Authors: David Donachie
‘I’m glad to see you have recovered,’ he said, indicating that Bellamy, who’d started to rise, should stay seated. He was aware that behind him all conversation had ceased. ‘I hope the surgeon did a proper job.’
When Bellamy replied, Markham was again struck by the quality of his speech. There was a minor colonial twang to it for sure, but it was no more than that, and certainly it was not the voice of an ignorant slave.
‘He could hardly stand, he’d taken so much rum. I fear my head will resemble a patchwork quilt when it heals,
of the variety made by country folk eager to fleece the unwary traveller.’
‘Then let’s hope the hair grows thick to cover it.’
‘That is one thing I do not have to be concerned about. The hair on my head grows as thick as my skull.’
Now those eyes, dark brown with huge whites, were fixed on his. And that made Markham look away, since he knew he was being invited by Bellamy to comment on who had hit him. The marine could see his discomfort, and after only a short pause he continued.
‘I have yet to thank you for saving my life before that.’
‘I was happy to do it.’
The thick lips split into a wide, tooth-filled grin. ‘Even if you nearly drowned yourself?’
‘You should learn to swim, Bellamy.’
‘That, sir, is to invite either crocodiles or sharks to feast off my flesh. The stuff of nightmares, I think, and I must own, because of it, to having an abhorrence of water any deeper than my ankles.’
‘Yet you are a marine.’ Bellamy’s eyes dropped, and now it was Markham’s turn to be introducing a subject that the other party didn’t want to pursue. ‘All in all, you’ve had a poor welcome to the island of Corsica.’
‘A fitting one, if Seneca is to be believed.’
‘Seneca?’ asked Markham, unable to hide his surprise at a soldier, let alone a Negro one, using the name.
‘He was banished here. He said,
Quid
tarn
nudum
inveneri
potest
…’
‘Please Bellamy,’ Markham protested, ‘do not labour my weak Latin.’
The Negro grinned again. ‘“What could be so barren, so rugged all around as this rock? What more wanting of provisions, what more rude in its inhabitants?” There is more, much more, none of it flattering.’
‘What are you doing here, Bellamy?’
For the first time, the marine adopted the voice that
Markham had heard every other time he’d met a Negro. ‘Ah fit for King George, boss.’
‘And how often does King George fight you?’
Bellamy understood immediately. ‘It is ignorance, sir, which brings retribution for slights imagined around my ears. I do not hold my place in the eyes of others as nature’s gift. And I also own that I do not help matters by parading what erudition I have been blessed with.’
‘It is unusual.’
That made him slightly angry. ‘There is not a man I have served with, sir, even one blind with prejudice, who would not benefit from the education gifted to me.’
‘By whom?’
‘Archimedes Bellamy, my late master. A great human being. He schooled me in order to prove that a man of Africa was as good as any European, the only difference being in the teaching.’
‘He seems to have succeeded remarkably well.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Is his death anything to do with your presence here?’
Bellamy’s eyes dropped, and the answer came in a whisper. ‘Everything. And being of a scientific bent, I daresay he would be curious to see whether I will die at the hands of the King’s enemies, or of the jealousy and prejudice of one of his subjects.’
Markham laid a hand on the black marine’s shoulder. ‘Do not fear to turn your back while you’re under my command, Bellamy, regardless of what happened today.’
‘That may cause you more difficulties than you can yet appreciate, sir.’
‘Sergeant Rannoch.’
The response cut across the continuing silence at his back. ‘Sir!’
‘This marine is under my personal protection. No punishment is to be inflicted on him, by anyone, without my express permission. Do you understand?’
‘I do, sir.’
Markham turned slowly, to allow those who’d been staring at him time to avert their gaze. All did so except Sharland, who was glaring with undisguised loathing. ‘Bellamy will eat with us, march with us, fight with and possibly die with us. But if he receives so much as a scratch from anyone other than the enemy, the person who inflicts it will wish he was a leper.’
Both the Army and the Navy had set up facilities for the officers ashore. Neat rows of tents lay under the shade of the pines, the avenue that had been cut between them now part of the gun emplacements. Two long, high, canvas marquees near the dunes provided a mess for each service to dine in. Very close to each other, with long tables down the middle, the blaze of candles that illuminated the interiors showed the movement of every individual inside. Markham could see, as he approached, cups of wine being raised in toasts to the anticipated success of the siege.
