Nelson: The Poisoned River (8 page)

Seventeen

Although
Lawrie did not know exactly when the rain would come – no man did, however many claimed to – he knew that when it fell it would fall like fury. On islands like Jamaica, the season could be wet. On the Mosquito Shore, it could be little short of unbelievable. Rainfall, in a few short weeks, could be measured in feet, not inches. Ten, twelve, feet could fall, and river banks would wash away, and men and animals would be ejected, rotting, out to sea. Despard and Nelson knew this, and tried to cajole the colonel into reason. But Polson was confident, and trusted in his God or Providence.

From
the first setting out for the last few miles, however, the hardships piled against them. Polson favoured hacking a pathway up the river, arguing that boats would be blown out of the water as soon as they were seen. But however many Indians attacked it, the matted undergrowth always won. After several hours, they had hardly gone a mile.

The
Indians, surly and disaffected by the white man’s perfidy – they had been threatened with hanging instead of slaves and plunder – no longer cared to do their unspoken duty of protection. Big cats prowled close and unwarned of, snakes went unreported until white soldiers almost walked on them.

Most
terrible was when some men – desperate through heat and physical exhaustion – fell on springs and rivulets to slake their thirst. Nelson was one of the first to be blighted. Within a few scant hours of drinking from a stream, he was attacked by violent, racking pains in his belly, then started spouting vomit in thin, excruciating arcs. Then came the flux, the diarrhoea, the shaming floods of faeces.

It
turned out later, when Lawrie questioned one of the more loyal Indians, that springs were often poisoned by the local natives, for fishing purposes. Signs had been left as usual – sometimes no more than a knotted bunch of creepers – but the Mosquitos had not cared to point out and interpret them.

Tim
Hastie was beside himself, although within not many minutes he had joined his captain at ‘the squat and vomit.’ In camp, the first thing dug was always the ‘necessary house,’ a euphemism that a man from Liverpool had found ridiculous until he needed one. Now, such a place was undreamed of luxury. They shat where they fell, or where they stood. They often sicked up while they shat, into their stinking laps.

Hastie
was strong, Nelson, by now, was weaker than a milk-fed child. His determination, however, was invincible. Tim tried to help him, but more usually was helped himself. Springs were no longer for drinking from, but for wading into and washing off the filth – never mind the leeches and the flies. The castle, when it came in sight, was strangely beautiful in the limpid air. Strangely, too, it had been newly painted white.

‘It
is mocking us,’ Tim breathed. And Nelson growled: ‘Be not mocked.’

It
was hours before the full force was up within attacking distance, and by then their spies and scouts had garnered many things. The governor, far from sitting in blissful ignorance of the approaching forces, had known since the downstream outpost had been overrun that the enemy was near. He had then despatched a message up the river, along with his wife and children. They were bound for safety in Granada.

‘Hellfire!
Shit!’ said Colonel Polson. ‘They must have heard the guns when we stormed the islet. Despard! Can you not send canoes to cut them off?’

‘It’s
not many miles further to the lake,’ Despard replied. ‘They are possibly two days ahead of us. If you order me, sir, I will waste my time and energy. But—’

‘Do
not be flippant, sir! It ill becomes you. Then send men down to secure the cattle and the other livestock. Those huts must be their storerooms I suppose. Lay them to waste!’

‘I
am sorry for it, sir,’ said another officer, ‘but I fear you are too late. I have had men out. The beasts are dead or done for.’

It
was an Irish voice. Lieutenant Fahy, of the Royal Americans. He was an acknowledged master of bushland fighting. Polson glared at him.

‘Dead
and done for? What sort of talk is that? What beasts?’

‘The
beasts of the field,’ said Fahy, evenly. ‘The cattle for the garrison. Before we got here most of them were slaughtered where they stood. Provisions for the leopards and the pumas, sir, and very welcome, to be sure.’

‘What,
all of the beasts? But—’ Polson broke off, and forced a laugh. ‘Ah well, we’ll starve them out with ease, then. We’ll lay them siege immediately.’

‘Sir,’
said Nelson. His voice was strained, almost inaudible.

‘Sir,’
said Despard, taking over the lead. ‘We have no time for sieges. Captain Nelson and myself agreed it yesterday. The time has come to push home our advantage. The men are fired up for it. Even the natives are keen as mustard, I have made them more new hints. We must press onwards, assault them from the front. They will fall or run, sir. By God, I promise you!’

