Blood and Famine (Man of Conflict Series, Book 4)

by Andrew Wareham

  “Well thought, sir.”

  “It is. You will see the results – no orders and the men do not know what to do. Some are running back; some have attempted to charge forwards, probably behind a corporal or surviving sergeant; some have gone to ground. I can see a half company on the left flank who are keeping together and making for the treeline at a distance. They are well in order and will, I doubt not, try to work their way back down under cover. There is a man there who will have earned a promotion on the day.”

  Septimus ran across to the brigadier who was trying to penetrate the cover of the trees with his telescope.

  “I cannot, see, Sir Septimus! I cannot goddamned well see!”

  “No guns in action, sir. If the Frogs had twelve-pounders emplaced they would be attempting to silence our batteries. That suggests no great numbers hidden up in the woodland.”

  “Cross the ford and sweep the edges of the forest, Sir Septimus. Clear the ground for at least a quarter of a mile in all directions.” Colonel Dudley turned to his runner, told him to place the Wiltshires to the rear to cover them. “There might be a force behind us, Sir Septimus. It would be logical.”

  Septimus thought it to be highly probable, but only if there was a division at least emplaced to hold the river and give the attackers a place to retreat to.

  “Major Perceval, lead us across the ford, sir. Companies alternate left and right and you with the fifth straight down the middle, sir. Advance on the trees, volley firing.”

  Perceval waved a salute and ran to the head of his men, doubling them straight into the ford while shouting orders to his captains. The task was simple, easily understood and required little more of him than courage, and that he possessed in sufficiency.

  “Major Paisley, cross the ford and we shall double obliquely to the right and into the treeline. You will take three companies and go deep into the woodland, half a mile at least, before swinging round to come into the Frogs from their rear. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very good. I will take the other two companies and start to clear the edge of the trees. Give me the Lights and Grenadiers, if you please; there will be hand-to-hand, I expect.”

  “What if we come upon a rearguard in strength, sir?”

  “Use your judgement but if at all possible hit them hard. You must be willing to take losses in process, sir. The voltigeurs have enjoyed a first success and they must be killed in response. I do not want them to go away believing that they have won. This is not the day for caution, sir.”

  Major Perceval’s men were taking casualties, but they were filling the gaps and charging, jumping over the bodies of the New Foresters. They were close to the treeline when Septimus gave the word to Paisley to go.

  He hefted the weight of the pistol belt at his waist, Cooper having strapped it round him at the last minute. All three of his servants were at his shoulder he noticed, each with a grin showing; he had instructed Dinesh and Peter to stay with the baggage on the last occasion they had fought but he had neglected to repeat the order this morning, so they were not disobeying him. They were men; they had the right. He grinned back and started to run, putting himself at Major Paisley’s side. It had gone against the grain to allow Perceval to take the battalion into action but he felt it wiser to take the place that might demand more of his judgement.

  They reached the far bank without loss as far as Septimus could tell, which suggested that Perceval had taken all of the voltigeurs’ attention, which was as intended. A furlong in two more minutes and Septimus waved Paisley to go and then halted his two companies.

  “Light Company to form a skirmishing line. Grenadiers behind them but within easy musket shot. Anchor on the treeline, do not go deeper into the woodland without order. Go!”

  They were deliberately simple orders; no doubt the sergeants would flesh them out according to the book, but every man should be able to understand exactly what he must do, and Septimus thought that to be important. A Light Company especially must show initiative.

  “Like chasing them Paddies, years back, sir,” Cooper muttered.

  “It is, too, Cooper. Do you remember that fat bugger with the duck gun?”

  Cooper nodded, eyes wide open alert as they trod as silently as possible immediately behind the Lights. They could hear the sounds of a growing fight opposite to the ford.

  “Major Perceval’s into them, sir. Tying them down so they can’t stand up and run. They’ve got to stay in cover and hope to wriggle slowly back. Platoon volley fire, sir. Winkling them out!”