The command posts were just in front of these, smaller affairs in the main, the only one to match the dimensions of the messes that of General Dundas himself. Under lanterns, staff officers busied themselves making lists and plans, each tent-front open to the cool night air, as well as the admiring gaze of those the occupants wished to impress with their zeal. As if to emphasise the duality of the enterprise, the navy had its own command post, with marine sentries at the door. The most striking feature of this was the fact that though the distance from one to the other wasn’t great, there was no hint of traffic between them.
Organised as it looked, it was somewhat meagre compared with the tent cities he’d lived in when on campaign in Russia. There, the men who led the huge armies of the Czarina were great princes of the state. And they lived as such, their ententments made of silk, not canvas, the interiors floored with parquet, lit like royal palaces and filled with fine furniture. This display of oriental splendour
was well matched by the glories of their table, feasts so splendid that, on the few occasions he’d tried to describe them to others, he’d not been believed.
Markham noticed some oddly dressed creatures at the end of the main tent, standing in a group: soldiers in short, dun-coloured serge jackets, tight black breeches and singular headgear. Red in colour, the caps they wore were tight-fitting, any excess above the crown flopping to one side like a rooster’s coxcomb. The men themselves, conversing quietly, were compact, swarthy and moustached. He had just put out a foot to head for the naval marquee when the mellifluous Virginian voice of Major Lanester stopped him.
‘This is a damn fine set up, ain’t it, son? Just like being on spring manoeuvres.’
‘It’s a long time since I did any of that, sir.’
‘Major André, as I recall, was rather fond of them.’
That made Markham stop dead. ‘You knew André?’
‘I did. Just as I knew your father. In fact, young ’un, I have more than half a feeling that you and I have met before, at a time when you were still a Headquarters brat. You’d yet to join the colours, of course.’
Markham was about to apologise. As Governor of New York, his father had been host to an endless stream of visitors, military and civilian. To remember them all was impossible, especially those loyalists, numerous and very vocal, who’d sided with King George against their fellow colonists. He’d suspected Lanester to be of that hue the minute he heard him speak, one of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who paid with everything for their adherence to the crown. But the idea of saying sorry died in his throat, the wistful look in Lanester’s eyes making it superfluous.
‘Unhappy days,’ said Lanester.
Markham remembered them differently. First of all, there was the feeling of freedom bestowed on him merely by being away from the stifling hypocrisy of his background.
For probably the only time in his life he felt he really belonged, and that he stood as an equal to the legitimate members of his father’s family. In New York he, not half-brother Freddy, was General Markham’s son. And if Sir John was a bit of a rough diamond, who’d himself risen from the ranks, he had ten times the power in the Americas that he’d enjoyed as the senior officer of the Wexford military district. To offend such a person was the height of foolishness, holding as he did the key to so much influence and wealth. With a fortune already under his belt, Sir John Markham grabbed the chance to make another. With a war in progress, and in control of the main manufacturing base in the colony, there was no lack of opportunity.
‘How well did you know André?’ asked Markham, feeling, with some guilt, that the question was posed merely to make conversation.
Lanester took his arm, pulling him gently towards the army marquee. ‘Well enough to introduce him to an American General called Benedict Arnold.’
Markham stopped. That acquaintance had cost André, a man he’d liked enormously, his life. But Lanester just pulled a bit harder, as he continued talking, the glum look he’d had earlier replaced by a smile.
‘I find it hard to face the past, young ’un. But it is best done. If you feel the same, come and dine with me.’
‘Is Colonel Hanger in there?’
‘He’s rarely far from the open bottle, and that’s a truth. But he just might be with General Dundas, who is entertaining several Corsican officers from across the bay.’ He flicked a hand towards the group of strangely-dressed soldiers outside the general’s tent. ‘That there is the escort, and as rum-looking a bunch as their masters.’
Markham, while he hated Hanger, knew that the Colonel wasn’t the only one who was aware of his past. The prospect of someone else baiting him was significant.
‘I fear I must decline.’
‘I learned years ago that you cannot run forever.’
Markham spat out his reply to that. ‘I’m not running, Major Lanester. But neither do I welcome condescension from fellow officers who may well have drowned their manners in drink.’
