The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

walked beside Wadsworth, his musket held in clenched hands. "They're sleeping, sir," Fletcher said in a tight voice."I hope so," Wadsworth said.Then the night exploded.The first gun was fired from the fort. The flame leaped and curled into the night sky, the lurid flash lighting even the southern shore of the harbor beforethe powder smoke obscured the fort's silhouette. The cannon-ball landed somewhere to Wadsworth's right, bounced and crashed into the meadowsbehind and then two more guns split the night, and Wadsworth heard himself shouting. "Charge! Charge!"Ahead of him a flame showed, then he was dazzled as he heard the sound of the gun and the whistle of grape shot. A man screamed. Other men werecheering and running. Wadsworth stumbled over the rough ground. Marines were dark shapes to his left. Another round shot slammed into the turf,bounced, and flew on. A splinter of light came from an enemy musket in the gun emplacement, then another cannon sounded and grape shot seethedaround Wadsworth. James Fletcher was with him, but when Wadsworth glanced left and right he saw very few militiamen. Where were they? Moremuskets shot flame, smoke, and metal from the battery. There were men standing on the rampart, men who vanished behind a rill of smoke as still moremuskets punched the night. The marines were ahead of Wadsworth now, running and shouting, and the sailors were coming from the beach and thebattery was close now, so close. Wadsworth had no breath to shout, but his attackers needed no orders. The Indians overtook him and a cannon firedfrom the emplacement and the sound deafened Wadsworth, it punched the air about him, it dizzied him, it wreathed him in the foul egg stench of powdersmoke that was thick as fog and he heard the screaming just ahead and the clash of blades, and a shouted order that was abruptly cut off, and then hewas at the earthwork and he saw a smoking cannon muzzle just to his right as Fletcher pushed him upwards.The devil's work was being done inside the emplacement where marines, Indians, and sailors were slaughtering redcoats. A gun fired from the fort, butthe ball went high to splash harmlessly into the harbor. Lieutenant Dennis had stabbed a sword into a British sergeant who was bent over, trapping thesteel in his flesh. A marine clubbed the man on the head with a musket butt. The Indians were making a high-pitched shrieking sound as they killed.Wadsworth saw blood bright as a gun-flame spurt from a skull split by a tomahawk. He turned towards a British officer in a red coat whose face was amask of terror and Wadsworth slashed his sword at the redcoat, the blade hissing in empty air as a marine drove a bayonet deep into the man's lowerbelly and ripped the blade upwards, lifting the redcoat off his feet as an Indian chopped a hatchet into the man's spine. Another redcoat was backingtowards the fires, his hands raised, but a marine shot him anyway, then smashed the stock of his musket across the man's face. The rest of the Britishwere running. They were running! They were vanishing into Jacob Dyce's cornfield, fleeing uphill towards the fort."Take prisoners!" Wadsworth shouted. There was no need for more killing. The gun emplacement was taken and, with a fierce joy, Wadsworthunderstood that the battery was too low on the shore to be hit by the fort's guns. Those guns were trying, but the shots were flying just overhead to splashuselessly into the harbor. "Let's hear your drum now, John Freer!" Wadsworth shouted. "You can sound the drum as loud as you like now!"But John Freer, aged twelve, had been clubbed to death by a redcoat's brass-bound musket butt. "Oh dear God," Wadsworth said, gazing down at thesmall body. The bloodied skull was black in the moonlight. "I should never have let him come," he said, and felt a tear in one eye."It was that bastard," a marine said, indicating the twitching body of the redcoat who had tried to surrender and who had been shot before having hisface beaten in by the marine. "I saw the bastard hit the lad." The marine stepped to the fallen redcoat and kicked him in the belly. "You yellow bastard."Wadsworth stooped beside Freer and put a finger on the drummer's neck, but there was no pulse. He looked up at James Fletcher. "Run back to theheights," he said, "and tell General Lovell we're in possession of the battery." He held out a hand to check Fletcher. Wadsworth was gazing east-wards atthe British ships. The dark shapes seemed so close now. "Tell the general we need to put our own guns here," he said. Wadsworth had captured theBritish guns, but they were smaller than he had expected to find. The twelve-pounder cannons must have been moved back to the fort and replaced withsix-pounders. "Tell the general we need a pair of eighteen-pounders," he said, "and tell him we need them here by dawn.""Yes, sir," Fletcher said, and ran back towards the high ground and Wadsworth, watching him go, saw