The Blooding of Jack Absolute (27 page)

Ecstasy!
He didn’t think he’d ever been happier! He was alive as he had never been before, felt as though he would explode with the
joy of it. He wanted to throw back his head,
laugh and laugh. He tried but could not get the air, the little that came allowing out a giggle which accompanied him as he
sank down. Then, as breath started coming in whoops, joy slipped away. He was staring at a body, at a youth not much older
than himself, wiping blood from his hands onto his black breeches, onto his red coat.

He didn’t know how long he had knelt there when the sound of feet coming up the slope disturbed him. He knew he should reach
again for his bayonet, should try to kill this next Frenchman who came over the trunk and the one after that. But he couldn’t
move, welded there by tears and another man’s blood.

‘Egad! Is that you, Absolute?’

Captain Delaune was perched with one leg either side of the tree trunk, caught where he’d first glimpsed Jack. He came fully
over now, paused as he saw the body, then knelt. ‘Are you hurt, lad?’

Jack shook his head, tried to make a word, couldn’t.

‘Your first?’

Jack nodded. Delaune put his hands under Jack’s arms, helped him rise, held him while he steadied. ‘They’ll tell you it gets
easier,’ Delaune said quietly. ‘In my experience, that is a lie.’ More men were coming up the slope, halted now at the trunk,
at the sight of the body. ‘Do we hold the path?’

Jack nodded, at last found some moisture for his voice. ‘Colonel Howe sent me to inform you so, sir. Says the general is at
liberty to bring up his army.’

Delaune looked up the slope. Almost as he did, a cannon suddenly roared somewhere above them, its voice shocking in the silence.
‘That will be the Samos battery above the cliffs here. They’ve wind of us now. I’m sure Colonel Howe could use some reinforcements
for he’ll have to take out those guns.’ He looked at Jack again. ‘Are you able to continue to the general with the news?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Jack shook his head hard. ‘Yes, I believe I can.’

‘Good.’ Delaune slapped him on the back, picked up Jack’s
tricorn from where it had fallen. As he handed it over, a corporal came up. In his hand was Jack’s bayonet.

‘Sir?’ the corporal said.

Delaune took the weapon, wiped it on his sleeve, reversed it. ‘You might need this.’

Jack hesitated only for a moment then took the blade, sheathing it immediately. ‘I pray to God I do not.’

‘Amen,’ said Delaune, ‘and
bonne chance.’
Turning back to his men he cried, ‘Forward.’

Jack let the last of the Forlorn Hope file past him, each young recruit staring at the body as they went, then at him. When
the last of them had passed, he looked at it himself.
‘Bonne chance,’
he murmured then climbed the trunk. The darkness had yielded a little in the time it had taken for his blooding and he was
able to move more swiftly.

13 September 1759

The last of the rain passed from the cliffs and ran, at an almost perfect right angle, over the long line of Redcoats. From
where Jack stood on the army’s right flank, on one of the few slight elevations that the flat plain afforded, he could now
see across the thousand-yard frontage of the British ranks to the other slight rise opposite; could even, with his keen sight,
note the muskets slung across the red backs of the soldiers there.

‘I cannot tell. Has Townshend refused his battalions?’

General Wolfe had tapped the shoulder of his ADC and Captain Gwillim snapped his telescope up, scanned. ‘Yes, sir. The Sixtieth
is now formed along the Sainte Foy road.’

‘Good.’ Wolfe now glanced behind him. ‘And our men here have similarly deployed.’

Jack followed the general’s eyeline. Wolfe had ordered the Thirty-fifth to also refuse in a line roughly paralleling the cliffs.
So the army was now drawn up like a square-sided ‘U’, with very short side arms. That this was necessary became immediately
apparent for the cessation of the rain had brought a resumption of something other than clear sight – lead ball from the tree
line along the cliffs. All ducked, as the first firing was directed towards their rise. All except Wolfe.

‘Time, Gwillim?’

‘It is approaching half past nine, sir.’

‘Good. Good. Your glass, if you please. Absolute, a moment.’

Jack, who had been considering moving further away down the slope, now stepped up it. As he did, a sergeant he’d been standing
beside cried out, fell backwards, clutching at his neck; blood pumped between his fingers.

‘Tell the men to lie down, Gwillim.’ Orders were bellowed, echoed down the long ranks. The British army, with some alacrity,
lay down. ‘All except you, lad.’ Wolfe caught Jack in a half-crouch. ‘I need your shoulder.’