‘And
what is this advantage you are wishing on?’ said Polson, acidly. ‘Name this advantage, Despard. They are in a fifty foot high fort, fully manned, with God alone knows how many guns. And—’

‘Near
forty, sir,’ Lieutenant Fahy cut in. ‘Swivels, cannon, at least one mortar. And near a hundred soldiers with a fair good few trained gunners.’

‘So
pah to your advantage!’ Polson snapped at Despard. ‘So if we attack they cut us down for practice! So we stay put, sir, and we starve them out!’

Fahy
was smiling. He had a very Irish sense of humour, Tim Hastie thought.

‘Excepting,
sir, begging your honour’s pardon—’

‘What?’

‘Excepting, sir, they’ve took some of the cattle inside with them. And some goats, sir. Not many, sir, but enough for…ah, let’s say a good few weeks. Sir.’

‘And
the point is,’ Nelson said. ‘The point is, Colonel Polson…’

‘The
point is,’ Despard continued strongly, ‘surprise works on men in the most…’

‘Surprising…’
Nelson breathed.

‘Ways!’
Despard was laughing. ‘The captain’s right, sir! We must attack them now. It’s the last thing in the world they’ll be expecting. They have no idea of our numbers, we have everything to our advantage. Good God, sir, our Mosquito men are slavering! Slaves and Spanish women!’

‘And
the rains might come,’ said Nelson. ‘It is mid April. The rains will come.’

And
the rains will kill you, Tim Hastie thought. The captain was as pale as death. When the heavens open up, they will surely swallow you. Surely.

But
Polson was not to be persuaded.

Eighteen

Polson was not to be persuaded, because boots were needed on the ground. Not that they had boots – some of the men were already wearing makeshift sandals cut from hide, their shoes rotted and broken – or even ground solid enough to stand on. In reality, Nelson confided to Hastie, the colonel was afraid that the river was too much for his land soldiers, and one could sympathise with that, although he was quite wrong.

‘We
had so many boats go over, so much gear and powder lost,’ said Nelson. ‘I…I…’ His voice gave way to wheezing. His face went paler as he fought to get his breath. And then it creased in agony, as he clenched his hands around his stomach. ‘Ah God, Tim. I need to—’

Tim
led him to a handy bush, and tried not to listen as Nelson voided wind and fluid just out of his sight. No solids left to be excreted now. Almost nothing left inside at all.

Nelson’s
spirit, though, was undiminished. While Polson struggled up one river bank – less than a mile, but every inch a battle – and other men, on his orders, took different ways, the navy force unloaded the four-pounder guns and carriages and manhandled them to positions chosen by the captain. They waited until full dark to cross the last open spaces, and used block and tackle and all their skill to get the artillery up the steepest slope. Despard, in the meantime, used his men to level off the ground to site the battery.

It
was not until the next day, however, the thirteenth, that one gun was put in place and Nelson judged that it was time for firing. Weak though he was, he also judged it fit that he himself should lay it, calculate the angle and the charge, and ignite the fuse. His first shot hit the fort, to rousing cheers, and a wild response from the Spaniards. Wild, in that their returns were notably inaccurate.

Polson
then had his artillerymen drag the remaining three four-pounders up a nearby slope to aid the navy in their battery. It was a lesson cruelly taught. After several army shots and not one hit, Nelson took charge of all. Ammunition was severely restricted, and must not be wasted. On his fourth or fifth shot, the captain smashed the flag pole off the highest turret.

There
were only twenty balls or so, and when they had been used there was little to be done but wait. Polson had ordered more materials some days before, and later sent another urgent dispatch downriver to urge it on. Snipers were set up to prevent water parties from the fort reaching the river – it had a cistern within the walls, but lacked a well – and there was sporadic musket fire. The worst injury on the English side was when a sailor (one of Nelson’s, shamingly) got drunk and chased a pig into the danger zone beneath the walls, and got a musket ball inside his stomach. For once, Dr Dancer’s favourite remedy (strong liquor) seemed to do the trick.

It
was not until the twentieth that the cannon balls arrived, and another day before they were unloaded and carried to the guns. Disastrously, there were only fifty of them, out of two hundred that had been shipped from Greytown. As Colonel Polson had feared, the soldier escort had failed to keep them safe. Liquor, which was also decimating his own waiting men, had played its usual part.

There
was worse to come. As Tim Hastie marked it in his journal, after dark that night the long awaited rainstorms broke.

‘Sarah,’
he said, ‘I do not know if this paper book can survive to tell the tale, let alone your pining Timothy. I am inside a tent, but might as well be outside. It has a roof of stoutish flax, but the rain beats down so heavy on the outside that inside is like a misty day on Merseyside. It comes through the fabric as a fog, and my candle pops and splutters. The land outside is more like liquid, and the only worse place in the camp, God help us all, is the so-called hospital. There Dr Dancer, brave fellow, continues to try and keep the men alive.

