Tuesday, April 9, 2024

In the Woods

PxHere
The sergeant was trying to pay attention to everything - how the men were moving into the trees, how the lieutenant was doing, and, most importantly, the enemy. To his satisfaction, the men weren't bunching up, the lieutenant appeared to have shaken his earlier jitters, and, again most importantly, the enemy wasn't in sight yet.

As he moved up to his officer to tell him that this was a good place to set up, the young man  surprised him, calling out to the line of troops, "All right boys, settle in, mark your firing lanes, this is as good a spot as any to begin the battle."

Indeed it was a good spot, there was cover and concealment to the front, the company was in a natural depression running through the small forest. It put the men below the general level of the ground and provided good visibility to their front. This young officer was turning out to have a good eye for terrain.

"Good enough, Sergeant?"

"No Sir ... It's perfect. Do you want me on the other end of the line?"

"See that darker line to our front, where the brush is thicker?" the officer asked him.

"I see it sir, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"If you're thinking open fire when the enemy pops out of that, then yes. We're on the same page, Sarn't."

"Great, I'll pass the word as I head to the flank."

"Carry on."


The major was growing concerned as the underbrush continued to thicken as his men moved into the trees. He was giving some thought to dismounting, perhaps rejoining the remainder of his battalion, his lead company commander was more than capable of handling things here.

Just as he decided to head back to the battalion, the underbrush cleared and his horse moved freely, she even seemed to be happy to be out of that mess of brambles and shrubs. He sat his mount and watched as the remainder of the company emerged into the more open part of the wood. His troops were quickly reordering themselves, he was proud of his boys, they ...

He heard the shout to his front, before his brain really registered what it had heard, billowing clouds of powder smoke issued along a line to his front, he perceived the flashes within the smoke an instant before he felt three distinct blows in succession.

One ball pierced his upper thigh and slammed into his horse, the second tore through his abdomen, winding him, the third ball hit his upper arm, then slanted up further when it hit bone. He didn't feel it when that ball smashed into his skull.

The major was dead before he hit the ground, his horse fell on top of him, thrashing briefly before it too died.


The captain saw his commander's mount topple an instant before he himself was hit. The ball spun him around hard enough that he fell. He could hear the screams of his men as they were being hit and driven back into the underbrush. Before losing consciousness he could hear his men returning fire, good boys he thought, good boys.


"Hold your fire!"

The enemy were falling back through the underbrush they had come out of, what was left of them anyway. A number of bodies could be seen on the ground, some still moving. The sergeant saw a party of men trying to pull a man out from under his horse. Though tempted to take them under fire, something inside of him stopped him. The other men on the line seemed to feel the same.

Heading back down the line to his lieutenant, he felt a moment of panic when he saw the man's bloody sleeve.

"Sir, are you hit?"

"Ball just grazed the skin, ruined my damned jacket though."

"Let me have a look ..."

"I fixed him up, Sarge. Bit more than a graze, but he'll live. Might want to see the surgeon."

The company armorer said that as he handed the lieutenant a canteen. "Drink that, Sir, it'll take the edge off. Sarge, can we talk?"

Looking puzzled, the sergeant nodded then followed the armorer back a few paces from the line, "What's up, Guns?"

"The boys fired off an awful lot of ammo, we need a resupply, soon. Also, I was out on the flank to see if the rest of the battalion had come up yet."

"And?"

"They have not, but there's an enemy light company moving up on our right, if our guys don't come up soon, they'll be in our rear."

"Why didn't you want the Lieutenant to hear that?"

"I wanted to let him settle down a bit before dumping a new problem in his lap. Kid's good, but he's young, didn't want to rattle him."

"What's in the canteen? Medicinal spirits?"

"Something like that," the armorer grinned.


The sergeant major had managed to rally the remnants of the light company which had gone into the woods. The senior surviving man was a very young lance corporal. He took him aside.

"What happened in there, Corp?"

"We come out of a thicket like, the forest kind of opened up once you got past the edge. As we're forming up we took a volley, then another. The lads were getting ready to return fire when someone noticed that the Major was down. Captain got the boys settled down, then he got hit, bad. Don't know what happened to 'im."

Looking around, the sergeant major counted maybe twenty-two or twenty-three survivors milling about. These boys were out of it for now.

"Corp, it's your company for now, form 'em up and march them to the rear. You'll be in reserve. Get your boys under control, have 'em eat something unless they've gobbled their rations down already, Ill try and scare something up when I get the chance, but we're a little busy right now."

The young lance corporal took a deep breath, for a moment it almost looked as if he was going to cry, but he composed himself. "Will do, Sergeant Major."

"THIRD COMPANY! ON ME!"

Though his voice cracked at the end of that command, the men of the shattered company fell in as ordered.

Turning back to the front to find his colonel, he heard a whistling overhead. He turned to see a solid shot plow into the ground then bounce back up and slam into the reformed Third Company, Those men flung their weapons down and ran.

Damn it, they've brought up their guns!


The lieutenant had nodded his head, then gave the armorer five men. "Head out to where you saw the enemy coming up on the flank, take 'em under fire, that'll give them pause. If they come on, run back and let me know. We'll have to fall back."

"Sir!"

He saw his sergeant watching him, "Something on your mind, Sarge?"

"The boys could use more ammo. We shot off a lot of rounds in that first attack. We weren't even carrying a full load."

"Well, if needs be, have the lads take care with their shots, we're stuck here until relieved, or overrun."