Jack, uncomfortably aware that he was now one of the more prominent features of the bare battlefield, stood before his general,
who laid his ’scope on his shoulder. Wolfe could no longer level one himself. He had been shot in the wrist earlier in the
morning and a white bandage around it now paralleled the black one worn on his upper arm in memory of his recently dead father.

Jack tried not to flinch as bullets zinged by him, and failed. Wolfe, however, was completely steady. He had motioned Jack
to face toward the east, towards the hills he’d heard called the Buttes à Neveu. Not far beyond them, yet out of sight, he
knew stood the city of Quebec. On top of the hills was the French army, their white uniforms making the battalions appear
like cumuli, massing. They were no more than half a mile away.

‘Yes,’ muttered Wolfe, ‘I thought as much. Montcalm’s placed his most experienced regiments, Bearn and Guyenne, in the centre.
Forming into columns and … By God, that’s himself! Do you see him, lads? He’s mounted on a black horse, the swanky bugger.
All right for some!’ He sighed. ‘Sit, shall we?’

With relief, Jack helped the general lower himself down then sat himself, scrunching his neck into his shoulders. He would
have lain on his stomach but since none of the other staff officers who gathered around did, he could not.

‘Do you think he will attack, sir?’ Gwillim asked.

‘I think he must and soon. We’re astride his supply line
from the south and he’ll think we’re digging in, while every hour allows us to bring more men up from the ships. More guns
too!’ He inclined his head to the sound of an explosion. ‘Williamson’s six-pounders are nipping at him already. Ample compensation
for these gnat bites from their Militia and their wild pets, eh?’

Jack looked again to the cliff-top scrub, to the ghastly shapes that moved within it – the enemy’s Native allies, naked, painted
beasts the lot of ’em! Their extended wail of a war cry caused the knees to weaken far more than the bullets they sent. It
seemed to come not from the Damned but from their horned tormentors, unspeakable cruelties vouchsafed for anyone who fell
into their hands. Jack winced as he remembered the call he and his Mohocks had unleashed in Covent Garden taverns. A schoolboy’s
pathetic whine! How had he ever thought he’d even come close to this chilling savagery?

Wolfe acknowledged the cries and the continuing snap of bullets overhead with little more than a shrug. ‘And
le Général
knows that if he doesn’t attack we’ll swallow his reinforcements coming from Sainte Foy like oysters.’ He smiled. ‘No, gentlemen,
he’ll come, fast and in column. He personally forms his best troops around him there in the centre. So it’s in the centre
we’ll break him.’ He used Jack’s shoulder and rose. ‘Come, let’s to it. Burton, you’re in charge here. Keep your head down.’

Wolfe moved away fast, Jack, Captains Gwilliam and Delaune struggling to match his pace. Since he’d first appeared on the
cliff top, and leaving aside the inconvenience of taking a ball in the wrist, Wolfe no longer seemed a sickly man. His long
pigtail slapped and bounced on his back as he strode. In his good hand he clutched nothing more offensive than a black cane.

The standards of the 47th and 43rd Foot were planted at the very centre of the British line and it was by them that he halted.
The battalion commanders rose from the ground as he approached, saluted, Monckton, the Old Westminster, among
them. The soldiers, though remaining prone, gave him three huzzahs.

‘All fair, George?’ Wolfe addressed his brigadier.

‘Seems so, sir,’ Monckton replied.

As Wolfe and his officers conferred, Jack looked along the lines. The regiments, though recumbent, were dressed roughly in
two ranks. There were gaps of about forty paces between each body of men and the next battalion up was the 78th, Fraser’s
Highlanders. Jack looked for and soon spotted Donald MacDonald. Not for him a seat upon the grass; he was striding about his
men, his pipe clamped firmly in his teeth, waving and encouraging. Then his attention was caught by the conference taking
place and, a moment later, by Jack. He marched over.

‘How fare you, lad?’

‘Tolerably.’

The Scot looked down. ‘Ye might have cleaned yon bayonet.’

Jack looked too, shuddered. MacDonald stretched out a hand, rested it on Jack’s shoulder. ‘Delaune told me. It’s a muckle
powerful thing to take your first life and you chose the most direct method.’

