06 - Tenacious

by Julian Stockwin

  ‘Well, that’s settled,’ Smith said. ‘I’d be obliged, Mr Kydd, if you’d give a reply to Mr Buonaparte on my behalf with your twenty-four?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir!’

  The die was cast. Buonaparte would never forgive the insult.

  The breach was stopped up hastily with baulks of timber and rubble. At noon there was a sinister movement across the whole width of Kydd’s vision. Unseen trumpets blared at each end of the line, colours were raised and drums began their volleying summons to the flag.

  Kydd looked along the wall to the soldiers at the ready. Obviously frightened, they were calling to each other and looking about them as if to escape. Kydd brandished his sword and strode down the walls. This steadied them to a degree but then the skyline erupted into a mass of advancing troops, Buonaparte’s finest, who had defeated a hundred thousand Mamelukes in an hour at the Pyramids, been victorious at the siege of El Arish and butchered in cold blood the survivors of the Jaffa siege. Firing wildly, many Turks and Arabs broke and fled. Kydd shouted himself hoarse and some hesitated, but most tumbled off the parapets and ran. Kydd returned hastily to the gun, shaken.

  Dobbie and the others acknowledged him calmly and a surge of feeling for them came over him. ‘Grape, then canister,’ he croaked, with renewed determination. There would be time to get away only two shots before the French were upon them. Smoke was obscuring his view but he could make out the advance guard running in front. They carried scaling ladders and equipment, and close behind were their armed supporters.

  The sheer numbers appalled Kydd, dense masses of troops that faded into the distance, all tramping forwards in an unstoppable wave, even over the bodies of those who fell. In his gut he felt the terror of the helpless. The main wave was going against the Cursed Tower, and their close-packed ranks quickened as they drew nearer, their swords and bayonets rising and falling with a terrible glint.

  The final battle for Acre would be won or lost at the tower. He hurried to the breach and saw that it would never stand a determined assault. Kydd stood there with bared sword, waiting for the onslaught. He sensed others forming up behind him, filling the breach with their bodies, and suddenly felt exhilaration, a curious exaltation that he was alive and a man on such a day.

  The first wave of the assault reached middle ground, then came to the final distance. Then above the tumult of battle came an avalanche of thuds. Seconds later the entire front of the attacking army crumpled. Whole columns were slapped to the ground or flung skyward, and military formation dissolved into panic-stricken scrabbling. Offshore, Tenacious and Tigre delivered their ferocious broadsides again, their shot rampaging the length of each wall and converging in front of the Cursed Tower in a welter of blood and corpses. Nothing could stand against what amounted to whole regiments of heavy artillery, and Buonaparte’s assault crumbled.

  Most turned to flee, to find the rear of the army still pressing them forward. Others stormed on heroically but when they came close to the walls they discovered Phélippeaux’s fosse, a ditch twelve feet deep that made a mockery of ladders intended only for the height of the wall. Rallying, the Turks ran back to the parapets and threw grenades and heavy stones into the ditch, which quickly turned into a killing ground.

  Trumpets sounded distantly – the retreat, Kydd realised. He looked down into the fosse. Those surviving, abandoned by their own army, held up their hands. It took main force to prevent the Turks killing the prisoners, who were led away by marines.

  It was a galling blow for Buonaparte. Cheated of an easy victory by the same navy that had destroyed his hopes for an Oriental empire, he could no longer expect to take Acre in a frontal attack. Sliding his sword into its scabbard with a satisfying snick, Kydd watched the last of the assault wave scramble to the rear. He was still breathing deeply, aglow with the intoxication of battle on a scale he had never seen before – and he had been ready! He turned and made his way to the gun, but although the columns were repulsed in such disorder, cooler regions of his mind told him that Buonaparte would not be thwarted in his march to glory.

  At sunset Kydd left the headquarters where he had been in conference. He had been grateful for the activity: the day’s events had disturbed him. In a man-o’-war there were casualties and he had seen his share at the Nile, but he had been unprepared for the scale of slaughter in a land battle. Hewitt was on the first watch and he must try to catch some sleep – but could he close his eyes on the images of blood and death?

