“Get them to bring the wounded in and bury the stiffs.”
Masters raised a disapproving eyebrow, did not approve of Septimus’ casual slang.
The French regulars were visible in the distance, reforming on the track and hurrying back into the shelter of the forest, in full retreat but under command.
“Let them go, Septimus. Too big a risk they will turn on us if we drive them hard. A squadron of horse could harry them all the way to the coast, make sure they never reformed, kill half of them and scatter the remainder, but we cannot do it ourselves.”
They made camp, upstream from where the French had overnighted, and set to the serious work of locating the French dead and looting their bodies.
“What are our figures, Sergeant Mockford?”
“One dead, sir. One got it in the belly, three others hit but only lightly.”
Masters grunted – the casualties were very light – two men lost, for the belly wound must die – three temporarily off duty, tiny for the success achieved, but the empty files would remain unfilled, there were no replacements for the lost men.
They lit fires and made themselves comfortable, happy for the French to make a distance down the track, ignoring the cries of the wounded as well as they could – the surviving French prisoners could look after their own people.
Masters wrote his report, pencil scrawling quickly in his notebook.
“Buried, thirty-one; taken, one hundred and twenty-two. Of the prisoners, twenty-three are non-ambulant and another forty bear wounds of lesser degree. Fled the field, according to those taken, a rearguard of two thin companies, about fifty men and four officers, ten or so other regulars and perhaps sixty of militia. A force of some two hundred and seventy French routed by our company of sixty men – highly respectable, Septimus.”
Masters put the book away, very content in himself – this fight would not make his brevet permanent but it provided a very sound basis for another action to promote him.
“Take Mockford and his platoon, Septimus, and guard the forest edge overnight, if you would be so good – we want no assault returned upon us in the morning.”
Septimus agreed that they would look very foolish indeed, caught by their own trick.
“I shall wait till sundown, sir, with your permission, before I move. There might be watchers in the trees.”
“Yes, sensible point, Septimus – I would certainly put men there if I was thinking of returning to the field.”
Septimus warned Mockford, then found a patch of grass to lay down in for a couple of hours sleep while he had the chance. He woke to Cooper with a cup of tea and a mess tin of hot beef and biscuit.
“Some of they Froggies was carrying day-old beef, sir. I put it on sticks over the fire, enough for all the platoon, sir.”
Septimus packed his belly, eating all he could cram down – it could be hours, days even, before their next hot meal.
“Pistols, sir. Frog major, got four on a belt, sir, I got the lot. Could put your two on as well, sir. Bloody great ‘eavy things they are, sir, ten bore we reckons, but ‘e’d got two dozen of ball for ‘em in a pouch on the belt and the armourer can cast more when you needs ‘em. They’re loaded and I checked the flints, sir.”
Septimus passed across his two holsters and after a couple of minutes’ adjustment strapped the pistols on across his hips, nearly two stones of weapons, ball and powder on a two inch wide leather belt. He was strong enough to carry the load, and his hanger as well, but he was rather glad he had a batman to be responsible for his rations and field kit.
“Thank’ee, Cooper. You look after me well.”
Cooper smiled and blushed, unused to thanks.
“We looks after each other, sir. I got a bit of a chain, too, what one of they Frogs ‘ad.”
Cooper produced a thirty inch length of steel chain, fine links, about an eighth of an inch diameter.
“Got a watch on it, so ‘e ‘ad, but Tiddy ‘ad that, let I to ‘ave the chain.”
Cooper took the wash-leather bag containing the jewels looted earlier in the week, worked the chain through the neck in place of the drawstring and passed it back.
“Round your neck, sir, safer that way.”
No more than twenty feet from the point where the track entered the cover of the trees there was a tiny fold in the ground with a trickle of a spring. It was sufficient for the eight men of the platoon and Septimus to belly-down in and be wholly concealed at night.
“Four awake at all times, sarn’t; alert us all at the least sign of movement.”
