Green-jacketed riflemen ran out of the woods to pillage the dead and wounded cavalrymen. The deeply bellied breastplates worn by the cuirassiers were valued as shaving bowls or skillets and even a bullet-holed breastplate could be patched up by a friendly blacksmith. More greenjackets showed at the woods’ southern end, then a battalion of redcoats appeared behind them and with the redcoats came a squadron of fresh cavalry and another battery of horse artillery. A regimental band was playing “Over the Hills and Far Away” as yet more redcoats and greenjackets marched into view.
The Light Division had arrived.
The ammunition wagon lumbered across the fields in the wake of the fast-marching Light Division. One of the wagon’s axles squealed like a soul in torment, an annoyance for which the driver apologized, “but I’ve greased her,” he told Sharpe, “and greased her again. I’ve greased her with the best pig’s fat rendered down, but that squeak still don’t want to go away. It started the day our Bess got killed and I reckons that squeak is our Bess letting us know she’s still kicking somewhere.” For a time the driver followed a cart track, then Sharpe and his riflemen had to dismount and put their shoulders to the wagon’s rear to help the vehicle over a bank and into a meadow. Once back on top of the ammunition boxes the greenjackets decided the wagon was a stagecoach and began imitating the calls of the post horns and singing out the stops. “Red Lion! Fine ales, good food, we change the horses and leave in a quarter-hour! Ladies will find their convenience catered for in the passage behind the lounge.” The wagon driver had heard it all before and showed no reaction, but Sharpe, after Harris had hollered for ten minutes about pissing in the passage, turned and told them all to shut the hell up, whereupon they pretended to be cowed by him and Sharpe had a sudden pang of regret at the things he would miss if he were to lose his commission. Ahead of the wagon the rifles and muskets cracked. An occasional French roundshot that had been fired too high came bounding across the nearby fields, but the three horses plodded on as patiently as though they were harnessed to a plough instead of lumbering into battle. Only once did an enemy threaten and so force Sharpe’s score of riflemen off the wagon to form a rank beside the road. A troop of fifty green-coated dragoons appeared way off to the west where their commander spotted the wagon and turned his men in for the attack. The wagon driver stopped the vehicle and was waiting with a knife poised in case he needed to cut the traces. “We takes the horses,” he advised Sharpe, “and leaves the Frenchies to ransack the wagon. That’ll keep the buggers busy while we makes off.” His horses munched the grass contentedly while Sharpe measured the range to the French dragoons whose copper helmets glinted gold in the sunlight.
Then, just when he had decided that he might be forced to take the wagon driver’s advice and retreat, a squadron of blue-coated cavalrymen intervened. The newcomers were British light dragoons who tempted the French into a running fight of sword against sabre. The driver put away his knife and clicked his tongue, provoking the horses forward. The riflemen scrambled back aboard as the wagon swayed on toward a tree line that obscured the source of the growing powder smoke whitening the southern sky.
Then a crash of heavy guns sounded to the north and Sharpe twisted on the wagon’s box to see that the rim of the British-held plateau was thick with smoke as the main batteries fired thunderous volleys toward the east. “Frogs are attacking the village again,” Sharpe said.
“Nasty place to fight,” Harper said. “Be glad we’re out here instead, boys.”
“And pray the buggers don’t cut us off out here,” Sergeant Latimer added gloomily.
“You’ve got to die somewhere, ain’t that right, Mister Sharpe?” Perkins called out.
“Make it your own bed, Perkins, with Miranda beside you,” Sharpe answered. “Are you looking after that girl?”
“She’s not complaining, Mister Sharpe,” Perkins said, thereby provoking a chorus of teasing jeers. Perkins still lacked his green jacket and was touchy about the loss of the coat with its distinguishing black armband denoting that he was a Chosen Man, a compliment that was paid only to the best and most reliable riflemen.
