“What the Devil?” Lt. Greenleaf exclaimed as two loud cannon shots erupted. He had just gotten his armed sailors settled in decent cover beyond the overwash barrows above the beach, where wind-sculpted and salt-stunted shrubbery stood chest high, and had taken a welcome sip of water from his canteen, and almost dropped it in alarm, turning to gawp at the ship. “Enemy In Sight?” he barked as the signal flag soared up the halliard.
Greenleaf stood fully erect to peer over the tangled shrubs at Captain Whitehead, who had turned to look behind him when the alert roared out. Whitehead heaved a great, exaggerated shrug to Greenleaf, then turned back to his Marines, ordering them to load and prime, then kneel to await whatever was coming. Pairs of scouts dashed out from either flank, suddenly moving warily and hunched over as if in dread of sharpshooters.
* * *
“Scouts are showing two shakoes, sir,” the Regimental Sergeant-Major crisply reported to Colonel Tarrant, near the Colour party.
Two shakoes held aloft on the muzzles of the scouts’ muskets meant that a large party of enemy had been spotted to their front.
“Which scout parties, Sar’n-Major?” Tarrant asked, pulling out a pocket telescope for his own look-see.
“Left flank and centre parties, sir,” was the crisp reply.
“Both Light Companies to deploy to the left and front in chain order,” Tarrant decided. “Scouts to retire, and the Line and Grenadier Companies to form line, there, in two ranks.” He pointed with his telescope at a line of low old stone wall half-hidden in low shrubs.
Tarrant and the Sergeant-Major turned when they heard the two cannon shots from Vigilance, and saw the lone signal flag, wondering what it meant, for Enemy In Sight had not been displayed to them in the past, and it was not a part of the slim signals book that the Navy had shared with them.
“Enemy to our front, sir!” a runner shouted as he came dashing back from one of the Light Companies. “Enemy is infantry! Comin’ from the waggon camps!”
He was quickly followed by a second runner, who shouted that the French were pouring out of buildings in the town, too, and Col. Tarrant could turn his head to see those, what looked to be at least half of a regiment, forming up in three-deep ranks from the town centre and the eastern edges.
“Some bastard’s sold us out, Sar’n-Major,” Tarrant spat as he trotted forward to stay in front of his rapidly advancing companies. “Take position along the wall, and be ready to hold fast, lads! We’ve a proper fight ahead! And we’re going to skin the bastards!”
He hoped, anyway, though knowing that this morning would be a grim business. What else he might have said was swallowed by a stupendous roar as HMS Vigilance lit up in a full broadside, wreathing herself in a fogbank of powder smoke shot through with defiant jets of muzzle flashes. Down range of that titanic noise was nigh-deafening as upper deck 9-pounders, 18-pounders, and lower deck 24-pounders hurled iron roundshot at Monasterace and the French soldiers, that roundshot humming and skreeing through the air, rising in tone as it neared, followed by more crashes as the walls of houses, shops, and stores, and the trading warehouses facing the sea were blown apart, whole walls collapsing in vast clouds of plaster, wood laths, laid stone, and old mortar, smothering and crushing enemy soldiers too late off the mark to get outside and form up, and scything through French infantry.
“My word, sir!” the Sergeant-Major gasped.
“Indeed, Sar’n-Major,” Tarrant said, feeling that not all was lost with Lewrie’s guns backing him up. “Most impressive!”
* * *
“Shot, sir!” Lt. Farley exclaimed as he heard several cannon balls zoom past, high above the rigging. “They’ve artillery somewhere!”
“Well, of course they do, sir,” Lewrie gravelled, “what’s a good ambush without ’em? Up on that low ridge behind the town’s my guess, among the orchards and olive groves, most-like. A well-laid plan they put together. ’Til we’ve fended off the enemy troops, though, we’ll just have to take it.”
“Deck there!” a lookout high above shouted down. “Enemy troops a’comin’ from th’ waggon camps left o’ th’ town!”
“An experienced Midshipman to the cross-trees, Mister Farley,” Lewrie ordered, “someone who can make educated guesses as to their strength, and knows the difference ’tween infantry and cavalry. And do pass word to Mister Grace that he’s to shift aim a bit to the left, for now, to keep ’em off the Marines and our landing party.”
