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

by Andrew Wareham

  The master called the order to his crew – a son and two nephews, he had said – and let the yawl ride gently onto the stones of the shore.

  Billy was stood in the prow, jumped ashore, ankle deep in water, ran forward. He was carrying a musket for the attack.

  “Follow me!”

  The two platoons crowded forward and quickly ashore, trotted behind Billy as he ran towards the scrub at the inland edge of the beach. The other three boats nudged ashore, a dull grinding of wood on the stones. Light showed out over the sea as the sun rose.

  Full daylight came almost instantaneously, the tropical sun popping up over the horizon. It showed a hastily-built fortalice, palm trunks cut and laid horizontally, five or six feet high, revetments for four small cannon, all of which fired as the sentries shouted the alarm.

  “Charge!”

  The guns had been loaded ball, the gunners expecting to fire at ships entering in daylight. They had caused no harm to the men who had landed, the guns laid too high. The next rounds would be grape and, even from six-pounders, would almost wipe out the attackers.

  Billy ran forward, yelling, Sergeant Affleck at his heels and giving him a leg up as he reached the low wall. He fired his musket and then jumped in, bellowing and sticking his bayonet into the nearest gunner, who obligingly screamed and gave a gurgling death rattle which drew the horrified attention of all of his mates.

  The garrison was small, the gunners and no more than a thin platoon of infantry, and they seemed poorly trained. Probably they had been posted to the little fort since the war had started, had seen nothing, done nothing since; they were not ready in their minds to fight.

  Billy ran at the rank of musketeers that was slowly forming under the hesitant orders of an elderly and overweight lieutenant. He swung the musket with all his weight, its brass-bound butt clonking into the officer’s head. A bayonet came thrusting hard beside him and another man went down, and then there was a roar as the whole of a platoon came charging in line abreast under the control of their corporal.

  “Sergeant Affleck, get into the huts, clear them! Sergeant Jameson, get a squad to the back wall.”

  There was an open cookhouse towards the rear, its hearths distant from the wooden walls. Close to it was a row of roughly built shacks, the barracks rooms, Billy presumed. There was a larger, better constructed place by the only gate at the rear, probably the officers’ quarters. Billy called the nearest squad to him, signalled them to kick the door open.

  “Je me rends! No fight!”

  Another officer, a captain perhaps, artillery, Billy thought, from his badges. He drew a sword, possibly to hand it across in token of his surrender, squealed in high-pitched agony as the nearest men reacted with their bayonets. He dropped and another blade slashed across his neck, silencing him.

  “Well done, lads!”

  Billy waved them to the two internal doors. There was a high-pitched squeal as a naked young boy was hauled out and kicked through the main door. The men laughed and made a number of probably highly obscene comments. An equally naked young woman, trying to hold a blanket around herself, was pulled out of the other room and ordered out.

  Billy threw open a cupboard door, saw it contained fewer than a dozen bottles, left it ajar – it was too small an amount to be dangerous.

  Twenty minutes and a few prisoners were assembled in the open ground behind the guns and the walls were manned by two full platoons. Billy had found a flagpole and had run up a Union Flag, brought along in hope rather than expectation of any use for it. The other eight island boats were making their way into the little port and were landing men to take the fishing village, whose inhabitants, awakened by the cannon fire, had left at speed over the previous ten minutes.

  “Mr Bacon, sir! On the ridge, sir!” Sergeant Affleck was pointing inland, along the track that led uphill away from the village.

  The land on this side of the island was obviously too poor for agriculture, a thin covering of grass and scrub over limestone, with just a few stunted trees. A spring rose a few yards back from the beach, its fresh water the cause of the gap in the reef and allowing the fishermen to exist. The track snaked up some two hundred feet to the ridge, showing the ruts of small carts and the tiny hoofprints of donkeys. Presumably some part of the catch was taken inland to be sold in the farming villages or at the single town of the island.

  Billy followed Affleck’s arm, saw a small unit of mounted men, dragoons of some sort with long guns across their saddlebows.

