The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War - xaviantvision

"He can't know they're planning to attack him," Wadsworth pointed out."If they saw our fo'c'sle's being strengthened," Downs said, "they'll have guessed."And suppose the ships did not come? Saltonstall had very reluctantly agreed to make an attack, and suppose he changed his mind? Wadsworth's menwere now in line with the ships, meaning they were between Mowat and McLean, and Wadsworth could see the red uniforms of the Royal Marines on thedeck of HMS North. The fog was thickening and a first slow spatter of rain fell.Then a fair-haired girl came running from a house to throw her arms round James Fletcher's neck, and Wadsworth knew they had arrived. He orderedthe two guns to face the harbor, their job to open fire if any Royal Marines came from the ships. The rest of his men crouched in yards and orchards. Theywere a quarter mile from the fort's southeastern bastion and hidden from it by a large cornfield. They were in place. They were ready. If McLean could seethem he took no apparent heed because none of the fort's guns fired, while the sloops' broadsides were now facing well away from the rebels. We gouphill from here, Wadsworth thought. Through the cornfield and across the open ground and over the ditch and up the wall and so to victory, and thatsounded easy, but there would be round shot and grapeshot, screams and blood, smoke and volleys, death squirming in agony, men shrieking, steelslithering in guts, shit-soiled breeches, and the devil laughing as he rattled his dice."They know we're here," Solomon Lovell had not spoken since they left the high ground, but now, looking up at the flag flying above the fort, he soundednervous."They know," Wadsworth said. "Captain Burke!" William Burke, the skipper of the privateer Sky Rocket, had come with the soldiers and his duty nowwas to return and tell Commodore Saltonstall that the assault force was in position. Saltonstall had insisted that a seaman carry him that news, aninsistence that amused Wadsworth because it suggested the naval officer did not trust the army. "Are you satisfied we're in position, Mister Burke?"Wadsworth asked."I'm well satisfied, General.""Then pray tell the commodore we shall attack as soon as he opens fire.""Aye aye, sir," Burke said, and set off westwards, escorted by four militiamen. A longboat waited for him beneath Dyce's Head. It would take an hour,Wadsworth thought, for the message to be delivered. It began to rain harder. Fog and rain on Friday the thirteenth, but at least Wadsworth was confidentthat, at long last, the ships would come.And the fort, with God's good help, would fall."We do nothing, of course," McLean said."Nothing?" John Moore asked."We could have a late luncheon, I suppose? I'm told there's oxtail soup."Moore gazed down from the fort's southeastern bastion. The rebels, at least four hundred of them, were hidden somewhere close to the Fletcher house."We could send two companies to rout them, sir," the lieutenant suggested."They have a company of marines," McLean said, "you saw that.""Then four companies, sir.""Which is exactly what they want us to do," McLean said. Rainwater dripped from the peaks of his cocked hat. "They want us to weaken the garrison.""Because then they'll attack from the heights?""I must assume so," McLean said. "I do like an oxtail soup, especially seasoned with a little sherry wine." McLean went cautiously down the short flightof steps from the bastion, helping himself with the blackthorn stick. "You'll serve with Captain Caffrae," he told Moore, "but do remember your other duty ifthe rebels should break through.""To destroy the oaths, sir?""Exactly that," McLean said, "but I assure you they won't break through.""No?" Moore asked with a smile."Our enemies have made a mistake," McLean said, "and divided their force, and I dare believe that neither of their contingents has the strength tobreak through our defense." He shook his head. "I do like it when the enemy does my work. They're not soldiers, John, they're not soldiers, but that doesn'tmean the fight will be easy. They have a cause, and they're ready to die for it. We'll win, but it will be hard work."The brigadier knew that the crisis had come and was just grateful that it had taken so long to arrive. Captain Mowat's message had said that the rebelships were at last determined to enter the harbor, and McLean now knew that the naval assault would be accompanied by a land attack. He expected themain body of the rebels to come from the