The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War Read online

  Bethany was silent for a while, then frowned. “And the oath? Will you sign it?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we have to,” he said. “I don’t know, Beth, I honestly don’t know.”

  James wrote the letter on a blank page torn from the back of the family Bible. He wrote simply, saying what he had seen in Majabigwaduce and its harbor. He told how many guns were mounted on the sloops and where the British were making earthworks, how many soldiers he believed had come to the village and how many guns had been shipped to the beach. He used the other side of the paper to make a rough map of the peninsula on which he drew the position of the fort and the place where the three sloops of war were anchored. He marked the battery on Cross Island, then turned the page over and signed the letter with his name, biting his lower lip as he formed the clumsy letters.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t put your name to it,” Bethany said.

  James sealed the folded paper with candle-wax. “The soldiers probably won’t trouble you, Beth, which is why you should carry the letter, but if they do, and if they find the letter, then I don’t want you blamed. Say you didn’t know what was in it and let me be punished.”

  “So you’re a rebel now?”

  James hesitated, then nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose I am.”

  “Good,” Bethany said.

  The sound of a flute came from a house higher up the hill. The lights still shimmered on the harbor water and dark night came to Majabigwaduce.

  Excerpts of a letter from the Selectmen of Newburyport, Massachusetts, to the General Court of Massachusetts, July 12th, 1779:

  Last Friday one James Collins an Inhabitant of Penobscot on his way home from Boston went through this Town . . . upon Examination (we) find that he has been an Enemy to the united States of America . . . and that immediately after the British Fleet arrived at Penobscot this Collins . . . took Passage from Kennebeck to Boston . . . where he arrived last Tuesday, and as we apprehend got all the Intelligence he Possibly cou’d Relative to the movements of our Fleet and Army . . . (we) are suspicious of his being a Spy and have accordingly Secured him in the Gaol in this Town.

  Order addressed to the Massachusetts Board of War, July 3rd, 1779:

  Ordered that the Board of War be and hereby are directed to procure three hundred and fifty Barrels of Flour, One hundred and sixteen Barrels of Pork, One hundred and Sixty five Barrels of Beef, Eleven Teirces of Rice, Three hundred and Fifty bushels of Pease, five hundred and fifty two Gallons of Molasses, Two Thousand, One hundred and Seventy Six pound of Soap and Seven hundred and Sixty Eight pound of Candles being a deficient Quantity . . . on board the Transports for the intended Expedition to Penobscot.

  Chapter Three

  On Sunday, 18th July 1779, Peleg Wadsworth worshipped at Christ Church on Salem Street where the rector was the Reverend Stephen Lewis who, until two years before, had been a British army chaplain. The rector had been captured with the rest of the defeated British army at Saratoga, yet in captivity he had changed his allegiance and sworn an oath of loyalty to the United States of America which meant his congregation this summer Sunday was swollen by townsfolk curious about how he would preach when his adopted country was about to launch an expedition against his former comrades. The Reverend Lewis chose his text from the Book of Daniel. He related the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the three men who had been hurled into King Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace and who, by God’s saving grace, had survived the flames. For an hour or more Wadsworth wondered how the scripture was relevant to the military preparations that obsessed Boston, and even whether some ancient lingering loyalty was making the rector ambivalent, but then the Reverend Lewis moved to his final peroration. He told how all the king’s men had assembled to watch the execution and instead they saw that “the fire had no power.” “The king’s men,” the rector repeated fiercely, “saw that ‘the fire had no power!’ There is God’s promise, in the twenty-seventh verse of the third chapter of Daniel! The fire set by the king’s men had no power!” The Reverend Lewis stared directly at Wadsworth as he repeated the last two words, “no power!,” and Wadsworth thought of the redcoats waiting at Majabigwaduce and prayed that their fire would indeed have no power. He thought of the ships lying at anchor in Boston’s harbor, he thought of the militia who were assembling at Townsend where the ships would rendezvous with the troops, and he prayed again that the enemy’s fire would prove impotent.

