Michael pushed the spyglass down so Mitchell would look at him. “For one of those nine-pounders over there, it takes four and a half pounds of powder for the charge. For a twelve-pound gun it takes six pounds. And for a French twenty-six”—he slapped the gun beside him—“it takes eleven pounds. Tell me how many shots Lee sent us.”

  The other man was stunned. “I suppose I—But listen, you’ve shot some of those ships to pieces.”

  “Aye, and we’ll do more, if we get the powder. Lee’s dribble won’t do more than fire our one gun at a time a little faster. Get us more powder, and we’ll sink some of those bastards out there. Beg for it. Steal it. Bribe somebody. I’ll stand for the money myself.”

  Mitchell shook his head ruefully. “There isn’t a prayer of it. Lee didn’t send this powder. President Rutledge did. And you don’t want to know how little he has left. The worthy general keeps most of it under his watchful eye. Lee! Lee’s still saying the real thrust will come against the city in a few days.” He added almost to himself. “But Rutledge’s report can’t wait for that.”

  “What report?”

  Mitchell’s mouth tightened, then he leaned closer. “President Rutledge feels this battle is a chance for us to push Congress in the right direction. He’s already written two despatches. One will go to Philadelphia before nightfall, with orders for all speed in riding. If it looks like we’re winning, the despatch will go saying we’ve won already. According to word just received, they’ve been debating independence these three weeks. Hold it! Don’t draw attention. That’s not to be noised about. I’ll tell you this, though. If they haven’t voted it yet, news of a victory should push them over the edge.”

  “For the love of God, man! Look out there! The British fleet’s hanging on by the skin of its teeth. With a ton or two more of powder, we’d put two or three on the bottom. Hell, the two biggest are nearly there now. Tell him that. Tell him these ships will take months in the shipyards to be useful for anything. Damn it, man, just tell him we’re winning!”

  Mitchell nodded, slowly at first, then with more resolution. “I will. Strike me dead, but I will. They look to have the hell beat out of them.”

  Michael stopped him as he turned to go. “You said there were two messages. What was the other one?”

  “It says we’ve lost, of course. But you’ll like the ending. ‘The fight continues. The torch of liberty still burns in the Carolinas. Damnation to the British.’ But it’s the other will be sent. Thanks, Fallon.” And he hurried off the platform toward the creek.

  Michael wondered. True, there was hellish damage to the fleet, especially Bristol and Experiment, but he hadn’t mentioned the little matter of an army sitting on Long Island. He hoped Mitchell didn’t think about that before he saw Rutledge.

  If the right message was sent, if the rider felt the devil’s breath on his neck, then in ten days the Continental Congress might well be voting for independence. By the eighth of July, with luck. If they hadn’t voted already. Wouldn’t that be a thing, now, to be fighting for an independent nation, and not even know it? The wall he leaned against quivered as a dozen cannon balls struck it. There’d be no turning back.

  “Increase the rate of fire,” came the order. “One gun every five minutes.”

  The sun set at seven, but the firing—thunderous pounding on the part of the British, single guns from the Americans—continued until half past nine. When the guns fell silent, the chirping of crickets and mosquitoes’ whines seemed overpoweringly loud. Weary men dropped beside their guns and slept. Those who prayed, prayed for a long, quiet night. And gunpowder.

  A poke in the ribs woke Michael to humid, gray dawn.

  “What? What’s happening?” Michael asked, trying to fight off the fog of sleep. The crewman just grunted and looked out through the embrasure.

  Michael looked, and yelled with triumph. Shouts rang through the fort as others saw what he saw. Between the fort and the first golden-red glimmers on the horizon was nothing but the sea; the British fleet was gone.

