Septimus passed the word to Mockford, so that he could in turn spread the information – the men liked to know what was happening.
“Keep a careful eye to the rear and flanks, Hoskins. If horse, or any flanking attack, should appear, then take the rear rank under your command without further word from me, and deal with the problem.”
Hoskins saluted, utterly appalled at the responsibility, praying that if cavalry there were, then it might be behind the Wiltshires, or, indeed, anywhere at a distance from him.
“I wonder why, Hoskins.”
“Why what, sir?” The tone of Hoskins voice showed that he wondered about very little, ever.
“Why set up a hammering match? Where’s the sense in it? They could have bled us in ambush after ambush and then held us at the town; even newly dug trenches would have been enough to stop us if we lost a couple of hundred men – and they have labour enough on the plantations to put quick earthworks up. Why, instead, risk our volleys in the open field, when everyone knows we are the best in Europe at just that one thing. Major Howton has told me how they fought us in the Americas: they traded volleys and lost, they sniped from the trees and won. There’s a regular battalion there and they must know what’s what, so why are they being so foolish? I had thought it was maybe because they lacked foot, but it ain’t that, obviously, though, maybe, they don’t trust their militia out of their direct sight – let ‘em hide in the trees and they might never see them again.”
Hoskins nodded, as he watched in increasing terror as a force almost twice their size marched closer and closer. He could not understand why they just stood still, waiting. Why did not the colonel order the Light Companies forward?
“No gain to it while they are advancing in line across the whole field – they will take as many casualties as they inflict, or so I am told – they are to be used when a column advances or if there is good cover for them to utilise or if the enemy pushes forward a screen of their own skirmishers.”
The French halted at one hundred paces and a very young, plainly dressed, bare-headed man stepped forward and turned to address them; he was not an officer yet clearly held command so was probably the governor of the island, Septimus surmised, a product of the Revolution, judging by the lack of gold braid and hat. He began to shout in French.
“Long live the Republic, the Revolution and Robespierre, sir,” Hoskins supplied the translation. “Remember Valmy. The English are unwilling to fight, forced to the ranks by tyranny, will run at the first chance. The People in Arms will always outfight the Slaves of the Tyrant. Roughly translated, that is, sir.”
“I did not know you spoke French, Mr Hoskins.”
“My father, sir, trades much with the Channel Islands, and insisted that we all learned the language.”
Septimus nodded – his father was a smuggler, in other words.
The French stepped off again, and A Company’s muskets rose to the aim, the other companies following suit, waiting the thirty or so seconds as the range closed to its optimum.
The field guns boomed, loaded canister over ball, and A Company fired.
The fusillades rolled down the line and the rhythmic crash of company fire began, front and rear lines ten seconds apart, three thousand rounds a minute pumped out blind into the powder smoke that almost instantly covered the field. The sergeants called time and calmed the excitable and kept the musket barrels a little below the horizontal. Septimus and the other company officers walked up and down, calling out unnecessary orders for no reason other than to be heard, to let the men know that they were there and all was well.
The smoke eddied in the dry wind, occasional gusts showing Septimus part of the field, the French still there and in good order. His own men were dropping, the files closing up, rear numbers stepping forward; not too many, the French firing was slower, their aim wilder.
The noise seemed to slacken, as if the French fire was lessening. Septimus raised his voice.
“Five paces forward. March!”
The company obeyed and the whole line followed their hint.
Colonel Allington shouted and waved and A Company fixed bayonets.
Septimus roared the order and took off like a hare as the charge began, managing to get a couple of paces ahead of his men, where he should be, just far enough forward to be seen calling them on, not so far as to be killed like Masters, unnecessarily and serving no purpose.
They cheered and charged and the French, faltering already, broke.
Two squadrons of horse, held at a distance, out of sight, to harry the retreating redcoats, made an unwise charge, trying to save the lost battle; they were too few and too far away, were exposed for a full minute, long enough for the Wiltshires to turn their right companies and fire in three lines in sequence. Fifty horsemen galloped into the fire of two hundred steady muskets; the few survivors fled the field, appalled.
As was usually the case, very few of the men actually bloodied their bayonets; the French were gone, the bayonet charge merely serving notice that the battle was lost, that it was time to go home for the militia, to retire and regroup as possible for the regular battalion.
Septimus spent a few minutes reforming the company and setting them in order and then pushed them downhill, anxious to get to whatever fortifications the town might possess before the French could get back under command and hold them. Howton doubled across to him, A Company following.
“Take both companies, please, Captain Pearce. The colonel was hit as he called the charge, will be dead very soon if he has lived this long, and A Company has no officer left standing. Hot pursuit. To the town and take the coastal guns on the cliff; if you can engage the fort with your battery, well and good, I will try to get the gunners to you. The Wiltshires will take the lower town, fighting through to the quayside and then turning back, inwards. We will join you from the inland, as soon as possible, I want to organise the battalion to sweep up all the French stragglers as we come down to you, so we will be slower.”
“Sir!” Septimus acknowledged his orders, turned immediately to his command.
“Mr Hoskins!”
