"Mister Dry," he told the signals Midshipman of the watch. "It is time to break out 'Form Line of Battle.' "
"Aye aye, sir!" the young fellow answered, almost tail-wagging like a puppy in eagerness. The cutters broke off their patrols, coming out to meet her; Erato and Mischief came to take station in line-ahead of Savage, which idled under loose and nagging sail, having fallen off the wind to face Pointe de Grave. A look to larboard showed the other ships under Commodore Ayscough's command were beginning to sort out in a line-ahead column as well, with the 74-gunned two-deckers in the van, so their heavier guns would be the first to engage Fort St. Georges.
"Not much of a wind, today, sir," Lt. Gamble commented, now that he was satisfied of the frigate being squared away.
"Surprisingly, aye," Lewrie agreed, looking up at the commissioning pendant as it slowly undulated like a boa-constrictor-long, colourful snake. "Seven, eight knots o' breeze, I'd guess. Perhaps eight to ten," he amended with a shrug. "Half an hour or better before we come to gun-range of the Point Grave battery. See the people all have a go at the scuttle butts. It'll be dry work, then."
"Aye, sir,"
Erato and Mischief were now off their larboard bows, a mile or so off, beginning to haul their wind to steer Sou'west for a time 'til they had Savage abeam their starboard sides. Mischief was hard on the wind, whilst Erato was nearer to a close reach to reduce the separation between them to less than a quarter-mile when they hauled wind again, and fell into place in line-ahead.
"And Mister Gamble? I s'pose it's time to let our 'passengers' on deck," Lewrie chuckled. "No point in hidin' 'em below any longer."
"Aye, sir." And Marine Lt. Ford and his hundred men clattered up from the pre-stripped gun deck to join Lt. Devereux's fourty, some of them looking sweaty and red in the face even though the morning had come cool, and the approaching mid-day did not promise much of a rise in temperature. Some fanned themselves with their hats, and some japed and elbowed their mates, but the bulk of them, Devereux's Marines and Lt. Urquhart's landing-party, appeared sobered by what they were to attempt, with the chance to go bayonet-to-bayonet with French infantry.
"We've the depth to go within a cable of the point, in your estimation, Mister Winwood?" Lewrie asked the Sailing Master, who was also looking as if a final prayer might not go amiss.
"Argosy skirted the point after dark last week, sir, and by her soundings with the lead, at the peak of high tide, which should be…," Winwood pulled out his pocket-watch and peered at its face, "just past four minutes ago, we should have five and a half fathoms within a two cable range, Captain. I'd not advise going closer, for they did not trawl a grapnel looking for any wrecks which might have gone aground on the point over the years. God knows what lurks below."
"Two cables it will be, then, Mister Winwood," Lewrie decided. Savage's 18-pounder great-guns, and their 32-pounder carronades, could hurl solid shot at the stone battery with great effect at such short range, and could switch to bags of grape-shot, as well. Beyond musket-range, fifty or sixty yards, grape-shot would scatter rather far, but it could keep any defenders' heads down, and still would have enough force when it struck the unwary (or the unfortunate) to reap lines of opposing infantry in windrows. In Army practice, Lewrie knew from his brother-in-law Burgess Chiswick (the one who would still talk to him) defending artillery would switch to grape when a foe's infantry approached within three hundred yards, so he supposed his own pieces, much larger and of greater calibre, would suit.
He strolled to the hammock nettings overlooking the waist, now arseholes and elbows thick with men and weapons. He took another peek at his watch, looked outward to Erato and Mischief, which were close to within a single point off the larboard bows, about to be occluded by a fluttering mass of inner and outer jibs. It was time.
"Lieutenant Ford… Lieutenant Devereux, and Lieutenant Urquhart…," he called down. "Do find a way t'make yourselves thinner and flatter amidships, if ye please. Mister Gamble? Beat to Quarters!"
