Send Me Safely Back Again by Adrian Goldsworthy

plain before following the others as they began to move off. Three months ago he had watched as a Spanish brigade was caught in a hopeless position and massacred by French cavalry. Now the same thing was happening to an army ten or twenty times the size. Many regiments had dissolved into hordes of fugitives streaming to the rear. Hussars in brown and blue and dragoons and chasseurs in green rode among them, hacking down without mercy.
    A few battalions held together. Williams shaded his eyes to stare at two well-formed squares of men in dark blue.
    ‘The Royal Guard,’ said D’Urban, who had come to fetch the ensign. ‘Good soldiers, but there is little they can do.’ The French were moving up artillery to shatter the squares at close range while the cavalry kept them in the tight, vulnerable formation. ‘We must go.’
    They saw few French, and as their numbers grew, the enemy pursuers were reluctant to close and went off in search of easier victims. A body of some fifty or so dragoons threatened to do more, but then a line of white-uniformed grenadiers marched upfrom a hollow and levelled their muskets at the enemy. They were led by the tall, bespectacled officer, who had lost his bearskin cap and had a bloodstained bandage around his forehead.
    The French dragoons withdrew. After two miles they saw no enemies at all, and had gathered hundreds of stragglers. No French reached the army’s camp, but Baynes was waiting there to greet them. With him was Wickham, sitting on a camp stool, but with the reins of a Spanish trooper’s horse looped over his elbow. The man looked pale, and ready to retreat again, but was otherwise unscathed.
    Baynes was not his usual genial self. ‘I fear there is bad news.’ He looked at Wickham, who looked more weary than sad.
    ‘Hanley has fallen,’ he said flatly.

4
     
    W henever the carriage slowed, Williams felt the heat of the sun and longed for them to be moving quickly again. At speed the wind kept them cool and he was willing to put up with the lurches and jolts as they raced along the better stretches of the rutted track. He clung tightly on to the brim of his straw hat, but could not risk removing the long brown coat and refused to take off his uniform jacket and so wore it underneath. Neither he nor Dobson would be mistaken for spies and risk being hanged or put in front of a firing squad and shot. That was prudence, but Williams also felt an instinctive distaste at the thought of the slightest association with so dishonourable a role.
    Wickham was immediately swayed by the sentiment, regretting that he had not expressed it first, and so wore his red coat and overall trousers underneath his black priest’s robes. D’Urban did not try to dissuade them. Baynes was obviously amused, and yet showed no sign of offence.
    ‘As you wish,’ he had said. Williams now believed that the round-faced merchant was himself partly the spy. ‘I suspect it will be most uncomfortable, but I have no wish to tarnish your reputations in any way.’
    ‘Your hope must be in concealment,’ added Colonel D’Urban, as the plan was explained in the camp where Cuesta was rallying the broken remnants of his army. A day had passed since the battle and as evening fell they were on the edge of the mountains to the south.
    ‘The French are between us and your detachment under Mr Pringle,’ he continued, his slim face keen and earnest. ‘MarshalVictor has led most of his regiments down towards Merida, and only a few squadrons of cavalry have followed us. He does not have enough men to occupy the whole area, but there are bound to be patrols and foraging parties. He will not find it easy to feed his men and horses. God knows, General Cuesta has had enough trouble. This was a poor region, even before armies started marching through it and eating everything in sight.’
    Baynes took over, feeling that his military colleague was wandering from the main point. ‘If you try to go straight to Badajoz and