THE BORDER BETWEEN PORTUGAL AND SPAIN. 1813.
The fly buzzed past a barmaid, avoided the whipping strands of her long dark hair as she turned her head, then flew a circuit around the crowded, smoky room before seeking its next target. It circled the table where the Officer slouched and headed for his half finished beer. Then it spotted a spilt patch of the sweet liquid of the table and decided that it was a safer option. It had seen its kin drown in beer glasses before. It settled on the table and began to feast on the sticky, sweet beer. A shadow fell over the fly, and then death.
Lieutenant Harvey of Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment of Foot wiped the fly from his hand, brushing it to the dusty floor with disgust. He took another tiny sip from the pint which had been nursing for an hour.
All around him men celebrated, because the next day they would march again to Spain and assault the hated French.
But The Lieutenant’s mood was dark, for the next morning he had to oversee the executions of three men from his Company.
The Duke of Wellington kept the strictest discipline amongst his men, and strove to keep good relations with his Spanish and Portuguese allies, so any man caught pillaging or ravishing the local civilians faced the noose. Whilst Lieutenant Harvey agreed whole heartedly with this policy, he hated to watch a man die in cold blood. In addition, it was a disgrace to him that men in the same Company as himself had earned the hangman’s rope. At least none of the men were from the Platoon which he led, if that had been the case he would have killed them himself, before news could reach The Duke.
His mood was not improved when his acquaintance Captain Lloyd of The Royal Engineers staggered over to his table. Lloyd’s sun bleached hair hung across his sunburn face with its alcoholic’s red nose and he held a half finished bottle of sangria in his hand.
“What ho! A jolly good evening to you Lieutenant Harvey!” Lloyd declared as he took another swig from his bottle and planted himself on the empty chair beside him.
“Evening Captain,” Harvey replied dryly.
“Cheer up and drink up, sir!”
“There is little cause for cheer tonight, sir.”
“Of course there is, of course there is. Tomorrow we ride to Spain, to slaughter the blasted Frogs and liberate the lovely ladies of Spain!”
“Aye, and first I must see my boys swing, sir. And then what? Spain again. Just like in ’08, and ’09 and ’12. Off to Spain and back again.”
“Bast it Harvey. I won’t hear talk like that! If a fellow gets himself caught, he must swing. And we’ll have Napoleon and his Frog Eaters this time, I know it!”
“Aye, we’ll beat the Frogs, sir, but not tomorrow.”
“That’s the spirit. And if killing Frenchies doesn’t cheer you up, I know what will… That wench at the bar has been staring at you all evening!”
“Nonsense, sir.”
“Look, you fool.”
A swift glace at the bar told him that the serving girl with the long hair and the big, dark eyes was indeed looking at him. She smiled, then turned away modestly.
“Perhaps she is, but it interests me not, sir. The Lady Molly waits for me back home.”
“Lady Molly, indeed! I would not stake my pension on it.”
“I tell you, sir, one day she shall be my wife.”
“Humbug! But forget it. I’ll have the wench in my bed tonight if you don’t want her… I have more important matters to speak of with you. I need you and two of your best men to join me tomorrow evening. The Duke wants me to scout ahead, check all the bridges for the next weeks march are in order. I’ve already squared it with your Captain.”
“Then I will follow. Smith and Isaacs will join me.”
“Smith and Isaacs? Our kind, what?”
“Quite, sir.”
“Good show! At least I shall have one man in my party without a hangover.”
By the time the scorching midday sun had driven all shadows from the ground, the three men had danced their last dance upon the gallows tree, and every camp had been struck and every billet emptied.
Lieutenant Harvey rode at the head of his men, beside Mister Marks, the young Ensign who had appointed to him, the other two Lieutenants in his Company and their leader Captain Hogan.
They rode all afternoon on that hot, dusty day, stopping only at six o’clock to make camp for the evening. By that time the horses and marching men of the ranks were exhausted and thirsty.
The Company made camp by a small steam where a few orange trees provided shelter. Harvey ate a quick meal with Ensign Marks, then prepared to leave.
“The Platoon are your responsibility now Mister Marks,” Harvey told the fifteen year old boy officer. “Just you take care of them for me, I’ll be back in a few days.”
“Shall do my best sir,” Marks replied solemnly
As he readied his horse, Corporal Smith and Private Isaacs reported for duty. Smith was a stout man in his forties who had almost twenty years experience of fighting the French. Isaacs was a tall, thin young man who had been forced to join the army after disgracing himself during his apprenticeship as an accountant. He could speak French and Spanish, and Harvey reckoned he was the smartest men his Platoon, and one of the best shots.
