Rifles: Six Years With Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters (17 page)

It was evident that the best opportunity for desertion arose when the armies were close to each other. This had been the case when Cummings went and so it was on 28 October 1811 when William MacFarlane of Captain Cameron’s Highland Company deserted. Some days passed without him being brought back a prisoner, which set others thinking.

On 17 November, Almond decided to take his chance. He slipped away from the cantonments at Atalaya and struck out through the oak forest towards the French lines. A little more than a fortnight later, another 1st Battalion man, Malcolm McInnes, also of the Highland Company, followed MacFarlane and Almond. He’d been a soldier almost as long as Almond and had been in jail in England for desertion a few years back. The little Scot had been a popular messmate and a good fighter, but he too had had enough. Five days after McInnes, Miles Hodgson sneaked away too. The 1st Battalion entered returns for two deserters in November and three in December 1811. A few others from the 95th’s other contingents, the 52nd and the 43rd, went too.

This desertion from what had emerged as the crack regiments of the Peninsular Army was deeply unsettling to both Wellington and Craufurd. In virtually any other army of the epoch, a few low brutes stealing away would have been regarded as entirely unexceptional. But it vexed the Brtish generals who were not at all used to it, and it brought open conflict between Wellington and Craufurd.

Craufurd had been concerned for some time about the clothing, rations and accommodation of his division. In mid-December, he wrote to the Commander of Forces setting out his views, and implied his division would have to be withdrawn from the frontier unless these problems were addressed as a matter of urgency.

Wellington, who had spent years perfecting the supply system of his Army, took these complaints as a personal affront. He had done every
thing possible to chivvy the Government for ready money; he had established depots, and even sent agents to North Africa to buy mules with which to supply troops in the mountains. Furthermore, many at Headquarters saw the complaints as the result of Black Bob’s depressed and volatile mental state. One of his own Light Division staff even described Craufurd’s letter to Wellington as ‘one of his mad freaks’.

It was a measure of the tension between the men that Wellington used one of Craufurd’s few friends, the Adjutant General at Headquarters, to craft a reply on 19 December, expressing scepticism that there was any excuse for the desertions:

Wellington informed Craufurd that he would ride over the following morning and inspect the division in person.

Before it was light on 20 December, Wellington set off on horseback from the poor little Portuguese village of Frenada, where he had made his HQ. He rode down across the southern part of the Fuentes d’Onoro battlefield and then many miles on to a plain near Fuente Guinaldo, on the Spanish side of the frontier, where he had told Craufurd to expect him at 11 a.m. Wellington was quite sure that Craufurd was exaggerating the matter and had threatened to send the Light Division to the rear if he discovered any signs of real want among them.

Finding the division assembled in open ground and awaiting his review, Wellington began to ride down the ranks of its regiments, stopping occasionally to question a man or his officer. At this moment, Craufurd appeared, somewhat flustered and also on horseback. Wellington, with a smile on his face, called out to him, ‘Craufurd, you are late.’ Furious, Craufurd replied, ‘No, my Lord; you are before your time. My watch is to be depended on.’ Wellington affected ignorance of his bad humour and told him cheerfully, ‘I never saw the Light Division look better or more ready for service. March back to your quarters; I shall soon require you in the field.’

Wellington rode back to Frenada, evidently having satisfied himself that Craufurd was guilty of his usual stuff and nonsense. As he went,
though, a germ of uncertainty arose in his mind. If the system of supply had not failed the Light Division, then why were men deserting? It was, he readily conceded, a most unusual state of affairs. He felt sure that those who had gone must be habitual recidivists.

The following day, the Adjutant General addressed a further letter to Craufurd on Wellington’s behalf. ‘The commanding officers of these battalions’, he wrote, were to report, ‘whether any of these men who deserted had committed any crime, or were in confinement previous to their desertion, and whether they were men of good or bad character.’

The reports on Almond and McInnes would certainly have revealed previous misdemeanours – the usual soldier’s stuff of boozing and lost stripes in the first case and a prior desertion in the second. Evidently this was enough to convince Wellington that the matter was closed, and that Craufurd was guilty yet again of a ‘mad freak’.

This simply sent Black Bob him into a deeper despondency, for he felt he had forfeited the regard of his great Army patron. Craufurd wrote home, ‘I cannot say that Lord Wellington and I are quite so cordial as we used to be. He was nettled at a report which I made of the wants of the Division.’

