The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

"You promoted me to general yesterday, sir," Laird said, grinning."I did? Then give me cause to preserve your exalted rank.""I shall do my best, sir."McLean led Fielding to the fort's western rampart, which faced towards the high wooded bluff. It was ridiculous to call it a rampart, for it was stillunfinished and a fit man could leap it easily. The ditch beyond was shallow and the pointed stakes in its bed would hardly delay the enemy for a moment.McLean's men had begun work to heighten the wall at dawn, but the general knew he needed another week's uninterrupted labor simply to make theramparts high enough to deter an attack. He used his stick to help himself up the mound of logs and hard-packed soil that formed the rampart and staredacross the harbor, beyond Mowat's flotilla, to where the enemy warships were anchored in the bay. "No fog this morning, Captain.""None, sir.""God smiles on us, eh?""He is an Englishman, sir, remember?" Fielding suggested with a smile. Captain Michael Fielding was also an Englishman, an artilleryman in a darkblue coat. He was thirty years old, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and disconcertingly elegant, looking as if he would be far more at home in some London salonthan in this American wilderness. He was the epitome of the kind of Englishman McLean instinctively disliked, he was too languid, too superior, and toohandsome, but to McLean's surprise Captain Fielding was also efficient, cooperative, and intelligent. He led fifty gunners and commanded a strangeassortment of cannon: six-pounders, nine-pounders, and twelve-pounders; some on field carriages, a few on garrison carriages, and the rest on navaltrucks. The guns had been scraped together from the depots in Halifax to form makeshift batteries, but then, McLean thought, everything about thisexpedition was makeshift. He did not have enough men, enough ships, or enough guns."Aye," McLean said wistfully, "I would like an abatis.""If you can lend me forty men, sir?" Fielding suggested.McLean thought about the request. He had almost two hundred men scattered in a picquet line guarding those places where the Yankees might attempta landing. He reckoned the enemy's approach to the bluff the previous evening had been just that, a bluff. They wanted him to think they would assault thepeninsula's western end, but he was certain they would choose either the harbor or the neck, and the neck was by far the likeliest landing place. Yet hehad to guard all the possible landing places, and the picquets watching the shore consumed almost a third of his men. The rest were laboring to deepenthe fort's well and raise the fort's walls, but if he were to grant Fielding's request then he must detach some of those men, which meant slower progress onthe vital ramparts. Yet the abatis was a good idea. "Will forty men be enough?""We'd need an ox team too, sir.""Aye, you will," McLean said, but his ox teams were busy hauling material from the harbor's beach, where most of Fielding's guns were still parked.McLean glanced at the twin bastions that flanked the fort's western wall. So far he only had two guns mounted, which was a paltry defense. It would beeasy enough to bring more guns into the fort, but the wall was now just at the height where those guns needed platforms, and platforms took time andmen. "Where would you place the abatis?" he asked.Fielding nodded westwards. "I'd cover that approach, sir, and the northern side.""Aye," McLean agreed. An abatis curving around the west and north of the fort would obstruct any Yankee attack from either the bluff or the neck."Much of the timber's already cut, sir," Fielding said, attempting to persuade McLean."So it is, so it is," McLean said distractedly. He beckoned the Englishman off the wall and across the ditch so they were out of earshot of the workingparties that laid logs on top of the rampart. "Let me be frank with you, Captain," McLean said heavily."Of course, sir.""There are thousands of the rebel rascals. If they come, Captain, and they will come, then I must suppose that two or three thousand will attack us. Youknow what that means?"Fielding was silent for a few seconds, then nodded. "I do, sir.""I've seen enough war," McLean said ruefully."You mean, sir, we can't stand against three thousand men?""Oh, we can stand, Captain. We can give them a bloody nose, right enough, but can we defeat them?" McLean turned and gestured at the half-finishedwall. "If that rampart was ten feet high I could die of old age inside the fort, and if we had a dozen