Short Story: Fortunes Of War

Short Story: Fortunes Of War

Twa recruitin sergeants cam frae the Black Watch

Twa markets and fairs, some recruits for to catch

But a’ that they ‘listed was forty and twa

Enlist my bonnie laddie an’ come awa

It may be that no one will ever read this journal but if fate decrees that they do they will know of what has befallen me since I left Burnside.

Father’s gruff announcement that he could only retain my brother Fergie to help run the farm had come as no surprise. Burnside could not support three grown men – especially if the factor raised the rent again - and hard decisions walk hand in hand with hard times.

So was that early on a bitterly cold October morning in 1807 I set off for Perth, to march with the regiment in the service of King George.

Forty-two of us from Angus, Dundee, Perthshire and Fife mustered at the fortress of Fort George before sailing for Shorncliffe, in the far south of England.

Shorncliffe is a flat place atop white cliffs looking over the Main to France – indeed we are much closer to France than to Perthshire and I feel I’m already in a foreign land.

I’ve been sent to the Grenadier Company. These are the biggest and strongest lads. Sleekit, shilpit wee Dundonians and other smaller men make up the other companies. Some are lads like me but others have run from debt - or the sheriffs. Some live in terror lest women with screaming brats seek them out and the hangman casts his shadow over more than a few.

Sergeant Morton, a face like a melted candle and a merciless driver of men, calls them the King’s hard bargains and I fear there is some truth in this.

The discipline is hard, the food barely adequate and for months we’ve sweated at formation drills to bugle and drum until I swear we can change formation and load and discharge muskets in our sleep. Mind you those who have been to France and Spain say that these skills might save our lives. I’m beginning to think that maybe the Frogs are bonnier fighters than yon recruiting sergeant, Napier, let on – and maybe there were other things he kept to himself.

I have my letters and numbers and they earn me a bonny penny helping those that need it. I also help to copy and read orders and the like and the officers pay me for this. This has been worth much more to me than all Napier’s witless haverings about Frog gold and the like.

Not that we often see officers. They spend much time up in London attending balls and suchlike leaving us in the not so tender care of sergeants and corporals. I’m told officers are brave in battle though. No doubt we will all be tested and I trust that when my time comes I will not be found wanting.

Over the mountains and over the main

Through Gibraltar to France and to Spain

Get a feather in yer bonnet, and a kilt abin yer knee

Enlist my bonnie laddie and come awa wi me

We were in high spirits as we embarked on His Majesty’s Transport ‘Watchful’. Sadly our excitement - and our stomachs – were no match for the Bay of Biscay and the antics of ‘Watchful’ as she did her best to save Boney the trouble of sending us all to hell.

If this was not a good start to our campaign it was as nothing compared to what was to follow.

Far from being warm and sunny – another of Napier’s promises - the Spanish winter was cold, wet and windy. We spent many miserable months marching hither and thither, never knowing where we were and knowing less about where the enemy was.

Then it all changed, almost at a snap of a finger.

The Frogs appeared in strength and after various skirmishes the battle of Salamanca signalled the start of our eviction from Spain.

They were bonny fighters right enough but thanks to discipline and hard learned drills we fought resolutely and skilfully.

Lest however I give the impression that this gave us some sort of ascendancy I have to say that our long retreat from Salamanca over three hundred and fifty miles of hard and hostile Spanish mountains gives the lie to that. We slogged and sweated every wet and weary mile – all the time harried by Frog cavalry, with their infantry and guns never far away.

These long days and weeks of shared hardship and a common enemy caused all of us, country lads, sharp townies and dim-witted refugees from life to rely upon each other in ways I could never have conceived. Truly, adversity makes for unlikely bedfellows

Such a one was Willie Soutar, a vacant looking and lumpen man who had enlisted as an alternative to facing the sheriff in Dunfermline.

The ox like Willie marched at my right elbow in the Grenadier Company. We had little in common but he and I shared camp fires and foraged food. We stood guard together and watched each other’s backs against officers, sergeants, corporals - and the Frog cavalry.

On 11 January 1809, exhausted, wet and starving we reached the Spanish port of Corunna. The Regiment had lost 39 dead and we had 117 wounded – some hobbling – some on our backs – some in ramshackle carts.

Boots were worn through, powder was damp and we lacked everything a soldier needs to fight a battle.

Nevertheless Corunna was where we made our stand on the sixteenth of January 1809.

The wounded were patched up and we were organised back into our familiar formations. Curiously enough, this, along with rest and such food as we could get our hands on, restored our natural good spirits and we even began to look forward to the forthcoming battle.

A new ensign joined us and I was astonished to see that it was Johnnie Gilmore, the sixteen-year-old son of father’s landlord, the Earl of Gilmore. He brought news of farm and family.

It was good news in that the rents had not risen by much; Burnside was holding its own despite the bitter winters and my father and brother were in good health. It was scant news for one who had been away as long as I had but I was strangely comforted by the thought that away from my chosen world ordinary life continued.

