The French Admiral (29 page)

Fused shells, those filled with powder and designed to burst and rend anything near their impact with shattered iron balls, came flicking in slowly, their fuses glowing like tiny fireflies as they descended to the earth to thud into the ground, hiss malevolently, then blow up and raise a gout of clay and rock. Sometimes the fuses were cut too short and the ball exploded before it hit the ground, scattering death about it below the burst, and no one in a trench could be safe from such a blast.

The guns worked over the north end of the town for a while, then shifted further south, allowing Cony and Lewrie to run for the safety of the trench beside their gun platforms.

“Everyone well, Knatchbull?” Alan asked his senior gunner. He had to take hold of the man's shoulder and almost shout into his ear. Either Knatchbull had been concussed or deafened or frightened out of his wits.

“Two samboes gone, sir,” Knatchbull finally replied. “Shell damn near got 'em all back there. Daniels had ta go ta the surgeons. Hit with splinters, sir.”

Daniels. Alan remembered that he had been in his boat crew the night they had burned the French transport. “Is he much hurt?”

“In the lungs, sir.”

So much for Daniels, Alan thought grimly. A lung wound was sure death within days . . . perhaps even hours, if Daniels was fortunate. He could get drunk one last time on the surgeon's rum and go quickly.

“Nothing on the river?”

“Nothin', Mister Lewrie,” Knatchbull said with a shake of his shaggy head. “They kin keep this up fer days afore tryin' us direck.”

“Then what's all the fuss about, then?” Alan said with a smile he did not feel. He went along the parapet to his gunners, those keeping a watch with muskets and those clustered by the nine-pounders, clapping a shoulder here and there, telling them to rest easy and keep their heads down until they heard something, assuring them no one in their right minds would try a frontal attack, not tonight at any rate.

Their own guns were firing in response, flinging shot and shell into those artillery parks out in the darkness, measuring the fall of shot by the glows of their own fuses, though it seemed that Cornwallis's batteries were not as numerous, or not firing in such a hasty volume as the enemy's. It would make sense, Alan realized, to conserve the powder and round shot they had in the fortifications until they could find a good target, for they could not be resupplied until their relief force arrived, and the French had most likely brought tons of the stuff and could get more from the 36 or so warships in the bay.

There was nothing else to do but wait some more, no longer in so much suspense, but wait in terror and trepidation for the next burst of shell. Narrow ramparts were hard to hit with mortars and howitzers firing blind at night at high angle, so except for that one lucky shot (which was all it would take) they would stew and fret at every wailing infernal engine that the enemy fired in their general direction, squat down when it sounded close, and stand up and grin foolishly after it had struck away from them. Had it not been for the screaming, it would have been almost a game that they were watching.

Hideously wounded soldiers were screaming their lives away back in the town in the surgeries and dressing stations. Horses and mules were screaming in terror as they dashed back and forth through the fortification's enclosures, dashing from one end of their pens to another, or were out in the open, galloping away from each new sound and bloom of dirt and smoke, only to be hewn down by the shells and then bleed to death, with broken spines, broken legs, spurting wounds in innocent, dumb bodies, entrails hobbling them as they tried to run; always screaming and neighing in fright, wondering why their masters did not make the noises and the lights stop, why no one could make their screaming stop.

At first light Alan called his gunners to quarters to stand by their guns and parapets. He kept his blanket over his shoulders to ward off the early morning chill and joined them from the trench in which he had tried to rest during the night.

From their eastern wall he could see the Star Redoubt, not much pummeled and still flying a French flag, and the huge battery further west. With a glass he could see that the positions on the Gloucester side had gotten the treatment, too, but not as heavily. Those positions had not changed much.

The town, though, had suffered from the shelling, and crushed buildings showed like newly missing teeth from the order of the day before. The fires had burned out and a haze of sour smoke lay over the entire encampment, thick with the stench of charred wood and expended gunpowder.

