Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution (31 page)

Helen scanned
the trail behind before she nudged Calliope forward, after Fairfax and
Campbell.
 
The rest of her party lagged
an hour or more back, slowed by two wagons on a road softened by rain.
 
How exposed she felt without the
others.
 
But her pulse hopped with
thrill to have met up with the Legion at last.

The swollen sky
resumed its drizzle.
 
She drew her hood
back over her head and shivered.
 
In the
marketplace, legionnaires haggled with merchants over ink, drink, and
tobacco.
 
Some sutlers, contractors, and
merchants had erected marquee tents against the raw wind.
 
Others huddled within greatcoats or cloaks
to hawk goods spread upon blankets.
 
Odors of old coffee, mold, unwashed humans, charred pork, and full
latrines merged with the smell of Carolina mud.

Fairfax reined
back his gelding and wheeled the horse around to acknowledge the address of an
infantryman no older than eighteen years.
 
The young man caught up and saluted him, informing him that Tarleton
could be found at the manor house.

On the way,
they passed the kitchen, where a raggedy woman plunged a pease-crusted spoon
into a cauldron and gave the porridge a stir, and a young girl fed kindling
into the hissing, smoky fire.
 
All the
camp women — busy cooking, cleaning, mending — bore a homogeneous bone-weary
but resolute expression that furrowed brows and sunk cheekbones, not unlike the
battle-blunted look of the husbands, brothers, and sons they'd chosen to
accompany.
 
Although several boys with
drizzle- and dirt-streaked faces chased a large, wooden hoop parallel to them,
that same exhaustion haunted the eyes of the older boys.

Helen, Fairfax,
and Campbell dismounted before the brick manor, and Negroes led their horses away.
 
A Legion batman opened the front door in
invitation.
 
First into the foyer, Helen
glimpsed a silk-gowned, bosomy brunette on the shadowed stair to the manor's
second floor.
 
Before she continued her
ascent, the woman's sultry gaze lingered on Fairfax.

The batman
gestured Helen into the parlor, draped her cloak over the back of a chair,
promised hot coffee, and departed.
 
She
stripped off gloves that had encased numbness all afternoon and stretched
fingers toward the warmth of the parlor's fire, her back to the door.

The stomp of
boots on wood floors preceded the boom of another man's voice in the
foyer.
 
"At ease.
 
God's foot, I'd about given you up for
dead."
 
The word "about"
was rendered "a-boat" by a rough Lancashire accent.

Her ears
perked.
 
Chilled fingers forgotten, she
turned to permit the fire's warmth upon the royal blue wool of her gown's
backside.
 
Profiled in the foyer with
Fairfax and Campbell was a Legion officer, a red sash about his waist, his uniform's
gold lace and buttons glimmery by candlelight and firelight.
 
Fairfax and Campbell, both of medium height,
were taller than he by several inches.

Campbell
inclined his head.
 
"Sir!
 
The Santee Road grows longer each time I
travel it."

Helen
started.
 
Good heavens.
 
That short fellow was Banastre
Tarleton.
 
Short on the ground
only.
 
He probably appeared a giant in
the saddle of his charger, drawn saber trapping the sun's gleam, his helmet's
black swan feathers bolstering the illusion of height.

"I've
noticed the same about the Santee," said Tarleton.
 
"Where are the lads?
 
You didn't lose them to that devil,
Marion?"

"They're
an hour behind with the wagons, sir.
 
Mr. Neville has iron from Camden.
 
Speaking of Marion —"
 
Campbell's chest swelled.
 
"— we met the old man on the Santee Road about a week and a half
ago.
 
Seventeen of his Whig scum
backtracked to finish us off.
 
We left
them for the buzzards."

Tarleton didn't
smile.
 
"Excellent work."
 
From where Helen stood, the gleam in his
dark eye and the hook of his nose gave him the appearance of a hawk on a harsh
winter day.

Fairfax stood
behind Campbell, quiet, in gloom.
 
Allowing Campbell all the attention?
 
Hardly.
 
Fairfax waited his turn
to stroke the master: the lap dog with greater rank and discipline.
 
