As I stood back to admire our handiwork, Chisholm came up to stand alongside. Like me he was covered in mud. He and Rickets were both weak from their recent sickness, but they always made a point of helping out with the construction. I doubt they did much actual labour – I had seen Chisholm climb the hill to the tower and the poor fellow looked exhausted by the time he had made it to the top.
“Do you have some water, Flashman? I am very dry,” he croaked. I passed across my flask and he took a swig. “Ugh,” he gasped after swallowing. “That has O’Hara’s tonic in it. Foul stuff, but I have to concede that he is right, it does kill the bugs. I just wonder what it does to my insides.” He looked up at the tower and added, “Tell me, you have more experience of battles and sieges than I do, what do you make of our defences?”
I stared around. There were three fortifications inland from Cape Coast Castle roughly in a line parallel with the coast. With my back to the sea, Fort McCarthy was on the right; there was a similar construction on the left and in the middle, opposite the castle was the tall observation tower. It was a five hundred-yard run from Fort McCarthy back to Cape Coast Castle, downhill most of the way. “How are you planning to allocate the men?” I asked.
“I was hoping that you would take command here,” Chisholm said quietly and I felt my guts tighten in alarm. “I will ask Rickets to command the fort on our left. King Appea speaks highly of you and so I will place his warriors here too, while King Dinkera’s men will be with Rickets.” I felt a small sense of relief at that, for Appea’s men were well organised and more importantly there were around two thousand of them, dwarfing the size of our regular troops. Chisholm continued, “The navy will provide the gun crews and I will keep our regulars in reserve to support whichever side is attacked.”
“What if they come through the middle?” I asked. The tall observation tower was our weakest defence.
“Then they will be fired on by both fortresses in the flank and face the full force of the castle guns in the front.”
“That seems sensible,” I agreed. Then I lowered my voice so that we could not be overheard. “But we should make sure that we have plenty of guns loaded with grape to cover the beach and all the boats should be brought up close to the castle. We can try to hold them here, but if we need to fall back to the castle, we must be sure that they cannot cut us off from the sea.” I tried to sound positive but if the Ashanti came in force, I could not see how we would be able to offer anything more than a fighting retreat. When we got down to the sand it would be every man for himself. If I could not get near the boats, at least I was a good swimmer. “I suppose that they will definitely attack?” I wondered aloud. Our position seemed hopeless and I was clutching at straws that might herald our survival. “I mean, McCarthy was sure that the Ashanti did not really want a war with the British.”
“I think the fact that they killed him rather disproves his argument,” Chisholm countered wryly. “Where I was born they had an expression: If you are going to be hung for stealing a goose, you might as well steal a cow. They have killed the British governor and so they might as well try to drive us out of the country entirely. Anyway,” he added looking at me curiously, “you should know their intentions better than me. You have met him; do you think that their king wants war?”
I thought back to my audience at the palace. “They are certainly not frightened of us,” I admitted. “They truly believe that their army is stronger than Napoleon’s Imperial Guard.”
No work was done on the defences on Sundays. Not just for religious reasons, it was more to do with the fact that the men were exhausted after six days’ toiling in the mud and needed a day of rest. I had only arrived the previous Sunday, but after a week of hard labour, my muscles ached and almost every part of my body was stiff. I was hoping for a dry day that I could spend resting in a shady spot on the beach and getting thoroughly clean in the sea.
O’Hara was off to work on his still. “I’ll soon be having a new batch of the tonic ready, but this won’t be as smooth as the last,” he warned ominously. I groaned but by then I was getting used to the taste of the vile brew. Its lethal bug-killing properties made it essential in any water that I drank.
After a leisurely breakfast I found a towel and strolled out of the castle. There was still no sight of any Ashanti from the watchtower, although I could not help but wonder if my next Sunday would be quite as relaxed. As I passed the gateway I heard a voice call out my name from the crowd of traders that normally gathered there to sell wares to the soldiers. I turned around and there was Bessie, Eliza’s maid. She held out a letter for me. At first, I assumed that it was a note from her mistress, but the spidery writing was from the good Reverend Bracegirdle. It was a very formal invitation to call on them at my convenience. My immediate response was reluctance; I wondered if he had heard of my impersonation of him at the village down the coast. Furthermore, I certainly did not want to spend time with someone suffering from the fever. I was minded to send a message to say I was busy until I read some more words in a feminine hand added at the bottom of the note: Please do come, Cuthbert is not infectious, E.
Memories of my time as the Reverend Flashman brought a smile to my face, particularly the hours spent in the guest quarters. If I had to endure a scolding from the priest, it would be a small price to pay to spend time with Eliza again and so I bid the maid to lead the way.
The Bracegirdles occupied a small cottage next door to the whitewashed church. The maid held the door open for me and I stepped into a small hallway with rooms off either side. As soon as the front door was shut behind me, Eliza came out of one of the side rooms and threw her arms around my neck.
