Jack Windrush Collection - Books 1-4

Chapter 5-2

They"re going to fire first. I"m going to be under fireThe captain leaned over from the bridge to give explicit orders to his crew.

"Get ready men, but don"t fire unless they do." His voice carried across the corvette. "Let them open the ball, but we"ll close the final curtain. Do your duty, Rattlers and look out for one another."

RattlerThe sun had burned away the mist, so the Golden Pagoda was like a blinding blaze of splendour. A sough of furnace-hot wind stirred the palms and set a hundred bells ringing, with the faint tinkling a macabre musical backdrop to the impending scenes of s*******r. Without the mist, the defending stockades were clear, their tall teak walls formidable and the muzzles of cannons bared in dark defiance. Smoke rose from the interior.

Jack saw the heads of the Burmese scurrying behind the stockade walls. He saw the puff of white smoke a second before he heard the sound of the cannon, and for a fraction of a second, he saw the black streak of the shot coming toward him.

"Happy Easter," Coleman muttered.

Jack nodded. He tried to ignore his suddenly dry throat. He was under fire; the war with the Burmese Empire had begun, and he was right in the front line. Father would be proud of his illegitimate son. He saw one of his men duck – that was Thorpe, a heavyset man with a pock-marked face.

Father would be proud of his illegitimate son."No bobbing!" Wells" voice was hard. "You"re British soldiers, so b****y act like it."

The Burmese gunners fired in a rolling barrage that concealed the delicate tinkle of the temple bells. Jack counted fifteen British steamers plus the frigate Fox and a sailing brig. Have more come up when I was not looking? Or did I miscount? He saw the orange flares from the muzzles of the cannon, he saw the long jets of smoke, and he heard the sharp c***k of Burmese artillery as they targeted the British vessels in the narrow river.

FoxHave more come up when I was not looking? Or did I miscount?So this is war. Jack fought the impulse to duck.

So this is war"They"re firing at us," Coleman murmured.

"And we"ll fire back," Sergeant Wells replied. "Now keep your tongue behind your teeth and act like a British soldier Coleman, you useless bastard."

Jack saw a long column of water where a Burmese cannonball landed only a hundred feet from the ship. Thorpe swore and began to tremble slightly. Wells stepped behind him.

"Easy lads." Jack controlled his fear. He hadn"t known what to expect when he was under fire, but it was the strangest feeling, a mixture of intense excitement, wonder and fear. "Keep calm and face your front." He glanced at the men of the other regiments; they would know the reputation of the 113th and would be waiting to jeer the first sign of wavering.

"Fire!" the captain ordered. He removed his cap and gestured toward the nearest stockade. "Rattle them, Rattlers!"

RattlerRattler retaliated, with the five thirty- two pounders of her broadside firing simultaneously. The shock heeled the corvette to one side and unbalanced the unprepared infantry who lined her spar deck. Most staggered, and some fell.

Rattler"Get back to the rail!" Wells sounded almost apoplectic as his men clattered to the deck. He landed a full-blooded kick on Thorpe"s backside. "Stand up, you idle blaggard! Get up there you black-hearted buggers!"

"Careful, redcoats!" A grinning seaman called. "We"re firing now." He gestured to the cutlass he wore at his waist. "Soon be time for cutlasses, sojer-boys. You can watch that too and learn what to do."

"b****y tar-backs!" Coleman picked himself off the deck, grabbed his musket and glared at the sailor. "Away and trim the webs from your toes, you tarry-arsed bastard."

Jack stepped forward before Coleman attacked the offending sailor. "Get back to your station, Coleman! Show these sailors how the 113th behave."

The Burmese were firing hard, with cannonballs howling overhead or raising tall fountains of water. White smoke hazed the stockade and smothered the surface of the river.

"They"ve got bottom!" Wells had to shout above the noise of battle. He blinked as Rattler fired another broadside. Soldiers and sailors alike coughed in the acrid smoke, wiped the sweat from foreheads and endured the rivulets that ran down their bodies. Jack watched with envy as the seamen stripped off their jumpers and worked bare-chested.

Rattler"Permission to take off my tunic, sir," a thin-faced soldier named Leigh asked.

"Denied; look to your front," Jack barked. Soldiers of the Queen did not act in such a casual manner as seamen; he must maintain discipline.

A Burmese roundshot skipped off the surface of the river and bounced right across the deck without doing any damage. Jack gasped as the wind of its passage temporarily sucked the wind from his lungs.

"Are you all right, sir?" Wells looked concerned.

Jack nodded, unable to speak.

A few cable" lengths astern, Fox fired her complete broadside. The massive discharge filled the hot air with noise so loud that men clapped hands to their ears. Nobody said that battle was this noisy! Jack watched the closest of the Burmese stockades as the volley smashed home. The stout logs shuddered under the impact; one entire length of teak flew high in the air, spun and arrowed back down. Rattler fired again, and everybody in the ship flinched as there was a massive explosion within the stockade. An orange fireball ripped the logs apart, with yellow flames on the side, slowly subsiding as fragments of timber and people rose and fell, to patter onto the mud and splash on the river, burning dangerously close to the wooden British ships.

FoxNobody said that battle was this noisy!RattlerThere was an instant"s silence as men watched the terrible sight.

Wells was first to recover. He spoke to Jack and pointed toward the stockade.

