Flashman's Escape Page 3

  A cook had deserted the French army, taking around a hundred of the roughest and most rebellious men with him. They had gone up into the hills and taken over an old convent. Well out of the route of either army, they had raided the surrounding countryside, capturing food and women, and settled down to live the high life while the war went on without them. Word of their existence had spread and deserters from both the British and Portuguese slipped away to join them. Soon the French cook, known as Marshal Stockpot, had several hundred men of various nationalities under his command, who dominated the land for miles around their lair.

  I wondered if the deserters from my company had ended up with the ‘marshal’. If so, they had a grim ending. The French commander Marshal Massena had left them alone to operate behind his lines until they challenged one of his own foraging parties, which, outnumbered and under fire from Stockpot’s men, was forced to retreat. Massena then sent a force to destroy the deserters. Stockpot’s French soldiers were given a choice: they could either serve in the front ranks in an attack against their former comrades, in which case they would be pardoned, or they would be shot when captured. For the British and Portuguese there was no choice. When the convent was overrun by the French, those wearing red coats or the green and blue of the Portuguese were made prisoner and marched back to the British lines, where they were handed over. Wellington had hanged them all as an example.

  If a number of their comrades had been executed then you could understand the resentment of some of the men. Certainly the major sensed the air of rebellion amongst this company, which was why I think he did not make his nephew the captain. He told me that he wanted an experienced man in charge, but he had been deluded by my unwarranted repute. The last company I had commanded had been back in India years ago and I had swiftly learnt that it was best to leave everything to the very capable Sergeant Fergusson. Still, they seemed content to be away from the rest of the regiment now. There were even some smiles as they huddled round the now blazing fire in the centre of the church to get warm. Soon there was a smell of cooking and the chill in my bones started to recede.

  Hervey, Price-Thomas and I had taken a corner of the church as our nominal officers’ quarters and were making ourselves as comfortable as we could.

  “Still want to be camping on a frozen field, Lieutenant?” I asked as I laid out my blanket.

  Hervey grunted a non-committal reply and then the door opened and slammed shut to a chorus of groans at the blast of cold air. It was the last of the burial party coming inside for the night.

  “Sergeant, are all the bodies and bones buried?” I called.

  “Yes, sir, all tidied away.”

  “You are sure about that, are you?” I asked, noticing some movement amongst the men.

  The sergeant followed my gaze and grinned. Boney was weaving his way towards me through the men. He had muddy front paws from where he had been digging and what looked suspiciously like a human thigh bone in his mouth.

  “Oh my God!” exclaimed Hervey. “He has got someone’s leg. Someone should take that off him.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” I replied as Boney settled against the wall of the chapel to gnaw on his prize. “He gets particularly cross if people try to steal his dinner.”

  “Well, I am not putting up with it,” stated Hervey, and he got up and strode purposefully towards the hound.

  He has more courage than I imagined, I thought, as I watched him approach the dog. Of course Boney was watching as well and when Hervey was halfway towards him the dog dropped the bone and went down on his haunches, ready to spring. His top lip curled up and he gave a bloodcurdling growl. Hervey stopped in his tracks. After a moment’s hesitation he turned, to several jeers from those who had seen the encounter. Despite the cold, Hervey was colouring in embarrassment as he came back.

  “I don’t know why you would have such a dog,” he grumbled.

  “Ignore them,” I said of the jeering soldiers. “None of them would take the bone off him either. He was a gift from Lord Byron, the poet, and I keep him because once he saved my life.”

  “How did he do that?” asked Price-Thomas.

  “I would have been skewered on the point of a Polish lancer if it had not been for that dog,” I told him. “Several stone of angry wolfhound jumping up onto his saddle is inclined to put a lancer off his aim. In fact he has been damn useful to have around on a number of occasions.”

  Hervey looked dubiously at the dog and then winced as he heard the crunch of the bone between the animal’s powerful jaws.

  “How did you come to join the regiment?” I asked him. Hervey seemed far too sensitive to be an army officer.

  “My uncle gave me a vacant lieutenancy as a favour to my father late last year. The major told me to learn from you, but I am sure he would not approve of us bivouacking away from the battalion.”

  “Well, we will be more effective tomorrow after a good night’s sleep in the warm than if we had spent it half frozen in the open.”

  Food was served and I tried not to look across too often at where Lucy was settling down for the night with the recently returned Corporal Benton. Despite the lack of female companionship, I am bound to say it was a comfortable night. The warmth from the roaring fire made up for the hard stone floor. There was little privacy in an infantry company and I noticed the odd rhythmic movement and groan from some couples under their blankets. But the children did not cry much; they were exhausted from the day’s march. For most of the night there was just a rumble of assorted snores, the occasional quiet bleat of a goat and, every now and then, the crunch of teeth on bone.