  He leaped up on his cannon, shading his eyes. Yes, except for the lone frigate still stuck on the Middle Ground, the warships were back with the transports, the Admiral’s pennant on the Bristol flying from a mainmast stump. Smoke rose from the grounded frigate; small boats were pulling away toward the fleet. She was being fired to keep her from the hands of the Americans. The Prosper, an armed vessel of the South Carolina Navy, closed to try to beat the flames. The cheers from the fort redoubled, and Michael shouted and howled with the rest. Damnation! The battle had ended while they slept, and they’d won. He had to find Moultrie.

  “Colonel! Colonel Moultrie!”

  “Fallon!” His broad tired face was beaming. “They’re beaten. Whipped. Let Charles Lee talk of slaughter pens now.” He threw back his head and laughed. Michael realized he was grinning broadly himself.

  “Colonel, I’ve a wife in the city I haven’t seen in near three weeks, and a baby that’s due any day. I’m asking leave to go.”

  “Mr. Fallon, a corporal’s guard with a six-pound gun could sink their flagship, now. They won’t come back. Go, go. And I wish your wife and infant well.”

  “I thank you, Colonel.” And he ran for the creek. Was a boat there to take him? Well, if there wasn’t, by God, he’d swim it.

  Ten days after the battle, the British Army began withdrawing to the transports. It took a month for the last of the warships to leave, limping over the Bar, running north for repairs before a hurricane caught them.

  In the city was one long round of celebration. The garrison of Fort Sullivan was reviewed by General Lee, and the name changed to Fort Moultrie. And President Rutledge presented his own sword to Sergeant Jasper.

  The story was growing, too, as soldiers made the tale better for their beery listeners. Men who’d never been close enough to hear the guns embellished it still more. Jasper came to say: “Don’t let us fight without our flag, boys.” And Sergeant McDaniel came to shout: “Don’t let Liberty die with me,” as he watched his life pour out through fingers that couldn’t hold it in. Legends were in the making, and that was just as well. A nation aborning needed legends as much as it needed powder.

  Michael snapped shut the spyglass and climbed back inside the windowsill of Byrne’s third-story apartments.

  “They’ve gotten the Experiment over the Bar, finally. Seemed to be having a rough time of it.”

  Christopher, his feet up on the table, waved a tankard drunkenly. “May they all drown in their own blood and go to hell. No, that’s no kind of toast. I’ve got it. We’ll drink to Michael Shane Fallon, the man with the luck. I mind me the day I brought you ashore in a patched shirt and worn-out cavalry boots. Now you’ve got a plantation, and ships, and a pretty wife, and a fine son. Let’s drink to him. Let’s drink to James Christopher Fallon. If he’s half the luck his father has, he’ll have ten times as much as other men.”

  “We’ve already drunk to him,” Michael said patiently. He lifted his own tankard. “To the Annalee.”

  Byrne laughed bitterly, then tipped up his mug. “Aye, to the Annalee, may she rest quiet on the ocean floor. Who’d have thought a bloody bastard of a frigate would be on the Florida coast? I barely managed to get the crew to the boats before she went down. But I’ve told you that. And to miss that grand party on Sullivan’s besides.” He shook his head, and gulped the rest of his wine.

  Michael sighed. “It grieves me to come to you like this, but for your loss you can give me a hand.”

  “A hand?”

  “I’m fitting Hussar out as a privateer, but there’s a shortage of officers. I hate asking, after you’ve had your own command, but will you ship with me as my first mate? I’ve need of an experienced man I can trust.”

  Byrne shook his head. “Ah, Michael, Michael. Privateering. Have you commissions?”

  “From both South Carolina and the Continental Congress. Afraid you’d be hung as a pirate?”

  “Might be. Might,” Christopher said thoughtfully. “Still and all, it’d be worth the risk to pay off a few markers.”

  “Man, you haven’t taken to the gambling again?”

  “Just a bit.” Byrne took a deep breath and dropped his feet to the floor. “Now. What weight of guns will you carry? I know some are going out with six-pounders and lighter, but I favor long nines, myself, or even twelves.”

  “Long eighteens,” Michael said, and Byrne gasped. “Sixteen of them.”

  “Mother of God, Michael, you’re arming like a warship.”

