Williams landed awkly, but kept running. He reached the shelter of the clump of thin trees a few moments later and only then turned to look back. The two soldiers had vanished. Their uniform had not looked British to him, but obviously they were now crouching down in the hollow. He decided they were not a threat and waved his hand to signal back at the grenadiers. Darrowfield waved his half-pike in response and two figures – Dobson and Redman, came over the lip. Williams decided to push on through the wood. Brambles plucked at his white breeches, and a button snapped off his gaiters, but the undergrowth was not thick enough to slow him down very much. There were more volleys, markedly more ragged this time.
He ran between two larger trees and found himself in a patch of open ground in the middle of the wood. A path cut through it, and on this stood four Frenchmen, who stared at him in surprise. They were the two officers with the colours and their escorts. Before consciously reacting, Williams turned his musket to point at the nearest officer and pulled the trigger. The detonation seemed enormous. The officer was flung backwards, taking the colour with him. A great red stain was spreading on the bright white front of his dark blue tunic.
Williams charged. There was a weird, guttural yelling filling the air, and it took him a moment to realise that it was coming from him. There had been no time to fix his bayonet. The French were better prepared and the two soldiers stepped forward to protect the remaining officer. The first man had a corporal’s gold stripe on the sleeve of his loose greatcoat. His face was sallow, his bared teeth yellow and stained as he thrust forward at Williams. The volunteer parried the blow, knocking the Frenchman’s musket aside with his own. Then he used the motion to swing round and slam the brass butt of his musket into the Frenchman’s chin. The second enemy soldier jabbed at Williams, but the blow missed as he turned and the bayonet stuck in his haversack. The corporal was down, his jaw hanging loose and obviously broken. As the private struggled to free his weapon, Williams swung back the other way and slammed the butt into the man’s forehead.
The officer had struggled to draw his sword while holding the heavy and unwieldy flag. It was the Regimental Colour, and the large red cross flowed around him for a moment, obscuring his vision. Williams dropped his musket and stooped to pick up the French corporal’s weapon. As the officer cleared the silk of the flag from in front of his eyes and held his sword out ready, Williams pulled back the hammer with a click that seemed almost as loud as the gunshot a few moments ago. The corporal was moaning horribly.
Williams did not know whether the strange-feeling musket was loaded. Neither did the officer. Slowly he pointed it at the Frenchman.
‘Prisoner?’ he said.
The officer was small and thin. He thought for a moment and then shrugged. ‘Oui, monsieur.’ He dropped his sword. Williams gestured at him to lower the colour to the ground and to sit. Hesitantly, the Frenchman did so.
‘Fortunes of war,’ said Williams slowly. The man gave a half-smile.
At that moment Dobson came through the undergrowth and on to the path. He looked around him at the two colours and the three prostrate Frenchmen.
‘Bloody hell, Pug,’ he said admiringly.
Williams smiled. ‘Where is Mr Redman?’
Dobson’s face became wooden. ‘He didn’t make it.’
27
It was hard
for Wellesley to read the battle. His centre brigades had attacked early, before the flanking forces could make their presence felt. Men had made their way as best they could up the four main gullies in the steep slope. He could see little of their progress no matter where he went. The sound of firing had massively increased, and had for some time contained full volleys as well as individual shots. There were very few French visible and only occasionally could he spot groups of redcoats. It was difficult to resist the urge to head up one of the gullies and take personal charge of the fighting. He could sense the same instinctive reaction in his brigade commanders as he rode from one to the next. They could go up soon. He needed to give the attack more time, and follow only when he could usefully direct the fighting.
MacAndrews took his line to within twenty paces of the French before he halted the men. It was a gamble and meant they took three enemy volleys. The first dropped a dozen redcoats, the second half that, and the final ragged flurry of shots sailed harmlessly over the heads of the 106th.
‘Present!’ he ordered. ‘Make ready!’ The Frenchmen could see what was about to come. Even at twenty paces the muzzles of the English muskets looked huge and ominous.
