Reflections on Riflemen

A few years past, when the Emperor’s armies were still flinging themselves across the Peninsula, I was stationed in Spain in a most agreeable capacity. My duties concerned accounts, supply tallies, the quiet arithmetic of war - matters which allow a man to serve the Empire without ever hearing a musket fired in earnest. I kept a small house outside the town, brought my daughter with me to keep the household in order, and lived at a comfortable remove from the uglier labours of soldiering. In short, I was content. That peace lasted until the morning a party of British riflemen arrived and decided, with the breezy confidence peculiar to that nation, that my home would serve admirably as their headquarters. They had somehow strayed leagues beyond their battalion, though how such a thing is accomplished by men carrying so many belts, pouches, horns, straps, and contraptions is beyond me. One of them - an Irishman with curls like a theatre actor - drank half my cellar within the first day. When I protested he waved a monstrous seven-barrelled firearm in my direction, as if it were the most natural conversational aid in the world. Another fellow, an elderly scarecrow of a man, spent his days singing. Always singing. Grim little ballads about cold camps, empty purses, and the miserable fate of King George’s soldiers. I cannot say whether the words were sadder than the tune, only that the British appear entirely innocent of melody. The least offensive of them was a thin gentleman with spectacles who spoke tolerable French. He did very little besides sit by the window and quote Voltaire at intervals, which was a strange pastime for a man occupying a foreign accountant’s house under arms. The worst of the lot was their commander. Within our army he would never have risen beyond the rank of an especially noisy corporal. His manners were abominable, his accent so savage that one might suspect he had learned English from wolves, and yet by some inexplicable talent he possessed the sort of confidence that persuades other men to follow him into danger. And, as it turned out, persuades daughters into far greater foolishness. One evening I discovered them together. My daughter, in tears of happiness, had the nerve to inform me she loved the brute. Imagine my position. Then, as abruptly as they had arrived, they departed again - marching off to rejoin their battalion, leaving behind an empty wine cellar, a ruined household reputation, and my daughter in a condition that no respectable marriage negotiation could possibly survive. I reported the entire affair with complete honesty. For this, I was stripped of my post and returned to France in disgrace for “providing refuge to the enemy.” Apparently the Emperor’s administration expects its accountants to repel armed rifle companies personally. Thus ended my career. I have lived quietly in this miserable provincial cottage ever since, keeping accounts for men who cannot read them and pretending the whole matter never occurred. Yet I confess something peculiar. With those abominations hammering at my door tonight, I find myself wishing that those dreadful green-coated Englishmen were here again. They were coarse, ill-mannered, ruinous to a man’s household - but they seemed the sort who could be relied upon in a fight. And, in present circumstances, I would even endure the singing.