1812: The Rivers of War (75 page)

Ridge glanced to both sides. As dense as the cypress was, of course, he couldn’t see very far.

“Two minutes, maybe. Long enough for everyone to get into position.”

John nodded toward the melee, a little over a hundred yards off. “They may not last two minutes.”

“Then they’ll die. We’re not charging out there one at a time.”

There seemed no answer to that. So, John took the time to check his pistol and make sure his sword was loose in the scabbard. He considered drawing the sword before he charged, but dismissed the idea. Charging into battle with a weapon in each
hand might look good on a painting. In real life, it’d be far too dangerous. He decided he’d fire the pistol, then throw it like a club, then draw and use his sword.

Hopefully, he’d get the expensive pistol back after the battle. Not that it really seemed to matter much. He might very well be dead within the next few minutes, anyway.

Sam was rather proud of the way he brought order to his victorious regiment, formed them into something you could call a “line” if you squinted real hard, and were prepared to be generous, then started them marching across the field toward Driscol’s embattled battalion.

It was neatly done. At the moment, though, he was trying to figure out exactly how he’d have his men fire a volley that wouldn’t kill as many Americans as British. Driscol’s men and the enemy were now completely tangled up, fighting hand to hand.

He’d figure that out when they got there. From what he could tell at the distance, Driscol’s men were on the verge of collapse. They’d all die, anyway, if he didn’t arrive in time.

The line at the breastworks started to crumble. Not because any man of the battalion ran, but simply because the British finally started breaking through.

A British officer sabered down a gunner and sprang into the bastion. Driscol stepped forward, leveled his pistol, and shot the man through the heart. Then he stooped and picked up the saber to meet a British soldier who’d butted aside another gunner and was coming at him with the bayonet.

That was as far as either Driscol or the soldier got. John Rogers wrestled Driscol off and James Rogers, as neatly as you could ask for, deflected the bayonet thrust and clubbed the soldier down.

“Just stay out of it,” John hissed into Driscol’s ear after he pinned him to the ground. “You
don’t
want to get my sister mad if you get killed.”

Rogers was a phenomenally good wrestler. Driscol gave up after five seconds, realizing he was hopelessly outclassed.

He stared up at the Cherokee. “What difference would it make? I’d be dead.”

John scowled. “Who cares? If I
wasn’t
.”

“Now!” shouted Ridge.

He leaped out of the line of trees and began racing toward the bastion. He wasn’t bothering with a pistol at all. General Jackson had given him a new sword when he arrived at New Orleans, and the Cherokee chief was mightily partial toward it.

John Ross did his best to keep up with him. It was a little amazing how fast the stocky and powerfully built Ridge could run.

But it was only a hundred yards. Even as relatively sedentary a Cherokee as John Ross was in good enough condition to make that distance without becoming winded. Major Ridge and most of his warriors wouldn’t even be fazed.

“
Quick march!”
Sam bellowed.

He was tempted to call a charge. Driscol and his men were going under, now.

But Sam simply didn’t dare. Over the course of the march from Washington to New Orleans, Driscol had been able to give Houston’s regiment some basic training. But they weren’t trained well enough—especially as excited as they were now—to be able to shift easily from a charge to a volley formation. Once he started them charging, they’d keep going until they piled into the British.

Then he saw dozens of Cherokee warriors swarming out of the woods from the other side of the Iron Battalion’s position, and realized it was all a moot point. By the time Sam got his men into volley range, the battle at the bastion would have become a three-sided melee. Any volley he fired would do as much harm as good.

He felt an immense sense of relief. Whatever happened, at least his friend Patrick Driscol wouldn’t die because Sam didn’t get there in time.

They were a hundred yards off. Close enough, for men who’d spent the last three months marching and training.

“
Charge!”

Sam sped in front of his troops, leading the way with his sword. He wasn’t even thinking about the
Iliad
. He just wanted to get there and hammer the bastards bloody.

Henry Crowell fell back, the last man of his crew to do so. He covered the retreat for the rest of them now, holding the sponge
staff in the middle and using both ends to bat away British soldiers.

“
The major’s down!”
somebody shouted. It was almost a scream.

Henry looked over his shoulder and saw that it was true. One of the two Rogers brothers was on top of him, apparently trying to shield him from receiving another wound. The other brother had clubbed down a redcoat and was facing three more. James, he thought. The two looked so much alike it was hard to tell them apart.

Henry was stunned at the ease with which James destroyed the three soldiers. His war club, lighter than a sword, flicked back and forth. Batting aside a bayonet; bloodying a face with a shift of the same stroke; deflecting another thrust—
crushing
that man’s skull with a full, powerful backhand blow; leaping aside; striking again—a broken arm, there—then leaping back to finish the man who was wiping blood from his eyes.

