A Flight of Arrows (29 page)

The third of August.

Past and present clashed in a frisson of dread that tightened the sweating scalp beneath his hat, as from the parade a roar of cheers erupted—a roar that faltered prematurely, dying by degrees, until breathless silence overhung the fort.

Reginald's gut knew its purport before his ears, trained like those of every man within the walls, detected a stir—too faint yet to be called sound—beyond its tensely listening bounds. His gut knew and turned over in dismay before the distant
rat-tat-tat
of drums swelled on the humid air and rolled across his nerves like approaching thunder.

August 3, 1777

Fort Stanwix

R
eginald watched from the southwest rampart, Ephraim Lang beside him, two among those lining the embrasures, thrumming with tension, reeking of sweat and fear. Most watched in silence as St. Leger's forces emerged from the forest to the west and marched toward the fort, drums rattling, bugles blaring, banners fluttering in the breeze sprung up with morning's passing. British regulars in their scarlet and white. Sir John's Royal New Yorkers in their green and white. Hessians and Tory rangers in varying shades of green. Ranged alongside the regular forces were the Indians in war paint, bristling with feathers, armed with clubs, spears, bows, tomahawks, and guns—a sight intended to shatter whatever confidence Gansevoort had instilled in the garrison.

After the last of St. Leger's army emerged into the open, the columns deployed, fanning into lines that swung around as if to encompass the fort. But for all their pageantry, they were few.

“That the lot of 'em?” a voice along the rampart queried.

Ephraim Lang leaned back from the embrasure he and Reginald shared. “See any field pieces? I'll wager half this brigade's still inching up Wood Creek—forgotten the mess you lads made of it?”

A rueful laugh. “With these blisters? Still—”

An abrupt cessation of bugles and drums had them back at the embrasures, gaping. Save for the piercing cry of a hawk circling high above the field, stillness had fallen outside the fort.

The blood-pounding silence stretched out long, until with no apparent prompting, a tall warrior in a breechclout took a dozen strides toward the invested fort, raised a hatchet, and with blackened face thrown back unleashed a scream. The rest of the enemy ranks, white and red, loosed their shouts in unison. While the combined roar of hundreds assaulted the fort, Reginald exchanged a look with Lang.

“Twenty years, Major,” the captain said above the clamor. “Had ye thought of it?”

Reginald had, almost continually, and said so.

Beyond the fort the roar was fading. Officers shouted. Columns reformed. Drums beat a marching cadence. The Indians, many still yipping like wolves, melted into the woods to the south.

There was a siege to plan.

Aware of a rising murmur at his back, Reginald turned to see several of the officers of the 3rd New York talking in earnest with three of the women who had remained, below the rampart where he perched. The women, petticoats hitched, left at a run toward a barracks. An officer hurried off in another direction.

“What's to do?”

“It's to do with a flag,” Lang said.

Reginald glanced around the fort's interior, only now realizing that Stanwix flew no flag. More men were running about. One joined the group below, carrying strips of white cloth. A woman returned, red petticoat and sewing kit in hand.

Reginald descended the rampart and made his way through the press of bodies gathered round a pole laid on the ground. A ring of women hunkered round a large rectangle of cloth taking shape under their stitching fingers, rough cobbled amid the sense of defiance rippling through the garrison. Reginald had never seen this flag's configuration. Before he'd more than a glimpse, he felt a presence at his side: Lieutenant Colonel Willett, grinning down at the work of the women's hands. “The white bits
were cut from a shirt, the red stripes from her spare petticoat.” He nodded toward the pretty blond stitching down one of those red stripes to the white on either side. “But the blue field in the upper corner…that's from me. A British artillery coat taken off the field at Peekskill.”

Despite his failure to escape the fort and the increased ranks of the enemy without, as the women stood back from their work, and the flag—red, white, and blue—was hoisted, and
huzzahs
went up, and one of the guns was discharged in the direction of the British camp, falling short but making its point, Reginald wasn't insensible to the exhilaration and pride shimmering on the air like heat waves. His heart stirred with it but also with fear. Though he hadn't spotted him among the British ranks, William was surely on the other side of the fort's walls. And feeling just as trapped as he?

The Indians were back to sniping and making sport of it. They lay wager on every shot—particularly that of the warrior, Ki, who positioned himself in a tree to pick his targets on the ramparts.

William had moved his kit to the Royal Yorker's camp, positioned between Brant's Indian camp at the Lower Landing and St. Leger's to the east. Some of the Yorkers were still to the west, laboring to clear the water passage. Sergeant Campbell was, regrettably, not one of them. Detailed under Campbell to a nearby hay field, gathering bedding for the camp, he was bringing in his third load when he heard of St. Leger's intention to send an offer of surrender to the fort commander.

