The Sight

The author marching over the battlefield at Sorauren.

Welcome to The Sight, my Halloween short story for 2023. It’s freely available on my website so please share as much as you like and there’s a pdf at the end. The story has been released a little late this year, because it is so closely linked to my most recent book and works better if it is read afterwards.

 

 

 

 

 

An Unattainable Stronghold which is book 8 of the Peninsular War Saga, tells the story of the early battles of the Pyrenees. It was a confusing time, with both Wellington and Soult trying to manage their troops along a badly stretched line. Different parts of the line were defended by different divisions and it was not always easy for the commanders to know what was happening elsewhere.

Because of the way I construct my books, it wasn’t possible to cover every single battle of this part of the war. I now have British, Spanish and French heroes to follow which has given me far more scope, but my characters all belong to real life divisions and it would be unrealistic to send a major-general or chef-de-battalion racing around the countryside so that he can appear at every battle or skirmish.

History plus a bit of imagination enabled me to place characters at the storming of San Sebastian and even at the bridge at Vera but there was no way I could get any of the main protagonists to the Battle of Sorauren. I was sorry about this because I’ve been there and it’s an interesting battlefield. Running through a list of characters in my head afterwards, wondering if I could have done better, I suddenly realised that I had an excellent opportunity after all. Lord Wellington was at Sorauren with his staff members which meant I had just the man for the job.

This is not a traditional ghost story. There are probably many ghosts on a battlefield but my characters are far too busy to notice them. Instead I’ve delved into some of the history of the Basque region to find a tale that I could link to the present. I hope you enjoy it.

The story is dedicated to my friend Janet and her beautiful dog Bella, who are both eagerly waiting to hear more about Lord Wellington’s puppies.

The Sight

27th July 1813

It was an eventful ride from Almandoz to join the army on the slopes above Sorauren. They rode twenty miles through difficult country in appalling weather. The road was poor and Lord Wellington set a fast pace.

Captain Richard Graham was used to long rides in miserable conditions and had no difficulty keeping up. During a brief early morning stop, eating dark rye bread and salty bacon in a warm farmhouse kitchen, he reminisced with Lord Fitzroy Somerset about the misery they had endured during their ride to Cadiz at the end of the previous year. Both men kept a wary eye on Lord Wellington and talked in low tones. His Lordship was worried, as well as being tired and cold, which meant that his temper was uneven and he was likely to snap at them for chattering like idiots. There were several other staff members around the table, including Wellington’s quartermaster-general, Colonel George Murray. For the most part they ate in exhausted silence.

Wellington had been surprised in the middle of his plans for the current campaign by the news that the French, under Marshal Soult, had crossed the border and engaged Allied troops up in the high passes at Maya and Roncesvalles. Wellington had been focused on blockading Pamplona and besieging the coastal town of San Sebastian, but as news came in of the new threat he had shifted his attention with his usual speed and mobilised his staff members without a moment’s hesitation and without the least concern for comfort or safety.

Richard was accustomed to both danger and discomfort but, like all the headquarters staff, he preferred not to incur the wrath of Lord Wellington in one of his periodic bouts of temper. He and Somerset broke off their conversation the moment his Lordship turned a frosty glare in their direction. Just as they were finishing their hasty meal, a messenger arrived, soaked and splashed with mud, Wellington took the letters from him and stood in the middle of the kitchen reading them. The farmer’s wife moved around the men, glaring occasionally at the puddle forming on her flagged stone floor, as the messenger awaited his Lordship’s response.

Eventually Wellington looked up. “Bring writing materials immediately, Somerset. I need to send orders to Hill and to Alten. It seems that Picton has been forced to retreat further than I had expected, but this intelligence is so vague. I hope to rendezvous with General Long in person before we reach the lines. He must know more than he has written here.”

He slapped the letter irritably on the table and sat down to read a second missive while Somerset, who was his Lordship’s military secretary, brought the requested writing materials. Richard, feeling rather sorry for the farmer’s wife whose kitchen had been abruptly commandeered, shepherded the rest of the men outside. It had finally stopped raining and there was even a weak sun becoming visible between the clouds. Richard found a rickety bench for the tired cavalry trooper who had brought the letters and went to arrange food for him and to make sure Wellington’s two grooms had been given breakfast. It was not really his job to manage provisions for the journey but when Wellington was under pressure he tended to forget such trifling matters as food and rest. Richard firmly believed that both men and horses worked better if they were properly fed and chose to take responsibility for the party.

He was rubbing down his horse in the muddy farmyard when he was joined by Somerset, who was holding a letter.

“Sorry Richard, he wants this delivered to Pack as soon as possible. Are you all right to take it?”

Richard took the orders. “Of course. It’ll be a relief to get away from him to be honest. I’m surprised you didn’t volunteer yourself.”

“There were several volunteers, believe me. The risk of running into French cavalry patrols in the hills is nothing compared to another hour of listening to him snapping our heads off. He asked for you specifically. He said that he trusts you not only to deliver the orders without getting lost or distracted but also to get any reply back to him in a timely manner. He then made a complimentary remark about your horse, while not failing to remind us all that it had been looted at Vitoria.”

Richard broke into a laugh. He ran his hand affectionately down the smooth grey neck of his new gelding. “He knows perfectly well I didn’t steal this horse. I bought him from an officer of the 43rd.”

“And he bought it from two soldiers of the 112th who definitely stole it from King Joseph’s baggage train.”

“Undoubtedly. That’s why I’ve named him Joseph. But his Lordship cannot prove any of that.”

“He’s just jealous that he didn’t spot that auction before you did. We’re all a bit envious to be honest, he’s very handsome.”

“He really is. I was showing him off to General van Daan last week and he told me that if I ever want to sell, I’m to give him first refusal. I shan’t though. Any further orders?”

“Just get a reply from Pack, even if it’s no more than an acknowledgement that he’s read and absorbed every one of his Lordships dictates about the route he should take and the management of his baggage wagons. You know how he is if he doesn’t get an answer.”

“I’ll tell Sir Denis, don’t worry. If necessary I’ll write it myself and get him to sign it.”

“Good man. Take care, Richard. There actually are cavalry patrols out there and Lord Wellington is right. We really don’t have enough information yet. We’re heading towards Ostiz and then south towards Sorauren. I hope you make it back to us before nightfall.”

***

The weather remained unsettled. By the time Richard reached the Sixth Division he had ridden through a thunderstorm followed by a brief spell of bright sunlight. A sharp wind sent clouds scudding across a blue sky. Sir Denis Pack greeted him cheerfully and provided hot tea while he read Wellington’s letter. Richard saw the Irishman’s lips twitch into a smile.

“God love the man, did he think I’d try to haul the guns and the baggage wagons over the heights? How long does he think I’ve been doing this? Will he want a reply, do you think?”

“You know Lord Wellington, sir.”

Pack groaned and waved to an orderly to bring pen and ink. He perched on a folding stool, hunched over a battered leather lap desk, and grumbled under his breath as he penned a response. Richard wrapped his cold hands around the tin cup and hoped the rain would hold off for his return ride.

Pack read his short note then folded it, not bothering to search for a sealing wafer. Richard gave his empty cup to the orderly and went to take the letter.

“I’ve told him I’ll await his orders at Olague, Graham. I’ll keep them on the alert and ready to march at a moment’s notice. I won’t let the officers bring their fancy baggage and I won’t drop any guns over the mountain side. Is there anything else I need to say that will keep him happy?”

“You could try telling him Soult is on his way back to France, sir.”

“Soult will be soon enough, my boy. His Lordship is an exasperating meddler on campaign but I’d back him any day against whatever Soult has in mind. Somewhere near Sorauren, you think?”

“Based on the intelligence we have so far, sir, but that could change. He’s still waiting for further news of General Picton.”

“As far as I know, Picton’s scuttling all the way back to Pamplona but he’ll have to stop eventually. Don’t tell him I said that, by the way.”

Richard grinned. He liked Sir Denis Pack, who was a good battle commander with an irreverent sense of humour.

“I won’t, sir. Wouldn’t want to see pistols at dawn with General Picton.”

“Jesus Christ, I’m far too old for that nonsense these days and if Picton isn’t, he ought to be. Though I used to think he and Craufurd would have come to blows one day if Robert had survived long enough. Off you go, Captain Graham. Follow his Lordship’s advice yourself and keep an eye out for French patrols, though I must say we’ve seen nothing of them so far.”

Richard took his advice and kept a wary eye on the upper slopes, going carefully around any woodland which might have acted as cover for enemy troops. He saw no sign of them, though the condition of the road suggested that an army had marched this way very recently. Richard was suddenly very sure that a battle was coming and he badly wanted to reach Lord Wellington in time.

After surveying the area, he took a short cut across several sloping meadows, boggy after recent rain. The road here ran through a heavily wooded area for half a mile and Richard decided he would not take the chance. He could not be more than three miles from the village of Sorauren where he hoped to catch up with Wellington’s party and he wondered if that might also mean French pickets or stragglers in the vicinity.

The grass was muddy and hard-going and the horse slipped several times. Richard reined him in firmly. He and Joseph were still getting to know one another but the horse seemed very sure-footed so far. He was a beautiful animal, by far the best horse Richard had ever owned and he had no intention of risking a broken leg in an over-hasty descent to reach a battle which might not even happen today.

He reached a proper path with some relief and turned Joseph down towards the valley where he could re-join the main road. There was a stone cottage on the left, set back from the path. It had a weathered tiled roof, a walled garden plot for growing vegetables and herbs and a larger enclosure behind it where a cow and several goats grazed peacefully. Some chickens scratched about in a wooden fenced area outside a rickety shed.

As he passed the cottage, Richard saw movement out of the corner of his eye. A woman appeared, straightening up from behind the wall, a basket in her hand. She looked equally astonished to see him so close but Joseph was more startled than either of them by the sudden movement. He gave a squeal of alarm and reared up so abruptly that Richard was taken completely unawares. He felt himself falling and his only thought was that he had no wish to lose his new horse. Twisting the reins around his gloved hand, he landed heavily in a particularly muddy rut on the uneven road.

For a moment he could not move. The impact had driven all the breath out of him. He lay very still, trying to work out if he was hurt, but it was difficult to think straight when he could not take a proper breath. Richard tried desperately to draw air into his lungs but for a long agonising moment nothing seemed to work and he felt as though he was suffocating.

Unexpectedly he felt hot breath on his face and then a little snuffling sound. Joseph’s wet nose touched his cheek then his forehead and then the horse blew fully into his face. Richard flinched back instinctively and suddenly he could move again. He took in air in a great whoosh.

“Here, let me take him or he will step on you,” a voice said in Spanish. “Of course you will not understand me, so…”

“I understand you perfectly Señora,” Richard said in the same language. “I will hold him. He’s very strong and…”

She did not bother to reply, just removed the reins from his hand before he could stop her. He felt a jolt of pain in his wrist and up his arm as he sat up. She had led Joseph a few feet away and was holding his bridle, talking softly to him. The horse seemed calm again and Richard decided she knew what she was doing and took stock of his own injuries.

There was nothing too serious apart from his right wrist which was very swollen. His back ached badly and there was a lump on the back of his head where it had hit a broken piece of stone in the road. He was also covered in mud, which had soaked through his clothing. Richard bent to retrieve his hat, wincing a little. He brushed some of the mud off it and went to collect his horse.

“Thank you for your help, Señora.”

She turned to survey him from bright brown eyes in a weathered face. She was probably in her fifties, a thin woman in a black gown and shawl. Her dark hair was peppered with grey and worn in a neat chignon.

After a long, considering look, the woman turned towards the cottage. “Juan, come here. Take the officer’s horse and give him some water.”

A boy of about eleven raced around from the back of the cottage. He stopped abruptly at the sight of Richard, then looked at the woman.

“English?”

“Yes. But he speaks Spanish, so do not be cheeky. Come inside, sir. I will look at your wrist.”

“It’s very kind of you Señora, but I am in a hurry.”

“Your kind are always in a hurry. If you hurry with a broken wrist, you will fall off again and this time you will not hold him. My boy understands horses, he’ll take care of this one.”

Richard hesitated but she had already handed the bridle to the boy. He watched for a minute and decided that Joseph would be safe enough so he followed the woman into the cottage, looking around him curiously.

It was a typical Basque cottage although rather bigger than most. There was only one room on the ground floor, combining kitchen and living quarters. Above was a sleeping loft which was accessed by a fixed wooden ladder. A fire burned in the grate and there was something cooking in a pot suspended over the blaze.

One end of the room seemed to be set up as a still room, with a wooden bench bearing pots and jars and a big stone pestle and mortar. Bunches of herbs and strings of vegetables hung from the wooden beams giving the room a heady fragrance. There was a door on the opposite side which looked as though it led to a small lean-to. An animal, possibly a donkey, could be glimpsed through partially open door.

Richard inhaled deeply, enjoying the scent of the herbs. The woman smiled as if she understood then beckoned him to the fire. He sat on a stool and obediently held out his wrist for her inspection. She prodded and examined and told him to move his fingers. He did so, wincing.

“I do not think it is broken but it is a bad sprain. I will bind it up to give support while you ride. There is a salve I make with rosemary and hot peppers. It will ease the pain and help with the swelling. You should rest it, but you are a man. I know you will not.”

Richard could not help laughing. She reminded him of his long dead wife Sally and his recently acquired fiancée, Honoria, both of whom would have scolded him.

“I’m sorry. You’re being very kind, but I have to ride on as soon as possible. I’ve letters to deliver.”

He wondered immediately if he should have mentioned his mission but decided that he would be safe enough here. There was no sign that this neat cottage had ever been invaded by a French soldier and there was no reason for this woman to betray him. She gave no response to his explanation, but helped him to remove his muddy coat and hung it before the fire, then carefully rolled back his shirt sleeve.

The strong smelling salve felt warm on his skin. She was generous with the application and Richard wondered briefly what Lord Wellington would say when he arrived smelling like an East India spice chest but he decided he did not care. It felt wonderful and he watched appreciatively as she wound undyed linen strips firmly about his wrist.

As she did so, the boy Juan reappeared. The woman looked at him enquiringly.

“I have tied him up and given him hay and water. And I used old Fredo’s brush to get some of the mud off him. He is a lovely horse.”

“Thank you, lad,” Richard said warmly. “His name is Joseph and he’ll be very grateful. As am I, to both of you. You should be proud of your son, Señora.”

“Grandson,” the woman said with a sad little smile. “My daughter died of the birth and the menfolk were taken years ago by the army. We do well enough here alone. One day, no doubt, Juan will wish to leave, but not yet. There, how does that feel?”

Richard tested it. “Much better, thank you.”

“I’ll give you a small jar to take with you. Use it until the swelling goes.”

“Only if you’ll let me pay for it.”

She laughed again and spread her hands. “I’ve little use for coins, but if you insist, Señor. We live by barter here. Goods and services and people pay well.”

“It looks as though you’ve avoided the French army as well.”

“Oh they’ve been past. I’ve tended their sick from time to time, but they don’t trouble me much. Some of the villages haven’t been so lucky.”

“I know,” Richard said soberly. “I suppose you’re quite isolated here. Unless somebody told them or they happened to take this path, you’re easy to miss.”

“They are afraid,” Juan said scornfully. “The villagers told them Grandmama is a witch and they think she will curse them.”

Richard blinked in surprise. The woman rolled down his sleeve carefully over the bandages and got up. She fetched a bottle from a shelf above the herb bench, poured some liquid into a small iron pan and set in in a ring above the fire to heat.

“It is a tea made from ginger and a local tree bark. Very good for pain. Drink some before you go. Your coat will be dry soon. Juan, take it outside and brush the mud off.”

The boy obeyed and Richard took the pottery cup and sipped the steaming liquid.

“A witch?” he enquired with interest.

She looked amused. “A harmless local legend, Señor. My family have lived here for many generations. The knowledge is passed down from mother to daughter, though I shall be the last. Herbs and remedies and some skill with healing. I act as midwife and, when needed, I lay out the dead.”

“A wise woman.”

“Is that what you call it, back in your home?”

“I’ve heard the name used.” Richard did not mention that he had also heard superstitious villagers mutter other words and make signs against the evil eye as such women passed by. Folk stories could both protect and persecute, but in these modern times at least it went no further than some name calling and a level of social isolation. He had no sense of that here and he suspected that this woman was a valued member of her rural community.

“Well I’m grateful for your wisdom, Señora. And my manners are so poor, I’ve forgotten to ask your name.”

“It is Maria Xarra, Señor. My husband was Martinez, a shepherd, but once he died I chose to return to my family name.”

“Señora Xarra, thank you.” Richard finished the tea and handed her the cup as Juan returned with his coat. The boy had done a surprisingly good job of removing the worst of the mud and it was only slightly damp. Richard thanked him and accepted his grandmother’s help to ease the coat over his injured wrist. Despite his accident, the little interlude had been curiously restful and he was almost glad it had happened.

Taking out his purse, he counted several coins into her hand. She seemed genuinely reluctant to take them. Richard folded her work-roughened hand over them firmly.

