The greenjackets pressed their advantage, going forward a little way before they stopped to aim and fire. Slowly the voltigeurs gave ground, and for a while even the columns behind them paused. Hanley looked behind him and saw patches of red amid the trees. The rest of Wheatley’s brigade was approaching. He wondered where the Spanish were, for Graham had sent to ask the captain general to bring his troops to support the British.
Hanley headed back towards the artillery, just as horse teams steered between the gaps in the guns. Crews lifted the trails and pushed on the wheels to turn them around and hitch them on to the backs of the limbers. Major Duncan was streaking off, riding to the point where he intended to set up a new gun line a couple of hundred yards further forward. The greenjackets and Portuguese were ahead of him, driving the voltigeurs back towards their battalions. As the British guns rolled out of the scrub and into long grass, Hanley saw that the French artillery was deploying on a gentle rise some way ahead. It was a race now, for a team of six horses towing a limber and gun was a far better and more fragile target than a battery of artillery spread in a line and waiting to fire.
Duncan was hurrying his men on, and soon two guns were already unhitched and in place, and the rest moving into position. The French fired, three guns almost together, and then the other five one at a time. Hanley heard a tearing sound as shot passed over his head. All ten British guns were in the new line, the gunners toiling to load them.
‘What the deuce?’ Duncan was looking at the nearest battalion of French infantry, which had halted and was hastily forming square. He looked back towards the forest edge, but could see nothing to explain it. ‘Well, I’m damned,’ the artillery major said. ‘They must have mistaken our donkeys for cavalry. No offence, old girl,’ he added, patting his own dappled mare.
Offered so wonderful a target, Duncan had all of his guns laid to fire at the dense formation of infantry. They were already loaded with shrapnel, and even if he would have preferred ball, the well-cut fuses exploded the shells above the square, spraying it with carbine balls. Hanley saw the battalion quiver as men fell, and then its commander realised his mistake and ordered the companies to wheel out and once again form column. The closest riflemen were also pouring fire into the column and the British guns fired twice more as the battalion manoeuvred. When it moved off, it left behind a smear of blue and white bodies.
The French gunners had found the range. A cannonball took the foot off the spongeman from one crew, moments before another struck a gun captain at the waist, flinging his trunk through the air to knock over a man carrying ammunition. The grey-painted gun was splashed with red, and the legs stood on their own before collapsing. A gunner vomited, but wiped the mess off his jacket and went on with his job. The Royal Artillery talked of gun numbers, each with their own task in loading, and when one was maimed or killed, there were drills so that someone else immediately took his place.
A musket-sized ball threw up a spark as it nicked the iron rim of a wheel and another made a splinter in the wood of the wheel itself.
‘Must have changed to canister,’ Duncan remarked. ‘The Frogs tend to use it at longer range than any good Christian.’ He set four guns to returning the French fire, but kept the other six pounding the columns. The French were advancing once more, but the voltigeurs had run back to join the formed battalions and as they got closer these opened fire. Riflemen were elusive targets, but there were a lot of Frenchmen firing and some balls found a mark. A column would fire, all save one of them at the pace of each soldier rather than as an ordered volley, and then after a while the officers would make the men stop and the whole formation would advance a bit further before it fired again. The odd man fell as he was struck by a bullet or they dropped in clusters as shrapnel balls exploded above them, but still the columns kept coming.
The greenjackets retired. They went grudgingly and stopped to fire, but they did go back and the French came slowly forward. Hanley looked behind and there were still just a few groups of redcoats at the edge of the forest, and he realised that he had seen only a few leading companies rather than the main battalion. He wondered whether to ride and look for them, but he had not been told to do that, only to watch the guns, and felt that he should not abandon them. There was nothing to do apart from stay and try to appear confident.
