All in Scarlet Uniform (Napoleonic War 4)

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  Then the right-hand wheel of the leading car broke with a loud crack, followed quickly by an echoing crash as the heavily loaded cart fell against the side wall and flagstones of the bridge. One man at a time could squeeze through the gap between the crippled ammunition wagon and the far wall of the bridge, as long as he went slowly, but there was no room for the second car to get by.

  The rearguard halted, some on the slopes and others in the roadway. Men already on the bridge began filing past the cart. Beyond them the lieutenant appeared again, face red with anger under his Tarleton helmet.

  ‘Be twenty minutes or more to fix this, sir!’ he called.

  ‘How many men do you need?’ MacAndrews shouted back.

  ‘I’ll take a dozen of these and that will be plenty,’ the artilleryman called, pointing at some of the greenjackets on the bridge.

  There were shouts from the far side, and now the gunner was looking down the valley, pointing at something. MacAndrews turned in the saddle, but it was hard to see much beyond the spur jutting out behind him. Then, a good half a mile away, he saw movement as a column of redcoats followed the winding road leading from downriver towards the bridge.

  ‘It’s the Fifty-second,’ said a voice beside him, and MacAndrews remembered that the light infantry battalion had held the southern flank. Now it seemed several companies were still some distance away and must have been forgotten in the chaos of the retreat.

  ‘God damn it, they’ll be trapped,’ the voice continued, and the major saw that it came from a captain with the buff collar and cuffs of the 52nd.

  There was a sound like a heavy slap, and the officer’s cheek burst open as a musket ball smashed through his teeth. He gaped, but when he tried to speak no words came and he spat out blood and gobbets of flesh.

  The French were on top of the hill.

  Dalmas was almost beginning to believe in luck, but perhaps it was simply the strange nature of the English. They made so many mistakes, deploying badly and falling into confusion, and yet the redcoats and greenjackets still fought like devils when they had already lost the battle. Perhaps he should have learned this from Jenny Dobson, who was uncouth and childlike while at the same time cunning and stubborn. The cuirassier officer smiled at the thought, although it reminded him of his failure to catch the English spy. At least the last few hours had gone some way to balancing that mistake. Yet somehow he doubted the marshal would dismiss the matter so easily once the battle was over. So far Dalmas had helped to turf the English out of four positions, slipping with his dragoons around their flank. He reckoned his men had accounted for a good hundred of the enemy already, killed or captured, but he needed something more spectacular.

  Then he saw his chance, and wondered that the enemy would serve it up to him so easily. For a moment he feared a trap, but that made no sense, and then he realised that the redcoats had simply made another mistake, abandoning the hill that overlooked the river valley and the only bridge across it.

  ‘Come on,’ he called to the company of infantrymen following him, and sent his horse down the gully and up the slope on the other side. The soldiers were panting after their forced march to catch up, tanned faces reddening with effort as the soldiers in their brown coats with blue fronts skidded down the stony hillside and then struggled up the other side. Tall yellow and green plumes nodded on their shakos, for these were the voltigeurs of the Légion du Midi, the men attached to him in his hunt for the spy and now following him to a better victory that would smash an enemy division.

  Dalmas’ horse rushed up the slope, and he was impressed with the animal’s surefootedness. It did not stumble once.

  Just before the crest the horse began to struggle, and the French captain felt his chest tighten beneath his steel cuirass as he imagined a line of redcoats waiting on the far side of the ridge, muskets at their shoulders ready to fire. At that range his armour would do no more than distort the balls as they punched through the breastplate, making the wounds they caused far more terrible.

  The horse wanted to go a little to the left and he trusted it enough to let the animal have its head. Three more strides brought him to the very top of the hill and presented him with the truly beautiful sight of the enemy at his mercy. No line of redcoats waited to end his life. The nearest were a hundred yards away, down at the bottom of the slope, milling in a crowd on the approach to the bridge – a bridge blocked by wagons.

  Some men might have given a shout of victory or invoked the precious name of the Emperor, as if he could witness their triumph from afar. Jean-Baptiste Dalmas was a soldier and knew that his emperor valued a winner over a flamboyant fool.

