The Fort. Bernard Cornwell
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John Lymburner and his friends are saying what a coward Buck is, and that’s just nonsense! It’s all just bitterness, Beth.’
‘So you’ll ignore it?’ she asked. ‘Just sign the oath and pretend it isn’t happening?’
James stared down at his hands. ‘What do you think I should do?’
‘You know what I think,’ Bethany said firmly.
‘Just ’cos your fellow was a damned rebel,’ James said, smiling. He gazed at the shivering reflections cast from the lanterns on board the three sloops. ‘What I want, Beth, is for them all to leave us alone.’
‘They won’t do that now,’ she said.
James nodded. ‘They won’t, so I’ll write a letter, Beth,’ he said, ‘and you can take it over the river to John Brewer. He’ll know how to get it to Boston.’
Bethany was silent for a while, then frowned. ‘And the oath? Will you sign it?’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we have to,’ he said. ‘I don’t know, Beth, I honestly don’t know.’
James wrote the letter on a blank page torn from the back of the family Bible. He wrote simply, saying what he had seen in Majabigwaduce and its harbour. He told how many guns were mounted on the sloops and where the British were making earthworks, how many soldiers he believed had come to the village and how many guns had been shipped to the beach. He used the other side of the paper to make a rough map of the peninsula on which he drew the position of the fort and the place where the three sloops of war were anchored. He marked the battery on Cross Island, then turned the page over and signed the letter with his name, biting his lower lip as he formed the clumsy letters.
‘Maybe you shouldn’t put your name to it,’ Bethany said.
James sealed the folded paper with candle-wax. ‘The soldiers probably won’t trouble you, Beth, which is why you should carry the letter, but if they do, and if they find the letter, then I don’t want you blamed. Say you didn’t know what was in it and let me be punished.’
‘So you’re a rebel now?’
James hesitated, then nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I suppose I am.’
‘Good,’ Bethany said.
The sound of a flute came from a house higher up the hill. The lights still shimmered on the harbour water and dark night came to Majabigwaduce.
Excerpts of a letter from the Selectmen of Newburyport, Massachusetts, to the General Court of Massachusetts, July 12th, 1779:
Last Friday one James Collins an Inhabitant of Penobscot on his way home from Boston went through this Town … upon Examination (we) find that he has been an Enemy to the united States of America … and that immediately after the British Fleet arrived at Penobscot this Collins … took Passage from Kennebeck to Boston … where he arrived last Tuesday, and as we apprehend got all the Intelligence he Possibly cou’d Relative to the movements of our Fleet and Army … (we) are suspicious of his being a Spy and have accordingly Secured him in the Gaol in this Town.
Order addressed to the Massachusetts Board of War, July 3rd, 1779:
Ordered that the Board of War be and hereby are directed to procure three hundred and fifty Barrels of Flour, One hundred and sixteen Barrels of Pork, One hundred and Sixty five Barrels of Beef, Eleven Tierces of Rice, Three hundred and Fifty bushels of Pease, five hundred and fifty two Gallons of Molasses, Two Thousand, One hundred and Seventy Six pound of Soap and Seven hundred and Sixty Eight pound of Candles being a deficient Quantity … on board the Transports for the intended Expedition to Penobscot.
THREE
On Sunday, 18th July, 1779, Peleg Wadsworth worshipped at Christ Church on Salem Street where the rector was the Reverend Stephen Lewis who, until two years before, had been a British army chaplain. The rector had been captured with the rest of the defeated British army at Saratoga, yet in captivity he had changed his allegiance and sworn an oath of loyalty to the United States of America, which meant his congregation this summer Sunday was swollen by towns-folk curious about how he would preach when his adopted country was about to launch an expedition against his former comrades. The Reverend Lewis chose his text from the Book of Daniel. He related the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the three men who had been hurled into King Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace and who, by God’s saving grace, had survived the flames. For an hour or more Wadsworth wondered how the scripture was relevant to the military preparations that obsessed Boston, and even whether some ancient lingering loyalty was making the rector ambivalent, but then the Reverend Lewis moved to his final peroration. He told how all the king’s men had assembled to watch the execution and instead they saw that ‘the fire had no power’. ‘The king’s men,’ the rector repeated fiercely, ‘saw that “the fire had no power!” There is God’s promise, in the twenty-seventh verse of the third chapter of Daniel! The fire set by the king’s men had no power!’ The Reverend Lewis stared directly at Wadsworth as he repeated the last two words, ‘no power!’, and Wadsworth thought of the redcoats waiting at Majabigwaduce and prayed that their fire would indeed have no power. He thought of the ships lying at anchor in Boston’s harbour, he thought of the militia who were assembling at Townsend where the ships would rendezvous with the troops, and he prayed again that the enemy’s fire would prove impotent.
After the service Wadsworth shook a multitude of hands and received the good wishes of many in the congregation, but he did not leave the church. Instead he waited beneath the organ loft until he was alone, then he went back up the aisle, opened a box pew at random, and knelt on a hassock newly embroidered with the flag of the United States. Around the flag were stitched the words ‘God Watcheth Over Us’ and Wadsworth prayed that was true, and prayed that God would watch over his family whom he named one by one: Elizabeth, his dear wife, then Alexander, Charles and Zilpha. He prayed that the campaign against the British in Majabigwaduce would be brief and successful. Brief because Elizabeth’s next child was due within five or six weeks and he was afraid for her and wanted to be with her when the baby was born. He prayed for the men whom he would lead into battle. He mouthed the prayer, the words a half-formed murmur, but each one distinct and fervent in his spirit. The cause is just, he told God, and men must die for it, and he begged God to receive those men into their new heavenly home, and he prayed for the widows who must be made and the orphans who would be left. ‘And if it please you, God,’ he said in a slightly louder voice, ‘let not Elizabeth be widowed, and permit my children to grow with a father in their house.’ He wondered how many other such prayers were being offered this Sunday morning.
‘General Wadsworth, sir?’ a tentative voice spoke behind him.
Wadsworth turned to see a tall, slim young man in a dark green uniform coat crossed by a white belt. The young man looked anxious, worried perhaps that he had disturbed Wadsworth’s devotions. He had dark hair that was bound into a short, thick pigtail. For a moment Wadsworth supposed the man had been sent to him with orders, then the memory of a much younger boy flooded his mind and the memory allowed him to recognize the man. ‘William Dennis!’ Wadsworth said with real pleasure. He did some quick addition in his head and realized Dennis must now be nineteen years old. ‘It was eight years ago we last met!’
‘I hoped you’d recollect me, sir,’ Dennis said, pleased.
‘Of course I remember you!’ Wadsworth reached across the box pew to shake the young man’s hand, ‘and remember you well!’
‘I heard you were here, sir,’ Dennis said, ‘so took the liberty of seeking you out.’
‘I’m glad!’
‘And you’re a general now, sir.’
‘A leap from school-mastering, is it not?’ Wadsworth said wryly, ‘and you?’
‘A lieutenant in the Continental Marines, sir.’
‘I congratulate you.’
‘And bound