David Cook's Blog - Posts Tagged "war"

For a long time I've thought about turning stories in ebook format. Now, as life for me has calmed down abit after the birth of my son, the time is right.

The chronicles started life as backstories to a novel I wrote and is still unpublished called 'The Desert Lion'. I wrote it between 2006-2008 and when sending off to get representation, I didn't want to sit around twiddling my thumbs - I had a few ideas and expanded some of the characters of that book - of which will be a dozen volumes.

So with back stories and those characters with their own unique stories I continued writing them. I wanted to tell of faraway battles and lands which will be brought to life as companion pieces from the years 1794-1815.

I then turned my attention to a favourite hero from England's past - Robin Hood. So all the Napoleonic stories went on hiatus.

With my Robin Hood story, 'The Wolfshead' (being edited as I write this) taking centre stage I then became a father and the writing stepped dutifully aside for me to take on this new role.

But now after two years the chronicles have seen ebook daylight.

I did speak to Bernard Cornwall a few years ago about sending my completed works off for representation, and he said to me, 'Once it's done, sit back and have a whiskey'.

I think I will...

The first novella in the series is (numbered, but not neccessary in chronological order)Liberty or Death. It's a story set against the backdrop of the Irish 1798 Rebellion.

What captivated me was the struggle of the ordinary people and the horror that turned the ever-green fields to bloody gore. It lasted between May and September of that year and caused, some accounts say, between ten to fifty thousand casualties.

The book cover represents the town of New Ross which was the scene of the uprising's bloodiest encounter. Thousands of Irish rebels descended on the walled town, which was defended by a few thousand soldiers. The rebels succeeded in taking the town, houses were burned and shops plundered, but could not follow the success due to limited firepower and fatigue. The Crown forces returned and re-took the town with loaded muskets and cold steel.

The protagonist is Lorn Mullone, a character written to be sympathetic to the rebel cause, yet loyal to the Crown. He is tasked by the government to find Colonel Black, a shadowy figure said to be responsible for several murders, which will undoubtedly harm peace talks. Mullone's journey takes him to New Ross where he and his men are drawn into the defence of the town and witness the bloodiest fighting.

Will Colonel Black be caught and exposed? Only Mullone is the man for the job - but he has to survive the assault and his nemesis, De Marin - a French spy who wants him dead.

'Captain, have you read about the Great Siege of Malta?' Grech asked.
'I have,' Gamble replied carefully.
'Then you will realise that the Turks and the French are more alike than you could possibly think.'
'How so?'
'It taught the world that a population; thought as nothing more than peasants, could unite in the face of invasion. That they could show courage and honour in desperate times, and dispel the destructiveness of religious hatred. Boys, who had become battle-weary veterans of the Italian campaigns, had sailed here to conquer Malta. But Captain, let me tell you, they have not. Have you heard of Fort St Elmo?'
Gamble stiffened, and threw away the stone. 'I have heard the name,' he said, wondering if Grech was trying to embarrass him by his lack of historical knowledge, but he considered it was something else.
'The Turkish fleet arrived with men who had conquered the fields of Europe with their scimitars, elite cavalry mounted on giant horses and devil-men who wore the skins of beasts. Their artillery numbered hundreds and they battered the fort's walls for days. Inside were Knights of St. John. And amidst that hell-fire they refused to surrender. Wave upon wave of screaming Turks then tried to capture the breaches, but the defenders repelled them all. They fought with pikes, swords, axes, blocks of stones and their bare hands. They invented fire-hoops; wooden rings, wrapped in layers of cotton, flax, brandy, gunpowder, turpentine, and ignited and rolled to the enemy. Trumps; hollow metal tubes filled with flammable sulphur resin and linseed oil; and when lit, blasted flame like dragon's breath. Many Turks with their flowing robes died from these new weapons. For thirty days the Knights held out. Eventually, they claimed their prize. But the Turks turned to Valletta. And they had done something utterly despicable which angered God. They mutilated the defenders, stuck their heads on pikes and floated the decapitated bodies of their officers across the harbour on wooden crosses. It was designed to cause distress and it would have, had it not been for God turning the tide.'
'God?' Gamble said, raising an eyebrow.
'Yes, Captain. God. The sun burned like a furnace, and it was said the dead left unburied in the fort blackened and burst spreading disease to the Turkish camp. They tried to take the city, but the defenders out-thought them and out-fought them. God had blessed them with plenty of supplies and ammunition. Even when autumn winds brought rain the defenders muskets and pistols felled the Muslim attackers. Then a relief force from Scilly smashed the Turks aside. They routed and were pursued across the island, dying in droves from my vengeful ancestors. It is said the waters of St Paul's Bay turned blood red. The Knights had won. Malta had been saved.'
'God,' Gamble said again.
Grech's eyes narrowed. 'Am I to believe that you are not a Christian?'
'I believe in a good musket,' Gamble replied flatly. 'I believe in the British Navy. I believe in wiping the earth of the bastard French.'
Grech grimaced. 'I see,' his grey eyes flashed at Zeppi, before turning back. 'We have been sent one company of men. Godless men at that, I might add.' He rubbed the ends of his beard through long fingers.
'Godless men who'll free your country,' Gamble said with a menacing glare. 'What were you trying to tell me with your story?'
'I want to see the French defeated,' Grech said. 'I want our people free. I want the world to see our victory as a beacon for Christianity.'
'You're doing this for God?'
'Yes,' Grech said, 'and so should you.'
Gamble shook his head. 'No, I'm doing this because I've been sent here by my superiors.'
Grech's mouth tightened with a smile. 'And just who told them to send you here?'

