The Fort

‘But are we?’ McClure muttered.

‘You spoke, Sergeant?’

McClure stared down the bluff. The smoke was clearing and he could see that the canted tree, just thirty paces away, was unscarred by any musket ball. ‘There’s precious few of us, sir,’ he said, ‘and we’re all alone here and there’s a lot of rebels.’

‘All the more to kill,’ Moore said. ‘We shall take post here till the fog lifts, Sergeant, then look for a better vantage point.’

‘Aye, sir.’

The picquet was posted; their task to watch for the coming of an enemy. That enemy, the brigadier had assured his officers, would come. Of that McLean was sure. So he cut down trees and plotted where the fort must be.

To defend the king’s land from the king’s enemies.

Excerpt of letter from the Massachusetts Council, to the Continental Navy Board in Boston, June 30th, 1779:

Gentlemen: The General Assembly of this State have determined on an Expedition to Penobscot to Dislodge the Enemy of the United States lately enter’d There who are said to be committing Hostilities on the Good People of this State … fortifying themselves at Baggobagadoos, and as They are supported by a Considerable Naval Force, to Effect our Design, it will be expedient to send there, to aid our Land Operations a Superior Naval Force. Therefore … we write you … requesting you to aid our Designs, by adding to the Naval Force of this State, now, with all Possible Speed preparing, for an expedition to Penobscot; the Continental Frigate now in this Harbour, and the other armed Continental vessells here.

Excerpts from the Warrant of Impressment issued to Masschusetts Sheriffs, July 3rd, 1779:

You are hereby authorized and Commanded taking with you such Assistance as you judge proper, forthwith to take seize and impress any able-bodied Seamen, or Mariner which you shall find in your Precinct … to serve on board any of the Vessels entered into the Service of this State to be employed in the proposed expedition to Penobscot … You are hereby Authorized to enter on board and search any Ship or Vessel or to break open and search any Dwelling house or other building in which you shall suspect any such Seamen or Mariners to be concealed.

Excerpt from a letter sent by Brigadier-General Charles Cushing to the Council of the State of Massachusetts, June 19th, 1779

I have Issued orders to the officers of my Brigade requiring them to inlist men agreeable thereto. I would inform your Honors that at present there seems no prospect of getting one man as the Bounty offered is in the Esteem of the people inadequate.

TWO

Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Revere stood square in the Boston Armory yard. He wore a light blue uniform coat faced in brown, white deerskin breeches, knee boots, and had a naval cutlass hanging from a thick brown belt. His wide-brimmed hat was made of felt, and it shadowed a broad, stubborn face that was creased in thought. ‘You making that list, boy?’ he demanded brusquely.

‘Yes, sir,’ the boy answered. He was twelve, the son of Josiah Flint who ruled the armory from his high-backed, well-padded chair that had been dragged from the office and set beside the trestle table where the boy made his list. Flint liked to sit in the yard when the weather allowed so he could keep an eye on the comings and goings in his domain.

‘Drag chains,’ Revere said, ‘sponges, searchers, relievers, am I going too fast?’

‘Relievers,’ the boy muttered, dipping his pen into the inkwell.

‘Hot today,’ Josiah Flint grumbled from the depths of his chair.

‘It’s summer,’ Revere said, ‘and it should be hot. Rammers, boy, and wad hooks. Spikes, tompions, linstocks, vent-covers. What have I forgotten, Mister Flint?’

‘Priming wires, Colonel.’

‘Priming wires, boy.’

‘Priming wires,’ the boy said, finishing the list.

‘And there’s something else in the back of my mind,’ Flint said, frowning, then thought for a moment before shaking his head. ‘Maybe nothing,’ he said.

‘You hunt through your pa’s supplies, boy,’ Revere said, ‘and you make piles of all those things. We need to know how many we’ve got. You note down how many and then you tell me. Off you go.’

‘And buckets,’ Josiah Flint added hurriedly.

