“Captain Higgins on deck, sir.”
Billy gave the warning in a low mutter, just sufficient to be heard.
Ensign Farthing turned and gave a smart salute as Billy came to attention; he looked the part of the keen young boy ready to serve, waiting for the next command.
“At ease. All in hand in the company, Ensign Farthing?”
“Yes, sir. The men have their pallets in the fore hold and we have just examined the messing arrangements, sir. The battalion will have to eat in two shifts, sir. Insufficient boiling pots for all six hundred at a time, sir. Best thing, Sergeant Bacon advises me, is for the companies to eat their two meals alternating hot and cold. Half the battalion to eat half of their rations fresh-cooked in the morning and the remainder cold in the afternoon; the other half to cook in the afternoon and eat their remainders cold at breakfast.”
“Very good. Make it so, for our company, Ensign Farthing. I shall speak to the colonel and make your suggestion to him now.”
The officers turned away to the stern, to examine their own quarters, while Billy went down to the fore hold.
“I need two men to be cooks. Either the same two, every day, or taking it in turns. Up to you. Corporals to give me names.”
The two oldest men of the company were persuaded to the job by the corporals, not wholly unwillingly when they realised that they would remain as cooks forever, excused parades and to wear working uniform for all of their days. They were told as well that they could remain part of the company well into old age, just as long as they could continue to work, in fact; they did not have to fear a discharge in their fifties and the attempt to make a living in the unwelcoming streets of their original towns. When they had thought about the whole business, they realised that it was almost the best thing that could possibly happen to them, especially when their eyes were opened to the unspoken advantages of the job. If a soldier died, then his ration would be stopped, eventually; it would take very little fiddling for the dead to remain on the company’s books for an extra few weeks and for the cooks to have extras to dole out to their favourites, or in exchange for the rum rations of the teetotal, of whom a few existed in every company. Rum could be drunk, or sold, even given, to those who really needed the extra. A cook could become quite well-off in a year or two, or very well-liked, depending on his own choice.
The Sugar Islands were an ideal posting for profit making; when the fevers came, men died, and the numbers were often impossible to ascertain for weeks, and then could be fuzzed again when it came to action. If an Inspector appeared to make an actual count, then the numbers dying in the days beforehand would increase massively, on paper, and none could argue, because life was short in the Islands. Many a quartermaster came back rich – assuming he came back at all – and cooks could benefit to an extent in the same way. Sergeants could pocket an impressive amount as well, all in perfect safety.
Clarence explained all to Billy, warning him that life would be easier for the ranker officer who had a hundred or two spare in his pocket.
“When it comes to musketry, as an example, Billy, a company can draw for sixty men to fire twenty rounds in a morning at the butts. Just supposing you have only forty men and they fire fifteen rounds, then you have six hundred rounds spare, and they can be sold at tuppence apiece to a privateer about to sail from your harbour, or to a plantation owner what wants his overseers to have the means of shooting stroppy slaves. Difficult to get hold of, powder and ball, very often, out in the Sugar Islands. No powder mills there, or metal foundries. Twelve hundred pennies makes five pounds, Billy, which is not to be sniffed at. There may be other opportunities as well, and none of them to be noticed, especially when we go out on campaign. Just keep your eyes open, Billy!”
Billy had not given thought to matters of profit previously; now that he thought about it, there was every prospect of making himself comfortable.
The convoy sailed and the men endured, thankful only that they were not to be confined more than twenty hours a day below decks on the six months voyage to India. With ordinary luck, they would reach the Sugar Islands in forty days; with bad luck, of course, they might sink in a storm or be destroyed by the French or take fire due to carelessness or be driven back to England by unfavourable winds – all of which had happened on occasion to soldiers sent across the deep waters. Such adversity was rare, however, and they expected the naval and merchant seamen to do their normal within reason efficient job and deliver them unscathed to their destination.
The winds were kind on this occasion, and the French stayed at home or ventured elsewhere, and the convoy made its way unmolested, as the great majority did. The ship reached Antigua in just forty-two days from Bristol and unloaded the battalion to march the short distance to their barracks, sweating in the unaccustomed heat and peering with interest at the white-painted wooden buildings, the peculiar palm trees with their branches in the wrong place and the great profusion of black people of various different shades of skin; the smell of the place was new as well – dry dust, rotten fruit and fish, a dead dog contributing its unforgettable aroma.
The barracks were ramshackle but light, airy, and dusty.
They swept them out and made themselves at home, noting with pleasure that they had a bed frame each; they would not have to share as was often the case in England.
The men found that their linen trousers and sleeveless waistcoats were a great relief; they had remained in English uniform until actually ashore.
The officers wore the correct uniform, with no allowance made for the tropics, and sweated in heavy wool and thick linens and their scarlet coats over all. The men could find no sympathy for their discomfort.
Billy discovered that they were officially on active service at all times in the Sugar Islands, which meant that muskets, powder and ball were always to hand, were kept in the barracks rooms, not in an armoury. It allowed them to be ready for any emergency, but had the drawback that in the case of a drunken disagreement the violence could rapidly turn to fatal bloodshed, with the sergeant taking the blame for failing to control his people. He addressed the issue simply.
