Every Man
a King

A Story of the
Battle of New Orleans

© 2000 by Clayton Emery

Art by
Herbert Morton Stoops

At a whistle, dark-clad men with stovepipe shakos and browned rifles filtered among the looming trees and impassible thickets, silent and grim as tigers on the hunt.

As always, Walker and Johnson worked in tandem, as always the left of the line. One was fair and lanky, the other short and craggy, but their cautious squints were identical. Spread out to eyeshot, the 95th Rifles leapfrogged their partners to penetrate the swamp. They splashed through tea-dark water, skidded on slimy roots, ducked curtains of Spanish moss, and circled giant trees felled across the meandering paths.

This winter wilderness was Louisiana in the new year 1815. Charges that the British were buying scalps, impressing sailors, and bombarding ships had escalated into battles along the Canadian border, the Atlantic shore, and in Washington itself. After two years of little gain, this expedition hoped to seize New Orleans and halt shipping on the Mississippi. Thus soldiers of the British Army found themselves stumbling through swamps and canebrakes after invisible and resolute Americans.

Rifle upright alongside a tree trunk, Johnson watched ahead and right while Walker angled past, watching left and rearward. A black creek split a tussock of brown thatch. Walker peered ahead, plashed in the creek, and swung left. Yet some oddity turned him back. A veteran's instinct saved his life.

A dun shadow like a panther leapt from the cane. Walker glimpsed a checkerboard face and a glittering arc sweeping for his skull. Ankle-deep and hedged by cane, Walker ducked low and rammed high as if bayoneting.

The rifle barrel slammed the Indian square in the gut. Jerking back his weapon, Walker slammed the oak butt aside the Choctaw's head. A tomahawk bounced off Walker's shoulder.

But underfoot, the creek bed writhed like an earthquake. Stumbling, toppling, Walker's rifle smacked mud as another warpainted savage stepped from the cane and levelled a musket gaudy with brass tacks. Walker fumbled his fouled rifle as the Indian squeezed the trigger.

Twin guns crashed in the close forest. The Choctaw lurched sideways as a lead ball punched his ribs. From the canebrake a white heron fluttered and sputtered into the air. Under Walker's numb feet, the creek bed broke water and crawled away. A black-gray alligator big as a draft horse slithered a few feet, clawed a new bed, and sank to show only bulging eyes and wrinkled nostrils.

Johnson jogged up, spitting a cartridge tip and ramming a charge on the run. Still sitting in mud, Walker pricked his lock clear, wiped the steel dry, reprimed the pan, and plucked black hair from the brass buttplate. Only then did he rise and resettle his tackle and straighten his shako. "Thanks."

"Alligators and Indians," hissed Johnson. The riflemen whispered though now the forest was loud. Johnson's shot had drawn fire from deeper in the swamp. "What kind of cross-patch country is this?"

"How many times have you saved my life? A hundred?" Shaky, Walker drew his sword-bayonet and slipped the blade under the man's chin. The Choctaw's face was red with a blue chin and mask like a raccoon's, and now red blood gouted into black water. Thus the soldiers paid back in part near fifty British sentries throat-slit by night.

"At a shilling a save, I'd be rich as Croesus. You ready?"

Leapfrogging, they steered for the skirmish hotting up the swamp. Thuds slammed the air, for a mile distant a larger battle raged on the banks of the Mississippi. There cannons belched and rockets corkscrewed and red ranks fired on command. Yet Britain's crack troops fought in the swamp, for here the killing would be man to man.

Sparks flickered in the gloom as evening crept up. Guns banged and smoke wafted. Johnson ducked behind a cypress tree nine feet thick, a mountain of wood whose branches tangled with neighbors. Johnson grinned like a wolf, eyes glittering at adventure.

Or maybe his friend was just wrung out, thought Walker, like all of them. Plagued by poor planning, the British Army was stranded ninety miles from the fleet, sick from miasmas and short rations, frozen by night and broiled by day, and sniped and bombarded the clock round. The toll was grinding down older men like Walker and Johnson and their friend Scott, veterans of a hundred European campaigns. Those Indians almost got him, Walker worried. He was growing slow and clumsy. Yet he wanted to fight too, for this battle was personal.

Chuffs and whipcracks sputtered in a ragged line ahead. American bullets cut strips in the air like single-minded hornets. Sergeant Durell's whistle piped twice, then once: the signal to fall back where necessary, then scatter and advance.

Ranging ahead of Johnson, Walker pressed his face to a bush and blurred his eyes to better catch movement, the same way a deer saw. A dun hump twitched behind a tree trunk. Raising his Baker rifle to the line of sight -- the weapon balanced cool and sweet to snuggle his shoulder like a lover -- Walker sipped air and slowly squeezed the trigger. A sear tripped, the hammer snapped, flint struck steel and flashed, then the thick gun slammed his shoulder as a ball invisibly winged away. Powder smoke lingered in the still air, but Walker saw the dun hump was the shattered spine of a Yankee too far from his line.

