,’ said Colborne, ‘we’ll put every man to the sword! Come now, or you will have the Spaniards here directly!’ The dread of falling into Spanish hands had a decided effect upon the defenders of the redoubt, as Colborne knew it would. The officer hesitated, but his situation was hopeless, and after a moment he asked Colborne to come into the fort to arrange terms. Meanwhile, Harry, crushed under the body of his mare, but miraculously unhurt, was shouting to some soldiers near at hand to come and pull him out. They ran towards him, astonished to find him alive.

‘Why, damn my eyes if our old Brigade-Major is killed after all!’ one of them exclaimed.

‘Come, pull me out!’ said Harry. ‘I’m not even wounded: only squeezed!’ ‘Lor’, sir, you’re as bloody as a butcher!’ said a stout private, hauling him out from under the mare.

Harry did not trouble to wipe the blood from his face, but ran to join Colborne, who had pulled out his note-book, and was writing in it, in French, I surrender unconditionally. ‘Hallo, Smith! I thought you were dead. Give this to that fellow, and tell him to sign it,’ Colborne said.

The French officer burst out laughing when Harry went into the fort. ‘One would say you were a walking corpse!’ he said. ‘You are literally covered with blood!’

‘Nevertheless, I’m very much alive,’ replied Harry, giving him Colborne’s paper to sign. The officer grimaced at the words Colborne had written, but since there was no help for it, scrawled his name, and gave the paper back to Harry.

‘That’s right,’ said Colborne, when Harry brought it to him. ‘Find yourself a fresh horse, and take it to Wellington.’

‘Here, have mine!’ Fane said, thrusting his bridle into Harry’s hand. ‘What a sight you are to be sure!’

Harry was, indeed, such a mask of blood that when he rode up to Wellington, his lordship demanded: ‘Who are you, sir?’

‘The Brigade-Major, and Rifle brigade, my lord,’ replied Harry. His lordship stared at him. ‘Hallo, Smith! Are you badly wounded?’ ‘Not at all, sir: it’s my horse’s blood,’ said Harry, giving him Colborne’s paper. ‘Well!’ said Wellington, taking it, and running his eye over it. ‘Tell Colborne I approve. Did you lose many men in that affair?’

‘Yes, my lord, very many.’

‘I’m sorry for it,’ said his lordship, looking down his nose. ‘No need to have attacked the redoubt.’

‘Our orders were to move on, sir.’

‘Dey were not mine! Dere is some mistake!’ Alten said angrily. ‘I sent no order to Colborne! I dink Colborne understands his pusiness fery well widout such orders from me.’ ‘Ah—h’m! I wish Staff-officers would learn to know their duties better!’ said his lordship, with one of his frosty glares.

6

By two in the afternoon, Clausel’s troops were retreating across the Nivelle in confusion; at dusk, Wellington crossed the river with two divisions; and the Light, the 4th, and Giron’s Andalusians bivouacked on the reverse slope of the original French position. Here Juana rejoined the brigade, coming up with the baggage early on the following morning, and almost swooning with horror at the sight of Harry’s blood-stained garments. That he was not wounded seemed to her incredible; she could not believe that he was not concealing some dreadful hurt from her. He took her by the shoulders and shook her, saying: ‘Will you have sense, estupida, or must I strip to show you that I have nothing but a few bruises? It was the mare who was hurt, not I!’

She exclaimed at once: ‘I knew it! Did I not tell you what would happen? You are not wounded at all?’

‘No, I tell you!’

Her terrors laid, she suffered an instant reaction. ‘Oh, you are abominable to frighten me so! I won’t speak to you till you have washed yourself, and taken off those horrible clothes!’ ‘As though I had not been longing to take them off all this time!’ said Harry. ‘Won’t you kiss me, my hateful darling?’

‘No! Your face is smeared with blood! I would sooner kiss Ugly Tom!’ she declared. She went off to visit one of his friends, who was wounded. He did not see her again until much later, and then it was she who was in need of a change of clothes, for out of two hundred men of the 52nd regiment returned as killed and wounded, a hundred, suffering from flesh wounds, had refused to go to the rear. Quite a number of these needed attention, and Juana, who had become expert in the washing and binding up of hurts, was busy all the morning. When Harry, very spruce in his best jacket and sash, encountered her, he recoiled, his narrow eyes gleaming with laughter, and said: ‘Oh, you horrid little thing! Don’t touch me!’