Dubious Allegiance Page 3
Hilliard hurled himself against the barn door and bounced backwards. Marc pulled it open and stepped inside, bracing for the bullet he expected from the sniper who would have been left behind to make them pay for this ground. His own pistol was already drawn. Something flickered in the gloom above the loft. Marc wheeled and fired in the same instant as the sniper. There was a single deafening explosion, and the stud behind his shoulder crackled. Then came a second explosion nearby. The sniper pitched over the edge of the haymow and fell wordlessly to the floor. His throat had been blown out. A few twitches and he lay still in a grotesque pose.
“He had a second pistol,” Hilliard said quickly. “I had to shoot without aiming.”
Marc smiled his thanks. “Have the men search this place thoroughly, Rick. I’ll go out and signal the gunners to move up.”
With a full company of sixty men firing timed volleys over the barricade, the gun was dragged and bullied over the ploughed field to the side of the barn, which would provide partial cover. But as soon as the enemy saw the twenty-four-pounder being settled into position and pointed straight at the stone house, they began firing upon the gun-crew from isolated bits of cover beyond the barricade. With the rebels’ fire erupting randomly from several directions, organized volleys were of little use against them.
“Fire at will!” Captain Riddell shouted.
But it was too late for three of the gunners who had dropped against the barrel of their weapon and now slid slowly to the ground.
“Get a stretcher for those men!” Marc cried.
“Move up! Move up!”
Four more members of the gun-crew clambered warily up to the cannon, and began preparing it to fire. The rammer took several shotgun pellets in his back, writhed in pain, but still managed to get the wadding in. The shot that had been taken from below had provided the crew with the approximate range, and with some confidence the fuse was touched. The earth itself seemed to recoil. Marc saw but did not hear the cannonball clang against the lower part of the stone wall of the rebel headquarters. It bounced off. There wasn’t a dint in the stonework: it was three feet thick.
Two more shots produced a similar result. Another gunner was hit in the face, his lower jaw blown away. The men protecting him were also exposed and vulnerable. Captain Riddell ordered the gunners to hunker down and fire only when they thought it safe to do so. He waved all but six men back down to the coulee. It was obvious now that they would have to attack the stronghold directly or re-group and wait for Colonel Wetherall to arrive from Chambly. But their own colonel—safe in the coulee, invigorated by an infusion of brandy, and determined to do his duty—called upon Major Markham, his most experienced officer, to take three companies and mount an assault on the house from the left flank. That it was now midmorning, that the troops hadn’t eaten in twenty-two hours, that they had been exposed to the wet and chill for twelve hours, that they were exhausted from their forced march, that rebel reinforcements could be seen crossing the river below the village—none of this could deflect Colonel Gore from his sacred responsibilities.
Major Markham offered Marc’s company the opportunity to cover themselves in glory.
* * *
While the rolling ground to the left of the stone house and the village that sprawled behind it were unploughed, they were dotted with small outbuildings, haystacks, capsized wagons, and clumps of dwarf cedars—any of which would provide perfect cover for enemy riflemen. And while the rebel group was not an army in any conventional sense of the term, many of its members were hunters and, of necessity, expert marksmen. They would have to be dislodged one by one, by troops moving against them over open ground. Had they been British regulars, the cavalry might have been given the task of an initial, harassing charge, but there was no thought of sending in the unseasoned Montrealers: they were best deployed patrolling the flanks of the units still hunkered down in the coulee. The only positive aspect of Colonel Gore’s hastily devised tactic was that enemy enfilading fire from the stone house itself would not reach Markham’s attackers on the left. The fight there would be hand-to-hand, face-to-face.
