Kings and Emperors

Boom-boom-boom, buh-buh-buh-boom-boom-boom “Vive l’Empereur!”; it was very close now, the nearest column panting and gasping for air as it struggled to climb the slope to the British lines. Musketry erupted downslope from the skirmishing companies as they fired, then fell back, re-loading on the go. The front of the column looked to be about two hundred yards away, and Lewrie nodded, then un-slung his Ferguson, looked for an officer to target, and put the butt to his shoulder, looking down the barrel.

There! He spotted a French officer with a dark red sash round his waist, his sword out and waving to urge them on. He had one of those long mustachios. Lewrie drew his weapon back to full cock, and took aim. The late Major Patrick Ferguson, inventor of his rifled musket who had died at the Battle of King’s Mountain in the American Revolution, might have intended long-range accuracy, but he hadn’t done much by way of improving front and rear sights to achieve it.

Lewrie held aim above the officer’s shako, drew a breath and let it slowly out, then pulled the trigger, just as the officer turned to face his men and march backwards to say something to them. The bullet, fired downhill, didn’t follow the usual descending arc, and struck him square between the shoulder blades, punching the Frenchman facedown dead.

Here, that’s cheerin’! Lewrie told himself as he opened the breech and tore a fresh cartidge open with his teeth. In a trice, he was loaded again, seeking a new target, and finding one, this one a senior officer with lots of gold-lace on his coat and a fore-and-aft bicorne on his head, adorned with egret plumes. He aimed smaller, this time, taking advantage of the flatter trajectory of a round fired downhill, holding only a foot above the egret plumes and firing. He hit the officer full in the cheek below his left eye and saw the back of his head explode into his soldiers’ faces!

A very young junior officer stepped forward to lead, and he went down with a bullet in his chest; then it was a great, hulking older sergeant who stepped out in front, bull-roaring defiance and courage loud enough to be heard over the din of gunfire, and Lewrie shot him just above his shirt collar and neck-stock, driving the man to his knees in surprise, and fountaining gouts of blood from his mouth.

“Up, form line, odd-numbered companies!” some senior British officer was shouting. “Up, form line and stand ready! Front ranks will kneel!”

The skirmishers were back on the crest and taking their places at the left flanks of their regiments. Grenadier companies were forming at the right ends, and the line companies were now shoulder-to-shoulder. Lewrie got off two more quick shots as the French got within one hundred yards, and begi

Haven’t shot this well in years! he congratulated to himself as he tore open another cartridge; I may take up duck-hunting, next!

He’d run out of obvious officers in front of the French column, so he settled for a tall soldier in the centre of the first rank, and dropped him with a shot just below his brass cross-belt plate.

“Get out of the way, you bloody damned fool! We volley, and we will cut you down!” someone was shouting behind him.

Lewrie assumed that that was addressed at him and spun about to realise that he was looking down the muzzles of over six hundred levelled muskets. “Oh, shiiitt!” he yelled as he hastily flung himself to the ground!

“Front ranks … fire!” came a second later, and all Hades erupted. The whole ridge roared with noise, and spurting powder smoke blanked out his view, from an ant’s level, of an entire regiment delivering a massed volley. “Second rank, fire!” and by then all that he could make out were trouser legs and boots below the smoke pall.

He could hear the balls rushing overhead like a swarm of bees, screams and shouts from the French down-slope, even the meaty thumps of bullets tearing into enemy bodies.

“Front ranks … level!”

He stayed where he was, wishing that he could dig deeper, for though British troops were the only ones in the world who actually practiced at live musketry, the Tower musket, “Brown Bess,” had even more rudimentary sights than his Ferguson, and the command was “Level,” not “Take Aim.” Rapidly delivered massed volleys at sixty to seventy-five yards was the desired effect, “shotgu

He also had another desperate urge to pee!

“Regiment will … advance!” some senior officer bawled out. “Fix … bayonets.”

Captains of companies shouted their own orders for the first ranks to stand, and to fix bayonets, and close ranks.

“Regiment … twenty paces forward … march!”

Marching men weren’t likely to be shooting, or so he thought, so Lewrie warily got to his feet, still lost in the powder smoke fog, hearing the swish of boots through grass, and the tramp of marching men in lock-step, the pace being called out by sergeants.

He wanted to be out of their way, but had no clue as to where to go. An instant later and he was blundered into by a young Private who let out a screech of fright, almost dropping his musket.

“Frog!” the soldier squeaked, “A Frenchie, roight ’ere!”

“British officer!” Lewrie shouted back, almost nose-to-nose.

“Sykes, ye silly sod!” his Sergeant yelled. “Pick up yer damn musket!”

Lewrie turned sideways to sidle ’twixt the soldiers of the first rank, then their rear-rank mates, all of whom were laughing at their unfortunate companion.

“Silence in the bloody ranks!” an officer demanded.

The two-deep line of troops seemed to be marching into clearer air, so Lewrie ambled along behind them a little way as the regiment began to descend the crest of the ridge.

“Regiment will halt! Load cartridge! By platoons, level … fire!” a senior officer ordered very loudly. Lewrie looked around to see a Colonel near him, a short fellow who was on his tiptoes, hopping in the air to see downslope past his soldiers, which Lewrie found a fu

The regiment, and the others on that part of the ridge, opened fire down on the struggling French column, and any hope of a view of the results was blotted out. The platoon volleys rippled down the regimental line, four rounds per man per minute, from the Grenadier Company on the right to the Light Company on the left, repeated as soon as the right of the line was re-loaded. Now and then, one better-trained company’s volley didn’t sound like a long crackle, but a muted Chuff! as every trigger was pulled at the same second.

That Colonel bulled his way through the ranks of his taller soldiers, drew his sword, and cried “Cease fire! Poise bayonets, and … Charge!” as he rushed out ahead of his men, whirling his sword about and shrieking like a banshee. With wild, feral howlings, his troops raced down the hill with him, and Lewrie was left alone at the crest of the ridge, again.

“Bugger that for a game o’ … soldiers,” he said aloud, wishing no part of the melees to come.

But, it was an awesome sight to see. The French drummers were whacking away on their skins with urgency, but the column was having no more of it. The front six or seven ranks, thirty or so men across, had been shot to a reef of dead and wounded against which the French behind could make no progress. There looked to be an attempt to fan out from column to line and respond with musketry, but that had also been shot to a halt, and when the British regiment began its charge downhill with wickedly sharp bayonets, all order dissolved, and the French turned their backs and began to scramble over each other to get away, some tossing aside their muskets in their haste.