CHAPTER 9

“They are still there,” Alan said, borrowing Burgess’s telescope to stare downriver. They had gone for a morning ride over to the river bluffs near the Star Redoubt to survey the work of the fireships. Cornwallis had filled four schooners entrapped in the anchorage with all the straw and flammables he could find, and had placed them under the command of a Loyalist privateer captain. The fireships had gone down-river and had frightened the hell out of the French for a time, driving them away from the mouth of the York, but the privateer captain’s schooner had been set alight much too soon, and all the others lit themselves off at the same time as though it were the correct signal. One had blown up, one had gone aground in the shallows after being abandoned by her very well-singed crew of volunteers, and the total effect was nil.

“Well, a brave effort, damme if it wasn’t,” Burgess said.

“We might try it again in a few days, though I doubt if they’ll stand for it a second time,” Alan said, closing the telescope with a heavy click of collapsing tubes and handing it back to Ensign Chiswick. “Wouldn’t have done us much good, anyway. No one had called us to fetch back the artillery or prepare to evacuate with the fleet.”

“The bulk of the army would have gotten away to the eastern shore, but we could have still crossed over to the Gloucester side in barges and joined Tarleton to cut our way out,” Burgess informed him. “Lauzun’s Legion is perhaps six hundred men. Mayhap eight hundred French marines landed from the ships, and the Virginia Militia surely can’t be much. Our troops used them like so many bears back in the spring. Still, I don’t see what’s stopping us from going downriver. There are only three enemy ships.”

“A third-rate 74, and two large frigates,” Alan told him. “They’re anchored so they can sweep all the main channel. And what you see as open water is really shallow. Even at high tide, it’s not enough to float a ship of any size. You can see where the schooner went aground, and she didn’t draw a full fathom, loaded as she was. We try to force them, make them cut their cables, they’ll fire off signal fusees, and we’d never make it to the far shore before the main fleet near Cape Henry caught up with us.”

“But they cannot come up the river.”

“Thank Providence for small favors. I’d not attempt it without an experienced pilot, and then only in the smallest craft.”

“Then there is nothing for it but to put all our trust in Clinton and your Admiral Graves to get back here and rescue us,” Burgess said.

“Whenever that may be,” Alan spat, tugging at the reins of his mare to turn her about to face inland once more.

“Any guesses on that?” Burgess asked. “I heard Colonel Hamilton say General Clinton had assured Lord Cornwallis that over four thousand men were ready to embark from New York, now there’s no threat to the city.”

“Hmm, if Graves departed the coast on the tenth or so,” Alan said as they walked their mounts down from the bluffs to the Williamsburg road. “With favorable winds, he would have gotten to New York on the fifteenth, even beating into a nor’east breeze. Ten days to refit and embark those troops . . . if he can work back across the bar off New York with all his ships. He could have departed yesterday on the twenty-fifth, and could be here by at least the thirtieth. Say the second of October on the outside. But he would still have to fight his way into the bay against the French as he should have the first time.”

“So by the second, we shall have four thousand more troops, more artillery and supplies and might succeed in forcing the French fleet to take shelter up the James River, reversing the odds against us.”

“Bide a minute, Burgess,” Alan said, pulling his mount to a stop. “What did you mean about New York no longer being threatened. De Barras and his troops in Newport never threatened New York directly.”

“Oh, I am sorry, I thought you had already heard,” Burgess apologized. “Washington and Rochambeau have abandoned their positions around New York and are reputed to be on the march for Yorktown.”

“Jesus Christ!” Alan shrieked, startling both mounts, who jumped about for a few minutes before they could calm them back down, tittuping and side-paddling and farting in alarm.

“I wish you would not frighten the horses so, Alan. This plug is skittish—not my usual mount,” Burgess complained.

“Fuck the horses. You just frightened the devil out of me! ” Alan shot back. “Is there anything else on the way you have not told me about? No expeditionary force from the Grand Moghul of India with fifty war elephants? No Mameluke cavalry from the Ottoman Empire?”

“From Clinton’s letters, which were passed on to the colonel for his information, we should be about even in numbers and much stronger in cavalry should we needs break out,” Burgess said.

“Jesus Christ,” Alan repeated, though much more softly than before. “We’re going to get our arses knackered. We’re going to lose this damned war if we keep this up. This is the last army of note in the Americas.”

“And the last Parliament would raise, most like,” Burgess agreed, so stoically calm about their future chances that Alan felt like hitting him. “So there is no way that Graves or Clinton would leave us hanging in the balance for very long, is there?” Burgess reasoned. “We can hold until relieved and sooner or later the hurricane season will force the French to sail away, and all this affair will be just another campaign that almost achieved something but didn’t. Washington will have to go back north to the New York area, eventually, or stand still for General Clinton to rampage all over the upper Colonies and destroy all their work.”

“That sounds . . . logical, at any rate,” Alan had to admit, though he remembered his talk with Lieutenant Railsford in Desperate on their way to New York, and Treghues’s rant about fleet strategy before the Battle of the Chesapeake. That had sounded eminently logical, too, and look where that had gotten them.

