The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War Read online

  “Lay it on hard,” McLean told the two drummer boys, “you’re not here to tickle him.”

  “Two!”

  McLean let his mind wander as the leather whips criss-crossed the man’s back. He had seen many floggings in his years of service, and had ordered executions too, because floggings and executions were the enforcers of duty. He saw many of the soldiers staring aghast at the sight, so the punishment was probably working. McLean did not enjoy punishment parades, no one in his right mind would, but they were unavoidable and, with luck, Macintosh would reform into a decent soldier.

  And what Leviathan, McLean wondered, would Macintosh have to fight? A schooner captained by a loyalist had put into Majabigwaduce a week before with a report that the rebels in Boston were assembling a fleet and an army. “We were told there were forty or more ships coming your way, sir,” the schooner’s captain had told him, “and they’re gathering upwards of three thousand men.”

  Maybe that was true and maybe not. The schooner’s captain had not visited Boston, just heard a rumor in Nantucket, and rumor, McLean knew, could inflate a company into a battalion and a battalion into an army. Nevertheless he had taken the information seriously enough to send the schooner back southwards with a despatch to Sir Henry Clinton in New York. The despatch merely said that McLean expected to be attacked soon and could not hold out without reinforcements. Why, he wondered, had he been given so few men and ships? If the crown wanted this piece of country, then why not send an adequate force? “Thirty-eight!” the sergeant shouted. There was blood on Macintosh’s back now, blood diluted by rain, but still enough blood to trickle down and darken the waistband of his kilt. “Thirty-nine,” the sergeant bellowed, “and lay it on hard!”

  McLean resented the time this punishment parade stole from his preparations. He knew time was short and the fort was nowhere near completed. The trench about the four walls was scarcely two feet deep, the ramparts themselves not much higher. It was an excuse for a fort, a pathetic little earthwork, and he needed both men and time. He had offered wages to any civilian who was willing to work and, when insufficient men came forward, he sent patrols to impress labor.

  “Sixty-one!” the sergeant shouted. Macintosh was whimpering now, the sound stifled by the leather gag. He shifted his weight and blood squelched in one shoe, then spilled over the shoe’s edge.

  “He’ll not take much more,” Calef growled. Calef was replacing the battalion surgeon who was sick with a fever.

  “Keep going!” McLean said.

  “You want to kill him?”

  “I want the battalion,” McLean said, “to be more frightened of the lash than of the enemy.”

  “Sixty-two!” the sergeant shouted.

  “Tell me,” McLean suddenly turned on the doctor, “why is the rumor being spread that I plan to hang any civilian who supports the rebellion?”

  Calef looked uncomfortable. He flinched as the whipped man whimpered again, then looked defiantly at the general. “To persuade such disaffected people to leave the region, of course. You don’t want rebels lurking in the woods hereabouts.”

  “Nor do I want a reputation as a hangman! We did not come here to persecute folk, but to persuade them to return to their proper allegiance. I would be grateful, Doctor, if a counterrumor was propagated. That I have no intentions of hanging any man, rebel or not.”

  “God’s blood, man, I can see bone!” the doctor protested, ignoring McLean’s strictures. The whimpers had become moans. McLean saw that the drummer boys were using less strength now, not because their arms were weakening, but out of pity, and neither he nor the sergeant corrected them.

  McLean stopped the punishment at a hundred lashes. “Cut him down, Sergeant,” he ordered, “and carry him to the doctor’s house.” He turned away from the bloody mess on the cross. “Any of you who follow Macintosh’s example will follow him here! Now dismiss the men to their duties.”

  The civilians who had volunteered or been conscripted for labor trudged up the hill. One man, tall and gaunt, with wild dark hair and angry eyes pushed his way past McLean’s aides to confront the general. “You will be punished for this!” the man snarled.

  “For what?” McLean inquired.

  “For working on the Sabbath!” the man said. He towered over McLean. “In all my days I have never worked on the Sabbath, never! You make me a sinner!”

  McLean held his temper. A dozen or so other men had paused and were watching the gaunt man, and McLean suspected they would join the protest and refuse to desecrate a Sunday by working if he yielded. “So why will you not work on a Sunday, sir?” McLean asked.