heights, and so he had posted the majority of his men on the western side of the fort, while three companies ofthe 82nd were placed to defend against the attack by the men who had worked their way along the shore to conceal themselves in the low ground. Thosethree companies were reinforced by naval cannon already loaded with grapeshot that could turn the ditch beyond the low eastern wall into a trenchslopping with blood. And it would be bloody. In another hour or two McLean knew that Majabigwaduce would be besieged by noise, by the smoke ofcannon and by the spite of musket-fire. Mowat's sloops would put up a stalwart defense, but they would surely be destroyed or taken, and that was sad,yet their loss would not mean defeat. The important thing was to hold the fort and that McLean was determined to do, and so, though his officers yearnedto make a sally and attack the concealed rebels, he would keep his redcoats inside Fort George's walls and let the rebels come to die on his guns andbayonets.Because that was why he had built Fort George, to kill the king's enemies, and now those enemies were obliging him. And so he waited.It began to rain harder, a steady rain, pelting down almost vertically because the wind was so light. The fog moved in bands, thick sometimes, thenthinning, and at times whole swathes of the river were clear of the fog to reveal a sullen gray water being dimpled by rain. The rainwater dripped fromyards and rigging to darken the warships' decks."You trust the army, Mister Burke?" Saltonstall asked."They're in position, Commodore, and ready to go. Yes, sir, I trust them.""Then I suppose we must indulge them."Five rebel ships would sail into Majabigwaduce Harbor. The General Putnam would lead the attack, closely followed by the Warren and the NewHampshire ship, Hampden. The Charming Sally and the Black Prince would come behind those three leading vessels.It had been Saltonstall's idea to send the General Putnam first. She was a large, well-built ship that carried a score of nine-pounder cannons, and herorders were to sail directly at Mowat's line and then turn upwind to anchor opposite the southernmost sloop, the Nautilus. Once anchored, the GeneralPutnam would hammer the Nautilus with her broadside while the Warren, with her much larger guns, came into line opposite the British flagship, theAlbany. The Hampden, with her mix of nine-pounder and six-pounder cannon, would then take on the North while the two remaining ships would use theirbroadsides to pound the fort."He wants us dead," Thomas Reardon, first lieutenant of the General Putnam, commented."But it makes sense to send us in first," Daniel Waters, the skipper, said bleakly."To kill us?""The Warren's our most powerful ship. No point in having her half-beaten to death before she opens fire.""So we're to be half-beaten to death instead?""Yes," Waters said, "because that's our duty. Hands to the capstan.""He's saving his skin, that's the only sense it makes.""That's enough! Capstan!"Capstans creaked as the anchors were hauled. The topgallantsails were released first, showering water onto the decks, which had been scattered withsand to give the gunners firm footing on planks that would become slippery with blood. The guns were double-shotted. The three leading vessels allcarried marines whose muskets would harry the enemy gunners.The crews of the other ships cheered as the five attacking vessels got under way. Commodore Saltonstall watched approvingly as his flying jib wasraised and backed to turn the Warren away from the wind, then as the jib and foretopmast staysail were hoisted and sheeted hard home. The topgallantscaught the small wind, and Lieutenant Fenwick ordered the other topsails released. Men slid down rigging, ran along yards, and fought with rain-tightenedbindings to loose the big sails that scattered more gallons of rainwater that had been trapped within the canvas folds. "Sheet them hard!" Fenwick called.And the Warren was moving. She even heeled slightly to the fitful wind. At her stern the snake ensign flew from the mizzen gaff, while the Stars andStripes were unfurled at her maintop, the proud colors bright in the drab rain and drifts of fog. Israel Trask, the boy fifer, played on the frigate's forecastle.He began with the "Rogue's March" because it was a jaunty tune, a melody to make men dance or fight. The gunners had scarves tied about their ears todull the sound of the cannon and most, even though it was a chill day, were stripped to the waist. If they were wounded they did not want a musket-ball or