The Fort (24 page)

Welch led the charge across the clearing. He would cut the puppy down. He would slaughter these damned 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 assault 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 assault 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 Massachusetts 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 ashore, 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 damned Britons!” He went on happily. “I’ve dreamed of killing the damned 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 Mitchell 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 bastards 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 Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts and of the United States of America flew above them and it was time for the decisive assault.

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 cutlass 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 cocked 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.