The Price of Glory (6 page)

Nathan left the crew to drag the boat ashore and stumbled across the narrow strand to the cover of the rocks where he could take stock of their situation. It did not improve with proximity. The fort appeared to be built to the exact design and dimensions of its neighbour on the opposite point. A gentle slope of sandy soil and sea grass rose to the foot of the battery and though the cannon could not be depressed low enough to sweep this rise there was not a scrap of cover to shield an attacker from the inevitable musket fire. Then there was a ditch, doubtless filled with the steel spikes the French called
fleur de lys
and other pleasantries to impede their progress, and then a steep earthen embankment, topped by the stone ramparts. The guns had ceased firing for some reason—though it could only be that the gunners had taken up their muskets to await this new attack. Which was clearly suicidal. Under cover of smoke, or darkness, they might achieve something, but there was no prospect of the former and though the sun was now quite low in the sky it would stay light for two hours or more. And if Nathan delayed more than a few minutes the guns would inevitably resume their pounding of the
Unicorn
.

He looked back at her: a sorry sight with her stumps of foremast and mainmast and the wreckage of canvas and rigging draped over her bows—and the wounds she had taken from the heated shot all along her hull. He could see some of the hands hacking away with axes to clear the debris from her forecastle and even as he watched a mass of it fell into the sea and was swept away by the current. Moments later there was a flash of flame from the 6-pounder in the starboard bow and the shot whistled high above their heads to smash into the stone ramparts above: a splendid act of defiance that cheered him a little even though he knew it could achieve nothing; not even to provide them with decent covering fire.

He glanced along the ragged line of men crouched among the rocks with pistols and cutlasses, axes, even belaying pins, fired up, eager to go. How many of them would make it to the redoubt? Perhaps half if they were lucky, and the defenders less practised with their muskets than they were with their cannon. It was said that musket fire was so inaccurate it took the weight of a man in lead balls to kill him. Nathan had not believed this when he first heard it, in a Sussex tavern; and he certainly did not believe it now. He touched the letter in his pocket—for luck, or for the last time—drew his sword, and stepped out from behind the rock.

He was not immediately cut down in a hail of fire. In fact there was not a single shot aimed at him so far as he could tell, though he could hear the sharp crack of musketry from above. As he scrambled over the rocks and started up the slope, he could see the cannon in the embrasures, smoke drifting out from the muzzles, but no sign of movement. A glance to left and right: Gilbert Gabriel at his side, Michael Connor and George Banjo a step or two behind, with Young and the boat crew close on their heels; Holroyd and Lamb with their two divisions in a long straggling line on each flank. It was hard going up the slope for there was very little purchase in the soft ground and he was breathing heavily, a roaring in his ears. But no roaring from the men. They advanced in an almost eerie silence, so unlike their usual tigerish charge across a deck, as if they feared to rouse the defenders from their inexplicable slumber.

They were three-quarters there and still the gunners did not fire. For a moment Nathan wondered if their attention was so fixed upon the
Unicorn
they had not perceived the danger advancing from below. But if this was so why were they not firing upon the ship? No, it had to be from a perverted sense of amusement: waiting until their attackers were almost upon them before obliterating them with one devastating volley.

Yet still he could not see their muskets.

They reached the ditch. Nathan paused, every nerve tensed for an eruption of flame and smoke all along the ramparts and the terrible impact of a musket ball at close quarters. But still the French held their fire. Dimly he heard the sound of shots, even shouts and the clash of steel, but wherever they were coming from it was not from the battery.

The ditch was too wide to jump. But it contained no mantraps, no steel spikes, nothing more alarming than mud and nettles. Down they went in an untidy wave and up the other side, breathing heavily, even growling a little now, like a great predator closing in on its kill. But still no roar. Now the embankment, steeper, much steeper than the slope leading to it, so they were forced to scramble on all fours, pistols in their belts, knives, even cutlasses clenched between their teeth.

