The Blooding of Jack Absolute (28 page)

Of all the girls in town,

The Black, the Fair, the Red and Brown,

That chance and prance it up and down

There’s none like Nancy Dawson.

He must have spoken them, even sung them, for the Highlander before him left off his prayer-curses to turn and glare. The
look only added to a feeling that had been building in Jack for some while – he started to giggle. It was all so fucking absurd!
Three months ago he’d been singing that song in the taverns of Covent Garden. And here he was, standing with a musket in his
hands and a whore’s name on his lips while four thousand Frenchmen ran at him with the plain intention of stabbing him dead.

And then they stopped. All the drums struck one loud exclamation and, a little over a hundred paces away, the whole white
mass halted. For a moment Jack thought – and it only added to his hilarity – that they’d decided the situation was quite as
absurd as he thought it and they were going to march off and leave the killing of him for another day. The joy that thought
gave him lasted only moments, those it took for the Frenchmen to bring their muskets down from the port, ground the butts
into their shoulders and, without seeming to wait for any command, fire.

There was a ragged roar like a drawn-out shout, the air suddenly filled with whistles and shrieks and, almost immediately,
a sound like pebbles being thrown at a barn’s wall as men around him were struck, on their muskets, on their cartridge cases
and buckles … and in places that made no sound. The praying Highlander reeled back, dropping into the narrow space between
Jack and the next man, one of his eyes a black and reddened hole.

‘Seventy-eighth, advance three paces,’ a Scots voice bawled.

All around him, the men moved on the command. Jack, unused to the drill, lingered a moment, long enough to see the red ranks
clear the fallen, a dozen bodies perhaps, some writhing, some still. Then he too lurched forward and his momentum carried
him beyond his assigned place, into the gap in the front rank. Before he could retire, another command came.

‘Companies … lock!’

Like a door bolt shot into place, the two ranks melded, the space between men closed.

‘Present your firelock!’

There was another movement, each man stepping forward on his front leg, leaning over it, raising his musket to parallel the
ground. Jack, drilled relentlessly aboard ship by the foulmouthed Yorkshireman, did as all the others. Then he felt a leg
behind him, a musket barrel rising beside his face.

‘Good lad,’ said MacDonald. Jack could feel the Highlander’s breath on his cheek. ‘Good lad.’

In their movements there had been distraction from what was before them; and the French volley had raised a cloud of smoke
that hid the enemy for a moment. Now that smoke was thinning, pushed aside by men emerging like wraiths from the whiteness.
The drums had started again, a faster beat, the voices calling again,
‘Vive le Roi! Vive la Paix!’

The French came on.

The voice that had commanded spoke again now, quieter yet still with the force to reach them. Jack could hear the same, single
word echoing down the red ranks of the nearest regiments.

‘Steady.’

The French came on. Less than ninety yards now. Some of them had reloaded, or held their fire, for bullets still zinged around
and three men away from Jack a Redcoat cried out, fell forward, lay silent.

‘Steady, lads! Aim low.’

The weight of the musket!
Jack had always presented, fired,
shouldered, he had never held it out like this, for this amount of time, waiting, waiting. He could not help the shudder that
came. He needed no encouragement to aim low; he thought he might discharge into the ground.

On it rolled, the white wave. Seventy yards now. Sixty.

‘Come on, come on,’ he whispered fiercely, ‘Come to Nancy Dawson.’

MacDonald suddenly called out, ‘Platoon, oblique right,’ and Jack’s company shifted and he with it, their left foot fixed,
the right moving a half pace back. Now they were pointing their muzzles not dead ahead, where the French ranks were more frayed,
but into the column sides of the Bearn regiment to their right.

Down the line on either side, platoon fire commenced, the smaller units of the regiments alternating their fire in well-co-ordinated
drill. Still, the British centre held, both breath and bullet.

Fifty. Forty-five.

‘Steady. Steady.’ A terrible pause. ‘Fire!’

With what relief did Jack squeeze the trigger. The pan flashed, he felt the jerk as the weapon recoiled, as the lead left
his barrel. He had aimed at a specific man but the flash that seared his vision took away any chance of noting success. All
was lost in smoke again, British smoke this time, and when that began to fray and separate into tendrils and wisps that rose
and dispersed, it revealed carnage.

