‘Ah, Dalmas,’ said Général de Brigade Ferey. ‘Not in your helmet today!’
Captain Dalmas belonged to the 1st Regiment of Cuirassiers, although he had lately heard that the detachment in Spain was to be combined with others to form a new regiment, the 13th. Perhaps he would return to them one day, but for more than a year he had served as an additional ADC on the staff of Marshal Ney. Disdaining the fripperies of flamboyant uniforms so popular with most staff officers, Dalmas made a point of wearing his steel helmet with its black horsehair crest and his heavy cuirass. It was a mark that he was a serious soldier, and perhaps a conceit, for only a determined man would keep such uncomfortable gear when he did not have to wear it. Tonight he wore instead a soldier’s bonnet, and had plain trousers and simple hessian boots rather than the knee-high boots of his regiment.
‘Didn’t want to rust, General,’ he said cheerfully. Ferey was not yet forty, and had a fine record as a fighting general. Dalmas liked the man, trusted his judgement and hoped to rise as far himself. The Emperor was generous when it came to rewarding success.
‘So, what have you seen?’ Ferey had offered to send one of his own aides with Dalmas, but the latter had refused and had a good enough reputation to be given his way.
‘A pair of sentries at the bridge. Then a dozen men a short way back. All are their green riflemen. Does not look like more than a company here, and the rest are back beyond the top of the crest.’
‘Shouldn’t be too much of a problem, then.’ The general drew his sword, and swished the blade impatiently so that it hissed in the night air. ‘What is the approach like?’
‘The road is easy to follow, but winds a lot and is steep. The river flows high and fast and is very noisy. That should cover the sound until they get close. The bridge is narrow and long, and turns sharply to the right as you approach from our side, and less so on the far bank.’
‘Barricaded?’
‘No.’
‘Well, that’s very kind of them.’ The general turned to one of his own aides. ‘Get them up and ready. The first two companies go in unloaded, but have the captains check that the men have dry cartridges in their pouches.’ Ferey did not want an accidental shot to warn the British. Dalmas was inclined to agree with him, although it meant that they would be unable to fire if they ran into opposition. Perhaps for the best. If men could fire, then they were more inclined to stop and shoot rather than keep advancing, and the trick tonight would be to press on whatever happened and overwhelm the outnumbered defenders.
‘Permission to go with them, sir,’ asked Dalmas.
‘Denied,’ replied the general instantly and with some force. ‘Old red-faced Ney wants you back in one piece,’ he added more quietly. ‘I have a good man to take them in. Better an officer they know rather than a stranger.’
No doubt the general had some favourite to reward, Dalmas thought sourly. The attack should work. The whole brigade had moved to a village several miles away, and so they had slept in the dry and not had far to come. Six elite companies, the grenadiers and voltigeurs supposed to be the pick of their regiments, were in the lead, with the main force of the brigade moved close enough to support if necessary. If they could surprise the enemy, and then go in hard and fast, they should be able to storm the position and kill or capture all of the British. Dalmas had seen no sign that the greenjackets were expecting them.
‘Have you fought the rosbifs before?’ asked the general.
‘They are tough – stubborn like the Russians, but more flexible.’ It was the British who had given Dalmas his only defeat when he was in command, and he knew that a man needed to win a lot more victories to make the Emperor forget any failure. Over a year ago, when the redcoats were fleeing to Corunna, Dalmas had been sent to take another bridge and open a way behind the enemy. It nearly worked, but a redcoat officer named Williams in charge of a ragged force of men from many regiments had somehow ended up in his way and then repulsed his attacks. Since then Dalmas had constantly played over his decisions in his mind. There were mistakes and he would learn from them, but so much of it had been luck. It was not so much his pride that irked him. A soldier needed to be proud, but Dalmas felt himself to be a clever man, in control of his emotions, and he resented far more the stain of failure which had interrupted his previously rapid rise. The former schoolteacher wanted to make his name and his fortune while there were still wars to fight and glory to be won.
