The French Admiral Page 15

  “Surely not,” Railsford scoffed, only half convinced that Chiswick was having a jape at their expense.

  “No organized bands, sir, but they still live in the Piedmont and some have sided with the Rebels as scouts and irregulars,” Chiswick assured him, pursing his lips to control his grin. “Either way, it’s best not to be too lax. We’re a small and tempting morsel beyond reach of our lines.”

  “Mister Lewrie?” Railsford called.

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Tell our people to load muskets and keep a wary lookout, but no firing at anything without direct orders from either me or you.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Alan said, turning to speak to the men in a low voice. “Load your firelocks. Check your flints carefully. Prime, but do not carry your pieces at cock or half cock. Do not even think of taking aim unless you hear it from me first, or I’ll see the man who did dancing on the gratings, hear me?”

  The picnic outing mood was gone now as the men check-snapped their firelocks, plied their gun tools to ram down powder cartouches and ball, primed their pans, and closed frizzens.

  They were beyond the sounds of axes ringing as the army built up defenses, and they were in wild country, a lot wilder-looking country than anything they had ever seen at home. The clearings were not orderly and terraced fields full of crops, bound by stone walls or hedges, but openings in the woods laced with rank growths of weeds and high grass. The woods themselves were not picturesque nests of trees on hilltops above verdant farmland but brooding, dark forests that sloughed down almost to the dirt road, full of secondary growth and bushes where the sun did not penetrate, except in dapples here and there. Even the sounds of the native birds were different than what they were used to from their youth, making the land alien, too full of threat, and almost too large and uncivilized to be understood. It truly was not Surrey or Kent—more like the sort of place that could harbor thousands of half-naked savages intent on taking their lives from ambush at any moment.

  “It is sort of ominous, isn’t it?” Alan said to Burgess as he loaded his pistols.

  “Definitely not a game park.” Burgess grinned. “Are you a good shot?”

  “If one can be a good shot with these Sea Pattern monstrosities,” Alan said, closing the frizzens and blowing excess powder off, “then yes, I am. I am much better with a musket.”

  “Hunt much?”

  “Some. Birds, mostly,” Alan said. “But I must warn you, I am a London man.”

  “God help us,” Burgess said, “but, if you can be successful at fowling, you may not do much harm. Don’t let your sailors shoot at any of my men. We’ll be out skirmishing. I have to go now. Good luck to you.”

  Lieutenant Chiswick made a hand signal to his men, and his sergeants and corporals took off silently, leading a party of wary troops to either side of the road to melt into the woods, another party to advance down the road almost in the bushes on either side, well spread out so that a single volley would not strike all of them. A corporal took five men back the way they had come to back-trail the column to avoid any surprises from that direction, leaving Railsford, Lewrie, and their men alone with the artillery teams and drivers. Railsford took out his pocket watch and studied it, to follow Chiswick’s last whispered instruction that he wait a full two minutes before following his advance scouts.

  “I cannot hear them any longer,” Alan said, marveling at the silence with which the North Carolina Volunteers could move through the thick brush and timber.

  “Backwoodsmen, I’ll wager,” Railsford said. “As good as any Indian at this sort of thing. Rather inspiriting to think so, at any rate.”

  Railsford dismounted suddenly and rubbed the small of his back. “Been a while,” he sighed, stretching a kink from his posterior.

  And a mounted man is automatically a target for some Rebel sniper, Alan thought grimly.

  “Care to ride for a spell?” Railsford offered, evidently thinking the same thing. To a partisan hiding behind some bush or rock, he could not appear to be anything other than an officer, even if the man did not recognize a naval uniform from an artilleryman’s.

  He’s not intentionally trying t’ get me killed! Alan thought. And I can’t look that senior, even mounted, to be shot by mistake.

  “Happily, sir,” Alan decided, springing into the saddle.

  He was cautious enough, however, to remove his un-adorned cocked hat and toss it into one of the gun caissons, believing that a bareheaded man would be even less tempting.

