Book 4 - The Mauritius Command

by Patrick O'Brian

  When her captain had gloated over the squat, thick object for a while he said, 'She's my first command, sir. A wonderful brig on a bowline; and she draws so amazing little water, she can run up the smallest creek. Will you honour us with a visit?

  'I should be very happy, Captain,' said Stephen. 'And since you are in command, might I beg the favour of a shovel, a crowbar, and a stout man of fair average understanding?'

  The Commodore and the Colonel worked on their plan of campaign; the staff officers worked on their lists; the soldiers polished their buttons, formed in squares, formed in fours, and marched off by the right into the boats, filling the transports and the frigates until the harassed sailors could scarcely holystone the decks, let alone come at the rigging; and Dr Maturin, with two Gropers of fair average understanding dug out the remains of the solitaire from the caves into which she had retired from hurricanes, only to be overwhelmed by the ensuing deluge of now rock-like mud.

  The last soldier left the beach, a crimson major in charge of the operation; and as he set his weary foot on the Boadicea's quarterdeck he looked at his watch and cried, 'One minute fifty-three seconds a man, sir: that beats Wellington by a full two seconds!' A single gun to windward from the Commodore, the signal Make sail, and the fourteen transports began to file through the narrow opening in the reef to join the men-of-war.

  By the evening they had sunk the island. They were sailing towards the setting sun with a fine topgallantsail breeze on the larboard quarter; and nothing but open sea lay between them and the beaches of La Réunion. The enterprise was now in train. Jack was far too busy with Colonel Keating and his maps for anything but the living present, but Stephen felt the long hours of gliding towards the inevitable future more than he had expected. He had been intimately concerned in matters of greater moment, but none in which the issue would be so clear cut—total success, or total failure with a shocking loss of life—in a matter of hours.

  He was not altogether happy about the plan to attack, which assumed that they would be expected at St Paul's, a restored, strengthened St Paul's, and which required a feint and then a landing at two points, the one east and the other south-west of Saint-Denis, the capital, the second being designed to cut off communication between Saint-Denis and St Paul's; nor was Jack, who feared the surf. But since Colonel Keating, a man in whom they had great confidence, and one who had fought over some of the terrain, strongly urged its strategic importance, and since he was supported by the other colonels, the Commodore had yielded, neither Stephen nor Farquhar saying anything, except when they stressed the importance of respect for civilian and ecclesiastical property.

  The hours dropped by. At every heave of the log La Réunion was seven or eight miles nearer. Mr Farquhar was busy with his proclamation, and Stephen paced the quarterdeck, silently hating Buonaparte and all the evil he had brought into the world. 'Good only for destruction—has destroyed all that was valuable in the republic, all that was valuable in the monarchy—is destroying France with daemonic energy this tawdry, theatrical empire—a deeply vulgar man nothing French about him—insane ambition—the whole world one squalid tyranny. His infamous treatment of the Pope! Of this Pope and the last. And when I think of what he has done to Switzerland and to Venice, and to God knows how many other states, and what he might have done to Ireland—the Hibernian Republic, divided into departments—one half secret police, the other informers—conscription—the country bled white—' A subaltern of the 86th caught his pale wicked glare full in the eye and backed away, quite shocked.

  In the afternoon of the day after the council three ships were sighted from the masthead: Sirius, Iphigenia and Magicienne, exact to the rendezvous, having seen no sign of the Bellone or Minerve, nor any hint of movement in Port-Louis. That evening they began to take chosen troops aboard over an easy, gentle sea: and Jack summoned the captains to explain the course of action. While the main force made a demonstration before Sainte-Marie, the Sirius was to land Colonel Fraser's brigade and the howitzers at Grande-Chaloupe, a beach on the leeward side of the island between Saint-Denis and St Paul's. At the same time part of the brigades under Colonel Keating were to be landed at the Rivière des Pluies, thus placing Saint-Denis between two fires; and here the other troops should also be landed as the transports came in; for the frigates were now to press on alone under all the sail they could bear.

