Jacob's ladder, and coolly hurled it up, hooking it to the jagged top of the barrier. Faces appeared above, then quickly disappeared. Musket smoke came in gusts, the sound of the shots this time from behind him. Kydd seized the ladder and swarmed up. Other seamen had boarding axes and they were using them in the same way as they would to storm the side of an enemy ship. The seamen's agility told: they were quickly into the inner square and throwing wide the gates for the soldiers before the confused enemy could group.
Panting, hot and aching, Kydd stood watching the fluttering French flag jerk down, then rise again, surmounted by a Union Flag. A disconsolate group of
French prisoners flanked by marines began their march into exile. The last of the dead were dragged off and the wounded attended to.
The crisp sound of marching heralded the arrival of the light infantry, with a mounted colonel at their head. Lieutenant Calley removed his hat and awaited the Colonel. 'Well done, sir!' the Colonel spluttered, as he dismounted. 'Damme, but that was a splendid thing. Blast m' eyes if it weren't!'
The marines snapped to attention; their sergeant needed no lessons in military honours. The 'present arms' was parade-ground perfect, yet these men, less than an hour before, had been storming the fort.
The Colonel marched across and inspected them, his gruff compliments making the sergeant red-faced with pleasure. Kydd felt awkward with his ragtag sailors, but the Colonel touched his hat genially in response to the individualistic salutes of the seamen, in no way disconcerted by the sight of their direct gaze and sea-fashion rigs.
'A fine body of men!' said the Colonel to Calley. 'And 'twould infinitely oblige me, sir, if they were in my column for the final push on the capital.'
'By all means, sir. Your orders?' Calley replied.
Within an hour the column was swinging along at a measured pace astride the road to Pointe a Pitre, the capital, soldiers four abreast in a serpentine column that stretched ahead of the seamen, with fifes and drums squeaking and rattling.
A sergeant of infantry dropped back from the rear of the column, and stared with frank curiosity at the seamen. 'Hoay - the sergeant ahoy!' called Kydd. The hard-featured man fell back to Kydd, still keeping step.
'How long to Pwun a-Peter?' Kydd asked.
The man sized him up. There was no clue for a soldier that might reveal his rank. He was dressed as the others in his usual red and white shirt with short blue jacket and white free-swinging trousers. Kydd sensed wariness and added, 'Tom Kydd, quartermaster's mate - that's petty officer.'
'Sar'nt Hotham.'
Clearly a 'petty officer' meant nothing either to this army veteran, who peered at him suspiciously from under his tall black shako. The voice was deep and projected an effortless authority that Kydd envied.
'An' these are m' men,' Kydd continued, gesturing - behind him at the cutlass-adorned sailors.
The sergeant's eyebrows rose: Kydd must be some sort of sergeant, then. 'Ah, yeah,' he said, easing his stock. 'Saw yez take the fort fr'm yer front - plucky dos, mate!'
Feet rose and fell, the rhythm of the march was hypnotic. 'Aye, well, how far d'we march afore—'
Hotham flashed a quick grin. 'Don't be in such a hell-fired pelt ter get there, m' lad,' he boomed. 'That there's th' capital town o' the island, an' the Frogs ain't about to give it up without a fight.'
Kydd said nothing: the whole business of war on land was a mystery to him.
Hotham mistook his silence for apprehension. 'Not ter worry, we've drubbed th' French in every other island, can't see why not 'ere as well.'
'So . . .'
'We's three, four mile out, less'n an hour — but then we comes up agin the battery commandin' the town.'He sucked his teeth as he ruminated. 'We gets past that on this road, Mongseers'd be hard put ter stop us then.'
