The Blooding of Jack Absolute

by C. C. Humphreys

  The French came on.

  The voice that had commanded spoke again now, quieter yet still with the force to reach them. Jack could hear the same, single word echoing down the red ranks of the nearest regiments.

  ‘Steady.’

  The French came on. Less than ninety yards now. Some of them had reloaded, or held their fire, for bullets still zinged around and three men away from Jack a Redcoat cried out, fell forward, lay silent.

  ‘Steady, lads! Aim low.’

  The weight of the musket! Jack had always presented, fired, shouldered, he had never held it out like this, for this amount of time, waiting, waiting. He could not help the shudder that came. He needed no encouragement to aim low; he thought he might discharge into the ground.

  On it rolled, the white wave. Seventy yards now. Sixty.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ he whispered fiercely, ‘Come to Nancy Dawson.’

  MacDonald suddenly called out, ‘Platoon, oblique right,’ and Jack’s company shifted and he with it, their left foot fixed, the right moving a half pace back. Now they were pointing their muzzles not dead ahead, where the French ranks were more frayed, but into the column sides of the Bearn regiment to their right.

  Down the line on either side, platoon fire commenced, the smaller units of the regiments alternating their fire in well-co-ordinated drill. Still, the British centre held, both breath and bullet.

  Fifty. Forty-five.

  ‘Steady. Steady.’ A terrible pause. ‘Fire!’

  With what relief did Jack squeeze the trigger. The pan flashed, he felt the jerk as the weapon recoiled, as the lead left his barrel. He had aimed at a specific man but the flash that seared his vision took away any chance of noting success. All was lost in smoke again, British smoke this time, and when that began to fray and separate into tendrils and wisps that rose and dispersed, it revealed carnage.

  The front ranks of the French columns had been torn down, shredded full six men deep. All order was gone, those that still stood were isolated islands of white, three men here, one there. Jack saw an officer, hatless, blood running down his face, his sword-tip on the ground, mouthing commands that would not turn to sound.

  It was a calm English voice that pierced the strange silence: ‘Prepare to load.’

  The sergeants’ and subalterns’ cries of ‘Half-cock your firelock,’ just preceded a wail from the French army that sounded as if it came from one voice, from one savaged animal. With it the men in white turned and ran.

  ‘They are broken. By God, they flee!’ Brigadier Murray had run up to the colonel of the Seventy-eighth, Fraser. He had lost his hat and his bald head was flushed. ‘After them, sir. Rout them!’

  The Highlanders needed no second bidding. ‘A Fraser!’ went the cry down the ranks, muskets were swiftly slung, claymores drawn. Jack, swordless, was nevertheless as excited as the rest and, as his platoon began to surge after the fleeing French, he took a pace forward with them. Only a pace, before a hand grabbed him by the collar, jerked him back.

  ‘Absolute. Absolute!’

  Jack wriggled in the grasp, wanting to be away. The French were fleeing and he had to be there to share in their slaughter. He might not have one of the Scots’ fearsome swords. But hadn’t that Yorkshireman told him that a bayonet had a better reach anyway? Hadn’t he already killed a Frog bastard with one today?

  But MacDonald’s hand would not be dislodged. He jerked Jack round to face him. ‘Listen to me. Listen! I was told to mind ye and I will. You’ve done your duty and had your share of the kill. But you were ordered to bear this news to the general, were you not?’ He pulled Jack around till he could see the standards. ‘To them, laddie. There lies your duty. Whereas mine …’ He drew his own claymore and, with a shout of ‘A MacDonald!’, took off after his men.

  ‘You there. You, Absolute!’

  Colonel Hale of the 43rd had called him. Reluctantly, Jack took a step towards him.

  ‘You must to the general. There he is, on his rise. Tell him the French flee everywhere and Murray leads the Seventy-eighth to seize the bridge on the Charles and cut them off. And tell him …’ Hale stepped away, revealing a body on the ground. It was General Monckton, eyes widened in pain, his waistcoat a bloodied mess, bubbles rising from the oozing red. ‘Tell him of this as well.’ He slapped Jack’s shoulder, startling him from his stare. ‘Go on, Absolute. To Wolfe.’

