Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence (26 page)
Read Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence Online
Authors: Robert Conroy
For this voyage, the
Fox
would also carry Arnold and Danforth as the swift but diminutive warships could sail rings around the barges.
Each sailing barge would have a crew of a dozen, which meant they could row if becalmed by the wind and defend the crafts if necessary. It was planned that they would take about two months to reach their destination, where, it was hoped, Burgoyne’s army would await them. Since it was equally possible that the barges would arrive first, the plans also required them to stay offshore until the army appeared. It was hoped that neither the army nor the fleet would have a long wait.
“We sail tomorrow,” Danforth said. “Shall we celebrate tonight?”
“Do you want to be on a small boat with a hangover?”
“Either way, I’ll be sick as a dog, so I might as well enjoy myself this evening.”
Later, they were well into their second bottle of brandy and preparing for their third, when Danforth turned and looked grimly at Fitzroy. “James, have we been sent on a fool’s errand? Are we being set up to fail? Are these damned barges the equivalent of the Spanish Armada?”
Fitzroy sighed. He had been thinking the very same thing. “You ask too damned many questions.”
* * *
Lieutenant Owen Wells looked at the strange contraption in his hand. Had he been more educated and traveled, he might have recognized it. Still, he saw it as a weapon from the past and wondered about it. They were outdoors and in the same place where Will Drake had used an earlier invention to fire at a target. A straw-filled dummy of a man was at the end of the range. A half-rotten pumpkin was the skull.
“Doctor Franklin,” he said, “I know you’re a man of great wisdom, but surely this is a joke.”
Franklin nodded tolerantly. “Lieutenant Wells, I assure you it is not. The crossbow was an effective weapon against knights in armor several hundred years ago. Indeed, it was so effective, that it almost destroyed the armored and mounted knight as a military class.”
“But we fight Redcoats, not knights in armor.”
“True,” said Franklin.
“And the last I checked, Doctor, none of the red-coated turds were wearing armor, even though they weren’t knights.”
Franklin nodded. “But the bolt from a crossbow will just as easily penetrate cloth and flesh. It is accurate to well over a hundred yards, which is at least as good as a musket and can be reloaded at least as fast thanks to my clever innovations to an otherwise awkward device.”
Owen grinned inwardly. The good doctor was getting exasperated with his questions. “But if you wanted a better weapon, why not give us longbows like my ancestors used to use against the English? From what I’ve heard, they raised holy hell with King Edward’s men.”
“Because, my incessantly questioning young friend, longbows take forever to make and take an eternity to learn how to use, or didn’t you know that?”
“Oh, I did. I just wanted to see if you did.”
“Lieutenant Wells, you are a devil.”
“I’ve been called worse, good doctor. But since you compare me with Satan, let me tell you how I plan to use these crossbows that you are forcing me and my men to use.”
Owen cocked the weapon. The motion was blessedly silent, barely a whisper, thanks to some padding and oiling the doctor had added. He placed it snugly into his shoulder and fired. The only sound was a soft thwack as the bolt released and a slight thud as it impacted into a dummy made of straw.
“Excellent shot,” Franklin said.
Wells was also impressed. “I can do better and so can my men. What I want to do is fire these quietly at night and into their camps so they don’t know what’s hitting them and from where. If I have to lose sleep firing these things, then everyone does.
“Then I plan to have my men lie in wait along the trail and watch for stragglers or someone out of line having to piss or shit. There’s nothing worse than getting an arrow up your ass while taking a shit.”
“Indeed,” said Franklin happily. Tallmadge had suggested Lieutenant Wells as someone who would respond favorably to the idea of using a medieval crossbow in this, the late eighteenth century. Wells was Welsh and the Welsh were romantics when it came to killing. It was ironic. In the very early days of the war, Franklin had actually proposed arming the American army besieging the British at Boston with bows and arrows, but had been laughed at. Now he would have a degree of vindication. He hoped.
Owen smiled and fondled the crossbow. “Then we shall simply wait for other targets of opportunity. I dare say we will have plenty of them. We won’t win the war with these ancient weapons, Doctor Franklin, but we will make the damned Redcoats miserable and cost them plenty.”
