Whose Business Is to Die (35 page)

A stray shot fired at the troops near the village bounced high, struck again not far from the colonel and his staff and then hit a company of the 2/66th, smashing one man’s shoulder into a pulp and taking the head off the redcoat next to him. It plucked the shako off the next man and flew above the rest of the rank.

‘Keep going!’ a sergeant bellowed, as the men stepped around the dead soldier and let the wounded man sink to the ground.

The leading battalions were already sheltered by the ridge line as they followed the road running behind it. Soon they climbed and went along the high ground, though still behind the crest which was lined with formations of Spanish soldiers.

‘Tell the Third Foot to steady their pace!’ Colborne said to Dunbar, and the major cantered away. If the leading troops went at a brisk pace, the men at the rear would soon find themselves running to catch up.

Ahead they could see the Spanish lining the nearer of the two knolls, and through the clouds of smoke around them they could just glimpse the higher crest some way beyond. Williams was sure
he spotted the flash of the first enemy gun and soon afterwards saw the faint dot of a shell that seemed to be coming directly at him. He forced himself to keep Musket walking straight and not to duck, and at last realised that the missile was running a little to his right. It dropped beside the Buffs, exploding almost instantly and flinging two men aside like rag dolls. Another was clutching at his eyes, his face a sheet of blood.

‘Don’t stop! Keep going.’

Two more shells went off harmlessly, although the second made the horse of one of the officers from the 2/48th bolt back halfway down the column. The major riding it eventually calmed the beast and returned, looking rather shame faced.

‘I have put this horse under arrest,’ he called to his battalion, and the men grinned.

Another shell landed, this time at the feet of a captain walking along beside his company, and as he leaned down to pinch out the fuse it exploded, throwing him back, his clothes scorched and torn from more than a dozen pieces of the casing.

‘Leave him! Keep going.’

Dunbar had returned, but they soon noticed that the Buffs were going faster again, the regulation pace forgotten.

‘I doubt we can stop them now,’ Colborne said. ‘Tell the other battalions to double.’

‘Water, water,’ pleaded the badly wounded captain as Williams rode past. He said the same thing to the redcoats as they went by, all of them avoiding his gaze. ‘For the love of God, please give me water.’

The rest of the brigade set off at the double, jogging along, their equipment bouncing and rattling as they tried to keep up with the Buffs.

‘Water, please water,’ the captain begged. Another shell landed a few feet away, fizzed, but then failed to go off. A roundshot skimmed across the 2/66th, smashing two men’s heads into a spray of blood and bone that soaked their comrades.

‘Close up! Keep going!’

‘Dear God, shoot me, please shoot me,’ the captain begged as
Williams rode back to the colonel. He kicked Musket to make him run, but found himself staring straight into the eyes of the poor man.

The Buffs and the rest of the brigade were past the worst of the cannon fire by now, the 2/31st catching most of it until they got far enough forward and the gunners began to strike at the artillery and the next brigade.

‘Dunbar, stay at the head of the column. Williams, come with me and we will find out where we are to deploy.’ Colborne set off towards the line of embattled Spanish soldiers, now less than a quarter of a mile away.

When they got close Williams could see the dozens of wounded dragged back behind each of the lines. There were dead as well, lying in strange, unnaturally twisted shapes. The Spanish lines were ragged, but as they came closer he could see that they were standing firm, firing and reloading again and again. Closest was a regiment in dark blue coats and wearing shakos, and as he looked at them he saw a shot shatter the legs of all three men in one file. Sergeants dragged the injured soldiers back and pushed the ranks to close up again.

They could not see the French until they were almost on the crest itself, riding into one of the gaps between the shrinking battalions. There were several columns ahead of them, the closest ones now little more than shapeless masses of men, but they were also firing as fast as they could, and because of the slope men behind the first three ranks could point their muskets up and shoot over the heads of the men in front.

A shell exploded behind them, cutting down a drummer who was carrying fresh cartridges to the men in the firing line. Colborne paid no heed, his focus entirely on reading the battle.

