There is still a frost, a dusting on the ground, though underfoot there is still a bit of give and we don’t want to get embroiled in claggy ground: throws the line right off, so it does.
Thon puta was ganting for it. All the Spanish trollops are, with their popish trinkets and their Ave Marias…[i]
This battle has been going on a while. We didn’t get across the pontoon bridge till nine. It’s never good to be early for these things: latest arrived, most likely to survive.
Brisbane’s lot are already withdrawing, worn and bloodied, as we march up to the crest, staying clear of the dubs, muskets charged and bayonets fixed and no idea what’s over that blind summit. Frosted stems of grass tickle at our knees between our hose and the hem of our kilts. Cloudless sky: cold as iron.
Forward boys! Steady! Hold the line!
These brogues are fucked. Small wonder. Only the second pair since La Corunna and we’ve marched and marched and counter marched and marched, South to Cuidad Rodrigo through frozen fields then North again through sweltering heat up past Vittoria to Urun.
…fiesty at first, they are, but once you get atween their legs and throw a fuck in them…
France, finally. Apparently. It’s hard to tell one side of the bloody Pyrennees from the other.
The Spaniards are coarse, skin-flint, ungrateful cunts, always crossing themselves then giving us the evil eye.
And the French: well, they seem less than friendly but that’s more understandable.
Those Spanish sluts though: it’s a well-known fact. Whores the lot of them.
Our front rank crest the ridge and there are the bloody French, retreating down the hillside, and the bullets are zipping. That farty cunt O’Neill, goes down, coughing blood. We just step over him. Fuck all else to do.
Close up! Hold the line!
And the drill kicks in and comrades crumple and the French are falling back but their artillery is still in place and we’re not even at the front of this[ii].
It’s hunger drives men. The army provide 6d a day but our rations always short or late. 6d a day when we could be earning 8/- a week in Paisley. There’s never enough to eat. And then those ungrateful Spanish bastards. So we get that bayonet in – 1-2-3 and repeat. Bed and breakfast…though it’d just as well be a table top or the floor. And a bit of scran if we’re lucky.
Shakos and feather bonnets litter the gentle slope in front of us. There are bodies in the frosted grass , lads from the Black Watch and French fusiliers. Some are dead and more are wounded. The wounded groan and plead as we step over them. Best not look down into their eyes or notice their wounds. The Scots boys have been butchered by French cannon: blown apart or limbless. The French lads blasted through by musket balls.
Eyes front.
Small wonder we went mental that time in the baggage train: all that loot the nobs were hoarding for themselves and camp-women keen to get their share: take it any way you chose. Wasn’t no virgin when we signed up…Wee Jeannie Cumming cumming…but, fuck-me, that was an eye-opener. More than our eyes…horizons. Fucking vistas. It’s a miracle more us weren’t flogged for it! Not that we believe in miracles anymore.[iii]
We’re used to stepping over bodies. Our first were at Sorouren in the heat of July. Ten of the boys were killed and a hundred wounded. Cannon-fire mostly[iv]. ‘Other ranks’ they call us when we die. Not Johnny Easdon or Pilub O’Neill. And other ranks.
Thon senorita in Irun, she was sweet and tight. And the kilt is practical. But what if that was the last time?
We close on the French, bayonets fixed to fuck right into them: if we get to them. They dither in clumps and straggles, trying to rally. If we get up close. We can smell the shit-stench of their fear.
At least we don’t impale them, still living, on the branches of scrawny trees.
We missed the proper sack, at Badjoz: no-holds-barred, they say, fill your boots, fuck all them fine senoritas, senoras, nuns! Gaun. According to the few still living.[v]
Halt!
So we halt. That’s the order so we halt on the hillside. What’s left of us. To wait. No way, now, not to notice the mayhem directly before our eyes. Blood smears on the frost. Severed limbs. Ignore it all. Hold the line. What’s left of the Black Watch form up on the road ahead. Old Picton will be bringing up his guns. And then the French cannonade begins and the cavalry arrive.
Smoke flares from the French guns are on higher ground across the valley. And then the rumble and the whizz. Shot falls short. Shot falls behind. It is only a matter of time before they find their range and knock us out like teeth in a prize fight. A matter of minutes.
What if it was the last-last time?
Below us, crazy French chasseurs, in vivid green, ride into the red-clump of Black Watch from the right. Amidst clouds of musketry, they hack and slash and stomp and stab and hack and the boys in red stab and struggle to reload, cringe back, trying to form themselves, failing, are cleaved and butchered by these cunts on horseback.[vi]
How do you know when it’s the last-last time?
What’s worse? That desperate melee or standing here waiting for the next cannon-ball to smash you. We’re glad it’s them not us but, of course, if we were in one we prefer the other. No win.
Hold the line!
The 88th are enfilading the chasseurs as they reel around the stumbled blood stain of the 42nd. Volley after volley slaughter horses and their riders. Wounded horses kick and lunge on the winter ground. Horsemeat if we survive this.
Hold the ground.
The guns come up and start to ding the French batteries, blow for blow. The village they call Orthez is behind us now. God knows where that mad bastard will order us next. There’s no rest for the wicked.
Notes:
[i] Incorrigible Rogues: The Brutalisation of British Soldiers in the Peninsular War 1808-1814 | British Journal for Military History (gold.ac.uk)
[ii] The Black Watch is the vanguard of the column.
Battle of Orthez (britishbattles.com)
[iii] Historical Records of the 91st Agryllshire Highlanders (forgottenbooks.com)
[iv] 28 July 1813 Sorauren: Of 1/91st, Captain Robert Lowrie has received a mortal wound to die 2 months later, Lieutenant Allen Maclean will die 5 months after from his wound whilst 12 of the rank and file are killed, Lieutenants Peter Macfarlane, John Marshall, Robert Stewart and Ensign John Ormiston and 92 men are wounded whilst two men are listed as missing.
30th July 1813 Sorauren: 1/91st will only act as mildly involved spectators as the shattered remnants of the enemy are bundled out of the area and followed at a brisk pace by a combination of several Divisions of British and Portuguese troops. Casualty’s amount to only nine men all day, one dead and eight injured with Major Donald Macneill amongst the latter.
Historical Records of the 91st Agryllshire Highlanders (forgottenbooks.com)
[v] Incorrigible Rogues: The Brutalisation of British Soldiers in the Peninsular War 1808-1814 | British Journal for Military History (gold.ac.uk)
[vi] At this point Picton ordered forward his artillery. Seeing the guns approaching, Marshal Soult instructed a squadron of the 21st Chasseurs à Cheval to charge them.
During this episode there was a sharp action between the French cavalrymen and two British infantry regiments, the 88th and the 42nd, in which the Chasseurs inflicted significant casualties on the British.
The fire brought to bear on the French cavalry by the 88th finally annihilated them.