The Fort. Bernard Cornwell
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gestured towards the street. ‘Will you walk with me to the harbour?’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘You attended service, I hope?’
‘The Reverend Frobisher preached at West Church,’ Dennis said, ‘and I wanted to hear him.’
‘You don’t sound impressed,’ Wadsworth said, amused.
‘He chose a text from the Sermon on the Mount,’ Dennis said, ‘“He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”’
‘Ah!’ Wadsworth said with a grimace. ‘Was he saying that God is not on our side? If so, it sounds dispiriting.’
‘He was assuring us, sir, that the revealed truths of our faith cannot depend on the outcome of a battle, a campaign or even a war. He said we cannot know God’s will, sir, except for that part which illuminates our conscience.’
‘I suppose that’s true,’ Wadsworth allowed.
‘And he said war is the devil’s business, sir.’
‘That’s certainly true,’ Wadsworth said as they left the church, ‘but hardly an apt sermon for a town about to send its men to war?’ He closed the church door and saw that the wind-driven drizzle that had blown him uphill from the harbour had lifted and the sky was clearing itself of high, scudding clouds. He walked with Dennis towards the water, wondering when the fleet would leave. Commodore Saltonstall had given the order to set sail on the previous Thursday, but had postponed the departure because the wind had risen to a gale strong enough to part ships’ cables. But the great fleet must sail soon. It would go eastwards, towards the enemy, towards the devil’s business.
He glanced at Dennis. He had grown into a handsome young man. His dark green coat was faced with white and his white breeches piped with green. He wore a straight sword in a leather scabbard trimmed with silver oak leaves. ‘I have never understood,’ Wadsworth said, ‘why the marines wear green. Wouldn’t blue be more, well, marine?’
‘I’m told that the only cloth that was available in Philadelphia, sir, was green.’
‘Ah! That thought never occurred to me. How are your parents?’
‘Very well, sir, thank you,’ Dennis said enthusiastically. ‘They’ll be pleased to know I met you.’
‘Send them my respects,’ Wadsworth said. He had taught William Dennis to read and to write, he had taught him grammar in both Latin and English, but then the family had moved to Connecticut and Wadsworth had lost touch. He remembered Dennis well, though. He had been a bright boy, alert and mischievous, but never malevolent. ‘I beat you once, didn’t I?’ he asked.
‘Twice, sir,’ Dennis said with a grin, ‘and I deserved both punishments.’
‘That was never a duty I enjoyed,’ Wadsworth said.
‘But necessary?’
‘Oh, indeed.’
‘Their conversation was constantly interrupted by men who wished to shake their hands and wish them success against the British. ‘Give them hell, General,’ one man said, a sentiment echoed by everyone who accosted the pair. Wadsworth smiled, shook offered hands and finally escaped the well-wishers by entering the Bunch of Grapes, a tavern close to Long Wharf. ‘I think God will forgive us for crossing a tavern threshold on the Sabbath day,’ he said.
‘It’s more like the army’s headquarters these days,’ Dennis said, amused. The tavern was crowded with men in uniforms, many of whom were gathered by a wall where notices had been tacked, so many notices that they overlapped each other. Some offered bounties to men willing to serve on privateers, others had been put there by Solomon Lovell’s staff.
‘We’re to sleep aboard the ships tonight!’ a man shouted, then saw Wadsworth. ‘Is that because we’re sailing tomorrow, General?’
‘I hope so,’ Wadsworth said, ‘but make sure you’re all aboard by nightfall.’
‘Can I bring her?’ the man asked. He had his arm around one of the tavern’s whores, a pretty young red-haired girl who already looked drunk.
Wadsworth ignored the question, instead leading Dennis to an empty table at the back of the room, which was alive with conversation, hope and optimism. A burly man in a salt-stained sailor’s coat stood and thumped a table with his fist. He raised a tankard when the room had fallen silent. ‘Here’s to victory at Bagaduce!’ he shouted. ‘Death to the Tories, and to the day when we carry fat George’s head through Boston on the point of a bayonet!’
‘Much is expected of us,’ Wadsworth said when the cheers had ended.
‘King George might not oblige us with his head,’ Dennis said, amused, ‘but I’m sure we shall not disappoint the other expectations.’ He waited as Wadsworth ordered oyster stew and ale. ‘Did you know that folk are buying shares in the expedition?’
‘Shares?’
‘The privateer owners, sir, are selling the plunder they expect to take. I assume you haven’t invested?’
‘I was never a speculator,’ Wadsworth said. ‘How does it work?’
‘Well, Captain Thomas of the Vengeance, sir, expects to capture fifteen hundred pounds’ worth of plunder, and he’s offering a hundred shares in that expectation for fifteen pounds apiece.’
‘Good Lord! And what if he doesn’t capture fifteen hundred pounds’ worth of material?’
‘Then the speculators lose, sir.’
‘I suppose they must, yes. And people are buying?’
‘Many! I believe the Vengeance’s shares are trading upwards of twenty-two pounds each now.’
‘What a world we live in,’ Wadsworth said, amused. ‘Tell me,’ he pushed the jug of ale towards Dennis, ‘what you were doing before you joined the marines?’
‘I was studying, sir.’
‘Harvard?’
‘Yale.’
‘Then I didn’t beat you nearly often enough or hard enough,’ Wadsworth said.
Dennis laughed. ‘My ambition is the law.’
‘A noble ambition.’
‘I hope so, sir. When the British are defeated I shall go back to my studies.’
‘I see you carry them with you,’ Wadsworth said, nodding towards a book-shaped lump in the tail of the lieutenant’s coat, ‘or is that the scriptures?’
‘Beccaria, sir,’ Dennis said, pulling the book out of his tail pocket. ‘I’m reading him for pleasure, or should I say enlightenment?’
‘Both, I hope. I’ve heard of him,’ Wadsworth said, ‘and very much want to read him.’
‘You’ll permit me to lend you the book when I’ve finished it?’
‘That would be kind,’ Wadsworth said. He opened the book, On Crimes and Punishments by Cesare Beccaria, newly translated from the Italian, and he saw the minutely written pencilled notes on the margins of almost every page, and he thought how sad it was that a sterling young man like Dennis should need to go to war. Then he thought that though the rain might indeed fall on the just and unjust alike, it was unthinkable that God would allow decent men who fought in a noble cause to lose. That was a comforting reflection. ‘Doesn’t Beccaria have strange ideas?’ he asked.
‘He believes judicial execution is both wrong and ineffective, sir.’
‘Really?’
‘He argues the case cogently, sir.’
‘He’ll need to!’
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