War Path (4 page)

Once she had the clearing to herself, Molly set her rifle aside and began making preparations to take the cuts of meat and the deer hide and transfer them to her pack whose sapling frame would help support the weight of all she intended to carry out. It was going to take the rest of the morning and be hard bloody work but better this than butter churning or indulging in the local gossip for which dear Aunt Charity was famous, bless her soul.

Molly knew she had been the subject of some of that gossip and rather than find offense, had even taken pride in the fact that folks saw her as marching to a different drummer. She was already considered a spinster by many standards. No matter. There was only one man for her and one of these days she was going to set a snare that Johnny Stark couldn't wriggle out of, God love him.

And that is when she saw his troubled features, like a vision unexpected, as she knelt by the deer carcass and leaned forward over the animal and glanced down and saw Stark's reflection in the dead beast's round black eye.

Molly gasped. The image only lasted a second or two, but long enough to send a chill through her veins. And she was filled with a dreadful premonition that took her breath away. There was fire and noise. The screams of the wounded and dying reverberated in her mind. And there he was, her own true love, surrounded on all sides by danger. All of this, an eternity in the fraction of a second, caught in death's glossy blank stare.

Then the moment passed and she sat back on her heels, exhausted from the experience, heartsick, and consumed with anxiety and a portent of disaster. All she could do was call out “Johnny!” which was both a cry of alarm … and a prayer.

2

“Send out small parties to scout … to see if there be any appearance or track of an enemy.”

“
W
here's Stark?!” Colonel Farley shouted to his subordinates, just before some French snipers shot his lungs out. “Where's the bloody militia?” The diminutive colonel wiped the soot from his bulbous nose and fleshy jowls with a silk kerchief. He was clearly shaken by their predicament. “Damn these Provincials. They've led us into a trap.” He gestured with his silver-hilted small sword; 32 inches of straight steel flicked to and fro in the haze of gunfire.

“They fled the field at the first volley,” came the reply. Farley's second in command, Major Michael Ransom of the 1st Regiment of Foot had to shout to be heard above the din of battle. The pockmarked young officer tried not to wince as a flurry of hot lead whined about him like angry hornets. A slug found his tricorn hat and sent it sailing off along with his wig, revealing the thinning wisps of his once luxurious hair like stalks of trampled yellow grass plastered to the pale field of his scalp. Ransom scrambled over and retrieved the periwig, for it was a symbol of both his authority and station. The hat was a loss, however.

Ransom and the men of the royal regiment, in their scarlet coats accented with buff-colored lace, their white breeches and hose, provided a handsome target for Atoan's warriors. But to the six hundred men of the 1st Regiment of Foot, their bright uniforms were a matter of pride and had served them well on the battlefields of Europe. Nor would they permit themselves to break ranks and scatter for cover. The 1st stood its ground.

And died, singly and in pairs.

The field of battle was a long narrow meadow bordered on two sides by forest. A rutted road ran the length of the mile-long clearing. It had been worn into the rich sod by the continuous passage of supply wagons, cannons, and caissons and the columns of soldiers who had made the three-day trek from Fort Edward to the palisades of William Henry, on the southern tip of Lake George.

There was hardly a patch of ground stretching two hundred miles from the bend of the Hudson River all the way to the forts of New France, north of Lake Champlain, that hadn't been watered with a crimson rain, and contested over by the Colonials, the British or their implacable foes. Today was this meadow's baptism of blood, yet it was just another deadly afternoon in what seemed a forever war.

Ransom, slow panic flaring behind his pale blue eyes, sidestepped his commander's flagrant gestures, even parried once with his own short sword to keep from being accidentally impaled. He hauled out his horse pistol and fired in the direction of the French and their savage allies while Colonel Farley continued to rant about the Provincials and how Captain Stark in particular had brought them all to ruin.