A bullet snatched a Marine backwards. Gamble felt a ball fan past his head. He turned just in time to see a Frenchman approach the nearest window of the barracks and lunge with a bayonet-tipped musket. Gamble brought his sword up and knocked the blade aside as the Frenchman, who had a gold front tooth, pulled the trigger. The musket spat angrily, and sent a gout of hot smoke into thin air. Gamble lunged and the heavy cutlass scraped against his assailants ribs. He let the man fall away onto one of the sleeping cots.
Somewhere a man was crying pitifully and another was gasping and breathing hoarsely like an exhausted animal. The goat was bleating madly and two of the horses had bolted free to entangle the group of French by the steps. A musket banged; it was a lighter, smaller bang, and Gamble knew it had been a carbine.
'Lieutenant Riding-Smyth!' he called out.
His little subaltern appeared immediately. 'Yes, sir?'
'Take ten men into the barracks and clear the rooms out.' Gamble didn't want any enemies threatening his rear as he advanced. 'Go in with the steel, and prod the bastards out.'
'Yes, sir!' Sam blanched, but disappeared with Corporal Tom MacKay's section.
Gamble looked at the remainder of his men. 'Advance! At the double!'
The French fired again and another Marine hit in the leg, fell against the well. He stood, hobbled a few steps, then had to steady himself on the masonry for support as bright blood spread on his breeches above the knee. A Frenchman, barefooted, tripped on the araar's roots and as he got up Corporal Forge shot him through the forehead, spattering blood and brain matter over the hanging washing. Marine William Marsh knocked an enemy to the ground, then stepped over his body to shoot dead a Frenchman who was aiming a pistol at Forge.
Gamble could sense that this fight was almost over, could feel it in his instincts, and his blood and bones. He knew they had won. Then he looked up to see Zeppi fighting desperately with the French sergeant. Gamble cursed. The damned fool! What the hell did he think he was doing?
'Take command, Archie!' he said to Powell. 'Press them hard! Zeppi!' he yelled with cupped hands to his mouth and ran through the powder-stink of the volleys.
Five Frenchmen had already given up and each one had thrown down his weapon in submission. Two were bent down, hands touching the ground. The officer still at the doorway pulled up a small pistol and trained it on Gamble as he surged through the smoke and pulled the trigger. The bullet smacked into the stonework of the barracks. The French officer cursed at his haste and saw that the Marines were too close so he closed the door and bolted it shut. Gamble jumped a body killed by the Marines volley, and flicked bayonets away with his sword as he approached the steps. He saw a Frenchman, naked to his waist, aim his musket, but had to trust that the bullet would not strike him. He heard the snap of the doghead and saw the muzzle flash, but the ball missed him as he ran on. A French artilleryman tried to kick Gamble in the face, but Gamble let the leg come forward and caught the boot and tugged hard so that the man fell backwards onto the steps. Gamble heard his head smack painfully on stone. Then man attempted to move but Gamble kicked him in the jaw for good measure, and the man slid down the steps grasping his face. A musket exploded and a bullet slashed against the top part of Gamble's leather boots as he ran forward.
'Zeppi!' Gamble saw Kennedy knock a Frenchman down and kept him prone with his pistol. 'Harry! I thought you were watching the bastard!'
'I'm sorry, sir,' Harry replied, 'he just ran ahead without warning.'
'Zeppi!'
The guide had managed to break free of Kennedy's watchful eye and, armed with a long knife, charged with the Marines when they stormed across gun emplacements. He watched as a Marine and a French soldier try to bayonet each other, the clash of blades rang like smiths hammers, and he ran up and plunged his knife into the Frenchman's neck.
'You Godless animal!' he hissed like a lit fuse.
Blood pulsed as he disengaged to stagger away and collapse on the steps. Zeppi, driven by hatred, pounced on the dying man, but an enemy appeared below him and a long French bayonet went through his side. Zeppi howled, collapsed and tumbled down the steps. He looked up to his enemy to see a bearded man with a bony face and knew death when he saw it.
And it was coming for the Frenchman.
The French sergeant raised his bayonet to finish off his prey, but then turned when he saw the Maltese man look past him. The British officer was running straight at him, cutlass gripped in two hands, and he swung it with a roar and with such force that the heavy blade cut through the sergeant's neck like a scythe reaping grass. The head toppled down the sand-strewn steps and the body crumpled to ooze like a broken wineskin.

