Day 5 – NaNoWriMo with Labradors

Quill pen

Although this post is entitled Day 5 – NaNoWriMo with Labradors, my more observant readers will notice that this is in fact the first day of posting. That probably tells you how I’ve been getting on.

For the uninitiated, National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo,  is an annual Internet-based writing project that takes place during  November. Participants try to write a 50,000 word manuscript between November 1 and November 30 with online encouragement from well-known authors and from fellow participants.

I’ve been tempted to do this before, but the time has never been right. Once, I did actually do a chapter of a possible historical romance before realising that a) I didn’t have time and b) I hated what I was writing. This year, however, it seemed that the timing was perfect.

My latest book, This Blighted Expedition, was published on 31st October. It took me a long time to write this one; generally I manage two books a year but there was a lot of research and it was a challenging storyline which I rewrote several times before I was happy with it. I really wanted to get on with my next project, which will be book six of the Peninsular War Saga, as soon as possible, knowing that a lot of readers are really waiting for that one.

For the past couple of books, I’ve given myself a month off before starting the next one. That month inevitably drifts into two and possibly even three, and I was determined not to do that this time. I already knew the basic storyline of An Unrelenting Enmity and I know my characters and background very well. Why not use NaNoWriMo to kickstart me into getting on with book six? It sounded very simple.

Needless to say it was not. What made me think that I could leap straight into a new book on the day after the last one was published, I have no idea. There were things to do, publicity, blog posts, a mini blog tour and a last minute scramble over the paperback formatting. The first of November came and went and I hadn’t even logged in to the site.

I was determined to do it this year though, and so yesterday I finally sat down, logged in, and updated my pitifully small word count so far. To my amazement, it really worked. Seeing the chart cheerfully predicting that at this rate I wouldn’t reach my 50000 word goal until the eighteenth of December was surprisingly motivating, and I sat down and got on with it. I really like using the timer, to see how long I’ve worked, and the word count is already back on target, after only two days.

I’m generally a very fast writer, and having good touch typing skills helps with that. It’s research, planning and displacement activities like social media and housework that slow down my writing process. Or writing blog posts, maybe…

It’s early days yet, but I’m hoping that by the end of the month I’ll have achieved my goal, which will be about half a book for me. That won’t give me anything like a finished product, and there will still be days when I have to take time out to research and plan and to simply live my life. Oscar isn’t going to walk himself, after all…

Still, I’m excited about this month and will continue to post updates and perhaps an occasional snippet as I go along. I thoroughly enjoyed writing the second book of the Manxman series, but it is so lovely to be back in the Peninsula with Paul, Anne, Johnny and of course Lord Wellington. I cannot describe how much I’ve missed Lord Wellington. I’ll leave you with this short excerpt from today, bearing in mind that this is a first draft and not everything that I post will make it into the final book. This one might, though…

“I have no time to celebrate Christmas, Colonel, as you well know. I am setting out for Cadiz tomorrow. Really, I should be back at my desk now, there are some final orders…”

“Stop it,” Paul said. He saw the blue eyes widen in surprise, he was seldom so abrupt with his chief, but he was suddenly exasperated. “I know you need to go to Cadiz, sir, and I know why. I think you’re bloody mad to travel in this weather, you’ll be forever on the road and my sympathy lies with every single one of the men travelling with you, you will be horrible. And I am grateful that you didn’t insist on me going with you. But my wife has organised this very early Christmas dinner so that you at least have one day to eat a decent meal, have a drink with some of your officers and mend some bridges after that appalling memorandum you sent out last month. She’s put a lot of work into this, and I am not having you grumbling over the roast mutton because there is one more rude letter to some hapless Portuguese administrator that you forgot to write. Are we clear?”

There was a long and pointed silence and Paul tried not to look as though he was holding his breath. Eventually, Lord Wellington took a long drink of wine.

“There is still time for me to insist that you come with me,” he said, and Paul laughed.

“Having me with you while you insert one of Congreve’s rockets up the arse of the Spanish government sounds like a really bad idea, sir, they do not need two of us.”

Wellington snorted. “That is why I am leaving you behind to do the same to every senior officer in my army who fails to follow my instructions on the drills and training to be conducted during winter quarters this year,” he said. “By the time we are ready to march, which I hope will be no later than April, I want every man of my army to know what he is doing. That is your job, Colonel.”

“And a lovely Christmas gift it was too, sir. I’m already having to take a bodyguard out with me when I visit the other divisions, I have been doing this for two weeks, and they hate me.”

“Not in the light division.”

“No. They’ve no need of me there, General Alten is doing a very fine job. And here he is.” Paul shot his chief a sideways glance. “Come and be social, sir. Just for today.”

Wellington studied him for a moment, then gave one of his rare genuine smiles. “This is very good wine,” he said, as though the preceding conversation had not taken place. “Where is it from, Colonel?”

An Unconventional Officer - love and war in Wellington’s armyFor anybody new to the Peninsular War Saga, they’re available on Amazon kindle here and will be available in paperback before Christmas.

I’ll be posting daily updates on my NaNoWriMo journey over on Facebook and Twitter from now on.

Salamanca

The Battle of Salamanca was fought on this day in 1812 across the rolling plains around the small Spanish village of Los Arapiles. In this excerpt from An Untrustworthy Army, Wellington’s men are marching close to the French army while both generals try to decide whether or not to risk a battle. Wellington had almost decided to retreat on this occasion, when on the afternoon of 22 July, he spotted a gap in the French line and ordered the attack.

After a little more than a fortnight at Rueda, it was a relief to Paul to get his brigade moving. Night marches could be difficult, depending on the terrain, but most of his men were very experienced and followed each other through the darkness, relying on the voices of NCOs and officers to guide them. The clink of horses and the thudding of hooves followed the progress of the cavalry who were advancing with the light division. Paul rode up the long column to find General Charles Alten in conversation with his big German orderly. Peering through the darkness he recognised Paul and waved him forward.

“Colonel van Daan, I am sorry to have interrupted your festivities this evening.”

“It’s a relief, sir, I’ve had enough of waiting. French on the move?”

“It seems so, although I know very little, just that we are to advance with the cavalry and await orders.”

Paul pulled a face which Alten could probably not see in the dark. “When we get there, why don’t we play a hand or two of ‘lets all sit around and guess what the hell Lord Wellington is doing now’, sir?” he said. “I should have gone up to see him instead of prancing about with the Rifles for the evening.”

“Where is your wife, Colonel?”

“I left her in camp for the night with half a company of the KGL to guard the baggage and supplies. They’ll pack up early and follow us up. Where are we going?”

“We will halt behind Castrejon and await Lord Wellington.”

“That’s always a treat,” Paul said gloomily. “I hate marching around for no apparent reason and I’ve got a feeling that’s what we’re doing.”

Alten gave a soft laugh. “There is usually a reason, Colonel. It is simply that you hate not knowing what the reason is.”

Paul acknowledged the truth of this over the next few days of monotonous, repetitive marching interspersed with several fierce skirmishes as Lord Wellington and Marshal Marmont began a cautious facing dance which each day failed to result in a battle. There was nothing urgent or frenetic about their movements. Facing each other across the river and the rolling plains around Salamanca, the two armies manoeuvred in perfect timing, attempting to outflank each other without forcing a pitched battle on any ground of which the two commanders were unsure.

“It’s like a pavane,” Anne said, on the third day. She had ridden up to join Paul and was looking over the lines of Wellington’s army and then beyond to the distant columns of Frenchmen on the opposite bank. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“Nor have I,” Paul said. “What the devil is a pavane?”

“It’s a dance. A bit like the Allemande but slower and more stately; it’s very old.”

“What is an Allemande? No, don’t tell me. How do you know all this?”

“There was an Italian dancing master,” Anne said, and laughed aloud at his expression.

“Your stepmother should have locked you up,” Paul said grimly.

“If she had, Colonel, we probably wouldn’t be where we are now.”

“True. But it’s a lesson to me about keeping an eye on my daughters as they’re growing up. I’m shocked at how young girls behave.”

“You did not say that to me in a shepherd’s hut in Thorndale,” Anne said serenely. “How long is he going to keep this up?”

“I don’t know,” Paul admitted, looking out over the lines. “He’s not saying much even to me. I don’t think he’s sure.”

Anne followed his gaze. The countryside was a vast plain with low rolling hills and the river snaking between the two armies. An occasional shot was fired when the two came too close but for the most part, the forces moved watchfully along, ready to fall into position at a moment’s notice. They passed villages and small towns and the people came out to watch them sombrely. There was none of the excitement and joy of their entry into Salamanca. It was as if the locals knew that the generals were contemplating battle and dreaded the consequences for their crops, their homes and their families.

We visited the battlefield during our tour of Portugal and Spain in 2017. The Salamanca battlefield site is immense; not in actual size since it probably isn’t the widest battlefield Wellington fought over, but in the sheer amount of information available. I was halfway through writing book five which is based around the battle of Salamanca and the Burgos campaign, so this visit was particularly useful as it was made ahead of the writing.  I had read about the small interpretation centre in the village of Los Arapiles to the south of the city of Salamanca, but had not really looked it up until we were about to go there.  I was hugely impressed to find that it was open two days a week, Thursday and Saturday, and we had set aside a Thursday for this trip.

 

I was so glad we did.  This is definitely the best small museum we visited.  For one thing, everything is in both Spanish and English which wasmuch more useful than our desperate attempts to translate interpretation boards in other places.  For another, it is amazingly detailed and accurate.  From the advantages and disadvantages of the different infantry formations of line, square and column, to the best way to load a musket, somebody here had done their research and very well.  

The other joy was the map we were given of a series of interpretation boards around the battlefield site.  There are ten in all, each with information about the battle as it unfolded, and each board has a QR code which can be scanned by a smart phone.  A short dramatised account of that section of the battle, in English, can be listened to at each point.

The routes on the map are marked for walking or cycling.  The good news is that in good weather all tracks are passable in a car.  A 4 x 4 would be best, some of them are very rough, but we managed it on dry roads without.  It took about three hours to do the whole thing.  Honestly it would have been less if it were not for my pedantic insistence that we do the boards in number order so that we got the chronology right for the battle as opposed to working out the shortest circular route which might have taken half the time.  That day, the man I married gave the word patience a whole new definition.

With the help of the museum, the interpretation boards, which are excellent, my trusty battlefield guide and a map, the Battle of Salamanca became suddenly very clear to me.  Driving from board to board and then climbing hills and rocky outcrops to view the various vantage points of the battle it was very easy to visualise how Wellington was able to split the French line and send their army fleeing within a few hours.
After exhausting ourselves scrambling over battlefield sites, we drove to Alba de Tormes, across the river.  This is the route that a lot of the fleeing French army took, and no action took place there in real life.  In my book a significant skirmish takes place there so I wanted to check if my story worked with the location.  I was delighted to realise that with a small adjustment it will work very well.

We went back into Salamanca for dinner.  As we are English this involved almost two hours of wandering around this beautiful university city, musing about how it is possible to be in a major city at 7pm and find nobody open for dinner.  It always takes some time to Spanish dining hours.  But time wandering in Salamanca is never wasted, it’s so lovely, especially the university  buildings, which feature in An Untrustworthy Army, since both French and then English used them as barracks and storage buildings.

Given that my fictional regiment fights as part of the Light Division, Salamanca had the potential to be a bit of a disappointment for me, since Charles Alten’s men did not play a significant part in the battle. Since I know that Colonel van Daan is easily bored, I chose to give the third brigade a skirmish of their very own out at Alba de Tormes. The battle is included in the book, seen through the eyes of Lieutenant Simon Carlyon who is on temporary transfer to Pakenham’s staff.

A great deal has been written on the battle of Salamanca. For me, the best book on the subject by far is Rory Muir’s book which explores the battle in depth. I highly recommend a tour of the battlefield and interpretation centre; as long as you have transport it is one of the ones it’s perfectly possible to do without a guide.

