Rifles: Six Years With Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters (33 page)

Of the 1,095 who originally went out, about 180 were sent home during the course of the war, with something like 125 of them invalided by a medical board for being too injured or broken down to continue and the others sent home ‘to recruit’ as the battalion dissolved four of its companies in the field. The 1st/95th had lost seventy-nine prisoners of war and at least twenty-three men had deserted. It is likely that a good few of the men written off on 1 March 1814 had also deserted, which is why the ‘at least twenty-three’ lost to the battalion in this way was probably more like thirty. The largest portion of the original group, 421, were those who had died in Iberia – about two-thirds in battle and the remainder through sickness. All of this meant that only about a third of those who had sailed with the battalion – roughly 350 – also returned with it.

Having formed the men up on the quayside, Barnard led his battalion to Hilsea Barracks. Many officers took immediate leave. One captain who disappeared off to the capital recorded, ‘Here we enjoyed the luxuries of London life for a short time, having three years’ pay to receive – one for arrears and two for wounds received.’ The men took a sort of communal holiday, marching up the coast to Hythe and Sandgate, ‘for seabathing’. Those who had been wounded received in many cases not just the official blood money but also extra grants of anything up to
£
50 from the Patriotic Fund, set up by citizens grateful to the men who had vanquished the Corsican ogre.

George Simmons, who had sailed home on another ship, made his
way immediately to London, where he settled down on the morning of his arrival at Old Slaughter’s Coffee House to drink a pot of the fine stuff, have a smoke and peruse the newspapers. Whether the people looked upon the weathered Green Jacket like a ‘dancing bear’, he did not record. He was able to use some of his back pay to buy some plain clothes and return home to Yorkshire to see his beloved family.

Very few of those who had gone to war in 1809 had left behind wives. The figure may have been as low as one man in twenty among the NCOs and privates. There were, though, a few awkward homecomings to be negotiated. In one case, Ned Costello accompanied a sergeant who went in search of his wife and daughter in Portsmouth. Finding the house at last, they saw several children and another man, clearly her new spouse, in residence: ‘My poor friend looked perplexed, his features alternating between doubt and fear.’ The woman began sobbing and there was a general expectation that murder might be committed. Costello’s comrade, however, had lived through enough to take this reverse phlegmatically. The sergeant told his wife’s new husband that ‘it is no use our skirmishing about’, then extracted a sixpence from him to seal the bargain; he placed a golden guinea in the hands of the daughter he had not seen for five years, turned, and left, retiring to a nearby public house with Costello to drown his sorrows.

Among many of those who had rediscovered their wives in happier circumstances, there was a strong desire to resume some sort of quiet domesticity. Riflemen who had lived for years with hungry bellies and no roof over their heads at last found normality. A few – fifteen or so – decided that they did not intend to take their chances on another campaign and deserted in England during the later part of 1814 and early 1815.

Some, like Sergeant Robert Fairfoot, who had sailed as unmarried men, were struck by the providential nature of their survival, and wanted to settle down and raise families. He did not intend to be backwards about it: so it was that Fairfoot married Catherine Campbell, a slip of a girl of sixteen, on 2 October 1814. That it had been a rapid courtship is self-evident. There is every reason, though, to suppose that the couple were happily in love. He was a handsome man, despite his scars, and one in receipt of a good deal of pay, evidently well qualified to keep Catherine in some comfort.

The battalion wintered, then, with its members rediscovering the pleasures of peace. Lieutenant John Kincaid disappeared to Scotland
for hunting and fishing. James Gairdner planned to take several months’ leave to visit America in the summer of 1815, and the battalion was left in the hands of its veterans, with the likes of Jonathan Layton and George Simmons overseeing the companies.

