The Rangers Are Coming (31 page)

              “What do you mean, Arcadia?”

              “Bloodthirsty was a bad choice of words.  As I see it, we must inflict such a blow to the countries of Europe, they will think a very long time before they even consider invading the United States, like maybe permanently.”

              “I agree with that,” said Washington.  “What are you suggesting?”

              “Our biggest and most lethal weapon is our Rangers.  I think these foreign armies need to see them in action, up close and personally.  We need them to be so afraid of the Rangers, that even though we follow a strict policy of neutrality, they will always wonder what would happen to their country if we were to change our minds and let the Rangers loose on them.”

              “That seems like good insurance to me,” said Washington.  “What do we do?”

              “We let the navy take out all the warships, except the ones with the big generals on them, and let the troop ships come ashore unopposed.  Then we lure both armies onto ground of our choosing and let each of the brigades destroy them.  We leave enough alive to sail back to England and France and Germany, and Holland, and Spain, with horror stories that will terrify their governments.”

              “Do we have that kind of capability with just 6,000 men against 50,000?”

              “It won’t even be close.”

              “Then that is the way we shall have it,” said the President.

              Arcadia made a com call to all the Captains of the Destroyers, and the two commanding generals of the Rangers and laid out the plan.  She could hear the grins on their faces as she finished the briefing.

              It was several hours before the British or Spanish Admirals realized anything was happening.  Finally, a lookout in the topmast of the flagship hollered down, “Big explosion dead astern.”

              The Admiral and the army generals went to the back of the ship and put their long glasses on the horizon.  Even as they were watching, another explosion lit the sky.  An hour later, a huge silver ship came into sight.  Its speed was unbelievable and the long guns on the deck swiveled and pointed directly at the flagship.  Then there was a pause and the gun swiveled to another of the battleships in the formation and blew it to pieces with a single shot.  There were three other battleships in the group, and all of them went to the bottom with a single blast from the huge gun.  Then the silver ship sped off at top speed and was out of sight in just a few minutes.

              The flagship floated with just enough sail to maintain steerage.  The Admiral was meeting below with his officers and the Army generals.  “It appears that that monster ship only attacked the warships, none of the troop carriers seem to have been hit.”

              “That means our mission should go ahead,” said the senior army general, our force of soldiers is intact.  We will be in New York harbor in less than three days.  We will go ashore under your cover fire and march on New York.  When we’ve finished, we will march south to attack Philadelphia.  The Americans will have to surrender.”

              The Admiral was beginning to have his doubts, but in the absence of a better plan, he agreed.

              At the same moment, the Spanish Admiral was making the same choice.

              Both fleets rendezvoused around the flagships.  The 650 combined troop ships in the two fleets still made it look like a big armada.  Admiral Malley could see the coast of New York in his long glass.  It looked very peaceful.  There were no ships visible as they approached the harbor.

              Twenty at a time, the troop ships pulled up to the docks and the soldiers came running out.  It took all day and into the night to unload all the men, their cannons and all their equipment.  By this time, several thousand troops had entered New York City.  They were very surprised to find it completely deserted.

              British General Barton Sims was surprised too.  Why would an entire population leave a city, unless they knew someone was coming, which was impossible?  A little confused, Sims sent word that his army would march out of town immediately and bivouac in an open area.  The soldiers grumbled about not being able to loot the town.

              The British army only went a short distance, since it was night, and made a quick, temporary camp to wait for morning.

              With sunup, Sims called his regimental commanders together.  “It was strange that there was not a single person in the entire city of New York.  There’s no possible way they could have known we were coming.”

              “Perhaps there has been an epidemic in the city and everyone left to avoid getting sick,” suggested a colonel.”

              “That was my thought,” said Sims, “which is why we moved out of the city without delay.  We will now move south on the main road.  Keep the companies in close order with no straggling.  The Americans have a reputation for attacking from cover, especially if they do not have an army to meet us in the field.”

              Another colonel spoke us, “Sir, it has been a number of years since the rebels fielded an army.  Surely, they would have disbursed that army.”

              “That is our belief,” said Sims, “we shall march directly to Philadelphia, their largest city, occupy it, and set up operations to crush whatever resistance the Americans can muster.”

              The British Army, of 25,000 soldiers, plus artillery and wagons of supplies was over a mile long.  Sims and his staff rode horses, near the front, with a company of scouts spread out along the point to avoid any ambushes.

              In the afternoon, they turned off the road into a wide-open space and set up their camp.  They remained there for two days, drilling the soldiers, and insuring the army was in the best condition for battle.

              They saw no one on their way when they resumed their march.  There were small farms, and tiny villages, all deserted, which the British looted for supplies, shooting the livestock, and burning the buildings.

              In the afternoon of their first week, Sims was thinking of a finding a large enough space to stop for the night when his scouts came running up.  “We found someone.”

              “A militia,” asked Sims?

“It’s a young girl, Sir.  She’s just ahead.”

Sims continued on for half a mile and found some of his men standing around a girl, who could not be more than 10 or 11 years old.  Sims got off his horse and walked over to the girl.  She was wearing a gingham dress and had pigtails.  As he approached the girl said, “Are you the army who landed in New York?”

“How could you know about that, girl,” said a surprised Sims.

“You should turn around and go home,” said the girl.

“Why would we do that,” laughed Sims?

The girl looked at the general with serious eyes, “The Rangers Are Coming.”

“Rangers, eh,” said Sims.  “Where are these Rangers, and how many of them are there?”

“I don’t know how many there are,” said the girl pleasantly, but they are camped off the road about three miles that way.”  She pointed south.

“We thank you for your information, young lady,” said Sims, “now run along.”

The girl curtsied and then turned and ran off into the woods.  She disappeared in a few seconds.

