The big champion nodded in understanding as the interpreter spoke to him and then he was away. That’s it, I thought. The die is cast and we will have to see now how the cards fall. The last of the rain was dying away now and between the horns I could hear the cheering of distant men and see hundreds of them milling around the jungle edge. “Right,” I called pointing in that direction and looking at the nearest gunner. “Let’s show them that we are open for business. Send your balls into those bastards.”
The guns fired and a moment later those in the battery to my left opened fire too. Nearly all the balls fell short as the barrels were cold. I watched the shots splash into the water in front of the enemy – the ground was far too wet for them to bounce. The gunners quickly reloaded and then threw themselves at the traces to pull their gun carriages back into position. I had hoped that I might have provoked the Ashanti into a disorganised attack, but they were too professional for that. Their only response was more horn blowing as their men were rallied into their regiments. Our second salvo was much more successful. It was hard to see damage and injuries from that distance, but I saw one of the trees shudder as it was hit and knew that at least one cannonball had sent wooden splinters scything into the men around them. Then, as the gunners reloaded for their third shot, the Ashanti finally attacked.
God knows how many of the fiends there were. We found out later that it was not the full fifteen thousand, but I will swear that there were at least ten thousand, if not more. They poured through the gap in our traps like water breaking through a dam, spreading out as soon as they thought it was safe. I watched with grim satisfaction as a few turned off the path too early and others were pushed into traps by the sheer volume of men. In no time at all there must have been a hundred men down, clutching at injured feet. The cannons started to roar again and at least one ball carved a bloody trail through the enemy coming towards us. They were endless in number, the first of them charging straight up the valley towards the castle. Others turned to their right and yet more to their left, seemingly intent on going around our right flank, while a good number headed straight towards us. All of them came at the run, anxious to get away from where our cannon fire was concentrated, although they soon slowed down as their feet sank into the heavy ground and they floundered in the mud. As well as muskets, I saw a few with what looked to be heavy boxes on their backs, while others were carrying scaling ladders. There was a roar from behind me as the cannon in the castle now opened fire on those in the valley and the guns on Rickets’ hill banged out too. King Dinkera’s men were visible now, standing around Rickets’ tower while the soldiers on my hill were still obeying orders and staying out of sight. Perhaps that had been a mistake on my part, for I now saw that more of the attackers were heading in our direction.
Our cannon must have fired at least half a dozen balls at the breach in the line of traps but still the Ashanti were coming through; the far side of the valley was alive with their soldiers. From my higher vantage point they looked like a disturbed ant’s nest, although I was all too aware that they had a more powerful sting. There were a number wearing European clothes and I spotted at least a dozen sporting the red coat of British soldiers, presumably these were trophies. I guessed that their former owners had fought with me at Nsamankow. I watched them quite dispassionately. I was aware that I should be feeling fear or even terror, but instead I had a calm detachment as I went about the business of managing my command. I watched as those who ran to our right found firmer ground and hence made swifter progress than those struggling through the valley. I ordered the battery to the right of the tower to be uncovered and then to open fire. I also sent a message to our remaining battery on our far-right flank to stay hidden until the Ashanti were much closer. I remember calmly speculating on whether the shock of their appearance, which would mean that the Ashanti were being fired on from two directions, would cause their faster attack to falter.
Was this how Wellington had felt at Waterloo? I wondered. He was notorious for his coolness under fire. I had always thought he had repressed any feelings of fear, but perhaps he did not have them at all.
“Are you all right, sir?” O’Hara was at my elbow and looking at me with concern etched in his features.
“Yes of course, why on earth should I not be?”
“Because you are singing some ditty about a lock-keeper’s daughter, so ye are, as you stroll around grinning at people.” He lowered his voice and nodded at the nearby gunners, “You’re gettin’ the men worried.”
“Nonsense man,” I beamed at him and then turned to the gunners. “I am not making you nervous, am I?” A couple of them grinned awkwardly back at me as I continued, “You just keep firing that pepper at them and we will do fine. Few will make it to the top of our hill and the rest will be beaten and back in their camp by tea time.” It did the trick, as the petty officer in charge of the gunners evidently thought that such a rousing speech should be answered with a huzzah. The gunners stopped reloading for a moment to give me a cheer and then their cannon fired once more.
“You see?” I turned back to O’Hara. “There is nothing to worry about. We will soon have them on the run. Now hand over that big flask of yours, I am parched.”