The wagon lurched onto a deep-rutted farm track that led south through the trees toward the distant villages overrun by the French. The Seventh Division was marching north from the woods, going back to the plateau, while the newly arrived Light Division deployed across the broader road that led back into Portugal. The retiring battalions marched slowly, forced to the snail’s pace by the number of wounded in their ranks, but at least they marched undefeated beneath flying colors.
The wagon driver hauled on the reins to stop the horses among the trees where the Light Division had established a temporary depot. Two surgeons had spread their knives and saws on tarpaulins laid under holm oaks, while a regimental band played a few yards away. Sharpe told his riflemen to stay with the wagon while he sought orders.
The Light Division was arrayed in squares on the plain between the trees and the smoking villages. The French cavalry trotted across the faces of the squares trying to provoke wasteful volleys at too long a range. The British cavalry was being held in reserve, waiting until the French horse came too close. Six guns of the horse artillery were firing at the French cannon while groups of riflemen were occupying the rocky outcrops that studded the fields. General Craufurd, the Light Division’s irascible commander, had brought three and a half thousand men to the rescue of the Seventh Division and now those three and half thousand were faced by four thousand French cavalry and twelve thousand French infantrymen. That infantry was advancing in its attack columns from Poco Velha.
“Sharpe? What the hell are you doing here? Thought you’d deserted us, gone to join the bumboys in Picton’s division.” Brigadier General Robert Craufurd, fierce-faced and scowling, had spotted Sharpe.
Sharpe explained he had brought a wagonload of ammunition that was now waiting among the trees.
“Waste of time bringing us ammunition,” Craufurd snapped. “We’ve got plenty. And what the hell are you doing delivering ammunition? Been demoted, have you? I heard you were in disgrace.”
“I’m on administrative duties, sir,” Sharpe said. He had known Craufurd ever since India and, like every other skirmisher in Britain’s army, Sharpe had a mixed regard for “Black Bob,” sometimes resenting the man’s hard, unforgiving discipline, but also recognizing that in Craufurd the army had a soldier almost as talented as Wellington himself.
“They’re going to sacrifice you, Sharpe,” Craufurd said with unholy relish. He was not looking at Sharpe, but instead watched the great horde of French cavalry that was preparing for a concerted charge against his newly arrived battalions. “You shot a pair of Frogs, ain’t that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No wonder you’re in disgrace,” Craufurd said, then gave a bark of laughter. His aides sat their horses in a tight group behind the general. “Come alone, Sharpe, did you?” Craufurd asked.
“I’ve got my greenjackets here, sir.”
“And the buggers can remember how to fight?”
“I think they can, sir.”
“Then skirmish for me. Those are your new administrative duties, Mister Sharpe. I have to keep the division a safe distance in front of the Frog infantry which means we’ll all have to endure the attentions of their gunners and horse, but I’m expecting my rifles to plague the horses and kill the damn guns, and you can help them.” Craufurd twisted in his saddle. “Barratt? Distribute the ammunition and send the wagon back with the wounded. Go to it, Sharpe! And keep a good lookout, we don’t want to abandon you out here on your own.”
Sharpe hesitated. It was a risky business asking questions of Black Bob, a man who expected instant obedience, but the general’s words had intrigued him. “So we’re not staying here, sir?” he asked. “We’re going back to the ridge?”
“Of course we’re bloody going back! Why the hell do you think we marched out here? Just to commit suicide? You think I came back from leave just to give the bl
oody Frogs some target practice? Get the hell on with it, Sharpe!”
“Yes, sir.” Sharpe ran back to fetch his men and felt a sudden mingled surge of fear and hope.
For Wellington had abandoned the roads back to Portugal. There could be no safe withdrawal now, no steady retreat across the Coa’s fords, for Wellington had yielded those roads to the enemy. The British and Portuguese must stand and fight now, and if they lost they would die and with them would die all hopes of victory in Spain. Defeat now did not just mean that Almeida would be relieved, but that the British and Portuguese army would be annihilated. Fuentes de Oñoro had become a battle to the death.
