A soldier carried his battle in a box on his hip. The 1801-pattern giberne — the cartridge pouch — held a drilled wooden block stocked with fifty or sixty paper cartridges, each a single shot of powder and ball, behind a heavy leather flap that kept off the rain and the sparks. It was rarely enough. Fifty rounds sounds like a great deal until a firefight is consuming three a minute; in a long battle a man could empty his pouch in well under an hour, and then the trouble began — runners fetching fresh ammunition from the wagons in the rear, or soldiers rifling the pouches of the dead and wounded around them to keep the line firing.

The figure is at the first motion of the reload — left hand on the musket with bayonet fixed, right hand reaching back to the giberne for a fresh cartridge, in the full dress of bearskin, blue coat and white breeches. He opens the loading sequence of a Guard firing-line diorama, and the poses chain together in order: a French Imperial Guard Tearing Cartridge biting the round next, a French Imperial Guard Standing Make Ready bringing the musket up, and a French Imperial Guard 2nd Rank Standing Firing loosing the shot.

W. Britain model 36191. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single foot figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.