Lieutenant de Vaisseau Jean Brasseur dismounted at last before the pleasant-looking little seafront eatery, unable to stifle a groan of pain, and a wince. Happily, the weathered wooden signboard boasted degustation des varietes de la region, so Brasseur could sample as many wines as he wished, by the glass, with his dinner.
As he most carefully sat himself down on a large feather pillow, he made a mental note to write the Ministry of Marine in Paris. There was need to add something to Capt. Alan Lewrie's dossier that they did not yet know… "This man is capable of being a very convincing liar!"
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
As you bear, Mister Adair… you may open!" Lewrie shouted to the waist of the ship.
"Starb'd battery!" Adair cried out. "As you bear… fire!" All of Savage's boats, and the ones borrowed from the same 74-gunned Third Rate that had loaned Lt. Ford's Marines, were in the water and stroking hard for the beach. That was the first flaw that Lewrie had found in his plans; with hundreds of extra men aboard, it would be impossible to take the fort under fire with them crowded behind recoiling pieces. It had been difficult enough to drop a kedge anchor from the stern, take in all sail, and snub the frigate to a stop two cables from the point, with all squares'ls bat-winged up snug in the centres in sloppy-looking "Spanish Reefs." He could feel the anchor dragging a little, turn and see the stern cable judder, slacken, then go taut; good enough, though, to place them within very short gun-range, giving the boats a short row to the shore, and, most important, not tiring the rowers to return to the ship and pick up the second half of the invasion force. Now, at least, they could muster the other half of the Marines and armed sailors on the larboard gangway, out of the way, and fire over the heads of the men already on the water.
For long moments, Lewrie's view of the unfinished battery went as opaque as the wintertime coalsmoke fog in London, as quarter-gunners directed gun-captains' aiming points, then allowed them to jerk trigger lanyards on the flintlock strikers, delivering a slow and deliberate series of hammer blows of double-shotted iron. Bow to stern, HMS Savage shuddered and groaned to each discharge.
Still un-named, and thankfully unfinished, the small battery's walls bore no artillery with which to return fire. Soil and sand had been piled up in a wide, flat-topped base to support the weight of the completed fortification, and made a shallow berm under the base of the walls. Lewrie doubted the stonework had yet to reach much above a tall man's head, and the top of the uppermost course of stone blocks was yet level and even, with not a sign of an embrasure for guns.
There were soldiers in the fort, Lewrie could see after the fog of powder smoke drifted eastward on the moderate wind; shakoes, ashen faces, here and there a bicorne hat worn sideways in the French fashion, at least two senior officers under enormous cocked hats adorned with an even larger egret plume… dashing from one of the three walls of the shallow U-shaped redan to observe and order their troops about.
"Not much damage done, even with doubled round-shot, Captain," Lt. Gamble pointed out. "A nibble, here and there."
"The base of the wall is stout," Lewrie supposed aloud, "but the uppermost courses of stone are new-laid… done so recently the mortar hasn't hardened? They must have finished the parapets, but have yet to raise but the outer-most blocks to support the embrasures. Else, we'd not see heads and shoulders."
"As you bear.. .firel" Lt. Adair shouted after the guns were re-loaded, run out, and the recoil tackles overhauled.
Lewrie looked beyond the point to see Erato and Mischief come to anchor by their sterns, streaming Sou'east, their own boats rowing hard for the shore, and their 9-pounders barking away. The cutters had run on round the point, and only their mast-tops were visible as they entered the wide, shallow bay above Le Verdon sur Mer. Above the thunderous, ear-splitting roar of cannon, Lewrie fancied he could hear Bongs/ as round-shot struck stone, and the splintering of shaped rock blocks; each strike raised large clouds of stone shards and showers of sparks like flints in titanic tinder-boxes.
No, it was the four 32-pounder carronades of the starboard battery that were doing the most damage. Their massive round-shot might be slower-flying, and they could not reach out much beyond four hundred yards, but when they hit the battery's walls, they dished out bites the diametre of serving platters, and the depth of soup tureens, shifting stone blocks inwards, and causing miniature avalanches of stone chips to dribble down the face of the walls.
The boats were ashore, bows grinding into the shingle! Sailors were leaping out to steady them, knee deep in the light surf; Marines and armed tars were flooding ashore, and officers with drawn swords, a sergeant or two with their ceremonial half-pikes, were sorting men out into skirmishers and two ragged lines. As quickly as the boats were emptied, their crews were shoving them off, going up to their waists before leaping back aboard even as oarsmen were stroking "back-water" to fend them further off the beach, crabbing them round once in deep water, and returning to the frigate for their next load.
"Frog infantry! There, sir!" Lt. Gamble was pointing.
"See the French, Mister Adair? Serve 'em grape!" Lewrie yelled.
Second 18-pounder balls were set back in the shot garlands and racks; powder-monkeys scrambled below to the magazine, returning with flannel cartridge bags that held wooden top and bottom discs inside, and inch-round, plum-sized lead balls between. A pause in the firing to ram them down atop round-shot; the strain of running out the heavy artillery pieces, right to the port-sills; some toil with crow-levers to shift aim, some fiddling with elevating quoin-blocks to ensure the spread of grape-shot went over the heads of the shore parties… "As you bear, on the French, mind! Fire! " Lt. Adair bellowed.
An officer was chivvying thirty or fourty shakoed soldiers into a rough line two ranks deep, flooding from the western face of the battery, though clinging nervously close to it.
"Man's bloody daft," Lewrie grumbled. "What does he think he's facin'… big damned muskets?"
Lt. Ford's Marines were already firing, the first rank kneeling and the second waiting to fire 'til the first rank had discharged their muskets, catching the French soldiers at long range, not doing much to harm them, but quite a lot to daunt them and make them shrink back to their rear, and cram themselves elbow-to-elbow, as if that was shelter, even as their officer and their sergeants were shoving and cursing for them to open up their formation.
When the heavy round-shot howled through them, and when a cloud of loose-spaced grape-shot-a thousand or more balls-spattered sand and dirt round them, hammered bodies, smashed musket-butts, tore off limbs and heads, and cut a few of them in two at the waist, they simply melted away… dropped to the ground as if they'd never been there! The survivors, a sad few number, dropped their muskets and ran round the western end of the battery and took off in terror, leaving their formerly elegant officer on his knees, his sword broken, and his entrails spread before him as he vomited up blood on his white facings and waist-coat.
Lt. Ford's Marines and sailors gave out a great, jeering roar, and began a quick advance on the battery, muskets held extended, with fresh-ground bayonets winking wicked in the sunlight, at the "Quick." Before the boats had gotten back alongside under the now-silent mouths of the guns, they were in the battery, behind the walls, and into the courtyard, then appearing atop its firing platforms. To the east, Lt. Noble's men appeared atop that wall, too, with British colours waving bravely, even if the flag was only a small boat-jack mounted on a boarding pike.