1812: The Rivers of War

by Eric Flint

  Still, it was spectacular-looking wound—and James gave out a shriek to match it. Half a scream of pain; half a war cry.

  His face distorted with fury, he started to strike down the enemy soldier, now off balance from the bayonet thrust.

  He didn’t need to. His brother did it for him.

  Five more redcoats were coming, their bayonets leveled.

  Frantically, Driscol scrambled across the ground toward the saber he’d dropped when John tackled him. He was half crawling on his knees, half slithering like a snake, moving as fast as he could with only one arm.

  With a shout of triumph, he made the final distance with a lunge and clasped the hilt of the sword.

  Neither James nor John noticed him. Facing odds of five to two, they were paying attention to nothing except their immediate enemies. The bayonets were almost there, coming like the talons of a dragon.

  Ridge clambered over the body of a British soldier who’d been impaled on the iron fencing that the Iron Battalion had incorporated into their fieldworks. Then, he sprang into the bastion beyond. He could see a knot of British soldiers to his right, charging with their bayonets, with half-a-dozen more coming to join them.

  Since that seemed to be the center of the fight, he headed that way, after taking just a moment to wipe his hand on his uniform to dry his grip on the sword hilt.

  That moment was enough to allow John Ross to get into the rampart behind him. It wasn’t hard, really. The impact of the Cherokees had sent most of the British on that side of the bastion reeling aside.

  Ross followed Ridge into the howling chaos.

  Sam and his men slammed into the milling British soldiers almost directly opposite to the side of the bastion the Cherokees had already reached.

  And with the same result. By now, any semblence of order in the enemy regiments had collapsed. The redcoats had been reduced to a milling mob. Ready and willing to fight—even clambering over the breastworks eagerly—but with even less in the way of formation and discipline than Sam’s own men.

  Under those circumstances, most of the advantages professional soldiers enjoyed against amateurs had vanished. True, as a rule, each British soldier was more adept with a bayonet than each American soldier. But that didn’t matter. There wasn’t enough room in that press of men to use any weapon properly. In truth, a knife was probably more useful than anything else, and Sam saw that a lot of his men had dropped their guns and were using their dirks.

  He made no attempt to bring order to the melee. It would have been a hopeless endeavor—and he was far too concerned with getting into the bastion himself.

  As big as he was, Sam made it up the slope by the simple expedient of leaping from one enemy body to another. Some of them were dead. Some weren’t. He didn’t care, either way. They were just stepping-stones. He had to get in there.

  Henry arrived just as another three British soldiers joined the five who were now fighting the Rogers brothers. Because of the angle from which he came, they never saw him until it was too late.

  There was room, here. He gripped the sponge staff like a huge club and swung it mightily. The redcoat he struck went sailing into the others, stabbing one of them in the back of the thigh with his bayonet.

  The man screeched and, in sheer reflex, drove back the butt of his musket. Henry had broken an arm; that butt stroke broke the man’s jaw.

  Two of the other redcoats were knocked reeling. James Rogers took advantage of the opening to kill one of them with a savage blow to the skull. The soldier’s shako was sent flying straight up, as if propelled by a rocket, while the head beneath turned into a mass of blood.

  John Rogers slew the other. A quick belly strike followed by a short, sharp head blow that caved in the soldier’s temple.

  Two more were coming. Henry swung the sponge staff again, in a sweeping backstroke. He knocked the first into the second, and that man went flying to land—

  On Driscol.

  Just as he started rising to his feet, the saber in his hand, Driscol was knocked back down again.

  Thinking he was being attacked, seeing nothing but the red of the uniform, he twisted frantically on the ground so he could bring the saber into position. Cursing, again, the fact that his left arm was missing. He couldn’t thrust himself erect without letting go of the sword.

  Not a chance that he’d do that. He got just far enough away from the enemy who was lying next to him to place the tip of the sword against his chest. Then, with a powerful thrust, he sent it right into his heart.

  The British soldier’s eyes opened, his mouth opened—and a gush of blood like a small fountain came spewing out into Driscol’s face.

  He was blind, now. Had no choice. He dropped the sword to wipe off his face.

  James killed another. Then staggered. He’d lost enough blood from his wound to make him a little light-headed.

  The concerned glance his brother gave him lasted just long enough for a British soldier to take advantage. Finally, there was a gap in the armor of that terrifying, two-headed Cherokee killing machine.

  Driscol cleared his eyes just in time to see a bayonet slide into John Rogers’s belly. Moving as if time were slowed, the blade slid all the way through and emerged from his back, just above the waist.

  Staring at the blood spilling off the tip of the bayonet, Driscol knew that John Rogers was a dead man. Even if no vital organs had been pierced—which was almost impossible, given the location—he’d die of infection from that sort of abdominal wound.

  John knew it himself. The redcoat started to pull the blade out, but John grabbed the barrel of the musket with his left hand and held the bayonet where it was, with an iron grip.

  Then, screamed. Not words. Just an incoherent cry of pain and rage that was enough to galvanize his body and spirit for one last strike.

