The Confrontation at Salamanca Read online

  He glanced across and saw that Wellington was following his argument keenly. I have three battalions here. The Spanish and the Portuguese are true Hornets; they prefer to fight on foot, but can turn their hand to cavalry practices when they need to.

  The Germans were mostly cavalrymen when they joined us and have turned themselves into excellent cavalry who are also very good light infantry Hornets.

  These Spanish cavalrymen have also been taught to skirmish and shall inherit a hundred of our breech-loading carbines this week. I had thought to form two small brigades, putting the Portuguese together with the German and the Spanish Avispónes with Don Luis Quintana’s cavalry. Working together, they shall have the support of a dozen mortars with contact-explosive shells.

  They could stand in line apart as separate brigades, or together in yor order of battle as a small division. I shall guarantee that no French divisional line or column shall stand against them and no regimental square be safe from annihilation.

  It does seem to me that a confrontation of some importance looms within the coming days ands we can no longer act as yor eyes and ears with the enemy in full view, yet sitting safe beyond the Duero.”

  “I am fascinated with your interpretation of Marmont’s intentions, Sir Joshua. I did have hopes that I could have brought him to action before now. He has indeed lashed out on a couple of occasions, but that was to test my dispositions and show me that I could not catch him unawares.

  Certainly, were I in his position, I should have behaved similarly. He was in no state to give battle without being badly beat. I can now only hope that all the diversions that I have initiated shall indeed prevent him from collecting more force than we have here. I shall not attack him unless I have an advantage and I confide he shall have the same intention. What I need to discover is what degree of advantage he shall consider sufficient.

  It may be that my lack of adventure in responding to his onsets may convince him that he can take liberties before he may truly be ready. I do hope so!

  Coming back to your proposal for the reshaping of your division for battle; please do exactly as you have suggested. I can envisage you, both as a complete division but also as two supporting brigades on either side of one of my weaker divisions.

  Such an arrangement shall fit smoothly into any order of battle that I may adopt and give me many interesting additional options. It means that you and your commanders shall have to judge your timing. You move into action so much more quickly than the rest of the army and generally, it is to be recommended that all our movements are co-ordinated.”

  * * *

  MacKay was intrigued. The night had passed without any of his explosive traps being tripped. Nevertheless the French were not being idle, even if they had remained far enough away to stay untouched by any of the Condesa’s pyrotechnics.

  He had a pretty good idea what they were up to from the persistent echo of stone dropping on stone; the sort of sound that could only come from the construction of stone walls in some defensive bastion.

  It was also possible to make a reasonable guess about what the walls would be defending. If their infantry was considering an attack, it would not want defences that would have to be climbed before it could start. Cavalry would be even more unwilling to set their mounts at obstacles.

  It just had to be batteries of guns; or gunboats as Titan had interpreted them in her signals from half a mile out to sea. The French could only be constructing three or four defensive emplacements for their cannon, after witnessing the slaughter of several senior officers last evening on the very same spot.

  And so it proved. The rising of the sun revealed four mounds of stone with space between them for troops to pass. Poking out were the barrels of eight cannon of about six-pound calibre. Not that the calibre would be confirmed until the sun actually showed itself over the hills from the direction of France, but it was unlikely that they would be more than eight pounders even if they were foot artillery.

  Whatever they were, it seemed foolish to allow them to wait for sun-up and see their target clearly, when the French had been co-operative enough to build their redoubts in exactly the positions on which the mortars were ranged.

  MacKay strolled over to his wife. “Let me nae hold your beloved mortars back one more second, Querida Mia. I hae noticed ye stamping back and forth these last ten minutes.”

  “Why then my dearling---” It was amazing the amount of venom she managed to put into the endearment---“why did ye nae gie me the asignal before they could get a good look at us?” Without waiting for a reply she literally stamped toward the mortars making the signal for them to start firing.

  The four mortar sergeants had been amused witnesses and with grins as wide as their faces, began the routine of a shot every ten seconds. It allowed each gun to be ready with their next shot as soon as the last mortar had fired.

  The first shot landed on the parapet of one of the mounds and exploded. The crews of the guns had no shelter from a blast at chest height. All were in direct line and all were instantly on the ground, either dead or severely injured.

  The other three emplacements had seen the explosion of the shell, but had paid only passing attention. Accidents were not infrequent in their trade under combat conditions and they were busy preparing their pieces for quick salvoes before an attack by infantry.

  The second shot changed all that. It landed square on one of the guns and blasted it and the two crews, ruining the gun carriage and laying the crews flat. The discharge from the mortar, the immediate explosion on impact and the deadly accuracy of the first two shots, told them that a new and deadly form of warfare had arrived.

  The other crews were already running from their guns when they heard the third mortar cough. Luck was not with them, as the third shot fell just over the third emplacement and caught the crews in the open, while the men from the fourth emplacement raced to safety.

  They must have abandoned their gun with loose cartridges still exposed, as the fourth emplacement produced a most enormous explosion that quite dismounted the guns and blew the emplacement to pieces.

