All in Scarlet Uniform (Napoleonic War 4) (5 page)

That was generous, and hid a tragedy. Dobson’s wife of many years, and the mother of his three children, had died in an accident during the retreat to Corunna. The new Mrs Dobson was widowed a week later. In the army way, they had remarried soon afterwards. Dobson must have been past forty, his gaunt face creased and tanned by a succession of tough campaigns. For all his years, he was as hard as the teak his skin resembled. Annie Dobson was scarcely a child, being twenty-seven, and her looks, though pleasant enough, were far from beauty, not least because she seldom smiled in company. Dobson’s wife was prim and very proper, and Williams had to admit that she had done her husband a world of good. In the past he had been frequently promoted and inevitably broken to the ranks for drinking. The death of one wife, and the arrival of a new one, had changed him, and the old veteran had been sober ever since. Williams hoped it would last.

‘It’s all because of these red facings and the bright red cross on the Colours of our regiment. We’re the youngest corps, and you all know that young men are the bravest and most vigorous.’ Williams imagined the prettiest woman again being singled out. ‘Only the best for the fair, for a beauteous maid can take her pick, can’t she, miss?’ More laughter, and louder, but less convinced squeaks of outrage.

‘That’s the One Hundred and Sixth! Always ready and always steady! The French know it and so do the lasses!’ Williams smiled as there was more laughter from the crowd. The motto was one devised by Lieutenant Colonel Moss, who had fallen in Portugal. Williams had once admired the man, but now understood that he was dangerously unwise and had led the battalion into a tight spot at Roliça, costing many more lives apart from his own. Moss had been ambitious, and ever eager to promote the regiment. Only he had ever used the slogan during his lifetime. Then, months later, it had reappeared as a joke, used more often to speak of women than of the French. Williams suspected that before he joined the army he would have found it vulgar, and yet now it made him laugh. He had marched and fought with the regiment for more than a year. The redcoats were often crude in speech and actions, unbecoming in appearance and had a capacity to drink themselves senseless and behave like beasts that far surpassed even that of his fellow officers. Williams still admired them and trusted them with an affection close to love.

‘We’re the boys who saved the day at Vimeiro – who kept them Frenchies at bay when led by that great hero Sir John Moore, even though they outnumbered us ten to one! But then, who here doesn’t know that one English lad is a match for ten Frenchies!’ Williams might have believed that once. Now he knew that the French were as brave as anyone, and some of the finest soldiers in the world. In truth the wars were going Bonaparte’s way. Austria had surrendered after renewing the struggle earlier in the year, and Spain was on her knees. Britain was running out of allies once again, and there were probably at least ten French soldiers for each redcoat.

‘Talavera, my boys, have you heard that glorious name?’ Williams had to admit that Dobson was good at this game, working the crowd. He idly wondered whether the veteran remembered listening to similar patter on the day he first joined the army. ‘Ah, I see you have. It made our bold commander a lord, and twisted the nose of Bonaparte’s brother, so that he ran off with his tail between his legs and a British boot kicking his arse!

‘We were there, lads, of course we were, showing the way and standing tall amid shot and shell until the Frogs gave in.’

Williams remembered the French bombardment. Most of the battalion was in England, but three companies had been stranded in Spain and he and Dobson and the others found themselves fighting in a unit cobbled together from other detachments. They had not always stood tall, for orders had come to lie down in the long grass. Men had still died, smashed into bloody fragments by cannonballs, and when the French infantry came the redcoats had stood up to face them. Williams had never before seen so bitter a fight. Dobson and Hanley had fallen, fragments of a howitzer shell striking both men in the legs, and they were lucky to escape being burned alive by the grass fires that raged after the fighting was done. Many were not so fortunate, and Williams wished that he could forget the screams of wounded men being roasted to death. No one could tell whether they were British, French or Spanish.

‘Glory, and the path of honour! That’s what I’m offering to any lucky lad chosen to join the One Hundred and Sixth under Colonel FitzWilliam, the son of a lord and as brave and generous a gentleman as you could hope to meet.’