As Lewrie went up to the poop deck for a better view, Vigilance thundered and shuddered as gun crews used crow-levers to raise the aft ends of the truck carriages to train their guns a bit to the left, as powder monkeys scampered up and down the ladderways to and from the powder magazines with fresh cartridge or to fetch more. Sailors tugged and grunted on the run-out tackles to sweat their heavy charges back to the port-sills for the next broadside.
“Prime!” Lt. Grace could be heard yelling through a brass speaking trumpet. “Cock you locks!” and older Midshipmen, standing in for officers, echoed his orders, ’til …
“By broadside … fire!”
* * *
Marine Captain Whitehead could now see the French infantry that inclined towards his position in the rough shrubbery, what looked to him to be at least two entire companies already in three-deep ranks, and taking mincing steps to their right to extend and form a front directly meant for his small party of Marines.
Whitehead heaved a grim sigh, pondering when he would order his men to fix bayonets, which would make reloading their Short India Pattern Tower muskets more awkward. He looked over his shoulder at the beach and the waiting boats, which suddenly looked so welcoming. The ship … so solid, so safe, and a grand shelter. Black iron muzzles were jerking into the gun-ports once more, and Whitehead drew a mental line from those muzzles to … where he stood?
“Everyone face down on the ground!” Whitehead roared suddenly. “Lie prone!” and he flung himself belly-down, wriggling frantically to get his canvas rucksack out from under his chest where it had swung on his way to the ground, hoping to get an inch or two lower.
God, so loud! A broadside experienced aboard ship was loud, but this was ear-splitting as the guns of all calibre went off as one, but to be on the receiving end, within a quarter-mile of it, featured the whiz, whoosh, keening of brutal iron passing mere yards above his head! He thought that the stiff stems of wild grass bent from the dragon’s breath of disturbed air!
There were no explosive shells, just solid roundshot, but the earth under his chest heaved and shuddered, thrusting upwards, raising him an inch or so as the shot struck the ground and caromed upwards in great bounds. There were stone crashes as shot shattered the houses from which the French had come, and the fluttery whines of roundshot shards as balls struck something solid and broke into pieces, spraying mutilating bits of themselves in all directions.
And screams! Most welcome screams and death cries in French as roundshot went through those three-deep ranks like a game of bowls!
Capt. Whitehead dared raise his head from nuzzling the dirt and beheld a vast cloud of dust and dirt, as thick as a low-scudding cloud hundreds of yards beyond where his men sheltered, with up-flung clods of earth still pattering down from the massive divots that the shot had torn up. Through it he could see an entire street of the town in tumbled ruin, houses and such collapsed, and massive holes in their slate or terra-cotta tiles.
He dared stand up for a better view, and grinned wolfishly at the sight of those two infantry companies of French soldiers who had been reduced by a third or better, some of them staggering round like drunkards, others standing still and gape-jawed at the sudden ruin of their order, and the mangled bodies of their friends.
“Up, lads, back on your feet!” Whitehead ordered. “By sections, retire to the line of shrubs above the beach, and take positions to repel!”
Whitehead watched them rise and marvel, then step off with one rank guarding the rank that retired a few yards, then stop to guard the retreat of the first.
“Not a man hurt, by God!” he told himself, wondering just how long that would last when the French sorted themselves out.
“Jesus bloody Christ, that was close!” Lt. Greenleaf exclaimed once he stood up from his sudden protective crouch as the shot soared over. “That’s our Vigilances, Dickson! They’ve their eyes in today!”
“Aye, masterful gunnery, sir,” Lt. Dickson said in return, awed by being in front of a broadside. “Whew!”
“Whitehead’s Marines are falling back to the edge of the beach barrow,” Greenleaf said, looking all round. “I’ll take half our men to stiffen their right. You take the other half and refuse the left. Just in case the damned Frogs try to bend round us to take the boats.”
“Refuse?” Dickson asked, unfamiliar with the term, which was not in the Navy’s terminology.
“Space ’em from the last Marine on the left end down to the water,” Greenleaf explained. “I read it in a book. I was bored to tears, and the book helped pass the time. Go on with you, me lad.”