  “It is the Lord’s day, and we are commanded to keep it holy.” The man jabbed a finger at the brigadier, stopping just short of striking McLean’s chest. “It is God’s commandment!”

  “And Christ commanded that you render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” McLean retorted, “and today Caesar demands you make a rampart. But I will accommodate you, sir, I will accommodate you by not paying you. Work is paid labor, but today you will freely offer me your assistance which, sir, is a Christian act.”

  “I will not’” the man began.

  “Lieutenant Moore!” McLean raised his blackthorn stick to summon the lieutenant, though the gesture looked threatening and the gaunt man took a backwards step. “Call back the drummer boys!” McLean called, “I need another man whipped!” He turned his gaze back to the man. “You either assist me, sir,” he said quietly, “or I shall scourge you.”

  The tall man glanced at the empty Saint Andrew’s cross. “I shall pray for your destruction,” he promised, but the fire had gone from his voice. He gave McLean a last defiant look, then turned away.

  The civilians worked. They raised the wall of the fort another foot by laying logs along the low earthen berm. Some men cut down more trees, opening fields of fire for the fort, while others used picks and shovels to sink a well in the fort’s northeastern bastion. McLean ordered one long spruce trunk to be trimmed and stripped of its bark, then a sailor from the Albany attached a small pulley to the narrow end of the trunk and a long line was rove through the pulley’s block. A deep hole was hacked in the southwestern bastion and the spruce trunk was raised as a flagpole. Soldiers packed the hole with stones and, when the pole was reckoned to be stable, McLean ordered the union flag to be hauled into the damp sky. “We shall call this place . . .” he paused as the wind caught the flag and stretched it into the cloud-shrouded daylight. “Fort George,” McLean said tentatively, as if testing the name. He liked it. “Fort George,” he announced firmly and took off his hat. “God save the King!”

  Highlanders of the 74th started on a smaller earthwork, a gun emplacement, which they made close to the shore and facing the harbor mouth. The soil was easier near the beach and they swiftly threw up a crescent of earth that they reinforced with stones and logs. Other logs were split to make platforms for the cannon that would face the harbor mouth. A similar battery was being constructed on Cross Island so that an enemy ship, daring the harbor mouth, would face Captain Mowat’s three broadsides and artillery fire from the bastions on either side of the entrance.

  The rain lifted and fog drifted over the wide river reach. The new flag flew bright above Majabigwaduce, but for how long, McLean wondered, for how long?

  Monday dawned fine in Boston. The wind came from the southwest and the sky was clear. “The glass rises,” Commodore Saltonstall announced to General Solomon Lovell on board the Continental frigate Warren. “We shall sail, General.”

  “And God grant us a fair voyage and a triumphant return,” Lovell answered.

  “Amen,” Saltonstall said grudgingly, then snapped out orders that signals should be made ordering the fleet to raise anchor and follow the flagship out of the harbor.

  Solomon Lovell, almost fifty years old, towered over the Commodore. Lovell was a farmer, a legislator, and a patriot, and it was reckoned in Massachusetts that Solomon Lovell had been well named, for he enjoyed a
reputation as a wise, judicious, and sensible man. His neighbors in Weymouth had elected him to the Assembly in Boston where he was well-liked because, in a fractious legislature, Lovell was a peacemaker. He possessed an unquenchable optimism that fairness and the willingness to see another man’s point of view would bring mutual prosperity, while his height and strong build, the latter earned by years of hard labor on his farm, added to the impression of utter dependability. His face was long and firm-jawed, while his eyes crinkled with easy amusement. His thick dark hair grayed at the temples, giving him a most distinguished appearance, and so it was no wonder that his fellow lawmakers had seen fit to give Solomon Lovell high rank in the Massachusetts Militia. Lovell, they reckoned, could be trusted. A few malcontents grumbled that his military experience was next to nothing, but Lovell’s supporters, and they were many, believed Solomon Lovell was just the man for the task. He got things done. And his lack of experience was offset by his deputy, Peleg Wadsworth, who had fought under General Washington’s command, and by Commodore Saltonstall, the naval commander, who was an even more experienced officer. Lovell would never be short of expert advice to hone his solid judgment.

