Dubious Allegiance (4 page)

“I agree,” Marc said. “We can hunker down and wait. And cook ourselves an English breakfast.”

“You look as if you'd fall asleep in the middle of it.” Hilliard's own eyes were as bright as a baby's after a nap. The thrill of what was to come was keeping him alert and eager.

“We'll need time for the men to check out their rifles and dry their powder. It would be suicidal to send them out there now.”

“What are the odds of that?” Hilliard asked glumly.

“The odds are very good.” It was Captain Riddell, who had just ridden over from the colonel's briefing. “All companies, including the cavalry and the artillery crew, are to move immediately into that coulee ahead and prepare themselves for an assault on the stone house. Our company will form up on the right flank, and then escort the gun and its crew up to a big barn on the riverbank. We'll clear out any skirmishers and snipers, secure the area, and protect the gunners at all costs. From that position we'll blast that farmhouse to the far reaches of hell!”

“Yes, sir,” Marc said. “Ensign, will you—”

But Hilliard was already seeking out the sergeant and the men he would, at long last, lead into battle.

*   *   *

It took almost half an hour to get the twenty-four-pounder and its ammunition wagon across the creek at the bottom of the coulee. Thick limbs had to be cut from a nearby copse of hardwoods—by hands already stiff, swollen, and frostbitten—and jammed into the shallow, icy stream to form a makeshift bridge. All the while, the enemy took potshots from a variety of vantage-points close by, harried but not silenced by the loyal volunteer cavalry from Montreal, who lunged and darted fearsomely at the sound of any metallic click.

“They're more likely to shoot us or each other,” Marc muttered, as he lent his shoulder to those already heaving the gun carriage onto the far bank of the creek.

“Let them know we're here!” the colonel barked.

Minutes later, with the gun unlimbered, entrenched, and loaded, the air shuddered as a solid shot whizzed in a deadly arc towards the stone house. It sailed unimpeded through an open window on the second floor. The thundering crash of its havoc and the terrified yelling inside indicated a successful hit. The men cheered. Spirits rose. Sometime soon they might even be warm.

Captain Riddell gathered his company of sixty about him on the right sector of the coulee they were using for cover. The enemy had littered it with broken plough shares and rusted harrows that could slice a foot or leg in two if one were careless.
But crouched low or kneeling on the half-frozen ground, the men were safe from snipers.

“We're to go up and clear the skirmishers out of that barn and secure a permanent position for the gun,” the captain announced again. “Lieutenant Edwards will lead his squad out first. The other three will accompany the gun.”

Marc noted that a ploughed field ran all the way from the right edge of the coulee to the river. They would have to cross it to get to the barn. The relimbered gun and ammo carriage would have to traverse the same terrain. They were all on foot now. Anyone above saddle height would soon be dead. The inexperienced cavalry unit was back in reserve, guarding their rear and their exposed left flank.

With swords drawn and held aloft, Marc and Hilliard began sprinting across the furrowed field. Ogletree and his troop of fifteen came scampering behind. It had started to snow. The furrows were as slippery as rain-slicked ice. The men skidded, toppled, staggered upright—keeping their Brown Besses aloft as best they could—and followed their officers. Grim and determined, Sergeant Ogletree kept a step behind the men to encourage any malingerers. A ragged volley of shots poured out of the barn twenty yards ahead. Marc could hear the plump and sizzle of lead balls and pellets in the ground around him. One of the men was hit and collapsed, clutching his left calf.

“Get down!” Marc yelled. The riflemen, who could do so only when commanded, obeyed instantly. “You, too, Ensign!”

As soon as the next volley whistled harmlessly over their prone bodies, Marc gave his next order. “Fix bayonets and prepare to charge.”

“Ready, sir!” Ogletree said.

Marc raised his body as gracefully as his stiffening limbs would allow, then his sword, and brought it down as the signal to move forward. The men began to shout and ululate, their razor-sharp bayonets pointed straight ahead, and in a double line made a dash for the wide door of the barn. The rebels broke and ran from the barn without firing another round, retreating towards the barricade in front of the stone house.

