by Dudley Pope
“Very well,” Ramage said, “the main thing is that we don’t kill each other accidentally. We all have watches, and the bonfire means we can see the time.” He took out his watch and saw it wanted three-quarters of an hour to midnight.
“We’ll allow an hour and a quarter for us to get into position. So at half past midnight, the moment you hear three musket shots one after another at one-second intervals, you all open fire. The three shots should be enough to make the sleepers and the drunks sit up to see what’s going on, providing you with more targets, and reveal where the sentries are. One hundred and eighty musket balls, followed by one hundred and eighty pistol balls, should kill a few, because Rennick’s Marines have only forty muskets and forty pistols to bring down the rest.”
“That’s only four hundred and forty shots, sir, and you said there are five hundred rebels and privateersmen!” Aitken said.
“True enough,” Ramage said with mock seriousness, “but you speak as a seaman. Rennick’s sea soldiers reckon to make one ball go through at least two men at night and three in daylight.
“Now, I want the second company of Marines under the sergeant to go to the rear of our column, then we’ll be approaching in the order we attack. Your company will be to the south, Rennick, at the end of the bonfire, then mine, then Baker, Lacey, Kenton and Wagstaffe, who will be roughly in the middle, then Aitken, with the sergeant and the second company of Marines beyond. Any questions or suggestions?”
The earth was baked as hard as pottery by scorching sun, with no rain for many days, and (it seemed to Ramage) liberally covered with small, sharp rocks that dug into hips and elbows and made cutlass-hilts clank with the slightest movement.
Ramage pulled out his watch and held it up so that he could read the dial by the light of the great long bonfire burning less than a hundred yards away. Twenty minutes past twelve; ten minutes to wait. His wrists seemed swollen to twice their normal size, the flesh itching in a fiery torture, and mosquitoes were landing boldly on his face.
The bonfire was a good twenty yards long, but low now, the rebels had obviously started off with a great blaze in the afternoon and then kept it stoked so that the whole mass glowed red, just right for roasting. Dozens of shadowy figures moved about, lit up by flames spurting up from time to time as more tree branches and brushwood were flung on.
Many rebels were lying on the ground, holding out long sticks—they might well be boarding-pikes—with cuts of meat cooking on the end, like men fishing from a river bank. There were few sentries; Ramage could see only one in front of his position, a man squatting down with a musket clasped in his arms.
The rebels were drinking—one could see bottles being passed round, and men were occasionally filling jugs from some casks propped up clear of the ground, well to windward of the flames. Occasionally they burst into snatches of revolutionary songs, but the heat, the wine, the mosquitoes and sheer sleepiness seemed to be draining their martial ardour. As far as Ramage could make out, only a quarter of the rebels were actually asleep, dark shadows lying like sheep in a meadow forty yards or so in front of the bonfire.
He wriggled and carefully moved a sharp stone that was numbing his left thigh. He looked at his watch again. Only three minutes had passed. He was sure that if he looked again he’d find the watch was going backwards. Jackson was lying to his left, musket in front of him, the butt ready to slide against his shoulder; Stafford was to his right, with Rossi beyond. The rest of the men were lying to left and right, so that Ramage was in the middle of the line, the best place to shout orders both ways.
Rennick and one company of Marines should be hidden over there on the left, to one side of the bonfire, while Baker, Lacey, Wagstaffe and Kenton were on the right, parallel with the bonfire, with Aitken at the end and the Marine sergeant’s company along the right-hand edge. There had been no messengers so he presumed they were in position. He had shocked Rennick by saying he did not want runners bringing messages that all was well; that they should be reserved for bad news. Every movement risked them being spotted by the rebels, so—
“Qui vive?”
The challenge was from over to the right, in front of Baker’s company.
“Qui va là?”
The French sentry, obviously a privateersman, sounded certain that he had spotted someone.
Then Ramage saw the sentry: he was standing bolt upright, staring into the darkness, a darkness which was emphasized by the light of the bonfire behind him. Then suddenly the man raised his musket to his shoulder and fired.
