A sergeant, as scruffy and unkempt as the men he commanded, his tatty red coat showing no sign of his rank other than the stripes on his arm, sat by the flaming pile of twigs and logs looking around at the men under his command. Most were Yorkshire lads, a few Londoners, a couple of huge brawny farmer's sons from Connaught, several Scots and himself and Wilson from Oxford. All huddled in circles round the fire, some cuddled up to their wives, some to the whores that trailed along behind every army, all trying to grasp a few strands of warmth from the chill Belgian night air. There was only one gap in the circle. Terry had been called away for picquet duty, and the space he had vacated was still there.
Nobody would dare sit in Terry's place.
Private Sean O'Donnel, a tall, brawny man with a shock of wild, dark hair, was singing some Gaelic tune and the seventeen other ex-Connaught Rangers were joining in on the chorus. None of the Englishmen had ever got the hang of the foreign words, so they merely hummed along, a habit that had at first amused the Irish, until they decided it was better with the humming and the company had adopted it as their song. They sang it before every battle as a good luck charm. The only battle they had not had the chance to was Quatre Bras two days earlier.
They had been routed and forced to hide in trees to avoid being mowed down by French cavalry; all because some Dutch brat thought he was big enough to play soldier when he still needed somebody to squeeze his spots for him.
Comes from letting money get you rank rather than experience Carter had said. The educated Samuel Wilson had tried to explain to him that Wellington would not have got to where he was if he hadn't bought his way in. Carter would have none of it. Nosey, he said using the army nickname for their beloved general, would have been a general anyway, along with Terry. Wilson had wondered why he thought Terry would be a general, and Carter had to explain that there wasn't a battlefield in the world that hadn't seen Terry fighting on it. What Terry didn't know about fighting wasn't worth knowing.
Carter looked up. Speak of the devil and he shall appear, he thought, as the circles parted to let Private Terry in. The small man hardly noticed the awe with which the men regarded him. He was an imposing figure. Both he and Carter were well muscled, but while Carter was an inch or two clear of six foot, Terry was about the same over five. Short but built like an ox, you could imagine him breaking rocks between his hands. Nobody knew his real age, where he came from or even his surname, though Carter, who knew him best, reckoned that with his greying hair he must be pushing fifty. But there was nobody in Carter's mind who you would prefer on your side in a battle.
Closest to this fire were the veterans, the hard men who had been in the First Battalion of Detachments in the Peninsular war. It should have been a disgraceful position, being the remnants of the retreat to Corunna in '09, not large enough to continue as a regiment and thrown together on a military scrap heap. Instead they had become one of the best Light Companies in Wellington's army. And, after the Battle of Vitoria, one of the richest. They could have retired after the war was over and been well off but they were soldiers for life and none knew how to cope with peace.
So Wellington had offered them a place as the Light Company of his old regiment, the 33rd foot, and they had accepted. The eighteen Irish, Carter, Terry, 'Yorkie' Brown, twenty other London boys and three dozen huge Yorkshire men with huge bristling beards that threatened to mask their faces soon. Wilson was there as well, though he had only joined them in France in the closing months of the war. Carter had adopted him as a fellow Oxfordian and intellectual though and that was why he was sitting in the place that used to be Bywater's. Francis Bywater had been the Regimental Sergeant-Major.
He had died at Quatre Bras.
Carter wondered who would get the job. Probably the experienced Scot, Sergeant MacMorris. But that didn't stop him wanting it all the same. The song had ended and the men started laughing and joking, telling the same old jokes that amused them now, not through being funny, but through the familiarity they held. O'Donnel spoke up with his usual favourite.
"What's an Italian virgin?" he called out in the hope that a passing Italian might hear.
"Faster than her brothers," the veterans said in unison. Some of the men who had just joined the regiment for this battle guffawed. Wilson looked puzzled.
"I still don't get it," he said to the amusement of the veterans.
"You've never fought alongside Italians have you," explained O'Donnel. "Then you'd understand." Wilson shrugged. Yorkie Brown's four year old son, Tom, asked Carter if with his broken nose he could now smell round corners. Terry sharpened his bayonet. Others used theirs to toast whatever food they could scrounge out of their packs.