All calculations were upset, however, in April 1815, when news reached the battalion of Napoleon’s escape from exile in Elba. Lieutenant Colonel Barnard received orders to prepare the 1st/95th for imminent embarkation. It had been tricky enough leading them through the final year of their campaign in Spain and France – the desertion, looting and sickness had shown that a significant number of soldiers had endured enough campaigning, and wanted only to escape the regiment on terms as advantageous to themselves as possible. Although the Rifles had received hundreds of new recruits since returning the previous summer, Barnard saw fit to use just six out of ten companies, one already on the continent would fall in with another five that he would bring across the Channel. His aim was to concentrate the best men in the small battalion that he was taking on service, and to sprinkle them with a leavening of recruits. In this way, as in the battalion that sailed six years before, the veterans would aim to impress the new men and vice versa. There was a difference, though: many of the old soldiers who embarked in 1815 considered that their survival through so many years of war was little short of miraculous, and were unsettled at being wrenched out of peaceful southern England. For this reason, the campaign that lay ahead would be the 95th’s ultimate test.

The embarkation at Dover was performed at the same quay as that of 1809. On 25 April 1815, six companies of the 1st Battalion, 95th, were put on board a packet boat, the
Wensley Dale
, to the cheers and acclamation of the townsfolk. The Rifles had already changed quite a bit since returning from France the previous year, and about one soldier in four was new to the battalion.

Leach’s 2nd Company was the least altered. It was under the same chief that had embarked it in 1809, and its lieutenants, John Cox, FitzMaurice and Gairdner, were all veterans. The more senior subalterns had pulled rank on the lowly ones when Colonel Barnard had begun to prepare the battalion for its new campaign. Costello and many of the other 2nd Company soldiers remained under Leach too. Sergeant Fairfoot, meanwhile, had gone to the 8th Company, and George Simmons to the 10th. Simmons’s brother Joseph had been left behind in the general trampling over the junior men. The Smith family, always able to pull a stroke, had managed to attach Charles, younger brother of Tom and Harry, to make his military debut in Simmons’s company as an uncommissioned gentleman volunteer.

That the battalion included many Johnny Raws was simply one of those features of military life that would have to be overcome, just as it had five years before – and never mind that the old sweats were calling them ‘recruits’ in a derisive tone of voice. The more subtle difference from 1809 was that now, many of the regiment’s veterans felt a certain tiredness and even resentment at having all their hopes for a peaceful life thrown over for a new campaign. James Gairdner wrote to his father:

As for those who had hoped to get on with the business of raising a family, their dilemmas were personified by Corporal George Pitt, who brought his wife to Dover docks. Lieutenant Colonel Barnard was determined to stick with Beckwith’s 1809 ban on embarking women, and soon found himself in a heated argument with the corporal. ‘Sir’, cried Corporal Pitt, ‘my wife was separated from me when I went to the Peninsular War, I had rather die than be parted from her again.’ Barnard was not used to being confronted in such an insolent way and he gave Pitt the choice of leaving his wife behind or embarking her and facing court martial. The corporal chose the latter, for he and Mrs Pitt had no way of knowing whether he would be away for six months or six years, or indeed whether he would ever come home.

The
Wensley Dale
docked in Ostend on 27 April, after a wretched voyage in which many men had been helplessly seasick. Their feelings were further upset when they were paraded on the quay to witness George Pitt’s punishment. Barnard had ordered him broken to the ranks and awarded three hundred lashes. The flaying of his back duly began, the buglers laying on their cats nearly a hundred times before George Simmons called out, testifying to Pitt’s qualities as a soldier and asking Barnard to spare him further punishment. The colonel agreed to stop it, telling Simmons afterwards that he ‘disliked flogging as much as any man’, but had been left with no choice because of the flouting of his orders.

The Pitt affair meant the campaign began in poor humour. Among the veterans, there were many who doubted whether they had the fortitude to endure years more suffering. Even Simmons himself, a real fire-eater, wrote home that he must buy a riding horse, for ‘my legs will never carry me through a long campaign. After a day’s march I am lame. If I get hit again they must promote me or recommend me for Chelsea.’

The surliness of the Belgians did not help matters either. Simmons had noted that on entering Brussels on 12 May, there were ‘crowds of natives who were gaping and staring at us. I heard no
Vivas
, they appeared to treat the whole concern very coolly indeed.’ There was still
a great of sympathy for the Bonapartist cause among Belgians. On 17 May, some riflemen were even attacked by the locals, resulting in a sergeant shooting dead one of the rioters.