  They pressed on, still over this long easy swell, in a gentle breeze with studding-sails aloft and alow: a magnificent sight in their perfect line stretching over a mile of sea, the only white in that incomparable blue. They pressed on, never touching a sail except to make it draw better, from sunset until the morning watch; and all the time the Commodore took his sights on the great lambent stars hanging there in the velvet sky, checking his position again and again with the real help of Richardson and the nominal help of Mr Buchan the master, calling for the log at every glass, and perpetually sending below for the readings of the chronometers and the barometer. At two bells in the morning watch he gave orders to reduce sail; and coloured lanterns, with a leeward gun, bade the squadron do the same.

  Dawn found him still on deck, looking yellow and unshaved and more withdrawn than Stephen cared to see. La Réunion lay clear on the larboard bow, and the soldiers, coming sleepily on deck, were delighted to see it: they clustered on the forecastle, looking at the land with telescopes; and more than one cried out that he could find no surf upon the reefs, nothing but a little line of white. 'They may not be so pleased in twelve hours' time,' said Jack in a low voice, answering Stephen's inquiring look. 'The glass has been sinking all through the night: still, we may be in before it comes on to blow.' As he spoke he took off his coat and shirt, and then, having given his orders to Trollope, the officer of the watch, his breeches: from the rail he pitched head-first into the sea, rose snorting, swam along the line of boats that each frigate towed behind her, made his way back along them, and so went dripping below: the Boadiceas were perfectly used to this, but it shocked the redcoats, as savouring of levity. Once below and free of good mornings right and left, he went straight to sleep, with barely a pause between laying his long wet hair on the pillow and unconsciousness; and fast asleep he remained, in spite of the rumbling boots of a regiment of soldiers and the din inseparable from working the ship, until the faint tinkle of a teaspoon told some layer of his mind that coffee was ready. He sprang up, looked at the barometer, shook his head, dipped his face into a kid of tepid water, shaved, ate a hearty breakfast, and appeared on deck, fresh, pink, and ten years younger.

  The squadron was coasting along just outside the reef, a reef upon which the sea broke mildly: three lines of rollers that a well-handled boat could manage easily enough.

  'Upon my word, Commodore, the weather seems to serve our turn,' said Colonel Keating; and then in a louder voice and waving his hat to a young woman who was gathering clams on the reef, 'Boniour, Mademoiselle.' The young woman, who had already been greeted by the three leading frigates, turned her back, and the Colonel went on, 'How do you think it will stay?'

  'It may hold up,' said Jack. 'But then again it may come on to blow. We must move smartly: you will not object to a very early dinner, at the same time as the men?'

  'Never in life, sir. Should be very happy—indeed I am sharp-set even now.'

  Sharp-set he might be, reflected Jack, but he was also nervous. Keating set about his very early dinner with a decent appearance of phlegm, yet precious little went down his gullet. He had never had such an important command; nor had Jack; and in this waiting period they both felt the responsibility to a degree that neither of them would have thought possible. It affected them differently, however; for whereas Keating ate very little and talked a good deal, Jack devoured the best part of a duck and followed it with figgy-dowdy, gazing thoughtfully out of the stern-window as the not very distant landscape slipped by: far off, the harsh, precipitous mountains; nearer to, cultivated land, the occasional house: forest, plantations, a hamlet, and some carts creepi
ng against the green. Their dinner did not last long: it was first interrupted by the report of two sail bearing east a half south—they later proved to be the leading transports, Kite and Groper—and then cut short entirely by the appearance of the little town of Sainte-Marie before Jack had quite finished his first attack upon the figgy-dowdy.

  Here the reef trended in towards the coast, and the squadron turned with it, heaving to at the Commodore's signal. Already the town was in a state of turmoil: people were running about in all directions, pointing, screeching audibly, putting up their shutters, loading carts. They had plenty to screech about, for there, right off their anchorage, where the fresh water of the stream made gaps in the coral, and well within gunshot, lay five ships, broadside on, with their ports open and a frightful array of cannon pointing straight at Sainte-Marie. Even worse, large numbers of boats with soldiers in them were rowing about, evidently determined to land, to take, burn, rase, and sack the town. The sergeant's guard from the little post was lined up on the beach, but they did not seem to know what to do, and every man who could command a horse had long since galloped off to Saint-Denis to give the alarm and to implore instant succour from the military there.

