The Fort (18 page)

“A demonstration, sir, to dissuade the enemy from reinforcing Cross Island?”

“Precisely.”

“But if we perceive an opportunity?” Littlefield asked with a smile.

“It would certainly be a blessing to the commodore if we could destroy those guns,” Wadsworth said, nodding towards the fog of powder smoke lingering around the bluff.

“I make no promises, sir,” Littlefield said, “but I reckon my men will feel happier with God’s good earth under their feet. Let me sniff the enemy, sir. If they’re few, then we’ll make them fewer still.”

“But no undue risks, Major,” Wadsworth said sternly. “We’ll land in force tomorrow. I don’t want to lose you this evening!”

“Oh, you won’t lose me!” Littlefield said with amusement. “I intend to watch the very last redcoat leave America, and I’ll help him on his way with a boot up his royal backside.” He turned back to his men. “Right, you rogues! Into the boats! We’ve got redcoats to kill!”

“Be careful, Major,” Wadsworth said, and immediately regretted the words because, to his ears, they sounded weak.

“Don’t you worry, sir,” Littlefield said, “we’re going to win!”

And Wadsworth believed him.

That afternoon as the American ships again closed on the harbor mouth and opened fire against the three British vessels, Marine Captain Welch was on board the Continental sloop
Providence
, which was leading the two Massachusetts Navy brigs, the
Pallas
and
Defence
. The wind was light and the three small ships were all under oars. “We call it the white ash wind,” Hoysteed Hacker, the captain of the
Providence
, told Welch.

The ash oars were monstrously long and very awkward to pull, but the navy crew worked enthusiastically to drive the sloop southwards against the flooding tide. They were rowing towards the channel which ran south of Cross Island. “There’s a rock right in the damned center of the channel,” Hacker said, “and no one knows how deep it lies. But the tide will help us once we’re in the channel.”

Welch nodded, but said nothing. He was gazing back north. The American ships were again bombarding the three British sloops who were now firing back, blanketing their hulls in gray-white smoke. More smoke shrouded the northern side of Cross Island where the British battery was hammering its shot at the attacking Americans. Further north Welch could see the longboats pulling away from the transport ships. Good. The British must know why the
Providence, Pallas
, and
Defence
were working their way around Cross Island, but they dared not send reinforcements across the harbor, not while a major attack threatened the bluff. “We land soon,” Welch growled at his men as the oarsmen turned the sloop into the narrow channel, “and we fix bayonets, and we go fast! You understand? We go fast!”

But just then a grinding noise sounded deep in the
Providence
’s hull and the sloop jarred to an instant stop. “Rock,” Hoysteed Hacker explained laconically.

So the marines, over two hundred of them, could not go fast, because they had to wait while the tide lifted the
Providence
’s hull over the sunken rock. Welch simmered. He wanted to kill, he wanted to fight, and instead he was stranded in the channel and all he could see now was the wooded hump of Cross Island with the smoke discoloring the sky above. The sound of the guns was incessant, a melding thunder, and sometimes amidst that devil’s drumroll would come the crunch of a shot striking timber. Welch fidgeted. He imagined redcoats being ferried across the harbor, and still the
Providence
could make no headway.

“Damn it!” Welch burst out.

“Tide’s rising,” Hoysteed Hacker said. He was a large man, as tall as Welch, whose broad shoulders strained the seams of his naval uniform. He had a heavy face, thick-browed and lantern-jawed, with a ragged scar on the left cheek. The scar had been caused by a boarding pike wielded by a British sailor on HMS
Diligent
, the brig Hacker had captured. That sailor had died, gutted by Hacker’s heavy cutlass, and the
Diligent
was now anchored in Penobscot Bay and flying the ensign of the Continental Navy. Hoysteed Hacker was not going to be intimidated by Welch’s impatience. “Can’t hurry the tide,” he said.

“How long, for God’s sake?”

“Long as it takes.”