An Untrustworthy Army is book five in the Peninsular War Saga which follows the fortunes of the fictional 110th infantry and Paul van Daan, the man who rises to lead it, through the long years of Wellington’s wars in Portugal and Spain.

An Unconventional Officer - love and war in Wellington’s armyAn Irregular Regiment

An Uncommon Campaign, 110th at the Battle of Fuentes d'Onoro

 

 

 

 

 

 

A letter from Lord Wellington

On the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, there will be thousands of posts and articles about the battle and about the Duke of Wellington, many of them excellent, so instead to celebrate the occasion I thought I would share a letter from Lord Wellington from a different time period.

This is an excerpt from the final chapter of An Untrustworthy Army, book five of the Peninsular War Saga, in the aftermath of the horrendous retreat from Burgos. As such, it does contain some spoilers as to who survives, so if you’re halfway through the books you may not want to read it.

The reason I’ve published it today, is because it includes a section of a memorandum sent out to the commanders of divisions and brigades by Lord Wellington on 28 November 1812. Lord Wellington, who features very prominently in my books, doesn’t actually feature in this scene, but his voice can be heard loud and clear across 207 years. The text I’ve used here is quoted directly from the published memorandum. The comments of Colonel van Daan and Colonel Wheeler are all their own, and their language has not been censored.

 

Quinta de Santo Antonio

The Quinta de Santo Antonio was quiet, with both officers and men taking refuge from the appalling weather, as the creaking, ancient carriage pulled up beside the door to the main house. Gardens, pastures and barns were barely visible through torrential rain and Simon Carlyon scrambled down and helped Johnny out. They went directly into the main hall, dripping water onto the cracked tiled floor, and a familiar limping figure emerged from the kitchen region at the back.

“Colonel Wheeler. Good to see you back, sir. I’ll get a couple of the lads to unload your baggage and take it up, you’ll be in your old room.”

“Thank you, Jenson. It’s good to be back. Where have you put Mr Carlyon?”

“I’ll show him; he’s sharing with Mr Witham. Most of the officers of the 115th are in one of the estate cottages, but Mrs van Daan wanted Mr Carlyon in the main house. Come this way, sir. Colonel, why don’t you go through to the office, Colonel van Daan is in there enjoying Lord Wellington’s latest. If you’re lucky, he’ll read it to you. He’s read it to everybody else he ever met, so it’ll be nice for him to have a new audience.”

Johnny grinned, allowing Jenson to take his wet coat. Walking was still painful but becoming easier with the use of a stick and he limped through an archway and found his way to the warm panelled room which had been used last winter as Paul’s brigade office.

He found his commanding officer seated at the big table he used at his desk. Across the room, at a smaller table, was his wife, her dark head bent over a large book which appeared to contain medical notes. She was putting the finishing touches to a sketch of what looked like a spidery creature of some kind but what Johnny had a horrible suspicion might be some part of the human anatomy. He did not want to enquire which part. Anne sat back and surveyed her work with a critical eye, then nodded in satisfaction and added an annotation to the diagram.

Paul got up and came forward as Johnny saluted. “Come and sit down,” he said, pulling out a chair as Anne got up and came to kiss Johnny. “You look a hell of a lot better than you did the last time I saw you.”

“So do both of you,” Johnny said, embracing Anne then lowering himself into the chair. “Nan, you have the most incredible powers of recovery; should you even be out of bed?”

“I would like to see somebody try to confine my lass to her chamber over something as trivial as childbirth,” Paul said with obvious pride. “She does look better, doesn’t she? Wait there.”

He crossed the room and picked up a large wicker basket which had been beside Anne’s desk and which Johnny had thought contained laundry. He was amused to see a tiny pink face, crowned by a few sparse tufts of fair hair, nestling among the linen.

“She is very pretty,” he said, reaching out to touch the little fingers. “Georgiana, I understand? Wasn’t she very early?”

“We think so,” Anne said. “She gave us a bit of a fright to tell you the truth, I wasn’t at all ready for this and I’ve never seen a child this small. But she seems very healthy. You may greet her properly once she’s been fed; she’s worse than her father for hunger, Will was nothing like it. How are you, Johnny, we’ve been so worried about you?”

“I’m very well now,” Johnny said, watching as his commander returned the basket to its warm corner near the fire. “Glad it’s winter quarters, though, there’s no way I could fight like this, I’m limping like a greybeard.”

“You’ll recover quickly with rest and care,” Anne said. “I’m going to take Her Ladyship upstairs for her feed and leave you two to talk. Is Simon with you?”

“Yes, I’ve sent him off with Jenson to unpack. Thank you for leaving him with me, he’s been a blessing.”

“I doubt I could have got him away, short of cashiering or shooting him,” Paul said, going to bring brandy as Anne scooped up her child and left the room. “It’s good to have you back, I’ve missed you.”

“How’s Lord Wellington?” Johnny asked innocently and Paul set the glass on the table with an unnecessary clink and looked at him suspiciously.

“Did Jenson tell you?” he asked and Johnny laughed aloud.

“Not much, only that he’d managed to piss you off again.”

His commander sat down at his desk and picked up his glass. “I am over it,” he said with great dignity. “After a few hours of complete fury, I have begun to see the funny side. Sadly, I suspect that is not a view which is going to be shared by every other officer in this army.”

“What’s he done?” Johnny asked.

Paul reached across the table and picked up a letter. “Settle back and enjoy,” he said. “This is a memorandum which has been circulated to the officers of this army. Needless to say it is not going to stay within the officers of this army. I confidently predict it will be in every newspaper in London within the month and His Lordship’s gallant officers are foaming at the mouth in sheer rage at the slur cast upon them. I won’t read the first part, it concerns putting the army into cantonments for the winter and isn’t that interesting. But it gets funnier.” Paul drank some brandy, set the glass down, and began to read.

“I must draw your attention in a very particular manner to the state of discipline of the troops. The discipline of every army, after a long and active campaign, becomes in some degree relaxed, and requires the utmost attention on the part of the general and other officers to bring it back to the state in which it ought to be for service; but I am concerned to have to observe that the army under my command has fallen off in this respect in the late campaign to a greater degree than any army with which I have ever served, or of which I have ever read.”

“Oh Jesus,” Johnny said, setting down his glass. “Doesn’t he know what happened on the retreat to Corunna?”

“Well he wasn’t there,” Paul said fair-mindedly. “But I can’t see how he could have missed Badajoz. But it goes on.

“Yet this army has met with no disaster; it has suffered no privations which but trifling attention on the part of the officers could not have prevented, and for which there existed no reason whatever in the nature of the service; nor has it suffered any hardships excepting those resulting from the necessity of being exposed to the inclemencies of the weather at a moment when they were most secure.”

Johnny picked up his glass and drank, thinking about the bodies he had seen lying by the roadside, pulled apart by animals and birds, often naked after looting by both the locals and their own soldiers. “Should I hear the rest of this?”

“Actually, you’re obliged to; as your brigade commander – this is addressed to me, by the way – I am requested to share it with you.”

“You don’t have to enjoy it this much. My leg is aching again.”

“Put it up,” Paul said, shoving a wooden bench towards him. “Here, take this cushion and sit in respectful silence while I share the rest.

“It must be obvious, however, to every officer, that from the moment the troops commenced their retreat from the neighbourhood of Burgos on the one hand, and from Madrid on the other, the officers lost all command over their men. Irregularities and outrages of all descriptions were committed with impunity, and losses have been sustained which ought never to have occurred. Yet the necessity for retreat existing, none was ever made on which the troops had such short marches; none on which they made such long and repeated halts’ and none on which the retreating armies were so little pressed on their rear by the enemy.”

Johnny looked down at his injured leg, now supported on the bench on an elaborately embroidered cushion and said nothing as eloquently as he could manage.

“We must look therefore for the existing evils, and for the situation in which we now find the army, to some cause besides those resulting from the operations in which we have been engaged. I have no hesitation in attributing these evils to the habitual inattention of the Officers of the regiments to their duty, as prescribed by the standing regulations of the Service, and by the order of this army.”

Johnny felt an unexpected wave of sheer fury sweeping through him. He wanted to get up and leave but it was too difficult to stand. Instead he said:

“Stop reading this fucking letter, Paul, before I thump you with this stick, I’ve heard enough. How dare he sit there pontificating about my officers, it’s a good thing he’s hiding behind his fucking desk in the village because I’d like to shoot the arrogant Irish bastard right through his thick skull.”

Paul got up and went for more brandy. “You’re really not right yet, lad, are you?” he said sympathetically. “I’m sorry, I should have waited, you can hear the rest another time. Have another drink.”

“I don’t want a drink. Do we get any right to respond to this bollocks? I lost five good officers in the almighty fuck up that he created because he was too lazy or too arrogant to make proper provisions for a siege and a fair few good men besides. And I lost Pat Corrigan, who was a friend. The fact that, to my knowledge, none of our men died of exposure or hunger on that hellish march is due entirely to the care and attention of my junior officers who kept discipline, kept the line, managed their men and shared their last morsel with the sick and wounded. As did, may I say, most of General Alten’s light division. It’s a bloody disgrace.”

Paul put his hand gently on Johnny’s shoulder and refilled his glass. “Johnny, calm down. I thought I was bad when I first read it, but this isn’t like you. Don’t take it personally, he isn’t talking to you or me or any one of our officers and when I read this to them, because I’ll have to, I’m going to make it very clear that they all understand that. He knows what we did. He wrote this in a temper without thinking it through and it’s been sent to all of us because that’s how it works. It’s not aimed at you or me.”

“It’s still addressed to us though, isn’t it?” Johnny said.

Paul nodded. “At some point, when he’s calmed down, I’m going to point that out,” he said. “He’ll never back down or apologise, but he should at least be told the effect it’s going to have on morale, the stiff-rumped, bad-tempered, long-nosed Irish bastard.”

The tone of his commander’s voice inexplicably calmed Johnny’s fury. He drank more brandy and studied Paul. “Over it?” he queried and Paul laughed aloud.

“Getting over it,” he said. “Gradually. Nan forbade me to go over there until I could read it from start to finish without one single expletive. Clearly I’m not quite there yet. Want to hear the rest or shall we leave it there?”

“You might as well finish it,” Johnny said and Paul picked up the letter again and struck an oratorial pose.

“I am far from questioning the zeal, still less the gallantry and spirit of the Officers of the army, and I am quite certain that if their minds can be convinced of the necessity of minute and constant attention to understand, recollect, and carry into execution the orders which have been issued for the performance of their duty, and that the strict performance of this duty is necessary to enable the army to serve the country as it ought to be served, they will in future give their attention to these points.

“Unfortunately the inexperience of the Officers of the army has induced many to consider that the period during which an army is on service is one of relaxation from all rule, instead of being, as it is, the period during which of all others every rule for the regulation and control of the conduct of the soldier, for the inspection and care of his arms, ammunition, accoutrements, necessaries and field equipments, and his horse and horse appointments, for the receipt and issue and care of his provisions’ and the regulation of all that belongs to his food and forage for his horse, must be most strictly attended to by the officers of his company or troop, if it is intended that an army, a British army in particular, shall be brought into the field of battle in a state of efficiency to meet the enemy on the day of trial.

“These are the points then to which I most earnestly entreat you to turn your attention and the attention of the officers of the regiments under your command, Portuguese as well as English, during the period which it may be in my power to leave the troops in their cantonments. The commanding officers of regiments must enforce the orders of the army regarding the constant inspection and superintendence of the officers over the conduct of the men of their companies in their cantonments; and they must endeavour to inspire the non-commissioned officers with a sense of their situation and authority; and the non-commissioned officers must be forced to do their duty by being constantly under the view and superintendence of the officers.”

“Where is Carter just now, by the way?” Johnny interrupted. Suddenly he was beginning to be amused.