These thoughts were running through Marc’s mind as he crouched at the edge of the coulee, shivering and waiting for the major’s command to advance. The trembling that now rippled through his entire body was not wholly due to cold and hunger. The implications of his narrow escape up there in the barn on the riverbank had struck him suddenly and unawares. He had come under fire more than once since his arrival in Canada two and a half years ago, and had, in his own mind at any rate, acquitted himself honourably. His courage had been severely tested, and proved to be both stout and durable. Then why was he now shaking so hard he could not draw his sabre out of its scabbard? The sniper’s bullet had slammed into a beam not two inches from his right ear. If Rick had not shot the man dead an instant later, the sniper’s second shot would surely have hit the mark. And he would be dead, too, or as good as. He had promised Beth that he would live, but that vow was out of his hands: however brave he might be, however righteous his cause (and that was increasingly moot), however dedicated to his duty he might be, any random bullet might end his life at any moment and leave Beth alone and forsaken. Still, she had given him leave—commanded him, as it were, with the force of her love—to do his duty, whatever it entailed, and then return, the slate between them wiped clean and their life together begun anew.
But if he were to survive and keep his vow, should he not, in the least, be prudent in his deportment on the battlefield? Could he not be a worthy officer without trying to play the hero? Rick had flung himself against that barn door in a quixotic effort to be the first man in: he seemed to have a compulsion to prove himself heroic. Why then had he deliberately upstaged Rick by dashing in ahead of him? Had that been deliberate, too?
The trembling eased enough for Marc to pull out his sabre in preparation for the charge against the first of the outbuildings about forty yards ahead on the left. Thoughts like these—uncertainties and doubts really—had rarely crossed his mind during past dangers. Perhaps the others crouched behind him and waiting for him to lead them by his own example were suffering similar qualms. He could not tell.
“Move out!” Major Markham’s cry rang through the snow-filled air.
Marc’s shout joined the chorus of his comrades as they rose as one and dashed into the fearful spaces between them and death.
* * *
The first objective was a half-log cowshed from which a number of shots had been fired throughout the morning. Thirty yards to its left a stand of evergreens presented the possibility of sniper fire or a sudden assault against any force attacking the shed. Marc’s troop was advancing on this left flank in the running crouch preferred by the infantry. When Marc barked out an order, his squad dropped to their knees and loosed a volley at the target ahead. A few bullets sailed through the several windows, but those striking the wall might as well have been fired into the air. Seconds after this volley, blackened faces popped into view above the windowsills and prepared to return fire.
The major had anticipated this, and the squad on Marc’s right were already on their knees and aiming. But before they could unleash their volley, gunshots erupted from the copse on the left and several redcoats fell, including the lieutenant about to give the order to fire. When the volley did come, erratic and mis-timed, it scattered only a few wood chips. The snipers in the evergreen copse kept at it. Marc heard a groan to his right and turned to see Private Higgins on one knee, both hands scrabbling at his stomach, as if he were a boy searching his pockets for a missing rabbit’s foot.
“Pull back!” the major called out.
Dragging their wounded with them, the men retreated. Higgins was carried to the rear of the coulee, where the surgeon had set up shop. Major Markham had a flesh wound in his thigh but waved off medical attention.
“We’ll have to clear out that bit of woods if we hope to take the shed,” the major was saying to his captains. “Riddell, take all of your co
mpany and have a go at them. The other two companies will come at the shed from angles left and right. Each troop will fire staggered volleys. The first unit there will go straight in.”
Hilliard came up beside Marc, breathless and glassy-eyed. “We get the dangerous work, eh, Marc?”
“It’s all dangerous.”
“Aren’t we lucky, though?”
It will be entirely a matter of luck, Marc thought, but decided not to share this insight with his friend.
Three-pronged and carefully planned, the next assault began a few minutes later. Marc’s troop, along with the rest of Riddell’s fifty strong company, made directly for the copse. Firing volleys blindly in staggered sequence, they succeeded in stemming the enemy fire from that source while the other two companies closed in on the cowshed. Both groups took casualties. The rebels seemed able to fire from every side except the rear. Every overturned wagon or haystack harboured a sharpshooter. With Hilliard running ahead—sabre brandished, ululating—Marc’s squad roared into the little woods. It was empty. No rebel offered his belly to the bayonet.
