Land of the Free (41 page)

~

At about 1:30 the newly
placed British artillery that Fenwick had reported opened fire.
Within thirty minutes, three American boats had been sunk and the
American batteries at Lewiston had been silenced. Terrified by the
barrage, the American militia that had been staged in Lewiston to
cross the Niagara refused and Van Rensselaer decided to go back to
rally them. As his boat cast off it was suddenly swarmed and nearly
capsized by panicked civilian refugees and American
militia.

“We may be in a pickle,”
Scott said to Yank as they watched Van Rensselaer’s boat break free
and pull toward Lewiston. “It looks like the militia over there has
decided to go home.”

“They’re completely
untrained anyway,” Yank grumbled. “They’d have served no purpose
other than fodder for the British cannons.”

They both looked to the
flanks as the outposts suddenly came under attack.

“Mohawks,” Yank
said.

Scott nodded. “They climbed
the face of the bluff.”

“Which tells us that we’ve
got no troops on the riverbank any more.”

Scott moved to the left and
Yank to the right toward the outposts but by the time they reached
them the Mohawks had taken flight.

~

At 2:00 PM, American born
Major General Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe arrived at Queenston and took
charge of all the British troops from Fort George that had
assembled there. Marching them around the flank of the Heights, he
halted at a safe distance from the American guns and was soon
joined by reinforcements from Chippewa.

Yank climbed up the hill and
hurried to the hut where Colonel Scott and General Wadsworth were
standing together. Both of them looked troubled. “That’s Sheaffe on
our flank. He has about eight hundred men and two galloper guns.”
He looked at the two men. “What’s the matter?”

“I just received a message
from General Van Rensselaer,” Scott replied.

“What’s it say?”

“I haven’t opened it but
from the complete lack of activity across the river I can
guess.”

“Well read it,” Yank
grumbled.

Scott handed the message to
General Wadsworth.

“Thank you.” Wadsworth
opened the message, scanned it quickly then cleared his throat. “I
have found that at the very moment when complete victory is in our
hands, the ardor of the unengaged troops has entirely subsided. I
have ridden in all directions — urged men by every consideration to
pass over — but in vain. I therefore must leave the decision
whether to stand and fight or withdraw to you. Should you decide to
withdraw the required boats will be sent. Major General Stephen Van
Rensselaer, Commanding.” He gave the message back to Scott. “Your
decision, Colonel.”

Scott looked ill. “We have a
hundred and twenty-five regulars, fourteen artillerymen and
something under three hundred militiamen who tend to run at the
sound of gunfire. Sheaffe’s coming with eight hundred. What choice
do I have?”

Neither Wadsworth nor Yank
responded.

Shaking his head sadly,
Scott sighed then assembled his officers and noncoms. “To cover our
retreat we’ll build a barricade there.” He pointed. “We’ll move the
6-pounder up there among the huts supported by Christiansen’s
rifles. Move quickly. We don’t have much time.”

As Scott was making
preparations to withdraw, General Sheaffe launched his assault
against the riflemen on Scott’s right, and against the militia in
the center, firing a volley then charging with fixed bayonets
amidst the war-whoops of their Mohawk allies.

Wadsworth and Chrystie’s
three hundred militiamen retreated almost immediately to the very
edge of the cliff forcing Wadsworth to surrender before he lost
them all over the edge.

Scott had already evacuated
most of his regulars so when Wadsworth surrendered he, with Yank,
Lieutenant Joseph Gilbert Totten and the last of the riflemen,
climbed down the cliff to join their infantry in a hand-to-hand
fight with Mohawks.

Yank, who had picked up a
sword from the battlefield, rushed into the fray and decapitated a
Mohawk chief who was scalping a fallen soldier, but Scott, seeing
that the boats promised by Van Rensselaer had not appeared,
snatched Totten’s white cravat and began waving it.

The British on the high
ground ceased firing at the signal from Scott but the Mohawks did
not, nor did Yank. Furious at the loss of their chief, the Mohawks
swarmed Yank and backed him against a rocky outcrop. He fought
fiercely but would have almost certainly have been killed in the
next few moments had the Mohawks not drawn back suddenly and
fled.

Yank, who was covered with
blood, leaned against the outcropping, trying to catch his breath.
Scott and Totten moved cautiously toward him.

“Are you wounded, Yank?”
Scott asked.

“No,” he panted. “What the
hell happened?”

Scott pointed and Yank
turned to see hundreds of militiamen climbing from under the brush
and undergrowth. “Where the hell did they come from?”

Scott shook his head. “I
have no idea. They must have been hiding here since they were
released from the boats.”

“Jesus,” Totten said in awe
as more and more men emerged from the brush. “There must be fifteen
hundred of ‘em.”

“God damn cowards,” Yank
shouted brandishing his bloody sword.

Scott and Totten held him
back.

“If I ever get out of bloody
British prison I’m going to find you and kill every one of you
bastards,” Yank raged. “Then I’m going to rape your wives and eat
your children.”

Scott slapped him on the
shoulder then pointed down the riverbank. “Save it for
them.”

Yank looked where Scott had
pointed at a narrow column of British soldiers then looked across
the river. “There are a few more over there that I need to kill
too.”

November 14,
1812

Galveston Island, Province
of Tejas

In her quest for an eastward
trail to New Orleans, Marina had followed the Guadalupe River
southward for twenty-two days in search of a ford. On the
twenty-third day, she reached the Gulf of Mexico where the
Guadalupe was joined by the San Antonio to form a distributary
channel spreading a wide delta as far as she could see.

