Rifles - Mark Urban [61]
There had also been a good deal of plunder to keep the riflemen happy and, wonder of wonders, on 21 March, enough coin had turned up to pay the men some of their arrears. The commissaries caught up at last, leading to some regular issues of rations. ‘Never let it be said that John Bull cannot fight upon an empty stomach,’ Costello remarked. ‘If ever a division proved this more than another, it was certainly the Light one for Heaven knows we were light enough at this and other periods.’
The 95th’s casualties added up in dribs and drabs through that March. Simmons, who had been fighting almost two years without promotion, began to feel he might have the scent of it. He also feared that his parents would be worrying about him, reading in the Gazette the names of those officers of the 95th killed in recent actions. He wrote to his father, ‘Our regiment gets terribly cut up. We think nothing of it. Every man glories in doing his duty, and those that survive must be promoted.’ O’Hare had drawn conclusions too, notably from Major Stewart’s death: there was a vacant majority and he was the regiment’s senior captain. Surely he would now have his step unless someone else were to cheat him of Stewart’s vacancy, by buying his way over his head or deploying his interest with the Commander in Chief. That would be infamous in the extreme.
The French had not quite been shown out of Portugal yet, though, and that meant more fighting. There remained many marches ahead, too. After Foz de Arouce, the French had suffered something of a slump in morale and discipline, regardless of their pride in Ney’s achievements with the rearguard. Masséna had to issue an order of the day reminding them forcefully, ‘Pillaging is expressly forbidden, and pillagers will be punished with the full force of the law’ – such was the extent of murder and lawlessness, he hung a few of the worst culprits pour encourager les autres. But as the marshal tried to bring such matters under tighter control, a heavy fight was getting under way. It was one in which Beckwith and the 95th would face their hardest test to date, being pitted against almost impossible odds.
TEN
Sabugal
April 1811
An eerie sound penetrated the early-morning fog close to the banks of the Coa. One voice would sing out in German, and then a hundred comrades would sing back the next line. It was a manly chorus that might have unnerved some. But the Rifles knew it was the hussars of the German Legion. They had saddled up after a wet, cold night and were reviving their spirits. A song and a smoke was sufficient to restore the German veterans. A big drooping pipe would be lit up and quickly popped beneath a big drooping moustache. With the clumping of hooves and jingle of saddlery, they set off to find a ford across the river.
The Light Division had come up much closer to the frontier, that 3 April, and Wellington issued orders for a large-scale attack on troops of General Reynier’s 2nd Corps, whom he believed to be just across the river. The French occupied a long ridge, with the Coa running alongside it. Where the river eventually turned away from this feature, there was a bridge, and a town, Sabugal, with its old castle. Wellington wanted to use some fords higher up the river to begin a combined movement that