“Advance rank, kneel and fire!”

A wave of bullets rocketed over the ploughed field, and several rebels screamed and fell. They were dragged, twisted and howling, to safety. All but one. His right hand rose slowly, as if in supplication, then dropped. No further movement was seen.

Hilliard hurled himself against the barn door and bounced backwards. Marc pulled it open and stepped inside, bracing for the bullet he expected from the sniper who would have been left behind to make them pay for this ground. His own pistol was already drawn. Something flickered in the gloom above the loft. Marc wheeled and fired in the same instant as the sniper. There was a single deafening explosion, and the stud behind his shoulder crackled. Then came a second explosion nearby. The sniper pitched over the edge of the haymow and fell wordlessly to the floor. His throat had been blown out. A few twitches and he lay still in a grotesque pose.

“He had a second pistol,” Hilliard said quickly. “I had to shoot without aiming.”

Marc smiled his thanks. “Have the men search this place thoroughly, Rick. I'll go out and signal the gunners to move up.”

With a full company of sixty men firing timed volleys over the barricade, the gun was dragged and bullied over the ploughed field to the side of the barn, which would provide partial cover. But as soon as the enemy saw the twenty-four-pounder being settled into position and pointed straight at the stone house, they began firing upon the gun-crew from isolated bits of cover beyond the barricade. With the rebels' fire erupting randomly from several directions, organized volleys were of little use against them.

“Fire at will!” Captain Riddell shouted.

But it was too late for three of the gunners who had dropped against the barrel of their weapon and now slid slowly to the ground.

“Get a stretcher for those men!” Marc cried.

“Move up! Move up!”

Four more members of the gun-crew clambered warily up to the cannon, and began preparing it to fire. The rammer took several shotgun pellets in his back, writhed in pain, but still managed to get the wadding in. The shot that had been taken from below had provided the crew with the approximate range, and with some confidence the fuse was touched. The earth itself seemed to recoil. Marc saw but did not hear the cannonball clang against the lower part of the stone wall of the rebel headquarters. It bounced off. There wasn't a dint in the stonework: it was three feet thick.

Two more shots produced a similar result. Another gunner was hit in the face, his lower jaw blown away. The men protecting him were also exposed and vulnerable. Captain Riddell ordered the gunners to hunker down and fire only when they
thought it safe to do so. He waved all but six men back down to the coulee. It was obvious now that they would have to attack the stronghold directly or re-group and wait for Colonel Wetherall to arrive from Chambly. But their own colonel—safe in the coulee, invigorated by an infusion of brandy, and determined to do his duty—called upon Major Markham, his most experienced officer, to take three companies and mount an assault on the house from the left flank. That it was now midmorning, that the troops hadn't eaten in twenty-two hours, that they had been exposed to the wet and chill for twelve hours, that they were exhausted from their forced march, that rebel reinforcements could be seen crossing the river below the village—none of this could deflect Colonel Gore from his sacred responsibilities.

Major Markham offered Marc's company the opportunity to cover themselves in glory.

*   *   *

While the rolling ground to the left of the stone house and the village that sprawled behind it were unploughed, they were dotted with small outbuildings, haystacks, capsized wagons, and clumps of dwarf cedars—any of which would provide perfect cover for enemy riflemen. And while the rebel group was not an army in any conventional sense of the term, many of its members were hunters and, of necessity, expert marksmen. They would have to be dislodged one by one, by troops moving against them over open ground. Had they been British regulars, the cavalry might have been given the task of an initial,
harassing charge, but there was no thought of sending in the unseasoned Montrealers: they were best deployed patrolling the flanks of the units still hunkered down in the coulee. The only positive aspect of Colonel Gore's hastily devised tactic was that enemy enfilading fire from the stone house itself would not reach Markham's attackers on the left. The fight there would be hand-to-hand, face-to-face.

