Jack had not aimed anywhere but up. He could not see, could only feel as the point skittered along bone, opening cloth and flesh until somehow, somewhere it seemed to find a gap. The man screamed then, a terrible, high-pitched sound as the steel slid in.
Everything that had been tight was suddenly slack. The sword dropped from the fingers, Jack’s twist and thrust and the man’s falling taking them around so the Frenchman’s back was now against the trunk. His hands, unencumbered now, reached to Jack’s weapon, fingers grasping at the blade, trying to remove it. Blood ran between the fingers but Jack held it still, desperately, weight and slope bearing the weapon down. It took only a moment for something to falter in the man’s eyes, some desire to fade. Jack knew because he was looking into them, so close the two of them could have been lovers. And suddenly those eyes rolled back and, with a shuddering exhalation, the man slumped back. As he did, Jack moved the opposite way, leaving the bayonet, his arms stretching out wide as if to deny their latest activities. Abandoned, the body crumpled, folding into shale.
Ecstasy! He didn’t think he’d ever been happier! He was alive as he had never been before, felt as though he would explode with the joy of it. He wanted to throw back his head, laugh and laugh. He tried but could not get the air, the little that came allowing out a giggle which accompanied him as he sank down. Then, as breath started coming in whoops, joy slipped away. He was staring at a body, at a youth not much older than himself, wiping blood from his hands onto his black breeches, onto his red coat.
He didn’t know how long he had knelt there when the sound of feet coming up the slope disturbed him. He knew he should reach again for his bayonet, should try to kill this next Frenchman who came over the trunk and the one after that. But he couldn’t move, welded there by tears and another man’s blood.
‘Egad! Is that you, Absolute?’
Captain Delaune was perched with one leg either side of the tree trunk, caught where he’d first glimpsed Jack. He came fully over now, paused as he saw the body, then knelt. ‘Are you hurt, lad?’
Jack shook his head, tried to make a word, couldn’t.
‘Your first?’
Jack nodded. Delaune put his hands under Jack’s arms, helped him rise, held him while he steadied. ‘They’ll tell you it gets easier,’ Delaune said quietly. ‘In my experience, that is a lie.’ More men were coming up the slope, halted now at the trunk, at the sight of the body. ‘Do we hold the path?’
Jack nodded, at last found some moisture for his voice. ‘Colonel Howe sent me to inform you so, sir. Says the general is at liberty to bring up his army.’
Delaune looked up the slope. Almost as he did, a cannon suddenly roared somewhere above them, its voice shocking in the silence. ‘That will be the Samos battery above the cliffs here. They’ve wind of us now. I’m sure Colonel Howe could use some reinforcements for he’ll have to take out those guns.’ He looked at Jack again. ‘Are you able to continue to the general with the news?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Jack shook his head hard. ‘Yes, I believe I can.’
‘Good.’ Delaune slapped him on the back, picked up Jack’s tricorn from where it had fallen. As he handed it over, a corporal came up. In his hand was Jack’s bayonet.
‘Sir?’ the corporal said.
Delaune took the weapon, wiped it on his sleeve, reversed it. ‘You might need this.’
Jack hesitated only for a moment then took the blade, sheathing it immediately. ‘I pray to God I do not.’
‘Amen,’ said Delaune, ‘and bonne chance.’ Turning back to his men he cried, ‘Forward.’
Jack let the last of the Forlorn Hope file past him, each young recruit staring at the body as they went, then at him. When the last of them had passed, he looked at it himself. ‘Bonne chance,’ he murmured then climbed the trunk. The darkness had yielded a little in the time it had taken for his blooding and he was able to move more swiftly.
– THREE –
The Plains of Abraham
13 September 1759
The last of the rain passed from the cliffs and ran, at an almost perfect right angle, over the long line of Redcoats. From where Jack stood on the army’s right flank, on one of the few slight elevations that the flat plain afforded, he could now see across the thousand-yard frontage of the British ranks to the other slight rise opposite; could even, with his keen sight, note the muskets slung across the red backs of the soldiers there.
‘I cannot tell. Has Townshend refused his battalions?’