“No idea. Taking a holiday with his wife, according to Lord Wellington,” Paul said. “We’re going to need to draw lots to decide who is going to undertake the duty of constantly superintending Sergeant-Major Carter, by the way, because I am telling you now, it’s not going to be me. Maybe Manson could do it, he likes a challenge.”

“Get Michael to do it,” Johnny said. “He used to be an NCO, he’ll know all the tricks.”

“He taught Carter all the tricks,” Paul said. “But there’s more.”

“Jesus, what is this, a memorandum or a three volume autobiography? I’ll be drunk by the end of it.”

“You’ll certainly wish you were,” Paul said. “By these means the frequent and discreditable recourse to the authority of the provost and to punishment by the sentence of courts martial, will be prevented and the soldiers will not dare to commit the offences and outrages of which there are too many complaints when they well know the their officers and non-commissioned officers have their eyes and attention turned towards them.”

Suddenly Johnny was laughing. “Well that definitely wasn’t aimed at us,” he said. “The last court martial for any member of the 110th that I can remember attending was yours.”

“Shut up, or I’ll damage your other leg,” Paul said cheerfully. “The commanding officers of regiments must likewise enforce the orders of the army regarding the constant, real inspection of the soldiers’ arms, ammunition, accoutrements and necessaries, in order to prevent at all times the shameful waste of ammunition and the sale of that article and of the soldiers’ necessaries. With this view both should be inspected daily.

“In regard to the food of the soldier, I have frequently observed and lamented in the late campaign, the facility and celerity with which the French soldiers cooked in comparison with those of our army.” Paul had begun to laugh as well, now. “Mind, they use far too much garlic in it, you can smell them for miles when they’re trying to skirmish unobtrusively.”

Johnny was leaning back in his chair, tears of laughter running down his face. “George Kelly,” he croaked. “Can I be there when you tell him he can’t light a fire and get a meal cooked fast enough?”

“Once again, that duty is not mine. I’m delegating all of this to my officers and as my second-in-command, you get Kelly all to yourself. Stop it, you’re going to choke yourself.”

“I can’t help it,” Johnny said. “Is there much more?”

“Of course there is. Given Hookey’s attention to detail, you cannot think that he doesn’t go on to explain exactly what the men are supposed to do to improve the speed of their cooking; he’s an expert, you see him out there all the time with a mess kettle and a pound of beef in his hands. Do I need to read that part? He also explains how we should run field exercises and march ten to twelve miles a week to keep them fit.”

“Is that all?” Johnny wheezed. “It’s a holiday he’s offering them.”

“I’ll skip to the end; I’m worried about your health, here,” Paul said. “But I repeat that the great object of the attention of the General and Field Officers must be to get the Captains and Subalterns of the regiments to understand and perform the duties required from them as the only mode by which the discipline and efficiency of the army can be restored and maintained during the next campaign.”

Paul put the letter down, picked up his brandy glass and raised it. “I give you the Commander-in-Chief, Colonel Wheeler, in all his wisdom.”

Johnny drank the toast. “Thank God that’s over,” he said. “But seriously, Paul, this is going to send morale into the dust.”

“Morale is already in the dust after Burgos. This is just going to trample on it a bit. But they’ll get over it.” Paul set his glass down. “And of course, he’s right.”

Johnny studied him, thinking about it for a long time. “Yes, he is,” he said. “Just not in your brigade.”

“Our brigade, Johnny. Which is why we train all the way through winter quarters, keep them fit and healthy and teach the new recruits to throw up a camp, light a fire and cook a meal in half an hour. And since Alten took over, the rest of the light division is fast catching up, he’s an obsessive German perfectionist and he rides the lines as often as I do, which I love about him. Hill is very good. But a lot of the others don’t do it and because they don’t, it filters down. Wellington has been a complete arse about this, he should never have done it this way, especially after what they’ve just been through, but he is right about some of it.”

“This wasn’t the way to get them to listen,” Johnny said. 

“No. And I think by now he knows it, he’ll have calmed down. He won’t retract a word of it but he’ll probably find some other poor bastard to do the pretty with them and jolly them along and try to get the officers to understand what he’s really trying to say in the middle of all that scathing invective.”

There was another silence. “So when has he asked to see you about that, then, Colonel?” Johnny said.

“Thursday,” Paul said in hollow tones. “He has written with orders for me to speak at a general meeting of divisional and brigade commanders to explain how we do what we do and what they should do to achieve the same. The letter came earlier.”

“Oh bloody hell,” Johnny said. He was trying not to laugh. “You are about to be the least popular officer from here to South America. He’s going to stand you up there, wave that letter and point and by the end of it they’ll be thinking he wrote that with your enthusiastic support and encouragement.”

Paul picked up his glass. “And once again they will be referring to me as Wellington’s Mastiff, and dreaming up ways to get the French to shoot me,” he said. “Pass the brandy again, will you, Colonel?”

 

An Unconventional Officer - love and war in Wellington’s armyThe Peninsular War Saga is available on Kindle and will be available in paperback later this year.

Happy Birthday to An Unconventional Officer

An Unconventional Officer - love and war in Wellington’s armyHappy Birthday to An Unconventional Officer.
Two years ago today, this book was published. It wasn’t the first book I had written or published, but it was the first in the Peninsular War Saga and the book that meant the most to me. I had dreamed of writing this series for years, had dabbled with it and then put it to one side. Life took over, I had two children, day jobs, a home to run and two labradors to adore. It seemed to me that since Bernard Cornwell raced to the top of the bestsellers charts with his Sharpe novels, there had been so many books written about the Napoleonic Wars that there was no space for mine and certainly no market for my slightly eccentric take on them.
When the book was finally written, I discovered that publishers and agents agreed. This period, it seemed, had been done to death. Nobody was interested any more, in Sharpe’s fellow officers and their adventures through the Iberian Peninsula. Certainly nobody was going to be interested in a series of novels which committed the ultimate crime of being difficult to place within a genre.
“Too much war. Why not write a proper romance?”
“Too much romance. Stick to the battles. Oh, and use your initials, that way people might think you’re a man.”
“Too much history. People don’t read books like this for the history. Cut it down and add more battle scenes. Or romance.”
“Not enough history. None of your characters spend enough time describing their uniforms, their weapons and their kit. The only people who read this sort of thing are re-enactors and they want a lot of detail”
“Your hero isn’t enough of an Alpha male and your heroine is too masculine in her outlook.  He’s got too much money, he should earn his commissions not buy them. And she can’t come from the industrial north, it’s not that kind of book. Maybe she should have a title and he could have come up from the ranks. That might do better…”
“Cut it down, change the characters and try Mills and Boon.”
Readers, I haven’t made any of those up. I still have the letters and e-mails. Eventually, I was left with a simple choice. Either I would continue to write the books for my own entertainment and Paul, Anne, Johnny and Carl would never see the light of day, or I would take a chance and try independent publishing. I did it and the rest, as they say, is history.
The Peninsular War Saga hasn’t become an overnight bestseller. I wish it had. I’ve no advertising budget and no experience in marketing, so I’ve sold books one at a time. It’s been a painstaking process, and I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve discovered a whole new world of interesting people online and I’ve made some friends for life.
And I’ve sold books. Gradually, painfully, the numbers have got better. I’ve never given away review copies, so the reviews have trickled in, but I value every one. Most have been excellent. One or two have been awful. I’ve learned that it’s okay that some people don’t like my books and I don’t die of it.
These days, I call myself a writer and I’m lucky enough to be able to make this my job. It’s not amazingly well-paid, but it’s more fun than working in an office. I’ve had ten books published, five in the main series and one in a linked series. Every book is meticulously researched and I love that part of the process. I’m very proud of what I do.
Today is my birthday, but it’s also the birthday of the Peninsular War Saga, and I suppose the birthday of Paul van Daan. Paul came into being gradually, little more than a boy when I first met him, growing up before my eyes. At times, he irritates the hell out of me; he won’t always do what I want him to do, he’s full of opinions and he pushes himself in where he’s not supposed to be. He was supposed to make a cameo appearance in An Unwilling Alliance and ended up as the third main character in the book. 
These days, Paul is part of my life. I hear his voice in my head more often than you would believe. Writing him is incredibly easy, he has a distinctive way of looking at the world, and he makes me laugh and makes me cry. Readers often ask me if there is much of me in Anne. There’s a bit, but there’s a lot more of me in Paul.
I’m so grateful to the people who have helped me along the way. First and foremost, my family. My husband, Richard, has been my biggest cheerleader from the first, content to spend hours setting up my website, designing my fabulous covers and telling me what’s wrong with my plots. I always ignore him. My son Jon, blissfully unaware as a young adult and not much of a reader, who nevertheless was immensely proud to discover that a friend’s grandmother was reading my books and loving them. My daughter Anya, a fellow history lover who laughs at my passion for Wellington, threatens to feed my favourite books to the dogs, shares my study and brings me joy every day of my life. And my sister, Patricia, who is faintly surprised that her little sister has it in her to do anything this interesting, but always encouraging. I love you all.
Then there are the Labradors. We lost Toby last year, halfway through the last book, and I miss him still every day. Joey, my old yella fella, his snores the accompaniment to my working day. And Oscar, my baby, who makes me get up and get some exercise in between chapters and who has taken over my sofa as if he owns it.
All my friends and family have been supportive, but one or two people stand out as always. Heather Paisley, my best friend for more years than either of us care to remember, never fails to say the right thing. Suzy Holland, who was astonished to find I could write and has discovered an undiscovered enthusiasm for military history. Jacqueline Reiter, whom I met online, and is clearly my long lost younger sister, has helped with research and is my ultimate beta reader; she lets nothing go. And Kristine Hughes Patrone, who with Jacqueline, reads every snippet I send her, laughs at all my favourite lines, and loves Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington as much as I do. Through doing this, I have found my people.
My next plan, other than finishing the current work in progress, This Blighted Expedition, is to get all the books in the Peninsular War Saga out in paperback before the end of this year. Hopefully, that will introduce Paul, Anne and the others to readers who haven’t met them yet.
I am an incredibly lucky woman to be able to spend my working day doing something I love as much as this. Occasionally, I like to be able to say thank you, and An Unconventional Officer will be available on Amazon kindle free for three days, on 4th, 5th and 6th June. Many of you have already read it, but please share this with people who haven’t.
Finally, I’d like to thank my readers. You are the most amazingly loyal and supportive bunch in the world. You’re quite shy, most of my contact with you is in private message or e-mail, but you follow my facebook page and twitter,  and buy my books. I’m so grateful to each and every one of you. I love your passion for the period, the history and the characters, you pepper me with questions and never fail to point out a typo or a mistake. I’m not sure if mainstream authors with huge advertising budgets and publishers to manage their contact with readers get half the joy I do every time one of you sends me a question I don’t have an immediate answer to and have to look up.  I love each and every one of you. Thank you.
The Peninsular War Saga is two years old today and going strong. There are many more books to come and possibly some other linked novels. Happy Birthday to Paul, Anne and the rest of the 110th Light Infantry. And gracious thanks to Lord Wellington, for taking an insignificant, over-confident and  very talented young officer under his wing on a hillside in India and for remaining a brilliant, grumpy and entertaining part of my story ever since.
 

The Battle of Fuentes de Onoro

An Uncommon Campaign, 110th at the Battle of Fuentes d'OnoroThe Battle of Fuentes de Onoro took place on this day in 1811 in and around the small border village close to the fortress of Almeida which was the last French foothold in Portugal.

In honour of the day, I wanted to share an extract from An Uncommon Campaign, where Major Carl Swanson finds himself commanding five companies under Lt-Colonel Williams of the 5/60th, fighting a bloody battle in the narrow streets of the village.

