The Battle of Bayport

READ ALL THE MYSTERIES IN THE

HARDY BOYS ADVENTURES:

#1
Secret of the Red Arrow

#2
Mystery of the Phantom Heist

#3
The Vanishing Game

#4
Into Thin Air

#5
Peril at Granite Peak

COMING SOON:

#6
Shadows at Predator Reef

Chapter 1   Flashback

Chapter 2   The Shot Heard Round Bayport

Chapter 3   Rewriting History

Chapter 4   The Dead Don

Chapter 5   British Invasion

Chapter 6   Below Deck

Chapter 7   Off-Limits

Chapter 8   Behind the Scenes

Chapter 9   School Daze

Chapter 10  Grudge Match

Chapter 11  Cafeteria Confessional

Chapter 12  Precious Metals

Chapter 13  The Fugitive

Chapter 14  The Second Man

Chapter 15  Sweet Dreams

Chapter 16  Shanghaied

Chapter 17  Unlocked

Chapter 18  A Watery Grave

Chapter 19  At Rope's End

Chapter 20  The Big Zero

Chapter 21  Swashbuckled

Chapter 22  History, Revised

About Franklin W. Dixon

I
T'S NOT EVERY DAY YOU
get to shoot a cannon at a regiment of eighteenth-century British redcoats. Not in the twenty-first century, at least. But for one day, my humble little town of Bayport had flashed back to the year 1776.

The park overlooking our town's namesake bay had been transformed into a battlefield with America and Great Britain facing off across center field of the baseball diamond to fight it out over freedom and taxes. Spectators decked out in Colonial garb watched from the bleachers and the hillside nearby, while a Benjamin Franklin look-alike grilled up hot dogs and hamburgers on the barbecue. In the port below, an American flag with only thirteen stars flew from the mast of a huge old Continental Navy warship. It was quite a sight.

I mean, seeing your family, friends, and classmates
carrying muskets and dressed up in 250-year-old military uniforms is about as strange as it gets. It felt kind of like the whole town had traveled back in time.

We were reenacting the Battle of Bayport to commemorate our town's small part in the Revolutionary War (it was more of a skirmish than a battle, really) and to celebrate the grand opening of the new Bayport History Museum aboard the USS
Resolve
, a beautifully restored sailing frigate from the very first US naval fleet.

The town had gone all out for the event, and it was hard not to get swept up in the excitement. Just about everyone in Bayport had turned out, and many of them were participating, my brother Joe and I included. The Revolutionary War had always been one of my favorite subjects. I was also volunteering at the museum along with the rest of Bayport High's Young Historians Club, so I have to admit that I felt a real sense of pride standing there in my militiaman uniform. Even Joe, who doesn't always share my more studious inclinations, had to admit that any event where you got to fire a real musket was pretty cool.

“Freedom schmeedom!” Joe yelled at me from across the field, apparently getting into character as a redcoat rifleman. “That's the last time I let you have the last doughnut, you ungrateful Colonial freeloader!”

Okay, so maybe Joe wasn't taking the reenactment as seriously as I was. But we weren't really here to fight over doughnuts. This was a celebration.

Last year the Bayport Historical Society found a whole stash of Revolutionary War armaments buried in the
Resolve
's collapsed cargo hold when they started restoring the ship. There were crates and crates full of muskets, sabers, uniforms, and all kinds of other stuff. They even found the large Colonial flag now flying from the
Resolve
's tallest mast, and military correspondence from General George Washington himself. It turns out the
Resolve
had been transporting supplies and marching orders to Continental troops in the South back in 1776 when the ship was attacked off the coast by the British fleet and run aground.

The
Resolve
had been a rotting wreck, but the stuff in the crates was in amazing condition. Everyone agreed the find was pretty much priceless. It was a huge deal in the history and archeology communities, and because of it our new history museum was going to be home to one of the world's most impressive collections of Revolutionary War artifacts. Historians, collectors, and enthusiasts were coming from all over the country for the museum's opening. One guy was even coming all the way from London.

My AP US History teacher, Mr. Lakin, who also happens to be the president of the historical society, had been the one to open the first crate. After the discovery, there had been a lot of debate about whether to preserve the items or just sell them all at auction for the money. Mr. Lakin finally convinced bigwig Bayport developer Don Sterling and the city council that turning the entire thing, the ship and all,
into a world-class museum would do more for the town's economy than just selling everything off.

Judging by today's turnout, they had done the right thing. For the reenactment, Mr. Lakin had thankfully ditched his usual plaid-and-polyester outfit for a pristine Colonial general's uniform. He sat on top of a white horse looking over his troops, beaming with pride under his huge hat.

I was nearby, helping man one of the big cannons. We had a bunch of cannonballs piled in a neat pyramid next to the big old artillery gun, but we weren't going to be loading them. We were just going to go through the motions, only loading the cannon with a little gunpowder so we could still fire it and put on a good show without anyone actually getting blown to bits in the process. The infantrymen on the battlefield were basically just shooting blanks as well. Everyone agreed that firing live ammunition would have made the reenactment a little too historically accurate.