  ‘Skirmish line,’ he shouted to the voltigeurs struggling up in his wake. ‘Here, along the hilltop!’

  Further along to his left more French soldiers, also voltigeurs, but in the normal blue jackets of the line regiments, were dashing to the top of the high ground. He walked his horse towards them, and although he could not remember the man’s name, the officer leading them waved in recognition.

  ‘We have them, Dalmas!’ he shouted.

  ‘Extend your men to my left,’ he called back. Looking behind, he saw a team of horses appear over the ridgeline to the rear, drivers whipping the animals to pull a four-pounder cannon and its limber. His men were already firing, the shots plunging down into the crowded road beneath them. Even one small field gun like that would turn the bridge into a slaughterhouse. Dalmas beckoned to the gunners to come to him.

  ‘Dalmas!’ It was the officer from the company beside him. The cuirassier turned and could not help smiling when he saw half a battalion of English infantry struggling along the road as they headed towards the bridge.

  ‘Too late, my friends,’ he said out loud. Jean-Baptiste Dalmas decided that he believed in luck after all, and now he would give his marshal and his emperor a victory to delight their cold hearts.

  30

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Young Simmons was unable to see past the press of men on the road.

  ‘The bridge is blocked,’ said the taller Williams, able to see over the crowd. He and Dobson had found themselves once again with the second lieutenant and a few men from his company. Pringle was behind them, among the 43rd.

  Then the balls began to rain down on them. A redcoat clutched his shoulder, blood pulsing between his fingers. Williams looked up and saw the puffs of smoke from the hilltop above them, where he and the rest of the rearguard had so recently been stationed.

  Some men pushed on, heading for the crossing and hoping to squeeze through. Most forced their way to the side of the road, seeking cover in the refuge of the boulders at the foot of the slope. Bullets struck shards off the big stones, or sometimes ricocheted up, screaming like fiends.

  A rifle officer was down in the road, a ball in his leg. Another subaltern ran to help him, leading a party of greenjackets, and then he too was hit, this time in the thigh, and so the soldiers helped both back across the bridge, balls flicking up dust around them. The hilltop was a long musket shot away, but the French simply fired at the road and bridge and knew that some bullets would find a mark and so the English would die one by one.

  Men fired back up the slope, and perhaps some of the voltigeurs were hit. It did not make the fire slacken. Pringle and Dobson were behind one big boulder with several of the 43rd. Williams crouched behind another with Simmons and then another officer from the 95th ran up to join them.

  ‘Damned saucy fellows,’ the newcomer said, and peered up over the stone in an effort to spot the enemy. The ball must have arrived the instant he raised his head, for he sprang back, blood jetting out of a wound in his throat. Williams and Simmons pulled him under cover, and the Welshman tried to stem the flow by pressing his fingers tightly over the man’s neck. His hands were drenched, and he could feel the force pumping the blood out just as he watched the life drain from the poor man’s eyes. In less than a minute he was unconscious, and although the flow of blood was held by a rough bandage the man’s f
ace was as pale as a sheet. Dobson looked for a moment and then shook his head.

  ‘Poor Pratt,’ Simmons said. Williams tried to wipe the already congealing liquid from his hands. He was not wearing gloves any more, for they made it too difficult to load a musket. Not that he had a single cartridge to his name. His last few, robbed from the pouch of a dead redcoat, had been fired off on top of the hill.

  ‘We need to get up there.’

  As if in answer to the thought, a voice began shouting over the confusion.

  ‘Lads, we need to drive those crapauds away!’ Major MacAndrews walked his horse along the road, somehow unscathed by the bullets that smacked into the surface or snapped through the air around him. The Scotsman was waving his hat, and his white hair was ruffling in the wind. ‘Form up! Our boys will be trapped if we let the Frogs stay there, so we’re going up that hill.’

  Williams did not want to stand up. Behind the rock it was safe, and apart from the danger he felt so utterly weary that more than anything else he wanted to lie down and rest. He glanced over to the next boulder and saw Pringle and Dobson there.

