“Oh, he’s such a tyrant!” McLean said, still amused. “Your leaders are wealthy men, I believe? Landowners, are they not? And merchants? And lawyers? This is a rebellion led by the wealthy. Strange how such men prospered so under tyranny.”
“Liberty is not the freedom to prosper,” Wadsworth said, “but the freedom to make choices that affect our own destiny.”
“But would a tyranny allow you to prosper?”
“You have restricted our trade and levied taxes without our consent,” Wadsworth said, wishing he did not sound so pedagogic.
“Ah! So our tyranny lies in not allowing you to become wealthier still?”
“Not all of us are wealthy men,” Wadsworth said heatedly, “and as you well know, General, tyranny is the denial of liberty.”
“And how many slaves do you keep?” McLean asked.
Wadsworth was tempted to retort that the question was a cheap jibe, except it had stung him. “None,” he said stiffly. “The keeping of Negroes is not common in Massachusetts.” He felt acutely uncomfortable. He knew he had not argued well, but he had been surprised by his enemy. He had anticipated a pompous, supercilious British officer, and instead found a courteous man, old enough to be his father, who seemed very relaxed in this unnatural encounter.
“Well, here the two of us are,” McLean said happily, “a tyrant and his downtrodden victim, talking together.” He pointed his pipe stem towards the fort where John Moore had gone on his way to the hospital. “Young Moore reads his history. He’s a fine young man too. He likes history, and here he is, here we both are, writing a new chapter. I sometimes wish I could peer into the future and read the chapter we write.”
“You might not like it,” Wadsworth said.
“I think it certain that one of us will not,” McLean said.
The conversation faltered. McLean drew on his pipe and Wadsworth gazed at the nearby ramparts. He could see the timber spikes in the ditch and, above them, the earth and log wall that was now higher than a man’s head. No one could leap the ramparts now, the wall would need to be climbed and fought for. It would be hard and bloody work and he wondered if even Continental Army troops could manage it. They could if the wall were breached and Wadsworth looked for evidence that Colonel Revere’s guns were having any effect, but other than the mangled roof of the storehouse inside the fort there was little sign of the cannonade. There were places where the wall had been battered by round shot, but those places had all been repaired. Mortars, he thought, mortars. We need to turn the interior of the fort into a cauldron of shrieking metal and searing flame. The curtain wall between the protruding corner bastions was lined with redcoats who gazed back at Wadsworth, intrigued by the proximity of a rebel. Wadsworth tried to count the men, but there were too many.
“I’m keeping most of my men hidden,” McLean said.
Wadsworth felt guilty, which was ridiculous because it was his duty to examine the enemy. Indeed, General Lovell had only agreed to this inquiry about Lieutenant Dennis’s fate because it offered Wadsworth an opportunity to examine the enemy’s defenses. “We’re keeping most of ours hidden too,” Wadsworth said.
“Which is sensible of you,” McLean said. “I see from your uniform you served in Mister Washington’s army?”
“I was an aide to the general, yes,” Wadsworth said, offended by the British habit of referring to George Washington as “mister.”
“A formidable man,” McLean said. “I’m sorry young Moore is taking so long.” Wadsworth made no answer and the Scotsman smiled wryly. “You very nearly killed him.”
“Lieutenant Moore?”
“He insisted on fighting the war single-handed, which I suppose is a good fault in a young officer, but I’m profoundly grateful he survived. He had great promise.”
“As a soldier?”
“As a man and as a soldier. Like your Lieutenant Dennis, he is a good young man. If I had a son, General, I should wish him to be like Moore. Do you have children?”
“Two sons and a daughter, and another child coming very soon.”
McLean heard the warmth in Wadsworth’s voice. “You’re a fortunate man, General.”
“I think so.”
McLean drew on the pipe, then blew a stream of smoke into the damp air. “If you will allow an enemy’s prayers, General, then let me pray you will be reunited with your family.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course,” McLean said blandly, “you could effect that reconciliation by withdrawing now?”
“But we have orders to capture you first,” Wadsworth said with some amusement in his voice.