Dickson looked round for some shelter for his half of the men, and there was almost none. Some could take position in the barrow and in the densely tangled maritime shrubbery that trailed down to bare sand, but from there was only sea grasses, thinly spaced. He felt the sudden need for shovels so he could entrench some of them halfway underground, but shovels and such were aboard Vigilance, and taking time to fetch them, find where they were stored on the orlop, would take too long, take men away to man the barge to row out…!
“Mister Bingley,” Dickson called to the portly Midshipman who had conned one of the barges ashore, “assemble a boat crew. We need to shift one of the barges up to this end of the beach and run her ashore as far as she’ll go, to form a barricade.”
“A barricade, sir?” Bingley asked.
“Aye, Mister Bingley, a barricade,” Dickson replied. “Something I read in a book.”
* * *
“Take in on the kedge springline, Mister Farley,” Lewrie ordered. “We need to shift fire on the French troops in front of the Ninety-Fourth before they get into musket range.”
Farley raised his telescope for a look at the mass of blue-coat soldiers marching in good order from the waggons behind the right of Monasterace. “That may be iffy at the moment, sir,” Farley pointed out. “There are at least two of their companies out in front of the main line, falling back slowly. We could hit them, instead. It’s at least three-quarters of a mile range.”
Lewrie took a look for himself. He made out two lines of ants in red and white pipe clay, spaced in what he took for chain order in four-man groups, well apart from the other groups, pouring a continual fire at long range from the man on the right, who retired to reload at the left end as the next fellow stepped forward and fired. Wee, silent puffs of powder smoke blossomed above and in front of them as they stoically retired a few yards after each man had taken a shot.
Opposing them were ants in blue coats and white trousers, set out in two-man teams; French Light Infantry moving carefully and slowly forward as the men of the 94th retired.
Voltigeurs, Lewrie suddenly recalled from his minor participation in the Battle of Vimeiro in Portugal some years back; They call them”Vaulters,” “Leapers,” or “Grasshoppers.”
Lewrie realised that Lt. Farley was right; as good as his gunners were, as finely as his constant drills and live-fire training had honed them, at that range there would be mistakes, and at the moment it did look to be too close a thing to deprive Tarrant of a single soldier.
He looked for him, and found his white egret-plumed hat by the Colour party, pacing about just behind the rear ranks of his troops.
Christ, let the Frogs form column! Lewrie silently prayed; If they form a huge block, it’d be the best target in the world for us!
It appeared, though, that the French commander over yonder had determined that his line would be long enough, and deep enough, to lap round Col. Tarrant’s flanks and his shorter line, even when the Light Companies at last fell back to either end of the line.
He had to do something, soon! He could not sit safely off the shore and watch the 94th, his Marines, his own sailors and all the sailors off the transports be gobbled up!
Lewrie turned his telescope to look at the large encampments of waggons and beasts, realising that they would never be able to get at them. Horses and mules were being led to the waggons and carts, backed into harnesses, and the outer-most convoy west of the town was already rattling off down the main coast road to carry their supplies to waiting French units.
Laughin’ their fool heads off, Lewrie furiously thought.
He had been betrayed, he’d stumbled into a trap from which it didn’t look as if he’d be able to escape without heavy casualties, and it hurt like Blazes! And all for nothing, not a single burning waggon or dead draught animal!
“Now, what the Devil are they doing over there?” Farley barked, jutting an arm to the beach west of town. “Are they coming back to the ship?”
Lewrie swung to look at that, too, and spotted one of the barges just shoving off, the last one to the left of the four. Oars thrashed to back-water as it worked itself off the sand and out to hobby-horse on the waves that rolled in, at least an hundred yards out.
“Greenleaf wouldn’t allow that sort of cowardice!” Lewrie spat.
But no, the barge swung abeam the beach in deeper water, where the breaking waves surged in beneath it without breaking in surf, and rowed parallel for a while before turning to point at the sand once more, then dashed in, all oarsmen straining as hard and as quickly as they could to drive the barge back onto the sand far out to the left of the other three, and once the bows were aground, more men sprang to lay hold of it and drag it ashore ’til only the stern transom was in the water.
