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by Diane Carey

  Boyle gazed at him with unshielded empathy. “You’re too hard on yourself.”

  “He is,” Tarkio confirmed.

  “My crew followed me into this battle,” the younger captain said. He looked at Tarkio as if in some kind of personal confirmation. “I have that.”

  Leaning back against the rail, Boyle felt suddenly at home about this enemy ship, and the hostility he had drummed up for the battle flowed away. “What do you think, Victor?”

  After all, he had been their prisoner here for nearly three years. Who else would know?

  Tarkio took a moment to consider the question, or pretended to. He folded his arms and made a conciliatory expression toward James Gordon.

  “A light hand,” he suggested.

  “I agree,” Boyle said. “Your ship is a wreck … unlikely to make it to the States. I’ll write a letter to Chasseur’s owners of our engagement, explaining that both your crew and mine fought meritoriously. We’ll transfer clothing, food, and medical supplies to your ship for the comfort of your wounded. I will parole you and your officers and crew. After we affect repairs as well as may be done, you will conduct your ship to the nearest neutral port. You’ll understand, certainly, if I pitch your heavy guns overboard. After all, we’re still at war.”

  But he smiled as he said it.

  Lieutenant Gordon nodded, and seemed content that he had put forth his best efforts.

  Paul Mooran appeared with an armload of clean bandages, something Chasseur carried but fortunately rarely used because of the nature of privateering—a template well shattered today. “Can I bind you up, Tom? That arm—”

  “I’m fine,” Boyle told him, but took a rolled bandage from him and turned to Gordon. “Lieutenant, let me tend that leg.”

  “I’ll do it, Tom.” Victor Tarkio moved close and took the bandage from Boyle’s hand. “He’s my captain.”

  “To the captain or commander of any British ship of war who may capture the Chasseur, or whatever vessel Captain Boyle commands:

  At sea, on board the United States privateer Chasseur: In the event of Captain Boyle’s becoming a prisoner of war to any British cruiser I consider it a tribute justly due to his humane and generous treatment of myself, the surviving officers and crew of His Majesty’s late schooner St. Lawrence, to state that his obliging attention and watchful solicitude to preserve our effects and render us more comfortable during the short time we were in his possession were such as justly entitle him to the indulgence and respect of every British subject. I also certify that his endeavours to render us comfortable and to secure our property were carefully seconded by all his officers, who did their utmost to that effect.”

  J. E. Gordon (lieut. and com. of late schr. St. Lawrence.)

  Earthworks

  HAMPSTEAD HILL, BALTIMORE

  SEPTEMBER 11

  STORM CLOUDS GATHERED OVER the city, darkening the afternoon. More than just portending rain, they seemed to suggest oncoming disaster. And that was more than just poetic symbolism.

  Baltimore was less a city now than a military installation. They had expected to be attacked, and when the British paused rather than surging forward after the burning of Washington, Baltimoreans had awakened. A Committee of Vigilance and Safety had been elected, made up of merchants, craftsmen, a judge, and a sea captain, and they had put their strategic cleverness to work dividing the city into labor rotations to build earthworks running along the heights to the east. There, batteries of heavy guns were installed, and there they waited for the enemy.

  The enemy had, perhaps unwittingly, unbuckled the vigor of individuals. From all over, Americans were rushing to volunteer. As the British rested or stalled or waited for more enforcements, or whatever they were doing, militia from western Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia flooded in, and of course had to be fed and quartered. Businesses stopped operating and began fortifying. Entrenchments stretched for miles around the city. Business owners, free blacks, and slaves began digging trenches and building earthworks, drilling artillery skills, and sinking vessels at the harbor mouth so deep-hulled British men-of-war could not ford in.

