General Delaborde patted the side of his horse’s head, where it panted breathlessly in the pounding heat. Its mane was heavy with sweat, as was its rider, the commander-in-chief of nearly five thousand French soldiers standing patiently on the summit of Heights of Columbeira. Delaborde surveyed the scene carefully, watching the movements of the red troops advancing ahead of him. He was acutely aware that despite the difficulties of climbing the steep, rocky slope, the British troops, once at the top, would easily overwhelm his much smaller force. But a small hope still survived in him.
A messenger had come to him in the morning to inform General Loison’s troops were just half a day’s march away. Expectation had surged.
It was almost midday and the expectation and hope were almost dead. Loison’s troops would be too tired, after days of marching and mountainous terrain ahead, to attempt to reinforce Delaborde now, and so heir plight was their own. The redcoats’ muskets would aim for them only. Delaborde felt the pain of loss; but remembered he was fighting a numerically larger force, the ratio almost four-to-one, and so it was hardly fair to award it the name of failure. This rearguard action could still gain some prestige if it was performed with discipline and without panic.
Luckily his opposing number was doing little to prevent him from achieving this aim. The man was being over-cautious, thought Delaborde, and this was only to the advantage of the smaller French army. It had allowed them to retreat to a better defensive arrangement, and closer to a line of retreat that would, with any luck, heighten their probability of escaping intact. The slim pass towards Azumbujeira would offer them a fast moving road, while their enemy, encumbered by numbers and guns would dither like a trapped beast. Delaborde enjoyed his analogy and smiled. An aide looked oddly at his changing expression, but the General didn’t care and instead galloped his horse over to the west, the sun out of his eyes, so he could stare over at the hills. He looked disappointed at the deserted terrain, and grimly his smile altered to a dark look. It was if he had expected blue reinforcements to stream over at the very moment his horse had stopped on the dry ground.
But they hadn’t, and instead Delaborde, desolate, stroked his elegant moustache and stared once more at the advancing troops that had come to clear Napoleons armies from Portugal.
“Captain Rossau!” he suddenly shouted, turning to a red-haired officer nearby. “Tell Colonel Durand his bloody right flank is leaning too close to the slope! Unless he wants British artillery slaughtering his foremost men, I suggest he moves them back to a more out of sight position!” The aide dutifully moved over on his horse to the relay the order. By suggest, Delaborde had clearly meant order, but it was always good to be polite.
He stared down at the gullies that were the only practical way of climbing the ridge, where his French muskets pointed down at, and where his guns pointed at, and where the British would try and storm out of. If they did, they would suffer horrendous casualties. Delaborde’s cavalry and limited infantry protected his more vulnerable flanks for now, but he doubted they could push back a prolonged, strong attack and doubtless Wellesley would have thrown out men to each side to dislodge him as before.
The right companies of Colonel Durand’s 2nd Battalion of the 70th Line began to slowly withdraw back around twenty yards to a safer, more protected arrangement. Now the British guns couldn’t hit them unless it was a lucky shot. Four other battalions were poised before the fighting alongside Durand’s. Another battalion of the 70th Line, one from the 2nd Leger, one from the 4th Leger, and a Swiss battalion who he did not trust in the slightest. But men were men, and Delaborde had few so now was neither the time nor the place to be picky.
The lead battalions of the British advance were coming close now. Several of them had crossed the small streams that lay like obstacles in front of the French, but the differences in attack angles had caused some to be ahead of others and some behind. Skirmishers out in front were beginning to exchange shots, the crack of musketry loud on the quiet day. Delaborde saw green men from the British quadrant firing a longer distance than the French voltigeurs, who were moving back under pressure from the greater number of spaced out skirmishers. Eventually the French retreated to the top of the ridge again under heavy fire and suffering lots of casualties. The space was clear for the leading British columns to advance. Soon they would be in the range of the French muskets deployed in line.
Delaborde waited on bated breath.
* * * * *
The 29th were ahead of the rest. They had gone an easier path, missing the village of Roliça, and using an easy ford to cross most of the streams; while the other brother battalions advancing had become tied up in tougher terrain. This had led to a large gap between the front and back, and a deficiency in men, as the 29th now faced the entire French army alone.
