Greenjackets
“Dieu ne pas pour le gros battalions, mais pour sequi teront le meilleur.”
– Voltaire
(God is not on the side of the big battalions, but of the best shots.)
Northern Spain, 1809
Second Lieutenant William Savage was aware of two things as he stumbled on the icy road.
One, the men were drunk.
Two, the French were coming.
Surprisingly, Savage regarded the first with more concern. The French had been chasing at their heels for days, and although he was not keen to meet the sharp blades of the famed French cavalry, the Lieutenant still feared the intoxication of his men more. It was not their fault, he reasoned. The forced march with heavy packs in the freezing Spanish winter, coupled with the demoralising French shadow over their shoulder, picking and skirmishing at their rearguard, was enough to drive a man insane. Or at least to alcohol.
And it had. Yesterday they had ignored orders and broke free of their customary restraints, smashing and looting the local wine stores. Half of them, blindingly drunk by that evening, had later collapsed by the sides of roads or on walls of taverns. Savage remembered Captain Prior harrying him to round up the men, but an eighteen-year-old Second Lieutenant, fresh out of England, could do little to halt the inebriated vivacity of the men. Cold weather, heavy packs, and the French had all forced them to seek an escape, and the escape had come in the form of the bottle.
Some of the men had been left.
Savage felt sorry for them; left in a wet alley in Northern Spain, witless and forgotten. But it had been necessary. It was impossible to collect them up, and it was suicide to wait. The ignominious others that had managed to catch up with the retreating column of British soldiers were condemned to punishment. Just this morning the divisional commander, Sir Edward Paget, had ordered the flogging of two Riflemen for intoxication.
The Lieutenant managed to regain his balance on the slippery floor, and with one arm holding on to his bicorne he walked toward the square littered with unconscious redcoats and greenjackets. Broken bottles and abandoned haversacks were covered with fallen snow. It painted a forlorn scene.
There were some that were awake.
Savage sighed in relief at this. Captain Prior had ordered him to collect up the men to watch the punishment. It had fallen on Savage to find his half-platoon.
Most of them were awake, he realised. Sergeant Campbell, the Methodist who never touched a drop of alcohol, had congregated the motley bunch of Riflemen into a half-respectable group. They had been hidden as Savage entered the square. Now he had seen them he turned and walked toward the stiff figure of Campbell, who saluted smartly.
“Are they ready, Sergeant?” Savage asked. He knew it was grim, a few of them were not in possession of their rifles anymore, and at least half were swaying as they stood. Savage did a quick headcount and knew that at least four of them were missing.
Campbell hesitated. “Aye, almost there, sir.”
Savage frowned. “Almost there, Sergeant?”
“Aye, sir. Just need a little a cleaning up and there’ll be right as rain in a few minutes, sir.”
But the Lieutenant wasn’t satisfied. “Where’s Plunkett? And the others?” Savage had easily noticed the tall Irishman missing. Tom Plunkett was one of the best shots in the Regiment, but infamous for his liking of drink.
“Here, sir,” mumbled a voice behind the Lieutenant, and Savage spun quickly, locating Plunkett. He was sitting up against the wall, surrounded by the shattered remains of empty bottles and dark liquid that formed pools in the grooves of the cobbles. His shako was almost falling off his head and his dark green jacket was hopelessly dishevelled: open and marked by numerous new stains.
Savage hesitated. He knew he should command the man to be on his feet, and make an example of him. He knew he must look strong and confident in front of the eyes of his men, but in truth he did not know how to act or what to say.
Sergeant Campbell saved him the trouble. In his loud Scottish brogue he boomed, “On your feet, Private!”
Plunkett muttered something barely audible in response. The rifleman flailed at the wall, scratching with his arms, hoping to use it to help himself up. But it was in vain, and his hands uselessly fell back down to his side. Next he tried to stand up without help, but this was similarly disastrous, his shako sliding into the mix of glass and alcohol on the stone cobbles, and he fell back as he stood. Luckily, he leant on the wall at his back and managed to just about stand, using the butt of his rifle to steady himself. He swayed as some of the others did. His right arm came up, slowly, and he formed a half-decent salute. “Reporting.” Plunkett paused, his face convoluting with strenuous thought. “Reporting for duty, sir.” He hadn’t shaved, and the thick black prickles on his chin added to the overall disordered look. Plunkett towered over the shorter Savage, his broad shoulders stretching beyond the punier Lieutenant, but his condition made his old invulnerability look broken.
