Under Wellington's Command: A Tale of the Peninsular War by G. A. Henty (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📕

which Soult is likely to march from Salamanca. However, now you are there, I shall feel safe."

"No doubt I could hinder an advance, Sir Robert," Terence said, "but I certainly could not hope to bar the passes to a French army. I have no artillery and, though my men are steady enough against infantry, I doubt whether they would be able to withstand an attack heralded by a heavy cannonade. With a couple of batteries of artillery to sweep the passes, one might make a fair stand for a time against a greatly superior force; but with only infantry, one could not hope to maintain one's position."

"Quite so, and Sir Arthur could not expect it. My own opinion is that we shall have fifty thousand men coming down from the north. I have told the chief as much; but naturally he will believe the assurances of the Spanish juntas, rather than reports gathered by our spies; and no doubt hopes to crush Victor altogether, before Soult makes any movement; and he trusts to Venegas' advance, from the south towards the upper Tagus, to cause Don Joseph to evacuate Madrid, as soon as he hears of Victor's defeat.

"But I have, certainly, no faith whatever in either Venegas or Cuesta. Cuesta is loyal enough, but he is obstinate and pig headed and, at present, he is furious because the Supreme Junta has been sending all the best troops to Venegas, instead of to him; and he knows, well enough, that that perpetual intriguer Frere is working underhand to get Albuquerque appointed to the supreme command. As to Venegas, he is a mere tool of the Supreme Junta and, as likely as not, they will order him to do nothing but keep his army intact.

"Then again, the delay at Plasencia has upset all Sir Arthur's arrangements. Had he pressed straight forward on the 28th of last month, when he crossed the frontier, disregarding Cuesta altogether, he could have been at Madrid long before this; for I know that at that time Victor's force had been so weakened that he had but between fourteen and fifteen thousand men, and must have fallen back without fighting. Now he has again got the troops that had been taken from him, and will be further reinforced before Sir Arthur arrives on the Alberche; and of course Soult has had plenty of time to get everything in readiness to cross the mountains, and fall upon the British rear, as soon as he hears that they are fairly on their way towards Madrid. Here we are at the 20th, and our forces will only reach Oropesa today.

"Victor is evidently afraid that Sir Arthur will move from Oropesa towards the hills, pass the upper Alberche, and so place himself between him and Madrid; for a strong force of cavalry reconnoitred in this direction, this morning."

"Would it not be as well, sir," said Terence, "if we were to arrange some signals by which we could aid each other? That hill top can be seen from the hill beyond which is the little village where I have established myself. I noticed it this morning, before I started. If you would keep a lookout on your hill, I would have one on mine. We might each get three bonfires, a hundred yards apart, ready for lighting. If I hear of any great force approaching the defiles I am watching, I could summon your aid either by day or night by these fires; and in the same way, if Soult should advance by the line that you are guarding, you could summon me. My men are really well trained in this sort of work, and you could trust them to make an obstinate defence."

"I think that your idea is a very good one, and will certainly carry it out. You see, we are really both of us protecting the left flank of our army, and can certainly do so more effectually if we work together.

"We might, too, arrange another signal. One fire might mean that, for some reason or other, we are marching away. I may have orders to move some distance towards Madrid, so as to compel Victor to weaken himself by detaching a force to check me; you may be ordered, as the army advances, to leave your defiles in charge of the Spaniards, and to accompany the army. Two fires might mean, spies have reported a general advance of the French coming by several routes. Thus, you see, we should be in readiness for any emergency.

"I should be extremely glad of your help, if Soult comes this way. My own corps of 1200 men are fairly good soldiers, and I can rely upon them to do their best; but the other 3000 have been but recently raised, and I don't think that any dependence can be placed upon them, in case of hard fighting; but with your two battalions, we ought to be able to hold any of these defiles for a considerable time."

Two days later, Terence received orders to march instantly with his force down into the valley, to follow the foot of the hills until he reached the Alberche, when he was to report his arrival, wait until he received orders, and check the advance of any French force endeavouring to move round the left flank of the British. The evening before, one signal fire had announced that Wilson was on the move and, thinking that he, too, might be summoned, Terence had called in all his outposts, and was able to march a quarter of an hour after he received the order.

He had learned, on the evening he returned from his visit to Sir Robert, from men sent down into the plain for the purpose, that Cuesta's army and that of Sir Arthur had advanced together from Oropesa. He was glad at the order to join the army, as he had felt that, should Soult advance, his force, unprovided as it was with guns, would be able to offer but a very temporary resistance; especially if the French Marshal was at the head of a force anything like as strong as was reported by the peasantry. As to this, however, he had very strong doubts, having come to distrust thoroughly every report given by the Spaniards. He knew that they were as ready, under the influence of fear, to exaggerate the force of an enemy as they were, at other times, to magnify their own numbers. Sir Arthur must, he thought, be far better informed than he himself could be; for his men, being Portuguese, were viewed with doubt and suspicion by the Spanish peasantry, who would probably take a pleasure in misleading them altogether.