"Killing Americans is almost too easy." Walker rammed a tight-patched ball that squeaked in the barrel. "Ready."

"We'll be on the buggers before they know't." Johnson sidled to another tree as, rightward, dozens of pairs of dark-jacketed men jog-trotted, firing off and on. The American fusillade grew more furious, hurried and desperate.

Passing Johnson, Walker ducked lacy Spanish moss, for cottonmouth snakes slept amidst it. More to fear were the mankilling coral snakes like red-and-yellow bracelets, and spiders and bears and panthers. Walker almost missed Spain's barren hills.

Bullets zipped and smacked trees. Walker and Johnson closed warily. In weeks of fighting, the 95th had seen Americans punch out a man's eye at two hundred yards, same as the best British riflemen.

Hunkering behind a buttonbush, Walker finally made out the Americans in stained hunting smocks and old faded jackets. The militiamen hunkered in the vee of two fallen trees. Busy loading and firing, the citizen-soldiers hadn't posted pickets, so didn't know the British riflemen flanked them. An American officer in civilian clothes howled orders no one heeded.

Walker squinted. "How many you reckon?"

"Sixty." Johnson checked his priming. "Take 'em easy."

"Don't jinx us." As greenjackets flitted forward, Walker spotted Sergeant Durell in a sash and stripes, but carrying a rifle. Walker waggled five fingers and one. The sergeant blew a long blast to make ready, then a single peep: advance but hold your fire. Walker and Johnson drew bayonets amid a chorus of tiny clicks like crickets. The blades were long as swords because the Baker rifles were short.

"Here we go!" hissed Johnson.

At a peep, half the British riflemen unleashed a thundering volley of cover fire while the other half dashed ahead.

The surprise was complete. Americans gaped in shock as the British leapt like wolves over and around the fallen logs. Undisciplined, the militiamen fired wild or ducked or spun and tangled. They were torn to pieces like sheep in a pen.

Vaulting a log, Walker raced after two fleet Americans. He swiped his overlong bayonet left and hooked back to rake the face or neck. The victim shrilled and dropped. Reversing the stroke, Walker swung right, batted aside a long rifle, and smashed the American's jaw. The man flopped to the rooty ground yet still fumbled for a tomahawk at his belt. Walker stamped his groin and, as the man curled, pricked his windpipe. Whirling, Walker found the first victim floundering with hands to his face. His nose and cheek were laid open so teeth showed. Walker shoved his bayonet through the man's liver and twisted. Blood spurted, and Walker left him to die.

Reloading, the rifleman stepped a circle, but only the 95th stood upright. Forty-odd militiamen sprawled on the wet ground with hands jammed in the air. A dozen more bled to death. Another dozen still ran, having chucked their rifles or muskets. Walker snapped his rifle to his shoulder, swung the barrel until it marked a man's spine, and squeezed. The heavy weapon bucked as the victim pitched forward. More rifles cracked. Dead men cannoned into trees.

The forest grew still except for the moaning of wounded.

Walker wiped his bayonet on a dead man's jacket. Riflemen pitched the militia's muskets and even some matchlocks into a pond. Johnson weighed a Kentucky rifle, tall as a man but slim as a snake. "You might kill a squirrel with this toy, but try beating an Imperial Guardsman to death. It's rubbish." Checking the gun was empty, Johnson whacked it across a tree trunk. The lock popped off and the stock splintered.

Looting dead and living, the soldiers slit pouches and pockets and filthy blanketrolls. Scott joined them, burly and dark, with a black eyepatch piped with white, same as his uniform. In twenty years' soldiering, he hadn't lost the eye to a Frog or a Dago or even a Prussian, but to an eye-gouging Irish fusilier in a stew in Southwark. With Scott came his partner, Miller, handsome and quiet, born in Surrey and enlisted to escape poverty, an honest man and good, but not one of the trio that had marched together forever. The British riflemen found ham, jerky, and firecakes that they shared and bolted.

Miller held up scraps of printed money, "These worth anything?"

"Starting fires, maybe," snorted someone.

"'Ere." Michaud offered a gentlemen's flask of engraved silver. Walker swigged a fiery liquor that made him gasp.

Trotting the line, Sergeant Durell pointed two ways. "Corporal Dollar, take this detail and chivvy the prisoners back to camp. Let's get along, 95th." Forty-odd pairs of riflemen vanished into the gloom like ghosts, or shadows of ghosts.

"No hurry, lads." Dollar lit a pipe, as did they all, sucking the smoke greedily. Many took turns to prop their rifles and move off to squat, for dysentery added to their miseries. The veterans welcomed the rest. Johnson coughed steadily as he smoked. Scott blew smoke to speed away mosquitoes that drilled in their sweaty faces. Walker shivered while his stomach churned at the unaccustomed rich rations.