guns mounted then I dare say we could defeat tenthousand men. But if they come today? Or tomorrow?""They'll overrun us, sir.""Aye, they will. And that's not cowardice speaking, Captain."Fielding smiled. "No one, sir, can accuse General McLean of cowardice.""I thank you, Captain," McLean said, then stared west towards the high ground. The ridge rose gently, studded with the stumps of felled trees. "I'm beingcandid with you, Captain," he went on. "The enemy is going to come, and we're going to show defiance, but I don't want a massacre here. I've seen thathappen. I've seen men enraged to fury and seen them slaughter a garrison, and I did not come here to lead good young Scotsmen to an early grave.""I understand you, sir," Fielding said."I hope you do." McLean turned to look north where the cleared ground dropped away to the woods that screened the wide neck. That was where hethought his enemy would appear. "We'll do our duty, Captain," he said, "but I'll not fight to the last man unless I see a chance of defeating the rascals.Enough mothers in Scotland have lost their sons." He paused, then gave the artillery officer a smile, "But I'll not surrender too easily either, so this is whatwe'll do. Make your abatis. Start on the northern side, Captain. How many field-mounted guns do you have?""Three nine-pounders, sir.""Put them just outside the fort on the northeastern corner. You have case-shot?""Plenty, sir, and Captain Mowat's sent some grape.""Well and good. So if the enemy comes from the north, which I think they will, you can give them a warm welcome.""And if they come this way, sir?" Fielding asked, pointing to the high western bluff."We lose our gamble," McLean admitted. He hoped he had judged the tall Englishman right. A foolish man might construe the conversation ascowardice, even treasonable cowardice, but McLean reckoned Fielding was subtle and sensible enough to understand what had just been said.Brigadier Francis McLean had seen enough war to know when fighting was pointless, and he did not want hundreds of needless deaths on hisconscience, but nor did he want to hand the rebels an easy victory. He would fight, he would do his duty, and he would cease to fight when he saw thatdefeat was inevitable. McLean turned back towards the fort, then suddenly remembered a matter that needed to be aired. "Have your rogues beenstealing potatoes from Doctor Calef's garden?" he asked."Not that I know of, sir.""Well someone has, and the doctor's not happy!""Isn't it early for potatoes, sir?""That won't stop them! And doubtless they taste well enough, so tell your fellows I'll be flogging the next man caught stealing the doctor's potatoes. Oranyone else's vegetables for that matter. Dear me, I do despair of soldiers. You could march them through heaven and they'd steal every last harp."McLean gestured towards the fort. "Now let's see if those eggs are cooked."There was a chance, McLean thought, just a slender chance that a rebel attack could be repulsed and Fielding's proposed abatis would increase thatchance a little. An abatis was simply an obstacle of rough timber; a line of big branches and untrimmed trunks. An abatis could not stop an assault, but itwould slow an enemy attack as men sought a way through the tangle of timber and, as the Yankees bunched behind the web of branches, Fielding's gunscould hammer them with case-shot like giant shotguns. McLean would place the three nine-pounders on his right flank so that as the enemy came roundthe open space at the end of the abatis they would advance straight into the cannon-fire, and raw troops, inexperienced in war, would be cowed by suchconcentrated artillery fire. Maybe, just maybe, the abatis would give the guns time enough to persuade the enemy not to press home their attack. That wasa slim chance, but if the Yankees came from the west, from the bluff, then McLean reckoned there was no chance at all. He simply did not have enoughartillery and so he would greet them with shots from the two guns emplaced on the western ramparts and then submit to the inevitable.Laird had poached eggs waiting on a table set in the open air. "And you have fried potatoes, sir," he said happily."Potatoes, Laird?""New little potatoes, sir, fresh as daisies. And coffee, sir.""You're a rogue, Laird, you're an unprincipled damned rogue.""Yes, sir, I am, sir, and thank you, sir."McLean sat to his breakfast. He looked up at the flag that flew so bright in the day's new light and wondered what flag would fly there as the sun set."We must do our best," he told Fielding, "and that's all we can do. Our best."