Abigail's Cousin (37 page)

The carriage
and team plunged onwards driven ably by the coachman who felt
constrained as he would have liked to have passed information into
the coach but now felt decidedly unwelcome fearing he might become
the butt of the brigadier's stream of impatient abuse. Yet in truth
he reasoned it would be an unnecessary intervention as he had
spotted in the distance some houses which from exprience he knew to
be the outskirts of Tavistock, an outlying village not twenty miles
removed from Plymouth and he looked forward to clattering over the
cobblestones of the Barbican alongside Sutton harbour, long before
the onset of evening.

As he dozed Hill was overcome by a feeling
of arrogant well-being as he recalled the letter from the queen
announcing his promotion and news of the promulgation in the London
Gazette. He would show these upstart, smart-ass officers who
hitherto had looked down on him recalling St John's words about
dropping the prefix
Brigadier and calling himself general. What were St John's
words about the cachet of the rank of general telling him, in his
cups, it was true, to let them think what they liked. Tell them you
were at Blenheim, Oudenarde, Ramillies. You're still only
twenty-six and the senior officers cannot fail to consider you as
something out of the ordinary, and to the lower ranks you will be a
hero.

St John's
advice still echoed. Nobody will mind your not being drawn. True
heroes are reticent. So what, it is a pretence. Are we not all
pretenders? The biggest pretender sits across the waters. He
pretends he could be king of England. He tried and was kicked out
by Englishmen. Try a thousand times, you'll not be a worse
pretender than he.

Hill chuckled
as he thought of their last boozing bout at the Hog's Head. Whilst
they were still relatively sober, St John had advised him to carry
a valise. Get your aide-de-camp to carry it. Hill's aide was this
brute of a Scotsman beside him. No matter, he kept away the
riff-raff. Inside the valise was another of St John's suggestions
for a general, a telescope. Yet one cloud, one dark cloud
overshadowed his reflections - money. He had learned the hard way
when a page in the service of Prince George, that emoluments were
often months in arrears which had not worried his fellow pages such
as Masham, as Captain Masham, his father, gave him an allowance,
and this was true for other pages, except for Hill. His patron had
been Sarah Churchill, but even the small allowance from this
quarter was stopped when his patron learned of his drinking.

Now as a
general, Hill had still the same problem in that his rightful
emoluments were traditionally months in arrears because only
gentlemen hitherto with private incomes became generals so that the
withholding of a salary was no problem, apart from
Brigadier-general Hill, promoted by reason of his sister's
influence with the queen of England. But neither woman had thought
to provide an allowance. There was only one thing for it and he
tapped his valise quietly. Inside were letters of marque, warrants,
promissory notes. Promissory notes with the authority of the new
Bank of England charging agents in Plymouth to provide the
expedition with stores. He would have to see to it that he took his
cut. After all St John had alleged that the captain-general himself
took his cut, he could not believe it, but if Marlborough did not,
his predecessor would have done and his sucessor would do so, that
was the tradition. Anyway it was all very well for the duke to be
straight as he had a private income, he could afford to be. The
first Bank note was for £10,000. Ten percent of that would be a
modest share.

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"Quebec!"

"To Quebec!"
echoed read-admiral Sir Hugh Hovendon Walker in response to the
lord-lieutenant's toast. Each raised his glass of claret and while
his host sipped his, Walker half-drained the generous glass
accustomed as he was to down full tots of rum when he spliced the
main-brace and not only when the sun passed over the yardarm.

"This gentleman, B
rigadier Hill, do you know anything about
him?" asked the lord-lieutenant, Sir Percy Lascelles to which
question Walker showed some surprise, commenting:

"I was hoping
you would fill me in, you being an army man. Nobody I have spoken
to has ever heard of the name."

"Hmm!" grunted
Lascelles, "I seem to be in the same boat if you will pardon the
expression," he chuckled then said, "mind you, if you have enough
of the ready, I suppose you can buy yourself in. What say you?"