William had seen that flag hoisted over the ramparts. Heard the defiant boom of artillery. Surrender was unlikely. But if he could gain permission to accompany St. Leger's envoy, maybe he could find Reginald Aubrey and…what? Bring him back a prisoner to Sir John? Better a prisoner than dead.

He dumped the hay at the edge of camp and slipped off through the trees, headed for the army's main encampment, regretting he was out of proper uniform—they'd stripped to shirt-sleeves for the fatigue. Sweat-soaked, covered in bits of hay, he addressed the dubious sentry outside St. Leger's tent.

“Private William Aubrey of Johnson's Greens. I must speak to Captain Watts, if he's within. A matter of urgency.” To himself alone, but the sentry needn't know that.

The guard was a private of St. Leger's 34th. Typical of army regulars, he peered down his nose at William's grubby disarray. “You've some intelligence to impart that could affect an offer of surrender?”

“What I've to say isn't for your ears. Permit me to—”

The tent flap moved aside. Captain Watts himself peered out, frowning as he took in William. “What is it, Aubrey?”

“A request, sir. I—”

Watts put a hand to his arm, glanced back into the tent, and said with thinly veiled irritation, “Come within—quietly.”

Startled to have gained entry, however begrudging, William stepped inside the tent's interior, heart thudding as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. Assembled round a camp table were those of St. Leger's officers not back with the baggage at Wood Creek: the general himself, fleshy jowled and looking older than his forty years; Joseph Brant; Colonel John Butler, who led the rangers, and his son, Walter; Lieutenant Bird; others who turned at William's entry.

St. Leger, in the midst of speaking, paid the stir at the tent's entrance no mind. “…lack of ordinance confines our options at present, but we have nevertheless accomplished what ordinance alone could not. We have shown these rebels our resolve. And, gentlemen,” the general added with a nod at Brant, “we have shown them our Indians. Captain Tice will proceed under flag of truce with my missive to Gansevoort, detailing terms. We'll have secured their surrender by nightfall.”

The captain thus mentioned, Gilbert Tice, stepped forward to receive the letter still spread on the table, freshly inked, as yet unsealed.

“What was the urgency, Private?” Watts asked under his breath while the general instructed Tice. “Has it some bearing on these proceedings?”

“It does, sir. I request permission to accompany Captain Tice into the fort.”

Watts's dark brows lowered. “To what purpose?”

William opened his mouth, seeking some excuse of substance to put behind the appeal—nearly all of Johnson's regiment had someone inside that fort they could lay claim to as kin or friend—when a familiar growl arose outside the tent: “Aye, he's in there, as he's no call to be.” Campbell's pugnacious face poked through the tent flap. His searching gaze fastened upon William. “A word outside
if
ye please, Private.”

Heads turned among the officers. The general paused, glancing up. Taking William by the arm, Captain Watts pushed him out of the tent into the bright heat of a sun now in the west. Campbell grasped William's other arm and started to speak, but the captain sent him a quelling look, whereupon they both released their hold. Watts addressed William. “Why should you wish to accompany Tice into the fort?”

“That's what he's about, is it?” Campbell interjected. “He wants inside the fort? Dinna let him, Captain.”

Watts frowned in annoyance. “It shan't be my decision, but why should you object, Sergeant?”

“On account, sir, o' what our lad here is. He's Indian, a savage half-breed. Did ye no ken that?”

William blazed with heat as Captain Watts and even the sentry stared as though he'd sprouted horns.

“No' just any sort o' savage,” the only man not rendered speechless hurried to add. “Oneida. For all we ken he's set to carry intelligence to his people in that fort. And ye ken, Captain, that's likely what his bosom friend, Reagan, has done—gone a traitor to the rebels.”

Wanting nothing so much as to plow his fist into that smug Scotch face, William contained his rage and waited for the captain to speak. Watts continued to stare, desire to disbelieve Campbell's accusation clear in his gaze. “You're a Welshman, Aubrey. Your voice betrays you every time you open your mouth. Not only Welsh, but Oxford educated—and you've blue eyes!”

He'd have to tell the sorry tale. “I know, sir. You see—”

The captain waved a hand, silencing him. “I've no time for it. And it makes no matter for I shall not pass along your request. Rejoin your detail.”

Forbearing to protest, William bowed and turned on his heel and stalked away through St. Leger's camp. By the time he reached the hay field, he could see in the distance the knot of riders advancing toward Stanwix's main gates, white flag fluttering.

Hours later, when word spread that Colonel Gansevoort had spurned St. Leger's offer, William wondered if Reginald Aubrey, whose face bore mute evidence of the outcome of Fort William Henry's surrender, had had anything do with it.