by Eric Flint
“Follow him, Colonel,” Ross ordered. “Let him have enough men for his evening’s arson, but that’s all. Three hundred, no more.”
“Yes, sir.” Brooke hurried out.
Once they were gone, the surgeon stepped forward.
“You must let me take the bullet out, General. The longer we wait, the worse the risk. As it is, gangrene . . .”
Ross shook his head. “Not till this business is over, and I’m sure my men have been removed from peril.”
He didn’t add—not to the surgeon—that he didn’t dare allow himself to be entirely incapacitated. Not yet. If Ross were unconscious for hours, during and after surgery, and therefore unable to lead his men any longer, Cockburn might claim that command of the ground forces fell to him.
The surgeon’s expression was exceedingly anxious. “General—”
“Oh, be done with it!” Ross snapped. “I understand the risk, Doctor, and the responsibility is mine. If I die, I die.”
There’s no reason to be rude to the man, Ross chided himself. He’s simply doing his job.
“Consider the bright side, Doctor,” he added. “At least I’ll return home in good spirits, which is always something an Irishman treasures. Well. Navy rum, at least. Admittedly, it’s not my favorite potion.”
The doctor smiled crookedly. It was the custom of the empire to return the corpses of top officers to the islands, rather than burying them where they fell. They kept the bodies from rotting during the long voyage by immersing them in casks of rum. It was perhaps undignified, but . . . it worked.Colonel Brooke came back into the tent a few minutes later.
“The admiral’s gone, sir. On his way to the American president’s mansion.”
Ross nodded. Then, finally, he relinquished his hold on consciousness. Darkness was peace, and a blessing.
“Got himself another white horse, I see,” Sam Houston said wryly. He lowered the telescope through which he’d been peering from an upper window on the south side of the House. “There’s a man who is set in his ways.”
“It is the admiral, then?” asked Driscol. He’d been almost certain, even without the aid of a telescope, but not positive.
The conflagration at the Navy Yard was still growing, and had begun spreading to nearby buildings. They could hear the sound of collapsing structures, as well as periodic explosions as the roaring flames encountered munitions. As impressive as the fire was, however, the Naval Yard was too far away for those flames to pose a direct danger to the Capitol—which also meant that the illumination was still far poorer than daylight.
Sam shrugged. “I could hardly distinguish his features at this distance, even with a glass and even if I knew what he looked like. But unless there’s another British naval officer with that much gold braid and a devotion to white horses, I’d say that has to be Cockburn.”
Driscol leaned out of the window and looked down. Hungrily, he studied the three-pounder that Ball and his sailors had positioned to guard the southern flank of the Capitol.
“Leave it be, Patrick!” Houston said, laughing and clapping the smaller man on the back. “Clearly he’s learned his lesson. He’s staying well out of range. Even with a twelve-pounder, it’d be sheer luck to hit the bastard.”
Driscol didn’t leave off his calculations. “Now, yes. But maybe when he returns he’ll get careless.” He straightened and pushed himself away from the window. “No harm in being prepared, after all. With your permission, sir, I’ll see to it.”
Still chuckling, Houston agreed and waved him off. Driscol headed out the door immediately, McParland and the Rogers brothers in tow.
As James passed through the door, he looked back at Sam and grinned.
“Asgá siti,” James said cheerfully. “Just the way it is.”
Houston brought the telescope back to his eye and returned to his study of the enemy movements. He lacked Driscol’s experience, but he had no trouble understanding what the British were about. Most of their men had begun setting up their own fieldworks on the ground facing the eastern side of the Capitol. But now they were moving detachments into place, threatening—well, guarding, anyway; they weren’t really much of a threat—the northern and southern flanks as well.
At least, looking out from a window on the south side of the House, Sam didn’t have to listen to the sounds of injured and dying British soldiers on the grounds to the east.
That was . . . ghastly.
The heavy musket balls were bad enough. They shattered bones whenever they struck a limb squarely, mangling arms and legs so badly that amputation was almost always required if a man’s life was to be saved. But most of the casualties had been inflicted by Ball’s cannons, and they’d been firing grapeshot during most of the British assault.
What Ball and his men called “grapeshot,” at least, even though Ball had explained to Sam at one point that it wasn’t really the nine-shot cluster that the term technically signified to naval men. Apparently, such wired clusters of very large balls caused too much damage to cannons for them to be favored much in land battles. What Ball’s gunners were calling “grapeshot” was really just heavy case shot: three-ounce bullets as opposed to the balls weighing half as much that were used in regular canister.
The technical details aside, the heavy balls were utterly deadly within four hundred yards. The British soldiers had been forced to advance that far with no cover whatsoever, over muddy and slippery terrain that they couldn’t see well because of the darkness. By the time they’d gotten near enough for Charles and his gunners to switch to canister, they’d already suffered casualties so bad that one volley of canister had been enough to break the final charge.
There were still hundreds of them out there. Many were dead, of course, but the majority were merely injured—if the term “merely” could be applied to the most horrible wounds imaginable.
Thinking about those men, Sam came to a sudden decision. He didn’t begrudge Patrick Driscol his feelings toward the English, but Sam simply didn’t share them. He closed the telescope and strode from the room, his mind working on who he should send. He’d go himself, but . . .