The short stay in the mountains had braced up the men and, with only a short halt, they made a forty-mile march to the Alberche by midnight. Scarcely had they lit their fires, when an Hussar officer and some troopers rode up. They halted a hundred yards away, and the officer shouted in English:

"What corps is this?"

Terence at once left the fire, and advanced towards them.

"Two Portuguese battalions," he answered, "under myself, Colonel O'Connor."

The officer at once rode forward.

"I was not quite sure," he said, as he came close, "that my question would not be answered by a volley. By the direction from which I saw you coming, I thought that you must be friends. Still, you might have been an advanced party of a force that had come down through the defiles. However, as soon as I saw you light your fires, I made sure it was all right; for the Frenchmen would not likely have ventured to do so unless, indeed, they were altogether ignorant of our advance."

"At ten o'clock this morning I received orders from headquarters to move to this point at once and, as we have marched from Banos, you see we have lost very little time on the way."

"Indeed, you have not. I suppose it is about forty miles; and that distance, in fourteen hours, is certainly first-rate marching. I will send off one of my men to report who you are. Two squadrons of my regiment are a quarter of a mile away, awaiting my return."

"Have you any reason to believe that the enemy are near?"

"No particular reason that I know of, but their cavalry have been in great force along the upper part of the river, for the last two days. Victor has retired from Talavera, for I fancy that he was afraid we might move round this way, and cut him off from Madrid. The Spaniards might have harassed him as he fell back, but they dared not even make a charge on his rear guard, though they had 3000 cavalry.

"We are not quite sure where the French are and, of course, we get no information from the people here; either their stupidity is something astounding, or their sympathies are entirely with the French."

"My experience is," Terence said, "that the best way is to get as much information as you can from them, and then to act with the certainty that the real facts are just the reverse of the statements made to you."

As soon as the forces halted a picket had been sent out; and Terence, when the men finished their supper, established a cordon of advanced pickets, with strong supports, at a distance of a mile from his front and flanks; so as to ensure himself against surprise, and to detect any movement upon the part of the enemy's cavalry, who might be pressing round to obtain information of the British position. At daybreak he mounted and rode to Talavera, and reported the arrival of his command, and the position where he had halted for the night.

"You have wasted no time over it, Colonel O'Connor. You can only have received the order yesterday morning, and I scarcely expected that you could be here till this evening."

"My men are excellent marchers, sir. They did the forty miles in fourteen hours, and might have done it an hour quicker, had they been pressed. Not a man fell out."

"Your duty will now be to cover our left flank. I don't know whether you are aware that Wilson has moved forward, and will take post on the slopes near the Escurial. He has been directed to spread his force as much as possible, so as to give an appearance of greater strength than he has."

"I knew that he had left his former position," Terence said. "We had arranged a code of smoke signals, by which we could ask each other for assistance should the defiles be attacked; and I learned yesterday morning, in this way, that he was marching away."

"Have you any news of what is taking place on the other side of the hills, since you sent off word two days ago?"

"No, sir; at least, all we hear is of the same character as before. We don't hear that Soult is moving, but his force is certainly put down as being considerably larger than was supposed. I have deemed it my duty to state this in my reports, but the Spaniards are so inclined to exaggerate everything that I always receive statements of this kind with great doubt."

"All our news--from the juntas, from Mr. Frere, and from other quarters--is quite the other way," the officer said. "We are assured that Soult has not fifteen thousand men in condition to take the field, and that he could not venture to move these, as he knows that the whole country would rise, did he do so.

"I have no specific orders to give you. You will keep in touch with General Hill's brigade, which forms our left and, as we move forward, you will advance along the lower slopes of the Sierra and prevent any attempt, on the part of the French, to turn our flank.

"I dare say you do not know exactly what is going on, Colonel O'Connor. It may be of assistance to you, in taking up your position, to know that the fighting is likely to take place on the line between Talavera and the mountains. Cuesta has fallen back, in great haste, to Talavera. We shall advance today and take up our line with him.

"The Spaniards will hold the low marshy ground near the town. Our right will rest on an eminence on his left flank, and will extend to a group of hills, separated by a valley from the Sierra. Our cavalry will probably check any attempt by the French to turn our flank there, and you and the Spaniards will do your best to hold the slope of the Sierra, should the French move a force along there.

"I may say that Victor has been largely reinforced by Sebastiani, and is likely to take the offensive. Indeed, we hear that he is already moving in this direction. We are not aware of his exact strength, but we believe that it must approach, if not equal, that of ourselves and Cuesta united.

"Cuesta has,