Rifles - Mark Urban [34]
FIVE
The Coa
July 1810
The 95th’s pickets greeted first light, that 24 July, with the heartfelt relief of men who have endured a sleepless and rain-sodden night. Their duty was a difficult one, for they knew that Marshal Ney’s 6th Corps lay just in front of them. The snoozing men behind depended entirely on their outlying sentinels for their safety. For several days, the Light Division had been manoeuvring about the plateau between the Coa and Agueda rivers, often glimpsing the French and firing into their forward scouts. Ney had taken Ciudad Rodrigo by assault and, having secured this fortress, everybody now expected him to move into Portugal.
Craufurd had posted his division so that it might cover the withdrawal of some supplies from Almeida. These wagons would have to be taken from the Portuguese stronghold, which would be Ney’s next target, two and a half miles down the road. Craufurd’s battalions ran from north, just by the walls of the fortress, to south, where they were close to the only line of withdrawal across that difficult obstacle. From top to bottom they went: 43rd, closest to Almeida; 3rd (Portuguese) Cacadores; 1st Cacadores; 52nd. These Portuguese were clad in brown uniforms and had been trained to perform the same skirmishing tactics as the division’s British troops. They were also being equiped with the Baker rifle, although there never proved enough for all of these rangers to have one. Apart from the sprinkling of British officers who led them, the Cacadores were generally stocky, black-haired, olive-skinned and enjoyed their own amusements. In bivouacs they would laugh and halloo into the night, gambling over cards, and they returned the suspicious glances of Craufurd’s British soldiers with interest.
The Rifles covered the front of this line of battalions: the 1st Company manned the outlying picket in the northern half, the 2nd Company (Leach’s) the southern. Behind them, close in to the main resting place, was a second line of lookouts, the inlying picket in the northern part of the line, which was manned by O’Hare’s 3rd Company. The remainder of the battalion was sleeping, but fully clothed as usual, just behind their pickets, ready to act in support. These men slumbered under their greatcoats or blankets in a warren of little enclosures, bounded by stone walls, where the locals grew their grapes, apples and olives.
As the sun began to warm the air, the ground returned a little of the night’s downpour to the atmosphere in a heavy mist that hung thickest in the hollows. Craufurd’s pickets stoked their fires and got going with a morning brew. Some riflemen came around with dry cartridges in case the rain had spoiled those in the sentries’ pouches. In the main part of the Rifles’ bivouac the reveille bugles had sounded, and captains were beginning to form their companies, calling out the muster roll.
All of these telltale sounds travelled through the mist to the French scouts who were working their way across the upland. Marshal Ney had prepared himself for a tough contest. The spearhead of his force was made up of the Tirailleurs de Siège, light infantry picked from several regiments, who had formed into a special battalion weeks before, while Ney was attacking the fortress of Rodrigo. They would move forward with cavalry on their flanks and columns of infantry some distance behind.
With the morning mist burning off, the riflemen on picket began to realise the magnitude of their crisis. One of the 95th’s subalterns noted: ‘As the morning fog cleared away we observed the extensive plains in our front covered with the French Army as far as the eye could reach.’ The alarm was given and roll-call broken off in the main bivouac,