The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

dared to hope that the British would ignore her. He prayed that the pursuers would continue north and that once the Royal Navy ships had passed he mightextricate the Hunter from the narrow cove and sail her back to Boston, but that hope died when he saw two longboats crammed with sailors leave theBritish frigates.Brown had ordered his men ashore in case the British tried to destroy the Hunter with cannon-fire, but now it seemed the enemy was intent on capturerather than destruction. The crowded longboats drew nearer. At least half the Hunter's crew of a hundred and thirty men were armed with muskets andthey began shooting as the longboats approached the grounded ship. Water spouted around the oarsmen as musket balls struck, and at least one Britishsailor was hit and the boat's oars momentarily tangled, but then the longboats vanished behind the Hunter's counter. A moment later the enemy sailorswere aboard the ship and attaching towlines to her stern. The treacherous tide lifted her off the shingle and a strange flag, the hated flag, broke at hermizzen gaff's peak as she was towed back to the river. She was now His Majesty's ship, the Hunter. Just to the south, hidden from Brown's crew by ashoulder of wooded land, the powder magazine in the Defence exploded, sending a dark smoke cloud boiling above the land and a shower of burningtimbers that fell to hiss in the bay and start small fires ashore.The Hampden was the largest of the three ships that tried to reach the sea, and she saw the fate of the Hunter and Defence and so her captain, TitusSalter, turned back to make the safety of the river narrows. The Hampden had been donated by the State of New Hampshire and she was well-found,well-manned, and expensively equipped, yet she was not a fast sailor and late in the afternoon HMS Blonde came within range of her and opened fire.Titus Salter turned the Hampden so that her portside broadside of ten guns faced the enemy and he returned the fire. Six nine-pounder cannon and foursix-pounders spat at the much larger Blonde, which hammered back with twelve and eighteen-pounders. HMS Virginia came behind the Blonde andadded her broadside. The guns boomed across the bay as dense smoke rose to shroud the lower rigging. Fire twisted from the cannon barrels. Mensweated and hauled on guns, they swabbed and rammed and ran the guns out and the gunners touched linstocks to portfires and the great guns leapedback and the round shot slammed remorselessly into the Hampden's hull. The shots shattered the timbers and drove wicked-edged splinters into men'sbodies. Blood spilled along the deck seams. Chain shot whistled in the smoke, severing shrouds, stays, and lines. The sails twitched and tore as bar shotshredded the canvas. The foremast went first, toppling across the Hampden's bows to smother ripped sails across the forrard cannon, but still theAmerican flag flew and still the British pounded the smaller ship. The frigates drifted closer to their helpless prey. Their biggest guns were concentrated onthe rebel hull and the smoke from their eighteen-pounders shrouded the Hampden. The rebel fire became slower and slower as men were killed orwounded. A rib cage, shattered by an eighteen-pounder shot, was scattered across the deck. A man's severed hand lay in the scuppers. A cabin boy wastrying not to cry as a seaman tightened a tourniquet around his bloody, ragged thigh. The rest of his leg was ten feet away, reduced to a pulp by twelvepounds of round shot. Another eighteen-pounder ball hit a nine-pounder cannon and the noise, like a great bell, was heard on Majabigwaduce's distantbluff, and the barrel was struck clean off its carriage to fall onto a gunner who lay screaming, both legs crushed, and another ball slammed through thegunwale and struck the mainmast, which first swayed, then fell towards the stern, the sound splintering and creaking, stays and shrouds parting, menscreaming a warning, and still the relentless shots came.Fifteen minutes after the Blonde had begun the fight Titus Salter ended it. He pulled down his flag and the guns went silent and the smoke driftedacross the sun-dappled water and a prize crew came from the Blonde to board the Hampden.The remainder of the rebel fleet still sailed north.Towards the river narrows.The rebels had occupied no buildings in Majabigwaduce and Doctor Eliphalet Downer, the expedition's Surgeon General, had complained about keepingbadly wounded men in makeshift shelters constructed from branches and sailcloth, and so the rebels had established their hospital in what remained ofthe buildings of Fort Pownall at Wasaumkeag Point, which lay some five miles upriver and on the opposite bank from Majabigwaduce. Now, as the gunsboomed flat across the bay, Peleg Wadsworth took forty men to evacuate the patients to the sloop Sparrow, which lay just offshore. The men, most withbandaged stumps, either walked or were carried on stretchers made from oars and coats. Doctor Downer stood next to Wadsworth and watched thedistant frigates pound the Hampden. "So