The French Admiral (18 page)

“Where was this?”

“Below Campbelltown, in the lower Cape Fear country.”

That did not tell Alan much more, since he was not familiar with anything in the Carolinas beyond the harbors, though he had a rough idea from the description that it was in North Carolina, behind Wilmington.

“Perhaps you can regain your lands when we have beaten the French and the Rebels,” Alan offered, trying to think of something hopeful.

Burgess turned to stare at him as though he was the featured act in some traveling raree show. “Where the devil have you been lately? We shall never get our lands back, nor do I have any hopes for victory any longer, not with a French army over on the other side of the James from us at this moment and God knows who else gathering on this place. What did you fellows in our wonderful Navy do with them?”

“They beat us.” Alan frowned, dropping his voice to a whisper to avoid sharing his thoughts with his crew, which was still trudging along in his rear. He sketched out the progress of the battle which had taken place a few days before, expressing his own distaste for the way it had transpired.

“Well, perhaps there is hope your admiral can get back to grips with this Frenchman de Grasse,” Burgess said, mellowing a little. “We could do nothing to stop the landing. They had put four ships in the mouth of the York to keep our ships in while they were landing their troops and guns.”

“So that is why no one interfered with the transports. I thought Captain Symonds was shirking or something to not try for them.”

“Who's he?”

“Senior naval officer present, in command of the frigate
Charon.
”

“Then he could not have done anything in any case,” Burgess said. “They landed all his artillery for the fortifications, all eighteen-pounders. We only have field artillery with the army. You'll be fortunate to get out of this as soon as your ship is repaired. We could be hard-pressed for a few weeks as long as the French are present.”

“Well, if there is no sport to be had in this Yorktown, I shall indeed be grateful to put back to sea,” Alan said as their senior officers called a halt.

They had left town on the main Williamsburg road to the west and had crossed the line of fortifications and entrenchments before what Burgess had informed Alan was the Star Redoubt, and had crossed Yorktown Creek, a sluggish body of water indeed. Burgess gave him the further information that it had not rained in weeks and all the creeks were low, which was limiting the efficiency of the mills in the area, where they had hoped to grind the corn they had confiscated on their march up the James River. Many of the cavalry and draft animals were grain fed, and were already suffering from the long march from Wilmington and the peregrinations of the army in the Virginias so far attempted. The troops had also been forced to eat their corn green—which had not done their digestions any good—soaking it and frying it in their mess kits instead of baking it to make a more palatable bread.

Once cleared through the lines, men from the North Carolina Volunteers spread out into ragged skirmish order, ahead and to either side of the road as they continued their search for wood. After about another mile of travel, they reached a fork in the road, the fork bending back to the south-east and the main road continuing onward inland to the west. Another halt was called for while the officers consulted.

“Most of this is second growth an' damned scrawny, sir,” Coke said, peering about them. “Whatcha think of it, Chips?”

“Trash,” the carpenter replied. “Musta been cut over a long time ago.”

“If we take the fork, we shall end up in mostly cleared land,” Lieutenant Chiswick pointed out, gesturing with his riding crop. “And the army most likely has cut over the area before the outlying parallels for materials to stiffen the entrenchments and clear lanes of fire.”

“What about out that way?” Railsford asked, shifting his sore behind in the saddle. It had been years since he had spent any time mounted, no matter how rural his upbringing.

“The Williamsburg road?” Chiswick frowned. “We did not come that way on either of our marches in this area, so I am not familiar with it. Though there are some steep hills in there, as we can observe. I am told there is a creek thereabouts.”

“Aye, a creek, sor.” The carpenter brightened. “They'd be timber as thick as cat's fur along a creek, and in them little hills. Ye can see pine from here, sor.”

“That sounds like our best prospect, then,” Railsford decided.

“Your men are armed, sir?” Lieutenant Chiswick asked.

“We brought cutlasses and a few muskets, yes, sir.”

“Then if it is your intention that we proceed into those hills by the creek, off the main road, I would strongly suggest you load your muskets and tell off a portion of your party for protection, sir.”

“There may be Rebels this close?” Railsford asked, reining his mare closer to the army officer to converse more softly.

“There are Virginia Militia and some few regulars about, sir, under a Frenchman named Lafayette,” Chiswick told him, not without a wolfish grin of delight to have the much-vaunted Navy at his mercy in their ignorance of land fighting. “Were I a Rebel officer, God forbid, I should be at the business of scouting the whereabouts of my foe, this very instant.”

“An' wild Indians, too, sir?” Coke asked, peering about with new fear.

“I should not be a bit surprised, sir,” Lieutenant Chiswick said, hiding his glee at the stupidity of his fellow man. Every newcomer from England expected to be scalped or skewered by painted savages as soon as he or she alighted from the ship, right in the middle of a major town. As a lowly Colonial, Chiswick was only too happy to play the game of scaring the bejeezus out of superior home-raised Englishmen.

“Surely not,” Railsford scoffed, only half convinced that Chiswick was having a jape at their expense.

“No organized bands, sir, but they still live in the Piedmont and some have sided with the Rebels as scouts and irregulars,” Chiswick assured him, pursing his lips to control his grin. “Either way, it's best not to be too lax. We're a small and tempting morsel beyond reach of our lines.”

“Mister Lewrie?” Railsford called.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Tell our people to load muskets and keep a wary lookout, but no firing at anything without direct orders from either me or you.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Alan said, turning to speak to the men in a low voice. “Load your firelocks. Check your flints carefully. Prime, but do not carry your pieces at cock or half cock. Do not even think of taking aim unless you hear it from me first, or I'll see the man who did dancing on the gratings, hear me?”

