The Last Cartridge
Battle of Fuente Ovejuna
7th September 1810
A Tale of the Napoleonic Wars
Based on a True Story
First Attack
by Richard "Rifleman" Rutherford-Moore
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Billot had removed his shako and watched through a crack between two stones in the wall. The vanguard had gone straight for the water, seeing no danger as a stupid gawping paysano with a goat stood by it - he would not be there if there were any French soldiers about. It all now depended on timing. He would let them through his first line - they would fire on the second party and let the sergeant's guard of ten men hidden in the cowshed deal with the Spanish vanguard. Billot smiled; the sergeant was from the faubourg in Paris, and a real cut-throat; the sergeant had told Billot that he had stood with his mother during the Terror and watched her laugh as she watched the heads of the noblesse roll from the guillotine. Billot had allowed him to pick his men from the company, and Billot had smiled to see virtually all the bad characters in it as the sergeant's choice for his guard. A small bead of sweat ran from Billot's temple and down his cheek. As he slowly raised his hand to wipe it away, he stood up and shouted loudly Appretez! Joue!; the soldiers all around him rose up and levelled their muskets, cocking them as they laid them on the wall to support their aim. Billot had seen the Spanish soldiers stop suddenly at the sound of his voice, and turn to look over at him. At Billot's shout of Feu! the massed muskets of the pelaton all went off as one in a terrific boom which echoed over the hillside, covering it with white smoke. Thirty muskets fired at a range of thirty yards had caused sixteen soldiers in the front rank and the flank facing Billot of the Spanish formation to fall dead - bullets had penetrated into the column with a deadly force and other soldiers had tripped up over bodies as they tried to run or been knocked out of ranks by others cannoning into them as the heavy calibre round lead bullets travelling at eight hundred feet per second struck their bodies. As they tried to wriggle free from under the bodies, Billot shouted to his men behind the wall to reload their muskets - some had already begun to do so, most in less than thirty seconds - and a second volley was fired by the French into the disorganised mass remaining standing stupefied in the road, trying to form a rough line and load their muskets. The survivors of the second volley ran full-tilt back up the road, dropping their muskets and throwing off their packs. The leading Spanish officer whirled around in his saddle, startled at the sudden crash of musketry. He had just been in the act of ordering a sergeant to secure the goat and mule when the paysano at the well had suddenly leapt through the open doorway into the shed, stopping him in mid-sentence. Then behind him came the sound of the volley; he never heard the single shot from the hole in the cowshed roof as a French soldier standing on a wobbling and unsteady manger shot him, sitting on the pale horse. The squad corporal flew through the door landing in the dirt inside then rolled across the floor to his musket in the corner - the sergeant inside spat and cursed him for a fool and shouted Avant! to the rest of the sweating soldiers crammed together gripping their bayoneted muskets in the darkness of the shed. They erupted from the shed and fired into the group in the road standing looking at the dead officer who'd fallen from his horse. As the smoke billowed, the Spanish soldiers were caught totally unprepared - some tried to level their muskets and some tried to run, cannoning into those behind them. Into this mess of indecision tore the sergeants guard with fixed bayonets and sabre briquets - after one minute all that was left were nine dead Spaniards in the road and the rest had been pursued over the dry stone wall to their left and across the olive grove by four screaming Frenchmen. The sergeant from the faubourg stooped over the bodies as the rest of the guard reloaded their muskets and went through their pockets and packs systematically with reeking hands. Many Spanish soldiers wore gold and silver crucifixes around their necks - it could be a profitable haul for a man with a strong stomach. The loot could be shared out later. Billot ran with his men past this scene of carnage - corpse-robbing happened all the time and he couldn't stop it, and the sergeant had been given enough time to strip away what valuables the dead had anyway - he yelled fiercely at the sergeant to form his men up and get back to the second position, before any fresh troops tried to outflank them from over the hill. Another burst of musket fire from over to the right gave an indication that Billot's northern defence had now opened fire at whatever target coming up the track had presented itself to them. Morillo heard the sudden blasts of volley fire. He sent an aide to reconnoitre, and