Honour Redeemed (34 page)

The Highlander reeled off names and orders, his voice crossing that of Markham, who was calling on others to crouch low. Within half a minute, at Rannoch’s command, his men span off the wall, and poked then discharged their weapons into the building. As the muskets came out to reply they ran into a volley from Markham’s party, who were kneeling under the line of the sill. Each man used the protruding barrel as a point of aim, knowing that
there was a man right behind it, a high-pitched scream from the interior demonstrating the effect of their efforts. Able to load faster than the enemy, Rannoch’s men
delivered
a second volley, this time stepping several paces away from the wall to increase their angle of fire.

‘The door must be round the back, Halsey,’ Markham shouted. ‘Take two men round there and worry them.’

‘Here they come,’ shouted Tully, pointing his bayonet back to the road they had just vacated.

Half the cavalry were mounted again, sabres raised, coming on at a trot. They wouldn’t need to charge, the object being to pin their enemies against the outside walls of the farmhouse and finish them off. Having just employed the recent tactics, Markham had to keep his men’s backs to the wall, or risk exposing them to fire from the now wiser Corsicans in the building.

Magdalena Calheri rescued them for the second time in a quarter of an hour. Her troopers had reloaded in the relative security of the barn. Now they rushed out to take the cavalry flank on, kneeling to increase their accuracy, and firing off as one a salvo of musket balls that tore into the sides of the enemy horsemen. It didn’t halt them completely, but it did provide enough time for the Lobsters to reload and deliver a second fusillade that broke up their continuity.

Horsemen hate to be alone in the midst of infantry, since no one man can cover every flank of his horse. Without mutual support they were vulnerable, so the cavalry began to pull back. Then Markham noticed the muzzles disappearing from the farmhouse windows. The best of his men were already reloading, some a bit slower than others, so the command he gave was confused. Not all the people he wanted to remain stayed still, instead they followed him as he ran round to join Halsey, who was crouched against the wall by the farmhouse door, the wall beside him being peppered occasionally with inaccurate fire. Just as he shouted a warning the door
opened and a muzzle poked out. Dymock, on the opposite side to Halsey, protected by a stack of logs, grabbed the barrel and pulled, and as the man attached to it emerged, Halsey spun his musket and clubbed him hard on the side of his head.

Both then jumped back to avoid the shots that came through the door, followed by a salvo through the windows by his men on the other side. Sense would have made the blue-capped defenders surrender. Instead they panicked and just ran out, presenting easy targets to Markham and his men. Seven fell and were then subjected, by men who had no time for finer feeling, to a frenzy of stabbing bayonets. One Corsican, with a luck that no man could hope for, got away unscathed by ball or blade, running in a zig-zag line, yelling his head off in fright, preventing his own side from exacting revenge by cutting across their line of sight.

Once inside, Markham found two more casualties. From their blue caps he presumed them to be
Buonapartists
. One had taken a bayonet through his eye, and was dead, while the other was hunched over a smashed shoulder, carrying a wound that was certain to cost him his arm. He had to shout to avoid his own men firing into the gloom, and then ordered them to get inside themselves, fully expecting at any moment another cavalry charge. But whatever mistakes the commander of those troops had made up till now, he wasn’t stupid enough to follow them up with one so crass. A horseman attacking a man safe behind a wall was asking to die.

‘They’re dismounting,’ said Rannoch.

‘Try and keep them still, while I go and check on the general. Halsey, four men by the back wall. Knock out some holes in case they try and retake this from the rear.’

‘Do you think there’s many of them, sir?’ Gibbons asked. Having detached his bayonet he was jabbing at the wall.

‘I think I’m about to find out,’ said Markham, hauling
the door open, then stepping back to kick it shut: a loud series of thuds followed, as several balls smashed into the stout oak. He smiled. ‘Perhaps that’s not the best route.’

Gibbons grinned, but it was Ettrick, also stabbing at the wall, who said the words. ‘You should try the window, your honour. I hear you’re a dab hand at the casement lark.’

Laughing made Markham realise just how thirsty he was, and since Ettrick had made the crack it was his water he took, pleased by the pained look on the man’s face, a mixture of concern and anger. He threw his head back to swallow hard, then spat a stream of vinegary red wine halfway across the room.

‘Present, your honour,’ said Ettrick, all innocence. ‘From the lady with the ’tache. Wouldn’t do to turn down a gift from a friend, would it now.’

‘Sergeant Rannoch, Marine Ettrick is on a charge.’

‘Sir!’ Rannoch replied, without any emphasis at all.

‘Now stand aside and let me out the bloody window.’

