Run Them Ashore by Adrian Goldsworthy

Author:Adrian Goldsworthy [Goldsworthy, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Historical, Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780297871842
Google: WzvPnQEACAAJ
Amazon: B00K5UO1HS
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Published: 2014-08-14T04:00:00+00:00

Gen. Sebastiani with a division of six infantry battalions numbering 4,700, two field batteries with sixteen guns, and a regiment each of Dragoons and Lancers, in total 800 men, is approaching along the Malaga Road. Anticipate he will reach you by 3.30 to 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

yr obedient servant, James Sinclair

Before the gunboats began firing again, the general led all of his staff away from the battery.

‘If they come, then we need to know where to hold them, Harding,’ Lord Turney told the engineer. ‘This is not good cavalry country, and that is something, but they have over three times our numbers, and until the fort’s guns are silenced we cannot take our own artillery off in the daylight.’

The general went on foot, for there were not sufficient horses for the others, and he went with care, but even so they were fired at from the castle on several occasions. No shot came nearer than a ball which went over Williams’ shoulder and plucked the cocked hat from the general’s head.

‘Blackguards,’ he said cheerfully, and, picking it up, made an elaborate bow to the castle wall.

They climbed the hills again, and spent five minutes looking at the remains of a stone tower on the western slope.

‘The walls are solid, my lord,’ Harding confirmed. ‘With a bit of work we could station fifty men here and they would be hard to dislodge.’

‘Good, see to it when you have a moment.’ As they headed back towards the battery, the general dictated a series of orders to Mullins. ‘I shall go presently to consult with Harding and Hope. The Navy must be aware that we may need to be taken off and that the gunboats will be required to give us protective fire.

‘The Eighty-ninth have been on duty all night and this morning. Stand them down, send them to the beach where the enemy’s fire cannot reach and have food brought to them. In their place form all of the chasseurs save for the riflemen and station them on the flank of the battery to act as security. You take the order to the Chasseurs, Williams.

‘Are the companies from the Toledo Regiment returned from before Mijas?’

‘No, my lord,’ Mullins said. Hanley had not heard the general issue that order, but conceded that he may have been absent when it was done.

‘Send to them at once. Have them return here since we do not have the numbers to fight at such a distance and the position is not one to render it possible to resist for long. Bring them back to rejoin the rest of their regiment and ask the colonel to form up behind the Chasseurs as a reserve. You had better take that one, Hanley.’

‘My lord!’ It was Williams who interrupted with an excited shout. ‘The Rodney is here!’

The general stopped and peered out to sea, squinting a little. Hanley was more than ever convinced that his eyesight was less than perfect, but it took him only a moment to see the dark shapes of the British and Spanish warships.

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