Williams passed his musket to Gomez, who was now reloading and handing the charged firelocks to Dobson. He drew his sword, and paced up and down behind the skirmish line. He saw movement on the far right of the French line and guessed that they were trying to get around behind him.
The officer ran back to the end of the line. He saw a private from the 95th, staring in shock at a comrade stretched on the ground, and when he got closer he could see that part of the man’s skull had been ripped open. The fallen soldier groaned softly, but nothing could be done to help him.
‘Come with me,’ he told the other man, and then, after he had passed another four or five greenjackets, he took another pair from the line. ‘Follow me!’
Williams led them to a big outcrop just beyond Dobson and Gomez. ‘The French are trying to get around us.’ He pointed at the shapes of men slipping between the boulders ahead of them. Amid the noise of shots, they could catch shouted orders and encouragement, and the constant drums.
‘Wait until they get closer, and you can see a clear mark.’
The French came on quicker than he expected, their white belts bright.
‘Fire!’ called Williams out of habit, but in spite of their training the greenjackets responded and five shots spat out in a little volley that dropped two of the leading voltigeurs. The rest fell back and took cover, and in a moment they too were firing, balls striking the rocks the British were using as cover.
‘Sergeant Dobson, you are in charge,’ said Williams, who was thankful that the three men from the 95th were privates and that the old veteran was senior. ‘Keep them back. I need to see Mr Simmons and make sure they are not trying anything on our right.’
Williams jogged away. A rifleman was crawling back from the skirmish line, but he could not stop to help and pressed on. Another man lay dead, and Williams was afraid that the French numbers were beginning to tell.
‘Who the devil are you!’ demanded a thickset man, with a pistol in one hand and his curved sabre in the other. ‘And where the hell is Mercer?’
‘Mercer is dead, and Simmons in charge.’ Williams could smell brandy on the man’s breath and guessed that this must be Captain O’Hare. ‘I’m Williams of the One Hundred and Sixth.’
‘Never heard of him,’ came the gruff reply. ‘How is the boy doing?’
‘He is doing well,’ said Williams, and the pair started moving over towards the right flank. Simmons was there, taking men from the line to stop the French working around the British position. As they began firing at the enemy, the young second lieutenant reported as best he could amid the noise. Williams told them what was happening on the left.
‘Good lad, Simmons!’ said O’Hare. The man may still have been a little drunk, but as far as Williams could see it would not prevent him from doing his job here. ‘You too, whoever the blazes you are. Back to the other end of the line, while Simmons stays here.’
‘Right, my bonny boys!’ O’Hare’s Irish accent grew even stronger. ‘There’s no parcel of bloody Frogs going to walk over Peter O’Hare!’
Williams ran back to the far end of the line. It had gone dark again, and he stumbled once on a fallen backpack, but pressed himself up again and ran on.
‘We will never retire!’ shouted the Irish captain, his voice loud but calm, as if he were stating an obvious fact. ‘Here we stand. They shall not pass, but over my body!’
‘Ol’ Pete’s in a right fit,’ laughed a corporal as he passed.
When he reached Dobson, Gomez was just passing the veteran a loaded firelock. One rifleman sat behind the boulders, gently rocking back and forth as he clutched an arm that looked to be broken.
‘Sent the other two lads further up the slope to stop the crapauds getting around us,’ said Dobson, and then he pulled the trigger.
‘Well done, Dob,’ said Williams, and went to look for the pair of greenjackets.
‘En avant! En avant!’ The shouts were loud and close. Williams could see the two privates crouched behind a thorn bush, and then spotted three voltigeurs coming from the side towards them.
‘ ’Ware right! French infantry!’ he called, and wished that there had been time to learn the men’s names. The men turned, saw the new threat. One fired, and the noise was strange – louder than usual and followed by a weird hissing – but one Frenchman was down, groaning horribly. The other two came on, and the rifleman dropped his weapon and fled. His comrade fired a moment later, and Williams was close enough to see a Frenchman’s forehead blossom into dark blood as the man pitched back, but the third voltigeur was coming on, his bayonet reaching towards the greenjacket.
