Honour Redeemed

‘Run,’ Markham yelled.

He stood upright and turned to face them,
presenting
a target at which they could aim, willing the Frenchmen to fire off their weapons without taking too much in the way of aim. They obliged, with a standard of musketry that was deplorable. If muskets were inaccurate, cavalry carbines, with their short barrels, were worse. But they should have been able to hit Markham at thirty-five yards. Both shots were too high, coming nowhere near their target. He flinched as one of the balls, having hit the wall, ricocheted so that it span past his head.

Even low in the water George Markham could see the French artillery shells arcing through the sharp dawn sky towards the heavily-laden boats, the swell off the coast of Cap Corse seeming to lift the cutter to meet them halfway. To the south, that portion of Admiral Hood’s fleet sent to bombard the Fornali fort and the town of San Fiorenzo blazed away, the flash of their great guns followed seconds later by a succession of dull thuds, these mixed with boom from the land-based cannon, some of which had turned their attention to the approaching boats. The knot in Markham’s stomach, on this, his first amphibious operation, was made up of apprehension mixed with a great deal of uncertainty. It proved of little comfort to recall that, amongst the mixed bag of men he commanded, not one had experienced this particular form of warfare: an opposed landing on a hostile beach!

For what they were required to do, when they did reach dry land, he had received none of the instructions to which, as an ex-army officer, he was accustomed. Any conferences about tactics had been confined to the higher commanders, naval and military. It was the complete opposite of regimental warfare, where the conclusions of such councils filtered down to the line officers, with clear objectives outlined, plus abundant information about the terrain they must cover and the enemy they faced.

Captain de Lisle, the commander of his ship
Hebe
, had been vague to the point of opacity, his orders an airy instruction to get ashore and take Fornali, as though that bastion had neither walls, guns nor a French garrison.
Markham had no idea of the quality of that defence. And who would be there to support him on his right or his left?

The shells heading their way were the first indication, a calling card to say that, at about eight hundred yards from the shore, the first wave of attackers were well within range. Dozens of boats were spread out in the bay, each moving at its own maximum pace. But all were converging on a limited strip of beach, so every stroke of the oar brought them closer together, giving Markham, who was somewhere close to the centre, a feeling of being hemmed in.

For a nation that prided itself on the efficiency of its artillery, this first salvo was less than perfect. Some of the fuses were too short, and the projectiles burst harmlessly, well above their heads, puffs of black powder in a rapidly brightening sky, sprouting and thinning until they were dispersed on the wind. Others, too long, landed fizzing in the still black water, sending up great white plumes to soak both passengers and crew of any downwind boat.

But one did terrible damage, detonating a few feet above the waves, the blast rocking Markham’s boat, and wrought havoc on the nearby launch. The marine officer in that boat, sitting to one side of the tiller, was cut in two, a great fount of frothy blood shooting up from his lower trunk as the top half spilled over the side. The midshipman beside him was blown back over the stern. Several of the rowers were smashed into the thwarts, their screams adding to the roar of the blast.

The launch lifted and span as explosive and chain shattered her flimsy side planking, sending deadly wooden splinters into weak and yielding flesh. The craft was broken in two long before she dropped back into the water, the occupants, the majority already wounded, spilling out into the sea. Those marines dead or too seriously harmed to discard their heavy packs sank like stones. Others fell to the same fate through blind panic, trying to swim with
fifty-pound weights on their backs. A few, sailors and marines, had the sense to cling to life, using the wreckage of the boat to stay afloat, one hand struggling, in the Lobsters’ case, to release the straps that held their equipment.

Most of the men in
Hebe
’s cutter stared straight ahead, those rowing trying to get them to the shore with as much haste as they could muster, the rest not wishing to observe too closely a fate that might well await them after the next salvo. But Markham was transfixed, his body stretching over the side as if he could hold out a helping hand to the lower section of a fellow officer, still sitting, legs twitching, in the only piece of the launch that looked whole. Midshipman Bernard, a pimply, pallid-faced slip of a youth who looked as if he were barely breeched, turned as well, though the hand that held the tiller remained steady, his eyes examining the carnage with a studied lack of passion.

‘There are survivors,’ said Markham, still pointing.

‘May God grant them mercy,’ Bernard replied.

‘God be damned,’ Markham growled. ‘Steer for the poor sods.’