CHAPTER 10
Sunday’s first attack on Fuentes de Oñoro was made by the same French infantrymen who had attacked two days before and who had since been occupying the gardens and houses on the stream’s eastern bank. They assembled silently, using the stone walls of the orchards and gardens to disguise their intentions and then, without an opening volley or even bothering to throw out a skirmish line, the blue-coated infantry swarmed across the tumbled walls and plunged down to the stream. The Scottish defenders had time for one volley, then the French were in the village, clawing at the barricades or clambering over the walls thrown down by the howitzer shells that had fallen among the houses in the two hours since dawn. The French drove the Scots deep into the village, where one surge trapped two companies of Highlanders in a cul-de-sac. The attackers turned on the cornered men in a frenzy, filling the alley’s narrow confines with a storm of musketry. Some of the Scots tried to escape by pushing down a house wall, but the French were waiting on the far side and met the wall’s collapse with more volleys of musket fire. The surviving Highlanders barricaded themselves in houses bordering the stream, but the French poured fire at windows, loopholes and doors, then brought up galloper guns to fire across the stream until at last, with all their officers killed or wounded, the dazed Highlanders surrendered.
The attack on the cornered Highlanders had drained men from the main uphill assault which stalled in the village’s center. The Warwicks, again in reserve, came down from the plateau to help the remaining Scots and together they first stopped the French, then drove them back toward the stream. The fight was fought at murderously close range. Muskets flamed just feet from their targets, and when these were empty men used their guns as clubs or else stabbed forward with bayonets. They were hoarse from shouting and from breathing the smoky dust that filled the air in the narrow, twisting streets where gutters ran with blood and bodies piled to block each door and entryway. The Scots and Warwicks fought their way downhill, but each time they tried to push the French out of the last few houses the newly emplaced guns in the orchards would open fire with canister to fill the village’s lower streets and alleys with a rattling sleet of death. Blood trickled to the stream. The village’s defenders were deafened by the echo of muskets and the crash of artillery in the streets, but they were not so deaf that they did not hear the ominous tattoo of approaching drummers. New French columns were crossing the plain. The British guns on the ridge were slashing roundshot into the advancing ranks and blasting case shot that exploded above their heads, but the columns were vast and the defenders’ cannons few, and so the great mass of men marched on into the eastern gardens from where, with a vast shout, a horde of men in shaggy black bearskin hats swept over the stream and up into the village.
These new attackers were the massed grenadiers: the biggest men and bravest fighters that the attacking divisions could muster. They wore moustaches, epaulettes and plumed bearskins as marks of their special status and they stormed into the village with a roar of triumph that lasted as they swept up the streets with bayonets and musket fire. The tired Warwicks went back and the Scots went with them. More Frenchmen crossed the stream, a seemingly never-ending flood of blue coats that followed the elite grenadiers into the alleys and up through the houses. The fight in the lower half of the village was the hardest for the attackers, for although sheer impetus carried the assault far into the village heart they were constantly obstructed by dead or wounded. Grenadiers slipped on stones made treacherous by blood, yet sheer numbers forced the attackers on and the defenders were now too few to stop them. Some redcoats tried to clear streets with volley fire, but the grenadiers swarmed through back alleys or over garden walls to outflank the redcoat companies which could only go back uphill through the dust and tiles and burning thatch of the upper village. Wounded men called out pathetically, beseeching their comrades to carry them to safety, but the attack was coming too fast now and the Scots and Englishmen were retreating too quickly. They abandoned the village altogether, fleeing from the upper houses to find a refuge in the graveyard.
The leading French grenadiers charged from the village toward the church above and were met by a volley of muskets fired by men waiting behind the graveyard wall.
