Rifles - Mark Urban [191]
236 ‘to the front of the wood, each man to his tree, and kept up a fire’: Cooke.
– ‘Hobkirk’s bugler sounded the advance’: Hennell.
237 ‘Some young sanguine officers who are more vain than good’: Major William Napier’s letter is quoted in Glover’s edition of Hennell’s letters.
238 ‘Some Light Division officers having received The Times of 8 November’: Hennell.
– ‘the pickets would approach tapping the stocks of their weapons’: this signalling is discussed in various places, including Napier’s History.
– ‘Well, I won’t kill these unfortunate rascals’: Gairdner is quoted by Kincaid in his Adventures and he is the source for this entire anecdote.
239 ‘The night before the French attack had been one of heavy, driving rain’: detailed French accounts of this appear in Clerc.
240 ‘The enemy are going to attack us’: Harry Smith.
– ‘where the Highland Company had made its outposts’: WO 25/2139 records the prisoners’ names and details. Ten of the fourteen are listed with Scottish places of birth, evidence that 7th Company retained its Highland character until the end of the Peninsular War.
– ‘Lieutenant Gairdner was mustered along with the reserve for the outlying picket’: the Gairdner MS Journal is the source of these details and the subsequent quotations.
241 ‘Although Clausel … got to the base of the church walls’: this report of the fighting (undated) was written by one Colonel Lapene and found its way into the French Army archives. It is quoted at length by Clerc.
– ‘the French wheeled up twelve cannon’: Clerc.
242 ‘Riflemen may be employed also with great success against field artillery’: Manningham’s lectures.
– ‘We kept up an incessant discharge of small arms’: Cooke. Kincaid also mentions the long-range firing in Adventures.
– ‘The artillerymen fled back over to the safe side of the ridge’: see the French version of this in Lieutenant Colonel Dumas’ book.
243 ‘Hopwood and Brotherwood had been stripped of all their belongings’: Costello.
– ‘whether we had been surprised on 10 December’: Cooke.
TWENTY-THREE Tarbes
245 ‘Colonel Barnard … had managed to scrounge them enough shakoes’: the issue of new uniforms happened on 23–4 February, according to the diarists. The headgear situation is described by Barnard in a letter to Alexander Cameron of 1 April 1813 and included in the Rifle Brigade Chronicle, 1931. This long letter (sadly few from Barnard on military matters survive) is the source of much information on Tarbes, including a long quotation near the end of this chapter.
245 ‘The general quickly ordered the 2nd Battalion’: Barnard, above, noted that Wellington personally ordered the Rifles into the attack.
246 ‘On gaining the summit of the hill we found a much larger force’: William Cox MS Journal. This Cox sailed with the 1st Battalion in May 1809 but had been promoted as captain into the 2nd.
– ‘The whole of their heavy infantry [was] drawn up on a steep acclivity’: William Surtees.
– ‘having been accustomed for many years to oppose imperfectly organised Spaniards’: Leach, Rough Sketches.
– ‘This column was driven back by a rapid advance of the 1st Batt 95th Rifles’: John Cox MS Journal.
247 ‘a heavy tirallade was then kept up in the vineyards’: William Cox.
– ‘Ah, there you are, as usual, just where you should be’: Du Cane citing Molloy.
– ‘The loss of the enemy from the fire of our Rifles was so great’: Harry Smith, as is the Wellington quotation immediately before it.
– ‘Official French returns indicate only around 180 killed and wounded’: these figures are contained in the histories of the 45th and 116th regiments. I am grateful to Tony Broughton for his help on the issue of French casualties at Tarbes. It would be easy to conclude that the Rifles officers were exaggerating. However, I have found them sufficiently honest about such matters during the writing of this book that I suspect some statistical error or sleight of hand