Major Loudenne's personal mount, and Captain Dournez's horse, were good'uns and goers, and Lt. Brasseur and the aide-de-camp, whose name Brasseur had learned was Carnot, were making good time along the coast road. A spell at the trot, a spell of cantering, a few minutes at the gallop, then checking back to an easier lope, in cavalry fashion-for cavalry could not gallop all the time, no matter how dashing they were-and the lone spire of the church in St. Palais sur Mer was in sight. A newly installed kilometre post by the side of the road-one of First Consul Bonaparte's many vigourous edicts-told them that they were within one kilometre of the town. Carnot felt inspired to put heels to his horse; not to the full gallop, though the image in his mind of "dashing" purposely through the town was pleasing to his martial ego, but a fast enough pace to tell the world that he was on urgent duty, bearing vital despatches, and making the girls of St. Palais turn their heads in admiration.
"The woods thin out, at last, m'sieur," Carnot told his nautical partner, hiding a smile at how clumsily Brasseur rode; like a large sack of turnips. "Ah, there's the beaches again, and the sea."
Jean Brasseur's thighs ached like sin, his breeches were soaked with his own sweat and foul-smelling horse sweat that had seeped into the saddle skirts, whilst his buttocks had gone thankfully numb, after shrieking in dull pain, and why he wished to see the coming battle, he could no longer fathom. St. Palais was a small, dull place, but there was rumoured to be a good tavern that served a decent meal and their wine would be a better-than-average Bordeaux, of course. He was about to beg off, plead a sudden need to return to Royan…
He looked seaward as they left the last copses of pines behind, and the left-hand side of the road became blue and open to the horizon, with low, wind-sculpted shrubbery, dune grasses, gritty sands, and the low dunes between beach and overwash barrows.
"What?" he exclaimed, sawing at his reins to bring the brute he bestrode to a merciful halt. "Where the Devil are they? They could sail much faster than we could ride."
"Uhm, back there, m 'sieur," Carnot pointed out, one arm aimed up-river. "I do not believe they have moved a single metre. No…"
Brasseur brought out his telescope, cursing the horse under him as it shifted its shoulders, tried to plod a step or two towards some likely-looking grass along the verge of the road. "Mon Dieu, they've made sail, they're under way! God rot and damn them!"
"What is it, m'sieur}" Lt. Carnot asked. "They are coming?" "They are going, Lieutenant," Brasseur spat. "Going up-river towards the narrows. They were not a feint to distract us from an attack on the Cote Sauvage. They were after the forts from the beginning!"
"The Fifty-seventh of the Line!" Carnot exclaimed. "We can get them to turn about and march back. They are the only troops close enough to save Fort Saint Georges. I must ride on."
"And tell your General Fournier that there may not be a landing on the Cote Sauvage," Brasseur said with a snarl of impotent rage, for he had been very badly fooled, and the shame of it was just sinking in, strangling his ego. "But… something still might be saved. It will take the 'Bloodies' hours to get their troops ashore, form up and assault Fort Saint Georges, over-run the battery on Pointe de Grave, and place explosives. Your general has cavalry?"
"Quel dommage, non, m'sieur," Carnot had to confess. "He has only infantry and artillery… the closest cavalry is going into winter encampment inland of Rochefort. To feed and rest their horses back to health. Most of our cavalry units are hundreds of kilometres from here, standing ready on the eastern fronti…"
"Ride on, dammit!" Brasseur barked. "Do what you can. I will wait for you and that regiment in the town, for there's nothing I can do any longer."
"Oui, m'sieur/" Lt. Carnot said with a bright, eager smile, despite his sour surprise, for it meant a gallant and glorious ride. "I am off like a rabbit. Bonne chance, Lieutenant Brasseur."
"Bonne chance, d vous," Brasseur echoed, as Lt. Carnot put his spurs to his borrowed horse and galloped away, shod hooves throwing up divots of sand a
nd dirt. "And go to the Devil, you idiot," Brasseur grumbled as he kneed his horse to a walk towards St. Palais. He had no urgency now, but for a satisfying meal, a bottle or two, and a welcome rest for his abused backside and thighs; on the softest pillows the innkeeper had. Lt. Carnot could gallop on to recall that regiment, dash up to his general to announce the deception that the Anglais had pulled off… Brasseur doubted the lad's arrival would be well received. He would kill a perfectly good horse for nothing; perhaps a second, if he galloped all the way back to Royan or Fort St. Georges.
Lieutenant de Vaisseau Jean Brasseur dismounted at last before the pleasant-looking little seafront eatery, unable to stifle a groan of pain, and a wince. Happily, the weathered wooden signboard boasted degustation des varietes de la region, so Brasseur could sample as many wines as he wished, by the glass, with his dinner.
