Capt. Whitehead dared raise his head from nuzzling the dirt and beheld a vast cloud of dust and dirt, as thick as a low-scudding cloud hundreds of yards beyond where his men sheltered, with up-flung clods of earth still pattering down from the massive divots that the shot had torn up. Through it he could see an entire street of the town in tumbled ruin, houses and such collapsed, and massive holes in their slate or terra-cotta tiles.
He dared stand up for a better view, and grinned wolfishly at the sight of those two infantry companies of French soldiers who had been reduced by a third or better, some of them staggering round like drunkards, others standing still and gape-jawed at the sudden ruin of their order, and the mangled bodies of their friends.
“Up, lads, back on your feet!” Whitehead ordered. “By sections, retire to the line of shrubs above the beach, and take positions to repel!”
Whitehead watched them rise and marvel, then step off with one rank guarding the rank that retired a few yards, then stop to guard the retreat of the first.
“Not a man hurt, by God!” he told himself, wondering just how long that would last when the French sorted themselves out.
“Jesus bloody Christ, that was close!” Lt. Greenleaf exclaimed once he stood up from his sudden protective crouch as the shot soared over. “That’s our Vigilances, Dickson! They’ve their eyes in today!”
“Aye, masterful gunnery, sir,” Lt. Dickson said in return, awed by being in front of a broadside. “Whew!”
“Whitehead’s Marines are falling back to the edge of the beach barrow,” Greenleaf said, looking all round. “I’ll take half our men to stiffen their right. You take the other half and refuse the left. Just in case the damned Frogs try to bend round us to take the boats.”
“Refuse?” Dickson asked, unfamiliar with the term, which was not in the Navy’s terminology.
“Space ’em from the last Marine on the left end down to the water,” Greenleaf explained. “I read it in a book. I was bored to tears, and the book helped pass the time. Go on with you, me lad.”
Dickson looked round for some shelter for his half of the men, and there was almost none. Some could take position in the barrow and in the densely tangled maritime shrubbery that trailed down to bare sand, but from there was only sea grasses, thinly spaced. He felt the sudden need for shovels so he could entrench some of them halfway underground, but shovels and such were aboard Vigilance, and taking time to fetch them, find where they were stored on the orlop, would take too long, take men away to man the barge to row out…!
“Mister Bingley,” Dickson called to the portly Midshipman who had conned one of the barges ashore, “assemble a boat crew. We need to shift one of the barges up to this end of the beach and run her ashore as far as she’ll go, to form a barricade.”
“A barricade, sir?” Bingley asked.
“Aye, Mister Bingley, a barricade,” Dickson replied. “Something I read in a book.”
* * *
“Take in on the kedge springline, Mister Farley,” Lewrie ordered. “We need to shift fire on the French troops in front of the Ninety-Fourth before they get into musket range.”
Farley raised his telescope for a look at the mass of blue-coat soldiers marching in good order from the waggons behind the right of Monasterace. “That may be iffy at the moment, sir,” Farley pointed out. “There are at least two of their companies out in front of the main line, falling back slowly. We could hit them, instead. It’s at least three-quarters of a mile range.”
Lewrie took a look for himself. He made out two lines of ants in red and white pipe clay, spaced in what he took for chain order in four-man groups, well apart from the other groups, pouring a continual fire at long range from the man on the right, who retired to reload at the left end as the next fellow stepped forward and fired. Wee, silent puffs of powder smoke blossomed above and in front of them as they stoically retired a few yards after each man had taken a shot.
Opposing them were ants in blue coats and white trousers, set out in two-man teams; French Light Infantry moving carefully and slowly forward as the men of the 94th retired.
Voltigeurs, Lewrie suddenly recalled from his minor participation in the Battle of Vimeiro in Portugal some years back; They call them”Vaulters,” “Leapers,” or “Grasshoppers.”
Lewrie realised that Lt. Farley was right; as good as his gunners were, as finely as his constant drills and live-fire training had honed them, at that range there would be mistakes, and at the moment it did look to be too close a thing to deprive Tarrant of a single soldier.
