Rumours Of War

‘I do, sir. They are store ships, or hospitals.’

‘And what of the transports that come. Are they empty of all space?’

The AQMG, who was inclined to be peremptory with the obstinate captain before him, somehow managed to keep his countenance. ‘That is what I am informed.’

‘What is in those store ships?’

The AQMG half smiled in astonishment. ‘Really, Captain Edmonds! It is not for you to question the arrangements for taking off the army.’

‘And why not? This has hardly been a model expedition. I think it reasonable to ask certain questions. What stores are deemed more valuable than the cavalry’s horses?’

‘I’m afraid I do not know. But the ships are not at the disposal of the army’s horses. Now, if you will, Captain Edmonds, I would be obliged if—’

‘Does Lord Paget know of this?’

‘I cannot say.’

Edmonds grunted, gathered up his helmet and sword, and left.

Outside, he strode angrily to where their chargers stood, cursing anything and everything. ‘It’s madness. I shan’t do it. Not till the French are about to snatch the reins from us! Not, at least, unless Paget himself gives the order. In any case, Moore will want cavalry here. The French are not going to let the army get into its boats as if we were off fishing!’

Hervey said nothing. He was still too numb, and he sensed that Edmonds would not want a cornet’s opinion. Certainly not one that merely expressed revulsion at shooting their horses, which was all he could think of.

Edmonds took the reins from his coverman and sprang into the saddle as nimbly as a man half his age. ‘Hervey, go and find the rearguard here and tell them the Sixth are placed under their orders. Then come back and tell me where we’re to take post.’

Hervey tried hard to hide his surprise, gathering up his reins and saluting.

‘Do you think you can manage that, Mr Hervey?’ glowered Edmonds as he turned.

‘Yes, sir; of course.’

‘Then go to it. At once!’

*

It was the very best thing that Edmonds could have done, Hervey would confide in his journal within the day. He set off feeling empty at the thought of Colonel Reynell’s despairing act, and what faced the rest of them when the time came to put Sir John Moore’s orders into effect. Shooting a horse was not so very difficult, although it was always a sad affair; shooting three hundred horses was to destroy the very spirit of a regiment, was it not? He dared not picture the sight, for it had evidently been too much even for Colonel Reynell.

But after a mile or so these thoughts were displaced by increasing anxiety at not finding the rearguard. He had imagined it a simple enough mission when Edmonds had instructed him: a matter of making best speed back along the high road until he found them. But the army was still making its slow way west. A commissary officer told him they had reached Betanzos, a dozen miles due east, and it seemed that Sir John Moore did not intend sending troops in advance to hold his perimeter at Corunna. Hervey rode as far as the village of Burgos, four miles east of Corunna harbour, the last bridging point of the Rio del Burgo before it opened into wide estuary and thence Corunna Bay, but he found no redcoat with any orders for the rearguard. There were Spanish pickets aplenty, but not in numbers that suggested they might fight a delaying action. In any case, the Spanish effort, as he understood it, was now concentrated on the walls of Corunna itself, and he concluded, in the absence of any evidence otherwise, that the road into Corunna was unguarded. According to his map, sparse though its detail was, the French could outflank the army at Betanzos; there was nothing to stop them marching to the very wharves of the harbour.

‘Good God,’ groaned Edmonds when Hervey told him. ‘You’re sure?’

Hervey’s appearance, sweated and begrimed, did at least speak of some effort in his reconnaissance. ‘Yes, sir.’

The adjutant looked worried. His was the responsibility for executing a regimental order, and things were getting more complicated by the minute. The serjeant-major stood impassive. He was responsible for supervising the execution of a regimental order, and it mattered not to him what the circumstances were; he would bark and harry whether it was shot and shell or wind and waves that tried to confound them.

‘Very well,’ said Edmonds; growled almost. ‘I see no profit in going as far as Burgos, though I will say it tempts. I recall, as we rode in, a stream and a little bridge, about a mile from here, no more. The regiment will stand rearguard there. Have the squadrons form up, please, Mr Mace.’

The adjutant was in part content at least. He had an order to execute; the problem with the horses could stand easy for the time being. ‘Very good, sir.’

‘And have the veterinarian come to orderly room.’

‘Directly.’

Orderly room was a part-roofed sheepfold, not long quit by its usual occupants, but that was of no moment; the regimental guidon was lodged in a corner, and that made it the Sixth’s headquarters.

Edmonds now turned to the agent of his intelligence. ‘Thank you, Mr Hervey. Yours was a most valuable patrol. Admirable indeed. I cannot imagine the authorities here know how exposed the place is. It gives me exactly the opening we need!’

Hervey was cheered at last. It was the first he had had of praise from Edmonds; and all the Sixth knew that Edmonds’s praise was not a common commodity.

That night, as they bivouacked at the bridge over the Monelos, the wooded stream that ran north from the heights of San Cristobal and Monte de Mesoiro into Corunna Bay, the Sixth slept long and soundly for the first time in weeks. It was not just that the enemy was too far away to disturb them; there was good shelter among the trees and nearby cottages, and the Spanish peasants were as welcoming and generous as elsewhere they had been hostile. The commissaries, too, had distributed the stores disembarked at Corunna with uncommon liberality. Every man had meat and bread and blankets in ample measure, and so all the Sixth had to do now, supposing the French did not outflank the army, was wait on the transports and look to what they were pleased to call interior economy. No one spoke of doing what the Tenth had had to, as if not speaking of it might somehow make it not come about.

Captain Edmonds had other thoughts, however. ‘Where in hell’s name have you been, Knight?’ he demanded, when at last the veterinary surgeon found him that evening.

‘Yes, I’m sorry, Edmonds; I should have sent word.’ He settled himself into a chair in a corner of the priest’s house, which its accustomed tenant had given up unusually freely (more often the clergy had cursed them as heretics). Smoke from the unseasoned wood in the grate made him cough a little. ‘As soon as I heard what the Tenth were doing I went to see the town major to enquire of the slaughter houses, what was their capacity and all.’

‘That was very prescient of you.’

‘A waste of time, I fear. They haven’t the means of disposing of the carcasses. And then I was rowed out to one of the store ships to see what might be, but they would not serve either. I’m told they’re all the same, all hold and no decking. They might do if we were crossing the Channel of a summer eve, but Biscay in January would be savage.’

‘I fear it will come to it, though,’ said Edmonds, shaking his head. ‘But what to do? We must surely not botch it as the Tenth did by all accounts?’

The veterinarian shook his head. ‘There’s no way to destroy three hundred horses pleasingly. The trouble is, you may shoot one cleanly enough, but as soon as the next gets the smell of blood in its nostrils there’s no saying what it’ll do. The Tenth were having to cut their throats.’

Edmonds groaned. ‘I heard the engineers are to blow up the magazine in Corunna. Perhaps if we drove all the horses in there?’

‘That would serve, certainly. I’m not sure how the Spanish would see it. Why do you not just drive them loose into the country, towards Vigo say?’

‘I’ve thought about it, but that would be to disobey Moore’s orders. If they are his orders, that is.’

‘Well, Edmonds, short of drowning or poisoning ’em there’s nothing more I can suggest.’