06 A Soldier’s Farewell (Man of Conflict #6)

by Andrew Wareham

  Lieutenant Rowlands found that he was enjoying his existence in Nieuwpoort; he called upon the Mayor every day, mainly as a courtesy but also to discuss the possibility of a militia and to explore whether they might wish to dig an entrenchment beside the roads leading in and out of the town.

  “A simple ditch and bank, sir, sufficient for a soldier to stand behind, and perhaps a chicane on the road itself that would slow any cavalry charge. We do not have it in mind to stand a siege, but the threat of a delay might well be all that was needed to persuade a marching column to turn inland. You are aware of what happened in Spain, of course, sir? Captain Smit served in Spain, sir. No doubt he could tell you of the horrors experienced by the civilian population there.”

  Captain Smit was very persuasive; the Mayor discovered that he did not want a French army of invasion in his town.

  The mayor and burgesses discussed their future and demanded money of every man in town who possessed it, an extraordinary levy for their own protection. They called then for the citizens to come to arms, to form a volunteer gendarmerie, promising his keep and a small wage to every man who stood forward. They followed this with a request to meet with Lord Pearce.

  Septimus was happy to cooperate and expressed his willingness to come to their council chamber, to talk with them all in open session. They responded with a preference for a closed meeting, one which might not be so fully and publicly recorded.

  “Why, Lieutenant Rowlands?”

  “I do not know, not for certain, sir. I have asked Anna-Maria, sir, and she may be able to find out for me.”

  “Whom?”

  “Ah… well, sir, the gentleman has a daughter, sir, a very pretty girl, I think, sir… I have spoken to her on occasion, sir…”

  Rowlands was far too young for courtship – he would not be able to marry for another ten years, if he remained a soldier. He was, however, just at a good age to fall hopelessly in love, and Septimus thought it would do the boy no harm. He wondered just how rich the mayor was – he might be able to find a place in his merchant house for the husband of his only child, and the end of the wars was no time for a young officer to prosper. He could not imagine that Bonaparte could do more than fight a brief campaign before he decorated the scaffold, and after that there would be little of military activity, other than in India where there would be business for an English soldier for many decades. He expected never to go to war again himself – this was to be his last campaign – and he might well be doing Lieutenant Rowlands a favour if he put him in the way of selling out.

  “What an excellent thing, Mr Rowlands. I should be as lucky! Do feel free to speak to the young lady, sir – her father is an ally and well regarded, I assure you.”

  Thus encouraged, Lieutenant Rowlands spent many of his evenings in Anna-Maria’s company and soon was told that her father was in converse with a supplier of certain forms of hardware, a gentleman located in Calais, in fact. He reported back to Septimus the day before that set for his meeting with the mayor and his little assembly.

  “Muskets, I believe, sir. The contents of an arsenal which fell into the merchant’s hands soon after Bonaparte abdicated, my lord. I do not know if there is powder and ball, sir.”

  Septimus hoped there might be – he had far rather spend none of the funds allocated to him on arming the militia. Add to that, if the mayor bought his own guns, there would be no accounting to be made after any new war. All could be done clandestinely, and it would not be possible to accuse him of arming the enemies of the Prince of Orange and his father, much though he wished to do just that.

  “Mr Mayor, thank you for inviting me to your ancient council chamber. I must imagine that you and your predecessors have been meeting here for centuries.”

  “Since time out of mind, milord. This building is in many ways representative of the ancient Burgundy and our freedoms, milord.”

  “As an Englishman, subject to my King but nonetheless a free man, I must sympathise with you, sir.”

  Septimus had worked that sentence out in advance, determined to make a properly ambiguous response to any statement of a desire for independence. Any man could read anything he wished into those words, but a court of law would be hard-pressed to discover treason in them.

  “It is our wish, milord, to create a militia of our free citizenry, for defence against the French, should they march. We have found that some of our people have experience as corporals and sergeants in the recent wars, but we have no officers. We would wish that you might supply us with a captain, say, and a pair of lieutenants. We can make up four hundred muskets, sir, with your permission.”