‘And buckets!’ Revere called after the boy. ‘And not leaking buckets either!’ He took the boy’s vacated chair and watched as Josiah Flint bit into a chicken leg. Flint was an enormous man, his belly spilling over his belt, and he seemed intent on becoming even fatter because whenever Revere visited the arsenal he found his friend eating. He had a plate of cornbread, radishes and chicken that he vaguely gestured towards, as if inviting Colonel Revere to share the dish.

‘You haven’t been given orders yet, Colonel?’ Flint asked. His nose had been shattered by a bullet at Saratoga just minutes before a cannonball took away his right leg. He could no longer breathe through his nose and so his breath had to be drawn past the half-masticated food filling his mouth. It made a snuffling sound. ‘They should have given you orders, Colonel.’

‘They don’t know whether they’re pissing or puking, Mister Flint,’ Revere said, ‘but I can’t wait while they make up their minds. The guns have to be ready!’

‘No man better than you, Colonel,’ Josiah Flint said, picking a shred of radish from his front teeth.

‘But I didn’t go to Harvard, did I?’ Revere asked with a forced laugh. ‘If I spoke Latin, Mister Flint, I’d be a general by now.’

‘Hic, haec, hoc,’ Flint said through a mouthful of bread.

‘I expect so,’ Revere said. He pulled a folded copy of the Boston Intelligencer from his pocket and spread it on the table, then took out his reading glasses. He disliked wearing them for he suspected they gave him an unmilitary appearance, but he needed the spectacles to read the account of the British incursion into eastern Massachusetts. ‘Who would have believed it,’ he said, ‘the bastard redcoats back in New England!’

‘Not for long, Colonel.’

‘I hope not,’ Revere said. The Massachusetts government, learning that the British had landed men at Majabigwaduce, had determined to send an expedition to the Penobscot River, to which end a fleet was being gathered, orders being sent to the militia and officers being appointed. ‘Well, well,’ Revere said, peering at the newspaper. ‘It seems the Spanish have declared war on the British now!’

‘Spain as well as France,’ Flint said. ‘The bloodybacks can’t last long now.’

‘Let’s pray they last long enough to give us a chance to fight them at Maja.’ Revere paused, ‘Majabigwaduce,’ he said. ‘I wonder what that name means?’

‘Just some Indian nonsense,’ Flint said. ‘Place Where the Muskrat Pissed Down its Legs, probably.’

‘Probably,’ Revere said distantly. He took off his glasses and stared at a pair of sheerlegs that waited to lift a cannon barrel from a carriage rotted by damp. ‘Have they given you a requisition for cannon, Mister Flint?’

‘Just for five hundred muskets, Colonel, to be rented for a dollar each to the militia.’

‘Rented!’

‘Rented,’ Flint confirmed.

‘If they’re to kill the British,’ Revere said, ‘then money shouldn’t come into it.’

‘Money always comes into it,’ Flint said. ‘There are six new British nine-pounders in Appleby’s yard, but we can’t touch them. They’re to be auctioned.’

‘The Council should buy them,’ Revere said.

‘The Council don’t have the money,’ Flint said, stripping a leg-bone of its flesh, ‘not enough coinage to pay the wages, rent the privateers, purchase supplies and buy cannon. You’ll have to make do with the guns we’ve got.’

‘They’ll do, they’ll do,’ Revere said grudgingly.

‘And I hope the Council has the sense to appoint you to command those guns, Colonel!’

Revere said nothing to that, merely stared at the sheerlegs. He had an engaging smile that warmed men’s hearts, but he was not smiling now. He was seething.

He was seething because the Council had appointed the commanders of the expedition to rout the British from Majabigwaduce, but so far no man had been named to lead the artillery and Revere knew that cannons would be needed. He knew too that he was the best man to command those cannon, he was indeed the commanding officer of the Bay of Massachusetts State Artillery Regiment, yet the Council had pointedly refrained from sending him any orders.