“I shall not pray for that,” McLean said.
“I think, perhaps, we should have attempted it a week ago,” Wadsworth said ruefully, and immediately wished he had left the words unspoken. McLean said nothing, merely inclined his head, which small gesture might have been interpreted as agreement. “But we shall attempt it again,” Wadsworth finished.
“You must do your duty, General, of course you must,” McLean said, then turned because Wadsworth had looked towards the fort’s southwestern corner. John Moore had appeared there and now walked towards them with a scabbarded sword held in one hand. The lieutenant glanced at Wadsworth, then bent and whispered in McLean’s ear and the general winced and closed his eyes momentarily. “I am sorry, General Wadsworth,” he said, “but Lieutenant Dennis died this morning. You may be assured that he received the best treatment we could offer, but, alas, the ministrations were not sufficient.” McLean stood.
Wadsworth stood too. He looked at McLean’s grave face and then, to his shame, tears rolled down his cheeks. He turned away abruptly.
“There is nothing to be ashamed of,” McLean said.
“He was a fine man,” Wadsworth said, and he knew he was not crying because of Dennis’s death, but because of the waste and indecision of this campaign. He sniffed, composed himself, and turned back to McLean. “Please thank your doctor for whatever he attempted.”
“I will,” McLean said, “and please be assured we shall give Lieutenant Dennis a Christian burial.”
“Bury him in his uniform, please.”
“We shall do that, of course,” McLean promised. He took the scabbarded sword from Moore. “I presume you brought this because it belonged to the lieutenant?” he asked Moore.
“Yes, sir.”
McLean handed the sword to Wadsworth. “You might wish to return that to his family, General, and you may tell them from his enemy that their son died fighting heroically. They can be proud of him.”
“I shall,” Wadsworth said and took the sword. “Thank you for indulging my inquiry,” he said to McLean.
“I enjoyed most of our conversation,” McLean said and held a hand towards the abatis as though he were a host conducting an honored guest towards his front door. “I am truly sorry about your Lieutenant Dennis,” he said, walking westwards beside the much taller American. “Maybe one day, General, you and I can sit in peace and talk about these things.”
“I’d like that.”
“As would I,” McLean said, stopping just short of the abatis. He smiled mischievously. “And do please give my regards to young James Fletcher.”
“Fletcher,” Wadsworth said as if the name was new to him.
“We have telescopes, General,” McLean said, amused. “I regret he chose the allegiance he did. I regret that very much, but do tell him his sister is well, and that the tyrants give her and her mother rations.” He held out his hand. “We won’t resume our cannon practice till you’re back among the trees,” he said.
Wadsworth hesitated, then shook the offered hand. “Thank you, General,” he said, then began the long, lonely walk back up the ridge’s spine.
McLean stayed at the abatis, watching Wadsworth’s solitary walk. “He’s rather a good man, I think,” he said when the American was well out of earshot.
“He’s a rebel,” Moore said disapprovingly.
“And if you or I had been born here,” McLean said, “
then like as not we would be rebels too.”
“Sir!” John Moore sounded shocked.
McLean laughed. “But we were born across the sea, and it’s not so many years since we had our own rebels in Scotland. And I did like him.” He still watched Wadsworth. “He’s a man who wears his honesty like a badge, but luckily for you and me he’s no soldier. He’s a schoolmaster and that makes us fortunate in our enemies. Now let’s get back inside before they start shooting at us again.”
At dusk, that same day, Lieutenant Dennis was buried in his green uniform. Four highlanders shot a volley into the fading light, then a wooden cross was hammered into the soil. The name Dennis was scratched on the cross with charcoal, but two days later a corporal took the cross for kindling.
And the siege went on.
The three redcoats slipped out of the tented encampment at mid-afternoon on the day that the enemy officer had come to the fort under a flag of truce. They had no idea why the rebel had come, nor did they care. They cared about the sentries placed to stop men sneaking out of the camp and into the woods, but that picquet was easy enough to avoid, and the three men vanished into the trees and then turned west towards the enemy.