Of course, they weren’t to attack. But the random terrain had caused other problems. They were far from their designated gully, and so would have to move across the front of the French line to get correctly aligned. For several minutes, the men would be under heavy fire without being able to even return a few volleys. The balls would be fall into like a vicious storm, but they would have to keep walking.
James had seen the danger. His company was on the right of the battalion, so they were generally safe and wouldn’t have to bear the brunt of the French musketry soon to come rattling down from the summit of the ridge. To him it seemed like they would die in seconds, as he glanced up meekly at the French troops busily deploying themselves, waiting for the 29th to cross the breadth of their fire and suffer the dire consequences of such an action. But they had to move, for the other battalions were beginning to come behind them, and to prevent further bad deployment, the 29th was ordered to advance across the bottom of the ridge and its narrow gullies, further to the right were they had originally aimed for. Glancing behind, James saw the men of the 9th battalion moving up. So the companies of the 29th thumped their boots against the dry ground once more and braved the inevitable downpour of lead.
It didn’t come at first. A few men breathed sighs of relief and concentrated on marching as fast, while keeping orderly, as they could. It was tough work in the hot sun. For a while it seemed the French must be asleep, for no fire came from the ridge and James wondered if they were squandering such an opportunity to damage a British battalion.
But then blue troops could be sign re-aligning themselves to give a wider girth of muskets. Three lines stood and kneeled. James tried not to look as he walked alongside the rest of the men, and for a while it seemed like every man in the battalion instantly inhaled and waited. He told himself to concentrate on his feet and forget what was happening, but an urge within wanted to look. Then they fired.
The unmistakeable sound of muskets blazing reverberated across the valley. Unlike the earlier skirmish shots, it was not wild and random, but a sudden intense blast all at once, and the balls flew down the ridge and the first men fell. Some cried out, some dropped silently. One man was hit with a large clang on his head, and with a reflex grasped his forehead, but to his amazement found the musket ball had imbedded itself not in his skull but had bounced off the metallic lining of his shako. Another man was less lucky, his leg being pierced and he disturb the march of the whole company and regretfully had to step over the man. The wounded man was young, and as James passed him their eyes connected, his full of pain and desperation, so forceful that James looked away quickly. But the image of a man being left behind would be etched on his memory for a long time afterwards. Many had fell in just the first volley, noticeable gaps becoming apparent everywhere. Corporals raced around, closing them in the lines to keep the formation rigid and close.
The French were re-loading. The British were still marching. They had barely made it halfway to their destination when the second volley came. The same damage was endured, men falling here and there, right and left, in front and behind. James could do nothing but hope and pray no musket ball would fly near him. He was relatively protected on the far side of the left of the battalion, but men were falling everywhere and it seemed the musket balls would smash through anything. They were indiscriminate. At least five men were down from James’ company alone, and he fretted about what was happening to the right side of the column were the men were more vulnerable. He swore mutedly under his breath, cursing Colonel Lake for pushing them too forward, cursing him for his reckless impetus.
A third volley came, and a fourth. They came in periods of around twenty seconds. After that the French stopped, happy with the results of their own carnage. The British had suffered lots of wounded and many dead for none in return. Luckily the 29th had made it to their destination, the penultimate gully on the right of the ridge. They retreated out of range of the muskets that had caused so many casualties already; wounded and dead men were left like a bloody trail behind them.
Sergeant Rostern groaned beside James, his hand just underneath his left shoulder, and the Lieutenant rushed over to him.
“Are you injured?” he said worriedly, knowing the large man’s importance to the discipline of the company. More over, the man was helpful and James liked him.
“Just a scratch, sir,” Rostern replied, but the blood had darkened his red coat to a browny-maroon and it was obvious he was in pain.
James was going to order the man to find some care, but thought better of it and said nothing. It was obvious the wound was more than a scratch. But if the man could stand, he could probably still fire his musket, and that’s all that mattered to King and Country, James thought bitterly.
The rest of the battalions had caught up with the 29th and now took their places alongside the battered battalion. To James’ right were the 5th, and to his left were the 9th. They made no attempt to charge the ridge, for their orders were clear: wait until the flanking columns engage the enemy before committing yourselves. They would wait until it was obvious the French were defending their sides before they would attack their middle. That way they wouldn’t suffer such horrendous casualties like the 29th had taken. No, they would wait until the French were engaged elsewhere rather than performing futile attacks against the lined muskets of the French infantry.
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