At once scores of rebels began rousing themselves in front of the fire. Now for the signal!
“Jackson, Stafford, Rossi … We’ll attack now. Ready, Jackson? Fire! … Stafford, fire! . . Rossi, fire!”
To Ramage’s right the British muskets fired in a ragged drum-roll with the muzzle flashes flickering like summer lightning. Against the bonfire he saw men collapsing like half-filled sacks tossed from a granary steps, while others went down flat in a dive, showing they were unwounded and seeking safety.
Ramage had a pistol in each hand as he scrambled up and began to run towards the fire. “Forward, men! Pistols when you’re within range, then cutlass and pike!”
He was shrieking with excitement, but he knew it; there was no need for self-control now—he wanted his one hundred and eighty men to rout five hundred, and an excited, shouting and howling dash might do it!
Jackson to one side, Stafford the other—and out of the corner of his eye he could see a dark line rising up on his right and sweeping forward. Ahead there were fast-moving shapes against the flames and red glow: startled rebels scrambling up, flashes here and there as flames reflected on sword blades. A few flashes from pistols or muskets, but Ramage knew they must be through the line of sentries.
Cock the left pistol, now the right; cutlass slapping against his left leg. Don’t trip and sprain an ankle. Paolo somewhere over to the right, with Aitken, and for Gianna’s sake … but the boy was excitable and keen and likely to run ahead of the rest.
Some of the rebels crouching now, aiming pistols: several tiny eyes winking in red flashes which only the targets saw. Thirty yards—too far for half-drunk, drowsy and frightened men to aim accurately. And the rebels are half-blinded anyway because they have been in the bright light of the bonfire for hours while the British, the targets, are sweeping in from a dark background.
The smell of roast beef makes the feeling of hunger nudge out fear. They are all running towards rebels with pistols but the British seamen are still obeying orders to hold their fire to be sure of hitting: it takes several moments for an excited man to stop running, aim with any accuracy, and then fire.
A crackling to his right: some of the seamen are firing their pistols. And now movement on the left of the bonfire. Like maggots squirming in rotten meat, dozens of rebels are bolting round the left-hand edge of the bonfire, yelling and tripping, some swaying because they are too drunk to do anything more than follow their friends. In a few moments they will run into a murderous fire from Rennick’s Marines. Yes, there go the muskets.
But still there are scores of men in front of the bonfire; men who are not bolting. Far too many for playing around with pistols, he decided, and jamming them back in his waistband as he ran he grabbed his cutlass.
Ten yards to the first men: smells of roast beef, garlic, spilled wine and urine, and the almost aromatic smell of woodsmoke. One man crouching with a pistol, another half cowering with a cutlass, as though trapped by fellow privateersmen each side and the bonfire behind, a dozen more each side ready to fight and Jackson and Stafford shouting wild threats at the top of their voices as they run and Rossi screaming most of the curses developed over the centuries in a country renowned for its blasphemy.
And then—the first man was thick-set, a round head on broad shoulders with no neck, face shiny from the heat, eyes dark holes because the bonfire was behind him. His arm swung out sideways, sword blade flashing in the flames, a great scything movement
as he tried to cut Ramage down in a blow which should have decapitated him.
Ramage thrust his sword upwards across his body, deflecting the Frenchman’s blade high into the air and bringing the two men face to face, bodies touching. Foul breath, the stench of stale wine, a piggish face unshaven for days, and Ramage chopped his sword down diagonally again and the man grunted as he fell, blood spurting from his neck.
A moment later a metallic flash warned Ramage of a sword thrust coming from his right. He parried, fighting sideways to avoid standing with his back to more privateersmen between him and the bonfire. This man was big, his face brutish, and he was dressed in the remnants of an officer’s uniform. His mouth was moving; Ramage sensed rather than heard in the uproar that the man was cursing him.
