The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War Part 18

"At them!" Moore said impatiently, pointing to where the green-coated attackers were momentarily visible in the shadowed undergrowth.

"No."

A blast of musketry erupted on Moore's right. Two of his men collapsed and another dropped his musket to clutch at his shoulder. One of the fallen men was writhing in agony as his blood spread on the ground. He began to scream in high-pitched yelps, and the remaining men backed away in horror. More shots came from the trees and a third man fell, dropping to his knees with his right thigh shattered by a musket-ball. Moore's small line was ragged now and, worse, the men were edging backwards. Their faces were pale, their eyes skittering in fear. "Will you leave me here?" Moore shouted at them. "Will the Hamiltons leave me alone? Come back! Behave like soldiers!" Moore rather surprised himself by sounding so confident, and was even more surprised when the picquet obeyed him. They had been gripped by fear and the fear had been a heartbeat away from panic, but Moore's voice had checked them. "Fire!" he shouted, pointing towards the cloud of powder smoke showing where the enemy's destructive volley had been fired. He tried to see the enemy who had shot that volley, but the green coats of the marines melded into the trees. Moore's men fired, the heavy musket b.u.t.ts thumping back into bruised shoulders.

"We have to get the guns out!" the artillery lieutenant said.

"Then do it!" Moore snarled and turned away. His men's ramrods rattled in powder-fouled barrels as they reloaded.

A musket-ball hit the artillery lieutenant in the small of his back and he crumpled. "No," he said, more in surprise than protest, "no!" His boots scrabbled in the leaf mold. "No," he said again, and another volley came, this time from the north, and Moore knew he was in danger of being cut off from the fort.

"Help me," the artillery lieutenant said.

"Sergeant!" Moore called.

"We have to go, sir," Sergeant McClure said, "we're the only ones left here."

The artillery lieutenant suddenly arched his back and gave a shriek. Another of Moore's men was on the ground, blood sheeting his bleached deerskin trousers.

"We have to go back, sir!" McClure shouted angrily.

"Back to the trees," Moore called to his men, "steady now!" He backed with them, stopping them again when they reached the stand of pines. The guns were just behind them now, while in front was the clearing where the dead and the dying lay and beyond which the enemy was gathering. "Fire!" Moore shouted, his voice hoa.r.s.e. The fog was much thinner and being lit by the rising sun so that the musket smoke seemed to rise into a glowing vapor.

"We have to go, sir," McClure urged, "back to the fort, sir."

"Reinforcements will come," Moore said, and a musket-ball struck Sergeant McClure's mouth, splintering his teeth, piercing his throat, and severing his spine. The sergeant dropped noiselessly. His blood spattered John Moore's immaculate breeches. "Fire!" Moore shouted, but he could have wept for frustration. He was in his first battle and he was losing it, but he would not give in. Surely the brigadier would send more men, and so John Moore, the dead man's musket still in his hand, stood his uncertain ground.

And still more rebels climbed the bluff.

Captain Welch was frustrated. He wanted to close on the enemy. He wanted to terrify, kill, and conquer. He knew he led the best soldiers and if he could just lead them to the enemy then his green-jacketed marines would rip through the red ranks with a ferocious efficiency. He just needed to close on that enemy, drive him back in terror, and then keep advancing until the fort, and every d.a.m.ned redcoat inside it, belonged to the marines.

The slope frustrated him. It was steep and the enemy, retreating slowly, kept up a galling fire on his men, a fire the marines could scarcely return most of the time. They shot upwards when they could, but the enemy was half-hidden by trees, by shadow, and by the smoke-writhing fog, and too many musket-b.a.l.l.s were deflected by branches, or just wasted in the air. "Keep going!" Welch shouted. The higher they went the easier the slope became, but until they reached that friendlier ground good men were being killed or wounded, struck by musket-b.a.l.l.s that plunged relentlessly from above, and every shot made Welch angrier and more determined.

