Rifles: Six Years With Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters (27 page)

One officer of the 43rd looked down at Villodas, seeing its defenders, and said, ‘I do not like the idea of forcing the bridge. How the grape will rattle around us!’ Others thought the Rifles would soon be able to pick off the French gunners. Second Lieutenant Hennell looked along the line to see how the soldiers were dealing with this waiting game and was struck by their calm: ‘More jokes pass then than at a halt on a wet day and when we move forward every officer is more on
the alert than usual. The men wipe their pans and see that the flint and steel are right as coolly as you would go shooting sparrows.’

Seeing the British on the high ground behind Villodas, the local French commander did not intend to sit passively. He sent some companies of
voltigeurs
across the bridge and into the village, from where they opened fire. Since French balls began whistling around the ears of Wellington and his staff, Colonel Barnard led several companies of riflemen down to flush them out. Half an hour later the little French sally was over and they retired back across the stream.

Wellington looked off to the left again and asked Lieutenant Simmons whether he could see anything. Simmons replied, ‘Yes my Lord, I see smoke and dust in that direction.’ It was time. Wellington looked across to the Rifles’ commanding officer and said, ‘All right; get along Barnard.’

Riflemen moved down towards the old bridge but then, in one of those chances of war, Barnard met a local peasant who told them that a crossing further up the Zadorra was unguarded. The Rifles’ commander had been itching for a chance to distinguish himself and it could not have been offered more plainly to him. Barnard and his riflemen followed their guide to the left, up the river bank, as the slope became steeper and steeper. This little path, clinging to the craggy rock face, led them around the right-angled bend in the river and over one of the little bridges at a village appropriately named Tres Puentes. There, the riflemen, followed by the 43rd, crossed unopposed and went up a great hillock, the site of an ancient earthwork, from where they could see a few dozen French light roops by Tres Puentes’ main crossing, and Picton’s 3rd Division coming down from the north towards it. There were just a few French
voltigeurs
and dragoons guarding this point and Barnard resolved instantly to attack them with rifle fire, driving them away. A few dozen rounds sufficed to throw back the enemy. The Rifles’ unexpected appearance in this quarter earned them a few cannon shot from British guns on the opposite bank, and several men were cut down by their own side’s artillery before the firing could be halted. ‘The 3rd Division, at a run, crossed the bridge of Trespuentes, cheering but unopposed.’ Barnard’s gamble in bypassing the bridge at Villodas had succeeded beautifully. Realising they might soon be cut off by British troops who were almost behind them, the French defenders quit that point on the river bank, allowing the Light Division’s 2nd Brigade to cross at Villodas unopposed.

With much of the Light and 3rd Divisions now across the river and somewhat to the rear of the foremost French line, the rest of this advanced defensive cordon had to fall back. These enemy redeployments gave the Rifles half an hour of calm, which made everyone a little uneasy, in case a counter-attack was about to be launched. Soon enough, though, it was the British who were moving forward again, onto a tree-covered knoll about half a mile east of the Villodas bridge. Behind this feature was a village called Arinez, which the French were barricading and preparing to defend.

On emerging from the trees on top of the knoll of Arinez, the 43rd and 95th were, for the first time, visible to a great many French defenders. An ear-splitting barrage of cannon began. The first rounds roared overhead and then others started skipping across the ground, smashing whoever got in the way. One British officer estimated that they had come under the fire of thirty pieces. The 43rd were quickly ordered to lie down. They could see, though, that quite a bit of the firing was coming from some artillery in and around Arinez itself. To their left one of Picton’s brigades began to form up, ready to assault the village. ‘During the few minutes that we stopped there,’ wrote Kincaid, ‘while a brigade of the 3rd division was deploying into line, two of our companies lost two officers and thirty men, chiefly from the fire of artillery.’

Into this maelstrom rode Wellington, placing himself in great danger. The battle had reached a decisive moment and the British commander knew that if the French could be driven out of Arinez, their centre would be broken. ‘I heard a voice behind me, which I knew to be Lord Wellington’s,’ wrote Kincaid, ‘calling out, in a tone of reproof, “Look to keeping your men together, sir.”’