They had to wait half an hour, but at last the
Providence
’s keel cleared the sunken rock and the sloop pulled on towards a small stony beach. Her bows touched the land and were held there by the light wind. The two smaller brigs grounded on either side and green-coated marines leaped into the water and waded ashore, carrying cartridge cases and muskets above their heads. Welch was leading one company while Captain Davis, who still wore the blue coat of the Continental Army rather than marine green, led the other. “Let’s go,” Welch said.

The marines fixed bayonets. The trees muffled the sound of the battery’s guns only three hundred yards to the north. The British had posted no sentinels on the island’s southern side, but Welch knew they would have seen the masts above the trees and he supposed they would be turning a cannon to face the expected attack. “Make it quick!” Welch shouted as he led the way.

Two hundred and twenty marines went into the trees. They advanced in rough order, their bayonets glinting in the lowering sun that flickered through the thick pines. They climbed the island’s slope, breasted the summit, and there, below them and just visible through the thick trunks, was a small encampment on the beach. There were four tents, a flagpole, and the battery where blue and red coats showed, and Welch, seeing the enemy close, felt the rage of battle rise in him, a rage fed by his hatred of the British. No gun faced him. The damned enemy was still firing at the American ships. He would teach them to kill Americans! He slid the naval cutlass from its scabbard, screamed a war shout, and led the charge down the hill.

Twenty-two artillerymen manned the battery and twenty Royal Marines guarded them. They heard the enemy marines shouting, they saw the reflected sunlight glinting from the long blades, and the artillerymen ran. They had longboats beached close to the battery, and they abandoned the guns, abandoned everything, and sprinted for their boats. They shoved the three boats off the shingle and scrambled aboard just as the American marines burst from the trees. One boat was slow. It was afloat, but when the two men who had been pushing its bows tumbled over the gunwale, the boat grounded again. A gunner sergeant jumped out and heaved at the boat afresh, and a voice shouted a warning as a tall marine ran into the shallows. The sergeant heaved again at the boat’s bows, then his coat was seized and he was flung back towards the beach. The longboat floated free and its oarsmen pulled desperately, turning and driving the boat towards the
Nautilus
, the nearest British sloop. The green-coated marines fired at the rowers. Musket-balls thumped into the gunwales, an oarsman let go of his loom to clap a hand on an arm suddenly bright with blood, then a volley of musketry banged from the
Nautilus
’s forecastle and the balls whistled about the marines’ heads.

The blue-coated artillery sergeant took a swing at Welch who blocked the fist with his left hand and, in a rage, slashed his cutlass at the sergeant’s neck. The blade hit home, Welch sawed it, and blood sprayed high. Welch was still screaming. Red misted his vision as he grabbed the wounded man’s hair and pulled him onto the newly sharpened blade, and there was still more blood jetting now, and the gunner sergeant was making a choking, gurgling noise and Welch, his green coat darkened with spatters of British blood, was grunting as he tried to slice the blade deeper still. The tide diluted the blood, and then the sergeant fell and the shallow water momentarily clouded around his twitching body. Welch put a boot on the man’s head and forced him underwater. He held the dying man there until the body was still

More muskets fired from the
Nautilus
, though the Royal Marines on the sloop’s forecastle were shooting at long musket range and none of the Americans on Cross Island’s beach was hit. The
Nautilus
’s broadside faced west, and no guns could be levered round to face the beach and so the Royal Marines shot muskets instead. “Into the battery!” Captain Davis called. The captured battery faced northwest and a low hump of rocky land protected it from the
Nautilus
so that the rebels were safe enough when they were within its low breastworks. They discovered four guns in the emplacement. Two still had barrels too hot to touch from firing at the American ships, but the other pair had yet to be mounted on their carriages, which stood forlorn beside a rough pit that had been dug as a ready magazine. Captain Davis traced a finger over the royal cipher on one of the unmounted barrels and thought it was kind of King George to provide guns for liberty. Men plundered the tents. There were blankets, bone-handled knives, a fragment of mirror, and a walnut case which held three ivory-handled razors. There was a Bible, evidently much-thumbed, two packs of playing cards, and a set of scrimshaw dice. There was an open barrel of salt pork, a box of ship’s biscuits, and two small casks of rum. Beside the guns were the mallets and iron spikes that should have been used to make the cannon useless, but the speed of the attack had driven the British off before the guns could be spiked.