The rifles and muskets crashed around him and Carl levelled his pistol and fired. The French voltigeurs came on, dodging behind walls and hedges, and after them came the sound of the drums as the French columns marched forward.  Carl had been through many battles and he knew the effect those drums could have on inexperienced troops especially when coupled with the sight of the solid columns of Frenchmen marching inexorably forward, shouting for their Emperor with the golden eagle standards blazing overhead. But the men of the 110th had been through too many battles to be easily intimidated. The guns up on the ridge began to fire into the columns, and there were cries of agony, spurting blood and smashing bone.  And then Carl heard the clear tones of Captain Manson through the smoke and noise and fear.

“All right lads, fall back when you need, don’t take a punishing.  Carter, Dawson, Cooper, Hammond – get rid of those bloody eagles, will you, they piss me off, they don’t even look like birds.”

Carl grinned, and fixed his eyes on the eagles. As the men began to fall back steadily before the approaching columns, there was a crack, and one of the eagles fell, its pole snapped.  There was a scrabble among the French to retrieve it, and then a scream of pain and the second eagle toppled forward as the man holding it died. Even through the chaos of battle Carl could hear men cheering as each one fell and he silently applauded Manson’s imaginative piece of morale-boosting.

There was no time for it now as the French crashed into the British lines and the fighting became close and personal and bloody. Each man fought for his life, with bayonet and sword, and seeing his men in danger of being overwhelmed, Carl yelled an order and turned to run back, finding new loopholes in three houses further up. His men recovered quickly, reloaded and turned to fire again.

They fought their way stubbornly up through the narrow streets of the village, in a welter of blood and death. In places, some of the light companies had built makeshift barricades from doors and bed frames, and their officers stood beside them, calling orders in measured tones. When the French overran them they abandoned firepower once more and through sheer determination forced the French back down the hill at the points of their bayonets, scrambling over dead and wounded of both sides.

It was impossible, in the tangled streets, to know what was happening elsewhere in the battle. On an open field it was easier to scan the lines and see how other battalions were doing, but Carl was only aware of his own five companies, now somewhat depleted. He found himself alone briefly in a winding lane, closely bordered by white cottages, one of them badly damaged by artillery fire, his men moving into the houses to check for enemy ambush. Carl wiped sweat from his face on his sleeve and it came away black. Keeping a wary eye up and down the lane he reached for his water bottle and gulped down a few swallows.

Ahead of him a smoke-blackened figure emerged from one of the doorways. “Clear in there, sir,” Private O’Hara said cheerfully. “Just got to..”

There was an explosion of sound and O’Hara’s body jerked violently. He made a strangled gurgling noise and then fell forward, blood spilling onto the baked earth of the street, his back a gaping hole. The Frenchman was only a few feet away and could not have missed, even with the dubious accuracy of a musket. Carl looked down at the dead Irishman and then up at the Frenchman and as he did so there was a babble of French voices and they poured out of the building opposite, a dozen of them, racing towards him with bayonets raised.

Carl dived into the nearest doorway. The house was empty, a bare room, cleared of valuables with only a few pieces of basic wooden furniture. The door was narrow and two of the French infantrymen tried to go through it at the same time and collided, temporarily stuck. Carl could have killed either of them without difficulty but their comrades were yelling behind them and he had no intention of running towards them. He spun around, looking for an exit, but the only window had wooden shutters firmly closed and he had no time to open them. 

There was a narrow wooden staircase and Carl sprinted towards it and scrambled to the upper floor. There were two doors and he dived through the first one, slammed it shut, making plaster fall from above with the force of it, and dragged the big wooden bed in front of it. It was not heavy enough to hold the Frenchmen but it would buy him some time.

The window here was also shuttered and Carl struggled furiously with the warped wood, showering himself with plaster and splinters as he fought to open it. It gave finally and he flung the shutter open and leaned over the sill, looking down into the lane below. It was a drop of more than ten feet, he guessed and if he jumped he risked a broken leg. They would bayonet him where he fell and looking along the street, he could see only Frenchmen; the British were further up, fighting their way through the houses at the top of the hill. His stupid pause had allowed him to become cut off from his men and hearing the bed shift behind him, he took a deep breath and swung his leg over the ledge, thinking how furious his commander would have been if he could see his predicament. 

Below, under the lower window, three bodies lay immobile, two British and one French. It was impossible to tell if they were alive or dead, but the Frenchman’s bayonet lay to one side and he was soaked in blood. Carl eased himself over, trying to lower himself to minimise the fall but a crash behind him told him he had run out of time and he went over in a scramble and dropped deliberately onto the body of the Frenchman.

It broke his fall as he had intended, the feeling of the corpse beneath him making him feel sick. There was no time to think about it; shouts from the window above told him that his pursuers were there and scrambling to load a musket. Carl got to his feet shakily and turned towards the far end of the hill where his companies had been fighting.

“Sir, get down!” a voice bellowed and Carl recognised it with overwhelming relief, as Private Dawson of the light company. He dropped like a stone, flat to the ground and there was a flurry of rifle shots and an order called in the London accent of Sergeant Hammond. Above him a man screamed and then a body crashed to the ground close to him. More shots were fired and then he heard running feet, hard on the packed earth, and he was suddenly surrounded by red coats.  A hand reached to pull him to his feet.

“Sir, are you hurt?” Manson’s voice said.

“No, but I’m bloody embarrassed, that was a mistake I’d expect from a sixteen year old ensign fresh off the boat. You tell the colonel and I’m coming after you, Leo. And thank you.”

He turned and watched as his men surged past him, driving the French back down the hill in a fierce charge. Above, the men at the windows had vanished, driven off by the fire of the rifles although one lay dead in the street beside him and another hung like a broken doll over the window ledge. Carl looked at Manson.

“You all right?”

Manson nodded.  His face was black with powder and there was blood on his coat .  “Think so, sir. Bastard of a place to defend, mind.  Cooper and Blake are hurt, I’ve told them to get themselves up to the church, it’s where we’re sending the wounded for now.”

Wellington at the Tower

Wellington at the Tower came about during a late-night online chat with two very dear historian friends, Jacqueline Reiter and Kristine Hughes Patrone. We had recently been to the Tower and had been reading about the changes the Duke of Wellington made when he became Constable of the Tower in 1826. The resulting sketches were put together for our own amusement, and I’ve slightly tidied them up for public consumption, to celebrate Wellington’s 250th birthday.

The sketches take the form of imaginary conversations between the Duke of Wellington, full of crusading zeal to improve conditions at the Tower, and General Sir Paul van Daan, the fictional hero of my Peninsular War Saga and long-time friend and sparring partner of the Duke. I sometimes look ahead and wonder how that friendship will continue into peacetime. I have a very strong feeling that it won’t change very much at all…

No actual History was involved in the creating of these sketches. Well, not much, anyhow. For the background to this, I suggest you read No 1 London’s excellent post on the subject here.

From the creators of Wellington on Twitter…

Wellington at the Tower Part I

“I am making a number of changes at the Tower, General.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Firstly, the post of Yeoman Warder. Are you aware that is possible to BUY these positions, or even hand them down from father to son?”

“No. No, sir, can’t say I knew that.”

“It is a disgrace. Such a position ought to be earned, as an honour, not bought and sold. Like…like…”

“Like a commission in the actual army, sir, where you get to lead men and send them into battle? No, I can see why that would worry you.”

“Don’t be impertinent, General. I have decided to end this practice. In future, Yeoman Warders will be appointed based on distinguished military service.”

“Excellent idea, sir. Only please don’t offer it to Sergeant-Major Carter, I do not want to look at his legs in that fancy dress costume.”

 

Wellington at the Tower Part II

“Ah, General van Daan. I have been speaking to the Surgeon-Major about the moat. It is completely revolting, full of rotting animals and God knows what else. He is of the opinion that it is affecting the health of the men, possibly polluting the water supply.”

“It sounds very likely, sir. Do your lot drink water at all? Things must have changed since the war, then. As I remember, grog and looted wine were more usual.”

“No, General. Only in the 110th.”

“Touche, sir. Can’t see the point of that moat anyway unless you’re expecting to be attacked. There’s not another Reform Bill in the offing, is there?”

“General, as always, you have me in paroxysms of laughter.”

“You’re hiding it well, sir.”

 

Wellington at the Tower, Part III

“Morning, sir. What in God’s name is that awful racket?”

“I have formally closed down the Tower menagerie, General. It is completely ridiculous to have beasts roaming around a military barracks. The animals are being transported to their new quarters in Regents Park. It will be a great improvement.”

“It’ll certainly be quieter. Is that by any chance an elephant I can hear? I feel as though I’m back in India.”

“It is. I have been listening to that noise every morning from my desk. It has driven me mad.”

“What about the visitors, sir? They loved coming in to see the animals, it’s what brings most people to the Tower.”

– Silence – –

“Ah. Yes, of course. You’ve got no objection to the animals, have you, sir, it’s just people you can’t stand.”

“Certainly I am selective, General. Why don’t you go down and watch them caging the lions? You might like to give them a hand. Although they sound fairly hungry…”

“Nice try, sir. By the way, what have you been doing at the front of the portcullis out there? Those black spikes are new.”

“Ah. I’m glad you noticed those. I have ordered them to be installed so that the guards will no longer be able to lounge against the wall and smoke whilst on duty. High time some military discipline was introduced in this place.”

“Really? Now that is an interesting idea. I am seeing a few of those decorating the guard posts around the barracks. Mind, we don’t have so much trouble with them smoking on duty these days, since Sergeant-Major Carter turned the room in the front tower into a latrine, and took to emptying the chamber pot out the window from time to time if he smelled smoke.”

“Really? What an ingenious idea, you must thank Sergeant-Major Carter for me. Where’s my secretary, I need to find out what the room in the Bloody Tower above those guard posts is currently being used for…”

“Glad I could help, sir. Sorry I can’t stay, but it sounds as though the baboons have escaped again, and I have enough trouble with that dog of my wife’s at home. Good luck, though. And I’d move those papers off your desk in case they make it in here…”

 

Wellington’s Birthday

Arthur Wesley, later Sir Arthur Wellesley and still later the first Duke of Wellington was born on this day in 1769 and to celebrate Wellington’s birthday there will be a lot of articles and blog posts out there which tell the story of his extraordinary life far better than I can.

As my readers know, Wellington is a significant character in the Peninsular War Saga. I’ve read several different biographies of him during my research along with a huge number of contemporary diaries and letters from men who served under him and each account puts a slightly different slant on Wellington’s character. Over six books, I’ve developed my own view of Wellington. I rather suspect I owe a good deal to Rory Muir’s historical view of him but as a novelist, I have the flexibility to add my own nuances, especially with regard to his relationship with my fictional characters.

Today, as my tribute to Wellington on his 250th birthday, I’ve put together a collection of some of my own favourite Wellington moments from my novels. I hope you enjoy them.

An Unconventional Officer - love and war in Wellington’s armyWe start in India, in an Unconventional Officer, when the young and newly promoted Paul van Daan fights under Wellesley at Assaye. At this stage, the two hardly know each other, but there is already a sense of some of the conversations to come…

“Captain van Daan.  They’re quieter over on the right than they were, it seems.  Would your ruffians have something to do with that?”

“Maybe, sir.  We came in to support the 74th but the dragoons were doing a good job so we went for the guns.”

“Lose many?”

“I don’t know yet.  One man down defending the first gun, but we took some heavy shooting to our right.  We’ll not get out of it unscathed.”

“None of us will, laddie.  They’re on the run now.  Their French officers took off, no discipline left.  Eyes right, the general is approaching.”

Wellesley reined in.  He looked exhausted and the horse he was riding was not the one he had set out on that morning.

“Major McTavish, Captain van Daan.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well done, sirs.  You’re hurt, Captain van Daan.”

“Not serious, sir.”

“Good, good.  I sent a man over to send you into battle, but he couldn’t find you.”

Paul glanced up at him warily.  “I was around, sir,” he said.