what now?" he asked bleakly."We go upriver," Wadsworth said."To the wilderness?""You take the Sparrow as far north as you can," Wadsworth said, "and find a suitable house for the hospital.""These arrangements should have been made two weeks ago," Downer said angrily."I agree," Wadsworth said. He had tried to persuade Lovell to make those arrangements, but the general had regarded any preparations for a retreatas defeatism. "But they weren't made," he went on firmly, "so now we must all do the best we can." He turned and pointed at the small pasture. "Thosecows must be slaughtered or driven away," he said."I'll make sure it's done," Downer said. The cows were there to give the patients fresh milk, but Wadsworth wanted to leave nothing that could be usefulto the enemy. "So I become a herdsman and a slaughterer," Downer said bitterly, "then find a house upstream and wait for the British to find me?""It's my intention to make a stronghold," Wadsworth explained patiently, "and so keep the enemy to the lower river.""If you're as successful at that as you've been at everything else in the last three weeks," Downer said vengefully, "we might as well all shoot ourselvesnow.""Just obey orders, Doctor," Wadsworth said testily. He had snatched a couple of hours' sleep as the Sally drifted northwards, but he was tired. "I'msorry," he apologized."I'll see you upriver," Downing said, his tone indicating regret for the words he had spoken before. "Go and do your work, General."The transport ships were in the northern part of the bay now. Most had anchored during the ebb tide and now used the evening flood and the small windto crawl towards the river narrows. James Fletcher had explained that the entrance to the narrows was marked by an obstacle, Odom's Ledge, that lay inthe very center of the stream. There were navigable channels to either side of the rock, but the ledge itself was a ship-killer. "It'll rip the bottom out of aboat," James had told Wadsworth, "and the British won't try and get past in the dark. No one could try and pass Odom's in the dark."Wadsworth was using the Sally's longboat and he and Fletcher were being rowed northwards from Wasaumkeag Point. The oarsmen were silent, aswere the enemy frigates' guns, which meant the Hampden was taken. Wadsworth turned to gaze at the view. It was a summer evening and he was in themiddle of the largest fleet the rebels had ever gathered, a huge fleet, their sails beautifully catching the lowering sun, and they were all fleeing from themuch smaller fleet. The rebel ships converged towards the ledge. The British frigates fired an occasional bow-chaser, the balls splashing short of therearmost rebels. The wolves were herding the sheep, Wadsworth thought bitterly, and the Warren, taller and more beautiful than all the surroundingvessels, was running like the rest when her duty, surely, was to turn and fight her way into legend."There's the Samuel, sir," James Fletcher pointed to the brig which had almost reached the narrows, entrance."Get me close to the Samuel," Wadsworth ordered the boatswain.The brig was towing both Revere's barge and a flat-bottomed lighter. Wadsworth stood and cupped his hands as his longboat closed on the Samuel."Is Colonel Revere on board?""I'm here," a voice boomed back."Keep rowing," Wadsworth said to the boatswain, then cupped his hands again. "Put a cannon on the lighter, Colonel!""You want what?"Wadsworth spoke more distinctly. "Put a cannon on the lighter! I'll find a place to land it!" Revere shouted something back, but Wadsworth did not catchthe words. "Did you hear me, Colonel?" he shouted."I heard you!""Put a cannon on the lighter! We need to get guns ashore when we find a place to defend!"Again Revere's answer was indistinct, but the longboat had now passed the Samuel and Wadsworth was confident that Revere had understood hisorders. He sat and watched the broken water above the ledge where the riverbanks, steep and tree-covered, narrowed abruptly. The tide was slackeningand the hills robbed the small wind of much of its power. A schooner and a ship had anchored safely upstream of the ledge while, behind them, many ofthe other ships were still being towed by tired men in longboats."What we do," Wadsworth spoke to himself as much as to the men in his boat, "is discover a place we can defend." He had been told the river twistedand in his mind's eye was a sharp turn where he could land guns on the upstream bank. He would begin with one of Revere's cannon, because once thatwas emplaced it would mark the new rebel position and as the ships passed upstream they could donate cannons, crewmen, and ammunition so that, bymorning, Wadsworth would command a formidable battery of artillery that pointed directly downstream. The approaching British would be forced to sailstraight at those guns. The river was far too narrow to allow them to turn and use their broadsides, so instead they must either sail into the furiousbombardment or, much more likely, anchor and so refuse the offered fight. The rebel fleet could shelter behind the new fortress while the army could camp