No. If Driscol didn’t strangle him, the secretary of state probably would.When Brooke came back into the surgeon’s tent, Ross had only recently returned to consciousness. Considerably to his regret, actually.
“Yes, Colonel?”
“Sorry to disturb you, sir. But the Americans have sent over an envoy under the flag of truce.”
“Send him in, please.”
A few moments later, a very young and nervous-looking American officer was ushered into the tent. A militia lieutenant, judging from the flamboyant uniform.
“And how may I help you, sir?” Ross asked politely.
The young American swallowed.
Then: “Captain Houston—uh, Secretary of State Monroe agreed, too—sent me to ask you if you plan another assault tonight.” Apparently realizing the question was absurd, the flustered youngster hurried on. “Not exactly that. He doesn’t expect you to reveal military plans, of course. But, well, he told me to tell you that if you don’t try any—uh, I think he said something about respecting the flag of truce—then, uh—he said it looks like a storm is coming, too—uh—that’ll make the misery still worse . . .”
The youngster ground to a halt, desperately trying to reassemble his thoughts, which now bore a close resemblance to a shipwreck.
Ross took pity on him. He seemed a harmless enough lad, and besides, Ross was touched by the gallantry involved. There was often much to like about Cousin Jonathan.
“Yes, I understand. Your—captain, was it?—Houston is extending an offer to cease-fire while we collect up our dead and wounded from the field.”
Relieved, the young officer nodded.
“Certainly,” Ross stated, as firmly as he could manage. “You may assure your commander that we will make no attempt to take advantage of his gracious offer. See to it, Colonel Brooke, if you please. And send the men out unarmed.”
As Brooke left, the American militia lieutenant made to follow. Ross called him back.
“One moment, Lieutenant. You didn’t answer my question. Am I to understand that your commander over there is a captain?”
“Uh, yes, sir. Captain Sam Houston. From the Thirty-ninth Infantry.”
Ross didn’t recall any Thirty-ninth Infantry being stationed in or near Washington. Of course, military intelligence was never perfect.
Apparently sensing Ross’s puzzlement, the youngster cleared up the little mystery. “He’s from Tennessee, sir. The Thirty-ninth is with General Jackson down there. Captain Houston was just in Washington by happenstance.”
A captain. Here by happenstance.
That would be the same Andrew Jackson whom Admiral Cochrane and Ross expected they’d be facing later in the year, when they finally made their move into the gulf after sufficient reinforcements arrived from England. It was all Ross could do not to wince.
Of course, the odds were essentially nil that Ross himself would still be in command of the ground forces by then. Even if he survived the next few days, it would take him months to recover well enough to reassume command.
Still, it was a grim prospect. Ross wondered who would be sent over as his own replacement. Pakenham, most likely. A good commander, to be sure, but with something of a headstrong reputation. If he could, Ross would do his best to instill a bit of caution in him. Above all, stay away from frontal assaults against that horrid American artillery.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. Please pass along my regards to Captain Houston and Mr. Monroe. I take it the secretary of state is in the Capitol also?”
“Yes, sir. Oh.” The young militiaman looked chagrined. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Ross would have laughed, except for the pain. “You may set your mind at ease, Lieutenant. I assure you I have no intention of launching another assault with the sole purpose of seizing Mr. Monroe, estimable gentleman though he is. But do pass along to him a request from me, as well as my compliments.”
“Sir?”
“I’d appreciate it if he’d give your fine captain a promotion. He well deserves it, anyway, and it would do wonders for my self-esteem. Driven off by a captain. No, no, it won’t do! A major, I could live with. A colonel would be better still.”
“Do it,” Joshua Barney growled, after the militiaman returned and conveyed Ross’s words. “And make it ‘colonel.’ ”
Monroe, sitting on a chair next to Barney’s settee, shook his head. “Commodore, you know perfectly well I don’t have the authority to promote army officers.”
“Make it a brevet rank, then.”
“I can’t do that, either. Secretary of state, remember?”
Barney closed his eyes. “It’s a pity Washington, D.C., isn’t a state. We could haul the governor out of his bed and get Houston a fancy rank in the state militia.”
Smiling, Monroe started to respond, but the same militia lieutenant was coming back into the chamber. Looking more worried than ever.
“You’d better come see, sir.” The youngster swallowed. “They’re burning the president’s mansion. It’s a fearful sight.”
From an upper window on the western side of the House, Monroe watched the flames devouring the central buildings of the executive branch of the United States. He couldn’t see any details, at the distance of a mile, but it was obvious nothing was being left untouched.
“The bastards,” Captain Houston growled, lowering his telescope and offering it to the secretary. “They’re burning everything over there, it looks like. Although I think they might be sparing the Patent Office.”
Monroe shook his head, refusing the telescope. He had no desire to see buildings he’d worked in and come to know well over the past years go up in flames. He could imagine it all well enough in his mind, in any event.
