The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War Read online

  “He always does,” Todd said. “In all the time he commanded Castle Island I doubt he spent a single night there. Mister Revere, sir, likes the comfort of his wife’s bed.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  Todd brushed a speck of lint from his blue uniform coat. “He told General Wadsworth that he supplied rations for Major Fellows’ men.”

  “I’m certain he had cause for that.”

  “Fellows died of the fever last August,” Todd then stepped a pace back in deference to the approach of the commodore.

  Saltonstall glowered again at Lovell from beneath the peak of his cocked hat. “If your damned fellow isn’t coming,” Saltonstall said, “then perhaps we might be allowed to get on with this damned war without him?”

  “I’m sure Colonel Revere will be here very soon,” Lovell said emolliently, “or we shall receive news of him. A messenger has been sent ashore, Commodore.”

  Saltonstall grunted and walked away. Major Todd frowned at the retreating commodore. “He takes after his mother’s side of the family, I think. The Saltonstalls are usually most agreeable folk.”

  Lovell was saved from responding by a hail from the brig Diligent. Colonel Revere, it seemed, had been sighted. He and three other officers were being rowed in the smart white-painted barge that served Castle Island, and the sternsheets of the barge, which was being rowed by a dozen blue-shirted men, were heaped high with baggage. Colonel Revere sat just forrard of the baggage and, as the barge came close to the Warren on its way to the brig Samuel, Revere waved up at Lovell. “God speed us, General!” he shouted.

  “Where have you been?” Lovell called sharply.

  “A last night with the family, General!” Revere shouted happily, and then was out of earshot.

  “A last night with the family?” Todd asked in wonderment.

  “He must have misunderstood my orders,” Lovell said uncomfortably.

  “I think you will discover, sir,” Todd said, “that Colonel Revere misunderstands all orders that are not to his liking.”

  “He’s a patriot, Major,” Lovell reproved, “a fine patriot!”

  It took more time for the fine patriot’s baggage to be hoisted aboard the brig, then the barge itself had to be readied for the voyage. It seemed Colonel Revere wished the Castle Island barge to be part of his equipment, for her oars were lashed to the thwarts and then she was attached by a towline to the Samuel. Then, at last, as the sun climbed to its height, the fleet was ready. The capstans turned again, the great anchors broke free and, with their sails bright in the summer sun, the might of Massachusetts sailed from Boston harbor.

  To captivate, to kill, and to destroy.

  Lieutenant John Moore sat astride a camp stool, his legs either side of an empty powder barrel that served as a table. A tent sheltered him from a blustery west wind that brought spits of rain to patter hard on the yellowed canvas. Moore’s job as paymaster for the 82nd Regiment bored him, even though the detailed work was done by Corporal Brown who had been a clerk in a Leith countinghouse before becoming drunk one morning and so volunteering for the army. Moore turned the pages of the black-bound ledger that recorded the regiment’s wages. “Why is Private Neill having fourpence a week deducted?” Moore asked the corporal.

  “Lost his boot-blacking, sir.”

  “Boot-blacking cannot cost that much, surely?”

  “Expensive stuff, sir,” Corporal Brown said.

  “Plainly. I should buy some and resell it to the regiment.”

  “Major Fraser wouldn’t like that, sir, on account that his brother already does.”

  Moore sighed and turned another stiff page of the thick paybook. He was supposed to check the figures, but he knew Corporal Brown would have done a meticulous job, so instead he stared out of the tent’s open flaps to the western rampart of Fort George where some gunners were making a platform for one of their cannon. The rampart was still only waist high, though the ditch beyond was now lined with wooden spikes that were more formidable to look at than negotiate. Beyond the rampart was a long stretch of cleared ground studded with raw pine stumps. That land climbed gently to the peninsula’s bluff where trees still stood thick and where tendrils of fog drifted through dark branches. Corporal Brown saw where Moore was looking. “Can I ask you something, sir?”

  “Whatever enters your head, Brown.”

  The corporal nodded towards the timbered bluff that was little more than half a mile from the fort. “Why didn’t the brigadier make the fort there, sir?”

  “You would have done so, Corporal, if you had command here?”

  “It’s the highest piece of land, sir. Isn’t that where you make a fort?”