One of the Yorkshire men said how the French would be beaten if Napoleon just looked at Carter's face and died of shock at the horror of it. Carter laughed as loud as the others and gave the man latrine duty for a week.
"Givvussaquote!" came a call from near the back of the circles. Carter grinned having known this would have come sooner or later. As a child his mother had rented out rooms in the house where he lived to students at the University for cheap rates. Being the eldest child he had talked to the students as a way of showing to his siblings that he was slightly above them. They had taught him his letters and arithmetic and had filled his phenomenal memory with the works of Shakespeare. To the men it was as if he knew every word of every play. They were proud of their sergeant and his unrivalled knowledge of the Bard.
"A quote to fit the situation?" he asked. General cries of agreement filled the air and then around the campfire the men hushed to hear his words. Finally he spoke. "When," he said. "Shall we," he paused while counting. "Seventy eight meet again, in thunder lightning or in rain, when the hurly-burly's done, when the battle's lost and won."
The campfire broke into polite applause as everyone except Terry clapped their sergeant. At the entrance to an officer's tent two young lieutenants, the dull James Duncan and the handsome and dashing Henry Masterson were smoking cigars and looked over at where the men sat and laughed. Droplets of rain were beginning to fall and the men gave a cheer as they heard the sound of thunder in the distance. The British Army had long maintained that it would always win as long as the battle followed a thunderstorm the night before. It had before Agincourt and during the Peninsular War the great victory at Salamanca had followed on from a mighty downpour of rain and lightening. The appearance of the lightening flashes were a sign that God would favour them tomorrow on the field of battle.
As the 33rd stood waiting on the northern side they could see beginning to form on the other side of the valley a mighty army. Massed ranks of men in blue coats, white coats, coats of many other colours. Some uniforms were exactly the same as some of the men Carter could see to the left of them, the troops loaned to them from the King of Orange. A year ago those men had fought for the man who now galloped up and down in front of his men inspiring them to battle, the Ogre of the Crapauds, Napoleon Bonaparte. Now they held allegiance to the King of Orange, supposedly at least. They had not proved very loyal at Quatre Bras. And speaking of Quatre Bras...
He walked to where Lieutenant Masterson sat proudly on his horse gazing at the enemy. "Sir," he said. "If you don't mind me asking sir, who's the new RSM?"
Masterson looked down at Carter smiling. "Ah, yes," he replied in a loud voice, obviously intending for the men to hear what he had to say as well. "Well, the commanding officers and I had a talk and we would like you to take the job if you want it." A cheer arose from the men as they heard the promotion they agreed with.
"Aye sir," he said breathlessly hardly believing it. Yes, he was a popular sergeant and that counted for something, but he was hardly the most senior.
Masterson leaned down to talk privately. "Sorry we couldn't tell you earlier James," he whispered, "But we thought it might be better for morale if we promoted you just before the battle. Hope you don't mind." He sat up straight again as he heard an order being passed down the line. "Well," he said, "Here's your first order to hand out. Get the men to lie down so they can't see the buggers." He snorted. "Most likely it's to stop the Dutch seeing them and wanting to revert to old allegiances." But RSM Carter didn't hear him as he was already bellowing orders.
The men were uncomfortable lying down and they muttered to each other. Except Terry. Terry hardly ever spoke more than a grunt off the battlefield, and made no sound on it except that he seemed to be keeping count of something. It had been presumed it was dead French by his hand but the number was phenomenally high and nobody believed that was a possible solution.
As Wilson lay there he brushed a hand through his sandy hair and bemoaned the circumstances that had led him to this position, for alone amongst these drunks, poachers, wife-beaters and murderers he had been given wonderful opportunities. He had been born into a rich family and was being taught at Oxford when disaster had struck. While 'Eating grass before breakfast', an illegal duel, in this case over a woman, he had accidentally killed his opponent. His family had disowned him, he was thrown out of the University and penniless and on the run from the law he had joined the army and had been thrown in with a rough and unruly band of criminals and scum of the Earth, who just happened to be the best damn army in the world. So here he was, lying in the dewy grass, on a hill in Belgium, clad in the red coat of a soldier of England, which had a German King and an Irish General who was here to fight a Corsican Emperor of France who had just escaped from Elba. Why couldn't everyone just stay where they were born, thought Wilson.
