A Battle Won

by Sean Thomas Russell

  The Corsicans were off at a run to engage the French, and the Royals began returning fire. In five minutes the French, who had sallied forth from one of their batteries, were in flight.

  Moore, who had come to observe the landing of the guns, found Hayden in the dark. ‘Have you any wounded?’ he asked.

  ‘One man shot through the leg, another through the hat. I’m not sure the hat will live but I think the man will survive. What of your men?’

  ‘Unharmed, thank God. Do you think the French will try to find us with their guns?’

  Hayden had wondered the same thing. The beach was a good distance from their batteries, but not impossible. He hoped to be off the beach long before first light, and under cover of the hills. ‘We might hope they do; it will be a wasted effort. The more shot and powder they use the less will be preserved for their defence.’

  After the French attack, the British would only risk dim lanterns, and these were shielded as much as possible so that their light did not spill out where it was unneeded.

  The guns were raised, the boats slid out from beneath, and gun carriages pulled into their place. Guns were lowered carefully onto the carriages. To cross the narrow span of sand, fascines were laid the width of the carriage trucks apart, and staked in place. Ropes were attached to the carriages and the hands took hold of these. The sheer, dead weight of an eighteen-pounder gun was difficult to overestimate but slowly they went up the sloping strand, and down the other side, only to have the process reversed: tripods erected, guns raised from their carriages and lowered gently into the boats.

  The waters of the lagoon were so shallow that the boats bearing the great guns sat on the silty bottom, and no crews could climb aboard. Instead, the boats were heaved, a few inches at a time, until they swam, and then floated by wading sailors who pushed them across the inky surface. All the while men kept looking about, listening, fearing the sound of musket fire again.

  There was very little speech, by order, and what little was needed, whispered. Hayden himself waded across the lagoon, his hands on the gunnel of a barge. A sailor with a torch went ahead, the sound of his legs washing through the cool waters all that broke the silence. In less than half an hour landing places were reached, and the easy part of the task was over. Guns were slung out and lowered onto crude sledges, officers and bosuns carefully overseeing the rigging of tripods and tackles – dropping a forty-hundredweight gun could maim a man or worse. The guns were dragged a few feet up from the waters lest a sudden downpour in the mountains swell the stream and sink their guns, and then the order was given for the men to lie upon their arms for the remainder of the night. The Corsicans and some of Moore’s men stood guard, and Hayden bundled into his blankets, and fell into a strange dream, where hands reached out of the ground as he walked and took hold of his feet and ankles, so that a single step required more strength than he could muster.

  Before dawn, the men assembled and were released to break their fasts. Had it been somehow possible to lift an eighteen-pounder without mechanical aid, it would have taken forty souls, but that number could not find purchase on the gun at one time, so the cannon were dragged, sometimes upon the ground, at other times upon wooden tracks hastily constructed. Everywhere it could be contrived, even for the shortest distances, tackles were rigged using the largest ship’s blocks Hayden had been able to procure. With crowbars and muscle the guns were inched over the unyielding terrain, over rocks and gullies, men straining so that veins bulged blue and faces turned crimson. Two men were carried back to the surgeon at the beach camp beyond Mortella Point, both with what Hayden suspected were hernias. A third collapsed in the forenoon, writhing on the ground and clutching his back, and he, too, was borne away on a litter.

  Despite the brutality of the work, no one complained. It had got about that the army intended to blame the Navy men for the failure to take the French positions if the guns were not carried to the heights, and no sailor was willing to live with that. Injured backs and hernias be damned.

  Having seen the guns on their way along the valley, Hayden went quickly to the ramp where the second set of eighteen-pounders were being readied to haul. This slope, though gentle-appearing from a distance, was not so upon closer inspection. It was also far more rugged than any had realized. The slope had the distinct advantage, however, of allowing block and tackle to be used to haul the guns the majority of the distance to the top. Very heavy cables were being long-spliced together and a purchase created by rigging massive ship’s blocks. Men were clearing away brush and small trees in a direct line up the slope, and arguing over ways to get the guns over rocks. Hayden struggled up the slope to see how the blocks were being attached at the top, and here he found Wickham overseeing the men as they ran ropes several times around rocks.