‘I had no choice,’ Jack muttered, looking away. ‘If I had—’

‘If you had, you’d make the same one again. And again. It gets easier, trust me.’ He indicated Jack’s musket. ‘It’s easier
with that. You don’t fire at one man but at a pack of ’em.’

‘Well,’ said Jack, licking at his dry lips, ‘it seems I shall soon find out.’

‘Soon enough, aye.’ MacDonald smiled. ‘So long as Wolfe does nae intend to keep you as his pampered pet on the staff.’

It seemed Wolfe had other ideas. As they looked to the conference, Gwillim signalled him back and the Scot accompanied him
over. ‘Absolute, I am going to make use of your vaunted speed again. You will remain here in the centre and General Monckton
here will send you with need or news.’

‘Can I nae have him, sir? He can stand with me on the Seventy-eighth’s right, with the Grenadiers. He’s only a few yards from
the brigadier’s commands. And I can keep him safe.’

‘Trusting a Highlander for one’s safety is like trusting a whore with one’s purse. But let it be so.’ His men laughed and
Wolfe smiled at the outrage on the Scotsman’s face. ‘You’ll find me, lad?’

‘I will, sir.’ Jack smiled back. ‘You may depend on me.’

‘Depend on an Absolute? Mad Jamie’s boy? Absolutely!’ Wolfe raised his cane and touched the side of his hat. ‘Gentlemen. To
battle.’

He turned, striding back towards the little rise of ground that gave him the only slight overview of the field. They all watched
him for a moment till MacDonald spoke. ‘I never thought I’d say this, mark! For, dod, yon callant was cruel to many of my
poor countrymen in the aftermath of Culloden. But he is a fine man and a good soldier and, if fortune favours, he will win
much glory this day.’ He turned to Jack. ‘And speaking of Highlanders, let me introduce you to a gaggle.’

Introductions were brief, Jack hearing the names of but a few men, forgetting them instantly, distracted by the pace of the
French drumming that seemed to increase even as he took his place. Then, a huge roar came from the white ranks opposite them,
in three distinct shouts.

‘Vive le Général! Vive le Roi! Vive la Paix!’

And on their country the white army surged forward.

‘Rise the Seventy-eighth, rise!’ Up and down the field, as their regimental commander called out their name, each regiment
rose and dressed into their two lines.

‘D’ye ken the use of your musket, man?’

Jack nodded.

‘Then we’re short a subaltern in the platoon here, with Archie MacDougal’s guts despoiling the floor of his tent. So step
in there and I’ll step in beside ye. Every bullet will count today and my sword will have to bide.’ He patted the basket
hilt of his claymore then guided Jack to the end of the second rank.

Jack stared forward. A white wave was rolling toward them, eating the ground as if it were the sand of a Cornish beach before
the tide, as steadily filling each wrinkle with its flood. Though it had seemed all one mass when it began to move, as it
neared he could see the demarcations, the different facings of each regiment, the blue of the men of Rousillon, the red waistcoats
of Guyenne. They marched in three main columns and between them were scattered men in a
mélange
of cloth and colour, the Militia of New France. The columns opposite the English right and left flanks seemed already a little
blurred to Jack’s sight, as if the ranks were melding as they came; not so the one straight ahead, made up of the regiments
that Wolfe had proclaimed the pick of Montcalm’s men. These marched as tight as on any parade ground, a white arrow aimed
at the heart of the red-clad British who stood, their muskets shouldered, muzzles and bayonets pointed harmlessly toward the
sky.

‘Are you double-loaded, lad?’ MacDonald’s voice was low-pitched beside him, yet still startled him back to himself.

‘Yes, sir,’ replied Jack.

Wolfe’s command had been to load with two balls and the powder to send them. It diminished the range of each bullet – and
that told every man there what their commander intended: to wait … and wait … and wait …

The French drummers were increasing their beat and the regiments were responding in speed, their wings fraying further, their
centre tightening. The soldier ahead of him in the first rank was praying, or cursing, it was hard to tell which for the language
was certainly Gaelic. Jack swallowed, tried to work some moisture into his throat, tried to recall words himself, something
to comfort him from the endless prayers he’d sat through at school and recited by rote. He cursed himself that he had not
paid a greater attention to matters spiritual. Yet nothing came, in Latin, Greek, Hebrew or
English until … yes, there was something, some words, a pattern. He began to mumble them under his breath.