  “If I can’t outrun a British warship, I mean to outfight it. Now are you with me?”

  Byrne breathed heavily. “Aye, I’m with you. I’m daft, mind you, but I’ll do it. I need—” He couldn’t tell Michael what he needed. The wagers had been more than a few, and none small. Had the lobsters not sunk the Annalee, he might still have lost her. But here was a chance to recoup. “Oh, hell, we’ve faced worse odds here in the streets of Charlestown. Remember the night the stamped paper arrived? But on to business. Where will we operate?”

  “The biggest concentration of trade is around the British Isles, so we’ll sail from French Channel ports, and in the Irish Sea.”

  “That’s where the biggest concentration of warships will be, too, boyo.”

  “And we’ll spend half our time disguised as one of them. In another year there’ll be fifty ships doing what we’re doing, but now there’s none. We’ll be a complete surprise.” He lifted his tankard. “Let the British look to their ships, for they’ll have a brace of Irish wolfhounds on the hunt.”

  On the fifth of August, the crowd packing the streets and balconies around the State House was in a festive mood. Even as the last British ship had limped out of sight a packet had hove anchor in the harbor with news from the north, and Congress. For these two things the crowd celebrated, though some had worried eyes.

  A squad from the Second Regiment performed the manual of arms under the barked commands of a corporal, the envious gaze of a hundred small boys, and the approving glances of a score of ladies. A gun crew with a shining six-pound field piece performed the steps of loading and firing, with enough flourishes and spins of rammer and sponge to do credit to a Turkish band.

  There were bands, a dozen of them, though none could march in the press. Each, surounded by a clapping, cheering crowd, was playing French tunes, German songs, Scottish airs, and Irish ditties, anything and everything that wasn’t English. A number of singers attempted the newest and most popular air in the city:

  Sir Peter Parker, foolish man,

  came to Charlestown harbor;

  the twenty-eighth attacked the fort

  and wounded Young the barber.

  Michael pushed past jugglers, orange girls, and fiddlers, drawing Gabrielle behind him. She, in turn, made certain that Martha, with the baby in her arms, kept close.

  “Michael, we should not have brought James out in this crowd. Keep the parasol over him, Martha.”

  “Nonsense. Here we are.” He cleared a space at the foot of the State House steps, ignoring the frowns of those he crowded aside. “One day, Brielle, the lad’ll say he was one of the first in South Carolina to hear the words. Even if he doesn’t remember much of it.” He smiled down at the child. “My son,” he said, “would insist on being here, and he could.”

  Gabrielle exchanged amused glances with her maid. “Michael, sometimes I think you believe you brought that baby into the world by yourself.”

  “Look you, lass. He’s got a nose like mine. If you’d had any part of him, he’d not have such a beak. You’ve better taste.”

  “I think it’s a beautiful nose,” she said, leaving some doubt which nose she meant.

  While he was trying to decide, Henry Laurens came down the steps with a handsome young man who resembled him. “Michael, I’d like to present my son, John. He’s some fool notion of going north to join Washington. Talk him out of it. John, this is Michael Fallon, one of the heroes of Sullivan’s Island.”

  “Please to meet you, John. I’ll not try to talk anyone out of fighting. And my exploits at Sullivan’s consisted entirely of being erect when it was over, with no false modesty in it.”

  “I’m told that’s the most any man can expect from a battle, sir. A great day, today.” He gestured to the head of the stairs, where the speaker would appear.

  “I’ve been waiting for it for years, though I’ll admit the first time the idea crossed my path, nearly eleven years ago, I wasn’t so eager as I am today. What’s the matter, Mr. Laurens?”

  The elder Laurens shook his head glumly. “I’ve done more than a little to help its coming. But now that it’s here, I feel cut off from all the years and generations behind me. I feel like a faithful son who’s asked redress of grievances, and been thrown out of the house for his troubles.”