A sudden downward slash—a typical sabre blow. The man knew something of swordplay, and Ramage held up his blade horizontally, covering his head and shoulders in the classic parry of quinte. Ramage lunged at the man’s chest but his sword jarred against the parry of prime. The Frenchman was a moment late as Ramage switched to the most basic of all positions, called by the fencing masters “Hit with the point,” and a moment later Ramage was dragging at the sword as the Frenchman, the point of the cutlass into his chest just where the ribs divided, collapsed on top of him. The man was too big for Ramage to avoid; together they landed heavily on the ground and a winded Ramage found himself gasping desperately for breath. The pain in his stomach was agonizing, but after a few moments he managed to roll clear of the Frenchman, his cutlass gone and feeling his stomach for the wound. There was none; the only dampness was from perspiration, not blood, and the pain was from the winding.
A moment later Jackson was beside him, helping him to his feet, not asking questions which required breath to answer: Ramage was alive and unwounded.
“My cutlass,” Ramage gasped, and Jackson wrenched one from the dying Frenchman’s hands.
Then Ramage was on his feet again, conscious of the scorching heat of the bonfire, but realizing that there were no more rebels between him and the great bed of glowing red embers; instead, muskets were crackling at either end—the two companies of Marines were firing into the Frenchmen as they fled to leeward, to the west, away from Amsterdam.
This was a vital moment, and Ramage was glad to see that his six companies—now scattered men but forming a phalanx—had remembered their orders not to chase helter-skelter after fleeing Frenchmen because this would risk them being shot down by the Marines. In the first rush of fleeing Frenchmen the Marines must have a clear field of fire.
He listened and the shooting was dying down at each end: the Marines had used both muskets and pistols. Now was the time for the chase, using only cutlass or pike.
“Calypsos,” he bawled, and the shout was taken up along the line as the men, hearing the single word that told them the chase had begun, started running round the bonfire, shouting as they went.
As he began to run, leading the way round the left end of the bonfire, Ramage saw for the first time that scores of bodies were lying like stooks of corn scattered by a sudden storm. Then, with his company round him, men still bellowing “Calypsos! Calypsos!” he passed the end of the bonfire and plunged into the darkness, momentarily blinded and instantly aware that the French now had the advantage, with their pursuers outlined against the bonfire’s glow. It was only a glow now, enormous but throwing none of the bright flames made by new branches flaring in the enormous heat.
He ran and caught up with more men wearing white bands round their heads, men in Marine uniforms. Then he heard Rennick’s voice bellowing orders. There was no clash of steel; although the Marines were trotting along purposefully, there were no groups of men fighting.
“Rennick! Rennick!”
“Here, sir!”
And there was Rennick facing him, his chubby face even redder in the glow of the fire, eyes sparkling, a great grin showing he was enjoying himself. “Afraid they can run faster than us, sir!”
Chase them in the darkness while the rebels were disorganized? Or wait for daylight, by which time they would have sorted themselves out? By now the odds were more equal, and there was no chance of the rebels attacking Amsterdam. So he would wait for daylight.
“Have the trumpeter recall our men,” Ramage told Rennick.
“We’ll catch up with those rebels in daylight. Now we’ll attend to the wounded.”
Back on the windward side of the bonfire Ramage was appalled at what he saw: no mad painter’s portrayal of the entrance to hell could be more gory or more terrifying: there were at least a hundred bodies sprawled in a band the length of the bonfire, perhaps fifteen yards, and ten yards wide.
Here and there a wounded man moved; at least one was trying to crawl from under two bodies collapsed across him. Kenton was quietly vomiting, but Aitken stood beside Ramage with Baker, who said bitterly: “Perhaps I’d feel differently if I hadn’t been on board the Tranquil. Those women lying there, their clothes torn and their throats cut: I’ll never forget that. In fact—” he was staring at the wounded—”I could cut some throats myself and never feel an ounce of guilt.”
Kenton had joined them in time to hear Baker’s last words. “I’d help you, even if I’ve just been sick. This is nothing compared to the Tranquil. There the people looked as though they’d been murdered in their own homes. Here—well, it’s a battlefield.”
“And, young man,” Aitken said, “let this be a warning: proper lookouts would have saved most of these men from our attack.”
