Whose Business is to Die by Goldsworthy Adrian

Author:Goldsworthy, Adrian [Goldsworthy, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2015-06-11T07:00:00+00:00

19

‘I make it at least one hundred and thirty English miles,’ Dunbar said, his finger running down the list and doing the calculation again. ‘Yes, at the very least.’

Williams had not made so precise a count, but his guess had been similar. The brigade had marched all that way in just eight days, and from the start the weather had been dry and the sun beat down on them. Colborne was no great stickler for the details of uniform, and he let the men replace their stiff stocks with any convenient piece of cloth. Even so they sweated in their thick woollen jackets, while dust from the road turned faces and uniforms alike as dusty brown as the Buffs’ facings.

Three or four times they had seen small parties of French, patrols or foraging expeditions. Only twice had they come close enough to expend any powder, and even then the enemy soon retired. The French left in Estremadura were spread thinly, and so Colborne marched at them, changing his route time and again, but always advancing, so that the enemy could not guess how many men he had and where they were going. Unbalanced and confused, the French retreated, and so far they had not concentrated or mounted any serious resistance. All they left behind were little garrisons like the one outside this town. The plan was working well, and Colborne meant to keep on pressing them.

‘Still a long way to go,’ the colonel told them, ‘even if much of it will be back the way we came. But for the moment, everyone can rest – well, everyone apart from us!’

The three men sat on their horses and waited in the shade of a tall house, for although it was barely an hour after dawn it was already getting warm. They were in the little town of Belalcazar, and the arrival of the redcoats had not caused the sleepy place to stir much from its slumbers.

A bleary-eyed man appeared on a balcony across the street and stared at them in silence. Dunbar raised his hat cheerily, but the man said nothing.

‘I doubt it is a terribly wise thing for folk to stare too closely at the French,’ Colborne commented. ‘But we have not demanded food or the virtue of his daughter, so one would hope that counts for something.’

The man yawned, stretching his arms high and closing his eyes and then resumed his scrutiny. ‘Inglés?’ he ventured after a while.

‘Sí,’ Dunbar replied. ‘English.’

‘Viva los ingleses!’ the man said, yawned again, and went back into his room.

‘Not quite a Roman triumph,’ Captain Dunbar said, and laughed. Colborne looked with some irritation down the street behind them, but saw no one and did not appear inclined to say anything.

‘Remember when we marched through Campo Major,’ Williams said after a while. ‘Everyone was hanging from windows and calling out “viva los franceses!” until they realised who we were!’

Dunbar chuckled and the colonel gave a faint smile. ‘Cannot blame ’em. They have been occupied so many times by the enemy that they have learned caution.

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