The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

need men willing to make that attack, men willing to climb the hill with me and storm the enemy ramparts. I need brave men."Four hundred and forty-four men volunteered. They assembled among the trees at the top of Dyce's Head where Lieutenant Downs and fifty marineswaited, and where Wadsworth divided the militia volunteers into four companies. The Indian braves formed their own small company. It was earlyafternoon. The day had dawned so bright, but now the sky clouded and a late fog drifted up the sea-reach."The fog will help hide us," Wadsworth remarked."So God is an American," Lieutenant Downs said, making Wadsworth smile, then the marine lieutenant looked past Wadsworth. "General Lovellcoming, sir," he said softly.Wadsworth turned to see Solomon Lovell and Major Todd approaching. Was this bad news? Had Commodore Saltonstall changed his mind? "Sir," hegreeted the general cautiously.Lovell looked pale and drawn. "I have decided," he said slowly, "that I should go with you."Wadsworth hesitated. He had thought to lead this attack and that Lovell would make a separate advance with the remaining men along the ridge'sspine, but something in Lovell's face told him to accept the older man's decision. Lovell wanted to be in this assault because he needed to prove tohimself he had done all that he could. Or perhaps, Wadsworth thought less generously, Lovell had an eye to posterity and knew that fame would attend theman who led the successful assault on Fort George. "Of course, sir," he said.Lovell looked heartbroken. "I just ordered the big guns off the heights," he said, gesturing north towards the woods where Revere's cannon had beenemplaced."You ordered'" Wadsworth began in puzzlement."There's no ammunition," Lovell interrupted him bleakly.Wadsworth was about to point out that more ammunition could be supplied, if not from Boston then perhaps from the Warren's magazine, then heunderstood why Lovell had given the apparently defeatist order to remove the guns. It was because the general at last understood that this was the rebels'final chance. If this attack failed then nothing else would work, at least not till American reinforcements arrived, and until that day, there would be no moreneed of heavy guns. "Colonel McCobb and Colonel Mitchell will lead the attack along the ridge," Lovell went on. Neither Lovell nor Wadsworth expectedmuch from the second attack, which would be made by the men who had not volunteered, yet their visible presence on the ridge must keep some Britishdefenders on the western side of their fort, and that was why the second attack was planned."We're honored you're here, sir," Wadsworth said generously."I won't interfere with your deployments," Lovell promised.Wadsworth smiled. "We're all at God's mercy now, sir."And if God was merciful the rebels would go down the long hill in full sight of the fort and under the fire of its cannons. They would pass the smokingremnants of the burned houses and barns, then make their way through cornfields and orchards, and through the small yards where vegetables grew.Once sheltered by the village they would make for a group of houses that lay between the fort and the British ships, and there Wadsworth would wait untilthe commodore's attack diverted the fort's defenders and filled the harbor with noise, smoke, and flame.With the marines and Indians added to his force Wadsworth now led five hundred men. The best men. Was it enough? McLean had at least sevenhundred in the fort, but the troops led by Colonel McCobb and Colonel Mitchell would keep some of those defenders facing west, and once the Britishships were taken or sunk the rest of the American marines would come ashore. The numbers would be about equal, Wadsworth thought, then decidedthat he could not win this battle by an exercise of mental arithmetic. He could plan his moves as far as the harbor's edge, but after that the devil would rollhis dice and it would be smoke and flame, screams and steel, the chaos of anger and terror, and what use was mathematics then? If Wadsworth'sgrandchildren were to learn of this day and of this victory they must learn of courage and of men doing a great deed. And if the deed was not great it wouldnot be memorable. So at some point he must let go of calculation and throw himself on anger and resolve. There was no easy way. Both Lovell andSaltonstall had shirked the fight because they sought a sure solution, and no such easy answer existed. The expedition would only succeed when it roseabove prudence and challenged men to perform great deeds. So yes, he thought, five hundred men was enough, because that was all he had to do thisthing, and this thing had to be done in the name of American liberty. "James?" he spoke to Fletcher. "Let's go."Forty of the volunteers were manning drag-ropes attached to two of the four-pounder cannons that, so far, had scarcely been used. They were too smallto be effective at anything except close range, but on this day they might be battle-winners. Lieutenant Marett, one of Revere's officers, commanded thetwo pieces, which had an ample supply of round shot, though Captain Carnes, before returning to the General Putnam, had insisted