Savage thought he still should condemn the man, but Campbell was quicker.
“Fall in, Plunkett,” he said, quieter this time, but still forcefully. Plunkett staggered his way to the end of the line, and then buttoned up his green jacket.
Lieutenant Savage saw his opportunity in the forgotten shako deserted on the ground. “Forgotten something, Private?” he asked, stooping to grasp the black hat, and then shoving it in front of Plunkett’s glazed eyes. “This tends to stay on your head, Plunkett. You’re a disgrace.”
“Yes, sir,” Plunkett said in his heavy Irish drawl.
“A damned disgrace,” Savage said, eyeing the drunken Irishman with distaste. He knew the man was popular in the Company, one of the best liked, but he was also a constant troublemaker and alcoholic. In battle he could shave the moustache off a French Colonel from two hundred yards away, but out of battle he was just a headache. “Sergeant Campbell, this man is on a charge.” Savage would have liked to give him more, report him to the Captain for drunken behaviour, but that would have just meant another Rifleman flogged, and the Lieutenant knew the arduous retreat was enough to break their spirits already, without adding the whip to their mutinous feelings. He thrust the shako into Plunkett’s stomach and the man accepted it.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Sergeant, search this square and pick up any man in a greenjacket that can walk,” Savage ordered.
As they made ready to march out of the square, two more riflemen with unsteady heads added to their ragbag bunch. The clip-clap of horse’s hooves on cobbles reached Savage’s ears. Captain Prior rode into the square. His horse was large and black, and matched by the dark green of his uniform with its silver lace and black collar, he looked the very embodiment of a fighting soldier. A glimmering sabre hung menacingly at his side. He reined in the beast as he saw Lieutenant Savage.
“Will! I was looking for you, old boy. Wondering where you got yourself to,” Captain Prior said.
“Why, is something to happen?” Savage said. “What about the punishments?”
“By God, haven’t you heard? We’re to help Paget to form the rearguard. It’s the French, Will! They’re attacking -- group of light cavalry over the hill, don’t you know!” Prior was imbued with a sense of kinetic energy; he beamed at Savage from his saddle, his excitement evident. “Paget cancelled the punishments.”
Savage was struck silent for a few moments before recovering himself. No longer was he concerned about intoxication, but the sharp sabres of French cavalry, in their elaborate uniforms, flashed back to the front of his thoughts. “The French?” he stammered. “Hell. Rifles!” he called, “Follow the Captain!”
Prior grinned. He patted the side of his horse and trotted ahead of the Rifles, who double-timed it out of the square. The small outcrop of buildings and farms were surrounded by ragged countryside in the deepest depths of winter. Trees were empty except for the snow that balanced on their branches, threatening to fall. They walked adjacent to the fierce river that cut through the rocky hills, across the battered track that the last of the British army was using to push toward Corunna.
Where the ships waited to take them home.
He looked over at the solitary stone bridge that breached the cold water. Earlier that morning, they had crossed it with heads twitching to glance over their shoulders, hoping not to see the sun glint off the spurs of French horsemen. They had been ordered to stay behind and slow the French enough to prevent the valuable stores at Villafranca to fall into French hands.
Savage switched his eyes to the left. There, the redcoats would make their stand, by the walls of the empty vineyards. He could almost see their grimaces from here. There were marks where musket balls had thudded against the stone and small weeds crept through the holes, their green leaves straining outward.
The gloomy sky hung overheard. The crowds of red uniforms on the ridge’s edge stood out like bloodstains on plain cloth.
The Lieutenant blinked and followed the Captain onto the trail that ran down onto the bridge.