Williams flung his right arm out in a wild slash and his sword managed to knock the man’s musket aside. The rifleman reacted quickly, flicking his rifle around in his hands and jabbing at the Frenchman with the heavy, brass-capped butt. The voltigeur dodged, but that gave Williams time to recover, and he was just about to cut down when his foot slipped and the blow became a carve that sliced into the man’s nose and across his cheek.
The Frenchman spat an insult mixed with a spray of blood at him, and twisted his musket and bayonet round to thrust at the officer. Williams grabbed the barrel of the voltigeur’s musket, feeling the heat through his glove, for the man had obviously been firing, and then the private from the 95th slammed the butt of his rifle into the Frenchman’s face, knocking him out.
‘Thanks,’ said Williams as he tried to get his breath back. He looked around, but no more Frenchmen were coming from that direction and he presumed these were a few bold spirits who had worked their way behind the British.
The private who had fled reappeared, looking sheepish. ‘Needed a new rifle,’ he said by way of explanation, and Williams noticed that the man he had shot was impaled through the chest with a slim rod of metal. ‘Shot my ramrod as well as the ball.’
A bugle sounded, the notes clearer than the drums and carrying over the shots and shouts. Williams looked up and saw a line of men spilling over the crest.
‘It’s the supports, Billy Boy,’ said the man to his friend who had fired off his ramrod. ‘It’s the colonel.’
‘Up, lads!’ O’Hare shouted. ‘Stand up. Now we’ll show these rogues a thing or two.’
Williams signalled to the two riflemen to rejoin the main line and then sped back to Dobson and Gomez.
‘Fix swords!’ This was a very deep voice, carrying strongly down the slope. The rifle used by the 95th was short, and to help it match the reach of muskets its bayonet was very long, the brass hilt shaped like a sword. Williams listened to the scrapes and clicks as the blades were clipped on to muzzles.
‘Might as well help them, Dob,’ he said. Gomez grinned wickedly as he slid his own bayonet on to the muzzle of the musket. ‘We’ll go to the left, and make sure none of the French get missed in the dark.’
‘Charge!’ The same loud voice echoed along the side of the valley, and a cheer went up, as well over a hundred greenjackets ran as fast as they could down the rocky hillside.
Muskets flamed ahead of them. Williams saw a rifleman drop, but there was no check, and the weight of their packs made it harder for the men charging downhill to stop than to keep going.
Dobson loped along beside him, but Gomez was streaking ahead. Williams watched as the Spaniard jumped on to the top of the boulder and then kicked the Frenchman crouching behind it in the face, before jumping down and thrusting with his bayonet.
There were fewer shots now, and instead screams and grunts somehow audible over the noise of the torrent. They caught up with Gomez, who was busy rifling the pockets of the voltigeur he had killed. No more French were to be seen, but there was still fighting further down the slope, and Williams was about to lead them down when he looked at Dobson and realised that his belt showed just as brightly as the white belts of the French.
‘You two stay here,’ he said. ‘That is an order, Sergeant Dobson,’ he added when the veteran looked inclined to respond. ‘Too easy for the Ninety-fifth to see those bel
ts of yours and think you are Frenchies.’
Williams made his way cautiously down towards the bridge. The French were in full retreat, but isolated men still fought on. He passed a rifleman tending to a wounded comrade, and then headed towards the same loud voice that had ordered the charge. The owner proved to be a giant of a man, bigger even than Williams himself, and he strode down the hill with his men, calling out encouragement. It struck Williams that the 95th were a good deal more vocal in battle than regiments of the line, but perhaps that was all part of their new style of warfare.
He had to use his hand to support himself as he scrambled over a bigger outcrop, and then he dropped into a little dell and saw an officer grappling with a pair of French grenadiers. Williams started forward, sword ready, but before he got there, a broad-shouldered greenjacket shot out from the side and ran one of the grenadiers through, so that several inches of his sword bayonet came out of the man’s back. He dropped rifle and bayonet as the Frenchman slumped down, screaming in agony, and together the private and the officer beat the other grenadier to the ground with their fists.
