Happy national anthem day! It's the anniversary of the Star Spangled Banner so it felt right to write a little battle of for McHenry.
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"Alfred!" A voice called out from fort McHenry's gate. The young blond's head peared up from where he was cleaning a horse's hooves. The man waved a thick red hand towards himself, becaning the nation over. " We just received a letter from the British forces. The lobster backs just can't leave us alone can they?"
"What does it say?" Alfred asked, stiffly pushing himself up from the ground. He leaned on the horse for support as the burns on his ribs ached and made his way to the other. The man cracked open the seal on and began to read it aloud.
"Look upon the horizon and lower the flag." The man scoffed. "You'd think us outnumbering them in Philadelphia would have been enough. Don't know when to qui-" The Man was cut off by a younger soldier's shout from up on the ramparts.
"Royal Navy ships on the horizon!" Both Alfred and the man turned their head towards the man up on the ramparts. His wide eyes gazed out into the bay, paying no mind to the people staring at him below. Even without looking at those around them they could feel the panicked silence that had encompassed the fort.
Alfred was first to break the stillness as he ran to join the young soldier. As he moved he felt the whirr of his citizens as they began racing to prepare for whatever the Royal Navy could throw at them. Alfred scaled the ladder, pain spreading across his side, before finally stopping beside the soldier. He gazed out over the gently swaying waters at the towering masts and impressive hulls of the military ships. They loomed over the horizon as if they were claiming it with just their presence alone. "Are they crazy?" He shouted as he looked between the man beside him and the and the approaching fleet. "Don't they know by now that this fort is hardly a military fort at all? That there are more women and children here than there are militiamen?"
"This is the British we're talking about," the man beside him said, "they wouldn't care if their mothers shamed them for attacking." Alfred snorted slightly at that. He couldn't imagine England being scolded by anyone. The old man wouldn't know what to do if someone else were in charge. Probably have a conniption before sending someone else to do the dirty work.
"Say soldier," Alfred started as he looked at the man beside him, " What's your name?" The man opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted as Major Armistead shouted up at them.
"Don't just stand up there jabbing about! Get down here and swap the storm flag! We've got a battle to prepare for!" The two men jumped at the man shouting a quick,
"Yes sir!" The young soldier looked back at Alfred after the Major had moved on to other soldiers.
"The names Jamie, Jamie Bibben," he uttered and with a quick nod of his head he was gone. Alfred smiled after him before joining the others at the flagpole.
Not long after they had tugged the forty-two foot Garrison flag into place the bang of cannon fire sounded across the bay. The men scattered running each and every way in the purple daze of twilight, stuffing supplies into barrels here and sheltering women and children there. Not that it mattered with the bombs crushing everything they touched. Crevices began to sprinkle their way through the fort as the bombs began demolishing it one by one. Many kept their eyes trained on the flag, watching as the pole began to bend under pressure and the broad stripes and white stars began to tear. Every time a bomb lit the flag there seemed to be more holes than the last.
A few hours in the flagpole gave a loud screech as its battered metal gave way to the barrage. As it fell Alfred could only watch as men ran towards it. They held tight to the pole and with a mighty heave lifted the pole, and in turn the flag, back into the sky. His breath left him in awe of his citizens' loyalty and bravery. They held strong as bombs scattered the dirt around them knocking them off their feet; and as some failed to stand after, the reality of what they were in for set in. As the men began to fall Alfred felt his feet, despite his better judgement, move towards the flag. His hands wrapped around the blood stained metal as it began to kneel forcing the flag to stay erect.
At some point the cannons became focused on the flag. Bodies dropped faster and Alfred struggled to stay conscious through the force of the bombs and the stream of blood coating his shoulder from a price of shrapnel. He tried to ignore the faces appearing and disappearing before his eyes. He pretended he hadn't seen Jamie fall just hours before. He had stopped feeling the cool metal of the pole some time ago when the cold finally numbed his hands. His vision swam and he hoped the barrage would end before there was no one left. His eyes began to slip closed before the bright flashes became lost to his tired form.
Alfred's eyes fluttered open in the cool light of the dawn. His body ached, his shoulder especially, and he was sure that he had a concussion. Groaning softly he began to sit up trying to ignore his aching muscles and burning wounds. Almost immediately someone shouted in the distance and arms began wrapping around him. Distorted words surrounded him as they lifted him from the dirt and began carrying him to a hole in the ramparts. As they moved, he noticed the crooked flagpole pole leaning on a pile of corpses.
Alfred was sitting on a bench beneath the ramparts wincing a doctor ran thread through his shoulder when Key arrived. The man was giddy as a schoolboy when he came in. His eyes were wide and he buzzed with nervous excitement as he trotted around the fort. Not even the sight of the casualties seemed to damper his spirits. He told them of the view from the boats and how the prisoner's just wanted to know one thing; "Is the flag still waving?" The lawyer flapped his hands about, congratulating each of them on baffling and defeating the British before darting off with the words "write" and "recount" shadowing behind him. The people in the fort, men, women, and children alike, all seemed to laugh quietly to themselves as he left. With solemn smiles they knew Key was right, they had won.