Two were brothers called Campbell, the third was a Mackenzie. They all wore the dark kilt of Argyle and carried their muskets. Off to their left the cannons were firing, the sound sporadic, sudden, percussive and now a part of their daily lives. “Down there,” Jamie Campbell said, pointing, and the three followed a vague track which led downhill through the trees. All three were grinning, excited. The day was gray and a light rain spat from the southwest.
The track led to the marshy isthmus that connected Majabigwaduce’s peninsula to the mainland. Jamie, the oldest of the brothers and the acknowledged leader of the three men, did not want to reach the isthmus, rather he was hoping to work his way along the wooded slope just above the marsh. The rebels patrolled that ground. He had seen them there. Sometimes Captain Caffrae’s company went to the same land and ambushed a rebel patrol, or else mocked the Americans with fife music and jeers. This afternoon, though, the wood above the marsh seemed empty. The three crouched in the brush and gazed west towards the enemy lines. To their right the trees were thinner, while ahead was a small clearing in which a spring bubbled. “Not a bloody soul here,” Mackenzie grumbled.
“They come here,” Jamie said. He was nineteen, with dark eyes, black hair, and a hunter’s watchful face. “Watch up the slope,” he told his brother, “we don’t want bloody Caffrae finding us.”
They waited. Birds, now as accustomed to the cannon-fire as the troops, sang harshly in the trees. A small animal, strangely striped, flitted across the clearing. Jamie Campbell stroked the stock of his musket. He loved his musket. He treated the stock with oil and boot-blacking so that the wood was smooth like silk, and the caress of the weapon’s dark curves put him in mind of the sergeant’s widow in Halifax. He smiled.
“There!” his brother Robbie hissed.
Four rebels had appeared at the clearing’s far side. They were in dull brown coats, trews and hats, and festooned with belts, pouches, and bayonet scabbards. Three of the men carried two pails apiece, the fourth had a musket in his hands. They shambled to the spring where they stooped to fill their buckets.
“Now!” Jamie said, and the three muskets flamed loud. One of the men at the spring was thrown sideways, his blood a flicker of red in the gray rain. The fourth rebel shot back at the smoke among the trees, but Mackenzie and the Campbell brothers were already running away, whooping and laughing.
It was sport. The general had forbidden it, and had threatened a dire punishment to any man who left the lines to take a shot at the enemy without permission, but the young Scotsmen loved the risk. If the rebels would not come to them then they would go to the rebels, whatever the general wanted. Now all they needed to do was get back safe to the tents without being found.
Then, tomorrow, do it again.
Samuel Adams reached Major-General Horatio Gates’s headquarters at Providence in Rhode Island late in the afternoon. Swollen clouds were heaping, and off to the west the thunder already grumbled. It was hot and humid and Adams was shown into a small parlor where, despite the open windows, no hint of wind brought relief. He wiped his face with a big spotted handkerchief. “Would you like tea, sir?” a pale lieutenant in Continental Army uniform asked.
“Ale,” Samuel Adams said firmly.
“Ale, sir?”
“Ale,” Samuel Adams said even more firmly.
“General Gates will be with you directly, sir,” the lieutenant said distantly and, Adams suspected, inaccurately, then vanished into the nether regions of the house.
The ale was brought. It was sour, but drinkable. Thunder sounded louder, though no rain fell and still no wind blew through the open sash windows. Adams wondered if he was hearing the sound of the siege guns pounding the British in Newport, but all reports said the attempts to evict that garrison had proven hopeless, and a moment later a distant flash of lightning confirmed that it was indeed thunder. A dog howled and a woman’s voice was raised in anger. Samuel Adams closed his eyes and dozed.
He was woken by the sound of nailed boots on the wooden floor of the hallway. He sat upright just as Major-General Horatio Gates came into the parlor. “You rode from Boston, Mister Adams?” the general boomed in greeting.
“Indeed I did.”
Despite the heat Gates had been wearing a greatcoat which he now threw to the lieutenant. “Tea,” he said, “tea, tea, tea.”
“Very good, your honor,” the lieutenant said.
“And tea for Mister Adams!”
