Glory be.
Under most circumstances, they would have. But their fighting spirits were high, and they could sense a victory in the offing. Houston’s men had driven off the Eighty-fifth, and hounded them down the road—and now, by God, they wanted some real blood.
So, for the next three minutes, a half mob of American soldiers exchanged ragged half volleys and individual fire for the professional volleys that were coming from the enemy. It should have been no contest at all, but it was turned into one by the sheer determination of the amateurs.
Sam never did bring any real order to his ranks during that stretch. He didn’t even try, after the first half a minute, realizing that he had no time, and he’d most likely just confuse his men. He simply stood his ground and kept bellowing the order to fire.
A meaningless order, in itself, since his men had every intention of firing anyway. But he’d been told that if a commander was seen to be resolute by his men—sounded resolute, anyway; the gunsmoke covering the field made “seeing” almost meaningless—that their spirits would be bolstered.
It seemed to work, too.
Then the six-pounder and the three-pounders opened up, and grapeshot started tearing at the Eighty-fifth’s flank. Finally, finally—Sam thought almost all of their officers were dead or injured by now, except low-ranked ones—the regiment gave way.
Even then, they weren’t routed. But the Eighty-fifth had had enough. Their retreat off the field and back to the barges waiting downriver was as precipitous as you could ask for.
Pakenham finally stopped pounding the tree trunk.
“The Eighty-fifth is in full retreat, sir.”
“Yes, I can see that.” The view across the river was quite good, even without a glass, now that the mist had burned away.
The battle was lost. Today’s battle, at least. There was no chance—certainly not at this late hour—that a charge across Chalmette field could carry the day.
Perhaps tomorrow. The Forty-third and the West Indians were still in the fray. Perhaps if they seized that battery—finally!—something might be possible on the morrow.
“Tell the men to stand down. There will be no assault today.”
Jackson just stared, from the window of the Macarty house. He’d finally come to realize that the British attack across the river had been no feint at all. No diversion. Houston had driven back one of their regiments, but at least two others were still in action. The only thing standing in their way, beyond Houston’s few hundred men, were Driscol and his battalion.
Why hadn’t he recognized the danger that the British might go for Patterson’s guns? He cursed himself for an idiot.
The curses were silent, of course. Andrew Jackson was as good at cursing himself as he was at cursing anyone else. But he didn’t do it out loud. He might be an idiot, from time to time, but he wasn’t a blasted fool.
Tiana rose from her chair and went to stand by the riverbank. Ross remained seated, staring at an empty teacup. The noise from the south was like a constant roll of thunder.
CHAPTER 48
The ironwork Driscol’s men had embedded in their breastworks did stall the British charge just that extra bit. The last round of canister, fired from Ball’s guns at point-blank range, wreaked havoc on the regiment again.
By now, it was a badly battered regiment. But the enemy had arrived and were finally at the throats of their tormentors, and they’d have blood, by God.
Colonel Rennie started up the last little slope, just behind the front rank of his soldiers. Two canister balls ripped open his left thigh, severing the femoral artery. He stumbled and fell, blood gushing like a fountain.
A young officer stooped over him, his face pale and tight.
“Help me up!” Rennie shouted.
“Sir—your leg. We must—”
“Get me up, damn you, or I’ll see you hang! Get me up!”
The officer did as he was commanded. The colonel took two steps and was knocked down by a soldier who was falling back. The man’s chest had been torn open by a pike blade. It was a hideous wound.
“Get me up!” Rennie shouted again.
The officer did as he was told. Rennie stood, and started to raise his sword. But the blood loss from a severed femoral is enormous, in a very short time. His face suddenly turned white, his eyes rolled up, and he collapsed in a heap.
The young officer’s desperate attempt to staunch the mortal wound would have been hopeless, even if the body of another soldier falling back from the rampart hadn’t knocked him aside and left him pinned for half a minute before he could get back to his stricken commander.