The British flag still flew. Welch hauled it down and, for the first time that day, a smile showed on his blood-streaked face. He folded the flag carefully, then beckoned to one of his sergeants. “Take this rag back to the
Providence
,” he ordered, “and ask Captain Hacker for the loan of a boat and crew. He expects to be asked. Then take the flag to General Lovell.”

“To General Lovell?” the sergeant asked, surprised. “Not to the commodore, sir?” Commodore Saltonstall was the marine’s commander, not the brigadier.

“Take it to General Lovell,” Welch said. “That flag,” he pointed over the rocky hump of land where, in the evening light, the flag above Fort George just showed, “that flag will belong to the marines.” He looked down at the folds of sun-faded cloth in his big hands, then, with a shudder, spat on the flag. “Tell General Lovell this is a gift.” He thrust the flag into the sergeant’s hands. “You got that? Tell him it’s a gift from the marines.”

Because Welch reckoned Brigadier-General Goddamned Solomon Lovell needed to know who was going to win this campaign. Not Lovell’s militia, but the marines. The marines, the best, the winners. And Welch would lead them to victory.

From a Petition signed by thirty-two officers belonging to the American warships in Penobscot Bay and sent to Commodore Saltonstall, July 27th, 1779:

To the Honorable the Commodore and Commander in Chief of the Fleet . . . we your petitioners strongly Impress’d with the importance of the Expedition, and earnestly desire to render our Country all the Service in our power Wou’d represent to your Honor, that the most spedy Exertions shou’d be used to Accomplish the design we came upon. We think Delays in the present Case are extremely dangerous: as our Enemies are daily Fortifying and Strengthening themselves. . . . We don’t mean to Advise, or Censure Your past Conduct, But intend only to express our desire of improving the present Opportunity to go Immediately into the Harbor, and Attack the Enemys Ships.

From the Journal of Sergeant William Lawrence, Royal Artillery, 13th July 1779:

The night is thought by our enemy to be the most Favorable time for storming Encampments . . . and None are so ready of taking that Advantage than his Majesty’s subjects now in Rebellion, who in the Open field tremble for a British soldier.

From General Lovell’s orderly book, July 24th, 1779, Head-Quarters on board the Transport
Sally
:

The Officers will be careful that every man is compleatly Equipt in Arms and Ammunition and that they have drink in their Canteens and a Morcel for their Pockets . . . the General flatters himself that should there be an Opportunity he will have the utmost exertions of every Officer and Soldier not only to maintain, but to add new Lustre to the Fame of the Massachusetts Militia.

Chapter Six

The daylight was fading. The western sky glowed red and its light was reflected in lurid, shifting ripples across the bay. The rebel ships had been firing at the three British sloops, but, just as on the previous day, none had tried to pierce Mowat’s line and so enter the harbor. They fired from a distance, aiming at the lingering cloud of red-touched, mast-pierced powder-smoke that shrouded the king’s ships.

A cheer sounded from the rebel ships when they saw the flag taken down on Cross Island. Every man knew what that meant. The British had lost the battery to the south of the harbor entrance and the Americans could now make their own battery there, a battery that would be close to Mowat’s line and could hammer his three ships mercilessly. The southern bulwark of the harbor, Cross Island, was captured and, as the sun leaked scarlet fire across the west and as the rebel ships still pounded their shots towards the distant sloops, Major Daniel Littlefield’s militia was being rowed towards the northern bulwark.

