The Iberian Flame

Chapter 76

The evacuation got under way.

With sailors’ muscles burning after pulling at the oars for hours on end, men were taken off in their hundreds, watched by an enemy helpless to intervene. This was what it was to have mastery of the seas.

On flat lighters, field guns made their way out to the specialist ships with heavy lifting gear, while at one point the whole anchorage was shaken by a massive concussion as powder and munitions were detonated to deny them to the enemy.

Doggedly it went on, now thousands safe in the ships and ready to leave, her precious army preserved for England. Would it continue so?

Kydd could see the drifting dun-coloured clouds of gun-smoke around the heights of Monte Mero and knew that he owed his uninterrupted rescue mission to the heroes locked in close-quarter battle on those heights. If they faltered, Soult would be upon them and the ordered retreat would turn into a murderous rout.

Hour after hour the ships loaded with more exhausted, filthy, worn and stare-eyed soldiers, too dazed to make much of their deliverance. But this was a gallant and successful undertaking that would be talked of for ever – if the final act was carried through successfully.

On Monte Mero some thousands were holding back Soult. How could they safely disengage and extricate themselves with the French poised to occupy their positions as soon as they’d left, ready to rain down fire as they boarded their ships?

That afternoon General Beresford was given the post of honour: his brigade to remain to the last as rearguard for the evacuation. Carefully selecting his ground while he could, he laid down a last line across the neck of the promontory in front of Corunna’s walls.

It didn’t go unnoticed by the French, who threw themselves at the defenders of Elvina in a fury of frustration. The crescendo of fighting swelled in the afternoon and on into the night, when it petered out in anticipation of an even harder-fought clash in the morning.

But in the darkness another scene was unfolding: the British were stealthily pulling out of their hard-fought positions.

Cunningly keeping their forward picquets in place, camp fires burning bright and all the apparatus of defence alive, the soldiers in their thousands scrabbled down the hill in the darkness, heading for the quays and their embarking.

It was essential to keep up the pace – at daybreak Soult’s men would uncover the ruse. But as first light began stealing in there were still many huddled on the quayside waiting for a boat.

Guns appeared along the skyline and opened up on the anchored fleet. At the same time French troops poured down the foothills and towards the city walls; but Beresford was ready for them and brought them to a standstill in a fierce engagement.