Chapter 322: Battle for Concordia

Behind the fortifications stood a town that fruitlessly hoped it’d never need protection.

There was a great deal of thatch in Concordia, which was unfortunate, since armies have never been particularly considerate about where they set their fires.

Above the rooftops stood the headland, with the fort perched on top of it.

It was a bulwark with two walls, one faced the narrows toward the bay, defended by a thin line of militia, some painted canvas, and a considerable amount of fortune.

Then the part that faced inland across the neck of the headland, where a curtain wall stood about two meters, with a half-finished bastion at the corner. There wasn’t enough stone to finish the wall, so Sawyer had completed his section in timber and Vallon his in earth, with a ditch full of stakes in front.

It wasn’t much to look at, but it had the advantage of being there.

The fort occupied the high ground, which meant its cannons could sweep the fields and the streets nearest the fort. The open field was the only road into town, and any army that marched past the fort would leave its flank exposed.

The Royal Navy therefore had two choices, take the fort or kill every man inside it.

There wasn’t much room for a third.

Beyond the ditch, the ground was open. The farmers had cut down the cane, leaving a belt of stubble, while beyond it the pines rose, with the redcoats ranks advancing inside it.

Dykes crossed the fields, and three white stakes stood out in the open, easy enough to see, which was the whole point.

At the bastion, Vallon sighted along a knotted cord toward the nearest stake, his face puckered as though he had just swallowed vinegar.

"A hundred paces to the near stake, Monsieur Roberts. Not a hundred and one, not ninety-nine! Two hundred to the middle, and four hundred to the far. I have measured them twice, once with the cord and once with my own two legs, and I will hear no complaint."

"Oh, I’ll tell them, don’t you fret. Ever so politely, see." Roberts replied.

Across the fort, the Falmouth’s eighteen-pounder had spent the spring keeping a door open at the alliance headquarters, but this dawn it had a rather different job.

Don Rodrigo stood with a hand on its barrel while Barrel and Ox drove the last wedge beneath its carriage. The parrot sat on his shoulder and, for once, had no words to contribute.

Along the wall stood the Dame’s crew, two hundred and eighty sailors who had fought beneath Havana’s forts and now intended to hold a hill.

The Dame herself lay in the harbor with her gunports shut and her decks bare. Croft and his fourteen gunners stood by their pieces, with Tuck among them, while Anvil, the gentlest of the Bonebreakers, stacked the carriages in case the cannons needed to be moved again.

Twelve guns came up from the channels, hauled on those carriages and on the backs of those same three men. The eighteen-pounder made thirteen, and that was all the fort could hold without being a massive, explosive liability by itself.

Roberts looked all around them, and whistled in appreciation. "Nine rounders all the way up, bless them, and the old eighteen at the end to do the worse."

The old conquistador grunted. "And the powder, Se?or Roberts? Of the guns I can count myself. I have eyes, and God has been generous with my fingers."

It was a fair question, and the quartermaster squinted at the sky before he replied. "Enough for the morning, Admiral, and a bit over if we’re good and the Lord’s feeling generous. The afternoon, now... the afternoon I wouldn’t promise you if you went down on one knee, see."

Don Rodrigo looked out across the field toward the drums.

Out in the cane, a marine sergeant walked along his ranks, using the flat of his halberd to straighten a private’s musket. The Royal Navy had its own way of saying good day, and it rarely involved asking.

The redcoats came out of the track in files, then formed four ranks out of the cannons range, with the privates in the center and grenadiers on the flanks. The nights in the jungle had turned their red coats brown, and now they marched in daylight, with poles checking the ground ahead of them.

About a thousand men could still stand, seven hundred in the formation, two hundred sailors carrying boarding axes and pine ladders, and the remaining hundred made up of pioneers and gun crews.

The pioneers began cutting pines, binding it into bundles to fill the ditch and dykes, while boat cannons came forward on drag ropes and small mortars were brought in slings between poles. Behind the center, a broad pennant went up on a staff.

Around the ranks, a sergeant thumped cartridge boxes. "Twenty-four rounds a man, lads, and not a one more, for the powder tent’s up the chimney, God rest it, and there’s no more where that came from. So don’t be wasting it on the birds, nor the Almighty, nor your own foot, Mulligan, you great lump."

"Oi, Sarge! I can smell pork, I can! Crackling an’ all, swear to Gawd it’s comin’ from them trees."

"Aye, it’s pig, lad. A pig and a bowman with a poisoned arrow and none better to do with his day than put it in your ear. Never follow the pork, and one day you’ll thank me."

At the front of the rank, the lieutenant rose on his toes, his voice cracking. "Dress by the colors! Dress, damn you, you look like a row of drunken bishops! You will fire when ordered, and not a breath before. Do you hear me? Not a breath!"

The drum changed its beat.

On the wall, Roberts turned his sandglass and began walking along the firing step with a tin cup of cold tea, tapping each musket as he passed. Those were the firearms stolen from the killed redcoats in both the sloops and the jungle.

"Near stake for the range, boyo."

Tink.

"Near stake, mind, not the middle. I’ll have your ears if you’re early."

Tink.

"Near stake, my lovely. Steady as a rock, see."

Six nine-pounders stood on the bastion beside the eighteen-pounder, and six more across the curtain, with Croft’s gunners at every piece. Behind them, the pirates stood on the firing step in two ranks.

