yourselves thinner and flatter amidships, if ye please. Mister Gamble? Beat to Quarters!'
Major Loudenne's personal mount, and Captain Dournez's horse, were good'uns and goers, and Lt. Brasseur and the aide-de-camp, whose name Brasseur had learned was Carnot, were making good time along the coast road. A spell at the trot, a spell of cantering, a few minutes at the gallop, then checking back to an easier lope, in cavalry fashion-for cavalry could not gallop all the time, no matter how dashing they were-and the lone spire of the church in St. Palais sur Mer was in sight. A newly installed kilometre post by the side of the road-one of First Consul Bonaparte's many vigourous edicts-told them that they were within one kilometre of the town. Carnot felt inspired to put heels to his horse; not to the full gallop, though the image in his mind of 'dashing' purposely through the town was pleasing to his martial ego, but a fast enough pace to tell the world that he was on urgent duty, bearing vital despatches, and making the girls of St. Palais turn their heads in admiration.
'The woods thin out, at last, m'sieur,' Carnot told his nautical partner, hiding a smile at how clumsily Brasseur rode; like a large sack of turnips. 'Ah, there's the beaches again, and the sea.'
Jean Brasseur's thighs ached like sin, his breeches were soaked with his own sweat and foul-smelling horse sweat that had seeped into the saddle skirts, whilst his buttocks had gone thankfully numb, after shrieking in dull pain, and why he wished to see the coming battle, he could no longer fathom. St. Palais was a small, dull place, but there was rumoured to be a good tavern that served a decent meal and their wine would be a better-than-average Bordeaux, of course. He was about to beg off, plead a sudden need to return to Royan…
He looked seaward as they left the last copses of pines behind, and the left-hand side of the road became blue and open to the horizon, with low, wind-sculpted shrubbery, dune grasses, gritty sands, and the low dunes between beach and overwash barrows.
'What?' he exclaimed, sawing at his reins to bring the brute he bestrode to a merciful halt. 'Where the Devil are they? They could sail much faster than we could ride.'
'Uhm, back there, m 'sieur,' Carnot pointed out, one arm aimed up-river. 'I do not believe they have moved a single metre. No…'
Brasseur brought out his telescope, cursing the horse under him as it shifted its shoulders, tried to plod a step or two towards some likely-looking grass along the verge of the road. 'Mon Dieu, they've made sail, they're under way! God rot and damn them!'
'What is it, m'sieur}' Lt. Carnot asked. 'They are coming?' 'They are going, Lieutenant,' Brasseur spat. 'Going up-river towards the narrows. They were not a feint to distract us from an attack on the Cote Sauvage. They were after the forts from the beginning!'
'The Fifty-seventh of the Line!' Carnot exclaimed. 'We can get them to turn about and march back. They are the only troops close enough to save Fort Saint Georges. I must ride on.'
'And tell your General Fournier that there may not be a landing on the Cote Sauvage,' Brasseur said with a snarl of impotent rage, for he had been very badly fooled, and the shame of it was just sinking in, strangling his ego. 'But… something still might be saved. It will take the 'Bloodies' hours to get their troops ashore, form up and assault Fort Saint Georges, over-run the battery on Pointe de Grave, and place explosives. Your general has cavalry?'
'Quel dommage, non, m'sieur,' Carnot had to confess. 'He has only infantry and artillery… the closest cavalry is going into winter encampment inland of Rochefort. To feed and rest their horses back to health. Most of our cavalry units are hundreds of kilometres from here, standing ready on the eastern fronti…'
'Ride on, dammit!' Brasseur barked. 'Do what you can. I will wait for you and that regiment in the town, for there's nothing I can do any longer.'
'Oui, m'sieur/' Lt. Carnot said with a bright, eager smile, despite his sour surprise, for it meant a gallant and glorious ride. 'I am off like a rabbit. Bonne chance, Lieutenant Brasseur.'
'Bonne chance, d vous,' Brasseur echoed, as Lt. Carnot put his spurs to his borrowed horse and galloped away, shod hooves throwing up divots of sand and dirt. 'And go to the Devil, you idiot,' Brasseur grumbled as he kneed his horse to a walk towards St. Palais. He had no urgency now, but for a satisfying meal, a bottle or two, and a welcome rest for his abused backside and thighs; on the softest pillows the innkeeper had. Lt. Carnot could gallop on to recall that regiment, dash up to his general to announce the deception that the Anglais had pulled off… Brasseur doubted the lad's arrival would be well received. He would kill a perfectly good horse for nothing; perhaps a second, if he galloped all the way back to Royan or Fort St. Georges.
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!'
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.'