‘Now
though, dearest, his task is getting worse, and so is mine. My own charge, Captain Nelson, is falling rapidly to a decay that might soon prove fatal. He has been racked by dysentery for long enough, has survived a bout of poisoning from a stream, but now has been assailed once more by a vile malaria. Hot fevers, icy, shaking bouts, diarrhoea (forgive my crudeness,
cariad
), the hawking up of naught but blood and bile. Polson suggested he should try the hospital, so weak had he become, but Dancer, God bless him, would not hear of it. “Although it is my only pride and joy,” he said. “I would not put a dog in it!”

‘Men
can still joke, Sarah, men still are brave. But I am told these rains are not like English rains, and that this storm alone might last for weeks or months. More supplies are due at any day, which please God will bring alleviation. Pray for me, Sarah. But before that, my dearest…please pray for Nelson.’

The
stores arrived, and through one of those mistakes for which the military is most famous, were sufficient only for a scant few days. That same morning the last ball for the four pound cannons was expended, and the carronade that came up with the stores proved beyond the skill of the army men to fire accurately. Nelson was approached, then rapidly abandoned to Tim Hastie’s care. He had lost the power of speech and thought.

‘I
think that he will die,’ wrote Hastie. ‘His mind moves in and out, and I can hardly get him to keep even vermicelli down. With Dancer so hard pressed with sickness, I have been called on often to give aid to the newly wounded, of whom there is a growing number. I was rousted out this morning when a party of the Blues went to the river to prevent the water carriers leaving the keep, and came under sneak attack.

‘It
was early, with Nelson thankfully asleep, and when I was hurried to the water, shots were flying round like wasps. God help me, Sarah – I found that I enjoyed it! To be doing something! To be beyond the smell of sickness and of death. One man was hit but three-foot from me – less – and I was not afeard, but exhilarated! And happily, dear girl, he was not badly hurt, and thanked me very pretty when I bound him up.

‘But
happiness was short-lived. I am ashamed to tell it,
cariad
, but I must. Ten minutes afterwards, the attackers having been chased away, we came upon three victims of their jolly little outing. Three of our men, three sons of Liverpool, robbed, and killed, and naked on the strand. It is said the Dons will be out soon once more, in full force. And Nelson lies abed, and sweats, and groans. He will be so vexed that he has missed it.’

Hastie
was right in his intelligence. That night the Spanish sallied out in strength, and the air was thick with musketry and yells. The Loyal Irish bore the brunt of the first wave, and two of them were killed, but Colonel Polson had pulled his men up forward just in time, and the battle, though extremely fierce, went to the English not too bloodily. Next day, the twenty eighth, the colonel asked Timothy to convey to Nelson that he was going to invite the castle to surrender – and enquired if he had an officer who had the Spanish to translate it!

‘Sarah,
we had no such man,’ Tim wrote. ‘And in any way, Nelson was by now too ill to speak or even think. To say that he was raving would be to risk his anger, but he was gripped with fever, and hallucinating. But even as I waited on him, hoping desperate that he would come to good again, I was interrupted with news of another messenger. And required to attend the colonel urgently.

‘You
may imagine, if you will, the scene. Polson was standing by the roaring river in sight of San Juan castle, and I say roaring advisedly, because the sky was almost solid with the rain. The level of the water was rising inch by inch, and it had gone from a sleek, green, sinuous animal to a raging, tumbling torrent. Drawn up on the bank there was a pitpan, fully manned with Africans, jet black and magnificent. The colonel seized me by the arm.

‘“Despatches!”’
he shouted. ‘“Hastie, we will save your captain’s life! We have failed to persuade him he must go downriver, but now he can’t deny us! Despatches! Orders from Admiral Parker. He is to give Collingwood command of Hinchinbrook, and he is to go to Jamaica to be captain of the frigate Janus. Orders that will save his life.”’

It
was two hours before Nelson was conscious enough to be told all this. Tim Hastie kept him quiet, refused to let Polson or Despard even enter his tent. But finally the deed was done, and Nelson was convinced.

Whether
the castle fell or not, he would play no part in it. He had orders from his admiral, and Horatio Nelson, above all other things, would do his duty.

With
the aerosol of rain misting the dull flax interior, Hastie leaned inwards, and the men embraced.

Please
God, thought Tim, that there would still be time.