General Ferey left him and walked across to where the two companies stood in rank.
‘Lads, we are going over that hill and then over a bridge and up the other side!’ he announced. With the noise of the wind he had no need to worry about the sound carrying to the enemy. ‘There’s a half-company of fancy fellows in green waiting on the other side. They think they are clever because they have rifles and can shoot further than us, but it’s night, and they couldn’t see a donkey’s arse at thirty paces, let alone shoot it.’ Dalmas saw the men in the front rank grinning. They all wore long greatcoats and had their white cross-belts over them. On their shoulders were epaulettes of the elite companies – red for the grenadiers and green and yellow for the voltigeurs, although in the dark he could see little more than their shapes and the dull gleam of their white cross-belts. No one had bothered to fit plumes to their shakos, although one of the leading grenadier companies wore tall bearskin caps instead, making each man look bigger.
‘You all know how it’s done,’ continued General Ferey. ‘Yes, I can see you, Dubois, hiding there in the rear rank. This’ll be a picnic compared to Austerlitz. Take that ridge on the other side and there is a gold piece in it for every man.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And double rations of food and wine!’ They were all smiling at that and nodding, but had sense enough not to cheer.
‘One last thing. These fellows are English so they are no match for Frenchmen. But they’re not like the Spanish and are proper soldiers – just not very good ones! Kill any bastard who fights you, but let them surrender and treat the wounded with respect.
‘That’s all I have to say and all you need to know. So go and do it!’
As the column marched up the hill, Ferey walked back to Dalmas and his staff. ‘We go with the supports, but everyone stays this side of the bridge until it’s over,’ he said firmly. ‘Too many officers over the other side will only confuse things, and we need to keep it simple.’ The two assaulting companies marched on, and the general and his staff joined the second column formed from the remaining four companies. ‘We go halfway down the slope and then watch.’ He appeared to have a thought. ‘In fact, Dalmas and Legrand, hurry on up there and watch from as close to the bridge as you can.’
Dalmas liked the general, and was happy to be given this task. Legrand was as bulky as his name suggested, and moved clumsily across the rocky slope, but at least the constant roar of the river would drown that out. Dalmas could see the darker shade of the leading grenadiers moving along the road beneath them, but could not hear them. The same ought to be true of the sentries. He hurried on, letting the general’s aide cope as best he could, and was soon lying face down on a big outcrop. He drew his glass and focused the lens on the far side of the river. A movement caught his eye, and he knew that it was one of the British sentries. Dalmas shifted the telescope and again spotted movement, this time just above the parapet on the bridge itself. He sensed that the officer in charge was doing just what he would do, detaching a sergeant and six or seven good men to stalk the sentries. Dalmas flicked back to the enemy bank, and struggled for a moment to spot the guards. Then darker shadows moved quickly and surrounded them.
He was looking in just the right spot when a red gout of flame erupted from the black night as a weapon was fired, and in that instant he thought he saw a man slumping to the ground and another being wrestled by three men.
‘Damn,’ said Dalmas, just as Legrand stumbled down beside him. For the moment it was hard for him to see anything apart from the bright flame only slowly fading from his eyes. The
night seemed blacker than before, and he knew that it would take a few minutes to adapt again.
A volley of half a dozen shots ripped out from further up the British slope.
‘Stand to! Stand to!’ shouted Lieutenant Mercer, as men began to bundle out of the little chapel. Half the reserve was always to be awake and dressed, and these men were first while the others hastily pulled on jackets and belts, for they had slept with trousers and boots on.
Williams was impressed by how quickly the greenjackets stood to arms. Mercer was already forming them into a line two deep at the alarm post, and other men were running up.
‘Coane!’ Mercer called. ‘Be so good as to fetch the captain.’
