An Act Of Courage

Laming began moving his hand slowly to his pistol, Hervey likewise: the guards evidently accepted Isabella as a woman of rank, but were wary still. Could they know of ‘the English prisoner’, that there might be an attempt to rescue him? It was possible: there was but the one bridge over the Guadiana, and only the one way onto it. This would be the way the prisoner would bolt if he was able to break out of the alcazabar.

A crack like thunder braced the guards, as if bellowed at by their corporal.

Laming’s heart fell: the signal gun! He gripped his pistol, but he stayed his hand yet. What would the gun compel the guards to do?

A second gun fired from the walls of the alcazabar. The guards rushed to close the gates, heaving on them as if their lives depended on it. Men came tumbling from the guardhouse across the square.

Hervey leapt from the saddle, reins in-hand, Wainwright following. ‘Go!’ he shouted at Isabella. ‘Go, doctor!’

They dragged the half-conscious captain through the arch despite the protests of the guards backing away, wary of the unsettled horses. Laming grabbed the fractious mare’s reins and pulled her after them, barging aside one of the guards just in time to slip through as the gates slammed shut.

They were safe for the moment, long enough at least to get the captain back into the saddle. He had come- to: he was well, he protested; it was nothing, they need have no fear, they should make at once for the other side.

Hervey and Wainwright heaved him astride his mare. She settled at last as he gathered the reins, though a stirrup evaded him. He looked dazed still as the rest of them remounted and kicked for the other side.

This was the way General Phillipon had galloped to freedom the day after Badajoz, and it had been a short liberty, gone to ground in Fort San Cristobal until Wellington’s men found him the following morning. Could they now get as far as the fort, even? Hervey, too, was beginning to doubt it. At the other end of the bridge was the Tete du Pont – not a gate, but a strongpoint nevertheless. It straddled their line of escape; except that its purpose was to guard the bridge from assault, not command what passed on it. But there would be soldiers there. How many, he couldn’t know: perhaps they only garrisoned the place at times of danger? But if it were garrisoned, the signal gun must have told them to do something. He dearly hoped it would be to take post facing the approaches rather than the bridge itself.

‘Kick on!’ snapped Laming. ‘We take the bridge at the trot, and at the other end we wheel sharp left for the road to Elvas. No looking back!’

Hervey marked his old friend’s determination. If any fell there would be no going back for them.

‘Major Hervey, sir: look!’

Hervey turned to see the gatehouse walls alive with men. He was thankful that Wainwright, at least, took more notice of his duty than Laming’s commands.

They had not gone fifty yards before a volley sent musket balls whistling about their ears. Laming at once pressed to a faster trot, though the cobbles were treacherous. Hervey looked back again and saw the gates opening. He expected cavalry to burst out after them like hounds in full cry.

There was cavalry, all right, but they seemed loathe to follow.

Hervey saw why. At the far side the guards were mustering, not with cavalry but a cannon. Would they sweep the bridge with grape when they knew there was a woman with them – and an English officer? He could scarce believe it. But how would they know who they fired at? The signal gun told them there were fugitives, and evidently the drill was to rake the bridge.

Laming would not surrender, however. ‘We must ride them down before they’re ready!’ he shouted, pistol aloft and spurring into a canter.

Hervey kicked hard after him. If only they had sabres: the mere promise of steel could make a guncrew panic!

There was another volley from the Las Palmas gate. Hervey looked round to make sure Wainwright and the captain were with him still.

They weren’t. The captain’s mare lay sprawled on the cobbles, her quarters crimson, her rider under her. Hervey cursed and reined hard round.

‘No, sir! Go on, I can do it,’ shouted Wainwright.

But Hervey had left a man behind a dozen years ago, at Waterloo. He would not do it again.

‘Go on, sir!’ insisted Wainwright. ‘There’s Mrs Delgado!’

What was he thinking? It was Isabella they must get away. The rest, himself included, must take their chance. He turned the gelding even sharper and kicked hard for the far end.

In seconds it was a desperate, close-quarter business. The gunners cowered, but a line of bayonets was doubling from the Tete du Pont. Laming, reins looped and both pistols cocked, rode straight at the gun. ‘Go on!’ he shouted to the others. ‘See her safe!’

Isabella, Sanchez and the bewildered courier raced past him, but Hervey pulled up and thrust his pistol at one of the gunners. ‘Espada! Espada! Presto!’

The terrified gunner gave it him, expecting a ball in the chest at any moment.

‘Espada!’ demanded Hervey again, and another of them gave up his sword, to Laming.

Now they felt as if they could fight rather than just fire and run. But two dozen bayonets were no odds to sport with.

‘Come on, Hervey, we’ve got to get her away!’

Hervey looked back across the bridge: Wainwright had the captain astride his own mare. He was determined. ‘We’ve got to hold those bayonets off the bridge, Laming! Leave these: let’s front them!’

Laming didn’t hesitate. They rode straight at the line, breaking it in two places, then turning and charging back to break it in another two. That was what dismayed infantry – spoiling ‘the touch of cloth’! Another go and Hervey was certain they would scatter them.

He looked back at the bridge. The gunners hadn’t given up. They were already ramming. The gun would soon be loadedprimed. He saw Wainwright struggling to lead his mare, saw the puffs of smoke from the ragged musketry at the far end of the bridge, and then the captain bowled from the saddle like a running hare to buckshot. At two hundred yards it could only have been luck, but a ball in the back at that range was the end. He saw Wainwright crouching by him – it seemed an age – until he was certain of what Hervey could only suppose. Then Wainwright sprang back into the saddle and spurred for the Tete du Pont.

But the way was barred. The gunners were determined. The bridge-end bristled with handspikes, spontoons, muskets, and half a dozen of the bayonets with the nerve to run that far. The ventsman was putting in the primer- quill; in seconds more it would be ‘Stand clear!’ And then a hundred one-ounce iron balls would mangle every bit of flesh on the bridge.

‘No!’ bellowed Laming. ‘No, Hervey!’

Hervey jerked the bit, and the gelding pulled up. It was futile.

Wainwright, too, saw there was no way forward or back.

Hervey reeled as a man lunged at him from the cover of the brush, the bayonet tearing through his cloak and into the saddle. He plunged the straight, thin blade of the artilleryman’s sword between collarbone and neck. As the man fell lifeless, Hervey looked back in dread for his covering corporal.

His jaw fell open. Wainwright, with not even a sabre as goad, was urging his little Lusitano onto the parapet. Then, Horatiuslike, he leapt, astride her still, into the deep, dark Guadiana.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

BATTLE HONOURS

Badajoz, late afternoon, 7 April 1812