The Soldier Brat (Man of Conflict Series, Book 1)

by Andrew Wareham

  Septimus, with half his company on the first brig, was detailed to take the plantation house and quarters. The stables were empty, the word gone inland, but the warehouses disclosed a stock of brown sugar in chests and cases from the last harvest, as well as a lean-to full of barrels, all waiting shipment to France. Questioned by their lone translator the slaves explained that the warehouses in town were full, there had been no ships yet this season.

  “Cooper, inform the colonel that there is sugar and rum in quantity here, that he should see to getting it on ship or placing it under a guard.”

  The slaves were busy inside the hour, four of the brigs laden before dusk, ready to sail at first light and take many thousands in prize-money to Jamaica.

  The officers moved into the empty plantation house, were disappointed to find it was no luxurious mansion, little more, in fact, than the farmhouse of a prosperous English yeoman; it was comfortably furnished, but it lacked the extremes of sybaritism associated commonly with decadent slave-holders. There were six bedrooms on the single upper floor, furnished with shutters and cane sun blinds, but otherwise very conventional rooms indeed – not a single chain or shackle by a bed - deflating the overheated imaginations of the younger men. The kitchen, separate in its own brick building, was large and possessed a black and competent cook and the dining room had a huge mahogany table, but nowhere was there a hint of the habitual orgy – even the wine cellar was commonplace.

  The colonel held conference at the great table, formulated orders that seemed appropriate to the situation he had discovered.

  “There are two plantations north and west of here, I am told. They use the cart track going out from this jetty, have no wharves of their own. We should take them tomorrow – there is, I am assured, no garrison, no outpost in the north of the island, but it will be as well to make certain that we are leaving no force to our rear.”

  “The bulk of the battalion will march south, from plantation to plantation, tidying up as we go, either driving the people in towards the town or, preferably, taking their parole and leaving them to get on with their business – we want a rich, working colony here, gentlemen.”

  They nodded, the message clear, the men to be kept in hand, no gratuitous looting or disorder to be tolerated.

  “So, one company to go north, then, Major Howton. I am told that there is a track through the hills leading directly to the port, a matter of some thirty miles cross-country, and the company should find it and, if practicable, follow it. Four days should allow us to reach St Jeanne by the coast road and should be ample for the detached company either to catch us up or go inland, as is best.”

  Howton took over, gave details of the order of march to the company commanders, turned finally to Masters and Septimus, favouring his old company.

  “Gentlemen, the northern route, if you please. Take the track inland unless it seems quite impossible – if it leads you into swamp, into fever country, then turn back by all means. It would be desirable that we should leave no obvious way for the French to retreat rather than surrender, so do your utmost to close the track, gentlemen.”

  Masters nodded his understanding, took a rough drawn copy of the chart of the island with the possible location of the track pencilled in, led Septimus in search of the sergeants of the company. A quick briefing and they left the sergeants to make ready, Masters leading Septimus to their mess.

  After dinner Septimus accidentally bumped into Sergeant Mockford, to the surprise of neither.

  “Four days allowed for the march, sarn’t.”

  “So I understand, sir.”

  “Draw biscuit for eight days, beef for two – we daren’t keep it out of the cask longer than that. Kill a cow or a couple of pigs as convenient at a plantation, take all the fruit the men can eat. The colonel has agreed that the men should leave their kit on the transport, carry a minimum load and take a double issue of powder and ball.”

  Mockford agreed, not too happily; the knapsacks would have to be emptied as they would be needed to carry the extra rations and cartridge, and all of the men’s personal possessions and spare kit would have to be left in boxes and barrels in the brig’s hold, to be pawed over by thieving sailormen or lost without trace more likely. He had no option and given it would have preferred to march forty pounds lighter in tropical heat. He left to organise the process and quell the inevitable protests.

  They set out in the false dawn, just as soon as there was light enough to pick out the track through the cane fields. They were sixty strong and anxious – during the evening’s discussions some bright young private had announced that if he were the Frog general, then what he would do would be to have a strong force march north to lay in ambush above the landing place and cut the battalion up unexpectedly. It did not occur to this Jeremiah that the English had had no idea where they would invade and, such being the case, the French brigadier would have required remarkable powers of precognition to set his ambush.

  Few of the soldiers actively believed that they were marching to disaster, but the majority enjoyed the chance to moan and shirk and to lag a yard or two off the pace.

  The track ran nearly two miles through the sugar cane, waist high at this season, lushly green and full of scurrying things, unseen, half-heard and thoroughly menacing. Snakes and centipedes and scorpions, villainously venomous and yearning for fresh white meat, were felt to be only inches away from the marching men; this was in part true, but the rustling noise was mostly that of terrified beasties getting a safe distance between their soft skins and clumping great army boots. Only the insects feasted, but this they did in abandon, in their myriads, buzzing happily.

