Rifles: Six Years With Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters (13 page)

The following day, the division came up with the French at a small town called Foz de Arouce, through which ran a little river, the Ceira. As the French withdrew, the bridge became choked and it was clear that a small rearguard had been left vulnerable on the wrong side of the river. Wellington spotted the mistake instantly and, dispensing with Erskine, found Beckwith, ordering him to attack.

One of the French regiments, the 39
ème
, had allowed itself to get caught a little too far from the bridge, and Beckwith sent one wing of his battalion rushing down the slope towards the town. They made their way into the streets, getting between the 39
ème
and the bridge, opening fire on the Frenchmen to drive home the danger of their situation. The realisation that they might be cut off caused a general panic, hundreds rushing along the Ceira, trying to find a ford to wade through.

Ney, seeing the gravity of the situation, ordered a battalion of the 69
ème
that was already across the bridge to turn about. One of the officers in that regiment noted that the British were ‘pressing us harder than usual’. ‘In a moment, our battalion was under arms and beating the charge,’ Sub-Lieutenant Marcel recorded. ‘The 27
ème
, in line, fired in two ranks on the Portuguese column that was trying to approach the bridge. It fired with the same calm as at drill. Under the protection of this fire, we marched, bayonets to the fore, with such confidence that the enemy fled.’

The greater than accustomed ardour of the British attack was due to Wellington and Beckwith and the ‘Portuguese column’ – in fact the 95th. It was quite usual for the French to have difficulty distinguishing between the dark uniforms of the riflemen and the Portuguese
Cacadores
. The loss of the French during this action was about 250, with many drowned in the river. The 39
ème’s
eagle, the standard given to it by the Emperor, was also lost in the Ceira during this action and later recovered, providing the British with a rare trophy.

For the French, 6th Corps’ march back to the border had been a textbook operation, despite the final chapter at Foz de Arouce. A fighting withdrawal offered the enemy all kinds of chances to make mischief, and Ney had kept the British in check. One French officer reflected, ‘From 5 to 15 March, that is to say in eleven days, [the corps]
sped across thirty-three leagues; it did an average of three leagues a day. The Anglo-Portuguese marched in its tracks with their usual timidity: at Pombal, Redinha, at Foz de Arouce, one or two divisions of the 6th Corps sufficed to stop them and paralyse their plans.’

That Wellington had followed cautiously was not in doubt. One officer on his staff wrote home, ‘If you ask me whether we might not have done more than we have, I have no hesitation in answering certainly yes, and on several occasions, but it appears to have been throughout the business the plan of Ld W not to risk a man and he clearly has succeeded.’ After humbling Masséna at Busaco and in front of Torres Vedras, Wellington had no desire to let him clinch some propaganda victory on the way back to Spain.

But an unadventurous fortnight for the Army as a whole had taken its toll on the 95th, engaged as it was throughout. And while the rankand-file riflemen shared the French derision for the way the actions had been commanded – blaming Ass-skin – the wider Peninsular Army had learned of the Light Division’s almost daily actions and the length of its marches, and was deeply impressed. Wellington had praised the Light Division warmly in his dispatches and on 16 March gave the British regiments of that force a highly unusual reward. Each was asked to nominate a non-commissioned officer for promotion to commissioned status. Sergeant Major Andrew Simpson, who’d sailed with O’Hare’s company in May 1809 as a sergeant, was Beckwith’s choice and was duly commissioned into the 2nd Foot as an ensign. Wellington might not have been able to pin Legions of Honour to deserving rankers, but some marks of gratitude were at least possible. Even so, it was evident it best served everybody’s interest for a newly made ensign like Simpson to be posted away from the regiment where he had served in the ranks.

There had also been a good deal of plunder to keep the riflemen happy and, wonder of wonders, on 21 March, enough coin had turned up to pay the men some of their arrears. The commissaries caught up at last, leading to some regular issues of rations. ‘Never let it be said that John Bull cannot fight upon an empty stomach,’ Costello remarked. ‘If ever a division proved this more than another, it was certainly the Light one for Heaven knows we were light enough at this and other periods.’

