Part 30 (1/2)
Beth bit her lower lip, then turned defiantly back to the red-coated lieutenant. ”I wanted James to join the rebels,” she said, ”I encouraged him! I carried news of your guns and men to Captain Brewer! I betrayed you! Do you think the general would offer me a gift if he knew I'd done all that? Do you?”
”Yes,” Moore said.
That answer startled her. She seemed to crumple and crossed to the log pile where she sat and absentmindedly stroked the cat. ”I didn't know what to think when you all came here,” she said. ”It was exciting at first.” She paused, thinking. ”It was new and different, but then there were just too many uniforms here. This is our home, not yours. You took our home away from us.” She looked at him for the first time since she had sat down. ”You took our home away from us,” she said again.
”I'm sorry,” Moore said, not knowing what else to say.
She nodded.
”Take the gift,” Moore said, ”please.”
”Why?”
”Because the general is a decent man, Miss Fletcher. Because he offers it as a token of friends.h.i.+p. Because he wants you to know that you can depend on his protection whatever your opinion. Because I don't want to carry the basket back to the fort.” Beth smiled at that last reason and Moore stood, waiting. He could have added that the gift had been given because McLean was as vulnerable as any other man to a fair-haired girl with an enchanting smile, but instead he just shrugged. ”Because,” he finished.
”Because?”
”Please accept it,” Moore said.
Beth nodded again, then wiped her eyes with a corner of the ap.r.o.n. ”Thank the general from me.”
”I will.”
She stood and crossed to the door where she turned. ”Goodbye, Lieutenant,” she said, then picked up the basket and was gone inside.
”Goodbye, Miss Fletcher,” Moore said to the closed door.
He walked slowly back to the fort and felt defeated.
The three s.h.i.+ps dipped to the wind, they swooped on the long waves, the seas broke white at their cut.w.a.ters, their sails were taut and the wind was brisk at their sterns. Away to port was Cape Anne where the breakers fretted at the rocks. ”We must stay insh.o.r.e,” Captain Abraham Burroughs told Colonel Henry Jackson.
”Why?”
”Because the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are out there somewhere,” the captain said, nodding to starboard where the fog bank had retreated southeastwards to lie like a long dun cloud over the endless ocean. ”We run into a British frigate, Colonel, and you can say goodbye to your regiment. If I see a frigate out there I run for port.” He waved a hand at the other two s.h.i.+ps. ”We ain't men-of-war, we're three transports.”
But the three transport s.h.i.+ps carried Henry Jackson's regiment, as fine a regiment as any in the world, and it was on its way to Majabigwaduce.
And in the distant fog, out to sea, in a place where there were no marks, a fis.h.i.+ng boat from Cape Cod watched other s.h.i.+ps loom from the whiteness. The fishermen feared the big vessels would capture them, or at least steal their catch, but not one of the British s.h.i.+ps bothered with the small gaff-rigged fis.h.i.+ng boat. One by one the great s.h.i.+ps slid past, the bright paint on their figureheads and the gilding on their sterns dulled by the fog. They all flew blue ensigns.
The vast Raisonable Raisonable led, followed by five frigates; the led, followed by five frigates; the Virginia Virginia, the Blonde Blonde, the Grayhound Grayhound, the Galatea, Galatea, and the and the Camille Camille. The last of the relief fleet, the diminutive Otter Otter, had lost touch and was somewhere to the south and east, but her absence scarcely diminished the raw power of Sir George Collier's wars.h.i.+ps. The fishermen watched in silence as the blunt-bowed battles.h.i.+p and her five frigates ghosted past. They could smell the stench of the fleet and the stink of hundreds of men crammed into the cannon-freighted hulls. One hundred and ninety-six cannon, some of them s.h.i.+p-slaughtering thirty-two-pounders, were on their way to Majabigwaduce.
”Sons of G.o.dd.a.m.ned b.a.s.t.a.r.d b.i.t.c.hes,” the fis.h.i.+ng boat's captain spat when the Camille Camille's gilded stern gallery had been swallowed by the fog.
And the ocean was empty again.
The rebels had been in Pen.o.bscot Bay for nineteen days, and in possession of the high ground for sixteen of those days. There had been more than twenty councils of war, some just for the naval captains, some for the senior army officers, and a few for both. Votes had been taken, motions had been pa.s.sed, and still the enemy was neither captivated nor killed.
The resurrection and return of the commodore had dampened Lovell's spirits. Of late he and Saltonstall had only communicated by letter, but Lovell thought it inc.u.mbent on him to visit the Warren Warren and congratulate Saltonstall on his survival, though the commodore, whose long face was blotched red with mosquito bites, did not appear grateful for the general's concern. ”It is a providence of G.o.d that you were spared capture or worse,” Lovell said awkwardly. and congratulate Saltonstall on his survival, though the commodore, whose long face was blotched red with mosquito bites, did not appear grateful for the general's concern. ”It is a providence of G.o.d that you were spared capture or worse,” Lovell said awkwardly.
Saltonstall grunted.
Lovell nervously broached the subject of entering the harbor. ”Captain Hacker was hopeful'” he began.
”I am aware of Hacker's sentiments,” Saltonstall interrupted.
