‘Is there another place where we can cross the river?’ asked Markham, as he shook the still-dripping dragoon coat.
‘Not in the spring,’ Calheri replied. ‘The water drops in summer to a trickle.’
‘If we have to kill those Frenchmen, we will do so without knowing what other opposition we might face.’
The explanation which followed was swift and sparse and openly acknowledged to be speculative, interrupted by his need to get on a wet cavalry coat which was too small for him. With men on this side of the bridge, it could be the spot chosen to close the trap. But Paoli wouldn’t be travelling alone, even if he had left the contingent from Corte behind. Could Fouquert be sure he had no escort? If he wasn’t, he’d have men stationed on the far side, to shut the bridge off from the southern end, so killing off any chance of a rescue, a move which would allow him to get his captive away from the point of danger. Any rearguard he would sacrifice, if he had to.
Calheri was still seething over his behaviour regarding the muskets, but the situation was too grave to let that distract her from the main difficulty, which was how to warn Pasquale Paoli to turn back, without drawing down on his head the very ambush they were trying to avoid.
‘I don’t care how well your men can shoot, Lieutenant. In the maccia, this work is better left to Corsicans.’
He opened his mouth to protest, but then he saw the knife in her hand. It wasn’t threatening him in any way, but it did take his mind back to a dark night in a trench, when he and Rannoch had been threatened by just such a weapon, wielded by the same sex.
‘Two of my marines to accompany two of yours,’ he said, moving on swiftly, anticipating the obvious question. ‘If it gets wholly physical, it will need men to subdue them.’
‘That may be true in England, Lieutenant. It is not the case in Corsica.’ Her ‘soldiers’ had removed their capes, which disguised their differences, and were back to all their shapes and sizes as well as their dun-coloured uniforms. Calheri raised the knife, a long, thin stiletto with a sharp tip. ‘In the maccia, to get close is all that is needed.’
‘Tully,’ he called, ‘I need to be able to tell the Commandatore exactly where these dragoons are.’
‘By the road, sir, if’n it could be called that, about ten yards into the trees. They’re spread out, three pair, the first right by the end of the bridge, the others no more’n ten feet apart from each other. Yelland had a good look further away from the bridge, but there was no sign of anyone about.’
‘How close did you get to the men by the bridge?’
‘We didn’t have to risk being seen, if’n that’s what you’re askin’.’
‘Noisy?’
‘Chattering away like they was outside their own front door, your honour.’
‘Which means that they don’t feel threatened,’ Markham said to Calheri. ‘So we have two choices, Commandatore. We can shoot them, which will raise the alarm for miles around, hoping that the noise will alert Paoli. That will draw them down on us, which means we’ll have to retreat along the riverbank.’
He didn’t get a chance to propose the alternative, which was to engage a force the size of which he didn’t know with a limited supply of weapons and ammunition. He had even fewer troops he was prepared to rely on, though Calheri seemed to entertain no doubts as to the abilities of her ‘soldiers’. The temptation to scoff had to be avoided. And in truth, he was intrigued by this demonstration of her logic. It was a chance to discover whether his low opinion of her abilities was based on prejudice, or fact.
‘You are forgetting what you yourself told me, Lieutenant Markham. That is that they are not just Frenchmen out there. Some of them are Corsican traitors who need to be exposed.’
‘With respect, Commandatore,’ Markham replied, aware as he spoke that, even if he was playing Devil’s Advocate, what he said sounded pompous, ‘while I understand your emotions on this matter, they should not be allowed to intrude on a purely military problem.’
‘You mistake me, Lieutenant,’ Calheri said, the first smile for an age lighting up her face. He could almost see the thoughts which had produced the change, the idea that she was giving this upstart intruder a lesson in his own profession. ‘I was thinking that if we tried to retreat through this, with my own countrymen pursuing us, your men would be very lucky to get out alive.’
Markham nodded, accepting the point was valid, even if the analysis was faulty. Good as his men were, fighting in this labyrinth was not what they were trained for. He felt they would acquit themselves well, though they’d still be at a disadvantage. But Calheri was making a wild assumption. All they had found was half a dozen dragoons. No decision could be made until they knew the whereabouts of the rest.
‘Nor would we know if we were successful,’ she continued insistently. ‘Paoli is an old soldier, who may just ride to the sound of the guns. We must take the bridge and hold it, which will force our enemies, if they want to have an avenue of escape, to attack us instead of the general.’
He was terribly tempted to say ‘Bollocks!’, given that the lady herself had a tendency to vulgarity. But the widening smile made that unwise. And having deeply offended her, he was being gifted an opportunity, too good to miss, to raise himself in her esteem by being agreeable. Why upset her again, before he was sure that he had sound reason to do so?
‘I repeat, the dragoons on this bank must be taken care of first,’ he replied, trying to sound cheerful even if he wasn’t. ‘Until we can reconnoitre the road, we can’t contemplate what you suggest.’