The 95th’s casualties added up in dribs and drabs through that March. Simmons, who had been fighting almost two years without
promotion, began to feel he might have the scent of it. He also feared that his parents would be worrying about him, reading in the
Gazette
the names of those officers of the 95th killed in recent actions. He wrote to his father, ‘Our regiment gets terribly cut up. We think nothing of it. Every man glories in doing his duty, and those that survive must be promoted.’ O’Hare had drawn conclusions too, notably from Major Stewart’s death: there was a vacant majority and he was the regiment’s senior captain. Surely he would now have his step unless someone else were to cheat him of Stewart’s vacancy, by buying his way over his head or deploying his interest with the Commander in Chief. That would be infamous in the extreme.

The French had not quite been shown out of Portugal yet, though, and that meant more fighting. There remained many marches ahead, too. After Foz de Arouce, the French had suffered something of a slump in morale and discipline, regardless of their pride in Ney’s achievements with the rearguard. Masséna had to issue an order of the day reminding them forcefully, ‘Pillaging is expressly forbidden, and pillagers will be punished with the full force of the law’ – such was the extent of murder and lawlessness, he hung a few of the worst culprits
pour encourager les autres
. But as the marshal tried to bring such matters under tighter control, a heavy fight was getting under way. It was one in which Beckwith and the 95th would face their hardest test to date, being pitted against almost impossible odds.

An eerie sound penetrated the early-morning fog close to the banks of the Coa. One voice would sing out in German, and then a hundred comrades would sing back the next line. It was a manly chorus that might have unnerved some. But the Rifles knew it was the hussars of the German Legion. They had saddled up after a wet, cold night and were reviving their spirits. A song and a smoke was sufficient to restore the German veterans. A big drooping pipe would be lit up and quickly popped beneath a big drooping moustache. With the clumping of hooves and jingle of saddlery, they set off to find a ford across the river.

The Light Division had come up much closer to the frontier, that 3 April, and Wellington issued orders for a large-scale attack on troops of General Reynier’s 2nd Corps, whom he believed to be just across the river. The French occupied a long ridge, with the Coa running alongside it. Where the river eventually turned away from this feature, there was a bridge, and a town, Sabugal, with its old castle. Wellington wanted to use some fords higher up the river to begin a combined movement that would see the Light Division strike the French at the one end of the ridge, followed by attacks in their flank and, further down river through Sabugal, cutting off their line of retreat. Having played a careful game throughout the previous month’s retreat, the British commander wanted to try a combination that might discomfit Reynier.

With Lieutenant Colonel Beckwith at their head, Right Wing of the 95th marched into one of the fords across the river. In an instant, boots and trousers were immersed in the icy water and, soon enough, they were wading up to their waists. There was a tension in the ranks, a sense that something horrible might await them in the dense fog that
obscured the far bank. No professional army would leave a ford so close to its bivouac unguarded, and the riflemen wondered whether a salute of canister might blow their leading ranks to kingdom come or whether some squadrons of
chasseurs
à
cheval
might burst through the murk and scythe them down.

In the event, the French
bonjour
took the form of a ragged volley of musketry from a few pickets, who instantly took to their heels. As the sopping soldiers emerged from the Coa, their commander, evidently fearing the possibility of cavalry attack, kept them going forward a while in column of companies. Each one, around thirty men across the front and two deep, marched close to the heels of the company in front. If enemy horse appeared, they could quickly close ranks behind the leading company so that the whole would form a compact mass able to resist a charge.

Behind Right Wing 1st/95th (about three hundred men that morning) were the 43rd, and three companies of the 3rd
Cacadores
– generally reckoned the best Portuguese troops, schooled as they had been by Lieutenant Colonel George Elder, a Rifles officer. The ground over which they would have to fight consisted of rolling hills dotted with groves of trees, patches of cultivation and little orchards enclosed by stone walls. This landscape, combined with the weather, meant all sorts of unpleasant surprises might be lurking just ahead of them, but fortunately for Beckwith these uncertainties would also afflict the French commanders.