That bulwark was Dyce’s Head, the high rocky bluff on which the redcoats waited and from where the battery of six-pounders fired down at the bombarding ships. The evening was so calm that the smoke of the guns hung in the trees, indeed there was scarce enough breeze to move the American ships that belched flame, bar shot, chain shot, and round shot towards Mowat’s three sloops, but a vagary of that small wind, a sudden stirring of the summer air, lasted just long enough to blow the smoke away from HMS
Albany
, which lay at the center of Mowat’s line, and the Scottish captain, standing on his afterdeck, saw the longboats pulling away from the American transports and heading towards the bluff. “Mister Frobisher!” Mowat called.

The
Albany
’s first lieutenant, who was supervising the starboard guns, turned towards his captain. “Sir?”

A shot whistled overhead. Bar or chain shot, Mowat reckoned from the sound. The rebels seemed to have been aiming at his rigging mostly, but their gunnery was poor and none of the sloops had suffered significant damage. A few shrouds and halliards had been parted, and the hulls were scarred, but the sloops had lost neither men nor weapons. “There are launches approaching the shore,” Mowat called to Frobisher, “d’you see them?”

“Aye aye, sir, I see them!”

Frobisher tapped a gun captain on the shoulder. The gunner was a middle-aged man with long gray hair twisted into a pigtail. He had a scarf wrapped about his ears. He saw where Frobisher was pointing and nodded to show he understood what was wanted. His cannon, a nine-pounder, was already loaded with round shot. “Run her out!” he ordered, and his crew seized the train-tackle and hauled the cannon so that the muzzle protruded from the gunwale. He shouted at his gun-deafened men to turn the heavy carriage, which they did with long spikes that gouged Mowat’s carefully holy-stoned deck. “Don’t suppose we’ll hit the buggers,” the gun captain said to Frobisher, “but we might make ’em wet.” He could no longer see the rebel rowboats because the vagary of wind had died and thick pungent smoke was again enveloping the
Albany
, but he reckoned his cannon was pointed in the right general direction. The gun captain thrust a thin spike through the touchhole to pierce the canvas powder bag in the breech, then slid a portfire, a quill filled with finely mealed powder, into the hole he had made. “Stand back, you bastards!” he bellowed and touched fire to the quill.

The gun shattered the evening air with its noise. Smoke, thick as a London fog, billowed and stank. A flame stabbed the smoke, lighting it and fading instantly. The gun leaped back, its truck wheels screaming until the breech ropes were snatched bar-tight to check the recoil. “Swab out!” the gun captain shouted, plunging his leather-protected thumb onto the touchhole.

“Give those launches one more shot,” Frobisher shouted over the noise of the guns, “then aim at their ships again.”

“Aye aye, sir!”

The cannons had been firing at the American ships which maneuvered three quarters of a mile to the west. The launches were about the same distance away, so the gun captain had not needed to change his barrel’s very slight elevation. He had used a fourth-weight charge, two and a quarter pounds of powder, and the round shot left the muzzle traveling at nine hundred and eighty feet every second. The ball lost some speed as it covered the four thousand three hundred feet before striking the water, but it had taken the shot less than five seconds to cover that distance. It slapped onto a wave, ricocheted shallowly upwards and then, trailing a shower of spray, it struck Major Littlefield’s longboat plumb amidships.

To General Wadsworth, watching from the
Bethaiah
, it seemed as if the leading longboat simply disintegrated. Strakes of wood flew in the air, a man turned end over end, there was a flurry of white water and then nothing but floating oars, shattered scraps of timber, and men struggling to stay afloat. The other longboats went to the rescue, pulling swimmers from the water as a second round shot splashed harmlessly nearby.

The longboats had stopped pulling for the bluff now. Wadsworth had expected them to land and then return to collect more men, indeed he had planned to go ashore with that second group, but instead the rowboats turned and headed back towards the transports. “I hope Littlefield’s not wounded,” Wadsworth said.

“Take more than a round shot to put the major down, sir,” James Fletcher commented cheerfully. Fletcher was now attached to Wadsworth’s staff as an unofficial aide and local guide.

“I must assume Littlefield decided not to land,” Wadsworth said.

