Because that was why he had built Fort George, to kill the king’s enemies, and now those enemies were obliging him. And so he waited.
It began to rain harder, a steady rain, pelting down almost vertically because the wind was so light. The fog moved in bands, thick sometimes, then thinning, and at times whole swathes of the river were clear of the fog to reveal a sullen gray water being dimpled by rain. The rainwater dripped from yards and rigging to darken the warships’ decks.
“You trust the army, Mister Burke?” Saltonstall asked.
“They’re in position, Commodore, and ready to go. Yes, sir, I trust them.”
“Then I suppose we must indulge them.”
Five rebel ships would sail into Majabigwaduce Harbor. The General Putnam would lead the attack, closely followed by the Warren and the New Hampshire ship, Hampden. The Charming Sally and the Black Prince would come behind those three leading vessels.
It had been Saltonstall’s idea to send the General Putnam first. She was a large, well-built ship that carried a score of nine-pounder cannons, and her orders were to sail directly at Mowat’s line and then turn upwind to anchor opposite the southernmost sloop, the Nautilus. Once anchored, the General Putnam would hammer the Nautilus with her broadside while the Warren, with her much larger guns, came into line opposite the British flagship, the Albany. The Hampden, with her mix of nine-pounder and six-pounder cannon, would then take on the North while the two remaining ships would use their broadsides to pound the fort.
“He wants us dead,” Thomas Reardon, first lieutenant of the General Putnam, commented.
“But it makes sense to send us in first,” Daniel Waters, the skipper, said bleakly.
“To kill us?”
“The Warren’s our most powerful ship. No point in having her half-beaten to death before she opens fire.”
“So we’re to be half-beaten to death instead?”
“Yes,” Waters said, “because that’s our duty. Hands to the capstan.”
“He’s saving his skin, that’s the only sense it makes.”
“That’s enough! Capstan!”
Capstans creaked as the anchors were hauled. The topgallantsails were released first, showering water onto the decks, which had been scattered with sand to give the gunners firm footing on planks that would become slippery with blood. The guns were double-shotted. The three leading vessels all carried marines whose muskets would harry the enemy gunners.
The crews of the other ships cheered as the five attacking vessels got under way. Commodore Saltonstall watched approvingly as his flying jib was raised and backed to turn the Warren away from the wind, then as the jib and foretopmast staysail were hoisted and sheeted hard home. The topgallants caught the small wind, and Lieutenant Fenwick ordered the other topsails released. Men slid down rigging, ran along yards, and fought with rain-tightened bindings to loose the big sails that scattered more gallons of rainwater that had been trapped within the canvas folds. “Sheet them hard!” Fenwick called.
And the Warren was moving. She even heeled slightly to the fitful wind. At her stern the snake ensign flew from the mizzen gaff, while the Stars and Stripes were unfurled at her maintop, the proud colors bright in the drab rain and drifts of fog. Israel Trask, the boy fifer, played on the frigate’s forecastle. He began with the “Rogue’s March” because it was a jaunty tune, a melody to make men dance or fight. The gunners had scarves tied about their ears to dull the sound of the cannon and most, even though it was a chill day, were stripped to the waist. If they were wounded they did not want a musket-ball or timber splinter to drive cloth into the flesh, for every man knew that invited gangrene. The cannon were black in the rain. Saltonstall liked a spick-and-span ship, but he had nevertheless permitted the gunners to chalk the guns’ barrels. “Death to Kings,” one said, “Liberty forever” was written on another, while a third, somewhat mysteriously, just said “Damn the Pope,” a sentiment which seemed irrelevant to the day’s business, but which so accorded with the commodore’s own prejudices that he had allowed the slogan to stay.
“A point to starboard,” Saltonstall said to the helmsman.