“Keep going!” Marc called out.
They emerged on the far side, prepared to give chase. But thirty-five yards ahead stood a log rampart, hastily constructed of nearby corral railings with gun-slits arranged at intervals. A wave of shotgun explosions shattered the air above the din of the battle now going on around the cowshed on the right. Marc heard the spruce boughs on either side of him rattle, and felt a sharp blow, like a tack hammer’s sting, at his waist. He dropped to his knees. There was no pain. Around him came terrified screams and low moaning. They had been ambushed. He opened his mouth to sound the retreat, but no words came out. With eyes full of righteous anger and a single rivulet of blood on one cheek, Hilliard looked quizzically at his superior officer.
Marc swung his sabre frantically.
Hilliard nodded and yelled, “Back into the bush, lads! It’s a trap!”
Marc staggered into the trees. Three of his men lay writhing out in the open. He took a moment to examine his wound. There wasn’t one. The bird shot had barely penetrated his jacket, with its extra armour of mud.
“Are you hurt?” Hilliard asked, kneeling down.
“I’m all right. We need to get the wounded back in here.”
Sergeant Ogletree and three others managed to haul them into cover, protected by several volleys from the fellow troop next to them, which had also been strafed and had retreated to the safety of the evergreens. Captain Riddell’s voice could now be heard hollering orders, encouragement, or castigation above the crackling of the gunfire, the fast-falling snow, and the smothering spruce boughs. Heavy fighting seemed to be going on over by the cowshed on their right. The odour of cordite was thickening the air around them.
Marc’s squad was commanded to provide covering volleys for a full-company attack on the log-rampart. But the poor visibility—intermittent as a north wind gusted and died—made it difficult to see whether their volleys were having any effect, while the assault itself quickly bogged down before the rampart was reached. The ground was again littered with the wounded and those pinned there by the enemy, who seemed able to shoot from spots both hidden and implausible. Marc was surprised, and more than a little disappointed, that the lives of his men would be put at such risk in an assault carried out without the aid of maps, advance scouting, or any real knowledge of the rebels’ terrain, battle strength, or opportunities for defence.
When the snow let up briefly, it was evident that the frontal attack on the rampart had failed. Men were being dragged back to the copse by their comrades, one of them an ensign with his arm swinging loosely, like the empty sleeve of a jacket. Then, without warning, a dozen rebels rose up above the rampart and aimed their ragtag weapons at the retreating and wholly vulnerable redcoats. Marc screamed the order for a full volley, but the rebels had figured out the timing between volleys and knew they had twenty seconds to inflict severe damage on the exposed British.
Suddenly, before the rebels had time to begin firing, the pounding of hoofbeats shook the ground nearby, and a troop of Montreal cavalry burst around the northern end of the copse and made a thunderous charge at the rampart. Several of them were now firing their pistols, so that between the shock of seeing horses charging out of the snowy squalls like beasts from the Apocalypse and the deadly snap of pistol fire, the rebels balked momentarily, then dropped out of sight behind their barricade. Meanwhile, the wounded infantrymen and their rescuers made it back to the shelter of the trees.
Before the Montreal volunteers could reach the rampart and bring their swords into play, the rebels had regained their gun-slits and begun firing, desperately and blindly. But a horse is a large target, and here there was no respect for the martial animal, no code of conduct to be recognized and honoured. Half a dozen of the noble creatures collapsed in undignified heaps, tossing their riders awry and shrieking piteously. Dazed, with limbs bruised or broken, the Montrealers staggered away in several directions. Only a series of sharp volleys from the riflemen in the copse kept the enemy at bay long enough for those unhorsed volunteers to find their way back. Those who managed to remain mounted had to veer around their fallen comrades or their dying beasts. They broke apart and scattered. But foolishly brave though they might have been, they had saved perhaps a dozen lives by their impetuous gambit.