He sensed, rather than saw, that he was opposed by a small group of men. They fired constantly, but because they were few their fire was limited. "Lieutenant Dennis! Sergeant Sykes!" Welch shouted, "Take your men left!" He would outflank the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

"Aye aye, sir!" Sykes roared back. Welch could hear the cannons firing above him, but no round shot or grapeshot came his way, just the d.a.m.ned musket-b.a.l.l.s. He gripped a spruce branch and hauled himself up the slope, and a musket-ball smacked into the spruce's trunk and showered his face with splinters, but he was on easier ground now and he yelled at the men following to join him. He could see the enemy now, he could see they were a small group of men wearing black-faced red jackets who were stubbornly retreating across an open patch of ground. "Kill them!" he called to his men, and the muskets of the marines belched smoke and noise, and when the smoke thinned Welch could see he had hurt the enemy. Men were on the ground, but still the rest stood and still they fired back, and Welch heard their officer shout at them. That officer annoyed him. He was a slight and elegant figure in a coat that, even in the misted dawn, looked expensively tailored. The b.u.t.tons glinted gold, there was lace at the officer's throat, his breeches were snow-white, and his top boots gleamed. A puppy, Welch thought sourly, a sprig of privilege, a target. Welch, in his captivity, had met a handful of supercilious Britons and they had burned a hatred of the breed into his soul. It was such men who had taken Americans to be fools, who had thought they could lord it over a despised breed, and who must now be taught a b.l.o.o.d.y lesson. "Kill the officer," he told his men, and the marines' muskets crashed another volley. Men bit cartridges, skinned their knuckles on the fixed bayonets as they slammed ramrods down barrels, primed locks, shot again, but still the d.a.m.ned puppy lived. He was holding a musket, while his sword, which hung from silver chains, was in its scabbard. He wore a c.o.c.ked hat, its brim edged with silver, and beneath it his shadowed face looked very young and, Welch thought, arrogant. G.o.dd.a.m.ned puppy, Welch thought, and the G.o.dd.a.m.ned puppy shouted at his men to fire and the small volley slammed into the marines, then Lieutenant Dennis's men shot from the north and that outflanking fire drove the puppy and his redcoats further back across the clearing. They left bodies behind, but the arrogant young officer still lived. He stopped his redcoats at the far trees and shouted at them to kill Americans and Welch had taken enough. He drew his heavy cutla.s.s from its plain leather scabbard. The blade felt good in his hand. He saw the redcoats were reloading, tearing at cartridges while their muskets were b.u.t.t-down on the ground. Another redcoat was struck down, his blood spattering the clean white breeches of the young officer whose men, because they were still reloading, were now defenseless. "Use your bayonets!" Welch shouted, "and charge!"

Welch led the charge across the clearing. He would cut the puppy down. He would slaughter these d.a.m.ned fools, he would take the guns behind them, then lead his green-coated killers along Majabigwaduce's spine to take the fort. The marines had reached the bluff's summit and, for Captain John Welch, that meant the battle was won.

General McLean had convinced himself that the rebel attack would be launched across the neck and so was surprised by the dawn's a.s.sault on the bluff. At first he was pleased with their choice, reckoning that Archibald Campbell's picquet was heavy enough to inflict real damage on the attackers, but the brevity of the fight told him that Campbell had achieved little. McLean could not see the fighting from Fort George because fog shrouded the ridge, but his ears told him all he needed to know, and his heart sank because he had readied the fort for an attack from the north. Instead the a.s.sault would come from the west, and the intensity of the musket-fire told McLean that the attack would come in overwhelming force. The fog was clearing quickly now, coalescing into tendrils of mist that blew like gunsmoke across the stumps of the ridge. Once the rebels gained the bluff's summit, and McLean's ears told him that was already happening, and once they reached the edge of the trees on that high western ground, they would see that Fort George was merely a name and not yet a stronghold. It had only two guns facing the bluff, its rampart was a risible obstacle and the abatis was a frail barricade to protect the unfinished work. The rebels would surely capture the fort and Francis McLean regretted that. "The fortunes of war," he said.

"McLean?" Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, the commanding officer of the highlanders, asked. Most of Campbell's regiment, those who were not on the picquet line, now stood behind the rampart. Their two colors were at the center of their line and McLean felt a pang of sadness that those proud flags must become trophies to the rebels. "Did you speak, McLean?" Campbell asked.

