lashman and the Golden Sword

by Robert Brightwell

  “He’s mine, sor,” called out O’Hara as he stepped in front of me. With an unhurried gesture that he must have used a score of times in countless battles, he raised his musket and deftly demonstrated why a soldier with a seventeen-inch bayonet on the end of their Brown Bess musket will always defeat a man with a sword. The Ashanti’s sword point did not get anywhere near the Irishman before the officer was impaled on one of Sheffield’s finest steel tips. The sergeant was wrenching his gun free, but the next man was already on me. It was sword versus musket again, but crucially the Ashanti did not have a bayonet and it seemed he had already fired his weapon. Reversing it, he swung the stock at my head and without thinking I got my gold blade up to block the blow. For a second the sharp edge got stuck in the wood and I struggled to wrench it free. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the other Ashanti close in on O’Hara, but he was already turning to meet the threat. I did not consciously think about what I was doing – training from my first voyage with Cochrane many years before took over. As I tugged on the sword, I brought my right boot up to kick my opponent hard in the balls. As he doubled up in agony my sword came free and I hacked down on his exposed neck. O’Hara’s man was also down, judging from his bloodied and broken face: a brass bound musket stock had just been smashed into it. The Irishman finished him off with another stab from his bayonet.

  I was already dashing forward. More Ashanti were trying to push through the gap in our lines and the red ranks were desperately trying to hold them back. There is a moment in many battles when there is a brief tipping point which will decide victory. This was one of them and both the Ashanti, and the redcoats fighting desperately to hold them back, realised it. One of our redcoats was half wrestling with an Ashanti. He must have seen me coming up, for he twisted round to expose his foe’s back to my blade. I duly obliged and thrust the gold weapon up under the man’s ribs. I barely had time to twist the steel free when another warrior was on me. But before I could get my blade up, O’Hara’s bayonet was in the man’s throat. It was a brutal, bloody fight, just the kind of action that I am normally desperate to avoid, but now it was kill or be killed.

  I hacked at one man and then another. As one fell, I saw another man level a musket at me. I was hemmed in. I did not have space to move or time to reach my foe before he pulled the trigger. I tried to shrink back, but at that moment I was bodily thrown forward into the throng as new men surged into us from behind. I could not turn to see who they were and for an awful second I wondered if the Ashanti had sprung a surprise of their own. Then a huge arm with a cleaver reached forward over O’Hara’s head and split the skull of the man who had been trying to kill me. It was clear that the new arrivals were friendly after all! The next few moments were like a particularly bad scrimmage at my old school, as men pushed and shoved at each other, but only those at the edges had room to use their weapons. I found myself pushed up against the back of an Ashanti, my sword trapped uselessly between our bodies, and then I heard the cannon from the tower fire again.

  I found out later that Hercules had seen the precarious position of the line of redcoats and had led a hundred of his warriors round as reinforcements. They had arrived just in time to save the day, but while they had stopped the redcoats from falling back, they were not enough to get the Ashanti to retreat. Then, as we were all packed tightly together, the gunners on the tower took a chance to win the battle. If they had miscalculated, their cannon balls would have hit us and the day would have been lost, but their aim was good. Their barrels were still hot and they had been aiming shot for most of the day. There was a ripping sound as cannon balls whizzed low over our heads. Then screams from in front, as they ploughed deep furrows through the packed humanity before us.

  I doubt the dead and wounded had room to fall and at first there was no relief from the pushing and shoving. But when the three guns fired a second salvo, I think the enemy finally realised that the game was up. They could not move forward now and were hemmed in on three sides while the cannon assailed them from above. Beyond the screams of the dead and dying, we now heard more shouting as men fell back and yelled for others to do the same. Within a moment the whole mass was moving back down the hill, like water released from a dam. Many of Appea’s men continued the pursuit. I saw Hercules grinning at me as he went past. “Kala ba,” he shouted again as he waved a blood-stained cleaver above his head. I pitied the next Ashanti he came across. The redcoats, though, largely stayed where they stood, some still looking shaken from the crush and our lucky escape.

  Lieutenant Drew sat on the ground nearby cradling what looked like a broken arm, while many of his marines and the redcoats pillaged the dead and wounded. One soldier gave a cry of delight as he pounced on a treasure hanging around the neck of an Ashanti corpse. Judging from his feathered headdress, the dead man had been an officer and the soldier held up his trophy. “Look at this, sir, a gold-plated bone!” It looked like a finger bone, with a thick strip of gold hammered around it. With an expert twist of his bayonet, the soldier soon detached the soft metal and casually tossed the bone away. It landed in the mud near me and as I looked down on it, I wondered if the relic had once been part of McCarthy.

  Without saying a word, O’Hara came over and offered me his silver flask. I accepted and took a swig. The battle had been far too much of a sobering affair; now the danger was past, intoxication seemed a welcome prospect. “That was a damn close thing,” the sergeant muttered as he took his tonic back.