Going on tour along the north and west walls, Alan could see that there was nothing to their fronts. The redans guarding the road into town were still there, as were the ramparts, battered but still whole, and the fields before their positions were empty of threat. Nothing stirred in the ravines of the creek, and not a bird fluttered in the woods.

“Knatchbull, see to breakfast,” he said upon returning.

“We're a might short, sir,” Knatchbull told him. “Nought but gruel an' some biscuit, an' this ain't no Banyan Day, Mister Lewrie.”

“Nothing left from supper?”

“Nossir, they ain't.” Knatchbull was almost accusatory.

“Send two men back for meat, then. Enough for the slaves, too.”

“Ain't none o' ours, Mister Lewrie,” Knatchbull complained.

“By God, they stood by as scared as the rest of us, and if they serve powder and shot to my guns, they are ours, even if they were creatures from a Swift novel,” Alan snarled, too testy and exhausted with a night of fear to be kind. “Feed 'em. Ration for a half mess.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Knatchbull quavered, never having seen Lewrie on any sort of tear against another man. He had been too junior, too hard pressed himself by the officers and warrants in
Desperate,
but now Lewrie had the look of a quarterdeck officer; the grime of the night did not improve his looks much, either.

Knatchbull returned half an hour later with a sack filled with meat, two four-pound pieces to be shared out by the two gun crews, another four-pound piece for Alan, Knatchbull, Cony, and the four remaining blacks.

“'Tis horse, Mister Lewrie,” Knatchbull apologized. “They's shorta salt beef 'r pork. Ain't never eat horse afore.”

“Ever go to a two-penny ordinary in London?” Alan teased.

“Aye, sir.”

“Then you probably have eaten horse, and in worse shape than any you'll sink your teeth into today.” Alan laughed. “Boil it up.”

“Yer coffee, Mister Lewrie,” Cony said, seeming to pop up out of the ground with a steaming mug in his hands. It had been battered in the bombardment, but Alan recognized it from the house.

“Goddamn my eyes, Cony, this ain't Scotch coffee!” Alan said, marveling at the first sip. “This is the genuine article!”

“Them marines fetched it offa
Guadeloupe,
Mister Lewrie, an' I sorta fetched it offen them in the rush an' all, like.” Cony grinned.

There was a sudden loud shriek in the air of an incoming shell as French or American gunners began to work over the north end of the town once more. Everyone ducked as the sound loomed louder and louder and changed in pitch, howling keener and higher like a bad singer searching for the right note. BLAMMM!

They stood up to see the ruin of the kitchen outhouse of the abode Alan had been using as his quarters. The entire back porch of the house was gone in a shower of kindling, and there was a new crater in the ground that steamed furiously with half-burned powder particles.

“I hope you liberated a power of it, Cony,” Alan said, brushing dirt from his sleeve. “That may be the last good coffee I'll see for some time.”

“Never fear that, Mister Lewrie. I made off with nigh about a pound an' a half. Might have ta make do with that corn whiskey fer yer spirits from now on, though.”

“I imagine I could cope,” he allowed with a taut grin.

Cony was waiting for Lewrie to say something more, such as “Cony, what would I ever do without you; be my steward in the midshipmen's mess and my servant when I am commissioned.” It would be a soft job for the young man, but Alan was not about to promise that much, especially since getting back aboard ship and out to sea where he could pursue his career was looking more like a forlorn hope each day. Besides, he did not want the man to feel he was too beholdened to him that early on. Cony would make a fine gentleman's servant, but one did not let them know it until one could settle on a decent wage and conditions.

“Ye'll be needin' a shave, Mister Lewrie,” Cony volunteered. “I have yer kit safe an' snug, an' can put an edge on yer razor while yer breakfast is acookin'.”

Alan was not so far advanced in his adolescence to need a daily shave, but his chin did feel promisingly raspy, so he nodded his assent.

