Fire and Folly (Man of Conflict Series Book 3)

by Andrew Wareham

  "All will be dealt with very quickly, Colonel Pearce, the legalities having been stretched a little in this particular instance. It could reasonably be assumed that the late holder of the commission was simply that - late. As such you were held to be in de facto possession of the rank, sir, and your majority was sold to Mr Carter, the sum he paid being placed in a trust account to your benefit. It will now be handed over to the Treasury, together with another thousand or thereabouts, and you will be possessor of the commission with seniority dating to your brevet. Not an entirely usual process, sir, but not unheard of."

  "Very good, sir. I will speak to my banker and beg him to remit funds to your account at soonest. I shall be overseas for much of the summer and autumn, part of this new expedition forming to go I know not where, and my brother will, as ever, hold power of attorney for me."

  Septimus felt that he should not casually disclose the destination of the expedition, even though it was a certainty that the French were better informed of its nature than he was. One should not divulge matters that should be secret, even when knowing they were not.

  Septimus was almost certain that it was his wife's birthday at more-or-less this time of year; he thought it wise to find a jeweller and spend a few hundred on her - he had just used more than a thousand of their funds on his own career and it was only fair, he felt. Add to that, she had the worry of staying at home with an infrequent letter-post from wherever he might end up in Denmark. It was too late in the day to reach Winchester without an overnight stop, particularly in the rain; he ordered a chaise and four for the early morning and spoke to the young man at the desk.

  "Rundell and Bridge, sir, are the premier jewellers in the country. I shall send one of the boys to lead you there, sir, if you wish."

  Septimus was sufficiently wide-awake to realise that a boy in the livery of the Dorchester would serve as an introduction for him. He did not realise, however, that his carriage driver of the morning had tipped a shilling to the sergeant on the door at Horse Guards and had reported back that he had been favoured with a personal audience with the Duke of York. His name was now on the list of those who were never to be informed that the house was full, not a room to be had.

  "Rubies, Colonel Pearce? A bracelet? That can be done, I am quite certain, sir. Let us see now. Payment on the Winchester and South Hampshire Bank, sir? Backed by Pearce of Winchester, sir? Of course, both names are quite familiar, sir."

  Where the client was a gentleman who lived in the country payment could be a problem - there were nearly two hundred of tiny country banks, many of which disappeared into bankruptcy at the first sign of a recession. Notes issued by these banks could be of dubious worth and their trade bills might be heavily discounted. Most tradesmen worked to cash, but a jewellers such as Rundell and Bridge was forced to accommodate itself to the habits of its clientele - but even so was pleased to hear of a better-known institution such as Winchester's sole surviving bank of the day. Most colonels could be trusted in financial matters as well - and those of dubious habits were soon known; it was normally the case that the more senior officers behaved with a degree of probity.

  "I believe your battalion is part of General Wellesley's command, Colonel Pearce? Sailing to Denmark in the near future, one understands."

  "For a sailing date, sir - I really have no knowledge. That we are bound for Denmark seems highly likely, but there has been no issue of orders and maps as yet."

  "I believe, Colonel Pearce, that there is no prospect of maps being issued. Was you to make your way to Hatchard's Bookshop in Piccadilly then I believe it might be possible to discover an atlas of the country - probably published within the past twenty years or so and within reason up to date."

  Septimus tucked the little leather bag away and made out his cheque to the jeweller's dictation - the written letter now being more or less standard in form. He then made his way to the Bookshop, discovering the Atlas of Denmark to be on prominent display, a number of military gentlemen having recently bought copies. Any one of the several dozens of French agents reputed to be active in London might have discovered the intention of the British government very easily by watching the brisk sales of maps of Denmark.

  Septimus bought his Atlas and a guidebook said to contain very recent street-plans of the city of Copenhagen; he would instruct the adjutant to make copies of the more significant maps and distribute them to the company officers. He wondered in passing just how many of his officers could read a map, or would possess a compass to tell them where North was.

  "I am told, my love, that you are to invade Denmark, a country that is neutral in this war. How does that come to be?"

  "A very good question, my dear, and one for politicians to answer, for I cannot. The Duke of York has doubts about the expedition, too - he told me so yesterday!"

  Marianne demanded every detail - none of her family had ever spoken to Royalty, to her knowledge. She would tell her father of her husband's glory when next she saw him.

  Man of Conflict Series

  BOOK THREE

  Chapter Five

  The politicians in London sent their instructions to the diplomats in Copenhagen and St Petersburg. The winds blew in the wrong direction and slowed the ships to such an extent that the diplomats knew their orders were out of date and used their intelligence and initiative to produce results which they were sure were what the politicians really wanted.

  The diplomats could not imagine that the government in London desired war with Denmark; His Britannic Majesty, too blind to read all of the documents that came across his desk, firmly believed that his ministers were committed to negotiations; Canning and to a lesser extent Castlereagh said the words people wanted to hear and sent increasingly abrupt orders to the diplomats to demand the impossible and use the inevitable refusal as a pretext for hostilities.

