The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

"What does that mean, Josiah?""Down east?" Flint asked. "You'll get nothing but mosquitoes, rain, and sleeping under a tree down east." He feared that his friend would not be givencommand of the expedition's artillery and, in his clumsy way, was trying to provide some consolation. "And you're not as young as you were, Colonel!""Forty-five's not old!" Revere protested."Old enough to know sense," Flint said, "and to appreciate a proper bed with a woman inside it.""A proper bed, Mister Flint, is beside my guns. Beside my guns that point towards the English! That's all I ask, a chance to serve my country." Reverehad tried to join the fighting ever since the rebellion had begun, but his applications to the Continental Army had been refused for reasons that Reverecould only suspect and never confirm. General Washington, it was said, wanted men of birth and honor, and that rumor had only made Revere moreresentful. The Massachusetts Militia was not so particular, yet Revere's service so far had been uneventful. True, he had gone to Newport to help evict theBritish, but that campaign had ended in failure before Revere and his guns arrived, and so he had been forced to command the garrison on Castle Islandand his prayers that a British fleet would come to be battered by his cannon had gone unanswered. Paul Revere, who hated the British with a passion thatcould shake his body with its pure vehemence, had yet to kill a single redcoat."You've heard the trumpet call, Colonel," Flint said respectfully."I've heard the trumpet call," Revere agreed.A sentry opened the armory gate and a man in the faded blue uniform of the Continental Army entered the yard from the street. He was tall, goodlooking,and some years younger than Revere, who stood in wary greeting. "Colonel Revere?" the newcomer asked."At your service, General.""I am Peleg Wadsworth.""I know who you are, General," Revere said, smiling and taking the offered hand. He noted that Wadsworth did not return the smile. "I hope you bringme good news from the Council, General?""I would like a word, Colonel," Wadsworth said, "a brief word." The brigadier glanced at the monstrous Josiah Flint in his padded chair. "A word inprivate," he added grimly.So the trumpet call would have to wait.Captain Henry Mowat stood on Majabigwaduce's beach. He was a stocky man with a ruddy face now shadowed by the long peak of his cocked hat.His naval coat was dark blue with lighter blue facings, all stained white by salt. He was in his forties, a lifelong sailor, and he stood with his feet plantedapart as though balancing on a quarterdeck. His dark hair was powdered and a slight trail of the powder had sifted down the spine of his uniform coat. Hewas glaring at the longboats which lay alongside his ship, the Albany. "What the devil takes all this time?" he growled.His companion, Doctor John Calef, had no idea what was causing the delay on board the Albany and so offered no answer. "You've received nointelligence from Boston?" he asked Mowat instead."We don't need intelligence," Mowat said brusquely. He was the senior naval officer at Majabigwaduce and, like Brigadier McLean, a Scotsman, butwhere the brigadier was emollient and soft-spoken, Mowat was famed for his bluntness. He fidgeted with the cord-bound hilt of his sword. "The bastardswill come, Doctor, mark my word, the bastards will come. Like flies to dung, Doctor, they'll come."Calef thought that likening the British presence at Majabigwaduce to dung was an unfortunate choice, but he made no comment on that. "In force?" heasked."They may be damned rebels, but they're not damned fools. Of course they'll come in force." Mowat still gazed at the anchored ship, then cupped hishands. "Mister Farraby," he bellowed across the water, "what the devil is happening?""Roving a new sling, sir!" the call came back."How many guns will you bring ashore?" the doctor inquired."As many as McLean wants," Mowat said. His three sloops of war were anchored fore and aft to make a line across the harbor's mouth, their starboardbroadsides facing the entrance to greet any rebel ship that dared intrude. Those broadsides were puny. HMS North, which lay closest toMajabigwaduce's beach, carried twenty guns, ten on each side, while the Albany, at the center, and the Nautilus, each carried nine cannons in theirbroadsides. An enemy ship would thus be greeted by twenty-eight guns, none throwing a ball larger than nine pounds, and the last intelligence Mowat hadreceived from Boston indicated that a rebel frigate was in that harbor, a frigate that mounted thirty-two guns, most of which would be much larger than hissmall cannon. And the rebel frigate Warren would be supported by the privateers of Massachusetts, most of whose craft were just as heavily gunned ashis