Rumours Of War

Edmonds nodded slowly, and sighed. ‘Ay. Well, never let it be said that the Sixth couldn’t destroy what was valuable to the enemy.’

Veterinary Surgeon Knight rubbed his eyes; the smoke was getting thicker. ‘You’ve heard talk of armistice, of course?’

Edmonds braced. ‘Armistice? I have not! It would be infamous!’

‘That’s what is being spoken of. A sort of quid pro quo for Cintra, I suppose.’

‘My God. We’d never be able to show our faces in England again!’

‘Yet they say it’s not Sir John Moore’s wish, of course, but some of the generals’. They fear too many of our men will be made prisoner otherwise. The word is that with so strong a wind onshore the transports, even if they arrive, would suffer the most destructive cannonade before they were able to be away.’

Edmonds shook his head. ‘Not a word of it, though, Knight. I’ll not have the regiment gingered up.’

Two welcome days of making and mending followed. Hervey’s journal made no mention of armistice or the difficulties facing the shipping in Corunna Bay. Indeed, it reflected only the Sixth’s optimism, for the second day had been uncommonly full of good news:

14th January 1809Today the transports have arrived in the bay and the artillery has begun embarking, along with the regiments of cavalry that are not immediately required. We are now allowed to send our chargers on board, and there is every hope that there might be provision too for the troop horses. So mine shall go tomorrow with Sykes, and very glad I am of it too, for it would have been the saddest thing to shoot them, especially La Belle Dame, who has been a very faithful horse to me, and of course L’Etoile du Soir, in whom all of my pay for next year and beyond is invested! It must go very ill with the Tenth, who had to shoot all theirs, and for no reason. And I can hardly bear to write that it grieves us all very much that poor Colnl Reynell should have died so and to no purpose. They say he had probably suffered an apoplexy on account of the exertions of the march, just as Genl Lord Paget and Genl Stewart have been made invalide.There was today the very greatest of explosions that I ever heard, on account of the artillery blowing up all the powder in the citadel. It is said the explosion was so very great because they did not know of powder elsewhere in the magazines, so that some of the houses in Corunna itself were damaged, and masonry fell at a great distance, and all about the ships in the bay. It is said there are 12,000 barrels of powder and 300,000 cartridges gone.

It was, however, a melancholy thing to destroy so much that might serve the army well. He only supposed that powder was easier to come by in England than horses were.

But the day after, Hervey reflected the elation of every man in the army at hearing their sudden, unexpected news:We are to fight a general action! Marshal Soult has crossed the river at Burgos, though our engineers had made a very thorough job of the bridge’s destruction there, and is taking up positions on the heights a league or so south of the harbour. Sir John Moore is disposing his army to face him on the heights immediately south and east of our position of bivouac, which Sir Edward Paget’s division is to occupy as reserve. They say there is very little need of cavalry, however, for the ground thence is a veritable network of walls, hedges and rows of olive trees and aloes, of such intricacy that it is nearly impossible to have formed fifty men abreast anywhere. But Lord Paget was very pleased with us, it seems, for he commended Captain Edmonds and made him major (which is only his right after all) and said that the regiment shall come at once under the command of his brother, so that we might yet have a gallop. My chargers have this day gone down to the harbour with Sykes to be taken off, and I have instead a nice little trooper called Fox. I am sure she will carry me well in the battle to come, for the country is very trappy, and there is nowhere good for a charge.

All next morning, however, the embarkation of the artillery continued without so much as a ranging shot from the enemy. There had been a thick mist in the bay when day broke, making it difficult for the lighters to keep their bearings as they ploughed to and from the transports, and, it was said, for Soult to chance to an assault. But it had cleared by nine, and for three full hours afterwards the army stood, or rather lay, waiting for the French to make a move.

At midday, Sir John Moore made his own. He had told General Edward Paget’s reserve division that in recognition of their sterling service as rearguard in the march to Corunna they would have the privilege of embarking first and choosing the most comfortable quarters. He now sent a galloper to the bridge over the Monelos stream with orders to make at once for the harbour.

‘If there’s no bungling, I hope we shall get away in a few hours, Thomas,’ said Sir John to Colonel Thomas Graham.

Graham, astride a hardy cob at Sir John’s hand, with the forward brigade, the army commander himself on his cream-coloured gelding, nodded slowly and glanced over his shoulder towards the sail in the bay. ‘I can’t understand it. Soult has such strength in reserve he could drive us into the sea at a stroke if he wished to.’

‘Not without loss, though,’ said the army commander, in a tone with just a trace of indignation.

Colonel Graham hoped Sir John was right, but the army lay at rest after spending its strength in heavy measure this fortnight past, and their eyes were set firm on the sail that was to be their deliverance. How much fight was there left in them?

It was, indeed, a welcome order that Major-General the Honourable Edward Paget passed to his regiments, except that the Sixth were apprehensive about the number of horses the embarkation officers had provided for. Hervey was about to mount with the rest when Sir Edward Lankester called for him.

‘Sir Edward?’

‘You have found favour, Hervey. Colonel Long is just arrived from Vigo for Moore’s staff. He asks for a galloper, and Edmonds names you.’

Hervey was flattered. ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘I fear you shan’t be excessively occupied though. The French have had their noses bloodied once too often this past month. They seem all too happy to see us off. Go to it then.’

Hervey went to find Martyn. Without a groom, since Sykes was at the harbour still, he asked the troop lieutenant if he could take another man.

‘Take Armstrong.’

‘But—’

‘We shall manage well enough without him, I assure you.’ Martyn did not say, ‘but you might not’.

*

An hour later, just after half past one o’clock, Colonel Long’s galloper was standing with the aides-de-camp and the other gallopers to the rear of Sir John Moore and his staff on a little hill on the right of the British line, above the village of Elvina. Hervey could see three of the four brigades quite clearly. A few men were on their feet, some were cooking, most were lying down. He wondered if anything could stir them, exhausted as he knew they were; and he shivered at the thought of what little there had been between the Sixth and the French during the night, when the regiment had slept so soundly. Yet soon these men must get up and file away to the transports. And in such order that if the French, whom they could see clearly on the facing hills, were suddenly to decide to speed them on their way they could turn and repel them. Hervey thought that in the circumstances a general action was perhaps not so welcome a thing.

He turned to offer a fellow galloper a bull’s-eye, one of his last (Sykes had found them when they had been making light of his baggage). As he leaned across to the cornet the French battery thundered into life, so sudden and violent that he dropped the bag. Fox jumped sideways, almost leaving her rider behind, and trampled the prized peppermints.

The shot arched eight hundred yards and fell in Elvina with fountains of earth and showers of tiles. A dozen of the pickets of Lord William Bentinck’s brigade were thrown down dead in a terrible butcher’s mangle, and the rest took cover to await the next salvo or hear the order to retire.

In an instant the whole of the British line rose, Lazarus-like. Never would Hervey have believed it. They began forming ranks as coolly and with as perfect order as if they had been at drill in Hyde Park. There was a regular buzz, jolly shouts, the odd peal of laughter. He had never seen infantry at work, not even at drill. Was this how they went at it?

‘With ball cartridge, load!’

The command ran the length of the line. The red machine heaved into life, and Hervey heard the extraordinary sound of ramrods clattering in ten thousand musket barrels.

‘Like flying shuttles in a mill,’ said a Lancastrian cornet next to him.’

An ADC sped from Sir John Moore’s side to recall General Edward Paget’s division.