‘Fire!’ MacAndrews’ command was followed by an almost perfectly timed volley, filling the air between the two lines with thick smoke. ‘106th will fix bayonets!’ yelled the major before any of the men could begin to reload. ‘Fix!’ Men reached back to grab the hilt of the spike bayonets. ‘Bayonets!’ They drew the blades and put them on to the warm muzzles of their muskets.
‘Charge!’ MacAndrews rushed forward. In his hand was not his regulation sword, but the basket-hilted broadsword he had grown accustomed to during his service with the Highlanders. It was a heavier blade and well sharpened. A handsome thing, and a fine tool for killing.
In this case there was no need. The French line had been wavering before the volley had scythed through its ranks. Men had dropped – some silent and some screaming. The sergeants behind the three ranks struggled to keep the men in place, but when the British cheered and came through the smoke, the French infantry broke. The 9th charged a moment later from another direction and completed the rout. When MacAndrews reached the French position there were only some thirty dead or wounded men sprawled in the grass. Their comrades were already disappearing over the crest of the ridge. The prisoners and their escort had already gone. The 106th followed. MacAndrews did not want to let them get too far, but hoped to reach the crest itself.
‘There were two Frenchies in among the boulders. Wearing red, the cheeky buggers. They got Mr Redman with a bayonet. I settled them.’ Dobson spoke flatly, but there was a defiance in his eyes suggesting that he was in no mood to answer more questions. Blood on his long bayonet backed the story. Yet Williams found it hard to believe. The two men had looked docile to him. Somehow he simply knew that Dobson had found out about the ensign and his daughter. Williams wondered whether murder had been done. It was a shocking thought, but then so many things had already shocked him today. He wondered whether he could do anything about it and then surprised himself by contemplating even whether he should.
‘Who’s this?’ asked Dobson, jerking his thumb at the French officer.
‘I am Sous-lieutenant Jean Galbert of the Emperor’s 70th Regiment,’ the man replied in confident English, much to Williams’ amazement. ‘And I am your prisoner. Or at least the prisoner of your officers, when they arrive.’
‘All alike, aren’t they,’ said Dobson. ‘Bloody gentlemen. Oh, sorry, Pug.’ He gestured at the volunteer. ‘Now see, monsewer, Mr Williams here is an officer. Well, will be after this.’
That surprised Williams. He had not thought that anything he had done might be enough to gain him his commission. The battalion had lost the colours and he had retrieved them. Even thinking that made him wonder whether Dobson was right. Then the nagging thought returned that he might be a party to murder.
There was the sound of shouting and of men forcing their way through the undergrowth. The grenadiers burst through the trees. Captain Wickham was with them, and Sergeant Darrowfield behind him. The captain looked wild and so different from his normal suave and controlled manner. He was shouting at the top of his voice and waving a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other.
Galbert rose to greet him. Wickham did not break stride, but ran towards the Frenchman. He pressed the pistol to Galbert’s chest and pulled the trigger. A gaping wound erupted in the French officer’s back as he was flung backwards. Wickham ran on, still yelling and cheering wildly.
‘He’s drunk,’ said Dobson mildly. Darrowfield shrugged as he passed, but carrie
d on after his officer. Most of the grenadiers followed.
Williams looked down at the dead Galbert. ‘Murderer,’ he said in a hoarse whisper. ‘You damned murderer!’ he screamed at Wickham as the captain charged on. Dobson grabbed him round the shoulders and stopped him from giving chase.
‘He’s drunk. No sense in him. It’s just bad luck.’ Williams was shaking with fury.