The front ranks of the French columns had been torn down, shredded full six men deep. All order was gone, those that still
stood were isolated islands of white, three men here, one there. Jack saw an officer, hatless, blood running down his face,
his sword-tip on the ground, mouthing commands that would not turn to sound.

It was a calm English voice that pierced the strange silence: ‘Prepare to load.’

The sergeants’ and subalterns’ cries of ‘Half-cock your firelock,’ just preceded a wail from the French army that
sounded as if it came from one voice, from one savaged animal. With it the men in white turned and ran.

‘They are broken. By God, they flee!’ Brigadier Murray had run up to the colonel of the Seventy-eighth, Fraser. He had lost
his hat and his bald head was flushed. ‘After them, sir. Rout them!’

The Highlanders needed no second bidding. ‘A Fraser!’ went the cry down the ranks, muskets were swiftly slung, claymores drawn.
Jack, swordless, was nevertheless as excited as the rest and, as his platoon began to surge after the fleeing French, he took
a pace forward with them. Only a pace, before a hand grabbed him by the collar, jerked him back.

‘Absolute. Absolute!’

Jack wriggled in the grasp, wanting to be away. The French were fleeing and he had to be there to share in their slaughter.
He might not have one of the Scots’ fearsome swords. But hadn’t that Yorkshireman told him that a bayonet had a better reach
anyway? Hadn’t he already killed a Frog bastard with one today?

But MacDonald’s hand would not be dislodged. He jerked Jack round to face him. ‘Listen to me. Listen! I was told to mind ye
and I will. You’ve done your duty and had your share of the kill. But you were ordered to bear this news to the general, were
you not?’ He pulled Jack around till he could see the standards. ‘To them, laddie. There lies your duty. Whereas mine …’ He
drew his own claymore and, with a shout of ‘A MacDonald!’, took off after his men.

‘You there. You, Absolute!’

Colonel Hale of the 43rd had called him. Reluctantly, Jack took a step towards him.

‘You must to the general. There he is, on his rise. Tell him the French flee everywhere and Murray leads the Seventy-eighth
to seize the bridge on the Charles and cut them off. And tell him …’ Hale stepped away, revealing a body on the ground. It
was General Monckton, eyes widened in pain, his waistcoat a bloodied mess, bubbles rising from the oozing red.
‘Tell him of this as well.’ He slapped Jack’s shoulder, startling him from his stare. ‘Go on, Absolute. To Wolfe.’

Jack was reluctant on the first step, less so on the subsequent one. Suddenly, the joy of his mission came to him. He would
tell Wolfe the news. The French flee. The battle is won. An Absolute would bring colour to that pale face.

Jack ran between the living and the dead, towards a cluster of red on Wolfe’s Rise. When he reached it, he tried to pass between
two men, but they closed together, stepped forward. Everyone appeared to be looking down at something fascinating at the centre
of the circle.

A cry came. ‘Room, gentlemen, I implore you. Step back!’

Jack slipped through. Beyond the backs of the crowd of men, there was a little circle of churned earth. In the centre of that
lay Wolfe.

He was propped up against the legs of a kneeling grenadier, another of the same regiment standing near. A surgeon’s mate was
fussing at Wolfe’s shirt, trying to part material soaked in blood; but even as Jack stepped through he saw Wolfe lift a hand
and wave away the attempt, heard him murmur, ‘I tell you, it is all done with me. Let be!’

Jack threw himself down. ‘Sir! General! The French run.’

The eyes did not open but the slightest of smiles came. ‘I have heard. God be praised, for I die in peace.’ With that, his
head rolled down, his body sagged, folding around the supporting legs as if all bone had gone out of it.

‘But, sir! I bring other news. Monckton is wounded, perhaps dead and … and …’

The grenadier who’d supported the body now stood, laying Wolfe carefully down as he did. ‘He’s beyond your words, lad, good
or ill. He’s gone.’

‘But I have a message for him, from Colonel Hale! He needs to know … to know …’

Another grenadier, an officer, now spoke. ‘What’s that? Monckton down as well?’

‘Yes, sir. Badly wounded at the least.’

‘Then that means Townshend’s in command, God help us.’ He hauled Jack to his feet by his cross belt. ‘He’ll need to be told.
He commands on the left wing. To him, lad, and tell him of this,’ he gestured down to Wolfe’s body, ‘while I carry out my
general’s last command to rout the enemy before it is countermanded. Drummer,’ he bellowed, turning back to his regiment.
‘Advance the Louisbourg Grenadiers! Come! Let’s course these hares back to France! Halloo!’