  The chapel got warm and stuffy so that next morning, when we threw open the doors, the cold air struck us like a physical blow. As we set off again the newer recruits were still indignant over the behaviour of the French towards the villagers; but that was to change during the course of the day. We were following the line of the enemy withdrawal and we saw the first French body later that morning. He must have just dropped from exhaustion on the march and fallen onto the road. His comrades could not have had the strength to get him off the track for he was half buried in the frozen mud. Ruts in his back showed that at least three wheels passed over him, pushing him further into the ooze. We found some of the wheels at midday. They were attached to an eighteen-pounder cannon that had been simply abandoned. They had not even bothered to spike the touch hole.

  “We will need to report this to headquarters so that some of our gunners can collect it,” I said to Evans as we examined the gun.

  Evans looked around to check we could not be overheard before replying. “I would rather not send Corporal Benton this time, sir.” He looked me in the eye. “Some of the women are wondering where Mrs Benton disappears to at night when her husband is not on the march. It could get ugly, sir – not for you, but for Sally.” He looked up at the sun before adding, “In any event, if I send Benton now he will probably be back before nightfall.”

  I cursed inwardly, knowing he was right. Heaven knows I am not one to always observe social conventions; why, I have even fornicated in a cathedral during a mass. But I realised that I would have to be a little more subtle going forward. We sent Price-Thomas instead.

  Around the gun there were more bones and scraps of hide to indicate that the draft animals hauling the gun had been butchered for food before the men advanced further. Perhaps some locals had found the carcasses after the French had moved, for there was barely a morsel of the creatures left.

  Certainly some of the local population were still around; this was proved when we came across more French bodies later that afternoon. There were five of them, all stripped naked, but two buttons found in the dirt were from French uniforms. Their bodies were pitiably thin and they seemed to have dropped out of the march through fatigue. Four had been bludgeoned and mutilated. One of them appeared to have had a cannon ball dropped on his head. Whether this had been done while they were alive it was impossible to tell. But the locals had got crea
tive with the fifth Frenchman, who I guessed had been found alive. They had staked him out spread-eagled on the ground and then built a fire over his genitals.

  “Good grief,” exclaimed Hervey when he saw the body. “Both sides in this war behave like savage animals.”

  “It is not so bad between us and the French,” I told him. “We each treat prisoners of the other with respect. But between the French and the partisans, as you can see, no quarter is asked for or given.”

  I could see that he was hesitating about burying those bodies as well, but as we needed to catch up with the rest of the battalion, I forestalled that by ordering the company to advance.

  We found the other companies camped out in neat rows that evening and duly took the space allotted to us. As expected I was summoned to Major King to explain my absence the previous evening.

  “It won’t do, Captain,” he berated me. “There is an order of march and it must be obeyed. You were seen by two other companies stopping by a stone church. If they had not reported you, we might have thought you were missing or attacked.”

  I had already discovered that Major King was a very rule-driven man, but I had thought of one excuse that might serve. “There had been a lot of atrocities in the village, sir – children burnt to death to reveal food hoards, that sort of thing.”

  “War is a brutal business, Flashman, you should know that by now.”

  “Indeed I do, sir.” I paused before continuing in a more confidential tone. “But your nephew took it quite badly. In fact he insisted in front of the men that all of the bodies be given a Christian burial. I did not countermand the order as I did not want to undermine his authority. But once we were finished it was too late to go on and so we camped in the church.” The best excuses are those with a basis of truth and this one I thought would serve perfectly. Hervey would probably unwittingly confirm it if asked about the atrocities.

  “Ah, I see,” replied the major thoughtfully. “In that case let’s say no more about it. Young Richard will need to get used to the realities of war. My sister always was a bit highly strung. Still, he will settle down. Speaking of the realities of war, have you heard the latest news?!”

  “What is that, sir?” I asked, noting from the grim look on his face that it was unlikely to be good.

  “The damn Spanish have surrendered Badajoz to the French, so instead of relieving the siege we are now recapturing the place. I take it you have been there?”

  “Yes, I stayed there with the rest of the army for a while during the retreat after Talavera.” I remembered it as a forbidding fortress with the river down one side and thick, tall walls around the rest. When I had been there it had a big garrison of nearly ten thousand men and the best part of two hundred cannon around the walls. “But I understood that they had enough food, sir, and they knew we were coming. Why on earth did they just hand over the town?”

  “It seems the old commander was killed and the new one was bluffed by the French into surrendering. Soult certainly did not have enough men to capture the place by force. So now we must besiege the French garrison while holding Soult’s army off as he will be bound to disrupt our operations.”

  The optimism of just a few days ago that we would be pushing back a French army weakened by hunger and disease was fast diminishing. Unlike Massena’s forces, Marshal Soult’s men had not starved over the winter. Soult had also proved he was a cunning and capable commander. That got me thinking of our own general and I realised that this would be my first army action without Wellington, or Wellesley as he was when I first knew him, in command.

  “What is General Beresford like?” I asked.

  “Well, he did a good job of organising the Portuguese army,” claimed King. “You will soon get a chance to see him as he is gathering his forces. There will be British, Portuguese and some Spanish troops. All told we should have around thirty-five thousand men. Against us the most that Soult is likely to be able to gather is around twenty thousand, so Beresford can afford the odd mistake.” As it turned out these were prophetic words indeed, but at the time they gave me some comfort.