  Mary had likewise virtually shut down her flag-making business and mustered with an energetic torrent of other Baltimore women. There was much to be done in the eddies of activity, trying to plan for something for which they had no design, no foreknowledge of how events would play out or where hostilities would even begin. Tonight she led a stout little donkey across the entrenchments on Hampstead Hill, northeast of the city, drawing a cart full of muslin bolts along the foot of the battery, bound for the hospital at Lazaretto Point, where a three-gun battery had been established to guard the waterway between there and Fort McHenry. There, she and two dozen other women of Baltimore would cut and roll all this muslin into bandages, to be ready to bind the men’s wounds. This was her fourth donation of fabric for various purposes. She put her chin down and kept hiking forward, past a phalanx of men and boys digging trenches and building earthworks—three miles of earthworks. She avoided meeting their eyes, because chivalry was not dead and they would pause to nod a greeting to her or offer to help her, and she didn’t want to interrupt their work that way.

  Yesterday she had done the same at a field hospital set up near the earthworks on the west side of Fort McHenry, in preparation for wounded men there. She had visited her two important bundles: the two flags that had not yet been hoisted, that awaited the eyes of the enemy.

  Major Armistead had not seemed at all well. He was exhausted, she knew, tireless in his quest to fortify the garrison. Seeing him that way gave her the pitapats. She had come to like him and his wife and to consider them her friends. Louisa Armistead was expecting their second child at virtually any minute, so had been sent to Gettysburg in Pennsylvania to keep her safe, which surely did not contribute well to the major’s state of mind or body. No matter how Mary tried to steel her heart and remember that he was a soldier foremost, she did not prefer to see her friends under stress.

  And his second in command at the garrison, Captain Nicholson—Judge Nicholson in another incarnation—had raised a volunteer artillery company at his own expense and named them the Baltimore Fencibles, a unit of the city’s most prominent merchants whose interests involved protecting not only the city buildings and homes, but the structure of commerce enjoyed by the citizens. Mary had seen the energetic young judge mustering his Fencibles in the city yesterday, and seen them marching in town just minutes ago, rousted from their homes and hurrying to the fort. Had she been a man, she would follow Nicholson too. He possessed that special effervescence that steamed up other people and got them moving.

  They were wrapped up in a turmoil of pride that might see them through, and the same for all the defenders here. These were many of the same men who had been startled and had run at Bladensburg. They had run because of inexperience and confusion. They had put their faith in their handsome uniforms and hadn’t realized there was more to war than a sparkling image.

  That fantasy was gone. The men who would face the enemy in defense of Baltimore were awakened to the lessons of Bladensburg and Washington. Their uniforms were scuffed and filthy now, but they didn’t care. Many had no uniforms at all and also didn’t care. Some estimates said there were as many as ten thousand defenders gathered, and one hundred cannon. She hoped that were true.

  In the water between the star fort and Lazaretto Point, across the north branch of the Patapsco, and from the fort to Ferry Point across the west branch, twenty-four ships were being deliberately sunk to create obstacles against the British fleet. The barriers were an attempt to block the two ways to Baltimore by water, with Fort McHenry at the crux. Despite the ambitious tactic of defense, she hadn’t liked seeing those vessels deliberately scuttled. Baltimore’s waterways were supposed to be free for trade, for use by anyone, and Baltimore was a shipbuilding center. To create something so precious as a sea-going craft, then deliberately …

  But the one thing that had frightened her, h
ad struck through her inner fortifications and the shield of courage she put up before her daughter and nieces, was the sight of unshipped masts being transported in wagon after wagon to Patapsco Neck. There they were joined into a massive chain and strung out across the river. That chain of giants now floated across the entire harbor mouth, with a squadron of gunboats each carrying one gun … the final line of defense if the British got through the sunken blockade.

  “Seems I’ve caught the shakes, Tulip,” she said aloud.

  She shook herself and gripped the donkey’s bridle so tightly that her hand hurt. She didn’t have to do that. Tulip would follow her without being led, a sweet-tempered beast of burden who belonged to a neighbor’s young son and was usually available for pick-ups or deliveries by the flag shop. Mary was hanging on more for herself than the donkey. Banishing her unhelpful reveries, she pulled her skirts up a little more and took longer steps across the rutted cart path.

