The Scottish Spy - 27th June 1809

(OOC: This post carries on directly from the scenario depicted in my app RP sample, here, and is open to anyone who might wish to make an appearance and save a Scotsman's life. Into the fray!)

Another shot punctured the heavens. Munroe did not turn to regard his would-be killer, but heard the ball from the Frenchman's carbine strike upon a nearby rock, somewhat uncomfortably close to his horse's feet. He had been heading higher and higher up a steep hillside to avoid his charmingly persistent pursuers, riding parallel to a dirt road at the bottom of the incline. A dirt road along which the rather hairy French horsemen were still following at his heels after three hard hours ride. Munroe had hoped that they would have turned back for their camp by now - if the French horse were seen by British forces then Colonel Brousseau's surprise advantage would be lost - but apparently the French were more worried that Monroe would get back to camp and tell General Wellesley himself. They seemed quite intent to butcher him. In any other circumstance, he might have been a wee bit flattered at all the attention.

Half of the lancers had broken away to chase down Lieutenant Townsend when the young laddie had tried to gallop away into the mountains - the last that Munroe saw of him, the poor wee laddie had been almost surrounded by French horse. As for Munroe's pursuers, most had fallen behind during the chase. Monroe fancied himself a fair frontiersman, and his erratic course over the rough lowland terrain had been too arduous for some of the French to follow. Lancers were meant for quick charges, not extended pursuits. But much to his irritation, several French dragooners had also been engaged in the chase, and they were proving distinctly harder to shake off. Their arsenal was also slightly more formidable over longer distances, and as Munroe urged his horse up the hillside towards a nigh-on-vertical rockface, where avenues of escape seemed few-and-far-between, he began to sense that frontiersmanship might not prove sufficient by itself to extricate him from the dangers of his situation. His horse had slowed, and the French - a small and eclectic selection of lancers and mounted carabiniers run ragged by their quarrie's antics - were preceding at a reduced pace, now newly afforded with the oppurtunity to line up their shots as carefully as they liked. Backed against the rising precipice, Munroe frowned at the French with increasing trepidation.

A light horseman raised his musket and snapped off a shot that Munroe ignored until he felt his horse staggering beneath him, only hearing the wet slice of impact as an afterthought. The animal collapsed, half-dead, and Munroe fell with it - his leg caught under it's flank as it hit the ground. He twisted onto his derriere, hoping for a lack of serious injury, and sat up to see the two carabiniers holding back whilst the lancers began to ascend the hillside. With less experience than himself over inhospitable terrain, their advance was slow - but inevitable. They were seeking firmer grips on the vamplates of their long lances and advancing in a lazy pattern that showed their lack of concern. They knew that they had already won.

Irked at the prospect of their passive arrogance, Munroe thrust a hand into the pouch on his plaided belt and produced a longpistol, which he aimed over the crook of his arm and discharged in the vague direction of the leading horseman. The shot struck the rider's shoulder and he fell from his steed more out of surprise than injury. But that still left two lancers - a higher quantity of Frenchmen than Munroe could fire shots to dispense with in the time left until they bore down upon him. Resigned to that sombre strain of mathematics, Munroe let out a disappointed sigh. He hoped that wee lad Townsend was in a better wae than he was about to be...

A rifle shot cracked out, despatching the nearest of the two cavalrymen. A few seconds later, another shot rang out, sounding sharper than a shot from a musket and the second man fell, at a greater distance from the marksman than would be possible if he were only armed with a musket.

There was a pause of a few seconds and then a green-clad man whose red facings were no longer bright half-slid and half-ran down the hill to where the Scotsman was trapped.

"You all right, sir?" he asked, keeping a keen eye on the advancing enemy. "Looks like you found a bit of trouble, sir."

"I'm fine, laddie, fine." The Scot replied, with cheer. "Oh, this is nothing that a couldnae have handled by meself in time, but i'm much obliged to you all the same for the, ah, spirited assistance."

Monroe started on the spot as a musket ball threw some dust up off the ground beside them. The Scot folded his lip at the carabiniers, recharging their arms and bidding their horses still on the road below.

"Now what with you being a spry young fighting man, and me hae'ing this fat horse on top of me....what would your proposed course of action be t'wards those blackguards parading themselves down afore us?"