There’d be no shortage of kindling in the president’s mansion. The Madisons had inherited twenty-three rooms of furniture from Thomas Jefferson and previous inhabitants. Exquisite things, most of them: sofas, writing tables, chairs and tables of all sort, beds—many of them finely ornamented. There were three dozen gilded chairs with red velvet cushions in the oval room alone, all hand-carved in Baltimore. Not to mention that the entire mansion was festooned with fancy drapes and curtains, all of which would go up in flames.
Still, Monroe controlled his anger easily enough. He wasn’t a hot-tempered man. His worst characteristic, in that regard—and one he did his best to guard against and control—was a tendency to let resentment fester silently. Especially when the slights were personal.
But this wasn’t a personal issue, and, besides, he knew the British were blundering badly here. He was a little surprised, actually, since General Ross had the reputation of being a coolheaded man, as well as the sort of officer who was popular with his men.
Houston spoke again. “I’m fairly certain that Admiral Cockburn is leading the detachment that’s burning the executive mansion and offices, sir.”
“Well, that lends support to a theory I’d just been in the midst of constructing.”
Houston cocked his head. “Sir?”
“I’d wager that Ross was somehow incapacitated in the earlier assault, and is having difficulty retaining control over his forces. Cockburn may have gone off on his own, or Ross may have sent Cockburn off just to get him out from underfoot.”
“Oh. Well, as to that, sir—it is indeed true that Ross was badly hurt. May well have been killed, in fact.”
“He was seen to fall?”
Houston looked a bit uncomfortable. “Lieutenant Driscol took command of a platoon and had them personally fire on the general when he reached the front ranks. So, yes, he was hit. Badly enough that they had to carry him off.”
Monroe nodded. That sort of deliberate targeting of an enemy commander lay well within the rules of war, of course. True, most gentlemen would consider it ungallant. But most of America’s gentlemen were still of English extraction, not Scots-Irish. That was changing, now, as men from the western states and territories—men like Andrew Jackson and Houston himself—began coming to the fore.
Monroe turned back to the window. He had mixed feelings on the subject. The growing prominence of the Scots-Irish was inevitably introducing a harsher element—not to mention a more raucous tone—into the politics of the United States. But as a committed republican, Monroe could hardly object, even though he knew full well that if he became president he would have many occasions to clash with the breed.
“Why do you think that, sir?” Houston asked. “The business about Ross wanting to get Cockburn out from underfoot, I mean.”
Monroe pointed at the buildings burning in the distance. “Because that is a bad mistake, Captain, and not one I’d have expected General Ross to make.”
From the captain’s expression, it was clear Houston wasn’t following him. Monroe elaborated. “Oh, I have no doubt that burning the president’s mansion was part of their original plan. But the logic only holds if they’d been able to take and burn the Capitol as well. Then they’d have inflicted a most humiliating defeat upon us. It would be of no great military value, to be sure, but one which might have had quite profound political effects. Now . . .”
He shrugged. “The Capitol is the key. Your stand here will turn it around—and make this a political triumph. So that”—he pointed again to the west—“is reduced to simple arson. The populace will be furious, even in New England. And the Federalists won’t be able to claim that it demonstrates the hopelessness of the war.
“They’d have done better to simply retire from the field after being repulsed from the Capitol. That would still have been a victory for us, but purely a defensive one, and not something that would have greatly aroused the public. And if Ross were still in full command, that’s what I expect he’d have done. Mind you, Captain”—Monroe gave Houston a wry little smile—“these are all theories on my part, and unlike Misters Jefferson and Madi
son, I am not renowned as a theorist. So I could be quite wrong.”
Houston returned the smile. “Let’s just call it clear thinking, then. It sounds good to me, sir.” His eyes became a bit unfocused for a moment.
“I was wondering, sir,” he continued, “if I might impose upon you further in that regard. I have a slight—well, not so slight—problem of my own to figure out.”
“By all means, Captain,” Monroe said graciously. He glanced out the window. “There’s not a thing we can do about that situation, certainly not until the morning comes. So why not distract ourselves from the unpleasantness.”
The discussion which followed was one of the most peculiar in Monroe’s life. Most peculiar, perhaps, because it did not seem so then. He would ascribe that, later, to the fury of the times and the temper of the moment.
Still!
To begin with, there was the youthful naïveté of the captain, to whom it never seemed to occur that divulging the plans of General Jackson might stir up a tempest. Jackson had no authority to strip the Creeks of half their land. True, the administration had appointed him to negotiate with the Creeks along with the Indian commissioner Benjamin Hawkins—but he’d been instructed to follow the guidelines developed by General Pinckney. And those guidelines certainly had not contemplated any such sweeping land transfer.
But Monroe kept silent, on that issue. Unlike most of the nation’s elite, the secretary of state had traveled extensively through the area, and understood the realities on the frontier. The settlers pouring across the mountains would take that Indian land, come what may, by force or by fraud—or simply by crowding the Indians aside and destroying their hunting grounds. No government in North America, be it colonial or native, had ever been able to stop them. It was an issue that had driven presidents half mad, just as it had done to colonial governors before them.
The problem was insoluble, and for the simplest and crudest of reasons: there were just too many settlers, and not enough soldiers to keep them in check. Nor could the size of the soldiery be increased to change the equation.