Crown and Glory

Leaning back against the scarred Oak, the soot laced gunner gazed across the open expanse of river to the far shore.  He watched as the wafting smoke drifted up and away from the slight shoreline rise and
back over the abattis of the distant batteries.  He could discern the movement of the American troops as they re-supplied the artillery batteries with powder and shot.  The last barrage had lasted only a few
minutes before falling silent.  The booming echoing along both shores and the last of the debris on his flank had finally begun to settle and silence returned.  The moans from one of the wounded lent a surreal
chorus to the silence of the river as it swirled and shunted the flow from Lake Erie to the great falls of the Niagara.  He wiped a blackened sleeve across his brow and winced as a cuff button scraped a garish
white swath across his sooted forehead.

Glancing to his right, he remarked on how different the terrain had become since his posting a fortnight ago.  The trees had been cleared to the shoreline and the lone Oak against which he leaned was the only remaining legacy of the once rich, wooded splendor that greeted his first approach.  Hastily arranged defense works had turned the hillside into a quagmire and the recent rains had made the going of uphill an arduous task.  Especially when hauling up the guns to the heights from the rough road below.  Controlling the shipping lanes of the upper Niagara River and holding the American advance from Blackrock was crucial and the heights gave splendid range and control.  The American forces had also realized the importance of this section of the river as being one of the narrowest portions and also one where the current lessened and made the area a perfect avenue for raiding parties to sally forth from.

Most times the barrages from either bank were nothing more than annoyances and target practice on small commercial vessels riled the local inhabitants of both shores.  There were occasions when the
barrages took a deadly toll.  Seven men killed in three separate shellings  bore witness to the fact that this was truly a shooting match of skill and accuracy.  Troop movements along the shoreline, would
always awaken a cacophony of rounds, that worked from the shallows up the hillside and balls sometimes walked their way across the flats above the batteries,  into the fields beyond.

The firing had subsided and he was ordered to stand down.  His mind wandered back to the last ball fired at the American lines.  He had watched as the ball soared out over the river in a black, streaking arc and lost it, as it passed down into the clutter of the far shore.  He had seen the explosion of abattis and earth and knew that it had wreaked it's wrath amongst the  men on the American firing line.  He had seen the parts fly up and away from gun emplacement and watched, as a spoked wheel had soared in a tumbling spiral, back towards another gun.  He had watched as stretcher bearers had run to the emplacement and then wandered off slowly carrying their litters at the easy.  A cheer had gone up immediately from his comrades on the line.  It was a bitter war, made the more bitter by the way it made him feel to his core.  Far from home, family and at the most,  the comfort of hearth and eiderdown
blankets.

Having struck a blow for the Crown and Glory, he knew they were in for a fitful night under a constant barrage of vengeful proportions. Even now the curses swept across the silent, surging waters and the fire in those voices, was tangible.  His collar chaffed and his mud clogged boots pulled at his calf muscles as he slogged his way to his gun carriage and slumped down to eat.  He smiled graciously at the huzzahs he endured from the gun line crews and waved off offers of a nog or two, to celebrate his rounds accuracy.

Suddenly,  the far shore erupted in smoke and flame.  The flash coming seconds before the retorts and the basso thumping of his chest as the barrage swept from left to right.  The hissing of the balls as they
neared the shore, the air catching the odd irregularity in the balls surface and the snapping of Oak branches and the thudding of cast iron into the muddy hillside made him rise up instantly.  There really was nowhere to run or hide.  God smiled on you or you died.  Crouching beside the gun carriage, he awaited the order to load and make ready. The hillside came alive with shouts and spattering of mud and debris. He could smell the earth mixed with the scent of smoldering linstock rope, slow matches and reached back to grab his own.  He dipped his in powder and struck a spark to light the slowmatch and once again crouched to await orders.  As he stood to retrieve his gunners calipers from his hip kit, he heard the low rush of  air and the horizon spun out of control.

He felt no pain but  a very dull, insistent pressure on his right side.  He had come to rest on his back, with his feet up the incline. There was a warmth across his chest but  a growing coldness crept from his right thigh that soon overtook his whole torso.  He tried to raise his head to shake away the cobwebs.  There was no sound, no pain, no understanding at all of his plight.  With a growing sense of urgency, he willed his head to turn.  His face upturned finally and he could see the gulls wheeling and cutting above him in the pinking sky.  As he finally gave way to the closing dark, his face turned to the right and he could
see the twisted vestige of his right arm.  A jagged shaft of bone extended beyond the ragged cuff of his uniform and his last thought was of a missing cuff button.  A soldier must take pride in the Crown's
appearance.  This just would not do.....