"Not in the
Navy, that is for certain. All my promotions have come from
meritorious service. Admirals are made not bought.”

Lascelles
raised his eyebrows at this pompous speech and ignored the implied
snub about officers in the British Army as he went on to
explain:

"An officer's
rank is open for purchase, I do agree, but only usually when there
is a vacancy, otherwise the army would be stuffed with incompetent
generals."

It was
Walker's turn to raise an eyebrow thinking of William's army but
listened politely as Lascelles went on: "It normally takes a
lifetime to buy yourself a generalship as officers are not usually
permitted to skip a rank in his climb up the greasy pole. Besides,
an officer must also be recommended. It is a puzzle."

Walker fingered his empty glass in the
hope of catching Lascelles attention and giving up said: "We have
been at war these past nine years, colonel. Perhaps our brigadier
has distinguished himself on the field of battle. He is, according
to the Gazette, just twenty nine and was present at a number of
battles. It puts my war service distinctly in the shade. I've been
rather proud of my campaigns to date, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Barcelona.
I think this young 'un has eclipsed them. He seems to be a
r
eal hero of our
time."

"I drink to
you, sir." called his host, "You may be twice his age but there are
not many men who command the splendid fleet such as I can see from
the Citadel." The lord-lieutenant drained his glass and said:

"Do you have
enough ships to take all the men I have mustered?"

"I have ten
warships that I brought from Spain and so far Captain Ponsonby, my
second-in-command, has managed to collect a score of transports of
one kind or another and more being inspected and added every day
How many troops had you at the last muster?"

"Let me see."
the colonel mused aloud: "Six companies of Devon Foot, four of the
Somerset Yeomanry. There are three battalions of the Plymouth
Fusiliers, right here in the Citadel. That's about it, I
warrant."

"Have you included the six companies of
Foot, I signed off yesterday?" Said Walker to which Lascelle
responded: "With those added in there should be some three thousand
soldiers though mind you none of them has seen any war service and
with rumours of a peace in the offing, I doubt that." He stopped
before saying as an after-thought, "This Quebec venture will
sharpen them up, I daresay. Would you care for a quick
tour of the castle
rear-admiral?"

"Capital
idea!" responded Walker though Lascelles suddenly frowned and then
asked:

"Would you mind leaving your hat behind,
rear-admiral
? Protocol
you see. In theory you're being senior to me, I should provide you
with a guard of honour, but I can see you are not a stickler for
such things, eh what!"

The
rear-admiral forced a smile and it was just as well his face did
not reveal his thoughts. He would have adored the protocol but
sadly left his three-corned admiral's hat in the wardroom as he
followed Lascelles who pointed then proceeded up a flight of
circular steps which brought them out onto the gun platform, a
circular crenellated turret bristling with cannon. Two sentries
patrolled the area.

Lascelles
barked a couple of commands and the troops stopped their pacing,
and saluting, disappeared into a little office. The colonel did not
need to point out the views across the Sound. They were
magnificent.

"What a fine
sight your men-o-war present, rear-admiral." praised Lascelles and
Walker returned the compliment by thanking him again for his eleven
gun salute on entering the Sound on arrival. He looked behind him
and across at another turret, one of the four in all which owed
much to Vauban, the French designer of the barrier forts along the
Dutch/French border. He noticed the position of some cannon and
queried:

"Cannon
pointing inland. What is their purpose?"

"Charles'
idea!" was the reply

Walker
understood and commented to Lascelles: "This continuous religious
infighting is the reason for my son to move to the Colonies. The
efforts of our late unlamented sovereign to force popery on the
people was the last straw." He suddenly stopped, adding: "I may
have spoken out of turn."

