Honour Redeemed (25 page)

‘Could the French have got to this place in the time they had available?’

Her nod was curt, as she span her head so rapidly that, merely by not reacting, his lips brushed her cheek, forcing Calheri to recoil. Markham gave her his full smile, using a hand to brush back his now black hair, grey eyes
twinkling
and their owner relishing the ambiguity of his
conclusion
. ‘Then I suggest we go forward carefully from here.’

Rannoch had stopped too, and was looking at the line of Corsican women with something less than admiration.
His voice was so angry it carried above the tumbling rush of water.

‘Not one with the sense to cover their flints,’ he barked, his hand running along the line of muskets. ‘If they’ve no dry spares, those guns will be as much use as a crofter’s crook.’

‘I take it we have spare flints, Sergeant?’

‘That is one thing the Crapauds didn’t filch from our packs.’

‘Commandatore, would your soldiers consent to share their weapons with us?’

‘No, Lieutenant, they would not!’

‘Sergeant Rannoch.’

‘Sir.’

‘With maximum respect to their sex, relieve every second trooper of her musket and bayonet.’

Calheri must have picked up the sentiment, if not the actual order. She pulled back her cape to get out her own pistol. Markham grabbed her hand, and held it as his own men, with the exception of Bellamy, moved eagerly forward. The women lifted their muskets, but only one tried to pull the trigger – foolish, since the guns weren’t even primed. But that had one positive result. The lack of a spark from the flints showed how right Rannoch had been.

‘If the French are ahead, on that route to Morosaglia, my men will help you to deal with them. But they can’t do that without weapons.’

‘We do not need your help,’ she hissed.

‘Yes you do,’ Markham insisted, his eyes no longer dancing and amused. Instead they were hard, boring into her own, so black it was difficult to tell pupil from iris. ‘These men may be few, Commandatore. But every one of them has faced the enemy a dozen times. They are the best fighting men I’ve ever served with, and better marksmen than most of the British Army.’

It was hard to equate what he said with the line of
bedraggled, dripping-wet individuals now trying to wrest the guns of the Corsican women, none of whom would agree to surrender their weapons lightly. But in the case of his Hebes, it was the literal truth, and of the remaining Seahorses, he reckoned Sharland to be a fighter. So was the third one, whose name he couldn’t remember, judging by the way he wrested a musket from a struggling female while elbowing two others aside. Bellamy was an unknown quantity, and since he was a refined soul, what they were doing now was not a true test of his courage.

‘There are things you do better than us, Commandatore, but making war isn’t one of them.’

The spittle hit him right between the eyes, mingling with the damp spray, and he felt the pistol, which she’d produced from under her cape with the one free hand, poke into his belly.

‘Let me go.’

‘Order the weapons to be handed over.’

‘No.’

It couldn’t be cocked, he was sure of that, let alone loaded. She was struggling, in vain, to free the hand he’d grasped, which rocked them to and fro in a way that Markham found uncomfortably erotic. Even the way anger had altered her face was attractive, merely because of the physical nature of the challenge. That allowed him to smile again, which he knew must look very theatrical, excessively devil-may-care, Mark Anthony before the Roman mob.

‘Then, Commandatore, shoot me.’

Judging by the way her eyes hardened, he had the sudden fear that she might, which put some strain on his attempts to look unconcerned. But, after several seconds, in which the whole party seemed to become frozen, she nodded sharply and handed over her pistol, then told those she commanded to do likewise.

‘Sergeant Rannoch, we will be pulling away from the
river shortly. As soon as we do, get the priming pans dried off and fit new flints to the muskets.’

‘How many?’ he asked, looking at the women who’d retained theirs.

‘All of them,’ Markham replied. ‘Yelland, Tully, up ahead on the trail, and see what we face. There is a bridge, I’m told, a wooden affair. Once you sight that, or any kind of substantial trail which will qualify in these parts as a road, stop and wait till we join.’

‘Sir.’

Calheri watched them move away impassively. Markham went to the head of the column and called to his men to follow. After a short pause, the Corsican contingent fell in behind them. It was a blessing to get away from the noise of the river as well as the spray. Within a few yards, so dense was the shielding forest, it was as though what lay beyond the trees was a benign brook. And they were at last walking on dry earth. The passing of the two marines had killed any birdsong, so it was impossible to tell if they faced any external danger. But Markham didn’t want to go any further without loaded weapons, so he ordered a halt, and told Rannoch to get the muskets into good working order.

‘And Sergeant, see that the ladies’ weapons are fit to fire as well.’

‘At a distance, sir, if you will consent,’ he replied in his slow Highland lilt. ‘I fear a bayonet in the vitals if I get too close to any of those creatures.’