  The result was that none of the parties achieved all that they wanted and the summer dragged by. A fleet of thirty men-of-war and an uncounted number of troop transports sat at anchor at Sheerness and Harwich while the Baltic Fleet waited for its reinforcements and took position off the Danish coast in anticipation of action.

  The Generals fretted and the Admirals swore - the Baltic was a northern ocean and the freeze could begin in October. Navigation was impossible when the ice came and the invasion force had to land, do its job and get out in the warm months, which were wearing inexorably away.

  The land forces gathered together in late spring and exercised and practised their musketry through the early summer and grew increasingly bored. Being in England and within a day's travel of London they were paid on time, their wages kept up to date. Even in Ireland the soldiers could expect to be three months in arrears, while overseas it was not at all uncommon to see a Paymaster once in two years, and then receive only part of what was due. A private soldier saw a little more than three shillings a week, and for that he could buy four large quartern bottles of gin or the better part of seventy pints of mild beer. The beer was less likely to be fatal, but the gin would make a man drunker, quicker.

  The officers debated which was the more desirable course for the men to follow.

  "Gin," Septimus said. "A man who has drunk a bottle falls down asleep, and quite often wakes up again. A bucket of cold water over his head and an hour of drill on the parade ground and he is a useful soldier again."

  "But after a year, sir, he will be no use to himself or anyone else, unable to see or stand up straight let alone stand in line with his musket."

  "True indeed, Captain Taft! It's the gate for him then, to beg in the streets for a summer and to freeze to death in the gutter in the next winter. And we are, I agree, short of men as it is. But consider what happens when he is full of beer instead!"

  Taft nodded resignedly.

  "He will fight. Beer and brawling go together. If he is lucky he will neither kill nor be killed and will simply stand on parade displaying his bruises and blackened eyes, boasting of all that he had done to the other man. Too of
ten he will stand before a court-martial for murder and the parade is held to watch him hang. Sometimes it is riot instead; fifty soldiers of two different battalions fighting it out in the centre of town. Two hundred lashes each if the magistrates can be persuaded not to transport them."

  "And his officers standing before the General to be told that they are incompetents who cannot perform the simple trick of keeping discipline in their own battalions!"

  Septimus had just returned from an unpleasant interview with General Cathcart, in command of the Expedition, and who had himself been on the carpet before the Lord-Lieutenant who had demanded an end to the weekly disorder in his coastal towns.

  "I told him that they were soldiers, not convent-schoolgirls, and that if he wanted fierce fighting men then he must accept that they would misbehave in idleness. He seemed to consider that I was insubordinate to address him so. He is ancient, of course, more than fifty and first went to war in America; small wonder that he has forgotten the nature of the soldier!"

  "When are we to sail, sir?"

  "It is now the end of July. If we do not sail in the next two weeks then we had as well not sail at all!"

  Canning could also read his calendar and dismissed the man on the spot in Copenhagen, sending another diplomat in his place with orders to speak directly to the Danish Crown Prince and demand immediate surrender of the whole fleet or face war. There was to be no compromise or delay. He was convinced, correctly, that the Danish could not swallow such an ultimatum and he sent orders to the invasion force to sail for the waters off Zealand.

  The most pressing problem was to ensure that the British would reach Copenhagen before Bonaparte and his allies. Admiral Gambier sent the bulk of his ships to the Kattegat and Skagerrak to keep the Russians out of the way and prevent the Danes from sailing to Norway. The French could be assumed to know the contents of the orders sent from London to any of its armies at least as soon as the generals, their spies being highly efficient; it was probable that they would order Marshal Bernadotte north with his army of fifty thousand Spanish and German troops. Copenhagen, however, was located on the island of Zealand and Gambier used the remainder of his ships to patrol the waters of the Belt, to the east of Jutland, to prevent any French crossing.

  The blockading ships off the French ports kept the French Navy bottled up in harbour so that the expedition could cross the German Ocean in perfect safety and was able to make a brief detour by way of Heligoland, a very useful little island and harbour, and take it into British hands, where it remained for many years.

  The expedition to Denmark was Septimus' fourth experience of landing troops onto a hostile shore; he had some slight idea of how to go about the task and called his officers together in the great cabin of the largest transport.

  "Gentlemen, Lieutenant Green has burned the midnight oil for five days now! As a result we have, in twelve folders, a set of orders for our descent on the shores of Zealand. You will also find copies of maps, large-scale and small, of the island itself and of the city of Copenhagen. Do not lose these documents, gentlemen! Do not permit them to be used to light the camp fire of a wet morning! Do not allow them to make their way to the latrine to perform a useful and necessary function there!"

  There was a muted chuckle.

  "We are carried, as you know, in five separate transports. I am assured that they will keep in close company, one with another, and will land together. We do not know where exactly but are given to believe it will be by boat at a beach rather than across a quay. As such, gentlemen, you have instructions to first discover the size of the boats on your ship and then determine the numbers of men they will take. You will tell off the landing parties so that they know which boat they will enter, and on which of its several trips they will go to the shore. Note that you are required to transport your reserve powder and ball at an early moment while rations will be on one of the last trips. Tents, which have been issued to us from battalion stores and may be the only ones on the expedition, will be taken ashore last of all with a party assigned to them as guards."

