The Fort. Bernard Cornwell
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carefully, ‘and his zeal makes enemies as well as friends. I suspect Major Todd laid the charge. It is a question of jealousy.’
‘So you think the allegation is untrue?’
‘I have no opinion,’ Wadsworth said, ‘and would dearly like to continue in that ignorance.’ He took the letter back and read it again.
‘It is still wrongdoing,’ Elizabeth said sternly.
‘Or a false allegation? A clerk’s error? But it involves me in faction and I dislike faction. If I prove wrongdoing then I make enemies of half Boston and earn the enmity of every freemason. Which is why I would prefer to remain in ignorance.’
‘So you will ignore it?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘I shall do my duty, my dear,’ Wadsworth said. He had always done his duty, and done it well. As a student at Harvard, as a schoolteacher, as a captain in Lexington’s town troop, as an aide to General Washington in the Continental Army and now as a brigadier in the militia. But there were times, he thought, when his own side was far more difficult than the British. He folded the letter and went for his dinner.
Majabigwaduce was a hump of land, almost an island, shaped like an anvil. From east to west it was just under two miles long, and from north to south rarely more than half a mile wide, and the ridge of its rocky hump climbed from the east to the west where it ended in a blunt, high, wooded bluff that overlooked the wide Penobscot Bay. The settlement lay on the ridge’s southern side, where the British fleet lay in the harbour’s anchorage. It was a village of small houses, barns and storehouses. The smallest houses were simple log cabins, but some were more substantial dwellings of two storeys, their frames clad in cedar shingles that looked silver in the day’s watery sunlight. There was no church yet.
The ridge above the village was thick with spruce, though to the west, where the land was highest, there were fine maples, beech and birch. Oaks grew by the water. Much of the land about the settlement had been cleared and planted with corn, and now axes bit into spruce trees as the redcoats set about clearing the ridge above the village.
Seven hundred soldiers had come to Majabigwaduce. Four hundred and fifty were kilted highlanders of the 74th, another two hundred were lowlanders from the 82nd, while the remaining fifty were engineers and gunners. The fleet that had brought them had dispersed, the Blonde sailing on to New York and leaving behind only three empty transport ships and three small sloops-of-war whose masts now dominated Majabigwaduce’s harbour. The beach was heaped with landed supplies and a new track, beaten into the dirt, now ran straight up the long slope from the water’s edge to the ridge’s crest. Brigadier McLean climbed that track, walking with the aid of a twisted blackthorn stick and accompanied by a civilian. ‘We are a small force, Doctor Calef,’ McLean said, ‘but you may rely on us to do our duty.’
‘Calf,’ Calef said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘My name, General, is pronounced calf.’
‘I do pray your pardon, Doctor,’ McLean said, inclining his head.
Doctor Calef was a thickset man a few years younger than McLean. He wore a low crowned hat over a wig that had not been powdered for weeks and which framed a blunt face distinguished by a determined jaw. He had introduced himself to McLean, offering advice, professional help and whatever other support he could give. ‘You’re here to stay, I trust?’ the doctor demanded.
‘Decidedly, sir, decidedly,’ McLean said, digging his stick into the thin soil, ‘oh, indeed we mean to stay.’
‘To do what?’ Calef asked curtly.
‘Let me see now,’ McLean paused, watching as two men stepped back from a half-felled tree that toppled, slowly at first, then crashed down in an explosion of splintering branches, pine needles and dust. ‘My first duty, Doctor,’ he said, ‘is to prevent the rebels from using the bay as a haven for their privateers. Those pirates have been a nuisance.’ That was mild. The American rebels held all the coastline between Canada and New York except for the beleaguered British garrison in Newport, Rhode Island, and British merchant ships, making that long voyage, were ever at risk from the well-armed, fast-sailing rebel privateers. By occupying Majabigwaduce the British would dominate Penobscot Bay and so deny the rebels its fine anchorage, which would become a base for Britain’s Royal Navy. ‘At the same time,’ McLean continued, ‘I am ordered to deter any rebel attack on Canada and thirdly, Doctor, I am to encourage trade here.’
‘Mast wood,’ Calef growled.
‘Especially mast wood,’ McLean agreed, ‘and fourthly we are to settle this region.’
‘Settle it?’
‘For the crown, Doctor, for the crown.’ McLean smiled and waved his blackthorn stick at the landscape. ‘Behold, Doctor Calef, His Majesty’s province of New Ireland.’
‘New Ireland?’ Calef asked.
‘From the border of Canada and eighty miles southwards,’ McLean said, ‘all New Ireland.’
‘Let’s trust it’s not as papist as old Ireland,’ Calef said sourly.
‘I’m sure it will be God-fearing,’ McLean said tactfully. The general had served many years in Portugal and did not share his countrymen’s distaste for Roman Catholics, but he was a good enough soldier to know when not to fight. ‘So what brought you to New Ireland, Doctor?’ he asked, changing the subject.
‘I was driven from Boston by damned rebels,’ Calef said angrily.
‘And you chose to come here?’ McLean asked, unable to hide his surprise that the doctor had fled Boston to this fog-ridden wilderness.
‘Where else could I take my family?’ Calef demanded, still angry. ‘Dear God, General, but there’s no legitimate government between here and New York! In all but name the colonies are independent already! In Boston the wretches have an administration, a legislature, offices of state, a judiciary! Why? Why is it permitted?’
‘You could have moved to New York?’ McLean suggested, ignoring Calef’s indignant question, ‘or to Halifax?’
‘I’m a Massachusetts man,’ Calef said, ‘and I trust that one day I will return to Boston, but a Boston cleansed of rebellion.’
‘I pray so too,’ McLean said. ‘Tell me, Doctor, did the woman give birth safely?’
Doctor Calef blinked, as if the question surprised him. ‘The woman? Oh, you mean Joseph Perkins’s wife. Yes, she was delivered safely. A fine girl.’
‘Another girl, eh?’ McLean said, and turned to gaze at the wide bay beyond the harbour entrance. ‘Big bay with big tides,’ he said lightly, then saw the doctor’s incomprehension. ‘I was told that was the meaning of Majabigwaduce,’ he explained.
Calef frowned, then made a small gesture as if the question was irrelevant. ‘I’ve no idea what the name means, General. You must ask the savages. It’s their name for the place.’
‘Well, it’s all New Ireland now,’ McLean said, then touched his hat. ‘Good day, Doctor, I’m sure we shall talk further. I’m grateful for your support, grateful indeed, but if you’ll excuse me, duty calls.’
Calef watched the general limp uphill, then called to him. ‘General McLean!’
‘Sir?’ McLean turned.
‘You don’t imagine the rebels are going to let you stay here, do you?’
McLean appeared to consider the question for a few seconds, almost as though he had never thought about it before. ‘I would think not,’ he said mildly.
‘They’ll come for you,’ Calef warned him. ‘Soon as they know you’re here, General, they’ll come for you.’
‘Do you know?’ McLean said, ‘I rather think they will.’ He touched his hat again. ‘Good day, Doctor. I’m