The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

sir," McClure shouted over the musket din to Moore."Step back!" Moore conceded. "Slow now! Keep firing!" He stooped beside McPhail, whose teeth were chattering, then the boy gave a convulsiveshudder and went still and Moore realized McPhail had died."Watch right, sir," McClure warned, and Moore had a second's panic as he saw rebels climbing past him through the thick brush. Two squirrels wentleaping overhead. "Time to get the hell uphill, sir," McClure said."Go back!" Moore called to his men, "but slowly! Give them fire!" He sheathed his sword, unbuckled McPhail's belt with its cartridge pouch, then carriedthe belt, pouch, and musket up the slope. The marines to the north had seen him and their musket-balls slashed around him, but then they veered away toattack Captain Campbell's rearward men, and that distraction gave Moore time to struggle up the last few feet to the bluff's top where he shouted at hismen to form a line and stand. Some pine needles had dropped down the back of his neck and were trapped by his collar. They irritated him. He could notsee Captain Campbell's men and it seemed that his small picquet was the only British presence left on the bluff, but just then a blue-coated artillerylieutenant came running from the east.The lieutenant, one of Captain Fielding's men, commanded the three small cannon placed just behind Dyce's Head. The gunners had replaced thenaval crews, releasing the sailors back to their ships, which expected an attack by the enemy fleet. The gunner lieutenant, a boy no older than Moore,stopped beside the picquet. "What's happening?""An attack," Moore said with brutal simplicity. He had looped the dead man's belt through his sword belt and now fumbled in the pouch for a cartridge,but McClure distracted him."We should go back, sir," the sergeant declared."We stay here and keep firing!" Moore insisted. His Hamiltons were now in a single line at the bluff's top. Behind them was a small clearing, then astand of pines beyond which the three cannon still fired across the harbor at the rebel battery on Cross Island."Should I take the guns away?" the artillery lieutenant asked."Can you fire down the bluff?" Moore asked."Down the bluff?""At them!" Moore said impatiently, pointing to where the green-coated attackers were momentarily visible in the shadowed undergrowth."No."A blast of musketry erupted on Moore's right. Two of his men collapsed and another dropped his musket to clutch at his shoulder. One of the fallen menwas writhing in agony as his blood spread on the ground. He began to scream in high-pitched yelps, and the remaining men backed away in horror. Moreshots came from the trees and a third man fell, dropping to his knees with his right thigh shattered by a musket-ball. Moore's small line was ragged nowand, worse, the men were edging backwards. Their faces were pale, their eyes skittering in fear. "Will you leave me here?" Moore shouted at them. "Willthe Hamiltons leave me alone? Come back! Behave like soldiers!" Moore rather surprised himself by sounding so confident, and was even moresurprised when the picquet obeyed him. They had been gripped by fear and the fear had been a heartbeat away from panic, but Moore's voice hadchecked them. "Fire!" he shouted, pointing towards the cloud of powder smoke showing where the enemy's destructive volley had been fired. He tried tosee the enemy who had shot that volley, but the green coats of the marines melded into the trees. Moore's men fired, the heavy musket butts thumpingback into bruised shoulders."We have to get the guns out!" the artillery lieutenant said."Then do it!" Moore snarled and turned away. His men's ramrods rattled in powder-fouled barrels as they reloaded.A musket-ball hit the artillery lieutenant in the small of his back and he crumpled. "No," he said, more in surprise than protest, "no!" His boots scrabbledin the leaf mold. "No," he said again, and another volley came, this time from the north, and Moore knew he was in danger of being cut off from the fort."Help me," the artillery lieutenant said."Sergeant!" Moore called."We have to go, sir," Sergeant McClure said, "we're the only ones left here."The artillery lieutenant suddenly arched his back and gave a shriek. Another of Moore's men was on the ground, blood sheeting his bleached deerskintrousers."We have to go back, sir!" McClure shouted angrily."Back to the trees," Moore called to his men, "steady now!" He backed with them, stopping them again when they reached the stand of pines. The gunswere just behind them now, while in front was the clearing where the dead and the dying lay and beyond which the enemy was gathering. "Fire!" Mooreshouted, his voice hoarse. The fog was much thinner and being lit by the rising sun so that the musket smoke seemed to rise into a glowing vapor."We have to go, sir," McClure urged, "back to the fort, sir.""Reinforcements