Unnerved, she inched to the fire.

"Thank
you, sir," said Campbell.
 
"We
marked
your
fine handiwork at Richardson's plantation."

A muscle
twitched Tarleton's cheek.
 
Ooh, sore
point.
 
He was still rankled over
Marion's escape.

"We heard
about Blackstock's, sir."
 
Campbell
chuckled.
 
"Sumter sure won't be
leading any more charges, will he?"

The cheek
muscle rippled again.
 
Tarleton wanted
that thorn in his side
dead
, for Thomas Sumter the paralytic was still a
rallying point for rebels.
 
"Extra
rum for you and the lads, Campbell.
 
Send word when they arrive in camp.
 
Dismissed."

Campbell popped
a salute, pivoted, and swaggered out the door.
 
He'd sleep well tonight.

"Blackstock's."
 
Tarleton's accent wrung the name into
"Blackstoke's."
 
"Ah, Mr.
Fairfax.
 
Silent, stealthy Mr. Fairfax.
 
Have you brought me a rebel spy?"

Rebel spy?
 
Helen squinted.
 
To whom did Tarleton refer?

"No,
sir."
 
As smooth as Italian red
wine, Fairfax's voice.

Tarleton cocked
a fist on his hip.
 
"You chased him
too hard.
 
He's now hiding beneath Dan
Morgan's petticoat.
 
Back off.
 
Woo him out.
 
You'll find a clever way to do it.
 
Let him feel safe enough to emerge, find another press, print his
next broadside."

Helen gulped,
shocked.
 
The printer protected by the
rebel army was David's father, Will.

A raptor smile
snagged Tarleton's mouth.
 
"That
first edition was a masterpiece, a boon to me.
 
'Patriots' need a buffoon like Buford every now and then to remind them
of their military ineptitude."

"Sir."

Again, Helen
shivered.
 
By appealing to the colonel's
vanity, Fairfax had sold Tarleton on his personal mission to rout out the St.
James family.
 
Tarleton now chased Will
St. James.

By then, every
publisher in America had seen St. James's first broadside, a crude depiction of
a British soldier bayoneting a surrendered militiaman.
 
Its caption, "Tarleton's Quarter,"
hearkened back to Tarleton's thorough victory over a befuddled Continental
Colonel Buford in May, near the Waxhaws, in South Carolina.
 
David's father had intended his production
to hang Tarleton's reputation and horrify Loyalists into conversion to the
rebel cause.

Instead, the
broadside, coupled with the colonel's spectacular string of military victories,
had created a Banastre Tarleton who was ruthless, indestructible, and
omnipotent.
 
Heady brew for a twenty-six-year-old
merchant's son who had only five years earlier purchased his cornet's
commission, lowest officer rank in the cavalry.
 
Well Fairfax knew that.
 
He simpered.
 
"And what news
from home, sir?"

"Bah."
 
The fist came off the hip, and the hand
swept the air in a dismissive motion.
 
"I'm a hero in Liverpool, yet I didn't win support for my
candidacy.
 
Explain that, if you
will."

Helen's eyebrow
lifted.
 
So the meteoric rise had its
limitations.
 
Tarleton's celebrity in
America hadn't catapulted him into a Parliamentary seat in the recent election.

"Timing,
sir.
 
But you don't lack for
perseverance."

"The pot
calling the kettle black, eh?
 
Fortunately, my brother redeemed the news by sending me a keg of wine
for Yule."

"Pardon
the interruption."
 
The batman
bustled past them into the parlor and set a tray with coffee service on a
table.
 
"Coffee for the lady to
take the chill off.
 
Gentlemen?"

"Lady?
 
Mr. Fairfax, you've been remiss!
 
Introduce us."
 
Without waiting, Tarleton sauntered into the
parlor.
 
The lighting transformed his
dark, queued hair to auburn.
 
Full on,
he embodied all the sensuous charm of a stocky cupid from a Renaissance
painting.
 
Gone was the cold-eyed raptor.
 
A playful boy lifted Helen's fingers to his
lips, smile calculated to melt the heart of the most proficient, cynical
courtesan.
 
