green jackets.
So it was not over, not quite. And clumsily, weighed down by their money, the five men began to run.
General Sarrut assembled four battalions of light infantry. Some were chasseurs and some voltigeurs, but whether they were called hunters or vaulters they were all skirmishers and there was no real distinction between them except that the chasseurs had red epaulettes on their blue coats and the voltigeurs had either green or red. Both considered themselves elite troops, trained to fight against enemy skirmishers in the space between the battle lines.
The four battalions were all from the 2nd regiment that had left France with eighty-nine officers and two thousand six hundred men, but now the four battalions were down to seventy-one officers and just over two thousand men. They did not carry the regiment's Eagle for they were not going to battle. They were carrying out a reconnaissance and General Sarrut's orders were clear. The skirmishers were to advance in loose order across the low land in front of the enemy forts and the fourth battalion, on the left of the line, was to probe the small valley and, if they met no resistance, the third would follow. They would advance only far enough to determine whether the valley was blockaded or otherwise defended and, when that was established, the battalions were to withdraw back to the French-held hills. The mist was both a curse and a blessing. A blessing because it meant the four battalions could advance without being seen from the enemy forts, and a curse because it would obscure the view up the smaller valley, but by the time his first men reached that valley Sarrut expected the mist would be mostly burned away. Then, of course, he could expect some furious artillery fire from the enemy forts, but as his men would be in skirmish order it would be a most unlucky shot that did any damage.
General Sarrut had been far more worried by the prospect of enemy cavalry, but Reynier had dismissed the concern. "They won't have horsemen saddled and ready," he had claimed, "and it'll take them half a day to get them up. If they bother to fight you in the valley it'll be infantry, so I'll have Soult's brigade ready to deal with the bastards." Soult's brigade was a mix of cavalry: chasseurs, hussars and dragoons, a thousand horsemen who only had six hundred and fifty-three horses between them, but that should be enough to deal with any British or Portuguese skirmishers who tried to stop Sarrut's reconnaissance.
It was mid-morning by the time Sarrut's men were ready to advance and the General was about to order the first battalion out into the mist-shrouded valley when one of General Reynier's aides came galloping down the hill. Sarrut watched the officer negotiate the slope. "It'll be a change of orders," he predicted sourly to one of his own aides. "Now they'll want us to attack Lisbon."
Reynier's aide curbed his horse in a flurry of earth, then leaned forward to pat the beast's neck. "There's a British picquet, sir," he said. "We've just seen it from the hilltop. They're in a ruined barn by the stream."
"No matter," Sarrut said. No mere picquet could stop four battalions of prime light infantry.
"General Reynier suggests we might capture them, sir," the aide said respectfully.
Sarrut laughed. "One sight of us, Captain, and they'll be running like hares!"
"The mist, General," the aide said respectfully. "It's patchy, very patchy, and General Reynier suggests if you head westwards you may slip around them. He feels their officer might have some information about the defenses."
Sarrut grunted. A suggestion from Reynier was tantamount to an order, but it seemed a pointless order. Doubtless the picquet did have an officer, though it seemed extremely unlikely that such a man would have any useful knowledge, yet Reynier had to be indulged. "Tell him we'll do it," he said, and sent one of his own aides to the front of the column and ordered half a battalion to curl around to the west. That would take them through the mist, probably out of sight of the barn, and they could head back to cut the picquet off. "Tell Colonel Feret to advance now," he told the aide, "and you go with him. Make sure they don't advance too far. The rest of the troops will march ten minutes after he leaves. And tell him to be quick!"
He stressed those last few words. The point of the exercise was merely to discover what lay behind the enemy hill, not to win a victory that would have the Parisian mob cheering. There was no victory to be won here, merely information to gather, and the longer his troops stayed in the low ground the longer they would be exposed to cannon fire. It was a job, Sarrut thought, that would have been done far more efficiently by a squadron of cavalry who could gallop across the valley in a matter of moments, but the cavalry was in poor shape. Their horses were worn out and hungry, and that thought reminded Sarrut that the British picquet in the old barn must have rations. That cheered him up. He should have thought to tell his aide to keep some back if any were found, but the aide was a smart young fellow and would doubtless do it anyway. Fresh eggs, perhaps? Or bacon? Newly baked bread, butter, milk yellow and warm from the cow? Sarrut dreamed of these things as the chasseurs and voltigeurs tramped past him. They had marched hard and long in these last few days and they must have been hungry, but they seemed cheerful enough as they went by the General's horse. Some had boot soles missing, or else had soles tied to the uppers with string, and their uniforms were faded, ragged and threadbare, but he noted that their muskets were clean and he did not doubt that they would fight well if, indeed, they were called on to fight at all. For most of them, he suspected, the morning would be a tiring tramp through sodden fields enlivened by random British artillery fire. The last company marched past and Sarrut spurred his horse to follow.
Ahead of him was a brigade of skirmishers, a misted valley, an unsuspecting enemy and, for the moment, silence.
Lieutenant Jack Bullen was a decent young man who came from a decent family. His father was a judge and both his elder brothers were barristers, but young Jack had never shone at school and though his schoolmasters had tried to whip Latin and Greek into his skull, his skull had won the battle and stayed innocent of any foreign tongue. Bullen had never minded the beatings. He had been a tough, cheerful youngster, the sort who collected birds' eggs, scrapped with other boys and climbed the church tower for a dare, and now he was a tough, cheerful young man who thought that being an officer in Lawford's regiment was just about the finest thing life could afford. He liked soldiering and he liked soldiers. Some officers feared the men more than they feared the enemy, but young Jack Bullen, nineteen years old, enjoyed the rank and file's company. He relished their poor jokes, enthusiastically drank their sour-tasting tea and considered them all, even those whom his father might have condemned to death, transportation or hard labor, as capital fellows, though he would have much preferred to be with the capital fellows of his old company. He liked number nine company, and while Jack Bullen did not actively dislike the light company, he found it difficult. Not the men, Bullen had a natural talent for getting along with men, but he did find the light company's commanding officer a trial. It took a lot to suppress young Jack Bullen's spirits, but somehow Captain Slingsby had managed it.
"He's queer, sir," Sergeant Read said respectfully.
"He's queer," Bullen repeated tonelessly.
"Queer, sir," Read confirmed. To be queer was to be ill, but Read really meant that Captain Slingsby was drunk, but as a sergeant he could not say as much.
"How queer?" Bullen asked. He could have walked the twenty paces to discover for himself, but he was in charge of the sentries who lined the stream just outside the crumbling barn, and he did not really want to face Slingsby.