  Juanita stopped any further discharges and held all her mortars trained on the area from which any mass attack had to come. The French had naturally been expecting that their guns would deliver a few salvos before the assault went in on foot.

  It did not help their cause that the fluttering of flags from Titan gave warning, almost to the second, about when the first wave of attackers would come bursting round the bend of the coastal road.

  This time, MacKay gave the signal to Juanita before they were actually in sight and the mortars opened the account by lobbing their shells just beyond the bend so that the attackers had to march through an exploding shell every ten seconds, even before they came into view of their objective.

  The wave of attackers was, therefore, decidedly ragged as it came into sight. It was met by withering volleys from the marines, who had the priceless advantage of shooting into a mass of men, when their muskets; carefully adjusted as the Hornets had shown them; were quite capable of hitting a single soldier at a hundred yards.

  In addition, a company of Hornets was lurking on either side of the road, both above it and below and they were more selective about their targets. That did not mean that they were more lenient to their enemies, only that they concentrated on shooting the leaders; any unfortunate officer or sergeant that appeared in their sights.

  It was a very brief second phase of the confrontation and it was the mass of bodies piled high in the way of the following troops that stopped the assault dead in its tracks. Once more there were white flags and a request to recover their wounded.

  No more attempts were made until early in the afternoon, when tan-uniformed tirailleurs appeared around the slope of the hill and moved forward in a skirmishing manoeuvre over an eighty-yard front, up and down the slope, wherever they could retain a tenuous foothold.

  MacKay grunted his satisfaction and blew his whistle to start the engageme
nt of his Hornet companies. It was the sort of attack that he had been expecting before. Although the marines were massed around the road into the village, this engagement was going to be much more personal; a direct confrontation between tirailleurs and Hornets.

  Midshipman Farley was hopping about, trying to get his attention. He grinned as he listened to the boy. Titan signals, Sir! Heavy squadron shall tack into sight in two cable lengths. I hope that is clear to you, Sir. It is what the flags are sending.”

  MacKay laughed gleefully as he saw the worried expression. “Clear as daylight, youngster. Watch for a column of infantry tae come rushing round that bend and try and poke its nose intae other people’s business.”

  He turned and bellowed at the marines; warning them to be ready for their part in the first serious attack.

  The slope was already covered in drifting powder smoke, as two companies of his Hornets took on the challenge of double their numbers of tirailleurs, the professional skirmishers of the French army.

  The impressive numbers coming against them were of little account to the Hornets, merely additional targets. It was hardly a contest. The French, if they could see anything at all, could make out only an occasional head.

  On the other hand, the tirailleurs were running and shooting and dropping to their knees to reload or dropping prone to shoot. In each case they were an obvious target, wearing a big, black, gold-lace-trimmed, tall shako that told the Hornets exactly where their heads were, even if their body was prone on the ground.

  Almost half of them were out of action before the heavy infantry column burst round the bend and was converted into a pile of bodies by marines who were desperate to prove that they were just as terrible a killing machine as the Hornets.

  The biggest assault so far lasted less than five minutes. Once the panic started and the survivors began to run, all shooting stopped. Even the euphoria and blood lust roused in the marines by their overwhelming success, could not survive the sight of the piles of bodies scattered everywhere.

  Under less strict discipline, they might have broken from their defences to pursue the routed enemy. Even that seemed doubtful. There were enough dead bodies lying around to glut the most sadistic of them.

  Once again, permission was sought to recover the wounded. MacKay made it a condition that they remove their dead as well, if only to demonstrate the futility of their onslaught.

  The French retired half a mile and set up camp while they decided what they should do. Shortly after they were joined by the sorry remnants of their attempt to outflank the position.

  Captain Woodward had been incensed by the injury to his friend and shortly after had found a commanding position on the mountain road that the French could not penetrate. They tried and less than half the detachment returned.

  Less than a week later, the French quietly retreated. It seemed inconceivable that they had just given up. That was not the way they fought. MacKay did have a shrewd suspicion that the beginning of the attacks by Popham’s squadron farther along the coast may just have caused the enemy to concentrate his forces in the face of so many scattered dangers.

  All the jubilant marines re-embarked in the ships of Commodore Cockburn’s squadron and the Hornets continued their leisurely advance eastwards.

  Cholmondeley and his small party may have been helping the admiral to start his campaign, but MacKay had listened very carefully to ambitious talk of assaults on major ports.

  If that was to be the case, it was a scenario made for the Hornets and would certainly stop Caffarelli sending any help at all to Marshal Marmont. That is assuming, of course, that there had been any kind of action around Salamanca that might already have settled the question one way or the other.

  CHAPTER 16

  The waiting was over. Marmont may or may not have built up his army to the same size as Wellington’s Anglo-Portuguese force, but it must be very close now. The long, defensive stand-off on the Duero may well have convinced the marshal that he had nothing to lose by taking the offensive.

