Altsheler, Joseph - [Novel 05]

by A Herald Of The West (lit)

  Whether help came or not there were no sluggards in New Orleans, and the work of defence went on by day and by night. At Washington there had been chaos; here were order, discipline, purpose, and I saw that to fight one must have soldiers, and to lead them one must have generals. There was no marching to and fro here, no waste of energy, but each man knew what to do and did it, for infused into all were the spirit and iron will of Jackson, one man dominating an army and a city, fill ing both with his own courage and energy.

  " You should have seen him in the Indian country/' said Courtenay to me. " He was sick near to death there,

  THE WAY OP ANDREW JACKSON. 303

  bent double with terrible internal pains, but he was the general just the same. By day we carried him in an old chair, on which he sat astride with his stomach pressed over the back, for only in that way could he endure his sulTering, and at night we bent down a sapling and he hung himself across it and slept by snatches; but whe ther by day or night he commanded everything and forgot nothing. That is the man who leads us; and we have two armies ourselves the one, and Jackson the other."

  So we drilled on from day to day, preparing defences, ransacking the town for arms and ammunition, and try ing to divine the British plans. It was now that the situ ation of New Orleans, amid a network of river and swamp and lake and bayou, was its greatest advantage, for the British, despite overwhelming force, were com pelled to move slowly, and their fleet, though it had brought the army to Louisiana, could not reach New Or leans. All these things made for time, and time was what we needed most of all things.

  On the third day after my arrival I was sent with a small detachment through the woods and swamps and around the great curve of Lake Borgne to see what the British fleet was about. It was a long journey through quaking and malarious swamps and dark wet woods and across creeks and sluggish bayous, but we remembered Coffee's Indian fighters who had marched from Baton Eouge to New Orleans, one hundred and fifty miles, in two days, and at last, well coated with slime and mud, we came out at the southeastern corner of Louisiana and looked at the great British fleet as it lay anchored at the mouth of the lake, which was too shallow for the naviga tion of the frigates and ships of the line.

  We were only six in number, and, having made our way through a marshy stretch of ground to the shore, we lay hidden there in the mud and swamp grass, where we could easily see the fleet of our enemies.

  It was the most formidable armament that my eyes

  304: A HERALD OF THE WEST.

  had ever rested upon, and as far as the spy-glass I had brought with me would carry I saw British sails and British sails. There lay the ships in the harbour of Ship Island, in the pass between Ship Island and Cat Island, and on to Chandeleur Island; ships of the line, frigates, sloops, brigs and transports, the Union Jack floating over all an assembled power which made me sick at heart, re membering the ragged and half-armed little army of a few thousand men which I had left behind.

  I put nay little telescope to my eyes again and the ships came nearer, I could read their names. There in the centre was the Tonnant, a ship of the line of eighty guns, taken from the French by Nelson at the Nile, and over her flew the flag of the commander of the fleet, Vice- Admiral Cochrane, the man who had given the order to lay waste the American coast and destroy every town that could be reached, and had seen it carried out; with him was Admiral Codrington, destined to win fame years after in Navarino Bay. Beside the Tonnant lay the Eoyal Oak of seventy-four guns, with another admiral on board; and still farther on the Eamillies, a seventy-four, com manded by Sir Thomas Hardy, who received the dying Nelson in his arms at Trafalgar; and then the Asia and the Armide and the Sea Horse of the same size, and more frigates and sloops and transports than I could count. They carried the British, fresh from triumphs in Spain and France, and that army, too, which had made its victorious raid on Washington, expecting to repeat its ex ploit here.

  As I looked my heart swelled with a sense of anger, indignation, and injustice injustice because everything had been made so easy for them, so hard for us. They had come in overwhelming numbers in their great ships as comfortably as travellers on a pleasure voyage. They were accounted the best troops in Europe, they had served in many campaign?, knew all the tricks and ways of war, and were led by skilled and able generals. We were but

  THE WAY OP ANDREW JACKSON. 305

  a few, none well armed, some not armed at all, clad, many of us, in our homespun and tanned deerskin, led by gen erals who had fought only against the Indians and knew no civilized foe, and we had come a vast distance on a journey longer and far harder than theirs to defend the country that was ours.

  But there was a sense of anger even greater and beyond that, for in advance they had detached the South west from us and made Louisiana a dependency of the British crown. On those ships came a complete staff of civil officials, appointed and classified for the government of Louisiana so sure were they of its conquest revenue collectors, clerks, printers, printing presses, stationery marked and stamped, all the paraphernalia of office. A new government, measured, cut to order, ticketed, and pigeonholed had been packed aboard the ships, and there was nothing more to do but to land and set it to working. Castlereagh, the British representative with the allied ar mies, had said days before in Paris, occupied by the vic torious allies: " I expect at this moment that most of the large seaport towns of America are laid in ashes, that we are in possession of New Orleans, and have command of all the rivers of the Mississippi Valley, and that the Americans are now little better than prisoners in their own country." Bonaparte had just been sent to Elba, and the British had been the chief cause of his going there. Flushed with such a triumph, they thought little of the Americans, who were without military resources and had sought to found a peaceful nation. It was the knowledge of such things that made my feelings bitter as I looked at their powerful fleet.