"Indeed you
did not. Had James not abdicated, my lieutenancy was forfeit. The
papers had been drawn up. However my son's last straw was the Test
Act. Although not a Catholic he was fed up with all the
parliamentary bickering." Walker half-listened more interested in
looking around and comparing everything in his mind with a
man-o-war and commented as such:

"With a bit of
rigging my dear chap, I might feel at home here."

"And you will
never be sea-sick, rear-admiral."

Walker
conceded the point cheerfully then looking across to the adjacent
turret called out: "I've been racking my brain this past five
minutes at that contraption, I'm pointing at. Beg pardon for the
word but I don't know how else to describe it."

Lascelles chuckled: "Contraption is as
good a word as any, my dear chap. That is a target, my target for
shooting practice.
Shall
I explain how it works?"

Walker
indicated he was intrigued and listened to Lascelles explaining
about French prisoners and wondering what it had to do with
shooting, but his puzzlement did not last long as the colonel went
on to tell how he put several thousand of the enemy to work. It
seems the French were amazed at some of the time-honoured practices
and devised methods to improve them. One great improvement came in
the manufacturing of clay pipes. It seems the proximity of local
clay deposits and French methods soon produced a surplus of pipes.
That was when one of his serjeants devised this contraption to
improve the men's shooting.

Lascelles
walked to the cabin where his soldiers were and Walker heard him
issuing orders and soon one of them was on his way down the stairs
and returning to Walker pointing to the contraption:

Walker said:
"I see those are pipes sticking out."

Lascelles
agreed: "Indeed, but what you may not realise how it turns so as
always to present whole pipes to shoot at."

There was no
time for further explanation as the trooper appeared carrying two
muskets and firing accoutrements. Walker commented:

"Not much use
letting me shoot, colonel. In Barcelona I was quite happy with a
pistol."

"Perhaps you
have not heard about the new flintlock musket, rear-admiral. You
would oblige me very much by watching a demonstration. Incidentally
these are the same type used by the captain-general. It is owing to
these muskets that we took so many prisoners, at Blenheim."

Lascelles
might have added something about the irony of a French invention
used to such devastating effect by an English general resulting in
French prisoners who unwittingly were improving English
marksmanship though even the best education did not extend to the
teaching of the finer attributes of the English language.

Walker watched
fascinated as a soldier took a roll of paper from a compartment in
a block of wood drilled to accommodate several charges. He then
poured powder from the roll into the muzzle of a musket, followed
by a ball from the same roll and ramming it down with a long rod
which he then withdrew. Walker attention was interrupted by another
soldier that had suddenly appeared and stood to attention before
colonel Lascelles. He barked:

"There is a
Brigadier Hill below sir. He has just arrived and is waiting
outside the gates at the south entrance."

Lascelles
glanced at Walker as though to mean that the brigadier seems to
have come on cue and turned to the soldier: "Show him up here onto
the battlements, corporal. Dismiss!"

With great
relief, Walker was pleased that Lascelles ordered the musket
loading to continue which he had abated. The soldier resumed and
holding the musket level he sprinkled a small amount of black
powder from a flask into the breach of the musket then bringing it
back to the level, presented it to the colonel who promptly allowed
Walker a close-up of the loaded musket, pointing out: "That is the
Doglock which prevents accidental discharge and is unique to
English flintlocks. Watch as I cock the musket."

On doing so
the Doglock was released and the colonel pointing the musket
towards the target on the far turret took careful aim. Silence
descended as Lascelles held his breathing momentarily while both
soldiers and Walker emulated each other by standing well back. He
saw a spark as Lascelles pulled the trigger followed
instantaneously by an explosion accompanied by smoke and the crack
a fraction later over at the far turret as the pipe fractured into
many pieces.

"Bravo! Good
shooting!" The voice was slightly piping and Walker wondered if one
of the soldiers had got carried away but then a man in military
garb appeared among them. He wore a red coat with epaulettes on
both shoulders and just as Walker has decided who he must be,
another, a serjeant calls out: "Gentlemen! Allow me to present
Brigadier-General Hill."