“I thought you had been killed,” she whispered in my ear as she squeezed me tight. “I have been so worried and we hear that there will be more fighting…”
I stopped listening and just relished the smell of her and the feel of her body against mine as I returned her embrace and then bent down to kiss her.
“Why does your husband want to see me?” I asked.
“He wanted someone to talk to and I suggested you. You must have some tales after your adventures. People say that you met the Ashanti king at Coomassie.” At this we heard the old man’s voice croak out from one of the side rooms and Eliza took me through.
Bracegirdle had never been stout, but now he looked thinner than ever. I learned that he did not have the fever at all. He was suffering from a growth in his stomach and the new surgeon had told Eliza to prepare for the worst. “The doctor has given me some opium to help me sleep, but he does not have much to spare,” wheezed the reverend. “Your orderly has given Bessie some of his tonic for me and if it does not exactly ease the pain, it makes me less mindful of it.”
“It is certainly powerful stuff,” I agreed, remembering that the first time I had taken a swig of O’Hara’s undiluted homemade spirit, it had literally taken my breath away. In Bracegirdle’s slender frame, one sip of it would probably leave him drunk and insensible.
“I hear that you have been to their capital and met the Ashanti king,” Bracegirdle continued. “I wanted to ask you what we can expect if they come here. Will they attack the Christian settlements that the governor and I have worked to establish? Do they respect gods other than their own?”
“Well I saw plenty of Muslims in Coomassie who were able to practice their faith, but they were there for trade and I think that purpose protected them.” I looked down and saw desperate hope in his features. He was a dying man who wanted to believe that his life’s work would not be destroyed around him within days of his death.
You could not help but feel some compassion – even if you had not been sleeping with his wife behind his back. I was just working out what lie to tell when Bracegirdle held out his hand for me to hold. It was like grabbing a bundle of leather-covered sticks. “Tell me the truth, lad,” he whispered.
I took a deep breath, “Well you would probably know about this better than me, sir, but I hear that when
the Ashanti conquered the Fantee lands they rounded up all they could find and took them into slavery. I imagine that they will do the same for the people they find here. Some may be kept as prisoners or hostages against retaliation from the British government, but I doubt London will want to commit the forces needed to defeat the Ashanti and force their return.”
Bracegirdle thought about this for a moment. He was probably imagining all the communities of freed slaves he had established along the coast being rounded up and taken away for a second life of bondage. “Their king,” he asked at last, “is he a cruel man?” I told them about the target practice with the slaves and Eliza gave a gasp of horror. “That is what I feared,” said Bracegirdle and then he turned to his wife. “You must ask Major Chisholm to put you aboard one of the ships now, we cannot risk you falling into their hands.”
“No,” said Eliza fiercely. “If we must leave, we will go together. I vowed that I would stay until death parted us and I am not going to leave you when you need me the most.” She turned to me and I saw that there was a tear in her eye, “Anyway, I hear that the Ashanti army has not even been spotted by our lookouts. It is possible that they may not come at all, isn’t it, Thomas?” I agreed that such a thing was possible and then steered the conversation around to the safer topic of my adventures in South America. There at least was the prospect of more slaves being freed.
When I took my leave, Eliza escorted me out to the hall. “I will not leave him,” she whispered. She blushed slightly as she looked at me, “I have already broken one marriage vow, but I will not let him die alone. He is a good man and he does not deserve that.”
As I left their cottage there was a rumble of thunder and the first drops of another heavy shower began. I ducked into the porch of the little church and found that O’Hara had been wrong. The Protestants had not been deprived of their church, just their minister. The door was unlocked. Judging from the muddy arse-prints on some of the benches, more than a few had been in there to pray for deliverance from the coming onslaught. I found myself wandering down to the front pew and sitting where I had once ogled Eliza playing the organ. I had prayed in the past, usually when I was utterly desperate for help, but as I looked up at the carved wooden cross in that church, I wondered if there was really any point. After all, if the Almighty saw reason to take saintly characters like Bracegirdle and the well-meaning if naïve McCarthy, what chance did I stand of Him listening to a sinner like me? But as the rain thundered down on the wooden roof, I found myself praying anyway. I made all sorts of promises of what I would do if I was spared… and I kept them all too.
Chapter 24
Any doubts we had over the intentions of the Ashanti king were resolved two days later with the arrival of a young white boy. He was not white because he was European, but instead because he had been painted. It had been done as part of a ritual for the Ashanti gods to sanctify him as he was a messenger of the king. He was found by one of our advance guards and brought back to an interpreter to recite a message he had been taught for Chisholm’s ears. “You should build the walls of your new castles higher,” the boy said, “and land every gun from the ships. You should even arm the fish in the sea, but nothing will stop the king of the Ashanti from throwing every trace of the British into the waves.”
He said it in the form of a song, presumably to help him remember the words. It was not a cheery ditty and I would have happily painted some obscenities on his lily-white skin and sent him back where he came from, but Chisholm let him go.
“They clearly have spies among us if they know about our new fortifications,” said the major.