  Moore frowned, not because he disapproved of the question, which, he thought, was an eminently sensible inquiry, but because he did not know how to frame the answer. To Moore it was obvious why McLean had chosen the lower position. It was to do with the interlocking of the ships’ guns and the fort’s cannon, with making the best of a difficult job, but though he knew the answer, he did not quite know how to express it. “From here,” he said, “our guns command both the harbor entrance and the harbor itself. Suppose we were all up on that high ground? The enemy could sail past us, take the harbor and village, and then starve us out at their leisure.”

  “But if the bastards take that high ground, sir . . .” Brown said dubiously, leaving the thought unfinished.

  “If the bastards seize that high ground, Corporal,” Moore said, “then they will place cannon there and fire down into the fort.” That was the risk McLean had taken. He had given the enemy the chance to take the high ground, but only so that he could do his job better, which was to defend the harbor. “We don’t have enough men,” Moore went on, “to defend the bluff, but I can’t think they’ll land men there. It’s much too steep.”

  Yet the rebels would land somewhere. By leaning forward on his makeshift stool Moore could just make out the three sloops-of-war anchored in line across the harbor mouth. General McLean had suggested the enemy might try to attack that line, break it, and then land men on the beach below the fort, and Moore tried to imagine such a fight. He tried to turn the wisps of fog into powder smoke, but his imagination failed. The eighteen-year-old John Moore had never experienced battle, and every day he wondered how he would respond to the smell of powder and the screams of the wounded and the chaos.

  “Lady approaching, sir,” Corporal Brown warned Moore.

  “Lady?” Moore asked, startled from his reverie, then saw that Bethany Fletcher was approaching the tent. He stood and ducked under the tent flap to greet her, but the sight of her face tied his tongue, so he simply stood there, awkward, hat in hand, smiling.

  “Lieutenant Moore,” Bethany said, stopping a pace away.

  “Miss Fletcher,” Moore managed to speak, “as ever, a pleasure.” He bowed.

  “I was told to give you this, sir.” Bethany held out a slip of paper.

  The paper was a receipt for corn and fish that James Fletcher had sold to the quartermaster. “Four shillings!” Moore said.

  “The quartermaster said you’d pay me, sir,” Bethany said.

  “If Mister Reidhead so orders, then I shall obey. And it will be my pleasure to pay you, Miss Fletcher,” Moore said. He looked at the receipt again. “It must have been a rare quantity of corn and fish! Four shillings’ worth!”

  Bethany bridled. “It was Mister Reidhead who decided the amount, sir.”

  “Oh, I am not suggesting that the amount is excessive,” Moore said, reddening. If he lost his composure when faced by a girl, he thought, how would he ever face the enemy? “Corporal Brown!”

  “Sir?”

  “Four shillings for the lady!”

  “At once, sir,” Brown said, coming from the tent, though instead of holding coins he brought a hammer and a chisel that he took to a nearby block of wood. He had one silver dollar that he laid on the timber, then he carefully placed the chisel’s blade to make a single radial cut in the coin. The
hammer smacked down and the coin leaped up from the chisel’s bite. “It’s daft, sir, to slit a coin into five pieces,” Brown grumbled, replacing the dollar. “Why can’t we make four pieces worth one shilling and threepence each?”

  “Because it’s easier to cut a coin into four parts rather than five?” Moore asked.

  “Of course it is, sir. Cutting into four only need a wide chisel blade and two cuts,” Brown grumbled, then hammered another cut into the dollar, slicing away a wedge of silver that he pushed across the chopping-block towards Bethany. “There, miss, one shilling.”

  Bethany took the sharp-edged slice. “Is this how you pay the soldiers?” she asked Moore.

  “Oh, we don’t get paid, miss,” Corporal Brown answered, “except in promissory notes.”

  “Give Miss Fletcher the remainder of the coin,” Moore suggested, “and she will have her four shillings and you need cut no more.” There was a shortage of coinage so the brigadier had decreed that each silver dollar was worth five shillings. “Stop staring!” Moore called sharply to the gunners who had paused in their work to admire Beth Fletcher. Moore picked up the ravaged dollar and held it to Bethany. “There Miss Fletcher, your fee.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Bethany put the shilling slice back on the block. “So how many promissory notes do you have to write each week?” she asked.