He didn’t think it had all taken more than a few seconds.

But he could see that it wouldn’t matter. The British weren’t exactly pouring through the line yet. It was more like they were seeping through, one or two or three at a time. But the seepage was happening in more than a dozen places, and more were coming into the bastion every second.

Half of them, it seemed like, were heading toward Driscol. Those veterans knew how to kill a snake. Cut off the head.

He glanced around quickly. His mates could handle themselves now, he thought.

They’d have to.

Shouting something himself—he never knew what—Henry started running toward Driscol.

“John!”

Rogers’s head twisted away from the major, whom he still had pinned to the ground. James had a grin fixed on his face, like he always did in a fight. But the expression had no humor in it at all.

Looking past him, John could see a small wave of redcoats coming.

“Just
stay
here,” he hissed. Then he relinquished his hold on Driscol, and jumped up to join his brother.

Major Ridge cut down a redcoat with his sword. The man never saw it coming, he was so intent on getting into the bastion. The powerful blow struck just below the neck and the blade went inches into his chest.

With a jerk every bit as powerful as the cut, Ridge extracted the blade. Took two steps, and cut off a British soldier’s arm.

John Ross stopped, took one quick breath, and leveled his pistol.

He wasn’t worried about missing. He was firing into a mass of redcoats, so tightly packed it would take a miracle not to hit one of them.

As soon as the shot was fired, he flung the pistol at the same mass. Couldn’t miss, again.

Then he drew his sword and made to follow Ridge. The chief had already sabered another enemy soldier.

On the other side of the bastion, Sam faced a soldier who’d seen him coming. By the time he got to him, the man was in position and had his bayonet ready.

Sam’s training with a bayonet had been rudimentary, at best, and he’d never been trained on how to fight a bayonet with a sword. So be it. He’d just—

A musket went off. The British soldier dropped his own weapon, clutching his leg and stumbling to the ground.

Turning, Sam saw Lieutenant Pendleton. The youngster had already lowered his gun and was charging forward with the bayonet.

“The blazes you will!” Sam shouted. He raced to get in front of Pendleton.

James killed two more British soldiers before John could get there. A third redcoat’s bayonet sliced open his rib cage. He twisted aside just enough at the last moment to keep the blade from penetrating the chest wall. So the injury wouldn’t be fatal. And while it was bleeding badly, no arteries had been severed.

Still, it was a spectacular-looking wound—and James gave out a shriek to match it. Half a scream of pain; half a war cry.

His face distorted with fury, he started to strike down the enemy soldier, now off balance from the bayonet thrust.

He didn’t need to. His brother did it for him.

Five more redcoats were coming, their bayonets leveled.

Frantically, Driscol scrambled across the ground toward the saber he’d dropped when John tackled him. He was half crawling on his knees, half slithering like a snake, moving as fast as he could with only one arm.

With a shout of triumph, he made the final distance with a lunge and clasped the hilt of the sword.

Neither James nor John noticed him. Facing odds of five to two, they were paying attention to nothing except their immediate enemies. The bayonets were almost there, coming like the talons of a dragon.

Ridge clambered over the body of a British soldier who’d been impaled on the iron fencing that the Iron Battalion had incorporated into their fieldworks. Then, he sprang into the bastion beyond. He could see a knot of British soldiers to his right, charging with their bayonets, with half-a-dozen more coming to join them.

Since that seemed to be the center of the fight, he headed that way, after taking just a moment to wipe his hand on his uniform to dry his grip on the sword hilt.

That moment was enough to allow John Ross to get into the rampart behind him. It wasn’t hard, really. The impact of the Cherokees had sent most of the British on that side of the bastion reeling aside.

Ross followed Ridge into the howling chaos.

Sam and his men slammed into the milling British soldiers almost directly opposite to the side of the bastion the Cherokees had already reached.

And with the same result. By now, any semblence of order in the enemy regiments had collapsed. The redcoats had been reduced to a milling mob. Ready and willing to fight—even clambering over the breastworks eagerly—but with even less in the way of formation and discipline than Sam’s own men.

Under those circumstances, most of the advantages professional soldiers enjoyed against amateurs had vanished. True, as a rule, each British soldier was more adept with a bayonet than each American soldier. But that didn’t matter. There wasn’t enough room in that press of men to use any weapon properly. In truth, a knife was probably more useful than anything else,
and Sam saw that a lot of his men had dropped their guns and were using their dirks.

He made no attempt to bring order to the melee. It would have been a hopeless endeavor—and he was far too concerned with getting into the bastion himself.

As big as he was, Sam made it up the slope by the simple expedient of leaping from one enemy body to another. Some of them were dead. Some weren’t. He didn’t care, either way. They were just stepping-stones. He
had to
get in there.