All the same, campaigns were best endured by putting a best foot forward and some compensations were soon discovered. Many did not expect the fighting to last long. The 1st Battalion of Rifles would be brigaded under General Kempt, who was known and respected from the Peninsula, as was Picton, their divisional commander. Picton was remembered by some for his feud with Craufurd and his occasional signs of ill grace towards the Light Division. In this new campaign, however, this evidently did not prevent him appreciating the 95th’s military qualities.

Food was very cheap, the messes being able to fry up a pound or two of bacon every morning. Drink, likewise, did not strain the pocket, with many soldiers indulging rather too freely, reminding their officers of their duty to limit the consumption of alcohol.

‘As the middle of June approached’, wrote Kincaid, who had scurried across to Belgium from a shooting party in Scotland, ‘we all began to get a little more on the
qui vive
, for we were all aware that Napoleon was about to make a dash at some particular point.’ Orders were duly received in Brussels late at night on 15 June to muster the men in the Place Royale at 11.30 p.m. Such were the pleasures of the Belgian metropolis that ‘in consequence of the difficulty of assembling the division, it did not march until near four o’clock this morning’. Lieutenant Gairdner was left behind to round up the 95th’s stragglers and this party got under way at 8 a.m. on 16 June.

Kempt’s brigade was marched down towards Charleroi, south of the forest of Soignes, where there were alarms that the French were present in great numbers. Wellington, ‘humbugged’ by Napoleon’s marches, had been obliged to throw together a disparate body of men to reinforce his Dutch-Belgian allies near an important road junction called Quatre Bras.

At about 2 p. m., the 95th, having marched a hot summer’s day, paused just north of the crossroads and began cooking up a meal. As they sat there, the riflemen watched the Black Legion, the Germans under the Duke of Brunswick, march by. Wellington soon appeared and directed the Rifles to move to the south-east of Quatre Bras to occupy a position in some trees on the left flank of his army, maintaining the line of communication to the Prussians who were heavily
engaged that day at Ligny. As was often the case in the Peninsula, Wellington gave orders to the commanding officer of the Rifles in person, saying, ‘Barnard, these fellows are coming on; you must stop them by throwing yourselves into that wood.’

The 95th marched a little south-east on the Namur road and then turned right, or south, into the fields. Four companies were ordered by Barnard to attack some French light troops to their front. The companies extended among rows of billowing corn, which came up so high they could hardly see over it. Simmons, with the 10th Company, fell under that tough old duellist Jonathan Layton, for the titular commander, Charlie Beckwith, had quickly removed himself to a staff position, just as he had in the Peninsula.

Layton and Simmons directed their men down to a formidable-looking hedgerow not far in front of the French. Some enemy cannon had begun playing on the Allied lines and one of the old riflemen quipped, ‘Ah! My boys, you are opening the ball in good style!’ Simmons worked his way through the thorny hedge, dropping onto lower ground on the other side and instantly coming under French fire. With the crackle of musketry intensifying, he wondered why his men were holding back. Simmons went back through the thorns and found Sergeant Daniel Underwood, a veteran like himself of O’Hare’s old Peninsular 3rd Company. Why was he holding back? Underwood made out it was because of the thorns. ‘Why man! You are like a fine lady!’ Simmons taunted him. Still he did not go forward. ‘I rushed forward and struck him in the centre of the knapsack with my right shoulder, it had the effect of a battering ram, through it he went.’

With his men on the same side of the brambles as their enemy, they opened fire. For the French soldiers at the head of this column, this sudden hail of metal came as a shock. ‘We were saluted by a fusillade of extreme violence,’ wrote one French colonel, ‘it was the English who, hidden in the tall corn, fired onto us. Since, for the moment, we could not see where this firing was coming from, the column faltered somewhat.’ Seeing the effect of this murderous rifle fire, Picton threw his formed infantry forward. The kilted Black Watch and Camerons marched on, accompanied by several English or Irish battalions.

The French were thrown back some way, but soon rallied their forces. The thump of hooves announced the imminent arrival of cavalry and the
voltigeurs
at last began to move forward again, answering the 95th’s fire with fire. The French fusillade was becoming heavy, and
Layton made his way over to Simmons to confer. As he arrived, a bullet smacked into the company commander’s wrist, leaving Layton’s hand hanging limply and blood pouring out of the wound. Simmons ripped off Layton’s shirtsleeve and began to bind it, advising him to go to the rear and find a surgeon. Layton, one of the few to soldier through the Peninsula without injury, took it personally: he looked in the direction from where the shot had come, telling Simmons, ‘You must hit the fellow first.’