“Muskets are kept on the racks in the barracks rooms, lads. Two reasons for that. One is that there’s thousands of slaves held in the Islands, and some of them not five miles from here. You think you’ve got it rough in the Army? You should see the way those poor bastards live!”
Billy had never seen the slaves on the plantations himself, but he had heard the stories.
“Thing about that is they’re men. Every so often they see the chance, or get driven too far, and they kill their overseers and owners and go on the rampage. Then we’ve got to put them down again, quickly. So the muskets are to hand and we might be called out to use them on five minutes’ notice. If the word comes, you move, and fast!”
There was no response, which was as it should be; they would obey orders when they came and would not speculate about them beforehand.
“Right, I said two reasons for the muskets being here. The second is the important one, as far as you’re concerned. The air here is wet, ten months out of twelve, so they tell me. So muskets can get rusty, easily. Yours will not get rusty. You will clean and polish and oil your muskets every day, morning and afternoon. If one of you shows so much as a single speck of rust, if I see one fleck of brown, then I shall have your guts for garters! All of you! You see somebody in your platoon who’s a lazy good-for-nothing what let’s his piece go to the bad, then you had better deal with ‘im – because if I see it first, I’ll know you couldn’t care about it! Get me?”
There was a grunt which signified that they understood, and that was correct, too; this was not orders, this was the sort of things officers knew nothing about – if they had any sense.
Any man who allowed his musket to show rusty was putting his whole platoon in jeopardy, and would be helped out once, in all probability. He might have a badly forged musket – such things happened – with patches of weak metal that rusted easily; the
y would do what they could and the corporals would be expected to bring the piece to Billy’s attention for a replacement. If the problem was unhandiness, not knowing exactly how to look after the barrel and lock, then they would show the unfortunate exactly what to do. If the cause was idleness, then he would get a thorough kicking, first time, with the threat of the company gauntlet for a second offence. The gauntlet – staggering the length of the barracks room between a double line of men carrying ramrods or broomsticks and all swinging hard, pushed along at bayonet point by a corporal – had been known to kill or blind a man in England; in the tropics, where open wounds became infected more often than not, death was a probability. There would be no official investigation of a fatality arising from the gauntlet – the officers would simply accept that they had been saved the bother of a court martial and hanging. Very few men in their right mind risked the gauntlet.
The need to keep their muskets brightly shining would mean that very few would use them as a weapon in barracks room disputes.
The question arose of powder and ball. The men were to be at immediate readiness, and that meant they must have their sixty rounds to hand, but not so close that the thirsty would be able to lay their hands on the powder that could so easily be sold in town. It was of no use to point out that the powder might be used to load fowling pieces that could then kill them; drunks were immune to arguments of cause and effect, they knew only their need for the rum that would bring oblivion. There was no such thing as a safe available. Billy had to accept the men’s issue and then keep it dry in a cupboard well above floor level and away from outside walls that would be damp in the Wet Season, and doubly covered from any chance of a leak in the roof. The sole solution was to place the cupboard in the cubicle curtained off for one of the corporals, and hope that he could keep it secure. It was a choice of Gloag or O’Mara – Gloag sober and responsible; O’Mara said to be a fearsome man in a fight, powerfully built as he was. O’Mara was his preference, and that meant that he was the next in line for promotion to sergeant, provided he had achieved his letters. In turn, Billy had to reassure Gloag that he was not overlooked; he took the Scotsman to one side.
“I need two men to be ready to rise up in the world, Gloag. You know the fevers here, and I have word we are to fight soon – either may mean rapid promotion. I know you are a safe man, Gloag; I need to be sure of O’Mara. Do not be thinking I am playing favourites, Corporal Gloag. Captain Higgins knows your name, and O’Mara’s, of course. As long as you live, which is not in my hands, you will wear your sergeant’s stripe before you see England again.”
Gloag nodded; the promise was made and he accepted it. He had no reason to distrust Billy and if he was shown to be gullible, if a third man was promoted before him, then he would put a musket ball in Billy’s back at the earliest safe opportunity thereafter. The Army way was very simple and promoted honesty between the men – there was no concept of forgiveness or of turning the other cheek, and justice was inexorable.
Billy was anxious to keep numbers up in the company and tried to pass on his knowledge of surviving in the tropics. The men listened to his little lectures, and generally ignored them.
“I’ve ordered the cooks to have two pots of boiling water to hand at mealtime, lads. Dip your bowls into the boiling water before you have them filled, and then again into the second pot after you’ve eaten. Boiling water kills whatever it is that churns up your guts and gives you the quickshits, or most often it does, anyway. Wash your spoon and knife after you’ve eaten, as well. More men die of the loose guts than get killed by the fevers. It don’t look like it, but one or two men will go down most months with the gut rot, and maybe one in three of them dies. When the big fevers come then some of you will die from them, all in one big batch. There’s fifty-two of you now, and if we’re lucky more than thirty will take ship home again. But I’ll bet that more die of the dysenteries, which is what the quacks call it, than of the ordinary run of fevers. Yellow Jack’s different, of course; if we get that, some of you won’t die – mostly, they reckon, the blokes who fight and won’t give up, will survive it. Chances are that we won’t see Yellow Jack - it don’t come more than once every ten years.”