  'This is going very well,' said Colonel Keating some time later, as he watched the vanguard of the succour through his telescope. 'Once their field-pieces are across the stream, they will have a devil of a time getting them back again. Their horses are quite done up already. See the company of infantry at the double! They will be pooped, sir, pooped entirely.'

  'Aye,' said Jack. 'It is very well.' But his mind was more on the sea than on the land, and it appeared to him that the surf was growing: the rollers, perhaps from some blow far to the east, were coming in with more conviction. He looked at his watch, and although it wanted forty minutes of the stated time he said, 'Make Sirius's signal to carry on.'

  The Sirius paid off heavily, filled, and bore away for Grande-Chaloupe, carrying close on a thousand men and the howitzers. As she moved off, her place was taken by the Kite, the Groper, and two other transports, increasing the alarm on shore.

  The plan had been unable to allot any precise interval between the two landings, since obviously that must depend on the time the Sirius should take to pass Saint-Denis and reach the agreed point between that town and St Paul's; but they had hoped for something in the nature of two hours. With the failing breeze, however, it now looked as though at least three would be required: and all the while the surf was growing. The waiting was hard, and it would have been harder still if the newly-arrived French field-pieces, drawn up on a hill behind the post, had not seen fit to open fire. They threw no more than four-pound balls, but they threw them with striking accuracy, and after the first sighting shots one passed so close to Colonel Keating's head that he cried out indignantly, 'Did you see that, sir? It was perfectly deliberate. Infernal scrubs! They must know I am the commanding officer.'

  'Do you not shoot at commanding officers in the army, Colonel?'

  'Of course not, sir. Never, except in a melee. If I were on land, I should send a galloper directly. There they go again. What unprincipled conduct: Jacobins.'

  'Well, I believe we can put a stop to it. Pass the word for the gunner. Mr Webber, you may fire at the field-pieces by divisions: but you must point all the guns yourself, and you must not damage any civilian or ecclesiastical property. Pitch them well up beyond the town.'

  With the great guns going off one after another in a leisurely, deliberate fire, and the heady smell of powder swirling about the deck, tension slackened. The soldiers cheered as Mr Webber sent his eighteen-pound balls skimming among the Frenchmen on their knoll, and they roared again when he hit a limber full on, so that one wheel sprang high into the air, turning like a penny tossed for heads or tails. But such an unequal contest could not last long, and presently the French guns were silenced: and all the time the swell increased, sending white water high on the reef and surging through the gap to break in great measured rollers on the strand.

  Yet after the lull the breeze had strengthened too, with every sign of blowing hard before the night, and at length Jack said, 'Sirius should be at Grande-Chaloupe by now. I think we may move on.'

  Their move took them briskly past another shallow gap in the reef, where more fresh water broke the coral, and to another anchorage (though still indifferent) off the mouth of the Rivière des Pluies.

  'This is it,' said Colonel Keating, map in hand. 'If we can go ashore here, the landing will be unopposed. It will be at least an hour before they can get round: probably more.'

  'My God,' thought Jack, looking at the broad belt of surf, the steep-to beach of rounded boulders. He stepped to the taffrail and hailed, 'Néréide ahoy. Come under my stern.' The Néréide shot up, backed her foretopsail, and lay pitching on the swell: there was Lord Clonfert on her quarterdeck; and Stephen noticed that he was wearing full-dress uniform—no unusual thing in a fleet-action, but rare for a skirmish.

  'Lord Clonfert,' called Jack, 'do you know the deepwater channel?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Is a landing practicable?'

  'Perfectly practicable at present, sir. I will undertake to put a party ashore this minute.'

  'Carry on, Lord Clonfert,' said Jack.

