An Act Of Courage

Escalona, dismounting to advance through the smoke. It seemed unlikely, but it was possible. Would wet feet not have run into Anson’s brigade, however? They were in close watch of the river for just such a crossing.

He soon had his answer. As they closed with the brigade resting behind the Casa de Salinas a heavy musketry opened from the trees a hundred yards beyond. Scores of redcoats fell to the first volley. Many who jumped to their feet were instantly struck down. The fire continued – increased – as more French poured from the woods, blazing away as they found their line. Order among the redcoats dissolved.

Hervey galloped for the ruins, head low on Jessye’s neck. He pulled up in cover, saw they made it without loss, dismounted and scrambled atop a broken-down wall to see what assailed them. Only then did he wonder if he exceeded his orders.

Serjeant Strange clambered up beside him. ‘Irish, sir, Connaughts,’ he said in the measured voice of Suffolk. ‘They’re good men packed tight in ranks with a serjeant’s spontoon to prod them, but the devil’s own without it.’

Hervey looked back. They were running now, as if the hounds of hell were after them.

‘They’ll not re-form until they gets behind a standing line, sir. Mightn’t we go and form?’

Hervey inclined his head. ‘I reckon we’re more useful to them here, Serjeant Strange.’ He did not add ‘if we ourselves aren’t cut off’.

As suddenly as the French had appeared there were green jackets on the far side of the road.

Serjeant Strange saw them first. ‘Sixtieth, sir, yonder! A welcome sight, they.’

Strange’s capacity for understatement was ever arresting: Hervey sighed with relief as he saw the other battalion of General Donkin’s brigade – Rifles, not so regulated as musket-infantry, and, resting in the cover of trees, evidently not thrown into confusion by surprise.

The Sixtieth opened a counter-fire. It soon told. The French checked and began falling back.

Here was their chance of escape, Hervey realized. If they galloped now, they would be clear away before the French could come on again. For all he knew, too, voltigeurs might already have worked themselves further round to the south. But where was Laming?

‘Look, sir!’ Serjeant Strange pointed up the road.

Laming and his men were galloping flat out for the ruin. Hervey saw what must happen, but hadn’t the slightest means of averting it. In seconds they were galloping across the Sixtieth’s front. Three horses went down, their dragoons hit in leg or side.

Hervey’s men began waving and cheering. ‘Here! Over here!’

Laming’s patrol pulled up hard in the cover of the ruin. Hervey jumped down from the wall and ran to his fellow cornet.

‘The French are pouring across the river,’ gasped Laming, for once not troubling to maintain a pose. ‘There’s no sign of Anson’s brigade. They must’ve crossed well to the north.’

‘That were our men firing, sir,’ said Serjeant Crook, jumping from the saddle, his horse in a worse lather than any. ‘Bell and Owens is down.’ He glanced at the others. ‘And Horncastle.’

‘Good God,’ said Laming, horrified by what he had just led them into. ‘We’d better go back.’

‘You and me, sir, and Corporal Hart,’ insisted Crook. ‘The others should stay here.’

‘Yes, very well.’ Laming was glad of the advice, his thoughts still on what had happened. ‘Shall you wait here, Hervey?’

‘I shall.’ He did not add ‘unless we are driven out’.

The Sixtieth’s fire was slackening. Hervey watched as Laming, Crook and Corporal Hart galloped back to where the dragoons had fallen. He did not see the little group of staff officers galloping up from Talavera until they had dismounted and begun scrambling up the wall next to him. The profile of the foremost was unmistakable, however – hawklike.

Shots rang out from the right, almost behind them. Hervey turned to see French sharpshooters swarming through the scrub, out of sight to the Sixtieth. Sir Arthur Wellesley at once jumped down from the wall and turned and looked at him, though without a word. Serjeant Strange had fired his carbine by the time the commander-in- chief’s foot was in the stirrup, and he had reloaded and fired a second time before Hervey realized they could have no support from the Sixtieth.