“Yes.”  Wellesley studied him with thoughtful blue grey eyes.  Finally, to Paul’s relief, his lips twitched slightly.  “You anticipated correctly, Captain.  You might not always be right, however.  I prefer my officers to await orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did Colonel Maxwell…”

“No, sir,” Paul said definitely.  “We went in ahead of him, he waited for your orders, sir.”

Wellesley shook his head.  “You’re a bloody liar, Captain, as you know very well.  I’ve sent Wallace to rally the remains of the 74th and get them out of the range of those guns.  Although they’re not doing much damage on this side, but they’ve started up again on the left, firing at our rear.  Harness is taking the 78th back to recapture them, Captain, are your men able to join them?”

“Yes, sir.”  Paul nodded to his sergeant who took off at a run to summon the rest of the light company.  

“Good, let’s get those guns back.  God knows what the cavalry are doing!”

Paul turned to follow his gaze and realised that having done their work, Maxwell’s troopers seemed to have gone out of control and crossed the Juah, with their colonel following them.  “They all right over there, sir?”

“I sincerely hope so, I could rather do with them over here.  What is wrong with officers of the cavalry, Captain?  Why can they never follow a simple order?”

Despite himself, Paul grinned at the general’s exasperated tone.  “I might not be the best person to ask that today, sir.”

An Unwilling Alliance is not part of the main sequence of books, taking place during the Copenhagen campaign of 1807, but it is one of my favourites in terms of the development of Wellesley and Paul’s relationship. In this scene, Paul is in trouble for upsetting the Royal Navy and Sir Arthur Wellesley is not amused…

Sir Arthur Wellesley was furious.

Paul finally managed to find him alone in his sitting room the following day, writing a letter to London. He had been pleasant on Paul’s arrival but his face had steadily darkened as Paul told his story. He said very little apart from to bark a question when a point was not clear. Paul told the story in full.  There was no point in holding back; at some point the entire tale would come out. Paul suspected that by now the bosun from the Flight would be telling it to Admiral Gambier and he was fairly sure that the man would be telling a version that made him appear less culpable.

Wellesley had not asked him to sit down and Paul stood to attention, fixing his eyes on a spot on the wall as Wellesley allowed the silence to lengthen when the story was told. Eventually his chief spoke, in tones of pure ice.

“Am I expected to get you out of this particular mess, Major van Daan?”

Paul shifted his gaze to Wellesley’s face. “No, sir,” he said. “I don’t expect you to do anything at all. You needed to know, because the bosun from the Flight is going to tell the Admiral what happened and it is going to come back to you. I am sorry.”

“Sorry? Do you think that is enough? You effected an armed boarding of a Royal Navy ship, locked up the crew, threatened the captain of the Iris when he very properly came to take over and asked you to leave and kidnapped a group of men who had been legally pressed into naval service without making any attempt to speak to a senior officer in either service about…”

“I did make an attempt to speak to the Admiral, sir. I spoke to Captain Sir Home Popham.”

“Don’t interrupt me!” Wellesley snapped, furiously. “You deserve to be court martialled and cashiered for this, you insubordinate young imbecile! The situation here is difficult enough; we’re invading and threatening a neutral country, nobody knows who is in command or whether the army or the navy should be taking the lead, orders from London are slower than usual and nobody is telling me anything at all or listening to anything I have to say! Admiral Gambier has every right to be furious about this and every right to demand your stupid young head on a plate and if he writes to Horse Guards to that effect or even complains to Lord Cathcart, there isn’t a damned thing I can do about it. I am not in command here and I don’t have that much influence.”

Paul met his gaze. “I know. And I know you don’t want to hear it, sir, but I am genuinely sorry. I lost my temper.”

“When you were a twenty-one year old junior officer, Major, your outbreaks were mildly amusing, mostly because they caused no real damage. At your age and with your rank they are no longer funny.”

Paul could think of nothing to say. He suspected that he had genuinely gone too far this time. His friends had told him often enough that he could not continue to rely on Wellesley’s indulgence indefinitely. On this occasion he knew that his chief’s fury was exacerbated by his own frustration at being sidelined from the centre of events. Wellesley was ambitious and had pushed for this appointment, wanting to get away from his administrative and political duties in Ireland and back into combat where he believed he was meant to be.

Paul agreed with him. He had served under a variety of officers in both his early navy career and since joining the army and he had never come across any man whom he respected as he did the austere Anglo-Irish general. He had caught Wellesley’s eye in India when he was a young lieutenant and they had remained in contact since then, corresponding regularly. He knew that despite the twelve year age gap, Wellesley liked him and he returned his chief’s regard. They were friends, as far as it was possible to be friends with the distant, unemotional Wellesley and Paul tried hard not to trade on the fact.  

He had not consciously assumed that Wellesley would extract him from his current situation, but he realised that it had not occurred to him that the general might not be able to. In India and in Ireland, Wellesley had been in command. He was subordinate here to Lord Cathcart and the political situation made it difficult for him to demand immunity for a young officer’s rash disregard for the dignity of the navy.

“Nothing to say, Major?” Wellesley said finally.

Paul shook his head. “Not really, sir. I could make a very impassioned speech about the state of those men aboard that ship. I could point out that I wouldn’t have needed to get involved at all if they’d listened to me when I went to the flagship to tell them what was going on. I could work myself into a temper all over again about a system that pays bonuses for legalised kidnapping, but we all know that I’ve a personal axe to grind on that particular subject; the navy stole two and a half years of my life when I was a boy and you don’t want me to go into detail about what some of that was like, trust me. But none of that matters, because you’re completely right. I’m old enough and intelligent enough to weigh up the consequences of my actions and I didn’t. I went blundering in and I didn’t give a thought or a single damn about how I was going to get out of it. And it isn’t fair to expect you to put your neck on the block because I need to learn self-control. I am sorry. Let it take its course.”

There was heavy silence in the room. Outside it had begun to rain and Paul could hear the raindrops against the shutters, the wind whistling through gaps in the wood. He thought inconsequentially that it was typical of Wellesley to find himself in a billet that would be freezing cold at night and not bother to change it.

An Irregular RegimentIn An Irregular Regiment, Paul has married his second wife, who is something of a favourite of Wellington’s, and is preparing to join the army in chasing Massena out of Portugal, when Paul learns that his chief has a particularly interesting job for him…

“I imagine so,” Wellington said. “Really, Colonel, you never fail to surprise me.  With the Duke gone, Dundas is making his own appointments to my army and he has sent me Major-General Sir William Erskine, whom you will meet tomorrow at my reception.  He is to take over the light division during General Craufurd’s absence.”

Paul sat very still, staring at his commander-in-chief. He felt suddenly very sick.  Wellington looked back at him steadily. There was a long silence. Eventually, Wellington said:

“I know you are about to start swearing, Colonel.”

“I actually don’t know any words rude enough to cover this,” Paul said, taking a deep breath.  “Was this your idea or Horse Guards?”

“What do you think, Colonel?”  Wellington sighed.  “I have no choice but to accept him.  He is politically very well connected, of the right rank and knows the right people.”

“And according to popular gossip he is arrogant, inexperienced, blind as a bat and mad as a Bedlamite.  Are you seriously proposing to allow him to command troops at all, let alone Robert Craufurd’s light division?”

“I don’t have a choice, Colonel.”

“Why don’t you send him out in command of my light company for a couple of days, sir?  I can pretty much guarantee they will solve your problem for you.”

“Colonel, murder is not a solution I can countenance I am afraid.”

“What a shame.”

Wellington shook his head.  “I should know better than to confide in a relatively junior officer…”

“You should know better than to confide in me and expect me not to tell you what I think, sir.”

“It is my aim to cause as much damage to Massena’s army as possible, Colonel. I…”

“And the light division would be perfect for that, sir, if you had the right commander.”

“You’re too young and you don’t have the right connections.”

“Christ, I’m not suggesting you give them to me. Either Beckwith or Drummond are more than capable!”

“Colonel, my hands are tied.  He is here and I need to use him, at least until I can come up with a very good reason not to. I have given him limited command and he has not done as badly as I feared.”

“He’s not had much chance so far but if you get Black Bob’s division slaughtered under this lunatic, sir, I suggest you take leave of absence before he gets back, because he’ll shoot you,” Paul said shortly.  “What do you want me to do?”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh come on, don’t tell me I’m here for a chat and a drink. I’ve spent four months working my arse off in Lisbon to get your army supplied, I’ve come back ready to fight and you are about to give me a job that you think I am going to yell about. How long have I known you, sir?  Cut line and tell me what it is.”

Lord Wellington was silent for some time and Paul studied him. He could almost see his chief considering the best way to phrase his orders, something he seldom did. Usually Wellington barked out instructions and expected them to be obeyed and the care he was taking over this made Paul’s heart sink.

“Very well. You’ll meet Erskine tomorrow. I want you and the 110th to operate under his personal command, in addition – but not as part of – the light division. You’ll provide him with ADCs, try to give him some guidance…”

“You have got to be fucking joking, sir!”

“Watch your language with me, Colonel.”

“My apologies, sir, it just slipped out. Is there something I’ve done recently to piss you off?  Because if there is, I wish you’d just tell me what it is and I’ll apologise. I have to be the worst person in the world for this job. Johnny Wheeler once told me I have the diplomatic skills of a five year old, and honestly, I think he was being generous.”

“Listen to me for a moment. You will be in the thick of the fighting. I want you to act as liaison between General Erskine and the light division but you’ll also be in a position to report back to me.  If things are going wrong, you are a man I trust to make difficult decisions without fear.  God knows you’ve made up your own orders often enough over the years.”

“Yes, in the heat of battle or when no other orders are available. I also fight very well under the command of a good general, by the way.”

“I know you do, Colonel, I commanded you at Assaye, Rolica, Vimeiro, Talavera and Bussaco. And you did exactly what you were asked to do on each occasion and you did it well. But at Assaye you went in to help the 74th before I could get to you to give the order.  And at the Coa you defied Robert Craufurd to double back and retake that knoll, saving the rest of his troops during the retreat. That is why I want you within reach of Major-General Erskine. Because you being there could save lives.”

Paul stared at his commander. “Tell me this is a joke,” he said, too angry to be polite.  “You are giving Robert Craufurd’s light division to a half blind lunatic with no experience of either war or command and you are expecting me to do what exactly?”

“Colonel, don’t lose your temper with me.”

“Sir, I have already lost my temper with you, telling me not to is only going to piss me off more.”

“The light division needs a commander. I have to do something with him, his family are too influential for me to ignore. At best he is inexperienced; at worst he might be dangerous.  So I’m putting him in charge of men who are going to be able to work round him.  Beckwith and Drummond are good men, used to Craufurd.  They’ll know what to do if he makes a mistake.  And if they don’t…”

“Sir?”

“If they don’t, you will,” Wellington said quietly.  “I’m putting the 110th under his direct command.  You’ll march with him, provide him with ADCs, make sure he’s where he should be when he should be.  And make sure that the light division knows what the hell is going on.”

Paul stood up and went over to the window.  “And what happens if that goes wrong?” he asked.

“It won’t.”

“It bloody well could and you know it. If I can’t manage him, my lads end up dead, possibly taking half the light division with them. And if I do manage to survive it, I’m neither senior enough nor well connected enough to survive what they’ll do to me at Horse Guards.   Either way you’re in the clear.  If I manage it, you’ll get a slap on the back and political points.  If I don’t, you stand back and point and I’m going down.”

“That is unfair, Colonel. I have always supported you, no matter how appalling your behaviour at times. Another commander would have left you to your fate after Copenhagen or sent you for court martial after the Coa.”

Paul was silent, aware of the truth of it. Wellington had always supported him when he had been in trouble, but he also understood that his chief would put the needs of his command ahead of any friendship. Paul had no problem with that; it was what he expected, but the idea of Erskine in charge of the light division appalled him and the idea that he was being expected to manage it, was worse.

