• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 447 0

’ wrote Costello, comparing the dying months of 1811 to the miserable autumn of his first campaign. ‘We had to make up for the deficiency of bread with roasted or boiled chestnuts … we eventually had to make an incursion deep into the mountains, to press the alcaldes of the different villages to supply us.’ These ‘incursions’ took the form of a company or two of riflemen presenting themselves to the mayor, or alcalde, asking him to hand over a certain quantity of food, issuing him with a receipt, to be redeemed at a later date by the Commissary General, and marching off with their gains. Since the locals had considerable experience of these pieces of paper – finding that they were generally worthless when issued by their own or the French Army – these foraging trips soon turned into ill-tempered affairs in which the peasants tried to conceal as much of their food as possible.

One evening, returning from an inspection of the outposts, General Craufurd rode straight into a scene of near-riot in one village. A Spanish woman was pursuing a corporal and private of the 95th, shouting to all and sundry that they were thieves. Craufurd apprehended the men, discovering that they had been driven by hunger to steal bread. His prejudice against the 95th once more came into play, as he told the riflemen that their regiment ‘committed more crimes than the whole of the British Army’. The corporal was broken to the ranks and awarded 150 lashes, the other man 200. They were duly paraded for punishment the next day.

Craufurd told the assembled soldiers, ‘You think because you are riflemen, and more exposed to the enemy’s fire than other regiments, that you are to rob the inhabitants with impunity, but while I command you, you shall not.’ He turned to the broken corporal and ordered him ‘Strip, sir!’ As he was bound and readied for punishment, the soldier looked across imploringly:

‘General Craufurd, I hope you will forgive me.’

‘No sir, your crime is too great.’

With a sickening crack, the first lash was laid on. The corporal called out to Craufurd that they had been together in Buenos Aires in 1807: ‘I shared my last biscuit with you. You then told me you would never forget my kindness to you. It is now in your power, sir, for you know we have been short of rations for some time.’

The general halted the punishment and then, his voice trembling with emotion, asked, ‘Why does a brave soldier like you commit these crimes?’ He turned around and left, trying to escape the 95th’s gaze before his composure broke down completely.

Craufurd’s spirits had sunk very low in his lousy billet. He wrote home to Fanny, ‘I am labouring under a fit of the blue devils.’ They had discussed plans for her to spend the winter with him in Portugal, but these had been abandoned as impractical, with him telling her at last, ‘This … disposes a person who is separated from all he loves to uncomfortable feelings and reflections.’

For some of the soldiers enduring hunger, continued hard marches and barbarous punishments, the autumn gloom brought them to a crisis. Private Joseph Almond was one such. He had been in the 95th for more than eleven years, ever since it was founded, and in the Army for more than seventeen. He had campaigned around the world – Almond need not prove his courage to any man – and twice he had been busted back from corporal. As a soldier again, he had to put up with all the petty tribulations, from extra duties to being short-changed on rations. In sum, Almond was worn out. He was reaching his late thirties, and driving his body through the endless marches was becoming harder and harder for him. The veterans often tried to keep themselves going by easing their aches with booze and tobacco. Quite a few of the broken-down older non-commissioned officers had been sent home ‘to recruit’ when the 9th and 10th Companies had been dissolved a year before. Such avenues were generally closed to the ranker, however.

Almond had taken advantage of the paymaster, using him as a bank to pay for his comforts and running up a small debt of nine shillings