lashman and the Golden Sword

by Robert Brightwell

  I remember thinking as the gold blade glistened in the sun, that the sword handled well. It was not as sharp as my old sabre at home, but it bit deep into the man’s arm causing him to stumble and roll away from his weapon.

  “Clear off,” I roared at him, pointing again down the hill and making no effort to follow up the attack. He squealed, clutching at his limb. Then seeing that I was not coming for him again, he got hastily to his feet and staggered unsteadily down the hill, whining in pain as he went. “And don’t come back,” I yelled after him.

  “Is that you, sor?” asked an Irish voice from the top of the tower.

  Two Ashanti muskets fired from further down the hill before I could reply. A handful of them were stopped fifty yards away, now waiting for their wounded comrade. A well-aimed shot could be accurate at that distance, but, perhaps influenced by the spirits I had on board, I was confident that I would not be hit.

  “You can bugger off too,” I yelled at them. “Go on, get off my hill.” And with that I brandished my sword again and took several steps in their direction. I grinned as they started to back away. Christ knows what they thought a drunk Englishman armed with just a sword was going to do to them. Then I turned my attention to O’Hara, who I now saw standing at the tower battlements with a white bandage around his sleeve. “Of course, it’s bloody me. Now start knocking the bricks in the parapet down in front of those cannon so that they can aim them down the hill.”

  “Knock ’em down?” I heard one of the gunners protest. “They were the only things keepin’ us alive back then.”

  “Do what I tell you,” I roared, feeling master of my own domain again. I watched as one of them used a gun rammer to push some mud bricks off the top of the wall between the guns. Shaking my head in exasperation I added, “Just in front of the muzzles, you blockhead. Don’t knock the whole sodding wall down.”

  Chapter 28

  I strolled around in front of the tower as though I owned the place, stopping only to toss the ladder that the Ashanti had used as a bridge far into the middle of the moat. There were still at least two corpses and various body parts floating on top of the ooze. The nearest Ashanti were now over a hundred yards off and still retreating, although there were maybe a thousand still milling around on the flat land between the tower and the jungle. I stared to my left into the valley in front of the castle; the attack had stalled there too. The Ashanti had pulled back out of effective grape shot range. Now the castle guns just boomed occasionally to send a solid shot towards large groups. They would be lucky to kill many, though, for our cannon balls just buried themselves in the mud rather than bounced through their targets. More gunfire to my right signalled that the battery covering our right flank was also in action. I stared in that direction and saw hundreds of the enemy milling about in confusion as they were caught in the crossfire from two different sets of guns.

  As I watched a big figure loomed into view, jogging around the edge of the moat. It was Hercules and he beamed in delight when he saw me standing alone amongst the remnants of the last attack. “Kala ba!” he exclaimed, gesturing to my bloodstained blade, then he swept me up in a great embrace, squeezing my innards with a force that a python would envy. “Kala ba,” he repeated, although I had no idea what it meant.

  “Put me down, you great oaf,” I gasped with what little breath I had left and when he did, I looked up to see Lieutenant Drew and O’Hara hurrying around the edge of the moat, followed by a mixture of marines and Appea’s warriors.

  “The gunners said you were dead for certain,” declared Drew looking about him and then staring uncertainly into my mud-covered features. “How ever did you survive, sir?”

  I paused before replying as a grinning O’Hara appeared alongside him and wordlessly held out his huge silver flask. I took it gratefully and gulped some of the spirit down – it was definitely getting smoother. “Well, young fellow,” I said to Drew while passing the flask back. “As you can see, I managed to disguise myself as one of those water horses. That notion struck me as most amusing. I stood there giggling to myself as I watched the Ashanti try to re-organise their men in the valley in front of us.”

  “Are ye sure you are feeling well, sor?” asked O’Hara quietly. “Perhaps you should not have any more,” he added putting the flask back inside his coat.

  “Don’t make a fuss, I am fine. In fact, I have never felt better in a battle,” I declared. Strangely, I think I meant it then too. “How is your arm?” I asked, gesturing to the bandage.

