Young Bloods Part 46

The cheering died away as the gun crew bent to their tackle ropes and heaved the twenty-four-pounder back up to the embrasure.

Saliceti nudged Napoleon.'I'll see to it that you have what you want. I imagine with the number of batteries that you require you're going to need more men.'

'Yes, sir.'

'I see. I don't suppose for an instant it has crossed your mind that the provision of more men will entail a promotion for you.'

Napoleon started, and felt his blood fire up.'Sir! I protest. I was not seeking promotion. Just to do my duty.'

'Of course,' Saliceti mollified him. 'And please don't apologise for being ambitious. France needs ambitious men as never before. So, we need you here and now, Major Buona Parte.'

Chapter 76.

'It's not a very promising situation, gentlemen.' Representative Freron spoke with icy restraint as he stared round the table. General Carteaux and his senior officers sat in an uncomfortable silence as Freron continued, 'It's already the middle of October. Far from seeing a quick end to this siege, it has dragged on for months now, and we seem to be no closer to finishing off those royalist b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. I want an explanation. Paris has demanded a report, which Citizen Saliceti and myself will have to write in the next few days. It would be in your best interests to give us the chance to have something positive to offer the Committee of Public Safety . . . other than your heads.'

General Carteaux leaned forwards and thumped a fist down on the table. 'Citizen Freron, you cannot expect us to work miracles! We need more men, more supplies, and more time to take Toulon. If Paris knew the true situation down here, I'm sure the Committee would send the reinforcements I need.'

A smile flickered across Freron's face. 'Are you saying that Citizen Saliceti and I are not telling the members of the Committee the truth about the situation?'

Carteaux's thick eyebrows knitted together. 'No. It's just that it must be hard for them to have an accurate grasp of events when they are so far from the battlefield.'

'Battlefield?' Freron sneered. 'What battlefield? All I see every day is a vast encampment of soldiers more at risk of dying from old age than enemy fire. Apart from a few skirmishes you have achieved nothing.The enemy pre-empt you at every turn.' Freron stabbed a finger at the map spread across the table in front of him. 'Thanks to your tardiness they have seized L'Eguillette and stuck a b.l.o.o.d.y great fort on top of it!' Freron turned to Saliceti, sitting cross-armed at his side. 'What do they call it again?'

'Fort Mulgrave, according to our spies. Twenty guns, four mortars and a garrison of over five hundred men.'

Freron turned back to Carteaux. 'Quite a strong point, I think you'll agree. The question is, why didn't we get in there first?'

'These things happen,' Carteaux bl.u.s.tered. 'There was no reason to suppose the enemy intended to fortify L'Eguillette. It's just the fortunes of war.'

Saliceti uncrossed his arms and leaned over the table. 'General, I mentioned this to you some days before the enemy began constructing their fort.You said you would deal with it.'

'Yes, I did. When the time was right. When I had made the necessary preparations.'

'What necessary preparations?' Freron snapped.

'How dare you question me?' Carteaux shouted. 'You're a newspaper editor. What do you know about soldiering?'

'Enough to know that you are not advancing the interests of France.You promised me Toulon. All you deliver is excuses.'

'When I am ready to attack, then I will. Without delay.' Carteaux forced himself to lower his voice. 'But I will not order my men into attack without adequate artillery support. If Major Buona Parte would stop building batteries to cover the harbour, and direct his efforts towards an attack on Fort Malbousquet, then we could take Toulon far more swiftly. After all,' Carteaux forced a laugh and glanced round at his officers looking for support,'after all, we are trying to take Toulon, not the sea.'

A few of his cronies laughed and smiled. Napoleon glared at Carteaux as the general turned back to the representatives, emboldened by the support of his officers. 'Give me back control of my guns and I will give you victory.'

Saliceti shook his head. 'No. The key to this siege lies in depriving the Royal Navy of access to the port. I believe Major Buona Parte's strategy is sound.We must concentrate the artillery around L'Eguillette. We must take Fort Mulgrave and then we will control the harbour entrance.The alternative - your alternative - is to take the forts surrounding Toulon one by one and then attack the city walls. Now forgive me, General, but that sounds like it will cost many lives and take much longer.'

'A soldier must make hard decisions from time to time.' Carteaux shrugged. 'Perhaps a politician might find that difficult to understand.'

'Of course. But hard decisions are not necessarily the right decisions, General. Look at that a.s.sault on Mount Faron at the start of the month. How many men did we lose in that attack? And what did we gain? Nothing. And supposing you had succeeded, what then? The next two forts you would have to take, Malbousquet and LaMalgue, are much stronger. How many hundreds, or thousands of our men would be killed in such attacks?' Saliceti shook his head. 'We must concentrate our efforts on L'Eguillette.'

