Napoleon breathed deeply.‘I thank you. And you have my word that I will do all that I can to help you defeat Wellington. You’ll see. A year from now, the British army will be broken. Besides, I doubt that the rest of Europe will care much about our affairs in Spain by then.’

‘Why not?’

Napoleon gave his brother’s hand a squeeze and then released it. ‘All in good time. Now, I must thank you, Joseph, and ask you to leave, so that I might rest.’

‘Hmph.’ The doctor snorted. ‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’

Joseph nodded and turned towards the door. Napoleon watched him leave, and then smiled contentedly to himself. As long as a Bonaparte remained on the throne in Madrid, then he could proceed with other plans. Perhaps the greatest plan of them all.

Chapter 20 - Arthur

Chapter 20

Arthur

Albuera, 21 May 1811

Arthur reined his horse in as he and his small escort reached the top of the ridge above the town. Even though General Beresford and his army had fought their battle five days ago, the ground was still covered with the bodies of the dead. The camp followers of both sides, as well as the local peasants, had stripped most of the corpses of anything of value and now the battlefield was abandoned to a handful of allied patrols, and the predations of carrion, wild dogs and buzzing swarms of flies.

Somerset walked his mount forward, instinctively raising the back of his gloved hand towards his nose as the stench of corruption struck him. ‘Good God, what a sight,’ he muttered. ‘What a bloodbath.’

Arthur nodded distractedly. His eyes were covering the salient features of the battlefield as he tried to make sense of the reports he had received of the encounter. General Beresford had been sent south with a third of the army to take the fortress of Badajoz while Arthur and the main army set about the defences of Ciudad Rodrigo. The antique artillery of the nearby town of Elvas had been stripped to supply Beresford with a siege train but it had made little impression on French defences. Then news came that Marshal Soult was marching to relieve the garrison. Beresford had been obliged to abandon the siege and turn to face the threat. Outnumbered, he had chosen to fight a defensive battle of the kind Arthur had found so effective on previous occasions.

Only this time the French had succeeded in turning the allied flank. In the ensuing confusion battalion after battalion had been thrown into the fight piecemeal. It had been a decidedly chaotic and desperate affair and only the raw courage and professionalism of the common soldiers had prevented disaster. Even so, Beresford had suffered grievous losses, nearly five thousand men, most of whom had been British.