The Time Pirate (53 page)

“ ‘This hand an enemy to tyrants,' ” Lafayette had told Nick when asked what the Latin expression meant. He then handed the boy a sealed missive marked MOST URGENT and told him to deliver it posthaste to General Washington personally. There was a small smile lurking about the French-man's eyes when he handed over the dispatch. Nick, as he leaped into the saddle and charged across the battlefield toward Washington's headquarters, could not help but hope his satchel contained the good news they were all desperately hoping for. Of course, such high hopes had been been dashed before. Always best to assume the worst, he reminded himself.

Arriving at headquarters, Nick was surprised to find that Washington had ordered his battlefield command desk moved outside his marquee. The General clearly wanted the sunshine and fresh air after the suffocating days inside the damp tent. As usual, the boy arrived out of breath and stood before the great man, huffing and puffing for some moments before he could speak.

“Excellency, I bring news from General Lafayette,” Nick said, placing the wax-sealed dispatch before Washington. The General's face went dark and glum as if bad weather had entered his mind.

“I scarcely wish to read it,” he murmured, hurriedly breaking the seal. “How much longer are we to be left dangling by this infernal French thread?”

He scanned Lafayette's elegant scrawl quickly, moving his
lips as he softly spoke the words written there. At first, his expression was one of disbelief, but it was quickly dispersed as the light of pure joy flooded his eyes. Tears threatened but were immediately vanquished. “It's the hand of Providence,” he said quietly to Nick. “A miracle. The only possible explanation for it, I tell you.”

“May I ask what has happened?” Nick said, hoping he was not being impertinent.

“De Grasse has arrived!” Washington cried, leaping to his feet and shouting. “The fleet is even now stationed at Lynnhaven Bay in the Chesapeake, guarding the entrance to the York and James Rivers. Twenty-eight ships of the line and four frigates! That will give the Royal Navy's Captains something to think about should they dare approach us.”

Rochambeau stepped outside the tent just as Washington flung his hat high into the air.

“Do my ears deceive me?” the French commander asked his friend and ally.

“They do not, sir!” Washington exclaimed. The two men, who had had their differences, now regarded each other for a moment, and then embraced warmly, clapping each other on the back and exchanging words of almost rapturous joy. To Nick, it looked as if the two old soldiers might leap into the air or begin dancing an Irish jig at any moment. He stood transfixed, watching them. The grave importance of this moment in history was not lost on him.

Without Kate's stalwart bravery while kidnapped at Port Royal, without Lafayette's willingness to embrace Nick's improbable tale of the Tempus Machina and act decisively on it, these momentous few seconds of history might never have occurred. And the England he knew and loved would be no more.

As more and more staff officers emerged from the tent and joined in the common revelry, General Washington disengaged himself for a moment and took Nick aside. “Your commanding officer, Nicholas, my dear friend Lafayette, has done our great cause an inestimable service.”

“Do you wish me to return with that message, sir?”

“No, Nicholas. Lafayette has informed me that he is heading down to Trebell's Landing, several miles southwest of Yorktown. There, he intends to supervise the unloading of numerous transport vessels from the French fleet. Then he will commence the transport to Yorktown of what he believes and I will concede is a most welcome shipment. Do you know what he means by that, young Master McIver?”

“No, sir.”

“It's the siege guns, for all love!” Washington cried. “Do you hear that,
mon Général
?” he said to Rochambeau. “In a matter of hours we shall at long last have the means with which to seal Lord Cornwallis's much-deserved fate! May the Lord bless us all this happy and long-awaited hour.”

The possibility of Cornwallis's escape, which had haunted General Washington's every waking moment for months, was finally over. And America's guns would soon answer the British artillery, roaring in anger.

W
ashington's hour was at hand.

The two opposing armies shivered under an unexpected chill throughout the night of October 8. But things would get very much warmer the next day, of that Nicholas McIver was certain as he finally found sleep beneath his thin woolen blanket. For the first time in recent memory, the British guns had fallen silent. “Conserving their powder for the morrow,” one of the young Light Infantry soldiers had told him around the campfire supper.

Nick slept fitfully and awoke at dawn to much warmer temperatures and overcast skies. He could see that the sappers and the miners had been at work throughout the night, ferrying ammunition and powder through the trenches. They continued their dangerous work as the rising sun sent hazy orange rays stretching across the smoky battlefield, even though they were harried by musket fire from the British garrison.

At 9 A.M., Lafayette's Light Infantry struck their tents and repositioned to the right and forward, near the southernmost American battery, a formidable sight now that it was complete. It contained three 24-pounders, three 18-pounders, two 8-inch
howitzers, and six 10-inch mortars mounted on carriages capable of throwing shot directly into the enemy's earth-works, where they would burst, destroying the works.