The distance to the barn was no more than thirty feet. But it was a deadly area to cross, the only bit of cover the low wall around the well, and given that fire would come from both sides and every gun the enemy had that could be trained on it. Since his men had finished their fire holes, he didn’t need to say any more. They knew what to do, so he jumped through the window, following a fusillade aimed at the dismounted cavalry, and ran for the barn door, trusting his own men to fire at the Buonapartists as soon as they showed themselves. Judging by the number of balls that whistled past him, they must have been well concealed.

Inside the barn, Magdalena had done the same as his men had to the farmhouse, knocking out holes in the soft walls to make firing points. There was an old cart by the door, and a loft full of hay bales. And animals, two pigs and a cow, evidence that the men who’d held this place had never expected to lose it.

‘If we push that cart out and tip it over, it will provide extra cover,’ said Magdalena.

‘Get those bales of hay down too,’ Markham added. ‘There must be enough there to make a line between here and the farmhouse, then we can get to the water, and each other, in safety. Firing from that height will help to pin down the enemy too.’

As he was speaking, he was looking around for Paoli. He saw him finally, amongst women working furiously to turn the barn into a redoubt, his head forward and his face filled with sadness. He tried to smile as Markham approached, but it failed to lift the mood of gloom that seemed to assail him.

‘We’re safe here for now, sir.’

‘They knew we were coming, Lieutenant. This was a snare.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Markham replied. He’d realised somewhere along the line that was the truth, but had been too busy to examine it. As a proposition it didn’t bear too much of that. Now it was obvious why the cavalry hadn’t attacked. Their task had been to drive them to where they were going anyway, and remove any possibility that
circumstances
might allow them a change of mind. They attacked only when Markham stopped, when it looked as though that aim was in jeopardy.

Paoli pulled Hood’s despatch from his coat pocket and waved it. ‘How could that be? Does your admiral want me killed too?’

‘No, sir. He wants you in Cardo, leading your troops.’

The hands went up in a gesture of despair. ‘Then who has betrayed us both?’

‘There is work to do, sir, to improve the defence. I must concentrate on that, rather than allow myself time for speculation.’

‘Can he talk?’ said Markham, leaning over to examine the wounded Corsican, who was lying amongst whole and broken jars of olive oil.

Bellamy nodded, but the look in his eye was
confirmation
that treatment for this man was essential. Markham could see that for himself: the skin was waxy, covered in a thin film of sweat, the lines between nose and cheek deeper than they should be, the eyes, when they were open, full of pain. He leant forward and began to talk in the wounded man’s ear, softly, asking questions which were answered by nods and shakes, so that those watching, who included a good half of his Lobsters, muskets loaded and pointing in both directions, were left with only half a tale.

The man admitted he was a Buonapartist, or at least nodded when that easily discernible word was posed. The name Ajaccio formed by Markham’s lips was also comprehensible. The shakes of the head corresponded to inquiries regarding numbers and names of his
commanders
. Then Markham leant closer, his voice even softer, which had his men straining forward for a half note to which they could attach some certainty.

‘Fouquert,’ said Yelland, hissing the name to the men nearest him. ‘He’s asked him about Fouquert.’

‘Bastard nodded, too,’ croaked Gibbons.

‘He’s got to be here,’ moaned Dymock, in a hushed tone. ‘Bad penny ain’t in it.’

‘No ship,’ whispered Halsey, who so forgot his own standards as to join in, taking his eyes away from the
window he was posted on. ‘The frog word is
bâteau,
and he shook his head.’

‘Why ain’t the Viking here,’ moaned Leech. ‘He can read old Shaft-em’s mind.’

‘He’s out there digging trenches, you useless bollock,’ snapped Halsey, who felt he’d missed some vital clue because the marine was speaking at the same time as Markham. Then self-discipline resurfaced and he barked at them all, ‘Attend to your bloody duty. Like old women, you are.’

‘Kettle calling,’ responded Yelland, so that Halsey couldn’t hear. To the men he was Daddy Halsey when obliging, Old Fanny Halsey, a Seven Dials trollop, when cross.

‘We will need to get a white flag out,’ said Markham, standing up and stretching to ease muscles that prolonged bending had strained. ‘This man needs a sawbones, or he’s going to die.’

‘Good fucking riddance, I say,’ called Sharland, who’d been allotted the lonely task of keeping watch on the far side of the farmhouse, and so had heard nothing.

Bellamy responded with a confidence which, especially where Sharland was concerned, had hitherto been lacking. To Markham it was further evidence of his changed stature, which had yet to be explained.

‘There speaks a shining example of the benefits of
universal
education.’

‘You cheeky black …’

‘Sharland!’ snapped Markham. ‘Get ready to go out, under a truce flag. You will ask for an opportunity to return the wounded prisoner. You will also request that the French, or whoever is running this affair, take in our casualties, since we do not have the means to care for them.’

‘What, like Ebbie?’

‘Ebden, and the two women who took wounds.’

‘They’re dead.’