“Wounded, sir,” Mockford’s voice replied.
“When?”
“Just before the charge, sir, copped one in the face, sir, across the cheekbone and eye, nasty one, but he might live.”
“Shit!”
“Yes, sir.”
There was no more to be said, the young man, if he survived, would be one eyed and disfigured – it could have been any of them, still might be – it was how the luck went.
“Sarn’t Mockford, you must look after A Company, keep them with us.”
Mockford ran.
“Cooper!”
“Here, sir,” the voice came from behind his right shoulder, a pace or two back.
“We need another sergeant, Cooper.”
“Yes, sir. Plunger Dowdy, sir.”
Septimus had not expected, or wanted, Cooper to take the offer, but it had had to be made, to show respect.
“Sergeant Dowdy!”
“Sir!”
“Do the job!”
“Yes, sir.”
Dowdy also ran, pulling a piece of chalk from his pocket and rubbing the stripes onto his jacket as he went; his promotion had been discussed in the platoon and he had accepted it months before, was ready for all it entailed.
They fast marched downhill and began to overtake knots of French soldiers, the slowest, wounded themselves or carrying friends. Most were unarmed and none offered fight, it was over; they were ordered to one side, told that the surgeons would look after them as well, that they should go back to the English baggage train. Septimus tried to calculate as he pushed the men forward. The French had left about a hundred dead and mortally wounded on the field and as many more unable and unwilling to walk; another four hundred or thereabouts should be wounded more or less lightly, in the normal way of things, leaving thus some twelve hundreds untouched and in retreat. Say two thirds were militia, and they would be goi
ng home, their enlistment, probably unwilling, brought to a sudden end; a number of them would hang around the field, trying to locate kin or friends thought to have fallen, possibly lying wounded, but they should be no hazard. So, at most, four hundreds of regulars, say a half of them under arms and obedient to command, many of the others seeking to join up with them; they must, if possible, be broken up and pushed away from the town, away from food and powder supplies.
Septimus harried his men, pushed them to double on the flatter stretches, but they were tired, the half hour of battle had used up a day’s energy; he was forced to let the pace drop, begrudged the two hours it took to reach the edges of the town.
There was no wall – he had not expected one, walls were to be found around the very few great cities of the West Indies, the Havana, for example, not in the small islands, but he had wondered whether there might not be a turf bank and ditch recently thrown up. Evidently the French governor had not envisaged defeat. The small, white-washed town, two or three hundred houses, many more shacks and shanties, a substantial commercial area at the waterfront, was open. A track led up the slope to the clifftops and he led his people up towards the heights. The roadway was well-used, showed the pattern of many small hooves, regularly trotting up and down.
“Donkeys, sir. No wheel marks, must be too steep for carts at the very top,” Cooper muttered.
“Dowdy, take your platoon ahead, give me the lie of the land.”
They marched slowly up the track, behind Dowdy, tired and not best pleased at the prospect of going back into battle, assaulting an unknown fortification, held by a garrison that could be of any size. Septimus ran the possibilities over in his mind – they were about one hundred strong and there were the gun crews, at least forty men; armourers and magazine, another ten, say; cooks, batmen, officers for the artillery, maybe a guard company of foot besides – all of whom could be waiting behind a parapet, perhaps with their guns turned and facing the track; they could be marching to the charnel house, but they had to go on.
The track crested onto an expanse of open, flat turfland overlooking the sea, then turned left and dropped a little before passing through a low earth bank which comprised the rear of the battery, where Dowdy and his men were kneeling, waving them down, low, out of sight. They scuttled across, Septimus beside Dowdy, cautiously raising his head.
The four great guns were run out, their crews in place, and every other visible man in the fort was stood on the walls, well to the side of the embrasures, staring out to sea at the navy, just at the limit of range, backing and filling, making a demonstration, apparently organising themselves to make an assault – presumably they had heard the guns, seen the powder smoke inland, were doing their best to be useful by tying down the troops in the harbour defences. Septimus waved to Mockford, pointed left, turned to his own people, urged them into line along the right-hand bank, nodded with satisfaction as they rapidly, quietly set themselves.
A gun boomed, a sudden shocking explosion that brought pelicans up from the mangroves round the bay. Septimus stood, pointed his sword and waved the men forward as he scrambled to the top of the bank. He pulled a pistol, sighted down on an officer and then fired his other shots generally towards the crew of the nearest gun. He was joined by brief platoon volleys, followed by a screaming charge and the battery was theirs inside the minute, with horribly few prisoners – confined space allowed no room for retreat, no time to call for quarter. There was a shrill scream from the magazine and a young French soldier ran out, trailing blood, wailing until a musket butt crushed his skull – two tons of powder meant there was no time for finesse, for mercy, anything in the way had to be removed ruthlessly.
There was a beautiful big brass telescope on the ramparts, undamaged because its erstwhile owner had fallen backwards, cushioning it; Septimus picked the instrument up, sighted briefly on the small fort, half a mile away at sea level.
“Mockford, get the loaded guns pointed at the fort there, if you please. We can fire them, at least. I don’t suppose anybody knows anything about gunnery?”
