Rifles - Mark Urban [56]
The rules of seniority – under which commands were doled out on the basis of time served in rank – had already been violated by Craufurd’s appointment. His substantive rank was only colonel: a brigade was properly a major general’s post and a division one for a lieutenant general. Wellington had rebuffed Craufurd’s legion critics, particularly after the Coa, and worked the military secretarial system judiciously to keep him in position. After receiving several requests for permission to visit home, the general at last wrote to Craufurd, ‘I would beg you to reflect whether, considering the situation in which you stand in the Army, it is desirable that you should go home upon leave. Adverting to the number of General Officers senior to you in the Army, it has not been easy to keep you in your command.’
Such language from the aloof and conservative Wellington was highly unusual. Craufurd’s response to Wellington’s ‘begging’ was typical: he wrote back expressing the hope that other officers might be satisfied, ‘without reducing me to the painful alternative which I have at present to contemplate.’ In short, he was ready to resign. Many in the Army, including senior figures at Horse Guards as well as harassed company commanders, would have been only too pleased if the offer had been accepted – but the secret of Craufurd’s hold over Wellington was precisely that the Commander of Forces was a little in awe of this man of such prickly independence and powerful personality.
Early in February, having got his way, Craufurd left Portugal. His timing was as bad in his leave arrangements at it had been on the Coa the previous July, for the Light Division was about to enter a period of frenetic marching and fighting. The Light Brigade and then Division had lived in his dark shadow for the best part of two years and their initial reaction to his departure was relief. Captain Leach noted gleefully in his journal: ‘Brigadier General Craufurd has sailed for England. God be praised we have got rid of the Vagabond.’
NINE
Pombal
March–April 1811
On 5 March 1811, a typical sluggy Portuguese dawn brought an end to the outlying picket’s night. They were cold and wet during this apparently everlasting Portuguese winter, and through the murk they could just make out the French pickets standing at their usual stations. But as the riflemen of 2nd Company studied those sentries it slowly became clear that they were not moving. One or two intrepid fellows crawled forward and discovered that the French had left behind scarecrows – straw men in greatcoats and shakoes, armed only with broomsticks.
Masséna’s withdrawal did not come as a surprise to Lieutenant Colonel Beckwith. For some days, French deserters had been coming across. Since a couple of weeks before there had been ‘constant reports brought in that they cannot remain much longer in their present positions as the soldiery are suffering sad privations’. The day before, on 4 March, two deserters were received by the 95th, who said ‘the enemy are burning everything they cannot remove, such as gun carriages, carts etc’.
The earlier accounts had been sufficient to bring Beckwith back from Lisbon. He had gone there to try to recuperate from another bout of the intermittent fever that so many had acquired in the Guadiana. But the colonel rallied himself from his sickbed and travelled back with George Simmons, who hoped he was strong enough at last to keep up with his company. It afforded the young subaltern a chance to foster ‘the greatest friendship’ with his commanding officer and now patron.
Craufurd’s absence meant the Light Division was without a commander. Beckwith was in charge of the Right Brigade, comprising the Right Wing of his own battalion and the 43rd Light Infantry. The two wings served