Abigail's Cousin (39 page)

The corporal
spoke the three words as usual, the final 'fire' producing the
familiar flash, smoke and thunder. Hill, ripping the bandana away,
shouted:

"Look what
you've done to my pipe, serjeant." He held a stem and Mack guffawed
with the comment: "I'll have that as a souvenir. I'll tell my
grandchildren how I shot the pipe from the mouth of the
general."

The general
spoke to the men: "You have just seen some good shooting. Every man
of you can do the same. If not, you shall get the same deserts, I
got. The best shot to fire the pipe at the worst. Serjeant, carry
on!"

As he walked
away he winked at Mack saying: "We need some targets for
practise."

Hill walked
over to a column of troopers marching up and down and watched them
drilling for a while. The corporal in charge noticed the general
and bringing his men to a halt marched smartly towards Hill and
saluted. Behind him he heard a voice carrying over from the firing
range and cheered up for the shout was: "Heaven be praised, it is a
hit."

"Who are you?"
demanded Hill of the soldier who yelled staccato:

"Corporal
Smith of the Somerset Light Dragoons, sir."

The general
envied him his smart uniform of long red tunic with gold buttons
down the centre, two rectangular pockets each with gold buttons. A
fur cap on his head and short leather boots completed the ensemble.
He had watched the Dragoons earlier at their drill and took a fancy
to their double-cock pistols. He smiled again as he heard 'hit'
behind him coming from the musketeers firing range. The corporal
thought the smile was for him and smiled too being taken aback by
his curt 'carry on, corporal'.

The general
walked towards the parade ground rostrum and reaching it he
gestured to the unknown serjeant who occupied it. He could not
believe his eyes. His expectation was a snotty ensign or if the men
were lucky they might see a lieutenant. Yet here in front of him
was a full general who clearly wanted to speak to him and was yet
more astounded by his opening remark:

"I want to use
your rostrum, if I may, serjeant." Clearly by his speech the
general was no toff so he ventured a joke:

"My father
called me an ant hill, general, but to you it's plain Hill."

The general
grinned at the serjeant and retorted: "My ma thought I came from a
dung hill. Since then I've sweetened up a bit. The name’s Hill.
Give me your hand, serjeant."

Having done
so, the general pulled the serjeant out of the rostrum with the
words: "You can do that when you're a general, serjeant. I just
want a word with the men."

"You'll need
my voice, sir. If, you don't mind." And without more ado climbed
back on cupping his hands and shouting to all corporals to stop the
drill and gather the men around the rostrum. His words had carried
over to the musketeers who also could be seen running towards them
and when most of the men were within hearing distance, he
shouted:

"Men!" He
paused as the word was heard by his audience some still walking
towards the gathering. He went on:

"When King Louis' spies brought him
reports on the Battle of Blenheim, he commanded his new marshal -
remember we captured t'other - that in future conflicts he must
station three times as
many men against the English."

The men
cheered, clapped and he heard unprintable catcalls which brought a
smile to his lips and then held up his both arms to continue:

"Our
forefathers were the longbow men of Crecy and Agincourt and from my
viewpoint, we are still breeding the finest fighting men of Europe.
But as in days of yore, the longbow men practised at the butts to
hone their art of making war and we must do the same. Tomorrow I
have arranged that many of you will march to Mutley Plain just
beyond the city outskirts for combat drill. Excepting Sundays we
shall work up an appetite for you. What say you to Cornish Pasties
and beer, and plenty of both."

Prolonged
cheering greeted this announcement and the general felt emboldened
to call for any questions and a hand shot up from the crowd and
Hill noticed the two long stripes sewn onto the uniform of a
pikeman and he acknowledged him by shouting: "Corporal!"

"Where be this
expedition headed, general?"

"A pikeman,
eh." called Hill playing for time as he was not willing to disclose
their destination and half appealed to his mates: "Wherever it be,
corp., you'll be facing Frenchies. Your pike will do the rest."

