The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

ecome mired in pessimism and it needed to be whipped into enthusiasm again."So McLean's no fool, is he?" Todd asked caustically.Because at the foot of the hill, between a barn and a cornfield, the redcoats had appeared.And Solomon Lovell had his ambush."They're all yours, Mister Moore!" Captain Caffrae called.Fifty men, two drummer boys, and three fifers were now Moore's responsibility. The company had formed just north of Jacob Dyce's house. They werein three ranks with the musicians behind. Caffrae, before leading his men from concealment, had ordered them to load their muskets and fix theirbayonets. "Let's hear the 'British Grenadier'!" Moore called. "Smartly now!"The drums gave a roll, the fifers found the rhythm and began the sprightly tune. "No man is to fire until I give the command!" Moore said to the company.He walked along the short front rank, then turned to see that the rebels in the Half Moon Battery had scrambled to their feet. They were watching him. Hedrew his sword and his heart gave a lurch as he heard the long blade scrape in the scabbard's throat. He was nervous and he was excited and he wasfrightened and he was elated. Captain Caffrae had positioned himself beside the musicians, ready no doubt to take over command of the company ifMoore did the wrong thing. Or if he died, Moore thought, and felt a lump in his throat. He suddenly needed to piss very badly. Oh God, he thought, let menot wet my breeches. He walked towards the company's right- hand side. "We're going to drive those scoundrels away," he said, trying to sound casual.He took post at the right and sloped his sword blade over his shoulder. "Company will advance! By the right! March!"The fifes played, the drums rattled and the redcoats went at a steady pace to trample down Jacob Dyce's newly weeded bean patch. The front rankheld their muskets low, their bayonets making a line of glinting oiled steel. Guns boomed on the ridge above and other cannons crashed their soundacross the harbor, but those conflicts seemed far away. Moore deliberately did not look to his right because he did not want to give the hidden rebels anyhint that he knew they were present. He walked towards the Half Moon Battery and the handful of rebels there watched him come. One leveled a musketand fired, the ball flying high. "You'll hold your fire!" Moore called to his men. "Just drive them away with steel!"The few rebels backed away. They were outnumbered by the advancing company and their orders were to draw the redcoats on till they could betrapped by McCobb's two hundred men hidden in the corn and so they retreated across the semicircular rampart and up the slope beyond."Steady!" Moore called. He could not resist a quick glance to his right, but nothing moved on that higher ground. Had the rebels abandoned the idea ofan ambush? Maybe the Dutchman had been wrong and there were no rebels hidden in the corn. A gun bellowed at the ridgetop to make a sudden cloudof smoke above which white gulls flew like paper scraps in a gale. Moore's mind was skittering like the gulls. What if there were two hundred rebels?Three hundred? What if the green-coated marines were there?Then there was a shout from the right, the corn was being trampled, there were more shouts and Lieutenant Moore felt a strange calm. "Company willhalt!" he heard himself call. "halt!" He turned his back on the enemy to look at his redcoats. They had kept their dressing and their ranks were orderly andtight. "By the right!" he commanded loudly. "Right wheel! Half!" He stood motionless while the three short ranks swung about like a gate until they facednorthwards. Moore turned to look up the slope where, from out of the high corn, a horde of enemies was appearing. Dear God, Moore thought, but therewere far more than he had expected. "I want to hear the drum and fifes!" he shouted. "Company will advance! By the right! March!"And now go straight for them, he thought. No hesitation. If he hesitated then the enemy must smell his fear and that would give them courage. So justmarch with leveled bayonets and the "British Grenadier" filling the air with its defiance, and the enemy was in no order, just a mass of men appearing fromthe corn and too far away for a volley to have any effect and so Moore just marched up the slope towards them and the thought flickered through his mindthat the enemy was far too numerous and his duty now was to retreat. Was that what McLean would want? Caffrae was offering no advice, and Mooresensed that he did not need to retreat. The enemy had begun to fire their muskets, but the range was still too long. A ball flicked through the grass besideMoore, another whipped overhead. One rebel shot his ramrod by mistake, the long rod circling in the air to fall on the grass. The enemy was obscured bypatches of powder smoke that drifted back into the trampled maize, but Moore could see their disorganization. The rebels glanced left and right, lookingto see what their friends did before they obeyed their officers' shrill cries. One man had white hair falling almost to his waist, another was white-bearded,and some looked like schoolboys given muskets. They were plainly nervous.And suddenly Moore understood that the discipline of his men was a weapon in itself. The rebels, tired and hungry after a long day in the cornfield, werefrightened. They did not see fifty equally nervous young men, they saw a red-coated killing machine. They saw confidence. And though they had burst outof the corn they had not charged down the hill, but were now being chivvied into ranks by officers and sergeants. They had made a mistake, Moorethought. They should have charged. Instead he was attacking and they were on the defensive, and it was time to frighten them even more. But not tooclose, Moore thought. He decided he would not wait till the enemy was inside easy musket range. Get too close and the enemy might realize just howeasily his fifty men could be overwhelmed and so, when he gauged he was about eighty paces from the rebels, he called a halt."Front rank, kneel!" Moore shouted.A man in the rear rank fell backwards, his face a sudden blossom of red where a musket-ball had struck his cheek. "Close ranks!" Caffrae called."Company!" Moore drew out the last syllable. He was watching the enemy. "Take aim!" The muskets were leveled. The muzzles wavered slightlybecause the men were not accustomed to aiming while the heavy bayonets hung from the barrels. "Fire!" Moore shouted.The muskets flamed and smoked. Wadding, shot from the barrels, started small fires in the grass. The volley crashed into rebels and corn. "Companywill advance at the double!"Moore would not waste time reloading. "March!" There were bodies at the corn's edge. Blood in the evening. A man was crawling back into the highstalks to leave a trickle of blood on the grass. Smoke was thick as fog."Bayonets!" Moore shouted. It was not an order, for his men already had fixed bayonets, but rather a word to frighten an already frightened enemy."Scotland forever!" he shouted, and his men cheered and hurried through the remnants of their own powder smoke. They were driven by drums, defiance,and pride, and the rebels were running. The enemy militia were running back towards the bluff. All of them, like men running a race. Some even threwaway their muskets so that they could run faster. No green uniforms, Moore noted. His Scotsmen were whooping, losing cohesion, and Moore wantedthem to keep their discipline. "Company will halt," he shouted, "halt!" His sharp voice checked the redcoats. "Sergeant Mackenzie! Dress the ranks if youplease. Let's at least try to look like His Majesty's soldiers, and not like His Majesty's royal ragamuffins!" Moore sounded stern, but he was grinning. Hecould not help it. His men were grinning too. They knew they had done well and the more experienced among them knew they had been well led. Moorewaited for the ranks to be properly formed. "Company will wheel to the left!" he called. "By the left, left wheel, half!"The Scotsmen were still grinning as they marched about to face the spectators who watched from Dyce's Head. Distant cheers sounded from FortGeorge. The slope ahead of Moore was full of rebels who ran, limped, or walked away. The rebel dead or wounded, four men, lay sprawled on the grass.Moore put the point of his sword into the scabbard and thrust the blade home. He gazed up the slope. You bastards want our fort, he thought, then you justbloody well come and take it."Congratulations, Moore," Caffrae said, but for once the courteous Moore did not offer a polite reply. He was in urgent need of something else and sohe went to the edge of the Dutchman's corn, unbuttoned the flap of his breeches and pissed long and hard. The company laughed, and Moore felt happierthan he had ever felt. He was a soldier.