"Madam, I'm at your
service."

His switch from
chill to charm threw her guard up.
 
Still, it was heady brew for a twenty-nine-year-old widow who had only
the previous month been threatened by a Committee of Safety.
 
Well Fairfax knew that, too.
 
His smile became predatory.
 
"Helen, I present Colonel Banastre
Tarleton.
 
Colonel, my sister, the Widow
Chiswell."

"Your
sister
.
 
Ah."
 
Tarleton released Helen's hand with deference.
 
"To what do I owe the pleasure of your visitation,
madam?"

"I thought
to share the company of my brother.
 
We've missed each other.
 
Surely
you understand.
 
You've a sister, do you
not?"

A platonic
wistfulness sobered some of his charm.
 
"Indeed."
 
Tarleton
held out a chair for her.
 
"Permit
me to join you for coffee.
 
Mr.
Fairfax?"

"Sir, I
should be grateful to have my sister wait here, sheltered, while Campbell and I
make certain of the wagons' arrival."

Tarleton
nodded.
 
"You are a paragon of
duty."
 
The batman positioned a
chair for him across the table from Helen, and the colonel sat.
 
"But then you and your lovely sister
must join me for supper tonight."

"We shall
be honored, sir."
 
Victory stamped
Fairfax's lips.
 
He'd been invited to
dine with the commander.

Tarleton,
divine warrior with a beloved sister, studied the interaction between Helen and
Fairfax and waited to be convinced, so Helen lifted her arms.
 
"Dunstan, be careful out there on the
road."

Fairfax caught
her hands in his and bent over for a kiss on the cheek.
 
In a previous lifetime, perhaps they'd both
been actors upon the stage.
 
From
Tarleton's sentimental expression, their display of filial affection satisfied
him.

How enchanted
Londoners would be to learn that the Lion of the Waxhaws had a soft spot.
 
Confidence soared through Helen's soul, the
first time in many weeks she'd felt on firm, familiar ground.
 
The batman saw Fairfax out, poured coffee,
added another log to the fire, and withdrew.
 
She beamed across the table at Tarleton.
 
"So, Colonel, tell me about your sister."

Chapter Thirty

DRIZZLE
PATTERED HELEN'S tent.
 
Her daily
journal entry completed, she corked the inkbottle.
 
Camp had quieted after the eight o'clock tattoo on fife and drum.
 
A watchman plodded past on his rounds, boot
steps soggy in the grass.

With supper
done and the evening's dosage of brash Legion officers and a few chatty
officers' wives behind her, insignificant details from the day piqued her
interest.
 
The woman who stirred pease
soup, the girl with kindling, the washerwomen and seamstresses — who were
they?
 
And the sultry-eyed brunette
she'd spied on the stairs at the manor — stairs she later learned led to rooms
off-limits to all but Tarleton and his retainers.
 
Obviously females associated with the British Legion served His
Majesty in various capacities, as they did in regular units.

Her contract
hadn't specified a report on civilians.
 
If she fulfilled her assignment literally, those people were invisible,
unimportant.
 
Yet she knew they weren't
nobodies.
 
Civilians were under Tarleton's
command, and her overall report wouldn't be comprehensive without a report of
them.
 
On the morrow, she'd ask Jonathan
or one of the Pearsons to accompany her for a look at the lower camp, weather
permitting.

The candle
sputtered and extinguished.
 
She removed
her bed gown and burrowed beneath blankets.
 
The rain droned on.
 
In the
distance, a dog's bark sounded mournful, miserable.

Fortunately,
the Legion wasn't on the move, so if Badley's bank draft arrived in Camden, a
postal rider could find them.
 
Again,
she wondered if the publisher would renege on funding for the rest of the
assignment, but she refused to worry about money yet.
 
She had concerns more immediate.

From the
puzzled absorption with which he'd regarded her, Tarleton didn't know what to
make of her.
 
Over a supper of
beefsteak, rice, collards, pears, cheese, and a good deal of wine, she'd
debated with his officers the merits of Vivaldi's concertos, Titian's
paintings, and Henry Fielding's literature.
 