  The army did gather over the coming days. First our battalion joined another three, to make a brigade of around three thousand men. This was commanded by Brigadier Colborne. For a few days we marched together in a long column. It was still freezing cold but I gradually got used to being in the saddle again. Rarely could we find an intact building to sleep in, and while there were a few tents it was often warmer to sleep outside by a fire where there was at least some warmth. Sometimes rocks would be heated in the fire while dinners were cooked and then, using bayonets, these hot rocks were rolled onto blankets to give extra warmth during the night.

  After a few days marching we crested a rise and found some of the other British, Spanish and Portuguese brigades camped before us, under a smog of campfire smoke. Given the smudge in the sky from the fires could be seen for miles, it was surprising that the very next day a much smaller French force of two and half thousand blundered into us. As we outnumbered the enemy by more than ten to one, you might think it would be a simple affair to roll up and capture the hapless French column. If you think that then you clearly have not fought under the command of General William Carr Beresford.

  That day was a damn frustrating experience. Previously, as a staff officer, I had been with Wellington and had heard reports from scouts and seen decisions being made. I had known what was happening and why orders had been given. This time I was just a poor bloody infantry officer halfway down the column and nobody had any idea what was happening.

  After hearing distant trumpets to indicate that some action was underway, we were ordered to march two miles and prepare for battle. Then we did absolutely nothing. First one hour passed and then two. We heard the odd crash of a cannon but nothing like the sound of a full battle. While other officers fumed at the delay, I was privately delighted. I had no wish to go anywhere near a battle if I could help it. Previously I had some freedom to roam around the battlefield, doing my best to avoid the action. Now I was obliged to lead my men into battle, which gave me much less scope for honourable evasion.

  As I had a good glass, King ordered me to ride to the top of a nearby ridge and report on what I could see. I got there just in time to see the small French force pulling back completely unmolested. Meanwhile other British units could be observed scattered around the countryside, also doing nothing. I could make no sense of it.

  Then I saw a group of staff officers coming along the ridge, led by an extraordinary character. Judging by the amount of gold braid it had to be Beresford and he was a giant of a man: a full six inches taller than any other officer and broad too, with a chest like an ox. The high collar that he wore combined with his huge chest gave the impression that his head was far too small for the rest of his body. When his little pin head turned in my direction, he glared angrily at me as though I had no right to be on the ridge and I saw that he only had one eye that moved, the other was of glass. I saluted smartly and moved to one side as his large horse thundered past.

  As the rest of his staff followed at a respectful distance I saw one that I knew from my early days in the peninsula.

  “Ben,” I called to him once Beresford was out of earshot. “What on earth is going on? We have been waiting around here for ages and now the French are pulling back without anyone bothering them at all.”

  “Hello, Flash,” cried Ben D’Urban. He reined in his horse and waited until his companions had ridden on so that we were alone. “Between you and me,” he confided, “the general has dithered his way to a defeat. Our cavalry cut off the French escape and captured their guns, but then Beresford worried that there might be another French force coming to their rescue and ordered our men back. Now it seems that there was no second French force and we have let this one escape and recapture their lost guns too.”

  “He is not very decisive then?” I probed.

  “Oh, he is a good administrator, but he does not have much battle experie
nce. His last independent command was the aborted attempt to capture Buenos Aires in Argentina. But Wellington obviously has some confidence in him.” D’Urban laughed and leaned forward confidentially. “Although he has given the good general long lists of instructions on how he should conduct the campaign, even including where he should make a stand if Soult attacks.”

  “Where is that then?”

  “A place called Albuera; it is on the road from Seville to Badajoz. Soult would have to come past it to try to lift our siege and it has a ridge from which the army can fight; a good defensive position.”

  It was the first time I had heard the name, which even now, more than thirty years later, brings back memories I would prefer to forget. But at the time it meant nothing and I could easily imagine the battle on a defensive ridge. All of the battles I had seen with Wellington in the peninsula had involved him hiding his men behind ridges and lines of redcoats beating French columns to deliver victory. Naively I thought I knew what to expect. For the first time we had the advantage of numbers and surely, I thought, we would win the coming action. But I had tragically underestimated Beresford’s ability to bring chaos out of order and this time everything would be different.

  Chapter 3

  If I had harboured doubts over Beresford’s abilities from our first encounter with the French they were not allayed over the coming weeks. We crossed the river Guadiana using a flimsy pontoon bridge at the beginning of April. I felt uneasy being on the French side of the river, but we did not see a single Frenchman for over a month. That was just as well as the siege operations were descending into farce.

  Daily forced marches were ordered, which often outran supplies, and the hilly stony roads destroyed the soldiers’ boots, which had not been in the best state despite Corporal Benton’s efforts. It did not help that destinations were often changed at the last minute, as though we were hurrying to no good purpose. While I was fine on my well-shod horse, every evening a long line of stragglers who had fallen out of the day’s march hobbled into the camp with blistered and bloody feet. They then had little time to eat, repair boots and sleep before the next day’s march.