An Act Of Courage

the Peninsula.’

‘Very well. I will take your letter to the lieutenant-governor at once. If he has not heard of Folque either, Elvas should have it by the morning.’ Sanchez rose.

Hervey fixed him with a scrutinizing look, though far from hostile. ‘Why do you do this?’

The physician replaced his battered old tricorn, and put a hand to Hervey’s shoulder. ‘Badajoz, my friend. Because of Badajoz!’

It was no explanation at all: Hervey was uncomprehending still. Why would this man do this, risk his own life, indeed, when a British army had behaved so infamously in his own city? He shook his head.

‘That night, the night of the storming here: the shadows are yet long.’

‘But—’

‘Another day, Hervey; another day, perhaps.’ Then he lifted up the letter, waving it and smiling, hopefully.

CHAPTER TWENTY

FIRST FRUITS

Badajoz, midnight, 6 April 1812

Five years, Sir Edward Lankester had said it would take to eject the French from Spain. ‘The long point’, he had called it – ‘no bolting Reynard and running him fast to the kill’. Three of those years had passed, and here they were at Badajoz, barely a league beyond the border with Portugal, exactly where they had been three summers ago. ‘Believe me, Hervey, these French marshals will show us more foxery than you’d see in a dozen seasons in Leicestershire.’ On such a night as this, Sir Edward’s words seemed extraordinarily prophetic.

No, they were not exactly where they had been three summers ago. This time they were before the walls rather than within. Hervey could not help but smile at the realization, chilling though it was. In truth, however, it was not quite as it seemed, and he knew it – they all knew it. Sir Arthur Wellesley was a hunting man; he was now thoroughly acquainted with his hounds and his huntsmen, and he had the measure of his quarry at last. After Talavera, elevated in the opinion of his army (and by the King to Viscount Wellington), he had secretly constructed the lines of Torres Vedras in case he would have to defend Lisbon. Then for twelve months he had dashed about La Mancha as the Spanish junta collapsed, so that the following October, when he perceived he could rely on Spanish support no longer, he withdrew to the lines, breaking his pursuer, Marshal Massena, by scorching the earth for fifty miles so that for a whole month Massena’s men sickened and starved within sight of the lines before turning-tail back for Spain.

And so the third year, 1811, had begun with high hopes. They had soon been dashed as the French captured Badajoz and the other border fortresses, closing the door into Spain again. Wellington had lost no time, however, investing Badajoz within two months. But the siege had failed, and a second a month later. Winter quarters, still at the border, still no nearer Joseph Bonaparte’s capital, had been cold and bitter indeed. Wellington knew he could not stay long. And so at the beginning of January 1812, although the ground was hard as iron, and sleeting snow did his army more ill than could the French, he had opened the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. The fortress fell to a fierce assault ten days later, and Wellington – the whole army – had then turned with confident but brutal determination to the third siege of Badajoz.

‘Who the devil are you, sir?’ barked a voice from the smoky blackness. ‘Get out of my way!’

Sir Edward Lankester had had enough. General Cotton had ordered his squadron forward, dismounted, to the support of the Third Division, but they had stumbled about for an hour in the pitch dark, the guide useless. The walls of Badajoz looked but a stone’s throw away, and the noise was infernal – the sudden shots, the numbing explosions, the terrified screams of the wounded, the terrifying screams of the assault troops, the jeering-cheering of the French who threw them back. And yet the detachment of dragoons could find no part in it because they could not find the provost marshal’s men. ‘Do not address me in that way, sir! I have not been informed that it is a ticket affair!’

‘Damn your eyes, sir! I am General Picton!’

Sir Edward was not in the slightest discomposed. ‘Then I am very glad of it, General, for we are damnably lost and have no idea of our purpose. Perhaps you will permit us to join you?’

‘Is that you, Sir Edward?’

‘It is, General.’

‘Where are your horses?’

‘The other side of the river. Do you have need of them?’

‘Don’t be a damned fool! What are you doing here?’

‘We are wanted by the provost marshal, it seems.’

‘Well, God alone knows where he is. Or cares. These walls are the death of us. Colville’s division and the Light can make no headway in the breaches. And God knows how Leith’s fares on the other side. You can come with me. I need officers to take charge. How many have you?’

‘Three.’ He would not ask ‘to take charge of what?’

‘Well, keep your dragoons where they are and keep as close to me as you’re able.’

That soon proved harder than it sounded. General Picton wore a black coat and a forage cap, and there were more men crowded into the ditch at the foot of the castle walls than Hervey would have imagined possible. A powder keg fell on a man a dozen yards away, killing him instantly. His comrades stamped at the burning fuse like frantic Spanish dancers. A grenade exploded beyond, and there were another ten men screaming.

This was not Hervey’s idea of fighting; it was nobody’s idea of fighting. What was it about Badajoz? Three sieges in twelve months, days of battering away at the walls, and still not a man through its breaches! And here were the Third Division now trying to scale the walls, for the breaches were mined, barred with chevaux de frise, and swept by cannon – swept all the easier for not having to fire through embrasures. It was madness, yet still they were trying. The ladders did not even reach the top of the walls! Hervey saw a man climbing onto the shoulders of another, and then another onto his, as if his life depended on it. What could propel a man so, only to be met with a musket-butt in the face and a thirty-foot plunge onto the bayonets of his comrades below?

But life did not depend on it. On the contrary – the piles of dead below the walls showed that. Hervey knew that something else drove them forward. Threats? Perhaps. Pride? Possibly. Promise of reward? Maybe. A dreadful blood-lust, concocted of revenge and filthy living in the trenches? Undoubtedly. It was a volatile mixture, one that could be boiled up only occasionally and under the severest regulation. Hervey’s blood did not yet boil, neither did pride nor promise of reward overwhelm him yet. No one threatened him, for sure. What in the name of God was he going to do here?

‘Where is General Picton?’ came a voice from behind, and with it a hand grasping hold of his cross-belt, a welcome point of recognition in an otherwise black and hellish stew of uniforms.

Hervey got to his feet again. ‘He’s here about somewhere,’ he replied, trying to make out where his troop- leader had gone. He saw no occasion for asking who the enquirer was: if an officer wanted the divisional commander then he must have reason. ‘Keep touch; I’ll try to find him.’

He began edging forward, stepping over a man lying face down, and onto another lying face up, who let out a cry so agonized that Hervey jumped back before striding over him.

‘Sir Edward!’ he called, but muted.

What was the good of calling for one man in all this? But what alternative did he have? It was confusion as he had never seen it.

‘Sir Edward!’

‘Here!’

Hervey fell as he turned towards the voice, jarring his knee so hard as to make his head swim.

‘What the devil are you doing?’

Hervey, clutching his knee, struggled to catch his breath. ‘An officer, Sir Edward, for the general.’