Carteaux's eyes bored into Saliceti for a moment and Napoleon watched as the general's jaw worked furiously beneath his thick moustache.Then he snorted with derision and gestured towards his artillery commander. 'G.o.d knows what you've been telling them behind my back, Buona Parte, but you're wrong.'

Napoleon felt his spine go cold with anxiety and fear. He had no intention of being caught between his army commander and the representatives of the Committee for Public Safety. 'Sir, I've not been disloyal. I've said nothing to prejudice them against you. I merely offered a tactical opinion. It is my judgement that we must take L'Eguillette, and I stand by that.'

'Your judgement . . .' Carteaux smiled mirthlessly. 'If you do have a plan for taking Toulon, I'm sure we'd all be delighted if you shared it with us.'

'I already have, sir. I sent it to your headquarters at the end of September.'

Carteaux pursed his lips for a moment before he responded. 'Be so good as to refresh my memory.'

'Very well, sir.' Napoleon glanced towards Saliceti and Freron. 'With your permission?'

Freron waved his hand impatiently. 'Carry on, Buona Parte.'

Easing himself up from his chair Napoleon stood beside the map and gestured at the large peninsula jutting out towards the port of Toulon. 'If we can establish a battery of twenty-four-pounders at the end of L'Eguillette they will cover the entire width of the channel. Better still, one of my officers has located a forty-four-pounder culverin, which should reach us by the end of the week. With that we can begin bombarding the shipping moored in the port itself.'

'And what use is this to us?' asked Carteaux.

'We have Toulon surrounded. Their only lifeline is the sea. At the moment, the sight of a fleet of Royal Navy warships in the harbour is what gives hope to the people in Toulon. The enemy can bring in more men and supplies at their whim. If we force the fleet out of the inner harbour then I believe their morale will collapse. General, you will be able to walk into the city without a shot being fired.' Napoleon paused to let his commander visualise the triumphant scene, and then he continued outlining his plan. 'But first we must take Fort Mulgrave. I'd like permission to construct some more batteries near to the fort.'

'How near?'

'Within close cannon shot. No further than three hundred yards from the rampart.'

There was a sharp intake of breath amongst several of the officers around the table and then muttering and shaking of heads.

'That would be suicide,' Carteaux responded. 'And you accuse me of wasting lives.'

'It's dangerous work,' Napoleon admitted. 'But that's what soldiers get paid for. If we work mostly at night we should minimise the risk.'

'It's easy for you to ask other men to risk their lives, Major. I'm not sure the men will see it that way, especially given the number of volunteers we have in the army.'

'I will not ask my men to do anything I wouldn't do myself,' Napoleon said evenly. 'I will work alongside them on the batteries, and I will direct the fire on the fort myself.'

Carteaux smiled. 'I'll believe it when I see it, Major.'

'Then may I invite you and your staff officers to inspect the first of our batteries the moment it is complete?' Napoleon replied courteously. 'You should be safe enough, sir.'

General Carteaux glared back at him, his skin flushing under the amused gaze of the representatives. He had fallen neatly into the trap and he was furious. Then a calculating expression crept on to his face. 'Thank you, Major Buona Parte. I accept your invitation. And I imagine that Citizens Saliceti and Freron will be equally keen to inspect the handiwork of their young protege at first hand.'

At the head of the table the representatives exchanged surprised and nervous glances.Then Saliceti cleared his throat and nodded at the general. 'Of course. It might do the men good to see us share their peril. We will join you at the new battery.' He turned to Napoleon.'And what will you be calling this one? Have you thought of a name?'

Napoleon thought a moment and then smiled. 'Yes, sir. The Battery of Men-Without-Fear.'

Over the next week Napoleon and his men worked furiously to construct the first battery from which their guns would attempt to bombard the ramparts of the British fort. When Napoleon addressed his men to explain the task before them he made no attempt to conceal the danger of the work. Instead he exaggerated it, and then at the end he stared at them with an excited twinkle in his eyes.

'This is a job for real men. Men with b.a.l.l.s. That's why I'm asking you, not that rabble up the hill that calls itself infantry, and certainly not those self-regarding primadonnas of the cavalry. If you want a good job done, you come to the best and ask them. So, then, any takers?'

