British soldier, of old

Usage examples of redcoat.

But first he had to reach the fortress, and maybe it would not even be necessary, for Prince Manu Bappoo might yet beat the redcoats here.

Fear was whipping inside him, the fear that he had mistimed this charge and that the enemy would have a volley ready just yards before the redcoats struck home, but he was committed now, and he ran as hard as he could to break into the white-coated ranks before the volley came.

A conf usion of voices and the shrill squealing of ungreased wagon-axles drifted on the warm air to the waiting redcoats on the knoll.

Once the attack was close, of course, the bastards would switch to canister and then every shot could pluck a dozen men out of the line, but for now, as the redcoats silently trudged forward, the enemy was sending round shot down the gentle slope.

The black-coated Brunswickers, some with bloodied sabres, reinforced the Dutch-Belgians who followed their Prince out into the wide expanse of field where the French skirmishers still raked the redcoats with musket-fire.

The last of the Frenchmen broke, pursued by redcoats, and some were caught in the village where the blades went to work again and the cobbles and the white stones of the houses were painted with more blood and the screams could be heard down in the valley where Massena watched, open-mouthed.

But up along the frontier in Michigan, the British had the Shawnees, Ottawa and Potawatomi tribes on their side on account of Tecumseh convincing them to trust the redcoats.

The greenjackets were trained to the skirmish line, to the loose chain of men who took shelter and sniped at the enemy, but on this retreat the men in green formed ranks as tight as the redcoats and used their rifles for volley fire.

One such assault was led by a tall, bareheaded French officer who drove two redcoats aside with whip-quick slashes of his sword, then lunged at a British officer who was fumbling with his pistol.

The skirmishers would go first, the thin line of Riflemen and redcoats wading the Alberche to drive off the sentries and lock up the French Voltigeurs so that they could not blunt the attack of the massed British Battalions which would follow on to the French flank.

Two more gates to unbar and the way would be open, but the Cobras were thick on the walls and Dodd was screaming at them to shoot into the press of men, attackers and defenders alike, and so throw back the impudent handful of redcoats who had turned his rear.

His sergeant had brought a score of men into the passageway and those Scotsmen began to fire up at the walls, and the Cobras were crumbling now because there were redcoats below them on both sides, and more were hacking their way along the rampart, and the defenders were pinned in a small place with nowhere to go.

Sharpe explained, then he turned and walked down the wall where exhausted redcoats rested among the dead and dying Cobras, while beneath them, in the passage that Campbell had opened, a stream of soldiers poured unopposed into the fort.

Some screamed overhead and a few bounced over the line, but the enemy gunners were good, and they were lowering their cannon barrels so that the round shot struck the ground well ahead of the redcoat line and, by the time the missile reached the target, it had bounced a dozen times and so struck at waist height or below.

The enemy gun line was at the crest of the low rise, but the Mahratta gunners dared not fire because the remnants of the Lions of Allah were between them and the redcoats.