‘I’d put my bayonet in any one of ’em, half chance afforded,’ growled Dornan, as he eased his pack off his shoulders.

Markham had to issue a warning then, to all his men. If a slowcoach like Dornan was getting aroused, the situation could easily get out of hand. This he did while he was removing his dragoon coat, which was weighed down with water, holding it with some difficulty as he tried to shake some of the moisture out. Bare-chested and
shivering with cold, he was just about to ask if any of his men had a second spare shirt, when he looked back towards Dornan. He was kneeling, pulling garments out of his pack in a bemused fashion. But then he was often bemused, so it wasn’t that which attracted his officer. It was the merest flash of gold braid that made him move towards the man, but by the time he got there, he had high leather boots to catch his eye as well.

‘What in God’s name is all this?’

Dornan looked up at him, his gaze as bovine as ever, the shake of incomprehension only adding to the impression of a man several biscuits short of the full day’s ration. Looking at Duchesne’s uniform and his high cavalry boots, Markham had not a single doubt how it had got there. And he knew what the explanation would be when he bearded Quinlan and Ettrick. It was true Duchesne had no further use for these things, but to rob the man who’d saved all their lives seemed sacrilegious to him. He turned to the two Londoners, who were beavering away, seemingly too busy with these unfamiliar weapons to notice anything that had happened.

The crashing sound of Tully bursting upon them killed his reprimand. ‘Them dragoons, your honour, same lot that was at that monastery. Only a few of them, up ahead on this side of the bridge, hidden from view.’

Markham, having got hold of Duchesne’s dry shirt, translated for Calheri, noting her alarm. But she’d not lost all her rationality. ‘They might be waiting in vain, Lieutenant.’

Markham gave her another one of his smiles, well aware that over-use had stopped them being in any way disarming.

‘You’re not suggesting we leave them be,
Commandatore
, are you?’

‘Is there another place where we can cross the river?’ asked Markham, as he shook the still-dripping dragoon coat.

‘Not in the spring,’ Calheri replied. ‘The water drops in summer to a trickle.’

‘If we have to kill those Frenchmen, we will do so without knowing what other opposition we might face.’

The explanation which followed was swift and sparse and openly acknowledged to be speculative, interrupted by his need to get on a wet cavalry coat which was too small for him. With men on this side of the bridge, it could be the spot chosen to close the trap. But Paoli wouldn’t be travelling alone, even if he had left the contingent from Corte behind. Could Fouquert be sure he had no escort? If he wasn’t, he’d have men stationed on the far side, to shut the bridge off from the southern end, so killing off any chance of a rescue, a move which would allow him to get his captive away from the point of danger. Any rearguard he would sacrifice, if he had to.

Calheri was still seething over his behaviour regarding the muskets, but the situation was too grave to let that distract her from the main difficulty, which was how to warn Pasquale Paoli to turn back, without drawing down on his head the very ambush they were trying to avoid.

‘I don’t care how well your men can shoot, Lieutenant. In the
maccia,
this work is better left to Corsicans.’

He opened his mouth to protest, but then he saw the knife in her hand. It wasn’t threatening him in any way, but it did take his mind back to a dark night in a trench,
when he and Rannoch had been threatened by just such a weapon, wielded by the same sex.

‘Two of my marines to accompany two of yours,’ he said, moving on swiftly, anticipating the obvious question. ‘If it gets wholly physical, it will need men to subdue them.’

‘That may be true in England, Lieutenant. It is not the case in Corsica.’ Her ‘soldiers’ had removed their capes, which disguised their differences, and were back to all their shapes and sizes as well as their dun-coloured
uniforms
. Calheri raised the knife, a long, thin stiletto with a sharp tip. ‘In the
maccia,
to get close is all that is needed.’

‘Tully,’ he called, ‘I need to be able to tell the
Commandatore
exactly where these dragoons are.’

‘By the road, sir, if’n it could be called that, about ten yards into the trees. They’re spread out, three pair, the first right by the end of the bridge, the others no more’n ten feet apart from each other. Yelland had a good look further away from the bridge, but there was no sign of anyone about.’

‘How close did you get to the men by the bridge?’

‘We didn’t have to risk being seen, if’n that’s what you’re askin’.’

‘Noisy?’

‘Chattering away like they was outside their own front door, your honour.’

‘Which means that they don’t feel threatened,’ Markham said to Calheri. ‘So we have two choices,
Commandatore
. We can shoot them, which will raise the alarm for miles around, hoping that the noise will alert Paoli. That will draw them down on us, which means we’ll have to retreat along the riverbank.’

He didn’t get a chance to propose the alternative, which was to engage a force the size of which he didn’t know with a limited supply of weapons and ammunition. He had even fewer troops he was prepared to rely on, though Calheri seemed to entertain no doubts as to the abilities
of her ‘soldiers’. The temptation to scoff had to be avoided. And in truth, he was intrigued by this demonstration of her logic. It was a chance to discover whether his low opinion of her abilities was based on prejudice, or fact.