  Deafeningly the crowd exploded into cheers. The State House doors were opening. John Rutledge, President of South Carolina, came out first, a roll of foolscap in his hand. Behind him, taking places across the top of the stairs, came William Henry Drayton, Chairman of the General Assembly, and the members of the Legislative Council. Henry Laurens climbed the stairs to take his place at Rutledge’s shoulder as Vice-President.

  The cheering flooded on, men, women, and children all screaming themselves hoarse, artisan, planter, and merchant all as one. Rutledge waited calmly until complete silence fell. In the quiet he surveyed the crowd before he spoke.

  “Citizens of South Carolina. Little more than a month ago, in full view of the people of this town, a desperate battle was fought. On the day of that battle, as for many days before, my brother, Edward, and the other delegates to the Continental Congress were locked in debate. Four days later, the Congress voted, and two days after, signed—this.” He thrust the rolled foolscap out in his fist as if offering it to them. A low murmur ran through the assemblage. He unrolled the paper and began to read. “‘When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident—’”

  As he read, a wave of exultation swept over the listeners. Michael could feel it, could see it in their faces. They had a nation, by God. They had a nation. He held James up to see the nation of the Fallons read into being.

  21

  The first long swell of the Atlantic dipped under Hussar beyond the Charlestown Bar, and the first spray flipped over the quarterdeck rail. Michael stood at the stern as they turned north, his thoughts in Charlestown still.

  He’d been in Gabrielle’s sitting room, dangling his watch over James’s cradle for the lad to catch at, with Gabrielle sitting in the corner, working embroidery.

  “You’re really going, aren’t you, Michael,” she said quietly.

  “Going where? That’s it, lad. Catch it.” He tugged at the chain, careful not to pull it out of the chubby little hands that grasped it. “He’s got a grip on him like a blacksmith, Brielle.”

  “This privateering venture.” She dropped the embroidery hoop in her lap with a sigh. “You’re actually going.”

  He frowned at her tone. “What would you have me do? I’m not old enough to hide behind the counter of a counting house yet.”

  It was her turn to catch something in his voice. He was ready to be a man at his most male, and that meant at his least sensible. She’d have to be careful. “You haven’t even told me how long you’ll be gone. It depends, you say. On the weather. On how many prizes there are. On a thousand things. Why, I’ve no idea if you’ll be gone one year or ten.”

  He went to her and pulled her up out of her chair, took her in his arms. “You’re a darling little peagoose, Brielle. I’ll wager I know what’s bothering you. You’re thinking I’ll be taking up with some buxom French girl.”

  “I’d cut her heart out,” she said softly, but he realized with a start she meant it. “Don’t you realize that I could bear it if only I knew when you were coming back?”

  Gently he stroked her hair. He could see she was truly worried. “All right. I sail in October. One year from the day I sail, thirteen months at the most, I’ll step back on the dock in Charlestown. November, ’seventy-seven.”

  She bit her lip to keep it from trembling again. “No tears, Michael. I love you too much for that. Come back, and come back whole.” And with that she’d broken her word and run sobbing from the room. It had taken a long and pleasurable night to restore her smile.

  The deck of the Hussar came back to him with a rush. The harbor mouth was out of sight. He cast an eye aloft; there was a moderate spread of canvas on.

  “Mr. Byrne,” he shouted, “lay on as much canvas as she’ll hold. Remember, we’ve a schedule for getting back to keep.”

  Gabrielle sighed as she turned away from the cog-machine. All she really knew about it was that oxen marched in a circle, to power it, and in some fashion the chaff was taken from the rice. She would learn more; now she must pretend she knew.

  The coopering shed was her next stop. Outside, however, Lijah was waiting. “Mr. Ames up to the big house, ma’am. He say for you come directly.”

  “Oh, he does, does he? Come with me, Lijah. The overseer can wait.”

  She took her time. She saw the coopering; she went to the sawpit and watched logs cut into timbers and boards. She walked down by the river to see the warehouse framework going up. She watched the sheep cropping the lawn between the house and the river.