The Adventures of Henri Bonhomme - Prequel 1

Henri Bonhomme was finding his posting rather tedious. Since landing in Egypt on 1 July 1798 he had seen little action. While Bonaparte had taken Alexandria his battalion has been assigned to guard the trains. Then as the main army marched across the desert on Cairo, gaining laurels at the Battle of the Pyramids, he had remained in garrison at Alexandria for nine months before being sent to the Nile in April 1799. 

Here the French established a garrison in an old Ottoman fort about two miles north-east of the port of Rashid, or Rosetta as the French called it. Renamed Fort Julien the fort was a terrible mosquito ridden place, but it was better than the squalor of Rosetta. There was no social life, but the redeeming feature was that since it had been set up as a supply base a good supply of wine could be found there. 

The constant threat of  raids by the mamluks and the fear that the Royal Navy could sail up the Nile meant that fort needed to be strengthened and better armed. Colonel d'Hartpoul had been assigned as the chief engineer charged with making the improvements and he seconded Bonhomme's Second battalion, 6lst Demi-brigade to assist. 

With the annual inundation well under way the country around Fort Julien was lush and the malmuks became bolder, raiding farms to deny the French access to grain. On 13 July a body of malmuks raided within a kilometre of the fort and were chased by a squadron of dragoons. However, the dragoons quickly found themselves outnumbered and fell back in haste to a small village near where Bonhomme's battalion was working.

The infantry quickly dropped their tools, grabbed their weapons and fell in. The chasseur company began sniping at the mamluks while the remainder of the battalion formed square. Bonhomme took position in the centre. 

The malmuks closed in at frightening speed, but Bonhomme ordered the battalion to hold fire. 

When they came within 60 metres he yelled, "leading face, front rank...FIRE!" The front rank of company that formed the lead face of the square fired and many of the horsemen fell, but still they came on. He ordered the second rank to fire. Still more mamluks fell but they still came on. At 30 metres he ordered the third rank to fire. 

Less than a third of the mamluks remained alive and their horses shied away from the wall of bayonets. Those riders drifted  past the sides of the square that now fired independently. Bonhomme thought that they looked fabulous, dressed in silk with gold and silver ornaments, and mounted on magnificent steeds. Some fired pistols, each man seemed to carry several, while others tried to strike with swords and lances. He saw one huge man dressed in yellow silk and an absurdly tall hat swing a vicious looking mace at the bayonets, but received a musket shot in the face for his effort. 

Another drew a blunderbuss that was slung across his back and fired it at blank range killing a young soldier in the third rank before a half dozen bayonets brought about his end.

Soon there were just a few dozen shocked riders left, milling around not knowing where to go. Bonhomme ordered the  dragoons to chase them off. Only a few riders managed to escape with their lives.

When it was over it was an awful sight. Dozens of men and horses lay dead or dying in front of the square. Little quarter was given. Many of the French helped themselves to the possessions of the dead - weapons, gold and silver trinkets, and the occasional purse of coins. Bonhomme secured a beautiful curved sword with deep engraving on the blade and a large jewel on the hilt. His time in Egypt had stirred an interest in collecting interesting, and sometimes valuable, items and this seemed to fit both criteria.

The loss to the infantry was slight, just two killed and three wounded and with the crisis passed the men returned to their work. With little interest in the task Bonhomme headed back towards his tent with his newly acquired sword to enjoy the bottle of Bordeaux he had won at cards the night before.  As he passed one group of men attempting to demolish an old wall saw a man fall and cry out. 

The man had stood on a loose stone that had given way and he fell into a cavity beneath. By the time Bonhomme reached the place the man had been extracted and although bruised was not seriously injured. He looked into the darkness of the cavity and it seemed to contain a number of items that might be worthwhile collecting. Unseen by others he secured what appeared to be several pieces of jewellery and a couple of small statues. He crammed them into his jacket as best he could and ordered the men to move some more stones so that he could have a better look. This could be one of those tombs of the ancients he had heard about.

As the men worked to open the cavity more Lieutenant Bouchard from the second company came by.

"That darker stone there, sir, the black one...is very different. It seems to have some fine writing on it," he said.

Bonhomme thought, "interfering little..." then said sarcastically, " it's probably just sign saying 'keep out' or something".

"I don't think so," Bouchard insisted, not picking the sarcasm. "It is very different to any other writing we have seen. I think I can see some Greek there."

Bonhomne was becoming irritated with Bouchard. One of the negatives of the Revolution and this "Enlightenment" nonsense is that anyone, like Bouchard, who could read could pick up some volumes in the libraries of former aristocracy, see some Greek characters and suddenly become an expert in all things Greek. Bonhomme was about to find an assignment for him when the lieutenant called out to Colonel d'Hartpoul who was nearby. D'Hartpoul came across at once and quickly agreed that this was different and sent for General Menou who was a short distance away on a tour of inspection of the construction.

"Damn it!" Bonhomme thought as he looked down into the hole and was sure he could see more items of interest in there.

About half an hour later Menou arrived accompanied by a savant, a technical expert from what Bonaparte called the Commission des Sciences et des Arts. The savant was immediately excited about the find, particularly the dark stone that Bouchard had identified. 

Menou ordered that the site was to be secured and he put the  pompous Bouchard in charge with orders to shoot anyone other than the savants who entered or tried to remove anything. Bonhomme pushed this collected pieces deeper into his pocket, looked into the hole again, then returned to his tent and that bottle of Bordeaux.

He took out the items he found at the fort. They were splendid. The statues were richly decorated in black, gold and reds. There were three pieces of jewellery, two that looked like bracelets and one a neck piece or possibly a head dress. All were gold inlaid with lapis of varying shades of blue. The gold work was fine and clearly very old. He wondered just how old.

For the next three days Bonhomme went down to the site of the 'dig' as the savants called it. He watched these dapper men poking around the hole, then examine and sketch numerous items before packing them carefully into crates. 

Finally they declared the find significant. The stone they said contained Greek text and hieroglyphs and might provide help in translating ancient Egyptian texts. An important cache of valuable ancient artefacts was also found in the hole and recovered, but it was clear that tomb robbers had been though recently as the dust had been disturbed and some items appeared to have been removed. Bouchard was hailed as the discoverer of this important discovery, rather than the poor bugger who had nearly broken his neck stumbling into the hole, and was ordered to escort the collection to Cairo. 

Bonhomme determined to keep his pieces. The statues were a nice addition to his growing collection and he was certain that his sister Marie-Claire would appreciate the jewellery pieces. His problem was how to get them home. Shipping in the Mediterranean was difficult thanks to the Royal Navy. The only communication with France was by the fast cutters that sailed close to the shore at night carrying dispatches. However, for an enterprising man like himself, armed with a few good bottles of wine, getting his parcel on board was not too difficult a task - even if the trip would take two or three weeks.

And so the first items of what promised to be an eclectic collection of artefacts found a new home near Bordeaux