‘You are forgetting what you yourself told me,
Lieutenant
Markham. That is that they are not just Frenchmen out there. Some of them are Corsican traitors who need to be exposed.’

‘With respect, Commandatore,’ Markham replied, aware as he spoke that, even if he was playing Devil’s Advocate, what he said sounded pompous, ‘while I
understand
your emotions on this matter, they should not be allowed to intrude on a purely military problem.’

‘You mistake me, Lieutenant,’ Calheri said, the first smile for an age lighting up her face. He could almost see the thoughts which had produced the change, the idea that she was giving this upstart intruder a lesson in his own profession. ‘I was thinking that if we tried to retreat through this, with my own countrymen pursuing us, your men would be very lucky to get out alive.’

Markham nodded, accepting the point was valid, even if the analysis was faulty. Good as his men were, fighting in this labyrinth was not what they were trained for. He felt they would acquit themselves well, though they’d still be at a disadvantage. But Calheri was making a wild assumption. All they had found was half a dozen
dragoons
. No decision could be made until they knew the whereabouts of the rest.

‘Nor would we know if we were successful,’ she
continued
insistently. ‘Paoli is an old soldier, who may just ride to the sound of the guns. We must take the bridge and hold it, which will force our enemies, if they want to have an avenue of escape, to attack us instead of the general.’

He was terribly tempted to say ‘Bollocks!’, given that the lady herself had a tendency to vulgarity. But the
widening 
smile made that unwise. And having deeply offended her, he was being gifted an opportunity, too good to miss, to raise himself in her esteem by being agreeable. Why upset her again, before he was sure that he had sound reason to do so?

‘I repeat, the dragoons on this bank must be taken care of first,’ he replied, trying to sound cheerful even if he wasn’t. ‘Until we can reconnoitre the road, we can’t
contemplate
what you suggest.’

If she observed the cautionary note, it didn’t register. Her eyes were afire with the prospect of a fight, and her words demonstrated quite clearly that rationality had gone from her thinking.

‘It would be quicker to forget silence and just shoot then. We don’t know how much time we have. Once they are thrown back, we can occupy the bridge and prepare to push up the road beyond.’

‘Against unknown odds?’ he replied quietly, watching his esteem plummet again, at the same rate as her passion. He took her hand and lifted up the knife again. ‘This is the way. I leave you to deploy your troops. My men will merely act in support until the situation is clearer.’

She didn’t pick up the truth, which pleased Markham, since he found the degree of his own cynicism slightly repugnant. Regardless of Tully’s report, this was a stab in the dark. If there were going to be casualties, he needed them to be her women. His men, for their fighting qualities alone, must be preserved.

Calheri had moved over to talk to her ‘soldiers’, picking on the less well endowed, particularly the thin pair, to follow her back up the trail, those who had muskets handing them over to their compatriots.

‘Rannoch,’ Markham said softly, ‘two men behind each woman. They’re to keep well back unless they hear a struggle.’

‘Muskets?’

‘To be avoided unless the French shoot first. I don’t
want us all put at risk just to save one soldier. Tully and I will take the Commandatore.’

‘There’s sentiment in this,’ said Rannoch, giving him an odd look. But he was also nodding. ‘It would be, I think, unmanly to behave otherwise.’

Markham turned and fired off a quick explanation to Calheri’s remaining troopers, trying to reassure them, wondering from their blank response if they understood a word he said. He then set off with Tully at his heels. Behind him, Bellamy had quickly stepped forward,
volunteering
for the duty, which obliged Rannoch not only to accept, but to hand over the musket and bayonet he’d acquired, since he wanted other men to do likewise. Being too old at the game, the marines thwarted this aim, and he was forced to issue orders.

‘Dornan, you go with Bellamy, and try to keep silent.’

‘Elephant’s got more chance,’ sneered Sharland. ‘Why don’t you climb on his back, darkie?’

Rannoch, who had been going to detail Halsey and Dymock, killed the laughter quickly. ‘You too, Sharland, and take Ebden with you.’

The other Seahorse, Ebden, gave Sharland a glare, sure that they would have been spared the duty if he’d kept his mouth shut. Not that they went very far. As soon as they left the track, both men were close to being lost. Markham was in the same boat, relying on glimpses of the sun to keep his line. The women he’d been following, Calheri and another, had disappeared, both from view and sound, able to move through this impenetrable jungle with an ease neither he nor Tully could match.

