‘This way!’ Pringle shouted back towards the major at the other end of the field.
Williams and Dobson went through. There was a walled orchard off to the left, and a small sheep pen on the right, but otherwise the ground was open and strewn with boulders as it dipped and then rose to another low ridge where there was a small barn and another drystone wall.
Behind them a volley was fired through the open gate.
‘Come on, Rudden!’ Williams called, and began jogging towards the barn. Dobson and several dozen men from the 43rd followed him. Officers and NCOs were shouting as they tried to reform their men, but no one was in a mood to stop. Little clusters of men grouped together as they hurried across the open field.
‘French!’ yelled Pringle in warning.
Williams heard the sound of hoofs and looked back. Dragoons in brass helmets and green coats with pink fronts and collars were walking their horses around the corner of the high-walled field. Then he saw Dalmas, polished cuirass glinting in the sunlight. The cuirassier shouted and his men spurred their mounts into a run, long swords stretched out, wrist turned so that the point was aimed down.
‘Loaded, Dob?’
The veteran shook his head.
‘Keep going!’ He sprinted ahead to the wall beside the barn. ‘Come on!’ he yelled back. Williams leapt, banged his knee painfully on the top of the wall, but pressed down with his hand and was over.
‘Form here! Form on me!’ Dobson was beside him, as was Rudden, who was calling out to the men by name. ‘Reload!’ Williams shouted.
Williams watched as a dozen French dragoons rode in among the mob of redcoats. He saw one chop down and slice into a light infantryman’s pack, knocking the man off his feet, but leaving him unscathed. Others were more skilled. One man with the red stripe of a sergeant on his sleeve jabbed down and punched through a man’s forehead with the point of his long sword, letting the momentum of his horse free the blade as he rode on. Dalmas took another man in the neck, before slicing down through an officer’s shoulder, almost severing his arm.
A dragoon was down, thrown from his horse after a redcoat smashed the butt of his musket into its mouth, and the cavalryman screamed as he lay on his back and was stabbed by two bayonets. More dragoons appeared, urging their mounts on as soon as they saw the enemy.
‘Present!’ Williams called out as loud as he could, hoping that the threat of a volley might deter the French. There were thirty men lining the wall, and more pressed through the opening or clambered back to join him.
‘Aim high, lads!’ The field was full of redcoats. Firing high risked wasting the balls, but stood a chance of missing the infantrymen and emptying some saddles.
Dalmas was heading towards a cluster of men retiring around the battalion’s Colours, the heavy standards still in their leather cases, and Williams wondered whether that was why he had not noticed them until now.
Men were falling to the dragoons’ swords, but fortunately there were too few Frenchmen to turn the retreat into a massacre and many of the men simply barged through. The major galloped through the gap made by Pringle and his men, and behind him came a mass of redcoats, bayonets fixed. A dragoon’s horse reared as it was stabbed in the flank, and the rider was pulled down into the grass to be clubbed and stabbed. Other cavalrymen were wheeling away.
‘Aim high,’ Williams shouted. ‘Fire!’
One dragoon was hit in the teeth, and one of them took a ball in the left arm and another in the belly so that he slumped in the saddle, barely keeping his seat. The charge of the major’s men and the volley took the heart from the cavalrymen. Momentum was their best weapon, and there was little to be said for standing and fighting in the middle of so many enemy infantrymen. Dalmas went back with them.
‘Well done,’ the major said to Pringle as he rode into the new field, and then he said the same to Williams before getting to the matter in hand. ‘Form up, lads, form up. We can hold them here!’
Williams wondered for how long, and then he heard the drums beating again and the sound of thousands of men chanting together.
‘Vive l’empereur!’
Voltigeurs appeared in the gap they had made in the other enclosure and a moment later a musket ball pecked the top of the wall they lined.
Lieutenant Williams reached into his pocket for a cartridge and realised that it was his last one. Unlike a soldier, an officer did not carry a pouch on his belt, and he usually took only a couple of dozen paper cartridges in his pockets. Grimly, he bit off the bullet and began to reload.