In the distance a triple pom pom-pom was answered by a boom. Along the river, British batteries swapped shot and shell with American emplacements and US Navy gunboats. Here, deep in the forest, the artillery duel sounded boxed in, but it stirred the men to march. With rifles cradled, the 95th prodded the prisoners along the torturous paths through the swamp, all stumbling on roots and skidding on grass as darkness settled.

From the rear, Walker noted the prisoners were as mixed as Wellington's Spanish army. A fat man wore a natty brushed hat and dove-gray coat, a scarecrow wore a foxskin cap and filthy hunting shirt, and a third, dark as a gypsy, wore a knit hat and crimson shirt and blue-gold sash. The skinny frontiersman suddenly growled at Johnson, "You din't have to bust my rifle all to hell and gone there, cap'n."

"It'll keep you cowards from sniping our sentries," retorted Johnson. "It's not cricket to shoot a man on post, you know. We never did in Europe, not even in Portugal."

"We ain't a-playin' at war, commander. We aim to push you out 'n keep you out!"

Walker snorted. With their antique accents, all Americans sounded like country bumpkins. And he had no wish to talk to them.

Scott prodded the swarthy man's flashy shirt. "Sir, you remind me of a pirate."

"Au secours. I am a privateer, si vous plait." Despite his predicament, dark eyes twinkled. "M' cap'n has a commission signed by the governor of Cartagena."

"Where the hell's that?" asked Scott.

A brown finger trolled south. "Venezuela."

"That's not part of the United States!" said Johnson.

A Gallic shrug. "No more'n Lou'siana."

"Gentlemen, if I might." The fat man in fine clothes huffed as he trudged. The American commander, General Andrew Jackson, called "Old Hickory," had declared martial law in New Orleans, drafted every man who could stand, then announced he'd burn the city rather than surrender it. This was some hapless merchant with soft hands. "You needn't escort us to your lines. We're all sophisticates here. I'm sure we can strike some bargain." The fat man stuck a hand inside his coat. "Now I propose --"

Walker's rifle exploded. A cat claw tore the fat man's arm and knocked him sprawling. Everyone stopped in shock. Walker reloaded, motions swift and easy as a windmill.

A silver case had flipped from the merchant's hand. Gingerly the pirate retrieved it: a cigar holder. He passed the stogies to the nearest men, including Walker and Johnson and Scott. They cupped their hands as a mizzling rain dripped from naked branches and moss. The riflemen hitched their rifle locks under their armpits, dry but ready.

The pirate watched the fat man writhe. "I'm glad, me, you shot him and not m'self. This shirt she's new, and 'bout the only t'ing I 'xpect for pay out of this American army." Oddly, he chuckled.

Puzzled, Johnson asked, "What's so funny?"

"Thi' shirt. We wear heem because Lafitte he asks it. He want us wear uniform like Monsieur Jackson's soldiers. Me, I do not mind. When I go to my house, my wife she will scream, `What have you bring?' and I will say, `My han'some self in a new red shirt!'"

The scarecrow asked Walker, "What kind'a rifle is that? That shot were slicker'n a greased eel in a bucket o' snot."

"It's a Baker rifle," said Scott. "Someone wrap his arm, will you? Finest rifle in the world."

"Th' finest rifle in the world you busted acrost a tree, but never mind." The frontiersman spit a fleck of tobacco. "You need good Kentucky whiskey to sip with a seegar."

"Taffia," countered the Frenchman. "Rum."

Scott asked, "Why isn't a pirate in the navy? And pick up that bag of guts."

"We are privateers, but les citoyens sent their navy to blow up our ships."

Scott squinted. "Then why are you fighting alongside them?"

The pirate wet his lips to blow a smoke ring. "Tha's the way we do business here in N'Orl'ns."

"I'm fr'm Tennessee," announced the scarecrow. "Over the mountain and through the woods. God's country!" Men scoffed.

"By gadfrey, this stings!" The wounded businessman was propped on his feet, a kerchief around his arm. "I feel mighty poorly. Queasy-like."

"Women love scars," said Johnson. "Trust me."

"This country'll never amount to beans," declared Scott. "You blokes are a gammon pie."

"We beat you bully boys last time, n' we can do it agin." snapped the Tennessean.

"Not likely," snarled Walker. "We burnt your Washington to the ground."

"Washin'ton?" The frontiersman piffed. "That's no skin off'n my nose."

"You got no king!" added Scott. "A man's got to have a king, same as a god!"

"God is far away and ver' busy," said the Frenchman. "And in America, we say, every man is a king."

"That makes us kings, then," snapped Walker. At the Americans' puzzlement, he explained, "We were born here, us three. Johnson's from Boston and Scott's from the Carolinas."