  “How many?” Moore was momentarily puzzled by the question. “Oh, we don’t issue notes as such, Miss Fletcher, but we do record in the ledger what wages are owed. The specie is kept for more important duties, like paying you for corn and fish.”

  “And you must need a lot of corn and fish for two whole regiments,” she said. “What is that? Two thousand men?”

  “If only we were so numerous,” Moore said with a smile. “In truth, Miss Fletcher, the 74th musters just four hundred and forty men and we Hamiltons number scarce half that. And we hear now that the rebels are readying a fleet and an army to assail us!”

  “And you think that report is true?” Bethany asked.

  “The fleet, perhaps, is already on its way.”

  Bethany stared past the three sloops to where wisps of mist drifted across the wide Penobscot River. “I pray, sir,” she said, “that there will be no fighting.”

  “And I pray otherwise,” Moore said.

  “Really?” Bethany sounded surprised. She turned to look at the young lieutenant as if she had never really noticed him before. “You want there to be a battle?”

  “Soldiering is my chosen profession, Miss Fletcher,” Moore said, and felt very fraudulent as he said it, “and battle is the fire in which soldiers are tempered.”

  “The world would be better without such fire,” Bethany said.

  “True, no doubt,” Moore said, “but we did not strike the flint on the iron, Miss Fletcher. The rebels did that, they set the fire and our task is to extinguish the flame.” Bethany said nothing, and Moore decided he had sounded pompous. “You should come to Doctor Calef’s house in the evening,” he said.

  “We should, sir?” Bethany asked, looking again at Moore.

  “There is music in the garden when the weather permits, and dancing.”

  “I don’t dance, sir,” Bethany said.

  “Oh, it is the officers who dance,” Moore said hastily, “the sword dance.” He suppressed an urge to demonstrate a capering step. “You would be most welcome,” he said instead.

  “Thank you, sir,” Bethany said, then pocketed the ravaged dollar and turned away.

  “Miss Fletcher!” Moore called after her.

  She turned back. “Sir?”

  But Moore had no idea what to say, indeed he had surprised himself by calling after her in the first place. She was gazing at him, waiting. “Thank you for the supplies,” he managed to say.

  “It is business, Lieutenant,” Beth said evenly.

  “Even so, thank you,” Moore said, confused.

  “Does that mean you’d sell to the Yankees too, miss?” Corporal Brown asked cheerfully.

  “We might give to them,” Beth said, and Moore could not tell whether she was teasing or not. She looked at him, gave a half smile, and walked away.

  “A rare good-looking lassie,” Corporal Brown said.

  “Is she?” Moore asked most unconvincingly. He was gazing down the slope to where the settlement’s houses were spread along the harbor shore. He tried to imagine men fighting there, ranks of men blasting musket-fire, the cannons thundering the sky with noise, the harbor filled with half-sunken ships, and he thought how sad it would be to die amidst that chaos without ever having held a girl like Bethany in his arms.

  “Are we finished with the ledgers, sir?” Brown asked.

  “We are finished with the ledgers,” Moore said.

  He wondered if he really was a soldier. He wondered if he would have the courage to face battle. He stared after Bethany and felt lost.

  “Reluctance, sir, reluctance. Gross reluctance,” Colonel Jonathan Mitchell, who commanded the Cumberland County militia, glared at Brigadier-General Peleg Wadsworth as though it was all Wadsworth’s fault. “Culpable reluctance.”

  “You conscripted?” Wadsworth asked.

  “Of course we goddamn conscripted. We had to conscript! Half the reluctant bastards are conscripted. We didn’t get volunteers, just whining excuses, so we declared martial law, sir, and I sent troops to every township and rounded the bastards up, but too many ran and skulked, sir. They are reluctant, I tell you, reluctant!”

  It had taken the fleet two days to sail to Townsend where the militia had been ordered to muster. General Lovell and Brigadier-General Wadsworth had been hoping for fifteen hundred men, but fewer than nine hundred waited for embarkation. “Eight hundred and ninety-four, sir, to be precise,” Marston, Lovell’s secretary, informed his master.

