The Privateersman

by The Privateersman (retail) (epub)

  Kite and his company watched in dismay as the rebel volley-fire, controlled by Stark and other officers who were familiar with British musketry drill from their own experiences in the Indian Wars, stopped the advancing column. Despite pressing forward again, the British were met by a second volley, and then as they tried to clear the farmers’ boys from their positions with a rapid bayonet charge, by a third.

  For a few moments the disciplined order of the column dissolved. As the smoke from the volleys of the rebels rose in ordered clouds, the British infantry milled about in front of the rail fence, firing piecemeal in a furious, frustrated response. To Kite, watching intently through the glass, memories of just such a moment on Guadeloupe, flooded back. His heartbeat quickened and a lump rose unbidden in his throat, for then the men with whom he had impetuously charged, had carried the field, but he was now watching brave men on the edge of defeat. Even as the realisation came to him the British infantry began falling back, then he could see beyond them another column, which had struck across higher ground towards the American positions, also in retreat.

  ‘Open fire again!’ he yelled, lowering the glass, but the tide was turning and it was some moment’s before the spring had been adjusted and his gun’s crew could again lay their weapon upon the rail fence. By then General Howe’s men had reformed and were advancing again, the greater portion of the British heading not for the rail fence but the redoubt which crowned Breed’s Hill. The light infantry however, persisted in their attack upon Stark’s position and were received and driven off in the same manner.

  Watching the British infantry on the higher ground Lamont exclaimed, ‘they are wearing their knapsacks!’ They all stared at the distant waves of red coats toiled up the hill. ‘Why in God’s name would they want to do that in this heat?’ he asked, looking round, but he received only shrugs in response, for it was clear that the rebel position was not going to fall to the British regulars as easily as they had anticipated. As the second attack crumbled and the British infantry fell back again, more boats were seen crabbing across the Charles River from Boston, bearing reinforcements to join a large body of soldiers from the earlier attacks and who now massed on Moulton’s Point where they were dumping their knapsacks. Amid these men, the observers aboard Spitfire could quite clearly see wounded men being borne down the hill, while lying in front of the rebel entrenchments, small, individual red dots told their own story.

  ‘It is not going well,’ Sarah said, her voice half questioning, as if seeking assurance that, on the contrary, it was all some dreadful ruse which would produce victory in a few moments.

  ‘No my dear,’ said Kite, his own tone harsh, ‘it is not going well. In fact it is damnable.’

  ‘There are dead and wounded on the hillside.’

  ‘Yes, there are.’

  ‘If we sent away our boat, William,’ she said in a low voice, as though her earlier suggestion had been responsible for all this death and destruction, ‘we might be able to offer them some help.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kite hurriedly. ‘It is infinitely preferable to pitching shot… Get me the apothecary’s chest,’ Kite turned to Lamont. ‘Bring the longboat alongside, Mr Lamont, and have her manned.’

  Kite was half way to Moulton’s Point, urging his boat’s crew to pull as hard as they were able, when Howe launched the third attack, straight up the hill in the hot afternoon sunshine. He watched the red lines waver as the rebels held their fire and knew in a moment of insight, that they were picking off the British officers. They gorgets would have sparkled bravely in the sunshine as the sun westered, inviting targets to young men used to bowling over rabbits and coneys at fifty or sixty yards. As the longboat pulled into the landing area the noise increased and they could smell powder, mixed with the rank stink of sweat and smoke, for beyond the milling troops, Charlestown was ablaze. The foreshore was a litter of boats and bodies. Many regimental drummers were acting as stretcher-bearers and the wounded lay in writhing rows, the scarlet of their coats and the white breeches disfigured with bloody stains and gouting wounds. Blood ran over the ground and was soon soaked up by the thirsty earth.

  Kite bent to his task. The son of an apothecary, he had a rudimentary knowledge of medical matters and had once acted as a surgeon aboard ship. No-one challenged him as he sent the longboat back to the Spitfire for fresh-water and some linen for bandages. It was clear that the military authorities had made little effort to provide a field dressing station at such short notice, and Kite was filled with a sense of rage at this neglect. It was all of a piece, he thought as he bent with needle and thread and closed a flap of flesh over a sword wound, with the inefficiency and the misplaced preoccupations of men like Major Hayward.

