Rifles: Six Years With Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters (18 page)

Gairdner’s baptism of fire had been a success, and a shrewd experi
ment on Uniacke’s part. The young subaltern wrote proudly to his father: ‘This was the first time I ever was in action, it was a responsible situation and a dangerous one, however we got off very well for I had only three of my picquet wounded.’ The injuries attested to the seriousness of the business, and the veterans of 3rd Company returned that dawn with the knowledge that their new officer could be relied upon in action. It would seem that he passed a second trial when Captain Jonathan Leach tested the new boy’s gullibility by telling him – confidentially, of course – that the city was going to be stormed by troops of the Royal Wagon Train supported by the
mounted
14th Light Dragoons. This outrageously silly report did not travel far: Gairdner thus established himself as brave and no dupe, in contrast to Sarsfield.

The British batteries fired with great effect from the new positions on 18 and 19 January, and this, combined with the continuous barrage over several days from the Greater Teson behind, was sufficient to produce two breaches in the wall that were considered practicable for an assault, on the evening of 19 January.

Wellington wanted to ensure success by using picked troops to mount the attacks. General Picton’s 3rd Division would be given the task of storming the main breach and Craufurd’s men the lesser one, both of the targets being on the north-eastern side of the defences, about two hundred yards apart.

Everything was prepared for that night’s desperate service. When expecting a storm, the defenders would pile loaded muskets and bombs so that one man might fire with the effect of many in those crucial moments as the enemy came into view. The batteries would then open up too, spewing grapeshot into the ditch before the walls, as the attackers tried to put their ladders up to the breaches and get through. There would be some other surprises too, for the defenders often set mines in the places where they thought stormers might gather. The defenders in such cases had many advantages, for after days of breaching fire, there could be no mystery about where the main attack would come. The French had discovered during their many sieges in Spain that such attacks were often a desperate business. It was a matter of nerve, and whose broke first. The attackers had to keep going somehow, with death all around, and scale ladders while they were fired at, bayoneted and bludgeoned. If the assault looked as if it might succeed, however, the defenders’ spirit often faltered, for they knew that the chances of
being taken prisoner by the maddened survivors of a storming party were slim.

Craufurd and Picton did not intend to throw their divisions forwards in the usual order of companies and battalions or the customary lines or columns. Instead, Major General John Vandeleur, recently appointed as a brigade commander under Craufurd, would prosecute the initial assault: a covering party of four companies of riflemen would line the rampart near the walls to keep down the defenders’ heads; 160 Portuguese
Cacadores
would go forward with ladders and hay bags to throw in the ditch; a Forlorn Hope (as the leading party, commonly considered the most dangerous task, was known), under a subaltern, would then enter the ditch, placing the ladders that would allow others down into it and up the breaches on the other side; the storming party of three hundred volunteers under a major would then attempt to take the breaches. Throughout these proceedings, Craufurd would hold some companies of the 52nd and the 95th under his own hand as a sort of immediate reserve, and Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Barnard (of the 95th) would keep a further back-up, of the 43rd, 95th and 1st
Cacadores
. All of this, of course, would happen under cover of darkness.

The heroism required to prosecute this business meant that in any successful assault, the commanders of the Forlorn Hope and storming party expected promotion. There were many volunteers for these posts in the Light Division. Even officers who were next in line for promotion often volunteered, for fear of being seen as presumptuous or complacent in the eyes of their peers. In this spirit Lieutenant Harry Smith of the 95th went to Craufurd and asked his permission to lead the Forlorn Hope. Craufurd, wisely, would not hear of it, telling him, ‘Why, you cannot go; you, a Major of Brigade, a senior Lieutenant, you are sure to get a Company. No, I must give it to a younger officer.’ He chose instead Gurwood of the 52nd for this task, and Major George Napier, of the same regiment, to command the storming party. Other officers would accompany them as volunteers, one commenting, ‘While the subaltern commanding the forlorn hope may look for death or a company, and the field officer commanding the stormers an additional step by brevet, to the other officers who volunteer on that desperate service, no hope is held out – no reward given.’