“Aye aye, sir, point to starboard it is,” the helmsman said, and made no correction. He knew what he was doing, and he knew too that the commodore was nervous, and nervous officers were prone to give unnecessary orders. The helmsman would keep the Warren behind the General Putnam, close behind, so close that the frigate’s jib-boom almost touched the smaller ship’s ensign. The harbor entrance was now a quarter mile away. Men were waving from the top of Dyce’s Head. Other men watched from Cross Island where the American flag flew. No guns fired. A rift of fog drifted across the harbor center, half-shrouding the British ships. The fort was not visible yet. There was a whisper of wind, just enough so that the ships picked up speed and the sea at the Warren’s cutwater made a small splashing noise. Two knots, maybe two and a half, Saltonstall thought, and one nautical mile to go before the wheel spun to lay the frigate’s broadside opposite the Albany. The forecastle of the Warren looked ugly because the marines had erected barricades of logs to protect themselves against the enemy’s fire. And that fire would begin as soon as the frigate passed Dyce’s Head, but most of it would be aimed at the General Putnam and for half a nautical mile the General Putnam must endure that fire without being able to answer it. At two knots that half nautical mile would be covered in fifteen minutes. Each British gun would fire six or seven shots in that time. So at least three hundred shots would beat the General Putnam’s bows, which Captain Waters had reinforced with heavy timbers. Saltonstall knew that some men despised him for letting the General Putnam take that beating, but what sense did it make to sacrifice the largest ship in the fleet? The Warren was the monarch of this bay, the only frigate and the only ship with eighteen-pounder cannons, and it would be foolish to let the enemy cripple her with three hundred round shot before she was capable of unleashing her terrifying broadside.
And what good would this attack do anyway? Saltonstall felt a pulse of anger that he was being asked to do this thing. Lovell should have attacked and taken the fort days ago! The Continental Navy was having to do the Massachusetts Militia’s job, and Lovell, damn him, must have complained to his masters in Boston who had persuaded the Navy Board there to send Saltonstall a reprimand. What did they know? They were not here! The task was to capture the fort, not sink three sloops, which, once the fort was taken, were doomed anyway. So good marines and fine sailors must die because Lovell was a nervous idiot. “He’s not fitted to be elected town Hog Reeve,” Saltonstall sneered.
“Sir?” the helmsman asked.
“Nothing,” the commodore snapped.
“By the mark three!” a seaman called from the beakhead, casting a lead-weighted line to discover the depth.
“We’ve plenty of water, sir,” the helmsman said encouragingly. “I remember from the last time we poked our nose in.”
“Quiet, damn your eyes,” Saltonstall snapped
“Quiet it is, sir.”
The General Putnam was almost abreast of Dyce Head now. The wind faltered, though the ships kept their way. On board the British ships the gunners would be crouching behind their barrels to make sure their aim was true.
“Commodore, sir!” Midshipman Ferraby shouted from the taffrail.
“What is it?”
“Signal from the Diligent, sir. Strange sail in sight.”
Saltonstall turned. There, far to the south, just emerging from a band of fog which half-obscured Long Island, was his guard ship, the Diligent, with signal flags bright at a yardarm. “Ask how many sail,” he ordered.
“It says three ships, sir.”
“Why the hell didn’t you say so the first time, you damned fool? What ships are they?”
“He doesn’t know, sir.”
“Then send an order telling him to find out!” Saltonstall barked, then took the speaking trumpet from its hook on the binnacle. He put the trumpet to his mouth. “Wear ship!” he be
llowed, then turned back to the signal midshipman. “Mister Ferraby, you damned fool, make a signal to the other attack ships that they are to return to the anchorage!”
“We’re going back, sir?” Lieutenant Fenwick was driven to ask.
“Don’t you be a damned fool as well. Of course we’re going back! We do nothing till we know who these strangers are!”
And so the attack was suspended. The rebel ships turned away, their sails flapping like monstrous wet wings. Three strange ships were in sight, which meant reinforcements had arrived.
But reinforcements for whom?