It's work in progress, but this scene is part of the 'episode' where Captain of Marines Simon Gamble must lead his force to capture the fort (the original title of the novella was called The Fort)on the island of Gozo.


Gamble stared north from the ravine to see the marines and seamen sprinting over the lip of the road, bayonet-scabbards, cartridge boxes and haversacks bouncing with each stride.

Suddenly a boom of gunfire rocked the air. Gunners stationed in the St Paul's Bastion had fired a cannon and Gamble saw one of the seamen torn to bloody gristle by the ball's terrible strike. The projectile, spattered-red, slammed into the banks of the road, churning earth high up in the air. A second gun fired sending the ball too high and Gamble saw it clip the embankment, spin, and plummet down the hill's incline.

'Come on, you bastards!' Gamble shouted at his men as the fastest reached the first stone walkway. 'Move your arses!'

The seamen were the slowest but that was because they were carrying cumbersome ladders. Ladders needed to scale the inner wall. Gamble had known there would be no way to get through the gate, so the marines had to climb over the walls and take the fort by escalade. Riding-Smyth had questioned the method and now Gamble could feel fear sniping at his confidence. Once they had climbed the walls, half the fight was done.

A third gun was awoken and had its throat blasted free, but the seamen were now clear of its shot, and the first redcoats had reached the ravine. A small volley of musketry fired ineffectively at them from the main gate.

'Sergeant Powell!' Gamble ordered. 'One platoon to form on the bridge, the other to grasp the ladders!'

'Sir!'

The seamen could not hope to bring the ladders up the stairway, so they were placed against the ravine's high walls and the marines hauled them up and over the parapets. The portcullis was still down and Gamble wondered if the French officers had ordered it. He could see a handful of officers there but wasn't sure if one was Tessier.

'Faster!' Gamble bellowed, glancing at the main gate and up at the inner wall where musket muzzles flashed leaving the embrasures ringed with flame, but the bullets caused no harm. The gunners on the emplacement were busy firing muskets at Grech's men and packing the cannons with grapeshot. Then the great guns jerked to life and the battery was instantly fogged white. The air was shattered with one percussive explosion. Gamble would scale the ladder, climb down the parapet and then silence those guns. For now, he had to think that Grech was still alive and that he had to get the Gozitan built ladders in place.

'Heave!' Rooke the Boatswain's Mate called from the ravine as the seamen pushed two ladders up for the marines to haul.

'Come on!' Gamble pushed a faltering Marine to one side and gripping the top rung, brought it down over the parapet to where Kennedy waited. 'We can't wait any longer, Harry! Get the two ladders to the gate now! The other four will have to wait.'

'Sir!' Kennedy spun on his heels. 'Platoon! Advance!' he yelled to his men.

'Fix bayonets!' Gamble ordered them to do that now as there would be little or no time to do that later. He turned and cupped a hand to his mouth. 'Lieutenant Pym! I want your pikes! Now if you please!'

'You'll be getting them soon enough, Captain Gamble!' Pym replied as more seamen reached the ravine's upper level. 'Come on! Get those bloody ladders over the wall!'

Gamble jumped the steps. 'Marines! To me!' He sprinted after the advancing men. Muskets crashed from the ramparts above which threw down a Marine. Another volley crashed from the gate to send two marines backwards, one spinning over the walkway and down into the debris-haunted moat. A bullet slashed open Corporal Forge's left cheek, exposing his back teeth.

Kennedy halted the marines thirty paces from the gate and the platoon hammered a volley into the Frenchmen.

'Advance! He ordered and they pressed on through their own powder smoke. Behind him Gamble and the remaining redcoats with two ladders were closing the gap. 'Halt!' The men were below the main gate's walls now so were safe from above. 'Load!'