Nathan felt a sudden fierce exultation, fed by the impossible belief that they had taken the defenders by surprise. Smoke still drifted from the mouths of the cannon that had played such havoc with his ship and he wondered if the gunners possessed no other means of defence and were waiting for the moment the attackers appeared in the embrasures before they blew them apart with 12-pound heated shot. But for all the damage they had inflicted on the poor
Unicorn,
they could only destroy a dozen or so at such close range—one of whom would be him, of course, for he was a pace ahead of Connor and the Angel Gabriel. And now came the roar as the wave broke upon the parapet and they were clambering through the gaps, climbing over the cannon, cracking shins, burning hands and legs on the searing hot metal.

And the roar dying in their throats as they saw what awaited them on the other side.

The interior of the redoubt was filled with a struggling mass of men, fighting hand to hand with swords, pikes, axes and muskets, even a few pitchforks: fighting with a deadly, furious intensity over the bloody corpses of the fallen, and not a one of them aware of the attackers pouring through the gaps in the walls. Nathan paused on the gun platform, staring in wonder at this bizarre spectacle. Had the defenders fallen out among themselves? But what could possibly have provoked such a fratricidal bloodbath? There was little to distinguish the combatants: most were fighting in their shirt-sleeves, some stripped to the waist, though there were a few blue uniforms here and there, similar to those worn by the French National Guard—the citizen soldiers of the Republic—so it might reasonably be supposed that whoever was fighting them must be his allies. Yet he was loath to pitch his own men into such an affray when they might so easily be attacked by both parties, simply on the grounds that they were unknown to either, as happened in many a water-front brawl. He glanced down the line of ordnance: all in good order with powder and shot beside each gun, braziers glowing in the fading light; rammers and swabs and all the other tools of the gunner's trade lying abandoned in their midst.

He sought out his two subordinates, Holroyd and Lamb, and instructed them to select a suffi cient number of the hands and turn two of the cannon upon the warring parties.

“And load with canister,” he added, for he could see this commodity stacked up in quantity next to the powder kegs and the neat piles of round shot.

While a score or so of the hands devoted themselves to this enterprise, Nathan gave his attention once more to the battle. The Blues, heavily outnumbered, were fighting in small groups, back to back, though still giving a good account of themselves and clearly determined to fight to the death. And judging from the number of corpses strewn across the further ramparts, this had been the fate of a good many of their number. Nathan deduced that the attackers had stormed the fort by that particular route and that the gunners had ceased pounding the
Unicorn
to take up their swords and muskets to confront this new threat at their rear. Their best course now, it appeared to him, was surrender but they were obviously made of sterner stuff than he for even as he watched, one of their number began to call out: “
A moi, mes enfants
…” and the other groups began to fight their way through to him to make a kind of phalanx in the centre.

Nathan looked to his own
enfants
and saw that Banjo had taken Connor's place at his back in some unspoken, or at least unofficial role as bodyguard.

“George,” he addressed him self-consciously, for though he did not normally call the hands by their first names, he could not bring himself to utter the name Banjo in civilised converse with a fellow human being, “do you see the flag there?”

Banjo saw the flag there. The Republican tricolour flapping limply from the flagstaff halfway along the battery.

“Would you be so good as to haul it down for me?”

Nathan had neglected to bring a Union flag to haul in its place. It would have required a greater degree of composure—and optimism—than he possessed. But it would serve to inform Tully and anyone else who might be watching that the fort had fallen.

The two cannon had been redeployed as Nathan suggested, but here was Michael Connor knuckling his forehead with an apologetic crouch that brought him to near human dimensions.

“Mr. Holroyd's compliments, sir, but he begs to report that the guns is already loaded, sir, with round shot, and wishes to know if your honour is still desirous of loading them with grape?”

Nathan shook his head. “It is no matter,” he said. “Round shot will do.”

He drew one of his pistols from his belt, cocked it and fired into the air. The battle continued unabated. He summoned Connor again.

“My compliments to Mr. Holroyd, and would he be so good as to fire a round—above their heads.”