Wells armed his crossbow with another bolt, cocked, aimed, and fired. Benjamin Franklin couldn’t hide a gasp as the bolt penetrated and shattered the pumpkin, the skull of the dummy.
* * *
Lord Charles Cornwallis climbed the observation tower at the base of Manhattan Island and looked across the harbor at the assembled ships of the Royal Navy. Three giant ships of the line, seven frigates and a gaggle of sloops and merchantmen lay at anchor and rocked gently. On the tower, Cornwallis was almost as high in the air as a lookout in the rigging and crow’s nests of the fleet. As an army man he firmly believed that no sane man would ever go up to such a fragile place on a ship, especially when the world beneath you rolled and pitched. At least his newly constructed tower on the battlements of Fort George had the decency to stand still; except, of course, when it was windy and stormy.
He thought it was an almost peaceful and tranquil perch in the sky. The dark of night hid so many of the world’s scars and this was no exception. He could have turned and looked landward at the ruined city of New York but chose not to. Jammed with more people then it could safely handle—some estimated more than fifty thousand—the city had become a diseased and running sore.
Cornwallis heard footsteps and nodded warmly as his brother. Commodore Billy Cornwallis climbed up and joined him. He was gratified that his young brother was huffing slightly; thereby proving that he hadn’t been climbing any of his ship’s rigging for quite some time.
“Excellent view,” William Cornwallis said, also looking over the harbor and ignoring the city.
Governor General Charles Cornwallis agreed. “Your ships look like predators that are poised to pounce on an unseen and unsuspecting enemy.”
“If only that were true,” his brother said ruefully. His ships were shorthanded and low on supplies. Their warlike visage was a facade. “How go things in the fair city of New York?”
Both men turned to take in the view of Manhattan Island. Neither was surprised to see a couple of fires burning as more dwellings fell to accidents caused by overcrowding. Of course, the loss of the buildings would make the overcrowding more acute with still more accidents occurring, and so on. Life in the city of New York was a spiral descending into hell. Bells began to clang as people gathered to put out the fires.
The wind shifted and the stench of the city swept over them. Each man looked at the other. Was it possible to catch the pox from the air as some scientists seemed to think?
“Does the situation improve?” the younger Cornwallis asked.
“As we speak, hundreds in the city are dying of smallpox,” his brother answered. “So far I’ve kept the disease from the garrison but only by sealing off the military in the fort. I can’t keep them there forever. I must begin to send out patrols and try to regain the countryside so these damned people will leave New York and go back to their homes. I would also like for Burgoyne to get off his arse and win his battles, and return my army to me.”
William saw no need to comment. The dilemma was well known. With so much of the army with Burgoyne, the British had virtually conceded the lands outside the major cities to whoever could hold them. Tories and rebels were again fighting for control of the countryside and the rebels seemed to be winning. Many Tories were disheartened by what appeared to be a two-part abandonment of them by the British. The first was the disappearance of the army, their protection, and the second was the publication of Britain’s shocking intentions for the colonies after the war was won. Offended, angered, with their livelihoods threatened, many Loyalists had gone over to the rebels, while many of the others waited in sullen silence, but without supporting the British.
At least, William thought, the smallpox that was devouring New York had so far spared his ships. When the plague erupted, he’d coldly ordered those ashore to remain ashore so they could not infect his crews. Of course, that also meant he couldn’t take on supplies or press crewmen. The additional crew he could exist without, but his men had to eat, damn it. Something had to break and quickly.
“What can I do to assist?” William asked.
“Take me home,” Charles Cornwallis said with a wry laugh. He wanted nothing more than to be away from this place and to be back in England with memories of his beloved but deceased Jemima. He was one of a small number in his social class who had married for love and her death had devastated him.
“Is there a second choice?” William asked sympathetically.
“Could you take me and my soldiers to Boston or Charleston should the crises worsen here?”
William stiffened. That would mean disobeying the orders of Lord North, who had commanded that the major cities, specifically including New York, be held while Burgoyne marched inland. Still, Lord North was thousands of miles away, while his brother was the commander on the ground.