Regardless of the circumstances, there was still duty to be done. The half-battery had to be manned, patrols had to go out to forage or to scout, their position had to be constantly improved, and watches had to be stood much as at sea, with some of the gunners by their pieces at all times. Knatchbull was not an imaginative man, but he was a competent one and practically ran the battery for Lewrie, presenting a going concern to his midshipman each morning with all the care of a first lieutenant doing the same for his captain. Sighting shots were fired with round shot out across the fields to let the gun captains find how far they could reach and improve their chances when a real foe presented himself. Gun drill was carried out every morning, just as aboard ship, and the midday rum ration was doled out at eleven-thirty in the morning, corresponding to the seven bells of the forenoon watch, followed by dinner. Alan led cutlass drill himself to keep the hands sharp and out of trouble with so much idle time. A corporal from the North Carolina Volunteers led the musket practice, and the men, with nothing other to bet on, began to improve at targets, being forced to load and fire faster than they ever had before.

Alan kept the men working on his gun carriages. Using the trucks as the base, he found enough seasoned wood to form axles and trails, and the more creative gunners did the rest. There was little that an English seaman could not make with his hands, if properly stimulated to the work, and soon he had spokes and greenwood wheels abuilding. The wheels would not have iron rims—they could not aspire to that with limited materials—but he could shift his guns more easily once the labor was finished.

The camp rang with hammering and sawing and the rasp of carpenters’ planes and files. The naves began to sprout spokes as new platforms were nailed to the bottom of the trucks, and the trails were bolted on.

“Lookin’ proper, Mister Lewrie,” Knatchbull informed him. “I’d still use the breechin’ ropes an’ the side tackles an sich, just in case. That’s greenwood an’ pine at that. Takes good oak or ash ta do it right.”

“Still, it eases the work of running out to the gunports in this redan.” Alan was pleased with the handiwork of the first piece to be converted and emplaced. “We could cut down two men from each gun crew and send them back aboard ship.”

“Aye, sir, but iffen we had ta get outa here in a hurry, I’d not be sendin’ ’em back ta the ship anytime soon,” Knatchbull replied.

“I shall write the captain a letter about it, anyway,” Alan decided. If Treghues was in a better mental state, it didn’t hurt to piss down his superior’s back and let him know that at least one of his midshipmen was being diligent and creative in adversity—one he could not quite remember clearly since his trephination, but one whom he should get to know once more on much better terms.

“Guess we better test-fire the bugger, Mister Lewrie,” Knatchbull said. “Full cartridge an’ round shot.”

“There is nothing at present to our front. No scouts out this morning this late. Let’s do.”

A gun crew came forward, while the rest of the men and some of the Hessian Jagers and North Carolina troops who were free of duties came to gawk; at a reasonably safe distance, Alan noted. Since it was his idea, there was nothing for it but to stand beside the gun crew as the piece was loaded.

“Charge yer gun,” Knatchbull intoned. “Shot yer gun. Prime yer gun. Quoin in. Don’t wanna hit no poor bastard off in them woods.”

“Aim for that clump of shrubbery three cables off,” Alan ordered. “Excess crew take cover. I’ll touch her off.”

The side-tackle men and the powder boy scuttled to the rear, and the rammer man, shot man, and gun captain headed out to the flanks in the trench on either side of the gun platform.

Alan lowered the smouldering length of slowmatch gripped in the claws at the end of the linstock to the priming quill and took a deep breath. He touched the quill and there was a flash of powder smoke and a sharp hissing sound as the fine-mealed powder in the quill took light. Then there was a sharp bang, and the piece recoiled to the back of the platform right smartly, snubbing at the extent of the breeching ropes and slewing a bit on the new high wheels. It reared a bit on its trail, then thumped back down heavily, but after the smoke cleared Alan could detect no cracks or splintering of the new carriage.

“Check her over, Knatchbull,” Alan said, letting out his breath. Still got my nutmegs intact, he exulted.

A ragged cheer rose from the hands and the onlookers, and Alan took a theatrical bow to his audience while Knatchbull and several of the men closely involved in the carriage’s construction looked it over.

“Sound as a fifty-guinea horse, so ’tis,” Knatchbull judged.

“Musta skeered that fella ta death, Mister Lewrie,” the gun captain laughed, pointing off into the fields where a rider could be seen at full gallop, heading their way.

“We didn’t put a ball near him, did we?” Alan worried.

“Nah, didn’ come nowhere close, sir,” the gun captain told him. “Put the ball dead square in that clump, mebbe a furlong shy, anyways.”

Alan unslung the telescope by the gun and took a look at the approaching stranger. He was wearing the uniform of a British officer, but that was about all that could be discovered until he had reined in his mount by the outlying sentries and shouted his news, panting dramatically as though the world hung on his next word.

“Washington’s army,” he gasped. “On the Williamsburg road. On their way here, about ten miles off. They’ll be up to these positions by nightfall! Have you a fresh mount? Mine’s done in.”

“Good God a-mighty, Mister Lewrie,” Knatchbull muttered, his craggy face dark with concern at this new development.

“Yes, Knatchbull,” Alan replied calmly, having been apprised of the possibility days before. “Now, even more reason to continue work on the new gun carriages, is it not? Rum ration at the usual time.”

He took out his pocket watch and opened the face as though the question of rum was really more important.

“Aye, sir.”

“And I want the second gun mounted by nightfall at the latest. So work ’em hard after dinner.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Knatchbull nodded, calmed by the sangfroid of his immediate superior, and went off to do Lewrie’s bidding without another thought.

There, that’ll show the bastards I can be as cool as a post-captain, Alan thought grimly. Mister Railsford, wherever you are over there on the Gloucester side, thanks for the warning about showing calm.

