Letters полностью

Colonel Brooke’s final message, that he is withdrawing, has yet to be written, much less delivered. It seems likely to Andrew that Cockburn may prevail and the attack succeed, especially with the help of this new tactic; he is resolved therefore to do what he can to divert the diversion. What with the firing ceased and the rain still falling, the night is dead black. There is no need even to make his case to Admiral Cochrane: their gig is taken at once for one of the little flotilla assembling about the Surprize under general command of Captain Napier, and the lieutenant stays mum, recognizing the opportunity. Twenty small boats with muffled oars and light artillery, about fifteen men to a vessel, they head out at midnight in a quiet file. Andrew’s boat is ninth in line: a single tap on the lieutenant’s shoulder (even whispered conversation is forbidden) is enough to turn them and the eleven boats behind them up the wrong river-branch almost at once, into the line of scuttled ships across the harbor mouth. The lieutenant presently sees their peril — they are right under the guns of the fort! — but cannot proclaim it or denounce its cause; he gets the boats somehow turned about and headed back towards the Surprize.

Having assumed the lead, now they are in the rear of the line. Once out of earshot of the fort, and before the lieutenant can say anything, Andrew whispers angrily that his signal was misread. The other boats are clearly glad to abandon the mission; their crews are already scrambling home. The lieutenant must turn at once into the west, the left, the port, the Ferry Branch, and catch up with Napier, who in that darkness cannot even know that he now has nine boats instead of twenty. No time to argue: it’s that or explain to Admiral Cochrane what they’re doing there in the first place. They go — west, left, port — past looming dark McHenry and opposite the smaller forts Babcock and Covington. In their haste they make a bit of noise. No matter: it’s 1:00 A.M. now on Wednesday the 14th, and Cochrane recommences, per plan, his bombardment of Fort McHenry. Under cover of that tremendous racket and guided by bombshell light, they actually locate and join Napier’s reduced flotilla at anchor.

By that same light the captain is just now seeing what’s what and clapping his brow. The shore gunners see too, from the ramparts of Babcock and Covington, and open fire. Napier gives the signal to do what they’re there for; the nine boats let go with all they’ve got. Fort McHenry responds; the bomb and rocket ships intensify their barrage. For an hour the din and fireworks are beyond belief; if Brooke’s army needs a diversion, they’ve got it!

And the Ferry Branch is no place to be. Andrew sits in the gig’s stern sheets, stunned by the barrage. 18-pounders roar past to send up geysers all around; they will all die any moment. He has hoped the diversion would include a landing, so that (his credibility with Cochrane gone) he might slip away in the dark and commence the long trek back to Castines Hundred; now he considers whether swimming to shore is more dangerous than staying where he is. At 3:00 A.M., by some miracle, Napier has yet to lose a boat or a man. But their position is suicidal, and there is no sign of Brooke’s expected attack over beyond the city: those earthworks are deathly quiet. The captain cannot see that three miles away Brooke’s sleeping army has been bugled up and fallen in, not to assault the city but — to their own astonishment and the chagrin of their officers — to begin their two-day withdrawal to North Point, minus three dozen prisoners and 200 deserters. Napier has done all he can. He gives the signal (by hooded lantern) to retire.