‘Who the devil are you, sir?’ barked a voice from the smoky blackness. ‘Get out of my way!’
Sir Edward Lankester had had enough. General Cotton had ordered his squadron forward, dismounted, to the support of the Third Division, but they had stumbled about for an hour in the pitch dark, the guide useless. The walls of Badajoz looked but a stone’s throw away, and the noise was infernal – the sudden shots, the numbing explosions, the terrified screams of the wounded, the terrifying screams of the assault troops, the jeering-cheering of the French who threw them back. And yet the detachment of dragoons could find no part in it because they could not find the provost marshal’s men. ‘Do not address me in that way, sir! I have not been informed that it is a ticket affair!’
‘Damn your eyes, sir! I am General Picton!’
Sir Edward was not in the slightest discomposed. ‘Then I am very glad of it, General, for we are damnably lost and have no idea of our purpose. Perhaps you will permit us to join you?’
‘Is that you, Sir Edward?’
‘It is, General.’
‘Where are your horses?’
‘The other side of the river. Do you have need of them?’
‘Don’t be a damned fool! What are you doing here?’
‘We are wanted by the provost marshal, it seems.’
‘Well, God alone knows where he is. Or cares. These walls are the death of us. Colville’s division and the Light can make no headway in the breaches. And God knows how Leith’s fares on the other side. You can come with me. I need officers to take charge. How many have you?’
‘Three.’ He would not ask ‘to take charge of what?’
‘Well, keep your dragoons where they are and keep as close to me as you’re able.’
That soon proved harder than it sounded. General Picton wore a black coat and a forage cap, and there were more men crowded into the ditch at the foot of the castle walls than Hervey would have imagined possible. A powder keg fell on a man a dozen yards away, killing him instantly. His comrades stamped at the burning fuse like frantic Spanish dancers. A grenade exploded beyond, and there were another ten men screaming.
This was not Hervey’s idea of fighting; it was nobody’s idea of fighting. What was it about Badajoz? Three sieges in twelve months, days of battering away at the walls, and still not a man through its breaches! And here were the Third Division now trying to scale the walls, for the breaches were mined, barred with chevaux de frise, and swept by cannon – swept all the easier for not having to fire through embrasures. It was madness, yet still they were trying. The ladders did not even reach the top of the walls! Hervey saw a man climbing onto the shoulders of another, and then another onto his, as if his life depended on it. What could propel a man so, only to be met with a musket-butt in the face and a thirty-foot plunge onto the bayonets of his comrades below?
But life did not depend on it. On the contrary – the piles of dead below the walls showed that. Hervey knew that something else drove them forward. Threats? Perhaps. Pride? Possibly. Promise of reward? Maybe. A dreadful blood-lust, concocted of revenge and filthy living in the trenches? Undoubtedly. It was a volatile mixture, one that could be boiled up only occasionally and under the severest regulation. Hervey’s blood did not yet boil, neither did pride nor promise of reward overwhelm him yet. No one threatened him, for sure. What in the name of God was he going to do here?
‘Where is General Picton?’ came a voice from behind, and with it a hand grasping hold of his cross-belt, a welcome point of recognition in an otherwise black and hellish stew of uniforms.
Hervey got to his feet again. ‘He’s here about somewhere,’ he replied, trying to make out where his troop-leader had gone. He saw no occasion for asking who the enquirer was: if an officer wanted the divisional commander then he must have reason. ‘Keep touch; I’ll try to find him.’
He began edging forward, stepping over a man lying face down, and onto another lying face up, who let out a cry so agonized that Hervey jumped back before striding over him.
‘Sir Edward!’ he called, but muted.
What was the good of calling for one man in all this? But what alternative did he have? It was confusion as he had never seen it.
‘Sir Edward!’
‘Here!’
Hervey fell as he turned towards the voice, jarring his knee so hard as to make his head swim.
‘What the devil are you doing?’
Hervey, clutching his knee, struggled to catch his breath. ‘An officer, Sir Edward, for the general.’
‘From Lord Wellington,’ added the voice.
‘I’ve no idea where he is. Neither has his colonel. He told me to wait here. What is it?’
The officer was perfectly composed, if alarmed nevertheless by the chaos into which he had quite literally stumbled. ‘Lord Wellington wishes the Third Division to make a further attempt at an escalade. The Fourth and Light Divisions can’t pass the breaches.’
Sir Edward pushed back the peak of his Tarleton. ‘Hamilton, is that you?’
‘It is. Sir Edward Lankester?’
‘What is happening?’
‘I don’t rightly know, but I never saw Wellington look so ill. Nothing but reports of failure for two hours!’
‘How does he expect Picton to get into this place over the wall if two divisions can’t force the breaches?’
‘I don’t know how he expects it, but there’s nothing else to hope for.’
‘Good God! Brave men’s breasts! It’s not enough, Hamilton; it’s not decent.’
‘I know, Sir Edward, and doubtless does Wellington. But, I tell you, there’s nothing else but to withdraw.’
A voice barked from the ink darkness: ‘Who goes there?’
‘General?’
Picton had come barging through the crouching mass of infantry, cursing left and right, threatening with his sword, frustrated as no other that he could not thrust it into a Frenchman atop the walls.
An ADC’s lantern threw just enough light for a measure of recognition.
‘General, Captain Hamilton is come from Lord Wellington,’ said Sir Edward, almost as if making an introduction in Hyde Park.
‘Well,’ growled Picton, ‘what has the commander-in-chief to say? Astonish me!’
‘The Fourth and Light Divisions are utterly stalled, sir. He does not believe they will be able to make their way through until daylight. And General Leith’s division has made no progress on the far side, either. He wishes you to press a further assault, for he believes that were the castle to be taken now the whole fortress would be ours.’
Picton heard him in silence – or rather, he said nothing, for the bedlam continued. At length he spoke, and softer than any had heard him in a month. ‘Very well.’ He turned to his ADCs. ‘Go fetch the brigadiers.’
Picton lapsed into silence again when they had gone.
For the first time, Sir Edward saw the dressing on his shoulder. Picton clutched at it and swayed.
‘General?’
He seemed reluctant to part with his thoughts.
‘General, are you well?’