  His evening walk took him to the Tenacious gun. One of the seamen, whom Kydd remembered only as a reliable member of the afterguard, was sitting on the gun-carriage with his grog can, singing to the others in a low and compelling tenor:

  ‘The topsails shiver in the wind,

  The ship she’s bound to sea;

  But yet my heart, my soul, my mind,

  Are, Mary, moored with thee…’

  Kydd stood transfixed: in this harsh and unfeeling land, away from the clean simplicities of a sea life, these sailors had brought their world with them and were drawing strength from their age-old customs.

  He turned to go, but his seaman’s instincts had pricked an alert and he faced back, sniffing the wind. Since morning, it seemed, it had backed a full three points. He had no barometer or other instruments but he felt uneasy.

  The dawn came and, as he had suspected, the winds were more in the north, a cooler touch to them after the dry warmth of the desert khamsin. The giant bowl of the deep blue sky, brassy with sunlight and usually innocent of cloud apart from playful tufts, was becoming overcast.

  Kydd climbed the Cursed Tower with Hewitt. Nothing in the French camp gave a clue to Buonaparte’s plans, but Hewitt seemed unusually reserved.

  ‘Wind’s gone to the nor’ard,’ Kydd said.

  ‘If you’d been in the eastern Mediterranean as long as I have, you would have your concerns. It could soon be a nor’-westerly,’ Hewitt told him.

  Kydd nodded gravely. Any wind of force from the north-west would place Tenacious and Tigre on a lee shore. Anchored as they were, as close to the scattered rocky shoals as was possible, they would have to weigh and proceed to sea to make an offing until it was safe to return. And while the ships were away they could no longer maintain their broadsides – Buonaparte would have his chance.

  ‘I hold to my small hope that Buonaparte is as much a seaman as my sainted aunt Betsy, and will not in anticipation plan a descent, and will be caught off-guard. Is that too much to pray for?’ Hewitt said.

  The wind strengthened: it blustered and the first raindrops fell. Soon curtains of rain squalls were marching in from seaward, laying the dust and forming myriad rivulets in the drab, yellowish-brown dust but turning the dull iron of cannon to a lustrous gleam. Those who could pulled on rain slicks; others endured. The squalls passed but behind them the wind set in from the north-west, hard and cold.

  ‘Stand to! All hands, get on th’ wall!’ Kydd roared, driving wet and bedraggled Turks to their stations. An assault would come, it was certain; it was only a question of when.

  They stood to for an hour – then two. Hewitt had been right. As dusk approached it was certain that Buonaparte was not going to mount an assault that day. Now everything depended on the weather: if the wind shifted back during the night the ships could return, but if it stayed in the same quarter the defenders of Acre would face an assault.

  With the dawn came the wind, relentlessly in the north-west. Before the day was out, they would be fighting for their lives, and Smith was still somewhere out at sea in Tigre and could play no part. It was entirely up to themselves.

  The enemy came without fanfare, a sudden purposeful tide of attackers. The defenders’ guns blasted defiance, but without whole broadsides from the ships there was no deterring their deadly advance. Kydd lost no time in placing himself at the breach, now choked with hastily placed timber and rubble.

  On the tower above him the muskets banged away but against such numbers they had little effect. Then a deep rumbl
e sounded. The front ranks faltered. Kydd’s heart leaped: if the ships had returned they stood a chance. But a crash gave the lie – it was a thunderstorm.

  As the French bore down with scaling ladders to throw up against the walls from the fosse, blustering and chilling rain squalls came. The open ground grew slippery with sticky yellow mud. Firearms were useless in such conditions yet still they came on – hurrying lines, the dull glitter of wet steel, a sea of anonymous faces and a continuous shouting roar.

  The first wave reached the fosse. Ladders were thrown down awkwardly, but Phélippeaux had designed well: the width of the ditch did not match the height necessary to reach the parapets and the ladders ended in a tangle of bodies and bloody corpses.

  The first breathless Frenchmen arrived at the breach, hard, brutal faces in sketchy blue uniforms, bright weapons, the cutting edge of Buonaparte’s will. Pistols banged out and they scrambled over the rubble to close at last with the defenders.