I pointed out to sea where a dozen fishing boats could be seen out with nets on the waves around the bay. “A fishing boat from Elmina could easily sail seven miles down the coast and mix with the local fleet. The towers can all be seen from the sea.” I was thoughtful for a moment before adding, “But their king’s foolish boasting might give us a small advantage. We now know what he knows and so we can anticipate what he will do about it.”
“What do you mean?” asked Chisholm.
“Come, I will show you,” I replied as I began to put myself in the enemy’s shoes.
We spent the next week considering how the enemy would attack and building further defences to thwart them. If the Ashanti tried a frontal attack past the observation tower and straight up to the walls of Cape Coast Castle, they would be attacked on three sides: from the guns of the castle and the new forts on either side of their advance. By now with all the rain, the ground in front of the castle was extremely boggy and it would slow their men down. They would be stuck in the mud and flailed with grape shot. I thought we stood a reasonable chance of stopping any attack like that, but I had already learned that the Ashanti generals were wily devils and I doubted they would be so obliging. It was far more likely that they would assault one or both of the new forts first and whittle away at our defences. So we set to building new gun batteries on either side of the towers. Each had three guns and a roof to keep off the rain, but they were also covered with tree branches and bushes to hide them from the enemy and any passing fisherman until we wanted to reveal them. Then anticipating that the Ashanti might try to go around the forts and attack them from the rear, we built more new batteries nearer the town to cover that approach. Chisholm also put more guns on the beach by the walls that led down to the sea. We had at least taken the Ashanti advice; virtually all of the guns from the ships in the bay were now on shore.
As well as building batteries, I also spent time with Hercules and King Appea’s translator to discuss tactics. Appea’s men were used to jungle fighting, but not battles over open ground with cannon. I had to explain to him that his men could not charge forward as usual or they would block the fire from our guns. Instead I persuaded him to let the enemy struggle up the muddy hill towards us. They would be tired and slow when they neared the top and easier to kill. We had already cleared a wide expanse of jungle in front of the guns and as an experiment Hercules had a dozen of his fittest warriors race from the jungle edge to the batteries. The gunners estimated that they could get at least three rounds off before the men reached them.
We did not have the time or any translators to train the men to fire ordered volleys. Instead I had to suffice with drawing lines in the mud on either side of the new batteries. Appea’s soldiers were ordered not to advance beyond the line until ordered, but to fire at the enemy as soon as they came within range. If this all sounds as though I was being quite diligent and industrious, well I was. I generally am when my own precious hide is at stake. That is not to say that I was foolish enough to think we would win the coming battle. We might slow them down and inflict heavy casualties but, in the end, I suspected that the sheer weight of numbers would win the day for the Ashanti. That was why I made a few additional personal precautions.
Depending on the tide, the area of beach in front of the castle was narrow and rocky. I pictured it full of panic-stricken soldiers, sailors and civilians desperately trying to escape as Ashanti warriors poured into the fort behind them or along the beach. I realised that this would be no place for me. Boats would be overloaded, smashed against the rocks or, if the sea was rough, broached in the surf. Instead, there was a path that led directly to the nearest beach from my tower. I could be there in barely over a minute. All I needed was a boat ready and waiting. That was when I went to see the two fishermen who had taken Eliza and me down the coast to Joshua’s village. I had already discovered that they spoke some English and with the aid of a map drawn in the sand, they understood what I wanted. When the Ashanti attacked they would take their boat and anchor it a hundred yards offshore from the path to my tower. I did not want the boat filled with refugees before I reached it and I was fairly sure I could swim that far. In return I would give them the solid gold top from Malala’s cane. I showed it to them and their eyes lit up at the sight of such wealth, but I insisted they would not get it until I was safely alongside one of the ships in the bay.
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The following Sunday I even had a practice swim out to the boat, which the fishermen had anchored in the place I had instructed. I made the distance easily and was just sitting on one of the thwarts drying out in the sun when the bang of a cannon rang out. Looking around I saw a plume of gun smoke by the observation tower. It was the signal that the enemy had been spotted. I listened for a while for the sound of crackling musketry which would indicate that the Ashanti had somehow got close without us spotting them. If they had, I was probably safer where I was. Instead all I heard was the usual bustle from the shore, the breaking of waves and the shouts of distant fisherman. I could see my fort and while a few of the men around it were staring curiously at the observation tower, there was no indication of alarm. I told the fishermen to row me to the castle jetty and once there I made my way to Chisholm’s office. I arrived at the same time as a sweating young naval midshipman who had run down from the observation tower.
“We can see a plume of smoke in the distance, sir. A big thick one, much bigger than a campfire.” We all looked out of the window but our view was blocked by the hills and we could see no sign of smoke.
“How far away is it?” asked Chisholm.
“About four leagues nor’ nor’ west, sir,” said the midshipman breathlessly.
Chisholm’s brow furrowed in puzzlement and so I enlightened him. “About twelve miles away,” I announced, looking down at the map on the table, “and it seems to be coming from near D’Jouquah. Do you think that they are burning the town?”
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