While the 95th felt their way towards the base of the ridge on the eastern bank of the river, Wellington’s carefully drawn plan began to fall apart. The miasma that hung about the Coa that morning led the different British commanders to reach their own personal conclusions about what was required of them. Some of the brigades that were meant to start off before the Light Division, heading for Sabugal itself, had not even moved, their leaders convinced that nothing could be attempted in such a dense fog. General Erskine, meanwhile, had put himself at the head of some cavalry and, almost as soon as the Light Division’s infantry left their bivouac, went off on a different path to the one allocated to him in Wellington’s plan. Even Beckwith, it must be admitted, for nobody was without fault as the march got under way, had put his brigade across the wrong ford – one that was too close to Reynier’s positions. The division was meant to perform a right-angled turn as it crossed by several fords, with Beckwith’s brigade forming the
inside of this hinge, closest to the Coa, then the division’s 2nd Brigade (under Colonel Drummond) in the middle, with the cavalry furthest to the right, or east, moving the greatest distance on the outside of the line as it turned. This way the division would line up to hit the head of Reynier’s corps, atop the ridge, with the Coa protecting its left flank and the cavalry its right. Instead of this happening as Wellington wanted, Beckwith’s brigade had gone across the river, on its own, too close to the French.

Erskine, who was condemned by one officer of the 95th as a ‘shortsighted old ass’, was to play no further part in that day’s drama. Another disgusted rifleman recorded, ‘A brigade of dragoons under Sir William Erskine, who were to have covered our right, went the Lord knows where, but certainly not into the fight, although they started at the same time as we did and had the
music
of our rifles to guide them.’

About half a mile from the ford, the 95th, leading Beckwith’s brigade, started moving up the hillside, where they expected to find thousands of Frenchmen. The countryside was dotted with walled enclosures and clumps of chestnut trees. The visibility had improved somewhat, and they could now see a couple of hundred yards in front of them. All of this made a surprise by cavalry less likely, and the 95th’s companies began extending up the slope, until the whole of Right Wing formed one long skirmish line.

Among the leading riflemen, feeling their way onto the ridge’s flat top, there was still a feeling of tense anticipation. There had been some more French skirmisher fire, but most of them had run off, and whoever lay behind the enemy pickets had most certainly been given the alarm and would be under arms. The vegetation, enclosures and lie of the land meant, though, that they could still not see far ahead; they moved gingerly across country.

Simmons, leading his company, moved up through the chestnut trees and, as the ground dipped a little in front of them, stopped dead. They had come face to face with a French regiment standing in column not twenty yards in front. The officers who caught sight of the first riflemen sent up a shout of ‘
Vive
l
’
Empereur!
’, which was instantly repeated by hundreds of men in the ranks behind, shaking their muskets at the insolent fools who had just appeared to their front. At moments like this, there was only one drill. Simmons and his riflemen turned tail and started running. They flew back towards their supports and the 43rd, bullets whistling about their ears, smacking into the chestnut trunks as
they went. The French drums were thumping now and Simmons’s men knew they were being pursued. Every now and then, a couple of the riflemen would stop, turn around and pick a target, fire, and move on.

Making a little stand, ‘the galling fire of the 95th Rifles at point blank [soon] compelled them to retire,’ wrote one subaltern of the 95th, ‘but rallying with strong supports the wood again became the scene of sharp work and close firing.’ But the French pushed back the Rifles. Beckwith, hearing the firing to his front, deployed the 43rd, ready to receive whatever might appear. As three big French columns arrived in front of them, ‘the 43rd formed line giving their fire, we skirmishers rapidly forming up on their left, opening our fire on the advancing columns.’ The British realised they were heavily outnumbered – perhaps by a factor of four to one. ‘Beckwith, finding himself alone and unsupported, in close action, with only hundreds to oppose the enemy’s thousands, at once saw and felt all the danger of his situation,’ wrote one officer.

At the front of the French division were the 2
ème Léger
or Light Infantry, 4
ème Léger
and the 36
ème Régiment de Ligne
. They advanced, bayonets to the fore, drums beating the
pas de charge
. Beckwith’s men could not stand in front of this phalanx: they started running backwards.

The colonel understood that at such a crisis his own behaviour had to instil confidence. He was able to halt his men and turn them back again towards the enemy, less than a hundred yards away and now looking down at them from uphill. Beckwith manoeuvred his horse up and down as he ordered his line, a prime target for the enemy’s sharpshooters if ever there was one, steadying his men and directing their volleys. He knew it was going to be a matter of time until Colonel Drummond’s brigade appeared on his right or the attacks by other divisions went in further north – but how long? Another determined French push and they would be fighting with the Coa to their backs. His brigade was about to be crushed.