“Please,” he said. “I want to.”

“We can spend them on schooling, Grandmama,” Juan said excitedly. Richard turned to look at him in surprise.

“You go to school?”

“The priest runs a small school in the church once a week. Juan is learning to read and write. I never did, so I’m no use to him, but a boy should learn. It’s expensive though and I don’t often get paid in coin. Thank you, Señor. It will go to good use.”

Richard bit back a rude remark about a man of God charging children for a few hours teaching, though from her clipped tone, he suspected Señora Xarra agreed with him. He had a sudden thought.

“Juan, before I go, will you bring me the cloth bag out of Joseph’s saddle bag? You can’t miss it.”

The boy sped away and came back with the knapsack. Richard rummaged through it and took out a battered wooden box. He set it on the table and opened it. Both the woman and the boy came to look.

“It’s a portable writing set. There are a couple of pens and an ink pot. This little knife is to trim the pen with. And these are my note tablets. I don’t need them, I can beg some more from Colonel Somerset. We all share such things out here because we’re always either losing our baggage or getting separated from it. Please take it Juan, as a gift. You need to practice.”

The child’s eyes were huge. He looked apprehensively at his grandmother as though asking for permission to accept. The woman nodded.

“It is a generous gift, Señor. Thank you. Juan, put it away carefully in the pantry so that the ink does not spill. With this money, I will be able to buy more when needed and you will learn faster.”

Juan carried the box away as if it was a fragile treasure and Richard smiled as he watched him.

“You’re raising a fine boy Señora. I wish I had more time, I’d help him myself.”

“You have given him something precious, Señor. Juan will bring the pot of salve for you. Have you children of your own?”

“Not yet. My first wife died, but I’m betrothed to a very lovely lady. I hope we’re fortunate. I want a family.”

“You should tell his fortune, Grandmamma,” Juan said, bouncing back with a small sealed jar. He wrapped it carefully in a scrap of cloth and placed it in Richard’s worn knapsack. Richard smiled at him and shot an amused glance at the woman.

“Do you also tell fortunes, Señora?”

“It is foolishness, nothing more. On festival days, the girls pay a trifle for me to tell them the name of their future husband. It is never hard to guess the name they wish to hear.”

Richard laughed aloud. “I’ve seen it done at county fairs at home as well.”

“But Grandmamma does have the Sight,” Juan argued. “All her family had it. A long time ago, Graciana Xarra was burned for being a witch in Logroño.”

Richard stopped laughing. He stared at Señora Xarra in considerable surprise. “Is that true, Señora?”

“It is ancient history,” the woman said lightly. “As you said, Señor, ignorant people believe in folk tales. Two hundred years ago they went a little mad in these lands and my ancestress had the misfortune to be one of six or seven who paid the price. It does not happen any more. The Inquisition – which is abolished anyway, since Bonaparte – prefers persecuting Jews and Conversos to witches. Nobody believes in such matters these days.”

“It’s still a tragic story, Señora.”

“It must have been terrible,” the woman said simply.

“But she does have the power,” Juan insisted. “Everybody knows. Not just the silly girls at festival time, but the others. Even the village elders come to her for advice.”

Richard found he could smile again. “That may well be because she is a very wise woman, Juan. No magic involved. I wish my fiancée could meet you both. I shall tell her about you in my next letter.”

“When you get some more paper and ink,” Señora Xarra said. She was smiling too.

Richard held out his left hand. “Goodbye and thank you both again. Juan, I don’t know the custom here, but in England we shake hands like this with our friends as a greeting and a farewell.”

The boy complied, looking pleased. Richard turned to the woman and after a moment’s hesitation she took his hand. She held it for much longer than he had expected and when she released it, she looked suddenly grave.

Outside, Juan brought forward a wooden stool to help Richard mount more easily without putting too much strain on his wrist. The woman carried the knapsack and put it into his saddlebag herself, fastening the strap carefully.

“It is nonsense as you say, Señor. The boy believes and so do some of the villagers. All the same…”

Richard stared at her puzzled. She gave a little self-deprecating smile. “Sometimes it comes to me. I do not look for it. It is just like a picture. A flash of something. Often it is of no use, since I do not understand it myself.”

“You saw something?” Richard asked. He felt foolish saying it, but her expression was so serious.

“When you took my hand just now. There was a man in a grey coat on a bridge. Writing something. He wore a hat – this kind of shape.” She sketched a bicorn hat with her hands.

Richard frowned. The picture she drew was surprisingly effective and he realised he was visualising Lord Wellington, bent over his writing tablets to issue a new set of orders. He wanted to ask more but before he could do so, she said:

“That is all. It will probably be nothing, but there is much danger. If you see him on the bridge, you must get him away very fast. He trusts you.”

Richard felt an odd little shiver which had nothing to do with the sharp breeze. She did not seem to expect a reply. She stepped back and lifted a hand in farewell. Richard gave a little bow and began to turn Joseph towards the path.

“And Señor…do not climb the hill of Spain. You may not survive it and I wish you to go back to that pretty girl of yours and have many children. Goodbye.”

He looked back once over his shoulder. They both stood at the garden gate, waving. Richard waved back. The little cottage looked very isolated against a spectacular backdrop of rolling hills and sharply defined ridges climbing up to the mountains beyond. Richard could not help smiling. If he tried to follow her advice and not ascend any Spanish hills in this country, he would go nowhere at all.

***

Richard found Colonel Murray in the village of Ostiz, with some of General Long’s cavalry. Murray greeted him with some relief and asked about his bandaged wrist. Richard explained briefly.

“You’ve only just missed him,” Murray said. “It’s confirmed that Picton had to abandon Zubiri last night and has taken up a position just to the north of Pamplona. The enemy is marching as we speak and there are a lot of the bastards. There’s going to be a battle, though I’ve not heard any firing yet. Did you reach Pack?”

“Yes. I need to get this letter to his Lordship in case he wants me to take orders back.”

“They’ll come through me if he does. He left me here to coordinate. Get yourself off then but don’t kill yourself trying to catch up, you’ll find him easily enough once he reaches the lines. He and Somerset were riding hell for leather, they’ve probably already left the others behind.”

Richard grinned and saluted. He turned Joseph back towards the road and set off at a gallop southwards down the narrow valley. The country opened out on the approach to Sorauren and for the first time, Richard could see Allied troops massing on the hills above the village. He slowed his horse and trotted down towards the river, running his eyes over the slopes. He could see red-coated British battalions, forming up alongside Spanish and Portuguese troops.

Through his frantic intelligence gathering of the past twenty-four hours, Richard had established that Sir Lowry Cole’s Fourth Division had retreated from a vulnerable position in the high pass at Roncesvalles and combined with General Picton’s Third Division en route. Picton had originally intended to make a stand on the heights of San Cristobel just before Pamplona but Cole had persuaded him instead to defend a higher ridge along the hill of Oricain. Richard had carried several of the letters between the various sections of the army and suspected that Picton’s vagueness about his decision and his precise location had been a major factor in Lord Wellington’s irritability. His Lordship preferred to control every aspect of a campaign and lack of information drove him mad.

Richard surveyed the troops as he rode down towards the river. Cole had take up a position on the northern slopes of the hill. A spur at the north-eastern corner was occupied by what looked like Spanish troops. Along the rise and fall of the ridge, he could see British and Portuguese brigades drawn up with their light companies and skirmishers at the front and the main troops just behind the crest of the hill. He thought Wellington would approve. He could not see Picton’s division, but according to Murray it was deployed to the rear of the main position.

Richard could see activity on the stone bridge over the river as he set Joseph to a steady trot down towards the village. There were several men at the far end of the bridge, most of whom seemed to be villagers. As he drew closer however, he could see two horses. An officer sat mounted on one of them, holding the bridle of the other. The second man wore a sober grey frock coat and a neat cocked hat and he was bending over the stone wall of the bridge. He appeared to be writing something.

Richard pulled hard on the reins, startling Joseph into a little whinny. The scene was so familiar that it took him a moment to realise that he had not in fact seen it before, merely heard it described by the Spanish woman. He turned Joseph quickly, scanning the surrounding hillside. Now he could see French troops for the first time; cavalry troopers upon the crest of a ridge opposite to that occupied by the Allied troops. He wondered if Wellington knew they were there. Richard was certain that Fitzroy Somerset had seen them; he could tell by the younger man’s agitated manner.

Some of the villagers seemed to be talking to Wellington, trying to warn him of the danger. The Commander-in-Chief did not look up and gave no sign of having heard them at all. Richard looked around again. The dragoons were still a long way off and posed no immediate danger but he felt an absolute certainty that danger existed.

He did not try to analyse his sudden illogical fear but simply dug in his heels, urging Joseph forward into a fast canter. They took the slope down to the bridge at speed and the sound of thudding hooves finally made Wellington look up.

“Graham!” Somerset said. It came out as a gasp of relief. “Thank God you’re here.”

“Have you letters for me, Captain?” Wellington demanded, bending over his task again.”

“Later. You need to get off this bridge, my Lord. The French are coming into the village.”

“They are not yet so close…”

“They bloody are. You need to move.”

Both men stared at him in astonishment. Wellington opened his mouth to ask a question, but Somerset interrupted him, something he would never normally have done.

“Let me have it, sir. If it’s not clear to Murray, I can explain the rest.”

Wellington’s eyes were scanning the village. There was still no sign of a Frenchman closer than the adjoining ridge. Richard opened his mouth to yell again, but abruptly, Wellington folded his orders and gave them to Somerset.

“Ride,” he said. “Fast. If you delay you’ll be cut off and I’ll have to send them the long way around which is an extra four leagues.”

Somerset shoved the letters into his satchel and wheeled his horse. “Richard, get him out of here,” he yelled, and was gone, galloping back up the road at full stretch.

Richard turned to look at Wellington who was already swinging himself into the saddle. He shot Richard a puzzled look then turned his horse into the village and cantered down the main street. Richard fell in behind him. About half-way along, he twisted in the saddle to look back and felt a little shock running through him at the sight of four French troopers trotting into the village.

“Sir, move!” he bellowed.

Wellington picked up the urgency in his voice and did not hesitate. He set spurs to Copenhagen’s flank and pushed him into a full gallop. Richard looked around once more to see the troopers beginning to pursue and kicked Joseph to follow. They raced out of the village, hearing shouts of encouragement from the Spanish villagers as they made their escape.

The steep track out of Sorauren led up to the tiny chapel of San Salvador at the top of the hill. It occurred to Richard suddenly that Cole’s men, deployed along the ridge, had not yet seen Wellington and would have no idea of the identity of the approaching riders. He risked another look behind him, but the French had stopped at the edge of the village. He could see other troops filing into the streets now and the villagers had disappeared within doors. There was no further attempt to follow Wellington, though Richard suspected that if they had known who it was on the stone bridge they would have moved a lot faster.

Once he was sure that there was no danger of pursuit, Richard slowed down to a decorous trot, allowing Wellington to pull ahead. Partly, it was because his wrist ached from his recent exertions but he also thought it would be good for the troops to see their chief riding in alone. He knew the moment some of the skirmishers recognised Wellington because they raised a cry, which swept on through the lines.

“Douro! Douro!”

The cry was picked up by the Fourth Division and the cheering grew louder as Wellington cantered up to Ross’s brigade. He reined in and took out his telescope, turning it onto the French troops which were beginning to deploy on the opposite ridge. Richard trotted up just as General Ross drew his horse up alongside Wellington’s.

“It’s good to see your Lordship. We have been discussing it all morning and we’re inclined to believe that Soult is considering an attack.”

Wellington did not lower his telescope. He gave an expressive shrug. “We shall see, Ross. It is just as likely that I shall attack him, but I need to speak to my officers and see how the troops are set up first. We need not concern ourselves about a surprise attack; they are not close to being ready. Captain Graham.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“I believe I owe you my gratitude for your quick thinking on the bridge. It appears, General Ross, that Captain Graham is able to see approaching enemy dragoons when they remain invisible to everybody else. Do you have a letter for me, Graham? And what the devil have you done to your wrist? I forbid you to gallop like a madman again today or you will break your neck and I may have need of your mystical powers again before we kick Soult out of Spain.”

“They will be at your disposal, my Lord.”

Handing over the letter, Richard could not help smiling; though now that the danger was past he felt oddly unsettled by what had just happened. He had no belief in fortune telling and knew that Señora Xarra’s surprisingly accurate prediction was pure coincidence but he was grateful to her nevertheless. If she had not put that picture into his head he would never have thought to chase Wellington off the bridge so precipitately and the French might well have caught up with him.

***

There was no battle that day. Wellington, with Richard beside him, surveyed the ground and inspected the troops but made few changes to Cole’s arrangements. He moved O’Donnell’s Spanish troops off the knoll and replaced them with the 40th Foot from Anson’s brigade, along with two other Spanish battalions. He also sent out further orders to Pack, telling the messenger to take the long way round as the village, including the bridge, was now occupied by the French. Richard’s offer to take the messages had been firmly refused.

He was touched and a little surprised by his commander’s gruff concern for his injury. Wellington was not known for his sympathetic nature and nobody hearing his blunt observations on Richard’s carelessness would have imagined that he felt anything other than exasperation, but his actions told another story. He insisted that Richard be relieved of any further messenger duties and summoned his own surgeon to examine the injury. The doctor inspected  the swollen wrist. The swelling had reduced considerably since earlier in the day and Richard mentioned his curious encounter with the Spanish wise woman.

To his surprise, Dr Long grunted then asked to inspect the salve. He sniffed it suspiciously.

“Did it help?”

“Yes. Do you know why?”

“No earthly idea, but we’ll put some more on before I bind it up. They’re invaluable, some of these women with their herbal remedies. Ever met General van Daan’s wife?”

“Yes. They’re both friends of mine.”

“Extraordinary woman. Utterly terrifying. Some of her ideas are mad but she gets good results. She’d probably like your Spanish wise woman.”

“I thought that at the time,” Richard said.

“During winter quarters I came across her teaching young Mrs Smith how to set stitches in a sabre cut on a leg of pork. Poor Smith was hovering in the background looking absolutely appalled.”

Richard gave a splutter of laughter. “I wish I’d seen it.”

“There, that feel all right?”

Richard tested the wrist. “Yes. Thank you, Doctor.”

“Try and rest it. Which might be easier said than done if his Lordship decides we’ll fight today.”

“We’re not going to fight now,” Richard said, looking up at the rapidly darkening sky. “Visibility is too poor. I think it’s going to rain.”

He was proved right within the hour. Wellington shared a scratch meal with his staff while torrential rain battered against the canvas of his tent. He was still writing orders to the scattered commanders of his army and one by one his ADCs collected their allotted letters and went out into the storm to ride the long way round to Pack, Hill, Alten and Dalhousie. Richard watched them go sympathetically but also with relief.

***

Richard slept poorly on the hard ground, partly because of the thunderstorm and partly because his wrist ached so badly. By morning the weather had cleared and it was bright and sunny, giving Wellington excellent visibility from his chosen command post at the top of the Oricain heights. Richard sat on his horse beside him and wondered if the French had any idea how clearly their troops could be seen moving from one position to the other.

Pack brought the Sixth Division up by mid-morning and Wellington sent Richard with orders for their deployment. The arrival of additional troops seemed to be the signal for the French attack and the sound of gunfire could be heard from the direction of Madden’s brigade. It was desultory at first; the stuttering fire of tirailleurs fanning out in a skirmish line. Gradually it increased in volume and intensity and was followed by the crash of artillery. Neither side had many guns but the French had four howitzers trained on the knoll to the left of Wellington’s line, which was occupied by the 40th and two Spanish battalions.

The noise intensified and dark smoke began to roll across the battlefield. The main French assault came in columns, crossing the hollow at the foot of the slope and then beginning to climb steadily. Richard was back with Wellington and watched them come. They were making use of an unusual number of skirmishers, presumably to keep the Allied troops occupied while the columns made their way up the steep slope.

Initially it seemed to be working as the first French brigade to reach the top made a fierce attack on General Ross’s men. Richard glance sideways at Wellington. The Commander-in-Chief’s steady gaze was fixed on the combat. Already the cacophony was deafening but Wellington looked as though he was conducting an inspection on a parade ground. The howitzers boomed out, muskets crashed and the French surged up towards the crest of the hill.

“Now,” Wellington said very softly, and as if they had heard him, there was a rush of redcoats as Ross’s fusilier brigade charged into the French flank, yelling some kind of unintelligible battle cry. The ascending French seemed completely unprepared for the savagery of the attack and within minutes they were retreating, racing back down the hill leaving many dead and wounded behind them.

The pattern repeated itself across the whole of the ridge. On several occasions a determined French attack forced Wellington’s men back and even established a foothold on the crest but they were driven back by charging troops from the second line. Wellington remained in place, directing operations. Often in battle, he liked to take orders to his various commanders in person and Richard was used to chasing his chief as he rode around the battlefield, but he understood why Wellington was not doing that today. The clear weather and excellent vantage point made it unnecessary and the hilly countryside would make galloping a risky proposition.