Dobson was suddenly beside Williams, and handed him his musket, before unslinging his own. ‘It’s loaded, sir,’ he said. Williams had forgotten giving it to him. Corporal Gomez was beside him, his own firelock held ready.
‘The lieutenant has gone to Mr Pringle,’ said the Spaniard in his clear but heavily accented English.
There was no point in saying anything to that, and perhaps Dolosa was right, although whether he could find his way to the picket in the dark was another matter. Williams took the two NCOs and joined the riflemen.
‘We are with you, Mercer,’ he said, and got a nod in response.
There had been scattered shots while they formed and then after a minute or so there came an intense rattle of musketry. Then it went quiet.
‘Come on, boys,’ said Mercer, and took them forward.
‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!’ cried an English voice, and a man appeared over the crest.
‘Don’t fire, lads,’ called the lieutenant.
‘The bridge is taken, Sergeant Betts fallen and they are pouring across like demons,’ gasped the soldier, but then he fell in with the rest and followed them back over the crest and down the slope. A few more survivors came towards them, two of them dragging the unconscious sergeant, whose jaw was shattered by a musket ball.
‘There they are!’ shouted a voice. Williams could not tell who it was, but then he spotted the darker shapes moving up the slope towards them. The moon appeared again, and he could see figures, their white belts catching the light.
‘Just a bit further, boys,’ shouted Mercer. The French were swarming across a more open patch where the path widened for a short distance. ‘Halt. Present!’ The line of three dozen or so greenjackets stopped and brought their rifles up to their shoulders. Williams was on the left, with Dobson next to him and Gomez as the sergeant’s rear rank man. Their muskets were much longer than the stubby rifles.
Suddenly, two men further to their right fired, great gouts of flame stabbing into the night, and then shots erupted all down the two ranks of greenjackets. Williams had forgotten the 95th’s practice of letting the men fire in their own time rather than to order.
‘Fire!’ he yelled, but Dobson must already have reacted for his musket flamed beside Williams as he shouted the word. Gomez fired a fraction of a second later and then the officer pulled the trigger of his own firelock and felt the charge go off and the musket slam back against his shoulder.
Then there was silence – a quiet that seemed unnatural after the rippling volley – and all that he could hear was the men unbuttoning cartridge boxes, the slight snap as they bit off the ball, and then the scraping of ramrods.
‘Well done, lads,’ called Mercer. ‘Pour it into them.’
French drums began to beat, the drummers hammering out the unrelenting rhythm of the charge, urging the men on. The moon had gone behind the clouds again, and it was hard to see the enemy clearly, but Williams did not think they were coming closer.
The French fired, some fifty or so muskets shattering the darkness with flame and noise, and Williams could hear balls snapping through the air a foot or so above his head. More enemy grenadiers fired, and he could tell that the small group of riflemen was heavily outnumbered. He remembered Simmons telling him that the main supports were half an hour away and tried to work out how many minutes had passed since the alarm had been given. It was so hard to tell once the firing started, but he doubted that much time had gone by. If the French made a determined charge, he was not sure that the small picket could hold them.
His musket loaded, Williams fired down the slope.
‘Get moving, you damned fools, get moving!’ Dalmas shouted, and then pushed himself up and ran forward. The attack was stalling and someone needed to get the men moving again. Some would die as they closed, but that was inevitable, and more might well die to little purpose if they simply stopped and fired.
‘You’re not going!’ called General Ferey, who grabbed him by the arm. Dalmas had not seen him and his staff standing at the head of one of the reserve companies. ‘It is not your business.’
They all looked up the far side of the valley and could see the flashes of muskets. The general made a decision.
He tapped an officer on the shoulder. ‘LeRoque,’ he said, ‘take your company up there and try to work around their flanks. Go!’
The officer doubled forward, the rattle of the company’s equipment and the pounding of their feet lost in the roar of the river below. The men were voltigeurs, the skirmishers of a battalion, and supposed to be chosen from cunning, agile men, and perhaps they would be able to outflank the British, but Dalmas wished the general had ordered them straight up the road. That would be a risk, as there was a chance that they would stop and start firing like the men already there, but if well led they might just as easily get the whole line going forward again.
