What happens over there, out of range, is exciting, Lewrie told himself; but what comes right at you can frighten the piss out of you.
The French looked to be coming straight at him, and he felt the need to pee.
* * *
The French artillery opened up a minute or two later after he had come back to the crest, their roundshot howling and moaning overhead, tweetling up the musical scale as they approached to go silent as they drummed into the ridge below the crest, and one or two lucky shots skimming the crest to pluck unfortunate soldiers away as they stood two ranks deep, and it was British sergeants who bawled out for the survivors to close ranks, this time.
Then British guns barked when the range had fallen to about six hundred yards, and the shrapnel shells began to Crack and Crump over the French columns spreading death in all directions.
“Wonder what it feels like,” the Lieutenant said with a touch of nervousness to his voice as the French columns kept up their implacable advance. “Surely, they must be able to see the fuse trails coming at them, knowing they’re going to burst above them!”
“I’d expect they’ve very loose bowels, and wouldn’t trust their arseholes with a fart,” Lewrie hooted, raising a titter of laughter from the officer’s company. “The French have never experienced bursting shot before … never come up against British soldiers before, and must be in dread, by now, after what happened to the first attack.”
“We’ll maul them!” the Lieutenant declared, sounding confident, but Lewrie noted how white his fingers were round the hilt of his scabbarded sword.
“Damn right we will!” several soldiers barked in agreement.
“Silence in the ranks, stand steady,” the company’s Captain growled, casting a dis-believing eye on Lewrie for a second.
The nearest column looked as if it would reach the ridgeline about one hundred yards East of where Lewrie stood, thinned though it was by the artillery fire. The drums were urging it on, the French were shouting praise of their Emperor in unison, and they were nearing, within about four hundred yards. Lewrie slung his Ferguson on his shoulder and made a point of ambling down the company’s front as if he had not one care in the world.
I’m such a sham, he told himself; but I’ve gotten good at it, play-actin’ for people’s benefit, by now. They all are, he thought, glancing down the company front to see how the soldiers were taking the French approach. Everyone in sight, even the French, were playing bold and brave! There were some pale faces, some gulps of awe, and some fondling of talismans, but they looked ready.
What a damn-fool idea this is, he further thought, shaking his head over his stupidity for coming ashore; this is the last time I take part in a shore battle! By choice, I hope!
He reached the left flank of the infantry company, into open ground where one of the sheltering companies would form when called up to the line. It felt very lonely and vulnerable to be out there on his own, of a sudden, and he understood a common soldier’s assurance of having others at his sides, and his rear-rank man backing him up.
Boom-boom-boom, buh-buh-buh-boom-boom-boom “Vive l’Empereur!”; it was very close now, the nearest column panting and gasping for air as it struggled to climb the slope to the British lines. Musketry erupted downslope from the skirmishing companies as they fired, then fell back, re-loading on the go. The front of the column looked to be about two hundred yards away, and Lewrie nodded, then un-slung his Ferguson, looked for an officer to target, and put the butt to his shoulder, looking down the barrel.
There! He spotted a French officer with a dark red sash round his waist, his sword out and waving to urge them on. He had one of those long mustachios. Lewrie drew his weapon back to full cock, and took aim. The late Major Patrick Ferguson, inventor of his rifled musket who had died at the Battle of King’s Mountain in the American Revolution, might have intended long-range accuracy, but he hadn’t done much by way of improving front and rear sights to achieve it.
Lewrie held aim above the officer’s shako, drew a breath and let it slowly out, then pulled the trigger, just as the officer turned to face his men and march backwards to say something to them. The bullet, fired downhill, didn’t follow the usual descending arc, and struck him square between the shoulder blades, punching the Frenchman facedown dead.
Here, that’s cheerin’! Lewrie told himself as he opened the breech and tore a fresh cartidge open with his teeth. In a trice, he was loaded again, seeking a new target, and finding one, this one a senior officer with lots of gold-lace on his coat and a fore-and-aft bicorne on his head, adorned with egret plumes. He aimed smaller, this time, taking advantage of the flatter trajectory of a round fired downhill, holding only a foot above the egret plumes and firing. He hit the officer full in the cheek below his left eye and saw the back of his head explode into his soldiers’ faces!
A very young junior officer stepped forward to lead, and he went down with a bullet in his chest; then it was a great, hulking older sergeant who stepped out in front, bull-roaring defiance and courage loud enough to be heard over the din of gunfire, and Lewrie shot him just above his shirt collar and neck-stock, driving the man to his knees in surprise, and fountaining gouts of blood from his mouth.
“Up, form line, odd-numbered companies!” some senior British officer was shouting. “Up, form line and stand ready! Front ranks will kneel!”
The skirmishers were back on the crest and taking their places at the left flanks of their regiments. Grenadier companies were forming at the right ends, and the line companies were now shoulder-to-shoulder. Lewrie got off two more quick shots as the French got within one hundred yards, and beginning to swing out into a firing line.
Haven’t shot this well in years! he congratulated to himself as he tore open another cartridge; I may take up duck-hunting, next!
He’d run out of obvious officers in front of the French column, so he settled for a tall soldier in the centre of the first rank, and dropped him with a shot just below his brass cross-belt plate.
“Get out of the way, you bloody damned fool! We volley, and we will cut you down!” someone was shouting behind him.
Lewrie assumed that that was addressed at him and spun about to realise that he was looking down the muzzles of over six hundred levelled muskets. “Oh, shiiitt!” he yelled as he hastily flung himself to the ground!
“Front ranks … fire!” came a second later, and all Hades erupted. The whole ridge roared with noise, and spurting powder smoke blanked out his view, from an ant’s level, of an entire regiment delivering a massed volley. “Second rank, fire!” and by then all that he could make out were trouser legs and boots below the smoke pall.
He could hear the balls rushing overhead like a swarm of bees, screams and shouts from the French down-slope, even the meaty thumps of bullets tearing into enemy bodies.
“Front ranks … level!”
He stayed where he was, wishing that he could dig deeper, for though British troops were the only ones in the world who actually practiced at live musketry, the Tower musket, “Brown Bess,” had even more rudimentary sights than his Ferguson, and the command was “Level,” not “Take Aim.” Rapidly delivered massed volleys at sixty to seventy-five yards was the desired effect, “shotgunning” fire in the foe’s general direction! And, as he’d seen at the firing butts at Gibraltar, some soldiers did not even bother to aim, turning their heads as far from the flash and smoke in the priming pans as possible, with their muskets pointed in the general direction. He heard one ball hum disturbingly close to his head, just inches above him, and squirmed to make himself flatter.