The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War

The two officers stood side-by-side at the Warren’s taffrail. A violin sounded from the foredeck of the brig Pallas, which was anchored closest to the frigate. For a time neither the commodore nor the marine said anything, but simply listened to the music and to the gentle sound of waves slapping against the hull. “So,” Saltonstall broke their companionable silence, “what do you think?”

“The same as you I reckon, sir,” Welch said in his deep voice.

The commodore snorted. “Boston should have demanded a Continental regiment.”

“That they should, sir.”

“But they want all the credit to go to Massachusetts! That’s their idea, Welch. You mark what I say. There won’t be many thanks offered to us.”

“But we’ll do the work, sir.”

“Oh, we’ll have to!” Saltonstall said. Already, in his brief tenure of command, the commodore had earned a reputation as a difficult and daunting figure, but he had struck up a friendship with the marine. Saltonstall recognized a fellow soul, a man who strove to make his men the best they could be. “We’ll have to do their work,” Saltonstall went on, “if it can be done at all.” He paused, offering Welch a chance to comment, but the marine said nothing. “Can it be done?” Saltonstall prompted him.

Welch stayed silent for a while, then nodded. “We have the marines, sir, and I dare say every marine is worth two of the enemy. We might find five hundred militiamen who can fight. That should suffice, sir, if you can take care of their ships.”

“Three sloops of war,” Saltonstall said in a tone that suggested neither confidence nor pessimism about the prospects of destroying the Royal Navy squadron.

“My men will fight,” Welch said, “and by Christ they’ll fight like fiends. They’re good men, sir, well- trained.”

“That I know,” Saltonstall said, “but by God I won’t let Lovell throw them away. You only fight ashore with my permission.”

“Of course, sir.”

“And if you get orders that make no sense, you refer them to me, you understand?”

“Perfectly, sir.”

“He’s a farmer,” Saltonstall said scornfully, “not a soldier, but a goddamned farmer.”

On board the Sally, in the captain’s cramped cabin, the farmer was cradling a mug of tea laced with rum. Lovell shared the table with his secretary, John Marston, and with Wadsworth and the Reverend Murray, who appeared to have been promoted to senior aide. “We should reach Majabigwaduce tomorrow,” Lovell said, looking from face to face in the feeble light of the lantern that hung from a beam, “and I assume the commodore will prevent the enemy ships from leaving the harbor and so obstructing us, in which case we should land immediately, don’t you think?”

“If it’s possible,” Wadsworth said cautiously.

“Let us be hopeful!” Lovell said. He dreamed of the victory parade in Boston and the vote of thanks from the legislature, but small doubts were creeping into his mind as he gazed at the crude map of Majabigwaduce’s peninsula that was spread on the table where the remains of supper still lay. The Sally’s cook had produced a fine fish stew served with newly baked bread. “We shall need to anchor off the land and launch the lighters,” Lovell said distractedly, then used a crust of cornbread to tap the bluff at the western end of the peninsula. “Can McLean really have left this height undefended?”

“Unfortified, certainly, if the reports are true,” Wadsworth said.

“Then we should accept his invitation, don’t you think?”

Wadsworth nodded cautiously. “We’ll know more tomorrow, sir,” he said.

“I want to be ready,” Lovell said. He tapped the map again. “We can’t let our fellows sit idle while the commodore destroys the enemy shipping. We must put the men ashore fast.” Lovell gazed at the map as though it might provide some solution to the morrow’s problems. Why had McLean not placed his fort on the high bluff? Was there a trap? If Lovell had been given the task of defending the peninsula he was sure he would have made a stronghold at the harbor’s entrance, high on the point of land that dominated both the wide bay and the harbor, so why had McLean not done that? And McLean, Lovell reminded himself, was a professional soldier, so what did McLean know that Lovell did not? He felt a shiver of nervousness in his soul, then took comfort that he was not alone in his responsibility. Commodore Saltonstall was the naval commander, and Saltonstall’s ships so outnumbered the enemy that surely no amount of professionalism could redress that imbalance. “We must believe,” Lovell said, “that our enemies are afflicted by overconfidence.”

“They are British,” the Reverend Murray said in agreement, “and ‘pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.’ Proverbs eighteen,” he added helpfully, “verse sixteen.”

“Words of wisdom,” Lovell said, “and indeed they do underestimate us!” The general was staring at the map and searching for the optimism that had lightened his morning.

“They shall suffer for their arrogance,” Murray said, and raised a reverent hand, “‘what is this thing that ye do? Will ye rebel against the king? Then answered I them, and said unto them, the God of Heaven, he will prosper us.’” He smiled benignly. “The words of the prophet Nehemiah, General.”

“He will indeed prosper us,” Lovell echoed, “and perhaps you would lead us in prayer, Reverend?”

“Gladly.” The men bowed their heads as the Reverend Murray prayed that God would send a swift victory. “May the forces of righteousness glorify Thy name, O Lord,” the Reverend Murray beseeched, “and may we show magnanimity in the triumph that Thy words have promised us. We ask all this in Thy holy name. Amen.”

“Amen,” Lovell said fervently, his eyes tight shut, “and amen.”

*    *    *

“Amen,” Brigadier McLean muttered in response to the grace before supper. He had been invited to Doctor Calef’s house, which lay two hundred yards east of Fort George. That name, he thought ruefully, was a grand name for a fort that was scarcely defensible. Captain Mowat had sent one hundred and eighty burly seamen to help the work, yet still the walls were only waist high and a mere two cannons had been emplaced in the corner bastions.

“So the wretches are here?” Calef inquired.

“So we hear, Doctor, so we hear,” McLean responded. News of the enemy fleet’s arrival had come from the river’s mouth, brought by a fisherman who had fled the rebels so quickly that he had been unable to count the ships and could only say that there was a terrible lot of them. “It seems they’ve sent a considerable fleet,” McLean commented, then thanked the doctor’s wife, who had passed him a dish of beans. Three candles lit the table, a finely polished oval of gleaming walnut. Most of the doctor’s furniture had come from his Boston home and it looked strange here, much as if the contents of a fine Edinburgh mansion were to be moved to a Hebridean croft.

“Will they come tonight?” Mrs. Calef inquired nervously.

“I’m assured no one can navigate the river in the dark,” McLean said, “so no, ma’am, not this night.”

“They’ll be here tomorrow,” Calef averred.

“So I expect.”

“In some force?” Calef asked.

“So the report said, Doctor, though I am denied any specific detail.” McLean flinched as he bit onto a grindstone chip trapped in the cornbread. “Very fine bread, ma’am,” he said.

“We were maltreated in Boston,” Calef said.

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“My wife was insulted in the streets.”

McLean knew what was in Calef’s mind, that if the rebels were to take Majabigwaduce then the persecution of the loyalists would start again. “I regret that, Doctor.”

“I dare say,” Calef said, “that if the rebels were to find me, General, they would imprison me.” The doctor was merely toying with his food, while his wife watched him anxiously.

“Then I must do my utmost,” McLean said, “to keep you from imprisonment and your wife from insult.”

“Scourge them,” Calef said angrily.

“I do assure you, Doctor, that is our intent,” McLean said, then smiled at Calef’s wife. “These are very fine beans, ma’am.”

They ate mostly in silence after that. McLean wished he could offer a greater reassurance to the loyalists of Majabigwaduce, but the arrival of the rebel fleet surely meant an imminent defeat. His fort was unfinished. True, he