"Nothing, Colonel, nothing," McLean said, staring west through the thinning fog. He crossed the rampart and walked towards the abatis because he wanted to be closer to the fighting. The crackling noise of musketry still rose and fell, sounding like dry thorns burning and snapping. He sent one of his aides to recall Major Dunlop's picquet, which had been guarding the isthmus, "and tell Major Dunlop I need Lieutenant Caffrae's company! Quick now!" He leaned on his blackthorn stick and turned to see that Captain Fielding's men had already moved a twelve-pounder from the fort's northeastern corner to the northwestern bastion. Good, he thought, but he doubted any effort now would be sufficient. He looked back to the high ground where smoke and fog filtered through the trees, and from where the sound of musketry grew louder again and where the redcoats were appearing at the edge of the far trees. So his picquet, he thought regretfully, had not delayed the enemy long. He saw men fire, he saw a man fall, and then the redcoats were streaming back across the cleared land, running through the raw tree stumps as they fled an enemy whose coats made them invisible among the distant trees. The only evidence of the rebels was the smoke of their muskets, which blossomed and faded on the morning's light breeze.

There was a small gap in the abatis, left there deliberately so the defenders could negotiate the tangled branches, and the fleeing redcoats filed through that gap where McLean met them. "Form ranks," he greeted them. Men looked at him with startled expressions. "Form in your companies," he said. "Sergeant? Dress the ranks!"

The fugitives made three ranks, and behind them, summoned from their picquet duty on the ground overlooking the neck, Major Dunlop and Lieutenant Caffrae's company arrived. "Wait a moment, Major," McLean said to Dunlop. "Captain Campbell!" he shouted, indicating with his stick that he meant Archibald Campbell, who had retreated just as precipitously as his men.

Campbell, nervous and lanky, fidgeted in front of McLean. "Sir?"

"You were driven back?" McLean asked.

"There are hundreds of them, sir," Campbell said, not meeting McLean's gaze, "hundreds!"

"And where is Lieutenant Moore?"

"Taken, sir," Campbell said after a pause. His eyes met McLean's and instantly looked away. "Or worse, sir."

"Then what is that firing about?" McLean asked.

Campbell turned and stared at the far trees from where musketry still sounded. "I don't know, sir," the highlander said miserably.

McLean turned to Major Dunlop. "Quick as you can," he said, "take Caffrae's company and advance at the double, see if you can discover young Moore. Don't tangle with too many rebels, just see if Moore can be found." Major Dunlop, the temporary commander of the 82nd, was an officer of rare verve and ability and he wasted no time. He shouted orders and his company, with their muskets at the trail, started westwards. It would have been suicide to advance along the cleared spine of the ridge and thus straight towards the rebels who were now gathering at the edge of the trees, so instead the company used the low ground by the harbor where they were concealed by the scatter of houses and by small fields where the maize had grown taller than a man. McLean watched them disappear, heard the fighting continue, and prayed that Moore survived. The general reckoned that young John Moore had promise, but that was not sufficient reason to rescue him, nor was it reason enough that Moore was a friend of the regiment's patron, the Duke of Hamilton, but rather it was because Moore had been given into McLean's charge. McLean would not abandon him, nor any other man under his care, and so he had sent Dunlop and the single company into danger. Because it was his duty.

Solomon Lovell landed on the narrow beach an hour after Captain Welch's marines had spearheaded the American attack. The general arrived with Lieutenant-Colonel Revere and his eighty artillerymen who, today, were armed with muskets and would serve as a reserve force to the nine hundred and fifty men who had already landed, most of whom were now at the top of the bluff. A few had never made it and their bodies lay on the steep slope, while others, the wounded, had been carried back to the beach where Eliphalet Downer, the surgeon general of the Ma.s.sachusetts Militia, was organizing their treatment and evacuation. Lovell crouched beside a man whose eyes were bandaged. "Soldier?" Lovell said. "This is General Lovell."

"We beat them, sir."

"Of course we did! Are you in pain, soldier?"

"I'm blinded, sir," the man said. A musket-ball had spattered razor-sharp splinters of beechwood into both eyes, "But you will see your country at liberty," Lovell said, "I promise."

"And how do I feed my family?" the man asked. "I'm a farmer!"

"All will be well," Lovell said and patted the man's shoulder. "Your country will look after you." He straightened, listening to the staccato rattle of musketry at the bluff's summit, which told him that some redcoats must still be fighting on the heights. "We'll need to bring artillery ash.o.r.e, Colonel," he said to Revere.