When Wellington told Craufurd that he would soon need the Light Division, it had been because he was meditating a siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. His base in Portugal would not feel truly secure until all of the key border fortresses were in Allied hands. Those on his side of the frontier – Almeida and Elvas – were in the possession of their Portuguese masters, but on the Spanish side Rodrigo and Badajoz, further south, were still in the grasp of the French. The British general knew that the coming campaign would require him to take both of these places: this was a necessary preliminary to pushing a British Army deep into Spain so that, eventually, the French invaders might be evicted.

Early in January 1812, Wellington’s orders for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo were sent out to the different parts of his Army. The Light and other divisions abandoned their cantonments and marched through thick snow to cross the oak forests of the borderland and head for the fortress. The British plan was very well calculated, for it involved battering the fortress into submission, or storming it, before the French could unite their forces in western Spain and come to the garrison’s rescue. Siege operations could be the most difficult in war, for to storm some great wall bristling with cannon and muskets required troops of
the most ardent spirit. The British had already tried and failed to take Badajoz in 1811. This time, it was vital that everything went to plan.

Setting off on this new campaign in the middle of frigid winter, Craufurd wrote home to his wife. He was glad for the activity, for he wanted to give up the command of the Light Division, and felt the best time to do it would be after a successful operation. He told her, ‘I expect in a few months, very few, to be with you and to have done with this sort of life.’ In an attempt to reassure his wife, he told her, ‘You need not be alarmed, for [a siege] is the least dangerous of all operations, particularly for those of higher rank.’

Not long after dark, Lieutenant Colonel Colborne led his column forward. They had spent the afternoon of that 8 January hidden from view behind a hill called the Greater Teson. It was a miserable business having to hang around in this piercing wind, shuffling feet in the snow, trying to keep warm, but this band of killers could not go to work until after sunset. The Teson mount shielded them from Ciudad Rodrigo, which it also overlooked, making it the most obvious place from which to batter the walls. There was an obstacle, though, to digging trenches on this ground, and Colborne had been sent to deal with it. The French, having approached by this same angle when they took Rodrigo in 1810, did not intend to lose the city through the same weakness in its defences. They had created the Redoubt of San Francisco, a makeshift fort outside the city’s formal defences, near the summit of the ridge that could sweep the Teson with fire. Three pieces of artillery had been placed in the redoubt for this purpose. Colborne had been given the mission of storming San Francisco so that regular approaches might begin.

A night attack was often a risky business, so Colborne tried to prepare it as carefully as he could. Just before dusk, an officer of the 95th had been sent to lie on the crown of the Teson ridge and to remain there as a guide to the stormers, so they did not lose their way. He had also prearranged signals for the assault. Just under four hundred men had been assigned to the task – two companies each from the 43rd, 52nd and 95th. They had marched several hours before resting up, about noon, obscured by the hill from the gaze of the French garrison. It had been bitterly cold during the hours that they waited, the men crouching under their greatcoats, gnawing on a biscuit or smoking
pipes. Now that the attack was being launched, they had a further nine hundred yards or so to make their approach.

Corporal Robert Fairfoot had joined the party. His company was not one of those told off for the task, but somehow he had managed to get himself along. Like many of the others, he had grown bored in winter quarters and was anxious for a fight. Captain Crampton and his 8th Company of the 1st/95th were in the lead, his riflemen walking briskly behind him, the breath from their mouths billowing in the cold night air. Coming onto the flat top of the Teson, ahead and slightly to their right they could see Rodrigo silhouetted in the dark, the spire of its cathedral towering over the defences of the city itself. Directly ahead, the San Francisco – a glacis or earthen rampart had been thrown up around the stone-faced gun emplacements and firing points. The cries of the townsfolk, barking of dogs and thumping of feet filled their straining ears.

Closer now – not much more than fifty yards – and Colborne said to Crampton, ‘Double-quick!’ Word was passed and the men began jogging along. The footfalls became louder, as did the rattling of canteens, rifle slings and pouches. The shout of ‘
Qui vive
?
’ came soon enough from one of the French sentries, but in the seconds that it took between the call and some shots ringing out, four of Colborne’s companies had thrown themselves up against the glacis. They presented their weapons, and an awesome fire of almost three hundred British firelocks erupted, sweeping the redoubt’s roof just twenty or thirty yards away. Fairfoot and the others reloaded, firing repeatedly.