To the
general's relief a voice yelled:

"Knowing the
corp. he never needed Frenchies on which to practise his pike." At
this a loud guffaw of ribaldry went up as Hill echoed the
theme:

"All our pikes
will be feeling the heat. I can vouch for it."

More laughter
and vulgar comments even as Hill held up his hands again and as the
noise lessened, he shouted:

"Mind you, we
have quite a way to go before we can march the pikes of Gog and
Magog." He pointed to the ground and the men standing there upon
the medieval monument moved away to reveal the two giants holding
enormous clubs aloft. The corporal shouted:

"Are they
pikes? They look more like clubs."

"Whatever they
are, corp., they are bigger than yours." Once again a huge wave of
laughter engulfed the crowd even from the back who could not see
the white figures carved into the turf. Hill tried to speak again,
shouting:

"I shall see you all down at the Barbican.
We shall paint the town red, in more ways than one, before we sail
on our
way. Good luck,
comrades!"

A tremendous
cheer went up at this announcement and this time Hill did not
bother to quell the hubbub but stepped down from the rostrum
whereupon the cheers changed to three hurrahs for the general as he
made his way over to Serjeant Mack, turning round with a wave to
acknowledge the men's cheers. He was soon surrounded by musketeers
each begging him to walk back to the range so they could
demonstrate their marksmanship.

It seems the
pep talk earlier on had reaped dividends. He watched the firing
drill as soldier after soldier took his place at the firing mark,
loaded and at the commands of 'ready', 'aim' and 'fire' achieved
more hits than hitherto. He praised their efforts and as a final
incentive asked Serjeant Mack to hand him one of the flintlocks
which he demonstrated to the men. The flint arrangement was a
definite improvement over the match as the flint striking the fixed
piece of iron pyrites producing a spark was more reliable.

The general
held up the flintlock for all to see, explaining there were two,
one of which was Serjeant Mack's but the second, belonging to him,
he was offering as a prize to the best marksman.

"Spread the
news around lads. We shall hold a marksmanship competition at the
end of training, and" He held the musket up again, "the new owner
of this weapon shall be the best marksman."

With that he
promised to see them all at the Fisherman tavern on the Barbican
later that evening and walking back to his gig felt the
perspiration make his clothes stick to him but he felt good and
when he spotted the boy patiently holding the reins of his nag, he
felt in his pocket for a half-sovereign.

While secret
preparations went on in Plymouth for a combined naval and military
expedition to attack and capture Quebec, two men secretly boarded a
fast yacht from the jetty at Walmer Castle, near Deal, in Kent,
their destination, Calais. Near the port, the Marquis de Torcy's
special agent, Nicolas Mesnager was waiting for them and his
arrangements to allow the English yacht to enter and negotiate
French territorial waters were decidedly more organised than like
arrangements on the English side, perhaps because the stakes were
higher for the French but probably because, France being an
absolute monarchy, could determine its chain of command much more
easily than parliamentary England. As the skipper of this yacht,
the Sprite, sighted the castle, Fort Mahon, recently constructed by
Vauban, Louis XIVths renowned military engineer, he checked the
time and instructed his mate to make the signals and being
convinced that the answering signals were in order, he ordered his
mate, Robert. to adjust the sails preparatory to following a course
parallel to the coast gradually reducing his distance to the shore
by sightings with his telescope to verify his position and having
ascertained the precise location of the rendezvous, he again
ordered Robert to heave-to while he drew in the dinghy.

Robert boarded
first and keeping the hull of the yacht and gunwale of the dinghy
as close as possible in the calm sea while the skipper undid the
painter, the young seaman helped Mathew Prior into the boat which
was relatively straight-forward unlike the efforts to get the more
portly Abbe Gaultier safely aboard without undue rocking. Their two
valises followed. Having managed to get both passengers safely
aboard and seated, Robert manhandled the two oars into the rowlocks
and shouted 'cast away' to his skipper who threw the painter into
the bow of the dinghy, and with the help of Prior who pushed the
hull, they were swirling into the current whereupon Robert by dint
of a few energetic sculls pushed the bow towards the shore less
than a hundred yards distant.

