The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War

“Freeman, sir, Malachi Freeman.”

“Fetch him a blanket,” Mowat ordered, “and some tea. Put a tot of rum in the tea. Where are you from, Freeman?”

“Nantucket, sir.”

“A fine place,” Mowat said. “So what brought you here?”

“I was pressed, sir. Pressed in Boston.”

“Onto what vessel?”

“The Warren, sir.”

Freeman was a young man, scarce twenty years old Mowat judged, and he had swum from the Warren in the night’s dark. He had reached the beach beneath Dyce’s Head where he had shivered and waited for the guard boats to retreat in the dawn. Then he had swum for the sloops.

“What are you, Freeman?” Mowat asked. He saw how Freeman’s hands were stained black from continually climbing tarred rigging. “A topman?”

“Aye aye, sir, four years now.”

“His Majesty always appreciates a good topman,” Mowat said, “and are you willing to serve His Majesty?”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“We’ll swear you in.” Mowat said, then waited as a blanket was draped about the deserter’s shoulders and a can of hot rum-laced tea thrust into his hands. “Drink that first.”

“They’re coming for you, sir,” Freeman said, his teeth chattering.

“Coming for me?”

“The commodore is, sir. He’s coming today, sir. They told us last night. And he’s making bulwarks on the Warren’s bow, sir.”

“Bulwarks?”

“They’re strengtherning the bows, sir, and putting three layers of logs across the fo’c’sle, sir, to protect the marines.”

Mowat looked at the shivering man. He played with the idea that the rebels had sent Freeman with deliberately misleading information, but that made little sense. If Saltonstall wished to mislead Mowat he would surely pretend he was withdrawing, not attacking. So the rebels were coming at last? Mowat gazed westwards to where he could just see the anchored warships beyond Dyce’s Head. “How many ships will come?” he asked.

“Don’t know, sir.”

“I don’t suppose you do,” Mowat said. He walked to the main shrouds and propped a glass on one of the ratlines. Sure enough he could see men working on the bows of the Warren. They appeared to be roving new lines to the bowsprit, while others were hauling logs up from a longboat. So, at long last, they were coming? “It won’t be till the afternoon flood,” he said to his first lieutenant.

“That gives us most of the day to get ready, sir.”

“Aye, it does.” Mowt collapsed the glass and looked up at the sky. “The glass?” he asked.

“Still falling, sir.”

“So there’s dirty weather coming as well, then,” Mowat said. The sky was pellucid now, but he reckoned there would be clouds, fog, and rain before nightfall by when, he knew, he would either be dead or captured. He was under no illusions. His small flotilla could do grievous damage to the American ships, but he could not defeat them. Once the Warren turned her broadside onto the sloops she could pound them with guns that were twice as heavy as the British cannon, and defeat was inevitable. The Warren would be hurt, but the Albany would die. That was unavoidable, so the most Mowat could hope for was to hurt the Warren badly, then get his men safe on land where they could help McLean defend the fort. “All marines are to be brought back aboard,” he told his first lieutenant, “and all guns double-shotted. Sand the decks. Tell the surgeon to sharpen his damn knives. We’ll go down snarling, but by God, they’ll know they’ve been fighting against the Royal Navy.”

Then he sent a message to McLean.

The rebels are coming.

Peleg Wadsworth asked for volunteers. The militia, in truth, had been disappointing and, except for the first day ashore when they had climbed the bluff to throw back the strong enemy picquet, they had not fought with spirit. But that did not mean there were no brave men among them, and Wadsworth only wanted the brave. He walked around the woods and talked to groups of men, he spoke to the picquets manning the earthworks that edged the woods, and he told all of them what he planned. “We’re going along the harbor shore,” he said, “and once we’re behind the enemy, between him and his ships, we shall make an assault. We won’t be alone. The commodore will enter the harbor and fight the enemy, and his ships will bombard the fort while we attack. I need men willing to make that attack, men willing to climb the hill with me and storm the enemy ramparts. I need brave men.”

Four hundred and forty-four men volunteered. They assembled among the trees at the top of Dyce’s Head where Lieutenant Downs and fifty marines waited, and where Wadsworth divided the militia volunteers into four companies. The Indian braves formed their own small company. It was early afternoon. The day had dawned so bright, but now the sky clouded and a late fog drifted up the sea-reach.

“The fog will help hide us,” Wadsworth remarked.

“So God is an American,” Lieutenant Downs said, making Wadsworth smile, then the marine lieutenant looked past Wadsworth. “General Lovell coming, sir,” he said softly.

Wadsworth turned to see Solomon Lovell and Major Todd approaching. Was this bad news? Had Commodore Saltonstall changed his mind? “Sir,” he greeted the general cautiously.

Lovell looked pale and drawn. “I have decided,” he said slowly, “that I should go with you.”

Wadsworth hesitated. He had thought to lead this attack and that Lovell would make a separate advance with the remaining men along the ridge’s spine, but something in Lovell’s face told him to accept the older man’s decision. Lovell wanted to be in this assault because he needed to prove to himself he had done all that he could. Or perhaps, Wadsworth thought less generously, Lovell had an eye to posterity and knew that fame would attend the man who led the successful assault on Fort George. “Of course, sir,” he said.

Lovell looked heartbroken. “I just ordered the big guns off the heights,” he said, gesturing north towards the woods where Revere’s cannon had been emplaced.

“You ordered’” Wadsworth began in puzzlement.

“There’s no ammunition,” Lovell interrupted him bleakly.

Wadsworth was about to point out that more ammunition could be supplied, if not from Boston then perhaps from the Warren’s magazine, then he understood why Lovell had given the apparently defeatist order to remove the guns. It was because the general at last understood that this was the rebels’ final chance. If this attack failed then nothing else would work, at least not till American reinforcements arrived, and until that day, there would be no more need of heavy guns. “Colonel McCobb and Colonel Mitchell will lead the attack along the ridge,” Lovell went on. Neither Lovell nor Wadsworth expected much from the second attack, which would be made by the men who had not volunteered, yet their visible presence on the ridge must keep some British defenders on the western side of their fort, and that was why the second attack was planned.

“We’re honored you’re here, sir,” Wadsworth said generously.

“I won’t interfere with your deployments,” Lovell promised.

Wadsworth smiled. “We’re all at God’s mercy now, sir.”

And if God was merciful the rebels would go down the long hill in full sight of the fort and under the fire of its cannons. They would pass the smoking remnants of the burned houses and barns, then make their way through cornfields and orchards, and through the small yards where vegetables grew. Once sheltered by the village they would make for a group of houses that lay between the fort and the British ships, and there Wadsworth would wait until the commodore’s attack diverted the fort’s defenders and filled the harbor with noise, smoke, and flame.

With the marines and Indians added to his force Wadsworth now led five hundred men. The best men. Was it enough? McLean had at least seven hundred in the fort, but the troops led by Colonel McCobb and Colonel Mitchell would keep some of those defenders facing west, and once the British ships were taken or sunk the rest of the American marines would come ashore. The numbers would be about equal, Wadsworth thought, then decided that he could not win this battle by an exercise of mental arithmetic. He could plan his moves as far as the harbor’s