The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

"What will happen tomorrow?" Bethany asked."Maybe nothing.""The rebels won't attack?""I think they must," Moore said, "but that is their decision. They should attack soon.""Should?" Bethany asked. The moonlight glossed her eyes silver."We sent for reinforcements," Moore said, "though whether any such will come, I don't know.""But if they attack," Bethany said, "there will be a fight?""It's why we're here," Moore said and felt his heart give a lurch at the thought that tomorrow he would discover what soldiering really was, or perhaps thelurch came from gazing at Bethany's eyes in the moonlight. He wanted to say things to her, but he felt confused and tongue-tied."I must go indoors," she said. "Molly Hatch is sitting beside my mother.""Your mother is no better?""She will never be better," Bethany said. "Good night, Lieutenant.""Your servant, Miss Fletcher," Moore said, bowing to her, but even before he straightened she was gone. Moore went to collect his men who would takeover the picquet duty on Dyce's Head.Dawn was fog-shrouded, though from the new battery on Cross Island the British ships were clearly visible. The closest, HMS Nautilus, was now only aquarter-mile from the big guns that Revere's men had taken ashore. Those men had worked all night and they had worked well. They had cut a paththrough the trees of Cross Island and dragged a pair of eighteen-pounder cannon, one twelve-pounder, and a five-and-a-half-inch howitzer to the island'ssummit, where the rocky land made a perfect artillery platform. More trees had been felled to open a field of fire for the cannon and in the dawn CaptainHoysteed Hacker, whose sailors were armed with muskets to protect the gunners, gazed at the three British sloops. The furthest away, the North, was agray shape in the gray fog and mostly hidden by the bulk of the other two sloops, but the closest, Nautilus, was clearly visible. Her figurehead was a barechestedsailor whose blond hair was wreathed with seaweed. "Aren't we supposed to be turning that ship to splinters?" Hacker asked the artillery officer.The gunners were standing about their formidable weapons, but no man seemed to be either loading or aiming the guns."We lack wadding," Lieutenant Philip Marett, a cousin of Colonel Revere and the officer commanding the battery, explained."You what?"Marett looked sheepish. "We seem to lack ring-wadding, sir.""The round shot is the wrong size too," a sergeant said grimly.Hacker scarcely believed what he was hearing. "The round shot? Wrong size?"The sergeant demonstrated by lifting a round shot and pushing it into the barrel of one of the two eighteen-pounders. One of his men rammed the shot,thrusting the ball up the long gun which, because it was mounted on the highest point of Cross Island, was aimed slightly downwards so that it pointed atthe bows of the Nautilus. The gunner pulled the rammer clear and stepped aside. Hacker heard a slight noise from the gun. The rumbling, metal on metal,became louder as the ball rolled slowly down the barrel and then, pathetically, dropped from the muzzle to thump onto the pine needles that coated theground. "Oh God," Hacker said."There must have been confusion in Boston," Marett said helplessly. He pointed to a neat pyramid of round shot. "It seems they're for twelve-pounders,"he went on, "and even if we could wad them the windage would make it near useless." Windage was the tiny gap between a missile and the cannon'sbarrel. All guns suffered from windage, but if the gap was too great then much of the gun's propellant would waste itself around the ball's edges."You've sent for Colonel Revere?"Marett's eyes darted round the cleared space as if searching for somewhere to hide. "I'm sure there's eighteen-pounder ammunition on the Samuel,sir," he said evasively."Suffering Christ," Hacker said savagely, "it'll take two hours to fetch it downriver!" The Samuel was anchored well to the north, a long way from thecreek south of Cross Island."We could open fire with the twelve-pounder," Marett suggested."You have wadding for that?""We could use turf?""Oh for God's sake, let's do it properly," Hacker said, then had a sudden inspiration. "The Warren mounts eighteen-pounders, doesn't she?""I don't know, sir.""She does, and she's a hell of a lot closer than the Samuel! We'll ask her for ammunition."Hoysteed Hacker's inspiration proved a happy one. Commodore Saltonstall snorted derision when he heard of the request for ammunition, but