Run Them Ashore by Adrian Goldsworthy

Don Antonio had a beautiful Andalusian, and stopped to talk to the animal and caress its face before he mounted. The two girls rode smaller ponies, and both sat easily in the saddle, riding astride like men, their booted feet in the big stirrups favoured in the south.
    Pringle had ridden with guerrilleros before, and so the quiet efficiency of the group did not surprise him. There were no shouted orders, no formality, but the whole band moved with a sense of purpose. Carlos Velasco rode with the two British officers and explained that when they arrived his cousin had been out scouting after reports that a French column was making for a pass a few leagues away. Now he had returned, assured by the leaders in the nearest villages that men were gathering to mount an ambush. El Blanco would help them, and hoped that two or three other bands would join him – he mentioned a number of names, all of which were new to both Pringle and Hanley.
    ‘It would be good to meet with them,’ Hanley said.
    ‘If they come. I think they will, but you can never be sure,’ Carlos explained. That was the big difference with the north. There many partisan leaders led bands numbering hundreds, sometimes even thousands, formed as the little groups coalesced into ever bigger commands. Here in the south that had not happened. Pringle did not know whether this was a reflection of the rugged landscape in Andalusia or the independent temperament of its inhabitants.
    ‘Are the serranos coming out in great numbers from the mountain villages?’
    ‘Serranos?’ Carlos looked puzzled for a moment. ‘Ah, Iunderstand, you mean the mountain folk. They call themselves crusaders. After all, this is where the last Moors were chased from the soil of Spain.’
    Pringle wondered whether all of them had gone. Some of the locals were much darker complexioned than other Spaniards. Still, the little they had seen of the land had an exotic look, which he thought might resemble North Africa, and perhaps the impression was simply the natural consequence of similar climate. He had enough sense to realise that proposing either idea was scarcely tactful and so kept silent.
    There was no mist this morning, and they rode, winding through valleys and over some gentler hills, until the sky grew ever more pink, and the sun rose magnificently over the crests ahead of them. Soon afterwards Pringle spotted something white in the grass beside the path they were following. Closer up he saw it was the naked body of a man, birds pecking at his eyes and the marks of wounds all over his chest. A few scraps of torn uniform were scattered near by, enough to show that he was a French officer.
    ‘They caught him last night. Must have thought he had a better chance of sneaking past without an escort.’
    One of the guerrilleros spat at the corpse as he rode past. Another jabbed with his lance.
    ‘Not fit to be dung on the soil of Spain,’ the man said.
    Carlos looked down at the body with no sign of emotion when they passed.
    ‘He was carrying orders confirming that the convoy is on its way, coming from Ronda and going to the coast. They wanted the garrisons there to send out a force to meet them.’ He gave a wicked grin. ‘I fear they will be disappointed. But it is their own fault. Sending no more than two hundred men to escort a convoy!’
    ‘What is the convoy carrying?’ Pringle asked, suddenly curious.
    ‘Who can say? Supplies perhaps, or men from the hospital?’ The guerrilla was matter-of-fact, but Pringle felt a chill at thethought of ambushing sick and wounded men. Please God, let it be supplies, he wished.
    Soon afterwards they saw the first ‘crusaders’, a dozen or so men in broad sombreros and green velvet jackets, gaudy with silver buttons and colourful lace. Several had fine white stockings under the cross-lacing of their sandals.
    ‘They like to put on their finest clothes to kill the French,’ Carlos said. The men carried all sorts of weapons from captured