Most of the seventy or eighty men inside kept their heads down, knowing they would soon be taken off by the hail of bullets ripping the night air. On a prearranged signal – a shout of ‘England and Saint George!’ – two companies carrying ladders, one each from the 43rd and 52nd, rushed forward, placed them up against the redoubt’s walls and began climbing. One or two grenades were lobbed over the walls by the terrified defenders, but most fled to the guard house, where they surrendered a little later. A good few French stragglers were bayoneted. The storm had been a complete success.

Craufurd and some other officers were watching from elsewhere on the ridge. Lieutenant Colonel Barnard, standing a little distance away, was so thrilled that he started jumping up and down, cheering. The general, not quite seeing who it was, snapped, ‘What’s that drunken man doing?’ Moments later the first French prisoners were brought
back to the Light Division’s main position. They had been comprehensively robbed – even of their clothing – and a naked French colonel was presented to Craufurd. ‘Yer honour, I’ll lend him my greatcoat if ye’ll allow me,’ said Tom Crawley. Craufurd thanked him: ‘You are a very good rifleman, let him have it.’ Colborne, a relative newcomer to the 52nd, had made a brilliant debut as commanding officer. The 95th had been infused with some fresh blood too and they were keen to make their mark in the siege operations which would now begin in earnest.

Fairfoot returned to his company, as the digging of siege trenches began in earnest, right on top of the Teson ridge. This drew fire from the garrison’s heavy guns and each day now became a slugging match between the two sides’ gunners, the working parties of infantry toiling away at night to shore up or advance the trenches. The eventual aim would be to progress them down the forward slope of the Greater Teson and onto the Little Teson, a smaller feature between it and the walls. Here the Royal Artillery would be able to blast away at the town’s walls from little more than two hundred yards, hammering them down bit by bit with twenty-four-pound and eighteen-pound shot. Once breached, storming parties would be formed to rush through the openings and take Rodrigo.

All of this lay ahead of the riflemen, though, as they congregated about their tin pots brewing up some hot tea on the morning of 9 January. O’Hare’s old company, the 3rd, in which Fairfoot and Costello still served, had been placed under the command of Captain John Uniacke. Like O’Hare, Uniacke was an Irishman, but while O’Hare was famed for ugliness and ripe age, Uniacke enjoyed his men’s renown for his handsome looks and athletic prowess. He was no son of the Ascendancy gentry, though – on the contrary, his family circumstances were among the most desperate of any officer in the regiment. A Catholic from Cloyne in County Cork, Uniacke carried the hopes of his entire family on his broad shoulders. His mother had long been a widow, and her survival and that of John’s eight siblings depended on his remittances from the Peninsula. He had sailed with the others in May 1809. After a turn with the 3rd Battalion he was promoted to captain back in the 1st – the extra pay allowed him to send home anything up to
£
100 each year. If Uniacke thirsted for advancement, it was only so that his mother might have food on the table and his brothers and sisters some sort of education.

The contrast between Uniacke and Second Lieutenant James Gairdner was also pronounced. When that young subaltern eventually reached the battalion, on 13 January, he exhibited the whey face, soft hands and general demeanour of a know-nothing. Uniacke had been serving in the Peninsula for two and a half years, but his new second lieutenant – for it was to the 3rd Company that the Johnny Newcome was sent – had joined the 95th in August 1810 and spent the next eighteen months sitting it out in Shorncliffe, polishing up his dancing, drawing and mathematics. Gairdner was wealthy, too, if not fabulously so: his family enjoyed considerable material success in Atlanta, Georgia. They straddled the Atlantic: while James’s aunt and her branch remained in England, his father carried on his business in America without difficulty. Georgia was one of the states least enthused by the Revolution of 1775; the family politics were liberal and generally supportive of reconciliation between the brother peoples.

Each night working parties had to dig away in the shallow topsoil of the Teson, completing the first parallel in the days following the capture of the San Francisco redoubt. The defenders used many cannon to fire on these working parties, so the whole business was conducted at night: the clanking of picks and shovels was interrupted by the cracks of the heavy guns and the whump of the heavy mortars, lofting explosive shells into the air over the British excavators. Having established their own batteries on the Teson, Wellington’s gunners would fire back by day, trying to aim their shells through the narrow embrasures in the walls used by the enemy for firing. A bull’s eye was a shot that smacked the French cannon right on the mouth, hurling it from its carriage or rendering it useless in some other way; less fortunate hits would eliminate some of the gunners serving these pieces.

