Colonel Tarrant stepped onto the gunn’l of his barge to leap to the beach, but landed badly, taking a tumble onto wet, gritty sand and gravel, just as a wave broke and flooded inland, soaking his breeches to mid-thigh.
“Right, then,” he said, getting to his feet. “A damned good thing that I didn’t wear my good boots, hah! Colour party? Where the Devil’s the Colour party, Corporal Carson?”
“Next boat off t’th’ roight, sir,” Tarrant’s orderly reported.
“All boats ashore?” Tarrant asked, looking up and down the beach, unable to make out much. He could hear his company officers and the senior non-commissioned officers, though, growling and swearing as they herded soldiers into company groups, then into sections. He could also hear wet boots squishing, musket butts thumping against canteens and accoutrements.
“Colour party, here,” Col. Tarrant dared order aloud, summoning those men to him. “Battalion will advance!” and skirmishers set out, up a slight rise from the beach, boots and legs thrashing through the low undergrowth above the hard-packed beach, into the softer dry sand, and onto the dirt coastal roadway.
“’Tallion, halt!” he ordered, fetching a pocket telescope from the rough canvas rucksack slung on his right hip for a look-see. As he did so, he thought he heard a mournful dog howling from somewhere; in the town, perhaps, or somewhere ahead of them? No, it was a howl too faint to be anywhere close. “Oh, the damned hound!” he muttered with a chuckle; it was his dog, baying at being left aboard ship.
Tarrant now could make out the splendid sight of a group of waggons, dozens of them, spread out in front of him and his soldiers, all lined up in neat rows, tongues down to touch the ground, with harness laid out upon the tongues and alongside them to speed the hitching of draught animals in the morning. There were low campfires burning, and some tents erected near them, for enemy officers he imagined. Round the fires, he could see supine blanketed forms. Only a few sentries paced about in overcoats or draping blankets, muskets slung off their shoulders, and most of them stayed close to the fires.
“Ah, perfection!” Tarrant said in delight, drawing his sword, “Colour party, bare the Colours! ’Tallion!” he roared as loud as he could of a sudden. “Fix bayonets! At the double quick, advance!”
Another sight delighted Tarrant; the gape-jawed stupefaction of the French sentries as they were frozen in their tracks for long seconds by the sudden appearance of six whole companies of Anglais infantry storming down upon them, with muskets pointing at them, and reddish glints of firelight on steel bayonets. Some shots were fired, aimed in the general direction of the British, hastily snapped off, half-blinded by the campfires round which they had huddled, instead of standing proper guard out beyond where their eyes could adjust to the dark, but who knew, or would even suspect, that such a sudden attack could come as if from the blue?
Sleeping soldiers were flinging aside their blankets, groping for their weapons, cartridge pouches, and shoes, confused as to which they should tend to first. Un-loaded weapons were urgently clawed at, paper cartridges bitten, and powder poured down the muzzles, bullets spat down after them, and wooden butts thumped on the ground with no time to draw out their ramrods.
“Skirmishers!” Tarrant roared. “Volley!”
There were a few shots from the panicky French, quickly answered by British muskets as the skirmishers out in front of each advancing company slammed themselves to a halt, cocked their firelocks, and let off a storm of musketry that swept away harshly awakened Frenchmen.
“Ninety-Fourth!” Tarrant almost screamed. “Charge!”
What courage the French had fled them, and the quicker among them broke and ran, threading their way through the neat rows of waggons to escape. The slower ones, still trying to pull their boots on, or trying to gather their personal belongings, were prey for British steel, buttstrokes to the head, or a musket ball. Col. Tarrant saw a French officer stumble from one of the tents, hopping on one foot to draw up a tall cavalryman’s boot, with a drawn sword in one hand, shouting for his men to stand fast, Tarrant imagined. Before he had his boot pulled up, a soldier of the Light Company slammed him in the head with his brass-mounted musket butt, sprawling the officer on his back. Reversing the musket, he thrust eight inches of his bayonet into the man’s belly. The officer raised both arms and both legs to fend that off, shrieking, as he jack-knifed and died.