  “The ball went straight through, barely more than a scratch. Jaysus I was lucky. I take it back about them not being able to shoot straight. Their shots were coming at us thicker than flies on a turd.” He grinned at me and added, “Speaking of turds, you don’t want to know what has been going into that moat for the last few weeks. We had better get some rainwater and clean you up a bit.”

  Until that moment, all I had smelt on me was mud, but now I detected a more unpleasant odour. Two pails of rainwater were summoned and I started washing the worst of it off. Soon my hair and head were clean again and most of the mud had been washed out of my clothes. I stood dripping like a wet dog and surveyed the scene as Lieutenant Drew pointed out where the enemy were now regathering at the bottom of the hill. “Attacking here has been the closest they have come to victory, sir. Do you think they will try to test us again?”

  “I am sure of it. Look over there near the jungle. There is a crowd of them carrying straight logs and sticks from the forest, they are probably making more ladders and platforms that will serve as bridges.”

  For the next hour we stood on that hill top and watched the enemy prepare for another attack. They must have chopped enough branches and sticks, lashing them all together, to build at least a score of ladders. Others were building ramps out of bundles of sticks to throw across the moat to make a bridge. Our gunners did their best to disturb this industry by firing solid shot and some exploding shells in their direction, but the Ashanti were too well dispersed for them to do much damage. I stood and watched proceedings with a growing sense of unease. The attack on our right flank had already died away and many of the survivors of that venture were gathering with those preparing to renew the attack in our direction. Horns were blowing and we could hear the distant shouting of their officers as they began to gather and organise troops for the coming assault. Soon there must have been at least four thousand of them. I felt a growing need for some more liquid courage.

  “Sorry, sor, it has all gone,” said O’Hara shaking his flask to show it was empty. “Anyway, it is best to have your wits about you, with that lot,” he gestured down the slope, “comin’ up in a while.”

  The problem was that they did not ‘come up in a while’. We stood and paced on that hillside for another hour as the enemy preparations dragged on. Some disappeared into the trees again and yet more fresh troops arrived, but they did not form up in any kind of order. For all the blowing of horns, instead of columns or lines they were just in a loosely formed mass, and if anything their numbers had grown. Chisholm joined us with some of the reserve from the castle as no new attack was aimed in their direction. That gave us some two hundred regulars and the forty marines as well as the gunners. But by far the bulk of our defence was still the two thousand warriors of Appea’s army. We divided our forces evenly on either side of the tower, so that the guns had a clear field of fire down the slope to the enemy.

  We would still be outnumbered by at least three to one, but our men would be fresh while theirs would be tired out by a long slippery climb and being peppered with shell and shot. Several times I found myself looking wistfully back to the fishing boat still anchored off the beach and wondering if I would be swimming out to her after all. To my surprise, even O’Hara had lost his usual belligerence. I found him staring forlornly at his flask. “I should never have tipped it away,” he admitted. “I could do with a wet now.”

  “I thought you Irish love a good fight,” I chided. “You did when I firs
t met you.”

  “We like a drink and a fight,” he corrected. “One generally leads to the other. That day we carried you down the hill at Busaco, most of us had half emptied our canteens before the battle began, and they were not filled with tea.” He laughed. “I think what ye drink changes who you are. If I had drunk fine French brandy, then I could have been a gentleman. If I had drunk a good claret, I could have been a priest like Father Maguire. But in our cottage, all we could afford was a soldier’s liquor.” He gazed glumly at his flask again before adding, “And now for the first time since I landed on this cursed shore, I think I might be getting sober.” He glared down the slope at the enemy and shuddered with distaste, “And I don’t like it one bit.”

  “You will be all right,” I assured him. It felt strange to now be comforting O’Hara when in the past the man’s fearless attack on the French had terrified me. But then perhaps the effects of his tonic wore off quicker for those who were more used to it.

  “Have you seen how many of the murderous heathen are waiting down there to butcher us?” countered the sergeant.