Private Barrett stepped forward. “I seen they, sir,” he announced.
Septimus asked no questions – Barrett was a suspiciously old soldier for a new recruit, he remembered, had certainly run before joining up again – it seemed possible he had been a marine or perhaps garrison artillery.
Ten minutes and the fourth gun was reloaded and all four were pointed to Barrett’s satisfaction; he ordered his multitude of eager helpers to safety, touched his linstock to one after another. Four huge bangs, a massive cloud of smoke, slowly clearing, Septimus with the telescope he had liberated examining the fort hopefully.
It was an old construction, designed to hold against attack from the sea, its walls angled to deflect rising shot of smaller calibre. The massive thirty six pound round shot had smashed three holes while the fourth ball, from the warm gun, had travelled higher, had passed over the walls and done unknown damage inside, a cloud of dust the only evidence. There was great scurrying, men falling back from the walls, the gate at the rear heaving open.
As Barrett swabbed out each of the guns and oversaw their loading Septimus saw a horseman leave the fort at a stretched run, presumably to find troops, such as there might be left on guard in the barracks, to mount an attack on the battery.
“Mockford, a guard to the land walls, please.”
Barrett fired again, smashed another set of holes through the upper ramparts, probably spraying broken masonry over the gun crews below, injuring a few, frightening all; men began to run from the open gate.
The battleships had hardened their sails, were driving into the harbour, signal flags fluttering, the smaller vessels closing on them. The commodore’s ship was still pumping, Septimus noticed, a single thin stream from her side where she had not been able to repair all of the damage done.
A third discharge and the fortress became untenable, the seaward face damaged too much to provide protection for the guns, especially when the men could see the two battleships, guns run out, ready to fire broadsides of ball and then grapeshot, to kill every man who could not find very sturdy shelter. The trickle of running men became a sudden flood and the flag fell.
“Hold fire, Barrett. Sarn’t Mockford, hold the battery with A Company.”
Mockford saluted – he could hear musketry from the town, organised volleys, resistance – that meant a sack when the French were overcome; however, the battery had quarters attached, that should provide some loot, at a minimum.
“Sarn’t Mockford, officers’ wives and all children will be protected.”
“Yes, sir!”
Mockford grinned – that meant everything, and everybody, else was fair game.
Septimus led B Company back down the hill and into the streets of the upper town, a hundred or so of larger houses set about small squares and broad lanes, satisfied himself it was clear of enemy. Downhill, through the gaps he could see men of the New Foresters and Wiltshires; firing was dying away, and longboats were pulling ashore from the warships. Major Howton came striding uphill, followed by his orderly and a couple of the officers.
“The town is taken, Septimus. I shall set up camp on the open land outside.”
“Look after the area, Dowdy”, Septimus said, and turned his back on his men. The crash of breaking doors and splintering shutters echoed within the minute, the first screams came immediately afterwards. It was their right: towns surrendered or were sacked, it always had been so, would remain the case for the two decades of this war.
There was a great crying coming from the barracks at the battery; as Septimus walked back he glanced into the main room to see a dozen women held down on the floor, pinned to beds, in one case straddled face down across a barrel.
“Big, fat cow, that one, sir,” Cooper commented, appearing as ever at Septimus’ shoulder. “Only way they could get into ‘er.” Cooper laughed. “The sergeants ‘ave got a couple of younger pieces in the small mess room. Officers’ families
are locked away in the commandant’s quarters, safe enough. No men left.”
There was a quavering shriek from a hut across the parade ground.
“Armourer’s quarters, sir. Barrett and some of them took a couple of older boys across there – be getting’ sore arses, I suppose, it’s what they like, it seems.”
Septimus turned away – he had heard of such a thing, did not pretend to understand it, could do nothing about it. A second voice cried out and he almost ran across to the commandant’s quarters.
There had been a captain and a pair of lieutenants at the battery, men in their thirties and forties, posted here by way of punishment in the days of the king – they had survived in command for being known to be of little loyalty to the old regime. The captain had brought out a wife, who had soon died, and the two younger men had married plantation daughters.
The two widows waited white-faced in front of the seven children they had produced and kept through tropical vicissitudes; next to them stood the commandant’s only child, a girl of sixteen or so.
“Do you speak English?”
“I have some,” the girl replied, displaying somewhat more of composure than the older women, presumably for understanding less than them of what was happening outside.
Septimus spent a few minutes calming the women’s fears and discovering that they had families they could return to; the girl had no kin on the island, corresponded with no relatives in France, had no other home than the commandant’s quarters.
“You must stay here for a day or two, ladies; it will not be safe for you to try to move. By the end of the week the men will be back under control and I will have you escorted to wherever you wish to go.”
“But… I have nowhere to go to.”
“You will not be able to stay here, ma’am. There will be a garrison; these quarters will be taken over by our people.”
“But, what will I do?”
“I do not know, ma’am – I suggest you talk to the ladies here.”
The Soldier Brat (Man of Conflict Series, Book 1) Page 20