Free The Fort by Bernard Cornwell Page A

the good Lord listens to me, sir.”
    “James!” Bethany reproved her brother.
    James grinned. “You need prayers to protect yourself here, General?”
    McLean paused for a moment, then shrugged. “It depends, Mister Fletcher, on the enemy’s strength, but I would wish for twice as many men and twice our number of ships to feel secure.”
    “Maybe they won’t come, sir,” Fletcher said. “Those folks in Boston never took much note of what happens here.” Wisps of fog were drifting with the wind as the Felicity ran past the three sloops of war that guarded the harbor entrance. James Fletcher noted how the three ships were anchored fore and aft so that they could not swing with the tide or wind, thus allowing each sloop to keep its broadside pointed at the harbor entrance. The ship nearest the beach, the North , had two intermittent jets of water pulsing from its portside, and James could hear the clank of the elmwood pumps as men thrust at the long handles. Those pumps rarely stopped, suggesting the North was an ill-found ship, though her guns were doubtless efficient enough to help protect the harbor mouth and, to protect that entrance even further, red-coated Royal Marines were hacking at the thin soil and rocks of Cross Island which edged the southern side of the channel. Fletcher reckoned the marines were making a battery there. Behind the three sloops, and making a second line across the harbor, were three of the transport ships that had carried the redcoats to Majabigwaduce. Those transports were not armed, but their size alone made them a formidable obstacle to any ship that might attempt to pass the smaller sloops.
    McLean handed Fletcher an oilcloth-wrapped parcel of tobacco and one of the Spanish silver dollars that were common currency, as payment for the use of his boat. “Come, Mister Moore,” he called sharply as the paymaster offered Bethany an arm to help her over the uneven beach. “We have work to do!”
    James Fletcher also had work to do. It was still high summer, but the log pile had to be made for the winter and, that evening, he split wood outside their house. He worked deep into the twilight, slashing the ax down hard to splinter logs into usable firewood.
    “You’re thinking, James.” Bethany had come from the house and was watching him. She wore an apron over her gray dress.
    “Is that bad?”
    “You always work too hard when you’re thinking,” she said. She sat on a bench fronting the house. “Mother’s sleeping.”
    “Good,” James said. He left the ax embedded in a stump and sat beside his sister on the bench that overlooked the harbor. The sky was purple and black, the water glinted with little ripples of fading silver about the anchored boats; glimmers of lamplight reflected on the small waves. A bugle sounded from the ridge where two tented encampments housed the redcoats. A picquet of six men guarded the guns and ammunition that had been parked on the beach above the tideline. “That young officer liked you, Beth,” James said. Bethany just smiled, but said nothing. “They’re nice enough fellows,” James said.
    “I like the general,” Bethany said.
    “A decent man, he seems,” James said.
    “I wonder what happened to his arm?”
    “Soldiers, Beth. Soldiers get wounded.”
    “And killed.”
    “Yes.”
    They sat in companionable silence for a while as the darkness closed slow on the river and on the harbor and on the bluff. “So will you sign the oath?” Bethany asked after a while.
    “Not sure I have much choice,” James said bleakly.
    “But will you?”
    James picked a shred of tobacco from between his teeth. “Father would have wanted me to sign.”
    “I’m not sure Father thought about it much,” Bethany said. “We never had government here, neither royal nor rebel.”
    “He loved the king.” James said. “He hated the French and loved the king.” He sighed. “We have to make a living, Beth. If I don’t take the oath then they’ll take