The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War

“Long as it takes.”

They had to wait half an hour, but at last the Providence’s keel cleared the sunken rock and the sloop pulled on towards a small stony beach. Her bows touched the land and were held there by the light wind. The two smaller brigs grounded on either side and green-coated marines leaped into the water and waded ashore, carrying cartridge cases and muskets above their heads. Welch was leading one company while Captain Davis, who still wore the blue coat of the Continental Army rather than marine green, led the other. “Let’s go,” Welch said.

The marines fixed bayonets. The trees muffled the sound of the battery’s guns only three hundred yards to the north. The British had posted no sentinels on the island’s southern side, but Welch knew they would have seen the masts above the trees and he supposed they would be turning a cannon to face the expected attack. “Make it quick!” Welch shouted as he led the way.

Two hundred and twenty marines went into the trees. They advanced in rough order, their bayonets glinting in the lowering sun that flickered through the thick pines. They climbed the island’s slope, breasted the summit, and there, below them and just visible through the thick trunks, was a small encampment on the beach. There were four tents, a flagpole, and the battery where blue and red coats showed, and Welch, seeing the enemy close, felt the rage of battle rise in him, a rage fed by his hatred of the British. No gun faced him. The damned enemy was still firing at the American ships. He would teach them to kill Americans! He slid the naval cutlass from its scabbard, screamed a war shout, and led the charge down the hill.

Twenty-two artillerymen manned the battery and twenty Royal Marines guarded them. They heard the enemy marines shouting, they saw the reflected sunlight glinting from the long blades, and the artillerymen ran. They had longboats beached close to the battery, and they abandoned the guns, abandoned everything, and sprinted for their boats. They shoved the three boats off the shingle and scrambled aboard just as the American marines burst from the trees. One boat was slow. It was afloat, but when the two men who had been pushing its bows tumbled over the gunwale, the boat grounded again. A gunner sergeant jumped out and heaved at the boat afresh, and a voice shouted a warning as a tall marine ran into the shallows. The sergeant heaved again at the boat’s bows, then his coat was seized and he was flung back towards the beach. The longboat floated free and its oarsmen pulled desperately, turning and driving the boat towards the Nautilus, the nearest British sloop. The green-coated marines fired at the rowers. Musket-balls thumped into the gunwales, an oarsman let go of his loom to clap a hand on an arm suddenly bright with blood, then a volley of musketry banged from the Nautilus’s forecastle and the balls whistled about the marines’ heads.

The blue-coated artillery sergeant took a swing at Welch who blocked the fist with his left hand and, in a rage, slashed his cutlass at the sergeant’s neck. The blade hit home, Welch sawed it, and blood sprayed high. Welch was still screaming. Red misted his vision as he grabbed the wounded man’s hair and pulled him onto the newly sharpened blade, and there was still more blood jetting now, and the gunner sergeant was making a choking, gurgling noise and Welch, his green coat darkened with spatters of British blood, was grunting as he tried to slice the blade deeper still. The tide diluted the blood, and then the sergeant fell and the shallow water momentarily clouded around his twitching body. Welch put a boot on the man’s head and forced him underwater. He held the dying man there until the body was still

More muskets fired from the Nautilus, though the Royal Marines on the sloop’s forecastle were shooting at long musket range and none of the Americans on Cross Island’s beach was hit. The Nautilus’s broadside faced west, and no guns could be levered round to face the beach and so the Royal Marines shot muskets instead. “Into the battery!” Captain Davis called. The captured battery faced northwest and a low hump of rocky land protected it from the Nautilus so that the rebels were safe enough when they were within its low breastworks. They discovered four guns in the emplacement. Two still had barrels too hot to touch from firing at the American ships, but the other pair had yet to be mounted on their carriages, which stood forlorn beside a rough pit that had been dug as a ready magazine. Captain Davis traced a finger over the royal cipher on one of the unmounted barrels and thought it was kind of King George to provide guns for liberty. Men plundered the tents. There were blankets, bone-handled knives, a fragment of mirror, and a walnut case which held three ivory-handled razors. There was a Bible, evidently much-thumbed, two packs of playing cards, and a set of scrimshaw dice. There was an open barrel of salt pork, a box of ship’s biscuits, and two small casks of rum. Beside the guns were the mallets and iron spikes that should have been used to make the cannon useless, but the speed of the attack had driven the British off before the guns could be spiked.

The British flag still flew. Welch hauled it down and, for the first time that day, a smile showed on his blood- streaked face. He folded the flag carefully, then beckoned to one of his sergeants. “Take this rag back to the Providence,” he ordered, “and ask Captain Hacker for the loan of a boat and crew. He expects to be asked. Then take the flag to General Lovell.”

“To General Lovell?” the sergeant asked, surprised. “Not to the commodore, sir?” Commodore Saltonstall was the marine’s commander, not the brigadier.

“Take it to General Lovell,” Welch said. “That flag,” he pointed over the rocky hump of land where, in the evening light, the flag above Fort George just showed, “that flag will belong to the marines.” He looked down at the folds of sun-faded cloth in his big hands, then, with a shudder, spat on the flag. “Tell General Lovell this is a gift.” He thrust the flag into the sergeant’s hands. “You got that? Tell him it’s a gift from the marines.”

Because Welch reckoned Brigadier-General Goddamned Solomon Lovell needed to know who was going to win this campaign. Not Lovell’s militia, but the marines. The marines, the best, the winners. And Welch would lead them to victory.

From a Petition signed by thirty-two officers belonging to the American warships in Penobscot Bay and sent to Commodore Saltonstall, July 27th, 1779:To the Honorable the Commodore and Commander in Chief of the Fleet . . . we your petitioners strongly Impress’d with the importance of the Expedition, and earnestly desire to render our Country all the Service in our power Wou’d represent to your Honor, that the most spedy Exertions shou’d be used to Accomplish the design we came upon. We think Delays in the present Case are extremely dangerous: as our Enemies are daily Fortifying and Strengthening themselves. . . . We don’t mean to Advise, or Censure Your past Conduct, But intend only to express our desire of improving the present Opportunity to go Immediately into the Harbor, and Attack the Enemys Ships.

From the Journal of Sergeant William Lawrence, Royal Artillery, 13th July 1779:The night is thought by our enemy to be the most Favorable time for storming Encampments . . . and None are so ready of taking that Advantage than his Majesty’s subjects now in Rebellion, who in the Open field tremble for a British soldier.

From General Lovell’s orderly book, July 24th, 1779, Head-Quarters on board the Transport Sally:The Officers will be careful that every man is compleatly Equipt in Arms and Ammunition and that they have drink in their Canteens and a Morcel for their Pockets . . . the General flatters himself that should there be an Opportunity he will have the utmost exertions of every Officer and Soldier not only to maintain, but to add new Lustre to the Fame of the Massachusetts Militia.

Chapter Six

The daylight was fading. The western sky glowed red and its light was reflected in lurid, shifting ripples across the bay. The rebel ships had been firing at the three British sloops, but, just as on the previous day, none had tried to pierce Mowat’s line and so enter the harbor. They fired from a distance, aiming at the lingering cloud of red-touched, mast-pierced powder-smoke that shrouded the king’s ships.

A cheer sounded from the rebel ships when they saw the flag taken down on Cross Island. Every man knew what that meant. The British had lost the battery to the south of the harbor entrance and the Americans could now