  They halted as the pair of skirmishers to their front froze and then slowly lifted their muskets to the aim.

  “Patch of blue, sir. Eighty yards off.”

  “Got it, Cooper.”

  It was long range but the Light Company encouraged marksmanship; the pair firing together would expect to do some good.

  The muskets fired exactly together on the word of the senior man; there was a shout, either of pain or of surprise and the blue coat disappeared. The soldiers reloaded and dropped into their normal advance, one man up, the other two paces behind and to the side.

  There was no return fire. Perhaps the shout had been the order to withdraw.

  “Nothing from Major Paisley’s direction, Cooper.”

  “Too soon yet, sir. He won’t have made his half mile yet. This woodland will get rougher as the ground rises.”

  Cooper had spent years in the American forests during the War of Independence, knew the nature of fighting in this terrain. It occurred to Septimus that had been a good few years before and he must be into his forties; it might soon be time for him to hang up his musket.

  There was a brief flurry of fire further along their line, perhaps a dozen of the Light Company involved and receiving some return. There were no shouts or whistles for assistance; they had dealt with the business themselves.

  “Frogs pulling back into the trees?”

  “Sounds like it, sir.”

  “Run back to the Grenadiers, Dinesh, tell them to push further into the forest.”

  The distance was of less than one hundred yards and Septimus could probably have shouted the order. Better to pass it directly to avoid any possibility of confusion.

  “They got that bugger, sir!”

  They had covered the distance to the blue coat, found a dead man wearing it.

  “Hit him low thigh, Cooper. Bled dry.”

  “Good shooting, sir.”

  “Not at all bad at eighty yards. No musket or ammunition pouch.”

  “He had a mate with him then, sir. Trees thinning ahead, sir, might be a bit of a clearing, or a glade sort of thing.”

  They took extra care over the next yards, running from tree to tree until they could see what was there.

  There was a clearing, fifty yards across and nearly two hundred long, a single hut belonging originally to a forester or gamekeeper or whatever the Portuguese equivalent might have been. There had been a camp here, the fires showing two, perhaps three nights of ash.

  “Three hundred, Cooper?”

  “More than that, sir, closer to four. No horses or mules. No carts. Rearguard, travelling fast and light. Ground’s been trampled, sir, in the last few minutes, I reckon. Narrow pathway leading into the woods, sir, no more than two abreast. That slows ‘em down. Must be very close to Major Paisley, sir.”

  The fire by the ford was slowing, the volleys coming less frequently.

  “The Frogs are pulling out, I believe.” Septimus raised his voice in a shout. “Light Company! Hold in line in the trees here, along the edge of the clearing! Mr Melksham, hold the footpath, if you please! Captain Mellish, wait until we have a respectable number under our fire, if you please!”

  Cooper came trotting back from the hut, set to one side of the clearing, sheltered from wind and rain by the trees behind it.

  “Rations in the hut, sir. Spare powder and ball, sir. There was a quartermaster sort of bloke sitting guard on it.”

  “
So they will definitely wish to fall back on this location. Well done, Cooper.”

  Captain Mellish, who had come to Septimus’ side to receive further orders the more easily enquired where the prisoner was. He wondered if Cooper had left him tied in the hut.

  “I do not doubt that he is still in the hut, Mr Mellish, but I cannot imagine that he needs to be tied. Did you vary so far from your normal ways as to take the man captive, Cooper?”

  “Don’t take prisoners till the fighting’s stopped, sir. Anyways, sir, I’d cut his throat before he could get round to surrendering.”

  “Very proper, Cooper. No chance of a man raising the alarm in such a case!”

  There was a low whistle from the left of the Light Company and they dropped to one knee and watched from greater concealment as Frenchmen in voltigeur uniform ran silently into the camp, still in good order although in retreat, keeping together in platoons of six or eight men. The first few fanned out and turned back the way they had come to form a holding line. Another fifty or so walked slowly in, eyes on the trees behind them, and found their corporals and sergeants and began to fall into order. A couple of walking wounded stumbled in and Septimus decided that the bulk had arrived.