He looked for him, and found his white egret-plumed hat by the Colour party, pacing about just behind the rear ranks of his troops.
Christ, let the Frogs form column! Lewrie silently prayed; If they form a huge block, it’d be the best target in the world for us!
It appeared, though, that the French commander over yonder had determined that his line would be long enough, and deep enough, to lap round Col. Tarrant’s flanks and his shorter line, even when the Light Companies at last fell back to either end of the line.
He had to do something, soon! He could not sit safely off the shore and watch the 94th, his Marines, his own sailors and all the sailors off the transports be gobbled up!
Lewrie turned his telescope to look at the large encampments of waggons and beasts, realising that they would never be able to get at them. Horses and mules were being led to the waggons and carts, backed into harnesses, and the outer-most convoy west of the town was already rattling off down the main coast road to carry their supplies to waiting French units.
Laughin’ their fool heads off, Lewrie furiously thought.
He had been betrayed, he’d stumbled into a trap from which it didn’t look as if he’d be able to escape without heavy casualties, and it hurt like Blazes! And all for nothing, not a single burning waggon or dead draught animal!
“Now, what the Devil are they doing over there?” Farley barked, jutting an arm to the beach west of town. “Are they coming back to the ship?”
Lewrie swung to look at that, too, and spotted one of the barges just shoving off, the last one to the left of the four. Oars thrashed to back-water as it worked itself off the sand and out to hobby-horse on the waves that rolled in, at least an hundred yards out.
“Greenleaf wouldn’t allow that sort of cowardice!” Lewrie spat.
But no, the barge swung abeam the beach in deeper water, where the breaking waves surged in beneath it without breaking in surf, and rowed parallel for a while before turning to point at the sand once more, then dashed in, all oarsmen straining as hard and as quickly as they could to drive the barge back onto the sand far out to the left of the other three, and once the bows were aground, more men sprang to lay hold of it and drag it ashore ’til only the stern transom was in the water.
Now what was that about? Lewrie wondered, then turned his attention back to Col. Tarrant’s predicament. The two Light Companies out skirmishing in front of his regiment were much closer to their own lines, now, and the French were advancing slowly, still in line.
“Not a broadside, Mister Farley!” Lewrie snapped. “Tell Grace he’s to allow the gun-captains to fire as they bear, individually! Hurry! Tarrant needs the support!”
“Aye aye, sir!” Farley replied, turning to the harried Mid who had been scurrying below and back again to pass word once more.
“And I’ll have the kedge spring hauled taut!” Lewrie snapped.
* * *
Colonel Tarrant could act as stoic as anyone, but the pretence was hard to maintain as he watched his Light Companies fall back from the French advance, yard by yard, and wounded men galled by the French fire stumbled back to the widely spaced bulks of their companies and beyond, to fall into the arms of soldiers along the low stone wall and dense shrubbery, crawl over, and be taken down to the beach to be ministered to by the Surgeon and his litter parties. Some of the four-man units out in front now consisted of only three, or two, still on their feet, and Tarrant could see the
heart-breaking sight of men in British red coats and grey trousers sprawled, dead where they fell.
They had not taken many casualties, so far, and most hurts had been accidental, or wounds from which his men would recover after a spell in the airy hospital tent back near Milazzo, and some weeks on light duties. Tarrant was a soldier, had been since his twenties when his family had bought him a commission in another regiment, and he had served between the wars as it were, before transferring to the 94th in hopes of seeing real combat.
That had led him and the 94th to the Walcheren Campaign in Holland, and the rain, mud, sleet, and sickness that had decimated the unit, before being shipped as a skeleton battalion to Malta, and the onus of dull garrison duty.
Unlike most British officers, he had studied his chosen life, had read the manuals and accounts of how other officers had ordered their men about, had won their battles, and he’d read all the commentary written by men such as the late General Sir John Moore, about the need for reform in tactics, in morale, and the need for professionalism in the officer corps.
Now, he was about to use all that knowledge to fight a battle, fight his battalion to the best of his ability, but feared that, for all he’d learned, it might not be enough. He was out-numbered, and the French would not form a column that he might be able to wrap round from front and two sides and out-shoot them.