Twice Richard was sent out with messages, sending the 27th and 48th infantry from Anson’s brigade crashing into the French flank in a surprise attack. He was then sent back to bring in Byng’s brigade which was in reserve at the rear. Riding over the rough ground mostly one-handed was difficult but these were all short journeys. Wellington had sent his other ADCs on longer missions and Richard did not mind. He preferred to have something useful to do.

When he re-joined his chief, he found him in conversation with a young Spanish soldier. Wellington’s Spanish was fairly good, though not as good as his French. Richard walked Joseph close enough to hear. His Lordship  dismissed the man with a wave and turned to Richard.

“Ammunition,” he said briefly. “It’s not being sent down fast enough, I don’t think the muleteers wish to get that close to the battle. One of the NCOs from the 7th has just managed to drag a couple of mules down to that section of the line, but there’s a problem up on the knoll with the 40th and the Spanish.”

“I’ll go,” Richard said. “I can reach it from the far side, they’re only attacking from the front, probably because of our gun battery to the south.”

“Very well, Captain, but ride over to the gunners first, if you please, to tell them to cease fire. It is bad enough that you will be at risk from the enemy howitzer, but you shall not be shot down by our own artillery.”

Richard set off, wishing briefly that he was not riding Joseph. The horse was fast and sure-footed but he had not yet ridden him into battle and would not have chosen today to test his mettle.

He quickly realised that he need not have worried. Joseph was clearly battle-hardened and did not hesitate amidst the noise and smoke and the shrieking of howitzer fire overhead. Richard thought that the horse seemed far calmer than he was. He galloped to where Captain Sympher commanded Cole’s divisional gun battery to give him Wellington’s message, then made his way up to the rear of the action to find a Spanish muleteer with enough courage to accompany him into the fray.

The man he chose was a stocky, bearded Spaniard who seemed inclined to argue against the mission until Richard drew his pistol and threatened to shoot him. The mule, laden with casks full of ball cartridge, was even less enthusiastic and did not respond to threats. Eventually several other muleteers came forward to shove the animal into motion. Once on the move, it went so quickly that it almost dragged its handler down the slope and along the back of the ridge towards the steep knoll. Richard rode behind to make sure that neither man nor beast turned and fled.

The 40th infantry and two Spanish battalions occupied a steep spur at the far left of Wellington’s line. It had come under heavy attack earlier in the afternoon and at one point the Spanish lines had given way, but the assault had been beaten back by well-organised and lethal volleys of musket fire from the 40th. Since then they had been holding their own very well, but ammunition was obviously in short supply. Richard passed a party of Spanish soldiers who were speedily and systematically going through the pouches of dead and wounded men to find more.

Another screech overhead was followed by an explosion on the far side of the ridge. Richard flinched but the shell landed a long way from the lines of battle and did no damage. As the muleteer halted his recalcitrant animal, a cry went up from an officer of the 40th and men came racing forward to help. Two Spanish infantrymen began working on the straps and the mule was relieved of its burden. The men used rocks and muskets to smash or lever the casks open and hands snatched at cartridges. A line was formed along the ridge to pass the ammunition faster and there was a renewed blaze of firing onto the advancing French.

Richard turned to the muleteer. “Well done. Now get yourself out of here, you’ve done your job.”

The Spaniard did not hesitate but scrambled inelegantly astride his mule and set off back the way he had come. Richard looked over at the fighting men. He felt an irrational urge to join them but knew that he would be far more useful as a messenger in case there was further need. He turned Joseph back towards the path.

They had only gone a few steps when there was a burst of firing much closer at hand. Richard twisted in the saddle to look and saw that a section of French infantry had managed to break through the Spanish line and gain the crest of the knoll. They were directly behind him and he knew that a mounted officer would present an excellent target.

A Spanish officer bellowed an order and men charged in from the right, slamming into the head of the French column. Muskets crashed from both sides as Richard kicked Joseph into a gallop. He would not usually have risked it on ground like this, but he had no choice.

Abruptly, he felt something hit him in the back, once and then again, as if he had been punched hard. It drove him forward over the horse’s neck. For several seconds he was bewildered as to what had struck him. Then the pain knifed into him and began to spread through his upper body in waves of agony and Richard realised he had been shot.

Along with the pain came immediate and terrifying weakness. He felt as though he was about to fall from the saddle and his muddled brain was sure that if he did so, he would be dead. He was weak and both hands felt strangely numb so he could not grasp the reins. All he could think of to do was to put both his arms about the horse’s neck He could feel the animal shaking with fear and with his face pressed against Joseph’s smooth neck and rough mane, he could smell sweat and leather tack. He could also smell blood and he knew it was his own.

Another horse would have been panicked into throwing his rider but Joseph made no attempt to shake him off. Instead, he set off at a fast canter down the slope. Richard could not hope to control him, so he let the horse take charge and prayed that wherever the terrified animal took him, it would not be into the centre of the battlefield.

***

12th August 1813

Richard awoke in darkness and lay very still, listening to his own breathing. It was not the first time he had regained consciousness but it was probably the first time that he had felt genuinely clear-headed. He savoured the feeling.

All of his recent memories were of pain and blood and fever and the filth of army field hospitals. A surgeon had dug out the bullets and dressed the wounds. He was an English surgeon and there was no mention of a prison camp which suggested that Wellington had been victorious on the ridge above Sorauren. That was about as much as Richard could comprehend.

He had been thrown around in a supposedly sprung hospital wagon until he had longed for death and as the two bullet wounds festered and his temperature soared he could remember begging for pen and paper so that he could write to Honoria. They were brought to him but he was too weak to write properly and he cried at the thought of her misery when they told her of his death. It was less than a year since she had lost her beloved father and he knew she was praying for the end of the war so that he could come home and they could be married. He could not bear to be the cause of breaking that gallant spirit all over again. The surgeon shook his head over Richard’s distress and bled him again.

Everything changed after Lord Wellington made an unexpected visit to the dingy little room in a farmhouse where Richard awaited death. There was another wagon which was considerably more comfortable though his wounds opened up again on the journey and he was barely conscious when he was carried into this room.

He had vague memories of his wounds being inspected, cleaned and dressed again and of a crisp female voice issuing orders for his care. For a moment he thought of the Spanish woman and felt his injured wrist. The swelling had gone down and it was no longer painful which suggested that he had been laid up with this wound for several weeks.

He was lying in a real bed, propped up slightly with pillows and the window was open a little. Silvery moonlight made patterns on wooden floor boards. He could make out the shape of a wooden trunk and a chair. A small table held a jug, a pottery cup and what looked like several medicine bottles.

Richard was thirsty. He tried to push himself further up into a sitting position but the pain was so bad that he cried out. As he lay back, sweating with agony, he heard quick footsteps and then the door opened.

“Lie still, Captain Graham. You’re doing very well but you’re not ready to ride into battle just yet and if my wife finds out you’ve been making the attempt you’ll regret it.”

“General van Daan. Where the hell am I? What happened?” Richard’s voice cracked a little. He felt suddenly panicky at how little he could remember.

“Calm down, Richard, you’re safe and she’s fairly sure you’re going to make it, though she wasn’t so convinced a week ago. Do you want some water? You can sit up a bit more. Let me help you.”

Richard allowed the other man to ease him into a sitting position and took the cup of water gratefully. Van Daan went to collect an oil lamp, lit two candles then lowered his tall form into the chair.

“Thank you, sir. I’m sorry. I’m a bit confused.”

“It’s not surprising. When they brought you here ten days ago our surgeon thought we were going to lose you. You were in a field hospital for a few days after they operated on you. They were going to send you down to one of the hospitals in Vitoria but Lord Wellington went to visit you and heard the surgeon say that he didn’t think you’d make it alive. He consulted my wife and they decided you’d be better off back at headquarters. You’re in Lesaca.”

“Are you billeted here?”

“No, we’re back over at Vera. I was invited to dine at headquarters and we stayed up late so they found me a bed. I was just about to settle down for the night. I’m glad I decided to stay, mind. I can give a report to Nan and I suspect she’ll be over to check on you personally tomorrow. She reluctantly deputised the nursing to your orderly and one of Wellington’s servants. It looks as though they’ve followed her instructions very well.”

“Did we beat Soult?”

“Very thoroughly. He’s back over the border and Wellington is making plans for another assault on San Sebastian. Do you remember the battle?”

Richard frowned, dragging up memories with an effort. “Sorauren?”

“That’s the one. I wasn’t there, but I’m told you were something of a hero. You’d been running errands for his Lordship all day and then you took off to haul an ammunition mule to the troops on Spanish Hill. You were successful too, but the French made a final rush and you were shot as you were riding out.”

“I remember. I tried to hold on, but I couldn’t control him. I’d injured my wrist the previous day.”

“You were also bleeding like a stuck pig from two bullet wounds. There’s some damage to your shoulder blade which you’ll feel for a while and the second one broke a rib.”

“Where did they find me?”

“Don’t you remember? That looted horse of yours took you back up to the top of the ridge, to Wellington’s command post. I don’t know what you paid for him, Richard, but it was money well spent.”

“Joseph?” Richard said in astonishment. “Do you mean he’s all right? He didn’t ride off?”

“He’s currently eating his own weight in hay in our horse lines. You won’t be riding for a while, but I’ve told Wellington I’ll arrange for both your horses and the rest of your baggage to be transported home. You’ll be travelling from Santander as soon as you’re well enough.”

“Home?” Richard felt a sudden rush of anxiety. “Home? Oh my God, Honoria? They didn’t write to her, did they? When I was…when they thought I was…?”

“Calm down, lad. That letter would be the responsibility of your commanding officer and you can’t think he’d have written anything to worry her until he was sure. He delegated the task to my wife and she sent off a very reassuring letter a few days ago when she was feeling a lot more confident. I’ll make sure they bring you writing materials tomorrow and you can write to her yourself.”

Richard relaxed. “Thank you, sir.”

“Right, you need to get some sleep. And so do I. I’ve been playing chess with Lord Wellington and it’s exhausting. I’ll call in tomorrow before I set off. It’s good to see you on the mend, Richard.”

Van Daan helped him to lie down again then extinguished the candles and picked up the lamp. He was on his way to the door and Richard was so tired that he was almost asleep when a thought occurred to him and jerked him wide awake again.

“Sir, wait. What was it called again?”

“What was what called?”

“The hill. That knoll out to our left where I was hit.”

“I’ve no idea if it has a name locally. The chap who told me the story called it Spanish Hill, but I assumed that was because during the battle it was defended mainly by the Spanish with a bit of help from the 40th. Or perhaps it was called that before. Does it matter?”

Richard stared at him through the darkness, his thoughts a jumbled whirl. “No,” he said finally. “I just thought I’d heard it before, that’s all. Goodnight, sir.”

***

October 31st 1813

The journey to the coast and the subsequent sea voyage tried Richard severely and he knew, as he waited to disembark, that he was in no fit state for an immediate coach ride to London. He was desperate to see Honoria but reluctantly decided that he needed to find a comfortable hotel in Southampton and rest for a few days.

His orderly had remained with the army, but Morrison, his groom, had travelled with him. His nursing care was rough and ready but Richard was glad of him. He arrived on the bustling quayside feeling weak and exhausted. Morrison hurried away to see to his baggage and search for a cab and Richard found a broken packing case and eased himself down on it with relief. It had been more than two years since he had left England to take up a post on Wellington’s staff and it seemed very strange to be back.

Lost in his thoughts, he was only vaguely aware of the elegant carriage which had pulled up at the edge of the road behind him. Morrison was approaching with his portmanteau while a sailor followed carrying his small trunk and a closed wicker basket. Richard watched them approach. He thought Morrison looked delighted with himself which probably meant he had located a cab and possibly an inn. The sailor lowered the trunk and Morrison handed him a coin.

“Sir, you’ll never believe it. I just met…”

“Richard.”

He rose and turned in astonishment. She had just stepped down from the carriage with the aid of a servant and was coming towards him, her hands held out in welcome. Richard took both of them and lifted one after the other to his lips. He could not take her into his arms so publicly but he could not take his eyes from her face.

“Honoria, I cannot believe you’re here. How in God’s name did you know?”

“Of course I knew, you ridiculous man. I received details of your transport from Mrs van Daan and I have been haunting the shipping office for days; they are heartily sick of me. Oh my dear, how are you? I’ve been so worried. You’re so thin and pale.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Never be sorry. You’re home and you’re whole and I am not letting you out of my sight for a long time. Get into the carriage while Morrison and my groom see to your luggage. Then you may kiss me properly.”

He obeyed, forgetting his weakness the moment he was in her arms. It did not occur to him even to ask where they were going until the carriage was underway and it dawned on him that they were unchaperoned and could not possibly be travelling all the way to London like this.

“Well I would not give a fig as you perfectly well know,” his fiancée told him firmly when he mentioned it. “But as it happens we are not going to London at all for a while. Mother and I have rented a house just outside Lyndhurst. It is no more than eight miles and the horses are well rested.”

“You’ve rented a house?”

“Yes. I’m sorry that I did it without consulting you, Richard. You may not know that I have exchanged several letters with Mrs van Daan. She did not tell me immediately how close you were to dying. I’m grateful for that, I would have fretted myself into a fit and not been able to do anything about it. But when it became clear that you would recover and must come home, she asked if there was anywhere quieter we could go. She thought that London might not be the best place for you to recover. We’d already talked about finding a country home. We’ll do that together, love, when you’re ready. But I decided that in the meantime, we would rent somewhere. I do hope you don’t mind.”

“I’ve never been more relieved in my life,” Richard said. “The thought of another long journey appals me. Honoria, it’s so wonderful to see you. You’re so beautiful. I think I’d forgotten how lovely you are. Kiss me again, would you?”

She moved into his arms. They kissed for a long time and then she settled comfortably against him, enquiring carefully to make sure she was not hurting him. Richard decided he did not care if she did. Holding her made him feel whole again.

They did not talk for a while, content just to be together. Richard dozed a little, exhausted after the voyage and woke with a start to find that she had settled him with a pillow and a woollen rug. He removed the rug, laughing.

“I feel like an elderly relative who always gets chilled in the carriage.”

“You are not at all elderly, Richard. Just not very well. You’re going to have to put up with me fussing over you a little, I’m afraid. I am still reeling at how close I came to losing you.”

Richard took her hand and kissed it. “Fuss as much as you like. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Can you tell me what happened, or is it too soon?”

“I can tell you everything I remember. There are a few weeks after I was wounded which are a bit of a blur.”

“I’d like to know.”

He described the events leading up to the battle. For a while during his illness, his memories even of that had been confused but they were clear again now. She listened attentively and asked intelligent questions. Richard realised that there had been times during the journey when he had worried that he and Honoria might feel awkward with each other, at least at first. They had corresponded very regularly but had not seen each other since their hasty betrothal seven months earlier. He need not have worried. Being with her was like coming home.

He had not intended to mention his odd experience with the Spanish wise woman but he found himself telling her the story of Señora Xarra’s extraordinary prophecies. He was relieved that she did not laugh openly at him or even ask questions. When his story was done she leaned forward and kissed him very gently.

“You’ve had such a terrible time, love. Thank God you’re home.”

“You probably think I sustained a blow to the head at the same time.”

“Your Spanish soothsayer?”

“It’s crazy. I don’t know why I told you.”

“Because you love me and can tell me anything. Richard, I neither know nor care what it was. Perhaps there really were two remarkable coincidences. Or perhaps there is something in that woman…in her family history…that defies our understanding. If that is the case, I’m glad you took it seriously enough to get Lord Wellington off that bridge.”

“I wish I’d taken it seriously enough not to ride up Spanish Hill. Though I’d no idea it was called that at the time.”

“Even if you had, and you’d believed her, you’d still have gone. Because he asked you to and because you will do anything for that man.”

Richard studied her lovely face. “Not any more,” he said. “I’ve watched so many officers struggle back from sick leave before they’re ready. I’m not doing that. I’m going to recover at my leisure, marry my beautiful fiancée and buy a house in the country. He’ll win this war perfectly well without me.”

“I’m happy to hear it,” Honoria said, snuggling comfortably against him again.

They were silent for a while then Honoria shifted and sat up. “What on earth is that noise?”

Richard listened and realised with a qualm that there was a piece of information he had not yet shared with his betrothed.

“Honoria, do you like dogs?”

Honoria stared at him in astonishment. “Of course I like dogs. Why?”

“Do you remember the basket that Morrison was carrying?”

“Is there a dog in it?”

“Yes. A puppy.”

His love did not hesitate.

“On the back, with the luggage?” she demanded indignantly. “Richard, what were you thinking? Stay there. At this moment, I think I can make more noise than you.”

There was a confused and very noisy interlude while an exuberant puppy was transferred from the luggage to the carriage. Richard watched, utterly enchanted, as his beloved cuddled, stroked and played with the puppy. Eventually the animal fell asleep on Honoria’s lap leaving hairs all over her pelisse. Honoria was smiling blissfully.

“What is her name?”