29
Major Alastair MacAndrews saw the powder wagon lurch as it tried to round the bend in the track. As it had come down the steep road it had picked up speed, the weight of the heavy barrels making the horses skid and sparks fly from the brake as the driver frantically pulled it against the wheel. It was a sharp turn, the road still dropping as it approached the bridge itself. The major’s heart sank as the front left-hand wheel went off the road and into a ditch, slamming hard against the wall. The team of horses whinnied in panic and the lead pair reared up as they came to such an abrupt halt. A half-empty barrel came loose and fell, rolling down the short slope to drop down the steep bank into the flooded river. Good barrels were hard to find up on the frontier, and although there was little powder in it, its loss was still unfortunate.
At the moment the Scotsman did not have time to worry about that. The wagon and its team were jammed up at the very entrance to the bridge. In the circumstances there was only one thing to do. Major MacAndrews began to shout.
‘Sergeant Hargreaves! Get that cart shifted.’ Hargreaves was one of his men, a stocky Cumbrian from the 34th Foot.
‘Right, lads! You heard the major, get moving!’ The sergeant had a dozen men with him, all of them NCOs and so used to commanding, but they were all good practical men and knew the seriousness of the situation. They ran to the trapped cart and began to push as the driver flogged his team.
‘Hold up there!’ MacAndrews had galloped around the corner of the road. Thankfully the drivers were keeping to the distances he had ordered and there was time for the next cart to rein in in spite of the slope. ‘Wait. There’s a cart blocking the bridge. Stay here until I give the order.’
The cavalry were already across, and that was a blessing. The halted cart and the one behind it were the last of MacAndrews’ convoy, but behind them were two guns of the Chestnut Troop and half of the artillery’s additional limbers and wagons.
A gun fired, the noise clear over the smattering shots and occasional volleys of muskets and rifles. The sounds were coming closer, and the cannon must be French because it was too light a boom to be from the fortress, and all the British guns were either across the river or waiting on the road winding up the side of the valley above him. MacAndrews had not heard any French guns firing for a good ten minutes. Some of that was due to the strange way sound carried amid these hills, and some to the noise of animals and screeching wheels and the shouts needed to chivvy men over the river. He suspected that the French were struggling to get their cannon into action and only the lightest horse artillery pieces were managing to deploy. That was good for the men trying to hold the enemy back. It also suggested that the French were advancing so quickly that their gunners could not keep up. The Light Division was being tumbled back towards the river and that meant the bridge had to be kept open.
The rest of his men were picketing the sandy hilltop above them. It commanded both the road to the bridge and another running south along the river. MacAndrews knew that his small force could not hold it for long, but if the French got up there before the whole division was across the river then there would be the devil to pay. He hoped that someone with more troops would see the same danger, but until they did he would keep as many men up there as he could spare.
MacAndrews wrenched his horse round and kicked it into a canter back around the corner. Hargreaves and his men were straining as some pushed at the cart and others tried to lift the wheel and axle out of the lit
tle ditch. There was no point yelling encouragement. MacAndrews flicked his boots free of the stirrups and jumped down to lend a hand. His hat dropped on to the ground and his white hair waved in its usual wild manner.
‘Come on, lads,’ he said, and began to heave. Corporal Raynor was beside him, and the clerk looked back over his shoulder in wonder to see his commander staining his scarlet coat with grease and pushing just like the rest of them. MacAndrews grinned at him.
There was the sound of running feet. Hundreds of Portuguese soldiers in the brown of the caçadores were scrambling down the slope towards the bridge, avoiding the clogged road. The men had black collars and light blue cuffs and that made them the 1st Regiment.
‘Stop! Lend a hand here!’ MacAndrews shouted, glad to see help arriving. The small, dark-skinned soldiers in their drab uniforms ignored him.
‘Sorry, sir, orders!’ shouted a British officer whose brown tunic was heavily laced in black. ‘We have to get across the river.’
