“I believe you, but I also believe there is more to you taking that shot than concern for my men,” Washington challenged.
“I don’t understand your meaning, sir.”
“I accepted you into my company as a captain because of the strong education and military background you presented. You are a thinking man and grasp the bigger picture with ease.”
“I’d like to think so,” Valnor answered with a hint of pride poking through his attempt to appear humble before his commander.
“That being the case, you knew that first tiny engagement would prompt the remaining French forces to surround us and provoke a larger incident. Grander still, I think you are keenly aware that France and Britain are not at war. That means this little affair will have huge and lasting implications on the global political situation,” Washington added.
“The thought did cross my mind,” Valnor admitted.
“Why? What good can come from that for you?”
“For us,” Valnor corrected with a heightened sense of passion now fueling his words. He was going to get the war that he wanted, but now it was time to hedge his bets. If the conflict did not unfold as expected, he needed a backup plan. One whose foundation would be laid right here, right now.
“Come on, you’ve seen it yourself,” Valnor began. “King George appoints his closest friends as governors in the colonies. Those men then use the army to secure profit for themselves. Just like the Ohio Company that we all de facto work for at the governor’s behest. They are getting rich while we sleep in the dirt and dodge French bullets.”
“It is not our place to question the king’s wisdom,” Washington countered.
“Of course it is. The king sits on his throne three thousand miles and an ocean, away,” Valnor fired back. “He has no clue about the corruption taking place over here, and I know there is no need for me to go into the severe taxation of the colonies with you. It’s no secret the strain those oppressive taxes put on your land holdings. That’s the only reason you’re out here at all.”
“What is the alternative, let the French and their native allies move in to rule the colonies?” Washington asked with his arms swung out wide in dismay at the ludicrous notion.
“I’d prefer that we rule ourselves. The colonies are rich with land, resources, and now people. Britain needs us far more than we need Britain. Ridding ourselves of King George and his corrupt governors would only relieve the tax burden eating away at us all,” Valnor concluded.
“The colonies cannot stand against the French and the native tribes allied to their side, let alone the whole of the British Empire,” Washington exclaimed while trying to keep his voice low. “Even if you got every person in the colonies to agree with you, and that is a massive ‘if’, a rebellion like you suggest would get crushed.”
“When word of this conflict reaches Europe, France, Britain, and all their allies will go to war with each other across the globe. When that happens, King George will have much bigger problems to resolve than a rebellion in his colonies an ocean away that are costing him a fortune to protect,” Valnor insisted.
“And when that happens, even more taxes will be levied against the colonies.”
Valnor let shine a bright smile as if to say ‘you just made my point.’ His actual words were, “More taxes will push more colonists to support rebellion. It is a movement that will grow over time, propelled by its own momentum, and it all starts here in this wooded frontier.”
“Even if I believed you, I swore an oath to King George when I put on this uniform. So did you. That oath of loyalty may mean nothing to you, but it is everything to me. I will not dishonor my word and be called a liar, nor will I allow you to do so under my command,” Washington stated with a conviction that ended all debate.
“Perhaps when you are out of service and uniform then,” Valnor replied with a raised eyebrow. The Lt. Colonel may not have swallowed the hook, but he was nibbling at the bait.
“You’re a mad man and a traitor. I will have you court-martialed and, god willing, hanged for disobeying my orders.”
“I reckon that will have to wait until after we’ve dealt with the French forces, unless you plan on holding soldiers back from the firing line to keep me prisoner of course. Besides, I speak and read French fluently. That might come in handy for you during negotiations,” Valnor pointed out.
“After this conflict,” Washington amended with reluctance to concede the well-made point. “There will be a reckoning for you, mark my words. Until then, resume your post.”
“As ordered,” Valnor said before turning on his heels to rejoin his regiment.
Chapter 15: Fort Necessity
Twelve hours later, Valnor found himself digging a trench outside the fortification walls with the rest of his men. Ordinarily he would have stood behind the muddy mess to oversee the activity, but Lt. Colonel Washington made it a specific point that Valnor would work a shovel as well; part of his penance.
“We should be inside the walls,” one of the men said to another. “There’s no point in us being out here waiting to get shot.”
“The quicker you dig, the quicker you’re head will drop out of sight behind cover,” Valnor pointed out. “Besides, these earthen mounds will do more to stop bullets than those rickety wooden timbers. Believe me, we are better off out here than cooped up inside Fort Necessity back there.”
“Aye, we’re in a valley with trees close by on all sides to provide cover for attackers. We’re using this place as a necessity rather than its strong defensibility,” another soldier pointed out.
With that statement, every man with a shovel paused to have a look around and verify the statement. It was true. The fortress sat between two rivers, making it ideal as a center of commerce for the surrounding area. However, it was rather lacking in its military value. They all knew it and breathed a collective sigh of dread at the visual reminder of their vulnerable state.