From Lieutenant George Little’s deposition to the Massachusetts Court of Inquiry, sworn on September 25th, 1779.:
By order of Capt Williams I went with 50 Men on Board the Hamden to man her as I suppos’d to grand Attack the Enem’y About the Same time the Comodore Boats being Imploy’d In Bringing off Loggs to Build a Brest Work on his fore Castle – I have Offten Herd Capt Williams say that from the first Counsell of war that the Comodore being always preaching Terro Against going in the Harbor to Attack the Enemeys Shiping.
From Brigadier-General Lovell’s despatch to Jeremiah Powell, President of the Council Board of the State of Massachusetts Bay, dated August 13th, 1779:
I receiv’d your favor of Augt 6th this day wherein you mention your want of intelligence of the State of the army under my Command. . . . The Situation of my Army at present I cannot but say is very critical. . . . Many of my Officers and Soldiers are dissatisfied with the Service tho’ there are some who deserve the greatest credit for their Alacrity and Soldier like conduct. . . . Inclosed you have the Proceedings of five Councils of War, You may Judge my Situation when the most important Ship in the Fleet and almost all the private property Ships are against the Seige.
Chapter Thirteen
A Royal Marine at the taffrail of HMS North fired his musket at the small group of Americans who had gathered at the top of the beach. The musket-ball fluttered close above their heads to bury itself in the trunk of a spruce. None of the Americans seemed to notice, but kept gazing fixedly towards the harbor entrance. A marine sergeant shouted at the man to save his ammunition. “The range is too long, you stupid bastard.”
“Just saying hello to them, Sergeant.”
“They’ll be saying hello to you soon enough.”
Captain Selby, the commanding officer of HMS North, was watching the approaching rebel ships. His view was veiled by wisps of fog and sheets of rain, but he recognized the meaning of the enemy’s furled mainsails. The rebels wanted a clear view forrard, they were ready for battle. He walked along the sloop’s deck, talking to his gunners. “You’ll hit them hard, lads. Make every shot count. Aim at their waterline, sink the bastards before they can board us! That’s the way to beat them!” Selby doubted the three sloops could sink an enemy warship, at least not before the rebels opened fire. It was astonishing how much punishment a ship could take before it began to sink, but it was his duty to sound confident. He could see five enemy ships approaching the harbor entrance and all of them looked bigger than his sloop. He reckoned the enemy would try to board and capture the North and so he had readied the boarding pikes, axes, and cutlasses with which his crew would fight the attackers.
He stopped at the North’s bows beside a great samson post which held one of the seventeen-inch hawsers linking his sloop to the Albany. He could see Captain Mowat at the Albany’s stern, but he resisted the temptation to make small talk across the gap. A fiddler was playing aboard Mowat’s sloop and the crew was singing, and his own men took up the song.
We’ll rant and we’ll roar like true British sailors,
We’ll range and we’ll roam over all the salt seas,
Until we strike soundings in the Channel of old England
From Ushant to Scilly ´tis thirty-five leagues.
Was it thirty-five leagues, he wondered? He remembered the last time he had beat up northwards from Ushant, the sea a gray monster and the Atlantic gale singing in the shrouds. It had seemed further than thirty-five leagues. He watched the enemy and distracted himself by converting thirty-five land leagues to nautical miles. The numbers fluttered in his head and he forced himself to concentrate. A touch under ninety-one and a quarter nautical miles, say an easy dawn-to-dusk run in a sloop-of-war given a fresh wind and a clean hull. Would he ever see Ushant again? Or would he die here, in this fog-haunted, rain-drenched, godforsaken harbor on a rebel coast? He still watched the enemy. A fine dark-hulled ship led them, and close behind her was the larger bulk and taller masts of the Warren. The thought of that frigate’s big guns gave Selby a sudden empty feeling in his belly and, to disguise his nervousness, he leveled his glass towards the approaching ships. He saw green-jacketed marines in the frigate’s fighting tops and he thought of the musket-fire that would rain onto his deck and then, inexplicably, he saw some of the enemy’s sails flutter and begin to turn away from view. He lowered the glass, still staring. “Good God,” he said.