If she observed the cautionary note, it didn’t register. Her eyes were afire with the prospect of a fight, and her words demonstrated quite clearly that rationality had gone from her thinking.
‘It would be quicker to forget silence and just shoot then. We don’t know how much time we have. Once they are thrown back, we can occupy the bridge and prepare to push up the road beyond.’
‘Against unknown odds?’ he replied quietly, watching his esteem plummet again, at the same rate as her passion. He took her hand and lifted up the knife again. ‘This is the way. I leave you to deploy your troops. My men will merely act in support until the situation is clearer.’
She didn’t pick up the truth, which pleased Markham, since he found the degree of his own cynicism slightly repugnant. Regardless of Tully’s report, this was a stab in the dark. If there were going to be casualties, he needed them to be her women. His men, for their fighting qualities alone, must be preserved.
Calheri had moved over to talk to her ‘soldiers’, picking on the less well endowed, particularly the thin pair, to follow her back up the trail, those who had muskets handing them over to their compatriots.
‘Rannoch,’ Markham said softly, ‘two men behind each woman. They’re to keep well back unless they hear a struggle.’
‘Muskets?’
‘To be avoided unless the French shoot first. I don’t want us all put at risk just to save one soldier. Tully and I will take the Commandatore.’
‘There’s sentiment in this,’ said Rannoch, giving him an odd look. But he was also nodding. ‘It would be, I think, unmanly to behave otherwise.’
Markham turned and fired off a quick explanation to Calheri’s remaining troopers, trying to reassure them, wondering from their blank response if they understood a word he said. He then set off with Tully at his heels. Behind him, Bellamy had quickly stepped forward, volunteering for the duty, which obliged Rannoch not only to accept, but to hand over the musket and bayonet he’d acquired, since he wanted other men to do likewise. Being too old at the game, the marines thwarted this aim, and he was forced to issue orders.
‘Dornan, you go with Bellamy, and try to keep silent.’
‘Elephant’s got more chance,’ sneered Sharland. ‘Why don’t you climb on his back, darkie?’
Rannoch, who had been going to detail Halsey and Dymock, killed the laughter quickly. ‘You too, Sharland, and take Ebden with you.’
The other Seahorse, Ebden, gave Sharland a glare, sure that they would have been spared the duty if he’d kept his mouth shut. Not that they went very far. As soon as they left the track, both men were close to being lost. Markham was in the same boat, relying on glimpses of the sun to keep his line. The women he’d been following, Calheri and another, had disappeared, both from view and sound, able to move through this impenetrable jungle with an ease neither he nor Tully could match.
Tully actually tripped over the dead dragoon’s body, the blood still pumping out of his shoulder where the long thin blade had pierced a major artery. Both men had to suppress a scream when Calheri appeared from nowhere, brandishing her evil-looking knife, her eyes full of mock hate, which turned to shuddering amusement when she saw the reaction she’d achieved. Then she turned and headed to what Markham assumed was the bridge, pushing through thick bushes, stepping over another victim, and her companion, who was busy stripping him of possessions.
Dornan and Bellamy weren’t so lucky. The two Corsican women they were following had stabbed a dragoon; indeed one had sliced her knife across his throat. But if he was silenced, he wasn’t dead, and he came crashing through the thick undergrowth, trying to escape, a horrible gasping sound emanating from his ruptured neck, and blood spurting over the hand he was using to try and keep it closed. His other hand held his cavalry sword, which he was sweeping back and forth to clear a path.
Dornan, surprised, didn’t move quickly enough, and if Bellamy hadn’t thrown up his musket barrel, the blade would have split Dornan’s skull. The Negro followed that up with a knee in the groin, which dropped the dragoon on to his haunches. Then, with great difficulty, he wielded his bayonet, his personal strength compensating for the lack of force he was able to muster in the confined space. Two of Calheri’s troopers appeared just as the blade went into the Frenchman’s side, their eyes fixed on Bellamy as he twisted it right and left, cutting through the vital internal organs until the man was still. The Negro then looked up to see the women, eyes alight, grinning at him, though what they said was incomprehensible.
‘Thanks mate,’ said Dornan, who still hadn’t moved. ‘He would have done for me, the French bugger.’
‘Get his sword,’ Bellamy said in whisper. He then span round and retched into the bushes, throwing up Pavin’s breakfast and the rations he’d consumed since. The Corsican women patted his back, and when he looked at them they were grinning even more.
‘I’ve never killed anyone,’ he said, looking back at his blood-soaked victim. But since he’d spoken in English, they didn’t understand him any more than he’d comprehended them. The women led the way back to where they’d first attacked the dragoon, revealing the second French body in the centre of a small clearing they’d made for themselves some ten yards from the bridge.
