The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

tide, retreated northwards. The wind was weak and fickle, scarce enough to stir the fleet, so some smaller ships used their long ash oars to help theirprogress while others were towed by longboats.The cannon on Cross Island were abandoned, but everything else was saved. All the rebel guns and supplies had been carried down the muddy track inthe rainy dark, then rowed out to the transport ships, and now those ships edged northwards, northwards to the river narrows, and northwards to safety.And behind them, between the transport ships and Sir George Collier's flotilla, the rebel warships cleared for action and spread slowly across the bay. Ifthe transports were sheep then Saltonstall's warships were the dogs.And the wolves were coming.Redcoats gathered at Dyce's Head to watch the unfolding drama. Brigadier McLean's servant had thoughtfully brought a milking stool all the way to thebluff and McLean thanked the man and sat down to watch the unfolding battle. It would be a privileged view of a rare sight, McLean thought. Seventeenrebel warships waited for six Royal Navy vessels. Three British frigates led the way, while the big two-decker and the remaining two frigates came onmore slowly. "I do believe that's the Blonde," McLean said, staring at the nearest frigate through his telescope. "It's our old friend Captain Barkley!" Off toMcLean's right the nineteen rebel transports were inching northwards. From this distance it looked as if their sails hung limp and powerless, but minute byminute they drew further away.The Blonde fired her bow-chasers. To the watchers ashore it looked as if her bowsprit was blotted out by blossoming smoke. A moment later the soundof the two guns pounded the bluff. A pair of white fountains showed where the round shots had splashed well short of the Warren, which lay at the center ofthe rebel line. The smoke thinned and drifted ahead of the British ships."Look at that!" Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell exclaimed. He was pointing at the harbor mouth where Mowat's three sloops had appeared. They werekedging out of the harbor against the prevailing wind. Ever since he had heard that the rebels had abandoned the siege Mowat had been retrieving hisships' guns from their shore emplacements. His men had worked hard and fast, desperate to join the promised fight in the bay, and now, with theirportside broadsides restored, the three sloops were on their way to join Sir George's flotilla. Longboats took turns to carry anchors far forrard of thesloops' bows, the anchors were dropped, then the sloops were hauled forward on the anchor rode as a second anchor was rowed still further ahead forthe next leg of the journey. They leapfrogged anchor by anchor out of the harbor and the North's pumps still clattered and spurted, and all three shipsshowed damage to their hulls from the long rebel bombardment, but their guns were loaded and their tired crews eager. The Blonde fired again, and onceagain the shots dropped short of the rebel ships."They do say," McLean remarked, "that firing the guns brings on the wind.""I thought it was the other way round," Campbell said, "that gunfire stills the wind?""Well, it's one or the other," McLean said happily, "or maybe neither? But I do remember a nautical fellow assuring me of it." And perhaps firing the twochasers on HMS Blonde had brought on a small wind because the British ships seemed to be making better speed as they approached the rebel fleet. "Itwill be bloody work," McLean said. The foremost three frigates would be far outgunned by the rebels, though the big Raisonable was not that far behindand her massive lower guns were sufficient to blow each of the rebel warships out of the water with a single broadside. Even the Warren, with hereighteen-pounders, would be far outmatched by the two-decker's thirty-two-pounders. "Mind you," McLean went on, "sailors do tell us the strangest things!I had a skipper on the Portugal run who swore blind the world was flat. He claimed to have seen the rainbows at its edge!""The fellow who took us to Halifax," Campbell said, "told us tales of mermaids. He said they flocked together like sheep, and that down in the southernseas it's tits and tails from horizon to horizon.""Really?" Major Dunlop asked eagerly."That's what he said! Tits and tails!""Dear me," McLean said, "I see I must sail south." He straightened on the stool, watching the three sloops. "Oh, well done, Mowat!" he saidenthusiastically. The three sloops had laboriously used their anchors to haul themselves out of the harbor and now loosed their sails."And what does that signify?" Major Dunlop asked. His question had been prompted by a string of bright signal flags that had appeared at the Warren'smizzen mast. The flags meant nothing to the watchers on the bluff who had now been joined by most of Majabigwaduce's inhabitants, curious to watch anevent that would surely make their village famous."He's taking them into battle, I suppose," Campbell suggested."I suppose he must be," McLean agreed, though he did not see what the rebels could do other than what they were already doing. CommodoreSaltonstall's seventeen ships were in a line with all their broadsides pointing