“Send the scouts south and see if these Rangers have a camp,” ordered Sims, “have the column, pick up the pace.”

Soon the scouts were back with news.  “There is open country ahead.  There is a room for the entire command to set up camp on top of a small ridge.  On the other side, across a long valley, the land rises again.  There are a number of tents set up on top of the hill.  We spotted at least a hundred men near the camp.”

“Finally,” said Sims, “the Americans have scraped together a few men.  We’ll move forward and set up our camp in the open field.”  Within an hour, the British wheeled off the road and set up their huge camp in a large open area that faced the valley, which was bordered by forest on the west.  The slope rose gently to a smaller open area with a dozen tents set up.  Sims could see men, wearing strange clothing standing along the top of the hill, watching the big British force flow onto the open ground and begin setting up thousands of tents.  They pushed their five-pound artillery pieces to the edge of the drop off to the valley.

“Just out of range, to hit their camp” an officer reported to the general, but if they move downhill and try to cross that valley, they will be easy targets.”

“Typical amateur battle planning,” said the general.  “We hold the high ground and can set up five companies wide with a much easier slope for us than them on the other side.  Tomorrow we shall see if they are willing to mount any kind of offensive.  If not, we’ll just cross the valley and overrun their position.”

“What strange uniforms they are wearing,” said one of the Colonels looking through his long telescope.

Sims pulled his glass out to full extension and saw for himself.  “They are wearing green uniforms with several shades of green in blotches from head to foot.  Strange headgear like iron kettles.  They don’t seem to have weapons.  They are just standing there looking at us like we were a herd of cattle.”  He laughed at his own joke and his staff laughed too.

They would perhaps not have laughed if they had heard General Compton on the other side of the hill, looking at the British through high-powered binoculars.

“Just like a herd of cattle,” he said.  “That guy in the middle must be the big he-bull.  He’s looking at us with his one-eyed telescope.  I’ll bet he’s telling his staff that we are quaint novices who don’t know how to pick a good battlefield.”

“He probably thinks it’s been a long day,” said Compton’s long-time chief of staff.”

“Yeah, and it’s going to be a long night too,” smiled Compton.

The British sat up a standard camp with a standard night guard detail.  There was a sentry set around the camp at 200-yard intervals between guards.  Altogether, there were 100 men on duty, not very alertly.  They didn’t expect any activity.  There were half a dozen guards around General Sims Command tent in the center of the sprawling camp.

“Got your predator’s set to go, Captain?”

“All set, General,” said Robby.  “There’s no moon tonight.  I think we can pull it off.”

At exactly 3 AM, 150 men dressed in solid black uniforms, with hoods on their head and just a slit for eyes and mouth, wearing night scope goggles and armed with long knives, and razor sharp throwing stars, slipped across the field in a circle around the camp.  They moved quickly and made no sound at all in soft soul boots.  The men looked at their watches.  At exactly 3:15 AM, they moved in one unit the dozen or so yards between them and the sentries.  It was over in moments.  The Captain had said to make it bloody and gruesome, so the sentries died from slit throats, but were sliced from head to crotch and across their abdomens to spill entrails on the ground.

Robby led a group of ten men secretly from row to row of tents until they reached the command tent.  The six sentries surrounding the sleeping quarters of General Sims went down almost simultaneously, and without making a sound.  They were cut up in the same manner as the sentries.  Robby stuck a placard on the tent entry pole, and then he and his group faded into the night.

When light came with the dawn, men began moving around the camp.  It didn’t take them long to discover the slaughtered sentries.  They looked with horror at the blood and gore, and began screaming.

General Sims came awake at the commotion and irritably put on a robe and stepped out his tent.  He looked with wide eyes and an open mouth at the butchered guards in front of his tent.  Men and officers came running up to make sure the general was safe.  He ignored them and walked over to the placard stuck to his tent pole.  He read it, and shivered a little in the cool of the morning.  The placard said simply, “The Rangers Are Coming.”

A thoroughly rattled senior staff of officers gathered 30 minutes later in the general’s tent.  “Report!” barked the general.

“Sir, our entire detail of sentries are dead, over a hundred men.  They were all cut to ribbons like the ones guarding your tent.  No one saw or heard anything.  The carnage is ghastly.

“Get a detail of men to haul off those bodies before the entire command sees them,” said Sims.

“I’ve already done that, sir, but a great many men saw the bodies.  The camp is full of rumors and talk.”

“We must take action immediately.  Order three companies of the first guard to form and march across that valley to the camp we saw yesterday.  If we can catch them early in the day, we might surprise them.  How soon can you form the troopers?”

“We can be on the march in a quarter of an hour, Sir.”

“Fine, give the order to muster.  Tell the companies to cross the open space and if they are not engaged, move in broken formations through the forest.”

In less than 20 minutes three companies of redcoats, 600 men were marching in long ranks down the hill and across the valley.

From the cover of the trees, General Compton had concealed 1000 Rangers.  They had been there for a week and had set traps, built blinds, and managed to camouflage their positions very effectively.  Compton had pulled the remainder of the brigade back from the forest and started moving them to their pre-arranged positions around the camp.  The Bradley’s were ready to slip from cover across the road.  The Humvees were in position around two sides of the camp.  The 105s were in position two miles behind the waiting Rangers in the forest.

Robby spoke into his mike, “It looks like they are only moving three companies, general.  That’s probably all they could muster in a hurry.  I imagine the British General felt he had to take quick action to keep his troops from panicking.”

“I wonder what they are going to think when three companies just disappear,” said Compton?

The British regulars moved across the valley.  These were battle-hardened soldiers who were not easily rattled.  However, after they crossed the valley and came up the slopes toward the tents, they began to move more cautiously and spoke words of courage to each other.