Finally one of the men spoke up. "Gissaquote Sergeant Major!" he yelled. There was a murmur of agreement. Then another voice spoke up. "The usual!" it said and Carter nodded.
"We few," he began. "We happy few." The men grinned at that. "We band of brothers, for he that sheds his blood with me this day shall be my brother." The men looked around at their sibling rivals. "Be he ne'er so vile," he continued looking at the foul-looking, foul smelling scum of the earth, and especially at Terry who epitomised them. "This day shall gentle their condition. And gentlemen in England now abed," at which the Spanish veterans thought of their old Colonel, the awful Jedediah Trunch. "Shall think themselves accursed," Carter went on, "And hold their manhoods cheap, whilst any speaks that fought with us, upon St Crispin's Day!" The men let out a cheer.
"But it ain't St Crispin's Day," shouted one of the Irish.
"Well, would whichever Saint whose day this is please look on us favourably," quipped Carter.
"You mean along with St Jude?" asked one of the Irish.
"I don't think we need the patron saint of lost causes yet," answered Carter. He turned and walked to where he could get a clear view of the men of la belle France, Old Trousers as Terry sometimes called them. He knew it was a Rifleman's nickname and he presumed that he had been a Rifleman and that was why Terry carried a rifle. While Terry may look as if he had not seen a bath in all his fifty years the gun was always meticulously clean and had never misfired.
He heard a horse approaching behind him. He turned and looked at the rider, Lieutenant Masterson. The normally cheerful smiling face was downcast and that was cause for alarm because Carter had never seen him that way before. He looked sadly down and whispered a few words so the men would not hear.
"You're wrong," he said. "We need 'em, we need all the Saints we can get."
The words put a chill through Carter's heart, as Masterson put on a fake smile and slowly trotted back towards the 33rd Foot.
The day had worn on. The 33rd's Light Company had been forced to skirmish against the French Voltigeurs, and when the French cavalry had came again and again at the unbreakable British squares they had fought them off with volley after volley of lead balls which perforated, mutilated and disintegrated the French horsemen. But apart from that they had done little. Done little except be fired upon again and again by the French cannons which Napoleon called his daughters. But now it was late in the day and both armies had lost the bulk of their cavalry. There were few regiments that were not exhausted by what they had done this day. But the ones that counted were the French Imperial Guards. Napoleon's Chosen Ones, the invincible Imperial Guard who had never lost a fight. And as Masterson and Carter looked out over the biggest slaughter of the past hundred years, all crammed into a small valley that should never be expected to cope with this many dead, they heard the familiar drum beat that said that the French were coming again. They saw moving across the battlefield towards the few battle ready battalions the clean untouched coats of the Guard and unconsciously Carter crossed himself as O'Donnel always did when facing overwhelming odds.
"Christ in Heaven, have mercy!" muttered Masterson as he watched the approaching Guard, then turned his horse around and galloped off to warn the Colonel. The Regiment had lost all its Captains and one of the Majors to the artillery bombardment and Voltigeur sniping that had flown through the skies to kill the unfortunate Allied troops all day, and now Masterson was Major Masterson, though he disliked stepping into 'dead-men's-shoes' like that. Carter looked down at the Guardsmen picking their way through the dead men and noticed there was a chance.
A slim one, but there was a chance.
The Guardsmen had always won by coming at their opponents as a column and bashing their way through. They saw no reason why they should change it this time. But whenever French troops had tried this tactic against Nosey they had been driven off by repeated musket fire. The only flaw in using the same plan was that normally the French would run away or surrender after several volleys had depleted their number. And the Imperial Guard never surrendered. The Imperial Guard never ran away. But then the Imperial Guard had never before faced the British.
He looked at the men. The men were down from their original six hundred to around two-thirds of that number. And at that point a plan sprang up in his mind and he turned and jogged towards the Colonel and the two Majors.
Colonel Winterburn was a venerable sixty year old and yet had the charm, playful aspect and resilience of a man a quarter of his age. And he would never ask the men to do something he would not do himself, an aspect that made him very popular with his troops. And he could remember all the men in the regiment by name and greeted them all cheerfully and they loved him for it. So as Carter approached the Colonel turned and greeted him with a "What ho! James Carter isn't it? Heard about your promotion. Well deserved if you ask me! Shouldn't you be getting the men ready?"
