The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War

“We could have a late luncheon, I suppose? I’m told there’s oxtail soup.”

Moore gazed down from the fort’s southeastern bastion. The rebels, at least four hundred of them, were hidden somewhere close to the Fletcher house. “We could send two companies to rout them, sir,” the lieutenant suggested.

“They have a company of marines,” McLean said, “you saw that.”

“Then four companies, sir.”

“Which is exactly what they want us to do,” McLean said. Rainwater dripped from the peaks of his cocked hat. “They want us to weaken the garrison.”

“Because then they’ll attack from the heights?”

“I must assume so,” McLean said. “I do like an oxtail soup, especially seasoned with a little sherry wine.” McLean went cautiously down the short flight of steps from the bastion, helping himself with the blackthorn stick. “You’ll serve with Captain Caffrae,” he told Moore, “but do remember your other duty if the rebels should break through.”

“To destroy the oaths, sir?”

“Exactly that,” McLean said, “but I assure you they won’t break through.”

“No?” Moore asked with a smile.

“Our enemies have made a mistake,” McLean said, “and divided their force, and I dare believe that neither of their contingents has the strength to break through our defense.” He shook his head. “I do like it when the enemy does my work. They’re not soldiers, John, they’re not soldiers, but that doesn’t mean the fight will be easy. They have a cause, and they’re ready to die for it. We’ll win, but it will be hard work.”

The brigadier knew that the crisis had come and was just grateful that it had taken so long to arrive. Captain Mowat’s message had said that the rebel ships were at last determined to enter the harbor, and McLean now knew that the naval assault would be accompanied by a land attack. He expected the main body of the rebels to come from the heights, and so he had posted the majority of his men on the western side of the fort, while three companies of the 82nd were placed to defend against the attack by the men who had worked their way along the shore to conceal themselves in the low ground. Those three companies were reinforced by naval cannon already loaded with grapeshot that could turn the ditch beyond the low eastern wall into a trench slopping with blood. And it would be bloody. In another hour or two McLean knew that Majabigwaduce would be besieged by noise, by the smoke of cannon and by the spite of musket-fire. Mowat’s sloops would put up a stalwart defense, but they would surely be destroyed or taken, and that was sad, yet their loss would not mean defeat. The important thing was to hold the fort and that McLean was determined to do, and so, though his officers yearned to make a sally and attack the concealed rebels, he would keep his redcoats inside Fort George’s walls and let the rebels come to die on his guns and bayonets.

Because that was why he had built Fort George, to kill the king’s enemies, and now those enemies were obliging him. And so he waited.

It began to rain harder, a steady rain, pelting down almost vertically because the wind was so light. The fog moved in bands, thick sometimes, then thinning, and at times whole swathes of the river were clear of the fog to reveal a sullen gray water being dimpled by rain. The rainwater dripped from yards and rigging to darken the warships’ decks.

“You trust the army, Mister Burke?” Saltonstall asked.

“They’re in position, Commodore, and ready to go. Yes, sir, I trust them.”

“Then I suppose we must indulge them.”

Five rebel ships would sail into Majabigwaduce Harbor. The General Putnam would lead the attack, closely followed by the Warren and the New Hampshire ship, Hampden. The Charming Sally and the Black Prince would come behind those three leading vessels.

It had been Saltonstall’s idea to send the General Putnam first. She was a large, well-built ship that carried a score of nine-pounder cannons, and her orders were to sail directly at Mowat’s line and then turn upwind to anchor opposite the southernmost sloop, the Nautilus. Once anchored, the General Putnam would hammer the Nautilus with her broadside while the Warren, with her much larger guns, came into line opposite the British flagship, the Albany. The Hampden, with her mix of nine-pounder and six-pounder cannon, would then take on the North while the two remaining ships would use their broadsides to pound the fort.

“He wants us dead,” Thomas Reardon, first lieutenant of the General Putnam, commented.

“But it makes sense to send us in first,” Daniel Waters, the skipper, said bleakly.

“To kill us?”

“The Warren’s our most powerful ship. No point in having her half-beaten to death before she opens fire.”

“So we’re to be half-beaten to death instead?”

“Yes,” Waters said, “because that’s our duty. Hands to the capstan.”

“He’s saving his skin, that’s the only sense it makes.”

“That’s enough! Capstan!”

Capstans creaked as the anchors were hauled. The topgallantsails were released first, showering water onto the decks, which had been scattered with sand to give the gunners firm footing on planks that would become slippery with blood. The guns were double-shotted. The three leading vessels all carried marines whose muskets would harry the enemy gunners.

The crews of the other ships cheered as the five attacking vessels got under way. Commodore Saltonstall watched approvingly as his flying jib was raised and backed to turn the Warren away from the wind, then as the jib and foretopmast staysail were hoisted and sheeted hard home. The topgallants caught the small wind, and Lieutenant Fenwick ordered the other topsails released. Men slid down rigging, ran along yards, and fought with rain-tightened bindings to loose the big sails that scattered more gallons of rainwater that had been trapped within the canvas folds. “Sheet them hard!” Fenwick called.

And the Warren was moving. She even heeled slightly to the fitful wind. At her stern the snake ensign flew from the mizzen gaff, while the Stars and Stripes were unfurled at her maintop, the proud colors bright in the drab rain and drifts of fog. Israel Trask, the boy fifer, played on the frigate’s forecastle. He began with the “Rogue’s March” because it was a jaunty tune, a melody to make men dance or fight. The gunners had scarves tied about their ears to dull the sound of the cannon and most, even though it was a chill day, were stripped to the waist. If they were wounded they did not want a musket-ball or timber splinter to drive cloth into the flesh, for every man knew that invited gangrene. The cannon were black in the rain. Saltonstall liked a spick- and-span ship, but he had nevertheless permitted the gunners to chalk the guns’ barrels. “Death to Kings,” one said, “Liberty forever” was written on another, while a third, somewhat mysteriously, just said “Damn the Pope,” a sentiment which seemed irrelevant to the day’s business, but which so accorded with the commodore’s own prejudices that he had allowed the slogan to stay.

“A point to starboard,” Saltonstall said to the helmsman.

“Aye aye, sir, point to starboard it is,” the helmsman said, and made no correction. He knew what he was doing, and he knew too that the commodore was nervous, and nervous officers were prone to give unnecessary orders. The helmsman would keep the Warren behind the General Putnam, close behind, so close that the frigate’s jib-boom almost touched the smaller ship’s ensign. The harbor entrance was now a quarter mile away. Men were waving from the top of Dyce’s Head. Other men watched from Cross Island where the American flag flew. No guns fired. A rift of fog drifted across the harbor center, half-shrouding the British ships. The fort was not visible yet. There was a whisper of wind, just enough so that the ships picked up speed and the sea at the Warren’s cutwater made a small splashing noise. Two knots, maybe two and a half, Saltonstall thought, and one nautical mile to go before the wheel spun to lay the frigate’s broadside opposite the Albany. The forecastle of the Warren looked ugly because the marines had erected barricades of logs to protect themselves against the enemy’s fire. And that fire would begin as soon as the frigate passed Dyce’s Head, but most of it would be aimed at the General Putnam and for half a nautical mile the