”He thought the maneuver feasible,” Lovell said.
”He may think what he d.a.m.n well likes,” Saltonstall saidhotly, ”but I'm not taking my s.h.i.+ps into that d.a.m.ned hole.”
”And unless the s.h.i.+ps are taken,” Lovell forged on anyway, ”I do not think the fort can be attacked with any hope of success.”
”You may depend upon one thing, General,” Saltonstall said, ”which is that my s.h.i.+ps cannot be risked in the harbor while the fort remains in enemy hands.”
The two men stared at each other. The guns were at work again, though the rebel rate of fire was much slower now because of the shortage of ammunition. There was powder smoke at Cross Island, and on the heights of Majabigwaduce and across the inlet north of the peninsula. Even more smoke rose from the low ground close to the Half Moon Battery. Lovell, angered that Banks's house and barn had provided cover for the Scottish troops that had driven his men away so ignominiously, had ordered that the buildings should be burned as a punishment. ”And the Dutchman's house too,” he had insisted, and so forty men had gone downhill at first light and set fire to the houses and barns. They had not lingered on the low ground, fearing a counterattack by McLean's men, but had just set the fires and retreated again.
”I shall present the circ.u.mstances to my officers,” Lovell now said stiffly, ”and we shall discuss the feasibility of an attack on the fort. You may depend upon it that I shall convey their decision to you promptly.”
Saltonstall nodded. ”My compliments, General.”
That afternoon Lovell went to the Hazard Hazard, one of the s.h.i.+ps belonging to the Ma.s.sachusetts Navy and from where he summoned his brigade majors, the commanders of the militia, Colonel Revere, and General Wadsworth. The council of war would be held in the comfort of the brig's stern cabin where gawking soldiers could not linger nearby to overhear the discussions. Captain John Williams, the Hazard Hazard's commanding officer, had been invited to attend as a courtesy and Lovell asked him to explain the navy's reluctance to enter the harbor. ”Not everyone's reluctant,” Williams said, thinking of his own first lieutenant, George Little, who was ready to mutiny if that meant he could sail the diminutive brig into Majabigwaduce's harbor and take on the British. ”But the commodore is being prudent.”
”In what way?” Wadsworth asked.
”You can get a s.h.i.+p in easy enough,” Williams said, ”but it would be a devilish business to get her out again.”
”The object,” Wadsworth pointed out quietly, ”is to stay in the harbor. To occupy it.”
”Which means you have to destroy those guns in the fort,” Williams said, ”and there's another thing. The fleet is running short of men.”
”We impressed men in Boston!” Lovell complained.
”And they're deserting, sir,” Williams said. ”And the privateer captains? They're not happy. Every day they spend here is a day they can't capture prizes at sea. They're talking of leaving.”
”Why did we bring all these s.h.i.+ps?” Wadsworth asked. He had put the question to Williams, who just shrugged. ”We brought a fleet of wars.h.i.+ps and we don't use them?” Wadsworth asked more heatedly.
”You must put that question to the commodore,” Williams said evenly. There was silence, broken only by the endless clanking of the Hazard Hazard's pump. The damage the brig had taken when Lieutenant Little had sailed her so close to Mowat's sloops was still not properly repaired. The brig would need to be hauled ash.o.r.e for those timbers to be replaced, caulked, and made tight, but the pump was keeping her afloat easily enough.
”So we must capture the fort,” Peleg Wadsworth said, breaking the gloomy silence, and then overrode the chorus of voices which complained that such a feat was impossible. ”We must take men to the rear of the fort,” he explained, ”and a.s.sault from the south and east. The walls there are unfinished and the eastern rampart, so far as I can see, has no cannon.”
”Your men won't attack,” Revere said scornfully. For a week now, in every council of war, Lieutenant-Colonel Revere had urged abandonment of the siege, and now he pressed the point. ”The men won't face the enemy! We saw that yesterday. Three quarters of the small-arms cartridges have gone and half the men are hiding in the woods!”
”So you'd run away?” Wadsworth asked.
”No one accuses me of running away!”
”Then, d.a.m.n it, stay and fight!” Wadsworth's anger at last exploded and his use of a swear word alone was sufficient to silence the whole cabin. ”G.o.dd.a.m.n it!” he shouted the words and hammered Captain Williams's table so hard that a pewter candlestick fell over. Men stared at him in astonishment, and Wadsworth surprised even himself by his sudden vehemence and coa.r.s.e language. He tried to calm his temper, but it was still running high. ”Why are we here?” he demanded. ”Not to build batteries or shoot at s.h.i.+ps! We're here to capture their fort!”
”But'” Lovell began.
”We demand marines of the commodore,” Wadsworth overrode his commanding officer, ”and we a.s.semble every man, and we attack! We attack!” He looked around the cabin, seeing the scepticism on too many faces. Those who favored abandonment of the expedition, led by Colonel Revere, were fervent in their view, while those still willing to prosecute the siege were at best lukewarm. ”The commodore,” Wadsworth went on, ”is unwilling to enter the harbor while the guns are there to hara.s.s his s.h.i.+pping. So we a.s.sure him that we will silence the guns. We will take men to the rear of the enemy's work and we shall attack! And the commodore will support us.”