Williams had not yet met his new commander, who had been away during his two brief visits to the battalion since they returned from Portugal. Major MacAndrews had led the 106th after Moss fell. The Scotsman was old for his rank, and had captained the Grenadier Company when Williams first joined. MacAndrews had proved himself a superb battalion commander, but he was not a rich man. FitzWilliam purchased command of the 106th and so the major was once again a subordinate. If it was not especially fair, it was simply the way of the army. In the summer Williams had found himself leading a company at Talavera. It would no doubt be years before he became a captain and won the right to do so. Even in his brief moment of wealth he had owned nothing like the £1,500 needed to buy a captaincy.

‘If that isn’t enough, then I’ll tell you about the rewards. Each man gets a uniform as smart as it is easy to clean.’ Dobson and the other two members of the recruiting party were resplendent in new red jackets and trousers, the buttons gleaming and belts whitened with pipe-clay. The spearhead on his half-pike was polished like a mirror, and a knot of tall red feathers was tucked into the cockade on the front of his shako and towered over the normal white plume of a grenadier, chosen from the biggest men in the battalion. The resplendent martial perfection of the recruiting party was the product of special issues of equipment and many hours of labour. On campaign clothes were faded, torn and patched, if not replaced altogether.

‘And apart from good bread, meat and other vittles, every man gets his tot every day. Now isn’t that better than starving through a hard winter?’ That is what the army promised. What it delivered was a different matter.

‘And think of this. Every day – every single day – the newest young hero receives a bright silver shilling.’ Williams knew that a man was lucky to carry away one shilling a week after the deductions were made for food, equipment and laundry. That was assuming the pay was not months in arrears.

‘That’s wages, isn’t it, my lads,’ said Dobson. Williams had worked his way nearer the front of the crowd now and saw the mixture of expressions, the young men excited by the prospect, while the older ones scorned it as a pauper’s wage.

‘But best of all, when the King gives you the first shilling he adds in a great prize, a bounty no less, to show how much he values the brave fellows who serve him. Here I have a golden guinea.’ Dobson held it aloft. The coin was as highly polished as his buttons. Sadly the sun was hidden behind clouds today and the guinea failed to gleam. ‘Twenty-one shillings, no less. Look at it, lads.’ Dobson held it out on the flat of his palm to show two likely youngsters standing in front of him. Both looked like farm boys and one was barely five feet tall so would have to enlist as a boy at lower pay, but this was not the time for such detail. ‘Look at it, don’t it gleam beautifully?

‘One golden guinea, but that’s not all our King wants to give you. “Dob, old son,” he says to me, “I want the most dashing in my special Hundred and Sixth, and I’ll not have them treated a mite less well than the young heroes they are.” True as I stand before you, that’s what he said.’ Most of the audience laughed, although one of the farm lads stared in fresh awe at a man who knew the King.

A drum stood on the ground, and Dobson now flicked the coin so that it gently bounced on its skin and spun for a moment before falling. ‘So it isn’t just one golden guinea for the lucky few.’ Some recruiters liked to count the coins out one by one, but Dobson reckoned the jingle of coins was more inspiring and so took a purse and emptied it out. Even in the dull light, the gold glittered in the imagination of many who watched them tinkle down. ‘Fifteen bright golden guineas!’

Williams politely pressed through the crowd as they had arranged.

‘That’s just when you join. Clever and brave fellows will soon find themselves promoted to corporal or sergeant, and earning twice as much. Why, they may go further.’ Dobson pretended to notice Williams for the first time. ‘Look at that fine officer over there. A year ago he was my rear rank man, and stood behind me firing his musket at the French.’ That was true enough, although a gentleman volunteer was a very different thing to a private in the ranks. Only the ablest and luckiest private soldier made the leap to commissioned rank, but they were few indeed. ‘Now he’s as fine and rich a gentleman as any you could meet.’ Dobson dropped his voice to a stage whisper. ‘Won’t talk to the likes of me any more!’

Williams paid no attention, and tried to guess which young woman Dobson had earlier singled out. There were a couple of likely candidates, but when one turned towards him he saw the pleasant, plumpish face of a girl of no more than sixteen, ginger hair peeping out from under her bonnet, and knew that this was the one. The officer raised his hat courteously.

