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I t took six days and nights for the British to ferry eighteen hundred soldiers from one side of the lake to the other.

The crossings requiring ten hours of rowing each way.

The men who landed in the first flight included General Keane, who had been given command until the rest of the army joined them.

A detachment of his men established a small camp at the edge of the lake, but the main complement of soldiers marched north to the plantation owned by Gabriel Villere.

They quickly commandeered the house and erected neat rows of canvas tents on the land surrounding it.

Villere himself was placed under house arrest but managed to squeeze his bulk through an upper storey window and made good his escape.

He went immediately to Jackson’s headquarters, which had been moved to the McCardy House a stone’s throw from the Rodriquez Canal.

“Almost two thousand soldiers already ashore,” Jackson said.

“With more being ferried across the lake every damned hour. You were right,” he said to Lafitte.

“They have chosen to fight on dry land. And if their scouts were worth their shillings’ pay they will know how ill-prepared we are and will push forward without delay. ”

Rodney Lamb scratched the top of his head. “Lafitte’s Choctaws tell me they have only what weaponry they could carry on the boats. Very little artillery has been ferried across as of yet but more will surely come soon, so mayhap they’ll be waitin’ on that.”

“Waiting for them to increase the number of artillery pieces is not in our best interests,” Jackson said. He paused and looked at the three men gathered to hear Villere’s report and his hawk-like gaze settled on Fonteyne. “How is the work coming at the Canal?”

“We have every able-bodied soul working on the ramparts day and night, building them up, reinforcing them with bales of cotton, timber, logs, barrels of packed earth, anything solid they can use to add height and strength. It is up to ten feet high and eight feet wide in places, well able to absorb cannon fire and provide cover for our men. But we could certainly use more time.”

“Time we may not have,” Jackson muttered.

Lafitte shrugged. “Unless we consider?—”

“Attacking first,” Jackson said, his voice sharp and clear.

Lafitte blinked. He exchanged a hasty glance with Fonteyne. “That was not what I was about to say, General, but?—”

“If we attack first, we will have surprise on our side. The English would not expect it, especially not if we mount an assault under cover of darkness. Not very gentlemanly of us, according to the British idea of warfare, but if we delay, we give them time to land more men, more artillery, and our odds of success go incrementally downward. In my experience, however, surprising them, overwhelming them with the first assault, their confidence can be shaken if not shattered completely.”

“We now know the lie of the land,” he continued, looking at each solemn face as if challenging them to argue.

“We know the gulleys, the swamps, and patches of trees that offer cover. If we attack tonight, when they least expect such a bold move, we can cause enough confusion to set them back on their heels.”

“Tonight?” Rodney Lamb’s bushy gray eyebrows folded in a frown. “We’ve not even had our bloody noon meal yet.”

“Tonight,” Jackson said firmly. “Before common sense gets the better of me. When I was a lad of six, barely able to carry a drum, let alone beat out a signal, a wise man told me I should always go with my first instinct, for it is usually the right one. And so far, General Washington’s advice has served me well. ”

“We have your Kentucky frontiersman and we have Lamb’s militia, which amounts to about eight hundred,” Fonteyne said, not exactly arguing, but wanting to point out possible drawbacks.

“We can pull another hundred or so local townsfolk and shopkeepers off the ramparts, a few dozen New Orleans businessmen in frockcoats and beaver hats, as well as a handful of free coloreds, some Indians, and a few hundred Baratarians more comfortable fighting at sea than on land. Hardly what one might call an overwhelming attack force.”

“Boldness is in our character, gentlemen,” Jackson insisted.

“It is how we rebelled and won against the tyranny forty years ago, and by Christ, it is how we will drive it off our shores once and for all.” He pointed a long finger at Lafitte, who had remained uncharacteristically quiet through most of the discussion.

“Send your Choctaw spies out again. We need to know exactly where they have picket lines, how many sentries they have guarding the camp, and where they have those artillery guns. If we can capture the guns and bring them away with us, all the better.”

He leaned over to study the map again, his large hands splayed flat.