  “You are bloody right there,” I agreed. I could feel my hands trembling slightly, which I thought was more due to my close brush with death than the drink. “Remind me to thank those gunners. That was some fine shooting to break the attack. Look, there must be hundreds, if not a thousand of them scattered down this hillside.” The bodies were lying so thick that I was sure I could have gone from where I stood all the way to the bottom of the hill without stepping on the ground once. The Ashanti had taken many of their wounded with them, but there was still a pitiable wailing coming from the few that remained. More than once I saw a bayonet stab down to finish one off. From the state of some of the wounds it was an act of mercy.

  “Well done, Flashman,” a voice called. I looked up to see Chisholm walking towards me, wrapping a kerchief over a cut on his hand. “I knew your battle experience would pay off. Rarely have I seen a more complete victory and to use the cannon to break them like that was a masterstroke. Well done indeed.”

  I was about to explain to him that the gunners had acted on their own initiative, but instead O’Hara held up his flask and offered the major a drink.

  Chisholm must have assumed that it was the diluted mixture I had been drinking before my illness rather than the neat raw spirit, for he took a large gulp. He gave a wheezing gasp and then his mouth started to open and close like a startled trout as his eyes bulged and watered. “Christ in his heaven,” he croaked at last. “I would rather face the Ashanti once more than drink that again.”

  O’Hara looked quite hurt at this critique of his fermenting skills. “It is an acquired taste,” I admitted, “but you do get used to it.”

  “Used to it?” repeated Chisholm, appalled. “If we had rolled a barrel of this into the Ashanti camp, we would not have had to fight them at all.”

  Chapter 30

  For the next two days I was showered with praise for my strategic cunning in organising our defence. Even things that had happened by accident, such as me leaving a blind spot right in front of the tower, were acclaimed as a stroke of genius to draw them in to a trap. In the end I gave up trying to correct people and basked in a rare moment of military glory. After all, if you have read this and my previous accounts, you will know that there were precious few of those. I had suffered from hardship almost continuously from the moment I had set foot on the shores of Africa. It was pleasant to have some good fortune for a change.

  One person who did not see fit to compliment me, however, was Sutherland. He had watched the battle from the safety of his brig a
nd only deigned to come ashore several hours after the fighting finished. Having been repeatedly assured that the Ashanti had now retreated into the forest, he finally came up to the tower to view the scene of the fiercest fighting. Whenever Chisholm mentioned my part in planning the defence, our gallant commanding officer cast me a wary and suspicious eye. Based on the rumours he had heard in Spain, he still seemed to think of me as some blasphemous degenerate. Certainly, when he finally wrote his report for the government, he gave Chisholm most of the credit. The evening after the battle he weighed anchor and sailed back to Sierra Leone. Perhaps fearing another attack, he was anxious to get away from the Ashanti as soon as he decently could. I could hardly blame him for that, as it was a sentiment I heartily shared.

  The Ashanti did not reappear, although we heard that many were still in their camp just a mile or so into the forest. The day after the battle we buried our dead. Considering we had been attacked by thousands of the enemy, the butcher’s bill was surprisingly light. One hundred and two men were killed and four hundred and forty wounded. Most of the casualties were among Appea’s soldiers as they made up the bulk of our force, but several redcoats and one of the garrison officers were also among the dead. In comparison, the enemy must have lost several thousand dead and wounded, although as they carried many of their wounded away, it was hard to be precise. I was just glad to see the back of them. Others, however, felt differently as I found out when called to a fresh council of war in Chisholm’s office.

  “Appea’s men and particularly King Dinkera are keen that we do not let the Ashanti stand,” Chisholm told a gathering of officers. “They want to cut a path through the jungle to the Ashanti camp and take the attack to them.”

  I had spent the last forty-eight hours congratulating myself on surviving this nightmare, but now it appeared that some were intent on an act of almost criminal stupidity. “For heaven’s sake,” I exploded. “Have they forgotten how many men the Ashanti have compared to our own? Have they taken leave of their senses?”

  “Steady on, Flashman,” the major soothed, trying to calm me down, but I was having none of it.

  “We won the last battle because we fought them on our terms. To go marching off into the forest will give the enemy a fight on exactly the terms they are used to.” I shot a glance at Rickets before adding, “We all know how that is likely to end. And as for marching our force up to theirs, well, it is like marching a child into the lair of a tiger: they won’t stand a chance. You can go if you like,” I concluded, “but I want no part of it.” I turned to Chisholm, “I would be obliged if you will release me from this command so that I can finally get a boat home. I hear one of the merchant ships is due to weigh anchor in the next few days.”

  There were several murmurs of agreement around the table. What I said made a lot of sense and there was no suspicion that I was simply frightened of making another attack. My reputation and recent exploits made that idea seem absurd – they were not to know that I had been roaring drunk throughout. Chisholm, though, was not agreeing, the sombre look on his face resembled that of an undertaker trying to present his account to a grieving widow. “I greatly regret, Thomas, that I cannot release you just yet from my command.”

  “What the deuce, why the hell not?” I demanded.

  “Your friend Hercules and King Dinkera both have the highest regard for your military expertise. They are insisting that you accompany them in their endeavour and advise on strategy.”