To the east he
glimpsed the walls of Fort Mahon overlooking the Pas de Calais and
he thought he might have seen figures black against the sky
watching them perhaps with telescopes but soon enough the castle
was out of sight as he rowed towards the beach of Wissant
eventually grounding on the shingle whereupon he promptly shipped
his oars and jumped out into the shallow water. Mathew Prior leapt
out too on the other side splashing in slightly deeper water and
together they manhandled the boat onto the sand.

Prior did not
mind getting his shoes wet, or his feet, for that matter as he was
impatient to make the rendezvous with Mesnager, besides he was a
fit 46 who wanted for exercise and who relished the opportunity for
action. In his spare time regular bouts of fencing kept him fit
which he deemed essential to offset the many hours of the often
time-consuming and occasionally tedious business of studying
diplomatic papers couched in arcane but official language. He
helped the stout Abbe from the boat trying to prevent him stepping
other than onto dry sand which was successful and wishing Robert a
hearty farewell and a final wave to the skipper far off, Prior
trudged up the beach towards the dunes.

Frequent feet
had made a sort of pathway through the dunes and they had scarcely
gone far when they sighted a figure coming towards them who greeted
them both in French and the password thereby confirming Prior's
realisation that this gentleman was Monsieur Nicolas Mesnager,
though the Abbe greeted him like a long lost friend so the password
was perhaps superfluous on this occasion. It took but a few minutes
to reach Mesnager's waiting carriage which looked luxurious
compared to the starkly simple coachwork he was accustomed to in
England. Their vernacular was French as although both Frenchmen
spoke his language fluently, it was agreed that again for security
reasons, the lingua franca of the country would be used.

He saw nobody
else on the beach or the dunes so was surprised when Mesnager
addressed somebody in a friendly tone and was further surprised it
was the coachman whom Mesnager introduced to him. The coachman and
Mesnager carried on in badinage which Prior was unaccustomed to in
England. The coachman let down a flap at the rear which he covered
with a white cloth and, where Prior thought his and the Abbe's
luggage was stored, the coachman heaved out a hamper and proceeded
to lay out its contents upon the makeshift table, to-wit the flap.
Prior's appetite grew as he watched and smelt bread, cheese and
stoneware jars of butter being laid out. Cutlery, plates and even
glasses quickly followed.

The pieces de
resistance were bottles of wine which Mesnager himself decanted and
with a smile handed round to each and they all drank to the success
of their enterprise. After this Mesnager broke off a hunk of bread,
placed it on a plate, scooped out butter from a pot onto a plate,
cut a portion of cheese handing it all to Prior with the
salutation: "Bon appetit!"

As Prior
tucked in Mesnager kept up a stream of talk explaining:

"It was my
omission, monsieur, on the previous occasion, but we learn from
mistakes." Prior could only smile with a full mouth at this
confession recalling his predecessor, Edward Villiers, the earl of
Jersey, who might well have given Mesnager a hard time removed from
his creature comforts. Yet he had much to be thankful for in this
excellent repast and deep into these thoughts Mesnager went on to
relate how on the last progress, unfamiliar to Mesnager, they had
gone many miles before the coachman thought to stop for the benefit
of his own hunger.

Mesnager positively bubbled: "My dear
chap, I really got to know Artois and Picardy on that journey but
then we arrived at this very nice inn." He stopped to slice another
wedge from the loaf of bread, scooped out butter and proceeded to
enjoy the result. The coachman meanwhile recharged their glasses
with wine and Mesnager after a sip turned his att
ention to the Abbe, crying out:

"You are not
eating, mon ami. Have you no appetite?" The priest looked sternly
at Mesnager before pronouncing his gloom about the whole political
situation and his own position in it and seemed to chide Mesnager
for his freedom while he, Gaultier, was here on sufferance, the
sufferance of his English masters to whom he had given his word
that, come what may, he would return to England. After all he was
still a prisoner and found himself in this position on account of
Marshal Tallard, who begged him to accompany him in his exile in
England, having been taken prisoner at Blenheim.