at the oncoming ships, and that gave the rebels a huge advantage. Theycould shoot and shoot, secure in the knowledge that only the bow-chasers on the three leading frigates could return the fire. The Royal Navy, the brigadierthought, must take some grievous casualties before the big two-decker battleship could demolish the American defiance.Except the Americans were not defiant. "What on earth?" McLean asked."Bless me," Campbell said, equally astonished.Because the meaning of Saltonstall's signal was suddenly clear. There would be no fight, at least no fight of the commodore's making because, one byone, the rebel warships were turning away. They had loosed their sheets and were running before the small wind. Running northwards. Running away.Running for the safety of the river narrows.Six ships and three sloops chased thirty-seven vessels.All running away.Three rebel ships decided to make a break for the open sea. The Hampden, with her twenty guns, was the largest, while the Hunter had eighteen gunsand the Defence just fourteen. The commodore's orders had required every ship to do its best to evade the enemy, and so the three ships tackedwestwards across the bay, aiming to take the less used western channel past Long Island and so downriver to the ocean, which lay twenty-six nauticalmiles to the south. The Hunter was a new ship and reputed to be the fastest sailor on the coast, while Nathan Brown, her captain, was a canny man whoknew how to coax every last scrap of speed from his ship's hull. There was precious little wind, not nearly as much as Brown would have liked, yet even sohis sleek hull moved perceptibly faster than the Hampden, which, being larger, should have been the quicker vessel.Signal flags fluttered from a yardarm on HMS Raisonable. For a time it was hard to tell what those flags portended, because nothing seemed tochange in the British fleet, then Brown saw the two rearmost British frigates turn slowly westwards. "Bastards want a race," he said.It was an unequal race. The two smaller rebel ships might be quick and nimble sailors, but they had the disadvantage of sailing closer to the wind andthe two frigates easily closed the gap through which the rebels needed to tack. Two guns fired from HMS Galatea were warning enough. The shots werefired at long range, and both blew past the Defence's bows, but the message of the two near misses was clear. Try to sail through the gap and your smallships will receive the full broadsides of two frigates, and to escape past those frigates the rebels needed to tack through the channel where the frigateswaited. They would be forced to sail within pistol shot and John Edmunds, the Defence's captain, had an image of his two masts falling, of his deckslicked with blood, and of his hull quivering under the relentlessly heavy blows. His guns were mere four-pounders and what could four-pounders doagainst a frigate's full broadside? He might as well throw bread crusts at the enemy. "But I'll be damned before the bastards take my ship," he said.He knew his attempt to sail the Defence past the frigates had failed and so he let his brig's bows fall off the wind and then drove her, all sails standing,straight towards the Penobscot's western shore. "Joshua!" he called to the first mate. "We're going to burn her! Break open the powder barrels."The Defence ran ashore. Her masts bowed forrard as the bows grated on the shingle beach. Edmunds thought the masts would surely fall, but thebackstays held and the sails slatted and banged on the yards. Edmunds took the flag from her stern and folded it. His crew was spilling powder andsplashing oil on the decks. "Get ashore, boys," Edmunds called, and he went forrard, past his useless guns, and paused in the bows. He wanted to weep.The Defence was a lovely ship. Her home was the open ocean where she should have been living up to her martial name by chasing down fat Britishmerchantmen to make her owners rich, but instead she was caught in an enclosed seaway and it was time to bid her farewell.He struck flint on steel and spilled the burning linen from his tinderbox onto a powder trail. Then he climbed over the gunwale and dropped down to thebeach. His eyes were wet when he turned to watch his ship burn. It took a long time. There was more smoke than fire at first, but then the flames flickeredup the tarred rigging and the sails caught the blaze, and the masts and yards were outlined by fire so that the Defence looked like the devil's own vessel,a flame-rigged brigantine, a defiant fighting-ship sailing her way into hell. "Oh God damn the bastards," Edmunds said, brokenhearted, "the sons ofgoddamned bitch bastards!"The Hunter sought shelter in a narrow cove. Nathan Brown, her skipper, ran her gently aground in the tight space and ordered an anchor lowered andthe sails furled and, once the ship was secure, he told his crew to find shelter ashore. The Hunter might be a quick ship, but even she could not outsail thebroadsides of the two enemy frigates, and her four-pounder cannon were no match for the British guns, yet Nathan Brown could not bring himself to burnthe ship. It would have been like murdering his wife. The Hunter had magic in her timbers, she was fast and nimble, a charmed ship, and Nathan Brown