  ‘How go your efforts, Lieutenant?’ Hayden asked. Wickham always seemed to colour a little with pleasure each time he was addressed as ‘lieutenant’. He had doffed his coat and was in the thick of the work, hair plastered to a sweaty forehead.

  ‘Well enough, sir. I don’t think we can manage more than two-to-one purchase, but I’d rather haul twenty hundredweight than forty, so it will do.’

  ‘We can put as many men to hauling as there is rope to take hold of, so I dare say it will answer.’

  ‘How go your own efforts, sir?’

  ‘It is a slow business, Wickham. But if it cannot be managed yard by yard or foot by foot than we shall press forward inch by inch. Perhaps the French will run out of victuals before we get the guns to the top.’

  Wickham smiled. ‘Little worry of that, Captain. We shall drive them from their redoubt, yet. I am certain of it.’

  Hayden climbed up then, to look at the place Kochler had proposed to mount the guns. To the left of the ramp, up which the guns were to be hauled, a jagged ridge of broken stone inclined steeply downward to the beach. Although this ridge provided protection, from both the prying eyes of the French and from their cannon, the guns would have to be raised to its top before they could be employed, and this, Hayden despaired, might be their undoing. Even the climb up this ridge was difficult, and Hayden once found himself unable to proceed, but not quite sure he could descend, either.

  Casting about for a hand or foothold, Hayden felt his legs begin to shake from the strain, and his fingers were cramping. He fought down panic, searching with a foot beneath him for any kind of toehold.

  ‘Bloody island,’ he cursed under his breath, ‘shall be the death of me.’

  But then his boot encountered a small ledge, hardly wider than his thumb, and he lowered his weight onto it, quickly finding lower handholds, and from here he was able to climb quickly down.

  A few moments he rested and contemplated the rock, until he discerned what he believed to be an easier route of ascent. Steeling his nerve, he tackled the rock again and was soon pulling himself over the top. Here he found an officer of the engineers and a crew at work on levelling ground for the battery. At least someone thought it possible the guns might reach the top, and Hayden was quite certain he knew who it was not.

  An hour saw Hayden returning to the other guns, finding them sooner than he had hoped. Progress was always frustrated on this rugged, little goat path. An image of British infantrymen charging the French positions into a hail of grapeshot occurred to him. This he found so horrifying that it made him recoil almost visibly, and he tore his mind away from such thoughts and back to the guns that lay, massive and indifferent, upon hoof-hardened ground.

  Winter days were short, and the sun soon plunged into a pool of cloud on the horizon, setting it afire. Torches were lit and the men kept to their task. Conversation grew less and less frequent and more and more terse when it did occur. Finally, about a quarter of eleven, it was apparent that the men were too exhausted to continue, and Hayden called a halt to all work.

  A rough camp had been readied for the men, and they rolled into blankets around fires, watched over by dutiful Corsicans. Sleep was easily found by one and all. Even H
ayden collapsed and was insensible in moments.

  Late in the night he opened his eyes to find a moon riding high, adrift in a hazy sea of black and blurry stars. The fire had burned low and he was cold. That was what had wakened him. For a time he remained prone, hoping some other would rise and feed the fire, but when no one did he roused himself and piled wood on the coals. He stood near the heat, surrounded by the dusky cocoons of men wrapped in woollen blankets. The fresh wood began to smoke, then caught with an aspirated ‘wooph’. A moment Hayden stayed, warming himself. His body was stiff and aching from his day’s labour and he felt a deep sense of exhaustion.

  ‘Sir?’

  Hayden turned to find one of the cocoons had risen and was lumbering towards him.

  ‘Mr Wickham. Did I wake you?’

  ‘I don’t believe so, sir. I was but half asleep.’ The boy pulled his blanket closer about his shoulders.

  Hayden had spent enough time around Wickham, now, to know his moods and tonight he was not reassured by the tone of the midshipman’s voice. ‘Has something troubled you, Mr Wickham?’