Half an hour later Major MacAndrews had gathered more than six hundred and fifty men from the 106th. Several companies were badly depleted, but with some improvisation the battalion was formed in line in something approximating its normal order. The right wing companies were stronger, close to their full complement, reduced only by a few casualties and stragglers. On the far left of the line, the Light Company had only forty men under the command of Lieutenant Black, the former militia officer. Companies Eight and Seven were so weak that they had been merged into one, as had Companies Six and Five. There was also some shifting of men between the other companies to make them viable as manoeuvre units. Altogether the Left Wing mustered barely two hundred men. The colour party – the flags held by the next most senior and junior ensigns and guarded by other sergeants – was placed between Companies Four and Three in what was now the rough centre of the battalion. Stragglers kept coming in, and for the moment Lieutenant Anstey was tasked with forming them into a squad that would act as reserve. To the right of the 106th, the 9th Foot formed their own line and waited. On the crest, they were overlooked by a higher fold in the ridge which hid the French from them. MacAndrews conferred with the colonel of the 9th and an ADC of General Hill’s, who had climbed up to find out what was happening. They agreed to hold the position for the moment.
At first the French probed the British position tentatively. Two companies of voltigeurs came over the higher crest and began to snipe at the British battalions. In response the light companies went forward and spread out across the slope, working in pairs and trying to drive the enemy back. More serious was the arrival of two French field guns, manhandled into position on the ridge. At such a close range, the gunners had to push the cannon foward until they were actually pointing downwards at the British.
The first balls went high, so the artillerymen reduced the charge of powder. This time, when the guns were fired and leapt back up the slope on their carriages the balls struck the far left of the 106th’s line, each eight pound shot smashing two men to pulp. Yet the angle was difficult and this success was never equalled by later salvoes. There was anyway little time for the gunners to practise. Almost immediately two French battalions marched over the crest. They came in column, two companies abreast and the other six companies in pairs at quarter-distance behind them. To Williams it was as if a succession of smaller lines came over the ridge. The French cheered and beat their drums in the rhythm of the charge. Officers ran out ahead, wildly gesticulating with their swords. One man was almost dancing in his urge to show contempt for the enemy. The voltigeurs parted to let them through. A few shots were fired by the British skirmishers before the whistles of their officers called them back and they withdrew to take up their positions on the left of the battalions.
Both British battalions let the French come close. At thirty paces they came to the present and fired. Men were felled all along the front rank of each column. Miraculously the dancing officer emerged unscathed. The French stopped, muskets came up to their shoulders, and their leading companies fired a ragged volley. The colonel of the 9th was struck in the chest, but refused to be moved until the attack had been repulsed. Next to Williams, Private Murphy was hit by a ball that ripped off the top of his right ear. He cursed long and hard in Gaelic, but did not pause as he reloaded his musket. Other men fell and were dragged out of the ranks. Sergeants yelled at the men to close up towards the centre.
The British fired a second volley and then charged. Both columns recoiled, the men in the rear companies turning and running, those in the very front going back more gradually, and a few pausing to fire the odd defiant shot. Just behind the crest their officers managed to stop them and began to re-form. The two British battalions halted and re-dressed their ranks. They were now closer to the enemy. One of the French guns loaded a canister, a metal case filled with musket balls. When the gun fired the case disintegrated as it left the barrel and the balls sprayed out like the blast of a giant shotgun. Seven men from the Grenadier Company of the 9th were flung backwards as if by the slice of a great scythe.
The adjutant of the other battalion ran over to tell MacAndrews that their colonel was dead, and that the senior major advised driving forward to the crest. MacAndrews agreed. The light companies were sent forward again to snipe at the French gunners and to keep the voltigeurs in check. Then the two lines went forward at a steady pace. The guns got off two rounds of canister and cut more swathes through the redcoats before the gunners lifted the trails and wheeled the cannon back over the crest to limber up. The voltigeurs could not resist both the light companies and the full battalions and followed a few moments later. The redcoats cheered as they reached the top of the hill. Then they were struck by the volleys from the two French battalions, now re-formed into line and waiting on the far slope. Captain Mosley took a ball in the shoulder, which spun him round. He staggered, but remained with the company, trying to ignore the pain. The 9th replied first with a volley. MacAndrews ordered platoon volleys from the 106th, sections of a company firing in sequence so that the fire rippled up and down the line and never stopped.