“How long do you think it will be before General Erskine has me up before a court martial, sir?” he asked finally. “You know what I’m like.”

“I know you’re getting better at it. You can do this, Colonel van Daan,” Wellington said steadily. “You are probably the only man I would trust with it.”

“You’ve got a very funny definition of the word trust, sir.”

“I’ve never yet given you an order you’ve failed to obey,”

It nettled Paul as he knew it was meant to. “No. And you haven’t this time. I’ll do my duty, sir. It’s what I do. But you need to do something for me in return.”

“Which is?”

“Before we set off, I want to borrow your man of business. I need to get my affairs in order. And I need you to give me your word that if he gets me killed, you’ll make sure she’s all right.”

Paul had shaken his commander and he knew it. “Colonel…”

“Your word, sir.  I can get everything set up and ready for my lawyers at home.  But the only thing my family knows about her is that I married the widow of a thief and a deserter, practically over my wife’s grave. They’re not supportive of us and they don’t need to be.  Sooner or later they’ll meet her and get to know her and they’ll think it’s the best thing I ever did.  But at the moment she’s on shaky ground.  So if I die, I need you to use every piece of influence that you have to make sure she gets what she’s due.”

“I will.”

“You promise me.”

“Colonel you have my word on it.”

“And look after her.  Nobody else can do it. I don’t think any of them understands her yet the way you do, with the exception of Leo Manson and he’s too young.”

Wellington studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded.  “I will.  But it isn’t going to be necessary. You are better at this than you think you are, Colonel, I wouldn’t be doing this if I weren’t sure of that.”

“Well I appreciate your confidence, sir.”

“As to the rest, I give you my word that I will support you if you’re put in a difficult position over this. And I can, I’m not in command of the reserves any more. You take care of my light division until Craufurd gets back and if Erskine comes baying for your head, I will throw him out.”

Paul looked at his chief with troubled eyes. He wanted badly to believe him and he knew that Wellington was completely serious in his intention. He also knew that nothing meant as much to his chief as remaining in command and winning this war and he was under no illusions that he would put that aim ahead of anything else, probably including friendship.

“Thank you, sir,” he said finally, given that there was nothing more he could say. He saw Wellington visibly relax and wondered if the general had actually expected him to refuse.

“Excellent. I’ll expect you and your officers at the reception tomorrow evening, Colonel. Have you met General Erskine at all?”

“Not really, sir, I’ve seen him around.”

“Bring your wife.”

Paul eyed his commander in chief.  “Sir, when my wife hears about this one, you might be better off if I leave her at home,” he said shortly.  “But we’ll be there.  If you’ll excuse me, I’ll need to go and brief my officers about this.  They’ll need at least a day before they get over it enough to guarantee they’ll be civil.”

An Uncommon Campaign, 110th at the Battle of Fuentes d'OnoroIn An Uncommon Campaign, Wellington is furious in the aftermath of the French garrison’s escape from Almeida while Paul is drawn into army politics in order to secure the promotion of a good officer…

“Don’t start asking difficult questions, Colonel.”

“I have to. Because if you don’t tell me the truth you know perfectly well that at some point something is going to happen that I don’t like and I’ll probably blow up about it when I ought to keep my mouth shut.”

Wellington sighed. “I would rather be dealing with your wife at this point,” he said.

“Well you can’t. I know she’s a better politician than I am, sir, but she’s not well.  What are you giving them that I’m not going to like?”

Wellington studied him for a long time. Then he rose and went to the decanter. He brought it to the table and poured two more drinks and sat down. “I am writing to London concerning this disgraceful affair of the Almeida garrison,” he said. “In it, I am listing the reasons I believe it to have gone wrong. What I will not be doing is hanging Sir William Erskine out to dry. Privately I intend to convey to Horse Guards that I could do so at any moment if I am asked to place yet another officer of dubious competence over a man of honour and ability. I am then going to tell them of my appointment of Lt-Colonel John Wheeler to full colonel of the 112th light infantry.”

“Light infantry?”

“May as well make it worth my while.”

“All right, sir.  And who, may I ask, is the chosen scapegoat?”

“Not a scapegoat, Paul.  Not in the sense you mean.  A lot of mistakes were made but the biggest was the bridge at Barba del Puerco. I sent out an order the previous day to General Erskine to send the 4th under Colonel Bevan out to the bridge. For reasons which nobody seems to be able to explain to me, Colonel Bevan did not go there. The result was that Brennier had free passage over the river.”

“I thought I’d heard that Bevan was there,” Paul said.

“He arrived in order to join in the attack on the retreating French troops. If his men had held the bridge as they should have…”

“Have you had this properly investigated?” Paul asked quietly.

“Is Colonel Bevan a friend of yours, Paul?” Wellington asked.

“Have you met Colonel Bevan, sir? He is a charmingly naïve gentleman with his head stuffed full of notions of honour and gallantry which make my hair stand on end and a tendency to sink into black despair on a regular basis. No, he’s not a friend. He disapproves of me. I frequently want to shake him. But he’s a good man and not a bad officer. And he has a reputation for being highly conscientious. If he’s actually being blamed here for something he didn’t do…”

“He isn’t. I’m not lying about anything, Paul. I’m just not stressing the obvious, which is that both Campbell and Erskine, who command divisions, ought to have been able to work out between them how to prevent the French from breaking out of Almeida and managing a night march on little known paths to cross into Spain. If you and Craufurd had been guarding Almeida for me he wouldn’t have got beyond the first line of your pickets.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Paul admitted. “So you let the commanders off the hook and blame poor Bevan for getting lost in the dark and quietly point out to Horse Guards how embarrassing it would be for them if their appointment – namely Erskine – should later turn out to have been grossly negligent. And then you bring up Colonel Johnny Wheeler and the 112th. Got any other favours you’re asking of them at the same time?”

“A more regular pay chest might be nice, Colonel, but I’m not optimistic.”

Paul drank.  “You were right. I bloody hate it and I wish I didn’t know anything about it.  But I want Johnny Wheeler commanding my men because he’ll keep them alive. What will happen to Bevan?”

“Nothing. God in heaven, Colonel, I’m not going to court-martial the man, he won’t be the first to make a mistake in this war. I would hate to be hauled over the coals for some of my recent choices at Fuentes de Oñoro. I’m not even going to give him a dressing-down in person. There will be a report in the London Gazette which might be embarrassing for him, but he’ll survive it. At some point he will do something gallant with his regiment and I’ll issue a commendation which will also be mentioned in the London Gazette and it will all be forgotten.” Wellington studied Paul. “There is another name which is going to suffer the same fate by the way but I doubt this one will distress you as much. General Erskine is placing some of the blame for the delay in my orders being sent onto Captain Longford.”

“Is he?  What is Longford supposed to have done?”

“He was at a dinner in Villa Formoso with the general when my orders were delivered. According to Erskine he told Captain Longford to deliver them to Colonel Bevan and the captain failed to do so for several hours.”

“Bollocks,” Paul said shortly. “Longford’s not that stupid. He’s trying to build himself a career out of this posting, if he got handed your orders he’d have taken them on the spot. What happened, Erskine put them in his pocket and forget about them?”

“We will never truly know, Colonel.”

“I’ll know, sir. Well it might put a brake on Vincent’s ambitions, but he’s used to that. He’ll smile and say the right things and keep kissing arses until it’s all forgotten. Do him good after what he did at Sabugal. Although it is bloody unfair that Erskine gets off scot free.”

“Paul – you can’t tell anybody about any of this. Not even your wife.”

“If I told Nan about this she’d crucify me,” Paul said bluntly.  “We share a passion for justice which I’m setting aside for Johnny and the 112th. Do I need to do anything about Grey?”

“No. Try not to hit him again. But he insulted your wife, another officer would have called him out. What did he say, by the way?”

“It involved Captain Cartwright.”

“Ah. Yes, that has caused a bit of gossip, Colonel. People are saying you are about to become the father of two children.”

“Is that what you meant about my morals earlier? If I’d fathered a bastard on Arabella Cartwright last year, sir, we wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation because my bloody corpse would have been found castrated in a ditch outside the nearest military hospital. And if she finds out what you and I have just done to Charles Bevan you might be right there next to me so you’d better be able to carry this off.”

In A Redoubtable Citadel, Wellington faces two bloody sieges within a few months and is particularly grouchy about his officers taking leave…

It had been a frustrating few weeks for the commander of the third brigade of the light division.  Arriving back at Wellington’s lines, Paul found his general in a foul mood, furious about delays in reinforcements arriving, problems with his supply lines and the slow progress of his siege train.  Wellington was still in Freineda, leaving it to the last possible minute to move his headquarters towards Badajoz.  He had spent weeks feeding disinformation to the French about his intentions and had been rewarded by a significant lack of troop movements towards the city, but he knew that once it became clear that he intended to invest the fortress and take Badajoz, the French would move to try to relieve it.  It was a delicately balanced strategy and Wellington found himself, not for the first time, short of men, money and equipment.  He was also short of a commander for the light division, General Charles von Alten having been delayed, and it was quickly clear that he expected Paul to step in to the breach.

Wellington’s senior officers greeted Paul’s return with evident relief, which told him all he needed to know about his commander’s mood during the past weeks.  Since the quick series of promotions which had led him to command a brigade at thirty, Paul had faced a good deal of resentment and opposition from some of the other officers.  He had heard himself described as a wealthy, middle class upstart who had bought his way to success but he was cynically aware of how much they relied on him to manage the commander-in-chief when he reached the point of addressing his generals with the biting sarcasm of a disgruntled Latin master speaking to a particularly dense first year.  The tone of his note requesting Paul’s return had been abrupt to the point of rudeness.

Paul was greeted with pleasure by his own officers.  He bathed and changed and took himself up to Wellington’s headquarters where his chief regarded him with a frosty eye.

“So you’re back?” he said with heavy sarcasm.  “I hope you’re well rested, Colonel?  I wouldn’t want to think I’ve interrupted your holiday too soon.”

“Well you did, sir,” Paul said frankly.  “My family brought my children out to see me, I could have done with another month to tell you the truth.  But the tone of this charming missive informed me I’d done as well as I was going to.  What’s going on?”

He dropped Wellington’s letter onto the table and stood waiting.  His chief picked it up and looked at it for a moment.  “Don’t you want to hold onto this, Colonel?  All my other officers are saving my briefing notes for their memoirs,” he said.

“No thank you, sir, I’ve had enough rude letters from you over the years to be able to recreate a generic bollocking without an aide memoire.  The only letters I hold on to are those from my wife.  She’s a better correspondent than you are, to be honest.  What’s the matter, siege train not arrived?”

“Nothing has arrived!” Wellington said.  “Get yourself a drink, for God’s sake and pour me one as well.  I thought you’d be in a better mood.”

“I was until I walked in here and you started yelling at me.”  Paul went to pour brandy and Wellington’s orderly grinned and effaced himself.  “Want me to tell you about our lovely parties in Lisbon?”

“You don’t need to; your wife wrote to me.  Her description of the Regent’s attempts at flirtation are the only thing that has made me laugh this month, she has a gift.  I wonder if she would accept a post as my secretary?”

“She isn’t going to accept any of the posts you’re likely to offer her, sir, since they would all lead to the same thing and I do not trust you with her.”  Paul put the glass down on the table and sat down without being asked.  “Tell me what’s been going on.”

In the most recent book, An Untrustworthy Army, Paul is put in charge of clearing the last French garrison out of the Retiro in Madrid and finds that he is expected to do so in front of an audience of cheering locals…

Dawn, and then full daylight, brought a new problem. The early sun lit up the astonishing spectacle of an audience.  The citizens of Madrid, some of whom had probably not been to sleep from the previous night’s celebrations, began to throng the streets close to the Retiro, ready to watch the attack on the interior lines. Others appeared on the roofs and balconies of nearby houses. Paul, trying to call his men into order to storm the breach in the wall, surveyed the area in complete astonishment.

