Beat the Drums Slowly (36 page)

‘I see,’ replied Dalmas. It was too late to do anything about it. Jean-Baptiste Dalmas waged war ruthlessly, but always intelligently. It worried him that in Spain the French armies were resorting to brutality so automatically. Not especially concerned by their morality, he strongly doubted the utility of such tactics. ‘The usual form?’

‘Yes. You know – firing parties of three, each musket loaded with two balls. Quick and simple. I got the Legère to do it.’ The captain implied that the task was somewhat beneath his men and best left to the infantry. A company of voltigeurs – the trained skirmishers of a battalion – had come with the chasseurs, each light infantryman riding uncomfortably behind a horseman.

The mixed force ought to have been at the bridge before dark, instead of arriving halfway through the night, had this primped-up fool not stopped to demand food from the peasants and then start shooting them. If he had had the company of infantry, Dalmas would not have made the crude attempt to rush the bridge and lost fourteen lancers.

Sourly, he wondered who was responsible for picking Capitaine Lancel of the chasseurs to aid him. Some colonel getting rid of their least reliable man, probably, or perhaps himself so stupid that he mistook bluster for ability. Dalmas could smell the sour stink of the sores on the horses’ backs. That spoke of bad practice in the squadron, of conscripts too lazy to care for their horses before themselves. The animals were slow, and with the added weight of the voltigeurs, they might not have arrived in time anyway. Dalmas decided to keep the remaining Poles back, and take them across the river once the bridge had fallen. The marshal had been too cautious to commit a cavalry brigade to his support until it was taken. So Dalmas needed the bridge quickly, and then the fastest of the Poles would carry his dispatch and start the cavalry brigade moving. If their horses were in as poor a state as these, then that move would probably be slow. The Emperor would have understood how much time mattered and hurried. Soult was too cautious, but it could still work.

He would attack at dawn. The infantry commander seemed a sensible enough man, and it would be better for him to see the ground. Dalmas told him to select a dozen men and send them to fire at the British sentries. That ought to disturb their sleep. His own men could rest and be ready for the morning.

The first shots came half an hour later, the flashes vivid in the dark. Williams had only just been forced to take some rest and was dragged out of his sleep by the uproar. Voices ordered everyone to stand to arms. He ran down the road past the gun and Jowers’ men as they formed up. Mulligan’s group had fired a couple of shots before the corporal screamed at them to wait until they had a proper target. There was no sign of an attack.

Williams peered into the darkness and blinked when another Frenchman fired. The shot flew just a few feet over his head and he ducked back. The riflemen on the hill started shooting.

‘Cease fire!’ he called. ‘Don’t waste powder!’

‘Waste powder be buggered,’ said the Yorkshireman under his breath. He could see the Frenchman quite clearly, a darker shape crawling in the snow. His rifle erupted in flame and smoke. There was a bitter cry of pain from the far bank, followed by agitated shouts. ‘Stop firing, lads,’ he said to the others.

W
illiams tried to keep his walk slow. Perhaps he should have started out running. No one would have blamed him, but it would not look right if he accelerated now. Another musket ball struck the ground a few feet from him. The range was not long, even for a smooth-bore firelock, and the stupidity of what he was doing only made him more determined to saunter as gently as he could up the slope. The nearest French skirmishers were eighty yards away on the mound. The ones on the far side of the road with less cover were farther, perhaps a hundred yards. A good man stood a decent chance of hitting his mark at that range, and even a conscript might get lucky. He felt the wind of a ball whizzing past his cheek. They were getting far too close, but still he walked. The sound of the rifles was sharper as his men on the hill tried to pick off the French. Muskets gave a duller boom, but some of those shots were from the men with the riflemen and not all were French. At least that would throw the enemy off their aim.

‘Try not to get yourself killed, sir,’ said Groombridge. The quartermaster sergeant had walked out across the slope to meet him, matching the officer’s coolness and copying his stupidity. It was close to dawn and the clouds to the east were a glory of reds and pinks.

‘I think they will come soon,’ said Williams. ‘My guess would be infantry first to clear the way for the horsemen.’