  The boy said nothing a moment, moving to stand over the fire so that he might warm himself. ‘I had several conversations with General Paoli, while you were away, sir. And as many with Sir Gilbert…’ The boy’s decision to speak appeared to dissolve.

  ‘These conversations distressed you?’

  ‘They did, sir, though I am not certain in what way.’ He said nothing a moment more. ‘I do not hold out much hope for this enterprise, in the long run.’

  ‘Raising the guns?’ Hayden asked, confused.

  ‘No, sir… our presence in Corsica – British presence.’

  ‘Why is that, pray?’

  Wickham brushed back his hair with a hand mittened in his blanket. ‘Sir Gilbert is an intelligent man, and certainly he has the best interests of the Corsicans at heart, but he does not seem to understand how… life is arranged on this island. It is not in the least like England, sir; nor are the Corsicans like us. They are strongly divided into clans… and the bonds of loyalty exceed our own loyalty to family or friends. Although General Paoli has tried to eliminate this, the Corsicans kill each other over perceived insults, and then go on killing each other… sometimes for generations. When one clan gains any kind of political office it is expected, by everyone, that they will look after their own people at the expense of others. It is not even thought wrong. The idea that you might appoint the most capable person to a position is unknown here, as is the idea that justice should be meted out equally. Leonati told me that when the general first came to power a relative of his was arrested. Everyone expected that Paoli would see him pardoned of his crimes – but he did not. He let the man suffer the fate decreed by the courts. It was unheard of. Our ideas of justice, of fairness, do not hold here. Paoli binds all the clans together because he understands them and they respect him. I am not sure that Sir Gilbert comprehends this. He seems to perceive Paoli as an impediment to the creation of a perfect state. I think Sir Gilbert is a little like Mr Aldrich in this; he believes that if something seems reasonable to him it must seem reasonable to all. But what is reasonable in Corsica is that you look after your own… and they will look after you when their time comes. Only Paoli and a few others see the need to rise above this. They believe that the Corsicans will learn this lesson too… in time. But not overnight. I fear Sir Gilbert is in such a hurry to create perfection that he will try to push General Paoli aside. And if so, he will quickly lose the trust of the Corsicans. He does not know the history of the clans’ alliances, of their grievances one against the other. He cannot smooth over the indignation of one clan towards another for he does not understand the source of the indignation to begin with. We are strangers here. It is as though we have travelled to a place where the laws of nature are different. Gravity does not pull bodies down when they fall – instead, they rise or tumble sideways.’

  Hayden wanted to protest at this – after all, Sir Gilbert Elliot had travelled widely and seen many cultures – but everything Wickham had said seemed disturbingly true. As though the boy had given voice to fears Hayden shared but could not previously acknowledge. To admit these things aloud, though, made the present enterprise appear somewhat futile.

  ‘All we can do, Wickham, is drive out the French and hope that Paoli and Sir Gilbert can work out their differences.’ But Hayden could not maintain this pose of neutrality and hope, and let out a long breath. ‘Lord Hood did not trust Paoli, either. He seemed to think him an old scoundrel.’

  Wickham turned to him, his face flickering in the firelight. ‘Oh no, sir. General Paoli is a very wise man. With all respect, Lord Hood and Sir Gilbert are much mistaken. The general is a man of great integrity and broad understanding. It is true that he does not always reveal all of his intentions, but a lifetime in politics has taught him some painful lessons. Betrayal is not unknown to him.’

  ‘No doubt, Wickham. No doubt. Let us, at least, not betray his trust. We will drive out the French as we have promised. That is our part of the bargain. If others fail we can say that we held true.’

  ‘Aye, sir. If we can carry these guns to the hilltops, the French will not tarry in their batteries.’

  ‘Indeed. The French, the Corsicans and the British Army do not believe guns can be carried to such heights, but I believe we shall prove them wrong.’

  ‘So do I, sir. And then’ – Hayden could see him smile – ‘we shall have to carry them down again.’

  Hayden laughed softly. ‘You could have been a dandy in London society, Mr Wickham, but you, rather rashly, I think, chose the Navy instead. Our tasks are Promethean, our rewards intangible –’

  ‘Our boots are smoking.’

