Rifles - Mark Urban [5]
It was not until almost three weeks had passed since leaving Dover that the convoy got properly under way. Happily for the commanding officer and his company commanders like O’Hare, nobody had been left behind through desertion or serious infractions of discipline.
As it sailed towards the open Atlantic, the convoy had swelled. Transports carrying two other battalions had joined them, as had Nymph, a frigate carrying the brigadier general who was commanding the whole enterprise. The veterans knew him well: Black Bob, a fierce flogger who taught them to fear their master. Old sweats could have pointed out their brigadier as he strolled on the frigate’s deck or dined near the big windows of its captain’s cabin. The brigadier was one of the few officers who knew the squadron’s destination. Fierce reputation or not, he had been given a real plum of a job in command of this crack brigade, made up of some of the most highly trained troops in the Army.
Even among these three battalions, the Rifles were unique. Their green uniforms marked them out, as did their blackened leather cross-belts (for the other two battalions hung equipment whitened with pipe clay over their red coats). Their weapons were different too, the barrels grooved or rifled to spin the ball, giving greater accuracy and allowing them to attempt aimed fire at long range.
Just as many of the men in the 95th were yearning to prove themselves, so their commanding officer knew the present expedition would allow a chance to demonstrate a new sort of soldiering; a different approach to training, discipline, tactics and fighting. The higher reaches of the Army were notoriously conservative, and many generals, while they could appreciate the value of a sprinkling of sharpshooters here and there, could see no value in deploying an entire regiment of riflemen en masse for they must soon be driven from the field by formed infantry or cavalry. ‘A very amusing plaything’: that was how one of the Army’s most experienced generals had ridiculed the Rifles.
As the ships passed the Needles, the foam frothing against their bows, gulls and all variety of seabirds dived and wheeled about them. And this is when some of the 95th’s veterans showed their true colours. Officers and men alike drew their rifles and started shooting the creatures. What on earth did the sea officers make of the crackle of gunfire that built into a cacophony? Every now and then a cheer would go up as one of the Green Jackets found his mark and some unfortunate gull plopped into the brine.
‘The order of the day was to bombard the sea-fowl which swarm at this season on the rocks. Rifles and fowling pieces were brought into full play on this occasion,’ one of the company commanders wrote. It was no mean feat to drill a bird at any sort of distance; add to that the rapid movements of both ship and prey. For a seaman this was a barbaric thing to do, unless you’d been driven mad by hunger. But for the riflemen killing was sport, the best there was, and as soon as they got to wherever they were going, they intended to show how good they were at hunting men too.
Tom Plunket, in 3rd Company, along with Fairfoot, had bagged a rare prize during the last campaign: he had potted a French general. The commanding officer had singled Tom out in front of the paraded regiment after that, and told them all, ‘Here, men, stands a pattern for the battalion!’ And Tom’s deadly shot wasn’t repaid just in lip service: he’d been given a purse of money and a corporal’s stripes too.
Private Edward Costello, twenty years old, another new man in the company, studied his corporal with something akin to worship. During the long period of waiting, Tom had kept