The Young Buglers, G. A. Henty [feel good fiction books TXT] 📗

When the morning of the 16th dawned the armies were numerically very unequal. The British had 30,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry, and 38 guns; the French, 19,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, and 40 guns; but of these the French were all veteran troops, while Beresford had but 6,000 British troops, the remainder being Spanish and Portuguese, upon whom no reliance whatever was to be placed. The British officers present were all of opinion that their chances of success, under the circumstances, were slight indeed.

The battle commenced at nine in the morning by an attack by the French general Godinot upon the bridge of Albuera. Their columns were, however, so completely plowed by the guns of the Portuguese upon the eminence behind it, that they made no progress, and Beresford perceived at once that the main attack would be made on his right. He despatched Tom Scudamore with orders to Blake to throw back his troops at right angles to the main front. The pig-headed Spaniard refused to obey, asserting that the main attack was in front. Colonel Hardinge was sent to insist upon the order being carried out, but Blake still refused, and Beresford himself rode furiously across and took the command just as the French column debouched from the wood on the right.

Before the Spanish movement was completed the French were among them. Their cavalry swept round to the right rear, and menaced the line of retreat, the infantry charged the wavering Spanish battalions, and the latter at once fell into confusion and began to fall back. William Stewart now arrived with a brigade of the second division to endeavor to retrieve the day; but as they were advancing into position, four regiments of French cavalry, whose movements were hidden in the driving rain until they were close at hand, fell upon them and rode down two-thirds of the brigade, the 31st regiment alone having time to form square and repulse the horsemen.

Beresford himself, with his staff, was in the middle of the m�l�e, and the lads found themselves engaged in hand-to-hand combats with the French troopers. All was confusion. Peter was unhorsed by the shock of a French hussar, but Tom shot the trooper before he could cut Peter down. Free for a moment, he looked round, and saw a French lancer charging, lance at rest, at Lord Beresford. "Look out, sir!" he shouted, and the general, turning round, swept aside the lance thrust with his arm; and as the lancer, carried on by the impetus of his charge, dashed against him, he seized him by the throat and waist, lifted him bodily from his saddle, and hurled him insensible to the ground. Just at this moment General Lumley arrived with some Portuguese cavalry, and the French lancers galloped off.

The Spanish cavalry, who had orders to charge the French cavalry in flank, galloped up until within a few yards of them, and then turned and fled shamefully.

Beresford, now furious at the cowardice of the Spanish infantry, seized one of their ensigns by the shoulder, and dragged him, with his colors, to the front by main force, but the infantry would not even then advance.

The driving rain saved the allied army at this critical moment, for Soult was unable to see the terrible confusion which reigned in their ranks, and kept his heavy columns in hand when an attack would have carried with it certain victory.

In the pause which ensued, the British regiments began to make their way to the front. Colbourn, with the 31st Regiment, was already there; Stewart brought up Haughton's brigade; and the 29th burst its way through the flying Spaniards and joined the 31st, these movements being made under a storm of shot and shell from the French artillery. Colonel Hartman brought up the British artillery, and the Spanish generals Zayas and Ballesteros succeeded in checking and bringing forward again some of the Spanish infantry.

The French advanced in great force, the artillery on both sides poured in grape at short distance, and the carnage was terrible. Still the little band of British held their ground. Stewart was twice wounded, Haughton and Colonels Duckworth and Inglis slain. Of the 57th Regiment twenty-two officers and four hundred men fell out of the five hundred that had mounted the hill, and the other regiments had suffered nearly as severely. Not a third were standing unhurt, and fresh columns of the French were advancing.

The battle looked desperate, and Beresford made preparations for a retreat. At this moment, however, Colonel Hardinge brought up General Cole with the fourth division, and Colonel Abercrombie with the third brigade of Colbourn's second division. Beresford recalled his order for retreat, and the terrible fight continued. The fourth division was composed of two brigades, the one, a Portuguese under General Harvey, was pushed down to the right to keep off the French cavalry, while the Fusilier brigade, composed of the 7th and 23rd fusilier regiments, under Sir William Myers, climbed the desperately contested hill, which Abercombie ascended also, more on the left.

It was time, for the whole of the French reserves were now coming into action; six guns were already in the enemy's possession, the remnant of Haughton's brigade could no longer sustain its ground, and the heavy French columns were advancing exultantly to assured victory.

Suddenly, through the smoke, Cole's fusilier brigade appeared on the right of Haughton's brigade, just as Abercrombie came up on its left. Startled by the sight, and by the heavy fire, the French column paused, and, to quote Napier's glowing words, "hesitated, and then, vomiting forth a storm of fire, hastily endeavored to enlarge their front, while a fearful discharge of grape from all their artillery whistled through the British ranks. Myers was killed, Cole and the three colonels, Ellis, Blakeney and Hawkshawe, fell wounded; and the fusilier battalions, struck by the iron tempest, reeled and staggered like sinking ships; but suddenly and sternly recovering, they closed with their terrible enemies, and then was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier fights. In vain did Soult with voice and gesture animate his Frenchmen; in vain did the hardiest veterans break from the crowded columns and sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open out on such a fair field; in vain did the mass itself bear up, and, fiercely striving, fire indiscriminately upon friends and foes, while the horsemen hovering on its flank threatened to charge the advancing line. Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry; no sudden burst of undisciplined valor, no nervous enthusiasm weakened the stability of their order; their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in their front, their measured tread shook the ground, their dreadful volleys swept away the head of every formation, their deafening shouts overpowered the dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd, as, slowly and with horrid carnage, it was pushed by the incessant vigor of the attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did the French reserves mix with the struggling multitude to sustain the fight; their efforts only increased the irremediable confusion, and the mighty mass breaking off like a loosened cliff, went headlong down the steep; the rain flowed after in streams discolored with blood, and eighteen hundred unwounded men, the remnant of six thousand unconquerable British soldiers, stood triumphant on the fatal hill."

While this dreadful fight was going on, Hamilton's and Collier's Portuguese divisions, ten thousand strong, marched to support the British, but they did not reach the summit of the hill until the battle was over; they suffered, however, a good deal of loss from the French artillery, which, to cover the retreat, opened furiously upon them.

The French were in no