An Act Of Courage

All next day, the Sixth stood to the east of Talavera without a sign of the enemy, although they heard skirmishing beyond the Alberche, and occasional cannonading, off and on until the evening. They had shade, at least, and some water, for as well as the olive groves there were big oaks, and the Portina, which ran from north to south behind them, although for the most part it was a dry ravine, did have pools adequate for watering. Where there were no trees there was stubble, the corn cut a month before by the Spanish, anxious lest what was left of it fall to the French, for Marshal Victor’s men had already made a fine harvest for themselves. They had even made shelters from the stooks, such was the harvest’s abundance, so that as far as the Alberche and beyond, the plain was filled with what looked like yellow bell-tents.

Early in the afternoon, Major-General Sir Stapleton Cotton had ordered his regiments to off-saddle by half squadrons, but the whole brigade saddled up again for stand-to at last light, and remained saddled until midnight. No other order had come to the Sixth in the entire day, and little news. Cotton himself had stood throughout with Colonel George Anson on the far side of the Alberche, but he had been unable to send back any intelligence of the battle to the east other than from observation, and that very little. General Cuesta’s troops were retiring, seemingly in good order, and neither Anson’s cavalry brigade nor the infantry divisions of Generals Mackenzie and Sherbrooke forward of the Alberche received any change in orders from Sir Arthur Wellesley, so there was no occasion for alarm. At dusk, therefore, Cotton had ridden back to his brigade, ordered the Sixteenth to post videttes along the dry bed of a stream which ran parallel to the Alberche half a mile to its west, and told the Sixth and the Fourteenth to sleep.

Hervey slept until the welcome order to off-saddle came at midnight, and then he had slept without interruption until five o’clock, when Private Sykes roused him with a canteen of hot goat’s milk, with the compliments, he said, of one of the King’s Germans. Hervey, to whom the sound of the trumpet’s reveille this morning was not so sweet as usual (he had been in a very deep sleep following two nights with next to none), knew he ought to ask how his groom had come by the milk – and, indeed, for how much – but could not summon the strength for the inevitable, lengthy explanation. Sykes was an able servant, but a pedantic one. Instead he leaned half up on an elbow and sipped the pleasing cup. Barely more than a year ago he would have woken to the sound of the chapel bell and the imperative voice of a schoolmaster. He had not disliked Shrewsbury, neither had he actually liked it; he had endured it, usually cheerfully. As well dislike the rain on Salisbury Plain! But now he knew what he truly liked, because when the trumpet roused him it thrilled him also. It did not matter that he was hungry, or cold, or wet, or tired: the prospect of the day, booted and in the saddle, with dragoons who looked to him, a man set in authority (all be that of limited degree – at present), was unfailingly reviving.

A sip or two of the goat’s milk, the brain come fully awake, and he was thinking of the day ahead. A general action, he hoped; bigger, perhaps, even than Corunna. Not for a moment did he doubt the outcome, in spite of the major’s warning. Nor did he doubt himself, even though he faced court martial when it was over: ‘sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof!’ It was in large measure his watch-phrase – and that of the other cornets too. That was the benefit of youth. That was why infantry regiments gave their colours into the hands of sixteen-year-old ensigns, and their companies to youthful captains – ensigns and captains of good family, with the means to purchase a commission and the ardour to do their duty to the bitter end. That was how he understood it, at any rate – the bright side of the purchase coin! What were his complaints at the lack of means to advance by purchase, or his opportunity to display for merit promotion, when the army was facing a general action this day? The commander-in-chief must rely on every man with the King’s commission. Purchase was, at least, a stout bond of surety!

Every man? Yes, sighed Hervey – as near as made no odds. Even Daly and Quilley. But why repine over those two? What did they matter on a day like this, when the entire army would be drawn up against the French? And, in truth, Daly and Quilley would face shot and shell exactly as he would, and the sabre’s edge, too, if the Sixth were blessed with a charge. And then Daly and Quilley might buy a lieutenancy over his head, the one by extortion of his miserable tenants, the other by some gambling debt in White’s Club! Well, damn their eyes, Hervey cursed! Was he himself worthy of promotion if he could not win it in action?