A dull sound, somewhere between a slap and the noise of an axe biting into wood, and Hanley’s horse let out a long breath and went down on its front knees. Its tongue lolled out between its teeth and he saw a jagged hole just above the eyes. He managed to get his feet free of the stirrups and, as the animal sank, he pushed himself off and rolled in the grass. The landing was awkward, making his left shoulder hurt, and it was tempting to sit and recover.
‘What beautiful music,’ said a voice, and Hanley looked up to see a red-faced major in Portuguese uniform. The man was polishing his spectacles with the fringe of his sash, and was obviously one of the many British officers now seconded to their allies.
‘I don’t know the name of the tune,’ Hanley said, pushing up with his right hand.
‘Oh, I do not mean that blasted band.’ A musket ball snapped through the air close to the major’s face. ‘I mean that,’ he said. ‘Ain’t it beautiful music?’
‘Delightful.’ There was no accounting for someone’s peculiar taste, but Hanley felt he might as well be polite. Further out on the left, the 95th were pushed back almost to the edge of the wood.
‘Should we conform, sir?’ asked the English captain in charge of one of the Portuguese companies.
‘No, let ’em go,’ the major replied. ‘Keep pouring it in, lads,’ he called out, and then remembered that his men were not English and so yelled the same sentiment in badly accented Portuguese.
Voltigeurs had run forward again, tall plumes nodding as they eagerly pursued the greenjackets and pressed harder around the Portuguese.
The major grunted, blood bright from the bullet which had driven deep into his side. He swayed in the saddle, was hit again, and fell.
‘I knew those bastard English would get us killed!’ The speaker was another officer, Portuguese this time, and he called to his men in their own language. ‘Run for it, lads!’
The blue-coated infantry ran as they were told. A few carried their major, who groaned with the movement, but most of the two companies pelted back towards the trees. It was their first real action and the noise and chaos were all the more unnerving. The British captain grabbed one soldier by his cross-belts and yelled at the man to stand firm. He stopped, glanced back at the enemy, and a musket ball smacked into his forehead. The Portuguese bluecoat dropped like a stone. The captain stared at him for a moment, mouth gaping, and then went after his men, calling on them to come back.
He ran back past hundreds of redcoats who were now emerging from the trees. The main force of Wheatley’s brigade was here at long last, but the French were close now, so that Major Duncan had his cannons firing canister to hold the nearest battalions at bay. All of the guns fired at the infantry, even though the French artillery still knocked down gunners one at a time. The two companies of the 47th had come forward to guard the battery’s flank now that the skirmish line had withdrawn.
Orders were being shouted as the battalions began to form in front of the forest. A few men had already fallen to well-aimed shots by the voltigeurs. A captain of the Foot Guards clapped an immaculately gloved hand to staunch the wound to his arm, but did not stop encouraging his men to hurry into formation. Wheatley’s brigade had arrived, but they were still outnumbered and the enemy was close. Hanley wondered whether it might all be too late.
30
Williams ran from the shelter of a clump of bushes to a dip in the ground, musket balls flicking the grass as he went. Sergeant Evans and two men were crouched in the dip. One of the soldiers had the yellow facings of the 9th Foot, and Britannia on his brass belt-plate. The Flank Battalion was now a thin line of men lying or crouching behind any cover they could find.
&nb
sp; Evans put his head over the top and took a moment to aim before he pulled the trigger and fired up the slope. He ducked back, handing the firelock to one of the two redcoats and taking the man’s loaded weapon. He gave a curt nod to the lieutenant as he pulled the hammer back to full cock. The grass just above him twitched as a bullet clipped it. The sergeant winked at the man from the 9th, and then bobbed up again to fire at the enemy.
‘Don’t know why they haven’t chased us away, sir,’ he said to Williams once he was back down in cover. Evans handed the firelock to the other redcoat. ‘Reckon I’m the best shot,’ he added in explanation.
‘They must think our supports are near,’ Williams suggested, for he knew as well as the sergeant that the Flank Battalion would crumble and flee if the French came forward. ‘Or they want to hold on to the high ground and meet any attack there.’ He could not think of any other reason, and experience had taught him that it was rare for the French to give the enemy any relief when they had them at their mercy.
