An Untrustworthy Army Read online

  "But what is all this?" Witham said, bewildered.

  His answer came immediately with a bellow which must have reached the French on the far bank of the river.

  "Fourth company, MARCH. Quick time, stand up straight and if any one of you falls out, you are spending the night on watch, wearing exactly what you are now."

  They were approaching up the path in marching order, although Witham thought that some of their movements resembled a stagger rather than a march. He blinked, finding it hard to believe what he was seeing, and there was a whoop from behind him, followed by a loud huzzah and then there was cheering on all sides as the officers and men of the third brigade of the light division applauded the spectacle of the fourth company of the 110th returning to camp stark naked and frozen from their unexpected dousing in the river.

  The evening air was cold and darkness was fast approaching. Some of the men were shivering already; all of them had goosebumps and many looked as though they had either just vomited or were about to do so. As Witham had the thought, a lanky private of around forty stepped out of formation and cast up accounts at the side of the road to the ironic cheers of the rest of the brigade. He had barely straightened when the impressive yell came again.

  "Dransfield, get your skinny Lancashire arse back into line, before I throw you back in the river. Sergeant-Major Carter, march them into camp and get them lined up. I want a word with them before I have my supper."

  They lined up in neat formation on the edge of the camp and the rest of the brigade formed a wide circle around them. Witham looked around. Officers and men mixed freely in the crowd and he could see Portuguese and King's German Legion uniforms as well as British regiments. They were all laughing, some of them with tears running down their face. Colonel van Daan stepped out in front of the hapless fourth company and his sergeant-major rapped out orders at a volume which rivalled his commanding officer. The men stood to attention, dripping and shivering in the gathering dusk. The colonel surveyed them.

  "Jenson, do you know where my wife is?" he asked.

  "Back at the tent, sir, waiting for you. Major Swanson suggested she might want to stay there for a while."

  "Thank you, Jenson. I wouldn't want to put her off her supper."

  There was another ripple of laughter, quickly stilled, and Van Daan surveyed the men. Then he pointed:

  "Over there, on the far bank. They're called the French. Sometimes referred to as the enemy. You were sent out there this evening to guard our army, our guns and Lord Wellington and his staff. You were also guarding your own women and children and my wife.

  "Do you have any idea what might have happened if they'd launched a surprise attack? We'd have been caught unprepared. Some of us would have got to arms because we're the best bloody brigade in this army, and we'd have made a fight of it, probably held them off long enough to get warning to the rest of the light division and then on to the rest of the army, but most of us would have died to buy them that time. They'd have gone through our camp and our supplies and they'd have got to our women."

  The laughter had died away and there was suddenly total silence around the camp. Witham looked around at the faces of the men around him in the last vestiges of daylight and saw their expressions and he felt, suddenly, as though he had stepped into a different world. He realised that there were images in the heads of every man here and they were images that neither he or Carlyon yet understood.

  "Enough of you have been with me long enough to know what that means," the colonel went on, relentlessly. "You risked all that, for a drink and a laugh with the arseholes from the rifles. They might not know what they've done tonight or they might not care - Colonel Barnard will deal with them. But you - you know. You understand. And the fact that you thought so little of your brigade, your regiment, your comrades, your families and your honour has shocked me to the core. I thought I knew every one of you better than that. I've never been more disappointed in my life."

  There was a choking sound from one of the men, what sounded like a sob, turned quickly into a cough. Paul van Daan let the silence lengthen before he spoke again.

  "You have disgraced your company, your officers and the 110th light infantry. But mostly, you've disgraced yourselves as men. I could let you stand there until you freeze to death, but I won't. You are a pack of useless, drunken, disreputable gobshites, but you're my drunken gobshites and in the 110th we look after our own. Sergeant-Major Carter, stand them down and get them to sort out their kit and get dressed, then get them fed. Take their names, every one of them, and make a separate list of the riflemen to give to Colonel Barnard when he sends an officer up to collect them. No grog for any one of them for two weeks and they're to be separated from the rest of the battalion and kept under guard until we march again. Now get them out of my sight, they sicken me."

  Carter yelled an order and the men saluted, managing it with surprising dignity, given their nudity. There was a very long moment and then Colonel van Daan returned the salute. He turned to walk away and the crowd began to disperse, talking quietly with no sign of the hilarity of earlier. The speech had sobered every man among them and Witham wondered what memories had been conjured up by the colonel's words.

  Witham felt slightly awkward approaching the officers' tents of the 110th but as they arrived, Major Swanson detached himself from a group around one of the fires and came forward.

  "Welcome," he said cheerfully. "Come and get a drink. It's local wine, very good, our fourth company recommends it."

  There was a general laugh and Witham went forward. He had been expecting some form of mess table, either in a tent or under an awning, but the officers had simply pulled out a collection of camp chairs, chests and boxes and food was being handed out in mess bowls with wine in pewter cups. The informality surprised Witham; he would have expected it among a mess of impecunious junior officers and had been part of such arrangements since he joined, but on the rare occasions he had been invited to dine with his seniors there had been at least an attempt at formality even in the field.

