Billy Bacon and the Soldier Slaves (Colonial Warrior Series, Book 1)

by Andrew Wareham

Billy drank two glasses of wine before dinner and another with it, then as little of possible of port afterwards. He had developed a head for his liquor, but no desire to take any excess, Clarence having warned him that it would be easy to get into the habit of punishing the bottle as a ranker, an outsider in the Mess. He talked quietly, mostly to Clarence and kept his eyes wide open, observing the currents in the Mess.

  The officers of the West India Regiment were welcome guests, he saw, as they must be, but there was no evidence of any liking for them, and any number of sneers as the five drunks succumbed one after another and were led or carried to their rooms by their servants. Major Palmer showed only contempt for his juniors, and Captain Simons remained almost silent, as was apparently normal for him.

  Clarence stayed at Billy’s side for much of the evening, offering him some unwelcome news.

  “You are on your own, Billy. Colonel Searson told you there would be three sergeants made, did he not? The other two turned down his generosity. Thanked him kindly, but said their shoulders were not quite broad enough to carry the weight of five drunks between them. The Colonel wasn’t best pleased, but he could hardly tell them they was wrong, not once he had seen them for himself.”

  Billy shrugged – he would survive, he hoped.

  Billy breakfasted at dawn, as was his old habit, and found his Grenadier Company soon afterwards.

  “Sergeant Affleck, sir. Grenadier Company, sir.”

  “No officer, Sergeant Affleck?”

  “No, sir. Which, sir, we had, but he become Adjutant, on the death last month of the incumbent, sir.”

  “So be it. I am Lieutenant Bacon, newly made, as I do not doubt you know, Sergeant Affleck.”

  The old sergeant nodded that he did, though he would not say the words, to cover himself if the Lieutenant proved touchy – as ranker officers so often seemed to do.

  “That means I have to make a good job of this Company, Sergeant Affleck. I can’t do that without my sergeant, as you will also know.”

  Sergeant Affleck risked a smile.

  “Yes, sir!”

  Billy said no more – he could not make promises or offers to his sergeant – that had to remain unsaid but understood.

  “What’s the state of the Company, Sergeant Affleck?”

  “Thirty-four men, sir. All bigger than the general run, strong and willing. Drill is no more than fair, sir, but their musketry is better than average.”

  “Bring them out onto the square and put them through their paces in a minute. They must be able to form their lines and a square; more than that, well, I am not so worried about. How many rounds a minute?”

  “Three, sir, all held well together, and the muskets level and steady.”

  “Good. We need little more than that. Your corporals must be capable men if they can keep the muskets level.”

  “Two of them, sir, a bit older than the rest and respected.”

  “Sensible promotions, from the sound of things. What are the men? Slaves or freemen?”

  “Mostly slaves bought direct off the boat from Africa, sir. A dozen sold off their plantations, as a favour to the Governor. They became free as soon as they joined up, sir. When the regiment disbands, they’re going to be freemen wherever they end up.”

  There was a certainty that the regiment would be surplus to requirements when the war ended, but not even a probability that they would be disbanded in Antigua. They would be sent out of the barracks gate into whatever town, or county, or colony of England that they might happen to be in.

  “They have a promise of a bounty of fifty pounds, sir. From the Governor.”

  They would be lucky if they saw that, Billy thought, but said nothing.

  “Do they speak English?”

  “All of them got some, sir. Some of them speaks easily, most don’t, but they know their words of command, sir. When I got something to say, the corporals pass it on.”

  “Right, Sergeant Affleck, wheel ‘em out and I’ll inspect them, then watch as you drill them. I’ll organise powder and ball as well and get them to our butts. I’ll speak to them first.”

  “I am Lieutenant Bacon. I am your officer. We are the Grenadiers. First into the fight. First over a wall. We are the biggest, strongest, fiercest men of this battalion. When we come to a fight, then you follow me. I go first, you see if you can keep up!”

  He looked at them, hoping to see a reaction to his words. He realised that they had listened and were now deciding whether they believed him, whether he was more than a loud mouth.

  “In a few weeks, we take ship south and we will capture a French island. Us first! You look like fighting men – show me when the day comes. Until then, we work hard with musket, with bayonet and with the butt. We are the best – or will be, if you can become as good as me!”

  They weighed him up again, one or two with almost a smile that said they thought they could do a lot better than him.

  “Carry on, Sergeant Affleck.”

  Twenty minutes was enough to show that they had learned the basics. Billy was impressed by them. They were mostly big men, a lot of them taller than him and broad on the shoulders and carrying themselves lightly on their feet. They looked like soldiers, Billy thought – dark brown, which was uncommon, but confident. He would have no hesitation in leading these men into a fight, there was no sign of give in them. They would be as good as the battalion he had left.

  “Dismiss the men to barracks, Sergeant Affleck, it’s getting hot.”

  “We normally carry on for another hour or two, sir, them being more used to the heat, like.”

  Billy shook his head.

  “Standard way of doing things is to rest the men in the hottest hours. These are my men and are treated like every other soldier. We shall march out every second morning, in the dark, and go a few miles along the coast road, so as to keep their legs strong, but we shall not work under a hot sun, not if we can avoid it.”

