Random Shots from a Rifleman

by J. Kincaid

At the commencement of the action, just as the mist of the morning began to clear away, a section of our company was thrown forward among the skirmishers, while the other three remained in reserve behind a gentle eminence, and the officer commanding it, seeing a piece of rising ground close to the left, which gave him some uneasiness, he desired me to take a man with me to the top of it, and to give him notice if the enemy attempted any movement on that side. We got to the top; but if we had not found a couple of good sized stones on the spot, which afforded shelter at the moment, we should never have got any where else, for I don't think they expended less than a thousand shots upon us in the course of a few minutes. My companion, John Rouse, a steady sturdy old rifleman, no sooner found himself snugly covered, than he lugged out his rifle to give them one in return, but the slightest exposure brought a dozen balls to the spot in an instant, and I was amused to see old Rouse, at every attempt, jerking back his head with a sort of knowing grin, as if it were only a parcel of schoolboys, on the other side, threatening him with snow-balls; but seeing, at last, that his time for action was not yet come, he withdrew his rifle, and, knowing my inexperience in those matters, he very good-naturedly called to me not to expose myself looking out just then, for, said he, "there will be no moving among them while this shower continues."

When the shower ceased we found that they had also ceased to hold their formidable post, and, as quickly as may be, we were to be seen standing in their old shoes, mixed up with some of the forty-third, and among them the gallant Napier, the present historian of the Peninsular War, who there got a ball through his body which seemed to me to have reduced the remainder of his personal history to the compass of a simple paragraph: it nevertheless kept him but a very short while in the back-ground.

I may here remark that the members of that distinguished family were singularly unfortunate in that way, as they were rarely ever in any serious action in which one or all of them did not get hit.

The two brothers in our division were badly wounded on this occasion, and, if I remember right, they were also at Busaco; the naval captain, (the present admiral of that name,) was there as an amateur, and unfortunately caught it on a spot where he had the last wish to be distinguished, for, accustomed to face broadsides on his native element, he had no idea of taking in a ball in any other direction than from the front, but on shore we were obliged to take them just as they came!

This severe harassing action closed only with the day-light, and left the French army wedged in the formidable pass of Miranda de Corvo.

They seemed so well in hand that some doubt was entertained whether they did not intend to burst forth upon us; but, as the night closed in, the masses were seen to melt, and at day-light next morning they were invisible.

I had been on picquet that night in a burning village, and the first intimation we had of their departure was by three Portuguese boys, who had been in the service of French officers, and who took the opportunity of the enemy's night march to make their escape—they seemed well fed, well dressed, and got immediate employment in our camp, and they proved themselves very faithful to their new masters. One of them continued as a servant to an officer for many years after the peace.

In the course of the morning we passed the brigade of General Nightingale, composed of Highlanders, if I remember right, who had made a flank movement to get a slice at the enemy's rear guard; but he had arrived at the critical pass a little too late.

In the afternoon we closed up to the enemy at Foz d'Aronce, and, after passing an hour in feeling for their different posts, we began to squat ourselves down for the night on the top of a bleak hill, but soon found that we had other fish to fry. Lord Wellington, having a prime nose for smelling out an enemy's blunder, no sooner came up than he discovered that Ney had left himself on the wrong side of the river, and immediately poured down upon him with our division, Picton's, and Pack's Portuguese, and, after a sharp action, which did not cease until after dark, we drove him across the river with great loss.

I have often lamented in the course of the war that battalion officers, on occasions of that kind, were never entrusted with a peep behind the curtain. Had we been told before we advanced that there was but a single division in our front, with a river close behind them, we would have hunted them to death, and scarcely a man could have escaped; but, as it was, their greatest loss was occasioned by their own fears and precipitancy in taking to the river at unfordable places—for we were alike ignorant of the river, the localities, or the object of the attack; so that when we carried the position, and exerted ourselves like prudent officers to hold our men in hand, we were, from want of information, defeating the very object which had been intended, that of hunting them on to the finale.