  Jack was reluctant on the first step, less so on the subsequent one. Suddenly, the joy of his mission came to him. He would tell Wolfe the news. The French flee. The battle is won. An Absolute would bring colour to that pale face.

  Jack ran between the living and the dead, towards a cluster of red on Wolfe’s Rise. When he reached it, he tried to pass between two men, but they closed together, stepped forward. Everyone appeared to be looking down at something fascinating at the centre of the circle.

  A cry came. ‘Room, gentlemen, I implore you. Step back!’

  Jack slipped through. Beyond the backs of the crowd of men, there was a little circle of churned earth. In the centre of that lay Wolfe.

  He was propped up against the legs of a kneeling grenadier, another of the same regiment standing near. A surgeon’s mate was fussing at Wolfe’s shirt, trying to part material soaked in blood; but even as Jack stepped through he saw Wolfe lift a hand and wave away the attempt, heard him murmur, ‘I tell you, it is all done with me. Let be!’

  Jack threw himself down. ‘Sir! General! The French run.’

  The eyes did not open but the slightest of smiles came. ‘I have heard. God be praised, for I die in peace.’ With that, his head rolled down, his body sagged, folding around the supporting legs as if all bone had gone out of it.

  ‘But, sir! I bring other news. Monckton is wounded, perhaps dead and … and …’

  The grenadier who’d supported the body now stood, laying Wolfe carefully down as he did. ‘He’s beyond your words, lad, good or ill. He’s gone.’

  ‘But I have a message for him, from Colonel Hale! He needs to know … to know …’

  Another grenadier, an officer, now spoke. ‘What’s that? Monckton down as well?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Badly wounded at the least.’

  ‘Then that means Townshend’s in command, God help us.’ He hauled Jack to his feet by his cross belt. ‘He’ll need to be told. He commands on the left wing. To him, lad, and tell him of this,’ he gestured down to Wolfe’s body, ‘while I carry out my general’s last command to rout the enemy before it is countermanded. Drummer,’ he bellowed, turning back to his regiment. ‘Advance the Louisbourg Grenadiers! Come! Let’s course these hares back to France! Halloo!’

  The group around the corpse began to separate, dispersing to their duties, to the imperatives of victory. Jack took a step, then another, though he could not yet bring himself to look where he needed to go, still stared at Wolfe’s face, calmer than he had ever seen it, less pale too. Colour had come to it in the time before he died though Jack didn’t think he could claim the credit for that.

  At last he turned, began again to run. Drums and fife were sounding the order for a general pursuit and the soldiers, reined in by discipline, now let out a roar. For near three months they’d got the worst of every encounter with their enemy. Now the foe had shown them their heels, they were all for treading on them fast.

  Jack’s own flew. The musket banged against his thighs as he ran until he grabbed its stock, his tricorn seemed determined to slide from his head so he let it, letting his free arm now pump, helping to drive him across the Plains of Abraham. Up ahead were the standards of the 15th and 60th Foot, refused along the Sainte Foy road. General Townshend would be under them.

  He was. Jack had covered the thousand yards fast and was feeling it when he spotted the new commander of the British forces. He was standing on the cupped hands of two grenadiers, cursing them continuously as he tried to point his wavering telescope toward the chaos of the battlefield.

  He came down instantly on hearing of Jack’s arrival a
nd listened while Jack tried to give him the news from the field and Wolfe’s last commands. But the breathless delivery was not swift enough for him. Once he knew he was in command that was all he needed.

  ‘Pursuit? Scatter my men between here and the city when we do not know what reserves Montcalm has waiting there? This runnin’ off could be a ruse to lure us into an ambush.’

  The Colonel of the 15th stepped forward. ‘With respect, sir, General Wolfe seemed to believe that Montcalm had committed all his forces. He thought to—’

  ‘Wolfe is dead,’ Townshend barked loudly. ‘Monckton is dying. So we cannot know what either would have thought. We can only know what I think! Eh? Eh?’ He glared at the officer who dutifully dropped his gaze. ‘We know that Bougainville and the rest of the French army will be marching to attack me in the rear from Sainte Foy. With my men scattered we could be caught between them. So call ’em back. Call ’em all back, by God, including Murray and those damned Jacobites of the Seventy-eighth.’