“Cavalry, cavalry,” Col. Tarrant muttered, taking note of how many saddles were strewn around, used in lieu of pillows or headrests by the flung-aside blankets, and the badges on the front of the many abandoned shakoes. “Ware, cavalry! Ware, cavalry!” he warned his men. He could smell beasts, now, horses, mules, perhaps oxen, out of sight beyond the lines of waggons. “Root them out of the waggon lines! Go to it, Ninety-Fourth! And, light some afire, to see by!”
* * *
Bova Marina’s waterfront did have an ancient stone quay, but none too long, or high above the water. To either side of the oldest part, there were lower wooden piers, then gritty beach, where nondescript fishing boats were drawn ashore for the night. Capt. Whitehead led his Marines onto the stone quay, their barges bows-on to the quay, parting the few larger fishing boats that were tied up alongside.
Marines stood shakily on the gunn’ls, reached up and rolled to the top of the quay, then offered a hand to the others who followed. Ten men were directed to the left end of the street fronting the quay, ten to the right, as skirmishers, while Whitehead directed others to the few buildings where lights shone from the windows. At his nod, doors were smashed open and Marines dashed inside. There were civilian shouts and womanly screams of alarm from some, then gunshots from another.
“Public ’ouse, sir!” Sgt. Daykin crisply reported. “Three Frog sodgers inside, drinkin’. Or they wuz. Cavalrymen by th’ look of ’em, sir.”
“I hope they enjoyed their last brandies,” Whitehead sniggered. “The other houses?”
“One wuz a h’ordinary, gettin’ ready fer th’ breakfast trade, sir,” Sgt. Daykin told him, “t’other’s a private ’ouse.”
“Well, we seem to own the town, now, Sergeant,” Whitehead said.
“Yes sir,” Daykin agreed, peering about for trouble.
“Mister Grace?” Whitehead called out.
“Aye, sir,” Lt. Grace, in charge of the boats and landing party spoke up.
“The town’s yours, sir,” Capt. Whitehead told him with a grin, “for what that’s worth. I’m taking my Marines up through the town to see what’s beyond. Find the coast road, proper, see if…”
He was interrupted by gunfire, first a flurry of muskets, then a crackling storm of it, and the roar from men’s throats as they were ordered to charge.
“First honours to the Army, sir,” Lt. Grace said.
“Guard my back, Mister Grace, whilst we go see what sort of Devilment we can get into,” Whitehead replied. “Marines!” he shouted to his men. “Loose column of twos up this street, past the church square, Leftenant Venables … ten men with you as skirmishers out front. Go!”
Boots tramped on cobblestones, accoutrements rattled and banged, as the Marines trotted forward, muskets aimed at windows and doors as the little seaport of Bova Marina came awake, as window shutters were flung open, and candles and lanthorns were lit. Civilian heads popped into sight for brief moments, wide eyes and gaping mouths saw strange soldiers in red coats rushing by their houses, and voices called out in alarm and astonishment. Someone in the church began ringing the bell with an urgent clanging as the Marines tramped past it, through the square, and beyond.
Lt. Grace watched them go, then turned to his own duties, posting armed sailors at either end of the waterfront, and in the mouths of the three narrower streets that led into the town. Some sailors he ordered to search the boats along the quay, then remembered that Sgt. Daykin had reported a public house. He went to the door to the establishment, poked his head inside, and saw the sprawled corpses of three French cavalry troopers, took in the overturned tables, broken chairs, and a large straw-covered demijohn of wine slowly gurgling out its contents.
“Ooh, too bad for them, sor,” Cox’n Desmond said from behind his shoulder, crowding up to take a look for himself.
“Better them than us,” Stroke-oar Kitch agreed, beside him.