  After the service Wadsworth shook a multitude of hands and received the good wishes of many in the congregation, but he did not leave the church. Instead he waited beneath the organ loft until he was alone, then he went back up the aisle, opened a box pew at random, and knelt on a hassock newly embroidered with the flag of the United States. Around the flag were stitched the words “God Watcheth Over Us” and Wadsworth prayed that was true, and prayed that God would watch over his family whom he named one by one: Elizabeth, his dear wife, then Alexander, Charles, and Zilpha. He prayed that the campaign against the British in Majabigwaduce would be brief and successful. Brief because Elizabeth’s next child was due within five or six weeks and he was afraid for her and wanted to be with her when the baby was born. He prayed for the men whom he would lead into battle. He mouthed the prayer, the words a half-formed murmur, but each one distinct and fervent in his spirit. The cause is just, he told God, and men must die for it, and he begged God to receive those men into their new heavenly home, and he prayed for the widows who must be made and the orphans who would be left. “And if it please you, God,” he said in a slightly louder voice, “let not Elizabeth be widowed, and permit my children to grow with a father in their house.” He wondered how many other such prayers were being offered this Sunday morning.

  “General Wadsworth, sir?” a tentative voice spoke behind him.

  Wadsworth turned to see a tall, slim young man in a dark green uniform coat crossed by a white belt. The young man looked anxious, worried perhaps that he had disturbed Wadsworth’s devotions. He had dark hair that was bound into a short, thick pigtail. For a moment Wadsworth supposed the man had been sent to him with orders, then the memory of a much younger boy flooded his mind and the memory allowed him to recognize the man. “William Dennis!” Wadsworth said with real pleasure. He did some quick addition in his head and realized Dennis must now be nineteen years old. “It was eight years ago we last met!”

  “I hoped you’d recollect me, sir,” Dennis said, pleased.

  “Of course I remember you!” Wadsworth reached across the box pew to shake the young man’s hand, “and remember you well!”

  “I heard you were here, sir,” Dennis said, “so took the liberty of seeking you out.”

  “I’m glad!”

  “And you’re a general now, sir.”

  “A leap from school-mastering, is it not?” Wadsworth said wryly, “and you?”

  “A lieutenant in the Continental Marines, sir.”

  “I congratulate you.”

  “And bound for Penobscot, sir, as are you.”

  “You’re on the Warren?”

  “I am, sir, but posted to the Vengeance.” The Vengeance was one of the privateers, a twenty-gun ship.

  “Then we shall share a victory,” Wadsworth said. He opened the pew door and gestured towards the street. “Will you walk with me to the harbor?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “You attended service, I hope?”

  “The Reverend Frobisher preached at West Church,” Dennis said, “and I wanted to hear him.”

  “You don’t sound impressed,” Wadsworth said, amused.

  “He chose a text from the Sermon on the Mount,” Dennis said, “‘he maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.’”

  “Ah!” Wadsworth said with a grimace. “Was he saying that God is not on our side? If so, it sounds dispiriting.”

  “He was assuring us, sir, that the revealed truths of our faith cannot depend on the outcome of a battle, a
campaign, or even a war. He said we cannot know God’s will, sir, except for that part which illuminates our conscience.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Wadsworth allowed.

  “And he said war is the devil’s business, sir.”

  “That’s certainly true,” Wadsworth said as they left the church, “but hardly an apt sermon for a town about to send its men to war?” He closed the church door and saw that the wind-driven drizzle that had blown him uphill from the harbor had lifted and the sky was clearing itself of high, scudding clouds. He walked with Dennis towards the water, wondering when the fleet would leave. Commodore Saltonstall had given the order to set sail on the previous Thursday, but had postponed the departure because the wind had risen to a gale strong enough to part ships’ cables. But the great fleet must sail soon. It would go eastwards, towards the enemy, towards the devil’s business.

  He glanced at Dennis. He had grown into a handsome young man. His dark green coat was faced with white and his white breeches piped with green. He wore a straight sword in a leather scabbard trimmed with silver oak leaves. “I have never understood,” Wadsworth said, “why the marines wear green. Wouldn’t blue be more, well, marine?”