Tully actually tripped over the dead dragoon’s body, the blood still pumping out of his shoulder where the long thin blade had pierced a major artery. Both men had to suppress a scream when Calheri appeared from nowhere, brandishing her evil-looking knife, her eyes full of mock hate, which turned to shuddering amusement when she saw the reaction she’d achieved. Then she turned and
headed to what Markham assumed was the bridge, pushing through thick bushes, stepping over another victim, and her companion, who was busy stripping him of possessions.

Dornan and Bellamy weren’t so lucky. The two Corsican women they were following had stabbed a dragoon; indeed one had sliced her knife across his throat. But if he was silenced, he wasn’t dead, and he came crashing through the thick undergrowth, trying to escape, a
horrible
gasping sound emanating from his ruptured neck, and blood spurting over the hand he was using to try and keep it closed. His other hand held his cavalry sword, which he was sweeping back and forth to clear a path.

Dornan, surprised, didn’t move quickly enough, and if Bellamy hadn’t thrown up his musket barrel, the blade would have split Dornan’s skull. The Negro followed that up with a knee in the groin, which dropped the dragoon on to his haunches. Then, with great difficulty, he wielded his bayonet, his personal strength compensating for the lack of force he was able to muster in the confined space. Two of Calheri’s troopers appeared just as the blade went into the Frenchman’s side, their eyes fixed on Bellamy as he twisted it right and left, cutting through the vital internal organs until the man was still. The Negro then looked up to see the women, eyes alight, grinning at him, though what they said was incomprehensible.

‘Thanks mate,’ said Dornan, who still hadn’t moved. ‘He would have done for me, the French bugger.’

‘Get his sword,’ Bellamy said in whisper. He then span round and retched into the bushes, throwing up Pavin’s breakfast and the rations he’d consumed since. The Corsican women patted his back, and when he looked at them they were grinning even more.

‘I’ve never killed anyone,’ he said, looking back at his blood-soaked victim. But since he’d spoken in English, they didn’t understand him any more than he’d
comprehended
them. The women led the way back to where
they’d first attacked the dragoon, revealing the second French body in the centre of a small clearing they’d made for themselves some ten yards from the bridge.

Markham, lying flat in the bushes, could see the road, though that word nearly made him laugh. It was far from being a highway, just a wide grassy track worn down by the passage of feet, animal and human; a dark cavern covered with the thick, leafy branches of evergreen pines, no more than three times the width of the single-file trail they’d been using to get here. He gave Tully orders to go back and ask Calheri to bring the rest of the marines forward, then turned his attention to the opposite side, wondering if the man who’d taken over command after the death of Duchesne had any brains. If he had, the far side would be clear. Only a fool placed troops on both sides of a road to effect an ambush. With firearms they would end up shooting not just at the target, but at their own. But if Fouquert was in charge of the deployment, anything was possible.

‘Horses?’ asked Markham, as Calheri joined him.

‘We are looking,’ she replied, edging forward,
disturbingly
close to him, trying to peer up the road towards Corte. Markham grabbed her shoulder and tugged her back, his free hand indicating the coat he was wearing as he got to his knees.

The bridge itself was a pine-log affair, the sides barriers covered in moss, the base black, damp earth packed onto wood, the undergrowth cut back from it so that each end formed a small clearing. The same fine mist that had chilled them earlier rose from the stream below, too thin to interfere with any lines of sight. Markham had taken full advantage of his dragoon coat, buttoning it up so that, in the dappled sunlight, it looked better than the sorry soaking wreck it was.

This allowed him to walk forward rather than crawl. Breath held as he came out from the protection of the trees, he waited for a call from across the road – relieved
when none came, since a coat that could fool at a distance would look very like what it was close up. Darting across the road, he moved up the line of trees, calling softly in French to make sure the forest was clear.

Markham knew he still had to be cautious. Fouquert must have his men on the other side of the bridge, and they would be looking south, not north. Kneeling, he examined the numerous hoof-prints in the soft grass, made by metal, not goats or sheep, deep because the blown spray had dampened a long stretch of the surface. He searched closely for the imprint of a boot, the possibility that some of the men who’d gone up this road were infantry, but could see none. Not conclusive, if the cavalry had come along behind, but reassuring nevertheless. The important point to him was that they were headed in the same direction. Behind him, the first bend was a mere forty yards away. Looking south, the direction in which Paoli would come, was better, a good hundred yards of straight road.

‘No horses,’ a voice called softly at his back.

So the men they’d killed were a backstop, a last line of defence should Paoli foil the original attempt to capture him. Six men out of an estimated French strength of thirty, the sort of proportion he might have used for such a task. All the horses, very likely with a couple of men to keep them quiet, were on the other side of the bridge, probably quite deep in the woods so that their scent, strong after such a hard ride, would not be picked up by anything, man or beast, on the road. Those lying in wait would be well back too, so that they could not inadvertently give things away.