Chapter 324: Blood Upon the Ramparts

Don Rodrigo rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

The news didn’t surprise him. He had put the Mouse and the Partridge in their limestone hole himself, so a King’s sloop would have a surprise to find.

Now three had come looking, which was more attention than the plan had ever called for.

"Ay, gracias, hijo. They must stand alone, and por Dios, I believe they will stand."

He pressed a water-skin into the boy’s hands and folded the small fingers around it. "Now drink, mi ni?o, water, not rum, you are not yet an admiral. Stay here behind this gun, and rest those legs. Before this morning is finished, I will ask them to run again."

"Aye, Admiral! Me legs ain’t dropped off yet, sir, point ’em where ye like an’ they’ll run and back!"

As for the Dame, it couldn’t reinforce them, with its crew on the walls and its importance as reserve.

If a King’s sloop came through the channels and into the bay, the old man would take the sailors off the bastion and put them back aboard. Until then, they were of more use on the fort than they were in the harbor.

Out in battlefield, the lieutenant had his sword raised and was halfway through his command.

"Pre-e-e-e..."

Don Rodrigo spoke without haste. It was almost tender.

"Se?or Croft. Metralla. Ahora, it would be a discourtesy to leave them without an answer."

"Grape, boyos! The whole lot of it, see! Give him every last bag!

The gun captains wound their lanyards around their fists.

"Steady, my beauties... steady... hold her, hold her... steady, steady... NOW!"

Twelve lanyards snapped together, and a hundred paces of dawn filled with iron.

At a hundred paces, it spreads wide enough to cover the whole field, and the Royal Navy had put its front rank directly in its path.

The volley struck across the entire line.

Redcoats burst open, bodies came apart under the iron storm, and the front rank collapsed in a single bloody sweep, as soldiers were hurled backwards into the ranks behind, bayonets and muskets flew through the air, and the stubble disappeared beneath torn flesh, shattered bones and spreading pools of blood.

The survivors found themselves staring through a gap as wide as a street, with severed limbs scattered across the ground and the cries of the wounded rising above the thunder of the guns.

When the smoke cleared, the Royal Navy was still there.

No one stepped back.

The sergeants shouted and the ranks moved forward. The flags dipped, rose again, and the line closed ranks without losing its determination to advance.

The lieutenant finally finished his word.

"... SENT! First platoon! Give them the King’s thunder... FIRE!"

The platoon fired through the smoke, and the fort walls were swept clean.

Lead bullets tore through the pirates at the parapet, smashing faces, punching through chests as blood splashed across the stonework and the firing step disappeared beneath a tangle of fallen sailors, broken weapons and spreading crimson.

Roberts slapped his tin cup down on the parapet and bellowed along the wall. "Muskets, boyos! Muskets! Near stake! Pay His Majesty back his lead, with interest and our compliments on the delivery!"

Muskets taken from dead redcoats cracked across the wall, ragged and loud, followed by the bows on the bastion, all at once, every arrowhead wet with the little apple.

The return fire ripped into the navy ranks.

Lead bullets punched through coats and flesh, while arrows buried themselves in throats, faces and exposed necks. The redcoats formation buckled beneath the combined assault, blood washing down uniforms as the wounded fell among the dead.

The wall cried with a ragged, joyous slam of noise.

"Take that home to your King, ye bloody lobsters!"

"?Llévenselo a su Rey, malditos!"

"Portez ?a à votre Roi, bande de salauds!"

Then, over the top of all three, a Welsh voice delivered a lengthy insult that no one else on the wall could translate, though everyone understood it perfectly.

"Second platoon! Pre-sent! ... FIRE!"

The Royal Navy had divided its ranks into four platoons, which fired in turn. While one fired, the others reloaded, leaving a fresh platoon ready whenever the next order came.

The ramrods rose and fell along the navy’s ranks together.

A Scots sergeant paced the rear rank, his burr rolling over the heads of the men. "Prime an’ load, laddies! Dinnae fash yersels, nae hurry an’ nae stoppin’! Ye’ve done it a thousand times on the barrack square, an’ the square niver shot back, did it noo? Aye, there’s braw lads! Again!"

Around the fort, the loading had none of that discipline. Each man finished when he finished, and each musket fired as soon as it was ready.

The third platoon fired, then the fourth, then the first again, and the second after it.

Volleys hammered the bastion in relentless succession. Every discharge tore another bloody gap through the defenders, smashing the parapet into stone bits and driving the militia down behind for protection. The fallen piled against their positions, coats soaked dark with blood, while shattered stone and muskets littered the platforms.