Leach’s company was one of those pinned under this heavy fire. Lieutenant Gairdner, Corporal Brotherwood and Private Costello were all serving in it. Gairdner was one of those who soon became a casualty. Costello was hit too: ‘A grape or round shot struck my pouch with such violence that I was hurled several yards along the ground. From this sudden shock, I imagined myself mortally wounded but, on being picked up, I found the only damage I had sustained was to my pouch, which was nearly torn off.’ Private Miles Hodgson, the pardoned Rodrigo deserter, ran up to help Costello, only to get a bullet in the face. Leach’s company, and the 6th Company under Lieutenant FitzMaurice, went charging down the hill towards Arinez.

The walls and hedges on the village’s outskirts were now lined with
French defenders. Wellington rode across the short distance to Picton’s men where he personally formed up the 88th, the Connaught Rangers, for the advance. With a beating of drums, they marched forward in line, presented their pieces only thirty or forty yards from the enemy and game them a thumping volley, a cheer and the bayonet. The French fled back through the village. One battery of guns which had been firing in support of them was quickly limbered up by its commander, for in his trade losing your cannon was the ultimate disgrace. At this moment the artillery men got help: a counter-attack by the French infantry briefly reclaimed the village, allowing this battery to pull out. Seeing the track that the horses towing the cannon were taking, Lieutenant FitzMaurice called his men to follow him and raced across an open field to intercept them.

On arriving near the guns, FitzMaurice was running at a cracking pace. He shouted to his company, urging them forward, only to make the uncomfortable discovery that just a couple had managed to keep up with him as he ran. The Irish lieutenant threw himself onwards nevertheless, the French gunners and drivers defending themselves with whatever came to hand. There was a short, sharp, close-range fight in which a pistol was discharged almost in FitzMaurice’s face, the ball going through his shako. Soon he and another rifleman had shot one of the draught horses and were cutting the traces that connected it to the howitzer it was pulling. The lieutenant and four riflemen had captured the first French gun of the day, but certainly not the last.

As the 2nd Company burst into Arinez, Costello caught sight of Lazarro Blanco sticking a straggler with his bayonet. The Spanish private plunged the blade in manically, taking out the sufferings of his country on this unfortunate Frenchman, cursing him all the time in the most profane and abusive language.

With their enemy streaming back from Arinez, the Light and 3rd Divisions followed up. There was still heavy firing, but the French Army was disintegrating. Its battalions had broken into clumps of men running across the countryside, heading east. Near the city of Vitoria, hundreds of wagons, containing the treasures plundered by the French during their five-year occupation, fell into British hands.

Wellington had scored an emphatic triumph. The French Army lost 151 artillery pieces – all but one of those weapons that they had brought to the field. Many of the British soldiers felt a determined cavalry pursuit would have annihilated the disordered wreck of Joseph’s
army. No such movement by the horse soldiers materialised and one Rifle officer noted, ‘It was impossible to deny ourselves the satisfaction of cursing them all, because a portion of them had not been there at such a critical moment.’ The Household Cavalry regiments were sent into Vitoria to stop the Allied army plundering it, Hennell of the 43rd being unable to resist a dig at these court soldiers, writing home, ‘I do not know what good they did, if any I am sure you would hear of it.’

As for the Light Division, they felt they had more than earned the rewards that might be earned from plundering the French baggage. Their role in assuring the passage of the Zadorra and attacking Arinez had been the most important part of any general action they had enjoyed since Busaco almost three years before. Some soldiers, though, were to be rewarded beyond their wildest dreams, for among the chests and cases were millions of gold doubloons and silver dollars.

‘I observed a Spanish muleteer in the French service carrying a small but exceedingly heavy portmanteau towards the town,’ wrote Costello. ‘I compelled him lay it down, which he did, but only after I had given him a few whacks with my rifle.’ These saddlebags contained a breathtaking sum – perhaps as much as
£
1,000 in Spanish coin. A couple of troopers of the 10th Hussars, seeing Costello staggering along with this load, soon tried to divide it with him. ‘Retiring three or four paces, I brought [my rifle] to my shoulder and swore I would shoot dead the first man to place his hands upon my treasure.’ This persuaded the cavalry to look elsewhere. Costello clapped hands on a mule to carry the bags and headed back to find his company.

