7
Northern Spain. July 1813.
On a sweltering day in mid July, Wellington was at his headquarters outside of San Sebastian when he received a secret report from his intelligence service describing the discovery of a gruesome massacre in the mountains. Over nine hundred Spanish guerrillas had been killed where they slept. Several dozen of them, whose corpses lay at the perimeter of the encampment and who were, presumably, the sentries, were left without their throats. Evidently, no alarms or warning cries had escaped those men. The platoon of Spanish troops (an advance party of the 2nd Sevillienes) who discovered the carnage were shaken not only by the ferocity of the attack, as indicated by the crudity and size of the wounds inflicted on the dead men, but also because they could find no trace of the attackers; no corpses, nor any trails of blood leading away from the scene. If they had suffered any casualties, they had been carefully removed. The report included several bizarre observations and a resonant quote:
‘The impression made upon the men who found this hellish battlefield cannot be overstated, as the twenty sworn affidavits that accompany this report will confirm. One of them is that of a grizzled sergeant, a veteran of Gerona, who was weeping freely as he gave his evidence. His sentiment sums up that of his fellows: ‘The French have unleashed the hounds of hell — or worse.’
For reasons of morale the platoon has been sworn to secrecy and removed from their regiment. They will be posted to a garrison in the Spanish West Indies as soon as time and tide permit.’
Wellington found the details of the report disquieting. It was not often that his intelligence officers forwarded such speculative statements without adding their objective assessment. He re-sealed the document and confined it to the secret drawer in his personal campaign chest.
In early September a detachment of recently recruited British infantrymen on scouting patrol ambushed a group of stragglers in the rearguard of the retreating French army. Among the dead were fifteen riflemen from an Alpine regiment. It was not customary to strip the fallen on the field, but the war in Spain was almost over and these newly blooded soldiers were keen to stock up on souvenirs. When they removed the enemy’s weapons and regimental badges they were surprised to find silver musket balls in the dead men’s pouches and silver crosses sewn to the front and back of their undershirts. The ranking officer, a conscientious Lutheran, ordered the strange loot to be handed over to their captain. The captain dispatched it, together with an accurate account of its provenance, to General Sir George Scovell’s army intelligence unit. Their suggestion was that the dead men were members of a religious brotherhood. Failing that, they were at least from a devout and superstitious community.
Replying to Scovell’s report, Wellington asked two questions: if the ammunition really was sanctified, and not ceremonial, was it meant to be used against something unholy? And if so, what?
It would be two years before Wellington and his chief of ciphers found an answer.
8
Wellington’s Headquarters,
South of Brussels, Belgium. March 1815.
When General Rowland Hill arrived at the Duke’s tent at 6 p.m., Wellington ordered his eight bodyguards to move twenty yards away from their normal posts. ‘Not nineteen, now — twenty. Twenty full paces. If any of you steps back even an inch, your fellow guards will shoot you. That’s an order! Owens?’
‘Yes, your Lordship!’
‘What do you do if Hancock steps back one inch?’
‘Shoot him, sir.’
‘Shoot him where?
‘Shoot him in the guts, sir.’
‘Good man. The guts it is.’
As soon as they were settled in their chairs Wellington spoke unusually softly, but with his normal clipped and earnest cadence. ‘Rowland, I require your full attention. I need you to set up a new Guards unit selected from the Rifle Corps, the best marksmen they have. Start with the 95th. Nothing less than seventy percent at one hundred yards. They’re to carry two Baker rifles and two double-pistols, kept ready and loaded at all times. Greased plugs in the barrels, calibrated triggers, and safety covers on the flints. Got to fire even when it’s pissing down, d’you follow? If they can’t aim and shoot within five seconds of a command then they’re of no damn use. Understood?’
The general assumed the same sotto voce as his commander. ‘I take it you're increasing your bodyguard. How many men do you want? A dozen? Twenty?’
‘More. A small battalion — four hundred. By the end of May. In addition, they must see in the dark as well as any miner. They’ll be night guards, pickets in the field, posted wherever I think vulnerable to night attack.’