"I got comp'ny with me, sir," Cotton pointed out, and turned to give a loud whistle in the direction he had come from. A couple more Riflemen slid down the hill. "Reckon we can shift that horse off you easy as winkin', sir," Cotton told the officer. "That's if you can hold still? Don't want to make things worse if you've bust summat, sir."

"That'll do kindly, laddie," Monroe nodded, "Though I shan't think i'll be needing the surgeon." He patted the thigh of his pinned leg. "This auld peg has seen worse, anna ken the only thing that I have busted is m'poor hat..."

Monroe liked the cut of this lad's jib, but he took heart even more at the cut of his uniform. Forrester green with red frumpery was just the sort of livery that could serve Monroe's purposes, as things stood. He might have a wee bit of use for this lad, or the lad's commander, once the French horse were seen to and his own horse was ay the way...

What in Heaven's name the officer was on about was anyone's guess. Scotch, by the accent, and about as incomprehensible as Cornish Trevelyan in the 22nd Foot, Cotton's first regiment.

"Dead horse," he said succinctly to the other two Riflemen. One of them, a blond Englishman wearing a red twill tape around his right upper arm, grinned and nodded.

"Right, on the count of three, then," he said. "Roll it down the hill, Bergmann, you donkey."

The other Rifleman gave a wry grin and switched sides, bracing his hands against the animal's side.

Munroe oofed and ahhed as the lads shifted the awkward weight of his auld nag, and watched with a slight hankering of guilt as her dead bulk made a sorry journey down the hillside. She picked up quite some momentum, and when she finally hit the road beneath them she did so which such force that one of the French horses was spooked out of it's whits and threw it's rider, who fell heavily in the dirt. The carabinier began to pick himself up, just in time to see his comrade turn and ride back the way he'd come at full gallop...

"Very well done, laddie..." Munroe beamed, rubbing his freed leg. He could already feel tomorrow's bruises. "I havenea been so glad to see such a grand few shots in all my long life."

"What else d'you 'speck of the 60th Rifles, sir?" Cotton said, and looked somewhat abashed when Roper grinned and said, "Best shot we've got, is our Cotton - beat even the best of the 95th, straight out."

"Wasn't so easy as that - was neck an' neck till the last shot," Cotton pointed out. He glanced down the hill. "I think we'd best get back up to the others, sir - them Frogs is hoppin' mad, by the looks of things."

"Damn your humility, lad," Monroe scoffed, as he clambered to his feet and dusted the sleeve of his jacket. "It doesnae please the Lo-ord to have modest men fighting his wars for him. And nor do modest men get noted down for any elevation of rank."

Even so, Monroe would be sure to be canny of the name 'Cotton' if he ever needed to punctuate an argument over a fair distance and with a particularly final emphasis....he heard the rifleman's reservations about the French and looked down to review the situation.

"Oh I shouldnae worry about those devils, lad. They seem to be off...for the time being. But if you would be so kind as to help me up that slope, I might hae some work for you and your friends. You lucky swines."

Cotton tried not to roll his eyes where the officer could see them.

"I reckon I'm well enough without a rank, sir," he said. "Bein' batman to Captain Vick'ry an' all... Don't need rank to be a good shot, after all."

'Some work' sounded distinctly... threatening, in a strange sort of way. If this officer had been out on his own, this close to the French, he'd be another of those Exploring Officers, like Captain Padstowe.

"The Captain's up here, som'ers, sir," he added, slinging his rifle so he could give the officer a hand.

"You must be unique amongst all those in General Wellesley's employment, my lad, not to have your sights set on a higher station." Monroe smiled, reaching down to pick up the remains of his sombrero. It was in a miserable condition, so he dropped it to his feet, leaving it to the mercy of the elements.

Cotton offered his assistance, and they began to battle their way up the steep incline. "And your esteemed Captain Vickery must be a fine soldier indeed if his batman sings such high praise of him." He grinned, through bared teeth, ignoring the ache in his leg as they ascended. "I've heard other men's dogsbodies speak no end of ill things about their officers..."

Why would he want to change anything? He had everything a man could hope for - a wife, and hopefully kids later, and good employment with a decent master. The only problem, really, was being in the army fighting the French, and there was nothing he could do to change that. He was a Rifleman, though, and there were worse things to be than a Rifleman in the British Army.