“Here, this won’t do at all,” Lt. Grace said. “The men will get in here and drink themselves senseless. Desmond, Kitch, do you two guard the door, and make sure our people aren’t tempted. Can I trust you to do that?”
“Aye aye sor, ye can!” Liam Desmond swore. “Me Bible Oath on’t!”
“Cap’um Lewrie trusts us, Mister Grace,” Kitch seconded, “and so can you.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Grace decided, frowning as sternly as he could, “but be warned. No drink, hear me?”
At their sobre nods, Grace took hold of his sword hilt and went on up the street to have a look-see of the town.
“Arrah, but he’s a young’un, ain’t he, John?” Desmond whispered with a snigger.
“Like foxes guardin’ th’ hen house, aye, Liam.” Kitch laughed. “Wonder if Eye-talians know what rum is?”
“If they don’t, there’s sure t’be some brandy about, a bottle’r two o’ good wine, or some o’ that grappa,” Desmond speculated, peering inside the tavern.
“Oh Christ, no,” Kitch objected. “Grappa’d be th’ ruin of us. I’d rather drink horse liniment, and not wake up blind. Hmm,” Kitch said, leaning in to scan the tavern. “D’ye think them Frenchies might have some coin on ’em?”
“Souvenirs t’sell once back aboard, if there’s no coin,” Desmond said, perking up over a possible profit. “That feller there, he looks t’be a Sergeant or somethin’,” he said, pointing at the body that lay closest to the door. “His rank badges might be worth a penny’r two.”
“I’ll stand guard whilst you have yerself a nip’r two, and a go at their pockets,” Kitch volunteered.
“Faith, but ye’re a kind man, for an Englishman, John Kitch!” Desmond declared. “And certain t’be rewarded in Heaven!” He entered the tavern, turned the French Sergeant over onto his back, and began to feel for pockets to slash open. Diagonal chevrons and shoulder tassels from the corpse’s uniform coat went into his own pockets, before he reached for the overturned demi-john to sample its contents.
“Just don’t be takin’ too long, Liam,” Kitch hissed from the side of his mouth as he pretended to stand stern guard over the door. “I’ve a hellish thirst, meself.”
* * *
Marine Captain Whitehead halted his column once past the last sealed and silent row of houses that fronted the main road behind the village of Bova Marina, feeling the hairs on the nape of his neck go stiff, from a feeling that he was being watched from behind the shuttered windows of the houses. Some of his Marines faced rearward with their muskets aimed at those windows, where candlelight shone.
Off to his left, Capt. Whitehead could see long, flickering shadows cast by the burgeoning glows of waggons set afire, and could almost make out soldiers of the 94th sneaking among the waggons that had not yet been set afire, weapons levelled, and bayonets shining amber and gold. In front of him, there were fields of scraggly crops of some kind, individual plots separated by low stone walls or woven branches of coastal scrub bush. To his right, off in the darkness beyond the flickering firelight, he could barely make out more waggons, what he took to be an entire second road convoy that had not yet been attacked. Were there people moving among them?
HMS Vigilance carried a Marine complement of two Corporals, two Sergeants, and seventy private Marines. Such a complement rated three officers to oversee them all: himself, and two subaltern Leftenants, Venables and Kellett, both of them relative “newlies” aged twenty-four and nineteen, respectively.
“Mister Venables, Mister Kellett, to me,” Whitehead hissed in the darkness, and sensed a shuffling and the tread of boots. “There’s Frenchmen among those waggons yonder. The Ninety-Fourth is advancing upon them from our left. Take charge of your platoons and incline to the right, forming two-deep ranks. Once formed, we will advance to take that waggon convoy in flank. Right? Go.”
Whitehead stepped forward, then over a knee-high stone barrier into a field of some crop that swished and tugged at his boots, with an un-cocked pistol in each hand, wishing that he could shout to his men for quiet, for their separation into two elements, then the advance ahead and to their right made one Hell of a racket.
“Cavalry to the front!” Whitehead heard some officer bellow off to his left, heard the jingle of saddle and bridle, harness, and the scrape of sabres being drawn. “Form ranks! Prepare to receive!”