that the two smallguns were also equipped with grape. He had made the missiles himself, collecting stones from the beach that the General Putnam's sailors had sewninto rough bags of sail canvas. The bags could be rammed on top of a round shot so that when the guns were fired the stones would spread like lethalduckshot. Lieutenant Marett had nervously protested that the stones would ruin the guns' barrels, but had fallen silent under Carnes's baleful stare. "Damnthe barrels," Carnes had said, "it's the ruin they'll do to British guts that matters."The first tendrils of fog curled over the slope as the men went down to the shore. They went in open order, hurrying across the meadows and through thescattered trees. A round shot fired from Fort George gouged a scar across grassland. A second gun fired, then a third, but all the balls ricochetedharmlessly from the ground. That was a good omen, Wadsworth thought, and was surprised that he sought omens. He had prayed in the dawn. He liked tothink that faith and prayer were sufficient to themselves, and that he was now in God's hands, but he found himself watching every phenomena for any signthat this attack would succeed. The British sloops, though their guns would bear on the harbor shore, did not fire and that was surely the hand of providence.The smoke from the burning houses was blown towards Fort George and, though Wadsworth's rational mind told him that was merely because thewind persisted from the southwest, he wanted to believe it was a sign that God desired to blind and choke the enemy. He saw six of the Indians crouchingbeside the cornfield where he had ordered the men to gather. They formed a circle, their dark heads close together, and he wondered what God theyprayed to. He remembered a man named Eliphalet Jenkins who had founded a mission to the Wampanoag tribe and whose body, gutted empty by knivesand blanched pale by the sea, had been washed ashore at Fairhaven. Why was he remembering that old tale? And then he thought of the story JamesFletcher had told him about a man and boy, both English, who many years before had been gelded then burned alive by the Indians of Majabigwaduce.Was that another omen?The two guns arrived safely. Each was attached to a caisson that held their ammunition and on the nearer of those wagons was painted a slogan,"Liberty or Death." That was easily said, Wadsworth thought, but death seemed more imminent now. Imminent and immanent. The words batted in hishead. Why did the enemy sloops not fire? Were they asleep? A shell from the fort landed in the smoldering remnants of Jacob Dyce's house andexploded harmlessly with a dull, impotent boom and an eruption of ash and smoldering timbers. Imminent, immanent, and impotent. For some reasonWadsworth thought of a text that had been the foundation of a sermon that the Reverend Jonathan Murray had preached on the first Sunday after theexpedition had landed, "where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." The worm, Murray said, was the evil of British tyranny and the fire therighteous anger of men who fought for liberty. But why did we burn these houses, Wadsworth wondered, and how many men of Majabigwaduce had beenenraged by that arson and, even now, manned the ramparts of the fort? "The worm will shrivel," Murray had promised, "it will shrivel and hiss as it burns!"Yet the scripture, Wadsworth thought, did not promise that punishment, only that the worm dieth not. Was that an omen?"Do we go on, sir?" Fletcher asked."Yes, yes.""You look as if you're dreaming, sir," Fletcher said, grinning."I was wondering how many civilians will be helping the garrison.""Oh, some will," Fletcher said dismissively. "Old Jacob for one, but he can't shoot straight. Doctor Calef, of course.""I knew Calef in Boston," Wadsworth said."He's not a bad fellow. A bit pompous. But he'll be doctoring, not soldiering.""On we go," Wadsworth said, and it seemed unreal now. The ships still did not fire and the bombardment from the fort fell silent because the Americanswere on the low ground and protected from the guns on the fort's southern wall by a shoulder of land that ran parallel to the ridge. They were concealed tooby houses, cornfields, and trees. Lilies blossomed in yards. A woman hurriedly took in some drying washing because the sky was still darkening andpromised rain. The marines, in a double file, advanced on the left ready to turn and oppose any sally by the fort's garrison, but McLean sent none. Achained dog barked at the passing soldiers until a woman called for it to be silent. Wadsworth looked up to his left, but all he could see of the fort was theslow-stirring flag at the top of its pole. He crossed the newly made track which led from the beach to the fort's gate. If I were McLean, Wadsworth thought, Iwould send men down to fight, but the Scotsman did no such thing, nor did Mowat fire from his sloops, though he must be seeing the rebels file throughthe settlement. "He's not going to waste shot on us," Lieutenant Downs suggested when Wadsworth expressed surprise that the British ships had beensilent."Because we can't hurt him?""Because he's double-shotted his guns to welcome our ships. That's all he's worried about, sir, the ships."