own sloops of war. "It'll be a fight," he said sourly, "a rare good fight."The new sling had evidently been roved because a nine-pounder gun barrel was being hoisted from the Albany's deck and gently lowered into one ofthe waiting longboats. Over a ton of metal hung from the yardarm, poised above the heads of the pigtailed sailors waiting in the small boat below. Mowatwas bringing his port broadsides ashore so the guns could protect the fort McLean was building on Majabigwaduce's crest. "If you abandon your portsideguns," Calef inquired in a puzzled tone, "what happens if the enemy passes you?""Then, sir, we are dead men," Mowat said curtly. He watched the longboat settle precariously low in the choppy water as it took the weight of thecannon's barrel. The carriage would be brought ashore in another boat and, like the barrel, be hauled uphill to the site of the fort by one of the two teams ofoxen that had been commandeered from the Hutchings farm. "Dead men!" Mowat said, almost cheerfully, "but to kill us, Doctor, they must first pass us,and I do not intend to be passed."Calef felt relief at Mowat's belligerence. The Scottish naval captain was famous in Massachusetts, or perhaps infamous was a better word, but to allloyalists, like Calef, Mowat was a hero who inspired confidence. He had been captured by rebel civilians, the self-styled Sons of Liberty, while walkingashore in Falmouth. His release had been negotiated by the leading citizens of that proud harbor town, and the condition of Mowat's release had beenthat he surrender himself next day so that the legality of his arrest could be established by lawyers, but instead Mowat had returned with a flotilla that hadbombarded the town from dawn to dusk and, when most of the houses lay shattered, he had sent shore parties to set fire to the wreckage. Two thirds ofFalmouth had been destroyed to send the message that Captain Mowat was not a man to be trifled with.Calef frowned slightly as Brigadier McLean and two junior officers strolled along the stony beach towards Mowat. Calef still had doubts about theScottish brigadier, fearing that he was too gentle in his demeanor, but Captain Mowat evidently had no such misgivings because he smiled broadly asMcLean approached. "You've not come to pester me, McLean," he said with mock severity, "your precious guns are coming!""I never doubted it, Mowat, never doubted it," McLean said, "not for a moment." He touched his hat to Doctor Calef, then turned back to Mowat. "Andhow are your fine fellows this morning, Mowat?""Working, McLean, working!"McLean gestured at his two companions. "Doctor, allow me to present Lieutenant Campbell of the 74th," McLean paused to allow the dark-kiltedCampbell to offer the doctor a small bow, "and Paymaster Moore of the 82nd." John Moore offered a more elegant bow, Calef raised his hat in responseand McLean turned to gaze at the three sloops with the longboats nuzzling their flanks. "Your longboats are all busy, Mowat?""They're busy, and so they damn well should be. Idleness encourages the devil.""So it does," Calef agreed."And there was I seeking an idle moment," McLean said happily."You need a boat?" Mowat asked."I'd not take your matelots from their duties," the brigadier said, then looked past Mowat to where a young man and woman were hauling a heavywooden rowboat down to the incoming tide. "Isn't that the young fellow who piloted us into the harbor?"Doctor Calef turned. "James Fletcher," he said grimly."Is he loyal?" McLean asked."He's a damned light-headed fool," Calef said, and then, grudgingly, "but his father was a loyal man.""Then like father, like son, I trust," McLean said and turned to Moore. "John? Ask Mister Fletcher if he can spare us an hour?" It was evident thatFletcher and his sister were planning to row to their fishing boat, the Felicity, which lay in deeper water. "Tell him I wish to see Majabigwaduce from theriver and will pay for his time."Moore went on his errand and McLean watched as another cannon barrel was hoisted aloft from the Albany's deck. Smaller boats were ferrying othersupplies ashore; cartridges and salt beef, rum barrels and cannon-balls, wadding and rammers, the paraphernalia of war, all of which was being hauled orcarried to where his fort was still little more than a scratched square in the thin turf of the ridge's top. John Nutting, a Loyalist American and an engineerwho had traveled to Britain to urge the occupation of Majabigwaduce, was laying out the design of the stronghold in the cleared land. The fort would besimple enough, just a square of earthen ramparts with diamond-shaped bastions at its four corners. Each of the walls would be two hundred and fiftypaces in length and would be fronted by a steep-sided ditch, but even such a simple fort required firesteps and embrasures, and needed masonry