He also had another desperate urge to pee!
“Regiment will … advance!” some senior officer bawled out. “Fix … bayonets.”
Captains of companies shouted their own orders for the first ranks to stand, and to fix bayonets, and close ranks.
“Regiment … twenty paces forward … march!”
Marching men weren’t likely to be shooting, or so he thought, so Lewrie warily got to his feet, still lost in the powder smoke fog, hearing the swish of boots through grass, and the tramp of marching men in lock-step, the pace being called out by sergeants.
He wanted to be out of their way, but had no clue as to where to go. An instant later and he was blundered into by a young Private who let out a screech of fright, almost dropping his musket.
“Frog!” the soldier squeaked, “A Frenchie, roight ’ere!”
“British officer!” Lewrie shouted back, almost nose-to-nose.
“Sykes, ye silly sod!” his Sergeant yelled. “Pick up yer damn musket!”
Lewrie turned sideways to sidle ’twixt the soldiers of the first rank, then their rear-rank mates, all of whom were laughing at their unfortunate companion.
“Silence in the bloody ranks!” an officer demanded.
The two-deep line of troops seemed to be marching into clearer air, so Lewrie ambled along behind them a little way as the regiment began to descend the crest of the ridge.
“Regiment will halt! Load cartridge! By platoons, level … fire!” a senior officer ordered very loudly. Lewrie looked around to see a Colonel near him, a short fellow who was on his tiptoes, hopping in the air to see downslope past his soldiers, which Lewrie found a funny sight.
The regiment, and the others on that part of the ridge, opened fire down on the struggling French column, and any hope of a view of the results was blotted out. The platoon volleys rippled down the regimental line, four rounds per man per minute, from the Grenadier Company on the right to the Light Company on the left, repeated as soon as the right of the line was re-loaded. Now and then, one better-trained company’s volley didn’t sound like a long crackle, but a muted Chuff! as every trigger was pulled at the same second.
That Colonel bulled his way through the ranks of his taller soldiers, drew his sword, and cried “Cease fire! Poise bayonets, and … Charge!” as he rushed out ahead of his men, whirling his sword about and shrieking like a banshee. With wild, feral howlings, his troops raced down the hill with him, and Lewrie was left alone at the crest of the ridge, again.
“Bugger that for a game o’ … soldiers,” he said aloud, wishing no part of the melees to come.
But, it was an awesome sight to see. The French drummers were whacking away on their skins with urgency, but the column was having no more of it. The front six or seven ranks, thirty or so men across, had been shot to a reef of dead and wounded against which the French behind could make no progress. There looked to be an attempt to fan out from column to line and respond with musketry, but that had also been shot to a halt, and when the British regiment began its charge downhill with wickedly sharp bayonets, all order dissolved, and the French turned their backs and began to scramble over each other to get away, some tossing aside their muskets in their haste.
What Lewrie had seen through his telescope of the first two-column attack to the West was being repeated close up here. It was an un-controlled rout, a stampede of survivors, that ran back downhill. Off to Lewrie’s left, the other column that had come uphill alongside this one was also retiring, though in better order. Over there, the British troops had not launched a charge, but had kept up a steady rolling fire that stopped that column in its tracks and decimated it, convincing its surviving officers that staying and dying was futile. Those French soldiers were skulking off to the rear, defeated, and pursued by derisive cheers and curses from the victors.
Downslope, now that the gunsmoke was clearing, the regiment had stopped its charge, having run out of Frenchmen available to skewer, butt-stroke, or shoot. They were coming back to the ridgeline laden with quickly snatched souvenirs; shakoes or brass regimental shako plates, the short infantryman’s swords, the sabre-briquets, bloodied epaulets torn off dead men’s shoulders, pipes and tobacco purses, and what little solid coin they could find in dead Frenchmen’s pockets, no matter how officers and sergeants railed against the practice.
Young subalterns were crowing and congratulating each other in high spirits, passing leather or metal flasks of brandy to toast their success. Lewrie had not brought any of his aged American corn whisky, so he had to settle for several gulps of water from his borrowed canteen.
“Saw you, sir, potting away at the Frogs,” one Lieutenant brayed. “Get any?”
“A few, thankee,” Lewrie replied, “just before I had t’throw myself flat so I’d not get shot, then nigh got trampled. So much for the French and their famous columns.”
“By God, you’re right, sir, absolutely right!” the young officer crowed. “Why, I can’t recall the French ever being stopped so surely.”
“I’ll thankee for my flask back, Snowden,” another young man grumbled. “Stopped? Here and there, rarely, on a part of a battlefield one of their attacks might have been held off, but never like this. Let them keep it up, and we’ll slaughter the entire lot of them by sundown, hah hah!” he boasted, then took a deep sip from his flask.
“If they’ve the bottom t’keep it up,” Lewrie cautioned, wishing for some of their camaraderie, and a sip of something stronger than water. “They’ve most-like never known defeat. Bashed straight through the Spanish, the Portuguese, Austrians, and God knows who else. I’d expect their soldiers’re not feelin’ all that plucky anymore.”
“By God, he’s right, gentlemen!” the one named Snowden cried. “We could inflict the first defeat that ‘Boney’s’ ever suffered!”
“Well, there was Egypt, and the Holy Lands,” another quipped. “Maybe Marshal Junot will send Paris a letter calling it a victory!”
“See to your men, sirs!” a Major snarled at them as he passed. “There’s wounded to be seen to, and the day’s not over, not by a long chalk. Leftenant Acklin?”
“Sir?” the young fellow who’d demanded his flask back replied, stiffening.
“You will take command of the Light Company,” the Major said. “Captain Ford’s wounded, and doesn’t look long for this world. Belly wound, the worst kind. Off with you, now.”
The subalterns scattered, shame-faced, as the regimental bands-men and the regiment’s wives went past to begin recovering the wounded and the dead. Walking wounded, aided by their mates, began to struggle to the top of the ridge from their charge, some chattily happy to have taken survivable wounds, yet most ashen, and fearful of what they faced with the surgeons. Some whimpered, some wept, and some unharmed soldiers shared tears with them over the loss of good friends.
And the day was not over, Lewrie realised as he heard trumpets or bugles, and turned to look down over the ridge to the land below. Another pair of those massive French columns were forming up to make a fresh attempt near the village of Vimeiro, and a whole three fresh columns were assembling farther to the East. He pulled out his watch and found that it was not quite ten in the morning.
“I need a sit-down, somewhere,” he muttered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
There was no way that Lewrie could walk all the way to where the fresh French attacks would come; that would be asking too much of a sailor’s legs. Un-employed, he drifted to the back slope of the ridge to see if his horse was still there, or had galloped off in fear. It was restive, but glad for some stroking and nose rubs, and the men who served as grooms had provided it with oats and water, and assured him that his mount was fine.
Further down the slope, on a flattish ledge, the surgeons were doing their grim best under a series of canvas awnings, shirtsleeves rolled to their elbows yet still bloody, their leather aprons from upper chests to their knees slick with gore.