The American frigate was turning. Had she lost her rudder? Selby gazed in puzzlement and then saw that all the rebel ships were following the frigate’s example. They were falling off the wind, their sails shivering as the crews loosened sheets. “They surely aren’t going to open fire from there?” he wondered aloud. He watched, half-expecting to see the hull of the leading ship vanish in a sudden cloud of powder smoke, but none showed. She just turned sluggishly and kept on turning.
“The bastards are running away!” Henry Mowat called from the Albany. The singing on the sloops faltered and died as men stared at their enemy turning away. “They’ve got no belly for the fight!” Mowat shouted.
“Dear God,” Selby said in astonishment. His telescope showed him the name on the stern of the ship that had been leading the attack, and which was now the rearmost vessel of the retreating fleet. “General Putnam,” he read aloud. “And who the devil is General Putnam?” he asked. But whoever he was, the ship named for General Putnam was now sailing away from the harbor, as was the rebel frigate and the three other ships. They were all stemming the flooding tide to return to their anchorage. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Selby said, collapsing his glass.
On board the North and on board the Albany and on the sanded deck of the Nautilus the seamen cheered. Their enemy had run away without firing a shot. Mowat, usually so grim and purposeful, was laughing. And Captain Selby ordered an immediate extra issue of rum.
Because it seemed he might see Ushant again.
The Americans on the beach were Generals Lovell and Wadsworth, Lieutenant Downs of the Continental Marines, and the four majors who would lead the militia companies uphill. Only now it seemed there was not going to be any attack because Commodore Saltonstall’s ships were turning away. General Lovell stared openmouthed as the ships slowly wore around just beyond the harbor entrance. “No,” he protested to no one in particular.
Wadsworth said nothing. He just stared through his telescope.
“He’s turned away!” Lovell said in apparent disbelief.
“Attack now, sir,” Downs urged.
“Now?” Lovell asked, bemused.
“The British will be watching the harbor mouth,” Downs said.
“No,” Lovell said, “no, no, no.” He sounded heartbroken.
“Attack, please!” Downs pleaded. He looked from Lovell to Wadsworth. “Avenge Captain Welch, attack!”
“No,” Peleg Wadsworth supported Lovell’s decision. He closed the telescope and stared bleakly at the harbor mouth. He could hear the British crews cheering aboard the sloops.
“Sir,” Downs began to appeal.
“We need every man to attack,” Wadsworth explained, “we need men attacking along the ridge and we need cannon-fire from the harbor.” The signal for Colonel Mitchell and Colonel McCobb to begin their advance was the sight of the American ships engaging the British and it seemed that signal was not going to be sent now. “If we attack alone, Captain,” Wadsworth went on, “then McLean can concentrate his wh
ole force against us.” There was a time for heroics, a time for the desperate throw that would write bright glory on a new page of American history, but that time was not now. To attack now would be to kill men for nothing and give McLean another victory.
“We must go back to the heights,” Lovell said.
“We must go back,” Wadsworth echoed.
It began to rain even harder.
* * *
It took over two hours to get the men and the pair of four-pounder cannons back to the heights by which time dark had fallen. The rain persisted. Lovell sheltered under the sail-canvas tent that had replaced his earlier shelter. “There must be an explanation!” he complained, but no news had come from the fleet. Saltonstall had sailed towards the enemy and then, at the last moment, had turned away. Rumor said that strange ships had been sighted on the river’s sea-reach, but no one had confirmed that report. Lovell waited for an explanation, but the commodore sent none and so Major William Todd was sent in search of the answer. A longboat was hailed from the nearest transport and Todd was rowed southwards to where the lanterns of the warships glimmered through the wet dark. “Warren ahoy!” the steersman called from the longboat, which banged against the frigate’s hull. Hands reached down from the gunwale to help Major Todd aboard.
The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War Page 38
