The Fields of Death - Scarrow Simon - Страница 45

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With the leading formations in chaos the commander of the French division had little choice but to halt his attack. The remaining battalions began to give ground, retreating back down the slope towards the rapidly thinning mist that obscured the foot of the ridge. Wallace re-formed his men again, and as they watched the enemy division recoil they let out a triumphant cheer. Wallace indulged them briefly before calling for silence once again. Arthur clicked his tongue and edged his horse down the slope towards the Eighty-eighth. The ground was covered with bodies, sprawled in the grass and heather. Most were alive, and many of the injured lay groaning and writhing pathetically as they clutched hands to their wounds. They would have to be tended to later, Arthur reminded himself. Once the battle was over.

He reined in beside Colonel Wallace and nodded his head. Wallace was still breathing hard and the edge of his sword was streaked with blood. Arthur smiled.

‘By God, Wallace, I tell you, I have never witnessed a more gallant charge.’

Wallace cleared his throat.‘Thank you, sir. My boys did well enough. What are your orders?’

‘You’ve done your work here, for now.’ Arthur briefly surveyed the foot of the ridge where the mist had all but dispersed. The beaten division was re-forming well back from the slope, while a battery of guns was trundling forward on to a slight rise, opposite Wallace’s position. ‘Best pull back to the reverse slope or the enemy guns will use the Eighty-eighth for target practice.’

Wallace glanced at the guns and pursed his lips.‘The range is long, and it might serve the men well to face up to a small dose of artillery fire.’

‘I think they have proved their mettle well enough. Pull ’em back, Wallace, directly.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Arthur wheeled his horse round and headed back in the direction of Busaco. Below, to the east of the brow of the hill on which the convent stood, he could see more enemy columns making for the road that led up the slope. This would be the main attack, he realised. The assault on the ridge to the south of Busaco was a diversion. Massйna intended to draw off allied forces to protect their flank, before throwing his main blow at the convent.

By the time Arthur and Somerset returned to the brow of the hill overlooking the village of Sula, the riflemen and the battery positioned there were already engaging the French skirmishers advancing up the road. Puffs of smoke from the scattered trees and boulders on either side of the road marked their advance as they picked their way towards the village. The British returned fire from the buildings they had fortified on the edge of Sula and every so often one of the guns would boom out as their crew spotted a cluster of enemy skirmishers that merited a blast of case shot. Even as Arthur watched he saw that the French were steadily advancing and would soon reach the village.

‘Those men cannot hold position, sir,’ said Somerset.

‘No, I suppose not.’

There was a brief pause before Somerset cleared his throat and continued. ‘Shall I order Craufurd to send men to reinforce Sula, sir?’

Arthur shook his head. ‘Craufurd knows his business. He will act in good time.’

Arthur had spoken confidently, but he hoped that he had not misjudged the commander of the Light Division. While generally a fine officer, Craufurd had an unnerving tendency towards over-confidence on occasion. Fortunately, the gun crews had ceased firing, and they begun to limber their cannon as the riflemen intensified their covering fire to slow down the enemy skirmishers. Then, as the horse teams trundled out of the village and up the road towards the convent, the green-jacketed riflemen fell back in pairs to re-join their division. From where he sat on his horse Arthur could see the men of the Fifty-second lying down just behind the crest of the ridge as they waited for orders. Before them stood Craufurd on horseback, calmly watching as the French skirmishers swept through the village and then waited as the main column climbed up to join them. There was a pause before Arthur heard the faint rumble of thousands of boots scraping over the dried ruts of the road, and then the main body of the enemy emerged from the trees a short distance from Sula. There were three columns in the attacking force, each advancing on a company frontage of little more than a hundred men.

With standards held high, but breathing heavily from their effort to ascend the ridge, the French marched steadily over the open ground just before the crest. Ahead of the middle column Craufurd held his ground, defiantly facing the enemy.

‘By God,’ Somerset murmured. ‘He’d better do something soon, or the Frogs will skewer him where he stands.’

Arthur did not reply and remained still as he watched the spectacle. Some of the French officers had placed their hats over the ends of the swords and were waving them high overhead as they shouted encouragement to their men. There was a band at the head of the nearest column and they struck up as they approached the crest, the strident trill of brass instruments accompanied by the pounding rhythm of drums. And still Craufurd did not flinch, even as the leading enemy ranks closed to within no more than thirty paces. Arthur felt his pulse quicken and willed Craufurd to act.

Then, when the enemy was within pistol range, Craufurd snatched off his hat and twisted round to bellow at his men. ‘Now, lads! Avenge the death of Sir John Moore!’

Arthur could not help smiling faintly. The Fifty-second had been Moore’s regiment for a long time, and Craufurd’s words were bound to fire their hearts. All along the crest of the ridge the men of that regiment, and the others of Craufurd’s division, scrambled to their feet and stood ready, muskets grasped firmly in their hands. Before them, close enough to read the steely expression in the British soldiers’ eyes, the French columns stumbled to an abrupt halt. The jaunty tune that the band had been playing broke down into a cacophony before it died away completely. The officers stood frozen, their swords slipping down to their sides as they stared at the ranks of their foe that had sprung up right in front of their eyes.

A few simple commands echoed down the British line and the muskets swung up, the firing hammers clicked back, and then the order to fire instantaneously dissolved into the roar of the first volley as thousands of tiny flames darted from the muzzles of the Light Division’s muskets and rifles. The effect was even more devastating than the one that had repulsed the attack along the ridge a short time earlier. At such a close range, far more shots struck home, cutting down the heads of all three columns like a well-honed scythe slashing through stalks of wheat. Craufurd did not order another volley, but immediately commanded his men to charge. With a bloodthirsty roar the Light Division swept across the crest, the bayonets of the leading rank lowered towards the reeling Frenchmen. Then they were in amongst the enemy, stabbing, clubbing and kicking like savage furies, sparing no one as they drove Massйna’s soldiers before them. Some fought back, but they were too few and too isolated to stem the flow of redcoats, and were swiftly struck down and killed where they lay on the ground.

It took less than a minute for the charge to break the enemy attack. As Arthur watched, the enemy columns crumbled as one formation after another dissolved and the men fell back down the slope, desperate to escape the wrath of the British soldiers sweeping towards them.

‘So much for Massйna,’ Somerset grinned. ‘He won’t be trying that again in a hurry, sir.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Arthur agreed. ‘He has been taught a lesson sure enough. But if he doesn’t attack the ridge again today, then you can be sure he will move to outflank us, there to the north.’ He nodded towards the end of the ridge.

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