“Jesus bloody Christ, we need the light division amateur theatrical group over here, it’d be the biggest audience they ever got. And probably the most appreciative. Where’s Lord Wellington, has he seen this sideshow?  Can we get them cleared out?  If the French decide to make a fight of this, people are going to get hurt. Major Swanson, we need to send a message down.”

It took thirty minutes for the reply to come, a brief and clearly exasperated message from Wellington. Paul read it and looked up at Carl.

“Apparently he’s made representations to the town council, but people aren’t willing to leave,” he said. “I feel my patience diminishing, which is never good.”

An enormous cheer greeted the manoeuvring of three companies of the seventh division into position.  The British soldiers echoed the cheers with a response of their own, drowning Sergeant-Major Carter’s shouted orders to his men about their position.  Carter took a deep breath and looked over at Paul.

“This is bloody chaos,” he said.  “They’re dopey bastards in there, mind, I’d have opened fire by now.”

“If they’ve got any sense they’ll surrender and hope we can get them out of here alive,” Paul said grimly.  “They’re not getting past our lads, but even if they did, these people will tear them to pieces.  Why the hell did Joseph leave them here?”

“Making a point, sir,” Captain Manson said. “He might have left his capital but he didn’t leave it undefended.”

“Two thousand men against the entire army isn’t a defence, it’s a present.”

Another enormous cheer swelled the crowd and Paul swore fluently.  “Carter, get them moving over to the right. Use hand signals if you need to. Any trouble with them, I’ll kick their arses personally. I don’t…ah look, we’ve company.”

Lord Wellington was approaching, making his way with some difficulty through the crowded streets, two young ADCs trying hard to make a path for him with their horses. Paul waited several minutes to be very sure that Wellington had got the point about the difficulties of conducting operations with a crowd of civilian spectators. When he suspected that his chief was on the verge of laying about him with a riding whip, he called over to Sergeant Hammond.

“Sergeant, get over there and clear a path for his Lordship, will you?”

Hammond was wearing his most deadpan expression. He saluted. “Right away, sir.”

Paul dropped his voice. “Don’t make it look too easy, Sergeant.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

Wellington’s horse emerged finally from the throng which were being neatly held back by the 110th and Paul saluted his chief with a pleasant smile.

“Morning, sir, come to see the show?  I think they can find you space over on that balcony, and I must say I like the look of the pretty dark haired lass on the end, see if you can squeeze in next to her.”

“I will remember to mention to your wife how observant you are when she’s not around,” Wellington said smoothly, reining in and dismounting.  “Do not think that I am unaware of how long it took you to intervene there. Have you had a good night?”

“No,” Paul said briefly. His attention had been caught by a movement up at the fort, and he shielded his eyes from the brilliant early sun. “Is that…?”

“A white flag. I think so,” Wellington said. “I wonder if we might be able to avoid bloodshed after all? Signal that we will meet with them, Colonel. Let’s see if we can put an end to this.”

Lord Wellington, as a fictional character, is an enduring delight to write. His somewhat acerbic personality jumps out of the pages of his letters and orders and his perfectionism and attention to detail make it possible to include him in a novel about his army in a way that is far more difficult when writing about other commanders. Biographers have differed about his style of leadership, his abilities as a general and his personal relationships, and I have probably taken a little from each of them.

My Lord Wellington is a highly complex man who is capable of great warmth and kindness as well as appalling tactlessness. He finds personal relationships difficult, but is very loyal to those he considers friends. His relationship with my fictional officer, Paul van Daan, is central to the books, but equally important is his relationship with Paul’s young wife, who gradually becomes his friend and confidante in a way that foreshadows his future relationship with Harriet Arbuthnot.

I love writing Wellington and miss him in those books where he does not appear. As with all fictional accounts of real historical characters, I don’t claim to have ‘got him right’. None of us can really claim to know a man who was born 250 years ago, but as a novelist I have tried to create an interpretation of him that tallies with what we know of him from contemporary accounts.

Happy 250th Birthday Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington from one of your constant admirers.

Happy New Year from Writing with Labradors

 

Happy New Year from Writing with Labradors and welcome to 2019.

It feels like more than a year since I wrote my first blog post of 2018. So much has happened during the year, both personally and professionally, that it’s hard to know where to start, but as always, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know more of my readers, both in person and online, and I love the fact that more and more people are beginning to contact me through the website and following me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

2018 saw the publication of two new books. The first of these, which came out in April, was An Unwilling Alliance. This book is the first of a new series, following the career of Captain Hugh Kelly RN, a fictional Manx Royal Navy captain during the Napoleonic Wars. It is also part of the Peninsular War Saga, slotting in approximately between books one and two, telling the story of Paul van Daan and the 110th during the Copenhagen campaign of 1807. I was able to set part of the book on the Isle of Man, where I live, and I loved being able to talk about the island to a wider audience.

The second book of 2018 was An Untrustworthy Army, book six of the Peninsular War Saga. It tells the story of Wellington’s Salamanca campaign and the miserable retreat from Burgos at the end of 1812. For some reason, I found this book very difficult. Partly, it was because my fictional brigade is part of the light division which was unusually not very active during much of this campaign. Partly, I think it was because the end of the campaign was genuinely so miserable, that it was hard to tell the story without sinking into unrelieved gloom. I think I managed it eventually, but it took a while. Fortunately, Craufurd the Dog stepped in with a bit of light relief. There were also goats.

The Bridge at OrthezRichard and I went on a tour of the Pyrenees in April, to research Vitoria and the Pyrenees campaigns. We had a great time and toured a few battlefields although I suspect we ate and drank rather better than Wellington’s army in 1813. I’m really looking forward to the next few books, as the Pyrenees give a lot of scope for the 110th to really get itself into trouble. We also spent a week in Northern Ireland in the summer, which was beautiful and set off a whole new sub-plot involving the United Irishmen and Michael O’Reilly in my over-active brain. Watch this space for that one, it’s happening sometime.

I wrote three new short stories this year. An Impossible Attachment was written for Valentine’s Day and tells the story of an unlikely romance between a French prisoner of war and the widow of an English officer in Portugal in 1812. The Quartermaster was a Halloween ghost story set in Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812 and The Christmas After tells the story of eight people thrown together on a winter’s journey by mail coach in 1815 who find common ground in their memories of the battle of Waterloo; it completes the story begun in An Impossible Attachment.

In October, I was invited to join a panel of historical novelists speaking at the Malvern Festival of Military History and it was a great experience to be up there alongside some of the best in the genre. The bonus was that I got to spend the weekend listening to a fantastic line up of historians, culminating with the wonderful Paddy Ashdown talking about his latest book.

On a personal level, it has been a mixed year at Writing with Labradors. Luka, our leopard gecko died early in the year at the age of twelve. She was my son’s eighth birthday present and for many years her tank lived in his room. Later she moved into my study and would sit watching me work for hours, during the evenings after her feed.

 

 

 

In May, our lives were lit up by the arrival of Oscar, our new baby black labrador. Oscar is completely gorgeous and has fitted into our family as if he’d always been there. He and Joey bonded immediately and are completely inseparable. Toby was a bit more aloof to start with, but quickly fell in love, and the three of them had the most marvellous time through the early summer months. The weather was hot and sunny and we practically lived outside, reading, writing and watching the three dogs playing.

 

Back on his feet…

We had a fright in June when Joey, our twelve year old yellow labrador’s back legs suddenly gave out, and we had a couple of days of sheer misery, wondering how serious the problem was, and if we were going to lose him. It turned out to be a false alarm, it was arthritis, and stronger pain relief and joint supplements very quickly got him back on his feet.

I’ll never forget that summer, because it turned out to be Toby’s last. The amazing weather continued, the kids’ exams were over, and we spent every minute we could outside in the sun. My daughter asked for a hammock for her birthday in July and it became Oscar’s new playground, leaping through the air to join her as she lay there reading, while the older dogs watched, looking as though they were laughing. I was working on the new book, enjoying all of us having time to be together, enjoying Oscar becoming an essential part of family life.

On July 23rd I worked in my study in the morning, but all three dogs wanted to play, so we moved outside and I sat working on the porch while they ran around chasing each other. They collapsed finally for a long nap, woke for dinner and then sat with us on the porch again until after dark. We said goodnight and went to bed. The following morning Toby was lying peacefully in his usual spot and I didn’t even realise he was dead until I touched him. It was a horrible shock; he was fourteen but other than his arthritis, seemed really well and there was no warning.

Despite the shock, it was a very peaceful end and although we miss him desperately, I’m so grateful for that. I was worried about Joey but although he missed Toby, I’m thankful that we had already got a new puppy, as it made the transition much easier for him. Once again, Writing with Labradors is down to two dogs, although Toby is close by and will always hold a very special place in my heart.

So what’s next? I’m planning a busy year in 2019, with the following projects on the go:

  • My next book is the second about Hugh Kelly and tells the story of the disastrous Walcheren campaign of 1809. As with Copenhagen, this was a joint operation with the army and navy. Paul van Daan is busy in the Peninsula with Wellesley, but the 110th has a second battalion and I’m looking forward to getting on with the research and meeting my new characters. I don’t have a publication date for this one yet, as the subject is completely new and I can’t yet tell how long the research will take. I intend to go to Walcheren for a research trip and I’m very much hoping to be there in August for the 210th anniversary re-enactment.
  • I’m attending the Wellington Congress in Southampton in April to indulge myself in learning more about my favourite general and to meet up with some good friends.
  • I’m hoping to attend the Malvern festival again.
  • I’m starting a new venture this year, teaching some adult education classes in history and creative writing at the Isle of Man College.
  • I’m aiming for four free short stories this year, to celebrate Valentine’s Day, Summer, Halloween and Christmas.
  • I’m hoping to make a good start on (possibly even to finish) Book 6 of the Peninsular War Saga, which is set during winter quarters of 1812-13.
  • The Peninsular War Saga will be available in paperback, initially from Amazon, but later in the year from some local bookshops and to purchase through my website.
  • A complete revamp of my website.
  • New editions of the two books of the Light Division romances series, to connect them more closely to the Peninsular War Saga.

With all this to look forward to, 2019 is going to be a busy year here at Writing with Labradors. Thanks so much to all of you who have read and enjoyed the books, and a special thanks to those who have left reviews. I really value them.

Have a happy and healthy new year and I look forward to hearing from many of you in 2019.

With much love

Lynn, Joey and Oscar

 

The Peninsular War Saga

General Robert Craufurd fought the battle of the Coa on this bridge

I began writing the Peninsular War Saga some years ago. At the time, I was attempting to find an agent or a publisher for one of my standalone historical romances, without much success. I had a lot of very positive feedback about my writing, my plots and my characterisation but everybody was saying the same thing; we’re sorry, but there is no market for traditional historical romance any more.

More than one agent urged me to try to write a contemporary romance. I made several attempts and hated all of them. Many people told me that with just a little adjustment, I could write for Mills and Boon historical. Once again, I made the attempt, and the people at Mills and Boon were lovely, gave great feedback, but were just not sure that my characterisation was quite right for them. I was getting nowhere.

To cheer myself up, I decided to scrap all my dreams of writing a marketable historical romance and just write something that I really wanted to do. There was definitely no market for a new series about the Peninsular War, since it had been done to death in the years following the runaway success of the Sharpe books and TV series. Still, it’s what I wanted to write, and since it was clear that nobody was going to read it anyway, I felt very liberated. I decided I could write it just for me, about a collection of people who didn’t always feel heroic or brave or even that patriotic. A lot of them joined because they had no option, or because they needed a job. They fought and they died and a lot of them became heroes. They also got wet, got grumpy when they were hungry, got sore feet and developed a bad head cold from time to time.

