Stars & Stripes Triumphant (20 page)

"Gather up the wire," the sergeant said quietly. "Cut it free and throw it into the ocean."

A hundred, two hundred yards of wire were cut out and dumped into the water. The soldiers had finished their appointed task and returned to the boats long before the second party. The men fidgeted about until the sergeants hushed them into silence. The lieutenant paced back and forth, tapping his fingers restlessly on his pistol holster, but did not speak aloud. The wire-cutting party had been told to proceed down the track for fifteen minutes, or as near as they could judge the time. They were to cut down another section of wire there and return. It seemed well past the allotted time now; it probably was not, he realized.

Private O'Reilly, one of the sentries stationed by the track, saw the dark figure approaching. He was about to call out when he discerned that the man was coming from the west—while the second wire company had gone east. O'Reilly leaned over and pulled the corporal by the sleeve, touching his forefinger to his lips at the same time. Then he pointed down the track. The two soldiers crouched down, trying to blend into the ground.

The figure came on, strangely wide across the shoulders, whistling softly.

Then he stopped, suddenly aware of the dark forms ahead of him beside the rails. In an instant the stranger turned and began to run heavily back down the track.

"Get him!" the corporal said, and led the way at a run.

The fleeing man slowed for an instant. A dark form fell from his shoulders to the tracks. Freed from his burden, he began to run again. Not fast enough. The corporal stabbed forward with his rifle, got it between the man's legs, sent him crashing to the ground. Before the man could rise, O'Reilly was on him, pinning him by the wrists.

"Don't kill me, please don't kill me!" the man begged in a reedy voice. This close they could see that his long hair was matted and gray.

"Now, why would you go thinking a cruel thing like that, Granddad?"

"It weren't me. I didn't set the snare. I just sort of stumbled over it, just by chance."

O'Reilly picked up the deer's corpse by the antlers. "A poacher, by God!"

"Never!" the man squealed, and the corporal shook him until he was quiet.

"That's a good man. Just be quiet and nothing will happen to you. Bring the stag," he whispered to O'Reilly. "Someone will enjoy the fresh meat."

"What's happening here?" the lieutenant asked when they dragged the frightened old man up the beach. The corporal explained.

"Fine. Tie his wrists and put him into the boat. We'll take him back—our first prisoner." Then, coldly, "If he makes any noise, shut him up."

"Yes, sir."

"O'Reilly, go with him. And bring the deer. The general will fancy a bit of venison, I shouldn't wonder."

"Party approaching." A hushed voice sounded through the darkness.

There was more than one sigh of relief when boots could be heard crunching on the gravel.

"Push the boats out! Board as soon as they float free!"

The wire was cut. They had not been seen.

At first light the landings would begin.

For the poacher the war was over even before it began. When he finally realized what had happened to him, he was most relieved. These weren't Sir Percy's gamekeepers after all; he would not be appearing at the Falmouth assizes, as he had feared. Being a prisoner of war of the Americans was far better than transportation to the other end of the world.

The lights in BuckinghamPalace had been blazing past midnight and well into the early hours. There was a constant coming and going of cavalrymen as well as the occasional carriage. All of this activity centered on the conference room, where a most important meeting was taking place. There was a colonel stationed outside the door to intercept messages; a second colonel inside passed on any that were deemed important enough to be grounds for an interruption.

"We will not have the sanctity of
our
country violated. Are
we
clear?"

"You are, ma'am, very clear. But you must understand that the violation has already occurred; the landings are a thing of the past now. Enemy forces are well ashore in Liverpool, the city has been captured, all fighting ended according to the last reports."

"My dear soldiers would never surrender!" Victoria almost screeched the words, her voice roughened by hours, if not days, of deep emotion. Her complexion was so florid that it alarmed all those present.

"Indeed they would not, ma'am," Lord John Russell said patiently. "But they might very well be dead. The defenders were few in number, the attackers many and ruthless. And it appears that Liverpool is not the only goal. Reports from Birmingham report intense fighting there."

