‘Over there, sir.’ The orderly nodded towards a mound of earth to one side of the main hall, and they set off across the broken ground. As they drew closer, Napoleon breathing heavily from the strain and fighting the nausea threatening to well up in his stomach, it became apparent that the mound was the spoil from a large open grave. They paused at the edge and Napoleon glanced down on half a dozen soldiers sprawled in the pit.
‘Sir, when I say, we tip the stretcher. Ready? One . . . two . . . three!’
The body rolled off and tumbled down the side of the hole on to the other corpses. At once the orderly led the way back to the side of the monastery and they laid the stretcher down.
‘Thanks for the help, sir.’
‘The very least I could do.’ Napoleon nodded and turned to make his way back to the staff officers and Dr Desgenettes.‘Time we got back to the siege, gentlemen. Doctor!’
‘Sir?’
‘If there’s anything you need, just send word to Junot, and he’ll deal with it. In the meantime, since the army knows about the plague outbreak, there’s no point in remaining here. I noticed a small hill not far from the camp. Make arrangements to move your hospital to that site.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Carry on, then.’ Napoleon strode over to his horse and swung himself into the saddle. He was well aware of the astonished looks from his staff and the men of the escort, and had to stop himself from smiling. He knew that word of his act would spread round the army just as quickly as the news of the plague, and the men would, once again, take him as one of their own, enduring every risk that they did in the common bond that made them march as hard and fight as hard as they did. He knew it had been a risk, but a calculated one. He had not come into direct contact with the body and hoped that would spare him from infection. He would find out soon enough, he reflected, and then wheeled his horse about and spurred it back towards the camp.
When Napoleon and his staff returned to his headquarters he found the commander of the artillery train waiting for him. The man jumped to his feet and shuffled to attention as his commander rode up to his tent. With a weary sigh Napoleon realised that something had gone wrong. Steeling himself for the man’s report, he dismounted.
Chapter 44
‘Colonel Pesset, you’re supposed to be at Haifa, waiting for the siege guns.’>
‘Yes, sir,’ the colonel replied unhappily.
‘Then explain yourself. What are you doing here?’
‘Sir, I beg to report, the guns have been lost.’
‘Lost? How?’
‘The ships carrying them from Egypt were intercepted by the Royal Navy, just off Mount Carmel, and captured.’
Berthier and the other staff officers exchanged glances and watched Napoleon closely for his response.
‘Captured?’ Napoleon responded evenly. ‘All of them?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I see.’ Napoleon lowered his head for a moment and took a deep breath. He felt a rage born of pure frustration welling up in his veins, and knew that if he surrendered to it he would turn into a screaming, hysterical monster, a side of his character he had no wish to display to this officer or the wider army. Not when his men needed him to be strong and impervious to the misfortunes that assailed them. He cleared his throat and looked up. ‘Thank you for letting me know, Colonel. You may return to your men.’ He strode towards his tent, glancing back over his shoulder. ‘Berthier, Junot, inside now.’
As soon as they were seated around Napleon’s campaign desk he leaned forward, folded his hands and rested his chin on them. ‘So, what are our options, gentlemen?’
Berthier spoke first. ‘We cannot continue the siege without heavy artillery, sir.’
‘Granted. So we must send word back to Kléber to send us more siege guns.’>
‘But, sir, that will take weeks, months perhaps. In the meantime, the plague will claim more men.’
‘And it will give the Sultan a chance to send a relief force to Acre,’ Junot added.‘What if we are caught between Ahmad Pasha and the Army of Damascus? The longer we are here, sir, the longer we invite disaster.’
‘It’s a risk,’ Napoleon conceded. ‘But then all campaigns are risky ventures. However, given the past performance of the enemy, I think we can handle any relief force they send to Acre. That need not concern us unduly. The immediate problem is how do we overcome Acre’s defences without siege artillery?’
‘We still have the army’s field guns, sir,’ said Junot.
Berthier shook his head.‘Field guns are no good against those walls.’
‘We don’t know that, unless we give it a try,’ Junot countered. ‘It’s possible the walls are not as strong as you seem to think. If they’re anything like the defences of the other fortifications we’ve dealt with, we should be able to complete the job with our field guns.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Berthier insisted. ‘The weight of the shot is too light.’
Napoleon intervened. ‘All very true, Berthier, but we must continue the siege with the tools that we have, while we send a message to General Kléber to ship us some more siege guns. Until they arrive we’ll use the field guns, and we’ll just have to resort to more traditional methods of siegecraft. The engineers will tunnel under the wall and use a mine to try to bring down that bastion.’ He leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. ‘That’s all, gentlemen. Berthier, send that message to Kléber at once, and Junot, get our field pieces moved forward into the siege batteries.’
As they left to do his bidding, Napoleon sat still for a moment, and only when he was quite alone did he pound his fist down on the table.
‘Fuck!’ The word exploded through his clenched teeth. Why did his lucky star have to abandon him now, just when he needed it most? Had his life’s share of good fortune been consumed already? If he and his army were defeated before the walls of Acre, people back in France would barely notice.Yet if he could take Acre, and win a notable victory, then he might yet derive some advantage from this unfortunate campaign. He nodded to himself as he firmed his resolve. They would remain before the walls of Acre until Ahmad Pasha surrendered or the walls were breached, and then Ahmad Pasha and his garrison would pay a bloody price for defying Napoleon Bonaparte.
For several days the field guns bombarded the walls of Acre, and Napoleon watched with growing frustration as his guns caused only superficial damage to the defences. Just one heavy gun would have smashed a large hole in the wall in the same time, Napoleon fumed. Meanwhile, the trenches progressed slowly, thanks to the rocky ground the engineers had to work through to approach the city. Then, at the end of March, his patience ran out and he gave the order for the army to prepare an assault.The night before the attack the battalions chosen for the task filed into the trenches with their scaling ladders and moved into position as quietly as possible. There was still a gap of over a hundred paces between the trench and the wall, and the open ground would be swept by the cannon and muskets of the defenders. The attack would be preceded by an intense bombardment by Napoleon’s field guns and then the ramparts would be scourged by grape shot as the infantry rushed forward.
As the sun rose behind the French army and lit up the walls of the city Napoleon gave the command to open fire. The quiet stillness of the dawn was torn apart by the violent stabs of flame and the crash of artillery. Napoleon watched through his telescope as the Turkish gunners on the wall fired their weapons in reply. A small breach had been opened in the wall by the bastion which looked to be well within the reach of the scaling ladders, and the battery immediately in front of the gap continued to pound away at it, trying desperately to enlarge it before the assault began.
Berthier, standing beside his commander, tapped his watch. ‘It’s time.’ He nodded to the signalman standing to one side and the man lifted a red flag into the air. The French guns fell silent and there was a brief pause before their drums beat the attack. From his vantage, Napoleon watched as tiny figures spilled over the lip of the trench and ran forward.The ladder bearers went in the first wave, stumbling forward under their burdens. As soon as the Turks realised the attack was under way they appeared at the ramparts and small puffs of smoke blossomed along the length of the wall. Below, on the open ground, the first Frenchmen began to fall, while their comrades hurried on without stopping as musket balls slapped into the soil all around them. The French gunners replied with grape and Napoleon smiled with satisfaction as each blast knocked large gaps in the dense ranks of the Turks manning the wall.