  “I’m told that the only cloth that was available in Philadelphia, sir, was green.”

  “Ah! That thought never occurred to me. How are your parents?”

  “Very well, sir, thank you,” Dennis said enthusiastically. “They’ll be pleased to know I met you.”

  “Send them my respects,” Wadsworth said. He had taught William Dennis to read and to write, he had taught him grammar in both Latin and English, but then the family had moved to Connecticut and Wadsworth had lost touch. He remembered Dennis well, though. He had been a bright boy, alert and mischievous, but never malevolent. “I beat you once, didn’t I?” he asked.

  “Twice, sir,” Dennis said with a grin, “and I deserved both punishments.”

  “That was never a duty I enjoyed,” Wadsworth said.

  “But necessary?”

  “Oh, indeed.”

  “Their conversation was constantly interrupted by men who wished to shake their hands and wish them success against the British. Give them hell, General,” one man said, a sentiment echoed by everyone who accosted the pair. Wadsworth smiled, shook offered hands and finally escaped the well-wishers by entering the Bunch of Grapes, a tavern close to Long Wharf. “I think God will forgive us for crossing a tavern threshold on the Sabbath day,” he said.

  “It’s more like the army’s headquarters these days,” Dennis said, amused. The tavern was crowded with men in uniforms, many of whom were gathered by a wall where notices had been tacked, so many notices that they overlapped each other. Some offered bounties to men willing to serve on privateers, others had been put there by Solomon Lovell’s staff.

  “We’re to sleep aboard the ships tonight!” a man shouted, then saw Wadsworth. “Is that because we’re sailing tomorrow, General?”

  “I hope so,” Wadsworth said, “but make sure you’re all aboard by nightfall.”

  “Can I bring her?” the man asked. He had his arm round one of the tavern’s whores, a pretty young red-haired girl who already looked drunk.

  Wadsworth ignored the question, instead leading Dennis to an empty table at the back of the room, which was alive with conversation, hope, and optimism. A burly man in a salt-stained sailor’s coat stood and thumped a table with his fist. He raised a tankard when the room had fallen silent. “Here’s to victory at Bagaduce!” he shouted. “Death to the Tories, and to the day when we carry fat George’s head through Boston on the point of a bayonet!”

  “Much is expected of us,” Wadsworth said when the cheers had ended.

  “King George might not oblige us with his head,” Dennis said, amused, “but I’m sure we shall not disappoint the other expectations.” He waited as Wadsworth ordered oyster stew and ale. “Did you know that folk are buying shares in the expedition?”

  “Shares?”

  “The privateer owners, sir, are selling the plunder they expect to take. I assume you haven’t invested?”

  “I was never a speculator,” Wadsworth said. “How does it work?”

  “Well, Captain Thomas of the Vengeance, sir, expects to capture fifteen hundred pounds’ worth of plunder, and he’s offering a hundred shares in that expectation for fifteen pounds apiece.”

  “Good Lord! And what if he doesn’t capture fifteen hundred pounds’ worth of material?”

  “Then the speculators lose, sir.”

  “I suppose they must, yes. And people are buying?”

  “Many! I believe the Vengeance’s shares are trading upwards of twenty-two pounds each now.”

  “What a world we live in,” Wadsworth said, amused. “Tell me,” he pushed the jug of ale towards Dennis, “what you were doing before you joined the marines?”

  “I was studying, sir.”

  “Harvard?”

  “Yale.”

  “Then I didn’t beat you nearly often enough or hard enough,” Wadsworth said.

  Dennis laughed. “My ambition is the law.”

  “A noble ambition.”

  “I hope so, sir. When the British are defeated I shall go back to my studies.”

  “I see you carry them with you,” Wadsworth said, nodding towards a book-shaped lump in the tail of the lieutenant’s coat, “or is that the scriptures?”