After dark, Alan could hear the enemy army on its approach march. He was certain that the army could be heard as far back as Yorktown itself. Chains jangled from artillery caissons, axles squealed and screamed as heavy guns and supply wagons made their way over the poor roads. Even the grunting and neighing of horses could be heard, and the bawl of oxen in their yokes being goaded forward and, now and again when the wind was just right, the solid tramp of many marching feet. There was nothing to be seen to the front, even with a fairly full moon; only the silent hills and the silvered forests that brooded in their alienness.

“Think they’ll attack tonight, Mister Lewrie?” Knatchbull asked.

“They’ve covered at least ten miles today, maybe twenty,” Alan told him, repeating what little he could pick up from the talk at supper with the Chiswick brothers, their captain, and the Jager officers in a pavilion back near the end of the draw. “We would know if they had attempted to scout us, so it’s sure they don’t know where our fortifications are, for now. They’ll scout tomorrow, but we’ve nothing to fear for this evening. Still, make sure the guns are loaded with round shot and canister to boot, run out ready to fire with tompions in to protect the charges against the night damp until time to fire. Post two men from each gun crew as sentries with muskets. They are not to fire at anything unless strictly ordered, or I’ll have the man who did it tied to a tree and flogged, if a grating can’t be found.”

“Four-hour watches, Mister Lewrie?”

“Aye. You can use a watch?”

“Ah, I ain’t no scholard, Mister Lewrie,” Knatchbull admitted in the darkness. “But I got the hour glass.”

“Good enough, then,” Alan said, making a production of yawning for Knatchbull’s and his men’s benefit. “I’ll turn in. Send a man to wake me if there is an alarm, and without fail at the end of the middle watch.”

Alan wandered back from the ramparts of their new post and found his small tent tucked away under a grove of trees snuggled up on the right side of the draw. Cony had a small fire going that was barely flaming to see by as he stripped off his coat and waistcoat, loosened his neckcloth, and slid off his shoes.

“You turn in, Cony,” Alan told him. “Knatchbull will send someone to wake you for lookout before dawn.”

“Aye, Mister Lewrie,” Cony replied, spreading a hammock for ground cloth by the fire and arranging his blankets.

Alan crawled into the tent and found his own bedding. He stretched out and flung a rough blanket over his body so he could lie in the dark and watch the tiny flickers of the fire on the wall of the tent, wide awake and staring up at the faint shadows of the boughs over his head as they swayed in the faint wind and moonlight.

“Sir?” Cony said softly from beyond the tent flap.

“Aye, Cony.”

“They’s a flask o’ rum by yer head, sir, ta help ya caulk the better,” Cony told him, already rolled into his own blankets against the damp night chill.

Thank God, Alan thought, fumbling about until his hand fell on a small leather bottle and withdrew the stopper. Neat rum was not something he normally preferred, but tonight it was welcome. He took a small sip and winced at the bite of the rum and its sharp odor.

The bedding rustled as he lifted the bottle to his lips once more, and Alan could swear he could already feel the tiny movements of the many bugs drawn to him by his warmth, his scent, and the hope for blood. That was one of the worst parts of serving on land—being awakened by the bite of something too small to be fought, or finding the welts in the morning and feeling the fleas begin to shift about in his clothing. He had already had several ticks withdrawn from his skin; each time he was filled with loathing at the brutes and the way they had swelled by feeding on him. At least the Navy did not have to put up with the bastards and could fumigate and rid a ship of most lice, fleas, and other insects. Roaches were the main worry on a ship, along with the occasional brave rat that ventured out of the orlop and bilges.

God, I wish I could just scream, or something! he thought; instead of having to sham all this cow-stupid calm! I swear! All these bugs, the filth and ordure . . . sleeping on the cold ground? Do I get back aboard Desperate and out to sea, I’ll never complain about Navy life again!

Realizing how desperate he was to make such a vow, he could have pinched himself to see if he was not already dreaming. But he had to wait a long time for sleep to come that night, while the ground trembled ever so gently with the vibrations of the approaching army.

“Pull out?” Governour Chiswick spat. “Damme, that’s a wrench.”

“Pull out to where?” Burgess asked.

“Back into the inner fortifications closer to Yorktown,” Governour informed them, waving a feeble hand toward the east.

“Bah, das ist . . .” Heros von Muecke searched for the right word in English but failed to find anything suitable. “Sheiss!” he finally spat. “Ve here der bastards can skin!”

“The Star Redoubt can control the western approaches to the town and everything else is either marsh or ravine,” Governour said. “They don’t think our position is favorable. It’s not just us, mind. The entire outer defense line is being pulled back. On the other bank of the creek’s ravines there’s high ground . . . where we can dig in. Lord Cornwallis doesn’t think he has the spare troops to man such a long perimeter.”

“The hell we can’t!” Burgess bragged. “Just let the shits try!”

“We have our orders,” Governour said.

Alan, who had been sitting back in the pavilion and listening to the argument, had only one thought: to get his artillery evacuated. Then there might even be a chance to reembark the guns into Desperate, take a much-needed bath, and get aboard ship and away from this nightmare.

“My guns,” he said. “I need horse teams and limbers.”

“Will those carriages hold up?” Governour asked.

“Of course they will,” Alan snapped. “For the two guns mounted on them, that is. The third gun needs a heavy wagon to take the barrel and a second to take the truck and gun tools.”