‘We have our orders, sir,’ piped the midshipman.

The seconds for which their eyes locked spoke volumes. That a sprog like Bernard should even dream of questioning a superior officer was singular. But the look on the boy’s face, a sort of superior half-smile, showed an insolence as wounding as it was unwelcome. The youngster knew that aboard the frigate, being impertinent to Lieutenant George Markham was more likely to earn him discreet praise than a public rebuke.

But the object of his condescension wasn’t on the ship; he was in command of the marines in the cutter. The level of his anger exaggerated the Irish inflection in his voice.

‘Put down your helm, you stinking, short-arsed little bugger, or sure as hell is hot, I’ll tip you into the bloody water myself.’

‘Sir,’ Bernard protested.

Markham’s face, red enough with passion to match his coat, came towards him so fast that Bernard thought he was about to be head-butted. Fear mingled with disgust at the sight of a King’s officer, even one with Markham’s reputation, behaving in such a demeaning fashion.

‘Do as you’re damn well told, boy.’

Still Bernard hesitated. It was a safe bet that Captain de Lisle would back him if he disobeyed, since he took every opportunity to remind Markham how much he disliked having him aboard. But his captain wasn’t here, and the marine officer was, looking as if he would be as good as his word.

‘Ship the larboard oars,’ Bernard croaked, as he put down the tiller. The cutter swung in an arc until the prow was pointing towards the centre of the wreckage. ‘Haul away, even.’

‘Rannoch!’ Markham yelled. His sergeant, huge, square-shouldered, half turned from his position in the centre of the boat. ‘Get Ettrick and Dornan stripped of their packs and ready to go over the side.’

‘They are floaters, sir, not real swimmers.’

Markham carried on as if Rannoch hadn’t spoken. ‘We can’t get the survivors into the cutter. But try to get a hold on them, every man who can’t swim between the oars to take one survivor.’

‘Sir,’ Rannoch replied crisply, before issuing his orders in a quiet tone. Ettrick and Dornan began to divest themselves of packs, belts, headgear and coats. The sergeant removed his own tricorne hat to wipe the sweat from his brow, revealing the blond, near-white hair that, with his strong, square face and blue eyes, gave him an almost Viking appearance. The hat was lifted above his head, pointing as the second salvo came over. If fuse adjustments had been made, they produced little difference in the result. But one pair of guns had certainly been re-aimed, since those shells that did burst at a proper height landed
right in the course that Midshipman Bernard had previously been steering. He had spun round to look, and when they exploded what little blood he had left drained from his face completely. Then he turned to look at Markham, mouth moving in speechless shock.

‘Paddy’s luck, boyo,’ Markham said, following that with a disarming grin. Angry as he’d been, he knew that Bernard’s attitude merely aped that of every officer on the ship. They’d hated him enough before they’d ever reached the Mediterranean. After Toulon that was magnified tenfold. His mere presence within earshot was enough to set off a string of comments about jobs less than half done. These were larded with Paddy jokes, or allusions to the iniquity of illegitimacy, biased courts martial or the coruscating stain, regardless of subsequent good fortune, of being branded a coward.

As the disturbed water settled behind them, he unbuckled his own swordbelt and slipped the brass gorget over his head. Whatever reserve the midshipman had harboured quickly evaporated, respect in his eyes replacing the wonder that had taken over from fear. He craned forward now, calling out to the oarsmen for adjustments that would take the cutter alongside the wreckage without harming the men in the water. The two Lobsters who could swim slipped over the side, guiding the survivors towards the hands reaching for them, most too afraid to let go of the wood that had kept them afloat.

Markham had already thrown his hat into the bottom of the cutter, and had raised himself just enough to remove his coat, calling to the nearest men, ‘Tully, Hollick, help me with my damned boots.’

As the two men facing the stern grabbed at the fine, polished leather, Markham had a moment to look round the deep, cliff-lined bay. Behind him, blocking the exit to the Mediterranean, lay half of Admiral Hood’s fleet, six line-of-battle ships that were a major part of Britain’s wooden walls. The rest were engaged in bombarding the
Fornali fort, and further down the bay, the town of San Fiorenzo, the boom of the huge naval cannon rolling like continuous thunder. The transports, carrying troops, were now inshore of the frigates that had disgorged the marines, the soldiers who would form the second wave lined up on deck, waiting for the boats to return and take them ashore. The water between ships and shore was chock-full, a veritable armada of boats, cutters, launches, barges, plus a pair of bomb ketches well forward.