They crossed the bridge. It was a simple stone structure, and if the British army wasn’t under such constant pressure to keep moving, the Engineers might have been able to destroy it to protect their retreat. It was only this morning that the British had arrived near Cacabelos, however, not nearly enough time to find an Engineer and proceed with the destruction. The French were too close.
“Why are we going across, sir?” Savage said, momentarily confused by the Captain’s decision to cross the river when most of the British troops hadn’t.
“Us rifles are to observe the advance, along with the 15th Hussars,” Prior shouted back.
Savage nodded. Then he looked past the Captain, and saw death.
The Hussars were no longer observing, they were dying. In the distance, Savage could see the dark blue of the British Hussars mixed with the dark green of the French Chasseurs, who had charged unexpectedly into the British cavalry. It had caused a rout. All Savage could see was a bloody medley of horses and men, some crumpled on ground. All he heard was screams, the odd discharge of a pistol or carbine and the clatter of sabre upon sabre.
“Good God,” Prior whispered.
The Hussars had been caught by the sudden French assault and were running away. The constant thuds of hunted and hunting cavalry galloping toward them made bother the officers freeze in sudden fear.
Sergeant Campbell appeared next to Savage. “We should move, sir, those Crapauds will be on us in a minute,” he said.
The temporary shock that had frozen both officers fell away.
“Retreat,” Prior murmured. “Get back over the bridge!” he shouted as he galloped away on his black horse, leaving Savage and his riflemen temporarily naked in the open ground, with the impending charge of two lots of horsemen coming toward them.
Savage didn’t even have to order them. Campbell led the retreat, the Riflemen gladly jogging back across the bridge toward the waiting lines of British troops and the artillery. Other Rifles from other companies joined them; some, Savage realised, hadn’t crossed yet, and others were the ones who were helping protect the Hussars. They fired a volley towards the Chasseurs, but it was at extreme range and few men fell. Now they had retreated back toward the bridge, and Savage breathed relief as his own boots clattered against the stone structure and he made it back to the safer side.
It was just in time.
The fleeing Hussars rushed past, most not bothering to use the bridge and simply traversing the water, the smashing legs and hooves throwing water here and there. They interspersed with the retreating Riflemen, some who waded the cold stream and others who had made it across but were hit by the speed of the horses and knocked over. It was chaos. Savage was pulled to one side by the strong arm of Sergeant Campbell as one Hussar bolted past. Some shots were fired loosely.
He was running now, along with the rest of his beleaguered squad, toward the safety of the vineyard’s walls and the waiting muskets of the other battalions. He turned his head for the swiftest moment to watch in horror as some of the unfortunate Rifles were caught by the advancing French, who were even closer than he expected, right on the literal heels of the British retreat. The Chasseurs sliced left and right, bringing down greenjacketed men around the bridge. At the front was a tall man on a handsome grey horse, who brought down a Hussar officer expertly with his sabre.
Savage knew he was lucky. They had ran just in time, and now it seemed the French wouldn’t carry on their advance for fear of the guns up above them on the slope. They would cause terrible damage to the horses, and for a moment, a brief, lucky moment, the French didn’t pursue.
“Sergeant, get the men up that slope,” Savage said, knowing he was simply stating the obvious.
“Aye, sir,” came the indomitable voice of Campbell, who grabbed the collar of one Rifle who was stumbling up the incline of the ridge.
Savage checked over his men to see if they were all still together. His heart sank. There was one missing. Plunkett, by the looks of it. His head flicked round and he sighed in relief, seeing the Rifleman behind him.
“Hurry up, Plunkett!” Savage called.
“Coming, sir,” the Irishman said, but he turned, scanning the French cavalry. Savage followed his eyes and saw the tall man on the grey horse, with the uniform and dressage of a General. He was someway ahead of his men, his sabre still in his hand. Savage was about to shout at the Rifleman, but he bit back his words as he watched what the Irishman did.
Plunkett lay down, but then sat up, balancing his rifle on his feet to steady and aim it -- one of the many firing positions for a solitary Rifleman. The distance was extreme, even for the more accurate rifle. Savage watched as the Rifleman slid the butt under his shoulder.
There was a sharp crack. The General died.