  “Hoppy, give me your musket,” Alan ordered the nearest armed sailor.

  “Sir?” the man said, quailing at the thought of being unarmed.

  “Take one of my pistols in exchange,” Alan snapped, offering one of the useless damned things. “With these wild Colonials about you in these woods you’re as safe as houses anyway, and I might see something to pot for supper.”

  Satisfied by Alan’s innocent lie that he was intent on hunting up a deer for the men’s mess, Hoppy surrendered his musket and took the pistol from him. Alan slung the musket over his neck and shoulder so that it hung across his back, muzzle up like an infantryman on the march, which would make him look even more menial to any lurking sharpshooter in the woods.

  “Some venison’d go down right tasty, sir,” Hoppy said with a smile of relief, wanting to be convinced.

  “I hear one deer in the Virginias will feed twenty messes,” Alan said loud enough for the rest of the men to hear, understanding what the first lieutenant meant about keeping the men in good spirits. “Mayhap we can get one or two, even if we have to go shares with the ‘lobsters.’”

  He turned and cantered back up to Railsford, who was still intent on his watch.

  “Should have been long enough,” Railsford said, snapping the case shut. “Off we go. Lead off, Mister Lewrie.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Alan replied, heading down the road. The walk so far had been hell on his feet, and he was glad to get a chance to ride.

  He soon caught up with Lieutenant Chiswick, who, a Ferguson rifle in his right hand, was leading his own horse. As soon as he caught sight of the red tunic, he slowed his mount to a plodding walk and tried to keep separation from the infantry officer. Chiswick, however, stopped his own roan and waited for him to catch up, cocking a wry eyebrow at him.

  “Your lieutenant prefers discretion over valor, I see,” Chiswick smiled briefly as they drew even with each other.

  “Not on his own decks, sir,” Alan answered a bit more sharply than he would with a naval officer, but Chiswick took no offense at his tone, merely shrugged and turned back to lead the horse up the road once more.

  “If you are going to carry a musket, let it rest on your saddle and not hang useless on your back, Mister . . . Lewrie, did he say?”

  “Aye, sir, Lewrie,” he said softly, slipping the musket to a more quickly usable perch across his lap, pointing to the left side of the road.

  They proceeded in silence for some time, with the more experienced Chiswick listening intently to the sounds of the woods, which so far seemed benign in the extreme, for all the foreboding that was hinted in their lush and wild dark jumble.

  “Do all your men have Fergusons, sir?” Alan asked almost in whisper. The road opened up on either side in rough clearings, and he could espy some of Chiswick’s men in the woods ahead by their red coats and white breeches.

  “Mostly,” Chiswick said, peering into the woods still. “When our company was raised, my father helped outfit them and thought Major Ferguson was onto a good thing. Some of the other companies had to make do with the Brown Bess or their own guns from home. Do you like it?”

  “Aye, sir,” Alan said. “I’d like to try my hand with one someday.”

  “Pity poor Patrick Ferguson could not convince the army to adopt it,” Chiswick commented, looking up at Alan for a moment. “Now he’s dead and his rifle will most likely die with him.”

  “It would be perfect for use at sea, though,” Alan observed. “To fire a
t long range with aimed fire would play merry hell with officers on a quarterdeck.”

  “As long as the enemy did not play merry hell with you,” Chiswick grunted. “I cannot imagine just standing there out in the open like you do in sea fighting.”

  “Mostly you are behind a bulwark or a barricade made of rolled-up hammocks, sir,” Alan said. “For my part, I cannot imagine standing out in the open like regular infantry does, trading broadsides or volleys or whatever at a hundred paces.”

  “Let the line troops do that,” Chiswick sneered. “We’re riflemen, by God—out on the flanks where we can do the most good, screening the advance or covering a retreat.”

  “So your brother informed me, sir.”

  “Well, there are some pines for you.” Chiswick pointed to the low ridge ahead with his rifle barrel. “Do you believe they would suit?”

