Rifles - Mark Urban [63]
About half a mile from the ford, the 95th, leading Beckwith’s brigade, started moving up the hillside, where they expected to find thousands of Frenchmen. The countryside was dotted with walled enclosures and clumps of chestnut trees. The visibility had improved somewhat, and they could now see a couple of hundred yards in front of them. All of this made a surprise by cavalry less likely, and the 95th’s companies began extending up the slope, until the whole of Right Wing formed one long skirmish line.
Among the leading riflemen, feeling their way onto the ridge’s flat top, there was still a feeling of tense anticipation. There had been some more French skirmisher fire, but most of them had run off, and whoever lay behind the enemy pickets had most certainly been given the alarm and would be under arms. The vegetation, enclosures and lie of the land meant, though, that they could still not see far ahead; they moved gingerly across country.
Simmons, leading his company, moved up through the chestnut trees and, as the ground dipped a little in front of them, stopped dead. They had come face to face with a French regiment standing in column not twenty yards in front. The officers who caught sight of the first riflemen sent up a shout of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’, which was instantly repeated by hundreds of men in the ranks behind, shaking their muskets at the insolent fools who had just appeared to their front. At moments like this, there was only one drill. Simmons and his riflemen turned tail and started running. They flew back towards their supports and the 43rd, bullets whistling about their ears, smacking into the chestnut trunks as they went. The French drums were thumping now and Simmons’s men knew they were being pursued. Every now and then, a couple of the riflemen would stop, turn around and pick a target, fire, and move on.
Making a little stand, ‘the galling fire of the 95th Rifles at point blank [soon] compelled them to retire,’ wrote one subaltern of the 95th, ‘but rallying with strong supports the wood again became the scene of sharp work and close firing.’ But the French pushed back the Rifles. Beckwith, hearing the firing to his front, deployed the 43rd, ready to receive whatever might appear. As three big French columns arrived in front of them, ‘the 43rd formed line giving their fire, we skirmishers rapidly forming up on their left, opening our fire on the advancing columns.’ The British realised they were heavily outnumbered – perhaps by a factor of four to one. ‘Beckwith, finding himself alone and unsupported, in close action, with only hundreds to oppose the enemy’s thousands, at once saw and felt all the danger of his situation,’ wrote one officer.
At the front of the French division were the 2ème Léger or Light Infantry, 4ème Léger and the 36ème Régiment de Ligne. They advanced, bayonets to the fore, drums beating the pas de charge. Beckwith’s men could not stand in front of this phalanx: they started running backwards.
The colonel understood that at such a crisis his own behaviour had to instil confidence. He was able to halt his men and turn them back again towards the enemy, less than a hundred yards away and now looking down at them from uphill. Beckwith manoeuvred his horse up and down as he ordered his line, a prime target for the enemy’s sharpshooters if ever there was one, steadying his men and directing their volleys. He knew it was going to be a matter of time until Colonel Drummond’s brigade appeared on his right or the attacks by other divisions went in further north – but how long? Another determined French push and they would be fighting with the Coa to their backs. His brigade was about to be crushed.
For some reason, though, the French did not press forward again. Visibility was improving, and even though they could see Beckwith was unsupported, they could not quite believe it. Perhaps the isolated British brigade was trying to gall them into rushing forward into some hideous ambush. However, if the French felt unsure about moving