CHAPTER XVI.
THE LANDING AT CANCALLE.
It was very singular that though our armament had been visible off the coasts of Normandy and Brittany for four days, no preparations were made anywhere to oppose us. A strong French fleet lay in the harbour of Brest, but was there blocked up by the squadrons of Lord Anson and Sir E. Hawke, so it might as well have been in the Yellow Sea.
Just as the commodore's last signal concerning the boats was hoisted, two troops of French cavalry, and a regiment of infantry, appeared on the heights above the Bay of Cancalle, where we saw their appointments and weapons glittering; but after a time they fell back and disappeared inland.
The flat-bottomed boats were soon launched, and the grenadier companies of eleven regiments rendezvoused on board of them, around the Essex, the headquarter ship.
The commodore now shifted his broad pennant on board the Success, a frigate of twenty-two guns, which got under weigh, and stood close inshore to silence a battery of only three guns, which had begun to fire across the bay.
These were the first hostile shots I had heard; and I must own that they caused my pulses to quicken, and created an undefined anxiety in my heart; yet I had already stood fire, when so narrowly escaping Abraham Clod's gun on the roof of old Wylie's stable, and that adventure made me smile when I thought of it then.
Those three cannons—two 24's and one 12-pounder—were all we had as yet to oppose, and they were in position at the landing-place of the fisher-town or village of Cancalle, which consisted of a group of picturesque little houses, situated at the base of a green hill that overhangs the sea.
The French cannoniers who handled them were brave fellows, for they killed several men on board the Success, nor were they silenced, and the beach swept of the inhabitants, till the commodore's ship, together with the Rose, Flamborough, and Diligence, opened their broadsides to the land, and filled the whole bay with smoke, making every rock and mountain echo to the reverberations of a cannonade that lasted till seven in the evening, for we had a dread of masked batteries among the shrubberies and hedgerows near the shore.
Under cover of this fire, the flat-bottomed boats, with three battalions of the Guards, and eleven grenadier companies of the Line, commanded by Lord George Sackville (son of Lionel, Duke of Dorset) and General Dury, rowed inwards, and landed on the beach in safety.
Those ships which contained the cavalry and artillery were now ordered to draw closer inshore. Our horses were slung over into the flat-bottomed boats alongside—each trooper, fully accoutred, standing in the wooden stall by his charger's head. It was about eleven at night before the light troop of the Greys, in four large flat barges, put off for the harbour, towards which we were slowly towed by the boats of the Brilliant.
The night was a lovely one. High sailed the moon in heaven, with clouds of fleecy whiteness flying past her silver disc. The beach and the blue sea were light as if at noonday, and on the far expanse of yellow sand, in that secluded cove, where the aged oak and lime trees spread their summer foliage on the ripples—sand so soft, so smooth and golden that one could only think of nymphs or fairies disporting in fantastic dances there—we were disembarking Horse, Foot, and Artillery, with loaded arms and lighted matches, in all the grim array of war.
Slowly the huge boats, with their freight of Cavalry crept inshore. Streaming from behind the dark mountains, the moonlight fell in long and tremulous lines of silver sheen, in which our weapons and the trappings of man and horse glittered gaily, and the whole scene was picturesque and impressive.
Each after each, the lights that whilome twinkled in the little town went out, as we supposed the people were taking to flight, and soon obscurity veiled it all, save where one or two tapers seemed to indicate a sick room, or a student's vigil—if, indeed, at such a time, one could be philosopher enough to study.
Our Foot, already formed in quarter distance columns, after their colours were uncased, their flints and priming inspected, were silent and still; thus, save the occasional neigh of our horses, as they snuffed the land, with necks outstretched and nostrils quivering, there was no sound along the bay, but the murmur of the rising tide, when it chafed on the steep Rock of Cancalle.
Beside me stood Jack Charters, tall, erect, and soldier like. One hand grasped his horse's bridle, the other rested in the steel basket hilt of his long broad sword. With a keen, bright eye, and a proud smile on his lip, he was looking at the shore, where—like myself—he hoped to regain by bravery and courage the position he had lost by his own youthful folly and the injustice of others.
At last we were alongside the rough pier of Cancalle, and some of Kingsley's Grenadiers, who were ordered to assist in getting the Cavalry and Artillery disembarked, ran the landing stages on board for our horses. The first of ours, on terra firma, mounted, and sword in hand, was our gallant leader, Captain Frank Lindsay.
"Quick, my lads—get on shore and join the captain," said Charters, who, although a corporal now, could not forget the authority he had once wielded; "he is a man to stand by, for true it is that a good officer to lead makes a good soldier to follow."
"Ay, ay," added Kirkton, as he, too, leaped joyously into his saddle, and made his horse curvet, while he sung:—
"'Tis he, you, or I,
Cold, hot, wet, or dry,
We're always bound to follow, boys,
And scorn to fly."
"Fall in, my lads—fall in as you come ashore—and take up your dressing by the standard," cried Captain Lindsay.
A seaman, a good-natured fellow, was assisting me with my horse across the landing stage, when there was a whizzing sound, and a shot that came, no one knew from where, shattered his right elbow. He uttered a groan, and would have fallen between the boat and pier, had not Sergeant Duff, of the Greys, caught him in his arms.
"Never mind, mates," said he, cheerfully; "tie up the stump, some one—I'm in for a pension at Chatham Chest, boys!"
I remember that my first emotion was a selfish thankfulness that the shot had not struck me.
So strong was the ground by nature, in the neighbourhood of our landing, that two thousand determined men might have cut to pieces ten times their number from behind the thick hedgerows, the houses and the rocks; yet we encountered not the slightest opposition, save from the little battery already mentioned.
By the noon of the 6th of July, everything belonging to our small army—its whole material of war—was ashore, and we encamped on an eminence which was crowned by a picturesque old windmill.
It overlooked Cancalle, from whence the people—all hard-featured, ungainly, and squalid-looking Bretons—had now entirely fled, leaving their houses to the mercy of our soldiers and sailors, who pillaged them of everything they could find or destroy.
On the night of the 6th, with twenty other Scots Greys, I was detailed for out-picket; and under a Captain Wilmot Brook, of the 11th Light Dragoons, with twenty men of that regiment, all supplied with one meal of cooked food for ourselves and forage for our horses, we rode two miles to the front, on the road that leads from Cancalle to St. Malo. There the captain chose a position for his picket, and threw out a line of videttes, whose orders were to keep a sharp look-out, on peril of their lives; to fire their carbines on the approach of any armed party, but to permit all persons who came singly, bearing provisions for sale, to pass to their rear, without exacting a fee for their passage—to observe well the country in their front, and to communicate whatever they saw that seemed hostile or suspicious, by signal or otherwise, to each other, and at once to the officer in command of the outpost.
These orders were rhymed rapidly over to me about nightfall, and I was left for a two hours' vigil, in a gloomy hollow way between two hills, about eight hundred yards in front of the mainbody of the picket. This was my first responsible duty, and it so nearly ended in bringing me to a disgraceful and violent death, that the narration of that night's adventure deserves a chapter to itself.