At that moment, both men heard the thump of artillery firing. It was hard to tell what direction it was from in the woods, but the sergeant was pretty sure it was to their right rear, where they had been initially positioned.

"Ours?" the lieutenant asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Might be."


The colonel saw his initial attack breaking up in the face of the enemy artillery, one battery already in action, two more being brought up. Before he could order his light battalion to fall back, their officer, the senior surviving captain, had already used his initiative to order that movement.

"Sir!"

"I know, Sergeant Major, I know. I'm falling back too. Damn it, but those fellows got their guns into action quickly."

"Yessir, right smartly handled they are. We should send ..."

"I've sent a galloper back to find our division and ask for orders. We'll pull back just past that small rise," gesturing at the small ridge they'd crossed earlier, "and wait to see what happens. At least there we'll be out of that fellow's line of fire."

"Three batteries, he has to have at least a division up ..." the sergeant major's remarks were punctuated by an enemy ball screaming overhead.

"And we need to make ourselves less conspicuous!"

Turning their horses, the two men galloped to the rear.



20 comments:

  1. Small arms fire is one thing, solid shot bouncing off the landscape, that's another thing. The Muse certainly woke me up this morning Sarge.... :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is with artillery that one makes war.

      Delete
    2. I looked up the line, "It is with artillery that one makes war." and it took me to a web site about the war with Mexico but it did credit Napoleon with the line...I figured as much when that was a reply from OldAFSarge!
      https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/military-weapons-the-history-of-mobile-artillery/

      Delete
  2. Solid shot...if he hears it "whistling overhead" and it "plows into the ground" where he can see it like that, will likely bury itself and not be a grazing shot, although stranger things have happened. I'm making two assumptions here, the technology is similar to that of our own War of 1861, and since it's specified as "solid shot," there is also spherical case, cannister, and other such lovelies. So, they're close. Maybe around 700 yards at the most. Beyond that spherical case or common shell would be used, especially against a static formation.

    Drawing on long memory here because I don't have access to my files on it, but against a massed formation of advancing infantry the guns would open up at about 1500 yards with case, something like 12 to 15 rounds, Then, at about 700 yards and down to 350 yards, 5 or 6 rounds of solid shot, and under 350 yards 10 rounds of cannister.

    Hope that LT doesn't lose his arm.

    Muse deserves some steak and shrimp for this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A couple of possibilities here: the shot he heard wasn't the shot he saw and it's possible that the unit that was hit was further away, odds are it was two different balls.

      You're thinking American Civil War for artillery practice, think earlier. The regular pieces in the battery, the cannon, are supplied with round shot and canister. Each battery may have one or more howitzers as part of its complement, those would fire common shell (in some armies - the British - shrapnel).

      I try to keep things vague enough so that almost any period of the black powder era might be represented here. That way I can go crazy (artistic license) with the story line without getting too bogged down in details.

      And yes, the officer needs to report to the surgeon when he gets the chance!

      Delete
    2. I'm having one of those days....
      >>The word shrapnel comes from the man who invented it back in 1784, Henry Shrapnel, the first British lieutenant of the British artillery who was experimenting on how to make ammunition deadlier.<<
      https://www.history.com/videos/history-of-shrapnel#

      Delete
    3. Yes, and it's a particular type of artillery round. In the Napoleonic Wars only the British used in, other countries had something similar, but the British round was far better.

      Delete
  3. The LT needs to take a bit of the Armorer's juice and rinse his wound - stat! Given the presumed period (18th-19th century) the Armorer and/or the Sergeant may know as much real medicine as the "Surgeon"
    Charlie Mike, Sarge, Charlie Mike!
    Boat Guy

    ReplyDelete
  4. You shouldn't move cavalry through woods without first sending in scouts, at least in pairs with one trailing the other by a decent distance, preferably on foot, but on horse is okay, as a mounted soldier will perform 'reconnaissance by fire' (as in the scouts will come under fire and everyone will know that the enemy is where the scouts just got shot up and this is why on foot is better...)

    Oh, well. Maybe the survivors will learn before next time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Uh, not cavalry. The man on the horse was the light infantry battalion commander.

      Delete
    2. Well, okay. Correction. You shouldn't move infantry, cavalry, artillery, naval assets, air assets, refugees, provisions or anything else through woods without first sending scouts ahead, at least in pairs, with one trailing the other by a decent distance. Lead guy gets dropped by gunfire and definitely there's bad guys on the other side.

      Goes with any visual obstruction. Hills, micro terrain, fog, smoke, built up areas, a farm, a town etc.

      Scouts, that's what they're there for. Dying all too often to get intel.

      Delete
    3. Your thinking is far too modern, send in a company in skirmish order, that's old school. (Bear in mind that historically a "company" can be as few as 20 to 30 men. Especially in the field after a few months.)

      Delete
    4. Thinking along these lines goes all the way back to when Og first organized his merry band of rock slingers and stick wielders. Always have someone in front and on the sides to serve as spotters or tripwires. It worked then, it works now. Sucked and sucks to be the scout.

      That's all I was trying to say. Not thinking modern, these are tactics used by the Romans, Greeks, 'Vikings,' Normans, general medieval armies and renaissance armies. Eh. More things change, the more they stay the same.

      Delete
    5. Not really, unless you're thinking of cavalry scouts.

      Delete

Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

NOTE: Comments on posts over 5 days old go into moderation, automatically.