Part 27 (2/2)

”He has indeed, an hour and a half since.”

”We should have sent a four-pounder with him,” Revere said. His barge grounded on the s.h.i.+ngle and he stepped forward over the rowers' benches.

”Too late now, I'm afraid,” Wadsworth said and extended a hand to steady Revere as he climbed over the barge's bows. Revere ignored the gesture. ”Are you ash.o.r.e for a while now?” Wadsworth asked.

”Of course,” Revere said, ”I have work here.”

”Then would you be good enough to allow me the use of your boat? I need to visit Cross Island.”

Revere bridled at the request. ”This barge is for the artillery!” he said indignantly, ”it can't be spared for other people.”

Wadsworth could scarce believe what he heard. ”You won't lend its use for an hour or so?”

”Not for one minute,” Revere said curtly. ”Good day to you.”

Wadsworth watched the colonel walk away. ”If this war goes on another twenty years,” he said, his bitterness at last expressing itself, ”I will not serve another day with that man!”

”My crew will be back soon,” Captain Carnes said. He was smiling, having overheard Wadsworth's remark. ”You can use my boat. Where are we going?”

”The channel south of Cross Island.”

Carnes's marines rowed Wadsworth and the captain south into the channel behind Cross Island. That island was one of a necklace of rocks and islets which bounded a cove to the south of Majabigwaduce Harbor. A narrow isthmus separated the cove from the harbor itself and Wadsworth went ash.o.r.e on its strip of stony beach where he unfolded the crude map James Fletcher had drawn for him. He pointed across the placid waters of Majabigwaduce's inner harbor towards the thickly wooded eastern sh.o.r.e. ”A man called Haney farms land over there,” he told Carnes, ”and General Lovell wants a battery there.”

A battery on Haney's land would hammer the British s.h.i.+ps from the east. Wadsworth climbed one of the steep, overgrown hillocks that studded the isthmus and, once at the summit, used Captain Carnes's powerful telescope to gaze at the enemy. At first he examined the four British s.h.i.+ps. The closest vessel was the transport Saint Helena Saint Helena, which dwarfed the smaller sloops, yet those three smaller s.h.i.+ps were far more heavily armed. Their east-facing gunports were closed, but Wadsworth reckoned there were no guns hidden behind those blank wooden squares. The rebels had seen British sailors taking cannon ash.o.r.e, and the verdict had been that Captain Mowat had offered his s.h.i.+ps' portside broadsides to the fort's defense. If Wadsworth needed any confirmation of that suspicion he gained it from seeing that the sloops were very slightly keeled over to starboard. He gave the telescope to Carnes and asked him to examine the s.h.i.+ps. ”You're right, sir,” the marine said, ”they are listing.”

”Guns on one side only?”

”That would explain the list.”

So any guns on Haney's land would have no opposition, at least until Mowat managed to s.h.i.+ft some cannon from his west-facing broadsides. Place guns on Haney's land and the rebels would be just a thousand yards from the sloops, a range at which the eighteen-pounders would be lethal. ”But how do we get men and guns there?” Wadsworth wondered aloud.

”Same way we came, sir,” Carnes said. ”We carry the boats across this strip of land and relaunch them.”

Wadsworth felt a dull anger at the sheer waste of effort. It would take a hundred men two days to make a battery on Haney's land, and what then? Even if the British s.h.i.+ps were sunk or taken, would it make it any easier to capture the fort? True, the American s.h.i.+ps could sail safe into the harbor and their guns could fire up at the fort, but what damage could their broadsides do to a wall so high above them?

Wadsworth trained the telescope on Fort George. At first he misaimed the tubes and was amazed that the fort looked so small, then he took his eye from the gla.s.s and saw that a new fort was being constructed and it was that second work he was seeing. The new fort, much smaller than Fort George, lay on the ridge to the east of the larger work. He trained the telescope again and saw blue-coated naval officers while the men digging the soil were not in any kind of uniform. ”Sailors,” he said aloud.

”Sailors?”

”They're making a new redoubt. Why?”

”They're making a refuge,” Carnes said.

”A refuge?”

”If their s.h.i.+ps are defeated the crews will go ash.o.r.e. That's where they'll go.”

”Why not go to the main fort?”

”Because McLean wants an outwork,” Carnes said. ”Look at the fort, sir.”

Wadsworth edged the telescope westwards. Trees and houses skidded past the lens, then he steadied the gla.s.s to examine Fort George. ”Bless me,” he said.

He was gazing at the fort's eastern wall which was hidden to anyone on the high ground to the west. And that eastern curtain wall was unfinished. It was still low. Wadworth could see no cannon there, only a shallow ridge of earth that he supposed was fronted by a ditch, but the important thing, the thing that made his hopes rise and his heart beat faster, was that the wall was still low enough to be easily scaled. He lowered the gla.s.s's aim, examining the village with its cornfields, thickets, barns, and orchards. If he could reach that low ground then he reckoned he could conceal his men from both the s.h.i.+ps and the fort. They could a.s.semble out of sight, then attack that low wall. The impudent flag above the fort might yet be pulled down.

”McLean knows he's vulnerable from the east,” Carnes said, ”and that new redoubt protects him. He'll put cannon there.”

”Or he will when it's finished,” Wadsworth said, and it was clear the new redoubt was far from completion. We should attack from the east, he thought, because that was where the British were weak.

Wadsworth aimed the telescope towards Dyce's Head, but the British s.h.i.+ps 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s. ”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 s.h.i.+ps?”

”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 s.h.i.+ps must be defeated,” Wadsworth explained, ”and the only way we can do that is by sinking them with gunfire.”

”Or by taking our s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps? I think in the end he'll go in.” He swung the gla.s.s to examine the sloops. ”That sh.o.r.eward 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 s.h.i.+ps.”

”The s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 anch.o.r.ed wars.h.i.+ps 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 sh.o.r.e. ”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 gla.s.s and turned westwards. ”If the rascals dare to build a battery on the harbor sh.o.r.e 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.

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