Sharpe's Sword

HISTORICAL NOTE

It may seem wilful, even perverse of me to introduce yet more Irish characters into Sharpe’s adventures, yet Patrick Curtis and Michael Connelley existed and, in Sharpe’s Sword, play the roles they played in 1812. The Reverend Doctor Patrick Curtis, known as Don Patricio Cortes to the Spanish, was Rector of the Irish College and Professor of Natural History and Astronomy at the University of Salamanca. He was also, at the age of 72, the spy chief of his own network that extended throughout French-held Spain and well north of the Pyrenees. The French did suspect his existence, did want to destroy him, but they discovered his identity only after the Battle of Salamanca. As modern spy novels would say, Curtis’ cover was ‘blown’, and when the French did make a brief reappearance in the city he was forced to flee for British protection. In 1819, when the wars were over, he received a British Government pension. He finally left Spain to become the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, and he died in Drogheda at the good age of 92.

Archbishop Curtis died of the cholera, Sergeant Michael Connelley of the soldiers’ hospital in Salamanca died of alcoholic poisoning not long after the battle. I have no evidence that Connelley was in the hospital (which was situated in the Irish College) before the battle, in fact I would rather doubt it, but he was certainly there after the events of July 22nd, 1812.1 have traduced his memory by putting him in charge of the death room when in fact he was appointed to be Sergeant of the whole hospital. Rifleman Costello, who was wounded at Salamanca, wrote about Connelley in his memoirs and I have shamelessly stolen my description from his book. He was, indeed, attentive to the sick. He did, as Costello says, “drink like a whale‘, but his chief distinction was his anxiety that the British would die well in the face of the French wounded. Costello quotes him. ”Merciful God! What more do you want? You’ll be buried in a shroud and coffin won’t you? For God’s sake, die like a man before these ’ere Frenchers.“ Sergeant Connelley was immensely popular. The funeral of the Duke himself, Costello says, would not have attracted more mourners than did Connelley. One of the pallbearers, a cockney ventriloquist, rapped on the coffin and imitated Connelley’s voice. ”Let me out, won’t you? Oh, merciful Jesus, I’m smothered.“ The cortege stopped, bayonets were produced, and the lid prised off to reveal the still dead Sergeant. The incident was thought to be extremely funny, a joke in good taste, and it does not seem to be out of character with Wellington’s men.

Colquhoun Grant, the Exploring Officer, also was a real character who was captured shortly before the Battle of Salamanca. He escaped from his captors in France and spent some astonishing weeks at liberty in the streets and salons of Paris. He continued to wear full British uniform and if he was challenged he claimed that it was the uniform of the American army. His story, more incredible than fiction, can be found in Jock Haswell’s ‘The First Respectable Spy’ (Hamish Hamilton, 1969).

The French did use codes and Captain Scovell, mentioned in Chapter 4, was the man who broke the enemy codes. Any reader who would like to see how the codes worked can find all the details in Appendix XV of Volume V of Oman’s ‘A History of the Peninsular War’. For the details of the espionage background to Sharpe’s Sword I owe a debt to Jock Haswell’s book and, for that and much more besides, to Oman’s vast and brilliant history.

Salamanca is still one of the most beautiful cities of the world. The Plaza is virtually unchanged since the Sixth Division paraded there on June 29th, 1812 (although the bullfights have been moved to a modern arena). The Plaza is, simply, magnificent. The area where the French created a wasteland around their three fortresses has been rebuilt, alas uglily, but enough of the old city remains and it well repays a visit. The Roman Bridge is now reserved for pedestrians only. The crenellations and the small fortress were removed in the middle of the nineteenth century, restoring the bridge to its original appearance, though the stone bull is still there above the eleventh arch. It marks the place where the bridge was broken in the floods of 1626. Only the fifteen arches nearest the city are Roman, the other eleven are reconstructions from the seventeenth century. The Irish College is unchanged from the days when it was the army’s hospital in 1812.

The battlefield is a particularly pleasing site to visit, for the ground has scarcely changed since July 22nd, 1812. Some trees have gone in the years since and a railway line now runs between the Greater and Lesser Arapile and on into the small valley where the Sixth Division halted Clausel’s counter-attack. There are a handful of modern houses south of Arapiles, but not enough to spoil the ground. To find the battlefield take the road south from the city, the N63O to Caceres, and the village of Arapiles is signposted to the left. The side-road to the village roughly marks the left hand limit of the Third Division’s advance and the Heavy Cavalry must have charged just about where the village is signposted on the main road. It is well worth taking a good account of the battle, with good maps. I have simplified the story of the battle a little, concentrating on the events around the Arapiles, and anyone interested enough to visit the site would be well rewarded by reading one of the many splendid accounts that are available as non-fiction. Once at the Arapiles the ground becomes obvious, thanks to the hills, and there is a memorial obelisk, now sadly weathered, on the crest of the Greater Arapile. Climbing to the memorial makes one wonder at the Portuguese troops who had to make the same climb, in full kit, against a defended skyline. They truly had a hopeless task.

I spent more than a week walking the battlefield and, as ever, received much help from the local people.

Salamanca was a great victory. Wellington suffered close to five thousand casualties (of whom about one thousand were killed outright on the field and no one knows how many dying later of their wounds). Marmont, fearful of Napoleon’s wrath, tried to hide his casualties. He told the Emperor he had lost about six thousand men. In fact he lost fourteen thousand, one Eagle standard, six other standards, and twenty guns. It was a shattering defeat that told the world that a French army could be utterly beaten. It cleared the French from western Spain, and the defeat would have been even more crushing had the Spanish garrison at Alba de Tormes obeyed orders and stayed at their guns. Their defection from the war allowed Marmont’s remaining 34,000 soldiers to escape and it led, also, to the strange and ‘impossible’ victory at Garcia Hernandez. The Germans lost 127 men in the charge. The French, including a whole Battalion taken prisoner, lost about 1,100 from 2,400. The first square broke in much the same way as the description in the novel.

To find Garcia Hernandez, follow the road to Alba de Tormes from Salamanca. It is well signposted because Alba de Tormes (thanks to St. Teresa of Avila) is still a busy place of pilgrimage. Go through the town and follow the signs to Penaranda, and the village is some seven kilometres beyond Alba de Tormes. Today it calls itself’Garcihernandez‘ and the road by-passes it, but turn left into the village, cross the only bridge that leads over a small stream, and the track (suitable for cars) leads into the lee of the hill where the King’s German Legion made their magnificent, extraordinary charge.

I owe a great debt to Thomas Logio, physician and friend, who supplied me with a ‘suitable’ wound for Richard Sharpe. He saved me from my own medical ignorance, though I fear I may have embellished the information to his embarrassment. For that, I beg his forgiveness. Whatever is accurate about Sharpe’s injury, treatment and recovery belongs to Dr. Logio.

The rest is all fiction. No Leroux, no Lord Spears, no codename ‘El Mirador’, not even, alas, a Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba. Sharpe and Harper are just shades of the real men who marched and marched and finally fought on that burning July day in the valley by the Arapiles. It was a great victory and they must have been relieved, the survivors, and perhaps a little apprehensive for they knew, surely, that the war that in 1812 was spreading around the world would need many more such ‘great’ victories if it was ever to end. Sharpe and Harper will march again.