‘So what are we to do?’ the sergeant asked him.
‘Stay as long as we can, let ’em know we’re still here, and wait for supports.’
‘And they’re coming?’ Evans’ eyes flicked to the two redcoats. The man from the 106th’s Light Company was young and clearly stunned by all that had happened.
‘They’re coming. The Guards and the Sixty-seventh.’
‘Huh, bloody Guards, I’ve shit ’em,’ the sergeant said gruffly. He did not appear to have any particular opinion of His Majesty’s 67th Foot.
‘Hang on, and we’ll beat them yet,’ Williams said, as much to the privates as the gruff Evans, but he thought he saw approval in the sergeant’s grim face. He sprinted away, hoping that he would be a poor mark for any voltigeur at this long range. Each time he found a couple of redcoats he stopped and encouraged them. The companies were mixed all together, and half the officers were down along with quite a few NCOs. He recognised only a handful of the men, but they were glad to see someone and be assured that they were not fighting a lost cause on their own.
‘Supports are coming,’ he kept telling them. It was hard to tell how much time had passed since the Flank Battalion’s attack had been so savagely ripped to shreds. Twenty minutes at least, and maybe half an hour, but to men clinging to any scrap of cover it seemed like most of the day. Some did not fire, but simply cowered like animals in a storm, hands gripping their firelocks so tightly that their knuckles were white.
‘Come on, lad, fire!’ he called to one boy, lying on his own behind a bush which had already lost branches to musket shots. ‘Load your musket.’ The boy was a grenadier, and had the red facings of his own regiment, but he must have joined after Williams was sent back to Spain. He struggled, and then it came to him. ‘Come on, Flattery, load.’
The use of his name stirred the lad from his horror. Williams smiled, patting the young soldier on the back. ‘Well done. That’s it, draw cartridge.’ The officer was smiling and standing up straight above the thin shelter of the bush. The French had not closed, and with all the smoke drifting on the hillside, he would just have to hope that no one was able to hit him. Now and then a ball flicked through the air near enough to feel the wind of its passage, but neither man was hit.
Step by step he went through the drill for loading, giving each order in turn. The boy’s confidence came slowly, as the movements brought back memories of hours of training, safe and secure with his comrades around him rather than alone on a bare hillside.
‘That’s it, Flattery, well done. Slide the ramrod back. Now pull back the hammer. Present!’ The young grenadier knelt behind his bush. ‘Fire!’
The boom was bigger than normal, a blow to the ears, and Williams guessed that the firelock already had a ball and charge in it. He had not thought of that, and was glad there had not been more otherwise the barrel could easily have exploded.
‘Well done, you’re a good soldier, now do it again.’ He went through each order a second time, and by the end the lad was anticipating them, but he kept on talking for the boy needed to know that he was not alone.
After the second shot, Williams told the grenadier to follow him and he ran on another ten yards to where a Light Company veteran was resting his musket on a boulder to take careful aim.
‘Ryan,’ he said. ‘This is Flattery, another gallant Irishman like yourself. He can serve as your rear rank man – the man’s a demon shot.’ The youngster glowed with pride and knelt down beside the older soldier.
Williams went on, going along the thin skirmish line that was all that was left of the Flank Battalion. The French infantry kept firing, but they did not advance and the enemy guns had been silent for a long time, waiting for better targets. Then a cannonball tore through the air above his head and he followed the noise to see it bounce on the edge of the field and skip upwards to knock a branch off one of the trees. Infantrymen in red were coming from the forest.
MacAndrews appeared, still mounted and still unscathed. ‘They’re here,’ the Scotsman said. ‘They’ve taken their damned time about it, but they are here.’ A musket ball struck the ground by his horse’s feet and the animal shied away.