Determined to cross and
after becoming mired in saturated silt Marina unsaddled the horse
she had stolen, released it and then removed her boots to wade
across. At times she sank in mud to her knees, nearly drowning in
the surf and other times she walked through dry sand dunes above
the swell. Near dusk the dunes began to widen into a beach with sea
oats and grass above the surf line. Too tired to continue she sat
down in the dunes and was soon asleep.

November 14,
1812

Galveston Island, Province
of Tejas

Marina awoke to find herself
in the center of a circle of men. She sat up quickly and groped in
her pack for her pistol but discovered it was gone.

“Spanish, French or
English,” one of the men asked in heavily French accented
English.

“You have stolen my pistol,”
Marina responded in French.

“I thought I might hold it
for you until we had an understanding.”

She stood up and brushed
herself off. “What is it that you wish me to
understand?”

“First I wish to understand
who you are and how you got here.”

“My name is Maria Gonzales
and I walked to here.”

“From where?”

“A small town up the river.
Not too far from here.”

“There are no small towns up
the river. Who is chasing you?”

“No one.”

He laughed. “You are wearing
clothes that are too big to fit you. Is the man that you stole them
from chasing you to recover his clothing?”

“I am running from no
one.”

He decided to take another
tack. “I am Louis-Michel Aury, a Parisian by birth and I can
recognize the tongue of my mother city when you speak. You are safe
with me and my men, no matter who it is that wants you.”

“I am running from no one,”
she repeated. “But if I am truly safe with you, Monsieur, I would
be grateful for something to eat.”

He nodded. “My village is
just up there.” He pointed, then started walking in the direction
he’d pointed while the other men fell in behind him in a ragged
column.

Marina gathered up her pack
and her boots, then hurried to catch up. “Where is this place,
Monsieur?” she asked, now seeing thatched roofs over the dunes.
“Does it have a name?”

“Yes, it has a name. In
1785, the Spanish explorer José de Evia mapped it and named it
Gálveztown Island in honor of Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of
Gálvez.”

“Gálveztown,” she
repeated.

“We say Galveston. The
Spaniard’s Count of Gálvez means nothing to us.”

As they topped a dune, she
saw that there was a bay beyond the village with two tall ships
anchored within it. “Are you a pirate?”

“A pirate? Me? No. I have
Venezuelan letters-of-marque to attack Spanish ships in the Gulf of
Mexico and Caribbean.”

“So you are an enemy of the
Spanish?” she asked hopefully.

“They have a price on my
head,” he replied. “How much will they pay for yours?”

November 18,
1812

Grand Isle,
Louisiana

Marina let the men on the
quay pull her from the longboat then turned to wave as the boat
backed away into the small bay. “Thank you.”

“I should feed you to the
sharks,” Jean Lafitte said angrily from behind her.

She turned, smiled and
kissed him on the lips.

“You will not sooth my
temper so easily,” he grumbled.

“I thought you might be
happy to see me.”

“Why should I
be?”

“It has been a long
time.”

“It should have been
forever,” he countered. “You had a respectable life, a good
husband, and beautiful children but now look at you.”

“There is nothing wrong with
me that a bath would not cure.”

He tapped his head. “I think
you are mad, Marina.”

She looked toward the
mainland. “Is John still there? In New Orleans?”

“He is dead.”

She turned back quickly.
“Dead?”

“Yes. He was killed at the
surrender of Fort Detroit. You are a widow, Marina. Your children
are with your late husband’s family.”

“Dead,” she repeated
woodenly. “John is dead?”

Lafitte shook his head. “I
would have expected a bigger reaction, even from you.”

She turned her attention
back to Lafitte. “What does that mean?”

“Only that you are a
hard-hearted, selfish woman who will sacrifice anyone for her own
interests.”

“I cannot understand why you
are so upset with me, Jean,” Marina replied earnestly.

“You have betrayed a fine
man.”

She shrugged. “But I have
done nothing to you.”

“You brought Louis-Michel
Aury to my base,” he said waving his hand toward the longboat that
was now being recovered by a ship in the bay.

“What harm is there in
that?”

“Now he knows how to find
me.”

“Jean,” she put her hand on
his arm. “I did not bring him here. I had no idea where you were. I
just asked him to take me to you and this is where we
came.”

“Well now he’s been inside
the bay,” Lafitte sputtered, unwilling to give up the
argument.

“If it would make you feel
better I will take you to his bay.”

“You know where it
is?”

“Of course. I came from
there to here.” She pointed west across the calm waters of the
Gulf.

“Does it have a
name?”

“Galveston
Island.”

“Ah ha.” Laffite rubbed his
hand together in delight. “There is no need for you to take me, I
know exactly where that is.”

“Good. Because I need to get
to Lake Erie before winter sets in,” Marina said.

“It is already winter on
Lake Erie.”

“Please. It is very
important to me.”

He looked at her closely.
“Marina, your husband is dead.”

“I know. You just told me.
That is why I am going.”

“His body was probably
committed to the waters of the lake.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Why are
you telling me this?”

“Well,” he was watching her
curiously. “If you were going in hope of finding him alive or
perhaps of taking his body home…” He stopped because she was
shaking her head. “What?”

“My destination on Lake Erie
is not Detroit but further east, on the Pennsylvania coast. Halfway
to Buffalo.”