Capt. Whitehead thought that something was moving to his front, large forms half-guessed-at in the darkness, coalescing into almost recognisable shapes at they grouped together and approached the fires set among the first waggon convoy.
“Marines! Halt!” he shouted of a sudden. “Cavalry to our front! First ranks, cock your locks … level and take aim! Fire!”
Whitehead screwed his eyes tight shut as his men’s Tower muskets roared and spat long flames. He opened his eyes to search for the results of that volley, but heard more than he saw: horses screaming in sudden pain, their riders crying out in shock, the neighs of mounts rearing in panic.
“Second ranks, level … fire!” Whitehead yelled, forgetting to shut his eyes this time. He heard another, much louder and sustained crash of musketry from the left from the 94th, then the unbelievable order of “Charge! Give them the bayonet!”
“Huzzah!” Capt. Whitehead shouted to his men. “Infantry charging cavalry, lads? Reload, and … advance at the double!”
That was much harder to do, almost comical, as muzzle-blinded Marines stumbled into low stone walls, sprawled and tripped over the dry branches that delineated individual plots, and, whilst the 94th was rushing forward over level ground and howling their battle cries, Vigilance’s Marines cursed aloud, yelped and stumbled, some going arse-over-tit when their feet met the obstructions.
When closer to the burning waggons, it was easier to find their way, at last, out of the last scraggly farm plots and onto the main coast road, where the Marines could see the results of their volleys; there were at least two dozen horses down, most dead but some of them still thrashing and trying to get back on their feet. Among them were French cavalrymen, some shot dead, some clawing at their death wounds, and a few pinned under the weight of their dead mounts.
“Who goes there?” a loud voice demanded.
“Whitehead! Marines!” he shouted back.
“Oh, Whitehead! Good show!” Col. Tarrant called out. “A damned good show! Came up through the town, did you? But of course you did, good fellow! Took them in flank and shot the courage out of them, I dare say, hah hah! They might have managed to charge us had you not, and with us unable to form square, things might have gotten a touch grim, but…”
“No one’ll ever believe it, sir,” Whitehead managed to say, elated to receive such praise, and still in awe of the results. “Infantry charging cavalry, and driving them off?”
“Yayss, well it makes our foes look rather lame, don’t it?” Col. Tarrant crowed, sheathing his sword at last. “They must have been Italian, not French. Take any prisoners, did you, Whitehead?”
“Ehm, no sir,” Whitehead had to admit, cringing at the image of his men and their own laughable “charge.” “I believe I saw some of them galloping off to the right, to the east, but I couldn’t swear to it.”
“We managed to nab a few,” Col. Tarrant told him, “though God knows what we’ll do with them. Strip them as naked as Adam and turn them loose, I suppose. Good fellow, Wiley!” Tarrant turned to shout to one of his officers who was directing his company to set fires on waggons of the eastern convoy. “Plenty to do ’til dawn, sir,” Tarrant said, turning back to the Marine officer.
They both started of a sudden at the sharp barks of gunshots as men of the 94th put wounded, screaming horses out of their misery.
“I would admire, sir,” Col. Tarrant bade, “did you, along with one of my companies, set out piquets to the east of town to alert us of any French response.”
“Of course, Colonel, gladly,” Capt. Whitehead responded.
“Now will come the nasty part,” Tarrant said with an unhappy sigh. “All these animals … cavalry mounts, horse and mule teams, the yokes of oxen, must be slaughtered. No sense burning the waggons and the supplies in them, else. The French in Calabria must be deprived of everything that can feed or support them in any fashion.”
“Piquet duty suddenly sounds delightful, sir,” Whitehead said. “I grew up in the country, where my family breeds horses and mules.”
“Off you go, then, sir, and the blood will be on my hands, as much as I care for horseflesh myself,” Tarrant said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Perhaps I may find a bowl and a pitcher of water, and emulate Pontius Pilate, and wash the guilt away? Who knows?”