  “Can you swim?” I asked quietly. When he said he could, I led him behind the tower and pointed out the fishing boat in the bay. “That boat is crewed by the two lads that took us down the coast with Eliza and Bessie. If things go badly here, we make for that. But make sure you bring me with you as I have the payment for them,” I added patting my pocket. “They will take us to the ships – it will be a lot safer than trying to get a passage by the castle.

  O’Hara grinned at me. “I always knew you were a cunning bastard.”

  “I would not have got away from Coomassie if I wasn’t,” I told him. “Now go back to wherever you have hidden your supplies and refill that flask. We will both feel better for a nip of it and I suspect that the Ashanti will be a while yet.”

  He was gone for half an hour, but I was right, all the Ashanti did was blow their horns and march about. They were clearly waiting for something. I paced about impatiently until the sergeant returned. A few minutes later, after a couple of gulps of the tonic, I was much more sanguine about proceedings. O’Hara too was back to his belligerent self, sharpening his bayonet while humming some jaunty tune. “Would ye look at that,” he said, gesturing down the hill. “Some fat fella has turned up on a chair. Ye don’t think that they are going to burn him as a sacrifice like that other fella you told me about, do you?”

  I stared to where a procession was emerging from the trees. I did not need to see his features to recognise the man being born aloft on the shoulders of his subjects. The glint of gold on the marks of office of his entourage confirmed who he was. “That ‘fat fella’ is the Ashanti king,” I announced. “They must have been waiting for him to arrive before starting the attack.”

  I was not the only one to recognise our visitor. A growl of recognition spread among Appea’s soldiers; it was clear that they relished the chance of getting to grips with him. They were soon chanting something in their own tongue. I could not understand it, but judging from their grins and waving of weapons, the king would do well to stay out of their clutches. Their din almost drowned out a clarion call of trumpets from the valley below. On a gesture from their corpulent monarch, the Ashanti had finally started to move towards us.

  Chapter 29

  It took over half an hour for the first of the Ashanti to make it to the top of the hill. Given the barrage they endured on the way, I was surprised that any of them made it up at all. I had organised our force of defenders, now numbering around two and a half thousand men, so that most of them stood behind our little fort and did not get in the way of our cannon. As well as the guns from the top of the tower, the ordinance in the castle and in Rickets’ bastion on the other side of the valley also opened up on the attackers they could see. The Ashanti tried to spread out to make themselves less of a target, but this only brought them in range of the two batteries on either side of the tower, who now also lobbed shell and shot in their direction. I went to the top of the tower to monitor progress, but it was hard to see through the gun smoke. You could hear them coming, though, especially when the gunners switched to grape shot. Each belch of iron into the oncoming mass of humanity was met with a chorus of screams and wails from those who had been hit. I remembered all too well being on the receiving end of such a barrage at Waterloo and could not help but shudder in sympathy.

  The dead and the dying must have provided a further obstacle to those struggling up the wet slippery mud of the hillside, which was still littered with debris from their earlier assault. They were taking a terrible punishment and hundreds of them must have been hit. I thought that sooner or later they would be bound to turn tail and run.

  “My arse, they would beat the Imperial Guard,” I scoffed as I squinted at them through the smoke for the first sign of retreat. They were still coming on, but at least I could wait safely for them to break, and if they did not, we had a surprise or two waiting. I strolled around the top of the tower, singing once more about the lock-keeper’s daughter and trying to keep out of the way of the gunners. My serenade was rudely interrupted by the clang of a musket ball hitting a cannon muzzle.

  “They are getting quite close, sir,” called out one of the artillerymen.

  I peered over the parapet and was shocked to see that some of them were no more than sixty yards off. I only got the briefest of glimpses through the smoke before a musket ball thudded into a mud brick right next to my head. “Keep firing over the heads of the defenders for as long as you can,” I shouted to the petty officer in charge. Then I leaned again briefly over the parapet, and yelled, “Now, Chisholm, now is your time.”