  All the fortifications in the world could not steady Mary Pickersgill’s innards this night, or anyone’s. Because she knew. They all knew. They had heard.

  Fifty Royal Navy ships-of-the-line, frigates, and bomb boats were swiftly rolling north on Chesapeake Bay, carried by a dependable south wind. Some panicked messengers claimed the ships could now be seen from the mouth of the Patapsco.

  The enemy was nearly here.

  Bombardment Fleet

  “I shall eat my supper in Baltimore or in hell.”

  General Robert Ross, September 12, 1814

  PATAPSCO RIVER

  EVENING, SEPTEMBER 12

  THERE WAS NO MOON. No sky.

  A guest of the enemy, Frank Key paced the deck of the cartel sloop aboard which he and Skinner had sought the English fleet. Now he was back aboard, with Skinner and William Beanes, the sloop’s ten-man crew, and a muscular squad of Royal Marine guards to keep them here, anchored with the fleet of nineteen English warships. The water lapped and burbled constantly against the sides of the vessels anchored in a line stretching across the river from the cartel sloop. Tranquil clouds had hung above them for days, rendering the ripples a metallic gray with onion-colored crests.

  His mood could not have been more accurately reflected.

  “Would you care to take the next hand, Frank?” William Beanes asked. The doctor sat on the deck under a canvas canopy, dressed in a sailor’s shirt and pantaloons, with John Skinner as the two of them played a game with a worn set of cards depicting English kings and queens of history.

  “Thank you, no,” Key said. For days he had declined. There was nothing in his brain but counting the bomb ships as they arrived to meet the ships-of-the-line and heavy frigates, reading the names on their sides, their horrific portending names—Volcano, Terror, Aetna, Meteor, Devastation, and the rocket ship Erebus.

  “It’ll make you sick to watch,” John Skinner warned. “Sick in your soul.”

  “I am compelled.”

  He had been watching for two days as British boats came and went from North Point, landing armed English soldiers literally by the hundreds. Thousands. Hardened, experienced soldiers who would not shirk in the face of resistance. These were the warriors who would march with Ross and Cockburn overland to attack Baltimore, while Admiral Cochrane remained here to bombard by sea. One by land, one by sea—a two-pronged assault. For days those soldiers had slept on the decks of the ships that had brought them, evading the swelter of the lower decks, completely dressed and awaiting the order to begin the land siege. Now it was here.

  Even as Ross and Cockburn themselves were rowed from the Tonnant to take command of the overland attack, Key had watched. He had shared one final gaze with Ross before the rowboat disappeared behind the fleet. Ross had given him a nod, but nothing more. Anything else might have seemed cavalier. Ross was not the kind of man to prance, one of the reasons he was so deeply loved and respected by his superiors and the men who were asked to follow him into battle. His reputation buzzed through the ships, making its way to Key’s keen ears. To have such a commander at the fore of the enemy line was a reason for genuine concern.

  All day the booming and cracking sounds of distant battle had rung across the water from somewhere on the North Point Road, in the direction of Bear Creek, which was halfway between the British landing point and the city. Maddening: there was no way to know what was happening. He would rather have plunged into that battle himself, clumsy and ineffective, than to stand here on this deck, useless, tormented by the distant thunder.

  Then, the noise had gone silent as night fell. Why?

  His heart pined for the serenity of Terra Rubra, to be in the crucible of his children and his parents, with Polly holding him through the night. How had he come to this?

  He fought to keep his eyes open and did it. He drew another sustaining breath.

  The sky held only a memory of light now. Clouds smoldered low, storm clouds that had not yet thrown a drop of rain. They, too, kept their secrets. Only a few lanterns on the anchored ships gave any sense of shape or presence on the dark river. He heard more than saw a rowboat sculling past him toward the Tonnant, but then he saw the oars, lit up with glowing yellow-green biological life clinging to them. He moved along the rail to a place where he could just make out the shape of the man doing the rowing and another one sitting in the bow.