‘Come on,’ he said, and Williams followed him as he rode to the flank of the Spanish position, going behind a battalion in pale blue. Once past them they could see a little better. Williams guessed that at least half a dozen French columns had come up the slope and perhaps there was a full division. There were not the usual wide gaps between each battalion, allowing it room
to form line and deliver a greater weight of fire. He guessed that supporting units had instead come forward in between the leading columns, but that they too had failed to close those last twenty yards or so and drive the Spanish back.

‘French cavalry, sir,’ Williams said, glimpsing several squadrons some way off on the shallow slope of the high ground.

‘I see them, Lieutenant,’ Colborne replied, the slightest trace of irritation in his voice.

They went back, Colborne searching for a senior officer to give him his orders. There was no sign of Marshal Beresford, and then suddenly Stewart and a couple of ADCs appeared through the drifting smoke.

‘Sir,’ Colborne said as he saluted. ‘Shall we form a second line and let the weary Spanish withdraw through us if needed?’

The general did not seem to hear. His face was glowing with enthusiasm.

‘We have them, Colborne, we have them!’ It was the most friendly he had been since Campo Major. Two soldiers in pale blue uniforms limped by, the one with a ball in his leg leaning on the other, whose left arm was hanging bloodstained and useless. A shell from one of the French mountain howitzers went off behind and a little above, knocking them over. A piece of casing had smashed open the back of one man’s head, and more had peppered his comrade’s back. Flecks of blood splashed over them, dotting the general’s light bay horse.

‘Poor fellows.’ The general looked at them with mild pity and not the slightest trace of fear.

‘Colborne, we shall take the French in the flank. Extend to open column and then march your brigade past the Spanish right. Keep going until you can form a line and have the enemy in enfilade. Give them a few volleys and then a taste of cold steel and we will sweep them away!’ Major General Stewart clapped his right hand into his left as it held the reins. His bay stirred with surprise and he calmed it.

‘Yes, sir,’ Colborne replied. It was a bold plan, very bold, Williams thought, but boldness could often succeed. He followed
the colonel back to the head of the brigade, and they started to lead the Buffs so that they would continue past the flank of the Spanish. The battalions were ordered into open column, each company waiting for there to be a gap equal to their frontage in a two-deep line before they stepped off to follow the company ahead of them. That way forming into line to face the flank would be a simple matter of each company wheeling to the left.

They had not gone far when Stewart and his staff joined them. The sky was darkening again, so that the general’s green jacket looked almost black and the silver buttons on it gleamed brightly. This was Stewart’s plan, and until a few months ago this had been his brigade, and it was clear that he could not resist leading it into this attack.

‘Come on, double time!’ he called, and the Buffs began running. Williams glanced back and knew that by the time the units following them realised what had happened they would struggle to keep up.

It started to drizzle, and perhaps this and the smoke drifting across the crest stopped the French from seeing the danger for some time. They rode at the head of the redcoats, and Williams kept looking to the left and staring at the French columns as they drew level with them and then began to go past.

The gunners were the first to see them. A shell burst above the Buffs’ Light Company and bits of casing rattled on the barrels of their shouldered muskets, knocked off a couple of shakos, but only left a scratch on one man’s face. The column doubled forward, ranks wavering and the intervals between companies stretching as they went. A roundshot took the arm off one of the sergeants in the Colour party and then cut the soldier behind him in half, flinging his torso so that it knocked down two men in the next rank and drenched them in blood and entrails.

‘Form here!’ General Stewart halted and yelled at the Buffs’ Grenadier Company as they doubled up behind him. ‘Wheel to the left and form on me! The other companies to extend to your right.’

Williams was surprised that he had stopped so soon.

‘Halt!’ their captain shouted, but then he looked uncertain. This was an unusual order, for the grenadiers’ place was on the far right of the line. The battalion’s lieutenant colonel appeared.

‘Do you wish us to form a clubbed line, sir?’ he asked. It was the slang term for a line in reverse order. Williams had heard that the rifle regiment Stewart had raised and led often deployed on any other companies, but this was rarely done by line battalions.