She'd discussed Sir Isaac Newton's laws of physics with enthusiasm.
 
Her suggested comparison and contrast of
Pascal, Descartes, and Voltaire wasn't greeted with such sanguinity.
 
In over his head, Tarleton had had the
prudence to keep his mouth shut through much of the discussion.
 
She suspected he'd have been more loquacious
over the topics of horses and rowing.

But Tarleton
said enough for her to arrive at an unsettling realization.
 
On the Santee Road, the dragoons had omitted
an attribute when they spoke of their leader: one characteristic she suspected
must accompany his traits of valor, courage, bravery, and justice.

Vanity.

From what she'd
seen of Tarleton's vanity that afternoon and evening, it was a hungry, open
maw, sometimes stymied, often titillated, never fully sated.

Wine, women,
and gambling may have failed to furnish him with an Achilles Heel, but Tarleton
wouldn't be so fortunate with vanity and his mercurial mood swings.
 
Arrogance and impulsiveness laid fine
groundwork for manipulation.
 
Helen
envisioned Fairfax stepping over Tarleton to secure a post in Parliament.
 
Not quite the hero's journey which Londoners
expected.

***

She longed to
wring the neck of the rooster that awakened her four hours later.
 
Other cocks soon joined the conversation,
and the supplications of a multitude of cows in desperate need of human
intervention filled predawn.
 
Where was
Private Parker, the Devonshire dairy farm lad, when the Army needed him?

Milk pails
clunked.
 
Cows grew less frantic.
 
Helen plugged her ears and rolled deeper
into the blankets.
 
But at five-thirty,
a drummer rapped reveille out into the mushy South Carolina darkness.
 
Exasperated, she sat up, donned both bedgown
and shawl to stave off cold, and groped about for tinderbox and candle.
 
In the Land of the Legion, the best time to
write in her journal wasn't bedtime.
 
It
was predawn.

She smelled
tobacco and wood smoke.
 
Soldiers on
their way to a drill sloshed past her tent, the clank of cartridge boxes and
muskets dulled by damp.
 
From the
Pearsons' tent, Roger broke into a merry whistle, curtailed when Hannah whacked
him with some dull, soft object and snapped, "Get up, then, and fetch our
coffee."

Two hours
later, the cloud phalanx repulsed the sun's valiant charge.
 
Resigned to another day of drizzle, Helen
downed three cups of Roger's cheer with her porridge, fleshed out her journal
with details of a typical morning in military camp, and mapped out a budget to
stretch what money she had left and still allow her to return to
Wilmington.
 
With frugal spending, she'd
have to head home before Yule.
 
Unacceptable.
 
She must remain on
assignment longer.

Accompanied by
Hannah, she searched out the quartermaster's assistant, Newman, who handled
daily posts.
 
They just missed meeting
him at morning parade.
 
Since Roger
enjoyed mornings so much, Helen decided that he would attend parade daily,
where posts were usually distributed.

She took an
embroidery project into the parlor of the house.
 
The journalist in her bemoaned the convention that she was
expected to sit with three officers' wives and their maids while Tarleton's
gorgeous, brunette mistress read in the company of another courtesan on the
other side of the room.
 
How could she
wrangle an interview with the woman?

Natter among
the wives gravitated to childrearing concerns.
 
Helen absorbed herself in embroidery and silently counted her blessings
that she'd miscarried.
 
Having to feed
and clothe a child would have overwhelmed her finances.

The wives had
no earthly idea of how to prevent pregnancy.
 
Each of them had borne at least four children.
 
They'd never heard of drinking tansy and pennyroyal tonics, or
even of the simpler but messier solution of drowning their husbands' seed in
honey.
 
She peeked at them, imagined
them riding the horn of the moon in the grass at the spring equinox, and
covered a snort of humor with a cough.

"Bye the
bye, your brother is leading practice this morning, Mrs. Chiswell."

Helen blinked
at the bland face of the wife who'd spoken.
 
"I beg your pardon?"

"At nine
o'clock.
 
You've time to observe it, if
you hurry."

"What is
this 'practice?'"