The man did not stop, but kept running, the same strained expression on his face as on those of the rest of the men. They barged past the redcoats clustered around the wagon, and past the team of horses, sprinting across the long bridge.
‘Stop, you damned fool,’ MacAndrews yelled.
‘Stop!’ Hargreaves had one of those booming sergeant’s voices no officer could ever match, and yet the call made no difference. Another of the NCOs grabbed one of the brown-coated soldiers. The man stared at him, complaining in rapid Portuguese.
Another company of caçadores followed the first, running with the same intensity, pushing past anyone in their way. The battalion had broken up into groups as they retired, and their orders were to retreat to the far bank and so that is what they did, officers and young soldiers alike.
Hargreaves spat his disgust and other redcoats expressed their opinion in words. The driver went into a new frenzy of whipping his horse, and perhaps it was this or the flood of soldiers pushing their way past and running over the bridge that made the animals panic and suddenly pull with a new strength, making the sunken wheel climb a little.
‘Heave, lads, heave!’ MacAndrews called out.
The redcoats flung themselves back against the vehicle and pushed. Raynor was heaving on the right-side rear wheel itself, his left arm looped through the spokes so that he could bring his weight to bear.
‘Look out!’ the major shouted in warning, but then the wagon came back on to the road and shot forward. Corporal Raynor screamed as his arm was shattered by the wheel as it spun into sudden motion. MacAndrews flung himself forward, grabbing the corporal and plunging them both down on to the road, knocking over several caçadores as they fell. The corporal was sobbing with pain and there were pieces of bone sticking out through the sleeve of his red coat, now stained darker with blood.
‘Get him off the road.’ MacAndrews felt his own eyes ready to moisten at the waste of a good man, who had done his best in the past months after being forced into the army by desperation. He wondered what future there was for a one-armed clerk, but thankfully there was too much to do here and now and so his mind took refuge in activity. ‘Look after him,’ he said to one of the drummers. Not bothering with his horse, the Scotsman ran back up the road and beckoned the next wagon on. The bridge was still filled with Portuguese soldiers, but the men were sensible enough to move to the sides or wait when the big vehicles crossed. This was not panic, thought the major, although it could readily degenerate into it.
A mounted officer in brown uniform led the last of the regiment down the slope and on to the bridge. The man was obviously angry at losing control of his battalion and concerned at the light this cast on his men.
‘My fault,’ he called to MacAndrews in strongly accented English. ‘I just assumed they would rally and wait before they crossed. We were told to retreat quickly by the general and so that is what we did, but I should have kept them in better order.’
‘Easily happens.’
‘Should not in my regiment,’ the Portuguese colonel said bitterly, and then touched his shako with his crop before pushing on. The last company of the regiment to go over the bridge marched in order. MacAndrews could understand the display, but it was frustrating when there was still a gun team and a line of limbers and wagons waiting to go over.
More and more soldiers were spilling over the ridge above them, and the sound of firing was very close now. MacAndrews had not heard another cannon firing for some minutes and guessed that once again the French columns were outrunning their artillery teams. He stood aside as the last of the Chestnut Troop’s six-pounders passed in a jingle of harness and rumbling of wheels. As the whirling spokes of the grey-painted limber and gun went by he thought again of the injured corporal. After more than thirty years as a soldier MacAndrews was used to seeing his men killed or maimed. Even after all that time it had not become easy.
He turned back to look up the slope and saw the groups of men in green, red and brown jackets coming down towards the river and the safety of the far bank. The battalions were all jumbled up, but the British and Portuguese soldiers alike were not flooding to the rear and moved slowly and with deliberation. The Scotsman walked by the side of the road back down towards the bridge as a mobile forge followed the gun team downhill. It was hard not to smile as the driver of the lead pair passed, a look of intense concentration on his face and his tongue sticking out from pursed lips as he carefully negotiated the bend.
A party of redcoats filed down on to the road beside him and he recognised his own men.
