Chase the Dawn (39 page)

Ben scratched his ear thoughtfully. Bryony had a point and it was one that had not occurred to him earlier. The rear of the army might be less vulnerable to attack, but it was not immune, and in such an event she would be lamentably short of protection. He shrugged and in customary fashion yielded gracefully. “I think you have the right of it. However, I must have your promise that you will do as I bid you, instantly and without question, throughout the march and the engagement. I cannot afford to be distracted with argument or unnecessary worry.”

“I am yours to command, Colonel Clare,” she said, grinning in the dark. “You will find me perfectly obedient.”

“I wish I could be as lighthearted, lass,” Ben said somberly. “I have a fearful premonition about this ill-conceived business.”

Bryony shuddered, all desire to laugh leaving her instantly. “What do you think will happen?”

“Defeat at best, a rout at worst,” he replied succinctly. “Cornwallis has a highly trained, disciplined band of regulars with him. And there’s no knowing how our men will react under fire, particularly if they are weakened by fatigue and panicked by skirmishes during a night march.”

Bryony swallowed. Knowing that she must not add to his burdens with her own weakness, she controlled the urge to cling to him, to beg him not to take part in this exercise in which he had no faith, to ask him what would happen to her if he should be killed.

If Ben sensed her fear and uncertainty, he gave no
indication of it. But when they reached their tent and the straw palliasse that Bryony now considered to be as comfortable as any featherbed, he wrapped her in his arms, surrounding her with the warm reassurance of his body so that she fell asleep, convinced for the moment of the safety and continuity of their little corner of a world riven by turmoil and conflict.

The following day, chaos became manifest as an army, three thousand strong, broke camp and prepared to meet the enemy. Small groups of men were being drilled about the hillside while others milled around, taking down tents, loading up the wagons and pack mules. General Gates had set up his headquarters under a spreading beech tree, pandemonium reigning supreme around him. With him, poring over the giant map spread out on a trestle table, were Ben and three other high-ranking officers. Bryony, needing to ask Ben a question regarding their luggage, approached the group cautiously. Gates had never treated her with anything less than courtesy, but in general she endeavored to avoid bringing herself to his notice.

“The First Maryland should be in the front line,” Ben was stating crisply.

“No,” Horatio Gates interrupted. “They will hold the rear behind the North Carolina militia.”

“And you will have untried, raw recruits in the front line?” Ben brought his fist down on the table in disgust. “If they break, they’ll take the center with them.”

“Sometimes, Colonel, I think you forget who is commanding this army,” the general said coldly.

“General Gist? Baron de Kalb? What is your opinion?” Benedict appealed to the two veteran commanders, who were frowning over the map.

Mordecai Gist shook his head. “It’s a matter of tactics. A strong rear guard or a strong front line? There are points to be made on both sides.”

Bryony, deciding that now was perhaps not an opportune moment to bother Benedict with a domestic question, turned to slip away, but he caught sight of her and called her back.

“Is there something you want, lass?”

“It’s not important,” she said hastily. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you.” She smiled in hesitant apology.

“You’re not interrupting anything, Mrs. Clare,” boomed Gates heartily. “The matter is already decided. Perhaps you can persuade this obstinate young man that he would do well to listen to his elders.”

Benedict flushed a deep crimson. “Excuse me, sir.” Taking Bryony by the arm, he drew her away. “I do not know how long I am going to be able to keep my hands off him,” he hissed. “What do you want?” The question was snapped, but Bryony did not take it personally.

“Why do you not just give up?” she asked. “He is determined not to heed you, so you only create aggravation for yourself.”

Ben sighed, rubbing his temples wearily in a manner that tugged at Bryony’s heartstrings. “I daresay you’re right, but I cannot stand aside and say nothing when so many lives are at stake. Now, what is it that you wanted?”

“Only whether the portmanteaux are to go to the rear, or whether we should take them up with us.” It seemed a dreadfully trivial issue in the light of Ben’s wrestling with life-and-death matters. “It affects what I put in them, you see,” she explained lamely. “If they are to go to the rear, I will keep some necessities out…. Oh,
I beg your pardon. I should not be bothering you with such petty problems.”