  ‘Oh, damn! Look what we’ve done! Baked our boots in the service of England. What more can be asked of us, Wickham? What more?’

  After his conversation with Wickham, Hayden had barely closed his eyes when it was time to rise, form up the men and then breakfast. Sunlight had not offered even a suggestion of its powers when they were back at the guns, hauling again on ropes, Hayden feeling that, indeed, they had been cursed and set an impossible task. The sunken-eyed faces of his men, slick with sweat and dirt, appeared haunted in the torchlight.

  The sun announced its intentions by illuminating the underside of a cloud that hung low over the eastern mountains, turning it various hues of ember-red, before a shaft of filtered light pierced between two peaks.

  ‘It’s a sign from the almighty!’ one of the men jested.

  ‘We’s all to go ’ome and ’ave tea, lads!’ another announced.

  It was one of the things about sailors that endeared them to Hayden; he had heard them make jests, sometimes very black in nature, at moments when any sensible man would have been frightened into utter silence or too exhausted to speak. They found ways to keep their spirits up under any circumstances.

  As soon as it was light enough, Hayden left his train of guns and hiked over to find Wickham. The first eighteen-pounder, on its sledge, had been fastened to the rope, and the men were set to haul by walking down the slope, all the weight they could manage hanging on the cable.

  Wickham stood by the gun, holding a pistol.

  ‘Are you expecting a mutiny, Mr Wickham?’

  ‘No, sir. The men hauling are too far off to hear my commands so I’m signalling with guns and flags, sir. When I fire my pistol they are to leave off hauling and belay.’

  ‘Most ingenious, Lieutenant. Be certain you kill no one.’

  ‘There is no ball in the pistol, sir.’

  ‘I was jesting, Wickham.’

  ‘Of course you were, sir.’

  A flag was raised by a midshipman, and the men commenced hauling, the gun inching up its prepared path. In a dozen feet the sledge reached a gap between rocks too narrow to allow passage, and Wickham fired his pistol into the air. Hauling ceased, and the sledge came to rest, as though waiting.

  ‘We shall have to build a bridge over,’ Wickham c
alled to the lieutenant, who came jolting down the slope at that moment.

  ‘I will leave you to it,’ Hayden said, and set off to rejoin his own party.

  Hiking up over the crest of the hill, Hayden could soon perceive his own crews below, massing about each gun like predators at a carcass. Along the hilltops to his left, Hayden could see Corsican militia and companies of Moore’s 51st making certain the French remained in their redoubt and did not attack the toiling sailors – a thought that lay in the back of every Navy man’s thoughts.

  Picking his way down the slope, Hayden quickly caught the crews up.

  ‘How goes it?’ he asked the Juno’s bosun, a quietly competent man named Germain.

  ‘Lead arse is always slowing us down but the others move along handsomely.’

  ‘Lead arse?’

  The bosun laughed, a bit embarrassed. ‘The men have given the guns new names – christened them with dirt, sir. The eighteen-pounder at the fore is ‘Swift’ because… well, its always in front so it’s winning, like. The other eighteen is ‘Lead Arse’ and the howitzer is ‘Bill’s Sweetheart’, because…’ The bosun coloured and fell silent.

  ‘You needn’t explain that one,’ Hayden replied.

  He turned his attention to speeding up their progress but it was nearly futile. Coaxing ‘Lead Arse’ twenty yards could take an hour. At times, an hour did not see the guns progress twenty feet!

  But despite Corsica’s efforts to thwart Hayden and his crews at every turn, by day’s end the three guns lay at the bottom of the slope up which Hayden had proposed to drag them. The mood of the hands was much improved and enough grog was carried from the beach to give every man a taste before supper. Hayden thought it less than they deserved.

  Before darkness could settle in, Hayden hiked back to see how Wickham and the lieutenant fared. To his great relief, he discovered the first eighteen-pounder at the top of the slope ready to be slung up to the peak, but the second, though halfway up the ramp, lay among the ruins of its sledge. Hayden made his way down to this gun, where he found Wickham at the centre of the gathered men.