"He ain't so bad, not like some I could name, but won't," Cotton replied cheerfully. "If a man's goin' to do nothin' but complain about his master, mebbe he oughta find a new master? Why complain elsewise?"

"Why indeed, laddie, why indeed." Munroe grinned, pleased with the boy's rustic sensibilities.

He let out a consternated breath as they made it the last few feet of steep cliff and onto the plateau above, and rested his hands on his weary knees. "Oohf, bless the lord," he said quietly, out of exertion, before looking up to survey his new surroundings. There was a semi-distant assemblage of men keeping themselves in such calculated disorder that they could only be one of two things - a band of cuthroat gypsies, or a company of the King's finest skirmishers. Which were, Munroe ceded, often one and the same.

"Now - where be your hereforetomentioned, illustrious captain?"

"Over here," Vickery replied, standing up from where he'd been kneeling behind a rock, keeping an eye on the French. He collapsed his telescope and came to offer the man a hand up, amused at being described as 'illustrious'.

He took in the other's appearance with a brief, precise glance and smiled. "I suppose you're another one of our exploring officers, sir? You seem to have inadvertently caught the French hopping about a bit." He sketched a quick bow. "Captain Vickery, 5th Battalion 60th Rifles at your service."

"Major Monroe," the Scot announced, with rich diction and a smile of rogueish pride, "Fifth Scots Wi'er'shi'ers by stripe, not that you're like to have heard of them, as nobody has." He extended a hand to the bonny officer. "And you suppose quite correctly, Captain - I have, of late, served at General Wellesley's pleasure, doing a Scotsman's share of the work whene'ere he wishes to poke his abnormally large nose into Frenches' business. Though I didnae catch them hopping inadvertenly, sir. In fact I perchanced to set them hopping meself."

"Hopping Frogs tend to be somewhat... trigger-happy, sir," Vickery replied. "I hope that you were not too much flattened?" He paused to make a quick note in his notebook as to numbers of the French. "I hope that brandy is a sufficient restorative," he said, taking out a hip-flask and offering it to the Scotsman.

"Oh, thankee, lad," Monroe grinned, taking the flask and having a generous nip of it's contents. Once he'd let the burn settle in his throat, he passed it back and afforded a grim expression. "You need nae worry about me, Captain - I am none the worse for wear. It's General Wellesley's march up the river into Spain, next month, that mae be a'flattened. Frenchie has hoodwinked us."

Vickery recapped his hip-flask and put it away again. "Hoodwinked?" he said. "Apart from that skirmish the other week -" which he remembered nothing of, annoyingly! "- they've been pretty quiet."

It would be easy enough for the French to prevent the Army's advance along these narrow roads, he supposed, but that was why General Wellesley had the Rifles with him. One battalion, anyway; he had heard rumours that the 95th were supposed to be returning to Portugal, but nobody had seen anything of them yet, and nor was there any more concrete news than mere supposition, that Vickery had heard, anyway.

"Quiet they may be, but they have also been alarmingly busy," Monroe lamented.

He turned back towards the escarpement and indicated down the road to Pasoliento, where the dust was still settling that had been disturbed by the fleeing French. "You might as well be told the full of it. Several days ago, meself and a young signals officer of the General's employ were informed by a trusted Portugeseman that Colonel Brousseau, who commands the French forward garrison in yonder hills, wouldnae be any trouble during our bold march accross the border. Our wee friend told us that the colonel had nae in the way of cavalry, and only a handful of musket-men bandying about his camp. Now, assuming that Brousseau would be beating his retreat to the North with the rest of his brood, the lad and I went for a gander at the town - without telling our Portugese friend - as we thought it might be a fair place for the men to rest their feet during the march. And yeh'll never guess what we found but a full batallion of French foot - and more than a few squadrons on horseback."

"Yes... we had a run-in with French cavalry on the first of the month - cuirassiers. Or at least, I am told that we had; I do not remember anything of that day at all, thanks to a French horse's hoof." It was galling, knowing that he had 'lost' a whole day through some stupid thing like that. "I have no idea who their commander was, though, sir, or anything more about it."

A full battalion of French soldiers, though - and cavalry to boot. That would have to be dealt with before they could progress much further north - to leave any enemy in their rear would be insupportable.