Vigilance’s guns were firing, again, Tarrant noted, not in one of those crushing broadsides that had scythed away his initial foes, half-ruined the town of Monasterace, and set fires among the tightly packed houses. Individual cannon balls were moaning in the sky, and he was not sure what Lewrie and his sailors were firing at. It was possible that the French had disguised another regiment west of the town among the waggon camps, and those French soldiers were threatening the landing on the beaches to the west.
“Whoo, take ’at, ‘Ole Trousers’!” a soldier in the front rank hooted, and men of his Line and Grenadier Companies gave out a cheer.
“Silence in the ranks!” Major Gittings shouted.
“Oh. Lovely,” Tarrant said, grinning at last as he saw roundshot striking the ground in front of his skirmishers, among the enemy lines in their right flank. Gaps were being slashed into the three-deep ranks, and French soldiers were being shredded. They still came on at the urging of their officers, shuffling over to stay shoulder-to-shoulder with their mates, closing those gaps, but the roundshot still came moaning in, spurting clouds of earth and dust, creating fresh gaps which had to be filled by shaken men.
Tarrant judged that his Light Companies, with the four-man teams now joining their lines, were about two hundred yards in advance of his position along the low stone wall. The French Voltigeurs were about one hundred yards beyond, still scampering about in two-man teams, one man loading for the better shot, so that one could keep up a relatively rapid fire. His Light Companies were now firing by rank, the front rankers taking a shot in volley, then falling back behind their rear-rank men to load, whilst the rear rank stood ready to fire in their turn. At that rate, it would take them several minutes to take their places at either end of the main line. And they were in the way!
“Trumpeter, sound Retire!” Col. Tarrant shouted.
The crisp notes blared out and officers and men of the Light Companies turned to look behind them for a moment, then fired off their last volley, and turned about to trot away at the double-quick for either end of Tarrant’s line.
“Now, Lewrie,” he muttered, “I’ve given your guns room. Do your damnedest!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Cease fire, Mister Farley!” Lewrie yelled, as he saw Tarrant’s advanced soldiers rushing back. “Tell Grace he’s to broadside, now! Hurry! Tarrant’s given us a clear field!”
Down the ladderways that Midshipman went once more, his tongue lolling out and panting, to pass word to the upper gun-deck and the lower gun-deck, and the guns fell silent for about a minute, long enough for the smoke to blow clear and give gun-captains time, and unclouded views, to take their aim.
“By broadside … fire!” the cry came at last, and the ship shuddered to her bones.
“Come on, come on, come on!” Lewrie impatiently groaned as his view of the action ashore was blotted out for a long minute. His ears were ringing, despite the candle wax he’d stuffed into them, and his eyes were watering from the acrid gunpowder fumes, but he needed to see!
At last, the smoke had hazed thin enough for him to raise his telescope and grin at the sight. His beloved guns had smashed into the centre of the French line of battle, not just its right flank, and there were great gaps opened where men had stood moments before, now mangled and flung back with limbs missing, their chests and bowels torn open from the front rank to the rearmost. There had been a gay French Tricolour flag waving, surrounded by boy drummers pattering away with their sticks, and they had disappeared! Some daring soul retrieved the flag and hoisted it erect, at last, and the French line began to shuffle towards the centre, shortening itself as enemy soldiers returned to shoulder-to-shoulder alignment.
* * *
“Now that’s the way!” Col. Tarrant cheered as he watched the enemy line come to a stop to sort themselves out. The light troops in advance of their main line seemed to have forgotten what they were supposed to be doing, most of them turning to look back at the chaos. With the 94th’s Light Company skirmishers retired, it should have been their turn to fall back and join the rest of their regiment for the main assault, but they seemed averse to entering that maelstrom of artillery fire. French bugles summoned them, but they obeyed slowly, at the walk instead of the trot.
Another broadside from Vigilance moaned in, roundshot fired at that range behaving like proper field artillery, scything through the re-formed ranks, but also striking a bit short to bound up and smash through, taking down more soldiers.