"Birmingham—but how?" Victoria's jaw dropped as, confusedly, she tried to master this new and frightful information.

"By train, ma'am. Our own trains were seized and forced to carry enemy troops south. The Americans are great devotees of trains, and have made wide use of them in their various wars."

"Americans? I was told that the invaders were Irish..."

"Yankees or Paddies—it makes little difference!" the Duke of Cambridge snapped. The hours of wrangling had worn down his nerves; he wished that he were in the field taking this battle to the enemy. Slaughtering the bastards.

"Why would the Irish want to invade?" Victoria asked with dumb sincerity. To her the Irish would always be wayward children, who must be corrected and returned to the blessing of British rule.

"Why?" the Duke of Cambridge growled. "Because they may have taken umbrage at their relatives being bunged up in those concentration camps. Not that we had any choice. Nursing serpents in our bosom. It seems that SeftonPark, the camp east of Liverpool, has been seized. Undoubtedly Aston Hall outside of Birmingham is next."

While he was speaking he had been aware of a light tapping on the door. This was now opened a crack and there was a quick whispered exchange before it was closed again. The group around the conference table looked up as the colonel approached with a slip of paper.

"Telegram from Whitehall—"

The Duke tore it from the officer's fingers even as Lord Russell was reaching for it.

"Goddamn their eyes." He was seething with fury. He threw down the message and stamped across the room to the large map of the British Isles that had been hung on the wall.

"Report from
Defender,
telegraphed from Milford Haven—here." He stabbed his finger on the map of western Wales where a spit of land projected into St. George's Channel. "It seems that some hours earlier they caught sight of a large convoy passing in the channel. They were proceeding south."

"South? Why south?" Lord Russell asked, struggling to take in this new development.

"Well, it is not to invade France, I can assure you of that," the Duke raged. He swept his hand along the English Channel, along the southern coast of Britain. "This is where they are going—the warm and soft underbelly of England!"

At first light the attacking armada approached the Cornish shore. The stone-girt harbor at Penzance was very small, suitable only for pleasure craft and fishing boats. The Scilly Isles ferry took up the most space inside where she tied up for the night. This had been allowed for in the landings, and the steam pinnace from
Virginia
was the only American boat that attempted to enter the harbor. She was jammed tight with soldiers, so many of them that her bulwarks were only inches above the sea. The men poured out onto the harbor wall in a dark wave, running to the attack and quickly securing the customhouse and the lifeguard station.

While all along the Penzance coast the small boats were coming ashore. Landing on the curving strand between the harbor and the train station, and the long empty beaches that ran in an arc to the west of the harbor. The first soldiers to land went at a trot down the road to the station, then on into the train yards beyond. General Grant was at the head of the troops; the trains were the key to the entire campaign. He stamped through the station and into the telegraph office, where two soldiers held the terrified night operator by the arms.

"He was sleeping over his key, General," a sergeant said. "We grabbed him before he could send any warning."

"I couldn't have done that, your honor," the man protested. "Couldn't have, because the wire to Plymouth is down."

"I've asked him about any down trains," Major Sandison said. He had been a railway director before he raised a company of volunteers in St. Louis and led them off to war. His soldiers, many of them former railway men, had taken the station and the adjoining yards.

"Just a goods train from St. Austell to Truro, that's all that's on the line."

Sandison spread the map across the table and pointed to the station. "They should be on a siding before we get there."

"Should
is not good enough," Grant said.

"I agree, General. I'm sending an engine, pushing some freight cars, ahead of our first train. Plus a car with troops. Sledgehammers and spikes in case there is any damage to the rails. They'll make sure that the track is clear—and open."

"General—first Gatlings coming ashore now," a soldier reported.

"Good. Get the rest of them unloaded—and down here at once."

Sherman and Grant had spent many hours organizing the forces for this attack on Cornwall.