One other rifleman was rumoured to have taken
£
3,000 in coin. He had the added good fortune of a wife following with the regimental baggage. They sewed their gains into a mule saddle, which she kept closely under her supervision, the couple later depositing their money at a bank in Dover. Costello knew there was nobody he could trust in this way. Instead he signed over
£
300 to the regimental paymaster, who was happy to acquire the coin in order to settle his many accounts and issue a receipt in return. Some the private also loaned to officers. The remainder he and Tom Bandle, a messmate whom he had taken into his confidence, guarded. Bandle had sailed with Costello in the 3rd Company, back in 1809, and upon its demise had also been transferred into Leach’s – they had a long history of fighting and drinking together. He was a little weasel of a man who, in return for a small cut, helped Costello guard the cash. Most of it was to go on ensuring he and his
company lived well and were adequately lubricated during the coming months.

Most soldiers did not of course reap quite such rewards, but that did not stop them searching hard. Costello himself put it charmingly: ‘Even if our fellows had been inclined to be honest, their good fortune would not allow them.’

The 95th’s officers did not benefit in quite the same way. Simmons recorded, ‘I lay down by the fire in a French officer’s cloak, which one of the men gave me; he had that day shot its wearer.’ Leach dropped down in his company’s bivouac, exhausted. ‘The soldiers of my company brought me a large loaf of excellent French bread, some Swiss cheese, cognac brandy and excellent wine they had found in some French general’s covered wagon.’ The men, in sharing their bounty with delicacies for their officers, ensured that they remained free to roam that night. Leach jotted in his journal, ‘Our soldiers did nothing the whole night but eat, drink and smoke, talk over our glorious successes and occassionally steal away from camp to look for plunder which it must be allowed was very excusable.’

Around the 2nd Company campfires there was much discussion about what had happened to them that day and who had been absent from roll-call. Private Dan Kelly piped up, ‘Don’t drink all the wine boys, until we hear something about our absent messmates. Do any of you know where Jack Connor is?’

‘He was shot through the body when we took the first gun in the little village near the main road,’ was the reply.

Bob Roberts spoke next, asking, ‘Where is Will John?’

‘A ball passed through his head,’ said another. ‘I saw him fall.’

Tom Treacy then joined in: ‘Musha, boys! Is there any hope of poor Jemmy Copely getting over his wounds?’

‘Poor Copely, both his legs were knocked off by a round shot.’

Treacy looked down bitterly. ‘By Jasus, they have kilt half our mess. But never mind boys, fill a tot, fill a tot. May I be damned but here’s luck … Poor Jemmy Copely! Poor Jemmy! They have drilled him well with balls before, damn them, now they have finished him. The best comrade I ever had, or ever will have.’ As Treacy said these last words, a tear streaked down his blackened face.

In the days following Vitoria, the Rifles fell in with the French rearguard several times. After the great affair of 21 June, these fights
piqued their superstitions, one officer summing it up: ‘After surviving a great day, I always felt I had a right to live to tell the story; and I, therefore did not find the ensuing three days’ fighting half as pleasant as they otherwise would have been.’

Just as the riflemen had begun to think more about their own survival, so their propensity for plunder had grown, as their brigade set off in pursuit of a remnant of the old Army of Portugal. On 29 June in a village called Caseda, quite a few riflemen joined in a stripping of firewood and farm produce so vigorous that it crossed the thin line between foraging and plunder. Wellington got one of his staff to write an angry letter to the commander of the Light Division, exclaiming, ‘This renewed report of disorder committed by soldiers of your division has much dissatisfied the Commander of the Forces, his excellency being of the opinion that such continued irregularity shows evident relaxation of discipline both regimental and divisional.’

The following day, following Headquarters’ complaints, Lieutenant Simmons was put in command of a party of riflemen collecting firewood when General Picton rode up, declaring that the logs had been assigned by the staff to his own 3rd Division. The 95th knew well enough that in former times a feud had built up between Craufurd, in his role of irresistible force, and Picton, acting the part of immovable object. On this occasion, Picton shouted at Simmons to drop the wood, telling him, ‘It is a damned concern to have to follow [the Light Division]. You sweep everything before you.’ General Alten arrived on the scene at this moment, saving the fuel for his own division.