‘Don’t just stand there,’ Napoleon muttered irritably. ‘Get moving . . .’
The flanking battalion had suffered too many casualties and the men refused to advance any further. As the officers and sergeants tried to urge them on, the soldiers loosed off their muskets at the Spanish guns, which were shielded by their earthworks. It was a futile gesture that did not ease the storm of shot tearing the battalion to pieces.Then the first of the men fell back, away from the guns. More followed, and then the entire battalion was retiring, some of the men running, not stopping until the guns were out of sight. A lone officer remained on the bloodied ground, surrounded by bodies. He raised his sword and shouted, trying to shame his men into re-joining the attack. Then, as Napoleon watched, a round shot cut him in half. His legs stood still for an instant, before buckling and collapsing amid the carnage.
‘Shit.’ Napoleon clenched his fists as he glared at the scattered men of the battalion, then at the Spanish battery. Some of the gun crews had climbed on top of the earthworks and were jeering at the Frenchmen.
‘Damn them!’ Napoleon growled. He turned angrily in his saddle and pointed at the captain of his escort.‘Take that battery for me! At the gallop! Now.’
The captain looked up the narrow track to the pass, where it crossed the open ground in front of the enemy line.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Napoleon snapped.
The captain saluted and turned to shout orders to his squadron.The eighty men of his command formed up in column, four abreast. Drawing his sabre, the captain spurred his horse forward and galloped up the track.With cries to urge their mounts on and the jingling of bits the rest of the men pounded after him. Napoleon watched as the squadron charged up the road, past the men of the battalion that had broken earlier. As they reached the pass and came within range of the nearest Spanish infantry the enemy loosed off a volley, knocking several men from their horses. The horsemen slowed, veered away towards the shelter of a small outcrop of rocks and reined in. Napoleon rose up in his stirrups.
‘What the devil? What are those cowards doing? Attack, you fools! Attack! How dare you cower in front of that gang of Spanish peasants?’ He turned to one of his orderlies. ‘You! Ride up there and tell them to continue the charge. Tell them that they shame themselves and they shame their Emperor. Go!’
The orderly saluted and spurred his horse forward. Bending low over the animal’s neck he raced across the ground in front of the Spanish infantry and reined in with the surviving men of the escort, who were busy forming up in the shelter of the rocks. Napoleon saw the orderly gesturing back towards the hillock as he passed on the order. The captain of the escort seemed to argue for a moment and then turned away, making for the head of his small band of comrades. His sabre flashed as he raised it up, held it there for a moment and then swept it towards the nearest Spanish battery. The squadron burst out of the cover of the rocks and charged towards the enemy guns. As soon as they emerged, the Spanish artillery opened up, firing case shot into the charging Poles.The blasts tore men and horses apart, and ripped up the ground around them.The distance to the guns was no more than a quarter of a mile, and every shot struck down two or three men at a time as they charged towards their objective. The men’s instinct for self-preservation caused their ranks to spread out so they presented a more open target as they galloped on, swords flashing, desperately shouting their war cries. It was all over in less than a minute. The last man reached the earthworks, spurred his horse up above the gunners, and was instantly shot from his saddle. The rest of his comrades, and their mounts, lay strewn across the ground in front of the battery.
Napoleon swallowed at the pitiful sight.They had died at his order. His temper had snapped and their lives had been thrown away. His headache was worse than ever and he reached up and rubbed his brow. Then he gestured to one of his remaining orderlies. ‘Ride back to headquarters. I want a regiment of Guard cavalry brought forward.They are to wait below the pass until they are ordered to charge.’
As he waited for reinforcements Napoleon watched as Ruffin’s men steadily fought their way forward again and began to take on the Spanish infantry in an unequal musket duel. Better training and discipline on the part of the French meant that enemy soldiers soon melted away. A dense column of chasseurs pounded up the road past Napoleon’s hillock, formed into lines just below the crest and stood waiting with drawn sabres. Up ahead the smoke from the musket duel wreathed the pass, swirling away here and there as the wind carried it off. Through such a gap Napoleon saw that the Spanish line was wavering and immediately sent forward the order to charge.
The strident notes of cavalry trumpets echoed down the slope and then the horsemen swept forward in a rumbling wave, sweeping round the end of Ruffin’s infantry and rolling up the enemy line before splitting in two and charging each of the enemy batteries. It was a brave sight. Too brave for the defenders, who threw down their weapons and their equipment and ran for their lives. Napoleon watched for a while longer until he could be sure that the pass was in French hands. Then, wincing at the pounding agony in his head, he turned his horse away from the battle and rode back down to the village of Sepúlveda. Berthier sent for his camp bed from the army wagon train and had it set up in a small cell built on one side of the church for the local priest. Napoleon gratefully collapsed on to his bed, fully dressed, and fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter 49
As soon as the last of the enemy was cleared from the pass the army advanced over the Guadarrama range and on to the plain beyond. The first French cavalry patrols rode warily into the suburbs of the Spanish capital the day after the Battle of Somosierra. They reported back to imperial headquarters that the Madrid junta had ordered the arming of thousands of the common people, and the construction of makeshift defences and artillery positions to cover the approaches to the capital’s gates. In the first days of December the French army made camp outside the city and constructed their own batteries of siege guns ready to pound the hastily erected defences surrounding the entrance to Madrid.