Rifles - Mark Urban [11]
On most days the Light Brigade marched between twelve and sixteen miles. This was tough enough, and it killed a couple of the weaker men through heatstroke. Craufurd took to inspecting the soldiers’ water bottles to make sure they were full. He did not want the rogues to fall out fetching water, or a whole column to halt at some stream while they filled up. The soldiers saw things differently: a full bottle added several pounds to your marching kit and they already felt crushed by the burden of full regulation equipment:
We each had to carry a great weight during this long and harassing march. There was a knapsack and straps, two shirts, two pair of stockings, one pair of shoes, ditto soles and heels, three brushes, a box of blacking, razor, soap box and strap, and also at the time an extra pair of trousers. There was a mess tin, centre tin and lid, haversack and canteen, greatcoat and blanket, a powder flask filled, a ball bag containing thirty loose balls, a small wooden mallet used to hammer the ball into the muzzle of our rifles, belt and pouch – the latter containing fifty rounds of ammunition – sword belt and rifle … thus we were equipped with from seventy to eighty pounds of weight in the melting month of July.
This already difficult situation changed decisively on the morning of 28 July, when a dusty rider, carrying an express from Sir Arthur Wellesley, found Craufurd. In it, the commander of forces told Craufurd that he was in the presence of a large French army and that a general action was to be expected at any moment. Any limits that the chief of the Light Brigade had placed on his men had to be thrown to the wind.
Craufurd did not intend to lose what might be his only chance to redeem his reputation in battle. What’s more, everyone from private soldier to the commanding officer of the 95th shared the desire to measure himself against the French. So with little delay, Craufurd’s brigade was launched into a series of crushing forced marches into the mountains of Iberia.
They began at 2 a.m. on the 28th and stopped at 11 a.m., as usual. Now, instead of resting for the remainder of the day, they started marching again, at about 5 p.m., as the early-evening cool began. ‘Every man seemed anxious to push on, and all were in high spirits, hoping soon to be on the field of battle,’ one of the marchers wrote. They kept going until 10 p.m., when they stopped for a few hours.
As the Light Brigade struggled up the mountain roads of the borderlands, Wellesley’s army was attacked by the French at Talavera de la Reyna. The British general had chosen his ground with the care that was to become one of his most celebrated trademarks. On his right was the River Tagus and the city of Talavera: these obstacles would prevent the French simply going around, or turning, this wing of the Allied Army. Spanish troops occupied that right section of the line, and at the seam where their forces met the British – the junction of two armies being often a weak point – a defensive fieldwork had been built, a small fort bristling with cannon.
The left of Wellesley’s position was anchored on another natural obstacle, the hills of the Sierra de Segurilla. Although these were no lofty peaks, the ground itself, being strewn with huge boulders and rocky outcrops, denied any movement to formed troops.
The French would have no choice but to attack in the centre, so this is where Wellesley placed his most powerful formation, the four brigades of General Sherbrooke’s 1st Division. In front of them was a stream, the Portina, which ran down from the Sierra, above