  Four hundred muskets would be useful, working from a trench at the outskirts of the town. Four large companies, commanded by their own sergeants, the lieutenants to have a pair of companies apiece, the captain in overall command – it could work. Flemish officers could be borrowed from the 4th Regiment, and Rowlands could act as liaison, transmitting his commands and requests to them.

  “I can certainly arrange for the officers to be made available to you, sir. We must specify a uniform for your men, sir, and terms of engagement for them, they being called to serve only in Nieuwpoort and, what shall we say, the surrounding twenty miles?”

  “Ten miles, milord – a day’s easy march, for many of the men will not be of the youngest.”

  “Good point, sir. One I had not considered. The men to sleep and eat in their own homes, except when the assembly is called?”

  “Certainly, milord. Each man to be responsible for his own arms, to keep them with him at all times?”

  “Of course. What arms have you in mind, sir?”

  “I have, milord, made so bold as to have already ordered the consignment of muskets and such to be delivered to us. I expect a coaster to reach us today or tomorrow, milord.”

  “Very good! Is there a Harbourmaster, sir? If so, is he one who will know what to say to four hundred muskets?”

  “Yes to both, milord.”

  “If you have the muskets to hand, then I must discover your officers very quickly, sir. I presume you have it in mind to encourage fast and accurate volley fire, sir?”

  The mayor did not know about that – he would leave such matters to those who had marched to war, which he had not.

  A couple of guineas - actual gold and rare in the later years of the Empire – secured the loyalty of the Harbourmaster. A copy of the Bill of Lading from the ketch reached Septimus’ desk before the cargo had been fully unloaded.

  “Muskets, in boxes, to the weight of two tons. Allowing for Frog muskets to be much the same as the English at ten and a half pounds weight, say two hundred to a ton, with the boxes themselves. That is much as the man said, Mr Rowlands. Powder and ball, five tons. Heavy?”

  “Very much so, my lord. One must imagine that His Worship the Mayor has it in mind to exercise his little battalion in the field.”

  “Quite. Let us see, bales of woollen cloth - suitable for coats, one must assume - in green. Neither British scarlet nor French blue, a wisely neutral choice. Boots, as well. The local people tend to wear clogs, and they are not desirable on the field of battle, as I remember from Denmark. Crossbelts and pouches for four hundred, well thought of. Bayonets, three hundred and eighty; short hangers, presumably to distinguish the sergeants, just twenty. Pistols, heavy – I wonder just how big a bore that implies? Twenty pairs, in holsters. Presumably to match the hangers. Ah! Here we have an answer to the five tons of powder and ball, Mr Rowlands! Two-pound trench guns, a score of them. That suggests the hangers and pistols are for their gunners, just one to each piece. What, precisely, is a trench gun, one wonders?”

  Lieutenant thought the answer to be obvious – a very small cannon.

  “A cannon, on a carriage? A mortar on its base? An oversize musket, not unlike a duck gun? A naval swivel gun, even, perched on a pole mounting? There have been literally dozens of such ideas, Mr Rowlands. I have come across very few of them outside the pages of the pamphlets advocati
ng their adoption. We must arrange to inspect them; you never know, they might be a very good idea.”

  The trench guns were rather disappointing, Septimus felt, being little more than a small-scale copy of the naval carronade on a portable slide. They were to fire grapeshot, sixteen two- ounce balls, which would be disconcerting to an attacker, he admitted, and their barrels were no more than two feet long, permitting a rapid reload. They could be valuable to a company defending a trench, which was, after all, their designed purpose, and a farm cart could carry four or five and their munitions; they could be useful to companies of guerrilleros, he supposed, such as had fought so hard in Spain.

  “Defending a town, milord, they could be set at street corners to great effect, firing and withdrawing, time after time.”