“Christ, Marc. I thought these Frenchies would be a bunch of yokels and misfits,” Hilliard said.
“They may well be,” Marc said, “but we’ve chosen to fight them on their home ground. They’ve got muskets, rifles, ammo . . . and a cause.”
Sergeant Ogletree arrived to inform Marc that the captain had decided to try to clear the rebels from the rampart by attempting to encircle it from both sides. Marc’s troop was again to provide covering fire until the flanking movements were well under way, then they were to storm the barricade with bayonets at the ready while the enemy was distracted. But the company would wait ten minutes or so to begin the assault in the hope that the snow might start up again.
Marc was only half paying attention. His eye had caught sight of a horse in its death throes about twenty yards from the rampart. Its lips were foaming, and one huge eye was slowly rolling to a ghastly stop. And trapped underneath the animal’s hindquarters was its rider. He was on his stomach, so the only way he could attempt to raise the dying creature’s haunches off the lower part of his own body was by rising up onto his knees. But the dead weight was too much for him, and he was now clawing at the earth with both hands in a fruitless effort to pull himself free. Fortunately, he was facing the little woods, with the animal’s bulk shielding his presence, and plight, from the rebels behind the barricade. Any sounds he might have been making were drowned out by the continuing fire from skirmishes going on over by the outbuildings and the stone house.
“We can’t just leave him out there,” Hilliard said. And he took a step towards the open ground.
Marc put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll go,” he said, and, without looking back, he rushed towards the stricken man in a low, trotting crouch, well within the range of any rifles poking out of the improvised loopholes in the enemy barricade. But it wasn’t until he had dropped down beside the surprised, and terrified, horseman that the first shots snapped at the breeze. One of them struck the upraised foreleg of the horse and shattered the bone.
“It’s all right, I’m British,” Marc said reassuringly. He realized that in his mud-caked clothes he could have been anyone: only his shako cap would be a certain sign of his allegiance.
“I can’t move my legs! I can’t feel my foot!” The “officer” turned out to be a corporal, a young man no more than twenty or so, beardless, handsome despite his pain-distorted features and glazed, goitered stare.
“I’ve got to lever the hindquarters of your horse so you can drag yourself free,” Marc said. “Then we’ll have to make a sprint for it. If we’re lucky, one of the troops in the woods will give us a volley to get us started.”
“Your horse is dead,” Marc said, as he drew his sabre carefully from its scabbard without raising his head above the cover being provided by the faithful Prince. The shooting had stopped, but Marc knew that the rebels would be waiting for the next act in this diverting little drama. Perhaps he should just wait here until the next assault began. But he was supposed to be leading a phase of it: technically, he had deserted his post. Moreover, his clambering about in the middle of the attack zone could well interfere with any covering or distracting volleys being planned. He would have to risk returning now. His concern for an individual soldier had overridden his duty to the troop and the company.
The corporal groaned horribly, either at the news of Prince’s demise or his own considerable pain.
“Hang on. I’m going to lift up the horse’s rump as far as I can, then you’ll have to do the rest. And it’s going to hurt. If you can’t manage it, we’re both dead men.”
The lad’s eyes widened. “I’ll manage it, sir.”
“Good. Now here we go!”
Marc wedged the flat blade of his sword as far under the horse’s huge thigh as he could; then, using his shoulder for leverage, he began slowly to lift, mustering all his waning strength in the effort. Even so, he could not have levered the beast nearly enough for his comrade to pull free if the latter had not had the good fortune to lie in a small furrow. Marc merely needed to raise the dead weight up about five inches. However, as soon as the rebel sharpshooters spotted the horse apparently moving, they began firing. One bullet knocked Marc’s cap askew; others slammed into Prince’s body. His master gasped with each insult.
“Dig your hands in and pull!” Marc cried. “I can’t hold this thing up much longer!” Cold sweat was pouring down his face.