For some reason, though, the French did not press forward again. Visibility was improving, and even though they could see Beckwith was unsupported, they could not quite believe it. Perhaps the isolated British brigade was trying to gall them into rushing forward into some hideous ambush. However, if the French felt unsure about moving onwards, they knew they could do more to warm the British up a little. Two howitzers were wheeled to their front and started spewing canis
ter – scores of small balls packed into a tin – into the British line. This was bound to make the 43rd suffer and men were soon dropping. An officer of the 95th fell too: Lieutenant Duncan Arbuthnott, his head blown off.

Beckwith could not allow his brigade to be pummelled like this for long. No men, however highly trained, could stand all day under canister from howitzers less than a hundred yards away. Riding forward, he ordered two companies of the 43rd (about 150 or 160 men) to advance behind him, and they set off towards the dark mass of thousands of Frenchmen to their front.

At the very least, Beckwith wanted to stick the French artillerymen with bayonets, but in leading forward this desperate charge, he hoped also that the French might somehow be intimidated into yielding a little ground, so conceding the eminence that commanded the British position. Reynier’s three regiments were about to receive just two companies, but they were not ideally deployed. When they had set off towards the British, their commanders had formed them up with caution. Having come forward in columns, they could not now deploy into firing lines because the French battalions were packed too close together and the countryside would not admit it. When the 43rd got close, they were therefore able to fire a volley in their faces, with only a small proportion of the French – those in the leading ranks – able to reply. Having given their fire, the little band of the 43rd, menaced by the French columns, was soon heading back down towards their mates.

Beckwith rallied them and went up again. The result was the same. ‘Now my lads, we’ll just go back a little if you please,’ Beckwith boomed above the firing. Some of the men were running: ‘No, no I don’t mean that – we are in no hurry – we’ll just walk quietly back, and you can give them a shot as you go along.’ His voice, though loud, remained utterly calm even when one of the French marksmen finally hit him. The bullet had creased Beckwith’s forehead and blood started running down his face. The colonel’s soldiers looked up anxiously, only to hear him call out, ‘I am no worse; follow me.’ When they were back with the main firing line he told them, ‘Now, my men, this will do – let us show them our teeth again!’

The French, having been stalled for forty-five minutes, could now see the battlefield well enough to want to bring the fight to its conclusion. Some cavalry was ordered up, to move around and take Beckwith’s
brigade on its unprotected flank. The infantry columns, meanwhile, stood motionless, their progress checked by the firepower of the 95th, Portuguese and 43rd.

Not for the first time, the riflemen watched enemy officers going out in front of their men, sometimes putting their hats on the ends of their swords, sometimes jumping up and down, waving their arms, exhorting them forward for the honour of their regiment and of France. ‘Their officers are certainly very prodigal of life, often exposing themselves ridiculously,’ wrote one Rifles officer. Beckwith galloped up behind one group of riflemen to point out one of the senior French officers who had come forward on horseback. ‘Shoot that fellow, will you?’ he ordered them, knowing that the French would only move forward again if they were inspired by brave commanders. Several riflemen fired and Beckwith watched both the officer and his horse collapse to the ground. ‘Alas! you were a noble fellow,’ exclaimed the colonel before galloping off. The regiments facing the British brigade in this part of the fight had eighteen officers shot, including two of their three colonels. Another French brigade, consisting of the 17
ème Léger
and 70
ème
regiments, was now being fed into the battle.

Colonel Drummond, having heard the firing while one mile to the south-east, had begun marching towards the battle. General Erskine sent him an order to stop and not engage himself, but thankfully Drummond ignored it.

While Beckwith’s fight had progressed to the point where everyone involved was exhausted, the squally weather opened up a little, allowing a brief window through which both Wellington, across on the western bank of the Coa, and Reynier, before it closed in again, had caught a glimpse of what was happening. Wellington’s feelings on seeing that his whole plan had miscarried can easily be imagined. Having observed the mass in front of Beckwith he knew that the pressure on his light troops had to be lessened, so he hastened on the divisions that were meant to cut Reynier’s line of withdrawal.

When Drummond’s men, principally the 52nd, finally appeared to Beckwith’s right, the tide was turned. The two brigades fought their way up the hill to their front. The French rescued one of their howitzers but lost the other to the British charge. The battalions of the 17
ème
and 70
ème
faced a furious advance. ‘The Light Division, under the shout of old Beckwith, rushed on with an impetuosity nothing could resist, for, so checked had we been, our bloods were really up,
and we paid off the enemy most awfully,’ wrote Harry Smith, adding, ‘such a scene of slaughter as there was on one hill would appal a modern soldier.’