“I’ll send a rider to ask for them, then,” Governour said. “That means we have to stay here ’til Mister Lewrie’s guns are out of here, though. I’ll tell the staff that, too.”

This time there would be no thought of dismantling the ramparts.

The tents and shelters were taken down and folded up, the personal gear was bundled into field packs, the magazines emptied once more and the guns rolled out of position, ready for the horse teams to arrive. But the third gun could only be held in abeyance. It took the effort of all the naval party to lift the weight of a long nine barrel from the gun truck with heavy tackle slung below the piece, then laid out on the ground on a section of heavy netting.

When the teams did arrive, it was a scrawny pack of beasts that had been despatched. The grazing had not been the best, and the corn and oats were directed to the troops’ diet instead of the horses. With the third barrel in the wagon, finally, it took a double team of eight of the horses to draw it, and the men had to assist the remaining animals with their own muscle power, up through the draw, down the back side, along the edge of the marshes to the main road, sometimes unharnessing some horses to double up whenever a gun bogged down.

They rolled into Yorktown and were left on their own after the North Carolina troops and the Jagers were sent off to their new quarters. Alan bade everyone a hearty good-bye, even von Muecke, and then sat down by the side of the road to wait for instructions since the army staff seemed to have forgotten about them completely. After getting thoroughly bored with an hour of inactivity, Alan wandered off to the docks.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, doffing his hat to a naval lieutenant who was directing the work of a party loading barges to supply the troops across the river.

“Yes, what is it?”

“I am in charge of three guns from Desperate, sir,” Alan said. “And we were posted on the far bank of the creek until this morning. Now no one has a clue about what we are to do with them. There are three long nines, two on field carriages and one still on a naval carriage.”

“Well, why do you not ask the teamsters?”

“They only want their animals and wagons back and have no instructions as to taking us anyplace else, sir.”

“Damme, what a muddle!” the lieutenant swore. “Trust the army to have the brains of a crop-sick dominee do-little! See the headquarters, back of the town.”

“Aye, sir.”

He had not gone a hundred yards, though, before he ran into David Avery and gunner’s mate Tulley, and gave a great shout to get their attention.

“Alan!” David cried back. “How do you keep?”

“Full of fleas but main well, considering,” Alan replied, very glad to see someone from the ship once more. “Look here, the army has no idea about what to do with my guns, and . . .”

“Gawd a-mighty, Mister Lewrie, wot ya been doin’ wi’ my guns?” Tulley exploded, seeing the impromptu field carriages.

“I wrote the captain of them,” Alan snapped. “He seemed most impressed, Mister Tulley.” Treghues had indeed replied to Lewrie’s letter with a most kind answer, giving faint praise for his initiative and creativity, but it was praise nonetheless, and that from a man who had recently been willing to feed Lewrie to the fires of hell and help shovel some good, hot-burning sea-coal into the bargain, so Alan was having none of it.

“Damn, there’s two guns wot we’ll never get back now!” Tulley spat.

“Get back?” Alan asked, perplexed.

“Captain Treghues asked for some of his artillery back, since we were the only ship left in harbor of any size that was even partially armed,” David explained. “When Cornwallis decided to withdraw into the inner defense line, the staff said we could have them, since they were on naval trucks and unsuitable for a siege work. But now . . .”

“Even the smashers?” Alan wondered, asking about the carronades.

“Well, no, they do want to hold onto those,” David said, taking a keen interest in the field carriages himself. “Even so, we are leaving four pieces on the Gloucester side, but we got my nine-pounder back aboard this morning, and we can refit your third gun. But these . . .”

“What if we can get them back aboard right away?” Alan pressed, eager to get off the land. “We can knock the trails and limbers off, put them back on their own small wheels and axles. What would you wager the army doesn’t even know of them?”

“They know,” David said sadly.

“Damn,” Lewrie groaned in misery.

“They thought it most clever, and if we still had access to all that timber across the ravines, they might convert more. So these two guns stay with the army.”

“Damn,” Alan expostulated, even more miserably.

“Along with the nacky cock who came up with the idea.”

“Oh, hell!”

I have done it again, Alan cursed himself; I got just too bloody sly for my own good! There’s no bloody justice in this world, I swear. Damme for being clever, damme for doing something stupid, it’s all one. If I tried to do something dumb, I’d get a caning for it anyway!

“Surely, one midshipman is much the same as another,” Alan said. “They could bring Forrester over. Let him take some glory.”

“You want to appear keen, do you not, Alan?” David queried, looking at him askance. “Captain Symonds put it in his reports and asked for you by name.”

“Oh, did he?” Alan said, raising his eyebrows.

Well, perhaps that is a different kettle of fish. When the fleet gets here to relieve us, I could gain favorable interest from Hood and Graves. That couldn’t hurt my career.

“I am told,” David Avery told him in a softer voice and from a much closer distance, “that the captain is in his right mind once more, and was flattered that Symonds asked for you. Even commended you for the effort to convert the pieces to field use. Much as he may have liked to do something good for Forrester, you are the one in favor at present. I should make the most of it.”

“It‘s simply that land service is so depriving, so dirty and full of bugs and such,” Alan insisted, finding another reason for his reluctance to stay ashore. “I could use a good delousing, David. Our army is not the cleanest lot I’ve ever served with.”

“I spent a few nights sleeping rough myself, so I can sympathize.” His friend laughed. “It’s most fortunate we ran into you so we can take the third gun back aboard ship this evening. If there is anything you need from your chest or from our mess to ease your burden, do let me know, and I’ll see you get it.”