General Wolfe had tapped the shoulder of his ADC and Captain Gwillim snapped his telescope up, scanned. ‘Yes, sir. The Sixtieth is now formed along the Sainte Foy road.’
‘Good.’ Wolfe now glanced behind him. ‘And our men here have similarly deployed.’
Jack followed the general’s eyeline. Wolfe had ordered the Thirty-fifth to also refuse in a line roughly paralleling the cliffs. So the army was now drawn up like a square-sided ‘U’, with very short side arms. That this was necessary became immediately apparent for the cessation of the rain had brought a resumption of something other than clear sight – lead ball from the tree line along the cliffs. All ducked, as the first firing was directed towards their rise. All except Wolfe.
‘Time, Gwillim?’
‘It is approaching half past nine, sir.’
‘Good. Good. Your glass, if you please. Absolute, a moment.’
Jack, who had been considering moving further away down the slope, now stepped up it. As he did, a sergeant he’d been standing beside cried out, fell backwards, clutching at his neck; blood pumped between his fingers.
‘Tell the men to lie down, Gwillim.’ Orders were bellowed, echoed down the long ranks. The British army, with some alacrity, lay down. ‘All except you, lad.’ Wolfe caught Jack in a half-crouch. ‘I need your shoulder.’
Jack, uncomfortably aware that he was now one of the more prominent features of the bare battlefield, stood before his general, who laid his ’scope on his shoulder. Wolfe could no longer level one himself. He had been shot in the wrist earlier in the morning and a white bandage around it now paralleled the black one worn on his upper arm in memory of his recently dead father.
Jack tried not to flinch as bullets zinged by him, and failed. Wolfe, however, was completely steady. He had motioned Jack to face toward the east, towards the hills he’d heard called the Buttes à Neveu. Not far beyond them, yet out of sight, he knew stood the city of Quebec. On top of the hills was the French army, their white uniforms making the battalions appear like cumuli, massing. They were no more than half a mile away.
‘Yes,’ muttered Wolfe, ‘I thought as much. Montcalm’s placed his most experienced regiments, Bearn and Guyenne, in the centre. Forming into columns and … By God, that’s himself! Do you see him, lads? He’s mounted on a black horse, the swanky bugger. All right for some!’ He sighed. ‘Sit, shall we?’
With relief, Jack helped the general lower himself down then sat himself, scrunching his neck into his shoulders. He would have lain on his stomach but since none of the other staff officers who gathered around did, he could not.
‘Do you think he will attack, sir?’ Gwillim asked.
‘I think he must and soon. We’re astride his supply line from the south and he’ll think we’re digging in, while every hour allows us to bring more men up from the ships. More guns too!’ He inclined his head to the sound of an explosion. ‘Williamson’s six-pounders are nipping at him already. Ample compensation for these gnat bites from their Militia and their wild pets, eh?’
Jack looked again to the cliff-top scrub, to the ghastly shapes that moved within it – the enemy’s Native allies, naked, painted beasts the lot of ’em! Their extended wail of a war cry caused the knees to weaken far more than the bullets they sent. It seemed to come not from the Damned but from their horned tormentors, unspeakable cruelties vouchsafed for anyone who fell into their hands. Jack winced as he remembered the call he and his Mohocks had unleashed in Covent Garden taverns. A schoolboy’s p
athetic whine! How had he ever thought he’d even come close to this chilling savagery?
Wolfe acknowledged the cries and the continuing snap of bullets overhead with little more than a shrug. ‘And le Général knows that if he doesn’t attack we’ll swallow his reinforcements coming from Sainte Foy like oysters.’ He smiled. ‘No, gentlemen, he’ll come, fast and in column. He personally forms his best troops around him there in the centre. So it’s in the centre we’ll break him.’ He used Jack’s shoulder and rose. ‘Come, let’s to it. Burton, you’re in charge here. Keep your head down.’
Wolfe moved away fast, Jack, Captains Gwilliam and Delaune struggling to match his pace. Since he’d first appeared on the cliff top, and leaving aside the inconvenience of taking a ball in the wrist, Wolfe no longer seemed a sickly man. His long pigtail slapped and bounced on his back as he strode. In his good hand he clutched nothing more offensive than a black cane.
