The Hunt for the North Star

by The Hunt for the North Star (retail) (epub)

  A flash of light ahead, the dull thump of a cannon echoing over the ice, and a cannonball whirred invisible over their heads. That was one of the guns by the old fort; a moment later, the gun by the wharf opened fire too, its noise a deeper boom. Twelve-pounder, MacLea thought. Christ, we’re sitting ducks out here on the ice. Again the guns fired, and a cannonball smashed into the running ranks of the Glengarrys, knocking two men down in a bloody mess. Another ball crunched into the ice not far from MacLea, showering him with frozen snow.

  ‘Come on!’ he shouted. The Glengarrys were running like the wind. The town was very close now, and he saw sparkling points of light, riflemen firing from the cover of the houses. Two more Glengarrys fell, then another. Red George was still shouting in English and Gaelic; his shako had been knocked off and there was blood on his face, but he reached the waterfront and ran up into the town, charging straight at the enemy. MacLea saw an American rifleman fall under the blade of the big man’s claymore, and then the twelve-pounder gun was right in front of them, the gunners hurrying to reload.

  ‘Go!’ shouted MacLea. Vaulting over the parapet, he ran in among the gun crew, musket clenched in his hands. A gunner swung a heavy ramrod at his head; MacLea ducked under the blow and shot the man at point-blank range, sending him staggering back. His men were around him, yelling and shooting; Derenzy ran one man through with his sword, and Murray knocked another down with the butt of his musket. The rest of the gunners fled.

  More lights sparkled on the ramparts of Fort Presentation across the river, and for a moment the air was thick with bullets. ‘This way,’ said Boydell. ‘This is Catherine Street, and it leads straight to the bridge.’

  Leaving the battery, they ran down the street towards the bridge. The houses on the west side hid them from the riflemen in the fort, and for a moment there was silence, in contrast with the yelling, screaming mayhem going on elsewhere in the town. MacLea could hear Boydell gasping with pain at every step, but he did not fall behind. They reached the east end of the bridge, a simple wooden span over the frozen river, and halted. Then they threw themselves flat as two more cannon thundered. One ball went skipping down the street, while the other smacked into the wooden wall of a nearby house.

  ‘Get back!’ shouted MacLea. They rose and hurried back behind the cover of the nearest houses, crouching in the shadows.

  ‘That’s the battery by Fort Presentation,’ Derenzy said. ‘If we’re going to hold the bridge, we need to take it.’

  MacLea nodded. ‘Wait until they fire again, then we’ll cross the bridge while they’re reloading. Thomas, Schmidt, Carson, you’re with Captain Derenzy and me. Alec, James, the rest of you stay here.’

  ‘Wait,’ hissed Murray. ‘Someone is coming.’

  They could footsteps approaching fast, a single man running from the town towards the bridge. MacLea motioned to his men, who crouched down again in the shadows, waiting. The running man reached the end of the street just as the cannon thundered again, heavy iron balls thumping into the walls of the houses. Appleby and Carson rose from their hiding places and tackled him high and low, throwing him onto his back. MacLea ran across to join them, looking at the red-haired man who lay shocked and winded at his feet.

  ‘Elijah Dunne,’ he said.

  ‘Well what do you know?’ said Murray. ‘Now we don’t even have to search the town. It must be our lucky day.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ gasped Dunne.

  ‘Looking for you,’ said MacLea. ‘We’ve come to take you back to Canada.’

  ‘Oh Christ no! I can’t go back! Do you know what they’ll do to me?’

  ‘Hang you, I expect,’ said MacLea. ‘Open your coat.’

  ‘Please, I’m begging you! I’m a rich man. I’ll give you anything you want, any amount of money you care to name. Just let me go!’

  ‘Open your coat,’ said MacLea again, raising his musket and pointing it at Dunne’s head.

  Dunne opened his coat. Lowering the musket, MacLea reached down and felt the other man’s ribs through his shirt. There was no sign of a bandage or a wound. Puzzled, he looked at Dunne’s face. ‘Have you been injured recently?’

  ‘What?’ gasped Dunne. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Did someone shoot you?’

  ‘No! Please, for the love of God! Tell me how much you want, and then let me go!’