  There were several women present and one of them rose as they approached and came forward with her hands outstretched. "Simon," she said warmly. "Welcome to the 110th. Come and sit down. And you must be Mr Witham; I'm so glad to meet you."

  Witham was not sure what he had expected of the scandalous young wife of the colonel of the 110th , but Anne van Daan was a surprise. She appeared to be little more than a girl, dressed in an informal gown in green velvet and she was startlingly lovely with almond shaped dark eyes and a smile which melted his heart.

  "Ma'am - thank you for inviting us," Carlyon stammered. "It's good of you."

  "Nonsense, you're family and part of the brigade. Come and sit down, I've saved seats near me."

  Witham saw his friend glancing around and could sense his unease. Anne van Daan put her hand on his arm. "Simon, listen. If you're worried about Colonel Wheeler, don't be, he isn't here. He's dining with Lord Wellington over at headquarters. You'll meet him tomorrow and he wants to speak to you privately to make sure there's no awkwardness, but you can relax this evening and get to know your brigade officers."

  Afterwards, Witham would always remember that evening as something of an oasis; a moment of calm before the storm. At the time he was just conscious of how much he enjoyed it. They sat late into the darkness, the camp lit by the cooking fires and some oil lanterns which the servants brought out from the tents. The officers of the various companies tended to group together but there was movement between the groups and Witham was introduced to a bewildering number of people. There were two other women in the group, Miss Trenlow, a young Englishwoman with dusky curls and a shy smile who appeared to be some kind of companion to Mrs van Daan and a Spanish woman with a young baby in her arms who was introduced as the wife of Sergeant-Major Carter. Witham was astonished when Carter himself joined the group later, seating himself beside his wife and accepting food with a familiarity which suggested that it was normal for him to ea
t with the officers.

  The conversation ranged over a wide variety of subjects and Witham and Carlyon listened with interest to men who had fought in this army for four years and had a good deal to say about Lord Wellington's probably strategy. When the party finally broke up, they rose to say their goodnights and thank their hostess and Anne van Daan summoned Carter.

  "Sergeant-Major Carter will walk you back to your tents with a lantern; it's easy to get lost in the lines until you're used to it and I don't want you wandering around in the dark, you must be tired. Goodnight, I hope we don't have any alarms to disturb you."

  "Goodnight, ma'am, and thank you. You've been so welcoming, and I hadn't expected it," Carlyon said.

  Anne van Daan stood on tiptoe and kissed her former brother-in-law on the cheek. "Dinna be daft, lad," she said, assuming a broad Yorkshire accent. "Get thee to bed, now."

  ***

  The light division spent two weeks at Rueda and the men of both armies quickly established an informal truce. Both sides bathed in the river at the same spots and Paul saw them exchanging smiles and a word and eventually sharing rations and wine and tobacco. There continued to be incidents of drunkenness; it was impossible for the officers of the division to watch all of the men, all of the time and the wine caves and cellars were too vast and too easily accessible. His own men were very careful, and although Paul knew that their grog ration was being very well supplemented with the local wine, there were no further incidents of dereliction of duty because of drink, and his officers and NCOs turned a blind eye when they could and stepped in only when the drinking looked as though it might get out of hand.

  An army in camp for more than a few days was always likely to get bored and Paul knew from long experience that it increased the risk of disciplinary problems. He tried hard to keep his men busy, taking the opportunity to do kit inspections and to replace threadbare clothing. The French had left vast stores in Salamanca when they fled and he sent his quartermasters with lists of requirements. He also found time to work with the 115th on skirmish training, using the hills and defiles which ran down to the river although he was careful to keep them out of sight of the French, not wanting to give the impression that an action was imminent.

  The storming of Badajoz had left Wellington's army seriously depleted. Of the three brigades of the light division, Paul's brigade had suffered the least during the battle. He had not been engaged in the main breaches which had experienced the worst of the slaughter and although the escalade over the western wall had been costly, both the 110th and 112th had done surprisingly well. There were more wounded than dead, and although some of these would need to be repatriated to England, the medical services were beginning to set up a series of convalescent hospitals through Portugal which meant that many men could recover without need to go home.

  The worst casualties in Paul's brigade had occurred from the explosion of a mine. The 115th North Yorkshire foot were new to the division and very inexperienced, and during his successful escalade they had made their attempt too far south, on a stretch of wall known to be mined. Of their six companies only half remained able to fight, and most of their officers had been lost. The explosion had also caused deaths and injuries among his Portuguese and German battalions and Paul was still trying to work out how to staff the remaining companies from his current officers. He had received a hundred reinforcements from the 110th second battalion and had been furious when a third of them arrived in no condition to fight, still suffering from the recurring fever picked up in Walcheren three years earlier. Lord Wellington had sent him new Portuguese troops which he had detached from the fourth division to replace those lost but Paul was missing Captain Peso who had served under him for several years and had died at Badajoz. He had not realised how close he had become to some of his young Portuguese officers who had trained under him and taught him their language and a love of their country.