  For the most part the men lying in the sun were officers, and many of them had been hit by musket balls. Aimed low, these had driven deep into their soft bellies or their thighs, causing fearfully painful wounds, many mortal but few quick in their fatal effect. Kite did what he could to ease their suffering with a little water, when the longboat returned, but the majority were almost bled white by the time they had been brought to the foot of the hill for treatment. He bumped into a regimental surgeon who filled the air with a thick torrent of profane oaths, aimed at the bumbling incompetence of which he was himself a part. The man was drunk, but he drove his probe remorselessly into an officer’s lower abdomen until the wretch was dead. Next to the surgeon Kite had more success. He dug out a ball which had flattened itself against the femur of another officer and was delighted when no gush of blood followed the extraction.

  ‘You are lucky,’ he said to the young man, holding up the offending lead projectile. The youth was already pale and rolled his eyeballs as he passed out. ‘Poor devil,’ muttered Kite as he turned to the next man.

  ‘Help me hold him,’ the drunken surgeon muttered as he readied his saw and laid it across the wounded man’s left leg. The knee was shattered and, as Kite bore down upon the man’s shoulders, he recognised the face staring up at him.

  ‘Harry!’

  ‘Oh God!’ It was as far as Harry Makepeace got before his teeth were bared in a grimace of extreme pain. A moment later he had passed out and Kite turned to look at the surgeon. It was already too late. The cauterisation of the arteries was imperfectly done, the fumbling was fatal and blood ran from Harry Makepeace as from an insurance company’s fire-hose.

  ‘Damnation!’ The drunken surgeon swore and moved on to the next casualty, leaving Kite beside the dying son of his old friend. It was soon over and after the death of Makepeace it seemed to Kite that the afternoon dissolved into one interminable series of bloody wounds, each of which confronted him with a mounting sense of abject failure. He had no obligation to be kneeling on the foreshore tending the remnants of Gage’s assault force, yet he could not tear himself away. He felt himself bound to grovel amid the dust and the blood and the vomit and to do whatever seemed possible. It was little enough, for he had little equipment, nothing in the way of those unguents with which his father had insisted a wound might be kept clear of infection, only a handful of torn shorts and sheets for bandages and pledgets, and only water from the harbour to clean open wounds. As for drinking water, there was insufficient of this to ease more than a few men, and most died with a raging thirst to add to their last agony.

  Kite was dimly aware that Sarah and Harper had joined him and were moving among the wounded with water and a kind word here and there. Sarah collected messages, last minute wishes to be communicated to wives and sweethearts, fathers and brothers. A few other kind souls from Boston had arrived to help, so they were less conspicuous among the military scarlet as the afternoon turned drew to its close. News came down the hill that Howe had finally forced the rebels from their positions and chased them back up Bunker Hill and beyond. This raised pathetic little cheers from the wounded and dying men.

  As the sun set, Kite, Sarah and Harper were relieved of their self imposed duties as the dead, dying and wounded were taken back across the riv
er to Boston. Kite gathered the others on the beach and waited for the return of the longboat from Boston, wither she had taken a number of the wounded. They stood in complete silence, unable to meet each others’ eyes in the deepening twilight. At last Harper announced the approach of the boat and they were just waiting for it to close the beach when a young and dishevelled officer ran up to them and bowed to Sarah.

  ‘Madam,’ he said breathlessly, ‘I bring you Lord Rawdon’s compliments and thanks for attending him. He asks who was his ministering angel?’

  Sarah looked at Kite and stretched out her hand. Her fine eyes were filled with tears and he could see her swallow. He took her hand and squeezed it, nodding his approval. She said with a cool dignity, ‘I am Mistress Kite, sir, from the schooner Spitfire of which my husband here is the commander.’

