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Lords of the Nile

Page 34

by Jonathan Spencer


  Derrien fired a second pocket pistol – a blast of smoke clouded their vision and Pettifer spun, hit, clutching his arm, buggerin’ ’ell. Warnock and the Beni Qassim grappling with others, De la Vega on foot, taking one with his sword, then two, swinging close and tight like a sailor on a fighting deck. Hazzard tumbled down the slope, sand in his mouth, ears and eyes, until he saw Derrien, running, falling, rising, tearing into the gloom of the beach, shouting, calling, to whom, no one could say – perhaps to Sarah. Attendez! J’arrive, j’arrive! Wait! I’m coming!

  Hazzard could not hear, a roaring in his ears. Pettifer shouting mutely, De la Vega’s face close, kneeling beside him. He saw men with torches lighting braziers on the shore and others running with lamps as the night drew in fast. ‘Horse…’ he gasped, ‘Horse!’ and Masoud appeared with the Bedouin, one sliding from his saddle. ‘Sérieuse…’ he said to De la Vega and pointed, ‘The frigate!’

  He tried to haul himself into the saddle but fell, get up, and dragged himself up again as the horse set off through the flickering twilight. De la Vega swung his pistol at the others. ‘Vamanos, muchachos! Go!’

  Hazzard followed Derrien, running, spinning and twisting through the knots of people, a dark, distant figure among so many, shouting, calling. Above it all, Hazzard could hear the popping of the meagre guns of Sérieuse. He knew now what would come, the unwritten rule of naval engagement: if enemy ships of equal size were present, no smaller vessel would suffer attack – unless it fired first. In brave but reckless disregard for his ship, the captain of Sérieuse had opened fire on the 74-gun HMS Orion of Sir James Saumarez.

  ‘Oh Christ…’

  Orion placed herself perfectly alongside the frigate, ran out her guns, and fired a single devastating broadside.

  Up ahead, Derrien stopped, his back arching in agony as if shot, his hands up to his head, a plaintive cry as he fell to his knees. Hazzard felt the breath rush out of him and he stared.

  The massed blasts of thirty-six heavy guns echoed round the bay. The round-shot crashed through the French frigate’s hull, shattering its masts, rigging, decks and bulwarks, the cries audible on the breeze. In the space of five seconds, HMS Orion had reduced the Sérieuse to a smouldering wreck.

  Detonate

  Wayland and Handley charged along the deserted northern arm of the bay, Wayland jumping obstacles, plunging into sandy troughs and out, Handley and the men of the Esperanza hard behind. The fort teetered at the far end, lanterns swinging, the mortar crews hurrying to the rear.

  They passed the adobe hovels of Aboukir, the inhabitants clinging together, bystanders to the strange drama unfolding on their doorstep. HMS Goliath, Orion and Zealous had already swung round the bows of Guerrier, the British ships so close inshore that Wayland could hear the commands of their marines on deck. The air reverberated to the percussive thud of the guns and the drawn-out tearing thunder of their broadsides, the scene lit by the rising moon and the muzzle-flashes of the fleets. But not all of Nelson’s ships had been able to follow.

  Handley called out, ‘Sir – ships to wind’ard.’ He pointed out to sea beyond the fort. ‘Two sail, sir, must be ours.’

  Wayland drew to a halt, the horse snorting and stamping, and he raised his glass. The stone tower rose in the dark foreground, black against the deepening twilight – roughly 750 yards out to sea was a small rocky island, picked out by the foaming surf breaking on its submerged reefs. Two British ships of the line were struggling in the boiling waves, one of them listing, her hull exposed, too high – she had run aground. The other was trying to tow her off, boats in the water, trying to dislodge her hull from the grip of the rocks.

  ‘It’s the Culloden,’ called Wayland. ‘It’s Sir Thomas – the Leander’s trying to tow her off!’

  From just ahead he saw a flash, followed some while after by a dull boom, then another, the light bright from behind the dilapidated tower. Water spouts erupted in the lee of the island, a hundred yards short of the two ships. The guns at the fort were taking aim at the Culloden.

  ‘She’s a sitting target…’ Wayland drew his pistol and kicked his mount into a gallop, and Handley tried to follow.

  Hearing the approaching hoofbeats, some of the French artillerymen at the fort gates turned with no sign of alarm, assuming that any troops ashore must surely be French. One of them waved.