The Fornali fort which they intended to envelop, massive walls built square round an old circular Genoese tower, lay just to the south, on a promontory that jutted out from a coombe nestled between low limestone hills. Further down the bay, behind San Fiorenzo, more hills rose, tier upon tier, towards the central mountains of Corsica, now bathed in full morning light, the very highest streaked with snow and shrouded at the peak in dense cloud. This panoramic backdrop suggested an illusory serenity, which was immediately shattered by the arrival of the third salvo.

‘The guns have shifted again, sir,’ said Bernard, pointing to the spouts of water now bracketing the boats laden with the small number of artillerymen and engineers who had been allotted to the first wave of the attack.

‘Then you sailors are doing your job,’ Markham replied. He stood up unsteadily and put one foot on the bulwark, which made it hard for him to sound as confident as he wished to. ‘Most of the cannon in the fort are trying to sink them. And if the few they can spare to keep us warm have to lever and elevate endlessly, they’ll never get the range right.’

‘Backwards, sir,’ yelled Bernard, throwing out a hand to stop Markham. ‘If you try to dive you’ll tip the lot of us out.’

Slightly abashed, Markham span round, sitting on the edge and falling back into the water. It was the Mediterranean, and warmer by far than the sea around
Wexford Sound. But on a late February morning it still had the power to shock with sudden chill. Coming back to the surface, he saw that
Hebe
’s crew had oars and a boathook out, to haul in those being aided by Dornan and Ettrick. He twisted quickly and swam underwater, heading towards the furthest floundering marine, who was hanging on to a piece of the launch’s shattered counter that didn’t look big enough to support him. Head bobbing up and down, he registered that the fellow was different, without quite establishing why. All he really observed were the curls on the man’s head, so tight as to be proof against a soaking.

At first he thought the object that he’d bumped into, dark and wet, was a piece of wood. But then he saw the flash of red as he surfaced and it span over. Markham felt his heart stop as he stared into the wide open eyes of the dead marine officer, the half of him that had been blown overboard still with enough air trapped inside the trunk to float. They were wide open, still registering the shock that had come to the man at the moment when the piece of jagged steel from the shell casing had sliced through his vital organs. The mouth was open too, in a silent scream of terror. The last time he’d seen that face it had been red with wine and merriment, laughing across the dining table in the great cabin of Nelson’s ship,
Agamemnon.
Gently, with his own eyes now closed, Markham pushed the body away.

‘Lie back on me, man,’ he gasped, as he came close, before spitting out the mouthful of salty water this remark had earned him. ‘If I take your weight, we can make the cutter easily.’

That the fellow didn’t believe him was obvious as the head came round. The furious shake, given the panic in the man’s huge eyes, was superfluous. He looked past Markham to where those lucky enough to get close to the boat were now being firmly held by their redcoated compatriots. Bernard had steered on to close the gap with
him. Now no more than ten feet separated them from safety, but to this fellow it was too far. As soon as Markham tried to grab him, the man went crazy, yelling and kicking and demanding to be left to float.

In his panic, and a blind attempt to drive Markham away, he did let go, the free hands now scrabbling to take hold of the only thing that would save him. Markham felt himself go down as the man’s weight landed on his shoulders. He tried to yell a command but that was stopped by the inrush of water. A knee took him in the groin, even slowed by the water having enough force to send a screaming ache through his lower body.

They were both under now, every limb of the survivor flailing back and forth, with one hand firmly gripping Markham’s shirt. Trying to hit the fellow to calm him down was impossible in water, and they went on sinking, the survivor continuing to flail wildly, though with less force, since he was running out of breath. Markham was in a similar state. Already he could feel the pressure building up in his chest, the tightness that precedes the desire to breath. All thoughts of rescue were gone now, the yearning to survive becoming paramount.

Try as he might, he could not prise the man’s thick fingers open enough to release his shirt, and instinctively he knew that grip would be the last thing the other marine would relinquish. Nor did he have any chance of slipping out of the garment. His only hope was that by going limp he could at least preserve his wind. Indeed, he might just save himself from drowning, if the man clutching him would let him go as useless. Above he could see the light refracted in the surface of the water, the dark shape of the cutter’s hull, surrounded by kicking legs, moving to block it off.