There were so many volunteers for the work that Napoleon picked three shifts of the best men and promised the rest there would be vacancies as soon as the enemy provided them.The first night, Napoleon and Junot, whom Napoleon had promoted to lieutenant, crept out into the open ground in front of the ramparts to mark out the site of the battery with wooden pegs and lengths of rope. As soon as that was done Napoleon returned with a small team of pioneers and quickly dug a ditch and threw up a crude breastwork to provide some shelter for the following night's work. Junot remained with fifty armed men to guard the site from any British counterattacks. As the autumn sun rose into a bleak grey sky the artillerymen could see faces staring at them from the embrasures on the fort. Soon afterwards there was a puff of smoke, a bright flash and then the dull thud of cannon-fire shortly before a ball grazed the earth in front of the breastwork, pa.s.sed overhead with a low whirr and bedded itself in a gra.s.sy bank beyond. The fire continued at intervals through the day, doing little damage as Junot and his men crouched down behind the shelter of the breastwork. Then as light faded, Napoleon brought up the pioneers.The ditch was deepened, the breastwork raised into a rampart and reinforced with wicker gambions tightly packed with soil.The enemy continued to fire occasional blasts of grapeshot into the darkness, but there were no casualties as the men threw themselves flat as soon as they saw the glare of a muzzle flash from the direction of the fort.

When the earthworks were completed, mule teams dragged timbers down for the artillery platform while the pioneers turned their efforts to digging the zigzag of a communication trench leading back to the French lines. Now, Napoleon and his men could safely continue their labours in broad daylight.

With the defences complete it was time for the long and even more exhausting job of hauling the artillery pieces forward to the battery. Napoleon had selected five mortars and three sixteen-pounders for the task. The mortars, with their high trajectory, would lob explosive sh.e.l.ls deep into the fort, doing as much damage to the enemy's morale as it did to their defences and equipment. Meanwhile the sixteen-pounders would batter away at the ramparts until they created a breach wide enough to risk an infantry a.s.sault on Fort Mulgrave.

By the end of the month the battery was complete and Napoleon sent a message to headquarters informing the general and the representatives that the commander of artillery was pleased to invite them to observe the new battery in action. Lieutenant Junot suggested that they wait for their guests to arrive before commencing fire on the fort.

'Why?' asked Napoleon.

'To give it some sense of occasion, sir,' Junot explained.

'Sense of occasion?' Napoleon laughed. 'We're attacking an enemy position, not opening a b.l.o.o.d.y village fair.'

'If you let the general give the order to open fire, or better still one of the representatives, that can only improve your standing with them.'

Napoleon considered this for a moment before he shook his head. 'I'm not giving that fool Carteaux any chance to claim credit for this. As for the representatives, I think they will be more impressed if we got on with the attack, rather than wait for them.'

At first light on the morning of 28 October the ammunition had been brought forward and the battery was ready to open fire. As soon as the mortars and cannon had been loaded Napoleon applied the portfire to one of the mortars.With a deafening crash the mortar fired, the squat barrel shuddering back into its static gun carriage. The gun crews watched the faint dark streak of the sh.e.l.l climb up and over the fort before it dropped down behind the ramparts. An instant later a great gout of earth and shattered timbers was thrown up into the air and the men around Napoleon cheered, drowning out the rumble of the distant explosion.

Napoleon raised his hands to quiet them. 'What are you waiting for? Christmas? Let them have it!'

The bombardment began with a rolling series of thunderous detonations. The air above the fort was soon wreathed with smoke and dust, within which orange and yellow blooms revealed the explosions of the sh.e.l.ls that Napoleon's mortars fired over the ramparts.The impact of the sixteen-pounders was less dramatic as they concentrated on smashing down one of the enemy embrasures before shifting their aim to the next. As the morning wore on, and there was no breeze, the smoke from the guns clung round the battery in a choking shroud. At length Napoleon clambered up on to a mound of earth between two of the sixteen-pounders and, raising his telescope, he watched for the fall of shot from his cannon, dictating notes to Junot, who climbed up and sat on the mound beside him. They were quickly spotted by the enemy and a few shots were fired in their direction from a single cannon of small calibre. None landed close to them and the British soon gave up and conserved their ammunition.

Late in the morning a sergeant informed Napoleon that the general was approaching, together with Saliceti, Freron and several officers.

'Shouldn't we get down to meet them, sir?' asked Junot.

'No.' Napoleon grinned. 'I don't think so. Let's have them join us.'

A few moments later the sergeant called out an order for the guns to cease fire and the crews to stand to attention as the general, the representatives and their retinue emerged from the communication trench. General Carteaux squinted through the slowly dissipating powder smoke and glanced around at the neatly ordered stocks of ammunition and the solidly constructed ramparts, pierced only by the narrow embrasures for the sixteen-pounders.