report back. Volley fire meant planned defence; that the French had not gone by the Cordoba road after all - so much for the guerilleros. Billot found his mule still securely tethered to the fence post at the side of the cowshed and untied it. His men were marching along the road in silence - word was spreading about the size of the enemy's forces behind them. They drew up at the second line - a much more formidable defence, being a row of low terraced cottages - and began to fall out under the direction of Billot. One man went back to the village for water - the spring water was now undrinkable as Billot had ordered the spring-well filled with shovelfuls of manure from the midden-heap, and a dead village cat for good measure - denying the water as refreshment to the Spanish troops. They could still drink it if desperate - but a day later they would all be down with the fever. The capitaine accepted a gamelle of wine from a soldier and drank it, wiping the droplets with the back of his hand from his moustachios - handing the tin pan back to the soldier he said a simple Merci, turned the mule around and galloped off towards the village and up the lane to his left in a cloud of dust. He met the pelaton in the lane. Only a few enemy soldiers had been seen by them, but they had been fired at according to Billot's orders, and the pelaton then crept away unseen. Billot confirmed the sergeant's decision was correct, briefly told him what had happened at the road, and the man had slapped his thigh with his spare hand and grinned up at him. The pelaton moved off towards their second position. The enemy would now approach their former position slowly and with care, only to find it vacated, occupied by six empty French shakoes [4] propped on the wall and two old hoes - which had looked like muskets to the approaching Spanish soldiers, as they explained to their officer an hour later, who stamped his foot with impatience. Their slow advance due to the simple ruse de guerre giving Billot the time to create his fresh defence line.
The village church bell rang out four times in the midst of this. Billot heard it - it was his prearranged signal from his lieutenant that the enemy could now be seen on both roads into the village now from the top of the bell tower. If it had been repeated then he would have had to quickly pull back at once; that would have meant the enemy were on three sides of the village rather than two. The Spanish were slow; always very slow.
The French garrison at Fuente Ovejuna after the initial Spanish attack were now split into five groups; each watched one side of the village north, west, east and south and one other - the lieutenant and ten men - stood in the village square, watching the two former pickets drawing water from the well and filling two wooden buckets. Billot remained with the west side defence. It seemed to be the place to be, guarding the main access road into the village.
Morillo was not to be prevented from achieving his objectives by a few Frenchmen. After listening to the report from his aide, he gave orders for two attacks at the same time on both the north and west sides of the village by the regiments of his first brigade - the French would be caught in a pincer movement and flattened beneath the hammer blow of one attack onto the anvil of the other. A third attack by a regiment from his second brigade would march around south and come in from that direction, heading for the village church, the bell tower plain to see from there. The last of his regiments would stand in reserve and guard the precious artillery and supply wagons. All attacks would meet in the village square. A single cannon would unlimber and fire one round of precious ammunition - the signal for the attack to begin.
An hour passed by whilst these orders filtered down from Morillo to the regimental commanders and the attacks were slowly manoeuvred into their positions ready to begin. Billot used the time he'd won to strengthen his defences and have water and food distributed, carried up to his soldiers from the village in wooden buckets and on improvised stretchers. The French soldiers munched biscuit-bread sandwiches of salted meat washed down with water at their posts, looking out from windows and doorways, rooftops and attics. When the attack did come, it still almost swept them away in its tenacity.
Billot's men fired and fired again out from windows, attics or rooftops and from behind the stone walls at the columns of Spanish infantry coming up through the fields - soldiers fell from their gunfire, but each gap was immediately filled with another soldier. Some of the gun barrels of the French were now too hot to hold - spare muskets had to be sent for, and precious water dashed on the overheated metal passed back from the loop holed walls. Some soldiers saved drinking water by urinating down the barrels to cool them, this stench adding to the already noxious aroma of sulphur from the exploding gunpowder charges.