  Kydd braced himself, his sword warily at point. A soldier reared up with a short carbine and threw it to his shoulder, aiming at Kydd’s face. It missed fire but he hurled it at Kydd, yanked a long bayonet from its scabbard and came at him. Used to the confines of shipboard fighting, Kydd whirled away and his blade flashed out and took the man squarely in the side. He fell and was immediately trampled by another whose bayoneted musket jabbed at Kydd’s face. He dropped to one knee and as the man lurched forward he lunged for his bowels. The sword ran true and the man dropped with a howl, but his fall jerked the weapon from Kydd’s hands. On his knees he scrabbled for it desperately – but towering above him was a giant of a soldier. Before the man could plunge his bayonet down, bloody steel shot out of the front of his chest. With a squeal the man half turned as if to see who had killed him, then toppled, trapping Kydd under his wet carcass. Struggling to move Kydd felt the body shift. It was heaved aside to reveal the grinning face of Suleiman, his curved Ottoman dagger still dripping red.

  Kydd shook his head to clear it. The fighting had moved down the rubble and into the ditch. He picked up his sword and looked about. Rain now hammered down in earnest on his bare head and his eyes stung with a salty mix of sweat and blood.

  The well-sited guns from the ships were still tearing great holes in the waves of attackers. A musket ball slammed past his cheek with a vicious slap of air, but he could see that the rain and mud were severely impeding the assault.

  In the fosse, grenades and infernal devices thrown at the hapless survivors exploded loudly in bursts of flame and smoke. Kydd saw a skull split and crushed by a heavy stone flung from the upper storey of the Cursed Tower. The attack was faltering. Then, as quickly as it started, it faded, leaving Kydd trembling with fatigue atop the rubble of the breach.

  He stepped inside the tower out of the rain and wiped his sticky sword on a body. He looked at the now bloodied and muddy weapon, then slid it neatly into its scabbard: it had proved its worth.

  There would be a reckoning when the weather abated; there would be no rest. At the Tenacious gun the men sat exhausted on the ground, heads in their hands. Dobbie looked up wearily with a smile of recognition. ‘Got ’em beat again, sir,’ he croaked.

  Kydd could not trust himself to say the words that lay on his heart and ended with a gruff ‘No chance o’ Buonaparte getting what he wants while there’s a Tenacious in th’ offing.’ It seemed to serve, for several of the gun crew looked up with pleased grins. ‘Don’t know where I’ll find it, but there’s a double tot f’r you all when I do.’

  At the headquarters he found Hewitt slumped in his chair, staring at the wall with the map of operations spread out before him. ‘That damned relief army had better show itself before long or we’re a cooked goose.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Kydd, and searched for words of cheer. ‘We came close t’day – but doesn’t it tell us that Buonaparte is getting impatient, running scared, that he throws his army at us without he has a plan – an’ in this blow?’

  Hewitt looked up, an odd expression on his face. ‘Pray see things from his point of view. Before now he has taken the strongest fortresses in Europe, defended by the most modern troops. What does he see here in Acre? An ancient, decaying town ruled by a bloody tyrant and defended by a ragged mix of sailors and Orientals. No wonder he thinks to sweep us aside quickly and get on with his conquests.’

  ‘He’s tried—’

  ‘He has not yet! But I’ll wager he’s already sent for a second siege train to pound us to ruin even with our wonderful ships, supposing he is not at this moment up to some other deviltry! Remember, he made his name at Toulon at the head of the artillery – he is no stranger to such works.’

  They worked together on the defences, Hewitt’s halting translations of Phélippeaux’s schemes of fortification serving for them both. They divided between them the main tasks: Hewitt consulted Djezzar on matters concerning labour for the works and Kydd saw to the lines of supply from the victualling stores and magazines to the guns – but always many other details demanded their attention.

  The winds blew themselves out and veered more easterly as the rain cleared. With the first blue sky all eyes turned to the French encampment for signs of a new assault. But the sodden ground remained impractical and, to the cheers of the defenders, the two ships sailed back cautiously to take up their positions once more.