"I'm from Halifax," said Johnson.

"And I was born of a virgin!" laughed Scott.

The pirate asked Walker, "N' where are you from, m' friend?"

"Pennsylvania! And I'm not your friend! Our parents were loyal, but they were pushed out by patriots during the rebellion! Our own neighbors kicked down our doors and drove us at bayonet point to the docks! We lost everything! We were beached in Canada with nothing, not a scrap of food nor a page of the Bible!"

"Like criminals." Johnson flicked away his cigar. "We were just youngsters, but I remember my mother crying every night. It broke her heart."

"We're Canadians now." Scott's one dark eye blinked. "Or something."

Corporal Dollar called back, "Silence in the ranks!"

Men marched. The Tenneseean sniffed. "My folks were druv out'a Scotland for sidin' Bonnie Prince Charlie. My grandpap had a T burnt into his cheek for `Traitor'. That's why we fought King George."

"Eh bien," added the pirate, "m' family were driv out of Acadia in '49 by the Anglais. We became the Cajuns. Many of us still curse the English, but my wife, she say that was long time ago."

"Not long enough," said Walker.

They plodded on in gray gloom. Johnson said, "That reminds me. What did you think of Bermuda? It looked so green from shipside it hurt your eyes."

Walker stifled a groan, tired of the eternal argument. With Napoleon defeated, and as this campaign concluded, the British army would be whittled to bone. Well past forty, too old to reenlist, the three friends would soon be discharged and dumped on the docks. Where to go then?

"Any of the Sugar Islands would suit me," Johnson rambled. "With a little hard work a man could own his own plantation."

"And die in six months of the fever," argued Scott. "And it's hot."

"What about South America?" asked Johnson. "The dagos are revolting against the Spanish. There's bound to be fighting."

"It's even hotter," said Scott. "What about Poland? Remember all those lancers? They must fight a lot. Or the Germanies. Got good food. Even in Russia."

"Can't pull a trigger with your fingers frozen off," said Johnson.

Years ago, stranded in Canada, barely boys, uprooted and friendless, the three friends had joined the 60th Royal Americans. Not just three friends, but many, most dead now. Trained at Cowes, fitted with elite green jackets and black tackle, they'd fought in Ireland and Dutch Guiana, then marched five thousand miles across Portugal and Spain to fight at Roleia, Vimiera, Corunna, Talavera, Busaco, and Badajoz. Transferred to the 95th Rifles, they'd fought at Vittoria, in the Pyrenees, and finally in France herself. Now they fought Americans, which Walker considered God's roundabout justice and a fitting end to a long career.

Johnson prodded Walker. "You're quiet. Where do you favor?"

Walker just shook his head. "Anyplace I can get plum puddin' for Christmas."

"Hey," Scott asked the prisoners, "are the women good to look at in New Orleans? So far we've only seen Indian women."

"Women?" grinned the pirate. "We got them in all colors. Creoles, quadroons, octoroons, Cajun women with white throats like the swans. When Lafitte goes at town, we screw so many women we go bowlegged like spavined mules!"

"We'll never see New Orleans," muttered Johnson. "Hey, why don't we go to India?"

"What's wrong with France?" asked Scott. "Now that Boney's off the throne, the country'll be wide open. Lots of fat widows with farms't need tending."

"We ruined France," said Walker.

"Let's go back to Canada, then," said Scott. "We can build ships or fish."

"You can. You've got family there still." Walker hunched against drizzle and hoped it meant no frost. Lately, between arthritis and ancient wounds, he could barely crawl off his bedroll come morning.

"Twenty-four years since we left Canada," said Johnson. "Who knows what's there?"

Talk died. Walker tramped with wet feet. He didn't like to ponder a bleak future or dwell on an unhappy past. But too, these American voices recalled glimpses from his childhood. Green grass dotted with daisies that caught between his toes. An apple tree dripping white blossoms. A stone-lined cellar cool and damp. A swimming hole. Snow on windowsills and on the hills, dazzling in the sun. Pumpkin pie and mulled cider. Not much else, and that torn away in an instant. Walker shook his head. "It's bad luck to talk about home. It'll take you down the low road."

"You know, mes amis..." The pirate had dawdled, and now stopped in the trail, as did some others. His dark face was hard to see. "Those ones up there can talk to your chef. They do not need all of us."

"That's true," piped the Tennessean. "I don't know nothin' worth the tellin'. Whyn't we just part ways and no hard feelin's?"

Casually, the prisoners stepped back a pace.

Walker cocked his rifle.

In unison, the men resumed marching.

The pirate shook his head. "I am hoping you tell my wife why I am so late, me. You will t'ink you got yourself up a tree with an alligator wait to bite off your toes..."