  They drilled and they fired their muskets and performed their short route marches and made no complaint. They kept their uniforms clean and tidy and showed as good soldiers should. And all the while they remained distant, quiet, uncommitted – men doing a job, not a lot more than that. Thinking on it, Billy could understand that they could have no loyalty to the regiment, or to their white masters; they must have some reason to hold together, which meant they must develop a loyalty to their mates.

  “Sergeant Affleck, I want to split each platoon into two large squads, each with a Chosen Man as leader. The numbers work out for four squads of eight, the two corporals and you overall. Make sure they exercise in their squads. I can find a prize each week for the best squad – a bottle of rum between them maybe or something extra for their rations – find out what they would like. They’ve got to be soldiers, looking after each other.”

  “Be easier if they was all the same tribe, sir. Might be able to get them to pull together, sir.”

  Billy had no idea of what a tribe might be and cared very little. They were soldiers first and last.

  Major Palmer demanded a parade after two weeks on the island, perhaps believing that he should be seen by his men. He made the mistake of setting a time in late afternoon; only three of his officers were able to attend – or, indeed, stand.

  The six companies formed their orderly blocks on the quay outside the warehouses where they slept and, under command of Captain Simons and Billy, showed themselves smart and competent. The sergeants did their best to compensate for the absence of any other officers but Major Palmer was humiliated in the presence of the officers of the Fencibles, all laughing heartily. He called his sober officers to him after dismissing the men.

  “I am to speak with Brigadier Searson in a few minutes gentlemen. Please to remain within immediate call.”

  Billy decided that he would not stand outside in the afternoon sun, obviously waiting for his master to call him to heel.

  “Sergeant Affleck! Have you inspected the men’s billets today?”

  “Yes
, sir. In good condition, sir. Beg pardon, sir, but the men will have hung up their parade uniforms, sir, will mostly be waiting around in no more than a breech clout, sir, before the guard detail puts on their working dress.”

  They would be incorrectly dressed if he went inside, and he would have to notice that fact and take action, which was not what he wanted. A snap inspection made sense only if it would show him the efficiency he wanted to see.

  “Thank you, Sergeant Affleck. If you are satisfied with the men’s quarters then there is no need for me to make additional inspection. I shall confine myself to the normal Monday morning examination of the barrack rooms.”

  The meeting with Brigadier Searson was obviously brief. Ensign McKay marched from the office and asked Captain Simons and Billy to be so good as to join Major Palmer.

  The bent-over old man was openly angry, had not enjoyed his interview with his superior.

  “The Brigadier is in process of placing the five drunken officers under arrest. They are to be returned to Antigua in the morning, on the first available boat, under guard, sent for a court. We have only four officers. The Brigadier has agreed with my intention to promote Ensign McKay, and to combine the six companies into three. Lieutenant Bacon, you will take A and B Companies as your expanded Grenadiers. Captain Simons, C and D, if you please. Mr McKay, E and F. The old C Company were to become our Light Company, eventually; that must be held in abeyance.”

  Captain Simons was most affected, no longer solely second-in-command but made into a company officer. At his age – he would not see fifty again – he was not pleased at the prospect. He could not protest – he had been given a wholly lawful order.

  Ensign McKay was both nervous of his new duties and delighted by his rapid promotion, made without purchase, as his father would no doubt be pleased to discover.

  Billy was not displeased. B Company was larger than A, being an ordinary company of the line, the men assigned at random rather than picked out as the largest and strongest. Between them he would have more than one hundred men, a large company, but not impossibly so with two sergeants and four corporals; if he picked out additional Chosen Men, they would form their squads and become a very effective unit.

  “We sail in five days from today, gentlemen, leading the onslaught on the island of St Pierre. I have assured Brigadier Searson that you will be ready for the task.”

  Lieutenant McKay said that he was sure they would be – the battalion would not let their commanding officer down.

  “Captain Simons, are you equally happy, sir?”

  Captain Simons gave a sour grunt that might have been taken as assent.

  “Lieutenant Bacon?”

  “A few more days would have been handy, sir. The Company will be ready, sir, and will perform its duty. Are we to land in a harbour or on a beach, sir?”

  “The Brigadier has yet to inform me, Lieutenant Bacon. The Fencibles will be accompanied by the battery and will no doubt choose to avail itself of any port facilities that may exist – which will be few, I do not doubt. You must assume a beach, I believe. Possibly the shingle strand of a fishing village.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Not ideal, but the men being barefoot would not have to carry their shoes to protect them from the salt water – it would slow the landing, but not by too much, probably. They must land unloaded with their powder wrapped dry and held high – again, they could be forewarned.

  The men of the old B Company were inclined to be resentful – not of anything specific, but of the Army in general. Their officer had been openly, drunkenly contemptuous of them, had made his opinion of black soldiers casually clear. He had told their sergeant that he need not bother about teaching them their musketry – they would never be called upon to fight.