‘Mount!’

Serjeant Strange fired both his pistols, deliberately and in turn, while the others eagerly complied with Hervey’s order.

As they edged round the rear of the farmhouse, Hervey saw Laming coming back down the road – and none too hurriedly – two of the dragoons lying lifeless across the saddle. He glanced back at the sharpshooters. The ruin stood in their line of sight: they could afford to take it at a trot and give Laming some support – but not for long.

‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ said Lord George Irvine, gravely but surely. ‘Admirably clear reports. I compliment you on choosing the position of observation, Mr Hervey. I am saddened by the loss of two men, and to our own fire, but I fear it is ever thus in our business. You acted very properly, Mr Laming. I commend your address in recovering them.’

The two cornets saluted, reined about and rode back to the right of the line, with Sir Edward Lankester leading. When they were halted again, Hervey turned to his troop-leader and spoke in a lowered voice. ‘Serjeant Strange acted throughout with very marked coolness, Sir Edward. He stood firing his carbine as we remounted at the ruin, totally unbidden.’

Sir Edward did not reply at once, looking straight ahead as if thinking matters over. ‘It should, of course, be unremarkable, but I fear it is not. Strange is a singular NCO; he shows address and judgement in high measure, as well as loyalty.’ He did not add ‘and courage’, for that was meant to be the common currency of the rank. ‘I never had dealings with him much, but Edmonds speaks well of him always. He’s a Methodist, of course, but he’s not preachy. I’ve a notion his quality is from the impulse of his religion.’ And then he smiled, in a resigned sort of way. ‘Not like Armstrong. Not at all like Armstrong.’ He shook his head. ‘And yet each in their way is the finest of the rank. Except, of course, Armstrong does not have the rank!’ He sighed. ‘When we will have occasion to restore it, I would not like to say. Strange will be serjeant-major, I’ve no doubt, but Armstrong will be fortunate to be promoted quartermaster.’

Hervey said nothing. Despite the intimacy before Oporto, when Sir Edward had seemed to share more with him than mere duty required, Hervey still had an impression of a taciturn disposition, and remained uncertain as to what his troop-leader’s confidences tended.

Half an hour later, at two o’clock, with the French momentarily checked by Major-General John Mackenzie’s brigade, behind which the Irish had rallied, the Sixth received orders to withdraw to the line of defence. General Cotton’s voice, composed but stentorian, carried to right marker and left flanker alike: ‘Lord George, the Sixth to do rearguard, if you will. Allow me to retire one half of one mile with the Fourteenth. The Sixteenth I have already sent back. Anson’s will be covering the infantry.’

Lord George Irvine touched the peak of his Tarleton to the brigadier. ‘Very well, Sir Stapleton.’ Then he turned to his regiment. ‘Number One and Number Two Squadrons, skirmishers out!’

Sir Edward Lankester and Captain Thomas Lennox, C Troop leader, repeated the order to their squadrons.

Out from the ranks trotted a dozen corporals and dragoons, drill-book fashion – The Regiment in the Withdrawal.

‘Flankers!’

Two dragoons from right and left squadrons trotted out a hundred yards to either flank, ready to do the skirmishers’ job there if the enemy worked round unseen.

In ten more minutes, Hervey saw Colonel Anson’s brigade – the 23rd Light Dragoons and the 1st Hussars of the King’s German Legion – coming up from Talavera at a fast trot. Now General Mackenzie’s division (he had command of a second brigade as well as his own) could begin to withdraw.

Ten minutes later, with Anson’s cavalry in a tight masking formation two hundred yards to their front, Mackenzie’s men were marching back towards Talavera. Hervey turned in the saddle to see how far General Cotton and the Fourteenth had got: a quarter of a mile, and retiring very deliberately at the walk. He could not understand why the French made no move, having been so bold in crossing the river in the first place and surprising Donkin’s