Flattery will get you nowhere, Cony, Alan thought happily, glad to have a domestic situation to think about rather than the anonymous terror of the continuing bombardment. And when it became plain that the main effort of the enemy gunners was on the south and west corner of the town ramparts, he could almost enjoy his breakfast in peace, looking forward to a clean shave and another cup of real coffee.

Besides, if Admiral Graves did not come from New York soon, his domestic arrangements might be the only thing he could contemplate with any hope as he lounged in some Rebel prison after the whole horrible muddle fell apart.

CHAPTER 10

T
he
brutal cannonading went on for days, and the French and American batteries were prodigal with shot and shell. During the day their guns began to strike directly on the ramparts from a range of only six hundred to eight hundred yards, pounding the earthworks into ruin, smashing the fascines and gabions that reinforced them and dismounting guns that attempted to return fire. At night, high-angle shells burst with regularity in a firestorm horrendously loud and unceasing, shattering the night and everyone's nerves, flinging men about like straws if they happened to be too close to an explosion, sheltered in a trench or not.

Alan had been into town along with the marine officer he had once shared quarters with to search for fresh horsemeat for their men. They had located two once-magnificent saddle horses, now reduced to skin and bones, their heads hanging low in utter exhaustion. Hard as it was going to be, they would lead these once-proud blooded steeds back near their positions to be slaughtered for food. The corn and oats were almost gone, so dinners would be mostly fresh meat and biscuit, what little of that was left. What they had gathered and foraged had been eaten days before.

They had barely taken charge of the animals when there had been a manic howl as a huge sixteen-inch mortar shell came whistling down nearby, and Alan had dived to the ground in mortal terror. There had been a huge and deafening blast of sound, giving him the feeling that he was swimming in air and being pelted with rocks, and then he had found himself several yards away from where he had lain, covered with damp earth and blood, his uniform in tatters. The horses were splattered about the street like fresh paint and his companion had been shredded into offal as well, only his lower legs remaining whole. His smallsword was turned into a corkscrew that smoked with heat.

Badly shattered by the experience, Alan had almost crawled all the way back to his battery to find what comfort he could in others of his own kind, no matter how menial they were. Cony tended him, fetched out fresh togs, and put him to bed to sleep it off, which he did, in the middle of the deafening roar of bombardment.

It was the ships burning that finally broke his spirit.

After two days and nights of steady terror,
Charon
and
Guadeloupe
took advantage of the fact that they had been ignored so far and tried to maneuver further out into the river to make a stab at escaping, hoping that
Charon,
minus her artillery and stores, would be shallow enough in draft to make it between the shoals.

With twenty-four-pounder guns and heated shot, the big French battery on the enemy left on the York River had opened fire.
Charon
had been hit and turned into a heartbreaking torch, burned to the waterline.
Guadeloupe
had gotten under the town bluffs into safety, but several outlying small warships and transports had also been set on fire and abandoned. Their own ship
Desperate
had been hit twice with red-hot shot, and smoke had billowed from her, but there had been enough hands to put out the fire and work her up alongside
Guadeloupe,
where she would be safe.

If Alan's morale had finally given way, then he was not alone. He could not cross the camp without discovering drunken British, Hessian, or Loyalist soldiers who had broken into spirits stores and were deeply drunk for what they felt was the last time before death. Troops still held in better discipline by their officers served as field police to keep the vandalism and defeatism from turning ugly, but one could smell the fear on every hand, see the stricken expressions, the sense of loss in every eye. Cornwallis's force was an army waiting to die.

There were caves below the town bluffs and eastern entrenchments, where many well men sheltered from the continual firestorm without shame among the wounded. Even Lord Cornwallis and his staff had moved into a cavern, surrounded with their lavish creature comforts.

