Under Wellington's Command: A Tale of the Peninsular War by G. A. Henty (best pdf ebook reader txt) 📗

distance of the line of defenders. Terence gave the word, and his men retired up another and steeper slope behind; while the guerillas were ordered to remain to keep up a brisk fire, until the French were within thirty yards of the crest, and were then to run back at full speed, and join him above.

The Portuguese had scarcely taken up their position when a tremendous fire broke out below. A minute later the guerillas were seen rushing up the hill, and close behind them came the French line, cheering loudly. As they appeared the Portuguese opened fire, and with such steadiness and precision that the leading files of the French were almost annihilated. But the wave swept upwards and, encouraged by the shouts of their officers, they advanced against the second position.

For half an hour an obstinate fight was maintained, the strength of the position neutralizing the effect of the superior numbers of the French. The Spaniards fought well, imitating the steadiness of the Portuguese and, being for the most part good marksmen, their fire was very deadly; and several determined attacks of the French were beaten off with heavy loss.

Then, from the valley below, was heard the sound of a bugle. The call was repeated by the bugles of the assailants and, slowly and reluctantly, the French began to fall back.

Terence looked round. He had from time to time glanced across to the hills opposite, and had seen his men there retiring steadily, and in good order, before the assault of the French; and now he saw that his force from the valley was marching rapidly along the hilltop to their assistance; while away on the French right, Macwitty's command, spread out to appear of much greater strength than it really possessed, was moving down the slope, as if to the assault.

Below, in the valley, a battalion of French infantry with their cavalry and artillery were drawn up, and were evidently only waiting for the return of the two assaulting columns, to join in their retreat. The French commander doubtless supposed that he was caught in a trap. Unable to effect the passage of the river, and seeing the stubborn resistance his troops were meeting with on the hills, the arrival of two fresh bodies of the enemy on the scene induced him to believe that the foe were in great force; and that, ere long, he might be completely surrounded. He moved forward slowly, by the road he had come, and was presently joined by the two detached parties.

As soon as they moved on, Terence sent an orderly at a gallop across the valley, to order Macwitty and Moras to follow the French along on the hills on their side of the valley, and to harass them as much as possible; while he, with Bull's command, kept parallel with them on his side.

The French cavalry kept ahead of their column. The leading battalion was thrown out as skirmishers, on the lower slopes of the hills; while the artillery, in the rear, kept up a heavy fire upon the Portuguese and Spanish, as soon as they were made out on the hills above them. Terence kept his men on the crest, and signalled to Macwitty to do the same; but the guerillas swarmed down the hillside, and maintained a galling fire on the French column. Terence took his men along at the double and, heading the column, descended into the valley at the point they had fortified.

Here there was a sharp fight. The French cavalry fell back, after suffering heavily. Their infantry advanced gallantly and, after a fierce fight, drove the Portuguese from their wall and up the hillside. Here they maintained a heavy fire, until the column opened out and the French artillery came to the front; when Terence at once ordered the men to scatter, and climb the hill at full speed.

Without attempting to repair the broken bridges, the French infantry crossed the stream breast high, and the cavalry and artillery followed; and Terence, seeing that their retreat could not be seriously molested, and that if he attempted to do so, he should suffer very heavily from their artillery, sounded a halt; and the French continued their retreat to Valladolid, leaving behind them all their baggage, which they had been unable to get across the stream.

Terence's force came down from the hills and assembled in the valley. Congratulations were exchanged on the success that had attended their efforts. Then the roll was at once called, and it was found that a hundred and three men of the Minho regiment were missing. There was no roll among the guerillas; but Moras's estimate, after counting the number assembled, was, that upwards of two hundred were absent from the ranks, fully half of these having been overtaken and killed by the French cavalry.

Terence at once sent off two parties of his own men, to the points where the fight had been fiercest. They were to collect the wounded, including those of the French, and to carry them down into the valley; while parties of guerillas searched the hillsides, down to the scene of action, for their comrades who had fallen from the fire of the French artillery and musketry.

When the wounded were collected, it was found there were upwards of two hundred French infantry, fifty-nine guerillas, and twenty-four Portuguese. The smaller proportion of wounded of the latter being accounted for by the fact that so many had been shot through the head, while lying down to fire at the French as they climbed the hill. Two hundred and thirty French soldiers had been killed. Terence at once set his men to dig wide trenches, in which the soldiers of the three nationalities were laid side by side.

A considerable amount of reserve ammunition being captured in the waggons, the men's cartridge boxes were filled up again, and the rest was packed in a waggon. Some of the drivers had cut their traces, but others had neglected to do this, and there were sufficient waggons to carry all the wounded, both friends and enemies, together with a considerable amount of flour.