The marines ran the two ladders up against the shoulders of the curtain wall and the first men began to climb. Gamble pushed past the ranks to steer the third ladder to the wall. A musket fired through the portcullis and the ball tore a rent in his sleeve. He pushed men to the rungs. The marines fired another volley and the defenders twitched and died against the metal bars. Then the first seamen arrived and they charged with boarding pikes and the wicked blades ripped into torsos, throats and legs.

'Push!' Pym was shouting. A seaman next to him was shot in the face and it seemed to him that the man's head just disappeared in an explosion of blood, bone and gore. 'Push the bastards!' He slashed his sabre at a Frenchman trying to stab him with his bayonet, and put his pistol to the man's chest and pulled the trigger. The enemy couldn't fall backwards because of the press of men, so hung against the bars. A sword sliced and another musket spat flame through the churning rill of smoke to send another seaman to his grave, but the landing party was winning this fight.

'Up! Up! Up!' Gamble shouted as some of the men started to look for cover. A Marine staggered. Sergeant Powell kicked a man who hung back. They could not falter now for it would weaken the attack, so every man must climb not knowing if the next second would be his last. The only way to survive horror was to win. Gamble saw Willoughby and Crouch at the rear and ran over to them, thrusting them towards the ladders. 'Get up there!' he snarled.

They both climbed. Men were scrambling up the rungs, but then a Marine was hit by a bullet from the flanking battery to the left. He slipped and toppled to the moat, body twisting as he screamed. More marines jostled to climb the ladders and then seamen at the rear waited with cutlasses, dirks and pistols.

'Up! Faster!' Gamble bellowed for the line seemed to be faltering. He saw Kennedy about to scale a ladder, sword in one hand which would make the climb awkward. 'Harry!' he called and his lieutenant stared up at him. 'Bring your sword to bear at the top!' Kennedy nodded, understanding, and rammed his weapon home. The marines climbed with their bayonet-tipped muskets slung over their shoulders. A redcoat slipped half-way up and knocked the five below him to the ground. They cursed him and picked themselves up to continue.

The defenders fire was continuous; a staccato drum beat of musketry, but Gamble knew the walls weren't fully manned. He expected larger volleys. Grech had declared that the French numbered perhaps three hundred, but experience told him that perhaps a hundred were defending the fort. If that was the case, then where were the rest?

His legs burned with the effort of the climb. Gun smoke roiled thick from the ramparts and shots echoed. He couldn't see the enemy; his world was a pair of dirty white legs, ladder and limestone wall. Steel crashed against steel. Bullets flayed flesh. A man screamed horribly. Suddenly Crouch, with his bandaged hand, disappeared, and Gamble knew he had reached the top. However, the French were still there and fighting back. He unsheathed his sword and then threaded through an embrasure to drop down onto the parapet. Bright blood spotted the stone. Marine Marsh lay dying next to a French Fusilier and Gamble stepped over them, slipping in glistening gore. A French grenadier was cocking his musket when Gamble pulled up his pistol and the shot dissolved the man's face in blood. To his right the defenders blasted the walls from the central St Paul's Bastion, while to the left French crowded the Notre Dame Bastion. A ragged line of French fired up from the courtyard, but their aim was put off by the group of seamen who still poured fire from the portcullis. The parapets were filling with marines and the seamen swarmed the ladders skilfully as though they were climbing ships' rigging.

Gamble pushed men aside as he went right. A hail of musketry tore scraps of stone from the stonework as he ran. A Frenchman swung his musket like a club. Gamble ducked and unceremoniously tipped him over the side of the parapet, and hearing his cries all the way down. A bayonet lunged and Gamble battered it aside with his straight-bladed cutlass. The steel clanged, sending sparks over the body of a dead defender who had been shot through an eye. The blackened wound smouldered. Gamble kicked his assailant, punched and grabbed the musket's hot barrel, turning it to the left with all his strength. His fingers burned, but the Frenchman could not bring his weapon back and gave a high pitched scream as the long cutlass split his skull open. Marine Pace shot a man less than three feet away in the face. A grenadier, with huge arms and a long flowing moustache, grabbed hold of Gamble's cutlass with both hands, blood showed at his fingers, but the man held on as Gamble tried to withdraw it. A long bayonet stabbed the air and Gamble ducked to fall backwards onto his back with the Frenchman. His hands were locked with the weight of the grenadier’s body, feeling as heavy as solid iron. The enemy tried to bite Gamble's face with crooked yellow teeth, snapping from underneath the moustache. Another two appeared above them. One went to stab down with his bayonet when a bullet drummed into his chest. The grenadier managed to get a hand free and tried to find purchase around Gamble's throat, but Gamble jerked his head and the moustached man couldn't get a grip. A Marine, shouting something incomprehensible, stabbed one of the two defenders in the throat with the spike atop an axe head and swung the axe-blade of another into the one lying on top of Gamble. The steel cleaved through black hair with a wet crack, and the Frenchman's eyes rolled up to his skull. Gamble threw off the body and Powell hauled him upright.