“Bella. Mrs van Daan named her. We can change it if you like.”

“No, it’s perfect. She is so beautiful. Richard, why have you brought a puppy home? Not that I have any objection but it is so unlikely.”

“It was something of an accident. Lord Wellington’s prized hunting greyhound had an unintended encounter with that hairy carpet belonging to the Van Daans. They were looking for homes for the puppies and while I was recovering in Lesaca, Mrs van Daan brought this lady to visit me. I’m not sure how it happened but she ended up travelling to Santander with me. And somehow, she really helped when I felt unwell during the journey. I’m sorry. I should have asked.”

“Don’t be silly, she is wonderful. And so are you, Captain Richard Graham. I love you so much.”

Richard held her close, leaned back against the comfortably padded seats and allowed himself to daydream of a future that did not include gunfire and marching in the rain and the bloody scenes of war. He fell asleep again contentedly, thinking only of Honoria.

The Sight    pdf of the story.

Waterloo 2022: the Battlefield Tour

Waterloo 2022: the Battlefield Tour

It’s taken me a few weeks to put together a description of the full day’s tour of the Waterloo Battlefield, partly because events rather took over once I got back to the UK but mostly because I needed a bit of distance before trying to describe the day.

Once again I’m not going to attempt to put together a battlefield guide of my own, based on Gareth’s incredible tour. He’s written so much about the battle himself that it would be utterly superfluous. My recommendation is that people who want to know more go away and find his books. I’ve recently read his Waterloo: myth and reality which is a brilliant overview of the campaign, pointing out some of the enduring myths and stories over the years and sifting through the evidence to suggest what the truth might be. It’s very readable and is a great place to start.

Number One London Tours did an excellent job of managing the various walking abilities of its tour members and the bus moved around the battlefield with us to enable those needing a rest to hop on and off. Some of us walked the whole way. One of the first things I really noticed, being on the ground at Waterloo is that the battlefield is far more undulating than it looks from photographs or from the top of the Lion’s Mound. Crossing from the left to the right of Wellington’s lines before walking down to do the same with the French lines, it’s very clear that commanders, officers and men really couldn’t see what was happening in different parts of the battlefield.

Features of the landscape like the covered way which is still partly visible, waist and head-high crops and surprisingly steep ridges help the story of the battle unfold far more easily than looking at maps. Gareth had maps a plenty though, to demonstrate each stage of the fighting as we reached it, starting from Papelotte and moving around the various parts of the field. He had also brought a copy of his fantastic Waterloo Archive Map Book which includes a large collection of contemporary sketches and maps but also artists impressions of the battlefield and surrounding countryside. I probably don’t need to tell you that I’ve already ordered a copy.

Interspersed with clear, easy to understand descriptions of troop movements and the various attacks at different stages of the battle, were the individual stories from both Gareth and Kristine about the men who fought, suffered and died at Waterloo. I’ve seen many of these accounts before but hearing them read out on the ground where the action took place gave them a whole new meaning.

Despite a lot of development on and around the battlefield, Waterloo reminds me of Salamanca in that it’s still very easy to get a sense of the countryside as it must have been on that wet morning in June 1815 when Wellington deployed his mismatched army along the ridge at Mont St Jean and hoped that the Prussians would arrive. We walked over the same fields as the British, the Dutch and Belgian, the French and Prussians.  It was a beautiful sunny day, not at all the right atmosphere for ghosts, but it was surprisingly easy to imagine the crash of guns, the squeal of terrified horses and the tramping of thousands of feet.

It was also horribly easy to imagine the aftermath, with dead and wounded strewn across the field. Injured men staggered towards anywhere they might find help and too many of them fell by the wayside. The memorials to the different armies and regiments as well as to a few individuals which are scattered around the battlefield highlight the poignant truth that most men who died at Waterloo had no marked grave, no memorial and quite possibly may not even have been buried at all.

 

Lieutenant-General Charles Alten

I’ve not reached the Battle of Waterloo with my fictional regiment yet, but throughout this tour names have been mentioned of men I know about, have read about and have written about as real people. Picton’s death, Charles Alten’s serious injuries and poor Juana Smith’s mistaken belief that her beloved Harry lay dead on that grisly field somehow have a new meaning now. Entwined with them will be the fate of my fictional characters, who over the past five years have become utterly real to me. I still don’t know myself what happens to them all on the bloody field of Waterloo but whether they live or die, I don’t suppose any of them will be the same afterwards.

The Prussian Memorial

We ended our tour of the battlefield with a walk up to the Prussian memorial at Plancenoit and with a drink at Le Gros Velo, sitting in the sunshine opposite the church. It isn’t the same church that was there in 1815. That one was destroyed during the battle but it has been rebuilt on the same site and there are several memorial plaques on the walls. I can remember going to Badajoz back in 2017 and discovering that sometimes, in a place where great tragedy and suffering occurred, it’s what isn’t left behind that affects me more powerfully than what is.

 

For our last evening we had a farewell dinner at Les Deux Sil, the Italian restaurant on the edge of the battlefield. It was a lovely meal and a lovely evening with a real sense of camaraderie. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know these people and hope to meet some of them on future trips.

When we emerged, it was dark. Kristine had bought some flowers and a few of us walked up towards the Lion’s Mound which is lit up at night. It looked spectacular and despite all the jokes about it spoiling the battlefield, it felt like a fitting memorial that night, not to the Prince of Orange or Wellington or to any of the other individual commanders but to the thousands of anonymous men and animals who died on that field two hundred and seven years ago.

We placed the flowers on the edge of the field, not on any particular monument but just on a spot where any man might have fallen and stood quietly, listening on a phone to John Tams singing Spanish Ladies, a haunting folk song. A version of that song existed in 1815 and might have been sung by the campfires by men who did not survive that day. It seemed an appropriate memorial to the ordinary soldiers and the perfect way to end Waterloo 2022: the Battlefield Tour.

 

The house used by the Duke of Wellington in Brussels in the run up to the Battle of Waterloo

I’d like to thank Gareth Glover and Kristine Hughes Patrone from Number One London Tours as well as all my fellow tourists for making this a fascinating but also very moving experience. I’ve come home with pages of notes and loads of ideas about how the 110th infantry might fit in to the battle on the day. It would be so tempting to jump ahead, but I’m not going to. My lads had to go all the way through that war, so I’m going with them every step of the way.

Waterloo 2022: Wellington Napoleon and Mont Saint Jean

The Wellington Museum

Waterloo 2022: Wellington Napoleon and Mont St Jean

 

Today’s tour started at the Wellington Museum which is housed in Wellington’s Headquarters in Waterloo itself. I’m going to digress from being a tour guide here now and mention the fact that having been round the various museums here, I am quite grateful that there is in fact a Wellington Museum at all.

I’ve seen various commentaries online about the huge local concentration here on Napoleon rather than the Allied commanders. People who complain about this are generally mocked for being Wellington groupies and undoubtedly in some cases that’s true, but it is striking, particularly in the various gift shops. I think it might have improved very slightly since I came four years ago in that it is now possible to buy one Wellington item in the main gift shop but that is completely overwhelmed by the vast amount of Napoleon memorabilia. Personally I don’t really need any more souvenirs but the difference is striking.

I have no idea whether there’s something political about this, whether it’s considered Napoleon was the most important person at Waterloo given that he was an Emperor or whether they just don’t think Wellington or Blucher memorabilia will sell.  I do think it should probably be redressed, but if it’s a marketing decision then I guess that’s a good enough reason. All the same, Napoleon as a dog was a bit much for me.

 

Not the best likeness, but it gets the point across…

The Wellington museum is a poignant reminder of the human cost of battle. Wellington’s staff had done surprisingly well through the long years of the Peninsular War but his luck ran out at Waterloo. This was where Kristine’s knowledge of the people came into its own and the excerpts from Wellington’s letters were very emotional. During the years I’ve been writing the Peninsular War Saga, I’ve got to know some of these young men as if they were my own fictional characters and it was surprisingly painful to think of Alexander Gordon’s death and Fitzroy Somerset’s agonising operation to amputate his arm. There’s a lot of information about Wellington through the various sites, but in this house I found it much easier to imagine Wellington the man, struggling to write the early part of his Waterloo dispatch while receiving news of the death and wounding of his friends.

Across the busy road from the Wellington Museum is the elaborate church which was there at the time of the battle and used, like many churches, as a hospital to receive wounded men. Those of you who have followed me for a while know that I have a thing about old churches and this one was particularly peaceful, with a number of memorials to the men who fought and died during the Waterloo campaign. Memorials at this time tended to be paid for either by the family of the dead man or by subscription through the various battalions and regiments, so not surprisingly more of them relate to the wealthier regiments. Very few of the memorials even mention the NCOs and enlisted men apart from this one in the church, which may well be the first of its kind.

 

After lunch we moved on to Napoleon’s Headquarters in the farmhouse of Le Caillou, where Napoleon and his staff spent the night of June 17, 1815. The museum collection is spread over five rooms  and tells the story of the Emperor’s actions in the hours before Waterloo. There are a number of artefacts relating to Napoleon, though Gareth queried whether some of the furniture was authentic given that the Prussians reputedly set fire to everything on their way through after Napoleon’s departure. Still, it gives a good sense of how the farm might have looked at the time.

In the garden outside the farmhouse are one or two memorials. There is also an ossuary, which is a small building intended to serve as the final resting place of human bones. Ossuaries are often used where burial space is scarce but in this case it has become a depository for bones found on the battlefield over the years. I’ve seen photos of this but found the real thing unexpectedly moving.

 

Mont Saint Jean today

The final stop of the day was the medical museum, located at Mont Saint Jean, which was situated at the back of Wellington’s lines and became the main field hospital. We hit a slight problem here as it turned out the museum and attached bar had just moved over to winter opening hours and were closed. Fortunately Gareth’s local knowledge saved the day and after a short wait we were allowed to go in to the museum for a brief tour.

 

 

Mont Saint Jean is not for the faint hearted. The suffering of the wounded of both armies must have been indescribable, and Gareth read a distressing description of bloody bodies and severed limbs covering the ground outside the farm. There are vivid descriptions of the various wounds and operations performed and information about individual surgeons and their experience of the campaign. 

There are also exhibits of medicine and surgical kits from the era and the uniforms worn by the medical staff. One or two models give an idea of the state of Mont Saint Jean as the wounded continued to pour in. I’ve always thought that the astonishing thing about surgery and medicine in the army at this time is how many of the operations actually succeeded and how many men survived their wounds. Survival would not have been improved by the invariable practice of bleeding a wounded man. It has sometimes occurred to me that once the initial operation was over, a shortage of surgeons might well have meant that a man would be bled less often which could improve his chances of survival…

After one of the shorter days with Waterloo 2022: Wellington Napoleon and Mont Saint Jean we went back to the hotel early for dinner and drinks, as we needed to get ready for the next day and our battlefield tour. For me this was going to be the highlight of the week and the main reason I came on this tour. This week has gone so quickly and I’ve learned so much, it’s been a joy. I should also mention that the group were fantastic and really good company.

Waterloo 2022 – Quatre Bras and Ligny

Waterloo 2022 – Quatre Bras and Ligny was one of the days I was most looking forward to. I’ve previously done a whistle stop tour of some of the Waterloo museums, but I’ve never been to either of these sites. I’ve also read nothing about them other than a brief mention at the beginning of many books on Waterloo. I was well aware of the significance of both of these actions in the rest of the campaign but other than that, I knew very little.

At some later stage, when I get to it, I’ll do a proper post on the whole campaign. These posts aren’t designed to tell you what happened on those days in 1815 but to describe my own experience of touring the battle sites with Number One London Tours led by Gareth Glover and Kristine Hughes Patrone.

The windmill at Fleurus

Our tour today began in Fleurus, a town to the south-west of Ligny.  Napoleon arrived at Fleurus with his staff and escort on the morning of the battle and reached the Fleurus windmill. He apparently ordered his engineers to build an observation platform by knocking out part of the roof and climbed up to survey the situation for himself. Throughout the tour, Gareth returned regularly to the issue of how much of the battlefields could actually be seen by the various army commanders. Napoleon remained well-back from the fighting for most of the day, while Wellington was positioned further forward, and in his usual manner, moved around the battlefield at different times.

Chateau de la Paix

We next moved on to the Chateau de la Paix, which is now used as local government offices. After his victory over the Prussians at Ligny on 16th June, Napoleon retired that evening to the Chateau in Fleurus, while his troops camped in the surrounding area. During the night Napoleon shut himself off from the outside world for as long as he could. He was inactive for almost eleven hours while the Prussians escaped. They were bloodied and much depleted but still effective enough to march to support Wellington at Waterloo.

The Napoleon room in the Chateau de la Paix

The room occupied by Napoleon in the Chateau has been reconstructed with period furniture. Our local guide Laurent was an excellent storyteller with a great sense of humour and he talked about the battle, the aftermath and what might have gone wrong for Napoleon. He and Gareth agreed with the possibility that treatment for a severe case of haemorrhoids might well have affected Napoleon’s behaviour that night and could possibly have affected some of his decisions. For anybody wanting to visit the Chateau, you have to book in advance and details are on their website. If all the guides are this good, I strongly recommend it.

Our next visit was to the small but very good museum in Ligny. It covers both Ligny and Quatre Bras and gave a very good sense of what happened on 16th June in these small villages and towns as the French inflicted a bloody defeat on Blucher’s Prussians and fought to a stalemate against Wellington’s Allied army. I was shocked at the extent of the casualties at both battles. Somehow I’d always had the vague impression that these were just skirmishes ahead of the main battle, but they clearly weren’t. All three armies were weakened by what happened on this day and it must have had an effect on what happened at Waterloo.

French ambulance wagon, much coveted by Anne van Daan…

From my own perspective, I was delighted to find a French flying ambulance wagon in the courtyard outside the museum. Anybody who has read the Peninsular War Saga will know that Anne van Daan has been persecuting Wellington about ambulance provision for three books now and if he wasn’t so fond of her he’d probably have strangled her. I’ve read about these and seen pictures but it was great to meet the real thing.

Memorial to the Duke of Brunswick, killed at Quatre Bras

We made our way up to Quatre Bras. There’s very little to see there, as the original farmhouse has been pulled down and there’s a lot of building in the area. Gareth did a good job, pointing out those sites and memorials around both battlefields which can still be seen. Even with limited access he managed to give a clear picture of what happened in both battles and had a wealth of personal accounts to read of what happened to individuals on the day.

 

 

 

Auberge du Roy d’Espagne, Genappe

We drove through Genappe, looking at the routes taken by the various armies and stopped for a photo opportunity at the Auberge du Roy d’Espagne. This former inn was used at different times by the Duke of Wellington, Prince Jérôme Bonaparte and Marshal Blücher, who stayed at the inn after Waterloo and reputedly left it in Napoleon’s sedan. There is a picture of the Prussian generals celebrating their victory at Waterloo, but the inn also housed the wounded French General Guillaume Philibert Duhesme who died there on June 20, two days after the battle, probably while the Prussians were still celebrating in the next room.

Blucher’s window at the Auberge du Roy d’Espagne from the outside…
And a painting of the same window from the inside. Though it doesn’t look the same, I suspect some artist’s license here…

Another long day on the tour, with moving accounts from both Gareth and Kristine about the battles and their aftermath. Tomorrow is museum day, with visits to the Wellington and Napoleon museums, the church in Waterloo and the Mont St Jean medical museum.

Waterloo 2022 – the London tour

Horse Guards. “No wonder nothing ever works there” (Colonel Paul van Daan, in a Redoubtable Citadel, 1812)

Waterloo 2022 – the London tour was the first official tour day. I had a great dinner last night at the Clarence pub, meeting the rest of the tour group then this morning we set off on the London section of the tour.

We began outside Lanesborough House. The former home of the Viscounts Lanesborough, it is a beautiful neoclassical building on Hyde Park Corner opposite Apsley House. From 1733 it housed St George’s Hospital until it became a five star hotel in 1991. It was the beginning of our walking tour around the early nineteenth century heart of London.

 

Original gate to Tattersalls, where every young officer about town hoped to find a good campaign horse

Our guides were historians Gareth Glover who has published more than a hundred books on the Peninsular War and Waterloo campaign and Kristine Hughes Patrone who runs Number One London tours and is the author of Waterloo Witnesses and who can talk forever on the Duke of Wellington, or ‘Artie’ as he’s also known and the social world in which he moved. We visited Hamilton Place, Wellington’s temporary London home in 1814-15 from where he and some of his staff departed for Brussels in 1815. We saw the site of Tattersalls, the famous auctioneer of quality horses during the period and learned something about the best choice of horses for officers setting off on campaign.

 

The Grenadier Pub, supposedly haunted by a soldier murdered for cheating at cards.

We moved on to the Grenadier Pub, and heard Kristine’s personal experience of the local ghost story and we walked between mews and carriage houses, now converted into fabulously expensive residential properties and were able to get a sense of how busy the area would have been in 1815 with the army barracks, Horse Guards and the comings and goings of officers and men alongside fashionable London.