Quitting the dark woods, the troop detoured into an abandoned grove to pick oranges winter-withered but still sweet. Scott stumbled over a Royal Engineer dead beneath a tree, a spyglass near his hand, obviously spied himself by a marksman. They emptied his pockets, matched fingers for the spyglass, then wedged his bicorn in a tree for a burial detail to find.

Just before camp, Johnson said, "Look, you two. We don't know where we'll go when this's over. One place is good as the next. What matter's is we go together, right?" To that, all three nodded.

The British had camped on a squelchy field of cane stubble and slash not far from the wide placid river. The air was nippy and smudged by charcoal smoke. Normally, after supper call, soldiers would talk and smoke and polish gear, but tonight men rustled on the parade ground. A messenger cantered by. Drum rolls summoned officers. Lanterns were lit before the Adjutant General's tent. A distant poom! warned of a cannonball that slammed into the ground and was swallowed up. A passing sergeant-major snapped, "Look lively, lads. The big push is on."

The three veterans looked at one another. Walker said only, "Oh, my..."

"Gotta be near dawn."

Cold fog swirled and clung. A canteen clonked on a bayonet hilt. A cannon wheel squeaked. Ducks gabbled on the invisible river.

Walker whispered, "If we break their line, we take the city."

Johnson bit down a yawn. Chivvied into formation, they'd stood for hours. "I wish Old Nosey was leading us. Packy's done a balls-up job."

Stalled and starved for weeks, the British Army had received a new commander, General Packenham, who'd so far aborted two battles by sending troops forward to be killed by artillery, then pulling them back. The 95th Rifles had proved the swamps were passable, and the Royal Navy had cited six approaches by water, but the British Army's Council of War dithered on how to attack. Meanwhile, day by day, the American Army fortified the only clear path to the city. "Line Jackson" was a half-mile entrenchment stretching from the Mississippi to a cypress swamp, a deep canal and wall of earth studded with cannons and rifle walks. To assault it was to die, but their general lacked imagination and the soldiers feared the worst.

"The Dirtyshirts could have fifty thousand," hissed a voice in the ranks.

"Their regulars are in Florida fighting the Spanish."

"Buggers. We got only six thousand."

"It's cold as the bleeding Pyrenees."

"Six of our niggers froze to death."

"It'll be the tabletop."

"Not an inch of cover. A killing ground."

"Look where we are. How are we supposed to skirmish except by swimming?"

"Steady on!" snarled a sergeant.

Shivering to keep warm, Walker's back and legs and wits felt thick and slow. He thought: I'm too old for campaigning.

Dawn illumined the mist. A Congreve rocket sizzled and exploded overhead. Immediately drums rumbled all around, the heads muffled by damp, but thrilling. Bagpipes skirled. Walker felt his blood quicken, and knew Johnson and Scott's did too.

In the fog a voice barked, and British cannons exploded. American artillery replied, a clash of giants. Cannonballs whistled and droned. Somewhere they struck earth, ricocheted, and slammed into British lines to grunts and screams. Nothing hit near the riflemen, who stood hard at the British left along the river.

Unable to hear, Walker saw the sergeant-major bellow, "Company! To the front -- march!" Soldiers clamped their jaws to keep their teeth from chattering, for the ground underfoot was even as a tennis lawn.

Cannons crashed all around, hard to pinpoint. Line Jackson bristled with cannons, and the United States Navy manned batteries across the river. British Light Infantry and Royal Marines were to cross and seize those batteries, otherwise, marching along the chest-high levee at the muddy Mississippi, the 95th would catch hell from the front and the side.

The riflemen stamped past a shrouded line of British artillery. Unseen but heard, two more British columns marched like spears across the empty field. A horseman vaulted a canal, for the plain was cut by ditches running arrow-straight from the river.

"95th! Prime and load!" Hands windmilled in perfect accord to tear cartridges, prime pans, swing the butts to charge the cartridges, then ram with quick whisks. As one, rifles snapped to shoulders.

Greenjackets began to die as, from the fog, cannonballs smashed into ranks. Walker and Johnson held their breath as men were blown to flinders a dozen yards ahead, but they kept marching. They hopped a canal bottomed by mud and prayed for a miracle: the cannons would run out of powder, the general would call a parley, the line would retreat, something, please God be kind to forlorn soldiers.

More men were knocked to jelly, until the green column balked, then stopped. Walker said, "We've got to --"

"Skirmishers!" shrilled a young voice. "Detach and take cover!"

Greenjackets jumped from the ranks and scampered left to hug the levee, heads and bellies flat but rifles upright. Cannon fire slammed all around them. Mounted officers dashed hither and yon shrieking, but it was young Colonel Rennie the riflemen attended, for he'd given the order that spared their lives. So far.

"John!" gasped Walker. "Let's kill someone!"

"Fire as ye bear!"