  Officers nodded, commanded, men began to run along the road toward the gunfire. ‘Who holds our rear?’

  His ADC answered. ‘Colonel Howe and his light infantry.’

  ‘Not enough. Tell Ralph Burton to take his Forty-eighth to reinforce ’em. And you, Westminster lad.’ He turned to Jack who’d been regaining his breath. ‘Oh yes, I know you, you puppy. You were with Howe up the cliffs, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I—’

  Townshend waved impatiently. ‘Well, go find him now. Tell him to hold Bougainville till we join him. We’re on our way. Go!’

  Jack turned and began to run. Again. ‘My kingdom for a horse,’ he muttered. He’d thought he was there to fight but his superiors only seemed to want to make use of his legs.

  At least Billy Howe had other ideas.

  ‘Ah, uh, Abercrombie!’ he drawled as Jack ran up to him, having sought him for above half an hour amongst the trees on the edge of the plain. ‘What news?’

  It was swiftly given, the fleeing French, even the word of Wolfe’s death causing only the barest crack in the colonel’s imperturbability. The only thing that ruffled him was Townshend’s command.

  ‘Hold? With what, pray?’ He snorted. ‘I’ve three companies of men scattered through this wood and that,’ he cocked an ear toward the forest, ‘is Colonel Bougainville approaching.’

  Jack listened too, could indeed hear the drumming. The trees muffled the sound but they could not be far off. Clearer than that though, and thus nearer, were the high ululations Jack had heard intermittently throughout the day.

  Howe observed him shudder. ‘Yes, my man. Take care you don’t fall in with those fellows. Your pretty hair will look very fetching at some squaw’s lodge post.’ He turned. ‘Sergeant McBride?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Send word to the Sixtieth to leave the head of the Foulon Road and join us here. We’ll let these savages have the edge of the woods but the French regulars will have to come along the road. And that’s where we’ll take ’em.’ He rose, lifting his musket. ‘Coming, Archer?’

  ‘That’s Absolute, sir,’ Jack muttered to the back moving away from him.

  As they climbed the slight rise, the sound of the Native cries got fainter while the drum beats became clearer. Gaining the height, the road lay beneath them. ‘First company onto the road. Second and Third up here. Open ranks, Sergeant,’ Howe called. As the three companies, ninety men or so, spread out along the edge of the bluff and on the road, Jack suddenly tilted his head toward the sound of the drums. There was something else underneath it, a different sound.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Aren’t those … hoofbeats?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so. Not a cavalry regiment in Canada, more’s the pity.’ Then he suddenly looked quizzical. ‘No, wait, I think someone did mention that Montcalm had perhaps a few …’

  From around the wooded bend burst men … on horses. Not a few either; at least two hundred in blue coats and bearskin caps and each one brandishing a sabre.

  ‘Present! Fire at will!’ Howe shouted but his words were lost in the noise of the charge, of cavalrymen yelling, horses snorting, the English soldiers’ ragged discharge and their screams as those on the road were ridden down. The shots from the rise drew the Frenchmen’s attention but its puny slopes provided no protection, the horses were at the top in a moment.

  Jack had fired, missed he was sure, dropped down and reached for a cartridge; but a horse cleared the ridge above him and he could feel the animal’s heat as it passed over him. The rider slashed down at Jack with his sabre, just missing him, then his horse’s momentum carried him past. There were easier victims for them there, six men had broken at the sight of the enemy and were seeking to run for the woods, which were too far away. They were hunted down, slashed, impaled, trampled. Then the cavalryman who had just missed Jack turned and began to gallop back towards him.

  There was little time to think, enough only to run or to fight, and Jack had had enough of running for the day and had just seen what happened to those who did. Beside him, Billy Howe’s Light Infantry now had bayonets fixed, the man himself waving two pistols. Jack remembered reading that cavalry against scattered light infantry usually led to the latter being massacred. But the Yorkshireman aboard ship had assured him that a man with a bayonet on his muzzle could outreach any man with a sword.

