Badge of Glory (1982) by Douglas Reeman Page A

various tasks in silence. They knew what to expect, or thought they did.
    Blackwood heard footsteps moving cautiously along the parapet and saw Lascelles peering towards him.
    ‘Sentries mounted, sir. The rest are settling down as ordered.’
    It was strange, Blackwood thought, but the lieutenant seemed more at a loss even than the recruits. Too long with a small detachment of marines in a modern vessel like
Satyr
, perhaps that was it. It would become easy to be a passenger under those circumstances.
    He wrenched his mind away from vague uncertainties and said, ‘We’ve got food and water for three weeks.’ He saw him flinch. ‘If need be. The water must be rationed, for although there is a stream, old Fenwick thinks it might have been poisoned. I’ve warned the men, but keep at them.’ He felt drained and unreasonably angry that Lascelles seemed able to let him make all the decisions and offer nothing. ‘Marines are taught to be clean and tidy at all times from the moment they enlist. They must unlearn that lesson immediately. I want all uniforms stowed away, and each man to stain his shirt so that it will not make him a target. Colour-Sergeant M’Crystal is dealing with that. Under protest.’
    He pictured M’Crystal’s red face, the look of horror when he had ordered him to use tea or coffee for staining the men’s shirts. It must have sounded like blasphemy to him.
    Blackwood added, ‘We are trained to fight, but not to deal with this kind of enemy. I’ll not have our men marked down by some bloody sharpshooter just because of the drill book.’
    Lascelles rested his palms on the rough wall. ‘You believe they’ll come back?’
    ‘Yes.’
    He thought of old Tom Fenwick, the way he had somehow gained in stature after being on the threshold of hell itself. He had said that the king, Mdlaka, must have promised someone a clear passage down-river with an important cargo. It had to make sense. With the armed schooner
Kingsmill
missing, probably wrecked, it was a chance in a thousand to run a shipment to the coast for collection. Only the trading post stood in the way, and Mdlaka had had no intention of allowing a single soul here to survive. He had even sent men to steal the fort’s two boats before the real attack had been started.
    Fenwick had described it with little emotion. As if he had been somewhere else, or a mere spectator.
    They had rushed the gates when they had been open for any would-be barter from the nearest villages, and the battle had surged back and forth, hand to hand and without quarter. Somehow they had driven the first attack clear of the compound long enough to bar the gates. After that it had been a slower, more terrifying process. Burning wads had been thrown over the walls to set fire to the huts, and several of the defenders had been shot down by marksmen concealed on the hillsides.
    Two of the traders had decided to leave the fort and look for one of the missing boats. The next morning one of them had been found outside the gates horribly mutilated and apparently skinned alive. The next day the second man had been sighted tied to a tree directly opposite the gates but too for away for rescue. Even Fenwick, who had seen what savage torture could do, had said he did not know what had made the man stay alive for a whole day. ‘They must’ve give ’im to the women to do that to ’im,’ he had said harshly.
    Blackwood said, ‘They may try a mock attack to test our strength. But it’s those rifled muskets I’m worried about.’
    Lascelles said vaguely, ‘The Corps will be getting them next year, sir, like the army.’
    ‘That won’t help us!’ He relented, knowing it was fatigue and strain which were giving his tongue an edge. ‘Fenwick has drawn a map for me.’ He pointed across the wall into the blackness. ‘There’s a shallow dip in the ground beyond the ridge, and then a pointed hill, like a loaf. Perfect place for a spotting post. We’ll have it manned as soon as we