  The great anchor cable inched on board. The sailors at the capstan were chanting as they tramped round and round. “Here’s a rope!” a bosun shouted.

  “To hang the Pope!” the men responded.

  “And a chunk of cheese!”

  “To choke him!”

  Lovell smiled approvingly, then strolled to the stern rail where he stared at the fleet, marveling that Massachusetts had assembled so many ships so quickly. Lying closest to the Warren was a brig, the Diligent, that had been captured from Britain’s Royal Navy, and beyond her was a sloop, the Providence, which had captured her, both vessels with twelve guns and both belonging to the Continental Navy. Anchored behind them, and flying the pine-tree flag of the Massachusetts Navy, were two brigs, the Tyrannicide and Hazard, and a brigantine, the Active. All were armed with fourteen cannon and, like the Warren, were now fully manned because the General Court and the Board of War had given permission for press-gangs to take sailors from Boston’s taverns and from merchant vessels in the harbor.

  The Warren, with its eighteen-pounder and twelve-pounder cannon, was the most powerful ship in the fleet, but a further seven ships could all match or outgun any one of the three British sloops that were reported to be waiting at Majabigwaduce. Those seven ships were all privateers. The Hector and the Hunter carried eighteen guns apiece, while Charming Sally, General Putnam, Black Prince, Monmouth, and Vengeance carried twenty guns each. There were smaller privateers too, like the Sky Rocket with her sixteen guns. In all, eighteen warships would sail to Majabigwaduce and those vessels mounted more than three hundred cannon, while the twenty-one transport ships would carry the men, the supplies, the guns, and the fervent hopes of Massachusetts. Lovell was proud of his state. It had made up the deficiencies in the supplies, and the ships now carried enough food to feed sixteen hundred men for two months. Why, there were six tons of flour alone! Six tons!

  Lovell, thinking of the extraordinary efforts that had been made to provision the expedition, slowly became aware that men were shouting at the Warren from other ships. The anchor was still not raised, but the bosun ordered the seamen to stop their chant and their work. It seemed the fleet would not leave after all. Commodore Saltonstall, who had been standing by the frigate’s wheel, turned and paced back to Lovell. “It appears,” the commodore said sourly, “that the commander of your artillery is not aboard his ship.”

  “He must be,” Lovell said.

  “Must?”

  “The orders were plain. Officers were to be aboard last night.”

  “The Samuel reports that Colonel Revere is not on board. So what shall we do, General?”

  Lovell was startled by the question. He had thought he was being given information, not being asked to make a decision. He stared across the sun-sparkling water as though the distant Samuel, a brig that was carrying the expedition’s cannon, might suggest an answer.

  “Well?” Saltonstall pressed, “do we sail without him and his officers?”

  “His officers?” Lovell asked.

  “It transpires,” Saltonstall appeared to relish delivering the bad news, “that Colonel Revere allowed his officers to spend a last night ashore.”

  “Ashore?” Lovell asked, astonished, then stared again at the distant brig. “We need Colonel Revere,” he said.

  “We do?” Saltonstall asked sarcastically.

  “Oh, a good officer!” Lovell said enthusiastically. “He was one of the men who rode to warn Concord and Lexington. Doctor Warren, God rest his soul, sent them, and this ship is named for Doctor Warren, is it not?”

  “Is it?” Saltonstall asked carelessly.

  “A very great patriot, Doctor Warren,” Lovell said feelingly.

  “And how does that affect Colonel Revere’s absence?” Saltonstall asked bluntly.

  “It,” Lovell began and realized he had no idea what he could answer, and so he straightened and squared his shoulders. “We shall wait,” he announced firmly.

  “We shall wait!” Saltonstall called to his officers. He began pacing his quarterdeck again, starboard to larboard and larboard to starboard, occasionally shooting a malevolent look at Lovell as though the general was personally responsible for the missing officer. Lovell found the commodore’s hostility uncomfortable and so turned to stare at the fleet again. Many ships had loosed their topsails and men now scrambled along the yards to furl the canvas.