"Soon as you release us, General," Revere said. There was an edge of resentment in his voice, suggesting that he thought it demeaning for his men to carry muskets instead of serving cannons. "Just as soon as you release us," he said again, though more willingly this time.

"Let's first see what we've achieved," Lovell said. He patted the blinded man's shoulder a second time and started up the bluff, hauling himself on saplings. "It'll be a hard job to get cannon up this slope, Colonel."

"We'll manage that," Revere said confidently. Taking heavy artillery up a bluff's steep face was a practical problem, and Lieutenant-Colonel Revere liked overcoming such challenges.

"I never did congratulate you on the success of your gunners at Cross Island," Lovell said. "You've hurt the enemy ships! A splendid achievement, Colonel."

"Just doing our duty, General," Revere said, but pleased all the same at the compliment. "We killed some d.a.m.ned Britons!" He went on happily. "I've dreamed of killing the d.a.m.ned beasts!"

"And you drove the enemy's ships back! So now there's nothing to stop our fleet from entering the harbor."

"Nothing at all, General," Revere agreed.

The stutter of musketry still sounded from Lovell's right, evidence that some redcoats yet remained on the high ground above the bay, but it was clear that most of the enemy had retreated because, as Lovell reached the easier slope at the top of the bluff, he found grinning militiamen who gave him a cheer. "We beat them, sir!"

"Of course we beat them," Lovell said, beaming, "and all of you," he raised his voice and lifted his hands in a gesture of benediction, "all of you have my thanks and my congratulations on this magnificent feat of arms!"

The woods at the top of the bluff were now in rebel hands, all but for a stand of pines above Dyce's Head, which was far to the general's right and from where the musketry still sounded. Lovell's militia were thick in the woods. They had climbed the precipitous slope, they had taken casualties, but they had shot the British off the summit and all the way back to the fort. Men looked happy. They talked excitedly, recounting incidents in the fight up the steep slope, and Lovell enjoyed their happiness. "Well done!" he said again and again.

He went to the edge of the trees and there, in front of him, was the enemy. The fog had quite gone now and he could see every detail of the fort that lay only half a mile to the east. The enemy had made a screen of branches between the woods and the fort, but from his high ground Lovell could easily see over that flimsy barricade and he could see that Fort George did not look like a stronghold at all, but instead resembled an earthen scar in the ridge's soil. The nearest rampart was thickly lined with redcoats, but he still felt relief. The fort, which in Lovell's imagination had been a daunting prospect of stone walls and sheer ramparts, now proved to be a mere scratch in the dirt.

Colonel McCobb of the Lincoln County militia hailed the general cheerfully. "A good morning's work, sir!"

"One for the history books, McCobb! Without doubt, one for the history books!" Lovell said. "But not quite done yet. I think, don't you, that we should keep going?"

"Why not, sir?" McCobb answered.

Solomon Lovell's heart seemed to miss a beat. He scarcely dared believe the speed and extent of the morning's victory, but the sight of those distant redcoats behind the low rampart told him that the victory was not yet complete. He had a vision of the redcoats' muskets flaring volleys at his men. "Is General Wadsworth here?"

"He was, sir." McCobb said Wadsworth had been at the wood's edge where he had encouraged Colonel McCobb and Colonel Mitch.e.l.l to keep their militiamen moving forward onto the cleared land, but both colonels had pleaded they needed time to reorganize their troops. Units had become scattered as they clambered up the bluff and the necessity of carrying the wounded back to the beach meant that most companies were shorthanded. Besides, the capture of the high woods had seemed like a victory in itself and men wanted to savor that triumph before they advanced on Fort George. Peleg Wadsworth had urged haste, but then had been distracted by the musket-fire which still filled the trees at Dyce's Head with smoke. "I believe he went to the right." McCobb continued, "to the marines."

"The marines are still fighting?" Lovell asked McCobb.

"A few stubborn b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are holding out there," McCobb said.