Septimus had learned the old soldier’s trick of sleeping, of turning off immediately when the occasion arose; no attack would be mounted until company lights-out and probably not for an hour after that, so he could get his head down safely for as much as three hours.
Mockford woke him after midnight.
“Movement, sir. Can hear something in the trees.”
The sky was cloud-free, as it had been for the whole of the dry season, and there was a half moon giving a fair light. They strained their ears, could just make out a low muttering, as of orders being given in a speaking voice at a distance.
“Don’t fire until I do,” Septimus whispered, waited till all eight had acknowledged. “Reload and bayonets in your hands, waiting my order. If we must, I will call ‘run’, and then we keep to this side of the track, go back to where the Frogs camped last night and form up there.”
Nods came from them all, no questions.
“Good. Faces down now, don’t show white in the moonlight.”
They ducked, Septimus and Mockford watching.
There was movement on the track, men filing out of the trees and forming up into ranks in the open. Septimus gave them a minute to get a good number together then laid his pistols out on the grass in front of him, rose to one knee, picked up his first and pulled down on the group, pointing low as he fired. He heard the duller bang of the muskets as he fired all six and stuffed them back into their holsters. He stood and pulled his hanger.
“Cease fire!”
There was no target left, they had all gone.
He heard the rattle of ramrods behind him, was thankful again for the training that allowed his men to load blind.
“Form up!”
He led them uphill a furlong or so then crossed the track and brought them back, with luck unobserved, on the other side, hoping that the French, if they regrouped, would be looking to the east, to their right, where he had been.
Masters brought the whole company down at dawn, covered them as they found two corpses in regular uniforms and a few blood spatters on leaves and mud.
“All the wounded, the light looking after the serious, are staying here under parole, Septimus. Either we can trust them or we can’t, and we shall find out which soon enough – but we can’t carry them with us if we are to make the port in time to join the battalion for the assault. Those who can are coming with us, wishing to get back to their families – too many women and children left unprotected near the British army or with slaves who may get restless. I could not refuse them parole to go home in such a circumstance and, again, we shall discover just how much their word of honour means to them.”
Masters shrugged – civilians were nothing but a nuisance in wartime, should not get in the way of the professionals, had to be treated as if they knew the rules even if he suspected they were wholly unaware of the existence even of those rules.
“Most of them are carrying muskets, sir?”
“They say they are worried about the slaves – it would seem that some damned fools have been telling the black men about ‘Liberty, Equality and Freedom’, and some of them believe it should apply to them as well!”
The Pearces, like most merchants, came of very Low Church stock – prior to their aspiring towards the County, that was – and Septimus had grown up with the evangelical tenets. In theory, in capital letters, he approved of Slaves Rising Against Their Despotic Masters; in practice he despised anyth
ing that smacked of revolution and disorder, knowing that the mass of ordinary folk must be disciplined and controlled by the privileged few, for the benefit of both. Slavery might be an extreme and less than wholly desirable form of subjugation, but it was preferable to unfettered liberty and the horrors of a democracy.
“Then we must trust their parole, sir. There is no choice that I can see.”
They spaced the platoons twenty yards apart to cross the southern belt of rain forest, distant enough that no ambush could hit more than two at once but sufficient to provide close support. Mockford and his platoon were placed with Septimus in the centre of the column, Masters feeling that they deserved a quiet day and that Septimus had attained quite enough glory for the while and needed it much less than he did.
A quarter of a mile down the track they found another body. All along there was evidence of headlong flight; dropped knapsacks and cartouches – heavy wooden frames drilled out to hold up to sixty cartridges and covered in waterproof canvas; dumped muskets; abandoned uniform coats and hats. Everything that could let a tired, panicking man run faster had gone. They collected all of the weapons and ammunition, gave them to the parolees as better than leaving them for wandering slaves to happen upon.