  “General Lovell?” a new voice disturbed him and Lovell turned to see a tall marine officer whose sudden presence made the general take an involuntary step backwards. There was an intensity in the marine’s face, and a ferocity, that made the face formidable. Just to see this man was to be impressed. He was even taller than Lovell, who was not a short man, and he had broad shoulders that strained the green cloth of his uniform jacket. He was holding his hat respectfully, revealing black hair that was cropped short over most of his scalp, but which he had allowed to grow long at the back so he could wear a short pigtail that was hardened with tar. “My name is Welch, sir,” the marine said in a voice deep enough to match his hard face, “Captain John Welch of the Continental Marines.”

  “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain Welch,” Lovell said, and that was true. If a man must sail into battle then he would pray to have a man like Welch at his side. The hilt of Welch’s saber was worn down by use and, like its owner, seemed made for the efficient use of pure violence.

  “I’ve spoken to the commodore, sir,” Welch said very formally, “and he gave his consent that my men should be at your disposal when not required for naval duties.”

  “That’s most encouraging,” Lovell said.

  “Two hundred and twenty-seven marines, sir, fit for duty. Good men, sir.”

  “I’ve no doubt.”

  “Well-trained,” Welch went on, his unblinking gaze fixed on Lovell’s eyes, “and well-disciplined.”

  “A most valuable addition to our force,” Lovell said, unsure what else he could say.

  “I want to fight, sir,” Welch said, as if he suspected Lovell might not use his marines.

  “I am confident the opportunity will come,” Lovell said uneasily.

  “I hope so, sir,” Welch said, then at last turned his gaze away from the general and nodded towards a fine-looking ship, the General Putnam, one of four privateers that had been commandeered by the Massachusetts Navy because their owners had balked at volunteering their craft. The General Putnam carried twenty cannons, all of them nine-pounders, and she was reckoned one of the finest ships on the New England coast. “We put a score of marines on the Putnam, sir,” Welch said, “and they’re led by Captain Carnes. You know him, sir?”

  “I know John Carnes,” Lovell said, “he captains the Hector.”

  “This is his brother, sir, and a fine officer. He served under General Washington as a captain of artille
ry.”

  “A fine posting,” Lovell said, “yet he left it for the marines?”

  “Captain Carnes prefers to see men up close as he kills them, sir,” Welch said evenly, “but he knows his artillery, sir. He’s a very competent gunner.”

  Lovell understood immediately that Saltonstall had despatched Welch with the news, implicitly suggesting that Colonel Revere could be left behind and replaced by Captain Carnes, and Lovell bristled at the suggestion. “We need Colonel Revere and his officers,” he said.

  “I never suggested otherwise, sir,” Welch said, “merely that Captain Carnes has an expertise that might be useful to you.”

  Lovell felt acutely uncomfortable. He sensed that Welch had little faith in the militia and was trying to stiffen Lovell’s force with the professionalism of his marines, but Lovell was determined that Massachusetts should reap the credit for the expulsion of the British. “I’m sure Colonel Revere knows his business,” Lovell said stoutly. Welch did not reply to that, but stared at Lovell who again felt disconcerted by the intensity of the gaze. “Of course, any advice Captain Carnes has . . .” Lovell said, and let his voice trail away.

  “I just wanted you to know we have an artilleryman in the marines, sir,” Welch said, then stepped a pace back and offered Lovell a salute.

  “Thank you, Captain,” Lovell said, and felt relieved when the huge marine strode away.

  The minutes passed. The church clocks in Boston struck the hour, the quarters, and then the hour again. Major William Todd, one of the expedition’s two brigade majors, brought the general a mug of tea. “Newly made in the galley, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The leaves captured by the brig King-Killer, sir,” Todd said, sipping his own tea.

  “It’s kind of the enemy to supply us with tea,” Lovell said lightly.

  “Indeed it is, sir,” Todd said and then, after a pause, “So Mister Revere is delaying us?”

  Lovell knew of the antipathy between Todd and Revere and did his best to defuse whatever was in the major’s mind. Todd was a good man, meticulous and hardworking, but somewhat unbending. “I’m sure Lieutenant-Colonel Revere has very good cause to be absent,” he said firmly.