‘A battalion with double arms and — I have to ask; attack at night? Boney knows those adventures seldom work. And would he stoop so low, and kill men in their sleep?’
‘I think he has.’
‘Really? Do we have evidence?’
‘We do. Two years ago we found nine hundred corpses. Spanish guerillas, above Pamplona. Attackers were unseen, took no prisoners, left no wounded.’
‘No survivors? I cannot believe…’
Wellington took the sealed report from its hiding place in the brass-bound chest and passed it to his friend. ‘Here. It’s not been read since I resealed it. Read the last page, the secretary’s summary.’
The general cracked the wax and opened the document, and quietly read the clear secretarial script.
‘Men experienced in combat described the scene. They had no explanation for the severity of wounds suffered — they appeared to have been inflicted by grapeshot, yet that was impossible, as neither side had field guns in the vicinity, and none was heard. To achieve this carnage silently, with hand-weapons — spiked clubs and sharp hooks, perhaps — would require hundreds of ferocious men of enormous physical strength. Yet there was no evidence of any footprints, or traces of cloth torn from uniforms, nothing that would suggest a raiding party of this size or description. If any of the attackers had been wounded or killed, they were carried away afterwards. However, there was evidence of something even more unusual: several hundred large paw prints, both in muddy patches of ground and on the bare rock itself, which was slick with blood for yards around. Indeed, quite like a shallow lake of blood. It seems the wounds were inflicted by the claws and fangs of animals. Bears or wolves were suggested, but animals like those had never been seen or recorded in such numbers. Perhaps hundreds of dogs — mastiffs the size of men, and bred to attack the throat. But locals confirm that barking shepherd dogs can be heard in the mountains at a great distance. So it would appear that these killers had been trained never to bark, or their vocal chords had been severed. Regardless of our theories, whoever — or whatever — attacked those men, there was no one left alive to tell us how this atrocity had been committed. All were dead.’
Lord Hill looked up in silent disbelief.
Wellington continued. ‘Damned strange, what? I was curious to know if similar events had occurred in the east, and sent Prince Blücher a summary of the reports. Top man, Blücher, as you know. His reply was that he thought Napoleon’s disaster in Moscow has made him ruthless, and he believed the man would stoop to anything, especially if outnumbered. Anyway, that was then. Today I met Blücher in Brussels, at his hotel, lunch in his rooms. Told me this. He’s at Leipzig, day before the battle, camped at Mockern, facing Napoleon’s two-hundred-thousand troops with twice as many of his own. Blücher feared that Boney might resort to some kind of night-time trickery, so he set a regiment of infantry — good pedigree, never lost a battle — as a rear-guard. Six hundred yards behind the main force, double sentries, far side of a low escarpment bordering some woodland. Shots heard at 2 a.m., several minutes duration. When no more firing was heard, and no communication received, an officer on watch raised two squads from their sleep and marched across to see what had happened. Did not return. At dawn, a major took another squad and found eleven hundred and forty men butchered, including the inquisitive officer and his troops. The major returned
to Blücher, asked for a private meeting, told him his news. Prince took off his uniform and wig, went to the site alone, dressed as an aide. Surveyed the scene, told the major to order every witness to say nothing, on pain of execution. Had fifty French prisoners dig a ditch and fill it with the corpses. Then the guards cut down the French and added them to the pile. As soon as his army moved towards the front he had the evidence oiled, pitched and burned. Then buried.’
‘Good God.’
Wellington noted his general’s reaction and continued his narrative. ‘That night one of the guards who attended the burial and executed the prisoners revealed his secret to an inquisitive captain, who then asked to see the Prince in private on a matter of utmost importance. Remember now — this is all in the turmoil of the largest battle ever fought in Europe. So. Blücher agreed to a brief audience, the captain recounted the story of the atrocity and the guard confirmed it. Blücher tells the two of them to wait. He left, returned three minutes later with his bible, asked them both to kneel, to shut their eyes and join him in a prayer. Pulled two cocked pistols from his belt and shot them both before they’d murmured ‘thy will be done,’. Told his bodyguard they were assassins. This lesson was not lost on the other witnesses. But two of ’em deserted. One was soon caught, killed on the spot, the other escaped.’