  Drawing within thirty yards, Wayland raised his pistol and fired. The waving artilleryman spun and fell into the scrub. The remainder backed away, then ran, one tumbling down the slope to the rocky beach below, the rest making for the gates, Bédoux! Bédoux!

  A squad of battery support troops emerged, lanterns in hand, some piling into the empty gun position to take cover behind the abandoned 18-pounder. Wild musket rounds zipped through the darkness and kicked up the earth.

  Wayland’s second shot hit another, sending him falling across the ammunition stack, an NCO crying out, En joue, en joue, followed by another volley of rattling shots. Stones jumped around Wayland, a bullet whipping at his arm like a lash, and he shouted out, charging straight for them. The gun-crew scattered as Wayland jumped the rampart wall into the pit and out the other side.

  The horse struck the tail of the 18-pounder’s gun-carriage and stumbled. Wayland’s left knee failed and he fell, calling out, crashing onto the stone and sand. He rolled and tugged out his sword to find an artillery sergeant, a shovel stopped in mid-swing. ‘Officier français?’

  Wayland kicked out at him just as Handley rode past, his cutlass taking the sergeant with him. The hands of the Esperanza opened fire on the run with their muskets and pistols and drove the remaining French back to the cover of the fort gates.

  Jonsen, their biggest gunner, jumped into the gun-pit and pulled Wayland upright. ‘You play it tight, sir—’

  ‘Not tight enough…’ Wayland reloaded his pistol. ‘Are we all here? Eight of us? Right. We are going to clear that bloody mortar battery and stop them trying to shoot holes in the Culloden.’ As he spoke another salvo thundered, water bursting out by the island.

  Beyond a low stone wall behind the fort they could see four wide-mouthed snub-nosed mortars gaping skyward, stacks of giant rounds by each, the A-frame gantry hoist spotted by Alfonso and the others now swinging a round into a cavernous mouth. Wayland looked at the unloved 18-pounder in front of them. It sat crookedly on an army gun-carriage, its trunions unsecured, but there was a powder locker and a pile of small 12-pound round-shot.

  ‘Handley – can we bring her round?’

  Jonsen got it first, and the big gunner’s face split into a grin. ‘Aye, sir. She’s only a baby.’

  The huge gun was nearly ten feet long, but Jonsen and Lambert took the weight, lifting the tails of the gun-carriage round, heave, and swung the massive cannon on its broad wheels, Wayland waving them on, ‘Double round-shot, langrage, whatever we have, sticks and bloody stones, load and ram!’

  Purdo looked down the muzzle of the cannon. ‘She’s got a packet down her throat, Jonno! Wad and ball and we’re off!’

  Purdo rammed in the wadding, and Jonsen took a pair of 12-pound rounds from the heap in the corner and shoved them in the cannon-mouth. ‘Ram, Purdy, ye lazy bugger!’

  A musket cracked, and another. The French had emerged from both corners of the fort and were trying to outflank them. But they stopped when they saw the 18-pounder had been turned about, and began to run for the dunes, Vite, vite! A renewed salvo of crashing explosions boomed from the bay, and the mortars fired again, spouts of water showering Culloden’s small boats. ‘Are we clear? Hurry!’ Wayland groped for the firing lanyard of the 18-pounder. He found nothing.

  ‘Where’s the damn line to the gunlock?’

  Purdo looked in the locker for the flintlock firing mechanism. There was none. ‘Ain’t got one, sir! She’s a Frog, see, and needs a pricker and touch to warm ’er up!’

  Lambert saw the dead French sergeant lying nearby. ‘Here, Purdy—’ He yanked the man’s bayonet free, ‘Use this—’ P
urdo grabbed it and jumped on the breech, ramming the spiked tip into the touchhole, perforating the powder cartridge deep inside. ‘Whitto! Prime!’

  Whittaker, small and quick, tossed him a packet charge and Lambert slashed it open, pouring powder down the touchhole. ‘Clear, aye!’

  ‘Handley!’ cried Wayland. ‘Pistol! No – a musket!’

  Handley threw a discarded French Charleville to him. They had no ship’s rail to secure the gun, no lines to hold it for the recoil. If Wayland knelt by the touchhole to light it he would be too close to the gun when it went off. He loaded and primed the musket, wadding a powder cartridge down the barrel but no ball, put the long muzzle to the touchhole and stood back. ‘Ready, Handley!’

  ‘Clear!’

  ‘Clear aye!’

  ‘Firing!’