  I could not help but smile at the memory, for Wellington had used the exact same words to Maitland at Waterloo. Then as now, a double rank of redcoats rose up from the ground on which they had been lying to avoid enemy fire. Back then they had risen to face a column of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, whereas now they were standing to meet pretenders to that acclaim. As I moved back across the tower, I heard the first ordered volley crash out and knew that it was the start of a steady hail of lead into the leading Ashanti ranks.

  Hercules was waiting eagerly below the tower for the word. “Go!” I bellowed and while he might not have understood the word he knew its meaning. He shouted a command and with a throaty roar his men surged forward down the paths around the moat on either side of the tower. I went back to view the effects of my handiwork.

  Moments before, the front ranks of the Ashanti must have believed that despite their gruelling climb, they were close to their objective. Now they found themselves assailed from four different directions. Chisholm’s infantry was sending regular crashing volleys into their front, while over their heads our cannon continued to blast grape shot into the main body of their attack. Now, from each side of the tower came a thousand of Appea’s soldiers, firing and charging into the flanks of the Ashanti force.

  No assault could withstand that and squinting through the smoke, I finally saw the Ashanti giving way. “Fix bayonets,” called out Chisholm as Appea’s men started to encroach on their line of fire. Then I saw the familiar sight of a line of redcoats advancing on their enemy. Feeling well satisfied with myself, I climbed down the ladder to the ground where I found a grinning O’Hara waiting for me. He was standing beside one of the batteries where he had a good view of what was happening.

  “Ye timed that sweeter than a harlot’s kiss,” he declared.

  “It did go rather well,” I agreed smugly. “Shall we go and examine our fleeing enemy?”

  We made our way around the tower. By now the cannon at the top of it had stopped firing. At a distance, with our men hot on the enemy’s heels, it was hard to make out friend from foe. The ground from fifty yards in front of the moat was littered with the bodies of the dead and injured, and I was pleased to see that there was only one redcoat among them. The rest of the redcoats were in a solid line some hundred yards ahead of us, their bayonets jabbing at any who dared to r
esist.

  Chisholm looked over his shoulder and waved when he saw us approach, “Well done, Flashman, we have them licked,” he called.

  O’Hara tugged at my sleeve, “Look over there.” He pointed at the flat ground at the bottom of the hill and I grinned in delight. A fat man was being carried aloft back into the forest with an anxious group of courtiers following on behind and shooting nervous glances at the men coming after them.

  “It looks like the king is not staying around to witness his defeat,” I crowed. Without the gaze of their king and his executioner, I thought, the Ashanti would have much less incentive to make more of a fight of it. I was feeling cocksure and safe, which was a mistake, for that is invariably when danger strikes. We might have been winning the battle, but there were still several thousand more of the enemy than us and it only takes a few of them to ruin a good plan. While Appea’s men were fighting in a crowd that was probably half a dozen men deep, the line of redcoats was still only two ranks, a fragile screen compared to the mass of soldiers it was driving on. There was a yell of alarm from the middle and then several of the British soldiers began to fall back as some of the Ashanti burst through. Chisholm shouted for the rear rank to close up the gap and advanced on it himself, but it was too late. Half a dozen Ashanti were already through, some falling on the men around them to widen the gap and others looking for new targets. One advanced on Chisholm, only to fall from his pistol shot, but then I saw a familiar figure emerge from the melee.

  It was the officer who had captured me before and who had held me in Coomassie. I recognised him and his leopard skin at the same moment he spotted me standing no more than ten yards behind the line. The mere sight of him brought back memories of the terrible moments of my capture at Nsamankow. I felt my guts tighten; he must have seen the fear cross my face. If they broke through our line, our defence could collapse, but more importantly I would be in mortal peril. I remembered those headless corpses after the last battle and had a sudden premonition that I would see the executioner again. The Ashanti officer grinned and ran towards me, two of his soldiers following on close behind. I was frozen, I could not move as my mind tried to rid itself of the image of the bloody axe and focus on the danger ahead.