The fight at the line of the guns was as ferocious a hand-to-hand melee as any Driscol had ever known. Hundreds of men, stabbing and hacking each other with bayonets, pikes, and the motley assortment of blades the Iron Battalion had managed to acquire.
Charles Ball proved as adept with his cutlass as with his tongue. Not that he ever stopped using the first.
“Give it to ’em, boys, give it to ’em good!”
Henry Crowell was astonished to see a British soldier clamber over the writhing body of another soldier who’d gotten impaled on the ironwork. So astonished that he didn’t even feel any fear when he saw the man was preparing to leap at him with his bayonet extended.
The big teamster’s position as spongeman for his gun crew was just in front and to the right of the twelve-pounder. Henry stepped back a pace and shifted his grip on the sponge staff he’d been using to swab out the cannon and ram in another ball. When the redcoat came flying at him, he just swatted him aside. He had the reach on the man and, as strong as he was, the fact that the ramrod’s tip was covered with tightly wound fabric simply didn’t matter. The British soldier, stunned by the impact, slammed into two other redcoats who were struggling over the ironwork. The invader’s musket sailed out of his hands, and the only damage the bayonet did was spearing yet another British soldier in the calf as he tried to get over the barricade.
There was something insane about it all. Despite his immense strength, the teamster was fundamentally a gentle man. He’d hardly been in any fights in his life, and those only when he was a boy.
But this wasn’t really a “fight,” in any sense of the term that Henry understood. It was just a huge, crazed melee where hundreds of men who didn’t even know one another were doing their level best to commit murder and mayhem.
Even a racial element was absent, to give it any logic. A lot of the men coming at him in red uniforms were West Indians, as black as he was.
Yet another British soldier clambered over the same poor fellow stuck on the ironwork. If this kept up, the man would be killed by his own mates, driving his chest further and further onto the dull ornamental spearpoints.
Some part of Henry’s mind felt sorry for him. Most of it, though, was concentrated on the task at hand. By now, so many men of the Iron Battalion were pressing forward to help repel the enemy that he realized he couldn’t keep using the sponge staff as a club.
Well enough. Blunt and relatively soft though the end was, it would make a usable spear. In Henry’s big hands, anyway.
So he didn’t let this new soldier finish his preparations. While he was still in a crouch atop his mate’s back, readying his bayonet, Henry thrust forward and smashed his face.
All the men of the battalion were fighting ferociously, but Driscol could already tell that it wouldn’t be long before they were overwhelmed. They were outnumbered, first of all, by something like three to one. Then, except for Charles and his veterans, almost all of Driscol’s men were still amateurs at this business, and the British soldiers who were attacking them were professionals.
Henry Crowell was handling it well, but few of Driscol’s men had either Henry’s strength or his quick wits. They were valiant enough, in their awkward way. But valor goes only so far in a battle. If it weren’t for the breastworks, they’d have been driven under already—and those breastworks, though very well made, were still nothin
g more than hastily erected field fortifications.
So be it. He’d still gut them before he went down. Driscol drew the pistol from his waistband.
Slightly behind him and to either side, James and John Rogers looked at the pistol in Driscol’s hand, and then looked at each other.
With three quick little jerks of his head, James silently laid out the plan.
I’ll fend them off. You keep the crazy one-armed Irishman from getting killed.
John nodded. He shifted the grip on his war club.
The Cherokees had finally reached the edge of the woods. Major Ridge stopped to examine the scene, and John Ross came up next to him. Peering through the last line of trees, he could see the battle at the Iron Battalion’s bastion. It looked more like a man-to-man free-for-all than what John normally thought of as a “battle.”
Ridge had a thin, grim smile on his face.
“Our country, this is. I was worried a little.”
It took John a couple of seconds to realize what Ridge meant. Against regular soldiers, in formation on an open field, there would have been little point in having the Cherokees launch a charge. Even with over half of them armed with guns, they’d have had no chance at all.
Here, though . . .
Yes. Cherokee country, when it came to war.
“How soon?” John whispered.
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 redc
oat 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.