Brothers in Arms. Iain Gale
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at Steel. ‘Steel. Good day. Your men look keen. Keep them to the fore, Steel. They are Grenadiers, you know.’
He smiled, not meaning the compliment, and rode off to the other flank. Steel wondered whether he would survive. Unpopular mounted officers, and few were more unpopular than Charles Frampton, made a tempting target if you had a crack shot in the battalion. He brushed fantasy aside and turned back to the job in hand.
Frampton’s voice rang out to the battalion: ‘First firing. Take care … Fire!’
But the French had now reloaded and as the guns fired from the British line, so they did from the enemy ranks. It seemed to Steel that the air had become a storm of musket balls, and he saw men fall all along the red-coated line. But then looking across he saw through the smoke to his left that the French too had taken losses. The regimental drummers beat a short preparative tattoo which had the men at the ready.
Again Frampton’s voice sang out: ‘Second firing … fire.’ The second platoon fired and more of the grey-coated infantry fell. But the slower French had not yet reloaded and were unable to return fire.
The drums beat up again. And again the command came: ‘Third firing.’ It was the turn of the Grenadiers this time. They cocked their weapons.
‘Fire!’ A deafening report was followed by billowing white smoke, and Steel knew that by now the French would be suffering badly. And all this in only thirty seconds. The theory was that it should be possible for 2,000 men to fire 10,000 rounds in a single minute. Looking down the line and all along the brigade, Steel wondered whether today might not prove the theorists right.
He shouted the command: ‘Grenadiers. Reload. Make ready.’
As he did so the first firing, already reloaded, loosed off another volley. And so it went on. Not one volley but a continuous ripple which ran up and down the Allied line. The French, now themselves reloaded, managed to fire again, and again men fell among the Grenadiers. But the storm of lead pouring out of the British ranks was just too continuous. Too relentless. Too deadly.
For fully five minutes they kept it up. Near on thirty volleys, until the barrels of the muskets began to overheat and men burnt their fingers on the metal. The smoke was chokingly dense now and there was no way to tell the condition of the enemy. Only a man on horseback, above the hell down in the ranks, might know.
Steel heard Frampton’s voice: ‘Cease firing.’
Now clearly what the commander had in mind was a manoeuvre agreed upon and ordered by the regiment and indeed every British brigade in the army. ‘Advance by platoons.’
The adjutant’s voice rang out again: ‘Advance.’
Quickly the Grenadiers went forward, making sure that their pace was fast enough to ensure that when they stopped after twenty paces their rear rank was level with the front rank of the rest of the line.
Steel shouted the command to the half company: ‘Halt. Ready. Present. Fire!’
The muskets sang and he knew that the same was happening with each individual platoon along the line.
‘Advance.’
The platoon to his immediate left repeated the Grenadiers’ move and then delivered another volley. They were nearing the French now and Steel could see the raw fear on the faces of men who had never before experienced such terrible firepower as that currently being thrown at them.
The enemy barely managed another volley. The balls rushed past Steel, most at a harmless level, and thudded into the earth as a number of the enemy turned and fled.
His blood up now, Steel half turned to his men: ‘Now, boys. Into them.’
Whirling the razor-sharp Italian broadsword above his head, he ran headlong into the French line and, sweeping aside the musket and bayonet of a terrified infantryman, hit him full in the chest with his body weight. Doing so, he sensed the entire line buckle as the best part of three thousand men made contact. The man reeled back, Steel brought down the great sword and felt it judder as it made contact with the Frenchman’s skull. Then he was on again, clambering over the bleeding corpse and pushing into the second rank. This man did not wait but turned and fled. To Steel’s left and right men went in with the bayonet. One of the Frenchmen threw down his musket, but it was too late. He died still pleading to be spared.
There was no point in trying to take prisoners in the first rush on such a field. ‘No quarter’ was the only rule of war at this level when men who had been standing under cannon fire for hours and then received close-range musketry were finally given free rein. All you could do as a defender was either to stand your ground and fight, or run. Most of the French were running.
‘Halt. Stand your ground.’
Steel knew that even though the enemy appeared to be retreating their victory would be short-lived. From their start position he had seen the French second and third lines up on the high ground and was well aware that as soon as the news arrived that the front line had collapsed they would counterattack.
He turned to Slaughter. ‘Sar’nt, we’d better get ready to receive their attack. It’s sure to come.’
Slaughter nodded and walked towards the company. ‘Come on, lads. The day’s not over yet. Let’s give them a warm welcome when they come back.’
‘D’you think they will come back, Sarge?’
It was Norris, one of the new intake, a huge costermonger’s lad from Bow who had fancied his chances with an exotic-sounding Scottish regiment and whose size was not quite matched by his intellect.
‘Nah, Norris. They’ll not come back. But their brothers will. And they’re bigger and more evil than those buggers. Twice as horrible and twice as hungry for your blood, son. So you’d better make sure that yer musket’s oiled and yer bayonet’s clean.’
The recruit stared at him in horror. ‘Yes, Sarge.’
Another of the men spoke, one of this Scots-raised regiment’s few remaining genuine Scotsmen: ‘How did you manage to see them Frenchies, Sarge? You was nowhere near ’em. Same as us.’
‘Second sight, Mister Macrone. Second sight. That’s what I’ve got, isn’t it? And you’d be best to remember that. Next time you take a fancy to some illicit booty.’
They walked among the dead and wounded, lifting whatever they could salvage in the way of equipment and ammunition. Unused French musket balls and cartridges were scooped up and stuffed into cartouche boxes. While the British infantry fired sixteen balls to the pound the French fired twenty-four, making each ball lighter and smaller. They might not fit the British muskets exactly, the excess ‘windage’ between barrel and ball causing them to fly out at erratic angles, but in the desperate moments of a long firefight, when you were down to the last few rounds a man, a few captured enemy musket balls could make all the difference between winning and losing.
Now too was the time for prisoners, though you had to be careful and it was better to poke a bayonet into a man’s ribs – just to make sure – than pay for the consequences. Steel looked away and saw, down the hill, that the pontoon bridges were brimming with grey-coated infantry, Dutchmen, who were spilling off and moving up towards the Allied left wing.
The brigade was astride a stream now as it flowed downhill and into the Scheldt, and several of the men were stooping to drink. Slaughter saw them. ‘I shouldn’t do that, Cussiter. You don’t know what’s been in it.’
Taylor echoed his advice. ‘Aye, Dan. Most likely some Frenchy’s pissed in it. Or worse.’
Cussiter spat and swore, and the others who had been moving to the water thought better of it.
Steel laughed. ‘This is thirsty work, lads. But don’t forget my promise. Anything in that inn if you take the hill, and I’m paying. Just keep the French out of the village and then send the buggers back to Paris, or send them to hell.’