The group around the corpse began to separate, dispersing to their duties, to the imperatives of victory. Jack took a step,
then another, though he could not yet bring himself to look where he needed to go, still stared at Wolfe’s face, calmer than
he had ever seen it, less pale too. Colour had come to it in the time before he died though Jack didn’t think he could claim
the credit for that.

At last he turned, began again to run. Drums and fife were sounding the order for a general pursuit and the soldiers, reined
in by discipline, now let out a roar. For near three months they’d got the worst of every encounter with their enemy. Now
the foe had shown them their heels, they were all for treading on them fast.

Jack’s own flew. The musket banged against his thighs as he ran until he grabbed its stock, his tricorn seemed determined
to slide from his head so he let it, letting his free arm now pump, helping to drive him across the Plains of Abraham. Up
ahead were the standards of the 15th and 60th Foot, refused along the Sainte Foy road. General Townshend would be under them.

He was. Jack had covered the thousand yards fast and was feeling it when he spotted the new commander of the British forces.
He was standing on the cupped hands of two grenadiers, cursing them continuously as he tried to point his wavering telescope
toward the chaos of the battlefield.

He came down instantly on hearing of Jack’s arrival and listened while Jack tried to give him the news from the field and
Wolfe’s last commands. But the breathless delivery was
not swift enough for him. Once he knew he was in command that was all he needed.

‘Pursuit? Scatter my men between here and the city when we do not know what reserves Montcalm has waiting there? This runnin’
off could be a ruse to lure us into an ambush.’

The Colonel of the 15th stepped forward. ‘With respect, sir, General Wolfe seemed to believe that Montcalm had committed all
his forces. He thought to—’

‘Wolfe is dead,’ Townshend barked loudly. ‘Monckton is dying. So we cannot know what either would have thought. We can only
know what
I
think! Eh? Eh?’ He glared at the officer who dutifully dropped his gaze. ‘We know that Bougainville and the rest of the French
army will be marching to attack me in the rear from Sainte Foy. With my men scattered we could be caught between them. So
call ’em back. Call ’em all back, by God, including Murray and those damned Jacobites of the Seventy-eighth.’

Officers nodded, commanded, men began to run along the road toward the gunfire. ‘Who holds our rear?’

His ADC answered. ‘Colonel Howe and his light infantry.’

‘Not enough. Tell Ralph Burton to take his Forty-eighth to reinforce ’em. And you, Westminster lad.’ He turned to Jack who’d
been regaining his breath. ‘Oh yes, I know you, you puppy. You were with Howe up the cliffs, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, sir, I—’

Townshend waved impatiently. ‘Well, go find him now. Tell him to hold Bougainville till we join him. We’re on our way. Go!’

Jack turned and began to run. Again. ‘My kingdom for a horse,’ he muttered. He’d thought he was there to fight but his superiors
only seemed to want to make use of his legs.

At least Billy Howe had other ideas.

‘Ah, uh, Abercrombie!’ he drawled as Jack ran up to him, having sought him for above half an hour amongst the trees on the
edge of the plain. ‘What news?’

It was swiftly given, the fleeing French, even the word of Wolfe’s death causing only the barest crack in the colonel’s imperturbability.
The only thing that ruffled him was Townshend’s command.

‘Hold? With what, pray?’ He snorted. ‘I’ve three companies of men scattered through this wood and that,’ he cocked an ear
toward the forest, ‘is Colonel Bougainville approaching.’

Jack listened too, could indeed hear the drumming. The trees muffled the sound but they could not be far off. Clearer than
that though, and thus nearer, were the high ululations Jack had heard intermittently throughout the day.

Howe observed him shudder. ‘Yes, my man. Take care you don’t fall in with those fellows. Your pretty hair will look very fetching
at some squaw’s lodge post.’ He turned. ‘Sergeant McBride?’

‘Sir?’

‘Send word to the Sixtieth to leave the head of the Foulon Road and join us here. We’ll let these savages have the edge of
the woods but the French regulars will have to come along the road. And that’s where we’ll take ’em.’ He rose, lifting his
musket. ‘Coming, Archer?’