The French wounded were taken to the ford by which Macwitty had crossed; and then some of them who had been wounded in the leg and, although unable to walk, were fit to drive, were given the reins and told to take the waggons to Zamora, a distance of twelve miles. Fifty men were told off to march with them, until within sight of the town; as otherwise they would have assuredly been attacked, and the whole of the wounded massacred by the Spanish peasants.

The force then broke up again, each column taking as much flour and meat as the men could carry. The remaining waggons and stores were heaped together, and set on fire.

Long before this was done, they had been rejoined by Ryan and his command. He had remained guarding the river until the French had disappeared up the valley, and had then crossed at the ford but, though using all haste, he did not rejoin the force until the whole of the fighting was over.

"This has been a good day's work, Terence," he said when, that evening, the force had entered Tordesillas and quartered themselves there for the night. "You may be sure that the general at Valladolid will send messengers to Salamanca, giving a greatly exaggerated account of our force; and begging them to send down to Marmont, at once, for a large reinforcement. If the couriers make a detour, in the first place, we shall not be able to cut them off."

"No, Dick, and we wouldn't, if we could. I have no doubt that he will report the force with which his column was engaged as being nearly double what it really is. Besides, sharp as we have been, I expect some messengers will, by this time, have got through from Zamora. The commandant there will report that a large force is in the neighbourhood of that town; and that, without leaving the place entirely undefended, he has not strength enough to sally out against them. They cannot know that this force and ours have joined hands in the attack on the Valladolid column, nor that this represented anything like the whole of the force that have been harrying the country and cutting off detached posts. The fact, too, that this gathering was not a mere collection of guerillas, or of the revolted peasantry; but that there were regular troops among them, in considerable numbers, will have a great effect; and Marmont will feel himself obliged, when he gets the news, to send some fifteen or twenty thousand troops up here to clear the country.

"Now, the first thing to do is to draw up a report of the engagement, and to send it off to Wellington. I think that it will be a good thing, Dick, for you to carry it yourself. I don't think that there is any fear of your being interrupted on your way to Miranda, and as an officer you will be able to get fresh horses, and take the news quicker than an orderly could do; and it is of great importance that the chief should know, as soon as possible, what has taken place here. I shall speak very strongly of your services during the past week, and it is always a good thing for an officer selected to carry the news of a success; and lastly, you can give a much better account of our operations, since we crossed the frontier, than an orderly could do, and Wellington may want to send orders back for our future work."

"I am game," Ryan said, "and thank you for the offer. How long will you be?"

"Well, it is eight o'clock now, and if you start at midnight it will be soon enough; so if you have finished your supper, you had better lie down on that bed in the next room and get a sleep; for you were marching all last night, and will want some rest before starting on such a journey."

Chapter 15: Dick Ryan's Capture.

Terence wrote two despatches, one giving a full account of the engagement, the other a detail of the work that had been performed since they crossed the frontier. He wrote them in duplicate, so that he might send off another messenger, three hours later; in case, by any chance, Ryan failed to reach Miranda. He carefully abstained from giving any real account of the strength of the various columns, in each case putting the number at five times their actual strength so that, if the despatches should miscarry, not only would no information be conveyed to the French, but they would be led to believe that the invading force was vastly stronger than they had hitherto supposed. Ryan was, of course, to explain, when he delivered the despatches, that the figures must in all cases be divided by five, and the reason why false numbers had been inserted.

Terence let him sleep until one o'clock, and then roused him. Several French horses had been found, straying riderless along the valley; and the best of these was picked out for him. A few minutes later, Dick was on his way to Miranda. The road by which he was to travel would take him some six miles south of Zamora, and the distance to be ridden was between fifty and sixty miles. He knew that he could not do this at a gallop, and went along at a steady pace, sometimes trotting and sometimes cantering. It was now late in September and, at half-past five, it was still dark when Ryan approached the spot where the road he was following crossed the main road between Zamora and Salamanca.

He was riding at a canter, when suddenly, to his surprise and consternation, he rode into the midst of a body of cavalry, halted on the main road. The sound of his horse's feet had been heard and, before he could even draw his sword, he was seized and taken prisoner. A French officer rode down the line.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"We have taken a prisoner, sir," the sergeant answered. "We heard him coming by this crossroad, and seized him as he rode in among us. He is a soldier--an officer, I should think, from what I can see of him."

"Who are you, sir?" the French officer said to Ryan.

The latter saw that concealment was useless. It would soon be light enough for his scarlet uniform to be seen. He therefore replied, in broken French:

"My name is Ryan. I hold the rank of captain. I was riding to Miranda when, unfortunately, I fell in with your troopers as they were halted. I did not hear and, of course, could not see them until I was among them."

"Riding with despatches, no doubt," the officer said. "Search him at once, men. He might destroy them."

"Here they are, sir," Ryan said, taking the despatches from inside his jacket.