“That’s very kind of you, David,” Alan said, hiding the bitterness he felt at being the ship’s perpetual orphan, banished ashore until old age, it seemed, while Avery could loll about with few duties onboard Desperate. Tulley was still incensed about this gun, but he was glad to take charge of the disassembled piece and move it toward the docks, along with a third of Alan’s shore party. Alan had no choice but to sigh and direct the teamsters to tow his converted field guns into town, where an army artillery officer was expecting his arrival. They were shoved into the line on the east side of the town, overlooking the river and the docks, almost on the edge of the bluffs.

The inner defense line, for all the work done on it by slaves and soldiers, wasn’t much better than what he had seen out in the hills. The rampart was low enough to jump over, and the trenches behind it were not very deep, either, though they were rooved with scrap canvas and tents to keep the rain and sun off the men, and there were small zigzagging trenches about waist high that snaked back into the town through which rations and relieving sentries could communicate with the ramparts. The line was also zigzag for much of its length facing the enemy forces, which would lead attackers into cross fires from front and sides. In some places easier to approach, the fortifications had been given a crenellation in the form of a small redoubt that jutted out onto a higher piece of ground, or one indented to take advantage of a ravine where the foe could congregate and be struck from three sides, instead of only two.

The walls, though, were not three feet high anywhere, barely able to shelter a man standing in the trenches, faced with abatis, strung with chevaux-de-frise to deter cavalry in the easier ground. There were also some outlying redoubts beyond the ramparts as strongpoints, especially on the south-east end of the town, nearest the French landings on the James River, a few clustered to the south corner above the ravine by the Hornwork, a large redoubt that overlooked the open ground around Wormsley’s Pond and the creek of the same name, and even one still across the York Creek, but better sited than anything Alan had been involved with.

The town was just behind them, close enough to retire to from the ramparts through the communications trenches and to rest there in the abandoned buildings or homes that had not been commandeered for use already.

“Your guns shall go in here,” the army officer instructed, showing Alan two vacant gunports in the east wall. There the wall was mostly straight, with an extended crenellation to their left. The area of the rampart around the gunports had been built up with fascines and gabions, and wooden ramps were already in place so the guns could rest or recoil smoothly. “Nice work you did, getting these naval pieces converted for field use.”

“Thank you, sir. What do we do here, though?”

“Cover the river,” the officer shrugged.

“I can’t reach the French ships from here with a ball, even at maximum elevation, sir. Unless they come farther up . . .”

“Then you can fire to your heart’s content.”

“Well, I was thinking that we would be more use further west or on the north face, sir. A long nine could drop shot into that big battery the French are building. Or cover the Star Redoubt.”

“No point in that. The Star Redoubt is being abandoned as well. And we have mortars of our own to deal with that battery.”

“With a long nine, sir, I could reach Gloucester Point as well. With so much artillery being put in on this side, it would seem reasonable to expect that we could use our more accurate pieces to provide a counterfire. On solid land, naval gunners can be devilishly accurate.”

“And they could teach their grannies to suck eggs.” The officer frowned. “We have six-pounders and infantry redans to cover the road from the Star Redoubt, and guns enough to cover the river above the town and strike that battery they’re building. So why don’t you just get your guns into position and leave the planning to your betters, eh? There’s a good lad. More experienced men than you have already made allowance for any contingency, so why not just obey orders?”

Burgess and Governour have the right of it, Alan thought sourly as his gunners began to wheel their charges into the emplacements. Our regular army is a pack of idiots. I don’t think they’ve had an original idea since Cromwell died. We ain’t fighting on the French border with Marlborough. We’re surrounded and short of powder already.

Still, once in place, Alan was relieved to find that the troops who supported him were mostly marines who could be trusted, so he would not have to share the same rarefied air as the army.

It is a truism that warfare consists mostly of marching off to the possible site of battle, and being thoroughly miserable in the process. And once there, it consists of waiting for that battle to begin and, depending on the climate, the availability of amusements, and the amount of worrying one does while waiting, a pretty miserable process as well. Each morning they rose early and stood to their guns, much as at dawn quarters. Each morning the sea was empty beyond the capes and only the French ships could be seen from the town bluffs or the top of the ramparts; the ones beyond the shoals at the mouth of the York, or the ships far out in the bay blockading the entrances. Inland, they could watch the enemy march into positions; positions in the outer defense line that they had abandoned days before and were now redug and improved to their own detriment, and the joy of their foes.

September ended, and Graves did not come. The first days of October passed by in enforced ennui, with the town now thoroughly invested by both French and Rebel troops. More and more artillery wheeled into position, whole parks of guns. Not just light field pieces, but heavy siege guns and howitzers and mortars that could throw fizzing shells of up to sixteen inches that would burst with great thunderclaps, should they ever cut loose with them.

The American Rebels made a brave show from the ramparts, marching in what seemed very good order, their muskets slung precisely and their step quick and lively, their striped Rebel banner with the starry blue canton and their regimental flags flying. The drums rolled and the fifes whistled thinly, like a man sucking air through his teeth; mostly they played Yankee Doodle, which was about the most nonsensical song Lewrie had ever seen written down, even dumber than most, such as Derry Down or When the World Turned Upside Down. The French troops wore white with rose, purple, green, or black facings. The Rebels looked natty in dark blue and buff with white breeches and various regimental trim.

