"Load, quick now! The Indians are breathin' on you!"
"Respectable kick," Alan said, fumbling through the loading procedure and taking a lot longer than Cashman or his men did.
"Lighter piece, same powder charge as a regular's musket. Masters, you poxy spastic, pick up your bloody rammer, man! Don't drop it!"
"Take 'is name, sir?" the sergeant offered.
"No, take his pulse. See if he's dead," Cashman quipped, and his men laughed easily.
After half an hour, with their mouths and faces blackened by the powder they had eaten and the flash from the pans, they took a short rest while the keg was paid out to one hundred fifty yards.
Alan had finally managed to get off three shots a minute, and had hit the keg twice in that period, though the fusil had pummeled his shoulder almost numb. He walked over to the water butt and dipped the long, narrow sipper down through the small scuttle to draw out a measure.
"Your men seem to know what they're about, I must say," Alan commented.
"They're damned good, aye. Best thing about the bloody 104th Regiment," Cashman spat, wiping his mouth and face clean and making a face at the taste of nitre on his lips. "A war-raised single-battalion unit. No home depot, you see. Peacock raised it himself. Tory patriot, don't ya know. Cheap at the price, too, them that survived the fevers and the slave revolt campaignin'. They'll deactivate us, if they even remember we're bloody here, soon's the bloody treaty's signed."
"You were part of it, originally?"
"Hell, no. My light company's all that's left of a fusilier battalion. Got tagged onto them after most of us went under to Yellow Jack. Came off the ship four hundred seventy-seven men and officers strong, and two weeks later, we made roughly two companies. Now I've barely forty left. These are the best of 'em, though it was hard to choose."
"Lieutenant Colonel Peacock and Captain Eccles seemed a little put off that I suggested light infantry, or that you would be the one to go on this adventure of ours," Alan said smiling.
"This was your doing?" Cashman brightened. "Blessings upon ye, then. Anything to get away from those buggers. What did they say?"
"That you were eccentric, but a hard fighter."
"I'm not their sort," Cashman admitted chearly. "Thank God. I'm amazed they reckoned me a good soldier. I didn't know they'd recognize one if he crawled up and bit 'em on the arse. Beggars can't be choosers, though, and they needed a light company to flesh 'em out. If they had a choice, I'd not have been able to purchase a commission with 'em. I was only a lieutenant with my old battalion. A captaincy was a brevet promotion, but if the loot's good, or the cards run right, I might be able to purchase a real captaincy one of these days."
"Back Home?"
"Hell, no. A captaincy costs near twenty-five hundred pounds for a good regiment," Cashman chuckled. "No, unless God passes a miracle, I'll be soldiering in cheaper places. Here in the Fever Islands, back in the East Indies, where nobody in his right mind would want to go. A regiment like that's a buyer's market. Cost me only three hundred pounds to become an ensign when word got out we were going to Madras. People were 'changing or selling out like the hounds of hell were at their heels. But, if it weren't for the loot, I'd have never had enough for a lieutenancy in the Fusiliers. One way or another, the old Regiment'll have to take me back soon as I get home, and when the Army's reduced, there'll be a chance to buy up."
"Thank God the Navy doesn't go for purchased commissions or commands." Alan shivered, thinking how menial he would be that instant if he had had to depend on his father spending money to get rid of him. "Why didn't you give the Fleet a try?"
"Fourth son." Cashman shrugged. "And damn-all inheritance for any of the others. Already had the future farmer, a sailor, and a churchman, and I had a choice of clerking in Ipswich or going for a soldier. Ever been in Ipswich? Last time I was home, I thought I'd freeze my prick off, and that was in summer, mind. And Suffolk's pretty damned dull any time of the year. I love England well as any man, but there's something about the tropics, if you can survive in 'em. At least it's warm, and not too many churchmen breathing down your neck with their 'shalt-nots.'"
"What do you think of this mission of ours?" Alan asked him.
"Frankly? I think it's a rum'un," Cashman whispered, though the sound of his fusiliers banging away at the keg would have covered his doubts from the men. "If we want Florida back so bloody bad, why not put a couple of good regiments together from the Jamaica garrison and make it a proper landing? Oh, aye, take along some pretties to buy off the locals, maybe form some temporary levies like East Indian sepoys. From what I hear, these Creeks'd make good soldiers if somebody took the effort to train 'em. Good skirmishers and woodland fighters, proper armed. Hell and damnation, I'd like to have all my company with me, if that won't serve. We're too thin on the ground to suit me."
"Bring the rest of your present regiment?"
"Peacock and them?" Cashman laughed sourly. "They'd get themselves butchered. Less'n two hundred of 'em, anyway, and not worth a tinker's damn when it comes to skirmishing. Turn that lot loose in the woods and they'd make so much noise, and get so lost, any Indian in the world'd have 'em for his breakfast."
"My sailors won't be much better, I'm afraid. Cony and some of the party coming with us are country lads, one jump ahead of the magistrate for poaching, but nothing like what one needs against Indians and Dago troops who know the country," Alan confessed.
"Here, you sound like you've been around before. Served ashore, have you?" Cashman asked.
"At Yorktown. We escaped," Alan told him with a touch of pride. "With a light company of Loyalists from the Carolinas."
"Whew," Cashman whistled. "So, how do you feel about this trip of ours?"
"I'm a touch leery, too. Oh, it sounded grand when they offered it to us, and we couldn't say 'no,' anyway," Alan told him with a shrug. "Supper with our admiral, being admitted to high plans, you know. But my captain over there is worried, and now he's got me doing it."
"You should."
"I don't like leaving this sloop in the swamps, at the mercy of those Indians," Alan went on. "What happens if McGilliveray, or White Turtle or whatever, can't convince them to keep their hands off while we're gone? From what I've read, an Indian thinks it's his duty in life to lift from strangers whatever's not nailed down."
"Who says we have to leave things laying about to tempt them?" Cashman replied with a twinkle in his eyes. "You know that once we separate from your ship yonder, you and I are equally in command of this mess. You of the sloop and the longboat, I of the land party. Cowell is no soldier, he's a London paper-pusher with dreams of adventure. And this McGilliveray is only an advisor. They can't order us to do a bloody thing. What do you want to do?"
"I'd like to send San Ildefonso off to sea under my quartermaster," Alan said after a long moment of thinking. "There's no reason to leave a large, easily discoverable ship in the swamps. The crew could sicken on the miasmas, get over-run by the Apalachees, or the Spanish could find her and bring force enough to take her."
"Best we go quietly on our way up-river," Cashman agreed. "We're going to be dressed pretty much like Indians in these hunting shirts and whatever, so the Dons don't know we're here. So what's stopping you sending this ship back to sea once we're landed, if secrecy is so important?"
"Not a bloody thing," Alan realized.
"And if I wanted to bring another squad with me, so we'd have a round dozen skirmishers, there's no one to gainsay me, either. Out at sea, your ship wouldn't need a party of soldiers left behind."
"What about the samples, then?"
"Oh, we can take 'em up-river, can't we?" Cashman asked.
"Well, this sloop does have a boat of its own, a little eighteen-foot gig. Take five more men to run her under oars, though. Say three minimum, with two of your men aboard as guards."