  Even one on a horse? Jack thought, in the moment before the cavalry swept towards him. The French trooper who’d missed him before drove hard at him now, and Jack leapt to one side to dodge the horse’s chest, then to the other as the sword swept down. Spinning round, he stabbed up with the bayonet at the man’s leg, missed it, stabbed saddle. Jerking the point out, he was just in time to knock aside a second cut. Metal screeched on metal, the man cursed something unintelligible, jerked the reins, bringing his mount sharply up onto its rear legs. Hooves flailed out, Jack just dodging them. They crashed down and the rider fell slightly forward onto his horse’s neck, just a little. Just enough.

  ‘Yah!’ yelled Jack, thrusting up, the triangular blade sticking the rider just below his waistcoat. He screamed, raised his sword to cut down at Jack once more, so Jack shoved harder, pushing in the bayonet point with all his force behind it. The scream went into a higher pitch, he jerked the reins and his horse’s hoofs scrambled for purchase before powering him away, sucking Jack’s musket with them.

  Weaponless, he turned, looked along the line of the rise. Just below him, Billy Howe shot a man even as he raised his sword. The weapon fell backwards, stuck, point first, into the soft earth at Jack’s feet. In a moment, he had it in his hand. The cavalryman followed his weapon, thumping into the earth, and suddenly, just beneath Jack, there was an empty saddle. All he had to do was fall onto it.

  His arse hit the leather, his feet found the stirrups – a little high-set for he was taller than the Frenchman – one hand grabbed the reins. The horse tried to throw him, bucking and spinning. But he had had the mastery of horses since he was five and he soon had this one. To his left, three Frenchmen had surrounded the ensign and he was flailing his spontoon around him in a circle to keep them off. Driving his heels into the horse’s flanks, Jack drove it along the ridge-line. He had spent three months in London with the Dragoons training for just such a fight.

  ‘Bastards,’ he yelled, drawing their attention, enough for the ensign to thrust the spear up into the chest of one of them. The two others jerked reins around to face Jack but he’d gathered speed, even in that short space and they were not ready for him. He passed between them, his sword whirling above his head; one ducked, one didn’t. With a yelp, the survivor put heels to his horse and fled.

  In fact, he joined the column of French troops as they hurtled back down the road. They hadn’t been beaten – the red dead outnumbered the blue – but something else had clearly spooked them. And then, with gaps opened between them and the surviving light infantry, Jack saw and heard what it was.

  ‘Sixt
ieth, prepare to fire. Fire!’

  A solid red line had advanced. Several more horses and men fell, Billy Howe’s command let out a cheer and Jack, waving his captured sabre around his head, carried on with huzzah after huzzah.

  Until a nasal drawl intruded. ‘Yes, that will do, Aspinall. That will do.’

  Jack looked down. Howe was stood before him, distaste on his long thin face.

  ‘That’s Absolute, you donkey’s arse!’ he screamed. ‘Jack Absolute! Mad Jamie’s boy!’ And with that he kicked hard at the horse’s flanks and gave the beast its head. It took off after its companions.

  He’d missed one pursuit and he was not going to miss another! If he was the only cavalryman King George had in Canada then, by God, he was going to honour his branch of the service! He yelled, ‘View halloooo!’ and the sound appeared to give the blue coats ahead some extra speed. Jack slapped the sword flat across his horse’s rump and it responded, carrying Jack around the wooded bend just behind the nearest Frenchie. One more push and he’d reach forward and just flick him out of his saddle …

  He rounded the bend. A regiment was drawn up there in open order. White uniforms. Their mounted countrymen streamed down between their files.

  ‘Oops,’ cried Jack, reining in so sharply he nearly flew over his horse’s neck. Yelling men were running towards him and, whirling his sword over them, he just managed to regain control before they reached him. Kicking again, he drove into the tree line.

  The wood was thin at its edge and he swiftly outdistanced the footed pursuit. It thickened more the deeper in he went, forcing him to walk, sometimes to stop to pick a way forward. It was dark, the maples’ leaves, just beginning their slide to crimson but plentiful on the branch, blocking out much of the light. Clouds had come too, bringing a scent of rain.

  He listened. The silence was deep, unsettling after the battle. In the distance shots came, some shouting; but it was as if he heard it all through a bolster. The horse pranced nervously to the side, jerking its head up and down, and he had to sheathe his sword now, use both hands to control it. He tapped his heels, steered the horse to his left. Towards the east, he hoped. It seemed to be a little fuller of the morning light.