The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War

pestilential, humid hell on earth. “We should just give it to the bloody rebels,” he snarled, “let the bastards stew here.”

“Please stay still, Sir George,” the doctor said.

“Oh Christ in his britches, man, get on with it! I thought Lisbon was hell on earth and it’s a goddamn paradise compared to this filthy bloody town.”

“Allow me to draw your thigh?” the doctor said.

“It’s even worse than Bristol,” Sir George growled.

Admiral Sir George Collier was a small, irascible and unpleasant man who commanded the British fleet on the American coast. He was sick, which is why he was ashore in New York, and the doctor was attempting to allay the fever by drawing blood. He was using one of the newest and finest pieces of medical equipment from London, a scarifier, which he now cocked so that the twenty-four ground-steel blades disappeared smoothly into their gleaming housing. “Are you ready, Sir George?”

“Don’t blather, man. Just do it.”

“There will be a slight sensation of discomfort, Sir George,” the doctor said, concealing his pleasure at that thought, then placed the metal box against the patient’s scrawny thigh and pulled the trigger. The spring-loaded blades leaped out of their slits to pierce Sir George’s skin and start a flow of blood which the doctor staunched with a piece of Turkey cloth. “I would wish to see more blood, Sir George,” the doctor said.

“Don’t be a bloody fool, man. You’ve drained me dry.”

“You should wrap yourself in flannel, Sir George.”

“In this damned heat?” Sir George’s foxlike face was glistening with sweat. Winter in New York was brutally cold, the summer was a steamy hell, and in between it was merely unbearable. On the wall of his quarters, next to an etching of his home in England, was a framed poster advertising that London’s Drury Lane Theatre was presenting “Selima and Azor, a Musical Delectation in Five Acts written by Sir George Collier.” London, he thought, now that was a city! Decent theater, well-dressed whores, fine clubs, and no damned humidity. A theater owner in New York had thought to please Sir George by offering to present Selima and Azor on his stage, but Sir George had forbidden it. To hear his songs murdered by caterwauling Americans? The very thought was disgusting.

“Come!” he shouted in response to a knock on the door. A naval lieutenant entered the room. The newcomer shuddered at the blood smearing Sir George’s bare thigh, then averted his eyes and stood respectfully just inside the door. “Well, Forester?” Sir George snarled.

“I regret to inform you, sir, that the Iris won’t be ready for sea,” Lieutenant Forester said.

“Her copper?”

“Indeed, sir,” Forester said, relieved that his bad news had not been greeted by anger.

“Pity,” Sir George grunted. HMS Iris was a fine 32-gun frigate that Sir George had captured two years previously. Back then she had been called the Hancock, an American ship, but though the Royal Navy usually kept the names of captured warships Sir George would be damned and condemned to eternal hell in New York before he allowed a British naval ship to bear the name of some filthy rebel traitor, and so the Hancock had been renamed for a splendid London actress. “Legs as long as a spritsail yard,” Sir George said wistfully.

“Sir?” Lieutenant Forester asked.

“Mind your own damned business.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Copper, you say?”

“At least two weeks’ work, sir.”

Sir George grunted. “Blonde?”

“Ready, sir.”

“Virginia?”

“Fully manned and seaworthy, sir.”

“Write them both orders,” Sir George said. The Blonde and Virginia were also 32-gun frigates and the Blonde, usefully, had just returned from the Penobscot River, which meant Captain Barkley knew the waters. “Grayhound? Camille? Galatea?”

“The Grayhound is provisioning, Sir George. The Galatea and Camille both need crewmen.”

“I want all three ready to sail in two days. Send out the press gangs.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The Grayhound carried twenty-eight guns, while the Camille and Galatea were smaller frigates with just twenty guns apiece.

“The Otter,” Sir George said, “to carry despatches.” The Otter was a 14-gun brig.

“Aye aye, sir.”

Sir George watched the doctor bandage his thigh. “And the Raisonable,” he said, smiling wolfishly.

“The Raisonable, Sir George?” Forester asked in astonishment.

“You heard me! Tell Captain Evans she’s to be ready for sea in two days. And tell him he’ll be flying my flag.”

The Raisonable was a captured French ship, and she was also a proper warship fit to stand in the line of battle. She carried sixty-four guns, the heaviest of them thirty-two pounders, and the rebels had nothing afloat that could match the Raisonable even though she was one of the smallest ships of the line in the Royal Navy.

“You’re going to sea, Sir George?” the doctor asked nervously.

“I’m going to sea.”

“But your health!”

“Oh, stop twittering, you imbecile. How can it be bad for me? Even the Dead Sea’s healthier than New York.”

Sir George was going to sea, and he was taking seven ships led by a vast, slab-sided battleship that could blow any rebel warship clean out of the water with a single broadside.

And the fleet would sail east. To the Penobscot River and Penobscot Bay and Majabigwaduce.

Excerpts from Brigadier-General Solomon Lovell’s orders to his troops, Penobscot, July 30th, 1779:The General is much alarm’d at the loose and disorderly inattentive Behaviour of the Camp. . . . As the Success of Arms under God depends principally on good Subordination the General expects that every Officer and Soldier who has the least Spark of honor left will endeavor to have his Orders put in Execution and that Colonel Revere and the Corps under his Command incamp with the Army in future on Shore, in order not only to strengthen the Lines but to manage the Cannon.

Excerpts from a letter sent by General George Washington to the Council of Massachusetts. August 3rd, 1779:Head Quarters, West Point.I have Just received a Letter from Lord Stirling stationed in the Jerseys dated yesterday . . . by which it appears the Ships of War at New York have all put to sea since. I thought it my duty to communicate this Intelligence that the Vessells employed in this expedition to Penobscot may be put upon their Guard, as it is probable enough that these Ships may be destined against them and if they should be surprised the consequences would be desagreeable. I have the honor to be with very great respect and esteem, Gentlemen Your Most Obedient ServantGeorge Washington

From the deposition of John Lymburner to Justice of the Peace Joseph Hibbert, 12th May 1788:[I was] taken prisoner by the Americans at the Siege of Penobscot, and was in close confinement . . . we were treated very severely for adhering to the British troops, called Tories and Refugees, was threatened to be hanged