Chapter 323: A Hundred Paces from Hell

The lanyard snapped tight, and the Falmouth’s eighteen-pounder fired first.

Then the nine-pounders followed, along the bastion and down the curtain, much like a broadside down the side of a ship. The hill shook with every shot, the thunderclaps spreading over the field and the bay, striking the reefs, and coming back again.

Across the field, the cannonballs struck short, bounced, and tore through the marching ranks, ploughing open the packed formation. Redcoats came apart beneath the iron, bodies hurled backwards, limbs severed, chests crushed, and blood thrown across the trampled earth.

The gaps left in the ranks were filled with the dead and dying, their torn bodies sprawling in the mud as the formation continued to advance. Amidst the cries of pain and terror, the drums never lost their beat, and down in the town the chapel bell rose to reply.

A nine-pounder takes most of a minute to load, and the Royal Navy had the good sense to keep marching while the guns were busy.

Croft bellowed across the bastion. "Sponge her! Cartridge in shot, an’ ram her home, or so help me God I’ll ram the lot o’ ye down after her, ye slow-handed bastards!"

By the side, Tuck bent over the smoking breech and spoke to it in a affectionate voice. "There’s my beauty. There’s my lovely maid. Open up again for me, my lover, an’ let old Tuck clean ye out, nice an’ gentle, like. Thass it. Thass my girl."

Barrel and Ox dragged the eighteen-pounder back up its platform. The giant man glanced toward the broad pennant bobbing behind the brown ranks and narrowed his eyes.

"Big flag. We shoot flag?"

"Line, bor. Always line."

Out front, the formation stepped over the bodies the cannon fire had left behind. Boots crushed the wounded into the mud, and the marching ranks closed around the dead without breaking stride.

Inside the ranks, the sergeants shouted.

"Close up! Close up there, ye horrible lot!"

"Close up, you bleeding sheep! Shoulder to shoulder, shoulder to shoulder!"

"Cloose oop, lads, cloose oop and look to the banners!"

The command passed down from sergeant to sergeant, and every rank moved half a step to fill the space left by the dead, as the files drew closer together but the ranks kept their depth.

Across the rear, the halberds lay ready, which meant a private trying to escape would first have to explain himself to a sergeant, an explanation unlikely to be accepted.

A thousand men in redcoats turned brown by the jungle marched toward thirteen cannons with steady but feigned determination. Behind them stood the pines and a forward camp that had run out of powder, neither offering much help now.

At the far stake, four mortar crews set their small pieces down in the stubble. Their officer paced behind them with a slow-match in one hand.

"Elevation, gentlemen! High as she’ll go!"

Behind the center, the boat guns came forward on the ends of their drag ropes, the sailors pulling them like horses. Some of the privates in the ranks had a grey, sickly expression in the face, but they kept walking regardless.

There was no shortage of reasons to stop, only a shortage of permission.

Overhead, a fuse began to hiss.

The mortar shell sailed over the wall, turning slowly and spitting sparks, before dropping among the pirates on the firing step, where it exploded.

The blast tore through the firing step in a cloud of splintered timber, shattered masonry, and red mist. The parapet disappeared behind the explosion, and the pirates along it were thrown against the bastion or blown down into the ditch, their bodies broken by the iron fragments.

When the smoke cleared, the step was slick with blood, littered with severed limbs and torn linen. The wounded howled beneath the wreckage, while the reserve rank moved up to take their places without waiting for an order.

The survivors dragged the wounded toward the backline, leaving bloody trails across the fort.

A musket fired too early on the left, then another followed it, and the wall bellowed with a roar in four languages, most of it profanity. Some lads started a hymn but abandoned it halfway through, having apparently forgotten the second verse.

Roberts walked along the step with his tin cup in one hand, pushing the barrel down. "Ach, hold it! Did the Lord make you in such a hurry? That’s a shilling in the dish for the powder, and a shilling for the manners."

The next mortar shell struck the earth wall, which swallowed it.

Vallon stared at the hole with clear satisfaction.

The third shell found a thatched roof. Women and children along the ridgepoles rushed at the smoke with buckets, and before anyone had finished a short prayer, the roof was black, soaked, and still standing.

In the far right dyke, Fenwick lay flat on his belly with his scythe beside him. "Heads down, lads. Lie in muck and wait on the Admiral. When he says go I’ll mow that lot afore supper, and thee can fetch the barrow. Nowt to fret on, nowt but a bit o’ cuttin’."

While Concordia handled its first casualties, the redcoats formation reached the center dyke.

The dyke crossed the field a little short of the middle stake, half full of black water and stopped the ranks much as a river stops an army. For all their uniforms, drums, and officers, the privates still had to find a way across it.

At the bank the drums faltered, and the sergeants threw themselves at the tangle with halberds and every oath the navy had ever invented.

"Halt! Halt, you horrible shower! Dress your ranks, dress them, I say!"