'Thank you, Archie,' Gamble said, face stained red. 'Now let's tear them to shreds!'

The defenders retreated, but in good order. A musket flamed and a ball shattered a Marine's collar bone. The marines screamed terrible battle-cries as they began their grim job of clearing the defenders off the parapet with quick professional close quarter work. Gamble trod on a fallen ramrod and his boots crunched on wadding. The French reached steps and began to descend.

'Charge the bastards!' Gamble screamed, blinking another man's blood from his eyes, and the marines and seamen poured down into the bastion.

The 28th left Rotheheim in a terrible snowstorm.
They were the last regiment to leave the town. Two troops of cavalry: a Light Dragoon and a French émigré protected the rear-guard, but in the driving snow it was hard to see the man in the next file let alone if the enemy were close, or who was who.
The wind brought snow and ice into the men’s eyes causing them to curse and stumble. One man who had lost his boots a month before, and whose toes had all turned black, collapsed from exhaustion. His body instantly spotted white and as the wind howled across the fields the British cavalry passed him unnoticed and forgotten. Men sobbed and shuffled in the storm. They were benumbed with cold and bitterly hungry as no food or wine had been left for them at the town.
They passed frozen corpses lining the road, like markers showing the way to hell. They were humped grotesque shapes, like snow-covered barrows. Hallam stared at one. The man had been a redcoat and had been there for many days. His face was blackened by wind and half-buried in snow so that his grotesque face seemed to watch the men who passed him by. They passed the bloated corpses of horses then Hallam saw another body and almost wept.
In his long service career he had seen some terrible things. He’d seen men shredded into ribboned meat by canister, a friend decapitated by a roundshot and another die of a horrible wasting disease, but nothing had prepared him for this. The body was a young woman. Late teens. Her hair was copper-coloured and she resembled Isabel for she had been strikingly good looking in life. Her eyes were blessedly shut and her thin mouth closed. Her bodice was open, her breasts were exposed and the lower half of her was hidden under snow. Hallam bent over, not to gaze at her body, but because he couldn’t make out what was lying next to her. He had to hold a hand to his eyes to shield them from the weather. Beside her, in a tight bundle and as though it had been tossed aside, was her child. Its little face was blue and its eyes were open. Hallam struggled to keep what little food he had in his stomach down.
‘Nice tits,’ said one of the redcoats who saw woman.
‘Eyes front!’ Hallam turned on the man with a sudden fury. He stood and spoke to the rest of the company. ‘If I so much as catch one of you bastards looking at her, you will be put on a charge!’
‘Is that a..?’ Stubbington started, but blanched.
‘Yes,’ Hallam said solemnly.
Stubbington stood aghast. ‘How did this happen? How?’ he appealed.
Hallam could offer no reason. ‘You best return to your post,’ he could only think to say.
When the ensign had gone, Hallam wrenched a frozen saddlecloth from one of the horses to cover her waxen body. He tucked the baby underneath it and said a brief prayer and, because he was not a God-faring man, he couldn’t recite much. When he finished he stood for a while in solace. He shivered and pulled his scarf closer to his neck and mouth. Then with nothing more to say, he glanced back into the pale sour light behind where nothing moved and walked on.

This piece is from BLOOD ON THE SNOW, which is to be released in September:


It was Christmas Eve.
Icicles hung from branches and redcoats broke through the ice with bayonets to get water from the streams for the cooking pots. Breakfast for some consisted of flour dust cooked into little dumplings, stale bread, or acorns and old berries found beneath the oaks and bushes. Several officers shot at a plump of ducks passing over, the musket bangs echoed as men looked up in anticipation, but none of the birds fell from the sky and they cursed poor their luck rather than their marksmanship. The vast majority of men had nothing to eat. Bellies were painful and swollen from cramps. Some had to run into the hedgerows to void their bowels. Dysentery and fever were rife.
Grave was a small impoverished town about nine miles southwest of Nijmegan on the left bank of the River Maas. It had been heavily fortified over the centuries, often billeting military troops from Austria, Spain and France who of late had added embankments, ditches and gun emplacements to the ancient walls that surrounded the town. The large castle was rebuilt and it was here that the Dutch had surrendered to the French just days ago after a brief siege, but it was a poor place filled with memories of destruction, sieges, starvation and misery.
‘You see, they can’t even bloody well hold onto one of their own towns,’ Major Osborne grumpily gave his opinion of the Dutch as he and Colonel Paget espied Grave from a thicket of pine trees less than a mile to the south. He had spent his night in a grotty little farmstead and awoke covered in flea bites. Rain showed above the far hills as a dark stain. ‘That’s what happens when you arm shit-stinking, clog-wearing peasants with firelocks. They’re not an army, they’re a goddamn rabble.’
Paget did not reply, he was still smarting Osborne’s impertinence and ill-advice from the conversation at the bridge. Instead, he looked to where General Sir David Dundas, commander of the British right, and his staff were talking, making notes and giving orders just ahead of the tree line. Paget had grown to dislike Osborne’s company and so he clicked his tongue and trotted over towards the group of officers without saying a word to the major.
This wasn’t to be Paget’s first battle, but he was nevertheless anxious to make a name for himself and not to let the regiment down. It was a fine battalion and men like Captain Vivian Richard Hussey Vivian had paid good money to get transferred here. Vivian had made a name for himself in the last few years and now wanted to transfer to a cavalry regiment, but it was a damned good regiment with a proud history and Paget hoped to continue with its legend.
‘Should be a decent day’s fighting,’ said a voice over to his left.
Paget turned to see an unknown officer trotting along a muddied track and who was also heading towards Dundas.
‘So I hear,’ Paget replied genially. ‘Edward Paget, 28th,’ he said and outstretched his hand when he was close enough.
‘Arthur Wesley, 33rd,’ said the officer. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance.’
‘Likewise,’ Paget said. ‘33rd, eh?’ he said staring at Wesley’s red facings. ‘I heard about Boxtel.’
Wesley grunted slightly from the mention of the name. The regiment had been part of the British and Hanoverian force that had launched a counter-attack after the French had pushed the Dutch from the town. But the manoeuvre had failed despite the regiment’s superb volley fire which had shattered the French attack.
‘I overheard that Sir David reckons the French at Grave will try to keep us pinned back whilst Pichegru marches his army to trap us like fish caught in the nets,’ Wesley said. ‘There can’t be more than a four thousand of the Jacobins here. One whiff of a volley and they’ll retreat behind the towns walls and we’ll have to endure another siege,’ he added bitterly. ‘What this army needs to do is consolidate. We’re scattered to the winds and all that’s left for us to do is drift away like autumn leaves caught in a breeze.’
Wesley was in his twenties, slim, straight-backed and Paget noted he had piercing eyes and a sharp, hooked nose. There was something strange in his manner, impressive in his tone and utterly decisive in his manner.
Paget gave a firm nod of agreement. The trick was to win this small victory, and still bring the British Army to safety in one piece. That would not be easy, and it was all down to other men’s decisions.
‘We can’t endure a winter siege,’ he said. ‘We have to hope the locals lock the gates behind the French and then they’ll be forced to simply surrender.’
Wesley brayed with laughter which caused a few of the older officers around Sir David to scowl at him. He turned to see a sullen company of redcoats march past.
‘Driving rain and snow makes men careless, for they are too consumed with their own misery to care,’ Wesley commented. ‘Or perhaps they are wretched because of their own officers?’
Paget grunted. ‘I agree, Wesley. But what to do, eh?’
Wesley pursed his thin lips and stared across at the flat landscape, almost as though he was mesmerised by the bleak beauty of it. ‘Have you heard that Robespierre’s been toppled?’
‘The Directory,’ Paget said with disgust. ‘One dictator ruling the country is removed so that a whole group of dictators can do the same job. We’re fighting a mob, Wesley.’
‘Agreed, but the damned mob has beaten us at nearly every turn,’ Wesley replied with a wry smile. ‘They’ve seen off the Austrians who have scuttled back across the Rhine and they’ve taken Antwerp, Brussels, and their armies are chasing us every day away from the sea. We’re to help the eastern defences, but we’re done here, Paget. We’re heavily outnumbered, but still there’s nothing right now to cause us undue concern,’ he said calmly. ‘I heard that the government wants to recall some of our regiments for the Sugar Islands.’
Paget stared. ‘Good God,’ he uttered, thinking of the West Indies. ‘That will leave us with even less manpower.’
‘True, Paget, true,’ Wesley replied. He brought out an expensive telescope and trained it at the walls where the Tricolour of France flew high from the castle’s main tower instead of the Dutch Tricolour. Tall pine trees hid the outlying land and the River Maas. Then he traversed it across the fields to the west to a tiny village called Escharen. He watched dark streaks of smoke that betrayed home cooking fires.
‘Grave should give the men spirit, Wesley,’ Paget considered, ‘but I hear that Pichegru is less than two days away. There will be no time to lay a siege, any blockhead can tell you that, so we’ve got to beat them with volleys and finish them off with the cold steel.’
The trick was to win this small victory, and still bring the British Army to safety in one piece, Paget considered. That would not be easy, and it was all down to other men’s decisions. Men of higher rank, but not notably men of sound leadership.
Wesley smiled, liking Paget’s comments. ‘The French haven't tasted defeat yet. But we shall see, Paget, we shall see,’ he said smiling and closed his eyepiece. ‘I don’t know where we’re heading, but I do hope our paths will cross again.’ He touched his bicorn hat and clicked his heels to spur his horse forward away from the group of officers.
Paget watched him leave and turned to greet a couple of the officers he knew from his Westminster days. It was good to catch up with friends before battle.