For the rank and file the same applied, but when Gurwood and Napier came to the Light Division’s camp looking for volunteers, they
were overwhelmed. Corporal Fairfoot stepped forward for the Forlorn Hope. Having been in action at the San Francisco redoubt eleven days before, he had no need to prove himself. Costello, the Irish private of the 3rd Company, was another volunteer, bound for the storming party. The 95th’s detachment in that latter group would be led by Captain Mitchell, accompanied by Lieutenants Johnston and Kincaid – all three of them Scotsmen with fierce fighting reputations. ‘The advantage of being on a storming party’, Kincaid opined later with his trademark irony, ‘is generally considered as giving prior claim to be
put out
of pain
, for they receive the first fire, which is generally the best.’ Kincaid had recently taken over the command of the 7th or Highland Company, its long-time chief Alexander Cameron having been promoted to major at last, in command of the Right Wing of the 1st Battalion, who would provide the covering fire for the assault.

The rank and file knew that joining would earn the respect of their comrades – and the chance of plunder. ‘This was a momentous occasion in the life of a soldier, and so we considered it,’ Costello recorded. ‘The entire company gathered round our little party, each pressing us to have a sup from his canteen. We shook hands with friendly sincerity, and speculated on whether we would outlive the assault. If truth must be told, we also speculated on the chances of plunder in the town.’

At 7 p.m. the storming columns moved down through one of the city’s suburbs to a point about three hundred yards from the lesser breach. They would wait there until a rocket was fired, giving them and Picton’s boys the signal. Their advance had almost certainly been spotted by the French officer who served high up in the cathedral tower as a lookout. Riflemen in the covering party were leading the way. Craufurd came up with them, annoyed that they were not moving faster, and accused them of lacking courage – ‘Move on, will you, 95th? or we will get some who will!’

The sense of anticipation had reached a high pitch among the stormers, some trying to dissipate it with a last-minute bout of activity and chatter. Harry Smith sent Lieutenant George Simmons to bring up some ladders. Making his way through the darkness to bring them, Simmons was intercepted by Craufurd. The general asked the young lieutenant why he had brought short ladders rather than long ones, Simmons replying that he had only done what the engineers had told him to do. Craufurd told him, ‘Go back, sir, and get others; I am astonished at such stupidity.’

Captain Uniacke and Lieutenant John FitzMaurice looked up at the defences, looming ahead of them in the darkness. They were meant to be part of the covering party, but like many of the Light Division officers, both could barely wait to rush in and get the business over with. The two Irishmen shared the loss of a father young in life. Uniacke turned to his lieutenant, ‘Look there, Fitz, what would our mothers say, if they saw what was preparing for us?’ FitzMaurice replied, ‘Far better they should not,’ before pointing out that Uniacke had put on an expensive new jacket – ‘But what extravagance to put on a new pelisse for a night such as this!’ The captain replied, ‘I shall be all the better worth taking.’ He had a point, for every man – defender or stormer – imagined what he might gain on a night like this: plunder; a handsome new pelisse; a glorious reputation; or just the chance to avoid an ignominious death.

Craufurd pushed his way through to the head of the column, and on finding a little higher ground he called out to his division: ‘Soldiers! the eyes of your country are upon you. Be steady, be cool, be firm in the assault. The town must be yours this night.’ The rocket was up, the leading parties began trotting forward.

Whatever the garrison may or may not have seen, most of the approach was made before the eruption of fire that they all dreaded. At last, with the column moving up the first obstacle, less than fifty feet from the walls themselves, a French sentry called out and then the cacophony began. Hundreds of muskets opened up from the walls, and cannon too. Riflemen from the covering party were firing back from the embankment surrounding the walls as the stormers moved up to the lip of this great rampart. The first men began dropping down into the ditch.

Craufurd, who was standing atop the feature, was hit by a bullet which went through his arm and one of his lungs, then lodged in his spine. The general was hurled over by the force of the impact and rolled down into the darkness. Believing the wound to be mortal, Craufurd asked the captain to tell his beloved wife he was ‘quite sure they would meet in heaven’.

Down in the ditch in front of the breaches there was a mayhem of wounded men, screaming out in pain, officers calling on others to follow them and soldiers taking potshots at the French above them. Lieutenant Kincaid got himself to the foot of a ladder: ‘I mounted with a ferocious intent, carrying a sword in one hand and a pistol in the
other; but, when I got up, I found nobody to fight except two of our own men, who were already laid dead across the top of the ladder.’ In the confusion he had stormed not the main wall, but an outlying ravelin unconnected to it.