  Though December, the sunshine was warm and bright. The water rippled gently away before a light wind from the west in streaks of silver and blue and gold; the white sails of the ships gleamed like snow, rays of sunshine flashed across the red uniforms and gold lace of the offi cers who walked the decks, and the murmur which many

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  thousand men always make, even at their quietest, came over the waters to us. Three or four bands were playing too, and theirs were conquering airs.

  For over an hour we lay there and watched them, and then we saw many men embarking in boats and launches and passing up the lake, of which they had already ob tained command. Boat after boat was filled, and I guessed that it was a movement of importance. One could ob tain little information by lying there in the mud, and we rose to retreat, hoping to find some wandering fisherman or hunter who could give us facts worth our knowing.

  I suggested to the men that we divide and meet again at a certain spot that we had noticed as we came, about three miles back, as in this manner we would have six chances to one before of finding information, and we soon lost sight of one another among the banks and swamp grass. I turned northward. I was tired of wading in mud and stepping on moss through which my feet went as if it had been thin ice, and the ground seemed to grow firmer as I advanced. I passed out of the swamp and into a belt of thick woods, which I crossed in a few minutes and saw beyond a small clearing with a hut in the centre. This was was the place for my fisher man or hunter; this was sure to be his house, and I might find him at home. I hurried forward, and as I stepped from the trees some one hurled himself upon me. I saw the red of an English uniform, and having no time to draw a weapon, I grasped him by the shoulders, as his body struck me, and threw him into the air with a violent effort of my strength. It was lucky for him that an arm of the marsh protruded into that clearing, for he struck in the soft and oozing mud, squawking like a goose, and stuck there. But when I turned to see if any one else was near I found myself covered by the muskets of four English soldiers.

  " You'd better surrender," said one, " or we'll bl
ow your head off."

  THE WAY OP ANDREW JACKSON. 3Q7

  Certainly they held the advantage, all the advantages in fact; if I had only been a little closer I might have made a fight even against them all, but any hostile move ment now was sure death. It was a moment of the bit terest disappointment to me to be caught so in a swamp on a petty scouting expedition, when I had been building great hopes of achievement, but there was nothing to do except to yield.

  " Very well, I give up," I said, and I knew I said it sullenly.

  " Who are you? " asked the man who had spoken. He seemed to be a sergeant or corporal.

  " An American soldier," I replied. I said it with as much dignity as I could muster, though I am afraid my muddy and bedraggled appearance was against me.

  " Indeed! You are frank," he said, looking at me in a curious way that I did not understand. " Come into the cabin, the major may want to talk to you."

  CHAPTEE XXVIII.

  SENTENCED.

  HE pushed open the door of the hut and entering I stood before my kinsman, Major Gilbert Northcote. I saw the look of surprise upon his face, usually so self- contained, for he could not fail to recognise me despite the mud which incased me like a coat of armour.

  " A surprise, but not a pleasant one, Cousin Philip," he said.

  " Oh, I can stand it if you can," I replied, and then I was sorry I had made such a reply, for I felt that it was flippant.

  " I am not so sure of that," he replied ambiguously.

  Since it was my kinsman who was my captor I decided to make myself at home, and looking around saw a box upon which I took my seat. Then I examined the place with interest. As I had guessed at first sight from the outside, it was the hut of a hunter or fisherman, though occupied now by altogether different people, containing only a few articles of furniture, and those of the rudest description. Some tanned skins, jerked meat, and dried vegetables hung on the walls. In the corner was a camp bed, evi dently brought from one of the ships for the use of Major Korthcote. The major himself was sitting on a camp stool, and I noticed how well he looked. He seemed to have been dwelling in the sunlight of prosper ity. His uniform, as usual, was fine and neat, and his expression was at first that of satisfaction and triumph, though it became gloomy as he looked at me. 308

  SENTENCED. 309

  " I am sorry that you came, Cousin Philip," he said again.

  "I observe that you do not seem glad to see me," I replied, and again I felt that I had spoken flippantly.

  " There has been bad feeling between us, though I was willing to have it otherwise," he said, " and I would rather this duty had fallen to some one else."

  What he said seemed ambiguous and I passed it over, but I added, to see what he would have to say:

  " Your friends have a formidable force out there at the entrance to the lake."

  His face cleared.