  “Pah,” I snorted in derision. “Since when has His Majesty’s government been at the beck and call of native princelings? Look, I am grateful to them for standing beside us, but if they want to put their heads in the lion’s mouth, they can hardly expect us to come with them. You will just have to tell them to go to the Devil without me.”

  “I can’t do that,” said Chisholm quietly. He looked me firmly in the eye and continued, “Right now we are at the ‘beck and call of native princelings,’ as you put it. They came to us in our hour of need and now they expect us to do the same. They are the only reliable allies we have. If they were to abandon us, then our position here would be untenable. I’m sorry, Flashman, but you will have to go with them.” He looked around the table, “We will all go with them to show our support.”

  I knew I was beaten then. Others around the table were clearly not keen on the idea, but they all piped up that if king and country was at stake then of course they would do their duty. To refuse would mean disgrace, but more importantly I would lose their support for an early berth on an outgoing ship and the worst of the fever season was only a week or two away.

  “Is it wise to abandon the fort?” asked one of the other officers.

  “Dinkera’s scouts will warn us if the Ashanti approach the coast. Right now, the nearest are in their camp a mile away.” He paused to show us the place on the map.

  “But we will be hugely outnumbered,” I persisted. “Surely we can try to get Dinkera to see reason?”

  “On the contrary,” countered Chisholm, “I think he may well have a point. You don’t know these people, Flashman, but for any native ruler there is a lot of pressure from rivals. The Ashanti king is new on his throne and he has brothers and cousins who would take the crown from him given the chance.”

  “That is true,” I admitted. “I spent time with some of them in his palace jail, but how does that help us?”

  “His army has taken a crushing defeat, and his generals and soldiers will probably blame him for it. They may be losing confidence in his leadership.”

  “But surely that means that he will be more anxious to fight us to save face?” I interjected.

  “Possibly,” admitted Chisholm. “But Dinkera, who is a fellow king after all, thinks he cannot risk another defeat and is more likely to head back to Coomassie to shore up his support there. If he is not in his capital when news of what happened here reaches the city, then he may not be king for much longer. The momentum is now with us. We will look weak if we do not exploit it and push the Ashanti back to their own lands.”

  I still felt sceptical. It seemed to me that we were giving the Ashanti king a chance of an easy victory to restore his credibility, but as I had never been a king, my views did not seem to count. That night I found myself praying that the Ashanti would make some move to put us back on the defensive, as that would force us to abandon this mad scheme. Instead, all we heard next morning were rumours of enemy forces moving around in the forest and raiding local villages for supplies. When I met Hercules and his interpreter, they both appeared entirely confident of our success. “We will chase their armies all the way to Coomassie,” the translator told me of the champion’s booming declaration. “Their forces are in disarray, we must not give them time to regroup.”

  To my surprise, even O’Hara thought the attack was a good idea. “We cannot just sit on our arses and wait for them to come at us again,” he explained. “Sooner or later they will come on a dry day and then we will be properly buggered. Far better to try to chase them off while we have the chance.”

  It was a strangely perceptive and pithy view from a man who was normally unceasingly intoxicated. I had to concede that he had a point. I was waiting for a passage home and so was only taking a short-term view, yet for the long-term future of the colony I understood that we had to drive the Ashanti back away from the coast. O’Hara now sported a new bandage around his arm, but it was only a flesh wound and he had still been declared fit for duty. There was no room for him to linger in the sickbay, which was full of those with far more grievous injuries. We were standing on McCarthy Hill watching the first of Dinkera’s warriors begin widening a path through the jungle by the gap in our line of traps. As the Ashanti had cut a trail coming the other way, which our allies were using as a starting point, they were making good progress.

  “I suppose we should go down and join them,” I said gloomily as I watched the rest of the garrison forming up in the valley and preparing to move forward.

  “Aye,” agreed O
’Hara pulling his flask from his coat for a final swig. He caught my eye and grinned, holding up his flask. “Are you still foresworn off the neat stuff, then?”

  “Yes,” I smiled. “That gut-rot nearly got me killed last time. I am sticking to the watered-down mixture in my bottle.” The night after the battle I had sat horrified as various people recounted my heroics during the day. I had forgotten much of it, but as the tales were told the details came back to me with horrifying clarity. What in God’s name was I thinking when I pushed the man on that ladder or when I stood alone by the moat, shouting at the enemy to clear off. It was little short of a miracle that I had survived. I was not going to take chances like that again, so I had vowed never to drink the tonic unless it was diluted. Now I only used it to kill any bugs in the rainwater but even so, it still had a worrying kick.

  We made our way down the slope, past several hastily dug mass graves. They had already been disturbed by wild creatures, and I saw a half-eaten arm poking out of one of them. We joined Chisholm as he led a column of the garrison down the widened trail. From my perspective, we made worryingly quick progress as there were at least a thousand of Appea’s warriors in front of us. Dinkera’s men were there as well, although some were running down parallel paths to our own. I strained my ears for the sound of shooting or the shouts of battle but there were none, just the crack of machete on wood and the casual chatter of the men around us. We pressed on a while and then suddenly we heard yells from the jungle ahead. A rousing cheer went up and the warriors in front of us pressed forward hastily to see the cause for celebration.