The pioneers threw their bundles into the water, while the sailors laid their ladders across it to make bridges.

"Sir! Sir! Them bundles is for the ditch, sir!"

"Then the ditch shall take us as we come, damn your eyes! Over the planks, lads!"

The boat cannons reached the middle stake and set fire from the edge of the dyke. They were small, quick, and loud.

"Lay ’er at the timber, my boys! At the timber, I say!"

Most of their cannonballs disappeared into the earth wall, but a lucky shot found its way through an embrasure on the curtain, and when the smoke cleared, a nine-pounder was sitting there with its crew piled beside it, the gun carriage smashed, the crew mangled beneath the wreckage, and blood washing through the steps.

On the bastion, the old conquistador looked at the dead nine-pounder with stillness.

Then he spoke, loud enough for the guns and calm enough for the wind. "Se?or Croft. Las dos más cercanas, the two nearest, sí? Upon the leetle guns. Pronto, hijo. They are making a nuisance of themselves."

Roberts, who had been waiting for exactly this, bellowed after.

"Two nearest, Croft! Upon them boat guns, sharp now!"

The nine-pounders turned on their carriages.

"Four and five, ye devils! Four and five, on them wee bastards! Put ’em back in the sea where the Lord intended, an’ God send yer aim true, ye lazy sods!"

Croft shouted, and the guns fired.

The cannonballs struck the boat cannons at range. The ground burst apart, iron wheels flew from their axles, and the guns overturned in a storm of splinters and smoke.

Redcoats around them were torn open by the impact, their bodies flung across the dyke in a bloody heap, the drag ropes disappearing beneath the wreckage.

By then, the front ranks overcome the dyke and reached the middle stake.

"Metralla, Se?or Croft. Let us bless them."

"Grapeshot! Give ’em the whole bag, every ball of it, and may the Lord have mercy on ’em, for I surely shan’t!"

Grape was a bag of iron balls about the size of plums. Fired from a nine-pounder, it spread out like an open hand.

This time it spread open on the dyke, right where the rear ranks had crowded around the planks. The cannon erupted, and the packed formation vanished beneath a storm of iron as grapeshot ripped through coats, shattered bones, opened bellies, and punched through the crowded files with scarcely any loss of force.

Redcoats were shredded across the narrow crossing, blood spraying over the ladders and black water as bodies collapsed into the dyke. The advancing ranks crossed over the dead, boots sinking into the bodies and the bloodied water.

On the shoulders of the bastion, the hunters drew their bows to their ears and held them there. The little apples on the arrowheads were wet, and every bow was ready.

The nine-pounders fired again and again, each cannon loading and firing as quickly as its crew could manage. Every now and then, the eighteen-pounder complemented with its own thunderous voice, while the navy replied with its mortars and boat guns.

In the battlefield, the noise never stopped long enough to leave a hole in it.

"Sponge! Grape! Ram her! Run up, they’re comin’!" Croft shouted.

The redcoats advanced with muskets shouldered, while the ground behind them filled with privates who could no longer walk, the wounded dragging themselves through the mud, leaving trails of blood behind them, their cries for mothers and God rising beneath the drums and the cannonade.

On the firing step, the pirates held their muskets up. Roberts walked behind them, tapping each barrel.

"Hold ’em, boyo. Hold ’em. Near stake, and not a hair before. Patience is a Christian virtue."

Around the other side of the fort, the thin line of militia stood beside its painted canvas, watching an empty sea. They had a perfectly good view of it, at least.

On the wall, the dead lay along the steps, while the wounded were brought down to the chapel. The bell continued to ring.

Then the front rank’s boots reached the near stake.

"Near stake, Admiral!" Roberts called. "And a hundred paces from hell!"

"Grape’s in, sir!" Croft bellowed. "Loaded an’ waitin’!"

Out front, the lieutenant raised his sword.

"Halt! Halt there! Dress your ranks! Dress, as for the King himself! Make... ready!"

The redcoats ranks stopped and straightened, each private squaring himself. Muskets came up to the cock along the line in one deep rattle, while on the wall the pirates raised theirs.

Between the two lay a hundred paces of trampled ground, a killing field churned into mud, its surface strewn with broken muskets and the mangled remains of the soldiers who had crossed it. Blood had soaked into the earth until the ground itself seemed darkened by it.

The drums fell silent, but the chapel bell kept ringing.

At the same time, a boy came up the eighteen-pounder platform on his hands and knees, black with smoke and struggling for breath. He had run the entire distance carrying news that was already half an hour old, though it remained the freshest news on the island.

He reported in a hurry. "Admiral! Admiral, sir! The King’s sloops, three of ’em, went up the channel! The Mouse an’ the Partridge come out o’ the rocks to meet ’em, an’ the guns was goin’ when the skiff left! They’re goin’ yet, sir! I heard ’em the whole way up the hill!"