Williams pressed on, and after a moment’s searching once again found the very big officer, who seemed to be in charge and so presumably was the battalion commander. As he watched, the man flicked his right arm forward in a peculiar way that did not seem to make sense as a gesture. Then he dropped, and Williams wondered whether he had been hit, even though he had not seen the flash of a musket or heard a shot. He ran on, and as he got nearer, the man stood upright again, and this time Williams was close enough to see a stone in his great fist, before the man flung it down the slope at the enemy.
‘Take that, you French blackguards,’ he boomed out cheerfully, before bending down to find another missile, which followed the others. ‘Well, enough fun,’ he added as he saw Williams approaching. ‘Ninety-fifth, rally on me!’
Williams saluted. ‘Lieutenant Williams, sir.’
‘Pleasure to meet you. Didn’t realise anyone had stopped by for our little soirée, but you are most welcome. How many are you?’
‘Three, sir.’
‘But each worth a dozen, I am sure,’ said Lieutenant Colonel Beckwith, and then he turned and looked about him. ‘Where are you, Phipps?’ A bugler stepped forward. ‘Good fellow. Now sound the recall.
‘Quite a night,’ said Beckwith. ‘No one expects riflemen to stand up to line troops, but we are something different.’
‘The men charged as boldly as any line regiment, sir,’ said Williams, and meant it.
‘Kind of you to say so,’ said the colonel, obviously delighted. ‘Now am I correct in thinking you are with the Spanish outpost on our right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. I sent a company that way in case they were under attack, and brought the other two up here.’
Williams wondered whether the company had gone to cover the ford in support or because the 95th were afraid to trust their flank to Spanish soldiers.
The riflemen began to rally, and Beckwith was soon giving orders for a strong detachment to watch the bridge.
Stewart, the adjutant and the man Williams had seen tussling with two grenadiers, arrived and reported. ‘Twenty-three casualties altogether, sir. Poor Mercer killed, along with seven men killed and fifteen wounded. Against that, at least two French officers dead with a dozen of their men. Perhaps half as many wounded and one or two prisoners. Reckon they must have carried the rest of the injured away.’
Williams felt the adjutant was being optimistic. It was often surprising how a fierce fight might still produce only a few casualties. Not that that was much solace to the ones who were hit.
‘Looks as if half of them were drunk, they came on so wildly.’
Perhaps, thought Williams, once again deciding that it was better to say nothing, but maybe the French were simply brave.
A prisoner was brought to the colonel. In the attack those few Frenchmen he had seen looked like hardened veterans, but this captive was a mere boy, shivering more with terror than cold. To Williams’ amazement he still carried a musket, held low in both hands. Beckwith spotted the same thing.
‘Best to take that off him,’ he said in a rumbling whisper. The private escorting him reached for the weapon, and the prisoner let go with his right hand before the soldier had grabbed it. The musket’s butt fell heavily, butt striking the ground so hard that the flint snapped down, setting off the powder in the pan and then the main charge, and sending the ball punching through Beckwith’s shako.
For a moment they all simply stared in stunned surprise, the Frenchman in abject horror. Then the private reacted and brought his rifle up, pulling the hammer back with a click and pointing straight at the prisoner’s head. ‘Ye damned murderer,’ he said in a thick Yorkshire accent.
‘Stop!’ ordered Beckwith, with a composure Williams found particularly impressive. ‘No harm done, except perhaps to my hatter’s heart. Let the poor fellow alone. I dare say the boy has a mother. Just knock that thing from his hand to prevent him doing any more mischief with it, and then kick him on the bum and send him to the rear.’
‘Aye, sir,’ said the rifleman happily.
‘Well, it looks like all the excitement is over,’ said Beckwith as they left. Then he guffawed with laughter. ‘Now that would have been a damned silly way to die,’ he added, pulling off his shako and sticking his finger through the holes in each side.
An hour before dawn a bedraggled Pringle arrived at the chapel used by the outpost. With him were only Sergeant Murphy and two Spanish NCOs.