  ‘John,’ said Murray.

  MacLea looked up. The gates of Fort Presentation had opened and a solid column of men, fifty or more, was running past the battery and down towards the western end of the bridge. Almost at once they heard more footsteps behind them and saw more detachments moving up the surrounding streets, American riflemen in green coats with fixed bayonets, running towards them with grim purpose. Another platoon had appeared in Catherine Street, blocking their way back to the river.

  ‘Trapped,’ said Murray.

  The Americans were coming closer. ‘What do you want to do, Captain?’ asked Abel Thomas softly.

  MacLea looked at him. He knew the fate that awaited Thomas and Moses Crabbe if they were captured by the Americans; the rules of war did not apply to escaped slaves. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We won’t abandon you.’

  The Americans halted. Their ranks parted and a man walked forward towards MacLea and his men. Unlike the riflemen, he wore the blue and white uniform of the American regular infantry, with an officer’s epaulettes.

  ‘What a pleasure to see you here, Captain MacLea,’ he said. ‘I had hoped our paths might cross again, and now they have. You don’t remember me, do you? We met at Frenchman’s Creek back in November. My name is Calder. Colonel Frank Calder, of the US Army Ordnance Survey.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘You son of a bitch!’ shouted Boydell, and he raised his musket, aiming at Calder. There was a ripple of motion around them as the American riflemen raised their own weapons. Derenzy knocked the barrel of Boydell’s musket up before he could pull the trigger. ‘Use your head, man!’ he said sharply. ‘They outnumber us ten to one.’

  ‘I remember you,’ MacLea said grimly to Calder. ‘The play-actor who pretended to be drunk.’

  ‘I did quite a good job, too,’ said Calder, smiling. ‘I certainly fooled you and Sergeant Murray, and Mr Boydell here.’

  ‘I will make you a bargain,’ MacLea said, and he reached down and dragged Elijah Dunne to his feet. ‘We have captured your spy and were about to take him back to Canada. We will hand him over to you, providing you give your word you will let us go.’

  ‘But we don’t want him,’ said Calder. ‘We have no more use for him now,’ and he drew a pistol from inside his coat and shot Elijah Dunne through the chest.

  * * *

  Dunne lay on the ground, twitching a little as his blood turned the snow around him into red slush. ‘That was murder,’ MacLea said.

  ‘You were intending to hang him,’ said Calder. ‘What difference does it make how he dies?’

  MacLea looked around, hoping against hope to see a gap in the American ranks through which they might escape. There was none; as Murray had said, they were trapped.

  ‘Drop your musket, Captain MacLea,’ Calder said. ‘Then walk away from your men.’

  ‘What will happen to them?’

  ‘Nothing. They are free to go; you have my word of honour. It is you that we want.’

  ‘Why?’

  Calder looked around. The sounds of fighting, the crash of musketry, the clatter of swords and the shouts and screams of men – were drawing closer. ‘There isn’t time to explain right now,’ he said. ‘Lay down your musket, Captain, and walk towards me. Otherwise I will give the order to fire and you will all die, right here in this street.’

  Abel Thomas stepped up beside Murray. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re not leaving the captain.’

  ‘Do as they say,’ MacLea said. ‘That way we all live to fight another day.’

  ‘We won’t abandon you,’ said Thomas, echoing MacLea’s own words.

&
nbsp; ‘You’re not abandoning me, Corporal. You’re obeying orders.’

  ‘Oh Jesus, old son,’ said Derenzy softly. ‘What are we to tell the fair Madame Lafitte?’

  ‘Tell her I will keep my promise,’ said MacLea. He knelt and placed his musket on the ground beside Dunne’s body, took his pistol from his pocket and laid that down too, then rose again. ‘You give me no choice,’ he said. ‘I am surrendering to you in order to save the lives of my men. But I will not give you my parole. I intend to escape at the first opportunity.’

  ‘I thought you might say that,’ said Calder, and he motioned two of his men forward. ‘Tie his hands, then bring him with us. Murray, Boydell, the rest of you, be off before we change our minds and shoot you. Go!’