  Septimus admitted that they could be very useful, used properly. He only admitted his reservations when he had returned to the solitude of his rooms later in the day.

  “By spring, Mr Rowlands, we shall have a vigorous, even if slightly elderly, militia and three battalions of well-trained infantry to be our foot. A little more than two and a half thousand of muskets. Which is a useful force. There will be a regiment of dragoons, thin, but active. To top all off, two batteries of horse artillery, and Captain Forsythe’s latest letter states that he hopes to put eighty working horses aboard ship by the end of the month. A brigade of three thousand active men, which is something in itself. It is a respectable fighting force, but I wish that I could be entirely certain who they will fight for. Of the three thousand, not less than one half have fought for Bonaparte, a charlatan and a mountebank, we must say, but one who could engage the loyalty of soldiers in an almost unprecedented fashion; they have all changed their coats, but have they turned their heads round as well? The half remaining have not fought at all, and have had only very few months to put their minds to the business; when the first cannon fires a number may well discover that they would prefer to be at home instead. Of the officers, Mr Rowlands, too many are privileged little boys who believe that war is about heroism and glory, and by God, it is not!”

  Rowlands had seen little of war, but he had watched men die after being shot in the belly; he had no belief in glory, but he understood Septimus to be a hero.

  “Pistol in hand and shouting defiance, Mr Rowlands? It sounds more than it really is, you know. The only place for an officer – or, indeed, a man – is at the front when it comes to battle. And that is not done by choice – the trumpets and bugles blow and your feet carry you forward, before you have thought about the matter. I think it’s something in the balls, you know, not in the brain – you see the same sort of thing in cavalry chargers, they hear the trumpets and rear up ready to go. What I am saying, is that being the hero is not really something special, it’s in most men, just waiting for the right chance to come out. Most officers know that, inside themselves. There are a few fools who think that it has to be forced, who dash unnecessarily into danger to prove themselves, and they normally die, which is no loss, but they too often kill others who have to obey their orders, and that is a shameful thing.”

  Rowlands was fascinated; he had never managed to get Septimus to talk about the actual business of being a soldier.

  “What of the coward, sir? Do they exist?”

  “I sometimes think that the boys who go shouting into danger are fearful that they might be cowards, Mr Rowlands. I have met cowards, they do exist, but not for long. The men, Mr Rowlands, they know their officers and will not tolerate a yellow streak. Bullies and cowards - not one and the same thing, by a long way - do not last when it comes to battle, Mr Rowlands. I have seen more than one vicious officer go down, shot in the back by his own people. I have, on one occasion, given the orders that would expose the officer to that fate, expecting it to happen. No loss. I have met cowards in the ranks as well, of course, again only rarely, but they do exist; normally again, they do not last long. I much suspect that for every coward I have come across, I have seen ten and more of heroes – the yellow flag is rare, Mr Rowlands, most uncommon, always a surprise when one comes across it.”

  “What do you think will happen when the new officers go to war, sir? The ones you call the privileged boys, that is?”

  “Most will fight. Some will run, for having no experienced senior to follow. That’s the reason for dashing forward waving pistols and sword, you know, Mr Rowlands – it ain’t to scare the Frogs – they don’t frighten at all easily – it’s to show your own people a lead. The best war cry of all, you know, is ‘Faster – keep up with me you lazy buggers!’ Come-ons and Go-ons – the two sorts of officers. Always be a Come-on, and your men will follow you to the gates of hell, and through them if you go first.”

  Rowlands was impressed – he would never be any other sort, he knew now.

  “Mind you, what I’m worried about – two things in fact – is that some of the pampered little princes will shout ‘follow me’ as they run to the rear, while the old hands lead their people forward to hand them back to Bonaparte. I hope it won’t happen – but I’m a long way from certain!”

  The brigade settled to work over the winter and into spring, their musketry improving steadily, to Septimus’ loudly expressed satisfaction.