'Major Buona Parte!'

'Up here, sir.' Napoleon waved an arm to attract the general's attention.

'What the h.e.l.l are you doing, man? Get under cover before the enemy shoots you.'

'We're well beyond musket range, sir. And it's impossible to observe the situation from down there. Really, sir, you'll be quite safe up here.'

General Carteaux hesistated for a brief moment before he made his way over to the rampart and climbed up to join his artillery commander. The others followed behind and soon a small crowd had gathered on the edge of the battery to gaze across the open ground towards the fort.

'Continue firing!' Napoleon called down to his gunners before turning back to his guests. 'As you can see, we're already making an impression on their defences. One embrasure destroyed and a second damaged. Of course, they will try to repair the damage as soon as it gets dark, but our mortars have the range and will make life very difficult for them.'

'Major,' Freron nodded towards the fort, 'are you quite sure that we are out of range?'

'Of the muskets, yes, citizen. Of course, they might chance a shot at us from one of their cannon now that there's a few more of us to aim at, but they would have to be very lucky to hit us with the first shot.'

'Somehow, I don't find that particularly rea.s.suring, Major Buona Parte.'

Carteaux's staff officers laughed nervously at the remark before Napoleon continued with the briefing. He pointed out the main features of the enemy's defences and how much damage the artillery would need to do in order to make an a.s.sault viable.Then Napoleon indicated the sites for the other batteries that he planned to construct in the coming weeks. As he concluded his briefing he noticed that, as he had been speaking, some of the mortar sh.e.l.ls did not seem to have exploded.

'Junot, note to Captain Marmont. The enemy seems to have been extinguishing the fuses on some of our sh.e.l.ls. He is to ensure that the burn time on the fuses is reduced by, say three seconds, and that-'

He was abruptly cut off as the party of officers was suddenly showered with lumps of soil. Several fell flat and covered their heads, and others leaped back into the battery. General Carteaux stood upright, but with a shocked expression on his face. Beside him the two representatives crouched down with hunched shoulders.

'What the h.e.l.l was that?' Saliceti muttered, his face spattered with loose soil. Napoleon looked round and saw the place where the enemy cannon ball had struck the rampart a few yards in front of the group of officers. He pointed the furrow out. 'There, citizen. It seems the enemy has decided to try for us after all. Junot? You all right?'

Napoleon made himself turn casually to his lieutenant, tucking a hand inside his waistcoat to conceal the excited tremor in his fingers. Junot was busy wiping a thin screen of loose soil off his notebook. He glanced up at Napoleon and spoke with exaggerated calmness. 'I'm fine, sir. At least I won't need any sand to blot the ink.'

Napoleon laughed as he turned back to his superiors. Already Saliceti and Freron were climbing back down into the safety of the battery and General Carteaux was staring anxiously towards the enemy while his hands closed into tight fists.

'A fluke shot, sir,' Napoleon commented casually.

General Carteaux glared at his artillery commander for a moment, before he nodded. 'Yes, well. Thank you for the demonstration.You've done well, Major. Now I must get back to my duties.'

They exchanged a brief salute before Carteaux walked over to the edge of the rampart with as much dignity as he could muster, and then jumped down into the battery to join the others.

Saliceti peeped over the edge. 'Buona Parte, if there's anything you need, let me know.'

'Thank you, citizen, I will.'

'And please, young man, don't get yourself killed.'

Napoleon smiled and turned back towards the enemy, just as there was a puff of smoke from an embrasure on the fort. This time the shot pa.s.sed overhead, to one side, and both he and Junot winced at the deep whirr of its pa.s.sage.

'That's a bracketing shot,' Napoleon said quietly.'The next one will be close.'

'Yes, sir,' Junot replied as he rose to his feet and tucked his notebook into his haversack.

They stood still for a moment, before Napoleon risked a glimpse over his shoulder. The tail end of the group of staff officers was disappearing back into the communication trench. A dull thud drew his attention back just in time to see the earth erupt from the ground a short distance from his boots.

'Time, I think, to take cover.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Come on then.' Napoleon turned and hopped down into the battery, quietly pleased with the little display he had put on for Carteaux, and more importantly, Freron and Saliceti. When they had recovered from their shock they would be sure to recall his courage and imperturbability in the face of enemy fire. That was the kind of stuff reputations were made of. Napoleon looked round at Junot and mimicked. 'At least I won't need any sand to blot the ink. Lieutenant, you must have b.a.l.l.s of iron.'

Junot grinned, and Napoleon punched him lightly on the shoulder. 'Just as well; you're going to need them.'