The standards of the 47th and 43rd Foot were planted at the very centre of the British line and it was by them that he halted. The battalion commanders rose from the ground as he approached, saluted, Monckton, the Old Westminster, among them. The soldiers, though remaining prone, gave him three huzzahs.
‘All fair, George?’ Wolfe addressed his brigadier.
‘Seems so, sir,’ Monckton replied.
As Wolfe and his officers conferred, Jack looked along the lines. The regiments, though recumbent, were dressed roughly in two ranks. There were gaps of about forty paces between each body of men and the next battalion up was the 78th, Fraser’s Highlanders. Jack looked for and soon spotted Donald MacDonald. Not for him a seat upon the grass; he was striding about his men, his pipe clamped firmly in his teeth, waving and encouraging. Then his attention was caught by the conference taking place and, a moment later, by Jack. He marched over.
‘How fare you, lad?’
‘Tolerably.’
The Scot looked down. ‘Ye might have cleaned yon bayonet.’
Jack looked too, shuddered. MacDonald stretched out a hand, rested it on Jack’s shoulder. ‘Delaune told me. It’s a muckle powerful thing to take your first life and you chose the most direct method.’
‘I had no choice,’ Jack muttered, looking away. ‘If I had—’
‘If you had, you’d make the same one again. And again. It gets easier, trust me.’ He indicated Jack’s musket. ‘It’s easier with that. You don’t fire at one man but at a pack of ’em.’
‘Well,’ said Jack, licking at his dry lips, ‘it seems I shall soon find out.’
‘Soon enough, aye.’ MacDonald smiled. ‘So long as Wolfe does nae intend to keep you as his pampered pet on the staff.’
It seemed Wolfe had other ideas. As they looked to the conference, Gwillim signalled him back and the Scot accompanied him over. ‘Absolute, I am going to make use of your vaunted speed again. You will remain here in the centre and General Monckton here will send you with need or news.’
‘Can I nae have him, sir? He can stand with me on the Seventy-eighth’s right, with the Grenadiers. He’s only a few yards from the brigadier’s commands. And I can keep him safe.’
‘Trusting a Highlander for one’s safety is like trusting a whore with one’s purse. But let it be so.’ His men laughed and Wolfe smiled at the outrage on the Scotsman’s face. ‘You’ll find me, lad?’
‘I will, sir.’ Jack smiled back. ‘You may depend on me.’
‘Depend on an Absolute? Mad Jamie’s boy? Absolutely!’ Wolfe raised his cane and touched the side of his hat. ‘Gentlemen. To battle.’
He turned, striding back towards the little rise of ground that gave him the only slight overview of the field. They all watched him for a moment till MacDonald spoke. ‘I never thought I’d say this, mark! For, dod, yon callant was cruel to many of my poor countrymen in the aftermath of Culloden. But he is a fine man and a good soldier and, if fortune favours, he will win much glory this day.’ He turned to Jack. ‘And speaking of Highlanders, let me introduce you to a gaggle.’
Introductions were brief, Jack hearing the names of but a few men, forgetting them instantly, distracted by the pace of the French drumming that seemed to increase even as he took his place. Then, a huge roar came from the white ranks opposite them, in three distinct shouts.
‘Vive le Général! Vive le Roi! Vive la Paix!’
And on their country the white army surged forward.
‘Rise the Seventy-eighth, rise!’ Up and down the field, as their regimental commander called out their name, each regiment rose and dressed into their two lines.
‘D’ye ken the use of your musket, man?’
Jack nodded.
‘Then we’re short a subaltern in the platoon here, with Archie MacDougal’s guts despoiling the floor of his tent. So step in there and I’ll step in beside ye. Every bullet will count today and my sword will have to bide.’ He patted the basket hilt of his claymore then guided Jack to the end of the second rank.