The roar of the cannon succeeded where the pistol had failed. The warring parties stopped fighting and stared in their direction, but instead of waiting respectfully for Nathan to address them, as he had vaguely surmised, the men of the Blue party, apparently acting upon instruction from their officer, broke away and rushed en masse towards this new adversary. Nathan wished now that he had insisted upon loading the cannon with grape, but he had near a hundred armed men at his disposal and though he scarce had time to make a proper tally, his attackers could not have exceeded a score. He raised the still loaded pistol with the intention of discharging it at the officer and unleashing a more general slaughter, when to his further confusion, the men stopped just a few yards in front of him and turned to face their former opponents; all save the officer who approached Nathan and asked him, somewhat breathlessly but in a calm enough voice, if he spoke French.

“I do,” Nathan assured him, lowering his pistol, but frowning a little as he wondered what was coming next and whether it would inconvenience him at all.

“Then permit me to present myself …” the fellow made a small bow. “I am Captain Le Goff, of the Republican Guard, and to prevent further bloodshed I am obliged to offer you my sword.”

Which object he presented to Nathan, hilt first.

Nathan regarded it with concern, for it was dripping with blood from the captain's recent exertions and he was not aware of the proper form on such an occasion. Men had surrendered to him before, but they had never offered him their swords and he was somewhat touched, though aware that there could be complications.

They were not long in making themselves known to him.

“We are your prisoners, sir,” the captain insisted, “and I would be obliged if you would inform these animals of that fact before they make you an accomplice in their atrocities.”

Indeed the animals appeared to be gathering themselves for a rush. They certainly looked capable of atrocities, Nathan thought, if indulged.

“Who are they ?” he enquired of his apparent prisoner.

“These ones?” The officer made a contemptuous gesture of his chin in their general direction. “They are the ones that call themselves the Chouans.” He smiled a crooked smile and added, with a sneer: “Your allies.”

Nathan regarded them with new interest. The Screech Owls. They had a look of a peasant army, he supposed, taken as a whole.

“Very well.” Nathan took the proffered sword and gave it to the Angel Gabriel. “Instruct your men to lay down their arms.”

The captain frowned. He was a man of middling years with a grizzled jaw and a long drooping moustache, greying a little at the edges. Le Goff—the blacksmith. And possibly that is what he was, in his civilian capacity, though it was more likely, if he was an artillery-man, that he was a professional soldier, a veteran. Certainly he spoke like one. “I beg you to first make yourself known to these pigs,” he implored Nathan, “and inform them we are your prisoners and under your protection, or I fear there will be a massacre.”

In this supposition he was undoubtedly correct, for the pigs had taken the opportunity to reload their weapons and were clearly preparing to resume hostilities. Nathan viewed them with a stern eye and asked who was their commander.

One of the herd, more elegantly groomed than his associates, stepped forward and executed a bow that might have been reassuring, had it not been so clearly mocking. He was a small man, almost childlike in stature, though there was nothing childish about his face, its wolfish features flecked with blood, and he carried a sword that had seen some service.

“I have that privilege,” he announced. “And who have I the honour of addressing?”

Nathan told him, and the fellow had the courtesy to remove his hat. “Then permit me to present myself. I am the Chevalier de Batz, in the service of His Most Christian Majesty King Louis of France, and these sons of whores are my prisoners.”

Nathan took in the long lean jaw and the wide mouth—and the mad, cruel savagery in the eyes. He acknowledged the man's title with a polite inclination of the head, but not his claim.

“I am desolated to have to disagree with you, sir,” he replied, “for I have just accepted their surrender and they are under my protection.”

The whole situation was taking on the nature of farce, and though it was preferable to the outcome Nathan had anticipated earlier, he felt it necessary to assert his authority. Unhappily, so did the chevalier and his manner of doing so was rather more to the point, and considerably less polite. With a sigh of one exposed to intolerable boredom he removed his sword from the right to the left hand, extended the empty palm to one of his obedient vassals, who stepped forward to place a pistol into it, and before Nathan had grasped the significance of this gesture, much less made any move to counter it, he coolly aimed it at Captain Le Goff and shot him through the head.