“Here they come again,” said Bracegirdle. “Oh, only skirmishers.”
A few scattered men were running out along the causeway to the bridge. At long musket range they fell to the ground and began spasmodic firing; already there were some dead men lying over there and the skirmishers took cover behind the corpses. On this side of the gap the skirmishers, better sheltered, fired back at them.
“They haven’t a chance, here at any rate,” said Bracegirdle. “And look there.”
The main body of the Royalist force, summoned from the town, was marching up along the road. While they watched it, a cannon shot from the other side struck the head of the column and ploughed into it — Hornblower saw dead men flung this way and that, and the column wavered. Pouzauges came riding up and yelled orders, and the column, leaving its dead and wounded on the road, changed direction and took shelter in the marshy fields beside the causeway.
With nearly all the Royalist force assembled, it seemed indeed as if it would be utterly impossible for the Revolutionaries to force a crossing here.
“I’d better report on this to the Lobsters,” said Hornblower.
“There was firing down that way at dawn,” agreed Bracegirdle.
Skirting the wide marsh here ran a narrow path through the lush grass, leading to the ford which the 43rd were guarding. Hornblower led his horse onto the path before he mounted; he felt he would be more sure in that way of persuading the horse to take that direction. It was not long before he saw a dab of scarlet on the river bank — pickets thrown out from the main body to watch against any unlikely attempt to cross the marshes and stream round the British flank. Then he saw the cottage that indicated the site of the ford; in the field beside it was a wide patch of scarlet indicating where the main body was waiting for developments. At this point the marsh narrowed where a ridge of slightly higher ground approached the water; a company of redcoats was drawn up here with Lord Edrington on horseback beside them. Hornblower rode up and made his report, somewhat jerkily as his horse moved restlessly under him.
“No serious attack, you say?” asked Edrington.
“No sign of one when I left, sir.”
“Indeed?” Edrington stared across the river. “And here it’s the same story. No attempt to cross the ford in force. Why should they show their hand and then not attack?”
“I thought they were burning powder unnecessarily, sir,” said Hornblower.
“They’re not fools,” snapped Edrington, with another penetrating look across the river. “At any rate, there’s no harm in assuming they are not.”
He turned his horse and cantered back to the main body and gave an order to a captain, who scrambled to his feet to receive it. The captain bellowed an order, and his company stood up and fell into line, rigid and motionless. Two further orders turned them to the right and marched them off in file, every man in step, every musket sloped at the same angle. Edrington watched them go.
“No harm in having a flank guard,” he said.
The sound of a cannon across the water recalled them to the river; on the other side of the marsh a column of troops could be seen marching rapidly along the bank.
“That’s the same column coming back, sir,” said the company commander. “That or another just like it.”
“Marching about and firing random shots,” said Edrington. “Mr Hornblower, have the émigré troops any flank guard out towards Quiberon?”
“Towards Quiberon, sir?” said Hornblower, taken aback.
“Damn it, can’t you hear a plain question? Is there, or is there not?”
“I don’t know, sir,” confessed Hornblower miserably.
There were five thousand émigré troops at Quiberon, and it seemed quite unnecessary to keep a guard out in that direction.
“Then present my compliments to the French émigré general, and suggest he posts a strong detachment up the road, if he has not done so.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Hornblower turned his horse’s head back up the path towards the bridge. The sun was shining strongly now over the deserted herds. He could still hear the occasional thud of a cannon shot, but overhead a lark was singing in the blue sky. Then as he headed up the last low ridge towards Muzillac and the bridge he heard a sudden irregular outburst of firing; he fancied he heard screams and shouts, and what he saw as he topped the rise, made him snatch at his reins and drag his horse to a halt. The fields before him were covered with fugitives in blue uniforms with white crossbelts, all running madly towards him. In among the fugitives were galloping horsemen, whirling sabres that flashed in the sunshine. Farther out to the left a whole column of horsemen were trotting fast across the fields, and farther back the sun glittered on lines of bayonets moving rapidly from the high road towards the sea.