Rifles: Six Years With Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters Read Free

and short of puff, having to fight a hard and ultimately futile battle against the Spaniards.
    While they remained confined afloat, four hundred riflemen and any number of matelots on board each little transport, the chances of rows and altercations multiplied. Almond, a big Cheshire man in his mid-thirties, was one of those unfortunates who had twice had corporal’s stripes but lost them again through misdemeanours. Perhaps he might get them back in this new campaign.
    Those who officered the 95th knew that even the brighter soldiers like Almond – and you needed some reading and writing to make corporal – had to be kept away from drink as far as possible. For the chances of fighting, mutinous language or even general insolence multiplied with each slug of liquor. So while some of the young officers tookthe opportunity to go ashore and strut like peacocks in front of the fair Isle of Wight girls, the same indulgence could not be granted to the rank and file.
    Allowing the men off would also have carried some risk of desertion. Generally, fighting corps like the 95th did not suffer from it much. But you never knew when some militia hero might repent his decision to sign on to the regulars and steal away with his ten guineas’ bounty. Private Fairfoot knew a fair bit about desertion: he had decamped three times from the Royal Surreys. He’d always been caught: twice they had busted him back from drummer to private and locked him up. Desertion was rarely a capital offence in England – it was too common for one thing, they’d have ended up executing dozens of Fairfoot’s mates for it. Now, on board the Fortune , Fairfoot had changed his colours from the red coat of the Royal Surrey Militia to the green jacket of the 95th. Volunteering into this new regiment had also given him one more chance to make a proper soldier of himself, for if he was caught deserting on service it would be a capital offence.
    It was not until almost three weeks had passed since leaving Dover that the convoy got properly under way. Happily for the commanding officer and his company commanders like O’Hare, nobody had been left behind through desertion or serious infractions of discipline.
    As it sailed towards the open Atlantic, the convoy had swelled. Transports carrying two other battalions had joined them, as had Nymph , a frigate carrying the brigadier general who was commanding the whole enterprise. The veterans knew him well: Black Bob, a fierce flogger who taught them to fear their master. Old sweats could have pointed out their brigadier as he strolled on the frigate’s deck or dined near the big windows of its captain’s cabin. The brigadier was one of the few officers who knew the squadron’s destination. Fierce reputation or not, he had been given a real plum of a job in command of this crack brigade, made up of some of the most highly trained troops in the Army.
    Even among these three battalions, the Rifles were unique. Their green uniforms marked them out, as did their blackened leather cross-belts (for the other two battalions hung equipment whitened with pipe clay over their red coats). Their weapons were different too, the barrels grooved or rifled to spin the ball, giving greater accuracy and allowing them to attempt aimed fire at long range.
    Just as many of the men in the 95th were yearning to prove themselves, so their commanding officer knew the present expedition would allow a chance to demonstrate a new sort of soldiering; a different approach to training, discipline, tactics and fighting. The higher reaches of the Army were notoriously conservative, and many generals, while they could appreciate the value of a sprinkling of sharpshooters here and there, could see no value in deploying an entire regiment of riflemen en masse for they must soon be driven from the field by formed infantry or cavalry. ‘A very amusing plaything’: that was how one of the Army’s most experienced generals had ridiculed the Rifles.
    As