  “Open fire, Mr Mellish.”

  They fired three volleys each, odds and evens at ten second intervals, forty rounds at a time, all controlled by the NCOs.

  Mellish shouted the ceasefire and accepted the individual surrenders that came immediately after the noise ended.

  “Very good, Mr Mellish. Your men were very well together, sir. Admirable practice!”

  “Should we not have called them to lay down their arms first, sir?”

  “Whatever for? Surrenders happen after the battle, not before!”

  There was a sustained burst of firing from up the track, in the direction where Major Paisley must be.

  “Half company along the footpath, Mr Mellish. Remainder to tidy up here. Double!”

  Another minute and the sound of company volleys was added to the indiscriminate firing.

  “Grenadier Company, I suspect, Mr Mellish!”

  The woodland thinned as they reached the side of the valley and came upon the site of a messy, unformed conflict. The French had been in retreat in loose column and Major Paisley’s three companies had hit into them obliquely and both sides had run out into the cover of the trees and undergrowth, low at this season but still allowing a chance for men to become lost. They had spread out over thirty or forty acres, advancing in platoons and meeting each other randomly, firing in any direction, the combatants hopelessly intermingled until the Grenadier Company had come in from the south-west and had formed a line sweeping up all before them.

  “Clear the field, Mr Mellish! Take or kill any French you find, bring our wounded in.”

  Septimus ran to the clearest point he could find and began to roar.

  “C and D and E Companies close on me. Reform! Major Paisley, to me!”

  Some of the men heard him and began to run in; others spotted the movement and copied it. The Grenadier Company carried stolidly on, marching slowly forward in line, firing their volleys and pushing the French up onto the hillside above them.

  “Dinesh! Tell the Grenadier officer to hold at the edge of the woodland. They are not to go chasing the Frogs across the open moorland.”

  “Sir!”

  “What a bloody mess!”

  Two hours later Septimus led the half battalion back down to the ford, herding a few dozen prisoners, their unwounded carrying those who could not walk. To the rear came his own casualties; fully fifty of walking wounded and a score on makeshift stretchers and a dozen of corpses to be properly buried in a regimental graveyard with marked plots.

  Major Perceval greeted him, had the prisoners led to the compound that had been roped off and pointed the wounded to the tents where the surgeons were busy.

  “What’s your bill, Major?”

  “Nineteen dead, sir, including two officers and a sergeant. Twelve will not last the night, the surgeons say, and another thirty will be sent back to Lisbon. Twenty or so with cuts and bruises that will heal in a week or two. One man in five, sir.”

  “Much the same as mine. Far too high for crossing a little bloody river!”

  “The French fought hard, sir. We have put more than a hundred underground.”

  “We had no time for burials, and the rest of the Frogs were too close, or might have been. At least eighty dead and laid out together.”

  “Three for one, if you count the wounded, sir. Quite respectable, except for the fact that we outnumbered them, counting the New Foresters, at least four for one.”

  “Hush, Major Perceval! The report to go to headquarters and then to London will list the casualty figures and state, correctly, that the French made an ambuscade upon the unfortunate New Foresters and were then driven from the field by the gallant Hampshires.”

  “And that, sir, is quite true, as far as it goes. Why not? There is no gain to downplaying our own achievements, after all.”

  “Quite correct, Major. What of the New Foresters? How did they do when the actual count was made?”

  “Badly, sir. Very badly indeed, I suspect. Brigadier Dudley has spoken to me of his fear that he may have to send them back, so much hurt as to be unable to keep the field.”

  “Oh, we cannot have that, Major Perceval. Such damage as it would do to their name! We must find an alternative, sir.”

  “You have more experience of these little fights than I, Sir Septimus. Was that a typical encounter?”