"The harbor is impossibly small," Sherman had said. "I've seen it with my own eyes, since our yacht was tied up inside. But there is deep water beyond the outer wall of the harbor. I had
Aurora's
crew make soundings there when we left. The navy agrees that cargo ships of shallow enough draft can tie up on the seaward side and winch heavy equipment ashore."

"Cannon?"

Sherman shook his head. "Too heavy—and too slow to unload. And we have no draft animals to move them. They would also be too clumsy to load onto the trains even if we managed to get them to the yards. No cannon. We must move fast."

"The Gatling guns, then."

"Exactly. Light enough to be towed by the men."

"What about their ammunition? They consume an astonishing amount in battle."

"Soldiers again. You'll pick out the biggest and the strongest of your men. Form special gun companies. Arm them with revolvers rather than rifles. They will be lighter to carry, and just as effective in close conflict. Assign special squads to each Gatling gun. Some to pull the guns, others to carry the ammunition. That way each Gatling will be self-sufficient at all times."

"It has never been done before," Grant said, running his fingers through his beard, deep in thought.

Sherman smiled. "And lightning warfare like this has never been fought before."

"By God—you are right, Cumph!" Grant laughed aloud. "We'll come down on them like the wolf on the sheepfold. Before they even know what has hit them, they will be prisoners—or dead!"

And so it came to pass. The first black-hulled freighter threw out fenders and tied up to the seaward side of PenzanceHarbor. The fenders creaked ominously as the hull moved up and down in the swell, but nothing gave way. The steam winches clanked and the long cargo booms lifted the deck-loaded Gatling guns into the air, swung them onto the wide top of the harbor wall. As the sailors untied the slings, waiting soldiers ran them ashore, where the gun companies were being assembled on the road. As soon as a gun company was complete with ammunition and bearers, it went at a trot down the harbor road to the station, where the first train was already assembled. General Grant himself rode the footplate beside the driver when it puffed its way out of the station and headed east along the coast.

The second American invasion of the British mainland was well under way.

A CLASH IN PARLIAMENT

"This country, today, is faced with the greatest danger that it has ever encountered in its entire history." The members of Parliament listened in hushed silence as Lord John Russell spoke. "From across the ocean, from the distant Americas, a mighty force has been unleashed on our sovereign shores. Some among you will say that various enterprises undertaken by the previous government went a long way toward igniting the American fury. I will not deny that. I was a member of Lord Palmerston's government, and as a member I feel a certain responsibility about those events. But that is in the past and one cannot alter the past. I might also say that certain mistakes were made in the governance of Ireland. But the relationship between Britain and Ireland has never been an easy one. However, I am not here to address history. What has been done has been done. I address the present, and the disastrous and cowardly attacks that now beset our country. Contrary to international law, and even common decency, we have been stabbed in the back, dealt one cowardly blow after another. Irish and American troops have landed on our shores. Our lands have been ravaged, our citizens killed. So it is that now I call for you to stand with me in a unified government that will unite this troubled land and hurl the invaders back into the sea."

Russell was not a prepossessing man. Diminutive and rickety, he wriggled round while he spoke and seemed unable to control his hands and feet. His voice was small and thin; but a house of five hundred members was hushed to catch his every word. He spoke as a man of mind and thought, and of moral elevation. Yet not all were impressed. When Russell paused to look at his notes, Benjamin Disraeli was on his feet in the instant.

"Will the Prime Minister have the kindness to inform of us the extent of the depredations of the Yankee invader? The newspapers froth and grunt and do little else—so that hard facts are impossible to separate from the dross of their invective."

"The right honorable gentleman's interest is understandable. Therefore it is my sad duty to impart to you all of the details that the Conservative leader of the House has requested." He looked at his papers and sighed. "A few days ago, on the twenty-first of May, there were landings in Liverpool by foreign troops, apparently Irish for the most part—but we know who the puppet master is here. That city was taken. Our gallant men fought bravely, although greatly outnumbered. The attackers then proceeded to Birmingham, and after a surprise and savage attack secured that city and its environs."