The front men fell, but those behind leaped over their dying comrades to assault the graveyard wall. Bayonets and musket stocks slashed over the stone, then the big French soldiers surged over the wall, even pushing it down in some places to begin hunting the survivors up through the heaped graves and fallen stones and shattered wooden crosses. More Frenchmen came from the village to bolster the attack, then a splintering deluge of rifle and musket fire flashed from the stony outcrops just above the blood-greased slope. Grenadiers fell and rolled downhill. A second British volley whipped over the gun-churned graves as still more redcoats arrived to line the ridge’s crest and fire their rolling volleys from beside the church and from the saddle of grassland where Wellington had watched aghast as this spring French tide had risen almost to his horse’s hooves.
And there, for a while, the attack stalled. The French had first filled the village with dead and wounded, then they had captured it, and now they held the graveyard too. Their soldiers crouched behind graves or behind their enemy’s piled dead. They were just feet from the ridge’s summit, just feet from victory while behind them, on a plain gouged by roundshot and scorched by shell and littered with the bodies of dead and dying men, still more French infantry came to help the attackers on.
The day needed just one more push, then the eagles of France would fly free.
The Light Division had formed its battalions into close columns of companies. Each company formed a rectangle four ranks deep and anything from twelve to twenty files wide, then the ten companies of each battalion paraded in column so that from the sky each battalion now resembled a stack of thin red bricks. Then, one by one, the battalion columns turned their backs on the enemy and began marching north toward the plateau. The French cavalry gave immediate pursuit and the air rang with a brassy cacophony as trumpet after trumpet sounded the advance.
“Form square on the front division!” the colonel of the redcoat battalion nearest Sharpe shouted.
The major commanding the battalion’s leading division of companies called for the first brick to halt and for the second to form alongside it so that two of the bricks now made one long wall of men four ranks deep and forty men wide. “Dress ranks!” the sergeants shouted as the men shuffled close together and looked right to make sure their rank was ruler straight. While the leading two companies straightened their ranks the major was calling orders to the succeeding companies. “Sections outward wheel! Rear sections close to the front!” The French trumpets were pealing and the earth was vibrating from the mass of hooves, but the sergeants’ and officers’ voices sounded coolly over the threat. “Outward wheel! Steady now! Rear sections close to the front!” The six center companies of the battalion now split into four sections each. Two sections swung like hinged doors to the right and two to the left, the innermost men of each section reducing their marching pace from thirty to twenty inches, while the men swinging widest lengthened their stride to thirty-three inches and so the sections pivoted outward to begin forming the twin faces of the square whose anchoring wall was the first two companies. Mounted officers hurried to get their horses inside the rapidly forming squar
e that was, in reality, an oblong. The northward face had been made by the two leading companies, now the two longer sides were formed by the next six companies wheeling outward and closing hard up, while the last companies merely filled in the vacant fourth side. “Halt! Right about face!” the major in command of the rear division shouted to the last two companies.
“Prepare to receive cavalry!” the colonel shouted dutifully, as if the sight of the massed French horse was not warning enough. The colonel drew his sword, then swatted with his free hand at a horsefly. The color party stood beside him, two teenage ensigns holding the precious flags that were guarded by a squad of chosen men commanded by hard-bitten sergeants armed with spontoons. “Rear rank! Port arms!” the major called. The innermost rank of the square would hold its fire and so act as the battalion’s reserve. The cavalry was a hundred paces away and closing fast, a churning mass of excited horses, raised blades, trumpets, flags and thunder.
“Front rank, kneel!” a captain called. The front rank dropped and jammed their bayonet-tipped muskets into the earth to make a continuous hedge of steel about the formation.
“Make ready!” The two inside ranks cocked their loaded guns, and took aim. The whole maneuver had been done at a steady pace, without fuss, and the sudden sight of the leveled muskets and braced bayonets persuaded the leading cavalrymen to sheer away from the steady, stolid and silent square. Infantry in square were just about as safe from cavalry as if they were tucked up at home in bed, and the redcoat battalion, by forming square so quickly and quietly, had made the French charge impotent.