"Had an idea to see off the Crapauds sir," he reported. He quickly explained the basics of the plan. The Colonel nodded vigorously.
"Wonderful! Get to it straight away." He turned and looked at the oncoming French. "Should be here in a couple of minutes. The Peer," he said using the Staff Officers term for Wellington, "came personally to ask us to throw the buggers off our hill." He said it as if the French elite were just a couple of itinerant vagrants. "Well James, get on with your idea."
With an "Aye, sir!" he was away and soon the men stood waiting in three ranks.
Waiting to fight the unbeatable men of France.
The rear rank stood with a loaded musket in each hand. The front two ranks held theirs presented, ready to fire. The front rank held the veterans of the 1st Battalion of Detachments, the ones who had faced death in France and Spain. The middle rank were the veterans of the 33rd Foot, the ones who had fought with Nosey in India. The rear rank were the new recruits and Carter's plan depended on them doing their job and doing it fast. As the Imperial Guard reached the base of the English hill, having marched through the British bombardment, Yorkie Brown, the Londoner who could mimic with ease the Yorkshire accent of some of the Light Company and who was always smiling and cheerful, muttered something, Carter didn't hear what, that caused a ripple of laughter. Yorkie turned to Carter.
"Quote sir?" he asked.
"In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility," started Carter, "But when the blast of war blows in our ears," he continued as the French were just seventy yards away. "Then imitate," sixty yards, "The action," fifty yards, "Of the tiger!" Forty yards, thirty yards, the French aimed their muskets.
"Front rank! Fire!" screamed Masterson. The British muskets thudded out their shots and there amidst them was the sharper crack of Terry's rifle.
"Rear rank, reload! Middle rank, fire!" shouted Carter as the front rank passed their muskets back to the rear rank who passed forward one of their loaded muskets and started reloading the one they'd been given. Hold it upright. Bite off the top of the cartridge and keep the lead ball inside in between the teeth. Pour the powder down the barrel, spit the ball down after it and ram it down. One musket ready to spit death at your enemy.
"Rear rank, keep reloading! Front rank, fire!" bellowed the Colonel. The rear rank was handed the middle ranks empty muskets and handed a full one back as the front rank pitilessly fired their shots into the Imperial Guard. The Imperial Guard had not been expecting this. They had heard that the English fired volley after volley into you, but this fast? Surely nobody reloaded muskets this fast! Maybe the rumours that the English were devils in red coats were true. And nobody could fight devils! Not even the Imperial Guard!
"Fire!" Once more the French heard the command. "Fire!" It came again followed by a hail of lead balls hurled forward by the explosion of the gunpowder. "Fire!" the order came once more. The French turned to Captain Jean-Paul Bastineau, the man who had inspired them to victory after victory. Sat astride his horse he seemed unaware of the rain of metal beating upon his men.
"Fix bayonets!" he ordered and once more his men were the unbeatable Guard as his calm, even voice steadied them and they grimly prepared for the killing of the men who stood there silently firing shot after shot into their comrades. "Upon my command we charge." The men readied themselves. "Ready," he shouted. There was the sharp crack of a British Baker rifle, and Captain Bastineau fell from his horse, his face a bloody mess of skin, skull and brain.
The French stood there shocked at the death of their inspirational leader. Then turned as they heard a screaming from the British. From out of the smoke came the devils in red coats, their faces black from the powder, each with a bayonet on the end of his musket plunging towards the French. Without Captain Bastineau the French were lost and as the British red coats crashed into the French, the Imperial Guard, the unbeatable Guard, the invincible Guard, the men with no fear, who never ran, who never surrendered...
Fled into the thick clouds of smoke to tell their beloved Emperor that they could not fight devils and win...
As the Light Company came charging into the men of the Imperial Guard the Guard turned and ran and were jeered by the Light Company who halted and made rude gestures behind the Frenchmen's backs. Then Colonel Winterburn trotted his horse out in front and pointed to a Company of the King's German Legion trying to hold back a column of French Imperial Guard.