Had there been any liquor left within reach, Alan would have happily gotten besotted as the lowest sailor or soldier. He had worried before about the possibility of capture and imprisonment; now that was a fond wish, preferable to being blasted into so many atoms by the impersonal shells that drenched the garrison round the clock. The money he had hidden in his sea-chest could not buy him a single moment of life more, and his sense of loss about it was nothing more than a pinprick. There would be no escape from this debacle, and all he could do was curse the fools in New York who had not yet come, who now looked to never arrive in time to save the army or the remaining ships.

His men were not in much better condition. No amount of japery was going to put much spine back into them, and he knew it. They had that same haunted look he had seen in the soldiers and only went through the motions of duty, diving into the bottom of the trench and their new additional dugouts below the earthworks every time a shell came anywhere close and stayed there underground as long as possible, no longer even much interested in the rum issue, not if it had to be taken in the open.

Alan himself was in the bottom of the trench, just at the edge of one of his gun platforms. So far, they had not suffered a strike so near that their guns had been dismounted, but that was not for want of trying on the part of the foe. They had been concentrating on the western wall and had reduced it to an anthill from which a stubborn flag still flew on a stub of pole, though its guns had been mostly dismounted and its continued usefulness was much in doubt.

“Lewrie?” an older marine captain called. “This army officer has need of your remaining powder. Give it to him.”

“But what shall I defend my guns with, sir?” Alan asked, his voice a harsh rasp. The fog of powder smoke that seemed much like a permanent weather condition did not help.

“Doesn't matter much.” The marine shrugged. “Keep back enough charges to fire a dozen canister shots to repel a landing. Let them have the rest.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Alan said, rising from the trench.

The army officer mentioned was the same goose who had so blithely positioned them alone in the hills in their first days of the occupation, still a dandy prat in clean breeches and waistcoat, his red coat still unstained and his gorget and scarlet sash bright as the day they were made. Alan took a sudden and intense dislike to him.

“I have to retain some charges premade for my swivels, sir,” Alan said wearily. “And my hand's personal powder horns and cartouches. I can give you the rest.”

“Hurry with it, will you?” the man snapped. “We're running low on every wall and no one would attack
this
rampart.”

“Knatchbull, open up the magazines and supply this gentleman with all our kegged powder.”

“And your gun cartridges,” the officer added. “You have no need for them. There are no other nine-pounders still in action, so they will have to be emptied and resewn to proper size for our guns.”

“Retain a dozen, Knatchbull.”

“I ain't no scholard, sir,” Knatchbull said. “Could ya count 'em out fer me, Mister Lewrie?”

“My God, how did you become a gunner?” the artillery officer said. “I said I want them all.”

“My immediate superior said to retain a dozen, and that is what I must do, sir,” Alan told him, almost too weary and too lost in a really good case of the Blue Devils to argue. He just wanted the man to go away so he could silently contemplate his chances of survival 'til the morning meal and perhaps perform his litany of revenge on his father who had put him into the Navy so he could end up in such a mess.

“Goddamme, you'll give me all or I'll have you put under close arrest,” the officer threatened. He motioned to his gunners to aid him.

“With the best will in the world, I could not, sir. How could I destroy my guns without charges when the time comes?”

Not that they've been worth a groat the past few weeks, Alan thought. He had dragged them from pillar to post and done nothing of value with them since; never fired a round in anger—for lack of opportunity at first and then for lack of powder and shot in the second instance. Might be satisfying to burn the fuckers and unbush them at that.

“When what time comes, sir?” the artilleryman shouted over the sound of the barrage. “What do you mean by that sort of croakum?”

“When the Rebels and the French have pounded us to bits, sir, and come over the walls,” Alan calmly said.

“Never heard such insufferable nonsense. Now order your man to give me all your powder, all of it, mind, and be quick about it.”

“Will you also give me a signed order to destroy my guns at the same time, sir?” Alan demanded.

“Who is your captain, you puppy? What ship?”