Well, almost everyone. I could think of a few participants who probably wouldn't mind shooting at each other. For a small town, we sure do manage to stir up our share of conflicts. Joe and I have witnessed plenty of them firsthand in our unofficial capacity as Bayport's foremost unlicensed private investigators. Getting mixed up in other people's beefs is a habit—either a good one or a bad one, depending on who you ask—and us Hardy boys can't seem to shake it, no matter how hard we try to mind our own business.

There were two people in particular who might like to
exchange shots, Mr. Lakin and Don Sterling. The local news even did a report on how their arguments over the best way to run the museum had nearly derailed the whole project. It seemed fitting that they were now facing off across the battlefield as opposing generals.

Joe and I found ourselves fighting on opposite sides of the battle as well. While I was behind the front line manning artillery for the good guys in blue, Joe was up front with the redcoat infantry's vanguard. Back in the day the two armies had their riflemen line up right out in the open in the middle of a field, like they were getting ready to play a football game or something. Only instead of kicking off a ball, they fired straight at each other with muskets and cannons until the side that was shot up the most either gave up or ran off. It was basically like two big firing squads having a shootout! And then sometimes, whoever was left standing would charge at each other with bayonets and fight hand to hand. Pretty crazy if you ask me.

Joe waved from across the baseball-diamond-turned-battlefield and gave me a salute. I'm pretty sure patriots and redcoats weren't supposed to salute one another before the battles, but I saluted him back anyway. He was my brother, after all.

Red, white, and blue fireworks burst in the air over the
Resolve
. It gave me the chills. It meant the battle was about to begin.

K
ABOOM
. THE FIRST CANNON BLAST
thundered from the USS
Resolve'
s gun ports, announcing the official start of the reenactment of the Battle of Bayport. A big cheer went up from everyone. I could see Frank across the battlefield, waving the cannon's big ramrod in the air and whooping it up. My brother really gets into this stuff.

Frank signed up for the reenactment because he can be a bit of a nerd sometimes. Me, well, let's just say girls dig a guy in uniform. Yes, even one with a goofy tricorn hat that looks more like a giant pastry than headwear. At least, that's what I was hoping. There was one girl in particular I wanted to impress. Jen Griffin looked great all dolled up in her Colonial dress as she watched the reenactment with
a group of our fellow costumed Bayport High classmates. I tipped my tricorn in her direction, and she smiled that beautiful smile. That girl really did a number on me. I think my cheeks might have turned as red as the wool coat I was wearing, and I hoped she didn't notice. To be honest, I was more interested in watching her watch the battle than actually participating in it.

The extra credit I was getting in Mr. Lakin's history class didn't hurt, though. I'm no slouch in the classroom, but I don't rack up the As quite as easily as Frank does. And Frank was right; it is pretty cool getting to fire a real musket. As underage, not to mention unlicensed, private detectives, it's not often you get a chance to carry a gun. Frank and I are usually armed with little more than our wits, so I was pretty excited to pack a piece for once, even if the piece in question was a four-foot-long 250-year-old musket without ammunition.

The reenactment had turned into something of a family affair for the Hardys. Our dad, retired Bayport crime-fighting legend Fenton Hardy, and aunt, active Bayport culinary legend Aunt Trudy, had gotten into the spirit as well. They were sitting on a hill above the “battlefield” along with a lot of other townspeople, dressed up in Colonial attire, watching the battle live. Dad looked ridiculous in his powdered wig, and Aunt Trudy, never one to let historical accuracy interfere with comfort, had accessorized her Betsy Ross costume with a deluxe beach chair topped by a red, white, and blue sun
umbrella. The smartphone she was using to take a video of the reenactment was a modern touch as well.

It's kind of nuts that back in the old days people used to actually gather around to watch live battles like they were a spectator sport or a play in the park. I guess they had to do something to entertain themselves before baseball and movie theaters, but it's a pretty morbid pastime. Luckily, today's festivities were supposed to be a lot less gruesome.

Although, there were a lot of people who probably wouldn't mind whacking Don Sterling, whose history of cutthroat wheeling and dealing had earned him the nickname “the Don.” The Don wasn't an actual mobster or anything like that, but he did have a reputation as one of Bayport's most ruthless, and stingiest, businessmen. The town was full of ex-business partners and employees he'd turned into enemies over the years.

The Don adjusted his long red coat and yelled, “Prepare for battle, gents!” in a bad British accent. Don Sterling was an enthusiastic member of the town's community theater, though everyone suspected his uncommonly generous donations had more to do with him landing leading roles than his acting chops.

Across the line, Mr. Lakin was trotting back and forth on his white horse, rallying the rebels. He actually looked a lot less ridiculous in his eighteenth-century general's uniform than he normally did in his, um, “contemporary” clothing. Old Man Lake, as some of the kids call him when he isn't
around, hadn't updated his wardrobe since the early 1980s, and it was probably out of style even then. He was a devotee of the “Three Ps” school of fashion: lots of polyester, plaid, and pastels. And big collars. Lots of big collars. Lake was a hard teacher and it was just about impossible to get an A (unless you were Frank), but everyone still liked him because he was passionate about teaching and you knew he'd give you a fair deal if you worked hard.