“Off we go, lads,” Harvey greeted them.
They saluted, and then followed him to Captain Lloyd’s tent.
Lloyd sat on the ground with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarillo in the other. In stark contrast, his assistant, Private Mc Duff (a giant, ginger bear of a Highlander) stood to attention next to four tethered horses. Lloyd’s shirt was stained and his medals rusted on his jacket, but the Highland’s kilt was immaculate and a huge claymore sword shone at his belt.
“Reporting for duty, Captain,” Harvey addressed Lloyd.
“My compliments to you, my boys. We’re going to trot up north ‘till dawn, then nap for a while, then travel with all haste to the north west, we ought to find a bridge there. After inspecting it, we are to pop off north again and take a gander at another bridge. Then home again. If we happen to spot any Frog scouts, we are to have a crack at them. Got that? Jolly good,” Lloyd downed his wine, put his cigarillo between his lips and mounted his horse.
He petted it behind the ears, then had it galloping away with a few whispered words and a subtle application of the knees.
The other four men mounted up and followed him, racing to keep up.
The Highlander was used to keeping pace with eccentric master, but the two infantry men were unused to horses and soon fell behind.
“Slow down, sir, with respect, my men cannot keep this pace!” Harvey shouted ahead.
Lloyd’s horse reared up, then turned round and trotted back to them.
“Sir, if you ride with me, you ride hard and fast, and if you cannot, then you learn fast. In addition, we shall soon be in enemy territory, so it is imperative that there is no more shouting, sir,” with that, Lloyd galloped off again.
With no other option available to them, the men were forced to kick their horses hard and hold on for their lives as they followed the Captain.
They rode through out the night and rested in a patch of woodland at dawn.
“Isaacs and I shall take the first watch,” Captain Lloyd said,” you chaps get some shut eye.”
Harvey and Mc Duff lay down in their sleeping bags and Lloyd and Isaacs sat back to back.
“You there chappy, do you drink?” Lloyd asked the young Private after half an hour.
Isaacs was unsure if he referred to alcohol or blood, so he remained awkwardly silent for a moment.
“Alcohol, man! Wine, brandy, whiskey… You can drink as much dashed blood as you like when you ride with me, but would you care for a drop of brandy?”
“No thank you sir.”
Lloyd took a swig from his hipflask, and then they sat in silence for another hour and a half, before handing the watch over to Harvey, Smith and Mc Duff.
“Have you been with The Captain for long?” Smith asked Mc Duff when Lloyd was snoring.
“Ten years,” The Highlander replied.
“How do you bear it?” Harvey asked.
“Just ye watch him, sir,” the big man replied. “He’s a pretty and a cunning fellow, for all the mess.”
“Pretty?” Smith asked.
“Good at fighting,” Harvey translated.
After their three hour watch, they woke Lloyd and Isaacs, broke camp and rode under the blazing sun until late afternoon.
Then they reached a road bridge made of dressed stone which spanned a wide river of white water.
They dismounted, took their horses to drink from the river, and refilled their water bottles. Lloyd began inspecting the bridge, whilst Mc Duff kept watch and the others ate and rested.
“Gentlemen, something is amiss,” Lloyd said when he returned to them half an hour later. “The bridge is sound, yet I found scraps of bread, horse prints, and a cigar stub which was unmistakably of a French brand, near by. The Frog were here, but they left the bridge intact… The blighters want us to cross it.”
“What now, sir?” Harvey asked.
“We proceed to the next bridge with the utmost care, sir. On the way, we scout out the land.”
They rode on until midnight, then, exhausted and thirsty, they had to stop. They found a ravine with a stream flowing through it where they could hide and water their horses.
“The first watch is mine,” Lloyd commanded. “I shall wake Mc Duff and Lieutenant Harvey in two hours, you can have two hours duty and then wake Smith and Isaacs. We set off again at dawn. We shall reach the next bridge by midday. Good night to you gentlemen.”
Lloyd climbed up to the top of the ravine and sat as look out, seeing all under the star lit sky. After half an hour he took a swig from his hipflask and lit a cigarillo. It was soon after that he spotted a shooting star.
He watched that tiny ball of light fall from the sky, with the luminous arch of its tail behind it-
-Then the throwing knife struck him in the back.
It lodged into his ribs, knocking the wind out off him. He bent over double in pain, but his warrior’s pride stopped him from crying out. Before he could raise the alarm, rough hands seized him, blocking his mouth, then restraining his arms.