The gulls wheeled and cut, their cries fading and growing as they spun and dove into the sweeping current.  The hillside was a quagmire and the tall Oak swayed in the warm breeze.  The smell of the river was stronger here between the sloping shores.  The ditches cut into the side of the hill had bitten down into the clay layer and the mixture of textured colors, grey, tan and dark earth, splayed a rich tapestry.  The smell of diesel fuel and exhaust hung in the air as the dozer cut swaths upon the landscape. 

I stopped on the second terrace from the shoreline.  My Jeep CJ7 rolling to a stop on the gravel of the parking lot.  The Niagara River Parkway, behind me a constant flow of traffic along the river, unheeding
of the importance of the excavation underway.  A new residential dwelling was being constructed on the site and the land was being dozed and cleared for the foundation and landscaping that would turn this
empty woodlot, into another scenic Niagara development.

I reached into the back seat and took a firm grip on my metal detector.  I swung it out into the graying afternoon light and slipped my earphones off the seat.  My treasure pouch was half filled with trash
from my recent hunt at an old park and I decided against emptying it. I looked up at the excavation and tried to discern who the leadhand or site boss might be.  A gray-haired gentleman carrying some site plans seemed to be the right target and I made my way across the  site to his position.  After introducing myself and outlining my intentions he told me to just beware of the dozer and to knock myself out.  He also mentioned that there had already been several hunters there before me and that they had found some interesting items.  He didn't elaborate but did mention the recovery of a cannonball.

The site had a long history.  A portion of that, being the site of an old homesite whose owners had obviously done a lot of their own car repairs, owing to the amount of nuts, bolts and car parts I recovered
after a quick survey.  I did recover a musket ball and that sparked my interest.  I'd found them before but this was the first sign of significance at this site.  I spent the remainder of the hunt digging trash signals and foil.  Having decided prematurely that the site had been ransacked already, I slowly began sweeping my way back towards my jeep.  As I neared the edges of the dozed field, I swept over a clay chunk that was out of place amongst the darker earth layer.  A round sweet tone filled my ears.

I hadn't located any coins and my thoughts drifted to a silver quarter or dime.  Maybe even a large cent, which had been high on my wish list for some time now.  The clod was about as big as a football
and after an unsuccessful attempt to cut into it with my trowel, I stood and placing one foot on one end, balanced my other foot on the opposite side and applied pressure to both halves.  It snapped into two section and I swept my coil over both to ascertain which portion contained the target.  What luck!  It was in the smaller clod.  I crouched down and began breaking off chunks of tan, greasy clay, sweeping in an almost continuous arc over the coil.  I finally held the small batch that contained the target and carefully broke the sample in half.  As I slowly turned the lump towards me, I could see the bent shank of a button.  I carefully pried the button out and turned it over in my hand.

The ball had caught him squarely at the elbow joint and in one swift motion, carried his torso in a flinging arc, spiraling back past his comrades and against the mudded hillside.  It tore away his flesh and sent bone and spray and a single button from his uniform in an arc against the gun and the earth.  He landed heavily, with a bone crunching thud and lay still.  The button, torn free of it's linen ties, flew spinning into a small crevice created by the balls flight.  The ball careened on up the hill, but the button lay firmly embedded in a lump of clay churned up by the blast.  It slowly flopped over and was hidden from the light and carnage. 

The years passed slowly.  Locked into a chemically charged atmosphere, a war waged again as the salts launched their attack upon the metal.  In earnest the button fought back with it's own defense.  It
built upon itself a layer of green oxidation to repel all further assaults upon it's fine detail.  And there it rested in it's matrix. The gulls wheeled and cried out.  The breeze had defiantly chilled and the sky had darkened as dusk approached.  I knelt holding the button for some time.  The glue of time is sometimes stretched to it's breaking points.  It stretches and undulates as it seems fit.  It grows and shrinks as befits the circumstance.  It is tangible and unattainable at once.  But here in this one place, at this one time for this one small moment.  We shared.  The small button with the crest of balls and the three stacked cannons of the British Royal Artillery, we alone knew that time connects those that lose and those that hunt.