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As the sun rose over the rolling Spanish countryside, bathing it in a dusty orange hue, Arthur glanced down at his pocket watch.
‘Ten to six,’ he muttered.
Around him a small cluster of staff officers nervously glanced at their watches and some adjusted them to synchronise with their general. Arthur clambered up on to an upturned gu
‘Let us hope that your men succeed this time, seсor.’
Arthur turned to the neatly uniformed Spanish officer standing at his shoulder. General Alava was a slight man with a ready smile who had been assigned by the junta in Cadiz to act as Arthur’s liaison officer. Although Alava had only been on Arthur’s staff for a brief time he had already begun to win Arthur’s respect by offering a considered opinion when he was asked for one. He was also honest about the shortcomings of those who commanded the Spanish armies and the politicians who were supposed to pay and supply their soldiers. In short, General Alava was exactly the sort of man Arthur required to mediate between himself and the Spanish authorities, who promised so much and delivered so little. It was a great pity, Arthur mused, that the patriotic fervour of the common soldiers and people of Spain was so ill served by many of their leaders.
Arthur puffed his cheeks as he considered Alava’s remark. Three days earlier he had given orders for the first attempt on the breach. A hundred and forty men, weighed down by ladders, had dashed towards the fort, into the face of a withering fire of musket balls and case shot. They had not even reached the wall before half of them had been cut down and the rest had gone to ground. Neither their officers nor their sergeants and corporals could get the men moving again and Arthur had been obliged to have the recall sounded. Since then the aged siege guns had managed to widen the breach and the bottom of the gap was now within easy reach of the base of the wall. However, the enemy would be expecting another attack and casualties were bound to be high again. Arthur lowered his telescope.
‘They have a decent chance of success, General. Otherwise I would not have given the order to attack.’
Alava nodded, then glanced round the battery. The guns were well served with powder, but the racks of iron shot at the rear of the battery were nearly empty. He cleared his throat.‘I would imagine that the guns will be forced to fall silent within a day for want of shot, seсor. Is that not so?’
Arthur was silent for a moment before he replied. ‘You are right. There is little more damage we can do to the walls of the fort. My men will settle the issue by cold steel.’
‘And if they fail to take the breach?’
Just beyond Alava, Somerset stirred irritably. ‘They will take the breach. Our men are amongst the best in Europe, and certainly the best in Spain.’
Alava did not react to the implied slight to his countrymen and nodded sombrely before he replied. ‘Of course. But, for the sake of argument, what would your intentions be if the attack failed?’
‘Then we will be obliged to give up the siege. Without ammunition for the guns we can do nothing, and by the time any more could be found Marmont and Soult would be upon us. Our only hope is to take the fort and turn its guns on the town to blast our way through the walls.’
‘I see.’ Alava nodded. ‘Then we had better pray for success.’
‘Pray if you like,’ Arthur said quietly. ‘But this matter will be settled by cold steel and stout hearts.’
The blast of a whistle pierced the cold dawn air. At once the volunteers of the Forlorn Hope clambered out of the trench and began to dash towards the wall, burdened down by their ladders. Their distant cheers carried thinly as they ran forward over the torn-up ground. Arthur felt his pulse quicken as he stared towards the fort, waiting for the inevitable reaction. Already a drum was sounding the alarm, a ti
‘Keep going forward,’ Somerset muttered through clenched teeth. ‘Forward, by God.’
The scattered figures of the assault party dashed on, gaining the foot of the slope leading up to the fort. There they bent forward, using one hand for support as they struggled up the steep incline. All around them were the abattis with their savagely sharpened wooden points waiting to impale the unwary. Arthur felt a surge of relief that the French guns could no longer be brought to bear on his men. But now the wall either side of the breach was bristling with muskets as the defenders continued to pour their fire on to the hapless figures struggling up towards the bottom of the breach. Arthur estimated that a score of men had fallen on the slope, in addition to another thirty or so who had been cut down after leaving the safety of the trench.
Those that remained had reached the foot of the wall, clustering against it for shelter while the lieutenant commanding the party helped to plant one of the ladders below the breach. Drawing his pistol he scrambled up the rungs. As he reached the breach he heaved himself on to the crumbling masonry filling the gap, only to be shot down the moment he stretched up to his full height. The body fell back, arms outstretched, and landed in a crumpled heap to one side of the ladder. But there was already another man on his way up, musket slung across his shoulders as he mounted the rungs. He was shot down even before he reached the breach. Five men were lost in this way before the rest refused to climb the ladder and crouched against the wall, occasionally risking a shot at the defenders above.
‘Damn them!’ Somerset balled his hands into fists. ‘Don’t just stand there. Get up the bloody ladder, you fools . . . you cowards.’
Arthur frowned. He turned to look at his aide with a flash of anger in his eyes. ‘I’ll thank you not to accuse our men of such a base sentiment. Especially as we are standing well out of range of their guns.’