‘Good. You stay and keep the men shooting, Williams,’ he said as he cooed to calm the beast. ‘Pringle is to your right, and Captain Douglas of the Eighty-second is to the right of him. A lieutenant from the Ninth is to your left, and the Lord only knows where everyone else is. Still, that is one and a half Scotsmen, counting yourself, two and a half if you include me, and that should be enough to keep back all the hosts of Midian put together.’
Williams grinned. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said and could see the major was encouraging him just as he had been encouraging the men. No doubt as they spoke the general was telling his colonels how lucky he felt to have them with him – and the French were doing the same.
‘I need to make sure the Guards and the others come up on our left, where the approach is more sheltered. Look after the lads, and I’ll be back.’ MacAndrews leaned down to pat his shoulder, and then set his horse running down the slope. The animal streaked away, happy to flee from the noise.
The lieutenant went back to checking the line, talking and praising as he passed each little group, and leading any man on his own to find companions. He thought the French fire was slackening, and that meant they were preparing to meet the new attack. It would have been good to push the skirmish line forward and distract them, but he could see the men would not move. This time he walked – if MacAndrews could ride then he could surely walk – to the left until he met a subaltern from the 9th. The Flank Battalion was still there, battered and stunned, but it was still there and it kept firing up the low hill.
‘Hot work, sir,’ a familiar voice said as he went back down the scattered line. Dobson was there, his head bandaged, but like Evans with several men loading for him. Williams did not recognise any of them, and two of the three were from the other regiments.
‘Hotter for the Frogs up there,’ he replied.
‘Oh, aye, bet they’re really scared now.’ The sergeant fired up the slope. ‘One less to worry about.’
They could barely see the French through the drifting smoke.
‘You’d be lucky to hit the hill,’ Williams told him.
‘The cheek of the man. Do you know this young rip used to be my rear rank man?’ The redcoats were wide eyed and disbelieving.
‘It’s true. The sergeant taught me everything I don’t know.’
A ball ripped the officer’s cocked hat from his head.
‘Well, I didn’t manage to teach you to keep your bloody head down, did I, sir,’ the veteran told him.
‘I cannot have paid enough attention.’ He bent forward and scooped the hat back up, but could not resist sticking his finger through the holes. ‘Right through,’ he said ruefully. ‘Stay with the sergeant, lads, and he’ll see you through.’
‘That’s right.’ He heard Dobson’s deliberately loud whisper as he moved on. ‘Stick with me and i
f you’re smart you’ll be a sergeant before long. If you’re stupid you might even become an officer.’
The French battery boomed from above him. The noise sounded different, and he wondered whether the enemy guns had moved. They were firing at the First Foot Guards, but the redcoats were not an easy target as they weaved their way up the slope, dipping down into gullies and behind folds in the land. MacAndrews must have reached them, or their own officers seen the safer path, because they were advancing to the right of the Flank Battalion. Further beyond them was a smaller unit without Colours, and more redcoats next to them.
A few guardsmen fell – Williams saw one file collapse in ragged ruin as a roundshot smashed down both men, but most of the cannonballs bounced over their heads. The line was two deep, some six hundred men strong, and when they crossed the steep gully to begin climbing the slope, the ranks fell into disorder. As they went up the slope there were more ditches, boulders and bushes in their path, and short stretches where a few men had to go round or almost scramble up on hands and knees. It must have broken the sergeant major’s heart to see such disarray, but the Foot Guards made only brief pauses to redress their ranks and then pressed on, the formation bent and crooked. In the centre, their crimson Colours dipped as the young ensigns struggled to bear their weight.
Beyond them three companies of the 3rd Guards were not to be outdone by their sister regiment, and pressed on just as quickly. They were part of a composite battalion, but the men of the Coldstream Guards had gone astray as they hurried back through the forest and were now not far from Hanley, about to advance against another enemy with the other brigade. One wing of the 2/67th, with yellow facings on their coats, moved up on their flank, and they had a skirmish line of riflemen shielding them.
Run Them Ashore Page 38