Honour Redeemed (7 page)

For once de Lisle actually snorted, so great was his pleasure. And the irony in his tone was pitched too high to be anything other than contrived.

‘That’s a damned shame, Markham. You’ve gone and sold the only thing that might be of use to you. And God knows, you’ll never get one back on your own account.’

De Lisle turned then and marched out into the bright light. As he stopped by Bernard he took a deep breath that made his whole frame swell up, as though to emphasise that he’d just concluded a very satisfactory interview.

There was a method to a siege which paid very little heed to notions of terrain and numbers. First, the enemy had to be denied any chance of sending out foraging parties to bring in food to the beleaguered garrison, which meant close investment of all means of escape. Then, having examined the perimeter defences, General Dundas picked the point at which he wished to attack. The beach area offered the best approach, since floating bomb vessels could give close flank support. Artillery, in this case naval guns and mortars, was brought up to bombard the walls and effect a breach, while the Army, with plenty of wood to hand, began to sap forward through the sand, to create revetted trench lines inching ever closer to the point at which the final assault would be launched.

Little glory could be expected in the preparation, only work: digging and sawing, dragging logs, carrying ammunition for the guns, or taking supplies of food and water up to the forward positions. Markham and his men were almost exclusively occupied with servicing the naval cannon, 32-pounders which had been put ashore with true naval efficiency. The officers of Hood’s fleet had skills in moving heavy ordnance which drew quiet praise from General Dundas’s engineering staff. They seemed to be able to construct no end of tripods, ropes and pulleys, so that getting the huge four-ton cannon out of heavily laden boats, then swinging them across the beach to the fascined roadway that Hanger had constructed, was made to appear like child’s play.

Embankments had already been thrown up to house
them, secure emplacements that were a mixture of pine logs and sand. With even more men from the fleet bringing ashore the gunners and ammunition, the 32-pounders were in action against Fornali at first light the next morning, aided by the line-of-battle ships which came inshore to bombard the seaward walls.

The general opinion was that Lacombe would have to ask for terms within a week at most. Confirmation of Corsican movements above the passes leading to Bastia, even if they hadn’t actually invested Fornali, gave him no other option. The French were still fighting to hold it open, but it was a desperate task, only aided by the islanders’ desire to avoid excessive casualties in an action which all believed would do little to affect the eventual outcome.

Markham seemed to have inherited the Seahorses without anyone giving him specific orders to do so; not surprising with their own officer and NCOs dead, and their ship detached to carry dispatches to Admiral Hotham, Hood’s second in command, cruising off Toulon. They set up a camp just inside the woods, retrieving their packs off the beach, then begging, borrowing and stealing those things which they didn’t receive by right. Markham’s own kit, completely forgotten about since the landing, had been slung ashore, probably by one of Bernard’s sailors, who’d had no interest in the fact that Lieutenant Croppie’s equipment landed in the water. Thankfully it contained very few perishables; an extra pistol, powder, balls and the necessaries for cleanliness. His spare shirts had dried fast enough, as had the powder, and Rannoch had undertaken to clean his weapons personally.

Once the bombardment commenced, with lines of seamen ready to resupply, there was little for the men to do but wait for the actual assault, and they were permitted some very well deserved rest. Markham, despite the noise of the cannon, slept like a log throughout the rest of the day, and only woke as it was getting dark. Exiting from
the tent Rannoch had found him, he felt the wind coming off the land, a breeze which, for the second day running, had pushed the bombarding ships off their station. But still the orange glow of the shore-based fire lit the darkening sky, and awake, he could hear the balls crashing into the stone walls of the fort, slowly but surely creating a breach in the thick masonry. He watched for a while as the last of the light faded, until the guns were housed for the night, and the firing ceased.

Around him, his men slept or sat quietly talking round their fires, several of them bandaged where they’d suffered slight wounds. The Seahorses occupied one fire, separate from his Hebes. In both cases, their muskets, cleaned and gleaming, stood in orderly stacks ready for use. The smell that assailed his nostrils, a mixture of pine resin, warm gun oil and tobacco, was pleasant. That was, until it conjured up memories of other forests, and other encampments, where the same ingredients had been present, and death and destruction had come with the dawn.