Well, the 4th edition is now live at Amazon and at Smashwords for all platforms.

I used Catherine Lenderi to give the novella a good going over and the result is the definitive version.

What's changed?

Well, whatever mistakes got passed my eyes in the previous proof-reads. Nothing major to the storyline.

But the biggest change has to be the addition of THE EMERALD GRAVES 2nd edition at the back of the paperback LIBERTY OR DEATH version at CreateSpace. I decided to add this to this version only due to the giveaways and, although doesn't alter the ending, it gives an insight to the Battle of Vinegar Hill and Mullone's desperation to apprehend the French spy, De Marin.

I hope you enjoy it.

I've four covers which i'm looking at - choosing can be as difficult as writing the story at times.

Head over to my face book Liberty or Death page to have a view yourself

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‘‘The hardest thing of all for a soldier is to retreat’’ - Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington.



The Flanders Campaign of 1793-1795 was conducted during the first years of the French Revolutionary War by the allied states of the First Coalition and the French First Republic. Europe was a patchwork of kingdoms, principalities and provinces and France wanted to spread its ideals of liberty and equality. The allied aim was to invade France by mobilising its armies along the French frontiers to bully the new republic into submission.

In the north, the allies’ immediate aim was to expel the French from the Dutch Republic and the Austrian Netherlands, then march directly to Paris. Britain invested a million pounds to finance the Austrians and Prussians. Twenty thousand British troops under George III’s younger son, Prince Frederick, the Duke of York, were eventually tied up in the campaign.

Austrian Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg was in overall command, but answered directly to Emperor Francis II, while the Duke of York was given objectives set by William Pitt the Younger’s War Secretary, Sir Henry Dundas. Thus, from the outset, mixed political machinations and ignorance hindered the operation.

The French armies on the other-hand also suffered. Many from the old royalist officer class had emigrated following the revolution, which left the cavalry severely undermanned and those officers that remained were fearful of being watched by the representatives. The price of failure or disloyalty was the guillotine. After the Battle of Hondshoote, September 1793, the British and Hanoverians under the Duke of York were defeated by General Houchard and General Jourdan. Houchard was arrested for treason for failing to organise a pursuit and guillotined.

By the spring of 1793, the French had virtually marched into the Dutch Republic and Austrian Netherlands unopposed. In May, the British won a victory at Famars and then followed up the success for the siege of Valenciennes. However, instead of concentrating their forces, the allies dispersed in an attempt to mop up the scattered French outposts. The French re-organised and combined their troops into larger corps. Dundas requested the Duke of York to lay siege to Dunkirk who had to abandon it after a severe mauling at Hondshoote.

By the end of the year the allied forces were now thinly stretched. The Duke of York, unable to offer support the Austrians and Prussians, because the army was suffering from supply problems, and by Dundas who was withdrawing regiments in order to re-assign them to the West Indies.


The French counter-offensive in the spring of the following year smashed apart the fragile allied lines. The Austrian command broke down as Francis II called for an immediate withdrawal. After the Battle of Fleurus, the defeated Austrians abandoned their century long hold of the Netherlands to retreat north towards Brussels. The loss of the Austrian support and the Prussians (who had also fallen back) led to the campaign’s collapse.

The Battle of Boxtel in September was a minor incident during the Allied retreat and is chiefly remembered for being the first time Arthur Wesley, (before changing his surname to Wellesley), saw action.

In the aftermath of Fleurus, the Austrians had begun to pull back east towards the line of the Rhine, abandoning any hope of recovering the Netherlands. This forced the British, German and Dutch troops to also retreat, where they destroyed bridges, redoubts and places where the French might use for their advantage. General Jean-Charles Pichegru, with the French Army of the North, advanced towards the British outpost at Boxtel, a town near the River Dommel, which had the only unspoiled bridge in the area. On the 14th the French captured the town after three hours of musket fire with Hessian troops with the aid of Dutch sympathisers. The Duke of York decided to send General Ralph Abercromby to retrieve the situation and protect the British rear-guard. Abercromby was given ten infantry battalions and ten cavalry squadrons, with the infantry made up of the Guards Brigade and the 3rd Brigade. This second brigade contained four infantry battalions; amongst them was Wesley’s own 33rd Foot. As the senior colonel present, he was given command of the brigade, while Lieutenant-Colonel John Sherbrooke, had command of the regiment.