  They turned away and Wayland squeezed his trigger. The blast from the musket sent its fire into the powder of the cannon and hit the main charge. The 18-pounder boomed, leaping backward, its carriage wheels lifting with the recoil, its tail smashing down the rickety wattle shelter on one side, digging itself into the ground.

  The round-shots crashed through the wooden gates of the fort and blew them to shreds, the wreckage sweeping away several men in the process, a cascade of stone blasting the wall from the corner of the fort, sending the mortar crews diving for cover. They now had a clear shot to the mortars.

  ‘You done it, sir – it’s a ruddy Lloyd’s write-off!’

  Wayland primed the musket again. ‘Reload, dammit! Langrage double-shotted! Forty-five seconds! Muskets make ready!’

  They had no swab to clear the inside of the barrel – any burning embers could set off a new powder cartridge as soon as it was rammed in. Purdo ducked a look into the dark muzzle, She’s clean! He shoved in two cartridge bags and Lambert thrust the spike bayonet into the touchhole again to pierce the first packet charge. Purdo pushed handfuls of stones and two loads of scrap metal from the ammunition locker down the barrel, wadded and rammed.

  ‘Prop her up! Point blank!’

  ‘Aye, sir!’

  Jonsen and Lambert pushed stones beneath the tails of the carriage, levering the gun up and forward, until it was dead level for a flat trajectory. Wayland knew that after firing this shot, the cannon could part company with the carriage.

  ‘Clear!’

  ‘Clear aye!’

  Wayland applied the musket again. ‘Firing!’

  The 18-pounder bucked, the muzzle velocity from the double-shotted powder and stone so great it cleared away one corner of the mortar battery and the A-frame loading-tackle, sending crewmen flying backwards into the darkness. But their success was short-lived: the naval gun had slewed off its field-gun mount and crashed to the floor of the gun-pit.

  They heard calls and shouts from behind. A company of French had arrived from along the headland, infantry, sailors, gunners, sappers, a loose mob of thirty men, moving across the hillocks of scrub towards them as the explosions of the battle in the bay flashed against the dark sea.

  Ducking and dodging across the open terrain, they took snap shots as they ran, some occasionally dropping for cover. Bullets bounced and howled off every surface. Wayland and Handley dropped low, Purdo thrown back against the rear wattle wall, dead, the loader, Jonsen, hit in the shoulder, his jawline skinned by a ricochet. ‘Handley!’ shouted Wayland. ‘Get that gun back on its mount and bring her full about, 180 degrees!’

  ‘Aye, sir!’

  Bleeding from a gash across his chest and shoulder, Jonsen took up the muzzle of the cannon by himself, while Lambert, Whittaker and the others fought to heft the breech. ‘Lay it down, lay it down as she is!’ shouted Wayland. ‘Damn the carriage! We’ll get only one shot.’

  They dropped the muzzle across the earth wall of the pit, packing it level as best they could. The calls of the French grew louder, aware of the new danger facing them.

  Wayland tore open a cartridge packet and tipped out some of the powder, stuffing it with stones and pistol balls from his ammunition pouch. ‘Here! Load with grape and langrage!’

  ‘Grape and langrage, aye, sir!’ repeated Handley, taking the packs from him. ‘Come on, you dozy lot, or they’ll ’ave us! Jonno!’

  Another volley rattled around them and they hit the ground. After a beat, Jonsen shouted, ‘Loader up! Keep their ’eads down lads!’ and crawled out of the pit on his back, Lambert and the others loosing off single shots from pistols and muskets. Jonsen hooked a cartridge packet into the muzzle, thrusting it down the cannon’s throat with his bare arm.

  ‘Whit! Give us yer ram!’

  ‘Comin’ up!’

  The bullets kicking up around him, Whittaker slid to the end of the muzzle on his back, put the ram into the cannon’s mouth and pushed the powder cartridge in deep, hand over hand. ‘She’s ready, Jonno!’

  Jonsen took the improvised bag of heavy grape from Wayland and a single 12-pound round-shot. Inching along on his back beside Whittaker, and with a quivering bloody hand, he thrust one after the other up and into the cannon’s mouth. ‘Stick!’

  The French opened fire with another fusillade. A bullet smacked off the muzzle-rim of the gun and hit Whittaker in the head and he screamed, putting his hands up to his face. He dropped the ram.

  ‘Whitto!’

  Lambert crawled out of the pit towards him but Handley pulled him back. ‘Hold fast, Bert!’ With the flesh at his temple cut to the bone, Whittaker pushed the end of the ram up to the mouth of the gun and Jonsen rammed the load, tugging out the pole and dropping it before dragging Whittaker back to the shelter of the pit. He shouted to Handley, ‘Rammed, aye!’