Two cautious hours through the dark forest and they came out onto low, grass-covered hills. There was a rough camp, abandoned for some hours judging by its fires, and four more bodies, three with older wounds taken in the previous day’s ambush, one shot in the night. The last hurt wore captain’s uniform, was probably the senior man to have survived the first skirmish and had led the counter-attack, his incapacitation leading to his men’s collapse.
The savannah was cut by several mile-wide, shallow valleys on this wetter side of the island; in the first they came to they found gardens and bananas and a small village of free blacks, ex-slaves manumitted for one reason or another. Masters’ servant talked with them, found one who had been taken from an English island in the last war and spoke a recognisable patois.
He told them that a hundred or so of French had straggled through their village, the last, wounded, no more than an hour previously. Six had remained in the village, did they intend to kill them?
Septimus indignantly replied that they did not.
“Best for they iff’n you did, suh. They dead meat. They got de rot, de bad smell, suh.”
Gangrene, incurable, commonplace in dirty wounds anywhere, almost inevitable in the tropics, appearing in a day and taking anything up to a week to finish its victim.
“Poor bastards!” Septimus felt in his pockets, found a guinea and passed it across. “See to them, man, get them water, don’t let them die alone.”
A surgeon could have done little more.
They bought, at Masters’ insistence, fruit for a midday bite, filled their water bottles and, with some reluctance, marched; their feet ached and their sleep had been disturbed and they were sure there was rum in the village; even so they had to go on.
Once out of the valley and its gardens they crossed a hillside grazed by a few goats, a long-horned billy observing them very suspiciously, as if he knew a few things about soldiers and liked none of them, and plunged down into sugar-cane, the insects rising to welcome them.
“What do the insects eat when we’re not here, Septimus?” Masters sourly inquired. “They can’t just fast, waiting on the offchance that people may come by.”
Septimus was saved from answering by the distant explosion of a cannon followed by a rattling like sticks on distant palings, the sound of volley fire. They picked up the pace, sore feet forgotten, pushing hard along deserted tracks towards the sound of the gunfire. The firing tailed off after half an hour but they carried on towards its source. The track rose up a short slope and onto a low rise looking out over the bay, which was nearly a complete circle, enclosed by low hills, an old, worn down volcano it seemed, the waters much deeper on the west than the east, a half mile of flat, marshy land on that side.
“Battalion’s over on the east, sir, over there,” Mockford pointed.
There was a rough defensive line a quarter of a mile away, a shallow trench and breastwork from canefields to the shoreline, blocking the coast road, and Howton’s battalion had obviously made a first assault and been thrown back by the garrison. The French had a pair of field guns and a thin battalion of infantry, sufficient to hold their position until their expected attack hit the British rear. The bay was too shallow for the British ships to bombard them even if they could force an entrance past the harbour battery and they had reason to feel confident in their defence.
Septimus grinned at Masters. “Do you know, sir, I don’t believe they have been told about us. Their lads who ran must not have come back to their barracks in town – frightened they might be called deserters, perhaps, sir?”
Masters grinned back, delighted to have the opportunity to shine in front of the colonel’s eyes. He could see the dispatch to Horse Guards being written already.
“Battalion’s coming forward again, sir,” Mockford called.
“Form a single line,” Masters responded. “Quick march!”
They held their dressing, the platoons in line abreast, the men silent, muskets at the high port, bayonets fixed, Masters intending a single volley and then to close. The French were loading, firing, much too busy to turn round and peer through the cloud of powder smoke to check their rear, for three long minutes of marching. The fire began to slacken, as if the battalion was falling back again.
They were at forty yards, dared wait no longer.
“Fire!”
The sudden, shocking volley killed a few French, paralysed the rest for a couple of seconds of uncomprehending horror.
“Charge! Shout, you buggers! Cheer!”
The huzzahs arose and were matched on the other side of the barricade as the New Foresters rallied and charged in turn; without retreat the bayonet work became bloody and vicious.