“Ale!” Adams called in correction, but the lieutenant was already gone.
Gates unstrapped the scabbarded sword he wore over his Continental Army uniform and slammed it onto a table heaped with paperwork. “How are matters in Boston, Adams?”
“We do the Lord’s work,” Adams said gently, though Gates entirely missed the irony. The general was a tall man a few years younger than Samuel Adams, who, after his long ride down the Boston Post Road, was feeling every one of his fifty-seven years. Gates glared at the papers resting under his sword. He was, Adams thought, an officer much given to glaring. The general was heavy-jowled with a powdered wig that was not quite large enough to hide his gray hairs. Sweat trickled from under the wig. “And how do you fare in this fair island?” Adams asked.
“Island?” Gates asked, looking suspiciously at his visitor. “Ah, Rhode Island. Damn silly name. It’s all the fault of the French, Adams, the French. If the damned French had kept their word we’d have evicted the enemy from Newport. But the French, damn their eyes, won’t bring their ships. Damned fart-catchers, every last one of them.”
“Yet they are our valued allies.”
“So are the damned Spanish,” Gates said disparagingly.
“As are the damned Spanish,” Adams agreed.
“Fart-catchers and papists,” Gates said, “what kind of allies are those, eh?” He sat opposite Adams, long booted legs sprawling on a faded rug. Mud and horse dung were caked on the soles of his boots. He steepled his fingers and stared at his visitor. “What brings you to Providence?” he asked. “No, don’t tell me yet. On the table. Serve us.” The last five words were addressed to the pale lieutenant who placed a tray on the table and then, in an awkward silence, poured two cups of tea. “You can go now,” Gates said to the hapless lieutenant. “A man cannot live without tea,” he declared to Adams.
“A blessing of the British empire?” Adams suggested mischievously.
“Thunder,” Gates said, remarking on a clap that sounded loud and close, “but it won’t get here. It’ll die with the day.” He sipped his tea noisily. “You hear much from Philadelphia?”
“Little you cannot read in the newsprints.”
“We’re dillydallying,” Gates said, “dillydallying, shilly-shallying, and lollygagging. We need a great deal more energy, Adams.”
“I am sure your honor is
right,” Adams said, taking his cue for the honorific from the lieutenant’s mode of address. Gates was nicknamed “Granny,” though Adams thought that too kind for a man so touchy and sensible of his dignity. Granny had been born and raised in England and had served in the British Army for many years before a lack of money, slow promotion, and an ambitious wife had driven him to settle in Virginia. His undoubted competence as an administrator had brought him high rank in the Continental Army, but it was no secret that Horatio Gates thought his rank should be higher still. He openly despised General Washington, believing that victory would only come when Major-General Horatio Gates was given command of the patriot armies. “And how would your honor suggest we campaign?” Adams asked.
“Well, it’s no damned good sitting on your fat backside staring at the enemy in New York,” Gates said energetically, “no damned good at all!”
Adams gave a flutter of his hands that might have been construed as agreement. When he rested his hands on his lap again he saw the slight tremor in his fingers. It would not go away. Age, he supposed, and sighed inwardly.
“The Congress must come to its senses,” Gates declared.
“The Congress, of course, pays close heed to the sentiments of Massachusetts,” Adams said, dangling a great fat carrot in front of Gates’s greedy mouth. The general wanted Massachusetts to demand George Washington’s dismissal and the appointment of Horatio Gates as commander of the Continental Army.
“And you agree with me?” Gates asked.
“How could I possibly disagree with a man of your military experience, General?”
Gates heard what he wanted to hear in that answer. He stood and poured himself more tea. “So the State of Massachusetts wants my help?” he asked.
“And I had not even stated my purpose,” Adams said with feigned admiration.
“Not difficult to grasp, is it? You’ve sent your pillow-biters off to Penobscot Bay and they can’t get the job done.” He turned a scornful face on Adams. “Sam Savage wrote to tell me the British had surrendered. Not true, eh?”
“Alas, not true,” Adams said with a sigh. “The garrison appears to be a more difficult nut to crack than we had supposed.”
The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War Page 31