‘Dolosa arrived some time after all the shooting started. Said that the Ninety-fifth were under attack and that we must withdraw, because we had only raw recruits with no more than ten rounds a man.’ Pringle paused, hungrily devouring a bowl of stew brought by one of the greenjackets. ‘I suppose he was right in a way, but I said that I wasn’t going and that I did not think he should either. He went anyway, although I’m pleased to say these two fellows chose to stick with me. But it did mean that when the Ninety-fifth arrived, my outpost consisted of myself and three men. Just as well the ford was too deep to cross,’ he added glumly.
‘Where are they now?’ asked Williams.
‘Goodness only knows. Still stumbling about the hills, I expect, making a damned poor show of themselves, and scarcely presenting a ringing endorsement of our tuition.’ Pringle spooned up the rest of the stew with great satisfaction.
‘There was tea around as well,’ Williams said mischievously, knowing that Billy hated the stuff, but faced constant pressure from his soldier servant to change his mind.
‘Well, that is one relief. At least there is no Jenkins lurking about, mug in hand, and waiting to pounce. Less pleasant is the prospect that we now have to go and find our soldiers.’
Williams forced himself to get to his feet. He was tired, and in the last thirty minutes had struggled to keep his eyes open.
Pringle noticed his expression. ‘I know, I know,’ he said, ‘but it must be done. That’s unless you can arrange for the French to attack again and give us an excuse to stay.’
‘We could send an invitation.’
‘Or we could just do our job.’ Pringle looked even wearier, having had a difficult march to get there while it was still dark. ‘Cannot say that it is my idea of fun either, but there you are. So come along, young Bills, and let us find our wandering schoolboys!’
‘That may not prove so difficult.’ Williams pointed back towards the crest, where a forlorn figure in an ill-fitting greatcoat was threading his way among the rocks.
‘Hmm, bit late, but at least that one went in the right direction.’ Billy Pringle sighed.
A couple more of the recruits now appeared from behind the chapel, and walked towards some French prisoners – one of them the young lad who had almost shot Beckwith – with looks of hatred on their faces.
Pringle decided to solve the matter in the most practical way open to any officer. ‘Sergeants!’ he called.
Hanley loved Salamanca, and part of him wanted to follow the priest as he returned to his college after handing over the package of letters. Instead, the British officer took out his glass and focused on the distant towers. It would be pleasant to walk across the Roman bridge into the city, but even more useful to talk to some of his sources directly, instead of simply reading reports. There were always more questions, and someone’s expression helped when judging their reliability. Yet Salamanca was the main base of Marshal Ney’s 6th Corps, and it was simply not yet worth the risk. Nor was there enough time to linger, for he needed to hurry if he was to make his next meeting. Closing the telescope, he hauled himself back into the saddle, and then prodded the mare in the flanks to set her trotting back between the scattered trees and brush.
His guide was waiting, back where the trees were denser, and the officer’s smile prompted the usual curt nod as its sole acknowledgement. Benito had lost an arm last year, and so his ability to fight with El Charro’s band had gone, but Hanley had quickly come to trust his knowledge of the country. He suspected that this was the legacy of long years as a thief and smuggler before the war. It was hard to tell the man’s age, for although his thin remnant of hair was white and his skin looked like old parchment, he was strong. Even one-handed, Hanley reckoned that the man would make a nasty enemy.
They rode for three hours through the steady rain, and in truth Hanley was disinclined to speak, more concerned with keeping his boat-cloak tightly drawn around his neck. Sometimes they stopped at farms to eat, but on this damp April day Benito grunted that there was no one he trusted near by, and so they tethered their horses outside a small shrine next to a ruined cattle pen and sat to eat. Hanley had some ham to add to the loaf provided by the guide, and he watched in fascination as Benito one-handedly flicked open his knife, and then, gripping the meat between his knees, carved it into thin slices.
‘Bueno,’ he said a little later, after eating the simple meal with every sign of satisfaction.
All in Scarlet Uniform (Napoleonic War 4) Page 10