These were the cornet’s waking thoughts on the day of the general action at Talavera de la Reina.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE SMOKE AND THE FIRE

Talavera, later

All morning the Spanish had filed past Cotton’s brigade on the road from Cazalegas three leagues beyond the Alberche, making for Talavera, which the Sixth had now learned was to be the right of Sir Arthur Wellesley’s line of battle. Indeed, for most of the morning the Sixth had been speaking of nothing but the admirable defensive position the commander-in-chief had chosen. He had selected, so to speak, a bottleneck, where the Tagus, flowing west from Toledo to Talavera, and thence to Alcantara and the Portuguese border, meandered north a little, nearing the steep escarpment of the Sierra de Seguilla, and then parallel to it for about seventy miles. By choosing to stand on the defensive at the top of the bottleneck rather than further down – further west – Sir Arthur Wellesley not only held the city of Talavera de la Reina, he gave himself room to withdraw, if that became necessary, with his flanks secure on the one side by the wide, deep Tagus, and on the other by the rugged sierra. That, at any rate, was the opinion of Joseph Edmonds. Prudent a choice it was, he told the subaltern officers, whom he had assembled by way of field tutelage. ‘A commander ought never to fight a general action unless he believe there to be a good chance of victory,’ Edmonds said. ‘But neither should he do so without the certainty of being able to retreat in reasonable order should victory be denied him.’ Nor did the commander have only the enemy to take into consideration; there were his allies too. With the Spaniards, Edmonds added, nothing could be certain. Some days they would fight like tigers; other days they had the stomach of a fat kitchen cat.

Hervey studied the trudging ranks – dirty white uniforms as far as the eye could see. Two centuries ago, the Spanish infantry could count itself the finest in the world; now they looked no better than a peasant levy. No army in retreat ever looked its best. Hervey knew it from Corunna; and there they had been retreating with scarce a shot from the enemy. What sort of a mauling these men had had he could only suppose. There had been no forerunners, bandaged and bloody, to speak of any action. The rumour was there were so many French that withdrawal to better ground – ground suited to the defence – was the only course. But that was the rumour before which they had retreated to Corunna, was it not? So the Moore-baiters had it yet. And this Spanish general, Cuesta – he was too old and obese, the word was. But he must know his business? In any case, with Sir Arthur Wellesley the two armies would be a worthy match for ‘King’ Joseph and Marshal Victor, would they not? The position on which they would give battle here spoke volumes in their favour. Hervey was sure there could be no occasion for dismay.

He had only to consider the ground. As the major said, it was admirably chosen – a battle line three miles long, its right, the walled city of Talavera de la Reina, resting on the Tagus, its left on a steep escarpment, and the entire front protected by the dry bed of the Portina river. With so much cover of vineyards, olive groves and corks, as well as the natural entrenchment of the Portina, it was a position made for the infantry. It wanted only for a better orientation, for the armies would be facing due east, into the sun. But then, what did that matter to the men in red coats, who wanted only for an opportunity to get to close quarters with the French? They had all seen the position when they came up the day before, and were relishing putting it to the test. However, the true genius of the place, as Edmonds pointed out, lay in the centre of the line, where a ridge ran east–west parallel to the Tagus on the right and to the escarpment, the Sierra de Seguilla, on the left. The ridge was cut in half by the Portina, running north–south, and the western half, the Cerro de Medellin, was higher than the eastern, the Cerro de Cascajal. On the north side of the ridge was a narrow plain of heath, pasture and arable, and a few dry streambeds. Edmonds had asked the cornets what they concluded by this, to which Laming had at once correctly answered that the British guns on the Cerro de Medellin commanded the narrow plain to the north, the Cerro de Cascajal on the far side of the Portina, and the greater part of the distance to Talavera, whose own guns would easily overlap.

‘Capital, Mr Laming!’ Edmonds had replied, slapping his thigh with uncharacteristic exuberance. Then he had narrowed his eyes. ‘And what else?’