  Brigadier Dudley was upset and needed his hand held.

  “Untidy; disorganised; invisible for the most part? Yes, sir. Fighting in woodland or tropical jungle or even heavy scrub is inevitably outside of any officer’s overall control. The subalterns and sergeants give the only orders that have any meaning in these affairs. Damnably expensive, too! Neither side has the least idea what is happening at the time, and nothing goes to plan. The French, no doubt, intended no more than to achieve a delay and to cut us up sufficiently to make us more cautious in pursuit. They probably expected us to pull back, to bombard the edge of the woods, much as we did yesterday’s bridge, and then to push forward slowly. Instead, sir, and wisely, you chose to make an immediate onslaught, to do the unexpected.”

  Brigadier Dudley was very pleased to hear that he had taken the best course of action; he had not been aware that he had chosen to do anything at all.

  “High casualties, Sir Septimus!”

  “They often are in these sorts of soldiers’ fights, sir, when the men go head-on at each other, like a pair of dogs, each taking a grip and scrapping to the death. The French lost nearly two hundred dead and I doubt there were many more than four hundred of them in total, judging by the camp we found. There might have been another battalion as well, of course, but I had the feeling of small numbers on their part. Perhaps another one hundred taken, sir, one half of those wounded too much to run, leaving another hundred to return to the main body, and some few of those will be walking wounded. The next battalion detailed as rearguard will be very twitchy indeed, sir, having seen the almost total loss of their predecessors.”

  “More likely to run, you think?”

  “A single volley and leave the scene, sir, at speed!”

  “Yet our bill was not small, Sir Septimus.”

  “Too high, sir. We will not repeat that too often and retain our ability to fight. One hundred and sixty, thereabouts; sixty buried, forty too much wounded to stay with us; sixty who will be on light duty for a week or two. We might not be hurt so much fighting a formal battle between two armies; these skirmishes can be very costly, sir, especially against a hardened and experienced enemy, which the French are. What were the New Forester’s losses, sir? They were hit hard, I fear.”

  Dudley shook his head despondently.

  “Half of them did not cross the river, Sir Septimus, and were engaged only in the mopping up at the end of the business. The half that were up
suffered cruelly. Colonel Walters was hit a dozen times, leading from the front; he is not dead yet, amazingly, but the surgeons have little hope for him. His second, Major Howton, was hit twice, both no more than scores through the flesh, and he is back on his feet and in command.”

  “That I am glad to hear, sir. I had feared for him. He was my captain when I joined as a very green ensign and he stood a good friend to me. It is no exaggeration to say that it was his example that turned me into a soldier, sir.”

  “Then I am even more happy for him, Sir Septimus. He will have a great deal to do now!”

  “What of the rest of the leading companies, sir?”

  “Lost all of their captains and seven out of ten lieutenants! Six of their sergeants too!”

  “I saw one half company that kept together and advanced into the treeline, sir, presumably to work their way along.”

  “Led by a sergeant, Sir Septimus. Left an ensign behind, grovelling in the mud behind the body of a private soldier!”

  “It is not unknown, sir. A court-martial might not be able to reach a clear decision in such a case, sir, and the rest of the army would not be edified to hear of the matter. Send the boy home, sir, is my advice. Make the sergeant in his place and close the book on the matter.”

  The brigadier was unwilling to let the young man off lightly; there was no place for the coward in his world.

  “I have placed him under close arrest, Sir Septimus. Can I release him without creating much adverse comment from the men?”

  “Probably not, sir. A pity, but, as you suggest, the matter is now of public knowledge. A private soldier in like case would certainly face a firing squad and the men will not like to hear of a different law applied to officers. He will go for trial, sir. There is no choice now. I suspect I would have done the same as you, sir – I have no use for his sort, although it would be desirable to cover up for the sake of the name of the regiment. It is easy enough to advise expediency, I discover, but, thinking on it, I doubt I could bring myself to it!”