The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

The fifty men filed through the abatis and went west along the ridge, keeping close to the northern side where the trees were dark from the previousday's rain. To their left were the stumps of the felled pines, many scarred by cannon shot that had fallen short. About halfway between the fort and the rebeltrenches Caffrae led the company into the trees. They went cautiously now, still going westwards, but slowly, always alert for rebel picquets among theleaves. Moore wished he wore a green coat like the enemy marines. He stopped once, his heart pounding because of a sudden noise to his right, but itwas only a squirrel scrabbling up a trunk. "I think they've gone," Caffrae said softly."Or perhaps they're being clever," Moore suggested."Clever?"Luring us into an ambush?""We'll find out, won't we?" Caffrae said. He peered ahead. These woods had been his playground where he came to alarm the rebels, but he had rarelyadvanced this far down the ridge. He listened, but heard nothing untoward. "Staying here won't put gravy on the beefsteak, will it?" he said. "Let's moveon."They threaded the wet trees, still going at a snail's pace. Caffrae now edged back to the left so he could see the cleared ground and he realized he hadadvanced well beyond the rebels' foremost trenches, and those trenches were empty. If this was an ambush then it would surely have been sprung by now."They've gone," he said, trying to convince himself.They went faster now, advancing ten or fifteen paces at a time, then came to a clearing that had plainly been a rebel encampment. Felled logssurrounded the wet ashes of three campfires, rough shelters of branches and sod stood at the clearing's edges, and a latrine pit stank in the woodsbehind. Men peered into the shelters, but found nothing, then followed Caffrae along a track which led towards the river. Moore saw a piece of papercaught in the undergrowth and fished it out with his sword. The paper was wet and disintegrating, but he could still see that someone had written a girl'sname in pencil. Adelaide Rebecah. The name was written again and again in a round and childish hand. Adelaide Rebecah."Anything interesting?" Caffrae asked."Just mis-spelt love." Moore said and threw the paper away.At the side of the path between two of the encampments was a row of graves, each marked with a wooden cross and heaped with stones to stopanimals clawing up the corpses. Names were written in charcoal on the crosses. Isaac Fulsome, Nehemiah Eldredge, Thomas Snow, John Reardon.There were seventeen names and seventeen crosses. Someone had written the words "for Liberty" after Thomas Snow's name, except they had run outof space and the "y" was awkwardly cramped into a corner of the crosspiece."Sir!" Sergeant Logie called. "Sir!" Caffrae ran to the sergeant. "Listen, sir," Logie said.For a moment all Caffrae could hear was the water dripping from the leaves and the small susurration of feeble waves on the bluff's beach, but then heheard voices. So the rebels were not gone? The voices appeared to come from the foot of the bluff and Caffrae led his men that way to discover a roadhacked into the steep face. The road was rutted by wheels because this was how the guns had been hauled to the heights and then hauled down again,and one gun was still on shore. Caffrae, reaching the bluff's edge, saw a boat on the shingle and saw men struggling with a cannon at the road's end."We'll have that gun, lads," he said, "so come on!"A dozen rebels were manhandling the twelve-pounder onto the beach, but the ruts in the road were waterlogged and the gun was heavy, and the menwere tired. Then they heard the noises above them and saw the redcoats bright among the trees. "Lift the barrel!" the rebel officer ordered. They gatheredround the gun and lifted the heavy barrel out of its carriage and staggered with their burden across the shingle. The redcoats were whooping and running.The rebels almost swamped the lighter as they dumped the barrel on its stern, but the boat stayed afloat and they clambered aboard and the sailorspulled on the oars as the first Scotsmen arrived on the beach. One rebel stumbled as he tried to shove the boat offshore. He lost his footing and fell fulllengthinto the water just as the oars bit and carried the craft away. His companions stretched arms towards him as he waded and thrashed his waytowards the receding boat, but it pulled further away and a Scottish voice ordered the man back to the beach. He was a prisoner, but the cannon barrelwas saved. The lighter was rowed still