‘Dornan, some hot water, if you please.’

‘Sir.’

The marine got to his feet and looked at him, while Markham waited for the information to seep into his brain. Round of face, with eyes that always seemed surprised, Dornan was sometimes more of a liability than an asset. Being slow-witted, he was often the butt of jokes from the sharper members of the unit, especially the two Londoners, Quinlan and Ettrick. Finally the marine bent and picked up a kid, which he dipped into the pot on the fire, spilling enough to kill half the flames and earn him a curse from his mates. Markham took the container off him and re-entered his tent. The small polished silver mirror, lit by one candle, gave off precious little light, and it threw his lean face into the kind of deep shadow that made him, not for the first time in his life, curse the shaving ritual.

But a hand across the square chin confirmed the need
for the razor, the stubble thick and black in contrast to the dark brown of his tousled hair. The eyes were still full of sleep, grey pupils made cat-like as they picked up a flicker from the candle. He threw a handful of the hot water on his face before lathering up, and shaved round it, careful close to the numerous small scars that stood testimony to the number of wounds he’d sustained, not all of them from soldiering.

He knew he should really have an orderly, someone to brush his coat, wash his shirts and breeches, clean his boots and shave him on demand. But servants, in his experience, were a venal crew, who engendered greater worry than they saved, more interested in what they could steal than in making their master comfortable. When they cooked, most of the food, chosen to suit their own palate, was wont to disappear down their throats, just like the wine. And woe betide the officer who left money or valuables lying around. There were exceptions to that, of course, personal attendants who would lay down life and limb for their master. But George Markham had never met one. Not in Ireland, England, America or Russia. So until he did, he’d see to his own needs, eating whatever food was put before him aboard ship, and joining his men on everyday rations in the field.

That thought made him smile, showing teeth white enough to match the creamy lather. There was a sort of hypocritical piety to such thoughts, given the life he’d led in London before being forced, by penury and the threat of arrest, to take up his army commission. Hard tack and salt beef it was not, though a wiser head might have made it so. But George Tenby Markham had lived high in his time, had a modicum of charm and Irish wit, and also believed in the old adage that it was necessary to speculate to accumulate. If he wanted to acquire a fortune, he felt he must spend as though he already owned one.

So he’d lived the life of a gentleman of the town, eating well, and sometimes drinking to excess, gambling just
enough to be considered a player, attending balls, routs and rallies at Vauxhall and Ranelagh, and pursuing his love of all things gracious, especially the ladies, married and single, of the circles he’d moved in. He was drawn to the theatre especially, not only by a love of drama, but by the nature of the people who lived the thespian life. There was little hypocrisy in such a world, and much excitement.

The events of that period, when he’d returned from fighting the Turks on behalf of the Czarina Catherine, tended to break down into the duration of his romantic liaisons. Images of the women he’d made love to floated through his mind; faces, bodies and preferences in a joyful reverie. That ended abruptly when he recalled the unfortunate meeting at Finsbury Park, where he’d put a ball into the Comte des Ardres, a French emigré nobleman who, quite naturally, took great exception to finding George Markham in bed with his wife.

He swore, at the end of every affair, that it would be the last, a promise that had never yet survived a sideways glance or even a waft of seductive perfume. And as he removed the last of the lather from his ears and nose, he looked at a face now bronzed and lean instead of puffy and powdered. It was good to be here in Corsica, on active service, away from the temptations which had so often been his downfall.

The coat looked like what it was, a garment to fight in. It hadn’t started that way, of course, although it had never been much in the way of finery. But crawling through dunes and pine forests and charging field gun emplacements had done little to improve the look of the thick scarlet cloth, even in weak candlelight. One of his gold aiguillettes had been clipped by a ball, and required to be trimmed with scissors. Grease from a cannon wheel had left a streak across the white facings, and there was a tear in his breeches which could only be hidden by pulling his stockings higher. With a final slap producing a puff of
dust, he jammed his hat on his head and came out of the tent.

Looking around a second time he saw the Negro, Bellamy, perched on a log right on the edge of their encampment, stirring a pot over a small blaze. His head was swathed in a thick white bandage that contrasted sharply with his coal-black face, the skin so shiny that his cheeks picked up the orange from the dancing flames.