  The enemy soldier was too stunned by the sight to think of dropping his weapon. So his head was still within range, when John’s war club came around like the scythe of doom.

  The soldier died twice, since James crushed the other side of his skull as he fell to the ground. Then, looking at his brother, collapsed on the ground with the bayonet still held in his body by that final grip, he issued a scream of his own. The sound was so loud and so piercing that it froze, momentarily, the four British soldiers who were still coming toward him.

  Driscol drove to his feet, the saber back in his hand, and went at one of them. Before he could get there, Henry Crowell had swatted the redcoat away.

  He went for a second. But some Indian—Major Ridge, he thought—was there to cut him down.

  The third, then. But that redcoat was already turning to face a new threat. Before he could get his bayonet into position, Sam Houston’s sword went into his throat.

  There was still a last. But he was surrendering, now, dropping his musket and raising his hands.

  James Rogers was standing not more than six feet in front of him. He screamed again, leaping forward—a panther would have envied that scream—and shattered the man’s skull.

  There was nothing to cover the grief. No last deathblow that might remove the pain.

  Staggering a little, more from sorrow than weariness, Driscol came over to John and dropped beside him on one knee.

  Rogers was still alive, although Driscol could tell that he was going fast.

  Still, he had enough life left to give Driscol a sly little smile.

  “Know anything about Cherokee ghosts?” John asked, half whispering and half choking out the words. Blood was oozing from his mouth.

  Numbly, Driscol shook his head.

  “You don’t want to, either. So you be good to my sister, or I’ll haunt you.”

  His brother was kneeling next to him now, on the other side.

  “You heard?” John whispered.

  James nodded. Patrick thought that, from the dull expression on his face, James felt as numb as he did.

  John smiled, then, and closed his eyes. He started to say something else, but died ha
lfway through the second word.

  Driscol thought the word was “forget,” although he wasn’t sure. The first had been “don’t.”

  Sam swallowed, and looked away. He remembered the first time he’d ever seen John Rogers, on John Jolly’s island. John and his brother had been swimming in the river. They’d both looked like seals, so swift they were.

  Remembering, suddenly, that he was the commanding officer, Sam gave the area a quick and nervous inspection, his eyes ranging everywhere.

  But there was no danger, not any longer. That group of British soldiers who went after Driscol and the Rogers brothers had been the last gasp of the assault. Their mates had already been falling back while it happened.

  There were no British soldiers left in the bastion. None who were alive and uninjured, at least. There were quite a few corpses and wounded men.

  Henry Crowell came up to him, still holding the sponge staff he’d used as a maul. “Sorry about your friend, Colonel.”

  “Yes. Thank you, Henry.”

  Sighing, Sam started to sheath the sword. Then, realized it was covered with blood. For a moment, he looked down at the corpse of the man whose blood it was, wondering if he could wipe it clean on his uniform.

  But that would be just . . . horrid.

  “Here, sir,” Henry said softly. Looking, Sam saw that Crowell was extending the end of his sponge staff. “This’ll do, well enough.”

  So it did.

  With the sword finally sheathed, Sam went over to the breastworks. Henry came with him. They had to move three corpses aside to clear a good view. Two enemy, one of their own.

  They did the work rather gently. Sam could have clambered onto the bodies, the same way he had when he came into the bastion. But now that the battle was over, that seemed unbearably wicked.

  The enemy was leaving the field, moving back toward the barges that had ferried them across the river.

  All of them. Gauging the numbers as best he could, Sam estimated that at least two-thirds of the British soldiers would make their escape. But those were the broken pieces of regiments, now, no longer fighting units. They weren’t racing away in a rout, the way the Kentucky militiamen had done at the start of the battle. But they weren’t maintaining much in the way of formation, either. Those were soldiers who’d been beaten, and beaten badly enough that they wouldn’t be fighting any more this day.

  “Do you think it’s over, sir?” asked Henry. “I mean the whole thing.”

  Sam shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. But since we’re guessing . . . Yes. I think it’s over. If we could beat them back here, why would they ever think they could get across the field at Chalmette?”

  The only man who really mattered, at the moment, was the one man who didn’t have to guess.

  Pakenham sighed, when he saw the Forty-third and the West Indians join the Eighty-fifth in its retreat. “Robert was right,” he said, speaking very softly. He was really just talking to himself.

  Ignoring his cluster of aides, Pakenham left the riverside and strode to a place where he could look out over Chalmette field.

  He’d always known the danger of that clear, open field. But now, having witnessed that horrible American artillery in full action, and the determination of the soldiers behind the guns, he could see it as it would be. Covered with the corpses of his soldiers. A carpet of redcoats from one end to the other.

  We’d have lost two thousand men, I think, before we were driven back. And I doubt we’d have inflicted more than a hundred casualties on the enemy.

  No reputation is worth such a cost.

  He even managed a wry little smile. In all likelihood, it’d have been a posthumous reputation anyway. Here lies the gallant fool, Major General Edward Pakenham, Knight of the Bath.