further offshore as the remainder of Caffrae's men streamed onto the shingle where one of them, a corporal, raisedhis musket. "No!" Caffrae called sharply. "Let them be!" That was not mercy but caution because some of the transport ships carried small cannon andthe beach was well inside their range. To fire a musket was to invite the reply of a grape-loaded cannon. The musket dropped.Moore stopped by the abandoned gun carriage. Ahead of him was Penobscot Bay and the rebel fleet. There was no wind so the fleet was stillanchored. The sun was well above the horizon now and the day was crystal clear. The dawn mist had vanished so that Moore could now see the secondfleet, a smaller fleet, which lay far to the south, and at the heart of that smaller fleet was a big ship, a ship with two decks of guns, a ship far bigger thananything the rebels possessed, and Moore knew from the size of the ship that the Royal Navy had arrived.And the rebels were gone from Majabigwaduce.* * *Peleg Wadsworth had pleaded with General Lovell to prepare themselves for just this emergency. He had wanted to take men upriver and find a point ofland where gun batteries could be prepared and then, if the British did send a fleet, the rebels could withdraw behind their new defenses and pound thepursuing ships with gunfire, but Lovell had refused every such plea.Now Lovell wanted exactly what Wadsworth had asked for so often. James Fletcher was summoned to the Sally's stern-deck and asked what layupriver. "There's about six, seven mile of bay, General," Fletcher told Lovell, "then it's a narrow river after that. She goes twenty mile before you can go nofurther.""And the river winds over those twenty miles?" Lovell asked."In places she does," James said. "There's some straight channels and there are twists as tight as Satan's tail.""The banks are hilly?""All the way, sir.""Then our objective," Lovell said, "is to find a bend in the river that we can fortify." The rebel fleet could shelter upriver of the bend, and every gun thatcould be carried ashore would be dug into the high ground to shatter the pursuing British ships. The fleet would thus be saved and the army preserved.Lovell gave Wadsworth a rueful smile. "Don't chide me, Wadsworth," he said, "I know you foresaw this might happen.""I hoped it would not, sir.""But all will be well," Lovell said with sublime confidence. "Some energy and application will preserve us."Little could be done while there was no wind to move the ships. Yet Lovell was pleased with the night's work. Everything that could be saved from theheights, all except for one gun carriage, had been embarked and that achievement, in a night of rain and chaos, had been remarkable. It boded well forthe army's survival. "We have all our guns," Lovell said, "all our men and all our supplies!""Almost all our guns," Major Todd corrected the general."Almost?" Lovell asked indignantly."The cannon were not recovered from Cross Island," Major Todd said."Not recovered! But I gave distinct orders that they were to be withdrawn!""Colonel Revere claimed he was too busy, sir."Lovell stared at the major. "Busy?""Colonel Revere also claimed, sir," Todd went on, taking some pleasure in describing the failings of his enemy, "that your orders no longer applied tohim."Lovell gaped at his brigade major. "He said what?""He averred that the siege had been abandoned, sir, and that therefore he was no longer obliged to accept your orders.""Not obliged to accept my orders?" Lovell asked in disbelief."That is what he claimed, sir," Todd said icily. "So I fear those guns are lost, sir, unless we have time to retrieve them this morning. I also regret to tellyou, sir, that the pay chest is missing.""It'll turn up," Lovell said dismissively, still brooding over Lieutenant-Colonel Revere's brazen insolence. Not obliged to accept orders? Who did Reverethink he was?"We need the pay chest," Todd insisted."It will be found, I'm sure," Lovell said testily. There had been chaos in the dark and it was inevitable that some items would have been carried to thewrong transport ship, but that could all be sorted out once a safe anchorage was discovered and protected. "But first we must haul those guns off CrossIsland," Lovell insisted, "I will leave nothing for the British. You hear me? Nothing!"But there was no time to rescue the cannon. The first catspaws of wind had just begun to ruffle the bay and the British fleet was already hauling itsanchors and loosing sails. The rebel fleet had to move and one by one the anchors were raised, the sails released and the ships, assisted by the flood