Coming to one knee, his foot touching the levee, Walker searched for a target and was surprised to glimpse the American breastwork at a hundred misty yards. Figures in homespun shirts topped the rampart to snipe the enemy. Had to be militia, thought Walker: no soldier would quit the embrace of solid earth. Walker swung his front sight onto a frontiersman likewise taking aim and squeezed the trigger. As if by magic, the American was bowled off the rampart.

Walker shouted "Ready!" even as he bit salty gunpowder. Johnson's rifle barked. Leaving his ramrod stuck in the ground, Walker hoisted his rifle, found a climbing target, led him, and killed him. And reloaded, shouting "Ready!" Johnson's rifle barked, every gun with its own voice.

Colonel Rennie had stampeded about for orders, but many officers were already killed. Abandoning his terrified horse, gilt sword in hand, Rennie scampered to the levee and cowered with the riflemen, getting mud on his immaculate white pants. He scanned what battlefield was visible in fog and gunsmoke. Close by, Walker could almost read his thoughts: If the army still advances, they must too, else be traitors.

"95th!" Rennie gasped. "We'll advance! All right, men? Follow me, quick time!"

There was no other response. Feeling giddy, battle-mad, Walker jumped up and dashed after Rennie with his rifle at the trail. Sizzling cannonballs smashed into the company as they crowded the levee and leapt canals. Even the American river was an enemy, Walker gauged, for the US Navy could fire across it while the British couldn't advance or flee that way. Thus the riflemen charged the corner of a trap. Johnson panted and coughed beside Walker while Scott and Miller thrummed ahead. The men ran forever with their feet sticking in mud, getting nowhere, as if caught in a nightmare.

The fog had lifted to a man's eyes, though curtains of mist persisted. Walker saw the American rampart was so fresh-dug it was still damp. It encroached on a canal that entered the river, and that corner was anchored by an arrow-headed redoubt built of broken bricks. The only things taller were a mansion screened by trees and the triangular sails of gunboats. Beyond stretched more plantations, fields, and canals, and finally the city of New Orleans. But that towering line of dirt might have been a castle wall fronting a moat. Muskets and rifles bristled atop and cannons belched fire. Two six-pounders bellowed from the redoubt, and somewhere behind a howitzer farted and lobbed bombs. Parts of the mucky line were floored by cotton bales that falling rockets had ignited.

Running in the shifting mist, Walker glimpsed lines of redcoats advancing: the big clot of the 44th and the black round faces of 5th West Indians, some lugging scaling ladders, others fascines of cane to chuck in the last canal. The lines marched forward, solid as a red dragon, but the American cannons had switched to firing grapeshot: Walker heard cannons blat rather than bang. Handfuls of redcoats were pulped or swept away. The ranks magically refilled, like blood flowing into a wound, but red jackets littered the dragon's wake.

Racing after Colonel Rennie, Walker realized that, insane as this head-on attack was, some part had gone madder. The 93rd Highlanders in tartan trews, who should have followed Rennie, suddenly detached and obliqued toward the field's center, though Walker couldn't imagine why. The 44th under Mullins actually retreated, tangling other regiments and blocking the British artillery's aim. Horses skittered hither and thither, reins dangling and saddles empty, the officers dead so no cool head would straighten out this mess. The US Navy still fired from across the river, so the Lights and Marines had failed to scotch them. Long-eighteen naval guns blew tons of mud from the levee.

Still, it was onto the levee that Colonel Rennie led the riflemen as the ground got soggy. Monmouths and 1st West Indians pounded hard behind, following a leader rather than stand still. Their courageous charge drew down death. Musket fire rattled from blue-jacketed soldiers with black shakos and, oddly, flowers pinned to their bosoms. Young and green, they flinched every time the six-pounders barked. Atop the earthwork, irregulars in blue hunting shirts and floppy hats levelled slim rifles. Walker saw Ryan spin and fall as a bullet smacked his chest. Yet the brickwork loomed closer, a miraculous haven almost within their grasp. Riflemen growled like chained dogs eager to bite the enemy.

Fog lifted but smoke thickened, and not a cup of breeze stirred it. A band behind the American lines thumped "Yankee Doodle" while, bad luck for the Scots, bagpipes sagged to a stop. The crash of guns was mind-jarring. Americans elbowed each other aside to shoot, hurling a sheet of flame and smoke at the redcoats.

"After me, Lights!" shouted Colonel Rennie, lacking his hat and looking very young with his hair streaming. A cannonball smashed the levee, and the colonel stumbled. Walker saw blood pulse down his silk stockings, but Rennie recovered and shrieked, "Light Battalion, take that redoubt!"

Howling, snatching bayonets from scabbards, the 95th took the redoubt. Some greenjackets leapt like tigers from the levee, some scrambled up the erratic walls of broken brick, and some seemed to fly. West Indians and Scotsmen slapped scaling ladders against the higher walls and scrambled upward. Bullets flew from the blueshirts on the breastwork, and Britons were murdered as they pressed in ranks mad to mount the ladders. The first black man to top the brick wall was smacked off the ladder by a scruffy frontiersman swinging a hand-made rifle like a club.