  Murray and MacLea looked at each other and their eyes met. Then the sergeant turned away, followed by Derenzy, Boydell, Thomas and the others. MacLea turned to face Calder. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

  ‘Sackett’s Harbor,’ said Calder.

  * * *

  The road from Ogdensburgh to Sackett’s Harbor was a rough track hacked out of the wilderness and choked with snow. The journey lasted for five bitter days, during which the men around MacLea suffered almost as much as he did.

  His hopes of an opportunity for escape were quickly dashed. Not only were his hands securely tied for most of the day, but he was surrounded by an entire battalion of American riflemen. The stunning charge by the Glengarry Light Infantry had shattered the American defences, and the flanking attack by the 8th Foot and the Grenville militia had completed the rout. Major Forsyth had given the order to abandon the town, and now the entire force was retreating to Sackett’s Harbor.

  Forsyth had come to inspect MacLea on the first evening out of Ogdensburgh, when the column had halted for the night near the village of De Kalb. A strong watch had been posted around the camp, not because the Americans feared any pursuit by Red George’s men, but because the local population were Federalists and Tories strongly opposed to the war, to the point where they would take potshots at the soldiers in hopes of driving them away. Canada was not the only divided land.

  MacLea’s guards had untied his hands so he could eat, and he was sitting on an upturned biscuit box listening to the campfire sizzling in the snow when Forsyth came out of the shadows and stood looking down at him.

  ‘Is this him? He don’t look like much.’ Forsyth himself was a tall, thin man with an angular face and a Carolina drawl.

  ‘I can assure you, he has caused us plenty of trouble in the past,’ said Calder. ‘Were it not for him, we might have won at Queenston, and the war would be over by now.’

  ‘The war will be over soon enough,’ Forsyth said. ‘How come you decided to raid Ogdensburgh, MacLea?’

  ‘We were looking for someone,’ said MacLea.

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Calder. ‘You hoped to capture poor Elijah Dunne. Such a shame he had to die, but once he told us everything he knew, we really had very little use for him. By the way, Captain MacLea, we’re quite annoyed with you. We had high hopes of capturing Sir George Prévost.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ said MacLea. ‘And now you have lost your post at Ogdensburgh, too. It has been a bad couple of days for you, hasn’t it? Maybe the war isn’t going to be over quite so soon after all.’

  Forsyth laughed. ‘Fortunes of war,’ he said. ‘They’ll turn around again soon, sure enough. Wait until you get to Sackett’s Harbor, MacLea. You might want to think again.’

  * * *

  Sackett’s Harbor lay on a sheltered bay at the east end of Lake Ontario. The original settlement, a small fishing village, had been swallowed up by the vast shipyard and the rows of barracks for workers and soldiers that had been thrown up around it. Two forts flanked the shipyard, one to the east and another to the west. MacLea had seen maps of the town before, and knew that the eastern fort was called Fort Volunteer, while the larger, more powerful western fortification was known as Fort Tompkins. Half a dozen warships, a thirty-gun corvette, a brig and several schooners lay moored offshore, frozen into the ice of the lake.

  The place teemed with activity. Even in the depths of winter, work continued at the yard, where more ships were being built. The sounds of hammers and saws filled the air, and the smell of newly cut wood drifted on the breeze. Soldiers in blue and white uniforms drilled in the open fields, while more marched along the ramparts of the two forts. Batteries bristling with heavy guns were guarded by still more troops.

  Surveying the scene, MacLea felt a chill settle over him that had nothing to do with the weather. The intelligence reports had said that Sackett’s Harbor was lightly guarded. By MacLea’s estimate there were nearly two thousand troops here, and the arrival of Forsyth’s battalion from Ogdensburgh would swell the numbers still further. He counted at least twenty pieces of artillery.

  Whoever had compiled those intelligence reports was very, very wrong. In a month’s time, Colonel Lawrence and his men would arrive expecting to attack a weakly defended post; a stroll in the park, Vincent had called it. Instead, they would be marching into a deathtrap.

  * * *

  He saw no more of Calder or Forsyth that day. His guards escorted him into Fort Tompkins and up to a cell, a comfortable enough room with a bed, writing desk and oil lamp, and a glazed window looking out over the parade ground. The window had a cross-grid of iron bars set firmly in stone, precluding escape.

