French infantry drummers were prime targets in close combat. Their drum calls transmitted the orders that kept companies of a hundred men moving together — advance, halt, form square, open fire, retreat — and silencing the drum disrupted a battalion's command and control as effectively as killing an officer. When a formation broke down to hand-to-hand or a melee reached the drummer's position, enemy soldiers went for him deliberately. The drummer's only defense was the sabre-briquet: a short, slightly curved sidearm issued to every French infantryman, light enough to wear all day on the march and brutal at arm's length but useless beyond it. For a drummer with no musket and a forty-pound drum strapped across his chest, the briquet was the one thing between him and a bayonet.

This K&C figure catches a Légère drummer in the instant the line has broken down. He wears the carabinier-company uniform — red shako with brass plate, red epaulettes, and red collar, cuffs, and trouser-stripe trim — which marks him as the drummer to the battalion's elite right-flank company, made up of the tallest and most experienced soldiers in the regiment. His dark blue habit-veste, white waistcoat and crossbelts, and tan breeches are standard Légère issue. The drum hangs at his left hip on its sling, freeing both arms; his right hand grips the briquet raised in a high guard while his open mouth catches him mid-shout — to a comrade, to an attacker, to no one in particular. Pair him with the F.L.I. Advancing Drummer  for a before-and-after of the same role across two combat phases, with the F.L.I. Advancing Musket Levelled  for the line his drum calls were holding together, or set him into close-quarters action against the European Walls and Gates.

Scale: 1/30 (60mm). Matte-painted metal. King & Country model NA524. From the Napoleon's Army (NA) series. Single foot figure, painted and ready for display.