I wanted to explore areas of the war that I’d not really seen a lot about. What about the medical services? How did the commissariat work and who was responsible for ordnance and transport and prisoners of war? And what about the women and children who followed the army? What was it like in camp and on the long marches and all the boring hours between battles and skirmishes? What were relationships like between officers and men, away from the parade ground and the tidy regulations which governed army life?

Out of all these questions was born the Peninsular War Saga. Finally tired of trying to persuade an agent or a publisher to read one of the books, I decided to publish independently, without really thinking I’d sell more than a dozen copies, let alone develop an enthusiastic following. With book five doing well and book six in the early planning stages, I consider I’ve been incredibly lucky.

The Peninsular War Saga tells the story of the men and women of the fictional 110th Infantry during the wars against Napoleon; in particular, a young officer called  Paul van Daan who joins the regiment in 1802 as it is about to go to India to fight under General Arthur Wellesley.

An Unconventional Officer - love and war in Wellington’s army
Book 1 in the Peninsular War Saga

An Unconventional Officer: the Peninsular War Saga Book 1 (1802 – 1810) 

From the battle of Assaye, through Italy, Copenhagen and Portugal, we follow the early career of Lieutenant Paul van Daan, the most unusual officer ever to join the 110th as he attempts to find his place in the regiment.  Along the way he makes both friends and enemies, discovers a talent for leadership and shares his life with two very different women.

An Unconventional Officer is slightly different to the other books, as it covers a longer time period, almost eight years. I wanted it to be a full introduction to Paul’s story and to get him to the point where he was well-established in Wellington’s army. While it introduces many of the main characters, the heart of this novel is the love story between Paul and Anne and its theme is Paul’s gradual development from a young officer willing to break all the rules, to a slightly more mature officer who is beginning to learn to fit in a little better.

An Unwilling Alliance: The Manxman, Book 1 and the Peninsular War Saga Book 1.5 (1806-07)

This book is really a spin-off from the Peninsular War Saga, but it fits very securely within the series as well. It takes place halfway through the action of An Unconventional Officer, during the Copenhagen campaign, which is mentioned, but not explored in book one. I adore this book, partly because the navy theme enabled me to set part of it on the island which is my home and which I love, and partly because it is a real coming-of-age book for Major van Daan as well as a key point in his developing friendship with Sir Arthur Wellesley.

It is 1806 and Captain Hugh Kelly RN returns to the Isle of Mann after fifteen years with a few months leave and a small fortune in prize money to find himself a sensible Manx wife. He pays court to Roseen Crellin, who is determined to resist her father’s efforts to find her a husband. Still dreaming of the young English soldier who sailed away and broke her heart, she has no intention of encouraging Captain Kelly’s courtship and certainly no intention of developing feelings for the man.

Major Paul van Daan is newly promoted and just back from Ireland, sailing with his battalion to Copenhagen under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley.  Paul’s courage and talent are unquestioned but his diplomatic skills need some work and in a joint operation with the navy there are many ways for a man of Paul’s temperament to get things wrong.

As Britain hovers on the brink of war with neutral Denmark and the diplomats and politicians negotiate to keep the Danish fleet out of Bonaparte’s hands, a more personal drama plays out on the decks of the Royal Navy and in the lines of Lord Cathcart’s army which could change the lives of Hugh, Roseen and Paul forever.

An Irregular Regiment

An Irregular Regiment: the Peninsular War Saga Book 2 (September 1810 – April 1811 )

This book covers an area of the war that I knew very little about. The building and manning of the lines of Torres Vedras are absolutely fascinating and worth a lot more time than I was able to give them. It is also the story of a young couple learning to be married, and sets the tone for Paul and Anne’s relationship throughout the series. If you don’t leave your hero and heroine at the church door, you have to work out what their marriage is going to be like, and I loved the challenge of that.

On the heights of Bussaco Ridge, Paul van Daan leads his battalion into action under Lord Wellington in his defeat of the French under Marshal Massena.  The book explores Paul’s developing career, and the happiness of his marriage to the lovely young widow of a fellow officer.  As Wellington prepares to chase Massena out of Portugal, Paul is serving under the worst general in the army and must find a way to keep his regiment safe and protect his reputation.

An Uncommon Campaign, 110th at the Battle of Fuentes d'OnoroAn Uncommon Campaign: the Peninsular War Saga Book 3 (April – June 1811)  

In addition to the battles and the personal stories of my characters, I wanted to introduce something about army politics during this book. I particularly love finding an interesting, funny or even a very sad story from history and trying to work it into the lives of my characters.

Lord Wellington has led his army to the Spanish border where the French occupy their last stronghold in Portugal at Almeida.  As the two armies face each other in the village of Fuentes de Onoro, Colonel Paul van Daan is becoming accustomed to his new responsibilities in command of a brigade and managing the resentment of other officers at his promotion over older and longer serving men.  His young wife is carrying their first child and showing no signs of allowing her delicate situation to get in the way of her normal activities.  And if that was not enough, Paul encounters a French colonel during the days of the battle who seems to have taken their rivalry personally, with potentially lethal consequences for the 110th and the rest of the third brigade of the light division.

A Redoubtable Citadel: the Peninsular War Saga Book 4 (January – June 1812) 

This was definitely the most emotional book for me to write. I wanted to highlight the plight of women in wartime, and I’m proud of this book, but it was extremely painful for me.

In the freezing January of 1812, Lord Wellington pushes his army on to the fortress town of Ciudad Rodrigo and a bloody siege with tragic consequences.  Colonel Paul van Daan and his wife Anne have a baby son and in the aftermath of the storming, take a brief trip to Lisbon to allow Paul’s family to take little William back to England.  With his career flourishing and his marriage happy, Paul has never felt so secure.  But his world is shattered when his young wife is taken prisoner by a French colonel with a personal grudge against Paul.  As Wellington’s army begins the siege of Badajoz, the other great Spanish border fortress, his scouts and agents conduct a frantic search for the colonel’s wife.  Meanwhile Anne van Daan is in the worst danger of her life and needs to call on all her considerable resources to survive, with no idea if help is on the way. 

An Untrustworthy Army: the Peninsular War Saga book 5 (June – December 1812)

This book covers both triumph and miserable retreat and was a wonderful opportunity both to introduce some new characters and to revisit one of the major storylines from the first book. It turned out to be more emotional than I expected and I loved being able to highlight one of my favourite characters whom I felt I’d neglected a little. The story of the retreat from Burgos was impossible to glamorise and highlighted both the best and the worst of Wellington’s army.

It is June 1812 and back with her husband and his brigade, Anne van Daan is beginning to recover from her ordeal at the hands of Colonel Dupres as Lord Wellington marches his army into Spain and up to Salamanca. In a spectacularly successful action, Wellington drives the French back although not without some damage to the Third Brigade of the Light Division.

Still recovering from their losses at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz earlier in the year, the Light Division remains in Madrid while Wellington lays siege to Burgos but some of Paul’s brigade have troubles of their own.

Lieutenant Simon Carlyon is determined not to allow his dead brother’s shameful reputation to blight his career in the army but finds it harder than expected to serve under the man who killed him. Colonel Johnny Wheeler is finding the lie he told to protect others difficult to live with, faced with the unrelenting hostility of a young officer. And Captain Michael O’Reilly’s life becomes complicated through a casual act of kindness.

The end of the campaigning season is not going as well for the Allied army and triumph turns to an undignified and dangerous retreat.  At a time when the discipline of Wellington’s army seems to have broken down, Van Daan’s brigade need to set personal matters aside and concentrate on staying alive long enough to reach safety.

Future Books

That’s as far as I’ve got with the novels. My next book is intended to be the sequel to An Unwilling Alliance, covering the disastrous Walcheren campaign of 1809. I’ve not been able to find a novel covering this campaign before so it feels like uncharted territory. I intend to pick up Hugh Kelly’s story, but as the campaign once again involved both army and navy, I will be joining the men of the 110th second battalion, who, while Major van Daan was leading the first battalion to glory in the Peninsula, were unlucky enough to be sent to Walcheren. The working title is An Inauspicious Expedition.

The other books in the Peninsular War Saga, as planned so far are as follows:

An Unrelenting Enmity: set during winter quarters from December 1812 to April 1813

An Auspicious Action: the story of the battle of Vitoria

An Uncivilised Storming: the Pyrenees and San Sebastian

An Inexorable Invasion: the invasion of France

An Improbable Abdication: Toulouse and the return to England

An Unmerciful Engagement: Waterloo

An Amicable Occupation: the Army of Occupation

Looking at that list, I feel a combination of excitement and sheer terror. At present I seem to be able to manage two books a year, but some of these will take more research than others, so I don’t promise that. There will also be more in the Manxman series, since I hope at some point to be able to reunite Hugh Kelly and Paul van Daan.

Currently, I’m beginning the research for the book about Walcheren, which will be published some time next year; I can’t give a date yet until I have a better idea of how long the research will take. I’m also making notes about book 6 in the main saga, which may be quicker to write, given that it is set outside of the main battles and campaigns, although obviously, given that this is the 110th, there will be some action.

So far, most of the books have been published only as e-books, but I am working at changing that. Early next year I am hoping to have all the books in paperback on Amazon, and then to get them into some bookshops or for sale on my website later in the year.

I’ve come a very long way from believing that nobody wants to read another series about the Peninsular War, and I’m so grateful to all my readers, especially those who follow me on facebook and twitter and visit my website regularly. Some of you have left fabulous reviews as well, and every good review is like a gift, even if it’s only a couple of lines.

It has been a good year in many ways at Writing with Labradors, despite losing our beloved Toby. We’re so grateful we have Oscar to step into his paw prints, and we’re looking forward to an even better 2019. In the meantime, remember to look out for book giveaways on Amazon on Christmas Eve, in honour of the Jolabokaflod or Christmas Book Flood. And for future giveaways and updates, please click on the link to subscribe to the newsletter.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of us at Writing with Labradors.

 

The Jolabokaflod or Christmas Book Flood

In the run up to Christmas, and with the latest book up and running, I’ve decided to devote this blog to sharing some of my favourite books with you. Last year, on Christmas Eve, I did a post about the Christmas Book Flood, or Jolabokaflod. The concept was new to me, but I loved it.

In Iceland there is a tradition of giving books to each other on Christmas Eve and then spending the evening reading which is known as  the Jolabokaflod, or “Christmas Book Flood,” as the majority of books in Iceland are sold between September and December in preparation for Christmas giving.At this time of year, most households in Iceland receive an annual free book catalog of new publications called the Bokatidindi.  Icelanders pore over the new releases and choose which ones they want to buy.

The small Nordic island, with a population of only 329,000 people, is extraordinarily literary and people love to read and write. According to a BBC article, “The country has more writers, more books published and more books read, per head, than anywhere else in the world.  One in ten Icelanders will publish a book.”

There is more value placed on hardback and paperback books than in other parts of the world where e-books have grown in popularity.  In Iceland most people read, and the book industry is based on many people buying several books each year rather than a few people buying a lot of books.  The vast majority of books are bought at Christmas time, and that is when most books are published.

The idea of families and friends gathering together to read before the fire on Christmas Eve is a winter tradition which appeals to me.  Like the Icelanders, I love physical books although I both read and publish e-books – sometimes they are just more convenient.  Still, the Jolabokaflod would work with any kind of book.

Last year, to celebrate this fabulous tradition, I offered some of my e-books free on Christmas Eve, and the take-up was phenomenal. I like to think I found a lot of new readers on that day and I intend to do the same thing again this year. But I also wanted to do a Christmas countdown of books that I’ve read and loved; a sort of literary advent calendar which has started late. Some of them are fiction, some are non-fiction, but all of them have a particular place on my shelves, both actual and electronic. I hope that reading about some of them will cause some of you to buy them, either for yourselves or for family and friends, as part of our own Christmas Book Flood.

Merry Christmas from all of us at Blogging with Labradors.