  ‘Oh, sod it,’ the veteran said, and got to his feet, reaching for his bayonet as he did so. Pringle shuffled up beside the sergeant and from nowhere there was Sergeant Rodriguez behind him. Williams found himself standing and did not remember getting up. Simmons was beside him, and so were the men from his company. Next to them was Sergeant Rudden with a file of men in the white facings of the 43rd and once again the NCO nodded amicably to Williams.

  ‘Bayonets, lads!’ MacAndrews’ voice echoed up the road. ‘Let’s give these blackguards a taste of British steel!’ The Scotsman flung away his hat and reached down to draw his sword. Blades scraped on the tops of scabbards as men drew their slim bayonets, or heavy swords if they were riflemen, and then clicked them into place. Next to Williams young Simmons had a light, highly curved blade. The youth’s teeth were bared, clenched tight with that mix of fear and determination Williams knew so well. His musket was slung on his shoulder, and now he drew his sword.

  A rifleman sank down groaning, hands pressed to the wound in his belly. Then a Portuguese caçador was shot through the head, a gaping hole where his right eye had been a moment before and the man made no sound as he fell. One of the 95th went to help the wounded greenjacket, but the man pushed him away, saying that he would be all right on his own.

  ‘Come on, lads!’ MacAndrews half screamed the words as he set his horse at the steep slope. The animal jumped the low bank edging the road, and then scrabbled for a grip in the soft sandy soil, but then it was racing ahead. Men cheered, pouring all their fear into a great shout of rage, and Williams yelled with them.

  This was no ordered charge, a formed line splitting into individuals only when they were at last released from discipline and sent forward. This was a rush of redcoats, riflemen and caçadores, all intermingled, officers and sergeants alongside privates, and none of them giving orders, simply running up the soft slope, following the white-haired Scotsman because they all knew that it had to be done.

  The French had the high ground and they were all veterans who had already chased the enemy back several miles. If they were surprised by the sudden onslaught they did not flinch. Muskets banged all along the ridge, puffs of smoke appearing from behind the boulders that sheltered them.

  One of the 43rd took a ball on the shin and pitched forward into the sandy soil, dropping his musket. A moment later a rifleman gasped as he was hit in the chest. He dropped, tripping another greenjacket who fell with him, cursing foully.

  Williams ran on, slipping on the soft earth, and then was almost tipped over when his boot caught in a loop of the long straggly grass that covered the slope. His musket banged uncomfortably against his back as he ran. The slope became steeper and he wondered about swinging to the side, but there were men all around him and he did not want to fall behind, so he pushed on, his left hand pressing the ground as he struggled for balance. A ball slashed a path through the long grass just inches from his bloodstained fingers and then struck with a deep thump. Someone cried out behind him, but he did not look. MacAndrews was still riding at their head, his sword gleaming in the sunlight, and although his horse was slowing the Scotsman was still a good length in front of the leading men. The French skirmishers must have been singling out the mounted officer, but somehow he rode on unscathed. There was less cheering now, men gulping in lungfuls of air as they forced their aching limbs to clamber up the steep slope.

  The top was close now. Williams could see the tall plumed shakos of the voltigeurs, and then the heads and shoulders of men crouching among the rocks, and even a few kneeling out in the open, and behind was an officer on horseback calling them on. It was Dalmas, in armour and helmet as usual, and Williams wondered why the wretched man kept plaguing them, but had no time to think.

  ‘Come on!’ he called, to himself as much as to anyone else. The slope was gentler now, so that he was able to crouch without using his hand to stay up and run forward.

  ‘Follow me, boys!’ Simmons shouted beside him and the youngster spurted ahead.

  Williams saw the spark of the musket, then the bold flame of the main charge before the voltigeur vanished behind the gout of smoke. The second lieutenant yelped as he was flung backwards, tumbling down the slope until he struck hard against a rock. Simmons looked confused, but already his hands were feeling for the wound and came away from his thigh red with fresh blood. Rudden dropped to one knee, pulling free his sash, crimson silk striped with the white of his regiment, but now dyed a dark red as he tied it to use as a tourniquet.