His focus was on the location of the Villere manor house and surrounding fields in relation to the river.

“It would help to have a little chaos to blast open the night. I heard a rumor that my niece had a beast of a gun on board the Cygnet capable of firing a sixty-pound ball full of explosives and shrapnel. How far would such a shot carry?”

Fonteyne glanced over and hesitated long enough for Lafitte to offer his estimate.

“I only just heard of this weapon myself and have not seen it, thus I can only make a fair guess at its capabilities. But with the proper elevation I expect such a missile might travel between five and six hundred yards.”

“Fonteyne?”

Sebastien’s expression darkened. “Aye. That sounds reasonable.”

Jackson nodded and consulted the map again.

“We have currently placed the Carolina and the Louisiana on this bend in the river.” He slid a small pot of black ink onto the map to mark the location.

“If we bring one of them, the Carolina , north to join the Cygnet —” he slid the pot up the river until it was parallel to the British encampment— “their guns would certainly cause some confusion and chaos, giving us cover for a three-pronged attack.

One third of our force from the river, one third striking on their right flank, and one third charging in a direct assault to center.

Fonteyne stared at the map and for the first time in the many years he had spent roaring his victories at the helm of the Black Wind , he cursed his ship’s size and weight, cursed the fact it sat at anchor in Barataria Bay unable to sail up the Mississippi.

But there, in the thick of it again, was the red-haired wildcat.

He laughed out loud, startling the other three men in the room. None of them cracked a smile. Indeed, they stared, wondering if he had lost his mind.

At length, Fonteyne gave a final chuckle and shook his head. “It is a good plan, General, and if anyone can cause confusion and chaos, it is certainly Rose St. Clare.”

Jackson nodded and blew out a breath. “Very well, gentlemen. If there are any doubts, any questions, put voice to them now.”

The enormity of Jackson’s presence, his reputation, his confidence allowed for not one single word of dissent.

“Good. Good! Then we shall settle the details and meet along the canal at dusk,” Jackson said. “With as many men as we can muster.”

Fonteyne left the meeting torn as to whether it was a good plan or a foolhardy one. It was not that he was against a nighttime ambush. Hell, his ship carried a set of black sails for exactly that purpose. To that, Jackson was right: surprise was a coveted advantage.

Lafitte was a few hasty steps behind him, the haste required to keep apace with the strides from Sebastien’s long legs.

“So the minx has ingratiated herself with Jackson as well. Hearing of this great iron beast of hers, I was tempted to laugh with you. A gun that size is meant to be fired on land. It will blow her ship to splinters.”

Fonteyne kept his voice even. “She has had the decking reinforced.”

“She can reinforce it as far down as the bilges, it will make no difference. How does she expect to load a sixty-pound ball down its throat, never mind put a big enough charge to it to fire. Six hundred yards? I will eat the shirt on my back if it even gets out of the barrel.”

Fonteyne smiled crookedly. “A fair wager, Jean. I’ll supply the wine to wash all that fine linen down.”

Rose received the dispatch from General Jackson mid-afternoon. A few hours later, Captain Kelly had moved the Carolina upriver and was anchored alongside, settled in to wait until the stroke of midnight.

It was a warm, still night, the air along the riverbanks thick with a hovering fog.

Frogs croaked and cicadas chirped. The long dragon-like creatures who favored the swamps splashed into the river and slid across the surface searching for food, their eyes catching the faintest hint of light and glowing a luminous green.

Rose had ordered absolute silence on board.

No lights, no cooking fires, no pipes. The larboard battery of thirty-two-pounder guns were loaded with ball shot and incendiary congreve rockets.

With her stern to Rose’s bow, the Carolina was similarly dark and quiet, her guns loaded, her crew waiting with nervous anticipation.

As the minutes ticked past, the tension grew.

The men sweated into the fog and swatted at the incessant clouds of insects.

There was no relief below decks from the bugs or humid air, so they sat and waited; some managed to sleep propped against the bulkheads, others checked and rechecked the guns and powder charges, ensuring the latter stayed dry.