  The young officer turned to Kite and made a short bow, taking in the sodden state of his garments which reeked of gore. ‘His Lordship is obliged to you madam, and to you sir, and,’ he added seeing Harper standing there, ‘to you too.’

  ‘It has been a bloody day, sir,’ Kite said without expression.

  The young officer nodded. ‘Indeed it has, sir, but at least it is ours…’

  ‘At a cost,’ Kite responded quickly, ‘and one which I doubt you can sustain. Pray give our compliments to Lord Rawdon and wish him a speedy recovery and a better victory that this over the rebels.’

  ‘I shall drink to that, sir.’ The young officer made a final bow and turned on his heel just as the forefoot of the longboat drove onto the beach beside them with a crunch.

  ‘You were too hard on him, William,’ Sarah murmured.

  But Kite shook his head. ‘Such a victory is a greater evil than defeat,’ he said.

  ‘Then why wish him another?’

  ‘Because if the British troops fail to smash these rebels quickly, there will be an infinity of scenes such as the one which we have just witnessed.’ He paused and added, ‘this is a war, Sarah, not a shooting party.’

  After they had regained the Spitfire’s deck and Sarah had gone below, Kite lingered for a moment or two. Two men had not returned in the boat from Boston and he wondered why Johnstone and one of the seamen had gone missing. It was no great matter, he thought, staring at the hills which he could now barely make out in the darkness. He felt the weight of the day cling to him like the stench of powder, blood and dust that clung to his coat. The spirits of the dead and the damned seemed thick in the heavy night air and then he felt a faint but purifying zephyr gently fan his face.

  A faint trace of the dawn’s optimism inexplicably slowly stole over him. He felt the dreadful affair of Bunker Hill slough off him and knew that Puella’s shade and the spirits of the obi kept him close company.

  Puella’s generous spirit had led him to make love to Sarah that morning and suddenly he felt fate’s benediction with relief. Others had been destined to die on Bunker Hill that day; for William Kite there was still a tomorrow.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A Moth Drawn To A Candle

  The discovery that Johnstone and one seaman had landed in Boston from the longboat the previous evening to assist with the wounded, had caused little concern on Kite’s return to the Spitfire. Although the boat was sent back in for them, neither had materialised by midnight and such was the confusion in the town that Jacob, who had been acting as the boat’s coxwain, had decided to return to the schooner without them. Long before Kite received the news of Johnstone’s absence, Sarah had removed her fouled clothing and fallen into the sleep of exhaustion. He too was dropping with fatigue and was more concerned with divesting himself of his own filthy clothing. Hearing Jacob’s report of the state of Boston, Kite thought that Johnstone had most probably become so involved with the removal of the wounded that at the late hour at which he was free to return to the ship, he had been too tired, and had found lodgings ashore.

  The following morning Kite ordered the schooner prepared for sea, passing word that the long-boat should be sent ashore again during the forenoon to pick up the two missing men. Meanwhile the empty water casks were hove up on deck and Lamont supervised their stumming, prior to sending them ashore for refilling, the rigging was rattled down and overhauled, and the final preparations made for their cruise. The morning being almost windless, persuaded Kite to hoist Spitfire’s sails and check them over, allowing them to dry out after the night’s dew and for some new cringles to be worked into the bolt-ropes of the foresail and foretopmast staysail, the neglect of which might cost him his prize if he ever got sight of her.

  Attending to such details absorbed him, temporarily driving out of his mind the concerns he had for locating Rathburne, and entirely wiping from his mind the two absent men. The events of the previous day had, however, cleared from his mind any lingering doubts about his intentions. The British ‘victory’ at Bunker Hill had not merely been Phyrric, it was an illusion. Kite knew that the stand the Americans had made had come as a profound shock to the British officers, for he had overheard enough comment while tending the wounded. That it had been brushed aside in that laconic off-handedness that characterised the casual attitude of the young blades, did not fool Kite. He was himself Briton enough to recognised the under-lying worry that such remarks revealed.