Each time - just as it seemed that the Spanish were about to burst through the defences - they would turn and run back into the smoke from the musketry and odd grass fires, chased by their officers who yelled and waved their swords at them in disgust.
But - after a brief pause in which the Spanish were reorganised, the sergeants challenging their manhood and the officers threatening them with dire consequences should they fail to go forward, both exhorting them with inspirations of religion and patriotism. The grim-faced Spanish infantrymen would invariably return once again to the attack, marching slowly into the storm of French bullets and holding out their muskets in front of them, the long-bladed steel bayonets clipped into place.
After one such pause, Billot had to order his men to retreat. They were in danger of becoming just a series of isolated houses holding on independently, with no overall command. Some of the Spanish soldiers had managed to get through his defence and were clinging to some outlying cottages as best they could, and reinforced slowly by small groups of men crawling up from behind the stone walls in the fields, then dashing out and across the open space before plunging into the houses. The French defenders fired furiously at them as they raced across to the safety of the cottage walls - each time more Spanish soldiers got through, some in a general surge whilst the French men were reloading their muskets.
Billot's faithful lieutenant sent regular resupplies of ammunition, and more welcome buckets of water from the village well. The depot and guardroom near the village square were well fortified and strong, with rooftop firing positions tucked behind bales of fleeces, the cellars well stocked with ammunition and food. That would be their final stronghold.
Billot organised a rearguard of thirty men, and sent the rest back. The rearguard would have to hold on for fifteen minutes, for the men to reach safety and be ready to cover them. It would be a long fifteen minutes for them. Fifteen men in the four groups loaded another musket, taken from a dead comrade who had been dragged away, and stacked it beside them, for any emergency. They refilled their gibernes with cartridges from those who would need them no longer.
The single young French soldier in the village church bell tower looked over at the rising pall of smoke to the west, and down at the lieutenant standing in the square. He could hear a rising crescendo of musket fire, although the officer below did not look very worried. The lieutenant had his hands behind his back, and was standing calmly directing the caporal and four men to fetch more fleeces from the storeroom, bundle them up in rope and heave them up to the roof of the guardroom depot to add to the firing positions. Two more were filling buckets with water drawn from the well. The lieutenant looked up at him and waved. The soldier had been ordered up here by the lieutenant to keep watch, replacing a hard-bitten soldier who would - the young soldier felt - be of more use on the firing line. He could still hear the lieutenant's words.
"Keep a watch to the south, conscript. Ignore the village. You are young and your eyes are good. Fire your musket if you see anything. Tell Robert up there to report to me. You will be relieved shortly. Now, Be Off With You!"
Robert had seen a dust cloud far away on the Cordoba road, and wanted to report it. It was too far away to tell what it was - he could not know it was Morillo's troopers trotting along on their way south-east.
The young soldier had run over into the church. He dropped almost involuntarily to one knee and crossed himself as he passed the altar. The tall figure of the Madonna and Child touched a memory - a short time ago he had been a regular churchgoer, singing in the choir. He fled through the narrow doorway and up the steps with slung musket and reached the top, stumbling on the last step and flinging out his free hand to grasp the bell for support, the sunlight momentarily glinting off the polished surface into Robert's scarred-face before he screwed up his eyes and turned away. The young soldier stood up straight and breathlessly passed on the lieutenant's message, and Robert grunted something noncommittal in reply, picking up his musket. He clattered noisily down the top steps, past the polished brass of the church bell, then looked back and stopped its silent swinging with his free hand before turning and disappearing down into the gloom of the stairwell.
"Mind yourself, Bleu." The parting words drifted up the stairwell with its dust motes floating in the shaft of sunlight from the small window above.
The third Spanish attack was hopelessly lost. A thin Spanish colonel sitting on a stout horse scratched his head at a fork in the road. His regiment was following fifty light-infantry soldiers who had crept around to the south under cover of the main attacks. The supporting brigade had gone by another road altogether. At the fork there was no way of knowing where the light-infantry had gone - so the thin colonel ordered a halt to think about it.