  After three quarters of an hour of torment the track topped out on a low ridge and the insects miraculously disappeared, unable to stray more than a few yards from their homes in the wet coastal plain. The company paralleled the shore now, traversing a low grassland with just a few trees, a brief savannah, their course a mite west of north. The cane fields on their right ended at a salt creek and swamp and mangrove took over for nearly an hour, the mud stench creeping up to them from the thick olive-green vegetation and slow-moving streams.

  “They tell me one should never venture into the mangrove swamps, Septimus,” Masters commented. “One is bound to take the ague from them and there are poisonous water snakes and the alligator, the cayman, dwells there. Even runaway slaves shun those swamps, so they say.”

  The men began to march more easily, muskets slung casually – there would be no ambuscade here, not in the complete absence of cover within musket shot. There was heavy rain forest to their north, about two miles distant uphill, and the cane brakes could have hidden an army, but this open land of tufts of stringy grass and stunted, wind-bent trees was safe.

  When the mangrove ended and the land rose a couple of feet there were orderly blocks of cane announcing the next plantation; Masters halted the company and sent a platoon forward to reconnoitre.

  A private came trotting back after half an hour.

  “She’s about a ‘alf mile from us, sir. There be a bit of a coombe, like, a ‘anger, sir, where there might ‘ave been a stream once, but there ain’t no more, most often, that is. So she’s sheltered come three sides and looking out to sea to get the breeze when she do blow. Big ‘ouse, two barns, stables and they slave places, sir. Bit up from the bottoms, they be, like as if it do flood come the wet down in the low places. More on this side than t’other.”

  “Is it hidden, the house?”

  “Yes, sir. We can come up on they easy like, sir. Take a couple of platoons up the ‘ill a bit, so as to cover the top and t’other side to us. Another two goes down below, picks up any what wants to run and ‘ide in they old cane fields. Rest waits a few minutes, then goes in, one down’ill of the track, one on ‘er, two up slope a bit and there you are, Bob’s your uncle, sir.”

  “Very good! What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Titheridge, sir.”

  “I’ll bear you in mind, Titheridge.
”

  The private trotted off, not apparently greatly moved by the commendation.

  “Good man, that one, sir. They call him ‘Tiddy’, they always call Titheridges that. Not a drinker.”

  “Thank you, Septimus – I must remember all their names! He will make a sergeant – bright man, that one, could even go farther.”

  A few sergeants achieved commissioned status if they were literate and very able or insanely brave; very few indeed in peace time, but fighting regiments overseas on a long posting could easily fill ten per cent of the Officers Mess from the ranks, normally ensuring that they exchanged with another battalion staying overseas when their posting finally ended. Most of the ranker officers were only too happy to stay out of England – a lieutenant’s pay stretched much farther in most overseas postings and it was often possible to transfer from the army to company or colonial police or administration, to a life of comfort and ease.

  “Sergeant Mockford,” Masters called. “You heard what Titheridge said? Do as he suggested, if you would be so good.”

  “Mockford reads and writes well, sir, was set to his father’s Counting House in Alton, I understand, a younger son with no prospects other than to push a pen for fifty years. Joined up just before the battalion sailed to America in the last war.”

  Masters nodded, knew he was being told that Mockford should be pushed up if the opportunity arose, was not at all sure that it was Septimus’ place to give him that word, he was far too junior yet.

  “Sergeant Mockford, fix bayonets as soon as we are in sight, use the threat of steel to take them quietly. They will become British subjects and should be treated well.”

  Mockford acknowledged the order, made the silent caveat that they would be treated exactly as they showed they deserved.

  They waited for each platoon to reach its designated place, chewed a couple of mouthfuls of biscuit and beef, washed down with water from their bottles, already flat, tepid and stale tasting. Twenty minutes by Septimus’ hunter, the only watch in the company, and they set off in line abreast; the grassland sloped suddenly into a dell nearly a hundred feet deep, showed the plantation house on a terrace towards the bottom, comfortably sheltered.

  “Well positioned!” Masters commented, “safe even against a hurricane, I would say, the wind sweeping up and over the hillside, hardly touching the house.”

  As on the plantation where they had landed, it was little more than a large farmstead, the buildings in a sensible cluster. There had been no alarm here, the slaves were busy and the cook was in her kitchen, all peacefully busy.

  Scarlet coats appeared to their right and left, were followed a couple of minutes later by those directly opposite. Masters blew on his whistle, waved the men downhill, walked slowly with them.

  Within seconds there was pandemonium.

  Figures scuttled inside yelling, came out screaming at the tops of their voices. Doors slammed shut in the stables and big house and the slaves ran to their cabins, most of which had no doors.

  There was shouting in the house and then its door was thrown open again and two white men came out carrying long muskets and with swords and pistols belted on.

  “Bloody fools!” Masters snapped. “They can see how many we are – showing off, that’s all. Mr Pearce – two platoons to secure the house, I’ll bring the black people together and get everything tidy down there. Silly sods!”

  The last was aimed at the two Frenchmen, stood now at the foot of the three steps leading up to the house and bringing their muskets up to their shoulders. At a hundred paces they were wasting their time, as long as they were smoothbores.

  “Double, Sergeant Mockford. Open order!”