  An eighteen-year old ensign who, while having a bullet wound in his upper arm dressed, drawled that ‘brother Jonathan is a tough-nut to crack, by Jupiter,’ had proved himself courageous enough. But his shuddering frame could not hide the impact of the enemy’s action which had struck deeper than his flesh-wound. Such bravado, Kite knew, was a requisite quality among these stupidly brave young men, for no-one could doubt that they had driven Jonathan from his entrenchments by raw courage and sheer persistence. Admirable though these qualities were, they were limited and could not win a long war. It was this consideration which had stirred Kite from sleep and occupied his thoughts that morning. The rebels had had it all their own way and he felt that he must strike at Rathburne. To translate that resolve into action meant locating Rathburne with all the advantages of surprise on his side, for Kite himself was in no doubt at all of how tough a nut Jonathan was to crack.

  It was while Kite scoured his schooner for defects, that the lighter approached with a hail of ‘Spitfire a-hoy!’

  ‘What d’you want?’ Lamont queried.

  ‘The rest of your requisitioned cargo, if you please,’ a man dressed in the blue uniform of the Customs Service responded with mock civility. As the lightermen shipped their sweeps, the barge bumped alongside and the lines were thrown, the Customs officer stood and looked up at the schooner with her sails hanging loose in the hot summer air.

  ‘You shifted your anchorage, Captain. Not thinking of leaving, I hope?’

  ‘I most certainly am. I’ve my outward clearance, Mister,’ Kite declared, ‘but that was not my intention by moving our anchorage. That was to do what we could to help the army.’

  ‘I’m sure it was,’ the Customs officer replied with flat ambiguity.

  ‘Had I wished to leave, I should have already done so,’ Kite answered with some asperity.

  ‘I don’t doubt it, Captain,’ the other rejoined, his voice suspicious as he made for the rope ladder thrown over the Spitfire’s side. On deck he held out his hand and added, ‘come sir, things have been all topsy-turvy of late. We abandoned your discharge the day before yesterday for military reasons and now have a greater reason for wanting your lading ashore.’

  ‘Things went ill then,’ Kite asked, pretending ignorance. The Customs officer shrugged his shoulders and looked away. ‘We were close inshore, we saw a great deal,’ Kite added.

  ‘Well, ’tis true that the cost of yesterday’s victory was somewhat excessive, but the chief worry is the fact that Boston is isolated. Without supply from the sea our position here will deteriorate.’

  ‘Then you are welcome to my cargo, but you would be well advised not to antagonise too many shipmasters. We are a tediously fractious breed.’

>   ‘So I observe, Captain.’

  ‘Almost as intransigent as Custom House men,’ Kite said with a grin, seeing the signs of anxiety on the native born colonial’s face. The officer relaxed and wiped his hand across his sweating face. ‘Come below for some refreshment. My wife has some lemonade aboard.’

  Sat in the cabin with a glass of the cool drink in the easing presence of Sarah, the Customs officer unbent to the extent of revealing that rumours of evacuation were beginning to circulate among the tense and over-crowded drawing rooms of Boston. ‘Things could go very ill for us,’ he said, referring to the loyal portion of the population. In response, Kite briefly outlined the mauling he and Sarah had endured at the hands of the party calling themselves patriots. Leaving the Customs officer to fulminate on the perfidy of such men, Kite offered him some rum, which he drank with as much eagerness as he had the lemonade so that he manifested no surprise when Kite asked if he had heard of John Rathburne.

  ‘Oh indeed I have, Captain, indeed I have. He is one of those men most implicated in defying the levies and duties placed upon trade, not to mention a man tainted by criminal acts. You’ll have heard of the Gaspée affair?’ Kite nodded. ‘A noose is too good for that fellow,’ the Customs officer went on. ‘Truth to tell,’ he said leaning forward with an air of confidentiality, ‘the man is a pirate and deserves to hang in chains betwixt high and low water. My God, Captain, along with Whipple and a handful of others, mostly from Rhode Island I might add with due respect to y’re wife, such a fate would be too good for the dogs… begging your pardon Ma’am.’

  ‘Please don’t worry, sir. I am entirely of your opinion.’

  ‘Are you aware that he is at large in an 18-gun ship named the Rattlesnake?’