* * *
“Now, what the Devil is happening?” Lewrie snapped to the men on the quarterdeck. Six Bells of the Middle Watch sounded from the belfry up forward and he began to grope for his pocket watch to tell the time, even though it was still too dark aboard to see. He cursed his enforced idleness and ignorance of what was transpiring ashore for the hundredth time. There had been what sounded like a pitched battle behind the town to the western edge, then minutes of silence before some fires were lit, so he could hope that Tarrant had seized the field and was carrying out his plans. But then, there had come another crash of musketry, shorter but just as intense as the first behind the town, with hundreds of muzzle flashes in two directions!
Now, there were two growing, spreading seas of flames ashore, where Lewrie had imagined the waggon convoys had laid up for the night, which sight should have assured him that the landing force had gained the desired results, but … every now and then he cou1d hear firing, as if the French were staging a last-ditch battle on the fringes of the town and the convoys to save even a scrap of the supplies, or a smidgeon of their honour.
He raised his telescope to his eye yet again, and there was the seaport town of Bova Marina, its buildings, church steep1es, and its waterfront silhouetted starkly black against the rising sea of flame. But, it was still too dark to spot the signal post which Lt. Rutland would set up, or make out any flag messages.
Even semaphore wouldn’t work! Lewrie thought, exasperatingly; Lanthorns against all that fire? Shit! Maybe if they wig-wagged from the quays, where it’s dark?
Then, of course, there was the problem that only one or two of the officers in the 94th even knew the proper positions of a semaphore tower’s arms to spell out anything, and only one or two people aboard Vigilance who knew how to read them! And that in broad daylight!
“I do believe there’s a hint of greyness to the skies, sir,” the Sailing Master dared speak up, knowing Lewrie’s black mood.
“Hmm? Oh,” Lewrie said, lowering his telescope and peering all about. He could almost make out a hand held up before his face. He pulled his pocket watch out, held it under his nose, and could make out the white dial, and make a guess at where the hands stood.
“About bloody time,” Lewrie grumbled, still un-satisfied.
“Oh, I say there!” the Sailing Master exclaimed as loud booms sounded from the shore, and billowing flame clouds soared aloft as some waggons bearing kegged gunpowder blew up. Another, then another, filled with pre-made paper musket cartridges, took light, sending up a shower of fireworks and a fusillade of pops that resembled a feu de joie on the King’s birthday.
“Huzzah!” several Midshipmen cried out, waving their hats with delight, and making “Oohs” and “Aahs” as each new waggon exploded.
All Lewrie could do was glower at them, and drum his fingers on the cap-rails in impatience.
* * *
Desmond and Kitch were quite pleased with their haul of loot by dawn. The three dead Frenchmen sprawled on the floor of the tavern had been carrying a fair amount of silver coins, and the Sergeant near the door had two gold Napoleons sewn into the cuff turnbacks of his coat, along with a wedding ring and a pocket watch.
They had also found a squat glass bottle of peach brandy, which they had shared back and forth, sparingly, knowing that there would be Hell to pay did they go back aboard “three sheets to the wind,” but it was tasty, heady, and almost worth the risk to sip at, not guzzle.
Once all the shooting was over, though, and the people of Bova Marina dared come out of their houses and hiding places, they found it impossible to keep the civilians out of their own tavern.
One moment, they had the place completely to themselves, then the next, they were mobbed by revellers who flooded through the door, talking a blue streak, dancing round and clapping themselves on the back, and drinking like they had won a great victory, themselves.
They clapped Desmond and Kitch on their backs, almost fought for the honour of shaking the Ingleses’ hands, all the while speaking loud and vociferously in an incomprehensible babble of joyous Italian. Some music was struck up from outside, and the band members pranced inside the tavern, setting all the crowd dancing, as well.
“They’re takin’ all th’ wine an’ ev’rything!” Kitch bemoaned in a loud voice. “Liam, we’re bein’ robbed!”