  The guards cut his bonds and left him without saying a word, locking the door behind them. MacLea sat down on the bed, rubbing his chafed wrists. There had been plenty of time on the journey from Ogdensburgh to wonder what the Americans wanted with him, but he could think of nothing that made any sense.

  Other things bothered him too. Where had Dunne been hiding in York? And Josephine had shot her attacker, but Dunne was uninjured. Who then was the killer with the glass harmonica? Most importantly of all, how had Calder known exactly where and when to trap him at Ogdensburgh?

  There was one possibility. It sickened him to even think of it, but once the idea was in his head, it would not go away. I must find a way to get back to York, he thought. The endgame has begun, and Polaris is making his move. Somehow I must stop him.

  The stew they brought him for dinner was tolerable, as were the porridge and bread and coffee next morning. He asked for a razor and a change of uniform, but received neither. Instead, around ten o’clock, a young officer in blue and white opened the door and saluted.

  ‘Captain MacLea? I have orders to escort you to Colonel Calder.’

  Silently, with two more armed guards at his elbow, MacLea followed the officer across the parade ground, past a group of blue-uniformed men attempting to practise musket drill, and into the blockhouse. A flight of steep wooden stairs led to a heavy door with more guards outside. The officer knocked, then opened the door and ushered MacLea into a large office.

  Calder and Major Forsyth stood by the window, watching him; Calder was smiling. The third man in the room, wearing a dark blue coat with heavy gold epaulettes, sat behind an oak desk. Although he was only in his early thirties, his black hair was already receding. His long-nosed face was extraordinarily pallid, except for two bright spots of colour in his cheeks, but his lips were blood red.

  ‘General,’ said Calder. ‘Allow me to introduce Captain John MacLea. Captain, may I present Brigadier General Zebulon Pike, US Army.’

  ‘We may dispense with the formalities, Calder,’ said Pike in a cold voice. ‘Have you told him what you want from him?’

  ‘Not yet, sir. May I do so now?’

  ‘Please proceed,’ said Pike.

  ‘Captain MacLea, did you see the men drilling in the square just now?’

  ‘Yes,’ said MacLea.

  ‘What did you think of them?’

  ‘Not much. Most didn’t seem to know one end of a musket from the other.’

  ‘True, they are raw material,’ said Calder. ‘But what they lack in skill they make up for in enthusiasm and commitment to t
he cause. We have nearly two hundred now, volunteers who are keen to fight. Do you want to know who they are?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ said MacLea.

  ‘They are Canadians, Captain. Our fellow countrymen, men like myself who have come over to join us. They are called the Canadian Volunteers. They will accompany General Pike’s army when it invades Canada and join in the liberation of their homeland.’

  ‘Why should I be interested in them?’ asked MacLea.

  ‘Because you are the man who is going to whip them into shape and turn them into a fighting unit,’ said Calder. ‘You are their new commanding officer.’

  There was a long pause. ‘I’m sorry,’ MacLea said. ‘I don’t think I heard you correctly.’

  ‘You will be their captain,’ said General Pike. ‘We are offering you a commission in the US Army and a salary of thirty dollars a month. Quite generous terms, I think you will find.’

  ‘You expect me to betray my country for thirty dollars a month?’

  ‘Why not?’ drawled Major Forsyth. ‘Most of those men on the parade ground have done so for a lot less.’

  ‘I refuse, of course,’ MacLea said.

  ‘Have it your way,’ said Forsyth. ‘There’s a nice quiet place over on the other side of Fort Volunteer. We’ll take you there and shoot you.’

  MacLea looked at him. ‘I am a prisoner of war,’ he said. ‘I demand to be treated as such.’

  Pike pursed his unnaturally red lips. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said coldly. ‘Remember General Hull’s declaration last year when he marched into the western districts? “No white man fighting by the side of an Indian will be taken prisoner; instant destruction will be his lot.” You fought beside the Mohawks many times, and Colonel Calder saw you with Sekahos and his Mississaugas. We have every right to kill you here and now.’

  ‘Then kill me,’ said MacLea. ‘Because I will not fight against my own people.’