For the next half an hour or so it seemed I was right, as the battle was a very one-sided affair. The Ashanti made slow progress towards us and once they stopped pouring through the gap in the traps, the cannon concentrated on where any large groups of them gathered on the clear ground between the jungle and our hill. The enemy had brought no guns of their own and so we were taking no fire at all. Yet slowly and surely they closed in around us. If they thought that they were nearing victory, though, they were soon mistaken. As they reached the bottom of the hill most were already exhausted from struggling through half a mile of thick mud, but they now discovered that had been the easy part of the journey. The sides of the hill, as I remembered all too well, were slick and slimy with mud. Men slipped and fell and tumbled into each other, knocking others down. All that would have been bad enough but our cannon at the top of the hill had now switched to grape shot. They could not depress their barrels enough to fire directly down the hill and so our guns fired obliquely into the men climbing to their left or right. Masses of them were knocked away as though blown off by a deadly wind. The numbers were so great that the gunners could not miss, but if any managed to escape this storm of shot, either side of the hill was now lined with muskets firing down at them. Lieutenant Drew and Hercules had done a fine job in drilling their men; not one tried to move in front of the cannon. King Appea’s soldiers even managed some rudimentary volley fire. They were arrayed in three loose ranks and when the front rank fired they would retire to the rear to reload while the other two lines stepped forward. It was rough, but it worked. We were keeping the Ashanti at much more than arm’s length and across the valley they were making no progress getting closer to the castle or Rickets’ hill either.
I was feeling ebullient, my defensive plan was working perfectly, albeit massively helped by the recent weather. If they had come the day before, I suspected that the Ashanti would have bounded across the dry land towards us and up the slope like a herd of vengeful antelope. But they hadn’t, they had come today and they were getting stuck in the mud and mown down by the hundred. I was probably still humming the tune about the lock-keeper’s daughter when I looked over my shoulder and down at the sea. There, as arranged, was the small fishing boat, a hundred yards offshore and beyond it, the larger ships. Well I won’t be needing those today, I thought as I patted the gold top of Malala’s cane, which I had placed in my pocket back at the castle.
“Sor, look out!” I whirled round at O’Hara’s shout and caught a glimpse of him raising his musket, and then my eyes locked on to the extraordinary sight of an Ashanti soldier climbing over the low battlement wall at the front of the tower. He was shrugging the musket from its sling over his shoulder when there was a bang from beside me and he flew backwards over the edge.
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bsp; “How the devil did he get across the moat…?” I started but blow me if another head was not appearing at the same spot. O’Hara was furiously reloading, but he would never be ready to fire in time. In any event the Ashanti had seen what had happened to his fellow and he was bringing his musket forward before stepping up onto the parapet. Now I’ll admit that I was not thinking clearly. My wits must have been addled by O’Hara’s tonic and I could not understand how they had come so close without being killed. Yet it was not puzzlement, but fury that I remember being my overriding emotion at that moment. I had been conducting what I had thought was the perfect defence and now these blighters had bloody well gone and ruined it.
“Oh no you don’t,” I roared as he started to take aim at one of the gunners. I was running towards him with my arms outstretched. I had no idea what I would do when I reached the villain, I was just filled with an anger that they had thwarted my plan. The rogue saw me and tried to swing his weapon around, but it was too late. The barrel knocked against my side as my hands closed around his throat.
It was only then that I belatedly remembered that I was on top of a tower and realised that he must be standing on the top rungs of a scaling ladder. I had a brief glimpse of the ground below: a plank had been laid across the moat and other men climbing ladders were on either side of me. They looked up, startled, as I grabbed their comrade and then I was falling through the air. Whether I had over-balanced or my victim kicked off against the wall I cannot say. One moment I was standing on the tower parapet and the next the muddy brown water of the moat was looming towards me.
I realised then what had happened. While the batteries and soldiers on either side of the tower covered the ground in front of them, the gunners in the tower itself were aiming further ahead and could only see what was immediately in front of them if they leaned over the edge. We had relied on the moat for protection, but some cunning Ashanti commander had seen this dead space in our defences and sent his men to exploit it.
I did not let go of the man’s neck and likewise, he clung tightly to the ladder. When you are falling through the air you naturally hang on to anything you can get hold of, even if it is the throat of your enemy. We splashed down hard into the liquid mud that filled the moat. We both went under, the rungs of the ladder cracking me across the shins. I felt the ooze close over my head, filling my ears and blocking my nose. It was like drowning in thick soup. With my eyes tight shut I pushed down hard against the man underneath me and felt him start to struggle to reach the surface. After a moment my head emerged and I opened my eyes. There were a score of Ashanti moving around the mud bank in front of me, some carrying ladders and preparing to cross the moat. Others were shouting at those further down the hill to hurry up and one or two were starting to fire muskets up at the tower.
To my surprise no one was paying any attention to me, but then they probably could not identify which head was poking up out of the mud. I could have been a white man, a black man or a basking water horse from what little they could make out. Floating in the mud, the whole situation was confused. My mind was still trying to fathom how I had ended up in this stinking ooze. The dead body of the man O’Hara had shot was sprawled in the mud beside me. It all felt unreal, as though I was now an invisible spectator on the scene. Suddenly, a hand reached up from below to claw my face. It was an unwelcome reminder of the precarious position I was in and brought me a little to my senses. At least I knew enough that I could not afford to let him reach the surface. I took a deep breath and pushed him back down into the mud, squeezing on his neck for all I was worth. I went under again myself as I wrestled to stay on top of the man beneath me, who writhed and thrashed his limbs with the desperation of a drowning man. I came up again just in time to see another of the ladders crash back down into the moat from the side of the tower, its occupant screaming in terror.