‘We don’t know for certain. Corporal Halsey, go and ask the general to join us.’

The straw bales and the overturned cart provided some cover, which Rannoch was busy adding to by digging shallow trenches. But it was still an uncomfortable journey for a man his age, who found being bent double a strain. Once he was in the farmhouse Markham had a quiet word, then led him to the wounded prisoner. Much to the annoyance of those within earshot, Paoli began to talk softly to the Corsican in his own, incomprehensible tongue.

Markham understood, when he heard the name, that the general had introduced himself. More interesting was the reaction. The invalid’s eyes opened in wonder, finding himself talking to a paragon of whom he could only have heard. Pasquale Paoli spoke gently but insistently, to Markham’s mind like a priest giving last rights. There was a hypnotic quality to the voice, low and seductive. The man he was addressing was an enemy, but whatever Paoli said produced first tears, then a flood of stuttering
information
.

Finally the old man wiped his perspiring brow, and leant forward to kiss him on the forehead, that followed by a nod to Markham. Another whispered conversation followed, still maddening for those who couldn’t
understand
. But they could see that Paoli had elicited more information than Markham, and that none of it had done anything to cheer either man up.

‘Improvisation,’ said Markham, thinking about that oilskin pouch, sealed with wax of course, but in such a way that it had no device to identify it, all seemingly to no avail because Paoli had decided to leave for
Morosaglia
. No wonder Lanester had looked like a man at death’s door. ‘From that first day at Fornali, it all seems to have a gimcrack quality.’

‘There’s no absolute way to find out if that supposition is correct, Lieutenant.’

Markham nodded, though in truth he had no interest in Paoli’s pedantic way of looking at things. He called to Sharland, ordering him to get ready, then added with a commanding hand that Bellamy should come close. That led to more whispering, the only sound that made an iota of sense the Negro objecting to whatever task Markham was giving him. But it was clearly an order, and as Sharland readied his truce flag, Bellamy got himself prepared to follow him out of the door.

Sharland glared and gave a sharp gesture with his thumb when he realised what was being proposed, the tone of hatred in his voice matching the sentiment in his look.

‘I ain’t goin’ with this ape.’

Markham was tired, suffering from a lassitude caused by too much action, the need to think and give orders, plus the depression induced by his recent conversations. They had to get out of here, and right now he would happily have elected to leave this man behind. He was about to bark at Sharland, but the marine saw the look in his eye, and buckled immediately.

‘Whatever you say, sir.’

There was a pause while a flag was waved outside one of the windows. That, in turn, had to be translated and passed on to whoever was in charge of the combined French and Corsican force besieging the farmhouse. A cavalry bugle eventually blew to signal acceptance, and Sharland could then open the front door, confirm the arrangement and walk out into clear daylight with Bellamy at his side.

After some ten minutes two men arrived with a stretcher to take away their wounded friend, both avoiding even the slightest eye contact, treating the British Lobsters, and the Liberator, as if they were the Devil incarnate. Markham stood just inside the door, watching Bellamy. When the Negro, after what seemed like an age, turned and waved, he finally spoke.

‘Halsey, gather up all the oil and combustibles you can
find. Yelland, be so good as to go over to the barn. On the way tell Sergeant Rannoch to stop digging and come back inside. Then request Commandatore Calheri, along with her troopers, to take up positions between the barn and the farmhouse. Everybody is to get ready to move out as soon as the general and I have finished.’

‘Sir!’

‘Discreetly, Yelland,’ Markham added, as the youngster ducked to exit through the hole in the side wall. ‘I don’t want the enemy to know.’

Rannoch had listened carefully while Markham gave him his orders, nodding slowly, though there was doubt in his pale blue eyes.

‘The lady will not take kindly to accepting such
instructions
from me.’

‘Then tell her they are from her uncle,’ Markham replied, making for the door.

He took a last look over to where Pasquale Paoli sat in a corner. In the fading light, which made it hard to pick the old man out, he was looking at the floor, in an attitude that would have seemed strange to anyone who knew him well, but which had been there since he and Markham had finished their quiet conversation. Such a figure as the Liberator could never draw the description ‘broken’, but no-one could doubt the deep sadness that filled him,
evidenced
by his complete unawareness of anyone around him.

‘General,’ Markham called, and returned the smile he received as the old man stood up.

‘Right, you lot,’ said Rannoch, ‘let us be getting ready.’

That it was dark in the farmhouse was natural, even if it was still a strong twilight outside. Certainly when the man Markham had asked to see stepped forward from the cover of the houses on the very edge of Aleria, he produced a gasp from the sentinels which was a compound of anger and fear. They looked at each other, then at
Markham, whose face was rigidly impassive as he stepped forward and reopened the door. The walk to the agreed spot, halfway between the positions, took no more than a minute, Markham thinking on the way that the light did a great deal to favour the hue of the scarlet, gold-trimmed, coat.