Septimus led Mockford’s platoon, slashing with his hanger, roaring, keeping the pistols against need. He spotted gold lace to his right, angled towards it, saw a senior officer and juniors about him, dug his sword point into the ground in front of him, fired his pistols one after another, pointing as Hathaway had shown him. He was vaguely aware of Cooper at his back, swearing vilely, bayonet and butt busy.
The gold lace disappeared and a couple of the junior officers fell; Mockford was next to him, finding time in a lull to reload his musket. It was more than a lull, the breastwork was swarming with redcoats, the French hands-up in a corner, the noise suddenly ending, gunfire and cheering replaced by screams and gasping moans of pain.
“Captain’s copped it, sir,” Cooper said from behind him.
“Mr Masters? Where?”
“In the guts, sir.”
“Over there, sir.”
Cooper and Mockford answered simultaneously, catching different sides of the question.
Masters had taken a bayonet slashing across and up through the stomach from low above the left hip to just under the short ribs on the right; he was unconscious, going fast. His servant wept beside him.
“No need to cry, darkie! There’ll be another like ‘im, nipper.”
It was rough consolation but well meant.
Howton appeared, a smile and a handshake and a quick word of commendation as he passed and began to set the field to rights.
By dusk they had tidied up, had the dead underground and the wounded together under the care of the surgeon, had turned the cannon around, mounted a strong guard and cooked a meal, were ready to face the morning. Allington, sole possessor of a tent, called Septimus to it.
“Mr Pearce, you did very well today. The men were flagging and might well have been turned back again without your intervention. I am told that you killed the Governor of the island personally? And dealt with another contingent of Frogs as well? Captain Masters fell in the first moments of the charge, I gather, at the head of the men, having outpaced them all in his ardour.”
The cr
iticism was unspoken – officers existed to be bold leaders in battle, there was no other justification for them, but were not expected to expose themselves stupidly, to distance themselves so far from their men that they threw their lives away.
Septimus made his report; Masters’ notebook was on the colonel’s table so he needed say little about the events leading up to that afternoon, was able to be brief and concise – and hence sounded modest and self-effacing, as a junior man should be.
“Very good, Mr Pearce! Excellent, in fact! You will take the company, of course, brevet rank, in place of Masters, and I shall strongly recommend to the Governor, when one is appointed, and to Horse Guards, that you should be made in compliment, with a strong possibility that they would do so, bearing in mind the circumstances, sir! If not, well, purchase is possible, I believe?”
“Yes, sir, it is. Thank you, sir.”
“You are young for the rank, Mr Pearce, but I am pleased indeed that you are to be one of my captains. If I might venture to say so, sir, you have shown that you have considerable ability in the field, but I suspect you will still have an amount to learn of a senior subaltern’s other duties. I am sure Major Howton will be able to assist you.”
“Able and very pleased to, sir,” Howton responded, his smile suggesting the words to be no mere formality of acquiescence.
St Jeanne surrendered next morning. It would have done so on the previous evening except for the death of the governor and a dearth of functionaries willing to take on the acting role. In the end a council of local tradesmen had constituted itself and, acting jointly so that no individual could be identified as a traitor, had brought a white flag out to the dawn camp, moving at first light to forestall any assault on the town. They escorted the New Foresters into the small fort that housed the harbour battery and bullied a pair of very junior officers into offering a formal capitulation, without terms. Allington had no desire to burden himself with a mob of French prisoners who he would have to feed and guard; he collected all of the French soldiers he could find and stuffed them onto an island brig in the harbour, sent them off under parole not to fight the English again until they had been formally exchanged for an equal number of British prisoners. The undertaking would probably be ignored, but there was a good chance that the French in the islands would offer the same opportunity to inconvenient prisoners they took at a later date – in the long run things would more or less come into balance and of immediate importance was that the documents they had signed would cover Allington at Horse Guards.
The Soldier Brat (Man of Conflict Series, Book 1) Page 13