On the evening before the battle blustering black clouds fled across a moonless sky, driven by a keen wind carrying squalls of stinging rain and hail. Cook fires smoked and cursing soldiers pulled their greatcoats tighter around them and thought the thoughts that soldiers think.

In the chill and milky morning mist we made a scant breakfast of tea and porridge, formed column and marched to the battle.

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

As his corpse to the ramparts we hurried.

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot

O’er the grave where our hero we buried.

A forest of masts filled Corunna harbour and as we marched and manoeuvred our troops gradually began to thin out towards the waiting ships.

In the early afternoon the Frogs realised what our Commander was about and they hurried to confront his remaining troops.

Rain wept from a slate grey sky as we stood in our squares, the rhythmic drumbeat of their advancing infantry competing with our pipes and drums. Guns spoke and their words tore through our files, grape and ball shredding men into bloody rags, with the sergeants and corporals pushing men in to fill the gaps; then there was silence, bugles blared and rolling volleys of musket fire sent clouds of stinking, choking smoke billowing over the field so that we could see nothing in any direction.

We stood shoulder-to-shoulder, loading and firing volley after volley as we had learned in far off Shorncliffe. Then we were hand-to-hand with the enemy.

I recall only fragments of the fight. What I do know is that splinters of it still lurk within dark recesses of my mind whence, unbidden and unwanted they invade my unguarded moments.

I remember a shilpit cursing in terrified rage as he hacked at two massive guardsmen with a bayonet until smoke hid them from sight.

Then there was the moustachioed face of the hussar looming over me where I sprawled from his charger’s impact – and I see that face dissolving in bloody mist from a musket ball at point blank range.

I saw Sergeant Morton swing a broadsword, taken from a dead officer, at a group of dismounted cavalry. He went down to a sabre slash and I never saw him rise.

Ensign Gilmour’s frightened face gleamed white under a press of Frog infantry. Another grenadier and I managed to haul him, grievously wounded, out of the ruck before the ebb and flow of the fight took me elsewhere. I thought I would not see him alive again.

Then as merciful night drew her dark cloak over the scene the bugles commanded us to stop and eerie quiet descended on the battlefield.

Different sounds broke the silence. Cries of wounded men and stricken horses reached out to us as we stood or lay in exhausted disbelief until the surviving sergeants and corporals organised us into parties to recover our wounded and bury our dead – one being Willie Soutar.

The Frogs did the same and neither group interfered with the other.

Our wounded – fortified with brandy and rum - were brought to the doubtful sanctuary of the abandoned cottages where regimental surgeons – similarly fortified – presided over the butcher’s bill.

One of the wounded was young Gilmour, screaming as the surgeon, reeking of blood and brandy in equal measure added his left leg and right arm to the pathetic and ever growing pile in the corner. I helped restrain him and although I spoke to him of familiar places I cannot be sure that he recognised or even heard me. Mercifully the lad lost consciousness and I returned to the task in hand.

Violent death and dignity make uneasy companions and the dead sprawled in twisted, resentful clusters, little valued in life and less than nothing in death. But all had been my comrades and some had been my friends. I felt painful and penetrating sorrow at their fate and briefly wondered what lay before them. Was it the bright shining heaven that I had learned of in my childhood? Was it the everlasting fires of hell promised to wrongdoers – which many of my comrades undoubtedly were? I wondered about our general as we buried him in a simple, silent ceremony. Surely his station in life must count for something in death.

I was too stupefied with fatigue to seek answers to these questions and when Recall was sounded I was barely able to stumble back to our regimental lines. Whatever the future held I knew that I would never be rid of the stench of blood, burnt powder and wood smoke that drifted darkly across the grim, ghostly graveyard that was the field of Corunna.

The battle had answered many questions, some privately and others for all to see. Our officers had led bravely and the rank and file had fought with merciless savagery with musket, bayonet, broadsword and bare hands. I count myself in this number and take some pride that I failed neither my comrades nor my regiment. I also learned that when the red mist descends I can take life as readily as the next man - a reluctant truth in which I take little pride.

With yer drums and guns and drums and guns, hurroo, hurroo

With yer drums and guns and drums and guns, hurroo, hurroo

With yer drums and guns and drums and guns

The enemy nearly slew ye

Oh my darlin dear ye look so queer

Johnnie I hardly knew ye.

Every soldier believes in his personal invincibility – he could not soldier otherwise. So it was with me as the final undirected cannonball screamed spitefully over the deserted battlefield – and carried off my left leg as I waited to board the transport.

This is to be the last entry in my journal. Fergie is taking me - complete with peg leg – home to Burnside. I’m looking forward to seeing father and to my new life as apprentice to advocate McNab in Perth – thanks to 200 guineas settled upon me by the Earl in recognition of my part in his son’s survival – for Johnnie Gilmour did survive - after a fashion.

Was it worth it? Am I glad I went? The true answer is that I don’t know – I certainly saw no Frog gold.

What I did experience was the comradeship of shared danger that

only those who were there and who survived, can truly understand.

I was there and I survived – and perhaps that is the true fortune of war.