“True, very true,” Rennick said judicially. “The sentries should have been at least two hundred yards away. The two I saw with my night-glass were taking a pull from a bottle every five minutes or so. The one who raised the alarm probably noticed a single man and was so drunk he thought he could see twenty!”
By now all the seamen and Marines had returned. “Form your men up,” Ramage ordered. “Check that none is missing.” He raised his voice: “My company fall in here!”
There was Jackson, grimy and bloodstained, and Stafford. And Rossi, looking like the flayer in a slaughterhouse. Paolo raced up and stood to attention in front of Ramage. Even before the boy spoke, Ramage saw the dark stains on the cutlass he held in one hand and the blade of the midshipman’s dirk in the other.
“Sir!” he said, and when Ramage nodded he announced: “I killed two, sir.”
“Main-gauche?” Ramage enquired.
“The second one; not the first, sir.”
“Very good; I presume you missed with your pistol, but you must practise. Now rejoin your company.”
“Mama mia,” Rossi murmured. “In Volterra he had the good education.”
“Wot’s a ‘man goes?’” Stafford enquired.
“Is when you have a dagger in the left hand and a sword in the right. The minute you get the other man’s sword pointing away from you and him off the balance, you slip in the dagger.”
“Well I never!” Stafford’s amazement was quite genuine. “Wot a good idea. Why don’t we use ‘man goes?’”
Jackson surveyed the pile of bodies. “Savin’ Mr Orsini’s presence, we seem to do quite well without ‘em.”
Ramage counted the men as they fell in behind Jackson. The Dutch guide, whom Ramage had last seen just before the attack started, arrived mopping his face with a large handkerchief and holding a bloodstained sword in the other.
“Good hunting, good hunting,” he grunted to Ramage. “I do not think they stop again before West Punt. We kill many here. Some rebels are still alive, though.” There was no mistaking the regret in his voice nor the difference he made between Dutch rebels and French privateersmen.
Ramage resumed his counting. “Twenty-six … are you one of my company? I thought so, fall in, and that’s twenty-eight. And you two, you’re late. Thirty.”
The heat of the bonfire must be awful for some of those French wounded, and he’d do something about it as soon as he could, but his first concern was his own men, none of whom had forgo
tten the Tranquil. “Jackson, collect reports from the lieutenants and the sergeant.”
Ten minutes later Ramage was listening to the American, scarcely able to believe his ears. Four Marines wounded (one gunshot and three sword cuts); four seamen known to have been killed and three wounded; and seven more missing. Only eighteen casualties, assuming that the seven missing were dead or wounded. Ramage had reckoned on fifty—although the operation was far from complete.
He turned to his company. “Working in pairs, I want you to find the enemy wounded. Those that can be moved, bring them here, away from the heat but where there’s still some light. Jackson, tell Mr Aitken to send the two surgeon’s mates in his company to join us here.”
He turned to the Dutch guide. “Can you find your way back to Amsterdam?”
“Of course, sir.”
“I’ll give you an escort. I want you to report what you’ve seen to the Governor, but first I want you to send out to this place all the horses and carts you can find. Bring straw, mattresses, cloth for bandages—anything that will make the journey easier for the wounded. Some of them,” he added, noting the look in the Dutchman’s eyes, “are our own men. And tell the Governor any surgeons would be welcome—they should ride out at once, bringing bandages and instruments.”
“Yes, sir, but I prefer no escort: I will be faster alone!”
For the next two hours the Calypsos sorted the dead from the living, frequently stoking the bonfire with brushwood to give themselves more light. The moon rose, its light cold and forbidding compared with the yellow flames of the bonfire.
The French casualties round the bonfire would have been horrifying, Ramage thought, but for the Tranquil: 98 dead, 42 badly wounded and 11 wounded but able to walk. A total 151 … nearly a third of the rebel force, and enough to man a 32-gun frigate. Then he reminded himself that it also meant that two-thirds of the enemy had escaped. Three hundred and fifty of them were at this very moment over there to the west, reorganizing themselves …