At the breach itself Gurwood was making his way up one of the ladders when he was either thrown or knocked off by one of the defenders, falling back to the ground with a thump, winded. Lieutenant Willie Johnston of the Rifles was soon up in his stead and so, as if from nowhere, was Captain Uniacke, who had rushed forward of his own accord and joined the stormers. Some cheers had gone up in the Great Breach and the Light Division men feared Picton’s were beating them to it.

Looking up in the murk, they could see the mouth of a cannon facing down and across the breach. Doubtless it was double-charged with canister and the French were just waiting their moment to cut down the storming party. But some soldiers scrambled up the jagged rocks at the edge of the breach and emerged in the top of the wall just beside the cannon’s mouth. One of the 95th brought the butt of his rifle down like an axe across the head of the French gunner and the danger to the men on the ladders was removed. Men now quickly fanned out along the walls and the defence began to crumble.

In this chaos of shouting and shooting, one of the French engineers touched a match to the fuse on a mine. As Harry Smith and John Uniacke ran along the ramparts with soldiers not far behind, it blew up with massive force. ‘I shall never forget the concussion when it struck me, throwing me back many feet into a lot of charged fuses of shells,’ wrote Smith. ‘My cocked hat was blown away, my clothes all singed.’ Uniacke was not so fortunate: he staggered back, charred black, with one of his arms hanging only by threads of skin. As he was led away by comrades, Uniacke murmured, ‘Remember, I was the first.’

Soldiers poured into the town, often refusing quarter. Some of the ‘French’, throwing down their muskets, called out that they were only poor Italians. But according to Kincaid, ‘Our men had, somehow, imbibed a horrible antipathy to the Italians, and every appeal they made in that name was instantly answered with “You’re Italians are you? then, damn you, here’s a shot for you”; and the action instantly followed the word.’

Those who had survived the breaches were flushed with the joy of being alive: ‘When the battle is over, and crowned with victory, he finds
himself elevated for a while into the regions of absolute bliss.’ The Forlorn Hope and storming party volunteers ‘broke into different squads, which went in different directions and entered different streets according to the fancy of their leaders.’

Costello stripped some French soldiers of their money and an officer of his watch. He and his party then found their way into the house of a Spanish doctor, who was hiding with his pretty young niece, fully expecting the sack of Rodrigo to conform to all the horrors of medieval warfare, whereby those inside a stormed town forfeited their lives and property. ‘Like himself, she was shivering with fear,’ according to Costello. ‘This we soon dispelled, and were rewarded with a good supper crowned by a bowl of excellent punch which, at the time, seemed to compensate us for all the sufferings we had endured in the trenches during the siege.’ Elsewhere, the sources of liquor were soon discovered and gallons of the stuff rapidly thrown down the stormers’ necks.

In Rodrigo’s ancient plaza, the jubilant soldiery gathered in mobs, cheering and firing into windows. The alcohol was taking its effect now, and a general riot seemed imminent. ‘If I had not seen it, I never could have supposed that British soldiers would become so wild and furious,’ wrote a young officer of the 43rd. As the firing at nothing in particular built up, one private of the 43rd dropped dead, a bullet through his head.

Major Alexander Cameron, who’d been commanding the covering party of riflemen, arrived with Lieutenant Colonel Barnard and tried to check the collapse in order. ‘What, sir, are you firing at?’ Cameron bellowed at one rifleman, who shouted back at him, ‘I don’t know sir! I am firing because everybody else is.’ Cameron and Barnard looked about them at the debris on the streets, each seizing a broken musket which they used to beat their soldiers into some kind of order.

The search for plunder was not confined to the soldiery. Lieutenant FitzMaurice helped himself to the governor’s silver snuffbox. Lieutenant Gurwood, having been overtaken by keener men in the breach, was determined to recover the situation. ‘Gurwood’s a sharp fellow,’ noted Harry Smith in admiration of a glory seeker equal to himself, ‘and he cut off in search of the Governor, and brought his sword to the Duke, and Lord Fitzroy Somerset buckled it on him in the breach. Gurwood made the most of it.’