‘Especially Colonel Hanger, I suspect.’
‘For a very good reason, sir. He may well be present, and one chance remark from that bastard and I might kill him where he sits.’
He was about to go on, to say that, while he was not prepared to swing for the action, he’d kill Hanger one day, regardless. All he needed was the colonel in an open field, preferably at dawn, with either a pistol or a sword in his hand. But even inside his own head, as the words formed, they sounded too much like bombast. He detached his arm from the hand of Major Lanester, pulled himself stiffly to attention, then saluted.
‘Thank you, sir, but I really must decline.’
‘As you wish, Markham,’ Lanester replied, his voice full of sadness. ‘But one day you must dine with me again. I have a feeling that with you, talking over old times might be less depressing than is the norm.’
The major stopped, bending to brush the damp, sticky sand off his highly-polished boots, before lifting the heavy tent flap. The noise level grew as he did so, and a wall of warm, smoke-filled air touched both their faces. Then Lanester was gone, his voice loud and cheerful as he called for a bottle of claret to be brought to him at once. Markham turned away from both marquees, feeling that the welcome he’d receive in the naval one might well match that of the army, especially if any of
Hebe
’s
officers were present. Besides, the celebratory noises coming from both tents suddenly seemed absurd, here in the middle of a battle, one that would see a pile of dead and maimed filling the breach that the cannon had spent the whole day attempting to create.
He made his way down to the beach, to the water’s edge, looking at the well-lit ships that filled the anchorage, shivering slightly in the cold, late February air. The sky was clear above, a mass of stars that ended abruptly at the edge of a thick black cloud. Beyond the fleet he could see the other side of the bay, the western shore of Cap Corse, dotted with hundreds of pinpricks of light on the heights which overlooked San Fiorenzo. These must belong to the Corsican forces closing in from the east, whose officers were, at this moment, in the tent he’d just declined to enter.
Standing there, as the seawater lapped near his toecaps, it was easy to be introspective. Lanester had engendered unhappy memories in him, the kind of recollections that came all too easily when he thought about Augustus
Hanger. The colonel’s face had been a healthy, even pink before his broken sword had scarred it. But at times like these Markham wondered who’d inflicted the deepest wound. Before the day he met Hanger, everything in America had charmed and excited him. He had the right to wear an ensign’s uniform, to march with a full belly through the warm forest of the Carolinas, marvelling at the organisation which could move several thousand men with such ease, and dreaming of one day being in command of such an army.
Even billeted on people who professed themselves opposed to his King and country had failed to dent that happiness. Flora Imrie’s father had accepted his forced guest with equanimity, taking the opportunity to lecture a young, unformed mind on the rights and freedoms of mankind, the Irish included. In truth, the older man had dented some of Markham’s youthful certainties. But most of his attention had been taken up by the man’s daughter. Older and wiser, Markham knew he was too easily prone to romantic attachments. But this had been very different, made more so by being only fifteen years old. Love then was blissfully painful, new and exciting enough to make him physically tremble. The war, and the differences it created, so easily solved between him and Flora Imrie, seemed like trifles, a touch of madness from misguided grown-ups that would end in the same kind of harmony that they enjoyed.
After the pain of parting, he marched the ten miles from Salisbury to Guildford on a cloud of his own illusions. But then reality intruded. Battle was joined, men died in droves. His regiment, so fine, proud and smart, was shattered in two bloody assaults. With all his superiors dead, Ensign George Markham, filthy, lacking a gun, hat, or any experience, was the only officer left unscathed.
The shock and confusion of that was bad enough, but nothing to the state of his mind when he heard what
Banastre Tarleton, and the cavalry of his British Legion, were doing back in Salisbury. He abandoned his post to rescue his first love, only to find that the town had been torched and Flora had died at the hands of men who were supposed to be on his side. And while he was absent, General Cornwallis, regardless of the casualties they’d already suffered, called on the 65th for one final effort, only to be told that there was no one to lead them into battle.