The Rebels and French bands serenaded them as their troops dug and countermarched and drilled, or toiled with improving artillery positions, and the marines paraded before the ramparts as well, playing Heart of Oak and Rule, Britannia, until Alan was sick of hearing them.

At night, the land across the ravine of Yorktown Creek, the woods and the fields were swarming with small squad fires in a glittering arc from the York River down to below Moore’s House, out of reach of rifle fire or small arms. Strangely, both sides held their fire, even though the artillery could have put the fear of God and British gunnery up the Rebels and their allies. There was a rumor making the rounds that those insane Rebels had gotten up on their own ramparts of a freshly dug parallel and performed the manual of arms in Prussian style, and it was such a good show that not a shot had been fired, though their Colonel Alexander Hamilton could have been handed his arse on a plate for forcing his troops to do such a stunt. And through it all, Graves and Hood and General Clinton and his four thousand reinforcements were also only a rumor, for they did not come. The skies clouded up and rained occasionally, and the nights were becoming chillier, the days less warm—more like home back in England in late summer, when the apples were ripe for the plucking, ruddy with the first frost.

The forage situation for the thousands of horses was getting desperate, and with too many animals in the fortifications providing a sanitary problem, many were turned out to crop the late summer grass on their own, between the lines. They would not be called upon to haul guns or wagons, not for weeks to come, it looked like, and they were already half-famished for want of good corn or grain. Come to think of it, so were the troops, and their needs came before horses and mules.

Making the situation even worse when it came to rations, there were thousands of black faces in the fortifications; slaves from the many plantings in the Chesapeake and the Tidewater region who had been dragged off as moveable property confiscated for the Crown, or had escaped from their masters and were hoping for eventual freedom from their Rebel owners if the British were successful in withstanding the siege. Their labor was handy to dig and improve the defenses or serve as bearers from the warehouses and armories to the guns.

Alan ended up with half a dozen to help tail on the tackles to run out his guns and to keep a supply of shot and cartridges coming from his magazines. A more miserable lot he had never seen in his life; the blacks in the Indies were freemen, at least the ones he had seen around the ports. There were many who had signed aboard King’s ships after their European crews had succumbed to the many fevers, and they were rated as landsmen or ordinary seamen, paid the same wages as an English sailor. Some of the younger ones even made damn good topmen and able seamen after a few years. But this lot were as thin as wild dogs, clothed tag-ragand-bobtail, poorer than even the worst-off gin drinkers in some London stew. They responded to the cheerful friendliness of the British sailors with caution and cringed like whipped pups if anyone even looked sharp in their direction; Alan thought that had a lot to do with the lash marks on their backs that their thin clothes could not cover. When he allowed them a scrap of sailcloth to make a snug lean-to near the battery, their gratitude was so humble and heartfelt that he was almost repulsed by their suddenly adoring neediness.

For his part, Alan had the use of a bedroom in a small house within one hundred yards of his battery on the rampart, shared with an officer with Symonds’s marines from the Charon; the house itself full of officers sleeping three to a bed, on the floors and furniture, even bedding down on top of, and under, the dining table. They were all young and junior and had access to lots of spirits and personal stores they shared together for their informal mess. Alan could return to a dry bed, Cony’s ministrations with his uniform and kit, a glass of hock, rhenish, red wine, brandy, corn whiskey, or rum toddy. There was cider, some captured local beer, and plenty of food and condiments to make it palatable as long as their caches held out. There was a privy in which he could take his ease (which was rapidly filling up, though, with so many people using it). There was an outhouse with a large wooden tub where Lewrie could take an occasional bath in warm water when the stewards and orderlies were not using it to wash clothes.

So he waited like the others, rising for the rare alarums and diversions as a battery would fire on the enemy digging a parallel down south-east, or light off a rocket at night, sure that a party of infiltrators had appeared, but for a desperate war, it was a chore to even keep interested in it most of the time.

WHEEE-BLAM!

Alan jerked involuntarily in his sleep, savoring the most lifelike dream of fondling and un-dressing Lucy Beauman. Her father was at the door, crying out for his daughter’s virginity and slamming his fists on the door. WHEEE-BULAMM!

“Sufferin’ Christ!” his bedmate said, rolling off the high mattress and taking refuge under the bed frame with the chamber pot. The other officer who shared their bed had already gone out the window. “Lewrie!”

“Umm?” Alan mazed sleepily. It had been so warm and snug, bundled in between the other officers, each wrapped in a good blanket with a quilt spread over all three of them. WHEEEE-BUBLAMMM!!

This made the entire house shudder, and Alan came awake in the afterglow of the explosion of a large-caliber mortar shell that felt as though it had struck in the next room.

“What the hell is it?” Alan said testily. He was never at his best just awakened, and the dream had been so damned good.

“Well, it sounds mighty like the end of the world,” his bunkmate said from below him. WHEE-BLAM! A strike farther off, but still close enough to blow in the drapes and stir the air in the room.

“Who opened the fucking window?” Alan said. “It’s cold in here.”

“Gad, you’re a cool ’un,” the marine told him.

“Holy shit on a biscuit,” Alan blurted, suddenly realising what was happening. “Where are you?”

“Down here,” came the muffled reply.

Alan tried to disentangle himself from his bedclothes as the WHEE of another descending shell could be heard in the distance, rapidly drawing closer with a menacing wail. He finally gave it up and rolled out of bed like a human caterpillar and thumped heavily to the floor to wriggle under the bed as well, just as there was another apocalyptic BLAM!