“I see movement,” one of the soldiers shouted with a frantic gesture to the east. “Coming down that hill right along the tree line.”
Valnor redirected his gaze to the location and spotted not just a little activity, but an entire column of soldiers marching in a line as they stepped into the clearing a hundred yards away.
“Drop your shovels, grab a weapon, and make ready to fire,” Valnor ordered, and within twenty seconds had a firing line ready to execute his order from behind their shallow trench. “Fire and reload!”
Thirty muskets let loose their roar, but the French forces continued their march undeterred. Twenty seconds later a second volley dropped a few more of the French troops while setting up a firing line of their own. The front row dropped to one knee while the second remained standing to fire over them.
Even though the knee-deep trench provided some cover, a blast from two hundred muskets fifty yards away was going to hurt, and it did. Thirteen of Valnor’s men fell to the ground, grabbing wounds in various locations on their bodies. The rest scampered out of the shallow trench that would serve as their graves, and ran back into the wooden walls of Fort Necessity. All it took was one or two men to start running, and the rest fell in behind as if swept up in a tidal surge. Valnor had no choice but to join them in their retreat.
Lt. Colonel Washington was the first face Valnor saw as the last man through the gate before it closed. The commanding officer grabbed him by the collar with his right hand and shouted, “What are you doing? I gave no order to fall back.”
“Nor did I,” Valnor countered and knocked Washington’s hand away with a forearm block with his left arm, “but twenty men left to fight two-hundred is suicide. We were right to fall back.”
The Lt. Colonel looked mad enough to run Valnor through with his saber, but soon found an inner calm that let him step past his subordinate to have a look between two timbers and assess the situation outside for himself. “They are moving more men into position along the woods. They will be in musket range from there and soon demolish our walls.”
When no one moved to obey, Valnor stepped in. “You heard the order. Fix bayonets, load a round, and make ready to charge and create a breakthrough for our escape. Move it!”
While three hundred men prepared for the charge, Valnor asked of Washington, who now looked at him with a renewed sense of camaraderie, “What of the prisoners?”
“Leave them tied up along the back wall where they are. If we break through, the French are welcome to have them back. If we do not, then they’ll serve as leverage to negotiate our surrender.”
Valnor gave an approving nod before stepping close for a private word that might nudge Washington closer to a stay of execution for him. “You know who is to blame for this unfortunate situation don’t you?”
“You,” the Lt. Colonel declared as if Valnor asked the most obvious question in the history of man. “The shot that killed Mr. de Jumonville came from you.”
“Our men had already fired a volley into the French camp, killing several I might add, before I fired my single shot,” Valnor pointed out. “The series of events that followed was already set into motion long before that by the Ohio Company’s insistence that we encroach into these French territories. That corporation, along with the governor and his son, the colonel, who own a majority stake in it, are to blame for this predicament. Not me.”
“You still disobeyed my order,” Washington countered with a somewhat softened tone.
“For the right reason. Can you say the same for the Ohio Company?”
Before Washington could mount a counter argument, another officer stepped up and announced, “The men are assembled and ready to make the charge.”
“Very well,” Washington answered. He then turned to face Valnor and drove an index finger straight into his sternum. “You will lead the charge. We’ll let the fortunes of war decide if your insubordination was an executable offense.”
Valnor kept his eyes focused on the finger for a few seconds before lifting his gaze to meet the eyes of its owner. He cocked his head to the side slightly and allowed a flat grin to cross his lips before saying, “Never took you for a man who let fate decide anything for him. How disappointing. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have a job to do; your job, actually.”
If his last statement elicited a reaction from the Lt. Colonel, Valnor did not see it. He stepped past his commanding officer to take his place at the head of the charge. Valnor raised his saber into the air, “Open the doors.”
“Charge!” Valnor yelled as he swung his blade toward the opening wooden gate. He then joined his men in a brisk jogging pace out into the open where row upon row of French muskets awaited them.
The action must have caught the French commanders off guard, because dozens of random individual shots came from the tree line straight ahead. It was haphazard and disorganized at first, but when Valnor’s charge came within fifty yards of the woods, a wall of thick, white smoke belched forth from the trees and carried with it a wall of lead.
Valnor crouched as low as he could while still maintaining a quick jog, but the effort did not do much to improve his odds of survival. There was nothing to be done at this point. He was in the middle of the field with no cover anywhere. Either a bullet would hit him, or not. It was all left for fate to decide, which made Valnor admire the valor of those around him even more.
If he died, Valnor’s life force would regenerate back in the Nexus chamber as if nothing happened. The only thing lost would be the time and effort it took to get back to the colonies. For these men around him, however, they risked all the rest of their living days. It was a magnificent valor that collided with a grim reality.
The air around Valnor came alive with a physical presence as hundreds of lead bullets hummed by him. He felt the air pressure differential as numerous projectiles passed within inches of his ears. One ball punched a hole in his coat just beneath his armpit, while another grazed his shoulder and took the top layer of skin and some muscle tissue with it. The wound hurt like hell and nearly took him off his feet upon impact, but he was one of the lucky ones.