militiamen scattered on that long slope leading toDyce's Head. Too many militiamen. At least half had refused to attack, evidently terrified by the British cannon-fire. Some had kept going and now stood inthe battery watching the fifteen prisoners being searched, but most had simply run away and Wadsworth shuddered with anger. The marines, Indians, andsailors had done the night's work, while most of the minutemen had hung back in fear. John Freer had been braver than all his comrades, and the boy hada crushed skull to prove it."Congratulations, sir," Lieutenant Dennis smiled at Wadsworth."You and your marines achieved this," Wadsworth said, still looking at the militia."We beat their marines, sir," Dennis said cheerfully. The gun emplacement had been protected by Royal Marines. Dennis sensed Wadsworth'sunhappiness and saw where the general was looking. "They're not soldiers, sir," he said, nodding towards the militiamen who had refused to attack. Mostof those laggards were now walking towards the battery, chivvied by their officers"But they are soldiers!" Wadsworth said bitterly. "We all are!""They want to get back to their farms and families," Dennis said."Then how do we take the fort?" Wadsworth asked."They have to be inspired, sir," Dennis said."Inspired!" Wadsworth laughed, though not with any amusement."They'll follow you, sir.""Like they did tonight?""Next time you'll give them a speech, sir," Dennis said, and Wadsworth felt his former pupil's gentle childing. Dennis was right, he thought. He shouldhave given them a rousing encouragement, he should have reminded the militia why they fought, but then a strange ripping noise interrupted his regretsand he turned to see an Indian crouching by a corpse. The dead marine had been stripped of his red coat, now he was being scalped. The Indian had cutthe skin across the crown and was tearing it loose by the hair. The man sensed Wadsworth's gaze and turned, his eyes and teeth bright in the moonlight.Four other corpses had already been scalped. Marines were searching among the billets, discovering tobacco and food. The militiamen just watched.Colonel McCobb was haranguing the three hundred men, telling them they should have behaved better. A marine knocked the top from one of two hugehogsheads that stood at the back of the emplacement and Wadsworth wondered what they contained, then was diverted by a dog barking fiercely fromthe battery's southern edge. A sailor tried to calm the dog, but it snapped at him and a marine casually shot the animal. Another marine laughed.That was the last gunfire of the night. Mist thickened on the harbor. James Fletcher returned to the captured battery just before dawn to say that GeneralLovell wanted Wadsworth back on the heights. "Is he going to send the guns?" Wadsworth asked."I think he wants you to arrange that, sir."Meaning Lovell wanted Wadsworth to deal with Lieutenant-Colonel Revere. The sailors had already gone back to their ships and Captain Carnes hadbeen instructed to return with his marines as soon as possible, but Wadsworth was unhappy leaving the militia to guard the captured battery and Carnesagreed that a dozen marines should stay under Lieutenant Dennis's command. "I'll leave a good sergeant with young Dennis," Carnes said."He needs that?""We all need that, sir," Carnes said, and shouted at Sergeant Sykes to pick a dozen good men.Colonel McCobb was officially in charge of the battery. "You might start by throwing up a rampart," Wadsworth suggested to him. The existingsemicircular rampart looked towards the harbor entrance and Wadsworth wanted an earthwork that faced the fort. "I'll be bringing the guns as soon as Ican," he said."I'll be waiting, sir," McCobb promised.Three hundred men now guarded the captured battery that could be used to destroy the ships. Then Lovell might attack the fort. And then the Britishwould be gone.Brigadier McLean appeared in a nightcap. He was in uniform and had a gray greatcoat, but had been given no time to dress his hair and so wore the redcap with its long blue tassel. He stood on Fort George's southwestern bastion and stared down at the low ground where the Half Moon emplacement wasmostly hidden by the cornfield. "I think we're wasting our cannon-fire," he told Fielding, who himself had been woken by the sudden eruption of firing."Cease fire!" Fielding called.An alert gunner sergeant had seen the rebels attacking down the open slope from Dyce's Head and had opened fire. "Give the man an extra ration ofrum," McLean said, "and my thanks."The gunners had done well, McLean thought, yet their efforts had not saved the Half Moon Battery. The Royal Marines and gunners evicted from theemplacement were straggling into the fort and telling their tale of rebels swarming over the ramparts. They claimed there had been hundreds of attackers,and the defenders had numbered just fifty. "Tea," McLean said."Tea?" Fielding asked."They should brew some tea," McLean gestured at the defeated men.