  Horse soldiers were uncommon in the islands, the climate unkind to the animals. At a guess, these would be no more than mounted infantry, sent out on patrol and to watch for smuggling more than for an invasion. They turned and ran as Billy watched.

  “Can we point those guns inland, Sergeant Affleck?”

  “No gunners, sir. No embrasures in the rear wall.”

  “Pity. I think we’ll get company soon. Get me a runner, to go to Major Palmer.”

  Billy pulled out his notepad and pencil and wrote a brief message – ‘fort taken, cavalry seen inland’.

  “Did we lose any of the men?”

  “None, sir. Those guns were aimed out to sea, not low down on the shoreline.”

  “Good. Makes a useful start for the men. A fort taken, enemy killed, ourselves untouched. I wonder what the rest of the day will be like.”

  The day was hot, which was unsurprising, and dry, which was normal for the season. It was also marked by distant firing from the ridge, a pointless activity as it was out of musket range.

  “Bloody daft, Sergeant Affleck! They can’t hurt us from there.”

  “They can keep us here, sir. Do you fancy pushing a company up the track to take the ridgeline, sir?”

  Billy stared up the slope; far too little cover to run skirmishers up. Too open for a line of infantry, marching slowly uphill. He paced across to the sidewalls of the fort, saw that he could not outflank the enemy. The fishing village lay in a low valley, cliffs rising no more than a hundred feet to a flat, coconut palm covered headland, but too sheer to be climbed by soldiers with guns and blocking the shoreline on both sides.

  “Not till night time, Sergeant Affleck. And if they put a pair of cannon to cover the track, we’d be in trouble then.”

  The runner returned with a note from Major Palmer, calling Billy to conference in the village.

  “Feed them, and keep them under cover, Sergeant Affleck. A full platoon to the walls, two hours at a time. Get as many as will to go to sleep – we may be busy tonight.”

  Sergeant Affleck did not allow any expression to cross his face, but he did not fancy a night action, uphill and across unknown ground.

  “No choice, man!”

  “No, sir. There ain’t, is there?”

  Major Palmer was not happy; his orders specifically stated that he must secure the fishing village and then press on into the interior of the island with the intention of threatening the sole town from inland. The Fencibles was to make its landing there one day after the West India Regiment, to allow them time to make their short march.

  “We have to advance, Lieutenant Bacon, there is no choice. But we cannot climb the hill under fire.”

  “An assault on the ridge in the first darkness, sir, then the battalion can make the march to arrive at St Pierre before dawn. It is only eight miles, sir, the island being longer than it is wide.”

  “What if there is a battalion entrenched up there, Lieutenant Bacon?”

  “Our information is that there is only a single, thin battalion on St Pierre, sir. If we hold them here, then the port and town fall to the Fencibles without resistance, and they can march to us. If they have split their forces, so much the better. I believe we must attack, sir.”

  Captain Simons was not at all sure that a rash assault was a wise idea. It would be safer to fort up and do nothing – the man who did nothing was very rarely wrong, in his experience.

  Lieutenant McKay was in favour of action; any action in any place, but t
hey must do something.

  Major Palmer dithered and blethered and finally decided that it would be wiser if Captain Simons was to follow his own advice and hold the fort and the village while Lieutenants McKay and Bacon took their men up the hill and swept away the enemy there and marched off to St Pierre.

  “That way, you see, if anything goes wrong, you have a base to fall back on. I shall emplace the four-pounders where they will cover us and protect the boats.”

  Instead of four hundred men, they would attack with fewer than two hundred and fifty.

  Billy knew that he must obey the order; he could not protest it, he was far too junior. Captain Simons was second-in-command and could raise his voice if he felt the orders must be modified; he, however, was very content to remain in the fort and said not a word.

  “I’ll lead, Mr McKay, with the Grenadiers – that is our function. You should follow at long musket shot, about one hundred paces, passing through my men and taking up any pursuit. March loaded but not primed, I would advise.”