  “Hello!” he called. “Can you tell me what’s happening?”

  A shaky youthful voice responded. “Sir?”

  “Can you say what happened today?”

  “Engagement, sir,” the oarsman called back.

  “Where?”

  “Seven miles from Baltimore.”

  “Has it ended?”

  “For now, sir.”

  “Why has it stopped?”

  The boatman rowed closer, seeming uneasy with shouting out. As the boat came into the pale haze of a lantern on the bow of the sloop, Key saw a bundle at the oarsman’s feet, wrapped in something white or yellow that might have been a sail. Still, no sail was that shape.

  “What is that?” he was compelled to ask. Some inner signal made him ask.

  “A body, sir,” called the other soldier in the boat.

  Key stifled a chill. Why would a wartime corpse be given such treatment as to be rowed with an escort back to the fleet?

  “Whose body?”

  The two men did not answer.

  “Speak up,” Key urged. Clearly he wasn’t going anywhere, and he might be somebody who could get them in trouble for not responding. That was the bet he made, anyway. “Who is it?”

  Another moment or two passed before the boatmen found their nerve.

  With a choked throat, the oarsman struggled, “This is General Ross, sir.”

  “General Ross?”

  “Shot right off his ’orse, sir.”

  And the young man began to sob.

  “Go on!” the other soldier snapped. “Row!”

  A chill broke through Key’s chest. Ross—the adored commander, the prince of martial courage so revered that even his enemies respected him. How would this news affect the assault? Would the British rise in fury, stoked by grief?

  Thus, as the sounds of the oars pushing into the water grew small, a very long day faded into an even longer night of new fears.

  The Red Glare

  THE BOMBARDMENT FLEET

  6:30 A.M., SEPTEMBER 13

  Someone was singing. A bird. Its long, thin strain rippled across the early morning sky, under the clouds and above the water. A volcano exploded. The noise—

  Francis Scott Key jolted awake, shocked by the gargantuan thunderclap. He felt the blood drain from his face. The concussion knocked him from his place sitting on the deck against a barrel, right over onto his back with his legs flailing. He rolled over onto his stomach and pushed to his feet, scrambling like a child.

  “What in holy—” John Skinner stumbled out from under the canopy. His voice sounded thin and distant.

  “Shells!” Terrorized, Key put his trembling hands on the rail and look
ed at the bombardment fleet. It really was a volcano—the bomb ship Volcano lobbing the first giant volley toward the fort.

  “It’s a ranging shot,” Skinner guessed.

  The Volcano launched another shell from with a force so ungodly that the entire bomb ship pressed into the water. The massive black ball soared into the air, arching beneath the low-hanging clouds, on a course for the fort more than three miles away. Against the dark clouds the fuse of the spinning shell could be seen flickering after the firing itself lit the fibers.

  Beneath their feet, the sloop shuddered. Suddenly those miles seemed very small.

  “What’s happening?” Beanes called, still under the tarp. “Oh, God, what is it?”

  “Stay there, William,” Key responded. “It’s begun.”

  Fort McHenry

  “We were pigeons, tied by the legs, to be shot at.”

  Captain Joseph Nicholson

  SUCKING SHALLOW BREATHS, TENSE and chafing, the Americans bore witness from their captured sloop a delivery of hell through the air.

  The American crew of the sloop huddled either forward or aft, leaving the middle of the ship to the men who had hired them. It was Mr. Skinner’s charter, after all.

  And the British Marine guardsmen, they kept away also, creating the unreal spectacle of their red uniforms mixed up with the clothes of the American crew as they forgot who they were and stood dumbly watching the bombardment.

  In the distance, Fort McHenry was little more than a scratch of brown on the green of Whetstone Point. Against the backdrop of gray sky, a smudge of color flipped lazily over the fort. The United States flag.

  After the ranging shots, a pennant crawled up the line on the Surprise, the ship commanded by Admiral Cochrane’s son. It was an order for the bomb fleet. Move closer.