 

 

 

Apsley House, home of Wellington after the Waterloo campaign

No Wellington visit would be complete without a trip to Apsley House, also known as Number One London. There is an excellent Wellington Museum inside the house which includes a spectacular art collection, much of which was captured from the French after the Battle of Vitoria and which the Spanish then gave to Wellington after the war.  The house was originally bought by Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, but in 1817 financial difficulties caused him to sell it to his famous brother, by then the Duke of Wellington, who needed a London base from which to pursue his new career in politics.

Elegance in Regency clubland

We went on to St James’s Square where the Waterloo Dispatch and captured French eagles were delivered to the Prince Regent, who was attending a soiree hosted by Mrs Edmund Boehm on 21 June 1815. The dispatch was brought by Major Henry Percy, one of Wellington’s ADCs. Percy first delivered Wellington’s dispatch to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for War in Grosvenor Square before going to lay the eagles at the feet of the Prince Regent.

 

 

 

Our final stop for the day was the Horse Guards museum and were in time to see an inspection parade. After that it was back to the hotel in preparation for an early start on the Eurostar to Brussels the following morning.

April Fool’s Day with Lord Wellington.

Just a very brief comic glimpse into April Fool’s Day with my fictional Lord Wellington during winter quarters 1812-13. Personally, I have decided that the weather is enough of an April Fool’s prank this year, we seem to have gone from barbecues to snow within a week… I wasn’t at all sure if April Fool’s Day was a thing back in 1813 but it appears to have been going on for a long time before that. Whether Lord Wellington would have been in the mood for jokes in the spring of 1813 I’m not sure. But he might have been.

Happy April 1st to all my readers. Summer is on the way. It’s just not going to rush things…

Army Headquarters, Freineda, April 1813

“Morning, sir.”

“Ah, General van Daan. Come in and sit down. I have a job for you.”

“That always brightens my day, sir.”

“I have received a letter from London requiring me to provide troops for an expedition to South America. It would appear that there is some local unrest and I have been asked to send a battalion of experienced troops commanded by an officer who can be trusted to support the Portuguese royal family while not inflaming local sentiment. Naturally my thoughts turned to you.”

“That’s only habit, sir. The minute you hear about an unpleasant task my name just pops into your head. You should try to curb it, though. One of these days you’ll accidentally send me halfway across the world in an absent-minded moment and then you’ll spend a week yelling for me because you’ve forgotten where I’ve gone.”

“I am not senile, General.”

“Nor am I, sir. I even know the date.”

“Ah, I see. Well, it was worth the attempt.”

“Brazil, though, sir? Whose idea was that?”

“March came up with it and the idea amused me. Fitzroy said you would never fall for it. Do you have those reports for me?”

“No, sir, I’m afraid there’s been a delay. My wife’s dog ate them.”

Pause.

“I have no idea whether that is an April Fool’s prank or not, General. It is frighteningly plausible.”

“It is, isn’t it? That’s why I yelled for fifteen minutes this morning and threatened to drown the dog before she produced them alongside my breakfast and a very sweet note wishing me a very happy April Fool’s Day.”

“You would have had no idea of the date if she hadn’t done that, would you?”

“Not an earthly clue, sir. Which is why every year, she is able to find a way to make me yell before I’ve even put my boots on.”

“Just occasionally, General, I am less envious of your marital bliss. It must be like living with an unexploded mine.”

“That’s a remarkably good analogy, sir. Jenson has the reports, I’ll just call him.”

A Writer’s Retreat

A Writer’s Retreat

Trying to write in the middle of a busy household with a couple of Labradors and an over-developed sense of responsibility, I’ve often dreamed of going on a Writer’s Retreat. I’m sure many of my fellow writers feel the same way. After yet another week where writing plans have sunk without trace in a round of supermarket shopping, dealing with elderly relatives, proofreading essays and cleaning the dogs’ ears, I love the idea of a few days of peace and quiet in lovely surroundings with nothing to do but write. I’ve never done it though.

I’ve come close a few times. I used to volunteer to cat-sit for my sister, who lives in a very beautiful place, and I certainly took the opportunity to catch up on work while I was there. Somehow though, it was still never the haven I dreamed about. I’ve taken off on research trips on my own many times, but those tend to be a frantic round of getting to the places I wanted, taking photographs and making notes. It would almost have felt too self-indulgent to spend the day sitting doing nothing but writing.

Organised writers’ retreats look very appealing, but many of them seem very expensive. Besides which, they generally include other writers. I know myself too well, and the opportunity to sit and talk writing, history and general nonsense with a group of like-minded people would be irresistible. They’d be a lot of fun, but I’d get nothing done.

The second half of 2021 was hard for me. It is well recorded elsewhere on this blog that I didn’t do well with lockdown and restrictions, and although I would have loved to book a research trip somewhere in Europe, I didn’t trust that these wouldn’t be reinstated at a moment’s notice. Richard managed a couple of cycling trips to the UK, and we had some friends to stay the moment restrictions lifted enough, but I was miserable. The only trips I made to the UK were necessary family visits and none of them were particularly restful. We had been having a lot of problems with my elderly in-laws who had recently moved to the island and I felt as though my life had become one long round of hospital visits and troubleshooting phone calls.

2021 was also the first year since I began publishing that I didn’t manage to get a book out. Back in October, it seemed as though I wasn’t even going to get close to it. I knew what I needed to do, and the book was going well, but I couldn’t get enough time to work on it. I was frazzled and seriously burned out and I needed a break, but I had no idea where I wanted to go or what was practical in the post-Covid world.

Burnout is one thing, but the annual Halloween short story was due, and I had an idea for a story set during Captain Hugh Kelly’s younger days, when he was newly promoted to captain of a frigate. My research so far has all been based around the 74-gun Iris, but I wanted information about one of the smaller, faster ships which made stars of the navy captains. A quick spell of internet research introduced me to HMS Trincomalee, the oldest warship still afloat in Europe.

The Trincomalee looked gorgeous and was located in the Museum of the Royal Navy in Hartlepool, something I didn’t even know existed. I did a bit of research and decided that I absolutely wanted to go there, and sooner rather than later. I was actually very excited. It’s been two years since there was a very real prospect of me travelling anywhere to do something just for myself, and the sheer joy I felt, made me realise how badly I needed a break. I checked dates with Richard then went searching for accommodation.

I was determined not to stay with family or friends. This time I wanted to be completely on my own agenda. I didn’t want to stay in Hartlepool, but somewhere pretty, within easy driving distance. North Yorkshire looked good, and I love that area. No self-catering. I do enough cooking at home. I typed in my requirements, to be listed by cost for a week, lowest first.

The first thing that popped up was a room at the Duke of Wellington Inn, in Danby. I swear to God, people, I’d booked it within ten minutes. Sometimes it’s obviously a sign.

The Duke of Wellington Inn is an ivy-clad traditional eighteenth century inn located in the tiny village of Danby in the North York Moors, about fifteen miles inland from Whitby. Until I found the place, I hadn’t decided that my trip was going to be my very own personalised writer’s retreat, but a bit of research made me realise it was perfect. Danby really is small, although very pretty. The Moors National Park Centre is just at the edge of the village, and there’s a tiny bakery with a café just behind the Duke of Wellington. Other than that, there’s not even a shop in the village. For somebody wanting uninterrupted writing time, it couldn’t have been better.

I checked with the owner whether there was a suitable table in my room for working. The single rooms were fairly small, but he assured me there was a guests’ sitting room with a desk in it and I’d be very welcome to work there as it was seldom used. When I arrived and saw it, I couldn’t quite believe my luck. For a week, I effectively had my own personal study. It was completely lovely.

The Duke of Wellington Inn was built in 1732 and was originally known as the Red Briar. It was used as a recruiting post during the Napoleonic Wars and was apparently known as either the Wellington Arms or the Lord Wellington during this period. I haven’t yet been able to find out when the name was changed to the Duke of Wellington – my first thought was that it must have been after 1815 to commemorate the victory at Waterloo, but I discovered that when Canon Atkinson arrived in 1847 to take up his post as Vicar of Danby, the inn was still called the Wellington Arms so the transition must have come later. At that point, the inn was kept by two sisters known as Martha and Mary.

A cast iron plaque of the Duke was unearthed during restoration work and can be seen on the wall as you go up the stairs. The inn is not large and is very obviously old – floors are uneven and the furniture is very traditional. Impressively, though, all the essential things for a comfortable stay work really well – the bed was comfortable, the bathroom modern and heating and hot water were spot on. I’d booked bed and breakfast, but after a look at the dinner menu, decided I’d eat there in the evening as well. It was standard pub food, but well-cooked and sensibly priced, and I never object to sitting by an open fire in a traditional country pub to eat. In addition, the staff were absolutely amazing. Nothing was too much trouble and they treated my invasion of the guest sitting room as though it was the most normal thing in the world. Thank you so much guys.

I’m pleased to say I stood by my resolution to treat this week as a writer’s retreat. Apart from my one excursion to Hartlepool, I remained in and around the village. The weather was beautiful, crisp and cold but with only one rainy day. I ordered breakfast early then went for a walk every morning before sitting down to work. Lunch was soup and sandwiches from the Stonehouse Bakery, with some excellent cake for afternoon tea, and then I’d go for another walk before dinner. It was often almost dark by the time I got back, and the sunsets were gorgeous.

During the day I took over the desk and worked solidly on book seven, An Indomitable Brigade. I found, to my joy, that I’d been right about the book. There was nothing wrong with either plotting or the research I’d done. I just needed time, and peace and quiet to get on with it. I kept in touch with my family during the evening, but firmly refused to take calls during the day. I was helped by the fact that the wi-fi was variable. It worked very well in my room, and down in the bar areas but in the study it was patchy, which removed the temptation to chat on Twitter or Facebook. After the first day, I was completely absorbed in the world of the 110th and the battle of Vitoria.

I enjoyed my day out at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Hartlepool, and the Trincomalee was everything I hoped for and more. The museum is set up around a historic quayside restored to look like an eighteenth century seaport and its beautiful waterside setting. The various buildings are set up to show tradesmen like tailors, printers and instrument makers with stories about the Royal Navy and the men and women associated with it. It’s a great place for kids, with an adventure play ship and loads of activities, and because I was there during half term, there were demonstrations of gunnery and swordsmanship and various talks scheduled through the day. I went to everything, even though most of this wasn’t new to me. It was a great atmosphere, and I thoroughly enjoyed the interactive Fighting Sail exhibition, though the kids commentary around me probably entertained me as much as the displays.

The Trincomalee was perfect, one of two surviving British frigates of her era. The other, HMS Unicorn is a museum ship in Dundee and I’m going to get there when I can. The Trincomalee was commissioned in 1812 to be built in India using teak, due to the shortage of oak in Britain after the intensive shipbuilding of the Napoleonic wars. Work did not begin until 1816 so by the time the ship was finished the following year, the wars were over and Trincomalee was put to other uses.

On the advice of one of the guides, I waited until the kids were completely absorbed in learning how to form a boarding party on the quayside using foam swords and cutlasses before boarding the ship. It was completely empty and I was able to take photographs, absorb the atmosphere and write stories in my head to my hearts content. The Trincomalee quickly morphed into the fictional Herne in my imagination, Hugh Kelly’s first post-command, and the story was finished. I’ll definitely come back to it though, I’d like to write a lot more of Hugh’s earlier adventures in the navy.

Rush hour in Danby

Back at my borrowed desk, I had a blissful few days of writing, walking on the moors and falling in love both with Yorkshire and with my fictional world all over again. By the time I set off for the ferry at the end of the week, the book was back on track, and I was fairly sure I’d have it written, even if not edited and published, before the end of the year. I had also forgiven myself for my inability to work as well as usual during the past two years. There are probably writers out there who made the most of the restrictions of lockdown and emerged ahead of the game. I suffered, and emotionally it was hard to put myself into the heads of my characters when my own head was so full of confusion. I think on those long, winter walks over the moors I’ve worked out how to be kinder to myself and how to keep a distance when the world feels an alien and unfamiliar place.

I’ve concluded that a writer’s retreat means different things to different people. For some, it’s about learning, and they’re looking for lectures and workshops and the ability to try something new. For others, it’s about connecting with other writers to share ideas and stories and to feel part of a community for a while, in this very solitary job that we do. For me, it’s definitely a retreat, a place of quiet and solitude and some beauty, where I can throw myself back into what I do best without any nagging sense of all the other things on my to do list.

Of course, it also helps to have an eighteenth century Napoleonic recruiting inn and an early nineteenth century frigate thrown in for good measure.

 

The Combat at San Millan

Church in San Millan de San Zadornil

The Combat at San Millan

I’ve been driven off course during my writing of book seven of the Peninsular War Saga this week by the tangled story of the Combat at San Millan. Having emerged from the other end with enough of a grasp of events to write the chapter, I decided to prolong the distraction a little longer by sharing the story in a blog post, since this is a really interesting example of how I use research to put the books together. It’s also an example of how important it is to me to find a variety of sources if I possibly can, and how challenging it can be to come up with a coherent account.

Lieutenant-General Charles Alten

The Combat at San Millan was a small action fought by Lieutenant-General Charles Alten’s Light Division on 18th June 1813 during the march on Vitoria. To give a brief summary, Alten’s division was ordered to march across the hills via La Boveda towards the village of San Millan with the intention of outflanking General Reille’s corps at Osma. At San Millan, they unexpectedly encountered General Maucune’s division which was on its way to join up with Reille’s main force. After a short, sharp fight, Reille’s forces retreated before the Light Division, leaving behind approximately 400 dead, wounded and prisoners and the entire baggage train.

My usual first source for any battle that I’m about to write is Sir Charles Oman’s epic History of the Peninsular War. Generally speaking, he can be relied upon for a straightforward account of who did what, and where and when. Once I’ve got the sense of what happened from Oman, I will search any other histories, published letters and memoirs from the period which might cover that action for further details which can be incorporated into my fictional account.

In the case of San Millan, there are a number of different accounts, but as I began to plan out the action and to work out the best way to weave in my fictional brigade it was clear that not all these agreed. As I went on, I became more and more confused.

There were two brigades in Alten’s division in 1813. To avoid confusion I will leave out the fictional exploits of Paul van Daan and his men at this point.

Sir James Kempt

The first brigade was led by Major-General Sir James Kempt and consisted of the 1st battalion of the 43rd foot, the 1st battalion of the 95th rifles, five companies of the 3rd battalion of the 95th rifles and the 1st Portuguese caçadores.

The second brigade was led by Major-General John Ormsby Vandeleur and consisted of the 1st battalion of the 52nd foot, the 2nd battalion of the 95th rifles and the 3rd battalion of the Portuguese caçadores.

Under normal circumstances, the Light Division would march in brigade order with Kempt’s men at the front.

According to all sources, the first to encounter the French were the cavalry scouts attached to the Light Division, the hussars of the King’s German Legion. After chasing away the French cavalry patrols, the KGL reported back to Alten, who ordered in the first troops. This is where it becomes confusing.

Sir John Ormsby Vandeleur

Oman says that Vandeleur’s Brigade was at the head of the British column and were sent in to attack immediately, the 95th and Portuguese caçadores in the front line and the 52nd in support. Macaune initially stood to fight, knowing that his second brigade with his baggage train was approaching. Shortly afterwards, Kempt’s brigade made an appearance and began to deploy to the left of Vandeleur’s at which point Macaune gave the order to retreat through the village. Macaune’s second brigade then appeared with the baggage in the rear and were attacked, by Kempt’s brigade, while Vandeleur’s men continued to pursue the first brigade through the village.

Tim Saunders and Rob Yuill in their recently published Light Division in the Peninsular War 1811-1814, give the same account of the French presence at San Millan, but give Kempt’s brigade as being the leading brigade. They say that Wellington arrived immediately on the spot as the cavalry was giving Kempt the information and immediately directed the 1st and 3rd battalions of riflemen, supported by the rest of Kempt’s brigade, to attack the French. They then go on to say that the 52nd along with the 1st and 3rd caçadores attacked and cleared the village. Meanwhile, Vandeleur’s brigade, which had been some distance behind Kempt’s came forward and the 43rd and second 95th were deployed across the valley. This account goes on to say that Kempt’s brigade continued the pursuit of the French 1st brigade through the village while Vandeleur’s brigade chased the 2nd brigade into the hills.

We now move on to English Battles And Sieges In The Peninsula by Lieut.-Gen. Sir William Napier. Napier gives a very brief summary of the battle but does not separate out the different brigades or battalions apart from the fact that the first attack was by riflemen followed by the 52nd. He says the rest of the Light Division remained in reserve. He then describes the 52nd’s fight on the hillside and says that the reserve were chasing the French who then came up behind the 52nd. Reading between the lines, it appears that Napier views Vandeleur’s Brigade as the reserve, but does not give any explanation as to why the 52nd, which was part of Vandeleur’s Brigade, seemed to have been fighting with Kempt’s Brigade.