Simmons ran forward at a crouch with one of the sergeants to take cover behind a tree stump just in front. The lieutenant readied his rifle, while the sergeant kept his eyes keenly on the spot where they expected the French sharpshooter to appear, so that he might direct the shot. When the Frenchman at last fired, the ball hit Simmons’s companion square in the forehead. The sergeant was hurled back several feet and his brains blown out of the back of his head. Simmons turned to see how his men might react to this loss, calling out to them, ‘Look at that glorious fellow, our comrade and brother soldier – he now knows the grand secret!’

The Rifles had put themselves in a particularly hot post, for they were under fire from hundreds of French light troops. Costello was hit too, a ball tearing off his trigger finger. Lieutenant Gairdner followed Layton to the rear, having been struck in the leg by a shot – his personal run of bad luck continuing from Badajoz and Vitoria.

With heavy French columns advancing now on the Quatre Bras junction, supported by cavalry, the Rifles would soon have to step aside. Several of their men had been killed in the initial skirmishing; those wounded included Private James Burke, that ‘wild untameable animal’ of the Peninsular sieges, who would die of the wounds received that day. The 95th took refuge in a wood close to the Namur road and to the flank of the main fighting, which raged between French divisions under Ney and the British infantry led forward not half an hour before by Picton.

Two of the British battalions, including the 42nd Highlanders or Black Watch, had advanced in line into some dead ground south of the Namur road. While this position sheltered them from artillery, it also gave them little time to react to the approach of enemy horse, who were now thrown on them by the French generals. This was the British Army’s first real brush with cuirassiers, the heavy cavalry in breastplates that Napoleon usually kept as a personal reserve. These big men
came galloping through the smoke; on seeing the Highlanders, they bore down on them. Being caught in a two-deep line, the Scots were hardly able to defend themselves except by firing off a volley as the cuirassiers ploughed through their files, sabreing left and right as they passed: many of them were knocked flying by the flanks of the cuirassiers’ big chargers and some were trampled under hoof. The 42nd were then ordered to about-turn, where they gave the French another, slightly more effective volley and then belatedly attempted to form square, as the onslaught continued. Many riflemen witnessed this bloody engagement, which cost the 42nd dear, with some anxiety. At length, the dark falling on the field, the 95th were withdrawn a little to a group of farm buildings, where they lay down for some rest.

On the morning of the 17th, the day began with a satisfying brew of tea and a few pounds of good bacon, but it was destined to be marred by one of those bizarre mishaps of war. Sergeant Fairfoot was standing chatting with his old friend Lieutenant Simmons when the latter decided on a little horseplay. Finding a cuirassier’s breastplate and gloves, he began to parade up and down, eliciting hoots and laughter from the men. One French sharpshooter posted nearby, regarding this as a fighting rather than laughing matter, took a shot at Simmons. The ball hit, not its intended target, but Fairfoot’s right arm. Doubled over with pain, Fairfoot shouted out, ‘Oh Mr Simmons, the game is up with me, for this campaign anyhow.’ His resignation turned to anger as Simmons bound the wound. Before heading back to the surgeons with his arm in a sling, Fairfoot loaded his rifle, rested it on Simmons’s shoulder, and fired it with his left hand towards his assailant.

The 95th spent the remainder of the 17th covering the rear of Wellington’s army as it fell back towards Brussels, taking up its fighting position on the Mont Saint Jean ridge. News had reached the British of the mauling received by Field Marshal Blucher the day before at Ligny. Leach commented, ‘The man of candour will not deny, be he ever so determined a fire eater, that the news of this disastrous defeat of our allies was calculated to throw a damp on the prospects of the campaign.’

That night they were all dampened more literally, by a torrential downpour of the kind that the veterans had come to regard as a good omen during their years in Iberia. Barnard was able to find quarters in a small farm building and, perhaps remembering the lieutenant’s kindness after his wounding at the Nivelle, invited Simmons to stay with him. Simmons thanked him but replied, ‘Sir, if I were to stay here, the Company would have contempt for me, I must go and rough it with them.’