Jack nodded – he could see Well"s mouth move, but the tremendous noise had robbed him of his hearing. Splintered remnants of great logs lay scattered over a wide area, some burning, others mere shreds of wood and all mingled with the remains of the Burmese defenders. Hearing returned slowly, gradually as partial sounds penetrated the enforced hush.

"Burn in hell, you bastards," Leigh croaked until Wells jabbed a hard hand under his ribs.

"Keep your mouth shut, you useless bugger!"

A lone cannon fired from a second stockade, with the shot falling short.

"They"re game, these Burmese." There was respect in Coleman"s voice.

Half a dozen stockades defended Rangoon, each one with its quota of cannon and men. Rattler"s captain stood on the bridge, nodding as his ship fired broadside after broadside at the Burmese. Occasionally he gave a brisk command to the other officers on deck. In turn, they ran to the g*n captains and pointed out the next target.

RattlerLeigh tugged at the leather stock at his neck. "I feel a bit queer, Sergeant." He stepped back from the rail. "It"s the heat."

"Face your front!" Wells pushed him back to his position. "You"re a soldier; act like one!"

The Burmese shot was still coming and mostly still missing, falling short of the line of British ships. The occasional ball skipped over the water nearby as Rattler concentrated on the next stockade. The crewmen altered the angle of their guns, laughing, joking and sweating in the punishing heat of the mid-morning sun.

RattlerGreasy white smoke coiled around the cannon swirled up the masts and lay waist-deep along the spar deck as Rattler continued to fire. The sun hammered the deck, setting the tar bubbling between the planking and making every move a torment. Jack wiped sweat from his forehead and glanced at a lieutenant of the Madras European Infantry, one of the Company regiments that had a contingent of men on board. Where the Queen"s officers wore nearly the same uniform in the East as they did back in Britain, the Company officers wore a much looser helmet, adorned with yards of cloth to make a sensible turban and baggy jackets of cotton drill rather than tight shell jackets.

RattlerJack was unsure whether to sneer at their lack of manliness or be jealous of their cooler appearance. He looked away, feeling the sweat prickle inside his white buckskin gloves and thought he was baking within the stifling confines of his uniform.

Leigh tugged once more at his stock, looked appealingly at Sergeant Wells and then slid to the deck. His musket clattered into the scuppers.

"Get up, you idle bastard,!" Wells stirred him with his boot. When Leigh didn"t respond, he kicked him sharply in the ribs. "I said get up, damn you!" He knelt beside him, unscrewed the cap of his water bottle and poured some of the contents on the man"s face and neck. "Come on Leigh." The tone of his voice had changed from a brusque bark to concern. "Come on, son…" He forced Leigh"s mouth open and upended the bottle. Water dribbled down the side of Leigh"s face to form a small pool on the deck.

"Is he all right?" Jack knelt at Well"s side.

"No, sir." Wells looked up. "I think he"s dead."

"It"s the heat." Knight pulled at his stock. "He was always grousing about the heat."

Jack shuddered. That"s the first death under my command; the first of my men dead. He knew there would be more, but he would always remember Leigh. He fought his shock; he was a Queen"s officer; he could not submit to emotion. "Unfasten your stocks boys and undo the top buttons of your tunic."

That"s the first death under my command; the first of my men dead"That"s against Queen"s Regulations, sir,." Wells shook his head.

Jack pointed to Leigh. "I want no more deaths from the heat." He knew he was asking the impossible. Soldiers died of heat or disease; they always had, and they always would. That was a soldier"s lot.

"But it"s against Queen"s Regulations, sir." Wells repeated. "The stocks protect our necks from the sun."

"Do as I order.," Jack injected authority into his voice, and Wells reluctantly removed the leather stock from his neck. The privates were gleeful as they followed his example, with Coleman rubbing two fingers around his sweating throat.

"It"s worth losing Leigh to get that b****y thing off," Graham said.

"Coleman, you and O"Neill take Leigh below decks,." Jack watched as the two men dragged their comrade away. O"Neill was surprisingly gentle.

I wonder how many more of my men will die before we win this war. How do I feel? Numb; the reality has not hit me yet. I have chosen this life, and the Burmese have to be defeated.

I wonder how many more of my men will die before we win this war. How do I feel? Numb; the reality has not hit me yet. I have chosen this life, and the Burmese have to be defeated.Rattler fired another broadside, with the vessel heeling over and the roundshot howling towards Rangoon. Within minutes a second stockade was destroyed as its powder magazine exploded and tall flames leapt skyward. The second explosion did not have the same power to shock as the first had done.

Rattler"Burn, you bastards," Coleman jeered. He looked toward Wells and patted the lock of his musket. "Can we fire at them as well, Sergeant?"

"Any more talking from you and you"ll feel the cat." Wells took out his resentment at breaking Queen"s Regulations on his men. "Now keep quiet until you are ordered to talk, damn you."

The captain gave another order, and the gunners raised their sights. "Go for the Golden Pagoda, boys!"

With two of the outlying stockades in flames, the Burmese fire had slackened, but most of their heavy artillery sat around the Golden Pagoda. Rattler fired broadside after broadside at this tall target, with her 68-pounder swivel g*n adding its fire to those of the spar deck 32-pounders. The smoke became so dense that Jack could not see Fox, let alone the full line of British ships, but the constant noise and glare of orange muzzle flashes assured him they were still there.