In the few short weeks since Michael Ransom's posting at Fort Edward, he had seen little enough to respect in the Colonial Militia. A soldier should stand his ground. There was a proper way to fight a war. British discipline and tactics had carried the king's colors through many an engagement throughout Europe and Africa. But after all, what could one expect? The Provincials were farmers, woodsmen, tinkers, tinsmiths and common laborers, all of them volunteers, not professional soldiers like His Royal Majesty's troops.

Despite that, Ransom could not heap blame on Stark's men alone. He was tempted to remind the Colonel that John Stark had cautioned against proceeding farther along the road until the open meadow had been given a good scout. It was Farley who had ignored the frontiersman's words of caution, stressing the need for haste. Fort William Henry was in dire need of reinforcements, there was no sense in wasting time. Farley had ordered the regiment to cross the meadow at double time. And so they did, marching in all haste, drummers beating a rapid cadence, straight into the jaws of the French and Indian trap.

Halfway across the meadow the 1st Regiment had encountered a withering blast of musket fire along both flanks. The combined force of
La Marines
and Abenaki savages concealed among the trees, blazed away at will; while Farley split the column, formed four skirmish lines and ordered his men to return fire. Three hundred redcoats, standing back to back, responded with one volley after another. But it was impossible to see if their rounds were having any effect. And as men began to drop to the ground, wounded and dying, a sense of foreboding permeated the smoke-filled air.

“Virtutis fortuna comes!”
Farley railed, his voice turning shrill as the regiment poured another volley into the forest line. They were his last words. Half a dozen musket balls punctured him from neck to navel. He twisted about, dropped his sword, balanced a moment on one leg till it buckled then fell over on his backside, a deep stain spreading over his riddled coat.

Ransom rushed up and knelt alongside the dying colonel. “Fortune is the companion of bravery!” he softly said. Farley nodded, blinked, his eyes rolling about in his head as he struggled against the dying light. The words seemed to give him peace. Or maybe it was the shock of dying when he least expected it that glazed his eyes and transported him to a happier place, a memory far from the stench of death and the rattle of musketry.

There was not a single coward among the 1st. Although word of the colonel's demise swept the ranks, the regiment remained in formation, four columns of men facing both flanks. First the two kneeling rows fired in volley, then the standing ranks, while officers paced along the column, exhorting His Royal Majesty's troops to resist this ambush, hold firm and punish the enemy. But the officers themselves were pretty targets in their bright red coats and one by one they pitched forward or collapsed, strangling on their own juices.

And all the while the Abenaki and their French allies kept up a steady gunfire from the stands of hemlock, red oak, tamarack and birch that provided ample protection for the marksmen concealed in the shadows. This armed host was determined to rout the British relief column.

English bayonets gleamed in the streaming sunlight. Powder smoke billowed, momentarily obscuring the rows of men. The world was awash with the clash of arms, the roar of muskets, howling savages, the rapid percussion of the French drummers back beyond the trees signaling
La Marines
to fire at will.

Ransom glanced about him. It was his command now. His command. And it was being wiped out. Soldiers were toppling like so many lawn pins. There were fewer officers now to utter encouragement. He wasn't certain he could hold them by the force of his persona alone. The futility of the situation had begun to take its toll. Even as he belabored his decision, a gruff-looking sergeant abandoned his position on the line and hurried across to stand at the major's side.

“Begging your pardon, Major Ransom, but it don't appear we can advance, sir,” the sergeant exclaimed. Tom Strode, a fisherman's son whose family had never ventured far from Mousehole on the channel coast, was a gruff, hard-looking man with bushy sideburns and thick brown eyebrows that accentuated his frown.

“Thank you for your concern, Sergeant Strode, but I am quite capable of assessing the situation.”

“Meaning no disrespect, sir,” Strode replied, eyeing the fallen. “We've lost all but one of the drummers, Corporal Felker. If you want to sound retreat, uh … or to carry the battle to the savages, you might need to hurry or some damn Frog rifleman will have him as well. I can't beat no tattoo, I warrant none other can neither.”

Ransom glared at the sergeant. Strode had crossed the line by abandoning his post. But the man made a good point. A decision had to be reached, the column must advance or withdraw. To remain in the center of this meadow, assailed on both flanks, was a suicidal course.