The few who were listening were heartened by that information, not knowing that it had been dredged out of Billy’s imagination. He had no idea how often the Yellow Fever struck, but he was sure that if the men were convinced that it was going to kill them, they would die from it.
“It’s about as rainy now as it ever gets in Antigua, so they say – it ain’t like the Slave Coast with a really big Wet Season. So there ain’t a special fever season here either. No hurricanes at this time of year, or not generally, anyway. We can reckon to go out on campaign at any time, which means landing on one of the islands and fighting the Frogs there. You got weak guts when we go out, and you’re going to die, simple as that. So clean your eating irons and plates!”
Billy Bacon and the Soldier Slaves
Chapter Six
“Garrison duty for the next few months, Sergeant Bacon. We are not to expect to form part of the various expeditions to be launched in the immediate future. We must, I quote, ‘acclimatise ourselves’ and prepare our men for service.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, Sergeant Bacon? What does all of that mean?”
Billy drew a deep breath and tried to find the right words for Captain Higgins.
“We only expected two or three other battalions here, sir, but there are five other regiments of the line here, sir. All of them senior to us. Older and with a history, sir. Their colonels will all have made their demands to be used in the first campaigns. Add to that, sir, the general won’t know just what a Fencible battalion is supposed to be; it don’t sound very regular, sir.”
“So… what do I say to Colonel Searson?”
“Drill the men in the early mornings, sir. Go out on marches before dawn, sir. Show very willing, you might say, sir. We will get our turn if we can be seen to be good and the men to be capable of service. Take the men to the butts as often as possible, sir. If the general can hear good, tidy, fast volleys crashing out at four a minute, then he’ll know that we ain’t no militia battalion here under false colours, sir.”
To himself, Billy added that the general would still not be willing to send Colonel Searson out on an expedition if he could possibly avoid it. The Colonel sounded too much like a self-made gentleman – his face did not fit, he was not of the ‘right sort’.
Captain Higgins suspected that the fitness for service of the battalion was of smaller importance than the social pedigree of its officers; he was sure as well that his sergeant was trying tactfully not to say just that. It did not help his temper.
“There is word that the slaves are restless, Sergeant Bacon. There are murmurs of the possibility of a great uprising, all of the plantations together. If that happens, then we will have the privilege of putting down ten thousand rabid savages!”
“Doubt it, sir. Ain’t the sort of thing that happens without someone to organise it. If so be the Frogs had put their people onto the island to go secret-like from one plantation to another, offering them guns and giving them a plan and a time, then maybe it might work. There’s a word for it, sir, bringing them all together.”
“Coordinating, I suspect to be the term you mean, Sergeant Bacon. Not much point to giving them guns, surely!”
Billy shook his head.
“They know just what to do with guns, sir. The slavers have been selling muskets and powder and ball to the African kings for their armies for a hundred years and more, sir. I wouldn’t care to guess just how many of the slaves here have carried a musket into a fight before now; it would not be a small number, sir.”
This was all new to Captain Higgins; he had not known that slaves were bought, mainly as prisoners of war. He had had some vague idea that the slavers had taken their cargoes by force of arms, not that they had been traded for. As for the concept of African kingdoms and armies and mus
ket-carrying troops – that was alien to his every preconception.
“I have heard no word of French agents ashore here, Sergeant Bacon. You are right, of course, that a great rising would have to be organised – and there is no sign of that happening. No. I shall speak to Colonel Searson and ask what he knows, but I think you have the right of it. What do you advise, knowing more of slaves than I do?”
Billy did not like being asked again to suggest a strategy – that was not a sergeant’s place. Among other considerations, if the great scheme went wrong, his head would be on the block. Much more convenient to blame a sergeant than to shame an officer.
“Be seen, sir. If soldiers are well in sight, then the slaves will know not to take any risks. Marches out might be a good idea, but not too far in the heat, sir. Perhaps we could put companies aboard small ships, sir, to sail from jetty to jetty along the coast and around the whole island? Let the red coats be seen, sir.”
“That is a clever suggestion, Sergeant Bacon!”
Billy thought it was, and was certain that the plan would be the brainchild of Captain Higgins when it was presented to Colonel Searson, but the idea of a sergeant if it went wrong.
Billy need not have worried – there was no source of funds to charter ships for the purpose.
“Colonel Searson says that he has spoken to the general and it will be arranged for companies to march out of a morning to particular plantations, to rest there during the heat of the day and then to move along to another place before dawn. The whole island is no more than twenty-five miles across, so six short marches, at most, will take a company all around the coast. One company at a time to go out on the full march, each of the others to go out once a week to the nearer plantations in the hours before dawn and back that same evening; the marches will be no more than ten miles, commonly less. It will show the red coats, I believe.”
Billy Bacon and the Soldier Slaves (Colonial Warrior Series, Book 1) Page 12