The picnic outing mood was gone now as the men check-snapped their firelocks, plied their gun tools to ram down powder cartouches and ball, primed their pans, and closed frizzens.

They were beyond the sounds of axes ringing as the army built up defenses, and they were in wild country, a lot wilder-looking country than anything they had ever seen at home. The clearings were not orderly and terraced fields full of crops, bound by stone walls or hedges, but openings in the woods laced with rank growths of weeds and high grass. The woods themselves were not picturesque nests of trees on hilltops above verdant farmland but brooding, dark forests that sloughed down almost to the dirt road, full of secondary growth and bushes where the sun did not penetrate, except in dapples here and there. Even the sounds of the native birds were different than what they were used to from their youth, making the land alien, too full of threat, and almost too large and uncivilized to be understood. It truly was not Surrey or Kent—more like the sort of place that could harbor thousands of half-naked savages intent on taking their lives from ambush at any moment.

“It is sort of ominous, isn't it?” Alan said to Burgess as he loaded his pistols.

“Definitely not a game park.” Burgess grinned. “Are you a good shot?”

“If one can be a good shot with these Sea Pattern monstrosities,” Alan said, closing the frizzens and blowing excess powder off, “then yes, I am. I am much better with a musket.”

“Hunt much?”

“Some. Birds, mostly,” Alan said. “But I must warn you, I am a London man.”

“God help us,” Burgess said, “but, if you can be successful at fowling, you may not do much harm. Don't let your sailors shoot at any of my men. We'll be out skirmishing. I have to go now. Good luck to you.”

Lieutenant Chiswick made a hand signal to his men, and his sergeants and corporals took off silently, leading a party of wary troops to either side of the road to melt into the woods, another party to advance down the road almost in the bushes on either side, well spread out so that a single volley would not strike all of them. A corporal took five men back the way they had come to back-trail the column to avoid any surprises from that direction, leaving Railsford, Lewrie, and their men alone with the artillery teams and drivers. Railsford took out his pocket watch and studied it, to follow Chiswick's last whispered instruction that he wait a full two minutes before following his advance scouts.

“I cannot hear them any longer,” Alan said, marveling at the silence with which the North Carolina Volunteers could move through the thick brush and timber.

“Backwoodsmen, I'll wager,” Railsford said. “As good as any Indian at this sort of thing. Rather inspiriting to think so, at any rate.”

Railsford dismounted suddenly and rubbed the small of his back. “Been a while,” he sighed, stretching a kink from his posterior.

And a mounted man is automatically a target for some Rebel sniper, Alan thought grimly.

“Care to ride for a spell?” Railsford offered, evidently thinking the same thing. To a partisan hiding behind some bush or rock, he could not appear to be anything other than an officer, even if the man did not recognize a naval uniform from an artilleryman's.

He's not intentionally trying t' get me killed! Alan thought. And I can't look that senior, even mounted, to be shot by mistake.

“Happily, sir,” Alan decided, springing into the saddle.

He was cautious enough, however, to remove his un-adorned cocked hat and toss it into one of the gun caissons, believing that a bareheaded man would be even less tempting.

“Hoppy, give me your musket,” Alan ordered the nearest armed sailor.

“Sir?” the man said, quailing at the thought of being unarmed.

“Take one of my pistols in exchange,” Alan snapped, offering one of the useless damned things. “With these wild Colonials about you in these woods you're as safe as houses anyway, and I might see something to pot for supper.”

Satisfied by Alan's innocent lie that he was intent on hunting up a deer for the men's mess, Hoppy surrendered his musket and took the pistol from him. Alan slung the musket over his neck and shoulder so that it hung across his back, muzzle up like an infantryman on the march, which would make him look even more menial to any lurking sharpshooter in the woods.

“Some venison'd go down right tasty, sir,” Hoppy said with a smile of relief, wanting to be convinced.

“I hear one deer in the Virginias will feed twenty messes,” Alan said loud enough for the rest of the men to hear, understanding what the first lieutenant meant about keeping the men in good spirits. “Mayhap we can get one or two, even if we have to go shares with the ‘lobsters.'”

He turned and cantered back up to Railsford, who was still intent on his watch.

“Should have been long enough,” Railsford said, snapping the case shut. “Off we go. Lead off, Mister Lewrie.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Alan replied, heading down the road. The walk so far had been hell on his feet, and he was glad to get a chance to ride.

He soon caught up with Lieutenant Chiswick, who, a Ferguson rifle in his right hand, was leading his own horse. As soon as he caught sight of the red tunic, he slowed his mount to a plodding walk and tried to keep separation from the infantry officer. Chiswick, however, stopped his own roan and waited for him to catch up, cocking a wry eyebrow at him.

“Your lieutenant prefers discretion over valor, I see,” Chiswick smiled briefly as they drew even with each other.

“Not on his own decks, sir,” Alan answered a bit more sharply than he would with a naval officer, but Chiswick took no offense at his tone, merely shrugged and turned back to lead the horse up the road once more.

“If you are going to carry a musket, let it rest on your saddle and not hang useless on your back, Mister . . . Lewrie, did he say?”

“Aye, sir, Lewrie,” he said softly, slipping the musket to a more quickly usable perch across his lap, pointing to the left side of the road.

They proceeded in silence for some time, with the more experienced Chiswick listening intently to the sounds of the woods, which so far seemed benign in the extreme, for all the foreboding that was hinted in their lush and wild dark jumble.

“Do all your men have Fergusons, sir?” Alan asked almost in whisper. The road opened up on either side in rough clearings, and he could espy some of Chiswick's men in the woods ahead by their red coats and white breeches.