“We still have th’ brandy, arrah,” Desmond told him, shouldering his way toward the tavern door. “A last swallow or two, me lad, and I think it’s time t’ scamper, ’fore we’re up on charges.”
This time they did guzzle, gave the still half-full bottle a sad eye, and set it down on a table before going outside and slinging muskets from their shoulders so they could pretend to stand guard. It was a good thing that they did, for who should stomp up to peer closely at them than dour Lt. Rutland.
“Who placed you here?” Rutland demanded, scowling.
“Mister Grace did, yer honour, sir,” Kitch replied, “t’keep our lads from drinkin’ th’ place dry.”
“You two? Hah!” Rutland barked in dis-belief. “That’s a farce! You’ve been drinking?”
“Not ’til th’ Eye-talians come, sor,” Desmond told him, trying to stand sobrely erect, “an’ started t’party, and ’twas them who forced us t’take a sip or two. Their tavern, sor, an’ we couldn’t stop ’em.”
“None of our lads got in past us, sir,” Kitch pointed out.
“Bein’ sociable, like, with th’ locals, sor,” Desmond declared.
Rutland would have said more, even asked to smell their breaths, but several civilian men staggered out of the tavern arm-in-arm, and cheering fit to bust, with bottles of wine in their hands. A song was struck up, and the street began to fill with revellers. Then there was that bottle of peach brandy again, thrust at Lt. Rutland.
“Bravo, bravo, il Inglese!” a man shouted close enough to sling spittle on Rutland’s coat. “Salute! Il Francesi … morto!” he cried with a slashing motion cross his throat, which caused many revellers to roar agreement and raise bottles to their lips.
“Well, if I must,” Lt. Rutland said, frowning, and took a short sip of the brandy. As he handed it back, the civilians urged him to take another, then offered it to Desmond and Kitch.
“Permission, sor? They mean well, and all,” Desmond asked, and Rutland allowed them a sip each. “Ah, right tasty that is, sor.”
“You two get down to the quays, now, and wait there for the Marines to return,” Lt. Rutland ordered, then called out to their backs as they made a quick escape, “And keep the hands from getting drunk in celebration with the damned Italians, hear me?”
“Aye aye, sor!” Desmond sang out.
“Good God, Liam, we forgot the dead men’s shakoes!” Kitch said of a sudden. “There’d be money in those!”
“Ah, but we’ve got a pocketful o’ their buttons t’sell, John,” Desmond reassured him, “and we got ourselves a snoot full, hah hah!”
* * *
At last! Lewrie thought as black night gave way to pre-dawn greyness, enough light by which to make out Bova Marina’s buildings and the low stone quay, now crowded with fishing boats and Vigilance’s barges. Armed sailors strolled or sat at ease all up and down the seafront street, and halfway up the centre of the three streets that led inland from it. Up that main street which led to the public square and the church, there was a horde of civilians, all dancing round a bonfire of some kind. Beyond the church steeple, the coastal road and anything behind it was a sea of foul black smoke rising from the fires. Some men came rushing from that ebon stage curtain of a smoke pall with some heavy burdens, the arrival of which set the mob into cheers and whistles that Lewrie could almost imagine he heard. He raised his telescope, a day-glass this time, and smiled in relief.
“They’re roasting whole sides o’ beef!” he marvelled aloud. “I believe we’ve won completely, gentlemen.”
If soldiers and Marines slaughtered draught animals, and local Italians felt safe enough to butcher an ox or two, that meant that the French had been killed, made prisoner, or driven off … long enough for a feast, anyway. All that was wanting was the return of the 94th and his sailors and Marines to the ships, perhaps within the next two hours, and his wee squadron could up-anchor and clear the coast before the enemy could respond from Melito di Porto Salvo or Brancaleone Marina. Then, Lewrie assured himself; Then! Someone would tell me what had happened ashore, and show me a list of casualties.
He knew that they had won, but won what?