heacceded to it, and Captain Welch sent to the General Putnam and ordered Captain Thomas Carnes to assemble a work party of marines to carry thenecessary wadding and round shot ashore. Carnes, before he joined the marines, had served in Colonel Gridley's Artillery Regiment and afterwardscommanded a battery of the New Jersey Artillery in the Continental Army and he was a cheerful, energetic man who rubbed his hands with delight whenhe saw how close the Nautilus lay to the guns. "We can use the twelve-pounder shot in the eighteens," he declared."We can?" Marett asked."We'll double-shot," Carnes said. "Load an eighteen-pound ball by the charge and wad a twelve on top. We're going to splinter that nearest ship, boys!"He watched the Massachusetts gunners, all imbued now with enthusiasm from Carnes's energy, load and lay the cannon. Carnes stooped by the barreland peered along its upper side. "Aim slightly higher," he said."Higher?" Marett asked. "You want us to aim for the masts?""A cold barrel shoots low," Carnes said, "but as it heats up she'll shoot true. Lower her elevation after three shots, and take it one degree lower than youreckon necessary. I don't know why, but round shot always rises from a barrel. It's just a fraction, but if you compensate then you'll hit true and hard whenthe guns are hot."The sun was glowing bright in the fog when, at last, the battery opened fire. The two big eighteen-pounders were the ship-killers and Carnes used themto shoot at the Nautilus's hull while the twelve-pounder fired bar shot at her rigging and the howitzer lobbed shells over the Nautilus to ravage the decks ofthe North and Albany.The guns recoiled hard and far on the rocky ground. They needed realigning after each shot, and every discharge filled the space between the clearedtrees with thick powder smoke that lingered in the still air. The smoke thickened the fog to such an extent that aiming was impossible until the viewcleared, and that necessity slowed the rate of fire, but Carnes heard the satisfying crunch of round shots striking timber. The British could not return thefire. The Nautilus had no bows chasers, and her broadside of nine cannon was aimed west towards the harbor approach. Captain Tom Farnham, whocommanded the Nautilus, might have warped his ship around to face Cross Island, but then Mowat would have lost a third of the cannons guarding thechannel, and so the sloop had to endure.The commodore, satisfied that the battery was at last in action, sent an order that Carnes and his handful of marines were to return to their ships, butbefore he left Carnes used a small telescope to stare at the Nautilus and saw the holes ripped in her bows. "You're hitting her hard, Captain!" he toldMarett. "Remember! Aim low at this range and you'll sink that bastard by noon! Good day to you, sir!" This last greeting was to Brigadier-General Lovellwho had come to watch the new battery in action."Good morning! Good morning!" Lovell beamed at the gunners. "'Pon my word, but you're hitting that ship hard, lads!" He borrowed Carnes'stelescope. "My word, you've knocked an arm off that ugly figurehead! Well done! Keep going and you'll sink her soon enough!"The Nautilus was still afloat an hour before noon when Colonel Revere arrived with eighteen-pounder ammunition from the Samuel. He came in hissmart white-painted barge, which belonged to the Castle Island garrison and which Revere had commandeered for the expedition. Revere orderedsailors from the Providence to carry the round shot to the battery, then strode uphill to discover General Lovell still standing beside the guns. The fog hadlifted and the general was peering through a glass that he rested on a gunner's shoulder. "Colonel!" he greeted Revere cheerfully, "I see we're strikinghard!""What the devil do you mean, the wrong ammunition?" Revere ignored Lovell and challenged Captain Marett who pointed to the twelve-pounder roundshot and began a halting explanation of his difficulties, but Revere brushed him aside. "If you brought the wrong round shot," he said, "then you're toblame." He watched as the gunners hauled one of the huge eighteen-pounders back into place. The gunner squinted down the barrel, then used a longhandledmaul to drive a wedge deeper under the breech. The wedge slightly lifted the rear of the barrel, lowering the muzzle, and the gunner, satisfied withthe angle, nodded at his crew to reload the cannon."They must be suffering, Colonel," Lovell said happily. "I can see distinct damage to her hull!"