The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

They would attack the battery.In the dark.The Indians joined Wadsworth's militia after sunset. They appeared silently and, as ever, Wadsworth found their presence unsettling. He could not lose theimpression that the dark-skinned warriors judged him and found him wanting, but he forced a welcome smile in the dark night. "I'm glad you're here," hetold Johnny Feathers, who was apparently the Indian's leader. Feathers, who had been given his name by John Preble, who negotiated for the State withthe Penobscot tribe, neither answered nor even acknowledged the greeting. Feathers and his men, he had brought sixteen this night, squatted at theedge of the trees and scraped whetstones over the blades of their short axes. Tomahawks, Wadsworth supposed. He wondered if they were drunk. Thegeneral's order that no liquor was to be given to the Indians had met with small success, but so far as Wadsworth could tell these men were sober aschurchwardens. Not that he cared, drunk or sober the Indians were among his best warriors, though Solomon Lovell was more skeptical of their loyalties."They'll want something in exchange for helping us," he had told Wadsworth, "and not just wampum. Guns, probably, and God knows what they'll do withthose.""Hunt?""Hunt what?"But the Indians were here. The seventeen braves had muskets, but had all chosen to carry tomahawks as their primary weapon. The militia and marineshad muskets with fixed bayonets. "I don't want any man firing prematurely," Wadsworth told his militiamen and saw, in the small light of the waning moon,the look of incomprehension on too many faces. "Don't cock your muskets till you need to shoot," he told them. "If you stumble and fall I don't want a shotalerting the enemy. And you," he pointed to a small boy who was armed with a sheathed bayonet and an enormous drum, "keep your drum silent till we'vewon!""Yes, sir."Wadsworth crossed to the boy who looked scarcely a day over eleven or twelve. "What's your name, boy?""John, sir.""John what?""John Freer, sir." John Freer's voice had not broken. He was rake-thin, nothing but skin, bones, and wide eyes, but those eyes were bright and his backwas straight."A good name," Wadsworth said, "free and Freer. Tell me, John Freer, do you have your letters?""My letters, sir?""Can you read or write?"The boy looked shifty. "I can read some, sir.""Then when this is all over," Wadsworth said, "we must teach you the rest, eh?""Yes, sir," Freer said unenthusiastically."He brings us luck, General," an older man put in. He placed a protective hand on the boy's shoulder. "We can't lose if Johnny Freer is with us, sir.""Where are your parents, John?" Wadsworth asked."Both dead," the older man answered, "and I'm his grandfather.""I want to stay with the company, sir!" John Freer said eagerly. He had divined that Wadsworth was contemplating an order that he stay behind."We'll look after him, sir," the grandfather said, "we always do.""Just keep your drum quiet till we've beaten them, John Freer," Wadsworth said and patted the boy on the head. "After that you can wake the dead forall I care."Wadsworth had three hundred militiamen, or rather two hundred and ninety-nine militiamen and one small drummer boy. Saltonstall had kept his wordand sent fifty marines and had added a score of the Warren's sailors who were armed with cutlasses, boarding pikes, and muskets. "The crew wants tofight," Carnes explained the presence of the seamen."They're most welcome," Wadsworth had said."And they will fight!" Carnes said enthusiastically. "Demons, they are."The seamen were on the right. The militiamen and Indians were in the center and Captain Carnes and his marines on the left. Lieutenant Dennis wassecond in command of the marines. They were all lined at the edge of the trees by Dyce's Head, close to Captain Welch's grave, and to the east theground dropped gently away towards the Half Moon Battery. Wadsworth could see the enemy earthwork in the small moonlight, and even if it had beendark its position would have been betrayed by two small campfires that burned behind the emplacement. The fort was a dark silhouette on the horizon.Just beyond the enemy battery were the westernmost houses of the village. The closest, which was dwarfed by a large barn, lay only a few pacesbeyond the British guns. "That's Jacob Dyce's house," James Fletcher told Wadsworth, "he's a Dutchman.""So no love for the British?""Oh, he loves the British, Jacob does. Like as not old Jacob will shoot at us.""Let's hope he's asleep," Wadsworth said and hoped all the enemy were sleeping. It was past midnight, a Sunday now, and the peninsula was moonlitblack and silver. Small wisps of smoke drifted from chimneys and campfires.The British sloops were black against the distant water and no lights showed aboard.Two of the transport ships had been beached at Majabigwaduce's eastern tip, while the third had been added to the line of sloops because, in theirnew position, the British were trying to blockade a much greater width of water. The transport ship, which was anchored at the southern end of the line,looked much bigger than the three sloops, but Carnes, who had used a telescope to examine the ship in daylight, reckoned it carried only six smallcannon. "It looks big and bad," he said now, watching the enemy ships in the dark, "but it's feeble.""Like the fort," Lieutenant Dennis put in."The fort gets more formidable every day," Wadsworth said, "which is why we must use haste." He had been appalled when, at the afternoon's councilof war, General Lovell had toyed with the idea of starving the British out of Fort George. The Council's sentiment had been against such a plan, swayed byWadsworth's insistence that the British would surely be readying a relief force for the besieged garrison, but Lovell, Wadsworth knew, would not give upthe idea easily. That made tonight's action crucial. A clear victory would help persuade Lovell that his troops could outfight the redcoats, and Wadsworth,looking at the marines, had no doubt that they could. The green-coated men looked grim, lean, and frightening as they waited. With such troops,Wadsworth thought, a man might conquer the world.The militia were not so threatening. Some looked eager, but most appeared frightened and a few were praying on their knees, though ColonelMcCobb, his mustache very white against his tanned face, was confident of his men. "They'll do just fine," he said to Wadsworth. "How many enemy doyou reckon?""No more than sixty. At least we couldn't see more than sixty.""We'll twist their tails right and proper," McCobb said happily.Wadsworth clapped his hands to get the militiamen's attention again. "When I give the word," he called to the men crouching at the edge of the wood,"we advance in line. We don't run, we walk! When we get close to the enemy I'll give the order to charge and then we run straight at their works."Wadsworth reckoned he sounded confident enough, but it felt unnatural and he was assailed by the thought that he merely playacted at being a soldier.Elizabeth and his children would be sleeping. He drew his sword. "On your feet!" Let the enemy be sleeping too, he thought as he waited for the line tostand. "For America!" he called. "And for liberty, forward!"And all along the wood's edge men walked into the moonlight. Wadsworth glanced left and right and was astonished at how visible they were. Thesilvery light glittered from bayonets and lit the white crossbelts of the marines. The long line was walking raggedly downhill, through pastureland andscattered trees. The enemy was silent. The glow of the campfires marked the battery. The guns there faced the harbor entrance, but how soon could theBritish turn them to face the approaching patriots? Or were the gunners fast asleep? Wadsworth's thoughts skittered, and he knew that was caused bynervousness. His belly felt empty and sour. He gripped his sword as he looked up at the fort, which appeared formidable from this lower ground. That iswhat we should be attacking, Wadsworth thought. Lovell should have every man under his command assaulting the fort, one screaming attack in the darkand the whole business would be over. But instead they were attacking the battery, and perhaps that would hasten the campaign's end. Once the batterywas taken then the Americans could mount their own guns on the harbor's northern shore and hammer the ships, and once the ships were gone thenLovell would have no excuse not to attack the fort.Wadsworth leaped a small ditch. He could hear the waves breaking on the shingle to his right. The long line of attackers was very ragged now, and heremembered the children on the common at home and how he had tried to rehearse maneuvering them from column to line. Maybe he should haveadvanced in column? The gun emplacement was only two hundred yards away now, so it was too late to try and change the formation. James Fletcher