There is enough agreement between Napier and the more recent history of the Light Division to suggest that Saunders and Yuill agree with his interpretation of events. To move on to another earlier history, I looked at J W Fortescue’s History of the British Army. Fortescue describes the skirmish in volume 9 and once again agrees with the role of the German hussars. In his account, Alten received the news of the presence of the enemy and sent forward the Rifles from Kempt’s Brigade.

At this point, Wellington arrived. He sent the rest of Kempt’s Brigade (i.e. the 43rd and 1st caçadores) along with the 3rd caçadores from Vandeleur’s Brigade in support. This is interesting. There is no information about how much time elapsed between Alten’s first orders and Wellington’s arrival and secondary orders, but what seems clear is that by this time, Vandeleur’s Brigade was close enough for Wellington to give orders to send in both battalions of Portuguese. What is also interesting is that Fortescue does not mention the 52nd being sent in with them.

Fortescue then goes on to describe one of the notable parts of the skirmish:

“While this fight was going on , Macune’s second brigade suddenly emerged from a rocky defile, where upon Vandeleur’s brigade instantly flew upon their left flank. The unhappy French made for a hill a little way to their front; but the Fifty-second, who were stationed beyond this hill, turned about and raced them for the summit . A rude scuffle followed , but the bulk of the enemy…made their escape through wood and mountain to Miranda del Ebro.”

This account seems to suggest that the 52nd were already stationed upon the hill when the rest of their brigade chased the French up the hill. Does this mean they had already been stationed there before the sighting of the French second division? Or were they placed there when Vandeleur’s brigade first came up as part of the reserve? It’s not clear from this.

Another history of the Rifle Brigade was written in 1877 by William Henry Cope. It’s old, but I found some of the details delightful and they’ll definitely be finding their way into the book. With the usual early agreement about the actions of the German hussars, Cope goes on to say that Colonel Barnard, who commanded a battalion of the 95th in Kempt’s brigade led the first attack. This definitely seems to disagree with Oman’s account of Vandeleur’s brigade leading the attack, and makes more sense, as Kempt’s brigade should have been in the lead. 

While Cope gives no specific details about the 43rd or 52nd, he does state that  the second brigade of the Light Division (Vandeleur’s brigade) came up to San Millan at the same time as the rear brigade of the French rear-guard and that Vandeleur’s brigade attacked them.

Moving on to published memoirs and letters, we start with A Light Infantryman with Wellington: the letters of George Ulrich Barlow, edited by Gareth Glover. Barlow was in the 52nd and gives a very brief summary of the battle. He describes the incident with the 52nd atop the hill and says they were too winded to pursue successfully but gives no specifics of any other battalions or where they were.

William Surtees was a quartermaster in the 1st battalion of the 95th. He confirmed that his battalion was the first into the attack, and describes the attack on the French first brigade as being conducted by Kempt’s brigade. His description then goes as follows:

“The first brigade of the enemy being thus beaten, retreated along the great road in the direction of Espeja, leaving their second brigade and all their baggage to their fate. These latter being pressed by our second or rear brigade, and seeing us in possession of the village, and the road they had to pass, immediately broke in all directions, and dispersed themselves in the mountains over the village, each man making the best of his way. This their baggage could not do, and it consequently fell into the hands of the captors, an easy and valuable booty; but although my brigade, by beating and dispersing the enemy at the village, had been the principal cause of its capture, yet those whose hands it fell into had not the generosity to offer the least share of it to us, but divided it amongst themselves.”

This very clearly states that the first attack was made by Kempt’s brigade and the second attack upon the baggage by Vandeleur’s brigade which came in later. There is no mention of the 52nd coming in earlier and fighting with a different brigade.

Andrew Francis Barnard

John Kincaid was another rifleman who wrote several entertaining accounts of his service in the Peninsula. His account of San Millan is brief. He served in Kempt’s brigade under Andrew Barnard.  He described being part of the first attack, and chasing the French. He also complains that Vandeleur’s brigade got all the baggage even though his brigade had done most of the fighting.

While his account of the action in his memoirs is limited, there is an interesting letter from Kincaid, which was written many years later to W S Moorsom after the publication of his Historical record of the Fifty-second Regiment (Oxfordshire Light Infantry) from the year 1755 to the year 1858. I’m indebted to Gareth Glover once more for providing me with this letter along with several other accounts of the combat all of which are due to be published by him over the course of the next year. Kincaid complains to Moorsom that his account gives undue credit to the actions of the 52nd, ignoring the contributions of the rest of the battalions, particularly the 95th.

This letter sets out far more clearly than any of the other accounts, the timing of the skirmish. According to Kincaid:

“We all arrived on the hill above San Millan, at the same time, we were about half an hour there before our battalion was ordered to attack the Brigade of Maucune’s Division, which was on the road below. It was probably half an hour later before the 52nd attacked the 2nd brigade of that division, which at the time our attack was made, had not arrived within sight. I must therefore submit to you whether your description does not leave it to be inferred by those unacquainted with what took place, that there had been only one brigade of Maucune’s Division near San Millan, and that it had been attacked and dispersed by Vandeleur’s Brigade but as the other brigade of that same division had been defeated but a few minutes before by our old 1st battalion I think.”

Until Gareth provided me with this letter, I’d never come across Moorsom’s history. I was delighted to find that it is available online, courtesy of the fantastic HathiTrust website and it is clearly destined to become a regular source for my research. Like Kincaid, Moorsom is very useful for the timing of the combat. His account reads as follows:

“The following day the Light Division crossed that river at Puente Arenas, and on the 18th it suddenly came upon two brigades of Maucune’s division, which, being in observation, and proceeding from Frias to Osma, had quitted the high-road, and were moving along a small ridge of hills to the right of the road near the village of San Millan, with a large interval between them, and thus crossed the route of the division. The brigades of the Light Division were separated on the march, some distance apart; and as soon as the enemy were discovered, General Alten halted the division to reconnoitre, and a considerable delay took place before the first brigade (in which were the 43rd and 1st battalion 95th Rifles) were allowed to attack.

“As soon, however, as the force and intentions of the enemy were ascertained, Colonel Barnard led his battalion of the 95th Rifles down the hill, with three companies in skirmishing order among the brushwood, and three in reserve: on this the enemy at once threw out a body of skirmishers to meet the 95th, and put his column to a running pace to escape the flank fire which the first brigade now opened on him and which was kept up for some miles, inflicting on him a severe loss.

“Meantime the second brigade of the Light Division found Maucune’s rear brigade encumbered with baggage, and so far behind its comrades of the leading brigade that the action was entirely a separate affair without concert on the part of the French. On this being perceived, the 2nd battalion of the 95th, immediately extending in the brushwood, commenced a fire on the rear of the French, while the 52nd, pushing on at double quick along the flank of their column, as soon as they had gained a sufficient advance, charged upon it, and took three hundred prisoners and a great quantity of baggage, the remainder of the enemy dispersing among the mountains.”

Despite Kincaid’s complaints, I actually think Moorsom sets out the roles of the various brigades and battalions very clearly; in fact I wonder if he may have adjusted a more biased account for a later edition because he seems to give full credit to all concerned in this excerpt. It also solves many of the problems of the previous accounts that I’ve mentioned above. It seems clear that General Alten did not send in his men quite so precipitately as suggested, and in fact waited until both his brigades had arrived on the hills above San Millan. That would give Lord Wellington time to make his appearance. It also sounds far more like the meticulous Alten to me. 

Moorsom is also very specific that the 43rd and not the 52nd was with Kempt’s Brigade, and it was that brigade which was sent to attack the French first brigade which was waiting in and around the village. Most of the fighting seems to have been done by the riflemen, with the 43rd ready in support. This left Vandeleur’s Brigade, including the 52nd, in reserve and they only became involved in the fight when the French second brigade with the baggage train made its unexpected appearance.

As an interesting aside, Moorsom’s account, written as a regimental history in the mid-nineteenth century, makes no mention at all even of the existence of the two Portuguese battalions even though they were an integral part of the Light Division, and both Oman and Fortescue agree that they were sent into battle very early on by Lord Wellington himself. He also fails to mention the role of the Spanish division who continued the pursuit of the French into the hills. Clearly Moorsom preferred to ignore the multi-national nature of Wellington’s Peninsular command. 

An account by William Freer of the 43rd (courtesy of Gareth Glover) confirms Moorsom’s suggestion that the 43rd remained ready in support, leaving most of the fighting to the riflemen:

“We were not brought into play, but were kept in reserve dreading another [column] coming from the same point which would (had we been all pursuing) have been an inconvenience.”

Gareth Glover also provided me with an account by William Rowan of the 52nd, which makes it easy to see how some of the confusion of the various accounts may have come about. Rowan describes the combat thus:

“We then crossed the River Ebro and on the 18th (my birthday) we had a stirring affair, when our brigade unexpectedly and to our material surprise, near the village of San Milan cut in between the two brigades of a French division on route to Vitoria by a road that crossed the one on which we were marching our regiment; immediately wheeled into line and dashed at one of the brigades as it attempted to form on some high ground to our right. It did not however, want to receive us, but after a desultory fire it dispersed in all direction among the hills. We pursued for some time, taking several hundred prisoners and capturing all the baggage.”

The tone of Rowan’s account suggests that the 52nd flew into action the moment the French were sighted, and contradicts the measured account given by Moorsom. However, when you read it carefully, Rowan agrees that the 52nd’s attack was in fact made on the second brigade and the baggage, which most accounts agree did not even appear until after Kempt’s brigade was engaged fighting the French in the village. Rowan was definitely only interested in his own regiment’s part in the affair and does not mention any of the other battalions involved.

Which brings me very neatly to my own part in the Combat at San Millan. As a writer of historical fiction, it isn’t my job to decide which historian has it right and which doesn’t. In order to write a believable story, I need to choose the accounts that seem most likely, weave in my fictional regiment, and allow the historians to pick apart the rest. The list I’ve given is probably by no means complete. More accounts are being discovered all the time, and historians such as Gareth Glover do an amazing job of editing, publishing and interpreting them for their readers.

I already know the part I want Paul and his men to play at San Millan, and I’m going to go with the accounts of Moorsom and Kincaid. Their detailed timings are very useful and the delay before the initial attack gives me the opportunity to introduce a ‘Wellington moment’. In the face of so much conflicting evidence, I’m going to fall back on the most likely scenario which is that Kempt’s brigade, with the 43rd, was sent in first leaving Vandeleur’s brigade to deal with the second French brigade when it turned up. I will also borrow some of the individual stories from the other accounts, because they’re fun.

The enormous amount of information that needed to be sifted for an account of a small fight at San Millan makes it easy to understand why there are so many books written about a huge battle such as Waterloo. I’m going to end with a quote from Wellington. There are so many quotes attributed to him, but this one, or at least a version of it, seems more reliable than most. It also sums up very nicely what I’ve learned from researching battles for historical fiction.

“The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance.” (Letter to John Croker, 8 August 1815, as quoted in The Waterloo Letters (1891) edited by H. T. Sibome)

Now let’s see what Major-General Paul van Daan makes of the Combat at San Millan…

Book Seven of the Peninsular War Saga, An Indomitable Brigade, is due to be published this November.

For those interested in my ramblings on writing, history and Labradors, I’m on Facebook and Twitter, so please like, follow and join in the fun.

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Once again I’d like to thank Gareth Glover for generously providing me with several as yet unpublished sources for this post. There is a full list of the sources I’ve used here but I’d recommend you have a look at Gareth’s website and watch out for future publications as there are still many more unpublished Peninsular War memoirs to come, and they’re all fascinating.

Sources

Cope, William Henry     The History of the Rifle Brigade (the Prince Consort’s Own) Formerly the 95th, Chatto and Windus, 1877)

Fortescue,  J W    A History of the British Army (Volume 9), Naval & Military Press, 2004

Glover, Gareth (ed)    A Light Infantryman with Wellington: the letters of George Ulrich Barlow,  Helion and Co, 2018

Glover, Gareth (ed) Unpublished account of Henry Booth (43rd)

Glover, Gareth (ed) Unpublished account of William Freer (43rd) 

Glover, Gareth (ed) Unpublished account of Surgeon Gibson (52nd)

Glover, Gareth (ed)    Unpublished letter from John Kincaid to W S Moorsom 

Glover, Gareth (ed) Unpublished account by William Rowan (52nd)

Kincaid, John    The Complete Kincaid of the Rifles,  Leonaur, 2011

Maxwell, W H (ed)    Peninsular sketches; by actors on the scene, H.Colburn, 1844

Moorsom, W S (ed)    Historical record of the Fifty-second Regiment (Oxfordshire Light Infantry) from the year 1755 to the year 1858, R Bentley, 1860

Napier, Lt-Gen Sir William     English Battles And Sieges In The Peninsula (Extracted From His ‘Peninsula War.’) John Murray, 1855

Oman, Sir Charles     History of the Peninsular War (Vol 6), Naval & Military Press, 2017

Surtees, William    Twenty five years in the Rifle Brigade,  William Blackwood, 1833

The Wellesley Family: Historical Scandals

The Wellesley Family: Historical Scandals

The Wellesley Family: Historical Scandals, arose from my long-time interest in Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, who is a significant secondary character in the Peninsular War Saga.

During my books, we follow Wellington through his early career in India and then on through the long years of the war in Spain and Portugal. We also follow him through his elevation to a knighthood, then a series of peerages, to when he becomes Duke of Wellington. Through my novels so far, he has been known as Lord Wellington, and for simplicity, that is how I’ll refer to him in this post. To confuse matters further, the family changed their name from Wesley to Wellesley during Wellington’s younger years. I’m going to use the more familiar Wellesley during this post. I’m also going to call the rest of the siblings by their first names, to avoid having to keep changing their various titles as they are elevated through the peerage. Because the Wellesley boys did very well for themselves.

Wellington was unusual among military commanders, in that he did not go home to England throughout the six years of the Peninsular War. It was a matter of choice, because he could perfectly well have done so during winter quarters, but it was very typical of Wellington to assume that if he left the army for even a short time, they would never manage without him. Wellington took micro-management to a whole new level.

His dedication means that in fictional terms, I’ve never really had reason to spend any time with the rest of his family. There is a brief mention of his wife in Dublin in book one, and we meet one of his brothers, Henry, in a short story. But in general, the rest of the Wellesley brothers and sisters were off living their lives. There was a good deal of correspondence between the family, both professional and personal. Richard, the eldest brother was a politician who held office during those years while Henry was a diplomat at the temporary Spanish court in Cadiz. The Wellesley brothers had varied and interesting careers, but they also had varied and interesting personal lives. Given the amount of scandal which happened in this one family, I can’t help wondering what went awry in their early years to make it so difficult for them to maintain good relationships.

The Wellesleys were born into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family. Their father was Garret Colley Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington and their mother was the Hon. Anne Hill-Trevor. The marriage was reportedly happy, despite his lack of financial sense and the couple had nine children, most of whom have some historical significance. Mornington died at the age of only forty-six leaving his family in financial difficulties, which led them to sell most of their Irish estates.

Two of the Wellesley’s children, Arthur Gerald and Francis did not survive into adulthood. Another daughter, Mary Elizabeth died unmarried at the age of twenty-two. The rest went on to marry and to have generally successful public lives. Four of the five brothers were elevated to the peerage, and all married at least once. Not all of those marriages were successful, however. The story of the Wellesleys, with its scandals, divorces, and duels, would make an excellent soap opera.

Richard Wellesley, second Earl of Mornington

Richard Wellesley succeeded his father as Earl of Mornington but he did not make the traditional marriage expected of a Peer. Instead, he lived with a French actress called Hyacinthe-Gabrielle Roland. The couple had three sons and two daughters and Richard finally married her in 1794. Hyacinthe joined him in London, but the marriage was not a success. Hyacinthe was shunned by polite society because of her irregular union with Richard as well as her relatively humble origins. She never learned to speak English and was probably very lonely, and at some point during their marriage, the couple separated and lived apart.

Hyacinte Gabrielle Roland
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150197

In addition to Hyacinthe, Richard had a teenage mistress by the name of Elizabeth Johnston, with whom he had two children. One of them, Edward, was born in 1796 just two years after Richard’s marriage, and later became his father’s private secretary.

Hyacinthe died in 1816 and nine years later Richard, who was by then sixty-five years old, married a young widow by the name of Marianne Patterson who was thirty-seven. Marianne was the daughter of a wealthy American merchant and it is possible that her fortune was part of her appeal for Richard, who was always short of money. There were rumours that the couple were already lovers before the wedding, and there had also been gossip linking her name with Wellington. Certainly she and Wellington were close friends, and he tried to persuade her not to marry Richard. Despite this, the marriage seems to have worked well and Richard finally found marital peace in his later years.

William Wellesley-Pole, third Earl of Mornington and first Baron Maryborough

William was the second of the surviving Wellesley brothers and served in the Royal Navy. In 1781 he inherited the estates of his godfather, William Pole on the condition that he change his name. William later inherited the Earldom when his elder brother died with no legitimate son.

William was married in 1784 to Katherine Elizabeth Forbes, the daughter of an admiral. The couple had four children and were said to have the only happy marriage of the four brothers.