will come," Moore said, and a musket-ball struck Sergeant McClure's mouth, splintering his teeth, piercing his throat, and severing hisspine. The sergeant dropped noiselessly. His blood spattered John Moore's immaculate breeches. "Fire!" Moore shouted, but he could have wept forfrustration. He was in his first battle and he was losing it, but he would not give in. Surely the brigadier would send more men, and so John Moore, thedead man's musket still in his hand, stood his uncertain ground.And still more rebels climbed the bluff.Captain Welch was frustrated. He wanted to close on the enemy. He wanted to terrify, kill, and conquer. He knew he led the best soldiers and if he couldjust lead them to the enemy then his green-jacketed marines would rip through the red ranks with a ferocious efficiency. He just needed to close on thatenemy, drive him back in terror, and then keep advancing until the fort, and every damned redcoat inside it, belonged to the marines.The slope frustrated him. It was steep and the enemy, retreating slowly, kept up a galling fire on his men, a fire the marines could scarcely return most ofthe time. They shot upwards when they could, but the enemy was half-hidden by trees, by shadow, and by the smoke-writhing fog, and too many musketballswere deflected by branches, or just wasted in the air. "Keep going!" Welch shouted. The higher they went the easier the slope became, but until theyreached that friendlier ground good men were being killed or wounded, struck by musket-balls that plunged relentlessly from above, and every shot madeWelch angrier and more determined.He sensed, rather than saw, that he was opposed by a small group of men. They fired constantly, but because they were few their fire was limited."Lieutenant Dennis! Sergeant Sykes!" Welch shouted, "Take your men left!" He would outflank the bastards."Aye aye, sir!" Sykes roared back. Welch could hear the cannons firing above him, but no round shot or grapeshot came his way, just the damnedmusket-balls. He gripped a spruce branch and hauled himself up the slope, and a musket-ball smacked into the spruce's trunk and showered his face withsplinters, but he was on easier ground now and he yelled at the men following to join him. He could see the enemy now, he could see they were a smallgroup of men wearing black-faced red jackets who were stubbornly retreating across an open patch of ground. "Kill them!" he called to his men, and themuskets of the marines belched smoke and noise, and when the smoke thinned Welch could see he had hurt the enemy. Men were on the ground, but stillthe rest stood and still they fired back, and Welch heard their officer shout at them. That officer annoyed him. He was a slight and elegant figure in a coatthat, even in the misted dawn, looked expensively tailored. The buttons glinted gold, there was lace at the officer's throat, his breeches were snow-white,and his top boots gleamed. A puppy, Welch thought sourly, a sprig of privilege, a target. Welch, in his captivity, had met a handful of supercilious Britonsand they had burned a hatred of the breed into his soul. It was such men who had taken Americans to be fools, who had thought they could lord it over adespised breed, and who must now be taught a bloody lesson. "Kill the officer," he told his men, and the marines' muskets crashed another volley. Men bitcartridges, skinned their knuckles on the fixed bayonets as they slammed ramrods down barrels, primed locks, shot again, but still the damned puppylived. He was holding a musket, while his sword, which hung from silver chains, was in its scabbard. He wore a cocked hat, its brim edged with silver, andbeneath it his shadowed face looked very young and, Welch thought, arrogant. Goddamned puppy, Welch thought, and the goddamned puppy shouted athis men to fire and the small volley slammed into the marines, then Lieutenant Dennis's men shot from the north and that outflanking fire drove the puppyand his redcoats further back across the clearing. They left bodies behind, but the arrogant young officer still lived. He stopped his redcoats at the fartrees and shouted at them to kill Americans and Welch had taken enough. He drew his heavy cutlass from its plain leather scabbard. The blade felt goodin his hand. He saw the redcoats were reloading, tearing at cartridges while their muskets were butt-down on the ground. Another redcoat was struckdown, his blood spattering the clean white breeches of the young officer whose men, because they were still reloading, were now defenseless. "Use yourbayonets!" Welch shouted, "and charge!"Welch led the charge across the clearing. He would cut the puppy down. He would slaughter these damned fools, he would take the guns behind them,then lead his green-coated killers along Majabigwaduce's spine to take the fort. The marines had reached the bluff's summit and, for Captain John Welch,that meant the battle was won.* * *