‘No sense in staying hidden, then.’

‘No, Mr Groombridge. As soon as they get to our side of the bridge fire and then just keep on firing as fast as you can.’ The quartermaster sergeant gave a brief nod. ‘Your lads all ready?’

‘Yes, Mr Williams. All present.’ He emphasised the last words. No one from any of the groups had slipped away in the night. Williams had feared that some would have run, unwilling to fight under a leader they did not know. ‘They’re up for a good mill,’ said Groombridge. ‘Tired too, but for many this is the first real chance to get at the Crapauds.’

A musket ball flicked between them as they spoke. They heard a drum beating on the far side of the river and they saw French infantry jogging out to form on the flat beside the road. Williams counted about eighty, with blue jackets and trousers and short black gaiters. That made them light infantry. They had green epaulettes and tall yellow plumes with a green top, and that made them an elite company. Each soldier had rolled his greatcoat and wore it across one shoulder. They had no packs, and had probably piled them so that they could fight unencumbered. He guessed it was one company with thirty or so men detached as a skirmish line on the rocky mound and along the bank.

One of the French skirmishers fired and Williams’ forage cap was flicked from his head. He leaned to pick it up, and bowed ironically. A flurry of shots did not come so near, and then a rifle shot was rewarded when one of the Frenchmen sprang up on his knees, clutching at his shoulder.

‘In the Royal Artillery, it is the custom to march when going away from a gun, but always to run towards it, hurrying to get at the enemy.’ Groombridge emphasised the words, and Williams caught the amusement in his voice.

‘An excellent tradition. May I wish you luck, Mr Groombridge.’ Williams held out his hand. After a firm but brief shake, the two men turned and jogged back to their positions. As he went, Williams saw cavalry forming behind the infantry. These were chasseurs in green, so more new arrivals. He could not see the Poles or the cuirassiers, but spotted Dalmas and the engineer Maizet behind the infantry.

Mulligan grinned happily as the officer passed. His men lay or crouched in the depression, still hidden from the French, although the previous day’s fight had warned the enemy of their presence.

Across the river a whistle blew. The dozen Frenchmen among the rocks all fired at once, balls flattening against the boulders crowning the higher hill and Williams’ little group of sharpshooters. They ducked instinctively, and half of the eighteen voltigeurs on the other side of the road dashed towards the bridge. The Yorkshireman was up again, lying between two rocks, and he fired, followed by the other two riflemen. A voltigeur corporal leading the group was thrown back like a rag doll and fell over the parapet. The men in green passed the rifles back for the redcoats with them to reload and took their muskets instead. Three more shots, and another Frenchman was down, hissing in pain because his kneecap was shattered.

The drums began the rhythm of the charge and the French light infantry started to advance. The column was narrow, just four men wide to fit across the confined bridge.

‘Old trowsers!’ said Williams, hearing the sound, and some of the men who had been at Vimeiro in the summer grinned.

Three dead horses were piled where they had left them the previous night, forming a low barricade and blocking the bridge, at least to other horses. The leading voltigeurs were already over this barrier and dragging at the dead animals, pulling them to either side so that the column and then the cavalry could pass. On the hill, the three men from the 95th were given back their loaded rifles and slid them forward to aim. The Yorkshireman was happier with the feel of his familiar weapon and lined up the fore and rear sights to point at a Frenchman’s back as he leaned over a dead horse. He squeezed the trigger and the butt slammed back against his shoulder. Beside him the other two men fired and the target was lost in the smoke. He saw the flick of stone chipped from the boulder and then the musket ball fired by one of the Frenchmen on the rocky mound ricocheted up. The now jagged ball whipped a furrow through his face, smashing the bridge of his nose and destroying both eyeballs to send him for ever into darkness. He slid down, turning on to his back, and his hands tried to wipe away the blood that must be covering his eyes, but he could not. One of the others swore, and then pulled the man to lie in safety before taking his rifle and beginning to load.

One Frenchman lay slumped on top of a dead horse. Another was crouched down, a trail of blood dripping from his mouth, but other men were kicking the stakes down.

