The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War

checked itself and moved slowly back. “See, sir? She’s well liking it.”

“As I am,” Saltonstall said, “but we can do better. Mister Coningsby! Another two hundred weight forrad! Lively now!”

“Aye aye, sir,” Midshipman Fanning said.

The Hazard and Diligent caught up with the fleet late in the afternoon. The Diligent shortened her sails as she slid to the leeward of the Warren and made her report on the strange sail that had been glimpsed to the south. “She was the General Glover out of Marblehead, sir!” Captian Philip Brown hailed Saltonstall. “A cargo vessel, sir, carrying baccy, rum, and timber to France!”

“Take station!” Saltonstall shouted back and watched as the brig fell aft of him. Captain Brown, newly appointed to his command, had been first lieutenant of the sloop Providence when it had captured the Diligent from the Royal Navy and his ship still bore the marks of that battle. Brown’s old ship, the Providence, her hull similarly patched with new timber, now sailed at the van of Saltonstall’s fleet where she flew the snake and stripe banner of the rebel navy.

The fleet was impressive, and had been joined by three more ships which had sailed direct to Townsend so that forty-two vessels, half of them warships, now sailed eastwards. Brigadier-General Lovell, gazing at the spread of sails from the afterdeck of the sloop Sally, was proud that his state, his country indeed, could assemble such number of ships. The Warren was the largest, but a dozen other warships were almost as formidable as the frigate. The Hampden, which carried twenty- two guns and was thus the second most powerful ship in the fleet, had been sent by the state of New Hampshire, and when she had arrived at Townsend she had sounded a salute, her nine-pounder guns thumping the air with their percussive greeting. “I just wish we could encounter one of King George’s ships now,” Solomon Lovell said, “’pon my word, but we’d give her a pounding!”

“So we would, by God’s grace, so we would indeed!” the Reverend Jonathan Murray agreed wholeheartedly. Peleg Wadsworth had been somewhat surprised that the rector of Townsend had been invited to join the expedition, but it was evident that Murray and Lovell liked each other, and so the clergyman, who had appeared on board the Sally with a brace of large pistols belted at his waist, was now the expedition’s chaplain. Lovell had insisted that they sail from Townsend in the sloop Sally, rather than in Saltonstall’s larger frigate. “It’s better to be with the men, don’t you think?” the brigadier inquired of Wadsworth.

“Indeed, sir,” Wadsworth agreed, though privately he suspected that Solomon Lovell found Commodore Saltonstall’s company difficult. Lovell was a gregarious man while Saltonstall was reticent to the point of rudeness. “Though the men do worry me, sir,” Wadsworth added.

“They worry you!” Lovell responded jovially. “Now why should that be?” He had borrowed Captain Carver’s telescope and was gazing seawards at Monhegan Island.

Wadsworth hesitated, not wanting to introduce a note of pessimism on a morning of bright sun and useful wind. “We were expecting fifteen or sixteen hundred men, sir, and we have fewer than nine hundred. And many of those are of dubious usefulness.”

The Reverend Murray, clutching a wide-brimmed hat, made a gesture as if to suggest Wadsworth’s concerns were misplaced. “Let me tell you something I’ve learned,” the Reverend said, “in every endeavor, General Wadsworth, whenever men are gathered together for God’s good purpose, there is always a core of men, just a core, that do the work! The rest merely watch.”

“We have enough men,” Lovell said, collapsing the telescope and turning to Wadsworth, “which isn’t to say I could not wish for more, but we have enough. We have ships enough and God is on our side!”

“Amen,” the Reverend Murray put in, “and we have you, General!” He bowed to Lovell.“Oh, you’re too kind,” Lovell said, embarrassed.

“God in His infinite wisdom selects His instruments,” Murray said effusively, bowing a second time to Lovell.

“And God, I am sure, will send more men to join us,” Lovell went on hurriedly. “I’m assured there are avid patriots in the Penobscot region, and I doubt not that they’ll serve our cause. And the Indians will send warriors. Mark my words, Wadsworth, we shall scour the redcoats, we shall scour them!”

“I would still wish for more men,” Wadsworth said quietly.

“I would wish for the same,” Lovell said fervently, “but we must make do with what the good Lord provides and remember that we are Americans!”

“Amen for that,” the Reverend Murray said, “and amen again.”

The waist of the Sally was filled with four flat-bottomed lighters commandeered from Boston harbor. All the transports had similar cargoes. The shallow-draught boats were for landing the troops, and Wadsworth now gazed at those militia men who, in turn, watched the coast from the Sally’s portside rail. Tall plumes of smoke rose mysteriously from the dark wooded hills and Wadsworth had the uncomfortable feeling that the pillars of smoke were signal fires. Was the coast infested by loyalists who were telling the British that the Americans were coming?

“Captain Carver was grumbling to me,” Lovell broke into Wadsworth’s thoughts. Nathaniel Carver was the Sally’s captain. “He was complaining that the state commandeered too many transports!”

“We anticipated more men,” Wadsworth said.

“And I said to him,” Lovell went on cheerfully, “how do you expect to convey the British prisoners to Boston without adequate shipping? He had no answer to that!”

“Fifteen hundred prisoners,” the Reverend Murray said with a chortle. “They’ll take some feeding!”

“Oh, I think more than fifteen hundred!” Lovell said confidently. “Major Todd was estimating, merely estimating, and I can’t think the enemy has sent fewer than two thousand! We’ll have to pack two hundred prisoners into each and every transport, but Carver assures me the deck hatches can be battened down. My! What a return to Boston that will be, eh Wadsworth?”

“I pray for that day, sir,” Wadsworth said. Did the British really have fifteen hundred men, he wondered, and if they did then what possible reason could Lovell have for his optimism?

“It’s just a pity we don’t have a band!” Lovell said. “We could mount a parade!” Lovell, a politician, was imagining the rewards of success: the cheering crowds, the thanks of the General Court, and a parade like the triumphs of Ancient Rome where the captured enemy was marched through jeering crowds. “I do believe,” the brigadier went on, leaning closer to Wadsworth, “that McLean has brought most of Halifax’s garrison to Majabigwaduce!”

“I’m certain Halifax is not abandoned, sir,” Wadsworth said.

“But underdefended!” Lovell said warmly. “My word, Wadsworth, maybe we should contemplate a raid!”

“I suspect General Ward and the General Court might want to discuss the matter first, sir,” Wadsworth said drily.

“Artemas is a good, brave man, but we must look ahead, Wadsworth. Once we’ve defeated McLean what’s to stop us attacking the British elsewhere?”

“The Royal Navy, sir?” Wadsworth suggested with a wry smile.

“Oh, we’ll build more ships! More ships!” Lovell was unstoppable now, imagining his victory at Majabigwaduce expanding into the capture of Nova Scotia and, who knew, maybe all Canada? “Doesn’t the Warren look fine?” he exclaimed. “Just look at her! Can there be a finer vessel afloat?”

At twilight the fleet turned into the vast mouth of the Penobscot River where it anchored off the Fox Islands, all except the Hazard and Tyrannicide, which were ordered to make a reconnaissance upriver. The two small brigs, both from the Massachusetts navy, sailed slowly northwards, using the long evening’s gentle light to probe closer to Majabigwaduce, which lay a full twenty-six nautical miles from the open sea.

Commodore Saltonstall watched the two brigs until the gathering darkness hid their sails, then he took his supper on the quarterdeck beneath a sky bright with stars. His crew left him alone until one tall figure crossed to the commodore. “A pot of wine, sir?”

“Captain Welch,” Saltonstall greeted the tall marine, “I’m obliged to you.”