‘I was half tempted to demand to talk to Fouquert.’

‘He’s not here.’

‘A lie,’ thought Markham savagely. The wounded Corsican had confirmed the Frenchman to Paoli. But he smiled nevertheless.

‘Good.’

‘Besides, he wouldn’t have come if you’d asked him. I think you scare him almost as much as he scares me. There’s no way he’d come out from under cover with you around.’

‘How very wise.’

‘It was damned cheek you sending that nigger to demand I come out, Markham. It nearly caused me to refuse.’

‘Lie two,’ he thought, the word improvisation recurring in his brain.

The face was red, fat and, despite the circumstances, still jolly. Indeed, as he’d approached Markham, he had his arms held out as though he was welcoming a prodigal son. There was no evidence of a wound on the man who’d been lying at death’s door a few days before. Pavin, looking even more gaunt and wrinkled in the dying light, stood near the first house that marked the boundary of the town of Aleria. The events of the last weeks flashed through his mind: what had happened outside the officer’s mess tent at Fornali; the inconsistency of behaviour; and the fact that he’d never actually seen the wound.

‘Made up,’ he said to himself, ‘the whole damn thing made up.’

‘What d’you say, Markham?’

‘That night at Fornali, Major,’ Markham said. ‘I should
have spotted that wet sand on your boots.’

Lanester smiled, though from the look in his eyes it was clear that he’d no more realised the significance of that clue to his involvement than Markham. ‘Daresay you would have done if you’d seen them after.’

‘It doesn’t bother you that those men died?’

‘They were soldiers, Lieutenant.’

‘Who, I think, have a right to expect their officers to be on their side.’

‘You have a streak of sentimentality, Markham, that is about to get you killed. I had it once, pledging loyalty to a cause, until I found that commodity only goes one way.’

‘It won’t get me killed today though, Major. You don’t have enough men to mount an attack.’

Lanester sneered at him, telling him not so much a third lie, as a very necessary piece of exaggeration. ‘Oh! we do. It’s never a good idea to underestimate your enemy.’

‘What changed your mind, Lanester, about having me killed?’

‘Who said I changed my mind?’

‘I’ve just been talking to a very wise man,’ Markham replied, changing the subject, eyeing the fading twilight, determined to keep him talking. ‘And he and I think you might have managed to underestimate your friends.’

‘That I don’t follow.’

‘The horse soldiers. Our shepherds got too hungry.’

‘Cavalry, Markham. Had they just done their job we would have had you cold. You can never rely on them. Christ, they’re worse than tarpaulins.’

‘What price renegades?’ The major behaved as if Markham hadn’t said that, or at the very least, as if such a description didn’t apply to him. ‘It’s not the first time they’ve let you down. We were never supposed to meet Duchesne, were we?’

‘With your friend being such an unforgiving bastard, it cost him his life.’

‘Not before he’d played out that farrago at the
monastery. I should have known that with Fouquert around, gentle interrogation was out of the question.’

‘He was acting to save his neck. What was that thing Sam Johnson said about hanging concentrating the mind?’

‘The price of some sense of decency.’

‘There you go being sentimental again. Who do you think garrotted those monks you buried if it wasn’t Duchesne?’

‘It would be nice to see you hang for the men at Fornali, hopefully within sight of the place they died.’

‘You’re planning to go back there, are you?’

It was such a stupid question that Markham had answered, ‘Of course,’ long before he realised that it shouldn’t have been asked.

Lanester threw his head back and laughed. ‘You should worry about your own skin, Markham, not mine. If you thought you were up to your chin in ordure when we left San Fiorenzo, wait till you get back. Not that you will, of course.’

He couldn’t ask, but then he couldn’t avoid looking curious either, and the major was too keen to tell him to hold it back for later advantage.

‘Your orders,’ Lanester hooted.

‘What about them?’

‘They don’t exist. Gawd, I’ve had to be subtle with people in my time, but you were easy. You’re so goddamn vain you actually believed what I said about Hanger. And such a dupe that you marched out of San Fiorenzo without asking for confirmation from your own superiors.’

‘I was supposed to go,’ Markham responded, trying not to sound too doubtful.

‘Oh yes. I borrowed you to escort me to the Cardo outposts. But de Lisle was expecting you back within the next day.’

‘De Lisle!’

‘He’ll want to court martial you even more now. You’re absent from
Hebe
in a battle zone. I shouldn’t even think
about going back, because he would have the right to request that you hang from his own yardarm, with his good friend Hanger holding the rope.’

Lanester was about to go on, to drive home the message to a clearly depressed Markham, who was struggling to convince himself that this was just another improvised tactic. Instead, the major looked over the marine’s
shoulder
, his eyes opening just a fraction.