“Hard to fight when you’re wet as a drowned rat, sir.”

“True,” Wadsworth said with a smile, then consoled himself that the threat to the bluff appeared to have achieved its purpose, which was to prevent the British sending reinforcements or a counterattacking force to Cross Island.

The light faded fast. The eastern sky was already dark, though no stars yet showed, and the gunfire died with the day. The American warships sailed slowly back to their anchorage while Mowat’s men, unscarred by the evening’s duel, secured their guns. Wadsworth leaned on the
Bethaiah
’s gunwale and looked down at the shadowy boats as they approached the sloop. “Major Littlefield!” he hailed. “Major Littlefield!” he called again.

“He’s drowned, sir,” a voice called back.

“He’s what?”

“He and two other men, sir. Lost, sir.”

“Oh, dear God,” Wadsworth said. On shore, at the top of the bluff, a fire showed through the trees. Someone brewing tea, maybe, or cooking a supper.

And Major Littlefield was dead.

“Tragic,” General Lovell said when Wadsworth told him the news of Daniel Littlefield’s death, though Wadsworth was not entirely sure that his commanding officer had listened to what he said. Lovell, instead, was examining a British flag that had been brought on board the
Sally
by a squat marine sergeant. “Isn’t it splendid!” Lovell exclaimed. “We shall present it to the General Court, I think. A first trophy, Wadsworth!”

“The first of many that your Excellency will send to Boston,” the Reverend Jonathan Murray observed.

“It’s a gift from the marines,” the sergeant put in stolidly.

“So you said, so you said,” Lovell said with a hint of testiness, then he smiled, “and you must render Captain Welch my sincerest gratitude.” He glanced at the table which was covered with papers. “Lift those documents a moment, Marston,” he ordered his secretary and, when the table was clear of paper, ink, and pens, he spread the flag beneath the gently swinging lanterns. It was dark now, and the cabin was lit by four lanterns. “’Pon my soul!”’Lovell stood back and admired the trophy’“but this will look impressive in Faneuil Hall!”

“You might think of sending it to Major Littlefield’s wife,” Wadsworth said.

“To his wife?” Lovell asked, evidently puzzled by the suggestion. “What on earth would she want with a flag?”

“A reminder of her husband’s gallantry?”

“Oh, you’ll write to her,” Lovell said, “and assure her that Major Littlefield died for the cause of liberty, but I can’t think that she needs an enemy flag. Really I can’t. It must go to Boston.” He turned to the marine sergeant. “Thank you, my fine fellow, thank you! I shall make certain the commodore knows of my approbation.”

Lovell had summoned his military family. John Marston, the secretary, was writing in the orderly book, Wadsworth was leafing through the militia rosters, while Lieutenant-Colonel Davis, the liaison officer for the transport ships, was tallying the small craft available for a landing. The Reverend Murray was beaming helpfully, while Major Todd was cleaning a pistol with a scrap of flannel. “You did send my orders to the Artillery Regiment?” Lovell demanded of Todd.

“Indeed, sir,” Todd said, then blew on the pistol’s frizzen to clear some dust.

“Colonel Revere understands the need for haste?”

“I made that need abundantly clear, sir,” Todd said patiently. Lieutenant-Colonel Revere had been commanded to take guns to the newly captured Cross Island, which would now be defended by a garrison of sailors from the
Providence
and
Pallas
under the command of Hoysteed Hacker.

“So Colonel Revere’s cannons should be active by dawn?” Lovell asked.

“I see no reason why not,” Wadsworth said.

“And that should dispose of the enemy shipping,” Lovell said happily, “and so open the path to our success. Ah, Filmer! Thank you!”

Filmer, a servant, had brought supper of bacon, beans, and cornbread, which Lovell and his companions ate at the table where the captured flag made a convenient napkin for the general’s greasy hands. “The marines are back on their ships?” Lovell asked.

“They are, sir,” Wadsworth answered.