For the French garrison of about two thousand men, any initial confidence about the outcome of the siege began to falter. Their engineers knew that Rodrigo was not nearly as strong as Almeida, just across the border, or many of the other fortresses in Spain. Its walls were not thick enough and their layout was poorly thought out. At the corner nearest the Teson ridges, the walls curved virtually through a right angle, leaving it vulnerable to assault: this arrangement made it harder for them to concentrate their fire in its defence, but easier for the enemy. A purpose-built place of war laid out during the eighteenth century would be hexagonal or even octagonal, with bastions on each of the points, allowing each stretch of wall to be swept by flanking fire
from two such strongpoints. Often a further element of defence was added in front of the
enciente
or main wall, particularly if the bastions were far enough apart for any firing by the defenders to become less effective at the mid-point between them. In such instances, a triangular strongpoint called a ravelin was added in front of the main wall. It stood like a little island in the ditch around the fortress, giving more opportunities to fire at any attacker, creating yet more lethal intersections with the bastions’ fields of fire. The walls and strongpoints were all surrounded by a great embankment. Anyone approaching such a place would walk up a grassy slope which fell away vertically in front of them, about fifty or sixty feet before the main wall. This outer defensive skin both protected the base of the fortress’s wall from besiegers’ artillery batteries, and created a deep ditch or obstacle for any storming parties trying to rush in.

The men defending Ciudad Rodrigo were a mixed bunch – one battalion each of the 34
ème
Léger
and 113
ème Régiment
. Their officers were generally professional, as throughout the French service, but the men were a combination of conscripts from France, Italy and Holland. Their world had shrunk in the preceding months because the approach of the Allied armies, and patrols of an Allied hireling, local guerrilla leader Don Julian Sanchez, meant they could hardly wander beyond the walls without fear of capture. Falling into the hands of the Spanish irregulars could mean a slow, ghastly end. A couple of months before, the French governor of Rodrigo had been carried off by one of Don Julian’s parties and presented as a prisoner at Wellington’s dinner table. This close blockade meant it was difficult to get supplies in and people out. So it was that Joseph Almond and the other British deserters had ended up inside the fortress.

Almond, Mills and Hodgson had all been inducted into the French Army. It would evidently have made sense to move them on to some place further away from their former comrades, for everyone could imagine what might happen to them if they were captured – but it had not been possible. In all likelihood their commander was reluctant to let any man go once he had clapped hands on him, such were the vagaries of getting new drafts from France. Almond had traded his old life in the 95th for one in the French Army: reveille became the
diane
; grog gave way to brandy; and the Baker rifle once in his hands was replaced by the
fusil de dragon
.

Outside, the Light Division took its turn with the working parties
again on 12 and 13 January, returning to camp to lie up after their dangerous task. Wellington and his chief engineer resolved to advance a communication trench down the forward slope of the Greater Teson and establish a second parallel, or attack trench, on the Little Teson, much closer to the walls.

In his race to take the town before the enemy could concentrate against him, Wellington needed to batter breaches in the walls closest to the Teson ridges as quickly as possible. This had started from the higher feature, although it was obvious that the British guns would do much greater damage if they battered from just 200 or 250 yards. There were some difficulties too: as the breaching progressed, with great slabs of wall being undermined by shot and crumbling away, the French engineers started to send out parties each night to repair the damage a little.

It was decided to order some riflemen down one night to see if they could answer fire with fire, picking off the French gunners with carefully aimed shots and stopping the engineers repairing the breaches. It would be a dangerous task, for the shooters would be lying on the rampart that partly protected the wall itself from fire and created a great ditch twenty or so feet deep between the two verticals, which any stormers would have to negotiate before trying to enter the gaps made in the walls. Lying here would be dangerous work, for the riflemen would be only thirty or forty feet away from the French, who would be bound to hurl all manner of fire against them.

The task of furnishing this sniping party fell to Captain Uniacke, and he decided to expose his new second lieutenant to a whiff of powder. Gairdner, another officer and thirty men were sent down to their position at about 8 p.m. They lay on the glacis or sloping rampart surrounding the fort on a freezing January night, waiting for French spotters or engineers to show themselves, each firing of rifles being answered with musketry, grapeshot and hand grenades. At all times the riflemen had to keep their wits about them, for the defenders might sally out and try to catch them with the bayonet.

After several hours of this duty, with the edge of the sky showing its first glimmer of dawn off behind Rodrigo, over the Sierra de Gata, the riflemen scurried away, defying the French to give them a few parting shots as they worked their stiff legs for the trot back over the Teson to safety.