“Do you think that will be necessary?”
“I don’t know. If the disease threatens we may have to leave, at least temporarily. Perhaps we can construct a fort on Long Island or Staten Island and be far away from the sickness that is New York while still claiming we’re here.” He laughed harshly. “It would only be half a lie, a fact which our conniving Lord North would fully understand and appreciate.”
William relaxed. That would enable Governor Cornwallis to claim he still controlled New York by dominating the harbor. Perhaps he could even offer the use of the several hundred marines on his ships as additions to the governor’s depleted garrison. “My dear brother, we will do everything we can to assist should that prove necessary.”
Off in the distance, a woman wailed in unspeakable anguish. Someone had just died, and perhaps violently, although it was more likely from the disease that ravaged the city. It was a sound heard very frequently now, and both men wondered what if anything would be left of the American Colonies when Burgoyne returned victorious.
Chapter 13
“W
here is my uncle?” Sarah demanded, waving her arms in frustration. “And where are all the people who used to work with him? Merlin’s Cave has disappeared and no one knows where it’s gone.”
“And neither do I,” Will said, “and neither does General Tallmadge, although,” he admitted, “he could be lying. He so often is.”
However, Will had known that the men and some of the women working in the laboratory and factory known informally as “Merlin’s Cave” had been gradually moving out. Where they’d gone and why was a mystery. Apparently General Stark and Benjamin Franklin knew their whereabouts and purpose, but neither man was talking and Will was not about to ask.
“Sarah, you work with Franklin. You could ask him yourself, you know.”
“He’s refused to talk about it. Poor Faith is distraught. Her father and mother have disappeared somewhere and Owen has gone east to confront the Redcoats.”
“Which is exactly where I’ll be going very shortly. Will you miss me as much as Faith misses her young sailor?”
She slipped easily into his arms and kissed him. “Of course I will.”
They were in Franklin’s office, which afforded them a degree of privacy. She was beginning to think that privacy and restraint could go to hell. They were all in danger of being killed or enslaved in a very short while, so why not enjoy what remained of life?
“Sarah, I would tell you where they were if I knew. Many things are happening, and no one is going to tell me until I come back from observing the British again.”
Sarah understood the grim reality. Will was going east with a very small detachment to see first-hand the pace and size of the British advance. If he was captured, then he had nothing to tell, even under torture. Sarah shuddered at the thought of Will being brutalized by someone like the man who assaulted poor Winifred, or chewed alive by the squaws who had accompanied Brant’s Iroquois. There were indeed fates worse than death and ordeals that made what had happened to her seem trivial.
Their thoughts were interrupted by Franklin asking for Sarah’s presence. Will kissed her again. “If you want to know what is going on, why not use your feminine wiles on the good Doctor Franklin?”
Why not indeed, Sarah thought.
* * *
The beginning of the march out of the camps around Detroit was bloody impressive, Fitzroy thought. Literally thousands of men began to march across the fields and into the woods like a long, powerful, red snake. He gazed at the sky and saw columns of smoke in the distance. These were doubtless rebel signaling devices and made it obvious that not all the rebel spies had been captured. Far from it, if the number of smoke columns were any indication.
More puzzling were the numbers of pigeons that had been released. They flew in circles for a couple of moments and then headed west. He had the nagging feeling that this must be a means by which the rebels communicated, but, for the life of him, he had no idea how. Danforth was well-educated and might know, but he had departed with Arnold’s navy.
It was an immense and mighty undertaking, even though Burgoyne’s army was moving agonizingly slowly. Problems were beginning to arise and no one was surprised. All the planning in the world could not anticipate what would happen when nearly fourteen thousand men, along with hundreds of wagons and horses, and accompanied by herds of cattle, began to move west. Burgoyne had done all he could to lighten the army, but it was still necessary to bring a large quantity of supplies. Fourteen thousand men ate a lot of food each day, more than several tons, and they had no choice but to bring it.
At least they weren’t dragging bloody cannon through the forest, and, unlike the Saratoga campaign, Burgoyne had not brought his mistress and several wagons of personal supplies. Fitzroy grinned. To the best of his knowledge, Burgoyne had no mistress at Detroit and had been forced to remain celibate along with most of his army. At least he’d had the pleasures of Hannah for a little while.