The light-infantry officer had ordered a halt too, but eight hundred yards further on along the smaller left-hand pathway. He had realised that he would be able to go no further as there was insufficient cover. The French would almost certainly have a lookout in the bell tower, and if he moved he would be in clear sight. A low wall to his front was between him and the village streets, but it was in bad repair and could be vaulted. Rather than wait for the main body of the third attack, he drew his sabre and passed the word for his men to load their muskets, fix bayonets and prepare for a Charge. He watched them carefully, his curved sabre resting on his shoulder, the hilt gripped firmly in his hand. He would have liked to rest a while, letting his men cool and have a drink from their water bottles. It was so hot, and the dust of the short march - the last three hundred yards mostly on their hands and knees - had dried his throat. Another burst of volley-fire echoed over from the western edge of the village. He turned and peered over the low wall again; saw a movement and a brief flash of golden light reflected from a metal surface up in the bell tower, and; thinking he had been seen by the sentry at last; rose up from behind the wall holding up his sabre high and shouted to his men to follow.
The Spanish officer had seen Robert as he dropped down the steps of the tower, disappearing in the single flash of sunlight from the church bell. In the instant that the young French soldier nervously looked west into the gun-smoke, the Spanish soldiers tore across the open space and plunged into a narrow alley, unseen. The young soldier looked south - the soft breeze had blown the dust from the swift silent passing of the Spanish light-infantry away.
The young soldier looked down and saw Robert slip-slide and clatter across the cobbles and flagstones of the square across to the lieutenant, and salute the officer. He crossed to the southern edge of the balustrade and looked out - his eyes opened wide as he glimpsed the faded light blue jackets and grey overalls of the Spanish light-infantrymen emerging slowly from a corner at the bottom of a street which ran up to the church and the square. He saw them almost too late - leaping across the bell tower and leaning over the handrail he shouted down to the square, cocking and firing his musket at the same time. Everything then seemed to happen at once - his musket misfired; the lieutenant drew his sword; French soldiers dropped the wool bales and wooden buckets of water, swinging their muskets off their shoulders, instinctively drawing closer together; the Spanish charged up the street and into the square; and Billot's lieutenant and his tiny command of ten men standing near the church in the square were overwhelmed in moments, almost disappearing under the flood of Spanish soldiery.
A few Frenchmen got off a quick shot in response to whirling around at the first shouts, sounds of rushing feet and the clatter of equipment; in the smoke from them followed a flurry of clashing muskets and screams as some went down fighting - then the grunting and gasps as the bayonets of the Spanish did their terrible work. The faithful lieutenant was killed here by three soldiers thrusting at him nervously with their bayoneted muskets, his sword in his hand; four Frenchmen escaped the slaughter - one of them was Robert, who stabbed one Spaniard and smacked his musket butt into the face of another who stepped over the body of the first - the survivors ran towards the depot chased by the howling Spaniards. Robert slammed the door in their faces and throwing down his musket, dropped the heavy bar across then leapt aside as the musket balls came smashing through, splintering the heavy wooden panels and leaving large jagged-edged holes, killing one of the Frenchmen who leaned against the wall with a heaving chest trying to draw breath into his aching lungs. Robert picked up his musket, turned around and found himself completely alone in the dim light of the depot.
No one can stand for long against odds of twenty to one; the rearguard held off three times even that. Bullets flew thick and fast at the French behind their walls, but some found targets and there were now many French soldiers stretched out against the back walls, dead or badly wounded. Each 'walking' wounded man was left to make his way back towards the village centre - no one could be spared to help them. Some of the lightly wounded stayed on and loaded muskets and passed them to soldiers at doors and windows.
Some men, under the relentless pressure, stripped the dead of remaining ammunition as they backed out of the houses and started a deadly house-to-house retreat towards the square.
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