Arthur snapped his telescope shut and swiftly gave orders for one of his orderlies to get down to the river and warn Colonel Waters that the enemy was now wise to the crossing. Then, quitting the terrace, Arthur hurried through the convent and mounted the horse waiting outside. He spurred it up the track leading to the heights on which he had positioned his heaviest guns the day before. The batteries were commanded by Major Harris, a thin officer in his forties, and he rose from the shade of an olive grove as his general came galloping up.
‘Harris, do you see that track there?’ Arthur pointed across the river. ‘Leading down from the cliff to the convent. ‘See it?’
Harris squinted a moment before he made out the route indicated. ‘I see it, sir.’
‘Good. Those men in the convent are ours. I expect the enemy to make an attempt to drive them out at any moment. But they will have to descend the cliff in order to reach the convent. Can your guns use case shot effectively at that range?’
Harris pursed his lips and squinted a moment before he nodded. ‘The range is long, but it’s possible, sir.’
‘Good.You might want to try your howitzers on the enemy at the same time.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Harris rubbed his hands together. ‘Scared them out of their wits at Vimeiro. Should do the same again here, sir.’
‘That’s what I’m counting on.’
Arthur remained with the artillery as Harris ordered his crews to train their weapons on the track leading down the cliff from Oporto. Harris went from gun to gun to ensure that they were well laid, and then the crews carefully loaded the first round and waited.
The French did not keep them long. Shortly after eleven thirty, by Arthur’s watch, a dense column of infantry began to issue forth from one of the city’s gateways and quick-march to the head of the track leading down the cliff. Arthur turned to Harris.
‘In your own time, Harris. Make every shot tell.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Harris saluted and strode across to his guns. He stood behind the first six-pounder and squinted down the crude sights towards the head of the column. He stepped away from the gun. ‘Open fire.’
The sergeant carrying the linstock lowered the glowing fuse to the small charge in the paper cone that poked up from the barrel. The gun bellowed as a jet of fire and smoke ripped into the morning air.There was a steady breeze blowing in from the ocean and the dense cloud of powder smoke swiftly dispersed. From his vantage point on the back of his horse Arthur was the first to gauge the effect of the cannon. Most of the cone of lead shot had smashed into the rocks above the track, dislodging stones and shredding the stunted plants that clung to the slope. Little puffs of dust marked the point of impact. One Frenchman was down, slumped over a boulder beside the track, and another was writhing on the ground as his companions marched on. Arthur could make out the white spots of their faces as they glanced nervously towards the guns on the far bank. As well they might, Arthur thought grimly as the other guns boomed out, raking the enemy column with their deadly scatter of small lead shot. Entire files of the leading French battalion were swept away and the track was soon littered with blue-coated bodies. But still they hurried on, down the track towards the convent, where the leading troops fanned out into a skirmishing line and began firing on the defenders lining the walls.
The wine barges were still ferrying troops across the river and these fed into the convent through a small side gate, out of sight of the enemy skirmishers. While it was an infantry only engagement Arthur was satisfied that Colonel Waters and his men would hold their position.The French commander must had reached the same conclusion because, as Arthur watched, a battery of horse guns emerged from Oporto and began to canter down the track.
‘Harris!’ Arthur called out, drawing the artillery officer’s attention to the enemy battery. ‘Stop those fellows before they can do any damage to the convent, or the barges.’
‘Yes, sir!’ Harris trotted over to his howitzers and gave orders to prepare to fire.The squat barrels were charged and the fuses cut to the appropriate length. Meanwhile the French battery had halted on a patch of level ground, protected from the British six-pounders by some large boulders beside the track, and was hurriedly unlimbering. Within moments they had begun to fire on the convent to support the troops now swarming about the courtyard walls.
Colonel Waters could not help flinching as the first of the enemy’s cannonballs struck the bell tower, causing a shower of masonry and dust to cascade down into the courtyard. Looking up the track, beyond over a thousand Frenchmen who were gathering to attack the convent, he could clearly make out the battery of light guns that had begun to fire on his position. Bright flashes and puffs of smoke followed by sharp cracks announced the arrival of more shot, and Waters saw a section of the convent’s wall explode into fragments, cutting down one of the redcoats sheltering behind it. The wall had been designed to keep prying eyes out, not to withstand the damage that could be inflicted by modern artillery. Unless something was done, the French guns would soon batter the walls down enough to provide a breach through which the waiting infantry could assault the convent. As Waters stared up at the French battery, he could see that they were sheltered from the British guns across the river by a rocky outcrop. It seemed that the French gunners would be able to continue their bombardment in safety.
With a sick feeling of inevitability in his stomach he climbed down from the tower and hurried across the courtyard to join the men defending the wall.
‘Keep your heads down, lads, or the frogs will blow them off !’
Some of the men chuckled nervously. Others, who had never faced enemy fire before, hunched down with terrified expressions and waited for the end.
There was a jarring crash close by and another section of the wall collapsed in a cloud of dust. Mercifully, none of the defenders were injured, but as the dust settled it revealed a large gap just three feet from the ground.The rubble either side of the wall provided an easy ramp up into the breach. With a sudden deep roll of drums and a rising cheer that echoed back from the towering cliffs, the French surged towards the wall.
‘Here they come, boys!’ Waters yelled. ‘Don’t let them get inside or we’re done for! Fire at will!’
Flame darted from the muzzles of the muskets along the wall, sending Frenchmen sprawling on to the stony ground, but the charge came on in a wave of blue uniforms and glinting bayonets. Waters jumped back into the courtyard as he saw a fresh wave of British troops enter the side gate.
‘Over here, lads!’ he called to them, waving desperately towards the breach. ‘At the double, damn you!’
The men came running. Outside, the Frenchmen rushed on, boots scrabbling over the ruined masonry as they surged into the breach. Waters wrenched his sword out and turned to meet them, as the first of the new arrivals reached his side. Along the wall, the other men were firing and loading their muskets as fast as possible as they cut down the attackers. The enemy fire was just as deadly and all around men were dropping back from the wall, dead and wounded.
With a ragged cheer the first of the Frenchmen charged through the breach, straight on to the bayonets of the waiting redcoats. The man next to Waters gritted his teeth as he thrust his bayonet into the stomach of the leading Frenchman, the impact bending him double. Waters scrambled up the rubble and hacked at the face of another man, his savage blow only just blocked in time as the desperate enemy threw his musket up, taking Waters’s blade on the stock, which splintered with a loud crack. Cursing, the Frenchman kicked Waters in the chest, sending him reeling back. Then, grasping the barrel of the musket like a short spear, the Frenchman tried to stab him. A musket crashed out close beside the British officer and his attacker spun round and fell on to the rubble. Waters did not have time to even nod his thanks as he rushed forward again to join the red-coated bodies struggling to hold the breach. On either side musket fire rippled up and down the convent walls.Then a voice cried out, ‘They’re running for it!’