Lovell hesitated, but the sight of the enemy's flags tipped his indecision towards confidence. "We shall advance to victory!" he announced cheerfully. He wanted to add those arrogant enemy flags to his trophies. "Form your fine fellows into line," he told McCobb, then plucked at the colonel's sleeve as another doubt flickered in his mind. "Have the enemy fired on you? With cannon, I mean?"

"Not a shot, General."

"Well, let's stir your men from the woods! Tell them they'll be eating British beef for their suppers!" The musketry from Dyce's Head suddenly intensified into an angry and concentrated crackle, and then, just as suddenly, went silent. Lovell stared towards the smoke, the only visible evidence of whatever battle was being fought among those trees. "We should tell the marines we're advancing," he said. "Major Brown? Would you convey that message to Captain Welch? Tell him to advance with us as soon as he's ready?"

"I will, sir," Major Gawen Brown, the second of Lovell's brigade majors, started off southwards.

Lovell could not stop smiling. The Ma.s.sachusetts Militia had taken the bluff! They had climbed the precipitous slope, they had fought the regulars of the British Army, and they had conquered. "I do believe," he said to Lieutenant-Colonel Revere, "that we may not need your cannon after all! Not if we can drive the enemy out of their works with infantry."

"I'd still like a chance to hammer them," Revere said. He was staring at the fort and was not impressed by what he saw. The curtain wall was low and its flanking bastions were unfinished, and he reckoned his artillery could reduce that feeble excuse for a fort into a smear of bloodied dirt.

"You zeal does you credit," Lovell said, "indeed it does, Colonel." Behind him the militia sergeants and officers were rousting men from among the trees and shouting at them to form line on the open ground. The flags of Ma.s.sachusetts and of the United States of America flew above them and it was time for the decisive a.s.sault.

Lieutenant Moore heard the bellowed order to charge and saw the green-uniformed men erupt out of the trees and he was aware of muskets flaming unexpectedly from his left and the chaos of the moment overwhelmed him. There was only terror in his head. He opened his mouth to shout an order, but no words came, and a hugely tall rebel in a green coat crossed by white belts, and with a long black pigtail flapping behind his neck, and with a cutla.s.s catching the morning sun in his right hand was running straight towards him and John Moore, almost without thinking, raised the musket he had rescued from Private McPhail and his finger fumbled at the trigger, and then he realized he had not even loaded or c.o.c.ked the musket, but it was too late because the big rebel was almost on him and the man's face was a savagely frightening grimace of hatred and Moore convulsively pulled the trigger anyway and the musket fired.

It had been c.o.c.ked and loaded and Moore had never noticed.

The ball took the rebel under the chin, it seared up through his mouth and out through his skull, lifting his hat into the air. The shock wave of the ball, compressed by the skull, drove an eye from its socket. Blood misted, blurring red in fine droplets as the rebel, dead in an instant, fell forward onto his knees. The cutla.s.s dropped and the man's dead arms wrapped themselves round Moore's waist and then slid slowly down to his feet. Moore, aghast, noticed that the pigtail was dripping blood.

"For G.o.d's sake, young Moore, you want to win this b.l.o.o.d.y war single-handed?" Major Dunlop greeted the young lieutenant. Dunlop's men had fired a company volley from the trees to Moore's left, and that sudden volley had served to drive the momentarily outnumbered marines back to the trees.

Moore could not speak. A musket-ball plucked at the tails of his coat. He was gazing down at the dead rebel whose head was a mess of blood, red-wet hair, and sc.r.a.ps of bone.

"Come on, lad," Dunlop took Moore's elbow, "let's get the devil out of here."

The company retreated, taking Moore's surviving men with them. They withdrew along the lower ground beside the harbor as the American marines captured the three naval cannon abandoned on Dyce's Head. The rebel battery was firing from Cross Island, relentlessly thumping round shot into Captain Mowat's ships. The crest of the bluff was thick with rebels and the redcoats had no place to go now except the unfinished Fort George.

And Captain John Welch was dead.

It took time to fetch the militia from the trees, but gradually they were formed into a line. It was a rough line stretching clear across the high ground with the marines on its right, the Indians on the left, and the flags at its center. Paul Revere's men, Lovell's reserve, were in three ranks behind the two flags, one the proud starred stripes of the United States and the other the pine-tree banner of the Ma.s.sachusetts Militia.

"What a magnificent morning's work," Lovell greeted Peleg Wadsworth.