  " Yes," he said, " it is quite sufficient, more than sufficient, for the purpose. In a few days, in a week or two at most, New Orleans and all this Southwestern coun try will be ours. To what do your few thousands of raw militia amount? to nothing. Was I not at Washington? Did I not see them run away there? They will do the same here! And even if they do not, what does it matter to the gathered might of Britain! Wellington's best troops, the soldiers who beat Napoleon's in Spain and France and marched into Paris, are here, and his best generals are coming too. Do you think that the men who overcame odds at Talavera and Salamanca and Vitoria and Toulouse are going to pause for your Louisi- anians and Kentuckians and Tennesseeans, half-starved backwoodsmen in their hunting shirts? "

  His eyes were flashing, and I could see the blood leap ing in his face. These were the things that were dear to his heart, the triumphs in which he gloried.

  " Look at Washington," he continued. " Your army fled there, and it would have been the same if it had not fled. And do not forget that I had my share of the tri umph, nor was it a small share. It was I who led the army to Washington. It was I who made the swift march upon it possible, for I knew the country. I had studied and mapped it, and I led the army on. I urged the

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  march upon our commanders, and then, when we reached your Capitol, I was one of the first to set the torch to it. I have paid any debts that I may have owed in Washing ton for insults. But we have not finished yet. Britain has conquered Bonaparte, and now that all her fleets and armies are free she will smash up your league of petty republics and make them her colonies and dependencies again, as they should never have ceased to be."

  " Rather a large undertaking," I said.

  " Not too large."

  " You seem to forget that you are an American your self."

  " Never an American," he replied with energy. " I was born in this country when it was English; English I am, and English I will remain. Have I not paid the price? Have I not clung to my loyalty to my king through everything? I was one of those Loyalist exiles whom they expelled from New York at the close of the war and whose property they confiscated. The mob fol lowed us as we went to the ships and hooted at us and sang their traitorous Yankee songs and stoned us. Those were things to remember, when all we had was taken from us and we were forced to go into the Canada wilder ness and snows and build new homes there."

  I could see that he was growing excited at the memory of old wrongs cherished through all these years. I had never before seen him show so much feeling, and it seemed that all the passion he had repressed so long was bursting out at once.

  " But all this happened before I was born," I pro tested.

  " That does not alter the fact that it happened, nor does it alter the fact either that I am living to see time pay its debts. The exiles, the old Loyalists, will come back to their own."

  " Never," I replied; " neither you nor I will ever see that."

  SENTENCED. 3H

  " You will not," he said.

  There was a change in his tone and manner, and that change, as well as his words, caused me to look at him with a new interest.

  " What do you mean ? " I asked.

  " You are soldier enough to know the fate of taken spies," he replied.

  His eye shifted away, and I saw that it was unwilling to meet mine.

  " But I am no spy! "

  " Why, then, are you in disguise? "

  "Disguise?"

  " Look at your clothes."

  I wore an old suit of brown homespun which I had borrowed from a Tennesseean almost as large as myself. I had but one uniform, and as the ladies of New Orleans were handsome I did not wish to spoil it on an expedition through the mud like this.

  " Yes, your clothes! " he repeated. " Why were you not in uniform? Why have you dressed in such a man ner? Why have you come to such a place if not as a spy? You have been taken within our lines."

  I was a scout, not a spy, and had not thought of play ing such a part.

  " I did not know I was within your lines," I replied, " and if lack of uniform is proof that I am a spy, then half of our army are spies."

  I saw his face harden. He seemed to have forgotten all the regard he professed once to have for me.

  " I said I was sorry that this duty had fallen upon me," he said.

  " Surely you can not mean such a thing," I exclaimed, more in amazement than alarm just then.

  " In the rebellion your Washington did not spare Andre because he was young and many people liked him."

  " But at least you will give me a trial and hear what

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  I have to say," I protested. " You professed once to like me/'

  " That was in a different time, and the laws of war are plain," he said. " You were caught in citizen's dress within our lines."

  Now I understood what the sergeant had meant when he spoke of my frankness, but we Western men were so much accustomed to wearing our every-day dress on cam paigns that I had thought nothing of a matter which now seemed so serious.

  " It is best to tell you the truth and
let you prepare yourself," he said abruptly. " You will be shot at ten o'clock in the morning. That is better than hanging. This room will be your prison to-night. I give you my own quarters. You can not escape, for a dozen soldiers will be on guard outside."

  He walked out quickly and slammed the door behind him, leaving me overwhelmed by confused thoughts and yet scarce realizing my position. I could not believe that my career, all my hopes and ambitions were about to come to a sudden end in a black swamp before a file of soldiers, and that too, if not at the hand, at the order of my own kinsman. The thing was too monstrous. I could not believe that he had changed so much, for he seemed sincere once when he offered me what he called a future.

  Presently I heard a steady tramp, tramp on the strip of hard earth before the door. I looked through a crack and saw a soldier, musket on shoulder, walking back and forth; I went to the window, another walked there, and I doubted not that there were more, as the major had said. I had no arms, as my captors had taken them from me when they seized me, and I could see no chance of escape.