  “Two squads, Sergeant Affleck, one to the left of the track and the other with me on the right. You to bring the bulk of the company behind me, closing when you think it right. Sergeant Jameson to hold the rear with a single platoon. I don’t see that they can have got behind us, but there’s no harm in caution. Tell the men to look carefully at the track this afternoon and try to memorise its turns and any steep or gravelly parts where they could trip.”

  They ate their evening meal early, and drew replacements for the made cartridges they had expended and peered up at the track they were about to mount in the tropical darkness.

  Billy called his two chosen squads to him.

  “We shall march loaded, hammer flat in the pan for a little more safety. Remember to cock your locks when the fighting starts. We do not know how many there are up there. If possible, if it is only a small party, kill them silently.”

  The corporals translated, passed the message on to the Chosen Men while Billy waited.

  “There may be only a very few up there – firing their muskets and running to a new position to shoot again, to make us think there is a battalion there.”

  He waited again until the muttering ceased.

  “Of course, there might be a full battalion there, but I doubt it, because they would have done something. I think they are waiting for reinforcements, or perhaps for field guns to come up.”

  There was a nodding of heads as the men digested his words.

  “If they set up guns on that ridge, we are finished – we won’t even be able to get back onto the boats. So, we must hit them hard tonight. We cannot afford to lose.”

  Billy had thought about encouraging them to be brave, to fight for the battalion; he had decided instead to tell them that the alternatives were certainly more deadly.

  The battalion had been taught the tea habit by their sergeants; the British Army ran on tea, and the West India Regiment brewed up in the hour before full dark, and the men seemed happier for it. Billy wondered why. The master at Bishop’s Waltham had not approved of tea and Billy had grown up without the brew, and he found it hard to seem to be enjoying the black, over-sweetened mug he had been given from the nearest fire. Sugar was easily come by in the Sugar Islands, and was used in far too great a quantity for his taste – but he had no choice, he must be seen to enjoy the men’s favourite.

  They hopped over the back wall rather than risk the noise of opening the gate, formed into their two lines, Billy at the forefront, as was right. The track ran to the fort and felt firm under their feet, easily differentiated from the loose dirt and gravel to the sides. Billy gave a low whistle and stretched out at march pace.

  The bare feet made no sound on the packed earth and they kept as close as they could to the low bush at the sides, hoping at least to disguise their outlines.

  There were four bends in the track, not doglegs as such, but deliberately made to switch the pathway across the pitch of the slope and reduce the gradient. Billy counted them – left, march fifty yards, then right for one hundred, angling up and left again for the same distance; cautiously and slowly, hunched over to reduce their size against the night sky and eighty more yards to the crest.

  As he came closer he saw a flickering light, a small fire a few yards over the top, just one fire. A full battalion would have more than one fire; many more.

  “Two lines across the track, a yard behind me.”

  Billy had chosen to carry a musket again; there had been no pistols on St Pierre and he had no wish to go into a fight carrying a sword and nothing else. He eased the hammer back, butt loosely into his shoulder, barrel drooping to the left, ready to fire in a second.

  He drifted a foot forward, silently, then another; three more paces and he could see over the ridge.

  There was a fire, bigger than he had thought, partly hidden under a scrub tree. The better part of a dozen men were sat around it. He could not see a sentry, but there must be one… He ducked as a sabre came swinging at his head, spun to his right and pulled the trigger, the muzzle almost touching the man’s chest.

  “Come on!”

  He ran in, flailing with the butt. The two squads shouted and jumped in.

  The men at the fire ran, leaving four behind and dead. Three of the fugitives tried to mount their horses, tied a few yards away. They were bayonetted before they could reach the saddle. Four or five had disappeared into the night, would be running hard down the track to the main body, who might be anywhere.

  The remainder of Billy’s company came up the hill to join him.

  Lieutenant McKay’s company came trotting past him, obeying their orders. He stopped the Lieutenant as he passed.