At seven o’clock on the morning of the 15th, as veils of silver mist hung over the damp fields and dykes, the British force hurried to retake the town. It soon became abundantly clear that they were in danger of running into Pichegru’s main force and would be overwhelmed and outflanked by superior numbers. Abercromby ordered a withdrawal. When French infantry and cavalry charged the British, the retreat threatened to turn into a rout. The situation was saved by the iron resolve of the 33rd Foot’s commander – Sir John Sherbrooke. The battalion formed up into line and fired a series of disciplined volleys that shattered the French – so devastating was the fire that they were forced to retreat. Wesley was not directly responsible for their good behaviour, it was Sherbrooke, but he was overlooked and Wesley was given much of the credit that continues (in error)to this day.


The origins of the term ‘Tommy Atkins’ as a nickname for the British soldier is said to have originated during this fight. It is a name, perhaps today, that conjures in the mind images of the British soldier during the First World War, certainly not from an obscure clash in 1794. It is said that Wesley spotted amongst the wounded a soldier of the 33rd with a long service history. He was dying of three wounds; a sabre slash to his head, a bayonet thrust in his chest, and a bullet in a lung. The wounded private looked up at the colonel and said ‘‘It’s alright sir. It’s all in a day’s work’’. He then died. His name was Thomas Atkins, and his valour is said to have left an impression on the future Duke of Wellington. This may explain why the War Office chose the name ‘Tommy Atkins’ as a representative name in 1815. The Soldier’s Hand Book issued that year for both the cavalry and infantry uses the name as a generic soldier and Wellington certainly gave his concurrence, and quite possibly chose the name.

The term was used quite widely though, and indeed rather contemptuously, in the mid-19th century. Rudyard Kipling sums this up in his poem ‘Tommy’, one of his Barrack-Room Ballards (1892) in which he contrasts the unkind way in which the common soldier was treated in peace time, with the way he was praised as soon as he was needed to defend or fight for his country. ‘Tommy’, written from the soldier’s point of view, raised the public’s awareness of the need for a change of attitude towards the common soldier.

A much earlier origin can be traced back to as early as 1745 when a letter was sent from Jamaica concerning a mutiny and when it was put down it was mentioned that ‘‘Tommy Atkins behaved splendidly’’.

By the autumn, The Duke of York had been replaced by Sir William Harcourt, but with rumoured peace talks, the British position looked increasingly vulnerable. The only allied success of that year was that of the ‘Glorious First of June’, when Britain’s Lord Howe defeated a French naval squadron in the Atlantic, sinking one and capturing six French ships.

The winter of 1794 was one of the worst any one had ever imagined. Rivers froze, men died in the sleep, disease was rampant, and the soldier’s uniforms fell apart. It was an extremely harsh winter, mainly because the army was starving due to the collapsed commissariat. Troops started to steal from the local inhabitants. The officers were too lazy or indifferent to control them, and discipline amongst some units broke down completely.

By the spring of 1795, the British reached the allied Hanoverian port of Bremen and arrived home, weak, ill and emaciated. Some never fully recovered.
The Flanders Campaign demonstrated a series of weaknesses within the British Army. The Duke of York was given the role as Commander-in-Chief and brought forth a programme of reform and it created the professional army that was to fight with much success in the coming years.

The allies abandoned the Low Countries. Britain did attempt to undertake a second invasion of the newly proclaimed Batavian Republic until 1799 under The Duke of York, but it faltered and proved disastrous.

Notoriously, a children’s rhyme about the Holland campaign mocked the leadership of the Duke of York:


Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down


However, there is another satirical verse attributed to Richard Tarlton, and so was adapted where possible, the latest ‘victim’ being The Duke of York. The oldest version of the song dates from 1642:


The King of France with forty thousand men,
came up the hill and so came downe againe


Many officers who would continue to serve their countries received their baptism of fire on the fields of Flanders. The Austrian Archduke Charles fought in Flanders, as did several of Napoleon’s marshals: Jourdan, Ney, Murat, Mortier and Bernadotte. The Prussian General Sharnhorst, another great reformer of the Napoleonic Wars, saw battle under the Duke of York.
Britain’s professional army was to fight with much success throughout the Peninsular War, into France and which ultimately, ‘Tommy Atkins’, played a significant part in defeating Napoleon at Waterloo.