The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

Commodore Saltonstall declared he would be responsible for constructing the battery on Haney's land if General Lovell was prepared to send a pair ofeighteen-pounder cannons to the new work. Saltonstall did not communicate directly with Lovell, but sent Hoysteed Hacker, captain of the Continentalsloop Providence, with the offer. He carried Lovell's consent back to the commodore, and so that afternoon eight longboats left the anchored warshipsand rowed south of Cross Island to land on the narrow isthmus. The boats were manned by over a hundred sailors equipped with spades and picks whichthey carried, with the boats, across the narrow neck of land. They relaunched the boats and rowed across to the eastern side of Majabigwaduce Harbor.They were led by Commodore Saltonstall, who wanted to site the battery himself.He discovered the perfect place for a battery, a low headland that pointed like a finger directly at the British ships and with space enough for two gunsto pound the enemy sloops. "Dig here," he ordered. He would raise a rampart round the headland. Eventually, he knew, Mowat would haul guns across thesloops' decks to return the fire, so the rampart needed to be high and stout enough to protect the gunners.Mowat was evidently busy because Saltonstall could see boats rowing constantly between the sloops and the shore. A new and smaller fort was beingbuilt east of Fort George and Saltonstall suspected it was there to add firepower to the harbor defenses. "We bring our ships in here," he told his firstlieutenant, "and they'll pour shot down on us.""They will, sir," Lieutenant Fenwick said loyally.Saltonstall pointed to the new earthwork that the British were making. "They're putting more guns up there. They can't wait to have our ships under theircannons. It's a death trap.""Unless Lovell captures the fort, sir.""Captures the fort!" Saltonstall said scathingly. "He couldn't capture a dribble of piss with a chamberpot. The man's a damned farmer.""What are they doing?" Fenwick pointed to the British sloops from which four longboats, each crammed with red-coated Royal Marines, were rowingnortheast towards the Majabigwaduce River."They're not coming this way," Saltonstall said."I presume we'll post marines here, sir?" Fenwick asked."We'll need to." The new battery was isolated and, if the British had a mind to it, easily attacked. Yet the guns did not have to be here for long.Whenever the rebel fire had become too warm the British ships had moved their position and Saltonstall was convinced that a battery here on Haney'sland and another to the north would drive Mowat away from his present position. The Scotsman would either take his sloops north into the narrow channelof the Majabigwaduce River or else seek refuge in the southernmost reaches of the harbor, but in either place he would be unable to support the fort withhis broadsides and, once the sloops had been driven away, Saltonstall could contemplate bringing his ships into the harbor and using their guns tobombard the fort on the ridge. But only if Lovell attacked at the same time. He watched the Royal Marines rowing steadily up the Majabigwaduce River."Foraging, maybe?" he guessed. The boats vanished behind a distant point of land.The sailors were having a hard time because the soil was thin. The commodore, feeling restless and bored by the dull work, left Lieutenant Fenwick tosupervise the diggers while he walked up a trail towards a farm. It was a miserable farm too, little more than a lichen-covered log cabin with a field-stonechimney, a ramshackle barn, some cornfields, and a stony pasture with two thin cows, all of it hacked out of the forest. The log pile was bigger than thehouse and the dungheap even bigger. Smoke seeped from the chimney, suggesting someone was home, but Saltonstall had no wish to engage in aconversation with some dirt-poor peasant and so he avoided the house, walking instead around the margin of the cow pasture and climbing towards thesummit of the hill east of the house, from where, he thought, he might get a fine view of the new enemy fort.He knew Solomon Lovell was blaming him for not attacking the British ships and Saltonstall despised Lovell for that blame. The man was aMassachusetts farmer, not a soldier, and he had no conception whatever of naval matters. To Solomon Lovell it all seemed so easy. The American shipsshould sail boldly through the harbor entrance and use their broadsides to shatter the enemy ships, but Saltonstall knew what would happen if heattempted that maneuver. The wind and tide would carry the Warren slowly, and her bows would be exposed to all Mowat's guns, and the cannon from thefort would pour their heavy shot down into her hull and the scuppers would be dripping blood by the time he hauled into the wind to bring his ownbroadside to bear. Then, true enough, he might batter one of the sloops into submission, and the larger