The major's belly rumbled and began to cramp from the tension. He paced through the acrid black residue that streaked the air and burned his throat with every breath. Forcing himself to ignore the rifle balls that sounded as if they were personally searching him out, the major clenched one fist to conceal his trembling hand, and tightened his grip on his officer's sword. Every few yards he shouted encouragement, hoping to inspire his troops to hold fast.

Hold for love of king and country.

And yet, through the haze of battle he was able to clearly see for the first time the hopelessness of their cause. Farley had not died alone this day. He had already been joined by a third of the relief column. It was up to Michael Ransom to save what he could. The very notion of retreating was distasteful at best. He glanced over his shoulder at the way they had come. The line of trees behind him beckoned, promised in the least a marginal chance of safety. The bloody Provincials had already disappeared into the woods, no doubt the cowards were racing pell-mell through the forest.

“I swear if I survive this day and return to Fort Edward, Captain John Stark and his volunteers will answer for their cowardice at the flogging post.” Ransom's voice was thick with emotion as he issued his next orders. “Sergeant Strode, we must withdraw,” he said in a clipped, painful tone of voice. “Fort William Henry will not see our colors this week, I warrant. Have Corporal Felker sound retreat.”

For the 1st Regiment of Foot, it was the beginning of the end.

3

“
W
here's Stark?” shouted Robert Rogers, his appeal muted by the dense stand of timber separating him from the pandemonium of killers who had come to claim the meadow. In all his thirty years the frontiersman had never seen the likes of the trap Colonel Farley had marched them into. Rogers wiped his forearm across his sweat-streaked brow. His five-foot-five-inch frame still seemed too big for this deadfall at the edge of the meadow and he cringed further, imagining the musket balls were searching him out, thirsting for his vitals. But he and most of his men were still alive, for now.

His sides heaved with every breath as he gulped the warm air. The stench of powder smoke had yet to follow the militia into the woods. There was no shame in taking flight. And besides, Rogers had not fled the clearing on his lonesome. The entire contingent of colonists had turned tail and run like hell at the first volley from the French and Indians. It had been the only sensible thing to do. He craned his neck and peered through a break in the rotting bark. The English troops were maintaining their columns, but at a terrible cost. Their tactics seemed sheer folly, arranged as they were in the center of the meadow, both flanks receiving fire from a concealed enemy.

Rogers edged upward, still somewhat hunched, to catch a glimpse of his homespun-clad militia as they emerged from the surrounding forest to his right and left.
By heaven, where is ol' Big Timber?
he thought as he searched the survivors, hoping to catch a glimpse of Johnny Stark. His friend would stand out in any company, being a good half-foot taller than his companions. There'd be no mistaking his big-boned, rangy build; his square-jawed countenance and hopelessly skewed nose, the legacy of an Abenaki blow that forever marred what might have passed for rugged good looks.

“Where's Stark?” Rogers snapped at the first colonist to scramble over to his side. He searched the stragglers, finding a host of welcome faces but not that of the comrade at arms who had commanded them.

Moses Shoemaker, an irascible old buckskinner spat in the dirt, shrugged, took a chance and peered over the embankment he had just cleared in a single bound. His gray hair was gathered at his neck and hung down clear to his shoulder blades. A wayward breeze tugged at the loose-fitting sleeves of his hunting shirt. The man's thin, bony arms made him appear rather frail and far older than his fifty-two years. But Shoemaker was durable as sinew, pliant and strong.

“Careful, you old jehu,” said the youth at his side. Locksley Barlow, that brash and boastful young man, slender, fair-haired, and good-natured to a fault, nudged the old-timer's side with the butt of his long rifle. As far as Barlow was concerned, no man was his better no matter how much experience or how many lines might be etched in the war map of his face. Young Barlow was the son of Fort Edward's finest silversmith and had inherited his father's skill with the poured metal. It was common knowledge that the silversmith's son was fancied by many of the local girls.