Lady Anne Wellesley

Anne was first married at the age of twenty-two to Henry FitzRoy, son of the first Baron Southampton. The couple had two daughters and FitzRoy sadly died after only four years of marriage, in Lisbon of consumption. When Anne’s brother Henry came to Lisbon to escort Anne back home after the death of her husband, their ship was captured by the French and Anne and Henry were prisoners until Anne was released and Henry escaped the following year.

Four years later Anne made a second marriage to Charles Culling Smith, a politician and courtier, with whom she had two more children.

Frederica, Duchess of York

Anne was First Lady of the Bedchamber to the Duchess of York. There is a story that the Duke of York came home to Oatlands unexpectedly one day to find his wife and Charles Culling Smith in bed together. There was no public scandal, because the King insisted that the matter be hushed up. There was contemporary gossip about the affair, but it would seem that if it happened, it was very successfully hushed up indeed. Personally, I am doubtful about this one.

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

Wellington was the third of the Wellesley brothers, and apparently in his youth was the least promising. His mother could see no hope of great things from her son and encouraged a career in the army as the best she could do.

Wellington was a young and impecunious officer when he met the Honourable Catherine ‘Kitty’ Pakenham in Dublin. The couple apparently fell in love, but her family rejected his proposal on the grounds that he was the third son of a large family with limited prospects. Wellington withdrew and became absorbed in an increasingly successful military career, while Kitty became engaged to Galbraith Lowry Cole, the second son of the Earl of Enniskillen.

The couple did not meet again for ten years. During that time a lot had changed. Wellington had intimated that he still felt his attachment to Kitty, and that may have been the reason she broke off her engagement to Cole. She was also ill during this period and by the time she and Wellington met again, she was thin, pale and in poor health which was apparently a considerable shock to him. Nevertheless, the couple married in 1806 and had two sons.

The marriage was not a success. Kitty tried hard to please her sharp-witted, decisive husband, but was unable to do so. They had little in common and very quickly began to live separate lives. Kitty doted on her sons and adopted children while Wellington pursued his career. He went to the Peninsula in 1808 and then again in 1809 and did not return until 1814. By then, the gap between them had widened still further. Kitty’s interests were all domestic; Wellington was a public figure.

This did not mean that Wellington was without female company. There were rumours of flirtations and possible more with several married women during his time in India. Back in England, he conducted an affair with a famous London courtesan by the name of Harriette Wilson, whose later attempt to blackmail him apparently brought the very typical Wellington response of “Publish and be damned.”

Little is known of Wellington’s love life during his time in the Peninsula, although rumours suggested that he kept a mistress at headquarters during 1810. Possibly the gossip arising from that either taught him to avoid such relationships or to be more circumspect about them, because there do not seem to be any other such rumours through the rest of the war.

At the end of the war in 1814, Wellington was appointed ambassador to France and moved to Paris. During this time, he apparently had affairs with two women who had previously been lovers of Napoleon, an actress called Marguerite Georges and an opera singer named Giuseppina Grassini. Kitty joined him for a time but returned to London while Wellington attended the Congress of Vienna. After Napoleon’s escape brought war again in 1815, Wellington moved to Brussels to command the Allied forces.

There was a lively social scene in Brussels in the run-up to Waterloo, and scandal once again followed Wellington although much of this was probably no more than gossip. Lady Capel complained that Wellington “has not improved the morality of our society” due to his tendency to invite ladies of doubtful character to his parties. There was a reputed affair with Lady Frances Wedderburn-Webster, but she and her husband later brought a successful libel action against the St James Chronicle for printing the story. Wellington also developed a close friendship with Lady Georgiana Lennox, who was the twenty year old daughter of the Duchess of Richmond.

During the years following Waterloo, gossip continued to follow Wellington. His name was linked at different times with Lady Frances Shelley, Lady Caroline Lamb, Lady Charlotte Greville and his future sister-in-law, Marianne Patterson. It is impossible to know how many of these, if any, were actual affairs and how many were close and affectionate friendships. What is certain is that Wellington was capable of both. He seemed to be a man who liked the company of women, particularly intelligent and attractive women.

Mrs Harriet Arbuthnot was typical of this. Harriet was married to Charles Arbuthnot, a politician more than twenty years older than her, and was previously a close friend of Lord Castlereagh before he committed suicide in 1822. Harriet and Charles were Tories, and both became close to Wellington. Harriet and Wellington exchanged letters on a regular basis, and she frequently acted as his hostess and social secretary, particularly after Kitty’s death in 1831. Harriet was a diarist, and her observations have contributed greatly to our knowledge of Wellington as a man. Wellington was devastated at her early death of cholera in 1834. He and Charles Arbuthnot remained close, and Charles went to live with Wellington after Harriet’s death. There were undoubtedly rumours about Harriet’s relationship with Wellington, but these do not seem to have been taken seriously and very few people believe that they were anything more than close and devoted friends.

Angela Burdett-Coutts

In his later years, Wellington continued the tradition of having close female friends, but he gave no sign of wanting to remarry, and took care, on the whole, to be circumspect about his relationships. He was close to Angela Burdett-Coutts, who apparently wanted to marry him, but Wellington seemed to prefer friendship to scandal. If there were liaisons, he kept them very quiet.

The Revd and Hon. Gerald Valerian Wellesley

The next of the Wellesley siblings was a churchman, who became Rector of St Luke’s, Chelsea and a prebendary of Westminster Abbey. In 1802 he married Lady Emily Cadogan and the couple had two children.

By 1818 however, the marriage had gone badly wrong. Emily is said to have had an affair initially with the Marquess of Anglesey and then to have discarded him for Lord Wallscourt, who was still in his teens and half her age. There is some doubt as to the exact date of the ending of Gerald’s marriage, and possibly because of his position in the church, he did not formally seek a divorce. It seems likely, however, that the scandal did not help Gerald’s repeated unsuccessful attempts to become a bishop.

The Hon. Henry Wellesley later first Baron Cowley

The Cadogan family was also involved in the marital scandal of the final Wellesley brother’s marriage. Henry Wellesley had a successful diplomatic career, but he was as unfortunate as the rest of his family in matters of the heart.

In 1803 Henry married Lady Charlotte Cadogan, who was the sister of Lady Emily Cadogan, the wife of his brother Gerald. The couple had three sons and a daughter. However, in 1808, Charlotte began an affair with Lord Paget. He was forty and she was twenty-seven. When Henry Wellesley became suspicious and confronted his wife in 1809, Charlotte left her family and placed herself under Paget’s protection.

The scandal was huge. Both couples were divorced, with Henry being awarded £20,000 in damages from Paget, a step which seems bizarre to us, but was common at the time. Paget and Charlotte were married in 1810 and Paget’s former wife Caroline soon married the Duke of Argyll.

Lord Uxbridge

The scandal blighted Paget’s career for some years. He was a talented cavalry officer but was unable to serve in the Peninsula under Wellington because of bad blood between the two families. His younger brother, Sir Edward Paget did, however, even acting as Wellington’s second-in-command. By the time of Waterloo, Wellington was obliged to accept him as cavalry commander. By then Paget had succeeded to the title of Lord Uxbridge and lost his leg during the engagement.

As mentioned above, Uxbridge apparently went on to have an affair with Emily Wellesley, wife of Gerald Wellesley. The date of this is unclear, but Emily was his wife’s sister, and was married to the brother of the man he had cuckolded in 1809 which makes the whole thing extraordinarily tacky.

In March 1809, Charlotte’s brother Henry Cadogan challenged Paget to a duel, accusing him of having dishonoured his sister. The two men fought on Wimbledon Common. Paget deliberately fired wide, and honour was considered satisfied. By the time Paget embarked on an affair which helped to ruin his other sister’s marriage, Cadogan was dead, fighting bravely under Wellington at Vitoria.

In 1816 Henry married again, this time to Lady Georgiana Cecil, daughter of the Marquess of Salisbury. The two families were already close, and Henry’s second marriage appears to have been happy.

The Wellesleys were not the only family in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to become embroiled in scandal, but they do seem to have been unusually prone to it. While only one of them was formally divorced, all but William seem to have been unhappy one way or another. Richard and Wellington lived apart from their wives for many years and conducted extra-marital affairs very openly. Henry went through a painful divorce. Gerald was never formally divorced but was separated from his unfaithful wife. Anne’s second husband was rumoured to have been unfaithful with a member of the royal family.

It is hard not to speculate why the Wellesleys found marriage so difficult. Their parents apparently had a reasonable happy union, but their father died early, when Richard was only 21 and Henry was 8. Possibly the ensuing financial hardship made the boys focus on success and money, which gave them less time for their wives. Perhaps they were simply unfortunate in the choices they made. Or perhaps there was something in the Wellesley temperament, which made them impatient, critical, and difficult to live with. Certainly in the case of Wellington there is some evidence of that.

Whole books have been written about the life and loves of the Duke of Wellington. His brothers and sister are less well known to popular history, but were significant characters in their era. This post is a light-hearted look at the best-known scandals surrounding the Wellesley family, but there was a great deal more to them than that, and I recommend any of the books below for people wanting to know more. From the point of view of a historical novelist, the Wellesleys were an interesting family and definitely one with enough historical scandals to fill a novel or two in their own right.

 

Bibliography:

Wellington: the path to victory   Rory Muir   (Yale, 2013)

Wellington: Waterloo and the fortunes of peace (Yale 2015)

Wellington: the years of the sword  Elizabeth Longford (Smithmark, 1996)

Wellington: pillar of state   Elizabeth Longford (Harper 1972)

The Duke of Wellington and Women by Shannon Selin

There is a book entitled Architects of Empire: the Duke of Wellington and his brothers by John Severn (University of Oklahoma Press, 2007) which I didn’t manage to get hold of in time to write this post, although it is mentioned in some of my other sources and I would like to read it at some point.

I’ve given a specific link to a blog post by Shannon Selin about the Duke of Wellington and his relationships with women, but I highly recommend reading some of her other posts about Wellington, because they are all excellent.

 

Popham and Wellington’s Christmas Carol

Popham and Wellington’s Christmas Carol was written as a Christmas gift to my very good friends Jacqueline Reiter and Kristine Hughes Patrone, but I know they’ll be very happy to share it. It’s very silly, but it probably does reflect something of the way I see and write these two characters in fiction. I hope you enjoy it. Grateful thanks to Charles Dickens whose work I have shamelessly used. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you.

Sir Home Popham

It is Christmas, and Captain Sir Home Popham, the well-known genius of navigation, cartography, communications, amphibious operations and driving people up the wall, is settling down in his London lodgings for the night under the supervision of Able Seaman Glossop (aka Gloomy Glossop) his trusty valet.

“Well, well, well, Glossop, Christmas tomorrow, eh? It’s a shame I didn’t make it home to be with my wife and the children, but I had so much to do here. I’m sure she’ll understand. I wrote her a long letter explaining the circumstances.”

“I’m sure you did, sir.”

“Although she’s not replied yet.”

“She’s probably still reading it, sir.”

“Yes, yes. Very probably. And did I tell you I received an invitation to dine with several City gentlemen tomorrow? They are still very grateful about the excellent work I did in South America, and…”

Glossop backs up hastily. “Very good, sir. Goodnight.”

For a long time, nothing can be heard in the room but the sound of Popham snoring. He is in the middle of a very satisfying dream about the Admiralty burning down with most of its occupants and any incriminating paperwork pertaining to himself, when a strange noise awakes him. The room is filled with a peculiar light, and at the foot of the bed, a woman in an old-fashioned gown.

“Who the devil are you, ma’am? And why on earth are you dressed up like that? Have you lost your way home from the Victuallers Fancy Dress Ball?”

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“I don’t care who you’re meant to be, you’re in the wrong room. Bugger off.”

“I am not in fancy dress, I am the REAL ghost of Christmas Past, and I’m here to see YOU Sir Home Popham. Your activities have displeased the Powers That Be, and you need to mend your ways. You will be visited by three spirits…”

Popham gets out of bed and reaches for his robe) “This is outrageous! I knew I was being persecuted by the Admiralty, but to send a message with fresh accusations on Christmas Eve, and via a female who has clearly strayed from a Masquerade Ball is too much! I shall write a letter of complaint in the morning, worded in the strongest terms, and if this is about the business in the Red Sea again, I have irrefutable proof that I wasn’t even there!”

“The Admiralty? What on earth has this to do with the Admiralty?”

“Well you said the Powers That Be, and I hardly think you’re here from His Majesty, you wouldn’t get past the gates dressed like that. They’ve no standards at the Admiralty, so…”

“Oh for God’s sake, will you stop talking, this is going to take all night and we’ve two more ghosts to get through yet! Look, I’ll break it down for you, Dumbhead. I’m a ghost. We’re going on a trip to show you what you’ve been doing wrong in the past. Hopefully, you’ll repent. Got it?”

“Dumbhead? Did you just call me Dumbhead? Well, I must say…wait, where are we going?????”

After a blur and a flash of light, Popham opens his eyes and looks around him. After a moment, his expression brightens.

“Ahhh, the good old Etrusco. I’d know her anywhere. What a fine ship.”

“I’m glad you recognise her, Sir Home.”

“Of course I do. But what on earth are we doing here? I thought this was about things I’d done wrong.”

“Sir Home, you seem to have forgotten a few things. During your time with the Etrusco, you were accused of carrying contraband and infringing the East India Company’s monopoly. Both were illegal. People suffered because of you. People got into trouble. People lost money…”

“Ahem.”

“What do you mean, ahem?”

“I was trying to attract your attention.”

“You’re supposed to be repenting.”

“Well of course, I’d like to oblige. But in this case, you’ve been misinformed. As it happens, I wasn’t even aboard the Etrusco…”

“Yes, you were. The Powers That Be can see all…”

“Well before they make a final decision, The Powers That Be need to read this.”

“What is it – a book?”

“No. Although I did pay to have it professionally published. It is a memorandum, explaining very briefly, over two hundred concise pages, why all the accusations against me with regard to the Etrusco were complete and utter nonsense.”

The ghost looks confused. “Nonsense?”

“Absolute balderdash. That document proves it.”

“I see. Well I’ll have to take this back…”

“Do so immediately.”

“Aha! You’re trying to get rid of me! I see through you, Sir Home Riggs Popham!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re the ghost, not me. What next?”

“Right. Hold on to your hat. We are going to…..”

“Ahhhh – Buenos Aires. Now those were the days!”

“So you admit it. Those were the days when you took off from Cape Town to effect an entirely illegal and unauthorised invasion of South America which completely failed.”

“I was exonerated.”

“No you weren’t. You were court martialled, found guilty and…”

“And then what?”

“You were censured.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Well…they said you’d been bad.”

“Oh boo, hoo hoo. As if that meant anything. Being censured is the same as being given a slap on the back and told to hide the bodies better next time. I did nothing wrong. Do you seriously think I’d be daft enough to do something like that without a nod or a wink from a Man who Knows?”

“Knows what?”

“It’s clear you’re not a politician, my good woman. Anyway, just in case you’re in any doubt, read this.”

“What is this?”

“A three hundred-and-eighty-six page document which I had privately published, proving that I did nothing wrong in South America. The Powers That Be need to read it. It’s riveting. Now, is there anything else?”

“Well…errr…there was some dodgy stuff at Walcheren.”

“Take this. A hundred and eighty pages.”

“Well what about when you were in Russia, then?”

“Two-hundred and twenty pages. With personal recommendations and footnotes. Do you need any help carrying those?”

“No. I should be getting back, since it’s clear that the Powers That Be will need a bit of time to study all this.”

Popham waves his hand airily. “Oh, tell them to take all the time they need, ma’am. No hurry. Now you said something about some other ghosts?”

“Yes. Shortly, you will be visited by the ghost of Christmas present.”

“Right. Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll get some sleep while I’m waiting. Busy day tomorrow, you know.”

Back in his bed, Popham is dreaming about Lord St Vincent being disgraced over an embarrassing incident with a chamber maid when he is once again rudely awoken. This time, an enormous man in a green cloak, with an impressive beard and a holly wreath on his head is standing at the foot of the bed.

“Sir Home Riggs Popham, I am the ghost of Christmas present, and I have come to show you…”

“Dear Lord, it’s difficult to get any sleep at all. I feel like the Earl of Chatham when his valet mistook the time and brought him breakfast at ten minutes to noon. Well, what is it this time?”

“I have come to show you the effects of your actions in the present day.”

“Get on with it then. Where first?”

There is a flash of light and Popham finds himself in an elegant drawing room. There is a reception in progress and the room is ablaze with candles, and filled with elegant people. A middle aged couple stand at the end of the room greeting their guests. She looks drawn and a little tired, but is very well dressed, and is talking to two officers in red coats. He is engaged in an enthusiastic conversation about hunting.

“Do you recognise this man, Sir Home?”

“Of course I do. It’s the Earl of Chatham. And that’s his wife. She’s been very ill, but I’d heard she was a little better. Where is this?”