Fitzroy urged his small, old horse towards the front of the column. He was one of the lucky few on horseback. The vast majority of the men, including some fairly high-ranking officers, would have to walk. His position as Burgoyne’s aide afforded him some privileges and he saw nothing wrong with that.
He found General Grant watching the march as it slowed and then stopped altogether.
“Now what the devil is wrong?” Grant muttered angrily.
“Surely it’ll get better as we go along and get used to this, sir.”
Grant glared at Fitzroy. “It can hardly get any worse, Major. We’ve been at this for hours and most of the men haven’t yet left the camp.”
Fitzroy noted that the querulous general had lost still more weight. Bad food will do that to you, he thought. The previously portly general now looked more stout than actually fat.
“I’m still surprised at the number of wagons, sir. I thought we were traveling light.”
“This is light,” Grant snorted. “We still have to carry food and ammunition, don’t we? Only the cannon, shells, and extra ammunition went by boat, along with additional food, uniforms, blankets, and, of course, the luxuries without which General Burgoyne cannot live and will require once we arrive.” This last comment was said with contempt.
“Well, at least we get to ride,” Fitzroy said in an attempt to make pleasant small talk with Burgoyne’s second in command.
Grant sneered. “Are you that stupid, Major? When we really get into the woods, we’ll all be walking. Any man on horseback will simply be calling out for the rebel sharpshooters to kill him. And yes, don’t laugh. I too will be marching and I will hate every bloody damn moment of it.”
Why hadn’t he thought of that? Fitzroy wondered. He pulled away from the general and commenced to look around. Flanking patrols were out and the woods were sparse. No enemy could be hiding in them.
Or were they?
* * *
The British column snaked its way out of Detroit and began to move slowly westward. Even though Burgoyne had seen to it that many of the encumbrances that had delayed him on his march to Saratoga were either left behind or were going by boat, the march was moving exquisitely slowly.
“Bloody hell,” Sergeant Barley said, “I’ve seen dead men move more quickly.”
Barley, Owen, and two more men were hidden in the trees and bushes that lined the trail. The leaves and shadows made them virtually invisible if they didn’t move. The British were less than a hundred yards away and struggling mightily against the forest that had only begun to envelop them. Flankers and Indian allies occasionally made their presence known, but they were looking outward and Owen and his men were already inside their loose perimeter. Owen wondered how the going would be for the British when the trees began to thicken.
They waited until dark and Owen ordered them to withdraw. When they’d reached the relative safety of woodlands outside the range of the patrols, Barley grabbed Owen’s arm and grinned wickedly.
“We’re not going to give them a good night’s sleep, are we, Owen?”
The British column, with the tail of it scarcely out of their camp at Detroit, had bedded down for the night. Even the patrols had largely gone to ground to await the dawn and the continuation of the march. A patrol of about twenty men was only a few hundred yards away, protected by a pair of sentries.
“Why don’t we see if Franklin’s crossbows work?” Owen said with an evil grin.
They daubed their faces with dirt and moved slowly to the patrol’s camp. Owen noted that the bloody fools had built a campfire and were cooking something, probably a stew with a local rabbit as the guest of honor. A sentry moved between them and the fire. He was less than fifty yards away.
“Mine,” Owen said. “Officers always get first choice.” Barley responded with an obscenity but didn’t argue.
Owen silently cocked his crossbow and moved slowly closer. He didn’t think the Brit would see him since the man kept looking towards the camp, the fire, and his dinner cooking; thus destroying his night vision.
Owen was only about ten yards away from the man when he fired. The sentry dropped immediately with a bolt through his skull. There had been little noise.
Owen sent Barley to watch for the other sentry while he and the other two men crept closer to the camp.
A scream tore through the night. Shit, Owen thought. Barley’s kill hadn’t been clean. The men around the fire stood in alarm. “Fire,” Owen ordered and three more bolts flew silently to their targets. Two men dropped to the ground while the third howled and hopped around with a bolt in his leg. They loaded quickly and fired another volley, this time with Barley joining in. Two more men fell writhing.