  “It is not for me to judge, sir, but I will fetch the carpenter and the bosun,” Alan said, looking at the trees growing up the hill to the right and left of the road. “They look tall and thick enough.”

  “I’ll halt my skirmishers at the top of the hill ’til you’ve made your decision, then,” Chiswick offered.

  “Aye, sir,” Alan said, and wheeled his horse about to canter back.

  It seemed that those trees would suit admirably, being both tall enough, straight enough, and thick enough to serve as new masts and spars once they were trimmed of limbs and stripped down. The limbs were not so low on them that the best parts of the trees would have too many knots or knurls once they were cut to the right lengths.

  “Ya chose well, sor,” the carpenter allowed to Chiswick.

  “We used to mill timber and float it down to Wilmington on the river,” Chiswick told them. “They looked suitable to me.”

  “Let’s get to work, then,” Railsford said, all of a bustle to get something accomplished so they could get out of those woods before dark. “Lewrie, have the hands stack arms and start felling those trees the bosun and the carpenter indicate.”

  “Aye, sir,” Alan said, dismounting. “Perhaps we shall finish in time to get a little hunting done, sir.”

  “What do you say to that, Lieutenant Chiswick?” Railsford said.

  “I’d not stray too far if you do,” he cautioned, “the fewer men the better, and the less shots, as well. We don’t know who’s out here, and don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” Railsford frowned. “Still, some fresh meat’d be welcome.”

  “With a rifle instead of a musket, I could bag something, sir,” Alan said, hoping to get out of standing around supervising the working party. “I would not fire until I was sure of my target.”

  “Yes,” Railsford said, “and you’re about as useful at this as tits on a man. Bosun, have we a good woodsman to accompany the midshipman?”

  “Cony, sir, ’twas caught poachin’ afore he joined.”

  “I would have to send some of my men, regardless,” Chiswick said. “Poacher or not, this is not some squire’s private preserve.”

  “I could take Mollow, sir,” Burgess Chiswick volunteered. “And we could use the horses to carry anything we bag.”

  “Right,” Chiswick said after a moment’s thought. “But do not go too far or stray too far from the road. If you meet up with any trouble, strike for the river to the north and get into the open. No wild firing, or I’ll have your hide, see?”

  “When did I need more than one shot, dear brother?” Burgess chided.

  “True enough,” the elder Chiswick had to admit, albeit grudgingly. “Mollow, do you see the sergeant for the trumpet. Give us a blast on it if you run into any enemy troops.”

  “That I will, ’pon my honor,” the private said, slouching over the barrel of his rifle as no English regular would ever be allowed.

  “You wished to try a Ferguson,” Chiswick said to Lewrie as his private dashed off on his errand. “Here, use mine.”

  He offered the rifle and a cartouche pouch, taking Lewrie’s in exchange. “If you think twenty rounds will be enough?”

  “If not, maybe I can pester a deer to death, sir,” Alan replied, matching Chiswick’s sardonic, teasing expression.

  “Everyone ready?” Burgess asked once Mollow had joined them along with Cony, the wiry young ordinary seaman. “Here, leave your sword behind. You’ll only trip on it in the woods. Got pistols just in case?” Every man carried at least one, with the army man armed with a pair of long-barreled, and probably more accurate, dragoon pistols. Chiswick took off his own sword and tossed it to his orderly, retaining a bayonet.

  “Along the creek, or over the hills?” Alan asked the ensign.

  “Too late in the morning for game along the creek,” the younger Chiswick decided. “They’d come down to drink at dawn and then go back up into the woods. Best cross the hill and see what’s on the other side. We’ll lead the horses.”

  CHAPTER 6

  After the first hour they had covered only a mile, creeping like slugs through the woods to the south of the road. Mollow and Cony were out ahead on the flanks, almost out of sight, while Lewrie and the ensign formed the central pair, within a long musket shot of each other. Alan was enjoying himself hugely as he picked a way through the underbrush wide and high enough for the led mare to follow. He had not been this far away from uniforms and naval discipline in months, even though he had to admit to himself that he did not know what the hell he was doing. He was not a trained hunter, not like Mollow, Cony, or Chiswick, who had been at it almost since birth. He was indeed a city man, only exposed to hunting in the summers on his father’s not-so-large estate, more at home with bird shooting or riding behind a pack of hounds over open fields.