There was more firing from up the slope, and Dalmas thought that their soldiers were edging slowly towards the English, but wished that he was up there and able to do something. Then he wished that they were fighting anywhere other than near a damned bridge again, but he was not a superstitious man, and quickly dismissed the thought.
‘Get forward,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘get forward.’
9
Williams knelt behind a broad rock, and now that the moon was out again and he could see better, he tried to take careful aim. Dobson was sitting with his back to the stone, loading his musket, and Gomez crouched down beside him ready to fire. Without orders the British had shaken out of formation and sought cover on the craggy, boulder-strewn slope. The French were doing the same, and although the two sides were little more than ten or fifteen yards apart, he guessed that so far they had done each other little harm.
He aimed at the silhouetted head of a French officer who was making flamboyant gestures, trying to urge his men on. The drums were still beating, but the enemy had not charged. A few Frenchmen crawled forward to find whatever cover they could in the more open patch, but so far their officers had failed to get their men to make a rush.
Confident of his aim, Williams closed his eyes for a moment before he pulled the trigger, but that only partly shielded him from the dazzling flame of his own shot. He blinked a few times, but when he could see properly again, the French officer was still there, and it looked as if the man was beating one of his own soldiers with the flat of his sword. Williams slid back behind the rock and began to reload. He saw Mercer and Simmons scurrying along behind the skirmish line, and when he had finished charging his musket, he scampered over to join them.
‘Well done, lads,’ Mercer kept calling out, ‘we’re holding them!’ The moonlight glinted off his glasses and he gave a broad smile as Williams came up. ‘Not as hot work as Talavera, I suspect,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But our brave fellows fight like Britons.’
A bullet smashed through the right lens of his glasses, punched through the eye behind and drove deep into the lieutenant’s brain. Mercer’s head snapped back, and then his whole body slumped down. Simmons looked stunned, staring at the friend who had been so lively a moment ago and an instant later was dead.
‘The devils!’ shouted out a young private who was crouched in a low hollow next to them and had just finished reloading. ‘They have shot Mr Mercer!’ The boy sp
rang to his feet and waved his rifle high in the air. ‘You rogues,’ he screamed at the French, and it struck Williams that men said such strange things in battle.
‘Come on, boys, avenge the death of Mr Mercer!’ The private ran forward into the clearing, and Williams wondered for a moment whether the whole skirmish line would follow him.
‘Stop, you daft sod!’ shouted a voice, and no one else moved.
The young soldier ran forward, going in a straight line, and balls flicked up the grass or pinged off rocks as he passed, but nothing touched him. He ran down the slope, vaulted over a voltigeur who lay on the ground reloading and just stared up open mouthed at the mad Englishman.
Williams could see the French officer he had fired at gesturing to his men to shoot the lone greenjacket down, and then the rifleman was just a few yards away and the lad swung his rifle up to his shoulder. The flame seemed almost to touch the officer, whose head shattered into a spray of blood and bone that in the darkness looked like a brief wild smear.
Both sides seemed stunned, but only for an instant, and then a dozen French muskets flamed and the young private’s body jerked and shuddered as the balls struck home at so short a range.
‘Silly bugger,’ said a voice as the man dropped.
‘Brave bugger,’ said another rifleman.
‘Dead bugger,’ said a third.
Williams patted Simmons on the shoulder. ‘Your company, Mr Simmons.’
The young second lieutenant blinked, gulped and absent-mindedly wiped some of Mercer’s blood off his own cheek just as if it were rainwater. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Would you be good enough to watch the left flank for me?’
‘Keep firing, boys,’ shouted Simmons, his voice high-pitched but steady, and it was better that they heard someone they knew.
All in Scarlet Uniform (Napoleonic War 4) Page 9