  Thousands of French troops were pouring over the bridge at Toro, the town where Foy had had his brief confrontation with the Avispónes and Quintana’s Spanish cavalry.

  It was not a crossing that had been considered seriously as the main avenue for a French attack and the troops set to watch it were outnumbered from the start. They retreated from the bridgehead and sent frantic warnings and pleas for help to their commander-in-chief.

  If Wellington were concerned about this unexpected assault, no one would have known. His aides were sent scurrying to inform his commanders and his divisions rushed from the east and south, converging to meet the threat from the enemy.

  In the short period since his long discussions with his chief, Welbeloved had been relaxing with his men in reserve, while he incorporated Quintana’s jubilant Spaniards into a brigade, along with Addenbrooke’s Avispónes; a force that he would supervise personally. He put Colonel Lord George Vere in command of the other brigade, with Lieutenant Colonels Roffhack and Gonçalves working together as battalion commanders.

  Captain Pom Bal Li came galloping in to give the warning and told Welbeloved that he had been given particular responsibility as the personal aide from Wellington to the Hornets. Nothing was required of them yet, but he would be the direct link when they were called upon.

  Pom rushed back to headquarters and Welbeloved immediately gathered together his five senior commanders. The discussion was all in spanish. Don Luis Quintana now had some english, but by this time all the others were completely at ease in spanish, the only common tongue between them.

  He looked around the eager young faces with pride and satisfaction. “This may seem to be the opening of a new chapter in our affairs, Gentlemen. However, I am sure that you shall all agree that little has changed. We have all been comfortable working successfully, both as independent battalions, but also in unison, two or three battalions together.

  Don Luis has the least experience of us all, but his troopers have proved themselves so well in operations with our Avispónes, that I am minded to call their new fraternity the Brigada Ibéricana; a complete brigade of Spaniards fighting for Spain.

  There was a growled chorus of approval and bravos that sent Don Luis pink with embarrassed pleasure. Welbeloved gave him no chance to reply before developing his theme. “Little has changed in the way we fight, but for the first time, if a battle develops here, we shall have our own place in the line. Lord Wellington still imagines that we shall be in a supporting role, perhaps backing one of his weaker divisions.

  He does realise, but cannot yet make himself believe that we are capable of taking on a complete division and routing it. In the next few days I confide he shall comprehend.”

  Lifting his glass, he gave them a toast. “Every man in our legion of warriors has earned his place on merit. Only the French army can claim anything remotely the same and they now consider themselves unbeatable. Now is the best time to prove them wrong. I drink to our brotherhood! Simply the best!”

  His words were not intended to stir their emotions and they accepted them for what they were; simple truth about the professionalism of the Hornets. They drained their glasses gravely and soberly. Even Don Luis, the most impressionable among them realised that it was no rabble-rousing address and stifled his latin enthusiasm.

  Vere spoke for all of them. “We all know that we can beat anyone sent against us, Sir Joshua. That has always suited us as it has fitted in nicely with the defensive posture that Lord Wellington has been forced to adopt until now. The French have always been the ones attacking.

  Things are not the same now. For the first time since the initial landings in Portugal, we are telling the French to come out and fight. If we are to beat Marmont, we have to be more aggressive, both with our skirmishing and with our horsemanship. We have to do this as a division of three thousand men, all together as if we were still but a battalion.”

  “Indeed, George, we must be ready to do exactly that and I
know that you shall discuss it with all your officers. Do not however neglect our proven practice.

  Marmont is an attacking general. I shall wager; even with you, George; that we are more likely to be attacked before we ourselves can do so. Hold yourselves ready for the riposte.”

  There was a general murmur of agreement. Vere nodded at the logic of the argument and changed the direction of his thoughts.

  “Marmont is flooding across the Duero at Toro. He has his bridgehead, but has to be vastly outnumbered on three sides by the divisions that Lord Wellington is assembling against him. Do you imagine that it is a serious attack?”

  Welbeloved looked round all their faces and was reassured by what he saw. If Vere had not asked the question he would have had to raise it himself. His commanders were using their heads and were looking for answers to their concerns. They were beginning to think strategically in a way that, he was certain, none of Wellington’s other commanders was doing.

  “I can see by your expressions, Gentlemen, that you have all been looking for the answer to George’s question. We all know why it has been asked and I warrant that Lord Wellington is equally as curious.

  I also warrant that he does not care. He needs Marmont to attack him so that he can manoeuvre until he has an advantage that he can exploit; either a good defensive position or an error on the part of Marmont.

  It shall eventually show who is the better general, as Marmont also shall be intent on creating an advantage for himself. Expect, therefore, to see a lot of marching and feinting and seemingly chaotic situations in the next day or so. Our ultimate potential under battle conditions has yet to be demonstrated, but Lord Wellington knows that we can react more quickly and more effectively than anyone else in response to any situation.

  If this is a ploy by Marmont, you may count on being in action sometime tomorrow. Until then, get ready and get rested; both shall be essential.”