“Treghues . . . the
Desperate,
sir,” Alan replied, thinking fast. “If you take all our powder and cartridges, then there is no point in keeping two valuable naval guns ashore. Would you object to our taking the pieces back aboard without powder?”

Go on, Alan thought, give me an excuse to get out of this before it all falls apart.

“Damn you, and damn your insolence!” the officer raged, his hands straying near his pistols. “Sergeant, take everything in the magazines to the carts. I'll thank you not to hinder us, if you won't help.”

“Take what you like, then, sir,” Alan said.

The army officer's party made quick work of scavenging everything in the magazines—all the small kegs of loose powder, all but a handful of firing quills, most of the tin canisters of musket balls for antipersonnel shot, and all the bundles of grapeshot, leaving only three charges per gun with the useless round shot. They trotted away with it in their small carts, dodging the shell bursts.

“And may you be blown to Perdition!” Alan called after them, once they were almost out of earshot and he was finally able to vent his true feelings.

“Thort he wuz gonna shoot ya, so I did, Mister Lewrie,” Knatchbull finally said after he had regained his normal breathing.

“Not
his
kind,” Alan sneered, very relieved that the man had not done that or had him dragged off to a summary court, which would have resulted in the same thing. “Who do we have who's a good runner?”

“Runner, sir?” Knatchbull cogitated. “Well, Tuckett's not bad, sir.”

“Have him come up here while I write a note to our captain,” Alan said. He sat down next to his small jute bag and dug into it for some scrap paper and a stub of pencil. “How would you like to get back to our ship, Knatchbull?”

“God, that'd be grand, Mister Lewrie!” The man beamed. “Kin we do it?”

“We serve no useful purpose here any longer, not without powder. We can't help the marines, except to leave them the swivels. There's a chance we may be ordered to take these two guns of ours back into
Desperate.
And us with 'em.”

“Right away, Mister Lewrie!”

Cornwallis's harried staff saw no sense in two useless guns left ashore to be captured, so they spent the rest of the day knocking the extemporized field carriages apart and taking the guns and the remaining round shot back aboard.

Desperate
still was shy her two carronades and the four 9-pounders on the Gloucester side, but she had fourteen guns back in place should she be called upon to fight her way out, with enough reserve gunpowder from the bottom-tier kegs to make a short but spirited engagement of it.

Everyone from Lewrie's party, and Alan most of all, was greatly relieved to be back aboard. The men were once more in the bosom of their mates in relatively more comfortable surroundings; though the rations had deteriorated in quantity and quality there was still enough rum. They felt oddly safe in the understandable world of the Navy, instead of in the dubious clutches of the army, eager to embrace the rigid discipline of a ship-of-war, especially one that was not being fired at. Under the bluffs and free of direct observation by French or Rebel batteries, they could sit out the bombardment without fear for the first time in days.

Alan found his sea-chest and clean clothes, a hammock man ready to tend his needs and wash up the clothes off his back, a bucket of hot river water in which to scrub up, and a peaceable sit-down supper with Carey and Avery, with the last of their personal wine stock to drink in relative quiet. The barrage continued through supper, petering out for a while as he rolled into his hammock and bedding and discovered all over how easy it was to sleep snug and warm, free of the ground.

Almost before his head touched the roll of sailcloth that was his pillow, he was dead to the world. So he slept through the assault by the French Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment and an American regiment under the ambitious Colonel Alexander Hamilton that took Redoubts number Nine and number Ten, the last bastions before the smashed ramparts on the southeast end of Yorktown. He slept through the counter-battery fire from the British lines, snoring so loudly that Carey tried to wake him to make him stop, but Alan was too far gone to even respond to vigorous shaking.

It was only at 4:00
A
.
M
., when all hands were piped on deck to begin the ship's day and scrub down her decks, that he awoke, and the barrage was so loud that he did not hear the British sally to try and retake the redoubts, for drums and musketry could not carry over the roar of the cannon-ade. Events on shore, even unsuccessful ones, touched him no more.