All around Valnor, fifty or more men lay on the ground dead or dying from the volley, still, the charge continued. Just before reaching the tree line, Valnor gave his order. “Fire and engage!”
Two hundred and fifty British muskets delivered a point-blank blast to the French line and opened a gaping hole. Behind that hole, Valnor saw a rank of reserves stepping up to plug the gap, but they would be late to the action. His troops continued running at full speed with their foot and a half long bayonets attached at the end of their five-foot long muskets and crashed into the staggering French column.
The melee was one sided at first as momentum from the British charge collided with the stationary line, but soon the superior French numbers became all too apparent. The French line bowed into a U shape and was about to break, but their reserves were able to reinforce the bottom of the bow in time.
They pushed back with so much vigor that the British forces were expelled back into the open field within a matter of minutes. Valnor had no choice at that point. He ordered a retreat back to Fort Necessity. Though his men were hopelessly out of breath at that point, angry musket fire from their rear gave ample motivation to hurdle over the bodies of their fallen comrades and sprint back to the fort.
The enemy fire did not stop once Valnor and his men reached the relative safety of the wooden walls. French muskets continued blasting holes in the timbers and tore whole sections of the wall to splinters. The situation was hopeless, and prompted Washington to raise a white flag of surrender, which brought about a temporary pause in the punishing fire.
“Sortez à l'air libre de négocier votre abandon,” a voice with a thick French accent demanded from the other side of the walls.
Washington looked to Valnor for a translation, which he gave. “They want you to come out to negotiate a surrender.”
“Very well, you’re with me,” Washington ordered Valnor, and the two stepped through a particularly large opening blasted through the front gate of Fort Necessity. As they moved toward an awaiting cluster of twelve men, he informed Valnor, “We will give them the prisoners in exchange for our leaving for British territory. That is all I am prepared to offer.”
“You do realize we just stepped through the front gate of our fort. The doors did not even need to move to allow our exit. We are not exactly negotiating from a position of strength here,” Valnor observed.
“Be that as it may,” Washington admitted. “I will not give my men up for capture, nor sign any document admitting fault for this conflict. That will only deepen the political implications of this…disagreement.”
“As ordered,” Valnor responded before they reached the awaiting Frenchmen and exchanged pleasantries.
“These are my terms, and they are not negotiable,” the French commander declared in his language while one of his subordinates handed a document over to Lt. Colonel Washington. “You will return our captured countrymen, and sign this document admitting that you and your soldiers murdered our men in the forest yesterday and assassinated their commanding officer. Do this and you may return to British territory unharmed.”
“I have no idea what this says, I can’t read French,” Washington admitted to Valnor. “Would you please translate the contents for me?”
Valnor took a moment to verify that the document matched exactly what the French officer said, which it did. He then gave the Lt. Colonel his abridged summary of the terms. “In exchange for returning the prisoners and relinquishing control of this fort and surrounding territory, they will let us return to recognized British territory.”
“That’s it?” Washington asked in surprise. “There is no call for admission of fault on my part, because I will not sign it if that is the case.�
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“There is no admission of fault,” Valnor lied with a straight face, knowing full well this document would be the smoking gun to bring about a full-scale war between France and their native allies against Great Britain in the American continents and most likely the world abroad. The grand plan was set into motion as Washington put ink to paper and sealed the accord.
Chapter 16: Organized Retreat
Paul leaned over to give the beef stew cooking in his campfire one last swirl with a spoon. The hot steam and soft texture to the contents let him know it was ready. He stood up and headed for one of the officer’s tents standing on the other side of a spars footbath.
On the one hand, he envied the officers for not having to share tent space with anyone else. On the other, he pitied them for missing the camaraderie that came with sharing tight quarters with five other men: the poker or dice games, the pranks and jokes, the stories, the music, the beer. It was rugged to be sure, but it was also the most fun Paul had ever had in his life. The only downside was the periodic chance of dying in battle. He downplayed the threat in his mind at first, but now had a newfound respect for that particular risk factor.
Paul thought his first taste of battle was harrowing when they ambushed the small French contingent. That encounter was over in mere minutes and his side enjoyed a huge advantage. A day later at Fort Necessity, he learned how wrong he was in that regard. They were outnumbered three to one and taking fire from all directions. He naively thought the fort walls would provide protection until he saw the enemy bullets splintering the planks with every shot. He nearly shat himself when a ball struck the drum slung across his hip. Without that instrument, he might have died; he certainly would never have walked again on a shattered hip.
War was real to Paul now, so real in fact that when his fellow soldiers made their desperate charge, he hid amongst the prisoners rather than share in their valor. It took the prospect of facing hundreds of angry muskets head on without cover to locate it, but Paul found his inner coward and he obeyed its every word.
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