  “Dear God,” Lovell said.

  “It surely isn’t too late to request a Continental battalion?” Wadsworth suggested.

  “Unthinkable,” Lovell said instantly. The State of Massachusetts had declared itself capable of ejecting the British on its own, and the General Court would not look happily on a request for help from General Washington’s troops. The Court, indeed, had been reluctant to accept Commodore Saltonstall’s aid, except that the Warren was so obviously a formidable warship and to ignore its presence in Massachusetts waters would have been perverse. “We do have the commodore’s marines,” Lovell pointed out, “and I’m assured the commodore will willingly release them to land service at Majabigwaduce.”

  “We shall need them,” Wadsworth said. He had inspected the three militia battalions and had been appalled by what he found. Some men looked fit, young and eager, but far too many were either too old, too young, or too sick. One man had even paraded on crutches. “You can’t fight.” Wadsworth had told the man.

  “Which is what I told the soldiers when they came to get us,” the man said. He was gray-bearded, gaunt, and wild-haired.

  “Then go home,” Wadsworth said.

  “How?”

  “Same way you got here,” Wadsworth had said, despair making him irritable. A few paces down the line he found a curly-haired boy with cheeks that had never felt a razor. “What’s your name, son?” Wadsworth asked.

  “Israel, sir.”

  “Israel what?”

  “Trask, sir.”

  “How old are you, Israel Trask?”

  “Fifteen, sir,” the boy said, trying to stand straighter. His voice had not broken and Wadsworth guessed he was scarcely fourteen. “Three years in the army, sir,” Trask said.

  “Three years?” Wadsworth asked in disbelief.

  “Fifer with the infantry, sir,” Trask said. He had a sackcloth bag hanging at his back and a slender wooden pipe protruded from the bag’s neck.

  “You resigned from the infantry?” Wadsworth asked, amused.

  “I was taken prisoner, sir,” Trask said, evidently offended by the question, “and exchanged. And here I am, sir, ready to fight the syphilitic bastards aga
in.”

  If a boy had used that language in Wadsworth’s classroom it would have provoked a caning, but these were strange times and so Wadsworth just patted the boy’s shoulder before walking on down the long line. Some men looked at him resentfully and he supposed they were the men who had been pressed by the militia. Maybe two thirds looked healthy and young enough for soldiering, but the rest were miserable specimens. “I thought you had a thousand men enrolled in Cumberland County alone?” Wadsworth remarked to Colonel Mitchell.

  “Ha,” Mitchell said.

  “Ha?” Wadsworth responded coldly.

  “The Continental Army takes our best. We find a dozen decent recruits and the Continentals take six away and the other six run off to join the privateers.” Mitchell put a plug of tobacco in his mouth. “I wish to God we had a thousand, but Boston doesn’t send their wages and we don’t have rations. And there are some places we can’t recruit.”

  “Loyalist places?”

  “Loyalist places,” Mitchell had agreed grimly.

  Wadsworth had walked on down the line, noting a one-eyed man who had some kind of nervous affliction that made his facial muscles quiver. The man grinned, and Wadsworth shuddered. “Does he have his senses?” he asked Colonel Mitchell.

  “Enough to shoot straight,” Mitchell said dourly.

  “Half don’t even have muskets!”

  The fleet had brought five hundred muskets from the Boston Armory that would be rented to the militia. Most men at least knew how to use them because in these eastern counties folk expected to kill their own food and to skin the prey for clothing. They wore deerskin jerkins and trousers, deerskin shoes, and carried deerskin pouches and packs. Wadsworth inspected them all and reckoned he would be lucky if five hundred would prove useful men, then he borrowed a horse from the parson and gave them a speech from the saddle.

  “The British,” he called, “have invaded Massachusetts! They must despise us, because they have sent few men and few ships! They believe we are powerless to evict them, but we are going to show them, that Massachusetts men will defend their land! We will embark on our fleet!” He waved towards the masts showing above the southern rooftops. “And we shall fight them, we shall defeat them and we shall evict them! You will return home with laurels on your brows!” It was not the most inspiring speech, Wadsworth thought, but he was encouraged when men cheered it. The cheer was late in starting, and it was feeble at first, but then the paraded ranks became enthusiastic.