Wadsworth aimed the telescope towards Dyce’s Head, but the British ships obstructed his view and he could see nothing of the ambush, if indeed it had been sprung. No powder smoke showed in the sky above the abandoned battery. Wadsworth edged the telescope right again to stare across the low eastern tail of Majabigwaduce’s peninsula. He was looking at the land north of the peninsula. He stared for a long time, then gave the glass back to Carnes. “Look there,” he pointed. “There’s a meadow at the waterside. You can just see a house above it. It’s the only house I can see there.”
Carnes trained the glass. “I can see it.”
“The house belongs to a man called Westcot. General Lovell wants a battery up there too, but will its guns reach the British ships?”
“Eighteen-pounder shot will,” Carnes said, “but it’s too far for anything smaller. Must be a mile and a half, so you’ll need your eighteens.”
“General Lovell insists the ships must be defeated,” Wadsworth explained, “and the only way we can do that is by sinking them with gunfire.”
“Or by taking our ships in,” Carnes said.
“Will that happen?”
Carnes smiled. “The commodore is so high above me, sir, that I never hear a word he says. But if you weaken the British ships? I think in the end he’ll go in.” He swung the glass to examine the sloops. “That shoreward sloop? She hasn’t stopped pumping her bilges from the day we arrived. She’ll sink fast enough.”
“Then we’ll build the batteries,” Wadsworth said, “and hope we can riddle them with round shot.”
“And General Lovell’s right about one thing, sir,” Carnes said. “You do need to get rid of the ships.”
“The ships will surrender if we capture the fort,” Wadsworth said.
“No doubt they will,” Carnes said, “but if a British relief fleet arrives, sir, then we want all our ships inside the harbor.”
Because then the tables would be turned and it would be the British who would have to fight their way through cannon-fire to attack the harbor, but only if the harbor belonged to the rebels, and the only way that the Americans could capture the harbor was by storming the fort.
It was all so simple, Wadsworth thought, so very simple, and yet Lovell and the commodore were making it so complicated.
Wadsworth and Carnes were rowed back to the beach beneath Majabigwaduce’s bluff. As the longboat threaded the anchored warships Wadsworth stared south towards the sea-reach, south to where the reinforcements, either British or American, would arrive.
And the river was empty.
“I do believe,” McLean was staring south through a telescope, “that is my friend, Brigadier Wadsworth.” He was gazing at two men, one in a green coat, who were on the harbor’s southern shore. “I doubt they’re taking the air. You think they’re contemplating new batteries?”
“It would be sensible of them, sir,” Lieutenant Moore answered.
“I’m sure Mowat’s seen them, but I’ll let him know.” McLean lowered the glass and turned westwards. “If the rascals dare to build a battery on the harbor shore we’ll lead them a merry dance. And what steps are those rogues doing?” He pointed down towards the abandoned Half Moon Battery where a score of rebels appeared to be digging a ditch. It was difficult to see, because Jacob Dyce’s house, barn, and cornfield were partly in the way.
“May I, sir?” Moore asked, holding a hand for the telescope.
“Of course. Your eyes are younger than mine.”
Moore stared at the men. “They’re not working particularly hard, sir,” he said, after watching for a while. Six men were digging, the others were lounging amidst the wreckage of the battery.
“So what are they doing?”
“Making the battery defensible, sir?”
“And if they wanted to do that,” McLean asked, “why not send a hundred men? Two hundred! Three! Throw up a wall fast. Why send so few men?”
Moore did not reply because he did not know the answer. McLean took the glass back and used the lieutenant’s shoulder as a rest. He took a swift look at the lackadaisical work-party, then raised the telescope to stare at the trees on Dyce’s Head. “Ah,” he said after a while.
“Ah, sir?”
“There are a score of men on the high ground. They’re not usually there. They’re watching and waiting.” He collapsed the telescope’s tubes. “I do believe, Lieutenant, that our enemy has prepared a trap for us.”
Moore smiled. “Really, sir?”
“What are those fellows watching? They can’t be there to watch a ditch being dug!” McLean frowned as he gazed westwards. A rebel cannon-ball flew overhead. The sound of the guns was now so normal that he scarcely noticed it, though he took careful note of the effect of the rebel gunfire, most of which was wasted and it amused McLean that Captain Fielding was so offended by that. As an artilleryman the English captain expected better of the enemy gunners, though McLean was delighted that the rebel cannoneers were being so wasteful. If they had spent an extra minute laying each gun they could have demolished most of Fort George’s western wall by now, but they seemed content to fire blind. So what were those men doing on Dyce’s Head? They were plainly staring towards the fort, but to see what? And why were there so few men at the Half Moon Battery? “They’re there to draw us out,” McLean decided.
“The ditch-diggers?”
“They want us to attack them,” McLean said, “and why would they want that?”
“Because they have more men there?”
McLean nodded. He reckoned half of warfare was reading the enemy’s mind, a skill that was now ingrained in the Scotsman. He had fought in Flanders and in Portugal, he had spent a lifetime watching his enemies and learning to translate their every small movement, and to translate what he saw in the knowledge that very often those movements were calculated to deceive. At first, when the rebels had arrived, McLean had been puzzled by these enemies. They had so nearly captured the fort, then they had decided on a siege instead of a storm, and he had worried about what cleverness that tactic concealed, but now he was almost certain that there was no cleverness at all. His enemy was simply cautious, and the best way to keep him cautious was to hurt him. “We’re being invited to dance to a rebel tune, Lieutenant.”
“And we decline the honor, sir?”
“Oh good Lord, no, no! Not at all!” McLean said, enjoying himself. “Somewhere down there is a much larger body of the enemy. I think we must take the floor with them!”
“If we do, sir, then might’”
“You want to dance?” McLean interrupted Moore. “Of course, Lieutenant.” It was time to let Moore off the leash, the general decided. The young man still blamed himself, and rightly, for his brave stupidity on the day when the rebels had captured the high ground, but it was time Moore was offered redemption for that mistake. “You’ll go with Captain Caffrae,” McLean said, “and you shall dance.”
Commodore Saltonstall declared he would be responsible for constructing the battery on Haney’s land if General Lovell was prepared to send a pair of eighteen-pounder cannons to the new work. Saltonstall did not communicate directly with Lovell, but sent Hoysteed Hacker, captain of the Continental sloop
He discovered the perfect place for a battery, a low headland that pointed like a finger directly at the British ships and with space enough for two guns to pound the enemy sloops. “Dig here,” he ordered. He would raise a rampart round the headland. Eventually, he knew, Mowat would haul guns across the sloops’ decks to return the fire, so the rampart needed to be high and stout enough to protect the gunners.
Mowat was evidently busy because Saltonstall could see boats rowing constantly between the sloops and the shore. A new and smaller fort was being built east of Fort George and Saltonstall suspected it was there to add firepower to the harbor defenses. “We bring our ships in here,” he told his first lieutenant, “and they’ll pour shot down on us.”