Below at the wall, Bran and the Crows held their billhooks, while the Bonebreakers waited behind them.

The townspeople held the flanks, with hunters carrying bows taking positions on the shoulders of the bastion, while farmers and fishermen crouched along dykes at the far right of the field. Fenwick walked among them, carrying his scythe on its pole.

The reserve waited at the foot of the wall under Mateo and Isaiah, along with Beto and Brian, Paco, who brought Dickon’s bow, Pip with a bandaged shoulder, and Tib’s arm in a sling. Back into the town, women and children placed buckets along the ridgepoles.

The drums continued across the field, and the old conquistador climbed onto the platform of the eighteen-pounder, with Roberts holding his elbow, and every free citizen along the fort turned to watch.

"Se?or Croft. Round shot at the far stake, grapeshot at the middle."

"Aye, Admiral." Croft touched his cap.

"Se?or Roberts. If a man fires early he will answer to me, and then to God, and I am the more patient of the two. But only slightly."

Roberts set his cup on the parapet. "Not a whisper, Admiral. And at the range I’ll give ’em their ranks, see. Every last one, front to back, nice and tidy."

"Bran, the wall is yours. Mine to command, but yours to keep."

Bran spat into her palms and rubbed them together until the billhook handle squeaked. "Not if the King himself comes knocking, duw, let him knock! Let him knock with his crown and his fine red coat, and I’ll answer the door myself!"

"Hijos."

Don Rodrigo let the word fall on the hill, and the wind itself seemed to stop and listen.

"Hijos mios. In the Yucatán I stood outside walls with a burning torch and a steady hand, and not once did I ask what was sleeping behind them. God forgive me, I never asked."

He turned and swept his arm back toward the town.

"Today I ask. And what do I find behind you? Two thousand souls. A school with a slate on every desk, hijos, with a child’s name chalked upon it. A chapel for our sinful souls, and a plain stone, carved with the words that no soul on this earth may be bought or sold."

At the firing step, a former slave stood a little straighter.

"And before you, a wall of earth. Let the Crown laugh at it. The rest of that wall, hijos, the true wall, is every one of you."

A drum thundered through the cane.

On the reserve, a boy swallowed and tightened his grip on his sling.

"Look at them, hijos. Look! Se?or Fenwick tells me they are plough boys from the furrow and the hedgerow, and Se?or Fenwick is right. And what does a plough boy do when you give him an order? He will carry it like a torch without asking what it will burn, so that every harbor in the Caribbean may smell the smoke and learn what becomes of freedom."

In the ditch, a farmer glanced at his hands, still black beneath the nails.

"The King who wrote it sits far away, in a warm room, but the boy who carries it is here, on this stubble, with his mother’s face still in his pocket. And he may carry that order home across this field... or he may lie down in it."

His voice dropped, and the whole hill leaned in to hear it.

"I am an old man, hijos. An old man with a bad knee and a worse temper. I have buried better soldiers than most of you, better, and braver, and I have not forgotten one name. So hear me. I will stand at this gun."

Behind the bastion, women whispered a prayer for the mothers on both sides.

"And when the navy reaches this wall, it will come over my body, or it will not come at all. That is not courage, hijos. That is a belief."

Beside him Roberts nodded gravely, the tin cup trembling in his hand.

"And Se?or Roberts will tell you I am very good at believing. So I ask you one thing."

Across the entire fort, sailors chuckled.

"What does a free man choose?"

The reply tore up from the wall in pieces, each in its own tongue, until they braided together into one crashing voice.

From the old Spanish hands at the gun carriages, in a bellow.

"?Libertad o la horca!"

From the Dame’s English throats, ragged and gleeful.

"Liberty or the gallows!"

From Vallon, hat in the air, voice cracking on the vowels.

"La liberté ou la potence!"

And from Bran and Roberts, low and deep.

"Rhyddid neu’r crocbren!"

The cry spread across the cut cane, came back from the hill, and made the drums stumble. In the silence that followed, the parrot cleared its throat.

"?Dos cebollas y un obispo! ?Awwwk! ?Dos cebollas... y un OBISPO!"

The wall laughed once, briefly and loudly.

"They’re on the stubble, Admiral."

The laughter stopped. The drums were now close enough to count.

The redcoats crossed the cut belt in four ranks, every boot striking the ground in step. The forlorn hope led them with cane bundles and pine ladders, while the boat cannons rolled among the ranks and the broad pennant followed behind.

The sun struck a thousand bayonets, and the whole field flashed like the sea.

"Steady, the line! Steady, gentlemen! Eyes front, damn it, eyes front! Think of the King!"

"Four-twenty, lads. Four-fifteen. Four-ten. Mind your dressing, MacGregor, you’re drifting like a drunk heifer. Four hundred. Keep your dressing and keep your mouths shut, and we’ll all see the end of this, or we’ll not, and there’s none to be done about it either way."

"Far stake, Admiral!" Roberts called.

"Ready, sir. Ready an’ waitin’," Croft answered. "Shot’s laid in."

At the eighteen-pounder, the gun captain had wound the lanyard twice around his fist, his eyes on the old man.

Don Rodrigo looked beyond the field.

Thirteen guns waited for his word, with a free town behind him and ranks of redcoats across the field.

He drew breath.

"FUEGO!"

"Fire! FIRE, boyos! Give ’em the Lord’s thunder!" Roberts roared.