‘Would you excuse me, dear lady?’ he said, gesturing to show that he wished to pass. Whenever possible Dobson picked redheads, knowing that his officer was desperately in love with Major MacAndrews’ red-haired daughter. Miss MacAndrews was currently with her mother in Scotland, and Williams had neither seen nor had word from her since coming back to Britain. When he had gone with his sister and Garland north of the border it had been very hard not to keep going and seek them out in Aberdeen.

The plump girl blushed, then giggled a little as she curtsied, stepping back to permit the officer to pass. Williams kept going, raising his hat each time he needed to get past anyone. His small part in the performance was limited, and the rest could be left to Dobson, Corporal Murphy and the drummer. They would soon invite those ‘wishing to apply’ to join them at the Black Lion and there regale them with tales and drinks and convince as many as possible to join. So far Dobson was sticking to small beer, but Williams worried that the task of a recruiting sergeant risked a relapse into his old ways. At least Murphy could drink like a fish and still tell plenty of grand yarns of adventure and loot.

It was unpleasant to have to stretch the truth to convince men to join. At least Williams could be sure that his men would not follow some of the worst practices – getting a man drunk and then slipping the King’s shilling into his pocket, swearing blind the next morning that he had volunteered. There were stories of other sergeants hiding a shilling in a man’s mug, so that he took the coin that way. As he left the square he saw some other recent posters stuck to a wall. One was for the 7th Hussars – the Old Saucy Seventh, as it proclaimed – and in a matter-of-fact tone declared that since ‘… the regiment is mounted on Blood Horses, and being lately returned from SPAIN, and the Horses Young, the Men will not be allowed to HUNT during the next Season, more than once a week’. Williams supposed that the statement was true in its own absurd way, for he had never heard of private soldiers or NCOs in any cavalry regiment ever riding to hounds. He shook his head and walked on.

Before dusk Dobson and Murphy brought him eleven volunteers. Williams found a local doctor well practised in such matters and paid him to give them a cursory inspection. Two were rejected – the first because he could barely see, while the other failed to make the minimum height even with folded paper packed into his shoes. The rest were sworn in by the magistrate. The pair of farm boys were among them, and there were half a dozen who gave their occupation as mill worker. Their desperation was nothing compared to the ninth man, the father whose son had chatted to Williams so happily earlier in the day. His name was James Raynor, and when the whole party marched out of town the next morning his face was hopeless, certain of never seeing his boy again. Williams hoped that he was wrong.

‘Well done, Dob,’ Williams said to the lance sergeant as they marched off the next morning. ‘The colonel should be pleased. At this rate his battalion should be back to full establishment.’

‘Aye.’ Dobson sniffed. ‘Hunger is always the best recruiting sergeant of all.’ The veteran stated the facts, his tone free from judgement. He seemed to think for a while, and then looked at the young lieutenant. ‘Not sure it’s quite “his” battalion yet, though.’

‘I do not follow.’ Williams had found it well worth listening to the veteran’s opinions.

‘The colonel is still a stranger. Hasn’t been with us in any of the actions.’ Dobson had seen plenty of service in other regiments, but Portugal had been the first campaign for the 106th. Since then it had seen plenty of hard knocks. ‘Reckon he’s a smart enough man to want to make us his own.’

Williams was intrigued. ‘How?’ he asked.

‘Best way would be to send off some of the characters who have been with the battalion all the way. Old Mac, of course.’ Dobson grinned. ‘Sorry, sir, I mean Major MacAndrews. Then probably Mr Pringle.’ He winked at Williams. ‘You too, Pug, begging your pardon.’

‘I am only a lieutenant.’

‘You know how to fight. So do the others.’

Williams was still unsure. ‘Then won’t he want us? If he is smart.’ It was best to speak frankly to Dobson, at least in private. The man knew the army and how it worked.

‘Oh aye, he will when the time comes. Up till then he will want to take the battalion by the scruff of the neck and stamp his mark on it. Easier to do that when some of the big characters are off. So I reckon it won’t be long before there are some temporary postings. That’s if he is as smart as he looks.’

They marched on in silence for a while, Murphy and the drummer leading the recruits some distance ahead of them. Williams thought about Dobson’s idea. He did not want to go away so soon, now that there was a chance of seeing Miss MacAndrews again. Part of him wanted to dismiss the veteran’s suspicion. Unfortunately it made a good deal of sense. After a while another thought came to him.