Rannoch was on his own too, bent over another fire, holding a tin pot in which he was melting the lead from standard issue musket balls. The cast he was using, which he’d scrounged off the
Hebe
’s
armourer, lay to one side, by the bucket of water he needed to cool them. The first time he’d seen Rannoch at work, it had contained the old piece of barrel he used to test them. But that, along with everything else they’d owned, had been abandoned in Toulon, a place they’d escaped from with little more than their flapping shirts. Markham, out of the corner of his eye, watched Rannoch working as he moved through the rest of the men, checking on those who were awake, inquiring after wounds, hurts and lost equipment, until he was close enough to his sergeant to speak.

‘Where are you going to get the barrel to test them?’

‘I am using my own right now,’ Rannoch replied, without looking up. ‘Slipping it just home to see if it fits. It is not perfect but it will have to do.’

‘The Army have supplies aboard the transports, muskets from every manufactuary in the land. And I am willing to bet that some of them are old stock.’

‘But are they true to my barrel?’ Rannoch said, looking at him. Then he picked up his own Brown Bess, the firelight picking out the sheen of the stock, and the gleam of polished brass on the firing plate. ‘The piece I used before was cast by the same hand as this musket, though I will grant it was not at the same time. But they were true to each other. Only by luck will I find another like it.’

Markham was dying to ask where he’d got the originals,
both musket and barrel. But that was just one of the dozens of questions which Rannoch did not care to answer. He kept his past to himself, which to a naturally inquiring mind was a form of torture. Was there a wife, a family somewhere, brothers, sisters? Where and why had he got that brand on his thumb, and what had happened to make his hatred of officers so deep and abiding? They’d become as friendly as a lieutenant and a sergeant could, Rannoch careful to preserve the necessary distinctions, so that he would not get too familiar with Markham. More importantly, this ensured his superior couldn’t get too informal with him. This was fundamental for the proper maintenance of discipline. But inside those very essential constraints, they trusted each other, an accolade Markham had earned, and not one that the Highlander seemed prepared to bestow on any other superior.

‘Why is Bellamy sitting alone?’

Rannoch’s back stiffened slightly, as though he saw the question as a rebuke. ‘When he came back, he took one look at the Seahorses around their fire, and moved away.’

‘He could have sat with our men, could he not?’

‘He did not ask them, sir, and neither did I.’

The check on Markham was in the ‘sir’, which was not, in anything other than formal situations, an appellation often found on Rannoch’s lips. And it was also in the stiff way his sergeant was holding himself, a plain statement that any further questions on the subject would be very unwelcome. That made Markham angry.

‘At the moment, Sergeant, though I haven’t asked for it, he’s my responsibility.’

‘Then do him a kindness and send him to run errands for the surgeon.’

‘No!’ Markham snapped, standing up.

‘That is the right you have as an officer,’ Rannoch replied, without looking up. ‘Just as I have a duty as a sergeant to point out to you that the presence of that man could well make bother.’

‘Did you see who hit him on the beach, Rannoch?’

It was a question he’d been determined not to ask, because it could do nothing but cause trouble. In some senses his own duty demanded that. The men had their own way of settling differences amongst themselves, and every officer worth his salt respected it. But now Rannoch pulled himself upright, to tower over his officer. And when their eyes locked there was neither deference nor fear in those of the Scotsman.

‘I did.’

Markham was surprised rather than angry. ‘Why?’

‘Because if I had not, the Seahorses would never have followed me down that gully. And who knows what might have happened if they had sat still? I had no idea of the damage done by those mortars. You, and all the men we survived Toulon with, could now be dead.’

Markham turned away, totally at a loss. If Rannoch was anything, he was considerate to any man who served with him. Yet in his eyes, when he had answered, there had been a hint of something other than expediency. And Bellamy must know that the Highlander had cracked his skull with his musket. No wonder he was sitting alone. It seemed feeble, a mere gesture, to go and talk to Bellamy instead of reprimanding Rannoch, but that was all he could think of to do, firstly to reassure the Negro, and secondly to let the Highlander know that should he fancy repeating the blow, Markham wouldn’t tolerate it.