The house shuddered once more, and the sound of running feet was making the floor bounce like a drumhead. Voices shouted what sounded like arrant nonsense in a cacophony of questions, statements, yells of terror, and demands for silence and order. Trumpets brayed in the camp, the Highlanders got their bagpipes working and filled the air with the hideous screech of war marches, and drummer boys beat loud but shaky rolls to call the troops to arms, as if they had not considered a shelling enough incentive to head for the ramparts and the guns.

“Mister Lewrie, sir?” Cony called, bursting into the room. There was another shriek in the air as one more shell descended, and Cony found room under the bed for himself as well. “You alright, sir?”

“Bloody grand, Cony,” Alan muttered as the shell struck close enough to raise the dirt and dust puppies around them. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

He dressed in the dark, Cony passing him waistcoat, shoes, neckcloth, coat, and hat, one item at a time, like a conjurer who knew exactly where the chosen card was all the time. His pistols were shoved into his hands, and while he was stuffing them into his breeches pockets, Cony was hanging his dirk on the frog of his waistband.

“Yer hat, Mister Lewrie,” Cony said in the darkness.

“Seen my orderly?” the marine officer asked.

“No, sir, I ain’t,” Cony replied, flinging open the door to the dining room and parlor. “They’s the flask in yer coattail pocket, sir, an’ I’ll see to yer breakfast later, if ya don’t mind, Mister Lewrie.”

“Not at all.” Alan headed out into the darkness. Well, it was not entire darkness. There were enough fires burning to light up the encampment where a fused shell from a high-angle piece such as a mortar or howitzer had set fire to the hay stands for the remaining animals, or shattered a house and set it alight.

“God!” Alan gaped at the night sky. There was some low cloud that night turning pale gray on the bottom from the fires already set and from the bright bursts of flame of the guns in the artillery parks and redoubts that had finally begun the bombardment of Yorktown. Hot amber meteors soared up from the countryside and howled across the sky under those clouds to arc down and burst with horrendous roars and great stinking clouds of expended gunpowder. It was an awful sight, of such complete and stunning novelty that he stopped short and just stared for the longest time. Solid shot could almost be seen as quick black streaks that crossed the eye before they could be recognized and followed. Heated shot moaned in all colors, depending on the bravery of the gunners who had rolled it down their muzzles; either blue-hot or yellow-amber, like a half-made horseshoe on a forge, but sometimes a dull red from those careful souls who did not want to deform the shot in the barrels or set the propellant charges off with the heat of the projectiles before the crews could stand back for safety.

Fused shells, those filled with powder and designed to burst and rend anything near their impact with shattered iron balls, came flicking in slowly, their fuses glowing like tiny fireflies as they descended to the earth to thud into the ground, hiss malevolently, then blow up and raise a gout of clay and rock. Sometimes the fuses were cut too short and the ball exploded before it hit the ground, scattering death about it below the burst, and no one in a trench could be safe from such a blast.

The guns worked over the north end of the town for a while, then shifted further south, allowing Cony and Lewrie to run for the safety of the trench beside their gun platforms.

“Everyone well, Knatchbull?” Alan asked his senior gunner. He had to take hold of the man’s shoulder and almost shout into his ear. Either Knatchbull had been concussed or deafened or frightened out of his wits.

“Two samboes gone, sir,” Knatchbull finally replied. “Shell damn near got ’em all back there. Daniels had ta go ta the surgeons. Hit with splinters, sir.”

Daniels. Alan remembered that he had been in his boat crew the night they had burned the French transport. “Is he much hurt?”

“In the lungs, sir.”

So much for Daniels, Alan thought grimly. A lung wound was sure death within days . . . perhaps even hours, if Daniels was fortunate. He could get drunk one last time on the surgeon’s rum and go quickly.

“Nothing on the river?”

“Nothin’, Mister Lewrie,” Knatchbull said with a shake of his shaggy head. “They kin keep this up fer days afore tryin’ us direck.”

“Then what’s all the fuss about, then?” Alan said with a smile he did not feel. He went along the parapet to his gunners, those keeping a watch with muskets and those clustered by the nine-pounders, clapping a shoulder here and there, telling them to rest easy and keep their heads down until they heard something, assuring them no one in their right minds would try a frontal attack, not tonight at any rate.

Their own guns were firing in response, flinging shot and shell into those artillery parks out in the darkness, measuring the fall of shot by the glows of their own fuses, though it seemed that Cornwallis’s batteries were not as numerous, or not firing in such a hasty volume as the enemy’s. It would make sense, Alan realized, to conserve the powder and round shot they had in the fortifications until they could find a good target, for they could not be resupplied until their relief force arrived, and the French had most likely brought tons of the stuff and could get more from the 36 or so warships in the bay.

There was nothing else to do but wait some more, no longer in so much suspense, but wait in terror and trepidation for the next burst of shell. Narrow ramparts were hard to hit with mortars and howitzers firing blind at night at high angle, so except for that one lucky shot (which was all it would take) they would stew and fret at every wailing infernal engine that the enemy fired in their general direction, squat down when it sounded close, and stand up and grin foolishly after it had struck away from them. Had it not been for the screaming, it would have been almost a game that they were watching.