“Though I suppose we must beg the commodore for their use again,” Lovell said resignedly.

“They are formidable,” Wadsworth said.

Lovell looked mischievous, a small half-smile on his usually solemn face. “Did you hear that the naval officers sent the commodore a letter? Dear me! They chided him for not sailing into the harbor! Can you believe such a thing?”

“The letter shows admirable zeal, sir,” Wadsworth said evenly.

“And it must have caused him embarrassment!” Lovell said, plainly pleased with that thought. “Poor man,” he added dutifully, “but perhaps the remonstrance will spur him to a greater effort?”

“One prays so,” the Reverend Murray said.

“Let us pray it doesn’t make him more obstinate in his dealings,” Wadsworth said, “especially as we shall need his marines when we attack in earnest.”

“I suppose we will need them,” Lovell said grudgingly, “if the commodore is agreeable, of course.”

“It means using a dozen longboats to land all his marines,” Davis said, “and we already lack sufficient boats.”

“I do dislike the idea of landing piecemeal,” Lovell said, evidently toying with the idea of attacking without the marines and so keeping all the glory of victory to the militia.

“Why not use one of the smaller schooners?” Wadsworth suggested. “I’ve seen them being rowed. I’m sure we could take one close enough inshore, and a schooner could carry at least a hundred men.”

Davis considered that solution, then nodded. “The
Rachel
doesn’t draw much,” he said.

“And we do need the marines,” Wadsworth said pointedly.

“I suppose we do, yes,” Lovell allowed. “Well, we shall request their assistance.” He paused, tapping his knife against the pewter plate. “When we capture the fort,” he said ruminatively, “I don’t want any redcoats escaping north across the isthmus. We should put a force to the north there? A blocking force?”

“Use the Indians?” Major Todd suggested, his spectacles reflecting the lantern-light. “The British are scared of our savages.”

“They’re much too valuable as fighters,” Wadsworth said hastily, “I want them in the assault.”

“Valuable, maybe, when they’re sober,” Major Todd said with a visible shudder, “but they were inebriated again this morning.”

“The Indians?” Lovell asked. “They were drunk?”

“Insensible, sir. The militiamen give them rum as an amusement.”

“The devil is in our midst,” Murray said darkly, “and must be extirpated.”

“He must indeed, Chaplain,” Lovell said and looked at Marston, “so add a command in tonight’s daily orders. No man is to supply rum to the Indians. And, of course, add a mention regretting the death of Major . . .” he paused.

“Littlefield,” Wadsworth said.

“Littlefield,” Lovell went on as if there had been no pause. “Poor Littlefield. He came from Wells, did he not? A fine town. Perhaps his men can block the isthmus? Oh, and Marston, make some acknowledgment of the marines, will you? We must give praise where it’s due, especially if we’re to request the use of them again.” He mopped the grease on his plate with a piece of bread and put it into his mouth just as a hard knock sounded on the cabin door. Before anyone could respond the door was thrust open to reveal an indignant Lieutenant-Colonel Revere who came to the table’s end and stared at Lovell who, his mouth full, could only wave a genial greeting.

“You ordered me to go ashore with the guns,” Revere said accusingly.

“So I did,” Lovell managed to say through his mouthful, “so I did. Are they emplaced already?”

“You can’t mean me to go ashore,” Revere said, with evident indignation. He gave his enemy, Major Todd, a dispassionate glance, then looked back to the general.

Lovell gazed at the commander of his artillery train with some bemusement. “We need guns on Cross Island,” he said finally, “and a new battery. Your task, surely, is to emplace them?”

“I have duties,” Revere said forcefully.

“Yes, Colonel, of course you do,” Lovell said.

“Your duty is to establish a battery on the island,” Wadsworth said forcibly.

“I can’t be everywhere,” Revere declared to Lovell, ignoring Wadsworth, “it isn’t possible.”

“I believe my orders were explicit,” the general said, “and required you to take the necessary guns ashore.”

“And I tell you I have responsibilities,” Revere protested.