Chapter XL: The Landing

We had a noble run, for the wind continued fresh and fair, we never lifted tack or sheet the whole way, and one morning I was roused early by the announcement that Martinique was in sight. This was on the morning of the 5th of March.

I hastened on deck and could distinctly see the Cardinal's Cap, the most lofty hill in the isle of St. Martin (and a good landmark for mariners) ascending slowly from a sea empurpled by the yet unrisen sun. Since we had left Carlisle Bay, no sail, save the fleet, had been visible. I thought of Rouvigny, whose fleet schooner _Les Droits de l'Homme_ could not be many hours ahead of us--if indeed, he had shaped his course to Martinique--and I hailed the rising land with a glow of stern hope.

As the fleet drew nearer to the shore, two other mountains became visible--the highest being Mont Pelee, a dormant volcano, as lofty as Ben Nevis. It is covered with dark copsewood the density of which attracts the clouds, and from its steep sides innumerable streams descend to water the broad savannahs, where the yellow canes of Java and Tahiti were waving in the breeze, and those fertile fields where coffee, cassia, cotton, and maize are cultivated. Savannah is an old Spanish word, signifying a plain as smooth and level as a _sheet_.

The race of Caribs in Martinique had long since been totally exterminated; but stories of them, preserved in the voyages of the Buccaneers and the wars of the Spaniards, invested with a species of romance the conical hills of the island, as they rose, higher, greener, and more defined from sea. In the "Excellent Treatise of Antonio Galvano," which contains a history of navigation from the floating of the Ark to his own time in 1555, we are told that the "Caribees are good warriors, who shoot well with the bow; but they poison their arrows with an herb, whereof he that is hurt dieth, biting himself to death as a mad dog doth;" and Peter Martyr, another veracious chronicler, states that Martinique was once inhabited by women _alone_.

Nearer we drew, and ere long the windmills and houses, the cocoas and palms tossing their broad and fanlike branches, became visible. Then a fort or two, with the tricolour of France waving; and as the wind fell or began to change, and the spicy fragrance of the land reached us, the admiral fired a gun, and signalled to haul up the courses and shorten sail.

The beach of scorched sand seemed white as snow; above it was the wooded country, where forests of strange large leaves were tossing in the wind; and further off still, mellowed faint and blue in cloud and distance, were the summits of the Cardinal's Cap and Mont Pelee, the volcano whose terrors slumbered till 1851.

The fleet, according to an able plan arranged by our general, Sir Charles Grey, and our admiral, the valiant old Sir John Jervis, divided into three squadrons, for the purpose of assailing the island (which is thirty-five miles in length by fifteen in breadth*) on three points, and thus distracting the defence of the troops under General Rochambeau and Rouvigny.

* According to Captain Gardiner, thirty-nine miles in length by twenty-one in breadth.

One portion of the expedition, led by Sir Charles Grey in person, by Lieutenant-General Prescot, and Brigadier-General Whyte, having with them the 2nd battalion of Light Infantry, the 15th Foot under Colonel Symes, two hundred seamen armed with pikes and pistols, several detached companies, and two amusettes, landed at Le Cul de Sac Marin, on the south coast of the island. There they drove the French back on every point, and established batteries on Mont Mathurine; there two howitzers, served by the seamen, under Captain de Rousigne, of the Royal Artillery, demolished the works of the enemy on the Pigeon Isle, where two French companies, after a heavy fire of shot and shell, surrendered. By this success, the great bay of Fort Royal, with the town and citadel, were opened to our fleet. Immediately after this, the 15th regiment, led by Major Lyon, stormed the heights of Le Grand Bouclain, killing the enemy in great numbers, and taking their colours, ammunition, and cattle.

At the same time, a second squadron, under Major General Thomas Dundas, of Fingask, colonel of the 68th, but formerly of the _old_ 80th, or Edinburgh Regiment, the veteran comrade of Cornwallis, with the 9th and 70th regiments, the 1st Light Infantry, and 2nd Grenadier Battalion, bore away to the northward, and effected a landing at La Trinité, and stormed Morne le Brun, under a heavy fire of musketry; carrying all the works, cannon, and stores, and driving Bellegarde, the captain of the free blacks from the mountain fortress that bore his name. Colonel Campbell, with five companies of Light Infantry, seized Colon during the same night; and, there, the grenadiers of the 33rd would have been cut to pieces, but for those of the 38th, under Captain MacEwan, who rescued them from an attack of the ferocious Bellegarde and his savages.

The _third division_, with whose operations I was more immediately connected, as the Scots Fusiliers formed a part of it, with a battalion of Grenadiers, the 43rd Light Infantry, the marines, and other troops, under Sir Charles Gordon, and Captains Rogers and Cranky, of the navy, stood close in shore to the south-east, creeping almost at the foot of the two giant Pitons, with orders to force a landing at Caise des Navires,--the same place where, on a former occasion, our regiment had landed under General Bruce, but were overwhelmed by the number of the enemy.

While the _Adder_, and other ships forming our portion of the armament, kept off shore during the 5th, 6th, and 7th, hovering near the Diamond Rock, which is usually covered by wild pigeons, and threatening a small redoubt in the bay of St. Anne, we heard, repeatedly, the boom of the cannon on Mont Mathurine, and the patter of musketry in the distance; and though we knew not how the fortune of war went with our comrades, we longed to rejoin and unite our strength with them; nor did the grim preparations made by Dr. Splints and the medical staff, the packing of lint, rolling of long-tailed bandages, the formation of stretchers for the wounded, by tying blankets to sergeants' pikes, which were to be borne by the bandsmen, in any way daunt our ardour; and a general joy spread from ship to ship, as the squadron, which had been standing to the northward, put about, when the night of the 8th of March came on, moonless and almost starless, for hazy clouds overhung the giant hills of Martinique, as we ran close in shore.

Then in silence, the boats were lowered, filled with thousands of soldiers, marines, and seamen, all with their arms carefully primed and loaded, and were pulled away towards Caise des Navires, where a stream which flows down from one of those stupendous sugarloaf-shaped mountains, Les Pitons du Carbet, falls into the sea, about four miles westward of the citadel of Fort Royal.