The Fields of Death - Scarrow Simon - Страница 17

Arthur cleared his throat and spoke calmly to Hill. ‘I think the time has come to bring your fellows forward.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Hill smiled and wheeled his horse about. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he bellowed over the crest of the ridge. ‘The brigade will advance, at the double!’

The three battalions of Stewart’s brigade that had been lying down just behind the crest rose up at once, as if out of the ground, and trotted forward in a line that stretched across the crest. They swept on, past Arthur and Somerset, and drew up a short distance in front of the colour party. Less than a hundred yards beyond, the head of the French column hesitated, and Arthur heard an officer shout an order to deploy into line. But even as the first men began to shuffle to the side, Stewart’s brigade levelled their muskets, aiming straight into the dense ranks of the enemy.

General Hill raised his hat to attract the attention of his officers, paused a moment and then swept it down as he bellowed, ‘Fire!’

At close range, over fifteen hundred muskets poured their bullets into the head of the French column. To Arthur it seemed as if the front rank simply collapsed as men toppled forward or crumpled to the side, leaving a narrow fringe of blue and white uniformed bodies sprawled in the dry grass. A second, and a third, volley cut down scores more of the enemy so that the dead and wounded now lay heaped one upon the other. By now the French were firing back, at will, since there was too much chaos in their leading ranks for the officers to organise a proper firing line. Despite outnumbering the British, they could bring only a limited number of muskets to bear and all the time fresh casualties added to those piled in the grass.

Arthur saw the column begin to give ground, slowly edging back down the slope. To the right and left the other French columns were being given similar punishment and endured little longer before they too were in retreat. Squinting through the powder smoke engulfing his line, General Hill saw that the gap between his men and the enemy had widened and gave the order to cease fire and advance. As the brigade moved on, they left their own dead and injured scattered across the crest, but no more than thirty or forty men, Arthur estimated. An acceptable loss when compared to the hundreds of Frenchmen who had been shot down.

Hill pursued the enemy with his brigade at a measured pace, stopping every so often to pour another volley into their ranks and press them back down towards the thin band of the Portina. As they reached the bottom of the slope Hill gave the order to charge, and with a hearty roar the men lowered their bayonets and ran towards the battered French column. Most of the enemy turned and fled across the stream, splashing through the water to the far bank and then back towards their guns. Before the British soldiers lost their heads a bugle sounded the withdrawal and the men hurriedly re-formed their line, then turned about and climbed back up the slope. General Hill urged his mount ahead of his men and rode back up to Arthur, greeting him with a barely suppressed smile and an amiable nod of the head.

‘The lads have seen ’em off, sir. But hot work indeed! Never seen them fire and move so smoothly.’

‘A fine performance, Hill,’ Arthur agreed. ‘But you can be sure that we have repulsed only the first attack.’ He drew out his pocket watch and glanced at it briefly. ‘Just gone eight. The day is young, gentlemen, and the enemy is still far from beaten.’

As the sun edged higher into a clear blue sky the slight breeze faded and the air began to feel hot and heavy. A lull had settled over the battlefield and Hill gave the order for his dead to be buried at once, so the heat would not corrupt the bodies. Lower down the slope, the British skirmishers had once again gone forward, but they held their fire as small parties of the French waded across the Portina to retrieve their wounded and the bodies of their dead officers. Once again, warily at first, the fraternisation resumed. Those who had little knowledge of each other’s language made signs and mimed to communicate, while others sat and talked, sharing drink and food, amid the dead and wounded of the earlier fighting.

‘Ought we to stop that, sir?’ Somerset gestured towards the Portina.

‘Why?’

‘One wouldn’t want the men to become too fond of their enemy, surely? Otherwise it might predispose them to be merciful when they should be ruthless?’

Arthur briefly removed his hat and scratched at his close-cropped hair. The heat was making him perspire freely and his scalp itched. He regarded Somerset thoughtfully. His aide was still young enough to have rather fixed opinions about the nature of war and experience had not yet tempered his judgement with a wider understanding of military life.

‘Somerset, those men down there know their trade and can be trusted to act as they must when called upon. War is a cruel, brutal business. If we are not to make brutes of those who are obliged to practise it, then we must indulge the better side of their natures whenever we can.’

Somerset was still for a moment and then nodded. Arthur sensed that his aide had not fully accepted the point. Perhaps he would one day, if he lived long enough. Arthur replaced his hat and resumed his consideration of the enemy’s intentions. The first attack had been repelled. The question was, would they repeat the attempt? If not, where would they press next? For the moment, the enemy’s formations stood their ground under the baking sun and waited for orders. Arthur pulled out his telescope from his saddlebag and began to scan the enemy’s positions until he located their senior officers.

He found them easily enough, a gathering of figures in neat blue jackets heavy with gold lace and bullion epaulettes, with feathered bicornes. Some of them were examining the British line through their telescopes and Arthur was briefly amused by the thought that they might well be trying to divine his intentions in turn. A cluster of senior officers seemed to be engaged in a heated debate, with much gesturing towards the British line. Arthur watched them a moment longer, then lowered his telescope and sent Somerset to tell Hill that he could stand his men down for a while and encourage them to find what shade they could for the present.

The lull in the fighting continued for the rest of the morning, and both sides took the chance to send small parties of men, loaded with canteens, down to the Portina to refill them. Elsewhere men, stripped down to their shirts, continued to dig graves and remove as many bodies from the field as possible. Arthur moved to the shade of a small grove of olive trees close to the crest of the ridge and sat and rested in the shade, leaving strict orders that he was to be disturbed if necessary. Overhead, the sun climbed to its zenith and the battlefield became a stifling cauldron of hot air and painfully bright light, infused with the irritating drone of flies as they swarmed over the corpses still awaiting the burial parties.

Arthur stirred as he became aware of a presence close by, and he blinked his eyes open to see Somerset standing over him. ‘What is it?’

‘Sir, the French are on the move.’

Arthur was on his feet at once, quickly rolling his head to ease the stiffness in his neck. He looked down the slope. Sure enough the French army was spreading out across a wider front as more cannon were brought forward from the reserve and manoeuvred into position a short distance beyond the Portina, ready to bombard the British line.

‘They mean to attack along the entire front,’ Somerset commented.

‘I have eyes and a brain of my own,’ Arthur replied tersely. As his embarrassed aide kept his silence Arthur quickly thought through the coming phase of the battle. The French were doing the right thing, he realised. Their earlier attempt to seize the ridge had allowed Arthur to redeploy men to meet the threat, but an attack along the entire line of his army would mean that there would be little chance to shift his outnumbered forces about to bolster weakened points. As before, the defences manned by the Spanish were being avoided as the enemy was determined to shatter the British army first. The hour of gravest danger was swiftly approaching.