An Act Of Courage

Albuquerque’s cavalry. Little wonder the French came on gingerly, thought Hervey. Had they yet seen Anson’s brigade?

He had not closed his telescope when a galloper sped down the slope from behind them, making straight for the brigadier. Hervey recognized him as one of Sir Arthur Wellesley’s – the same he had met in the grey dawn of that morning.

‘You’re very welcome, Gordon,’ said Colonel Anson, returning the salute. ‘What are we expected to make of those French yonder?’

‘The commander-in-chief desires that you attack them directly, Colonel.’

‘Does he, by Jove!’

‘He is of the opinion that they will not stand. One of the divisions is Ruffin’s, and they have been worsted twice already.’

Colonel Elley, the cavalry division’s adjutant-general, was standing next to the brigadier. ‘If you can force them into squares, Anson, they’ll be cut up something savage by the Second Division’s guns.’

Colonel Anson was not entirely convinced, though he was willing enough for a fight. If Fane’s heavies had arrived, as he had been told they would, there could be little doubting the outcome. But one brigade of cavalry against two divisions of infantry . . .

‘Very well, though I’m not certain of the ground. We shall advance with caution.’

‘I’ll spy out the ground for you,’ said Colonel Elley.

Anson nodded gratefully, then called the commanding officers.

His orders were simple enough, the object and the route apparent to every man, so that barely a minute later the brigade was trotting onto the plain and wheeling to the right in two lines.

Hervey (and, he imagined, the other cornets) thrilled to the prospect of a second brigade action in a single day. And this time it would be a model, since the approach was a good three-quarters of a mile: they would do it as a field day, not like the scramble at the Portina – all properly regulated and as the manual prescribed. Directing regiment was the 23rd Light Dragoons, looking exactly as his except for their yellow facings. Left were the 1st Hussars of the King’s German Legion, sitting tall with their ‘muff-caps’, as the dragoons called them; and the Sixth formed the support line. Hervey fancied there could be few finer sights than fifteen hundred sabres on the move.

Ahead, he could see Colonel Elley already selecting the line of advance. It was unusual, he knew – not at all as the manuals prescribed. If any were to be in advance of a brigade it should be skirmishers, not a field officer. But the ground was open, there could be no voltigeurs concealed, and there were no chasseur skirmishers to harry him. And in any case, what did he know of the true practice of the brigade in the advance?

‘I wonder that Anson doesn’t select his own line of advance,’ said Lieutenant Martyn, as they settled to the trot.

Hervey was pleased to have this affirmation of his own opinion. ‘Could it be the brigade’s not scouted forward? Surely not!’ Lieutenant Martyn could hardly contemplate so elementary a failure. His own troop had been about to ride the ground when the Sixth had been ordered back to the centre.

* * *

In five minutes, picking their way purposefully along Colonel Elley’s cleared line, they had covered half of one mile. The batteries on the Cerro de Cascajal now decided they were in range.

The brigade saw the puffs of smoke long before they heard the reports, and the shot before the reports. The Twenty-third, seeing the line of fire, began veering left and increasing pace. The shot bounced harmlessly. The hussars of the German Legion, conforming to the directing regiment’s movement, likewise bore left, but after a minute or so came under a galling fire, if from extreme range, from tirailleurs at the foot of the Sierra de Seguilla, and they too quickened their pace. Colonel Anson found himself conforming rather than leading, so that, half a mile from their objective still, the whole brigade broke into a premature canter. Up on the Cerro de Medellin, the Second Division began cheering them – lines of redcoats with muskets and shakos held high. It seemed to urge on the Twenty-third to an even faster pace. Soon they were close to a gallop.

Lord George Irvine struggled to maintain proper supporting distance, while keeping the regiment in check so that he alone would judge the moment to release them for the charge. Hervey, finding Jessye easy in-hand as usual, stood in the stirrups for a better view. The long grass minded him of Salisbury Plain, and he reckoned the ground might yet be as broken and treacherous. But as long as the Twenty-third and the Germans were driving across it, what had he to worry about but the odd rabbit hole? Jessye was sure-footed enough on that account. But there were darker patches in the heath, and that meant water. And where there was water there would be ditches. For all the exhilaration of it, he began wondering if the pace were not too hazardous.

Colonel Elley stumbled on it first. Cantering fast but just in-hand, he managed to check. Then, with a great effort, he cleared the gully, landing well and swinging round to signal frantically.

Too late. The Twenty-third were running fast, too fast. The Germans were no better. They blundered onto it – a wide, dry watercourse the length of the brigade’s front. Some managed to clear it – a twelve-foot leap; some managed to circle; others tumbled one way or another down the side – eight feet at its deepest. Many were unable to scramble out again. Their second line, warned, tried to rein up, but most of them surged into the struggling remains of the first.

The French gunners were onto them in an instant, and the leading infantry of the left-hand column opened a biting musketry.

The Twenty-third’s colonel would not wait and rally, however. He pressed on with any who had leapt clear or managed to scramble out. They were not more than a hundred, and strung out behind him for a furlong and more.

Lord George Irvine still had the Sixth in-hand, and despite the melee the troop-leaders were able to choose their lines. Those troopers that could, jumped; those that couldn’t slid down into the gully and scrambled up the other side without too much trouble.

Jessye cleared it by a foot and more. ‘Good girl!’ shouted Hervey, as if he were galloping with Daniel Coates on the Plain.

There were few fallers, and none who looked back. Lord George pulled up, re-formed the lines at the trot, and then pressed on.

But the thin and ragged ranks of the 23rd Light Dragoons were half a mile ahead, and the Germans too. Half the Twenty-third now tore in at the hastily formed square of the 27e Leger. They fell in dozens, men and horses. The rest, in a swarm rather than a formation, chased behind Colonel Elley, who had swung left between the 27e’s square and the 24e of the Line’s, which the Germans now threw themselves against. For Elley had seen what no one else had – the French cavalry coming to the belated support of the infantry.

Lord George had no choice but to follow him, unless he wished to impale the Sixth on the infantry’s bayonets.

Elley and the remnants of the Twenty-third hurtled into the leading brigade of chasseurs with such momentum that the French line parted rather than meet them. But as the dragoons ran on to the second line, the first closed round them, pincers-like.

Lord George did not hesitate. With a furlong to run, he lofted his sabre and shouted, ‘Charge!’

The collision was appalling – exactly as Lord George meant it to be. Horses fell; riders disappeared beneath kicking hooves and dead flesh. Hervey all but closed his eyes as they ran in. He couldn’t use his sword for want of a man to strike at: all was confusion. But the French were thrown over by the shock of it; that was certain. He could hear the bugle – ‘rally’. Every sense told him to disengage.

He looked for his coverman, reining round to leave the hacking mass. Then he saw Laming, and three chasseurs at him.

He dug in his spurs harder than ever before. Jessye almost leapt the distance. His sabre struck powerfully – Cut Two – and the nearest chasseur lost his rein-arm at the shoulder.

His coverman swooped past and sliced at another, severing the sword-wrist.

Laming, with but one chasseur to deal, could now drop his guard. He brought up the blade like lightning – Cut Three – cleaving the man’s jaw from below.