Now what was that about? Lewrie wondered, then turned his attention back to Col. Tarrant’s predicament. The two Light Companies out skirmishing in front of his regiment were much closer to their own lines, now, and the French were advancing slowly, still in line.
“Not a broadside, Mister Farley!” Lewrie snapped. “Tell Grace he’s to allow the gun-captains to fire as they bear, individually! Hurry! Tarrant needs the support!”
“Aye aye, sir!” Farley replied, turning to the harried Mid who had been scurrying below and back again to pass word once more.
“And I’ll have the kedge spring hauled taut!” Lewrie snapped.
* * *
Colonel Tarrant could act as stoic as anyone, but the pretence was hard to maintain as he watched his Light Companies fall back from the French advance, yard by yard, and wounded men galled by the French fire stumbled back to the widely spaced bulks of their companies and beyond, to fall into the arms of soldiers along the low stone wall and dense shrubbery, crawl over, and be taken down to the beach to be ministered to by the Surgeon and his litter parties. Some of the four-man units out in front now consisted of only three, or two, still on their feet, and Tarrant could see the heart-breaking sight of men in British red coats and grey trousers sprawled, dead where they fell.
They had not taken many casualties, so far, and most hurts had been accidental, or wounds from which his men would recover after a spell in the airy hospital tent back near Milazzo, and some weeks on light duties. Tarrant was a soldier, had been since his twenties when his family had bought him a commission in another regiment, and he had served between the wars as it were, before transferring to the 94th in hopes of seeing real combat.
That had led him and the 94th to the Walcheren Campaign in Holland, and the rain, mud, sleet, and sickness that had decimated the unit, before being shipped as a skeleton battalion to Malta, and the onus of dull garrison duty.
Unlike most British officers, he had studied his chosen life, had read the manuals and accounts of how other officers had ordered their men about, had won their battles, and he’d read all the commentary written by men such as the late General Sir John Moore, about the need for reform in tactics, in morale, and the need for professionalism in the officer corps.
Now, he was about to use all that knowledge to fight a battle, fight his battalion to the best of his ability, but feared that, for all he’d learned, it might not be enough. He was out-numbered, and the French would not form a column that he might be able to wrap round from front and two sides and out-shoot them.
Vigilance’s guns were firing, again, Tarrant noted, not in one of those crushing broadsides that had scythed away his initial foes, half-ruined the town of Monasterace, and set fires among the tightly packed houses. Individual cannon balls were moaning in the sky, and he was not sure what Lewrie and his sailors were firing at. It was possible that the French had disguised another regiment west of the town among the waggon camps, and those French soldiers were threatening the landing on the beaches to the west.
“Whoo, take ’at, ‘Ole Trousers’!” a soldier in the front rank hooted, and men of his Line and Grenadier Companies gave out a cheer.
“Silence in the ranks!” Major Gittings shouted.
“Oh. Lovely,” Tarrant said, grinning at last as he saw roundshot striking the ground in front of his skirmishers, among the enemy lines in their right flank. Gaps were being slashed into the three-deep ranks, and French soldiers were being shredded. They still came on at the urging of their officers, shuffling over to stay shoulder-to-shoulder with their mates, closing those gaps, but the roundshot still came moaning in, spurting clouds of earth and dust, creating fresh gaps which had to be filled by shaken men.
Tarrant judged that his Light Companies, with the four-man teams now joining their lines, were about two hundred yards in advance of his position along the low stone wall. The French Voltigeurs were about one hundred yards beyond, still scampering about in two-man teams, one man loading for the better shot, so that one could keep up a relatively rapid fire. His Light Companies were now firing by rank, the front rankers taking a shot in volley, then falling back behind their rear-rank men to load, whilst the rear rank stood ready to fire in their turn. At that rate, it would take them several minutes to take their places at either end of the main line. And they were in the way!
“Trumpeter, sound Retire!” Col. Tarrant shouted.
The crisp notes blared out and officers and men of the Light Companies turned to look behind them for a moment, then fired off their last volley, and turned about to trot away at the double-quick for either end of Tarrant’s line.
“Now, Lewrie,” he muttered, “I’ve given your guns room. Do your damnedest!”