Jack stared forward. A white wave was rolling toward them, eating the ground as if it were the sand of a Cornish beach before the tide, as steadily filling each wrinkle with its flood. Though it had seemed all one mass when it began to move, as it neared he could see the demarcations, the different facings of each regiment, the blue of the men of Rousillon, the red waistcoats of Guyenne. They marched in three main columns and between them were scattered men in a mélange of cloth and colour, the Militia of New France. The columns opposite the English right and left flanks seemed already a little blurred to Jack’s sight, as if the ranks were melding as they came; not so the one straight ahead, made up of the regiments that Wolfe had proclaimed the pick of Montcalm’s men. These marched as tight as on any parade ground, a white arrow aimed at the heart of the red-clad British who stood, their muskets shouldered, muzzles and bayonets pointed harmlessly toward the sky.
‘Are you double-loaded, lad?’ MacDonald’s voice was low-pitched beside him, yet still startled him back to himself.
‘Yes, sir,’ replied Jack.
Wolfe’s command had been to load with two balls and the powder to send them. It diminished the range of each bullet – and that told every man there what their commander intended: to wait … and wait … and wait …
The French drummers were increasing their beat and the regiments were responding in speed, their wings fraying further, their centre tightening. The soldier ahead of him in the first rank was praying, or cursing, it was hard to tell which for the language was certainly Gaelic. Jack swallowed, tried to work some moisture into his throat, tried to recall words himself, something to comfort him from the endless prayers he’d sat through at school and recited by rote. He cursed himself that he had not paid a greater attention to matters spiritual. Yet nothing came, in Latin, Greek, Hebrew or English until … yes, there was something, some words, a pattern. He began to mumble them under his breath.
Of all the girls in town,
The Black, the Fair, the Red and Brown,
That chance and prance it up and down
There’s none like Nancy Dawson.
He must have spoken them, even sung them, for the Highlander before him left off his prayer-curses to turn and glare. The look only added to a feeling that had been building in Jack for some while – he started to giggle. It was all so fucking absurd! Three months ago he’d been singing that song in the taverns of Covent Garden. And here he was, standing with a musket in his hands and a whore’s name on his lips while four thousand Frenchmen ran at him with the plain intention of stabbing him dead.
And then they stopped. All the drums struck one loud exclamation and, a little over a hundred paces away, the whole white mass halted. For a moment Jack thought – and it only added to his hilarity – that they’d decided the situation was quite as absurd as he thought it and they were going to march off and leave the killing of him for another day. The joy that thought gave him lasted only moments, those it took for the Frenchmen to bring their muskets down from the port, ground the butts into their shoulders and,
without seeming to wait for any command, fire.
There was a ragged roar like a drawn-out shout, the air suddenly filled with whistles and shrieks and, almost immediately, a sound like pebbles being thrown at a barn’s wall as men around him were struck, on their muskets, on their cartridge cases and buckles … and in places that made no sound. The praying Highlander reeled back, dropping into the narrow space between Jack and the next man, one of his eyes a black and reddened hole.
‘Seventy-eighth, advance three paces,’ a Scots voice bawled.
All around him, the men moved on the command. Jack, unused to the drill, lingered a moment, long enough to see the red ranks clear the fallen, a dozen bodies perhaps, some writhing, some still. Then he too lurched forward and his momentum carried him beyond his assigned place, into the gap in the front rank. Before he could retire, another command came.
‘Companies … lock!’
Like a door bolt shot into place, the two ranks melded, the space between men closed.
‘Present your firelock!’
There was another movement, each man stepping forward on his front leg, leaning over it, raising his musket to parallel the ground. Jack, drilled relentlessly aboard ship by the foulmouthed Yorkshireman, did as all the others. Then he felt a leg behind him, a musket barrel rising beside his face.
‘Good lad,’ said MacDonald. Jack could feel the Highlander’s breath on his cheek. ‘Good lad.’
In their movements there had been distraction from what was before them; and the French volley had raised a cloud of smoke that hid the enemy for a moment. Now that smoke was thinning, pushed aside by men emerging like wraiths from the whiteness. The drums had started again, a faster beat, the voices calling again, ‘Vive le Roi! Vive la Paix!’
The Blooding of Jack Absolute Page 21