Rifles - Mark Urban [60]
Costello’s feelings were all the more perturbed when he realised that the soldier he had killed was hanging back to try to protect his wounded brother, who lay nearby. When the battle was over, he went back to find them but discovered both Frenchmen, ‘naked as they were born, perforated with innumerable wounds, no doubt administered by the Portuguese. I turned back to camp in a very poor humour with myself.’
The following day, the division came up with the French at a small town called Foz de Arouce, through which ran a little river, the Ceira. As the French withdrew, the bridge became choked and it was clear that a small rearguard had been left vulnerable on the wrong side of the river. Wellington spotted the mistake instantly and, dispensing with Erskine, found Beckwith, ordering him to attack.
One of the French regiments, the 39ème, had allowed itself to get caught a little too far from the bridge, and Beckwith sent one wing of his battalion rushing down the slope towards the town. They made their way into the streets, getting between the 39ème and the bridge, opening fire on the Frenchmen to drive home the danger of their situation. The realisation that they might be cut off caused a general panic, hundreds rushing along the Ceira, trying to find a ford to wade through.
Ney, seeing the gravity of the situation, ordered a battalion of the 69ème that was already across the bridge to turn about. One of the officers in that regiment noted that the British were ‘pressing us harder than usual’. ‘In a moment, our battalion was under arms and beating the charge,’ Sub-Lieutenant Marcel recorded. ‘The 27ème, in line, fired in two ranks on the Portuguese column that was trying to approach the bridge. It fired with the same calm as at drill. Under the protection of this fire, we marched, bayonets to the fore, with such confidence that the enemy fled.’
The greater than accustomed ardour of the British attack was due to Wellington and Beckwith and the ‘Portuguese column’ – in fact the 95th. It was quite usual for the French to have difficulty distinguishing between the dark uniforms of the riflemen and the Portuguese Cacadores. The loss of the French during this action was about 250, with many drowned in the river. The 39ème’s eagle, the standard given to it by the Emperor, was also lost in the Ceira during this action and later recovered, providing the British with a rare trophy.
For the French, 6th Corps’ march back to the border had been a textbook operation, despite the final chapter at Foz de Arouce. A fighting withdrawal offered the enemy all kinds of chances to make mischief, and Ney had kept the British in check. One French officer reflected, ‘From 5 to 15 March, that is to say in eleven days, [the corps] sped across thirty-three leagues; it did an average of three leagues a day. The Anglo-Portuguese marched in its tracks with their usual timidity: at Pombal, Redinha, at Foz de Arouce, one or two divisions of the 6th Corps sufficed to stop them and paralyse their plans.’
That Wellington had followed cautiously was not in doubt. One officer on his staff wrote home, ‘If you ask me whether we might not have done more than we have, I have no hesitation in answering certainly yes, and on several occasions, but it appears to have been throughout the business the plan of Ld W not to risk a man and he clearly has succeeded.’ After humbling Masséna at Busaco and in front of Torres Vedras, Wellington had no desire to let him clinch some propaganda victory on the way back to Spain.
But an unadventurous fortnight for the Army as a whole had taken its toll on the 95th, engaged as it was throughout. And while the rankand-file riflemen shared the French derision for the way the actions had been commanded – blaming Ass-skin – the wider Peninsular Army had learned of the Light Division’s almost