"There lads, there," he said pointing towards the KGL. "Let's go and help the Germies sort out these damn Frenchies." The men gave a roar of approval and charged headlong into the side of the French stabbing and cutting down any who got in their way. But these French were not as scared as the first and they cut back. Yorkie, smiling to the last was hacked down, as was Douglas MacMorris, the Scots Sergeant. Carter found himself alongside Terry and the two of them stabbed forwards with the wicked steel length of their bayonets. The KGL to their left were joining up with the British red coats and the two groups started to drive back the French.
To Carter it was madness. He had no idea of direction, no sense of where he should go. All he could do was stab at anybody wearing blue, or anybody with the immaculate moustaches and fancy pigtails of the Guard. An ugly face matching that description and scarred on his left cheek appeared in his arc of vision. He thrust his bayonet upwards into the mans belly and felt it slide between the ribs. The Frenchman seemed determined to fight on as if he had not noticed what had happened. Carter thrust the bayonet up further, into the lungs. That seemed to halt the Frenchman for a moment and then he coughed, but no air came out. Just a fountain of blood that shot upwards as his head arched backwards and the blood covered his face, dribbling down over his pristine blue uniform.
To his right Terry smashed the butt of his rifle in a French Guardsman's groin, heard a distinct crack and, as the man doubled over in pain, he quickly and efficiently gutted him. "Nine-hundred and seventy nine," he muttered and stepped over the dead body into the packed mass of dying French.
Carter put aside all emotions and hurled himself forward after Terry but the French closed ranks behind the small, dangerous fighter and though Carter lunged forward, disembowelling a young French ensign who tried to prevent his forward momentum, Terry was lost from his sight. Behind the wall of men he heard screams and he knew that the French plan to isolate this dangerous killer had failed and that Terry's death count was increasing. But at that point he forgot Terry as he saw the French Eagle, their symbol of honour, fall in the centre of the French column and the Frenchmen's courage, already wavering from the ferocious onslaught of the red coated devils, snapped and another column was fleeing down the hill. Carter turned to find an officer to ask for orders when he saw the Duke of Wellington astride his horse standing there watching the fleeing French.
"Oh damn it!" the Duke said. "In for a penny, in for a pound!" He took his hat and thrust it forward shouting, "Go on! Go on! They won't stand! Go on!" Carter heard no more as he bellowed at the men.
"Come on! It's not a bloody funeral! Pick your feet up! We haven't got us an Eagle yet today!" With a quick bit of reworking he shouted out a deliberate misquotation of Shakespeare. "Upon this next charge," he shouted, "Cry God for Harry," pointing at Masterson, "England and King George!" The men bellowed and screamed their responses and like an unstoppable tidal wave the men hurtled down the hill, relentless in their pursuit of a golden bird on a pole that they could see poking out of a small cluster of French Grenadier Guard officers. Much to their shame they had been ordered to put their colours away before the last assault by the French and they were damned if they would march back from their finest moment without a flag pole, even if it meant attacking the elite of the elite Imperial Guard.
Coming down the hill they landed on the Grenadiers like an avalanche of red, a crimson tide that struck with the force of a thunderbolt, smashing and cutting the French to pieces. There were few men protecting that Eagle and nowhere near enough to stop the 33rd from plundering their pride and honour from them as they took Napoleon's personal gift to them from their still warm hands. As the men handed it to Colonel Winterburn, yelling and screaming of their victory, he held it aloft and the red coated troops passing them by, cheered their success and went to find one of their own.
Only Carter was not yelling. He looked at all the men and noted that one was missing. He could not see Terry anywhere. An awful thought struck him.
Had Terry found his final battlefield?
In a cluster of French troops fleeing across the battlefield, heads down, Henri Massenau, a veteran of Napoleon's Russian crusade, looked up and saw that running with the French was a red coat. For a few seconds he could not believe it. Had no others spotted his presence? No, they all looked downwards as they tried to put as much distance between them and the English, and besides dusk was beginning to cover the field of death. It was up to him to stop the man reaching his destination, the Regimental Eagle just ahead of them.
He poised his bayonet, ready to thrust it in the man's back.
Without turning round the red coat lashed backwards with the rifle butt, caught Henri in the stomach and he fell to the floor landing on his bayonet. He did not rise again.
The red coat hardly noticed. The only indication he made that anything had happened at all, was to mutter under his breath, "Nine hundred and eighty seven."
