‘God knows I hold no brief for old Picton,’ said Mein, ‘but it isn’t like him to be backward in attack. Think anything’s happened?’
‘Dalhousie’s in command, that’s all,’ said Harry.
‘What?’ Mein gasped. ‘Dalhousie put over Picton? For God’s sake, why?’ ‘Nobody knows.’
‘Christ! I’m glad I’m not one of Picton’s lot: he won’t be fit to live with for weeks!’ At about half-past eleven, Kempt’s brigade began to move off by threes to their left. The and brigade watched this manoeuvre with jealous eyes. ‘Here! if we don’t get no sport we’ll get no pie neither!’ an indignant voice from the ranks announced.
‘Hey, why the devil’s Kempt moving?’ demanded Tom Smith. ‘When is it our turn to show our front?’
‘Hell, how should I know?’ said Harry, irritable at being kept for so many hours out of action. ‘Some Spanish peasant came up to the Peer to tell him that there’s no guard on the bridge of Tres Puentes. Kempt’s to cross the river there.’
‘And where,’ inquired Billy Mein, ‘might Tres Puentes be?’
‘About a mile and a half to our left. It’s round that sharp bend in the river. Where did you get that sausage?’
‘Don’t you wish you knew!’ said Mein, taking a bite out of it.
Led by the Spanish guide, Kempt’s men marched off under cover of the rocks, and, working round the hairpin bend of the Zadorra some time later, passed the bridge of Tres Puentes at the double, with rifles and firelocks cocked. They encountered no opposition, and soon gained a steep hill on the farther side of the river, which was crowned by a ruined chapel. ‘Doesn’t it give rise to some curious reflections?’ panted George Simmons, gaining the summit, and shaking his head at the ancient building. ‘You know, the Black Prince once fought here. One cannot but indulge one’s fancy with the thought that he may have-’ ‘Take cover, George!’ shouted Molloy, interrupting him without ceremony. ‘Here it comes! Whew!’
A couple of round shots crashed amongst them, the second knocking the Spanish guide’s head off his shoulders. His body stood for an instant, with the blood spurting up from the severed neck, and then fell, while the head was tossed through the air to bounce on the ground and roll away till it was stopped by a boulder. Someone laughed, and was clouted into silence by his comrades.
‘Very nasty,’ remarked Captain Leach, in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Do you like this position? I don’t.’
The chapel-knoll, it was soon discovered, was commanded by a hill a few hundred yards distant, which was occupied by a large body of infantry. A shell followed the round shots, and burst almost under the nose of Kincaid’s horse, kicking up a shower of dust and pebbles. A splinter struck his stirrup-iron, and his charger, squealing with fright, became almost unmanageable, capering and plunging in a mad struggle to bolt.
‘Look to keeping your men together, sir!’ snapped Wellington, riding up behind Kincaid at that unlucky moment.
Kincaid flushed scarlet, and gave his disobedient mount both whip and spurs. To be supposed by his lordship to be showing off his horsemanship, like any conceited Johnny Newcome, set him cursing under his breath, but he naturally could not explain the circumstances to Wellington, and was obliged to swallow his resentment. The situation of the brigade was uncomfortable, since its rush across the river had isolated it from the rest of the army. The cover on the hill, however, was good, and after the first burst of artillery-fire, the French stopped shelling the position. ‘We ought to advance, and take that village I can see over there,’ remarked George Simmons, quite unruffled by having his shako blown off his head by the wind of a shot passing over him.
‘Anything else you’d like to do?’ inquired Molloy. ‘I’m not happy. Damn it, I’m not a bit happy! Hi, you there, keep under cover!’
But while the Rifles were moving from Villodas to Tres Puentes; the 3rd division had been pouring down the defile of Monte Arrato, and by the time Simmons had decided that the village of Arinez ought to be taken, Picton, an astonishing figure in a blue coat, and a top-hat, with a brim to protect his inflamed eyes, was accosting every aide-de-camp who came in sight with a demand to know whether there were no orders for him. By noon, his temper had cracked badly, and he fidgeted up and down on his unhandsome cob, beating a tattoo on its hogged mane with the stick he carried. ‘Damn it!’ he burst out to his Brigade-Major. ‘Lord Wellington must have forgotten us!’
Colonel Gordon came galloping from the direction of Tres Puentes, and reined in beside Picton.
‘Well, sir, well?’ barked Picton.
‘I’m looking for Lord Dalhousie, sir. Have you seen him?’
‘No, sir, I have not seen his lordship!’ said Picton, who had clean outstripped Dalhousie on the advance across Monte Arrato. ‘But have you any orders for me?
‘None, sir,’ confessed Gordon.
‘Then pray, sir, what are the orders that you do bring?’ asked Picton sharply. ‘Why,’ replied Gordon, ‘that as soon as Lord Dalhousie shall commence an attack on that bridge-’ he slewed round in his saddle to point out the Mendoza bridge in the distance to the left of the division-‘the 4th and Light are to support him.’
This was too much for Picton; he seemed to swell with indignation, and startled Gordon by saying in a thunderous tone: ‘You may tell Lord Wellington from me, sir, that the 3rd division, under my command, shall in less than ten minutes attack that bridge and carry it, and the 4th and Light may support me if they choose!’
He gave Gordon no opportunity of speaking a word, but wheeled his cob, and trotted off to put himself at the head of his men. ‘Come on, ye rascals! Come on, ye fighting devils!’ he roared at them.
If ten minutes was a slight exaggeration (for the bridge of Mendoza was two miles distant), the advance of the Fighting division right across the front of Dalhousie’s 7th, which had at last arrived on the field, and halted there, was a spectacle quite as amazing as that presented by Picton himself, in his top-hat.
‘God, will you look at Picton’s division?’ gasped one astonished spectator. ‘Talk about meteors!’
One of Picton’s brigades being directed on to the bridge, the other one to a ford farther upstream, the whole force hurled itself across the river in the teeth of a weak cavalry brigade, set, with three guns in support, to watch the bridge. The guns got into action, but Kempt flung Barnard forward with some Rifle companies, and the artillery-men, unable to stand the biting and accurate fire of the Green-jackets, limbered up, and made off. As soon as he saw Picton safely over the river, Kempt advanced his whole brigade, forming it on the right rear of the 3rd division and putting to rout, on the way, the voltigeurs at the Villodas bridge.
‘Now you’ll be able to take your precious village, George!’ grinned young Frere.
3
It was not until between two and three in the afternoon, when Kempt and Picton were hotly engaged with the defenders of Arinez, that Vandeleur was at last ordered up. Dalhousie, whose advance had been delayed by two dilatory brigades, crossed the river some time after Picton, and directed his attack upon a village a quarter of a mile to the north of Arinez. He succeeded in driving the French out of it, but became involved in a sanguinary struggle with five battalions of Germans, serving under the Eagles, who were formed behind a stream protecting the village of La Hennendad.
‘What?’ said Cadoux. ‘Support the 7th? Well, of course we have heard that there is a 7th division, but we’ve never mit!’
The brigade marched off, crossing the Villodas bridge, and passing behind the rising ground from which Picton and Kempt were launching attack after attack upon the walled village of Arinez. As soon as the head of the column came under fire, Vandeleur sent Harry forward to report to Lord Dalhousie. Harry galloped off into the thick of the fray before La Hermandad, taking good care, as he went, to fix the lie of the land in his head. He came upon Dalhousie, talking earnestly to his QMG, and saluted. ‘Brigade-Major Smith, sir, sent by General Vandeleur for orders!’