rebel ships would be there to help, but even if allthe British ships were taken the fort would still be hammering shot down the slope. And probably heated shot. McLean was no fool and by now he mustsurely have built a furnace to heat shot red, and such shot, lodged in a frigate's timbers, could start a fire to reach the magazine and then the Warrenwould explode, scattering her precious timbers all across the harbor.So Saltonstall was not minded to attack, not unless the fort was being distracted by a land assault at the same time and General Lovell showed noappetite for such a storm. And no wonder, the commodore thought, because in his opinion Lovell's militia was little more than a rabble. Perhaps, if realsoldiers arrived, the assault would be possible, but until such a miracle happened Saltonstall would keep his precious fleet well outside the range ofenemy cannons. By now the commodore had reached the hill's low summit where he took the telescope from his tail-pocket. He wanted to count the gunsin Fort George and look for the telltale shimmer of heat coming from a shot-furnace.He steadied the glass against a spruce. It took a moment to bring the lenses into focus, then he saw redcoats leaving the fort and straggling down thetrack into the village. He lifted the tubes to bring the fort into view. The glass was powerful, giving Saltonstall a close-up glimpse of a cannon firing. He sawthe carriage jump and slam back, saw the eruption of smoke and watched the gunners close on the weapon to ready it for the next shot. He waited for thesound to reach him.And heard musket-fire instead.* * *Captain Caffrae's men had not left the fort together, but instead had gone down to the village in small groups so that no rebel watching from the westernheights would be forewarned that the company was deploying.Caffrae assembled them by the Perkins house where the newborn Temperance was crying. He inspected weapons, told his two drummers and threefifers to keep their instruments quiet, then led the company westwards. They kept to the paths that were hidden from the heights and so reached AaronBanks's house where a large barn offered concealment. "Take a picquet into the corn," Caffrae ordered Lieutenant Moore, "and I want no heroics, MisterMoore!""We're just there to watch," John Moore said."To watch," Caffrae confirmed, "and to pray if you like, but not with your eyes closed."Moore took six men. They went past the barn and through a small turnip patch beside the house. Aaron Banks's two pretty daughters, Olive and Esther,stared wide-eyed from a window and Moore, seeing them, put a finger to his lips. Olive grinned and Esther nodded.The picquet went into the concealing corn. "No smoking," Moore told his men because he did not want the telltale wisps of pipe smoke to reveal theirpresence. The men crouched and slid forward, trying their best not to disturb the tall stalks. Once at the field's western edge they lay still. Their job was towatch for any rebel movement that might threaten Caffrae's concealed men, though for now the rebels showed no sign of energy. Moore could clearly seesixteen militiamen at the Half Moon Battery. What enthusiasm they had shown for trenching had dissipated and they now sat in a group inside the oldearthwork. A couple were fast asleep.To Moore's left was Jacob Dyce's house, while to his right, a hundred paces higher up the slope, was the Dutchman's cornfield. In front of him the longhill climbed to the distant bluff. There were men at the very top, evidently waiting to watch whatever drama occurred at the battery. The rebel guns werehidden among the trees beyond the skyline, but their noise pounded the afternoon and their smoke whitened the sky.After a while Jacob Dyce came out of his house. He was a squat, middle-aged man with a prophet's beard. He carried a hoe that he now used to weedsome beans. He worked slowly, gradually getting nearer and nearer to his neighbor's cornfield. "De rascals are in my corn," he suddenly spoke withoutlooking up from his work. He stooped to tug at a weed. "Lots of rascals hiding there. You hear me?" He still did not look towards Moore and his men."I hear you," Moore said quietly, "how many?""Lots," the Dutchman said. He chopped the hoe's blade savagely. "Lots! They are de duivelsgebroed!" He glanced briefly towards where Moore washiding. "De duivelsgebroed!" he said again, then ambled back to his house.Moore sent Corporal MacRae, a reliable man, to tell Caffrae that the devil's brood were indeed hiding uphill. Moore peered at the Dutchman's cornfieldand thought he saw the stalks moving, but he could not be sure. Caffrae himself came to join Moore and peered up at the maize. "The bastards want totake us in the flank," he said."If we advance," Moore said."Oh, we must advance," Caffrae said wolfishly, "why else did we come here?""There could be three hundred men hidden there," Moore warned."Probably no more than a hundred who need a good thrashing."