  This silent crouching and stalking, listening for the sounds of game and trying to limit one’s own clumsy crashings and slitherings was foreign to him, but he was getting into the spirit of it although it was damned dry work. The ground was too dry to see much in the way of a sign, or to recognize it as old or new if he had. Face it, I am not a Red Indian he thought. Still, it was so close to play instead of work that he could easily lose himself in the process, not being dependent on what he shot to be fed that night or not.

  The woods began to open up before him, and he could see signs that the trees had been thinned at one time; some stumps were still sticking up. He could stand up fully, and he halted to survey things. There was less shrubbery, and what was evident was low and fairly new. He looked to his left to see Cony halted as well, merely a flash of red-and-white checkered shirt between the trees. He looked to his right to see Chiswick, who was coming towards him without his horse. As Alan watched, Mollow brought up the rear, leading the animal. Chiswick waved at him and pointed, as though shoving him away, and Alan got the idea that he should turn and go south towards Cony. They carried on this silent dialogue until he determined that that was indeed what the officer intended.

  They carried on south for some time until Cony waved them to a halt and motioned them down while he snuck deeper into the woods to the right, their original direction before the turn. Alan sat down behind a tree and brought his rifle up to his side, glad for a chance to get off his aching feet in the cracked and pinching shoes. Chiswick came on down to him from the north to join him.

  “We’re on someone’s farmland,” Chiswick said softly, taking a seat near him with his rifle ready as well.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Stumps, for one,” Chiswick said, as though it was self-evident. “And I ran into a rail fence and a lane heading down this way. You would have, too, in another minute. Low, sunken lane. Great place for an ambush. And there was a pasture and another fence on the other side of that.”

  “Did it look occupied?” Alan asked, crouching by a sturdy bush to tie the reins of his horse so both hands would be free to use his rifle.

  “Couldn’t tell.” Chiswick shrugged.

  “Well, is that good or bad?” Alan persisted, a little put off that he had to ask so much infor
mation. Damme, I spend nigh on two years getting the lore right at one thing, and here I am a rank amateur again! And the galling thing is, I don’t know enough to even ask the right questions. He’s going to think me a complete slow coach.

  “No way to know until we discover it,” Chiswick said with a grin. “If it’s a Rebel farmstead, we can take what we like. Might be abandoned after the armies came through here in the summer, and we can still take what we like, loyalties be damned. On the other hand, we could run into a battalion of troops already using it.”

  “In which case, we fade away like startled deer and head back to the working party,” Alan said.

  “There’s the truth of it,” Chiswick replied, very much on his guard from hard field experience, but reveling in danger. “Ah, I see your man wants us.”

  They rose to a crouch and headed down toward Cony, motioning Mollow to bring the other mount down to where they had waited. Mollow understood his ensign’s signal and tied both horses to the same clump of brush, then came to join them so that all the party were together.

  “Fence, sir.” Cony grinned as though he was at home sneaking into his squire’s rabbit runs. “They’s a farm t’other side o’ this fence. They’s somethin’ movin’, too, sir. Don’t sound like men. Cow, maybe.”

  “Supper, maybe.” Alan grinned in return. “And without firing one shot to attract attention.”

  “Don’t eat it before it’s skinned, sailor,” Burgess chuckled. “I and Mollow will scout ahead. You wait here with your man. If you hear any to-do, get back to the horses quick as a wink and head for the main road. Don’t worry about us.”

  Burgess pulled his rifle back to half cock and went off to the left, pointing the private dead ahead. Alan thought about cocking his own rifle, but demurred, not sure enough of himself in case there was a problem until it had presented itself in true colors.