"I congratulate you, sir."

"I thank you, Wadsworth, I thank you! But on to victory now?"

"On to victory, sir," Wadsworth said. He decided he would not tell Lovell about Captain Welch's death, not till the battle was over and the victory gained.

"G.o.d has granted us the victory!" the Reverend Jonathan Murray announced. He had joined Lovell on the heights and, besides his brace of pistols, carried a Bible. He lifted the book high. "G.o.d promises us 'I will scatter them as with an east wind!'"

"Amen," Lovell said. Israel Trask played his fife behind the marines, while three drummer boys and two more fifers played the "Rogue's March" beside the two flags. Lovell's heart swelled with pride. He drew his sword, looked towards the enemy, and pointed the blade forward. "On to victory!"

A half mile away, inside the fort, General McLean watched the rebels form at the tree line. He had seen Major Dunlop's men climb to the battery on Dyce's Head and, with the help of a telescope, he had seen that young Moore and his men had been rescued. Those redcoats were now coming back to the fort through the low ground beside the harbor, while the remaining picquets that had guarded the neck were all inside Fort George, where McLean's troops stood in three ranks behind the western rampart. Their job now was to defend that low wall with volley fire. McLean, watching the rebel line thicken, still believed he was faced by thousands, not hundreds, of enemy infantry, and now more rebels appeared to the north, showing at the trees above the neck. So he would be attacked from two sides? He glanced at the harbor and saw, to his surprise, that the enemy ships had made no aggressive move, but why should they? The fort was going to fall without their a.s.sistance. McLean limped up onto the unfinished western rampart. "Captain Fielding!"

"Sir?" The English artillery commander hurried to join McLean.

"We'll give them a few shots, I think?"

"Wait till they advance, sir?" Fielding suggested.

"I think we might treat them now, Captain," McLean said.

"They're too far for grape or case, sir."

"Then give them round shot," McLean said. He spoke wearily. He knew what must happen now. The rebels would advance and such was the length of their line that they must inevitably wrap around three sides of his unfinished fort. They would take some casualties at the abatis, which was well within the effective range of the grape shot that Captain Mowat had sent ash.o.r.e, but Fielding's few guns could do only limited damage and the rebels would surely surge on to a.s.sault the low walls. Then there would be chaos, panic, and bayonets. His men would stand, of that McLean was sure, but they would stand and die.

So the battle was lost. Yet honor alone dictated that he showed some resistance before he surrendered the fort. No one would blame him for its loss, not when he was so outnumbered, but he would be universally despised if he yielded without showing some defiance, and so McLean had determined on his course of action. He would fire round shot and keep firing as the rebels began their advance, and then, before they came into range of Captain Fielding's more lethal case and grape shot, he would haul the flag down. It was sad, he thought, but surrender would save his men from ma.s.sacre.

McLean walked to the flagpole in the southwestern bastion. He had asked his aides to place a table beside the tall staff, but his slight limp and his crippled right arm made the effort of climbing onto the table difficult. "Need a hand, sir?" Sergeant Lawrence asked.

"Thank you, Sergeant."

"You want to see how well our guns can cut down rebels, sir?" the sergeant asked happily after he had helped McLean onto the table.

"Oh, I know you lads can defend us," McLean lied. He stood on the table and wondered why no bagpipers had come with the two regiments. He smiled that so strange a thought should have occurred to him at such a moment. "I do miss the pipes," he said.

"Bagpipes, sir?" Lawrence asked.

"Indeed! The music of war."

"Give me a good English band any day, sir."

McLean smiled. His undignified perch on the table gave him an excellent view of the ground over which the rebels must advance. He reached into a pocket of his red coat and took out a folded penknife. "Sergeant, would you be so kind as to open that?"

"Going to stick a rebel, General?" Lawrence asked as he extracted the blade. "I reckon your sword will do more damage."

McLean took the knife back. The hand of his injured right arm was too weak to loosen the halliard holding the flag and so he held the short blade in his left hand ready to cut the line when the moment came.

Captain Fielding came to the bastion where he insisted on laying the twelve-pounder cannon himself. "What's the charge?" he asked Lawrence.

"Quarter charge, sir," Lawrence said, "three pounds."