Rifles - Mark Urban [142]
There were those who envied the Light Division’s reputation, no doubt, and thought it rather a good tale to spread that they had been humbled. The flying about of these reports, equally, pricked the pride of those who saw themselves as the best soldiers in the Army. Captain Harry Smith later conceded: ‘This was nearer a surprise than anything we had ever experienced.’ These weasel words, however, were in a public work. The private verdict in Gairdner’s journal was quite blunt – the troops on the Bassussarry ridge, including those of a couple of divisions, had been ‘taken completely by surprise’. The cost, apart from the killed and wounded, was that forty men from the 1st/95th and 43rd had been taken prisoner, including Second Lieutenant Church – he of the bayonet in the charge up La Petite Rhune.
The lessons of all this were complex – hard enough to digest for those whose own pride was involved. Peace, looming as it was, had unsettled the usual regularity of the Light Division. Some felt they should make a desperate attempt to garner some personal glory before the fighting was over, hence Hobkirk’s conduct of 23 November. But for many other veterans the prospect of an end to the fighting had softened their usual vigilance and allowed the outposts to exist on terms with the French that were rather too friendly. It was the atmosphere of bonhomie among the pickets that allowed the British to be surprised. Perhaps it might not have happened under the iron grip of a Craufurd, prowling about the outposts day and night, or perhaps it would have made no difference. Such speculation doubtless filled the long nights of officers drinking and dining in the chateau.
Those officers who had felt Colonel Barnard’s absence most keenly during the recent affair were delighted when he reappeared at Arcangues on 24 December, with Simmons in tow. His recovery had been remarkable, considering he had been shot through the chest, with a graze to his lung, the previous month. Despite the efforts of Army surgeons (who bled him prodigiously soon after his wounding), Barnard had been back riding his horse just a fortnight after the injury. He once again became a source of inspiration to officers or soldiers whose spirit might otherwise have been flagging.
Arcangues became remembered by most of them as a place where the division had suffered some costly mishaps, even though its defensive fighting on 10 December had turned back thousands of French troops and was among its most impressive feats of arms. However, the 95th had not yet been through its last great trial of the Peninsular War. This would come in the new year, in the dying days of Bonaparte’s empire.
TWENTY-THREE
Tarbes
January–March 1814
The columns that emerged from the little town of Rabastens, just north of Tarbes, on 20 March 1814 were full of confidence. The Light Division marched in the van as usual. Their chief, Lord Wellington, was among them, darting about in his plain coat, taking everything in with his owlish eye. Marshal Soult had suffered a succession of beatings since the beginning of the year and was now falling back on Toulouse.
The 1st Battalion riflemen had been given new suits, their previous ones having more or less fallen to pieces on their backs. Colonel Barnard wanted them to have as soldierly an appearance as possible and had managed to scrounge enough shakoes – the proper regimental headgear – for each man to wear. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions were still making do with forage caps instead of those black felt cylindrical hats. The general sense among the riflemen that their war was nearing its end had hardened into a certainty, for reports coming in the mail told them that the main Allied armies were pushing deep into northern France.
A mile or two up the road, looking up to the left at about midday, Wellington spied some French light troops on