"On
horseback, dragoons gallop through lines created by infantrymen lying upon the
ground."

"Quite
suspenseful to watch," said another wife.

The concept
they described required great trust from the infantrymen and skill from the
dragoons.
 
Fascinated, Helen resolved to
see it demonstrated first-hand.
 
Perhaps
Tarleton would provide an impressive, equestrian display to inspire his men.
 
"I believe I shall go.
 
Will any of you ladies accompany me and show
me the way?"

All three
declined, their excuse the weather.
 
One
gave vague directions for locating the north field.
 
Helen signaled Hannah and packed up her embroidery.
 
Outside on the porch, they adjusted cloaks
and hoods in preparation for the walk.

The front door
opened, and out swayed Tarleton's mistress in a rustle of burgundy-colored
silk.
 
Garnets set off with tiny pearls
sparkled at her earlobes and throat, and when she draped on her fine, wool
cloak, Helen sniffed an expensive floral perfume.
 
"Shall I guide you ladies to the north field?"
 
A receptive smile curved the woman's full
lips and extended into her dark, long-lashed eyes.

"We would
be grateful of it, madam."

"My name
is Margaret."
 
With grace, the
courtesan stepped off the porch around a mud puddle and headed north.

Helen caught up
with her and walked at her side, Hannah a discreet distance behind.
 
"I'm pleased to meet you,
Margaret.
 
My name is Helen."
 
Margaret cocked an eyebrow at her, surprised
to hear her bypass convention, and Helen grinned.
 
"Do we not each serve our king in different ways?"
 
Playfulness, not cynicism, flavored
Margaret's chuckle, and Helen felt that familiar thrill when an interview
subject warmed to her.
 
"The north
field must be totally soaked, and I don't see any break in the clouds.
 
Surely this practice won't last long."

"Oh,
they'll carry on for hours.
 
Rain
doesn't stop them."

Determination
among the corps: an excellent morsel for readers.

The three women
passed within a strand of oak and dogwood.
 
From leaf-denuded branches, raindrops pelted foliage underfoot and
tapped the hoods of their cloaks.
 
"Will the colonel be there?"

"Mmm, I
doubt it.
 
He's ever so busy."

Subtle,
Margaret's inflection upon the word "busy," but it communicated that
she belonged to the sisterhood of women who awaited personal attention from men
too engrossed in duty to deliver it.
 
If
she didn't expect her lover to show at the practice, why did she slog through a
soaked meadow and brave cold and rain?

"I hear
you've come from Wilmington.
 
Why trade
civilization for an army encampment in the backcountry?"

So now Margaret
interviewed Helen.
 
"I haven't seen
my brother since late spring.
 
And you
wouldn't believe how boring Wilmington's become since the rebels ran out
Governor Martin."

"Don't
expect much excitement here.
 
Perhaps a
dance for Yule, if you stay that long.
 
But you'll never witness a battle.
 
First sign of trouble, Colonel Tarleton sends the ladies home.
 
They're too much of a liability."

To obtain a
comprehensive story on the Legion, Helen must somehow get around Tarleton's
rule and at least glimpse the regiment mobilized for battle.
 
But how was she to do that?

Her attention
lingered on the brunette a moment longer.
 
By daylight, Margaret appeared to be in her early twenties, except for
the judiciousness and complexity in her eyes.
 
Helen found it hard to believe that Tarleton sent a mistress so
sophisticated and beautiful — one he'd showered with lavish gifts — very far
from him.
 
"Where do
you
go
when the Legion is on the move?"

"With the
camp women in the baggage."

With the
nobodies who didn't count.

They emerged
from the trees, and the courtesan smiled.
 
"Ah.
 
Here we are, and what
luck.
 
You're in time to see your
brother demonstrate a charge.
 
Likely no
one will be able to equal his skill."

Chapter Thirty-One

NEGRO GROOMS
STEADIED six saddled horses.
 
Fairfax
pranced his gelding before assembled dragoons and spat out instructions for the
exercise.
 
Helen gaped in disbelief past
him to a human obstacle course of supine foot soldiers stretched out in
parallel lines on a cold, wet field.