Colborne interrupted before the general could reply. ‘Sir, with your permission I will take the Third Foot on a little further and form them in column at quarter-distance to guard our flank.’ A close column made it changing into square far faster.

‘Column, sir? No, sir. We need a line to attack.’

A cannonball broke the shaft of his half-pike and then glanced against the leg of the sergeant standing on the flank of the company, smashing the flesh and muscle and breaking the bone so that he fell moaning.

‘But there are French cavalry out there, sir,’ Colborne said, stung by the abruptness of the general’s reply.

Stewart frowned, puzzled that anyone could fail to understand. ‘Too far away to trouble us. If we deploy and advance quickly we can break them in ten minutes.’ He turned to the Buffs’ commander. ‘Deploy your battalion as ordered, Colonel.’

The Grenadier Company wheeled so that they now faced the flank of the French. As the first of the Centre Companies arrived, they waited until they were past the grenadiers and then made their own quarter-wheel and came level with them.

The general struggled to contain his enthusiasm. ‘We have them, we have them!’

Williams looked back and to his eye there did not seem enough space to the left of the steadily growing line to deploy the rest of the brigade.

‘Come on, boys, advance with me!’ The major general was waving his cocked hat in the air. Only three companies of the Buffs were in line and the fourth just starting its wheel, but already Stewart was taking the formation forward.

‘At the double!’ the captain of the wheeling company yelled
at his men in the hope of catching up. There was an explosion, and three redcoats dropped to shell fragments. Another was shot through the body by a musket ball, for a few Frenchmen were at last aware of the threat and had begun to open fire.

‘Williams, help the Buffs to form up. I shall ride to the Forty-eighth,’ Colborne told him. ‘Dunbar, you take the Sixty-sixth. Tell them to hurry, but not to lose their order.’

The fourth company had sprinted and almost caught up with the small line the general was taking forward, although its men had spread out or bunched up as they ran. The next company followed by the Colour party was jogging forward to come alongside them. That meant that half the battalion, one of its two wings, was almost deployed.

‘Form on me!’ he shouted as the next one came up. ‘Form and wait for the rest of the battalion to extend on you.’ He managed to get two companies in line, but then they heard the sound of a volley as General Stewart’s little force halted and began to engage the French.

‘We must join them!’ a major shouted. ‘And form as best we may once we get there!’ He had some respect for an aide-decamp as the instrument of his brigadier, but that would not last long once the divisional commander and the rest of his own corps were engaged.

‘It will not take long to form the rest of the left wing,’ Williams said, hoping to delay a little. Another company was up and beginning to wheel.

‘We cannot, sir,’ the major said, his tone courteous but firm, and then raised his voice. ‘The Third will advance. Forward march!’

With that the two companies stepped off, and the third abandoned its wheel and simply hurried as individuals in an effort to catch up. Shouting until his voice was hoarse, Williams managed to form the last of the Centre Companies and the Light Company together before they too went forward. He rode behind the line. Ahead most of the rest of the Buffs were halted, thick smoke in front of them as they poured fire into the enemy. The 2/48th and 2/66th were advancing as well, but they too were broken
up into several sections rather than a continuous line. He could not see the 2/31st and guessed that they were still in column.

It was a hasty, disorganised advance, but for all that the general had brought well over fifteen hundred redcoats against the French flank and was pressing them hard. The smoke made it impossible to see, but from all he could hear the Spanish were still gamely holding their ground, and so the enemy would be taken on two sides.

‘Make ready!’ The two companies had come up so that they were roughly at the far right of the battalion’s line – albeit a line that was not straight and had several gaps in it. At the order the one hundred and thirty-six men in the two ranks brought their muskets from their shoulders and held them upright in front of them, right hand on the small of the stock and the left holding it higher up.

Williams could see the mass of a French column some fifty or sixty yards ahead of them, the officers beating men with the flats of their swords as they forced them round and managed to form a rough line facing towards the redcoats.