Spirits among the entire army were high to the point of soaring. To Nick, this was something entirely new, and Lafayette confirmed his feelings, saying that the morale of the troops this morning was higher than he'd witnessed at any time during this long and bloody war. Or in any war.

“It's time,” he said with a smile. “Mount up!”

“Mount up?” Nick asked. “Look behind you.”

There was Lafayette's horse, curried and combed and splendidly turned out for battle. His own beloved Chief looked nearly as magnificent. Nick smiled and took the reins from the groom. Then, sticking his left foot into the stirrup, he swung himself up into the saddle. He seemed to have gotten much more comfortable riding horses since his arrival at Yorktown. At least he'd grown to like it, thanks to Chief's forgiving nature.

“Where to, sir?” Nick asked.

“Commander in Chief ‘s headquarters. A small ceremony General Washington has arranged. I don't think we'll want to miss it!”

He laughed, put his spurs to his horse, and galloped away at full speed. Nick followed, his heart thudding with excitement. They arrived and dismounted, running toward the vociferous crowd of officers, both French and American, who were gathering outside the General's tent.

There was a massive group gathered round the ten-gun artillery battery that guarded Washington's marquee. All the men seemed to be on tiptoe, peering back at Washington's tent, waiting for him to emerge, anticipation and impatience
written on every face. As Nick scanned the huge battlefield, he could see that every allied soldier and cavalryman had his eyes on the General's grand battery.

Where was the heroic figure most of them regarded as father and savior? Wherever was Washington?

Nick shivered with excitement. Another historic moment was about to occur, and once again he was right in the thick of it. A breeze had come up and blown the grey scrim of clouds away. It was now twelve noon on a glorious and sunny autumn day.

When he heard the thunderous roar of thousands upon thousands of troops, Nick knew the great man had at last stepped outside into the sunlight.

Lafayette, overcome with pride and emotion, laughed at the tears that welled up in his eyes and swiped them away with the back of his hand. He looked at Nick, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing it. “The hour is upon us,” he said, his voice choked with feeling.

“What is happening?” Nick asked. “Everyone is waiting for the signal that will permit the whole line of our batteries to commence firing.”

“Will I recognize the signal?”

“Oh, yes. I don't imagine you need worry about missing it, Nicholas McIver.”

Every eye was on a resplendent Washington as he approached the Grand American Battery, flanked by adjutants and aides. Nick had never known another human being who radiated supreme confidence and strength the way Washington did. His men, in fact all Americans, clearly revered him as godlike. Now, in the set of his jaw and the fierce look in his eye, Nick saw why.

Washington's courage and stamina and fortitude had been
tested these last five years, tested in cauldrons of fire and freezing winter storms, tested far beyond the endurance of mere mortals; and he had been found not wanting in any aspect. Because of
him
, the Americans were about to defeat the mightiest empire on earth.

This is a hero.

That was Nick's sole thought as he watched Washington turn to his second-in-command and give him an order.

His words were lost in the tumultuous shouts of thousands, but Nick soon saw what orders the General had given.

It was a single American flag, rising slowly but surely up the flagpole in the center of the grand battery. The colorful flag had red and white stripes and thirteen white stars on a field of blue, representing the thirteen courageous American colonies. As it rose, so, too, did the white banner over the French batteries to Nick's left and the Continental flag over the American batteries on the right. Nick felt a secret pride swell inside his heart as the American flag reached the top, standing out full in the breeze.

Someone nearby shouted, “Happy day! Forty-one mouths of fire are now about to be unmasked!”

Drummers everywhere commenced great rolling tattoos of battle as the artillerymen parted to let General Washington step forward. He paused at the massive cannon at the very center of the battery.

Why, he's going to fire the first shot, Nick thought, and that is just what happened.

Washington strode forward and ignited the fuse of the 24-pounder. These guns could bite hard, sending a ball through two feet of solid oak at seven hundred yards. He stood clear, as the piece boomed forth the first American artillery salute to Cornwallis's gunners. The gun spat fire, bucking and bellowing with a thunderous roar. A great cry of “Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!” rose from the battlefield at the sound of it.

This is a hero.

A Continental soldier near the front told Nick a few days afterward that he could actually hear the first ball Washington fired strike from house to house inside the enemy garrison. And, he said, he'd been informed that it ultimately went through a house where British officers were having their midday meal, down the length of the table, destroying the dishes and killing the British General at the very end, who had just raised a leg of mutton to his mouth.

The battle was joined.

All the officers attending the ceremony now hurried off to join their men. Lafayette and Nick rejoined their division, now successfully attacking British Redoubt No. 10. The American infantrymen had bayonets affixed to their muzzles, while other soldiers simply had the bayonets attached to the ends of long wooden pikes. The screams of the wounded and dying mingled with war cries from the bluecoats and the redcoats alike.