‘Blücher told you this himself?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Do you believe it?’
‘The man’s a Prussian, Rowland. They don’t know how to make things up. And he confirmed what I already knew.’
‘How so?’
‘Two weeks after the battle, the deserter who escaped came across one of our diplomatic envoys and his party en route to Vienna. Begged them for bread and water, told them he had information. Said the Prussians would kill him for it and swore he’d tell only Wellington, and then commend his soul to God. Two of the guards brought him back here. Adjutants interrogated him, his story of desertion held, so they stripped him down to a breech-cloth and introduced him to me. I speak German well, and understand it better than I speak it. What the wretch described — such a graphic and horrible scene — convinced me he’d been witness to it. No clean cuts from blades of any sort, no musket holes. But throats gashed, faces pulled off, ribs just ripped apart. Limbs and heads caught in tree branches, yards from their related torsos. Said he’d seen wounds of that type before but rarely; a consequence of cannonfire with grapeshot or chain. Yet no evidence of any guns at all, no wheel marks, no discarded wadding, no tracks of horses. Only great claw marks tearing up the ground, and the prints of huge dogs or wolves. Scores of them, hundreds. And not a trace of any dead or wounded beast at all.’
‘I… good God. A sight like that would send a man to Bedlam.’
‘Luckily for him his dreams no longer trouble him.’
‘He’s dead?’
Wellington returned his friend’s inquiring gaze for a few seconds, and chose not to answer. ‘Apart from myself and Blücher, you’re the only man on our side of the line who knows of both these devilish events. It now falls to you to help avoid another such massacre. So. Transfer as many of your regular duties to Adams. Tell no one the why, only the wherefore. A sniff of this to the rank-and-file will turn their blood to water, and God knows the Dutch troops’ veins are running clear already.’ He adjusted his collar; he’d spoken more in the last ten minutes than he usually spoke in a day. ‘Now, about my Guardsmen. They’ll be called the First St. George’s. Their uniform will be charcoal gray. Their buttons will be black and dull. Same for the badge. Have that company painter fellow design it to incorporate the mythical dragon beneath the cross. The armorers will make them each a dozen solid silver rifle balls, ditto pistol balls, and silver-tipped bayonets and daggers.’
‘That’s a tidy amount of silver. Have we the bullion?’
‘No. That’s why your first order is to send a few platoons across the border to the nearest French towns. Make sure they’ve maps; we don’t want our Belgian friends upset. Then loot some plate from the local bigwigs. And candlesticks. Brass ones, too.’
‘Brass?’
‘Don’t want some outraged French civilians telling their armed co-patriots that the British are after only silver, d’you see?’
‘No, Arthur, I’m sorry, I don’t.’
Wellington paused. He wanted to tell Hill about the French musketeers killed in the mountains, and their bullets and crosses made of silver, and his theory about why they were so equipped. He wanted to say ‘We need silver, Rowland, because a weapon made of silver is the only way to kill a werewolf.’ Instead, he settled for reasons that a general might expect from a genuinely sane commander. ‘I’ve read that silver’s more accurate than lead. Lighter, but faster from the muzzle. We need to test it for ourselves.’
‘And the edging to the blades?’
‘They’re my personal guard, man. Shows my pride in them. But make damn sure they tell no other units what they’ve been supplied with. Don’t want envy in the ranks.’ He saw his general nod his head in agreement, and he felt once more the weight of ultimate command. He had shared most of what he knew but held back the things he feared, the things he really wished to confide. He smiled, and stood up, and the general shadowed his move. ‘Tell me the truth, Rowland.’
‘What, sir?’
‘You think me mad?’
‘You? There’s no one saner. All England knows it.’
Wellington smiled. ‘I’d say that’s something England cannot know, although I’m sure it hopes it.’
Hill clasped the Duke’s proffered hand in both of his, then left the tent, knowing that he’d have to spend most of the night writing orders and converting them to code. But it was a task for which he was grateful; with the ungodly images now planted in his mind, sleep would bring him only nightmares.