Private Scammell turned over the sergeant’s body and searched his uniform with practised hands. His mate, Private Jenkins, kept watche were lumps along the seam of the dead sergeant’s tunic and so Scammell slit it with a knife and revealed the coins hidden there. He smiled to himself and held the silver up to show Jenkins. There was an officer underneath the sergeant. The man lay on his back and both his face and chest were covered with dark blood. Scammell recognised him as the new one from the Grenadier Company, but neither knew nor cared about his name. Well, he thought, let’s see if he’s rich.
The officer stirred and his eyes came open. He gasped for breath. Hanley gasped again when he saw the predatory expression on the face that loomed over him. Then the man smiled a gap-toothed grin.
‘You all right, sir?’ asked Scammell, disappointed, but as ever willing to make the best of things. ‘Can you stand?’ Hanley nodded. He tried to speak, but his voice was no more than a croak. His chest and throat ached as he sat up.
‘You’re a lucky bugger, sir, begging your pardon.’ The private was cheerful and held up a twisted piece of metal. It was Hanley’s gorget, the horseshoe-shaped ornament worn by all officers on their neck. A ball was buried deep in the brass. ‘If it had missed that you’d be dead.’
They helped Hanley up. Breathing was hard and painful, but a quick inspection showed that he was not actually wounded. ‘Where is everyone?’ He managed to get the words out with difficulty.
‘The battalion, sir? Somewhere up there. Me and Jenkins here have been trying to find them. Still, we’d better take you back to the surgeon,’ said Scammell hopefully.
‘No. No. The battalion.’ Hanley was firm. He did not know why, but simply wanted to be with friends. He wondered what had happened to the colours.
Scammell shrugged and the two privates walked with the officer up the slope. They did not hurry. The firing was heavy from beyond the crest, so that suggested that the battle was there, and so probably was the battalion.
Williams had lost all track of time. His mouth was dry from biting off cartridge after cartridge and tasting the salty gunpowder. His cheeks were stained black and his shoulder ached from the recoil of the heavy musket each time he fired. Dobson loaded and fired in front of him and there was no time to think of what the man may have done. Simply go mechanically through the motions of loading, just like during the long hours of training, and then fire forward into the smoke. He could not see the French, but they were there, and now and again balls plucked through the dense cloud.
With a dull thump like a man slapping a ham, one shot hit Private Tout, standing beside him.
He looked puzzled and turned towards Williams. ‘Oh, sir, they have killed me,’ he said in a flat voice, and then toppled backwards.
Williams had just raised another cartridge to his lips. He paused for a moment. Then he bit off the ball, put a pinch of powder into the pan, dropped the musket’s butt to the ground, poured the main charge down the muzzle, and spat in the ball. The ramrod slid easily from its holder. He reversed it, thrust down once and then twirled it again before sliding it back into the rings. Musket back to fold into his bruised shoulder, pull back the hammer. He aimed at where he had last seen the French. Let his breath half out and squeezed the trigger. The noise was indistinct over the general clamour of battle, but the butt slammed into his shoulder and he began again.
Billy Pringle stood on the right of the Grenadier Company and so on the very right of the battalion’s line. Properly that was the captain’s place, but Wickham had succmbed to the excitement and the brandy and was now sleeping both peacefully and soundly in the shelter of a copse guarded by a lightly wounded private. He was the only officer remaining with the company, although fortunately the sergeants had been spared. There was anyway little enough for him to do. The neat platoon volleys had degenerated into every man firing as quickly as he could load. There were no more orders to give for the moment, so he simply stood and tried to look brave and confident in the hope that it might encourage the few men able to see him. He could dimly see the French line through the curls of smoke. Worse, he could see them moving a cannon into place on the flank of the infantry.
Someone appeared at his side. It was Hanley, looking pale and bloodstained.
True Soldier Gentlemen (Napoleonic War 1) Page 28