  “Whoever we fight, men, we will beat them with three volleys a minute. Russians, Prussians or French, or bloody Chinese for that matter! We shall show them that the soil of Flanders does not belong to them, and they should keep their dirty feet off it.”

  The battalions listened, and none of them publicly disagreed with him, but he wondered just how well they received such an exhortation from an Englishman.

  Towards the end of the winter a naval frigate berthed in Nieuwpoort and Daddy Hill stepped ashore, ‘just come a-visiting as he happened to be passing by in the German Ocean’.

  Septimus started to laugh, rapidly joined by his lordship.

  “The Prince of Orange, my lord?”

  “The remarkably indignant Prince of Orange, heir to the Dutch-Belgic throne and who knows what else, Lord Pearce. My word, sir, you seem to have made a very thorough job of stepping on his toes!”

  “I was perhaps a little less than tactful, my lord. Most importantly, I suspect, I was witness to him falling to a fit of the mother – a truly hysterical seizure, my lord. He reacted to being thwarted in his wishes by throwing the most almighty temper tantrum I have ever seen. He should not be allowed to hold command, my lord – he will rage and make decisions by random whim rather than by rational thought.”

  Daddy Hill grimaced, unwilling to think ill of any man.

  “I saw him in Spain, Lord Pearce. His Grace of Wellington kept him at his side rather than permit him any independent command – and it was not for love of his company, that I assure you. But, he is the heir to the throne and this is his kingdom, or will be, and he must be permitted command. The Duke of York is insistent that we must have a force holding the coast, irrespective of the Prince’s vagaries – and it is a certainty now that the Emperor will return. It is impossible to keep him on Elba, and probably undesirable – he should never have been sent there. The French King refuses to understand that it is so and will be probably the only man in Europe to be surprised when the Corsican returns, and he will demand the decree of outlawry be enforced, which is not the wisest of actions.”

  “Then why, my lord?”

  “The Tsar demands it; the Emperor of Austria insists upon it; the Prince Regent thinks it best that no leeway be given to republicans, or any forces opposed to hereditary monarchy. Prinny, one is told, is indignant that there can be any vulgar considerations of merit when it comes to monarchy; he is at best agnostic, except when it comes to the Divine Right of Kings.”

  “Then there will be another war, but this time of short duration, my lord. Bonaparte cannot hope to prevail against the forces that must march on his return.”

  Lord Hill agreed, but felt that the problem was that they were applying rational analysis to the situation.

  “The Emperor
believes in his own military genius, Lord Pearce. So, I might add, does Slender Billy. The Emperor further is convinced that the four nations, Russia, Austria, Prussian and Britain, will be unable to fight under unified command and their alliance will inevitably fall apart – to the extent that he will be able to form an agreement with Austria that will allow him to remain on the throne of France, the Low Countries and Northern Italy.”

  Septimus raised an eyebrow, asked for further elucidation.

  “Napoleon is convinced that he needs fight only a single battle in the Low Countries; a defeat for Britain and Prussia, and the Austrians – who are linked to him by marriage - will call for negotiations and bring Russia to the table. Britain will retreat across the sea, and Europe will be parcelled up to the satisfaction of the three. Russia will be given Sweden and Norway and will gain access to the Atlantic, which she so much desires. Prussia’s wings will be clipped, and Austria and France will ally to drive the Ottoman out of Europe and extend their influence into the East, taking the whole of the Levant and probably Egypt, eventually stretching out to India to the east and Morocco in the west.”

  “Is that an Austrian ambition, my lord?”

  “It will be, if the Emperor Napoleon sits his throne again, Lord Pearce.”

  “Then he must not win his single victory in the Low Countries, Lord Hill.”

  “He must not indeed! We cannot send more troops to you, Lord Pearce – too many are in America still and those we have must go to the Army around Brussels. The Duke of Wellington will leave the Conference at Vienna the moment word reaches him that the Emperor has left Elba, and he must have troops to hand when he reaches Brussels. You will be forced to make do with the men you have. Are they reliable?”