  The Néréide had a little captured schooner among her boats, a local craft; and into this and some of her boats she poured an eager party of soldiers and seamen. The squadron watched the schooner run down to the edge of the surf, followed by the boats. Here she took to her sweeps, backing water and waiting for the master-wave: it came, and she shot in through the breaking water, on and on, and they thought she was through until at the very last she struck, ten yards from the shore, slewed round, and was thrown on to the beach, broadside on. As the wave receded all the men leapt ashore, but the backdraught took her into the very curl of the next, which lifted her high and flung her down so hard that it broke her back at once and shattered her timbers. Most of the other craft fared the same: the boats beaten to pieces, the men safe. Only four bodies were to be seen, dark in the white water, drifting westwards along the shore.

  'It is essential to carry on,' cried Colonel Keating in a harsh voice. 'We must take Saint-Denis between two fires, whatever the cost.'

  Jack said to Mr Johnson, 'Make Groper's signal.'

  While the transport was coming up he stared at the beach and the floating wreckage: as he had thought, it was only the last stretch that was mortal at this stage. Anything of a breakwater would allow boats to land and the Groper was the only vessel with a draught shallow enough to go in so far. When she was under the Boadicea's lee he called, 'Mr Pullings, you must shelter the boats: take your brig in, drop your stern-anchor at the last moment, and run her ashore as near as you can heading south-west.'

  'Aye, aye, sir,'said Pullings.

  The Groper bore up in a volley of orders, made her way slowly towards the land while her people were busy below, rousing a cable out of a stern-port, and then much faster: into the surf, on and on through it. In his glass Jack saw the anchor drop, and a moment later the Groper ran hard aground right by the shore. Her foretopmast went by the board with the shock, but the hands at the capstan took no notice: they were furiously heaving the cable in, forcing her stern round so that she lay just south-west, braced against the seas and creating a zone of quiet water right in by the shore.

  'Well done, Tom Pullings, well done indeed: but how long will your anchor hold?' muttered Jack, and aloud, 'First division away.'

  The boats ran in, landed and hauled up, half-swamped in most cases but rarely overset: the beach was filling with redcoats, forming neatly in line as they came ashore. Some, with Colonel McLeod, had taken up position a few hundred yards inland. Then the Groper's cable parted. A tall comber took her stern, wrenched it round, and flung her on that unforgiving beach: and since her bows were already stove, she went to pieces at once, leaving the surf the full sweep of the shore. The wave that broke her was the first of a growing series; and presently the
belt of surf grew wider and wider, thundering louder still.

  'Can another ship be sent in, Commodore?' asked Keating.

  'No, sir,' said Jack.

  On the road that led from Sainte-Marie to Saint-Denis, and that here curved inland from the coast to avoid a swamp, three separate bodies of French troops could be seen, moving slowly from east to west, towards Saint-Denis. Colonel McLeod's party on shore had already thrown up dry-stone breastworks between the beach and the road, and had formed behind them in good order. To the left of their line the seamen and the Marines had done much the same; but being on wetter ground they had made a broad turf wall, upon which stood Lord Clonfert, conspicuous with his star and his gold-laced hat.

  The first body came abreast of the landing-party at a distance of two hundred yards: they halted, loaded, levelled their pieces, and fired. Clonfert waved his sword at them, reached behind him for a Marine's musket, and returned the fire. It was almost the only shot in reply to the French discharge: clearly the landing-party had spoilt nearly all its powder.

  As the squadron watched, too far for accurate fire on this heaving sea but near enough for telescopes to show every detail, two cavalrymen came galloping down the road from Saint-Denis, spoke to an officer and rode on. The troops shouldered their muskets, reformed, and set off towards Saint-Denis at the double. The second and third bodies, also given orders by the horsemen, came fast along the road: each halted long enough for a volley or two, and each was saluted by Clonfert from the top of his wall. He was eating a biscuit, and each time he put it down on his handkerchief to shoot. Once he hit an officer's horse, but most of the time his musket missed fire.

  Still more horsemen came riding fast from Saint-Denis, one of them probably a field-officer, urging the troops to hurry. The inference was as clear as the day: Colonel Fraser had landed in force from the Sirius, and these men were being called back to protect the capital.