  “Some of the pickets escaped. I doubt they will ambush, but they will raise the alarm. Go cautiously through the night; we can make pace at dawn.”

  McKay nodded and hurried on, far too excited to pay attention.

  “Sergeant Affleck! Get the men together. I want to be on the march inside ten minutes. Keep an eye out in front for action.”

  Affleck said nothing, began to carry out his orders.

  “Sergeant Jameson – you must bring a platoon along in the rear. Pick up any stragglers, or any of Mr McKay’s people who come running back. If need arises, form up in ambush on either side of the track. If I must, I will fall back on you.”

  “Yes, sir. Them horses is worth prize money, sir.”

  “The men could use some of that. Do you know if any of them have ever worked with horses?”

  “Some will have, sir, from the plantation slaves, likely. I’ll get them to take the nags down the hill.”

  Twelve horses at anything up to twenty pounds apiece were too good to leave. The men would end up with no more than two shillings apiece, the officers taking the lion’s share, but that would be worth having when a pint of rum could be bought for tuppence.

  Lieutenant McKay’s men had surged ahead by at least half a mile in the ten minutes it took to reform and ready to march. The eight corpses had been stripped and looted of the little they had, mostly tobacco, and were dumped to one side. Sergeant Affleck presented Billy with the booty from his sentry.

  “You killed ‘im, you get what’s in ‘is pockets, sir. Only right, sir.”

  A well chewed clay pipe, which Billy dropped fastidiously – it was still wet from the dead man’s lips. A leather pouch half-full of tobacco.

  “You smoke, Sergeant Affleck. I don’t. Here.”

  Tobacco could be difficult to get hold of; the gift was welcome.

  A tinder box was useful as Billy did not possess one. A folding pocket knife, very handy. Issue water bottle, cartridge box and belts – none of which Billy needed.

  “Some of the lads will want them, sir. They can find a use for the belts and some of ‘em likes a second bottle. They can use the powder, sir, for starting a fire when it’s wet.”

  “Pass it out to them. I hadn’t thought about fires.”

  They marched, silently again. There had
been musket fire, so the enemy would be alert if they were anywhere close to hand, but the night was black and they would not be seen easily.

  They paced forward for an hour, as close as Billy could estimate, not closing on Lieutenant McKay and seeing nothing.

  “Take ten minutes, Sergeant Affleck. No fires.”

  The night sky was too dark for them to see any distance, a cloud haze blocking the bulk of the starlight. The clouds would burn off with the sun, were a nuisance now.

  “Plantation land, sir. The coconut palms are in lines, look. You can just see them against the sky. Warn the lads to keep to the track, shall I, sir? The ripe nuts drop at night mostly. Bit dodgy if one of them gets your ‘ead. All it needs is a gust of wind, sir, and down they comes.”

  “Warn them, Sergeant Affleck.”

  Some of the men purchased directly from the slave ships came from inland tribes and did not know the ways of the coconut palm; most of the men just laughed at the warning, having known all their lives not to venture under the trees at night.

  Another twenty minutes and they felt the track beginning a descent, sloping down to a shallow valley, or perhaps to a coastal plain. They could not see.

  “Getting wetter, sir. River ahead.”

  Billy had seen no map of the island. He did not know if there was a substantial river running down to the coast, or if there were short and shallow streams crossing a plain.

  “What’s the chance of crocodiles out here, Sergeant Affleck?”

  “Alligators, sir. Not crocs. Don’t know, sir, not on the smaller islands. Shouldn’t reckon so, sir.”

  “What’s the time, do you think?”

  Affleck possessed no watch, could only guess that they had left the fort three hours earlier, that it was about ten, or at most eleven o’clock.

  “Seven hours to dawn. We can’t make camp and wait - so we’ll follow the track down to the river and see what to do when we get there.”

  “Pity we ain’t one of the old-fashioned regiments, sir. A half-pike would be handy to prod ahead with.”

  It was too big a risk to try to cut a stick out of the bush to the sides – there could be anything by way of snakes and scorpions and such hiding up there in the dark.