Walker and Johnson trampled a dozen dead companions to scramble up brick walls that crumbled under the onslaught. Walker recognized Ensley, Knobby, and Langlois, his wife back in camp now a widow. A blue-jacketed soldier raised his rifle as Walker fixed his sword bayonet. Johnson's rifle barked and the man's chest tore open. Walker hopped atop the wall, bayonet lunging and lusting to kill.

Amazingly, in the heat, Walker took note of the terrain as he'd been trained, and saw immediately that seizing this redoubt would buy nothing. The back of the arrowhead gaped open above the big canal, which was a death trap ten feet wide, bottomed by mire, and infested with sharp stakes. The canal abutted the tall earthwork, and behind that gunned a thousand Americans.

Even invading the redoubt was grabbing a hornet's nest, for the brickwork teemed with troops. The bluejackets were the US 7th Infantry, Walker saw as he shoved a bayonet between a man's buttons. The six-pounders were naval guns hauled across the mud and manned by US sailors and marines. Jammed between were frontiersmen, citizens, slaves, and pirates, half fighting and half fleeing over a single thick plank that spanned the canal to the rampart. Against them, West Indians in red, Scotsmen in trews, and riflemen in green fought like demons just to stay alive.

Walker saw one-eyed Scott crouch and lunge like a French dancing master. He punched a bluecoat's belly with his bayonet, then bulled into the victim to pink another soldier crowding behind. Johnson was caught reloading, so shot his ramrod through a black man's brisket. Walker jumped into a gap as an American sergeant's spontoon lunged for his face. The veteran skipped his bayonet down the long haft and sliced the sergeant's fingers, then rammed his blade under the man's chin. He hacked down a young lad in blue and bashed his head when the boy grabbed his ankle.

Mind whirling in the fury of action, Walker was nonetheless amazed by a thought: Americans make pitiful soldiers, but they fight like bulldogs when riled.

Then the way stood clear. Red and green loomed upright while blue writhed in blood or dashed for the rampart. The British had taken the redoubt!

"Spike the guns!" barked Colonel Rennie. "The rest of you, follow me!"

Out the open back of the brickwork charged the young officer, shouting encouragement and blasphemy, then skipped across the single plank to assault the rampart. Howling men in green and red charged after, but grit and luck only carried them so far. Rennie was a prime target. Blue-shirted men fired from the rampart, six guns banging as one. The colonel's broken body was flung off the plank, and half a dozen men toppled with him into the canal.

Clear of the brick walls, a glance showed Walker the larger assault had failed. The 93rd would never see the Highlands again. The misled 44th were spilled across the field like a crop of flax. Only a trickling column of red had reached the earthworks's farthest end. With no sign of any reserves, every Briton in the center had died or run. Rennie's brave capture of the redoubt would get no support. The 95th Rifles would die for nothing. Walker gasped, "It's bad as Badajoz!"

Encouraged by the vast numbers of British dead, the blue-shirted riflemen surged down the rampart, crazy-mad to retake the redoubt. Graybeards, Walker saw, cold-hearted veterans, and young bucks of the 7th Infantry to prove they could fight too. Bullets knocked British soldiers off the single plank like pigeons. With the way clear, screaming Americans dashed across with tomahawks and swords and clubbed rifles.

Johnson and Walker were almost pushed into the canal by the milling mass behind. Johnson hollered, "What a cock-up! Damn Packenham! Huzzah!" Lunging, Johnson pinked a young soldier in the liver and steered him into another man rushing. Walker clashed muskets with a man big as a blacksmith, gave ground as a feint, then twisted and toppled the man into the canal.

Even as he dodged and stabbed, soldier's instinct made Walker look up. From high atop the rampart a longrifle sighted on him. Walker flinched aside, but hard-pressed Johnson came too. Walker shouted a warning as the gun flamed. The bullet smacked Johnson's eyebrow and snapped his neck. He slipped under Walker's feet, trampled by the crowd.

Walker backstepped as a pack of West Indians tumbled like ninepins against his legs. Smoke boiled until Walker retched. Sweat ran into his eyes, or perhaps blood, and he clawed them clear. He looked for Scott and saw him fighting without Miller. Scott swung his head to watch everywhere, but backed his blind side into an American officer who wheeled and skewered Scott's ribs. One eye flew wide as Scott sank out of sight as if drowning.