Markham, lying flat in the bushes, could see the road, though that word nearly made him laugh. It was far from being a highway, just a wide grassy track worn down by the passage of feet, animal and human; a dark cavern covered with the thick, leafy branches of evergreen pines, no more than three times the width of the single-file trail they’d been using to get here. He gave Tully orders to go back and ask Calheri to bring the rest of the marines forward, then turned his attention to the opposite side, wondering if the man who’d taken over command after the death of Duchesne had any brains. If he had, the far side would be clear. Only a fool placed troops on both sides of a road to effect an ambush. With firearms they would end up shooting not just at the target, but at their own. But if Fouquert was in charge of the deployment, anything was possible.
‘Horses?’ asked Markham, as Calheri joined him.
‘We are looking,’ she replied, edging forward, disturbingly close to him, trying to peer up the road towards Corte. Markham grabbed her shoulder and tugged her back, his free hand indicating the coat he was wearing as he got to his knees.
The bridge itself was a pine-log affair, the sides barriers covered in moss, the base black, damp earth packed onto wood, the undergrowth cut back from it so that each end formed a small clearing. The same fine mist that had chilled them earlier rose from the stream below, too thin to interfere with any lines of sight. Markham had taken full advantage of his dragoon coat, buttoning it up so that, in the dappled sunlight, it looked better than the sorry soaking wreck it was.
This allowed him to walk forward rather than crawl. Breath held as he came out from the protection of the trees, he waited for a call from across the road – relieved when none came, since a coat that could fool at a distance would look very like what it was close up. Darting across the road, he moved up the line of trees, calling softly in French to make sure the forest was clear.
Markham knew he still had to be cautious. Fouquert must have his men on the other side of the bridge, and they would be looking south, not north. Kneeling, he examined the numerous hoof-prints in the soft grass, made by metal, not goats or sheep, deep because the blown spray had dampened a long stretch of the surface. He searched closely for the imprint of a boot, the possibility that some of the men who’d gone up this road were infantry, but could see none. Not conclusive, if the cavalry had come along behind, but reassuring nevertheless. The important point to him was that they were headed in the same direction. Behind him, the first bend was a mere forty yards away. Looking south, the direction in which Paoli would come, was better, a good hundred yards of straight road.
‘No horses,’ a voice called softly at his back.
So the men they’d killed were a backstop, a last line of defence should Paoli foil the original attempt to capture him. Six men out of an estimated French strength of thirty, the sort of proportion he might have used for such a task. All the horses, very likely with a couple of men to keep them quiet, were on the other side of the bridge, probably quite deep in the woods so that their scent, strong after such a hard ride, would not be picked up by anything, man or beast, on the road. Those lying in wait would be well back too, so that they could not inadvertently give things away.
Markham was in a quandary, and it had nothing to do with what he’d discussed with Calheri. Was any kind of attack necessary, or a useless waste of lives, since it couldn’t be accomplished without killing on both sides? Old Paoli might still be at that damned convent and not on the trail at all, but the only way to find that out without risking his life was to go straight to San Quilico Rocci from here.
Starting an action which would force a French withdrawal sounded wonderful. But holding the bridge, given the field of fire which had been cleared around the approach, wouldn’t be easy. The powder and shot they had was limited, and that would impact on their ability to stand firm. To expend all they had would be fatal. He had to acknowledge the ability of Calheri’s female troopers in the thick woods, but standing up to repeated attacks in an open fight against mounted men, with just cold steel as a weapon, required different skills. And if the enemy were numerous enough, skill would not be enough.
Too much imagination was, he knew, a curse in war. But he couldn’t help having one, and in his mind’s eye he could see the action develop. Some of the enemy would use the cover to move forward, sniping to attract return fire, trying to establish the defenders’ supply of powder and shot. Then, when they discovered their caution, the dragoons would come. Mounted men, charging down the narrow track three abreast, on horses so fired up they’d bite the guts out of anyone who got in their way. The defenders would have to occupy the clear space before the bridge, packed into too small an area to manoeuvre, bayonets out to try and stop riders who would see their mounts speared rather than slow their assault.
There would be a second clutch close behind, ready to fan the opposite way from the first, so that the defence would be confronted by a line of six pairs of flaying hoofs. The dragoons, if they had husbanded their own ammunition, would fire carbines first, hoping to hit enough of the packed defenders to crack their solidarity. If the horsemen fell, the next trio would push past them to engage, hacking with sabres at his men and Calheri’s women until they’d cleared a space. Once a single horseman broke the line, they’d be in amongst infantry too tightly packed to wield their weapons, on stamping horses that would trample men and women alike underfoot, as the men who rode them slashed left and right. And behind them would come the rest of the dragoons, trained to fight on foot as well as mounted, accompanied by an unknown number of Corsican traitors, to engage an enemy who would very likely, by now, be decimated, the few remaining unwounded in flight.
The alternative, of a long fight in the woods as they retired, stirred up equally lurid and unwelcome images: of trying to move in single file along a track, soaked to the skin, muskets useless because of wet flints. It would be hand-to-hand combat, against pursuers always trying to get round and ahead of them, with his men as the rearguard suffering the most. But how else, could he get Fouquert to withdraw, and quickly?
‘It won’t do,’ he thought, looking at the churned-up surface of the road. ‘There has to be another way!’