As he most carefully sat himself down on a large feather pillow, he made a mental note to write the Ministry of Marine in Paris. There was need to add something to Capt. Alan Lewrie's dossier that they did not yet know… "This man is capable of being a very convincing liar!"
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
As you bear, Mister Adair… you may open!" Lewrie shouted to the waist of the ship.
"Starb'd battery!" Adair cried out. "As you bear… fire!" All of Savage's boats, and the ones borrowed from the same 74-gunned Third Rate that had loaned Lt. Ford's Marines, were in the water and stroking hard for the beach. That was the first flaw that Lewrie had found in his plans; with hundreds of extra men aboard, it would be impossible to take the fort under fire with them crowded behind recoiling pieces. It had been difficult enough to drop a kedge anchor from the stern, take in all sail, and snub the frigate to a stop two cables from the point, with all squares'ls bat-winged up snug in the centres in sloppy-looking "Spanish Reefs." He could feel the anchor dragging a little, turn and see the stern cable judder, slacken, then go taut; good enough, though, to place them within very short gun-range, giving the boats a short row to the shore, and, most important, not tiring the rowers to return to the ship and pick up the second half of the invasion force. Now, at least, they could muster the other half of the Marines and armed sailors on the larboard gangway, out of the way, and fire over the heads of the men already on the water.
For long moments, Lewrie's view of the unfinished battery went as opaque as the wintertime coalsmoke fog in London, as quarter-gunners directed gun-captains' aiming points, then allowed them to jerk trigger lanyards on the flintlock strikers, delivering a slow and deliberate series of hammer blows of double-shotted iron. Bow to stern, HMS Savage shuddered and groaned to each discharge.
Still un-named, and thankfully unfinished, the small battery's walls bore no artillery with which to return fire. Soil and sand had been piled up in a wide, flat-topped base to support the weight of the completed fortification, and made a shallow berm under the base of the walls. Lewrie doubted the stonework had yet to reach much above a tall man's head, and the top of the uppermost course of stone blocks was yet level and even, with not a sign of an embrasure for guns.
There were soldiers in the fort, Lewrie could see after the fog of powder smoke drifted eastward on the moderate wind; shakoes, ashen faces, here and there a bicorne hat worn sideways in the French fashion, at least two senior officers under enormous cocked hats adorned with an even larger egret plume… dashing from one of the three walls of the shallow U-shaped redan to observe and order their troops about.
"Not much damage done, even with doubled round-shot, Captain," Lt. Gamble pointed out. "A nibble, here and there."
"The base of the wall is stout," Lewrie supposed aloud, "but the uppermost courses of stone are new-laid… done so recently the mortar hasn't hardened? They must have finished the parapets, but have yet to raise but the outer-most blocks to support the embrasures. Else, we'd not see heads and shoulders."
"As you bear.. .firel" Lt. Adair shouted after the guns were re-loaded, run out, and the recoil tackles overhauled.
Lewrie looked beyond the point to see Erato and Mischief come to anchor by their sterns, streaming Sou'east, their own boats rowing hard for the shore, and their 9-pounders barking away. The cutters had run on round the point, and only their mast-tops were visible as they entered the wide, shallow bay above Le Verdon sur Mer. Above the thunderous, ear-splitting roar of cannon, Lewrie fancied he could hear Bongs/ as round-shot struck stone, and the splintering of shaped rock blocks; each strike raised large clouds of stone shards and showers of sparks like flints in titanic tinder-boxes.
No, it was the four 32-pounder carronades of the starboard battery that were doing the most damage. Their massive round-shot might be slower-flying, and they could not reach out much beyond four hundred yards, but when they hit the battery's walls, they dished out bites the diametre of serving platters, and the depth of soup tureens, shifting stone blocks inwards, and causing miniature avalanches of stone chips to dribble down the face of the walls.
The boats were ashore, bows grinding into the shingle! Sailors were leaping out to steady them, knee deep in the light surf; Marines and armed tars were flooding ashore, and officers with drawn swords, a sergeant or two with their ceremonial half-pikes, were sorting men out into skirmishers and two ragged lines. As quickly as the boats were emptied, their crews were shoving them off, going up to their waists before leaping back aboard even as oarsmen were stroking "back-water" to fend them further off the beach, crabbing them round once in deep water, and returning to the frigate for their next load.