Still, fresh pirates rose into the smoke, took up the weapons and fired back.

The dead were dragged off the step and left at the foot of the wall, while the wounded received care and were brought to the chapel by the militia citizens.

From the flanks, the arrows were doing their share of the work, too. Shafts pierced shoulders, cheeks and throats, pinning coats against flesh and leaving blood running down the ranks.

Behind the wall, Croft’s crews worked as trying to keep a sinking ship afloat. "Sponge her out! She’s hot as the devil’s griddle! Bag in! Ram her home, and stand by! Stand by, an’ wait for the old man!"

Then the drums changed their beat.

They went to the quick step, and the ranks moved back between the platoons, creating lanes through the line.

From the rear, the storm party came running through them, the sailors with boarding axes at their belts and pine ladders on their shoulders, while what remained of the forlorn hope ran alongside them with the pioneers just behind.

The Royal Navy had about twenty ladders, and every last one was coming to the wall.

A lieutenant flung his sword toward the bastion. "Storm party, FORWARD! Lay your ladders, gentlemen, and carry me that wall! The King’s eyes are upon you, and the King, I assure you, is not a patient man!"

The musket volley went over the heads of the storm party and tore the top of the wall.

Across the field, the fort replied with every bow and musket it still had. At fifty paces, the guns spoke again, and the grapeshot volley struck the storm party full in the chest.

The iron storm ripped through the sailors, who burst beneath the impact, limbs spun away into the smoke, and the ladders crashed down beneath the weight of the bodies. Blood sprayed across the stubble, splattered the pine rungs and turned the ground into a churned mess of mud, flesh and broken equipment.

Cries of the wounded were swallowed by the drums and the orders, as the sailors behind the slaughter trampled through the wreckage, seized the fallen ladders and brought them forward yet again.

The old man saw his chance.

"La zanja, Se?or Roberts. Ahora."

"The dyke, boy! Run to Fenwick and tell him it’s now!"

The boy rushed from the platform, bent double across the foot of the wall, and the smoke folded shut behind him as he run the way around the battlefield, to the far right edge of the whole mess.

Out in the black water, Fenwick nodded. "Ey up, that’s the word, lads. Up with thee, and don’t stand gawpin’ like sheep at a gate. Mow ’em down like it’s hay-time. Barrow’s for after."

Farmers and fishermen rose out of the dykes along the flank, water dripping off them. They carried scythes, hoes, hatchets, pikes, and cleavers, and crossed forty paces of stubble, their voices carrying in four languages.

Fenwick went first. The scythes swept forward with the militia, catching the grenadiers across their ranks and cutting open bellies and ripping through thighs, hoes smashed into faces and hatchets coming down through shoulders.

For the first few seconds, the militia had the advantage. A grenadier with an empty musket and a ramrod in his hand has two sticks and very little else, and the scythes and hoes went through the end of the line like a harvest.

"Grenadiers! Flank! FLANK, face the bleedin’ flank! Charge bayonets!"

The end of the line turned with bayonets lowered, and the farmers began to be pushed back relentlessly. A hoe is a fine tool in a field, but a poor answer to a bayonet.

Bayonets drove into the militia, piercing bellies and chests, and the rear ranks forced the farmers backwards across the stubble. Scythes caught against musket barrels, hoes were knocked aside, and the ground spread with fallen bodies as the grenadiers pressed forward behind their steel.

As the fight in the flanks intensified, the storm party reached the ditch and laid its ladders flat across it, and the sailors ran over them as a bridge made of planks.

The ditch was a step too wide to jump, with stakes waiting at the bottom. The cannons on the wall couldn’t fire down, and the corner of the bastion that should have covered the curtain had never been finished.

Ladders emerged from the ditch and struck the wall repeatedly.

Twenty of them stood against the curtain and the unfinished corner where the earth was lowest, their rungs quickly filling with brown coats and sailors’ tar.

The defenders finally drew their pistols, and they fired down into the soldiers climbing the rungs.

Pistol shots erupted at point-blank range and redcoats climbing the ladders were smashed backwards, their bodies crashing down upon the sailors below and dragging the living into the ditch.

Behind the storm party, the ranks marched at the quick step, bayonets lowered and drums beating, then set formation across the edge of the ditch.

"UP! Up, gentlemen, up the ladders! UP, in the King’s name, UP!"