  Billy called the enlarged company to him immediately after morning food – thin water gruel and biscuit. He had been unable to change their diet, for lack of resources – there was salt beef for their evening meals, and dried peas and cheese for the non-meat days; besides that, a few barrels of oats and barrel after barrel of ship’s biscuit. There was a little of cocoa, sufficient for one mug apiece each week.

  “We go to war in four days from now. You must practice with your muskets and the sergeants will take you to the butts immediately after this parade. We shall be landing on an island, larger than this, and we shall be first ashore, because we are the Grenadiers. Where we lead, the rest follow. The old Company A Grenadiers will help you, and will show you how we go on. If you do not know what to do ever, then follow me! If you see me, then do what I do – and that will be to attack. We go forward! Sergeant Affleck, you are Senior Sergeant of the Grenadiers. Carry on!”

  Sergeant Affleck had told Billy to say very little and then to get out of sight. He would deal with the inevitable problems, unofficially. If Billy saw indiscipline and heard mutinous words, then he would have to lay charges and bring the lash into play. It was better to deal with all problems quietly by explanation and argument, Sergeant Affleck said. If he discovered a leader, a true mutineer after a few days, then he would bring him to the table for discipline, but he hoped to avoid that extreme.

  “I have never been flogged, Sergeant Affleck. I don’t want to order a flogging if I can possibly avoid it. Let the men know that, on the quiet. Let them know as well that I shall be blind to goats and chickens going into the cookpot when we have landed – but that they will leave the women alone. Five hundred for any man who rapes – and that is a promise, not a threat. Kill an unarmed civilian and I shall call murder. Theft from the poor villagers is to be frowned upon – but if they loot a plantation house, well, that is a different matter. Tell them as well that if they are drunk on duty, their backs will smart; if they lay their hands on a few bottles after duty – well, how am I to know?”

  “Sergeant Jameson says that he has taught his men their musketry on the side, as it were. They all know how to load and handle their Besses, but they have hardly fired them. I want to improve that, sir.”

  “Draw the powder and ball from the QM, Sergeant Affleck. With Jameson, you are to identify their corporals and Chosen Men, exactly as we have with the old Grenadiers. Pass the word that I want to find at least one more sergeant to be made if you or Jameson go down. Tell the men that all of their corporals and sergeants will come from their ranks in future. They won’t let me make any of them into officers, that I am certain of, but they will go as high as I can take them. We need our own quartermasters, as an example.”

  “Beg pardon, sir, but will Major Palmer and Captain Simons agree with that, sir?”

  “What do you think, Sergeant Affleck? Just how likely is it that they will keep up with us in a battle? Major Palmer will try, that is for sure, but…”

  “I’ll have a talk with the other sergeants, sir, just to make sure that they all know what’s what. We don’t want the one Company treated differently to the others.”

  “Quite right. When you’re at the Butts, Sergeant Affleck, keep an eye out for any good shots who might become our sharpshooters. I shall be there most times, but I can’t always promise to make it. With no more than four officers, I shall be stretched to find time for everything that is to be done. Guard duty at least twice a week; all the other nonsenses of the Company Books, and making up the muster for pay and all of that stuff – and half of it to be learned as I go along!”

  Billy took himself off to the company offices, to continue the process he had started of writing in all of the men’s names and numbers and their pay and deductions. The previous lieutenant had copied up his books, all written in a very fair round hand, but he had included everything by rote. The men had no shoes, but he had entered the deductions for black ball for polishing, foot cloths and additional shoe strings, and for the two polishing brushes. With no shoes, the men could not wear puttees or gaiters, yet they were also included in the books. To be fair, those deductions had to be eliminated, which meant rewriting the books from new, as the pay clerks at Horse Guards in London w
ould eventually – possibly in ten years’ time – inspect the actual documents and would query the legitimacy of every erasure. Any entry they refused would result in a claim for the sum expended, to be taken from the pay of the responsible officer. Luckily, the battalion was newly raised, which demanded only that the books be rewritten for the previous four months; Billy had been told of poor officers slaving away every evening for months to rework books that were five years old, for the clerks would compare one year’s books with the previous – they had to agree.

  The disadvantage of a battalion of ex-slaves was that none were literate in English – he could not co-opt a company clerk.

  Four long days and all was eventually finished; the books were packed into hopefully waterproof coverings and carefully put away in the knapsacks of the major’s headquarters’ platoon, to be given back as soon as the island was taken and routine was established again. The boats were due in the next morning and they would board and sail to land in the following dawn.

  Billy Bacon and the Soldier Slaves

  Chapter Nine

  They closed the shore before dawn, four small island boats carrying the Grenadiers in the lead, another eight with the remainder of the battalion a few minutes behind. The owner and navigator of the leading boat claimed to know the coast here, said that he had called regularly in the years of peace. There was a fishing village, he said, a gap in the reef and a broad stretch of shingle where the boats were drawn up. He could run his own yawl ashore at low tide, would float out on the high – he had done it in the past when he had bought copra here.

  “A fort? Guns? No, suh, no way. She too small a place for any such.”

  They had no better information, and no way of checking that he was right.

  “Take us in,” Billy ordered.

  Glimpses of white in the darkness showed heads of coral on either side, but there was clear water under their bow and the little vessel held in.

  “Drop the sails!”