Rifleman Dodd, a 1932 historical novel by C.S. Forester, describes the adventures of an English soldier trapped behind enemy lines in 1810 during the Peninsular War, when Britain fights alongside Portugal and Spain against Napoleon’s invading French army. Rifleman Dodd employs guerrilla tactics to harass and kill French troops as he treks across a scorched and starving land to rejoin his regiment. The novel’s descriptions of battle tactics, improvisation under fire, and relentless determination make it popular among military personnel as well as the general public.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with General Lord Wellington commanding British forces who defend Portuguese and Spanish troops against the onslaught of a French army 100,000 strong. As the allies retreat, English rifleman Matthew Dodd becomes trapped behind the advancing French line. He escapes up a hillside while a French squad, led by Sergeant Godinot, fires on him; Dodd returns fire, killing one of them. Hoping to rejoin his regiment, Dodd uses his training in stealth to travel unseen across rugged hills and narrow valleys. Much of the territory is empty of people, animals, and crops because the Portuguese have scorched the earth to deny resources to the French. Dodd encounters a young Portuguese boy, orphaned and intellectually disabled, who accompanies him through rain and cold but becomes fatally ill from exposure, and the rifleman must leave him behind.

Dodd meets a group of Portuguese irregular soldiers who take him to their headquarters deep in the hills. He meets their leader, Capitao Mor, who assigns teenage soldier Bernardino as Dodd’s guide. Though they barely understand each other, the two find enough words and gestures to begin a trek toward the Tejo river, which Dodd wants to follow to its outflow at Lisbon, where British forces await. French troops, including Sergeant Godinot’s squad, arrive at a miles-long escarpment, Torres Vedras, a heavily fortified plateau that defends the Lisbon Peninsula and its refugees. Finding no access, the battalions, low on food, head south toward the Tejo river, which they call the Tagus. The units march upriver toward a small village.

Dodd already has scouted the village and warned its inhabitants to destroy or hide their food supplies and evacuate to the hills. He hopes the French will abandon the place for lack of edibles and retreat, so that he can continue his trek toward the British lines. His hopes are dashed when the French decide to remain, despite dangerously low food rations. Dodd improves the villagers’ harassment techniques, and for weeks they skirmish with French troops. During one hillside patrol, Godinot’s squad is ambushed by Dodd and the irregulars; Godinot loses half his men but escapes. The sergeant convinces his commanders that they must call in an extra battalion to defeat the hillside resistance.

Godinot receives a posting to Santarem, a town downriver where the French are fashioning the parts of a pontoon bridge that will permit them to cross the river and engage British forces. Dodd and Bernardino meet a Portuguese man who knows Santarem and escorts them through the French-controlled district between them and the town. As they near Santarem, Dodd realizes it’s too well-guarded to infiltrate. A long train of wagons emerges carrying pontoons and heads east on the main road. Dodd and his companions harass the column, shooting horses and causing traffic jams. The three men retreat toward the hills above the river village; they find that 1,000 fresh enemy troops routed and killed all the Portuguese guerrillas and seized their women.

Despite losing men to starvation and disease, the French begin to assemble their pontoon bridge at a point 25 miles to the east. Dodd and his team head that way, crawling through culverts to avoid occupied villages. A sentry discovers them, and French troops give chase. Bernardino and the stunted man are captured and hung, but Dodd gets away. He reaches the bridge camp. Late one night, he kills the sentries, sets fire to the bridge materials, and withdraws. Despite the best efforts of the French troops, most of the bridge is destroyed. They learn that a general retreat has been ordered, and that they must burn the bridge anyway. As the regiments move out, Godinot’s soldiers mutiny and injure him; abandoned on the road, he is captured by Portuguese guerrilla fighters and burned at the stake. With the French gone, Dodd makes his way to the British lines at Santarem and reunites with his regiment. Privates don’t receive medals, and Dodd isn’t boastful, so his gallant deeds go largely unknown.