‘Colonel Elder’s compliments, sir,’ Sergeant Coombs reported after delivering the most formal of salutes. ‘He thanks you for holding the position, but has now taken over.’ Coombs was a slim, very active man of less than medium height, and his pale grey eyes shone with an intelligence that MacAndrews had seen demonstrated more than once in the last few months. The Scotsman had deliberately chosen a party where everyone else was junior to the twenty-four-year-old with his slow Devon accent and quick wit. ‘The colonel has companies from the Ninety-fifth and Forty-third with him as well as his own fellows,’ Coombs added, obviously implying that the presence of the British soldiers was what really mattered.
‘Very good, Sergeant. Come with me.’
MacAndrews took them down to the open area just before the bridge proper began and turned sharply to the right. Hargreaves and his men were waiting there, and one held the reins of his horse in one hand and his cocked hat in the other.
‘Got trampled a bit, I’m afraid, sir,’ the redcoat said, clearly amused.
‘I’ve worn worse,’ he replied cheerfully, and put the thing firmly on his head. ‘Thank you, Foster.’
There were shots from the top of the valley above them. At the moment it was still the sporadic fire of skirmishers. Parties of retiring soldiers were on the road, having been let in between the last few vehicles of the artillery, and MacAndrews silently cursed the courtesy of the drivers for letting them in or the obstinacy of infantry officers for forcing their way.
‘The wheel wagon and three more tumbrels still to come, sir,’ a Royal Horse Artillery lieutenant called out, using the old name for the ammunition cars. ‘But the rearmost two are a long way back in all this mess.’ The man’s face was lined, and MacAndrews guessed that he was thirty at least. Promotion in the engineers and artillery was purely by seniority, untainted by purchase or patronage. The system was fair, but painfully slow, and on balance the Scotsman did not envy them. He raised a hand in thanks.
‘Keep moving!’ he called to a company of greenjackets heading over the bridge.
Behind them came the general and his staff. Hanley was there, but there was no sign of Pringle and no opportunity to ask.
‘Ah, MacAndrews.’ Brigadier General Craufurd looked calm, save that his eyes darted quickly from side to side. ‘I have ordered one wing of the Forty-third over the river. The train is almost across, I observe.’
‘Four left, sir.’
‘G
ood. Well done, Major. Get the rest over as fast as you can.’ There was the sound of a volley from not far away, and just for an instant the general’s composure cracked and he looked nervously behind him. MacAndrews, a prisoner once himself, could guess something of the waking nightmare faced by a man who had once surrendered a brigade and now stood again on the brink of disaster. ‘We must get everyone across quickly. Five minutes and I shall recall the rearguard.’
MacAndrews doubted that that was enough time, but knew there was little point in arguing.
‘Keep moving,’ the general called out as several hundred caçadores doubled along behind the cart carrying the gunners’ spare wheels. These men had yellow cuffs on their dark brown jackets and so came from Colonel Elder’s 3rd Regiment. Behind them were riflemen in green and then the first of the ammunition cars. ‘Keep going! Keep going!’ MacAndrews’ voice was hoarse from urging the column on.
Several hundred men of the 43rd came down the road, and all the time smaller groups from the different regiments retreated down the slopes and pressed into the crowd. A strong body of men in the buff facings of the 52nd followed behind.
‘I must arrange the defence of the eastern bank,’ Craufurd said abruptly, no doubt frustrated at his inability to do more than urge men on where he stood at the moment. ‘I have recalled the rearguard.’ With that the general and his staff forced their horses into the press and made their way over the bridge. Hanley gave an apologetic shrug as he followed.
The last two ammunition cars followed the 52nd. By the time the first one managed the tight bend before the bridge and then the sharp right turn of the crossing itself, MacAndrews could see the mixture of different uniforms coming down from the hilltop overlooking the road.
‘Right, lads,’ MacAndrews said to his own men. ‘We’ll be going across in a moment.’ The second car reached the bridge, its wheels flinging up a lot of muddy water as it turned, and then the noise changed as the horseshoes struck the stone of the bridge. The major felt relief washing over him.
All in Scarlet Uniform (Napoleonic War 4) Page 31