  ‘You’ll be fine, sir,’ he said softly to the officer, bending over him, and then a French bullet struck the side of his head and the back of his skull exploded, flinging its contents in a red smear behind him. The lifeless sergeant dropped forward, making the officer yell as he landed on his wounded leg, but then Simmons was rising gently to shift the corpse.

  Williams ran up the last few yards. He could not believe he was unscathed, but there were Pringle, Dobson and the Spanish sergeant alongside him, and more men swarming up the slope with them, and MacAndrews was still at their head, urging his horse between the boulders and then cutting down with his sabre.

  A Frenchman stood, swinging his musket round so that he could jab with the butt at the officer as he bounded up between two big stones. Williams dodged the blow and grabbed the man’s epaulette, jerking hard forward so that the voltigeur was flung back over the crest. Dobson and Rodriguez thrust with their bayonets at almost the same instant. Another French skirmisher came at Williams, this one with a bayonet fixed, and he only just recovered his balance in time to parry the attack, and then he swept his blade back in a wild slash, carving the air at eye level and making the voltigeur jump back. Williams kept going, and behind him more men spilled through the gap between the boulders.

  The skirmisher lunged again, making him dodge to the side, and the movement worked the sling of his musket loose so that it rolled off his shoulder and the heavy weight hung off his left elbow. He slashed again, spinning into the backhanded cut, and the voltigeur had put too much weight into the thrust so that Williams’ sword gouged a deep furrow across the side of his face. The skirmisher screamed, dropping his musket, and left himself open as Rodriguez stabbed him in the belly. Another voltigeur appeared, wearing a brown jacket like the others, and Dobson’s musket flamed just beside Williams’ head, the noise hammering at his ears, as the Frenchman was flung back.

  Over to their left a cannon fired, but to Williams the noise seemed less terrible than the musket let off just beside him. The canister burst soon after it left the barrel of the four-pounder, spreading a hail of musket-sized balls. Two redcoats and a greenjacket were knocked down, each struck by half a dozen bullets which made little mushrooms of blood fountain on their faces, chests and limbs. The slope was too steep for the gun to fire down at the British as they charged, and the men were hit before the cone from the canister had spread t
hat widely.

  The French were giving way. Rodriguez dropped to one knee, steadied himself and then fired, but Williams could not see whether he hit any of the retiring voltigeurs. A man in brown loomed out from behind the boulder on his right and the officer raised his sword to strike and only just managed to hold back the blow when he realised that it was one of the Portuguese light infantrymen. The man looked at him with a puzzled expression on his face, and then his high-fronted shako was knocked from his head by a bullet. He grinned, patting his head in relief, and then turned to fire down into the valley in front of them.

  Men ran towards the French cannon, the green paint on its carriage faded by wind, sun and rain. The crew were already hooking the trails of the four-pounder back on to the low limber, not bothering to lift the barrel to its travelling position. One dropped, hit in the leg by the ball from an officer’s pistol, and another was clubbed to the ground by a corporal from the 52nd. The other gunners scrambled on to their horses – there were no seats on a French limber – and followed the four-pounder and its team as they fled, the wheels flinging up the soft sandy soil, half slipping their way down the slope.

  ‘Pour it into them, lads!’ MacAndrews rode along the top of the hill, his horse carefully picking its way through the rocks, and urged the men to fire down at the retreating enemy. The major was still in one piece and to Williams that seemed like a miracle, and yet it was surely a miracle that they had driven the French back with their wild charge and lost so few men.

  A ball pinged noisily off the rock beside him and he ducked down. Dobson looked at him and shook his head in amusement, then bit the ball from another cartridge. Williams looked for Dalmas, but could not see him among the French who had reformed their skirmish line on the slope facing them. There was no sign of an armoured corpse either, so he guessed the Frenchman must have escaped. As he looked, he saw the body of a sergeant, sprawled in that ungainly sack-of-old-clothes fashion only ever made by the dead or the very deepest of sleeps. The man’s ginger hair was dark with blood and no one would sleep in such a place, so there could be no doubt that the man was dead. There were yellow facings on his red jacket.