The front of the column was at the bridge. A lieutenant led them, because the company’s captain was sick of fever and lying in some hospital hundreds of miles away. He was a small man, his face scarred by sabre and a shot that had smashed through several of his teeth. He had seen the Prussians run at Jena, and had fought the Russians in far worse cold than this at Eylau. A few ragtag English were not about to give his men much trouble. The skirmishers in front were kneeling now. Those on the left fired up the road at a target he could not see, while the men ahead of him levelled their weapons to cover the ground where the cuirassier captain had told them the enemy were hidden.

‘
Vive l’empereur!
’ he bellowed out with his men as the drummer paused between rolls. Their boots were on the stonework of the bridge, trampling the grubby snow stained so heavily with the blood from the previous day’s fight. A line of redcoats appeared just where Dalmas had said. The muskets of his skirmishers banged almost immediately, and one of the British was flung back, a neat hole in his forehead.

‘Present!’ Mulligan’s voice was loud. The French lieutenant saw the men bring muskets up to their shoulders, making them look as if they had turned a little to the right. The line was two deep, the second rank even shorter than the first where the men stood lower down the slope, their muskets pointing through the gaps between the men in front.

‘Present!’ Jowers’ men raised their firelocks. They could see the front of the column now, could hear the French shouts and the beat of the drum. Beside them the gunners waited. Parker involuntarily whipped his hand back when a ball from one of the voltigeurs pinged off the barrel of the twelve-pounder.

From the far side of the river, Dalmas spotted Groombridge and his men yanking the blankets off the gun and rolling it forward. He had wondered whether the British had another cannon. It did not matter.

‘Get ready,’ he said to the chasseur captain. ‘Go as soon as they have cleared room for you to pass.’ The man twisted his moustache and grinned like the fool he was, but at least he could be relied upon to be a brave fool. He drew his sabre, and without waiting for his order his chasseurs did the same. Dalmas looked back to see his cuirassiers waiting on the road. That was his reserve, the force with which he intended to shatter any resistance that survived.

‘Fire!’ called Corporal Mulligan. The volley was better this time, the shots coming almost as one until he pulled the trigger on his own firelock a moment later, having waited for his aim not to be thrown off by the shout.

The French lieutenant collapsed, choking on his own blood from the ball in his throat. The drummer was already dead, his tunic dark as liquid pulsed from his heart. One of the skirmishers lay moaning and two men from the column had dropped.

‘Fire!’ Cooke gave the order before Williams had opened his mouth and the twelve-pounder leapt back on the twin trails, flame and smoke vomiting from its muzzle. His eyes had barely recovered from the shock when the other cannon fired and this discharge seemed even louder, and that did not make sense. Groombridge had loaded a twelve-pound ball as well as a bag of grape and had increased the charge of powder to give it force. It was a bad habit, and one that in time ruined the barrel, but he was not inclined to worry too much about the future.

One-and-a-half-inch balls ripped through the smoke. One of the skirmishers fell, the left side of his skull ripped off. Another man’s musket was shattered and the jagged end of one half followed the grapeshot to drive deep into his belly. Men died at the front of the column, and the range was so short that the balls punched through flesh and bone and passed through to hit the man behind. The bar from one of the rounds of grape buried itself in the dead drummer’s forehead.

With the men crowded as they were on the bridge, the cannonball from Groombridge’s gun created even worse carnage. The slope meant that it simply snatched the plume from the man in the front rank, but the ball was dipping and the head of the man behind disintegrated in a red spray of bone, flesh and brains. The third man’s chest exploded in ruin before the twelve-pound shot struck the man behind him at the waist and cut him in half. In the fourth rank the man was lucky. He was slightly to the side and the ball just missed, tearing off much of the cloth of his trouser leg and leaving the thigh swelling into a bruise, but the skin unbroken. All three men behind him lost legs as the shot smashed through bones, and then it bounced and rose to slice another four voltigeurs in two before it was past the column and humming into the chasseurs, taking the head of one of the horses.