He kicked at the sand in an attempt to clear these thoughts from his mind, then set off towards the Fornali fort, quickening his pace along the beach. Thick black clouds had drifted in from the east to obscure the stars, and that somehow helped to alleviate such painful meditations. Ahead the newly constructed gun emplacements loomed, great dark shadows like whales in the open sea. They were quiet now, the decision having been taken to conserve twenty-four-hour firing, so that when it was introduced, it would further reduce French morale. The gunners were asleep, the comatose bodies lit by wads of flaming tallow on the rear walls of the bastions, the shape of the odd sentry occasionally silhouetted by light as they paced to and fro. Out in front of them would be other marine guards, the screen of troops dug into sandy foxholes who would raise the alarm if the enemy tried to sally out from Fornali.
The darkness of the fort intrigued him. What should have been a hive of activity, as the enemy tried to repair the damage done by the guns, was instead peaceful. As he watched, some of the torches on the walls were extinguished, which, with the increasing cloud, plunged sections of the ramparts into total blackness. It was wrong; very, very wrong. The hairs on the back of his neck began to tingle, a sure sign of an unperceived danger. Straining his ears, he could hear the odd scrape of the forward piquet, as they moved to and fro, no doubt half asleep from too long on duty. Yet they’d be mindful that if they
lost concentration, then they would be the first to die if the enemy sallied forth.
Markham stepped forward, climbing up the sandbags that lined the inner barrier, peering into the darkness, an act which alerted the marines actually protecting the guns. Right above the tallow wads, he was well lit, yet the sound of a musket moving, as it was brought from a weary shoulder to the guard position, was unmistakable.
‘Who goes there, friend or foe?’ demanded the gruff voice.
‘Friend,’ Markham replied, without turning round.
The next part of the challenge came automatically, the absurdity of the request lost on the approaching sentry. ‘Advance and be recognised.’
‘Sure, if I advance much further, friend, I’ll be in Fornali.’
The sentry had come up behind him, the face, suspicious at first, reassured by both the uniform and the Irish lilt in the officer’s voice. The weapon, dropped, was raised once more as he executed a sloppy salute. Another marine appeared, a corporal, who looked set to demand an explanation from Markham until the sharp tone of voice stopped him.
‘Who commands the gun positions?’
‘Captain Serocold, sir.’
‘Would it be possible to rouse him out?’
The corporal shook his head slowly, the expression on his face turning from curiosity to doubt, ‘He’s at his pleasure, sir, with all the other officers.’ He might have carried on to say the words ‘and that’s where you should be’, since the sentiment was obvious in the look he gave this interloper. Markham was looking into the darkness again, sure he could hear sounds of the kind of movement that should be absent. Forward piquets didn’t shift around unless they had to. They stayed in their foxholes, kept their eyes peeled, and shivered.
‘So who is in charge?’
‘My sergeant, an’ he sound asleep.’
‘Your muskets are all loaded and primed?’
‘’Course they is, sir.’
‘Do we have any blue lights rigged?’
‘They’re by the great guns, primed and ready.’
‘What is the order to set them off?’
‘Anything suspicious out front that warrants it.’
He heard another sound then, like a gasp. ‘Fire them!’
‘What?’
‘And get your entire guard detail up on the parapet, now!’
Ingrained obedience fought with propriety in the corporal’s mind. He was being given a direct order by a marine officer. But it was one he didn’t know from Adam, demanding of him he take a decision that should rightfully have rested elsewhere.
‘Fire the damn things, man, and leave me to take the responsibility.’
‘Liddle, do as the officer says,’ the corporal barked, turning to the bemused sentry. That caused another second’s delay while the private calculated the effect of this shift of accountability. But there was really no choice, and no time, in the face of the orders, to rouse out someone superior enough to question this strange lieutenant’s rights.
‘What’s the procedure for calling the piquet back in?’
‘There ain’t one, sir. If Johnny Crapaud comes out to play they were to retire at once under the cover of our fire.’
The whoosh of the rocket, streaking into the night air, had Markham involuntarily hunching his shoulders. He watched the red trail as it shot skywards, then dropped his gaze as it burst forth, a blaze of blue light that illuminated the beach before him, turning it into a streak of white between the twin blacknesses of water and forest. The figures moving in the moonscape, no more than forty feet away, were shapeless, darkened faces under snug-fitting
round hats, with nothing on their dress that picked up the light. For a second they froze, before one of them, more alert than his companions, fired off a pistol at the officer on the parapet. As he did so, he stood full face.
