Sharpe's Havoc Part 46

This is a story that begins and ends on bridges and the twin tales of how Major Dulong of the 31st Leger captured the Ponte Nova and then the Saltador are true. He was a rather Sharpe-like character who enjoyed an extraordinary reputation for bravery, but he was wounded at the Saltador and I have been unable to discover his subsequent fate. He almost single-handedly saved Soult's army, so he deserved a long life and an easy death, and he certainly does not deserve to be given a failing role in the fictional story of the fictional village of Vila Real de Zedes.

Hagman's marksmans.h.i.+p at seven hundred paces sounds a little too good to be believable, but is based on an actual event which occurred the previous year during Sir John Moore's retreat to Corunna. Tom Plunkett (an "irrepressibly vulgar rifleman," Christopher Hibbert calls him in his book Corunna) fired the "miracle shot" which killed the French General Colbert at around seven hundred yards. The shot, rightly, became famous among riflemen. I read in a recent publication that the extreme range of the Baker rifle was only three hundred yards, a fact that would have surprised the men in green who reckoned that distance to be middling.

Marshal Soult, still merely the Duke of Dalmatia, was forced to retreat once Wellesley had crossed the Douro and the tale of his retreat is described in the novel. The French should have been trapped and forced to surrender, but it is easy to make such criticisms long after the event. If the Portuguese or British had marched a little faster or if the ordenanqa had destroyed either the Ponte Nova or the Saltador then Soult would have been finished, but a small measure of good fortune and Major Dulong's singular heroism rescued the French. The weather doubtless had much to do with their escape. The rain and cold of that early May were unseasonably vicious and slowed the pursuit and, as Sir Arthur Wellesley observed in a report to the Prime Minister, an army that abandons all its guns, vehicles and wounded can move a great deal faster than an army that retains its heavy equipment, but the French escape was nevertheless a missed opportunity after the brilliant victory at Oporto.

Oporto has now grown to encompa.s.s the seminary so it is hard to see the ground as it was on the day when the Buffs crossed the river, but for anyone interested in seeing the seminary it can be found in the Largo do Padre Balthazar Guedes, a small square overlooking the river. The best guide to the battlefield, indeed to all Sir Arthur Wellesley's battlefields of Portugal and Spain, is Julian Paget's Wellingtons Peninsular War, published by Leo Cooper. The book will guide you across the river to the Monastery de Serra do Pilar where there is a memorial to the battle that is built on the spot where Wellesley placed his guns to such advantage, and any visit to that southern bank should include the port lodges, many of which are still British owned. There are splendid restaurants on the northern quay where the plaque remembers the drowned of 29 March 1809. The Palacio das Carrancas, where both Soult and Wellesley had their headquarters, is now the Museo Nacional Scares dos Reis and can be found on Rua de Dom Manuel II. Both the Ponte Nova and the Saltador still exist, though sadly they exist underwater, for each is now submerged in a reservoir, but the area is well worth visiting for its wild and spectacular beauty.

Soult escaped, but his incursion into Portugal had cost him 6,000 of his 25,000 men, just under half of those being killed or captured during the retreat. He also lost his baggage, his transport and all fifty-four of his guns. It was, indeed, a broken army and a ma.s.sive defeat, but it did not end French designs on Portugal. They would be back the following year and would have to be thrown out again.

So Sharpe and Harper will march again.

The End