  “Beccaria, sir,” Dennis said, pulling the book out of his tail pocket. “I’m reading him for pleasure, or should I say enlightenment?”

  “Both, I hope. I’ve heard of him,” Wadsworth said, “and very much want to read him.”

  “You’ll permit me to lend you the book when I’ve finished it?”

  “That would be kind,” Wadsworth said. He opened the book, On Crimes and Punishments by Cesare Beccaria, newly translated from the Italian, and he saw the minutely written penciled notes on the margins of almost every page, and he thought how sad it was that a sterling young man like Dennis should need to go to war. Then he thought that though the rain might indeed fall on the just and unjust alike, it was unthinkable that God would allow decent men who fought in a noble cause to lose. That was a comforting reflection. “Doesn’t Beccaria have strange ideas?” he asked.

  “He believes judicial execution is both wrong and ineffective, sir.”

  “Really?”

  “He argues the case cogently, sir.”

  “He’ll need to!”

  They ate, and afterwards walked the few paces to the harbor, where the ships’ masts made a forest. Wadsworth looked for the sloop that would carry him to battle, but he could not make the Sally out amongst the tangle of hulls and masts and rigging. A gull cried overhead, a dog ran along the wharf with a cod’s head in its mouth, and a legless beggar shuffled towards him. “Wounded at Saratoga, sir,” the beggar said and Wadsworth handed the man a shilling.

  “Can I hail you a boat, sir?” Dennis asked.

  “That would be kind.”

  Peleg Wadsworth gazed at the fleet and remembered his morning prayers. There was so much confidence in Boston, so much hope and so many expectations, but war, he knew from experience, truly was the devil’s business.

  And it was time to go to war.

  “This is not seemly,” Doctor Calef said.

  Brigadier McLean, standing beside the doctor, ignored the protest.

  “It is not seemly!” Calef said louder.

  “It is necessary,” Brigadier McLean retorted in a tone harsh enough to startle the doctor. The troops had worshipped in the open air that Sunday morning, the Scottish voices singing strongly in the blustery wind that fetched slaps of rain to dapple the harbor. The Reverend Campbell, the 82nd’s chaplain, had preached from a text in Isaiah: “In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan,” a text that McLean accepted was relevant, but he wondered whether he had a sword strong and great and sore enough to punish the troops he knew would surely come to dislodge him. T
he rain was falling more steadily now, drenching the ridgetop where the fort was being made and where the two regiments paraded in a hollow square. “These men are new to war,” McLean explained to Calef, “and most have never seen a battle, so they need to learn the consequences of disobedience.” He walked towards the square’s center where a Saint Andrew’s cross had been erected. A young man, stripped to the waist, was tied to the cross with his back exposed to the wind and rain.

  A sergeant pushed a folded strip of leather between the young man’s teeth. “Bite on that, boy, and take your punishment like a man.”

  McLean raised his voice so that every soldier could hear him. “Private Macintosh attempted to desert. In so doing he broke his oath to his king, to his country, and to God. For that he will be punished, as will any man here who tries to follow his example.”

  “I don’t care if he’s punished,” Calef said when the brigadier rejoined him, “but must it be done on the Lord’s day? Can it not wait till tomorrow?”

  “No,” McLean said, “it cannot.” He nodded to the sergeant. “Do your duty.”

  Two drummer boys would do the whipping while a third beat the strokes on his drum. Private Macintosh had been caught trying to sneak across the low, marshy neck that joined Majabigwaduce to the mainland. That was the only route off the peninsula, unless a man stole a boat or, at a pinch, swam across the harbor, and McLean had placed a picquet in the trees close to the neck. They had brought Macintosh back and he had been sentenced to two hundred lashes, the severest punishment McLean had ever ordered, but he had few enough men as it was and he needed to deter others from desertion.

  Desertion was a problem. Most men were content enough, but there were always a few who saw the promise of a better existence in the vastness of North America. Life here was a great deal easier than in the Highlands of Scotland, and Macintosh had made his run and now he would be punished.

  “One!” the sergeant called.