  Admiral Cochrane came up. Pakenham gave him a cold, hard glance.

  “There will be no battle on Chalmette field, Admiral. I’ll start pulling out the men tomorrow morning.”

  Cochrane nodded. The admiral was too smart a man not to realize that he’d pushed the army as far as it would go.

  “Yes, I understand. I was thinking . . . We might finally catch Jackson napping, you know. If we move fast.”

  Pakenham chuckled. “You’re quite a good strategist, Admiral. So long as you’ll agree to leave the tactics to me. Yes, I was thinking the same thing myself all morning, as I punished an innocent tree. By all means. Let us give Mobile another try.”

  After the silence had lasted long enough, Robert Ross left the square to deal with his bladder. When he came back, hearing the silence still, he ordered another pot of tea. Tiana was back at the table.

  “Would you care for some, my dear?”

  “No.” She was finally starting to cry. “I think he’s dead.”

  “I think he’s very much alive. That’s what that silence means.”

  It meant something else, too; little to Tiana but a very great deal to Robert Ross. That silence—continuing, and continuing—meant that thousands of his men would live to see another day, with all their limbs and organs intact.

  Perhaps he should take up another line of work. He was beginning to think like a bloody parson.

  Tiana didn’t shed many tears, for it wasn’t her way. And by late afternoon she was smiling half the time, in any event.

  Word had come back. A runner sent by Houston to Tiana herself. Ross was surprised that such a young man enjoying such a splendid victory should have been so thoughtful.

  Patrick was still alive. He hadn’t even lost any more limbs, amazingly enough.

  She ordered pastries, too, for anyone who wanted to sit at the table and chat.

  Chat with Ross, not her. The other half of the time, her eyes blue and empty, she was staring at the river. Houston’s runner had also told her about the death of her brother.

  Although Tiana herself did not participate in the conversation, a number of New Orleans matrons took her up on the offer of pastries. Most of them, speculatively eyeing the perhaps-eligible British officer whose uniform had sent them screaming away in the morning.

  CHAPTER 49

  FEBRUARY 12, 1815

  Mobile Bay

  “So we finally caught Jackson napping,” Admiral Cochrane said with satisfaction. From his position on the walls of Fort Bowyer, he was looking north across Mobile Bay.

  “Indeed so,” said Pakenham. “Almost all of his troops remain in New Orleans. Still entrenched at the Jackson Line and in Fort St. John, according to the reports I’ve received. Apparently, he’s convinced we intend to assemble a fleet of flat-bottom boats and attack him through Lake Pontchartrain.”

  The admiral was literally rubbing his hands with glee. “By the time he gets here—if he even tries at all—Mobile will be ours. And with it,” Cochrane gloated, “the open road to New Orleans.”

  Pakenham smiled. “Well, it’s hardly an ‘open road,’ sir. And the distance is probably close to two hundred miles, the way the army will have to march.”

  But his own expression was sanguine, as he gazed over the bay. “Still, it’s vastly superior terrain to what we faced along the Mississippi. No swamps and—best of all—plenty of room to maneuver. Let Jackson try to match us on open ground, for a change.”

  Two days later, before the assault on Mobile could be launched, the HMS Brazen arrived with the news.

  A peace treaty had been signed at Ghent. The war with the United States was over.

  “So it is,” Pakenham remarked stoically. He watched as his men rolled two casks of rum up to the gangplank, where the sailors would take charge of them.

  “I’ll ask you to handle these with dignity, sir,” Pakenham said to the frigate’s captain. “Contained within are the mortal remains of two of the finest regimental commanders Britain has ever had serve her colors. Colonels Thornton and Rennie.”

  “Aye, General. I’ll see to it.”

  As the casks were hoisted into the ship, Pakenham felt a deep sadness. Thornton and Rennie, both gone. Not to mention hun
dreds of other brave men—more than a thousand, counting the earlier casualties at Bladensburg and the Capitol.

  And for what?

  There were times he found being a professional soldier rather trying.

  Cochrane, standing next to him, seemed to understand his sentiments.

  “Look at it this way, General. It’s just part of the cost of building and maintaining the reputation and morale of a great army. Navy, too. There’ll be other wars to come, when we’ll need that.”

  Pakenham sighed. “Yes, Admiral. Exactly what I was telling myself.”

  A month later, Pakenham was feeling much better. Admiral Cochrane’s stoic analysis had been proven right—and far sooner than Pakenham would have thought possible.

  The major general got the news while he and his men were still aboard ship sailing back to England. Napoleon had escaped from his exile on the island of Elba and landed back in France just two weeks earlier. From there, it seemed, he was making his way to Paris, rallying his forces.

  The war was on again. The dispatch ordered Pakenham to report to Wellington as soon as he arrived in England.

  He had to restrain himself from crushing the dispatch in his fist, out of sheer exultation.

  “A real war, by God!” he exclaimed to Gibbs. “No more of that miserable business with Cousin Jonathan.”

  CHAPTER 50

  MARCH 10, 1815

  New Orleans