  Lambert thrust the bayonet into the touchhole and poured powder into the channel. ‘Clear aye!’

  Wayland applied his musket to the touchhole. The trajectory was as flat as it could be. There would be little chance they would escape the recoil of the loose cannon themselves. ‘Firing…’

  The crew dived away from the gun, waiting for Wayland to fire – when they heard a voice in the darkness call out in English.

  ‘Hallo! You in there, m’sieur!’

  The musket held at arm’s length, ready to fire the cannon, Wayland glanced at Handley. ‘What was that?’

  The French had stopped shooting. Wayland and Handley listened.

  ‘We wish to parley! You are English?’

  Wayland looked over the parapet wall and saw them in the wash of light from the bay and the fort, a group of soldiers and sailors, some crouching, some prone. But one man stood out, in naval officer’s uniform. Behind him was a man in a black coat. It was Masson.

  Wayland stood up and looked over the edge of the gun-pit. ‘And who by God are you?’

  The officer waved an arm. ‘I am Lieutenant of the Ordinnateur Maritime, and I wish to offer—’

  But before he could continue Masson raised his pistol and shot Wayland.

  Wayland was in mid fall as Handley caught him, the bullet striking him in the top of the left side of his chest, the blood blooming dark against his shirt as he fell onto the cartridge trunk and dugout wall. ‘Oh God…’

  Handley held him down as they heard the officer shouting at Masson, Coward! Liar! Murderer! But Masson ignored him and called out, ‘En avant!’

  ‘Easy does it, sir…’ gasped Handley.

  ‘Sword…’

  ‘Just a mo’, sir.’ He wiped blood from his eyes, and said to Jonsen, ‘Mister Jonno, if you would be so kind… to give it to ’em, right down their bloody throats…’

  The unmoving Whittaker cradled in one arm, his chest, shoulder and arms torn and bloody, Jonsen took up the fallen musket. ‘Bleedin’ pleasure, ’Andy…’ He reached up, the long Charleville musket shaking, put its muzzle to the touchhole and fired.

  The primer flared, blinding in the dark, and the charge exploded, the gun careening backwards with no restraint, smashing through the opposite parapet wall, crushing the lifeless body of Purdo and two other French dead, spraying its compacted grape-shot over M
asson and his advancing platoon.

  Limbs were carried away by the blast and some victims flew down the incline, one of them headless, the rest flung off their feet, some into the fleeing form of Citizen Masson as he tumbled and rolled down to the beach, crying out, Retreat, retreat!

  Handley pulled the bloodied cravat from Wayland’s neck and looped it under one arm, across his shoulders and over the chest in a makeshift dressing. ‘Well, sir. That was a good day’s work… evened the score a bit, I reckon… How you doin’?’

  ‘Hurts like a bugger, ’Andy,’ gasped Wayland, and tried to laugh.

  Lambert lifted Jonsen onto one elbow by the shattered wheel of the stricken gun carriage. ‘’Andy,’ he wheezed, ‘can’t move. And we got more visitors.’

  Handley looked back into the darkness of the scrub behind them, and saw the shapes of another squad of men running, taking cover, then advancing left and right as they came. He knew at once these were not assorted sailors or artillerymen – they were infantry chasseurs.

  Wayland stared past Handley, trying to sit up, failing, his voice a gasp. ‘Sir Thomas… what of the Culloden…?’

  Handley looked out into the darkness of the bay. The moon was high, the smoke of the battle drifting across its silver face. The smaller Leander had cut Culloden loose and joined the battle, but the Mutine was making her way to Culloden’s side.

  The rattle of muskets banged overhead, running feet drawing closer, hoofbeats making the ground jump, the guns in the bay booming, barking, so many angry dogs at each other’s throats. But the mortars of the fort were silent. Culloden was safe.

  ‘You did it, sir,’ he said, ‘Mortars out of commission…’ He looked out into the night. ‘But I think we’ve ’ad it.’

  ‘I’d bloody say, lad,’ said a voice from behind in the darkness. ‘You babies on shore-leave then?’

  Handley looked into the muzzle of a Wayland-Patent Shorter India. It was Sergeant Jeremiah Underhill. Behind him came Kite, Hesse, Napier, De Lisle, Cochrane and Porter – and, drawing up behind, a very bruised Jory Cook.

 

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