With no one to wake them, the exhausted men slept until dawn. As soon as they saw the time and Lloyd’s absence, they began searching for him. With the dexterity of a mountain goat, Mc Duff sprang up the ravine and found Lloyd’s hipflask on the ground.
“Follow me, sirs, there are footprints!” the Highlander yelled.
The rest followed him and a track which only he could see until they reach a patch of trees three hundred yards from where they had slept.
“He was dragged onto a horse here, and then they rode that way, sir,” the Highland pointed north west.
“How can you know that man? Harvey asked, exasperated.
“Tracks. Have hunted men up fell and down glen since I was a wee boy. We must ride that way- now, sir.”
Lloyd woke, and found himself tied to a chair in a huge tent. Two French officers, a Major and a Captain argued close by, and behind them a French flag on an Eagle standard leaned on a desk. Two guards stood at the entrance.
His back ached, but he could feel bandages, wet with his sweat and blood, over the wound. The pain in his head told him that he had been knocked out the night before, and the pain in his wrists and ankles told him that he was bound securely. There was a foul tasting gag in his mouth.
He needed a drink.
As far as he could tell the two Frenchman were arguing over how best to torture him. The Captain reckoned him to be such an alcoholic that a day without a drink would be enough, but the Major insisted on haste.
Soon the Major came over and pulled the rag from his mouth.
“Talk, Englishman!” he demanded in passable English. “How many men? How far away? Is Wellington with them?”
“You’ll get nothing out of me, Frog,” Lloyd responded dryly.
The Major slapped him across the face.
“Talk!”
“Never!”
The Major punched him, and the Captain seemed to object that it was no way to treat a fellow officer, and this led to another argument.
“There’s a whole damned regiment of them over the hill, sir,” Mc Duff reported.
“Dash,” Harvey replied.
“What are we to do, sir?” Isaacs asked
“We can’t leave him here, I owe him,” Harvey said.
“I’ll nay leave him,” Mc Duff stated. “He saved me from the gallows tree long ago. It may have taken me from one Devil to another, but I’ll nay leave him.”
“We must stick together, sir,” Smith said.
Isaacs nodded.
“It will be dark in an hour,” Lieutenant Harvey told them. “Night is our strongest ally. I need you three to go to the west of the camp. McDuff, I want you to go down there and start a fire, you two cover him. Then the three of you are to snipe at them. Keep moving, keep to the shadows and keep them busy. I’ll move in from the east and get the Captain out.”
The Frenchmen at the edge of the camp did not see it coming.
One moment they were boiling a kettle over their fire, the next a great red bear was hacking them down with a giant sword.
Mc Duff grabbed a burning log from the fire and threw it at the nearest tent.
A Frenchman ran at him, bayonet levelled, but was shot down by a musket ball.
The Highland took another burning log and stalked the panicked camp with fire in one hand and sword in the other. Musket balls flew over his head and bit the earth at his feet. Other musket balls hit the French around him, who were lost in darkness, fire and fear.
He found a wagon of munitions and threw the torch at it. The next moment a French musket ball hit him in the leg.
The wagon exploded, killing a Frenchman, setting another two tents on fire and starling a group of horses who broke free and rampaged across the camp.
A French officer charged Mc Duff, but he swiped him down like a fly.
Another Frenchman bayoneted him in the back.
As he turned to take vengeance, a musket ball struck his head.
Smith and Isaacs continued to fire down on the French.
The Major set to work on Lloyd’s third toe. He had broken the first two with a hammer, and Lloyd had not spoken other than to give him his opinion of the French people.
The Officers refused to be distracted by the commotion outside, but the guards looked nervous.
The hammer came down on Lloyd’s toenail.
The tent’s door was torn open.
Harvey fired his flintlock pistol at the first guard, and slit the second one’s throat with his sword.
The Captain rushed him, but Harvey parried the blow, then planted his sword so deep in the Frenchman that he did not have time to pull it loose.
He grabbed the nearest weapon- the French banner with its solid brass eagle statue on the top.
The Major prepared to defend himself, but he could not stop the eagle from knocking him to the floor. Harvey kicked him for good measure, then took a knife from his pocket and cut Lloyd’s bonds.
Lloyd burst out of his chair and lurched over the Major’s body. He ripped out the throat of his tormentor.
“Good show Harvey,” Lloyd said threw blood stained lips. “I’ll see you made Captain for this. One small problem though, I can’t walk- bastards broke my toes.”
“Lean on this,” Harvey said, handing him the standard. “There are horses near by.”
They grabbed a sword and a pistol each from the enemy dead, and staggered out into the chaotic night.
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