“That’ll be the last of it, I imagine, Gittings,” Tarrant said as the last clouds of dust and dirt subsided. “The French are now too close to us for Lewrie to risk it. We will open at seventy yards, in platoon fire.”
* * *
“Cease fire, cease fire!” Lewrie was forced to order as the enemy got too near Tarrant’s regiment. “Where’s another place needin’ support, Mister Farley?”
“I don’t really see one, sir!” Farley shouted up to the poop deck where Lewrie stood. “There are some French infantry skulking just beyond our Marines, but we’ve shot them to pieces. There are more to the right of the town, where they were hidden, but they’re decimated, too, and going over to join the regiment opposing the Ninety-Fourth. And, there’s a sizable block of them along the top of that low ridge, but they aren’t moving yet. Their reserves, not yet committed?” he opined.
“Deck, there!” a Midshipman posted in the mainmast cross-trees shouted down. “Cavalry! A squadron, leaving the ridge to the right of the town!”
Lewrie looked for them and found them, a mass of horsemen moving at the trot by fours, and he was tempted to take them under fire, but they were just too far away at the moment, half-masked by the fires set in the town, and looked to be bound for Tarrant’s fight-to-come, as backup for that French regiment if Tarrant’s men broke.
“Well, just Goddammit!” he gravelled, whooshing out a frustrated breath at his sudden impotence.
“’Ware, sir,” Lt. Farley cried again, “it looks as if they’re going for our Marines. But the enemy’s too close for our fire.”
“Mine arse on a…!” Lewrie spat, glowering angrily. He would have to be an idle spectator as the Marines … his Marines!… were attacked!
* * *
“Be ready, Greenleaf!” Capt. Whitehead called out as the French companies stirred their courage up to step over the bodies of their dead and wounded and begin their advance on his position. “The best sharpshooters … lie prone and snipe! Go for the officers and the sergeants with stripes on their sleeves!”
Not much real accuracy could be expected from a smoothbore musket, the Tower musket especially, but i
n training at the 94th’s firing butts, some of his Marines had developed an eye for it. Now, those men threw themselves down to rest their weapons on their narrow-brimmed hats, cocked their firelocks, and waited for the French to come within range.
Bam! A single shot at about eighty yards took down an officer pacing ahead of his men with a sabre drawn and pointing the way. He put a hand to his chest and dropped. Bam! A grizzled older fellow with diagonal gold stripes on his sleeve dropped his musket as a ball shattered a thigh bone and swept him off his feet. A young Lieutenant who came dashing forward to replace his dead Captain gave out a loud shriek that the Marines could hear as his head exploded. A Corporal carrying his company pennant went down with a sudden red blossom of blood in the centre of his shirt and waist-coat, and several more were killed or badly wounded before they got within musket range.
“Front rank … fire!” Whitehead shouted, and over a dozen of the foe went down, but they were now halting and lifting their own muskets to level them. “Second rank, fire!” Whitehead shouted a tad louder, hoping to shake them and throw off their aim, but the French line was smothered with smoke as they pulled the triggers, and men to either side of Whitehead were thrown back or spun round.
“Steady, steady, reload and fire at will!” he roared, levelling his own musket.
“Kill the bastards, lads!” Lt. Greenleaf howled somewhere along the Marines’ line, and armed sailors volleyed with the Marines. Out away from the centre, and the most powder smoke, Greenleaf could see about thirty or so Frenchmen rushing out to the left, and through the tangled shore scrub, as if to get to the beach and flank their position. “’Ware, Dickson, mind your left!” Greenleaf shouted.
Dickson needed no warning; he could see the enemy soldiers as they tried to thrash through the dense scrub. He had his twenty men huddled behind the 29-foot barge, weapons ready, but wasn’t sure when to fire, for he might only get off one volley before the French were upon them. Dammit, though, the French were too busy keeping their feet as they waded and stumbled through the shrub, their accoutrements getting hung up on every stout twig, and the sight was mightily tempting.
An Onshore Storm Page 36