These thoughts were running through Marc's mind as he crouched at the edge of the coulee, shivering and waiting for the major's command to advance. The trembling that now rippled through his entire body was not wholly due to cold and hunger. The implications of his narrow escape up there in the barn on the riverbank had struck him suddenly and unawares. He had come under fire more than once since his arrival in Canada two and a half years ago, and had, in his own mind at any rate, acquitted himself honourably. His courage had been severely tested, and proved to be both stout and durable. Then why was he now shaking so hard he could not draw his sabre out of its scabbard? The sniper's bullet had slammed into a beam not two inches from his right ear. If Rick had not shot the man dead an instant later, the sniper's second shot would surely have hit the mark. And he would be dead, too, or as good as. He had promised Beth that he would live, but that vow was out of his hands: however brave he might be, however righteous his cause (and that was increasingly moot), however dedicated to his duty he might be, any random bullet might end his life at any moment and leave Beth alone and forsaken. Still, she had given him leave—commanded him, as it were,
with the force of her love—to do his duty, whatever it entailed, and then return, the slate between them wiped clean and their life together begun anew.

But if he were to survive and keep his vow, should he not, in the least, be prudent in his deportment on the battlefield? Could he not be a worthy officer without trying to play the hero? Rick had flung himself against that barn door in a quixotic effort to be the first man in: he seemed to have a compulsion to prove himself heroic. Why then had he deliberately upstaged Rick by dashing in ahead of him? Had that been deliberate, too?

The trembling eased enough for Marc to pull out his sabre in preparation for the charge against the first of the outbuildings about forty yards ahead on the left. Thoughts like these—uncertainties and doubts really—had rarely crossed his mind during past dangers. Perhaps the others crouched behind him and waiting for him to lead them by his own example were suffering similar qualms. He could not tell.

“Move out!” Major Markham's cry rang through the snow-filled air.

Marc's shout joined the chorus of his comrades as they rose as one and dashed into the fearful spaces between them and death.

*   *   *

The first objective was a half-log cowshed from which a number of shots had been fired throughout the morning. Thirty yards to its left a stand of evergreens presented the possibility of sniper fire or a sudden assault against any force attacking
the shed. Marc's troop was advancing on this left flank in the running crouch preferred by the infantry. When Marc barked out an order, his squad dropped to their knees and loosed a volley at the target ahead. A few bullets sailed through the several windows, but those striking the wall might as well have been fired into the air. Seconds after this volley, blackened faces popped into view above the windowsills and prepared to return fire.

The major had anticipated this, and the squad on Marc's right were already on their knees and aiming. But before they could unleash their volley, gunshots erupted from the copse on the left and several redcoats fell, including the lieutenant about to give the order to fire. When the volley did come, erratic and mis-timed, it scattered only a few wood chips. The snipers in the evergreen copse kept at it. Marc heard a groan to his right and turned to see Private Higgins on one knee, both hands scrabbling at his stomach, as if he were a boy searching his pockets for a missing rabbit's foot.

“Pull back!” the major called out.

Dragging their wounded with them, the men retreated. Higgins was carried to the rear of the coulee, where the surgeon had set up shop. Major Markham had a flesh wound in his thigh but waved off medical attention.

“We'll have to clear out that bit of woods if we hope to take the shed,” the major was saying to his captains. “Riddell, take all of your company and have a go at them. The other two companies will come at the shed from angles left and right. Each troop will fire staggered volleys. The first unit there will go straight in.”

Hilliard came up beside Marc, breathless and glassy-eyed. “We get the dangerous work, eh, Marc?”

“It's all dangerous.”

“Aren't we lucky, though?”

It will be entirely a matter of luck, Marc thought, but decided not to share this insight with his friend.

Three-pronged and carefully planned, the next assault began a few minutes later. Marc's troop, along with the rest of Riddell's fifty strong company, made directly for the copse. Firing volleys blindly in staggered sequence, they succeeded in stemming the enemy fire from that source while the other two companies closed in on the cowshed. Both groups took casualties. The rebels seemed able to fire from every side except the rear. Every overturned wagon or haystack harboured a sharpshooter. With Hilliard running ahead—sabre brandished, ululating—Marc's squad roared into the little woods. It was empty. No rebel offered his belly to the bayonet.