The ball came so close that Markham was sure he could feel the heat. He fell backwards, landing heavily on the surface of logs and compacted sand, his mind reeling in confusion, a major part of which was a disinclination to believe what he’d just seen – an outline of that floppy coxcomb he’d noticed earlier outside the general’s tent. But he was yelling nevertheless, staccato orders to the corporal, who seemed as dumbstruck as the skirmishers in no man’s land.
‘Get everyone up onto the parapet and fire off a salvo!’
Pushing forward till he was against the foremost sandbag, he continued calling instructions as he gingerly raised his head. ‘Rouse out your sergeant, then sound the general alarm and set off more rockets.’
The final command, as he peered over the rim, to get that damned captain out of the officers’ mess, wasn’t really necessary. Behind him, as he stood up, he could hear the trumpets blaring, summoning the entire landing force to arms. The sailors had come awake quicker than most, and with heartening discipline had set to preparing their cannon to fire without orders. The beach behind was full of men running towards the gun emplacements. But in the residue of the light from the flare, he could see the figures on the moonscape retiring, while the few marines who’d made their station hesitated to shoot at men who might be their own.
It must have dawned on some of them that the forward piquet were probably dead, since they began to fire, sporadically, at individual targets. Lifting his gaze, Markham looked at the fortress, still dark and even more brooding in the blue glow. There were no torches lit, no panic on the walls, no sign of any activity to either support an attack or repel one.
‘Corporal, send a runner to General Dundas, at once. Tell him that the French are abandoning Fornali, and are in the process of retiring towards San Fiorenzo.’
‘What in hell’s name is happening!’
The officer, a naval captain, who rushed onto the firing platform was lacking both a hat and a weapon. Clearly this was Serocold. Markham took a deep breath, reported who he was and why he was there, and started to explain. The commander of the batteries lacked the patience to listen to his appreciation of the situation without interruption, and barked an order well before he was finished.
‘Go back yourself, Markham, and tell the general. He’ll need to send runners to alert all the other regiments and he won’t do that on the word of a ranker.’
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Serocold about the man he’d seen silhouetted against the flare, but he stopped himself, partly because there was not time, but more because he was beginning to doubt his own recollection. The naval officer was looking at him in a peculiar way, as if wondering why he was still there, which made Markham blurt out his clearly unwelcome advice.
‘Can I suggest you move forward yourself, sir? The skirmishers are retiring, and I doubt they’ll stand and fight.’
‘I can’t move from here without express written orders, you know that. My task is to protect the guns.’
He opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again. Serocold was quite right; regardless of what opportunities presented themselves, he had to stay put. If he lost the navy’s great cannon, he might be beached.
‘I have a section that has no fixed orders. Permission to send my men out, sir.’
‘Granted,’ Serocold snapped impatiently. ‘Just as long as you do the first thing I asked of you, which is to rouse out Sir David Dundas.’
Though it would have been hard for even the best-disposed
soul to spot it, there was some order in the chaos surrounding the command and mess tents. When he reported to Dundas, he found the general even less patient than Serocold. The silver-haired Scotsman, florid from the claret he’d consumed, was barking his instructions to all units to probe forward at once, following that with an injunction to pursue the enemy should they meet no resistance.
The Corsican generals, formally attired in full dress, stood waiting, looking perplexed, men dark skinned and moustached like their escorts, though no other feature registered. They’d been in the middle of their dinner. Now they were requested to take to their boats and alert their own forces, just in case Lacombe tried to push all the way through to Bastia.
By the time Markham got back to his own tent, Rannoch had the men fully dressed and ready, lined up for action, a sea of calm in an otherwise frenzied landscape. All around were rushing men, shouted commands, the odd blowing bugle, the whole scene made nightmarish by the combination of moonlight and waving torches. He grabbed his pistols and, with his men at his heels, headed back towards the gun emplacements. They were now back in action, the shells arcing towards the Fornali fort once more. The parapet, when he rejoined Serocold, was fully manned, the marines sensible enough to wrap bandanas around their ears so that the cannon firing over their heads wouldn’t deafen them.
‘I’d like to take my men forward, sir.’
‘How many are you?’
‘Eighteen in total.’
‘What?’ Serocold barked, his eyes lighting up in shock. ‘The whole French force could be out there, man!’