The remaining British fired their muskets indiscriminately at their silent and invisible enemy, hitting nothing. Still, they were alert and angry. “Fall back,” Owen ordered.
“One more shot,” Barley pleaded.
“Christ no,” Owen said. “They’re aroused now and there will be others coming from all over the place. We run like the devil and come back tomorrow.”
Barley’s teeth shone white in the night. “Sounds like a wonderful idea to me, Lieutenant.”
* * *
Sarah stood naked in the basin of water. She took a wet cloth from a basin on a table beside her and used it to rinse out her hair. She enjoyed the feel of the water running down her body. It was warm outside and the water felt cool and refreshing. She was in the storeroom where she now slept.
There was a knock on her door and she stiffened. “Who is it?”
“It is I,” came the familiar voice of Benjamin Franklin. “May I come in? I understand you wished to speak with me. Or isn’t this a good time?”
“I’m bathing,” she said, thinking about the comment that she should use her feminine wiles to pry information from Franklin.
“Then it would be a marvelous time,” Franklin said.
She reached over to the table, grabbed a thin shift and pulled it over her head. “Then do come in,” she said sweetly.
The door opened and Franklin’s head poked around it. He saw Sarah and his face lit up. The thin shift had plastered itself to her wet body. “There truly is a God and I am in heaven,” he declared. “Thank you, God.”
“You have to be dead to be in heaven, Benjamin. And for God’s sake, close that door.”
Franklin did as he was told and, grinning broadly, sat down in a chair a few feet away from Sarah. He made no move to come closer or to touch her.
“There is a painting of great renown,” he said. “It’s called ‘Venus Rising From the Sea,’ or some such and it’s by an Italian with a name that’s impossible to spell. Botticelli, I believe, although it doesn’t matter. I believe you would have made a marvelous model for Venus. Or she for you.”
Sarah stepped out of the basin. “I’m flattered.”
“You are even lovelier than many of the French noblewomen I’ve had the pleasure of seeing undressed. They are such a pallid bunch, while you are so refreshingly healthy. Even your hair, though wet, is so lovely. Frenchwomen’s hair is puffed and plastered and sculptured so that it weighs heavily. I also have it on good authority that Frenchwomen’s hair is often rife with vermin of all sorts.” He sighed. The wet shift was so thin that she might as well be naked. “Tell me, has Will ever seen you thusly?”
“No. At least not yet.”
“Then I’m flattered. However, as much as I am thrilled beyond words to be in your presence, I cannot help but feel that you are using me, shamelessly taking advantage of an old man’s now unfulfillable desires.”
“As always you are correct. I wish to know something. Where is my uncle? What have you done with him and the others who worked in Merlin’s Cave?”
“Nothing sinister, my exquisite young friend. I simply felt that they could concentrate on their efforts far better if they were away from the distractions of this town.”
“Should I assume they are working on something secret? After all, I find it hard to believe that a man of your intellect could only come up with the crossbow and the pike as an answer to England’s great army.”
Franklin chuckled. “And believe me I have tried. At first I thought that my experiences with electricity would result in a weapon that would tip the scales in our favor, but it’s proven beyond us. Electricity will someday make a good weapon, but it won’t happen in this war.”
“And nothing else?”
“Just small things that will annoy and inconvenience the English, but nothing that will stop them or offset their numerical strength.”
“I’m genuinely sorry to hear that.” Sarah stood in front of Franklin. His eyes again wandered down where the shift clung to her firm breasts and nipples and her flat belly and hinted at the pale hair between her thighs. She smiled and handed him a towel. “Would you please help dry my hair?”
“With consummate pleasure, dear Sarah,” he said happily as he stood up. What a wonderful day. He’d seen a beautiful woman nearly naked and still managed to keep his secrets from her.
* * *
Is this going to happen every night? Fitzroy was nearly dead from lack of sleep. The attacks on the column had resulted in a half dozen deaths and several wounded. Worse, they had kept everyone in a state of alarm which prevented anyone from getting a good night’s sleep.