  With time to spare awaiting Wellington's orders, Paul's officers divided their forces and their time and began patiently to bring the new recruits up to scratch along with the remaining men of the 115th. The men of the Kings German Legion who served under him had been close to the mine but had been luckier than the other battalions although every single one of their officers had been lost to death or injury. Paul had promoted one of his longer serving officers from the 110th to brevet major commanding them and brought up a number of promising young NCOs from their ranks including his wife's particular favourite, the former Private Theo Kuhn, a trained doctor from Halle who refused stubbornly to join the medical staff as he did not choose to treat the French who had killed his father and brothers in Germany. The new Captain Kuhn's opinion of his enemy had not been improved by Anne's recent ordeal but he would make a good officer and Paul was glad to have him.

  The amount of administration involved in managing the promotions, assimilation of new recruits and ensuring adequate supplies of food, drink, uniforms and equipment was appalling, but by now Paul's brigade had been operational for more than a year and he was beginning to feel confident in the system. He took the opportunity to promote Captain Breakspear, who had been with the 110th for several years, to major in charge of the quartermasters of the brigade, and his assistant took over as quartermaster for the 110th. Both men were accustomed to working alongside his wife who had acted as unofficial quartermaster for many years, and Paul was ruefully aware that when it came to bullying local merchants and arranging transport for his brigade, she was more effective than anybody. The daughter of a prosperous Yorkshire manufacturer, Anne had a hard-headed practicality when it came to money which meant that the third brigade of the light division had the best balanced books in the army. Paul knew that other regiments sneered at what they saw as the privileged position of the 110th and their associated regiments, in terms of equipment and supplies, but he understood better than anybody that Anne's work in reducing waste and inefficiency meant that he had more ready money to spend, which given the current shortage of cash in Wellington's army, was vitally important.

  Working with the 115th brought Paul into daily and regular contact with the two new officers of the second company. He had read the service records sent by their previous commanding officers and he was not surprised to find both Witham and Carlyon intelligent and hard-working officers who were keen to learn new skills. Both were quick to develop a good relationship with Captain Lewis as well as the two ensigns and both seemed very comfortable with the men. The only difficulty appeared to be Simon Carlyon's intransigent loathing of the colonel of the 112th.

  There was no real need for the officers of the 115th to have much to do with Johnny Wheeler, who acted as Paul's second-in-command, but the brigade was accustomed to mingling very freely on social occasions and during the evenings, Paul had given permission for all officers not on duty to ride into Rueda to attend the evening dances organised by the other two brigades of the light division. Paul attended several himself and was pleased to see Johnny there, dancing with some of the local girls; his friend was still struggling with the end of his love affair with Caroline Longford, the wife of another officer, who had returned to England with her husband and although Johnny was very good at hiding it, his taut grief saddened Paul. But it had not escaped Paul's attention that Lieutenant Carlyon, generally a very lively addition to any social occasion, left the dance as soon as Colonel Wheeler arrived. Paul knew that Johnny was very aware of it and was choosing to stay away to avoid awkwardness.

  Awkwardness was impossible to avoid. Riding back from a meeting with General Alten one afternoon, Paul turned the knotty problem over in his head. It was difficult to find good young officers and he was very impressed with both Witham and Carlyon but he was reluctantly beginning to wonder if it might be best to arrange an exchange with a lieutenant from one of the other divisions for Anne's former brother-in-law. Paul knew that Johnny had spoken to Carlyon on arrival about the death of his brother. He had asked Johnny about the meeting and Johnny had shaken his head.

 
; "I don't know, Paul. He's angry and he's also bloody confused and I understand both. You and I remember Robert Carlyon as a man who beat his wife regularly for two years and ended by trying to shoot her to death when she tried to leave him. Simon Carlyon saw none of that. He remembers his big brother as a hero in a scarlet coat who inspired him to go into the army."

  "He also remembers Nan as his childhood friend."

  "I know. And he doesn't seem to have any problem with her. Or you. But he looks at me and sees the man who pulled the trigger and blew his brother's head off and I don't think he can get past that. He can barely bring himself to speak to me and I'm doing my best to stay out of his way. But if we ever find ourselves in a position where I have to give him orders in battle, God knows how he'd react."

  Paul sighed. "Poor bastard. I wish we could just tell him the truth," he said.

  "We can't. It might solve his problem with me, but we can't rely on a man we don't know, not to spread that story through the army. I'd probably be cashiered for lying on oath when I told the provost marshal I shot Carlyon, and Sergeant Hammond, who actually did shoot him, would be hanged. Which is why I told that lie in the first place."

  Paul shook his head. "I know, Johnny. But his attitude is so bloody obvious, it's causing talk throughout the division. Even Charles Alten has heard about it and he's usually worse at hearing the gossip than I am. Every ancient piece of scandal about my wife and her first husband is being gleefully passed down to any new officers, and if just one of them says anything in her hearing or so much as looks at her the wrong way because bloody Carlyon can't control himself, I am going to send him the same way as his brother."

  Johnny shook his head, laughing. "You don't mean that, Paul, you like him."

  "I do. But if I have to choose between him and my lass, Johnny, he is history."