  Smith came ashore immediately and energetically visited all parts of the old walled town, demanding particulars of each. He finished at his headquarters. ‘Well done, gentlemen,’ he said, with satisfaction. ‘Yet I would rather you had kept a better eye on Djezzar Pasha – he is a man of decided opinions concerning his enemies, and I have just learned that in my absence he seized thirty of the prisoners, had them sewn into sacks and thrown into the sea, including our French officer spy. I shall have to be firmer with him in the future.

  ‘And now I have news. Good news, believe me. You will be happy to learn that the Turkish relief army in Galilee has left Damascus and is even now on its way south. A mighty army indeed: seventy-five banners of Mahgrebi infantry and Albanian cavalry, two hundred Janissaries, Dalat and field cannon, Mamelukes and Kurds beyond counting – near eight times Buonaparte’s numbers. They march fast and will reach the Jordan in a day or so. Then he must fight, or retreat and abandon the siege. I believe he will fight, and in that case he will be obliged to divide his forces. It will be an interesting time for Mr Buonaparte.’

  Kydd’s heart lifted. Perhaps in a few days he could return to his rightful place in Tenacious – the warm fellowship and ordered sanity of the wardroom.

  There was other news: Bedouin fighters were joining from the country – more exotic fighters to prowl the walls with their flowing robes and wickedly curved knives. And it seemed agents in India had discovered that Buonaparte had told the Sultan of Mysore, the scheming Tippoo Sahib, to prepare for a victorious host that would descend on his country from Persia in the footsteps of Alexander.

  ‘However, we have a more immediate worry. Count Phélippeaux has confided that he believes the French have begun a sap, a mine. Protected from our ships’ gunfire they are tunnelling towards us from their forward trenches and when they are under the wall they will explode a great charge to bring it down.’

  Kydd and Hewitt exchanged a glance. In one stroke another dimension of war had started. While they walked and talked above, French engineers were driving their unseen mine ever closer. In a single instant they could be blown to pieces.

  ‘Sir, does he know where it is? How far it’s gone?’ Kydd wanted to know.

  ‘No doubt about it – he has seen an advance parallel grow earthworks and men go down into it. The closest trench to the Cursed Tower.’

  ‘Is there anything we can do?’ Hewitt looked drawn and tired.

  ‘The usual in these cases is for us to counter-mine, to drive our own pit towards theirs and stop them.’

  Kydd shuddered: he could not conceive of a worse scene than in this black underground the breaking through into an en
emy mine and the savagery of hacking and stabbing in such a confined space that must follow.

  There was no attack that day, or the next: it was becoming clear that Buonaparte was not going to risk another frontal assault in the face of the ships’ broadsides and was either biding his time while his sappers did their work or was away, deploying his forces to face the Turkish hordes.

  It gave Smith, Hewitt and Kydd precious time to repair and regroup. One thing they could be sure of, which Kydd kept close to his heart: they would never starve – the little feluccas bringing food ensured that. It was something their enemies could only dream of without command of the sea.

  On the following day Smith brought grave news. ‘Gentlemen, I have to tell you now, the Turkish reinforcements are beaten – outnumbered many times. That devil Buonaparte won a victory over them at Mount Tabor in Canaan. They’re fleeing north as fast as they are able and we can expect nothing from them now.’

  ‘May we then know your intentions, Sir Sidney?’ Hewitt asked, in a low voice.

  Without any relieving force in prospect their main reason for holding out was gone. Slowly but surely the mining was reaching their walls, and a victorious General Buonaparte was returning with his booty and no threat in his rear to distract him. When the news got out who knew how it would be received? An evacuation was the only real course left.

  ‘We stay,’ Smith said calmly. ‘To yield up Acre is to hand Buonaparte a highway to Constantinople and the world. While we are still here he dare not proceed further with us in his rear. Therefore our duty is plain.’ It was the cold logic of war. ‘We bend every sinew to defend ourselves, every man to bear a hand in doing whatever Count Phélippeaux desires in the article of fortifications. We send away any who cannot hold a weapon. Let there be nothing left undone that can help us resist the tyrant.’