Alone, drained of life and spirit, Walker backed into bricks with a handful of greenjackets as blue and homespun swarmed. Walker wished he might load and shoot just once more, but his hands were slick with blood to the elbows. A spontoon lunged for his guts. Walker blundered aside but bumped another rifleman. The spontoon chipped bricks. Half-turned, wedged by bodies, Walker couldn't swing his bayonet. He braced to shove --

A bullet slammed his leg like a sledgehammer. Walker crumpled and skidded to one hand. An American musket cracked Walker's shoulder. Blood bubbled beneath him, his own. A bayonet sheared past his nose and jammed in his shoulder. Searing pain made Walker yelp and struggle, but the blade twisted deeper.

We'll all go together, Walker thought of his friends, straight to Hell. Then a musket crushed his skull.

Walker awoke to see Jesus of the Sacred Heart peering from a whitewashed wall. Outside a window, a tree wore white blossoms that glowed in the sun. Birds sang.

"You be awake." A fat black woman in the doorway wore a turban and apron. She fetched a ewer and a mug. Walker burned with thirst, parched as a desert, but she only allowed him a few delicious sips. Her voice was sweet as molasses. "You a lucky mon. You near died 'a the black vomit." Yellow fever.

Lightheaded, sinking, Walker raised a hand and found it rail-thin, shrunken, yellow. He didn't recall any disease, just a vague nightmare of agony. He tried to sit up, but found only one foot to lever against the bedstead. His right leg had been sawed off at the knee. Slowly he remembered. He was alive while Johnson and Scott and others were dead. Walker didn't think it fair, somehow. Lonely and exhausted, he cried, then slept.

When he awoke, an American dragoon officer stood by his bed. Tall and tanned, he boasted a leather helmet with a white horsetail and a blue jacket rich with silver frogs. The Negro woman brought beef broth and white bread with butter, and helped Walker eat.

"Good morning, private. Welcome back to the land of the living." The officer wore a saber long as his leg, and rested his left hand on the pommel. "You caught the little end of the horn, I'd say, but you've crossed the River Jordan." The officer tapped a small sack by Walker's bedstead. "As liason for the British wounded, I signed your discharge papers and insisted on a bonus for your lost limb. You got a month's pay, but you'd fare no better in the American army, I dare say. This woman has kindly tended you on her own hook. Families are doing that all over New Orleans. She won't accept payment, but you might give her a few coins when you leave."

"Sir --" His voice unused for months, Walker croaked. "Sir, am I a prisoner?"

"Ah. No. You don't know, do you?" The lieutenant rubbed his nose. "England and the US signed a peace treaty at Christmas, but it took two months for word to reach us. That little fandango we threw by the levee was -- unnecessary. The British force pulled out a month ago."

"Oh." Walker's thoughts churned like milk a-clabber. Johnson and Scott dead for naught. The British Army, his only home, abandoning him. "I feel like a dog whose master has died."

"It's hard, son. But you're not a dog, you're a man." Saluting, the officer marched out.

Day by day Walker slept and rested. When the negro woman washed him, he discovered a scar on his shoulder, lumps on his skull, and a dimple in his left hand. He rested and stared at walls and missed his friends.

An old Frenchman with crooked hands delivered two crutches carved from tulip wood. Walker practiced walking, planting the foot and swinging the wood, swinging the foot and planting the wood. He stumped back and forth and eventually into the street. The British Army had finally entered New Orleans, he thought, except he wasn't a soldier. Houses were like English houses, stuccoed and galleried. Sidewalks were tile, gutters wood, and an open sewer ran down the middle. People of every color and clothing bustled by. They smiled at Walker, kind to a cripple, he thought at first. Yet they were happy in their busyness.

Once when the dragoon visited, Walker asked, "Sir, is it true that in America every man's a king?"

Bemused, the young officer hesitated. "Well, in a way. Mostly we've learned to do without kings. In America, we believe all men are created equal."

"Equal." Walker didn't know what to think. "Thank you, sir."

Finally the day came when, as Walker was being washed, his wedding tackle grew stiff as a cannon rammer. The Negro woman flushed darker and chuckled. Walker smiled sadly. "I guess it's time to go."

Creaking, off-balance, taking half the day, Walker dressed. His green jacket and trousers and old shirt had been washed and mended, his shoes and gaiters blacked, though he only needed the one. His tackle was gone: rifle, knapsack, blanket, even his jackknife. His shako had gotten wet and, off his head, had shrunk, so he left it. He hid ten silver shillings in the bedclothes. Planting his single foot, swinging the crutches, Walker met the black woman in the doorway.

"Thank you for saving my life."

Shy, she shrugged round shoulders. Yellow eyes glistened, but she didn't speak.

Slowly Walker stumped into the sunshine and squinted about.

The dragoon lieutenant must have been alerted, for he jangled up the street. "I say, son, you're fit. But where are you going?"

Walker hadn't been sure, but now he knew.

"Sir, I've thought about what people have said, and I'm going to Pennsylvania."

Leaving the puzzled American behind, limping slow but sure, the other American stumped away north.

The story behind the story

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