Hideously wounded soldiers were screaming their lives away back in the town in the surgeries and dressing stations. Horses and mules were screaming in terror as they dashed back and forth through the fortification’s enclosures, dashing from one end of their pens to another, or were out in the open, galloping away from each new sound and bloom of dirt and smoke, only to be hewn down by the shells and then bleed to death, with broken spines, broken legs, spurting wounds in innocent, dumb bodies, entrails hobbling them as they tried to run; always screaming and neighing in fright, wondering why their masters did not make the noises and the lights stop, why no one could make their screaming stop.

At first light Alan called his gunners to quarters to stand by their guns and parapets. He kept his blanket over his shoulders to ward off the early morning chill and joined them from the trench in which he had tried to rest during the night.

From their eastern wall he could see the Star Redoubt, not much pummeled and still flying a French flag, and the huge battery further west. With a glass he could see that the positions on the Gloucester side had gotten the treatment, too, but not as heavily. Those positions had not changed much.

The town, though, had suffered from the shelling, and crushed buildings showed like newly missing teeth from the order of the day before. The fires had burned out and a haze of sour smoke lay over the entire encampment, thick with the stench of charred wood and expended gunpowder.

Going on tour along the north and west walls, Alan could see that there was nothing to their fronts. The redans guarding the road into town were still there, as were the ramparts, battered but still whole, and the fields before their positions were empty of threat. Nothing stirred in the ravines of the creek, and not a bird fluttered in the woods.

“Knatchbull, see to breakfast,” he said upon returning.

“We’re a might short, sir,” Knatchbull told him. “Nought but gruel an’ some biscuit, an’ this ain’t no Banyan Day, Mister Lewrie.”

“Nothing left from supper?”

“Nossir, they ain’t.” Knatchbull was almost accusatory.

“Send two men back for meat, then. Enough for the slaves, too.”

“Ain’t none o’ ours, Mister Lewrie,” Knatchbull complained.

“By God, they stood by as scared as the rest of us, and if they serve powder and shot to my guns, they are ours, even if they were creatures from a Swift novel,” Alan snarled, too testy and exhausted with a night of fear to be kind. “Feed ’em. Ration for a half mess.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Knatchbull quavered, never having seen Lewrie on any sort of tear against another man. He had been too junior, too hard pressed himself by the officers and warrants in Desperate, but now Lewrie had the look of a quarterdeck officer; the grime of the night did not improve his looks much, either.

Knatchbull returned half an hour later with a sack filled with meat, two four-pound pieces to be shared out by the two gun crews, another four-pound piece for Alan, Knatchbull, Cony, and the four remaining blacks.

“’Tis horse, Mister Lewrie,” Knatchbull apologized. “They’s shorta salt beef ’r pork. Ain’t never eat horse afore.”

“Ever go to a two-penny ordinary in London?” Alan teased.

“Aye, sir.”

“Then you probably have eaten horse, and in worse shape than any you’ll sink your teeth into today.” Alan laughed. “Boil it up.”

“Yer coffee, Mister Lewrie,” Cony said, seeming to pop up out of the ground with a steaming mug in his hands. It had been battered in the bombardment, but Alan recognized it from the house.

“Goddamn my eyes, Cony, this ain’t Scotch coffee!” Alan said, marveling at the first sip. “This is the genuine article!”

“Them marines fetched it offa Guadeloupe, Mister Lewrie, an’ I sorta fetched it offen them in the rush an’ all, like.” Cony grinned.

There was a sudden loud shriek in the air of an incoming shell as French or American gunners began to work over the north end of the town once more. Everyone ducked as the sound loomed louder and louder and changed in pitch, howling keener and higher like a bad singer searching for the right note. BLAMMM!

They stood up to see the ruin of the kitchen outhouse of the abode Alan had been using as his quarters. The entire back porch of the house was gone in a shower of kindling, and there was a new crater in the ground that steamed furiously with half-burned powder particles.

“I hope you liberated a power of it, Cony,” Alan said, brushing dirt from his sleeve. “That may be the last good coffee I’ll see for some time.”

“Never fear that, Mister Lewrie. I made off with nigh about a pound an’ a half. Might have ta make do with that corn whiskey fer yer spirits from now on, though.”

“I imagine I could cope,” he allowed with a taut grin.

Cony was waiting for Lewrie to say something more, such as “Cony, what would I ever do without you; be my steward in the midshipmen’s mess and my servant when I am commissioned.” It would be a soft job for the young man, but Alan was not about to promise that much, especially since getting back aboard ship and out to sea where he could pursue his career was looking more like a forlorn hope each day. Besides, he did not want the man to feel he was too beholdened to him that early on. Cony would make a fine gentleman’s servant, but one did not let them know it until one could settle on a decent wage and conditions.

“Ye’ll be needin’ a shave, Mister Lewrie,” Cony volunteered. “I have yer kit safe an’ snug, an’ can put an edge on yer razor while yer breakfast is acookin’.”

Alan was not so far advanced in his adolescence to need a daily shave, but his chin did feel promisingly raspy, so he nodded his assent.

Flattery will get you nowhere, Cony, Alan thought happily, glad to have a domestic situation to think about rather than the anonymous terror of the continuing bombardment. And when it became plain that the main effort of the enemy gunners was on the south and west corner of the town ramparts, he could almost enjoy his breakfast in peace, looking forward to a clean shave and another cup of real coffee.

Besides, if Admiral Graves did not come from New York soon, his domestic arrangements might be the only thing he could contemplate with any hope as he lounged in some Rebel prison after the whole horrible muddle fell apart.