  They peered at their orders, some of them following line by line with their fingers.

  "On landing, gentlemen, place your companies into defensive order. Specified platoons are to take positions to hold a perimeter against attack while the landing continues. This will be your first concern, of course."

  There were any number of deep frowns as they converted written orders into a mental picture for their memories.

  "Sir, it says here that we are to make contact with the companies to our right and left and establish a position that cannot be flanked."

  "That is so, Mr Melksham. Your captain will give the orders when he reaches the beach, naturally, but your immediate concern will be to ensure that you cannot be rolled up by an attack out of an open flank. I cannot promise that you will be landed in any order. I would like to say that A Company will be on the left wing and J on the right, for example, but the seamen will land where they can and you will have to bring your companies together - probably in darkness - and then establish your lines. It will not be easy."

  "Where will you be, sir?"

  "I hope, and indeed pray, that I shall be first onto the beach and in command. That depends on the boats from my ship, of course. If possible - and I shall be irritated if it is not - I shall be standing by a large and visible camp fire, surrounded by my headquarters people. The important thing is to get the men ashore and in a place where they can then organise themselves. You must expect platoons from every company to be intermixed; the sailors will do their best but will be unable to keep the companies together - waves and tide and currents will all pull them one way or the other and they will have to be content simply to make the shore without being overset. So, get the defensive line set, then, when we have a perimeter, start to put the men into their companies. You may well wish to wait for daylight before doing more than stand to your front."

  Septimus took a deep breath, deliberately stood his tallest; he stared round the room, scowling.

  "It is likely that we will land on an open beach. If we do not, if there should be a fishing village or a small harbour, then you will control the men. No sack! No indiscipline! No drink! I will see any officer who loses control of his men stood before a court; the men themselves will hang. That, gentlemen, is not a threat: it is a statement of simple intent; it is what I shall do. In time of peace we may treat the men with a little of conciliation, of kindness even. In war there will be no give at all! None!"

  He waited a few seconds in the hope of foolish protest which he could crush. No such luck. They stood silently, a number of them nodding reverently. They had seen him, most of them, in battle and knew that he was a different man then to the polite gentleman he displayed in the Mess. The ensigns, all of them new to bloodshed and thinking that they were looking forward to it, were excited - this was what soldiering was all about.

  "Speak to the sergeants, if you would be so good. Pass the word that I will have no hesitation in calling for triangle or stake and blindfold - they all know me of old!"

  All had seen the triangle in use - it was a rare month that did not see one or two men given a dozen as a wake-up call. Septimus firmly believed that a run of the mill soldier benefitted from the occasional reminder of what could happen to him if he allowed carelessness to creep in. He was also convinced that a bad soldier could not be further harmed by a flogging; as a result the habitual drunkards and slovens danced under the cat for the benefit of their squadmates who, presumably, then took greater care that it should not happen to them.

  None of the young men, and few of the experienced, had seen a firing squad in action, but they knew that the convicted man would be tied to a stake, blindfolded and have a piece of white card pinned to his chest as an aiming point. They also knew that the officer in charge of the execution would carry a loaded pistol to put to the man's head after the musketeers had botched the job, which they commonly did. They all hoped that they would never be selecte
d for that messy duty.

  "What are the rules of sack, sir?"

  The question came from Lieutenant Melksham, who had seen the men let loose in his first days as an ensign and who had made it clear how much he disapproved.

  "If a town is defended after a practical breach has been made, so that an assault is forced upon the besieger, then it will normally be up to sack. That is accepted in the Laws of War. If there is house to house fighting during the course of a running battle, then it is normally impossible to protect the inhabitants. During a pursuit, for example, villages that get in the way suffer. Where a battle has been hard fought then it may be the case that the men get out of hand - and that is not lawful sack, but it may be that one must turn the blind eye. Other than that, civilians must and shall be kept safe. Even where a lawful sack is permitted then the men must restrain their more vicious instincts - children are to be untouched; arson is not to be permitted; torture of householders so that they may disclose their valuables is not allowed. Breach of those rules will bring retribution, that I promise."

  It was a promise easy to make, but Septimus knew just how difficult it might be to fulfil.

  "You should all make every effort to keep the men away from alcohol. If they get drunk after a fight then they become no more than animals."

  There were no further questions and Septimus sent the officers to their boats with a final admonition to practise boarding and keeping their powder dry.

  The winds were light and Septimus begged the master of his ship to permit the launch of a boat so that the single company and the bandsmen and headquarters staff should be able to, at least once, climb down the side and into the cutter, hopefully without drowning themselves or the oarsmen.

  They were five days on the voyage from Heligoland, each of them given to exercise. The sailors had objected at first but then had enjoyed the show so much that they had begged for another go next day.