  The men spread apart, offering twenty individual targets and as many threats to the musketeers. Septimus comforted himself that they would, if they had any sense at all, fire a single round for the sake of honour, careful to miss, and then drop their weapons.

  They fired, one then the other; they did not have rifles, hit nobody. They began a slow reload, fumbling, nervous, spilling powder – they were using horns, did not have the military cartridge.

  “Charge!”

  Septimus led the two platoons, galloping heavily across the three or so chains of flatter land leading to the house.

  The Frenchmen dropped their muskets, not before time; Septimus opened his mouth to order Mockford to take them when they pulled their pistols and the younger of them snapped off a hasty round which whistled past Septimus’ head.

  “Sod this for a game of skittles!”

  Septimus stopped, drew his own pistols, pulled low and fired one then the other as a second shot came his way, sounding much closer than it probably was. Septimus’ example was sufficient for Mockford who ordered his platoon to fire, instructing the second to stay loaded; the Frenchmen dropped, quantities of blood rapidly surrounding them.

  “First one were yours, sir,” Mockford called. “Went down before we fired, sir.”

  The men ran past, kicked the door down and forced their way into the house.

  “They’re goners, sir, both of them.”

  Mockford ran his hands rapidly over the corpses, pocketed all they possessed in ten swift seconds, followed Septimus into the house, into howling devilry. The rules of war permitted sack where civilians offered unreasonable resistance; surrender brought the right of safety, of non-molestation; shooting at soldiers was unwise, especially when you missed.

  Four of the men were stripping a maidservant in the front hall; there were more screams upstairs. Septimus ran up to find two French women there, wives to the dead men, he supposed, one of twenty or so, the other in her forties. Both were nude and were being dragged into bedrooms by six or seven soldiers apiece; there were no children, and the men believed they had the right.

  “Let it go, sir,” Mockford muttered in an undervoice. “You couldn’t stop them now, and they’d begrudge you making the try.”

  Septimus swore, spun on his heels, ran downstairs as the shrieks grew louder, more immediate.

  Mockford flung doors open, musket ready, but there was nobody else in the house.

  “Office, sir, here.”

  Mockford worked his bayonet into the locked drawers of a walnut veneered desk, an expensive import from the home country, ripping the light timbers asunder. He found papers and an iron key, about three inches long and with intricate wards.

  “That’s what we wants, Mr Pearce, sir. Now, where be it?”

  Mockford stared round the room, spotted what seemed to be a cupboard door, flush with the wall but sporting a large keyhole.

  “Try that bugger, shall we, sir? Too big for an ordinary cupboard.”

  Mockford pushed the key in, turned it slowly and carefully.

  “That’s the beauty! Now then, sir.”

  He pulled the door open, finding it surprisingly heavy, discovering a lining of wrought iron, a home-made safe. There were half a dozen wooden boxes inside, each a foot or so long by six inches wide and four deep, each with a lock.

  There was a rustling behind them and Cooper slipped into the room, pushed the door gently closed, hitching his trousers up.

  “Never had a bit of African before, sir. Same as any other when all’s said and done!”

  “Never mind that, Cooper, can you open these without damaging what’s inside them?”

  By way of answer Cooper produced a steel spike a little bigger than a darning needle, worked the locks one after another, quickly and easily.

  Mockford glanced at the amaze on Septimus’ face, commented that that was why he had joined up, one step ahead of the law, still a very young man.

  “Pretty, ain’t they, sir?” Mockford whispered.

  Five of the boxes contained gold coins, rows of louis d’or, Venetian sequins, Portuguese joes, heavy Spanish pieces of eight, guineas and reals and a dozen others Septimus did not recognise. The sixth had four green stones and six pearls.

  “Three way split, sir?” Cooper suggested, praying that Septimus wo
uld not insist that the whole company must share.

  “No – no knapsack for me, I couldn’t hide the coins.”

  The merchant’s son found he had no scruples about enriching himself – the men could have had a share if they had not been so busy with the women they had taken.

  “That’s right, too,” Mockford commented. “Would lead to questions, for sure.”

  “What about you ‘as they jewels, sir? We couldn’t fence they easy, any’ow.”

  “You agree, Sergeant Mockford?”

  “All yours, sir.”

  Septimus took the four stones and the six iridescent globules, tucked them into a small leather bag that had held coins, slipped them into a pocket.

  “I’ll get a thong, sir, go round your neck, easier that way,” Cooper said.

  “Time I reported to the captain,” Septimus replied, walking out, “we don’t want him in here just at the moment.”

  “Bloody right we don’t, sir, not for a good ten minutes yet.”

  Masters was busy, trying to round up the slaves who, sensibly, had taken off for cover in the cane brakes as soon as the shooting started. His task was not helped by the fact that his men had heard the screams from the house and had decided to follow their mates’ example, making free of all the women they found. It was mid-afternoon before Masters had calmed the company sufficiently to pay any attention to the house, by which time Sergeant Mockford had set fire to it as the best way of disguising his exercise in safe-breaking.