The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

"You want to see how well our guns can cut down rebels, sir?" the sergeant asked happily after he had helped McLean onto the table."Oh, I know you lads can defend us," McLean lied. He stood on the table and wondered why no bagpipers had come with the two regiments. He smiledthat so strange a thought should have occurred to him at such a moment. "I do miss the pipes," he said."Bagpipes, sir?" Lawrence asked."Indeed! The music of war.""Give me a good English band any day, sir."McLean smiled. His undignified perch on the table gave him an excellent view of the ground over which the rebels must advance. He reached into apocket of his red coat and took out a folded penknife. "Sergeant, would you be so kind as to open that?""Going to stick a rebel, General?" Lawrence asked as he extracted the blade. "I reckon your sword will do more damage."McLean took the knife back. The hand of his injured right arm was too weak to loosen the halliard holding the flag and so he held the short blade in hisleft hand ready to cut the line when the moment came.Captain Fielding came to the bastion where he insisted on laying the twelve-pounder cannon himself. "What's the charge?" he asked Lawrence."Quarter charge, sir," Lawrence said, "three pounds."Fielding nodded and made some calculations in his head. The gun was cold, which meant the shot would lose some power, so he elevated the barreljust a trifle, then used the trail spike to aim the gun at a knot of men standing close to the rebels' bright flags. Satisfied that his aim and elevation weregood, he stepped back and nodded to Sergeant Lawrence. "Carry on, Sergeant," he said.Lawrence primed the gun, ordered the crew to cover their ears and step aside, then touched flame to the portfire. The gun roared, smoke smotheredthe bastion, and the round shot flew.It flew above the abatis and over the shattered stumps, and it began to lose height as the ground rose to meet it. To Peleg Wadsworth, standing toLovell's left, the ball appeared as a lead-gray streak in the sky. It was a flicker of gray, a pencil stroke against the sudden white-gray of powder smoke thatobscured the fort, and then the streak vanished and the ball struck. It hit a militiaman in the chest, shattering ribs, blood, and flesh in an explosion ofbutchery, and plunged on, flicking blood behind its passage, to rip a man in the groin, more blood and meat in the air, and then the ball struck the ground,bounced, and decapitated one of Revere's gunners before vanishing noisily into the woods behind.Solomon Lovell was standing just two paces away from the first man struck by the round shot. A splinter of rib hit the general on the shoulder and astringy splat of bloody flesh spattered wetly across his face, and just then HMS North, which lay closest to the fort, fired its broadside at the marines whowere on the right of Lovell's lines, and the thunder of the sloop's gunfire filled the Majabigwaduce sky as Captain Fielding's second gun fired. That secondball hit a tree stump just in front of Colonel McCobb's men and struck with such violence that the stump was half-uprooted as it shattered into scraps thatdrove into McCobb's front rank. A man screamed in pain.Sergeant Lawrence's crew, drilled and practiced, had swabbed and reloaded the first gun, which they now levered back to the low embrasure soLawrence could fire it a second time. The ball struck the ground just paces from Lovell and bounced harmlessly overhead, though not before it drove ashower of soil at the general's staff.The man whose groin had been pulped by the first shot was still alive, but his belly was eviscerated and his guts coiled on the ground and he breathedin short, desperate spasms. Lovell, transfixed, watched appalled as a pulse of blood, obscenely thick, spilled out of the man's gutted trunk. The woundedman was making a pathetic noise and Lieutenant-Colonel Revere, whose uniform had been spattered by blood, was white-faced, staring wide-eyed,unmoving. Wadsworth noted the pine needles sticking to the loops of intestine on the ground. The man somehow brought up his head and lookedbeseechingly at Wadsworth, and Wadsworth involuntarily moved towards him, wondering what in God's name he could do or say when, with another surgeof blood from his ruined guts, the man's head fell back."Oh dear God," Lovell said to no one."God rest his soul," the Reverend Jonathan Murray said, his voice unusually strained.Wadsworth looked into the dead man's face. No movement there except for a fly crawling on an unshaven cheek. Behind Wadsworth a man vomited.He turned to stare at the fort where the cannon smoke lingered. "We should advance, sir," he said to Lovell, and was surprised that he had spoken at all,let alone sounded so detached. Lovell seemed not to have heard him. "We should advance, sir!" Wadsworth said in a louder voice.Solomon Lovell was gazing at the fort where another billow of smoke jetted from an unfinished bastion. The ball flew to the general's left, crashing into atree behind the militia. "Colonel Revere?" Lovell asked, still looking at the fort."General?" Revere acknowledged."Can your artillery reduce the fort?""It can," Revere said, though without any of his usual confidence. "It can," he said again, unable to take his eyes from the bloody mess on the ground."Then we shall give your guns that chance," Lovell said. "The men will shelter in the trees.""But now's the moment to advance and'" Wadsworth began a protest."I can't attack into those guns!" Lovell interrupted shrilly. He blinked, surprised by his own tone of voice. "I can't," he began again, then seemed to forgetwhat he wanted to say. "We shall reduce their walls with artillery," he said decisively, then frowned as another British gun hammered a ball up the ridge."The enemy might counterattack," he went on with a note of panic, "so we must be ready to repel them. Into the trees!" He turned and waved his sword atthe thick woods. "Take the men into the trees!" he shouted at the militia officers. "Dig defenses! Here, at the tree line. I want earthworks." He paused,watching his men retreat, then led his staff into the cover of the high wood.Brigadier-General McLean watched in astonishment as his enemy vanished. Was it a trick? One moment there had been hundreds of men forming intoranks, then suddenly they had all retreated into the trees. He watched and waited, but as time passed he realized that the rebels really had gone into thewoods and were showing no sign of renewing their attack. He let out a long breath, took his hand from the flag's halliard, and pushed the open penknifeback into his pocket. "Colonel Campbell!" he called, "stand down three companies! Form them into work parties to heighten the ramparts!""Yes, sir!" Campbell called back.Fort George would live a few hours yet.