‘Harris!’ Arthur called out, drawing the artillery officer’s attention to the enemy battery. ‘Stop those fellows before they can do any damage to the convent, or the barges.’
‘Yes, sir!’ Harris trotted over to his howitzers and gave orders to prepare to fire.The squat barrels were charged and the fuses cut to the appropriate length. Meanwhile the French battery had halted on a patch of level ground, protected from the British six-pounders by some large boulders beside the track, and was hurriedly unlimbering. Within moments they had begun to fire on the convent to support the troops now swarming about the courtyard walls.
Colonel Waters could not help flinching as the first of the enemy’s cannonballs struck the bell tower, causing a shower of masonry and dust to cascade down into the courtyard. Looking up the track, beyond over a thousand Frenchmen who were gathering to attack the convent, he could clearly make out the battery of light guns that had begun to fire on his position. Bright flashes and puffs of smoke followed by sharp cracks announced the arrival of more shot, and Waters saw a section of the convent’s wall explode into fragments, cutting down one of the redcoats sheltering behind it. The wall had been designed to keep prying eyes out, not to withstand the damage that could be inflicted by modern artillery. Unless something was done, the French guns would soon batter the walls down enough to provide a breach through which the waiting infantry could assault the convent. As Waters stared up at the French battery, he could see that they were sheltered from the British guns across the river by a rocky outcrop. It seemed that the French gunners would be able to continue their bombardment in safety.
With a sick feeling of inevitability in his stomach he climbed down from the tower and hurried across the courtyard to join the men defending the wall.
‘Keep your heads down, lads, or the frogs will blow them off !’
Some of the men chuckled nervously. Others, who had never faced enemy fire before, hunched down with terrified expressions and waited for the end.
There was a jarring crash close by and another section of the wall collapsed in a cloud of dust. Mercifully, none of the defenders were injured, but as the dust settled it revealed a large gap just three feet from the ground.The rubble either side of the wall provided an easy ramp up into the breach. With a sudden deep roll of drums and a rising cheer that echoed back from the towering cliffs, the French surged towards the wall.
‘Here they come, boys!’ Waters yelled. ‘Don’t let them get inside or we’re done for! Fire at will!’
Flame darted from the muzzles of the muskets along the wall, sending Frenchmen sprawling on to the stony ground, but the charge came on in a wave of blue uniforms and glinting bayonets. Waters jumped back into the courtyard as he saw a fresh wave of British troops enter the side gate.
‘Over here, lads!’ he called to them, waving desperately towards the breach. ‘At the double, damn you!’
The men came running. Outside, the Frenchmen rushed on, boots scrabbling over the ruined masonry as they surged into the breach. Waters wrenched his sword out and turned to meet them, as the first of the new arrivals reached his side. Along the wall, the other men were firing and loading their muskets as fast as possible as they cut down the attackers. The enemy fire was just as deadly and all around men were dropping back from the wall, dead and wounded.
With a ragged cheer the first of the Frenchmen charged through the breach, straight on to the bayonets of the waiting redcoats. The man next to Waters gritted his teeth as he thrust his bayonet into the stomach of the leading Frenchman, the impact bending him double. Waters scrambled up the rubble and hacked at the face of another man, his savage blow only just blocked in time as the desperate enemy threw his musket up, taking Waters’s blade on the stock, which splintered with a loud crack. Cursing, the Frenchman kicked Waters in the chest, sending him reeling back. Then, grasping the barrel of the musket like a short spear, the Frenchman tried to stab him. A musket crashed out close beside the British officer and his attacker spun round and fell on to the rubble. Waters did not have time to even nod his thanks as he rushed forward again to join the red-coated bodies struggling to hold the breach. On either side musket fire rippled up and down the convent walls.Then a voice cried out, ‘They’re running for it!’
Someone cheered and the cry was taken up.
The fight in the breach lasted a moment longer, and then the last of the Frenchmen turned and backed off a few paces behind his bloodied bayonet. Then he too turned and fled, joining the bluecoats as they retreated to cover. Waters joined in the cheers of the other men, until he recalled the enemy guns. Glancing up towards them, he saw that they were making ready to fire again, the moment their fleeing comrades had cleared the line of fire.
‘How much longer is this going to take, Harris?’ Arthur struggled to keep his voice calm.The first few rounds had either fallen short or gone too far and struck the cliff beyond the enemy battery before exploding.
The artillery major had just finished his latest adjustment to the howitzer’s trajectory angle and nodded to the loader standing by with the next shell. As it was heaved into the stubby barrel, Harris turned towards his general.
‘I think we have the range now, sir. It is usual to have to fire bracketing shots first in order to determine the range,’ he explained patiently. ‘But now we have the right charge, and the right angle, and the fuse length is good.’
‘Kindly spare me the lecture.’
‘Sorry, sir.’ Harris turned back to the howitzer and ordered the crew to open fire.
With a deep thumping explosion the howitzer launched its shell. The muzzle velocity of the weapon was lower than that of a standard artillery piece and Arthur could see the faint dark smudge that marked the passage of the shell as it arced across the river towards the enemy battery sheltering behind the rocks. There was a sudden puff of smoke in the air just above the enemy guns and Arthur saw an entire gun crew topple to the ground, directly beneath the point where the shell had burst and scattered its lethal fragments of iron.
‘Right on target!’ Harris cried out. ‘Range is good. Fire at will.’
Two of the next four rounds killed more of the men working the French guns, and then, as Arthur watched, their officer began to shout and gesticulate and the survivors hurriedly began to limber their guns and withdraw back up the track, though not before one shell struck down two horses in their traces, causing the whole team to veer sharply to one side so that horses, riders, limber and gun toppled over the edge of the track and tumbled down the slope in a shower of small rocks and dust before splashing into the river.
Arthur saw that the men in the convent were now out of danger, and the barges were safely and steadily feeding fresh troops into the fight. By contrast the French battalions joining the melee at the foot of the cliff were forced to undergo a steady hail of grapeshot fired at them from across the river before they even faced the muskets of the men of the Third Foot. It was no wonder that their attacks on the convent were half-hearted, Arthur reflected.