“Are yer down there, sor?” I heard O’Hara’s voice shout down, but I dared not answer. There must have been thirty Ashanti on the bank in front of me and they were starting to open fire on the top of the tower to keep the defenders’ heads down. It would only take one to notice me and I would be dead, I was barely ten feet away. Several more men came running up with ladders that they started to push across the moat. Still no one took any notice of the mud-covered head observing them. It was like watching a battle in a dream; I found time to study the tower and wondered why we had built a parapet wall at all. It protected the gunners, yet it also stopped them from lowering their barrels to sweep the enemy away.
Evidently some of our soldiers must have joined O’Hara in the tower, for there was a growing crackle of fire from that direction and one ball struck the corpse just beside me. I remember idly watching the resulting stream of red blood mix with the brown of the mud. The body beneath me had finally stopped struggling. I released my grip on his neck; it is so much easier to kill a man when you cannot see him. Then I slowly eased myself around until only my face was above the surface. With my ears submerged I could hear very little, which only added to the strange sensation of being a disembodied witness to proceedings. My head rested against another corpse, which must have given me some cover. I could no longer see the Ashanti on the bank, but by squinting down my nose, I could just make out the soldiers on the top of the tower.
There was a battle royal raging above me now. I could hear the Ashanti firing from the other side of the moat and at least a dozen soldiers, including O’Hara, firing back at them. It did not take long to realise that our side was losing. Twice soldiers on the tower leaned over the parapet to shoot at those standing at the bottom of the walls and both times they were hit with a hail of fire from the far bank. One toppled into the moat while the other managed to fall back, wounded. As soon as even a head showed itself over the top of the wall it was met with a crackle of musketry, as the Ashanti kept the defenders at bay. I watched as twice my Irish orderly appeared and managed to fire his gun. The second time, I saw him drop his musket and clutch his arm as he was hit. Half a dozen Ashanti warriors had managed to cross the ladder that served as a bridge and had taken two fresh ladders with them. It looked like another effort to scale the tower walls was imminent, but our gunners were not beaten yet.
As a new ladder was raised, two hands darted over the wall and dropped a pair of cannon balls on the men below. One splashed harmlessly into the water and the other stuck in the mud, but I had just enough time to notice a burning fuse poking out of one side. They were explosive shells. The implications of what my eyes were seeing burned through to my brain only slightly faster than the burning fuse to the gunpowder. Taking a deep breath, I quickly ducked under the water again. I felt the impact through the mud rather than heard it and when I gingerly surfaced again, all that was left of the men at the bottom of the ladders were pieces of offal and a range of fresh body parts floating in the water.
There were shouts of fury from the Ashanti and then I felt the corpse beside me move. I had been sure that the man was dead. Without thinking I jumped in alarm, sending out ripples over the mud, and turned to look at the body. Two Ashanti were on their knees by the edge of the moat, pulling the corpse out of the water. When I looked beyond them the rest were preparing to pull back. Perhaps, I thought, they were taking their dead with them – at least the ones that were relatively whole. They both looked up and saw me staring at them. I took a deep breath preparing to go under the mud again, for surely they would shoot me, but instead of reacting angrily or reaching for their guns, they smiled at me.
It was all very confusing. Why weren’t they killing me? For a moment I wondered if they were Appea’s men who had somehow retaken the hill top, but no, several were still taking pot-shots at the tower as they pulled away. One of them said something and gestured for me to come out of the water. He pointed at the tower and continued talking, grinning again. God knows what he was saying, but if I did not get out of the mud he would be suspicious. I moved to the side and started to climb, but the bank was as slippery as a wall of wet tripe. His mat
e had staggered off with the corpse thrown over his shoulder, following the rest of the Ashanti down the slope, but my new ‘friend’ held out his hand to help me out. He clearly thought I was one of his comrades and there was no reason to disabuse him. I stuck up my mud-covered paw and took a firm grip.
“Heave ho!” I recall shouting and a moment later we were both sprawled on the bank. He laughed again, he was a cheery fellow, and then he gestured to my sword and asked me a question. I wondered if only officers had those in the Ashanti army, as in ours. I staggered up to my feet and drew the weapon from its scabbard. I remember being surprised at how clean and shiny it was despite its immersion in the muddy water. I glanced down the hill; apart from my companion, the nearest Ashanti was now thirty yards away with a corpse still on his back but there must have been at least a hundred of them well within musket range.
“Go on lad, shove off,” I said to the Ashanti, who only now was getting to his feet. He looked little more than twenty. He turned to me frowning, probably as he could not understand my words. I still had no comprehension of the danger and I gestured with the sword for him to go down the hill. As I did, I saw his eyes widen in surprise. I realised afterwards that when he had released my hand, he had taken much of the mud with him and he must have seen the white skin of my fingers holding the hilt. He shouted in alarm at his mates nearby, but they were still jogging down the slippery slope of the hill and would not easily be able to come back to help him.
“Run away, you bloody fool,” I shouted at him. He had helped me out of the moat and I had no wish to kill him. If he had made to escape I would have happily let him go, but instead, he made a lunge towards his own musket.
lashman and the Golden Sword Page 25