The bullet must have caught him on the head, for he toppled from the horse dramatically as he flew backwards, and there was no movement afterwards. It was an extraordinary shot, a wonderful shot, and for a moment Savage was filled with such a respect for Plunkett’s marksmanship that he forgot what danger they were under, this far ahead of the British defence.
But it didn’t matter. The French, stunned by the death of their General, had lost all cohesion and some of the Chasseurs and the Dragoons dropped back beyond the stream. There was such a confusion that all thought of a French advance was forgotten. A demonic sharpshooter had killed their young dashing General, and their horses’ heads twitched backwards as if to indicate their unwillingness to advance.
Plunkett wasn’t finished though. A man had run out to the General, stooped down and paused by his lifeless body. The Irishman had already quickly bit his cartridge and poured gunpowder into the pan, closing the frizzen, and had proceeded to spit the ball down the barrel. He did it without leather, which made it more accurate, but slowed down the reloading process, and then rammed the ball down, before slipping the rifle expertly back into position and cocking it.
There was a sharp crack, and the second man died.
His body fell next to the General’s.
The Rifles cheered. They had just witnessed some of the finest shooting any of them had ever seen, and it had checked the French advance just enough for the greenjackets to escape to the ridge. They did so eagerly, clapping Plunkett on the back as he caught up. As they passed by the waiting redcoats, who had the golden-yellow facings of the 28th, Savage went over to the Plunkett.
“That was fine shooting, Private,” Savage said in awe.
The Irishman grinned. “Why, thank you, sir.”
“Damn fine shooting,” Savage repeated. “Sergeant Campbell?”
“Aye, sir?” Campbell replied.
“This man is no longer on a charge,” Savage said. He reached into his jacket pocket, into a jangling moneybag, and brought out a silver shilling. He flicked it toward Plunkett and the Irishman caught it with a bigger grin. “Well done, Plunkett.”
“My pleasure, sir,” Plunkett said. Somehow the effects of the drink had dissipated. Savage wondered what the thrill of battle did to the man, who could be murdered by drink off it, but an expert murderer on it.
The artillery was firing, which meant the French were advancing.
Savage no longer cared; the sharp blades of the French no longer frightened him. He had seen them humbled by one of his own, one of his greenjackets.
Historical Note
The action at Carabelos on January 3rd formed a smaller part of the larger retreat by Sir John Moore towards Corunna in 1809, away from the French forces commanded first by Napoleon, and then by Marshal Soult as the Emperor left Spain. The shambolic Convention of Cintra had forced Wellesley, one of the finest British commanders, to leave Portugal, and it allowed the French army to escape from Portugal after two defeats at Roliça and Vimiero. Moore was left to command, and, outnumbered by the swelling forces of the French in Spain, he was forced to retreat because his Spanish allies gave him little support. He headed for Corunna, still in British hands, hoping to let his army escape back to England.
The shot by Thomas Plunkett is not one of fiction. No primary recorded sources of the event remain; however, secondary sources regularly highlight the extraordinary event. Although different accounts stipulate different distances for the shot, it was no doubt excellent shooting given the fact they were running from French cavalry, and the fact Plunkett managed to reload and shoot the trumpet-major who went to help the fallen General Colbert (a dashing young officer who gambled badly by attacking the British that day) to prove it was no lucky shot. Edward Paget was indeed the divisional commander that day; however, Captain Prior, Lieutenant Savage and Sergeant Campbell are all fictional.
Following Plunkett’s marksmanship, the artillery on the slope smashed the French apart and this was then followed by frontal and flanking fire from the 95th, 28th and 52nd regiments that guarded the slope. The French were held back and the Rifles managed to escape, back to Corunna, where they boarded ships back to England. Thomas Plunkett survived the rest of the Peninsular War, but was injured at Waterloo where a bullet grazed his skull and he was discharged from duty. He died in poverty, despite being well remembered by the 95th as one of its best heroes.
I'll get editing this some time soon, because pretty much everything you brought up needs looking at.
Your syntax is much improved, I've gotta say. It's not quite as heavy, and the lengths of the sentences are varied for emphasis (in all the right places! *squees with CL*).
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