“They are at home, entertaining some family and friends for the Christmas season, Sir Home. Of course had you not deliberately lied at the Walcheren inquiry, wrecking both his military and political career, he might have been serving his country overseas.”

“Two things. Firstly, take this. It is a three hundred page document demonstrating without any shadow of a doubt, that I was wholly innocent of any wrongdoing at Walcheren. I was merely the Captain of the Venerable. Hardly involved at all. Secondly, look at them. Don’t they look happy? She’s been ill for years. Now she’s having a brief spell of better health. If he was overseas, he’d be missing it, and it might cause her to deteriorate again. Even if I was involved in the destruction of his career, which of course I wasn’t, wouldn’t you say this is good for them in a way?”

“Errr….I don’t know. Three hundred pages, you say?”

“Give or take. Right, what’s next?”

“Very well. Do you recognise this man?”

“Of course I do. It’s Lord Melville. Now, I’m glad to see him, because I wanted to speak to him about…”

“Lord Melville no longer holds office, Sir Home. But when he did, you persecuted him.”

“I did not. Lord Melville and I were on the best of terms. I wrote him many letters…”

“Do you see the boxes before him. Those are your letters, Sir Home. Dozens and dozens of them. Even after he left office, you did not cease.”

Popham looks happy. “Well. I am glad to see he’s kept them all, I must say. Right, who else?”

“We could visit your wife, who is alone without you this Christmas.”

“Oh, nonsense, she has the children, she’s perfectly happy.”

“That’s true actually, I checked on her earlier.”

“You see? Who can you find, in this present day, who has actually been harmed by me. I mean, seriously harmed.”

“Your correspondents?”

“Pooh. They need to toughen up, man, they’re only letters. Right, if that’s it, I’m going back to bed. I’m going to be shattered tomorrow.”

Popham was deep in dreamless sleep when the third and final ghost appeared, a faceless figure in a dark cloak which actually managed to make him jump when he awoke to find it standing at the end of his bed.

“Good God, you might have knocked. For a moment, I thought that Gloomy Glossop had been off on one of his drinking spells and was waking me up to cry about the girl he left in Middelburg. I’m guessing you’re ghost number three, then? The ghost of Christmas future?”

The ghost nods without speaking. This is supposed to be terrifying, but for Popham, it is a gift.

“Not much of a talker, eh? Never mind. Right, where are we off to now? I must say, I’m excited. I’ve been wanting to know what happens next in my fabulous career. Obviously, I’m off to Spain shortly, where I’m sure I’ll be invaluable to Lord Wellington and to the Spanish guerrillas. After that, I imagine they will finally see sense and offer me a position at the Admiralty. If it hadn’t been for St Vincent constantly blocking me, I’d have been there years ago. Now in case you need any information about the constant persecution I’ve endured from that man and his acolytes at the Admiralty, I’ve a four hundred-and-twenty-one page document here giving full details. Please take it. Right, good man. What’s next?”

In a swirl of light, Popham is transported to a quayside. A hot sun beats down on him, and up on the hillside, there is a sombre little procession. Popham observes it for some minutes.

“A funeral, eh? Well, where is this place? Nothing to do with my life so far. Is this a future posting? Hold on, I’ll find out. I say, my good man, let me see that notice you’re holding if you please? A sale to be held in…oh. Oh, I see. Jamaica.” Popham looks at the ghost. “So I’m at the Jamaica Station. Commander in Chief? Yes. Good. Well that’s an honour, of course. But still – an unhealthy place, the Indies.”

There is a long period of quiet, as Popham follows the funeral procession up to the graveyard. The ghost waits in silence. After a while, Popham returns.

“There is another grave up there, Ghost.”

The ghost nods.

“My son and my daughter. Both died out here.”

The ghost nods again.

“That’s hard. That’s very hard. I love my children very much. My wife…I saw my wife up there. It broke her heart.”

The ghost nods again.

“And what about me? Do I also succumb to the unhealthy climate of this place? Do I make it home again?”

There is another flash of light, and Popham finds himself in a small churchyard, in front of a monument. Popham looks around.

“The church of St Michael and All Angels. Is this where I’m buried? And this is my grave. My monument.”

There is a long pause.

“It’s very big. I mean, pleasingly big. I must say I’d hoped to live longer than 57 years, I suppose it was that dreadful last posting. I wonder who at the Admiralty suggested that for me? I have my suspicions, they were always out to get me. All the same, I’m pleased to see that I’ve been remembered. Several of my finest portraits scattered about, and I discover that on Twitter, there is an entire community dedicated to talking about me. There is a fine biography by a family member, and another being written by a young woman whom I am personally supervising. Plenty of people will be able to read about me, me, me, me. On the whole, despite my early death, I am not displeased, Spirit.

“Now, have you finished? I have an important dinner engagement tomorrow, and a large number of letters to write. For all you tell me what my future is to be, I say it is nonsense. I have friends in high places, they would not allow me to be sent off to some ghastly posting in the Indies, they could not possibly manage without me. Why don’t you pop off now, and visit somebody else? There must be somebody needing some spiritual guidance. What about Lord St Vincent? He’s probably a little bored these days…”

The following morning, Popham awakes as Gloomy Glossop brings his tea into the room. He puts it down and retreats fast, but doesn’t make it out of the door in time.

“Good morning, Glossop, and what a fine one it is by the look of it. A very Merry Christmas to you, although by your expression, I should say that isn’t very likely. Tell me, did anything odd happen during the night?”

“Like what, sir?”

“No disturbances in the house. Nobody tried to break in?”

“Not that I’m aware of, sir. You were talking in your sleep when I passed earlier, but there’s nothing unusual in that, you generally talk all night.”

“Really? I…”

“And all morning.”

“Yes, but…”

“And all afternoon and evening. But nothing unusual.”

“Just as I thought. The whole thing was nothing but a foolish nightmare, and I shall knock off the cheese board at dinner and think no more of it. Now before I go out, I must write to Lord Melville.”

“Yes, sir. Er – why?”

“Well, it’s Christmas Day, Glossop, it will cheer him up to get a letter from his old friend. It may have been a dream, but it made me realise how much he must value all those letters I sent him over the years. That will be all, Glossop.”

The Duke of Wellington

It is Christmas, 1835 and the Duke of Wellington is sleeping peacefully at his London home, when he is awoken by a strange sound. A woman in old-fashioned dress is standing at the foot of his bed.

“Who the devil are you? Did I send for you, Madam?”

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past, your Grace.”

“Utter nonsense. I don’t believe in ghosts. What are you doing here?”

“I am here to take you to scenes of your past life, to teach you things you need to learn.”

“Can you not just send a memorandum? I am in need of sleep, I am dining with my brother’s family tomorrow, which is always exhausting.”

“The Powers That Be do not send memoranda, your Grace.”

“Poppycock, they send them all the time, most of them complete drivel, not worth my time. Very well, if you insist, I shall accompany you. But do not be all night about it, if you please, I am a busy man.”

There is a flash of light, and Wellington finds himself in a brilliantly lit ballroom, watching a dance in progress. A young couple are dancing in the middle of the set, laughing and whispering every time they come together. Wellington watches them for a while.

“Do you know where you are, your Grace?”

“Of course I do. Dublin. Kitty Pakenham. I had forgotten how pretty she was when I first met her.”

“You did not always think her pretty.”

“She did not always think me kind, and we were both right. Although at the end, I found that I felt very close to her again. She was the mother of my sons, and I realise now that has more meaning than any fleeting encounter. And she was a good woman.”

“You remember her fondly then.”

“Naturally. Just as I remember all the times I was not kind to her. Is that what this is intended to teach me? If it is, you are wasting your time. I was a poor husband, ma’am. What next?”

In another swirl of light, Wellington is transported to a sunny room overlooking a harbour. Several men are seated around a long table, talking, looking over a document.

“Do you recognise this, your Grace?”

“You seem to think I have succumbed to senility, ma’am. It is the palace at Cintra. Dalrymple and Burrard. And myself, of course. We were discussing the peace terms with the French.”

“The Convention of Cintra. A shameful peace. Which you signed.”

“I was exonerated by the inquiry.”

“I wonder what might have happened if you had not agreed to such generous terms. Would the rest of that long, bloody war even have occurred?”

“Are you perfectly well, ma’am? Do you know, I have been thinking that this was a dream, brought on by some very bad port at the Arbuthnots yesterday, but I see that I was wrong. Even my worst dreams have never been this nonsensical. In the first place, as I was junior to both these men, my agreement was irrelevant. In the second place, how would harsher terms have prevented Bonaparte running rampant through Europe for the next six years? All it might have done would have been to deprive him of some equipment and some men. He would have found more. He always found more, until the end. Nothing I did that day could have prevented that war, and if I was economical with the truth afterwards, what of it? If I had not been given command, we may have ended up with the Earl of Chatham in command in Portugal, and that would have been a very different outcome. Really, if this is intended to make me regret aspects of my younger life, you are doing a very poor job of it. Is there more?”

“One more visit, your Grace.”

Wellington finds himself outside Parliament in London. Members are making their way inside while a noisy crowd of protestors chants and yells insults at them.

“Do you know…?”

“The Reform Act. A poor piece of legislation, in my opinion. But it passed.”

“Against your fervent wishes.”

“I have never denied it.”

“Your stubbornness brought down your premiership.”

“An office to which I was patently unsuited. What lesson, pray, am I expected to learn from this? That a man should sit quietly in a corner and say nothing controversial?”

“Perhaps that a man should pay more attention to the opinions of those he commands?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, one cannot do that in command of an army, nothing would ever get done!”

“Parliament is not an army, and you were not its general, your Grace.”

“What a pity that was, since it would get through a great deal more business with a great deal less fuss. I have had enough of this nonsense and intend to return to my bed.”

“You will be visited by…”

“Pray tell them not to bother. I will tell my housekeeper not to admit them.”

When the ghost of Christmas present arrives an hour later, he is somewhat baffled to find that the Duke is not in his bed. Wandering through the house, he finds him in his study, writing letters by lamplight.

“Ah, there you are. I was beginning to think you had decided not to bother, but I suppose you had committed your forces and could hardly draw back now.”

“You should be asleep, your Grace.”

“So that you could wake me up? As I was awake already, I decided to make use of the time. I hope you have this properly planned, for I can give you no more than half an hour, I wish to finish this letter regarding the next stage of draining the moat at the Tower of London, before…good God, man, what are you wearing? You look like Harry Smith in the Light Division Amateur Theatrical performance back in 1812, and that is a sight I hoped never to see again. Never mind, let us go.”

The scene is a country park. Half a dozen children are playing under the supervision of a governess. Wellington watches them for a while.

“Do they remind you of your own children, your Grace?”

“You know perfectly well that I hardly knew my own children, ma’am, I was never there. These are some of my godchildren. I am very attached to them. Is it your point that I am a poor father as well as a husband? I do not deny that either. Where next?”

“You seem in a great hurry, your Grace.”

“I wish to get this piece of nonsense over with, so that I may return to my desk. I have a great deal to do. So, where next?”

“I was intending to take you to Spain, your Grace, where the country is…”

“The country is engaged in a civil war, which may be seen to negate my achievements during the late war. I am aware of it, no need to travel there. Next?”

“To France, where…”

“Where the Bourbon restoration proved less than satisfactory. I have no wish to go there either. Am I also to be held account for that?”

“Your Grace, I am trying to show you that…”

“All you are showing me is that no one man can be held responsible for the fortunes of the world. He might well, however, be held responsible for the fortunes of his own family. I have done the best I can with both and have had both successes and failures. These journeys are unnecessary and a waste of my time. I intend to return to my desk.”

One hour later, Wellington is still working when a shadow falls over his desk. He looks up to see the cloaked, hooded figure of the ghost of Christmas yet to come.

“You are late. I expected you fifteen minutes ago.”

The figure nods slowly.

“Well, it makes no difference, I suppose. As I told your predecessor, I can spare you only half an hour, so if you have a point to make, make it quickly.”

There is the usual flash of light, and Wellington finds himself in an elegant salon, crowded with people. A very young woman in a white gown stands at the far end, with a gentleman bowing to her.

“Good God, that is me. And not so very far in the future, by the look of it. And is that…it’s little Alexandrina Victoria. So we avoided a regency, did we? Thank God for that.”

Wellington pauses, then looks at the ghost in some alarm. “Wait – I’m not Prime Minister again, am I? No? What a relief, I hated the job. I hope I live for a while longer though. She’s very young, she’ll need an advisor. Very well, let’s move on.”

The Duke of Wellington by Antoine Claudet from Wikimedia Commons

The next room is very familiar to Wellington. A much older version of himself sits at the head of the table, talking to a group of children.

“The breakfast room at Stratfield Saye. And more children. I don’t recognise…wait. Are these my grandchildren?”

Wellington watches for a while longer. “They seem very happy to be here. Very talkative. Very…very much as I always wished it had been with my own boys. Almost like a second chance. Spirit – this is a good future. I was rather expecting something gloomier. Have you more to show me?”

The scene is in London, and it is clear that a great event is taking place. The streets are crowded with people, and some kind of procession is going past. Wellington finds himself on a balcony overlooking what is obviously a state funeral.

“What in God’s name is this? Oh, don’t tell me the queen died before I did? What was it? Childbirth? An illness? Or…oh, wait…”

The procession moves slowly on. Wellington recognises soldiers from regiments who fought under him, including the green jackets of the rifles. The family are directly behind the impressive funeral carriage, and suddenly, Wellington realises who they are.

“A state funeral? Surely not. Whoever thought that this was a good idea? If they had asked me, I would have told them…I suppose they could not ask me, could they? Damn it, what an infernal waste of time and money.”

The final scene is in a crypt, a dim, quiet room with guardsmen on duty beside an enormous granite tomb. Wellington walks forward and touches the lettering.

“Arthur, Duke of Wellington. What year is it? No – you can’t tell me of course, and I don’t want to know. I saw myself with the children…I looked older there. A long life, then. And this tomb. I loathed all that pomp and ceremony, but this…this feels right. Thank you for bringing me, Spirit. I’ve no idea if this was intended as a lesson, a warning or whether you really are the product of Charles Arbuthnot’s damned bad port. But I’m glad to have seen this.”

The following morning, Wellington is still at his desk when a visitor is announced. Wellington rises to greet him.

“Good morning, General van Daan.”

“Morning, sir, and Merry Christmas. I can see you’re throwing yourself into the Christmas spirit as usual. I want a word with young Fraser, I gave him explicit instructions to lock this room for Christmas Day to keep you away from your desk.”

“I know where he hides the key.”

“He needs to hide the ink, then. Are you all right, sir, you look tired?”

“I did not sleep well. I had a ridiculous dream. Really, there must have been something wrong with Charles’ port yesterday.”

“It didn’t affect me, I slept like a baby. What was it about?”

“Ghosts, escorting me on a journey through my life. Past present and future.”

“Where precisely did this journey end?”

“Where you would expect, General. At my tomb.”

“Jesus, no wonder you’re tired. I hope it was a very handsome tomb, sir.”

“It was very appropriate. An utterly ridiculous dream. But I feel oddly comforted.”

“Comforted enough to enjoy dinner with your brother?”

“Good God, are you mad? I would rather undertake a Grand Tour with imaginary spirits than spend an afternoon at Richard’s table. But I am fond of his wife, so I will do my best. I will escape as quickly as possible, so expect me early.”

“We’re looking forward to it, sir. Happy Christmas.”

London, Christmas 1842, Three Spirits Meet…

“So are you ready for tonight? I’m told it’s a tough one. Old Ebenezer Scrooge is the meanest old goat in London.”

“That’s all right. I sent his old partner, Marley, to soften him up a bit. You remember Marley?”

“Any friend of Marley is going to be hard work.”

“Not the worst though.”

“No. Oh no. Which do you think?”

“Wellington. Definitely Wellington. The man had an answer for everything.”

“Rubbish. Do you remember how much Popham talked? And talked and talked and talked…”

“He was convinced Lord St Vincent had sent us. Kept going on and on about being persecuted.”

“And those publications. Pages and pages and pages of drivel about how hard done by he was. The Powers That Be nearly cried.”

“I nearly cried carrying them back. Yes, Popham was definitely the worst. What was that, number three?”

A sepulchral voice emerges from under the dark hood. 

“Wellington was by far the most difficult. Do you not remember, number two, that he did not even complete your part of the journey? He informed you that he wanted to go home, and you took him. I do not believe that has ever happened before.”

“No. Well. He just gave the order, and I found myself obeying it. Couldn’t seem to help it.”

“I imagine he had plenty of practice. And of course he is still with us. Enjoying his retirement and spoiling his god-children and his grandchildren. Just as we said.”

“And Popham? I never really felt anything we said made any difference to him.”

“No. That was as we predicted too. But we had to try. And now it is Scrooge’s turn. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll give us as much trouble. Are you ready, number one?”

As the cold winter sun sets over the roofs of London, three spirits move silently through the darkening streets towards the house of Mr Ebenezer Scrooge…

By John Atkinson Grimshaw from Wikimedia Commons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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