Julian Stockwin - Tenacious

"Stand to! All hands, get on th' wall!" Kydd roared, driving wet and bedraggled Turks to their stations. An assault would come, it was certain; it was only a question of when.

They stood to for an hour—then two. Hewitt had been right. As dusk approached it was certain that Buonaparte was not going to mount an assault that day. Now everything depended on the weather: if the wind shifted back during the night the ships could return, but if it stayed in the same quarter the defenders of Acre would face an assault.

With the dawn came the wind, relentlessly in the north-west. Before the day was out, they would be fighting for their lives, and Smith was still somewhere out at sea in Tigre and could play no part. It was entirely up to themselves.

The enemy came without fanfare, a sudden purposeful tide of attackers. The defenders' guns blasted defiance, but without whole broadsides from the ships there was no deterring their deadly advance. Kydd lost no time in placing himself at the breach, now choked with hastily placed timber and rubble.

On the tower above him the muskets banged away but against such numbers they had little effect. Then a deep rumble sounded. The front ranks faltered. Kydd's heart leaped: if the ships had returned they stood a chance. But a crash gave the lie—it was a thunderstorm.

As the French bore down with scaling ladders to throw up against the walls from the fosse, blustering and chilling rain squalls came. The open ground grew slippery with sticky yellow mud. Firearms were useless in such conditions yet still they came on—hurrying lines, the dull glitter of wet steel, a sea of anonymous faces and a continuous shouting roar.

The first wave reached the fosse. Ladders were thrown down awkwardly, but Phelippeaux had designed well: the width of the ditch did not match the height necessary to reach the parapets and the ladders ended in a tangle of bodies and bloody corpses.

The first breathless Frenchmen arrived at the breach, hard, brutal faces in sketchy blue uniforms, bright weapons, the cutting edge of Buonaparte's will. Pistols banged out and they scrambled over the rubble to close at last with the defenders.

Kydd braced himself, his sword warily at point. A soldier reared up with a short carbine and threw it to his shoulder, aiming at Kydd's face. It missed fire but he hurled it at Kydd, yanked a long bayonet from its scabbard and came at him. Used to the confines of shipboard fighting, Kydd whirled away and his blade flashed out and took the man squarely in the side. He fell and was immediately trampled by another whose bayoneted musket jabbed at Kydd's face. He dropped to one knee and as the man lurched forward he lunged for his bowels. The sword ran true and the man dropped with a howl, but his fall jerked the weapon from Kydd's hands. On his knees he scrabbled for it des-perately—but towering above him was a giant of a soldier. Before the man could plunge his bayonet down, bloody steel shot out of the front of his chest. With a squeal the man half turned as if to see who had killed him, then toppled, trapping Kydd under his wet carcass. Struggling to move Kydd felt the body shift. It was heaved aside to reveal the grinning face of Suleiman, his curved Ottoman dagger still dripping red.

Kydd shook his head to clear it. The fighting had moved down the rubble and into the ditch. He picked up his sword and looked about. Rain now hammered down in earnest on his bare head and his eyes stung with a salty mix of sweat and blood.

The well-sited guns from the ships were still tearing great holes in the waves of attackers. A musket ball slammed past his cheek with a vicious slap of air, but he could see that the rain and mud were severely impeding the assault.

In the fosse, grenades and infernal devices thrown at the hapless survivors exploded loudly in bursts of flame and smoke. Kydd saw a skull split and crushed by a heavy stone flung from the upper storey of the Cursed Tower. The attack was faltering. Then, as quickly as it started, it faded, leaving Kydd trembling with fatigue atop the rubble of the breach.

He stepped inside the tower out of the rain and wiped his sticky sword on a body. He looked at the now bloodied and muddy weapon, then slid it neatly into its scabbard: it had proved its worth.

There would be a reckoning when the weather abated; there would be no rest. At the Tenacious gun the men sat exhausted on the ground, heads in their hands. Dobbie looked up wearily with a smile of recognition. "Got 'em beat again, sir," he croaked.

Kydd could not trust himself to say the words that lay on his heart and ended with a gruff "No chance o' Buonaparte getting what he wants while there's a Tenacious in th' offing." It seemed to serve, for several of the gun crew looked up with pleased grins. "Don't know where I'll find it, but there's a double tot f'r you all when I do."

At the headquarters he found Hewitt slumped in his chair, staring at the wall with the map of operations spread out before him. "That damned relief army had better show itself before long or we're a cooked goose."

"Aye," said Kydd, and searched for words of cheer. "We came close t'day—but doesn't it tell us that Buonaparte is getting impatient, running scared, that he throws his army at us without he has a plan—an' in this blow?"

Hewitt looked up, an odd expression on his face. "Pray see things from his point of view. Before now he has taken the strongest fortresses in Europe, defended by the most modern troops. What does he see here in Acre? An ancient, decaying town ruled by a bloody tyrant and defended by a ragged mix of sailors and Orientals. No wonder he thinks to sweep us aside quickly and get on with his conquests."

"He's tried—"

"He has not yet! But I'll wager he's already sent for a second siege train to pound us to ruin even with our wonderful ships, supposing he is not at this moment up to some other deviltry! Remember, he made his name at Toulon at the head of the artillery—he is no stranger to such works."

They worked together on the defences, Hewitt's halting translations of Phelippeaux's schemes of fortification serving for them both. They divided between them the main tasks: Hewitt consulted Djezzar on matters concerning labour for the works and Kydd saw to the lines of supply from the victualling stores and magazines to the guns—but always many other details demanded their attention.

The winds blew themselves out and veered more easterly as the rain cleared. With the first blue sky all eyes turned to the French encampment for signs of a new assault. But the sodden ground remained impractical and, to the cheers of the defenders, the two ships sailed back cautiously to take up their positions once more.

Smith came ashore immediately and energetically visited all parts of the old walled town, demanding particulars of each. He finished at his headquarters. "Well done, gentlemen," he said, with satisfaction. "Yet I would rather you had kept a better eye on Djezzar Pasha—he is a man of decided opinions concerning his enemies, and I have just learned that in my absence he seized thirty of the prisoners, had them sewn into sacks and thrown into the sea, including our French officer spy. I shall have to be firmer with him in the future.

"And now I have news. Good news, believe me. You will be happy to learn that the Turkish relief army in Galilee has left Damascus and is even now on its way south. A mighty army indeed: seventy-five banners of Mahgrebi infantry and Albanian cavalry, two hundred Janissaries, Dalat and field cannon, Mamelukes and Kurds beyond counting—near eight times Buonaparte's numbers. They march fast and will reach the Jordan in a day or so. Then he must fight, or retreat and abandon the siege. I believe he will fight, and in that case he will be obliged to divide his forces. It will be an interesting time for Mr Buonaparte."