"Frog infantry! There, sir!" Lt. Gamble was pointing.
"See the French, Mister Adair? Serve 'em grape!" Lewrie yelled.
Second 18-pounder balls were set back in the shot garlands and racks; powder-monkeys scrambled below to the magazine, returning with flannel cartridge bags that held wooden top and bottom discs inside, and inch-round, plum-sized lead balls between. A pause in the firing to ram them down atop round-shot; the strain of running out the heavy artillery pieces, right to the port-sills; some toil with crow-levers to shift aim, some fiddling with elevating quoin-blocks to ensure the spread of grape-shot went over the heads of the shore parties… "As you bear, on the French, mind! Fire! " Lt. Adair bellowed.
An officer was chivvying thirty or fourty shakoed soldiers into a rough line two ranks deep, flooding from the western face of the battery, though clinging nervously close to it.
"Man's bloody daft," Lewrie grumbled. "What does he think he's facin'… big damned muskets?"
Lt. Ford's Marines were already firing, the first rank kneeling and the second waiting to fire 'til the first rank had discharged their muskets, catching the French soldiers at long range, not doing much to harm them, but quite a lot to daunt them and make them shrink back to their rear, and cram themselves elbow-to-elbow, as if that was shelter, even as their officer and their sergeants were shoving and cursing for them to open up their formation.
When the heavy round-shot howled through them, and when a cloud of loose-spaced grape-shot-a thousand or more balls-spattered sand and dirt round them, hammered bodies, smashed musket-butts, tore off limbs and heads, and cut a few of them in two at the waist, they simply melted away… dropped to the ground as if they'd never been there! The survivors, a sad few number, dropped their muskets and ran round the western end of the battery and took off in terror, leaving their formerly elegant officer on his knees, his sword broken, and his entrails spread before him as he vomited up blood on his white facings and waist-coat.
Lt. Ford's Marines and sailors gave out a great, jeering roar, and began a quick advance on the battery, muskets held extended, with fresh-ground bayonets winking wicked in the sunlight, at the "Quick." Before the boats had gotten back alongside under the now-silent mouths of the guns, they were in the battery, behind the walls, and into the courtyard, then appearing atop its firing platforms. To the east, Lt. Noble's men appeared atop that wall, too, with British colours waving bravely, even if the flag was only a small boat-jack mounted on a boarding pike.
"Hold fire, hold fire!" Lt. Adair cautioned his gun-captains, "Don't hit our brave fellows, yonder!" Flintlock strikers were taken away from the vents, discharged guns were re-loaded with single solid shot, and the guns were run in and bowsed down securely.
"Well, damme," Lewrie heard a faint, disgusted voice say. Lieutenant Urquhart, Midshipman Grace, and Midshipman Carrington stood on the larboard gangway's after end; looking as downcast as tots who had discovered lumps of coal in their Christmas stockings.
"Lots t'do yet, Mister Urquhart," Lewrie encouraged. "Ford and his lot can stand guard, up the point, whilst you and your lads place the explosive charges, and blow this place to flinders, hey?"
"But of course, sir," Urquhart replied, eyes almost glazed by how quickly the battery had fallen; no glory for him, poor fellow.
"Do you and your party man the boats, sir, and see to the loading of the powder kegs and fuses," Lewrie directed. "Quickly, Mister Urquhart. We must get under way and support the cutters, should they have run into trouble."
Lewrie looked out over the larboard bows, scenting for a threat, but Erato's and Mischief's guns had also ceased firing, and both brigs were shortening their stern cables and preparing to get under way, too. Abeam to larboard, nearly four miles across the Gironde, Commodore Ayscough's two-deckers had come to anchor just off Fort St. Georges, guns pounding by broadsides, deck at a time, and were wreathed in gunpowder smoke. Now and then, a stab of flame revealed a surviving French artillery piece responding… almost lost in the hot iron sparkles as the place was being pounded into ruin by heavy, impacting shot. The sound of 24-pounders and 32-pounders bellowing came faint cross the river, an over-the-horizon, stuttering series of thuds and thumps, and the echoey rumble of distant thunder.
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