Some of the tension had left Ben’s face, and the corners of his mouth quirked slightly. “Let me ask you a question, lass. This is an army, marching into battle. The horses on which we shall be riding are also going to be facing the guns and bayonets. Does it strike you as reasonable that they should also be weighted down with cooking pots and clean clothes and sheets and—”

“Oh, do stop!” Bryony begged, flushing to the roots of her hair at this absurd image. “I didn’t think of that.”

He tipped her chin with a long forefinger, saying seriously, although with a smile, “Next time you have a question of such a nature, think around it a little. I am sure you will come up with the answer yourself.”

“Yes,” Bryony mumbled, feeling more stupid than she could ever remember. “I am sorry to have interrupted you.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter in the slightest,” Ben said. “You may interrupt me in such a circumstance as often as you please. It might serve to keep my sanity, or, at least, to ensure that I am not court-martialed for assaulting a superior officer!”

“Well, I am sorry for being so stupid, then.”

“You won’t be, another time,” he replied, a lot more cheerfully. “Now, you had better go about your business and leave me to mine.” He pinched her cheek in careless affection and returned to the men under the beech tree.

Bryony returned to her task of rolling their clothes into tight sausage shapes so that they would fit into the rounded, oblong leather portmanteaux supplied by Paul Tyler. He had also procured her expanded wardrobe, he and Ben having pronounced the doeskin tunic to be
quite unsuitable for a wife living among soldiers. Bryony now had several serviceable gowns and a riding habit of the kind worn by respectable bourgeois women. Eliza would be shattered at the thought of her daughter in calico and kersey, with pinchbeck buckles on her shoes….

Bryony stuffed a cotton stocking into a spare corner and dashed a recalcitrant teardrop from her cheek. The effect of her present wardrobe on her mother was hardly important when compared with the basic facts of her present existence. She sat back on her heels and surveyed her handiwork. She was still lamentably unhandy at these tasks, and it had taken much pushing and scrunching to put back in the bags what had originally come out of them. Everything would be horribly creased when they were unpacked.
If
they were ever unpacked. The thought rose unbidden. Who was to know whether they would both be alive on the morrow? Certainly, a few creases in their clothes would not be regarded. Why did she keep having these silly, trivial thoughts when the world was teetering around her? Probably just because it
was
teetering, she thought gloomily. The mind responded in the strangest ways to fear.

The fear did not abate as the day wore on. Indeed, once she had completed the packing and could find nothing else useful to do, it threatened to fill her mind, lurking in dark corners like some dream monster waiting to spring out and swallow her. She wandered aimlessly around the now dismantled camp, but everyone she knew was enviably occupied, harassed frowns on their brows, voices slightly sharpened. There were other women with the army—many wives, and some not dignified with that status—although none that Ben considered fit
companions for his own wife. But today she felt a great need for the companionship of those who must be feeling much as she did. Her position was the same as theirs—the woman of a man who was going to face death on the battlefield. Like her, they would bear no part in the business of war, but hung on the periphery, performing the little domestic tasks that needed no engagement of the mind and merely served to emphasize the ephemeral quality of life.

A knot of women, surrounded by a wall of kit bags, sat in the shade of a willow tree, and Bryony’s steps, without conscious prompting, went in that direction. As she approached, they looked up curiously but without hostility, and when she smiled, nodded at her in friendly fashion.

“May I sit with you?” she asked. “I find myself somewhat …” She sought for words to explain her present distress but saw instantly that they were not necessary.

“Sit ye down,” an angular woman with a sharp nose invited promptly. “There’s nuthin’ to be done but wait, and waitin’s better in company.”

“Yes,” Bryony agreed gratefully, and sat on the grass within the circle of kit bags. She had little to contribute to the conversation, concerned as it was with people and events that were unfamiliar to her. She knew nothing of life in the ranks, as they knew nothing of an officer’s life, but she was content to listen and to admire the stoic resolution of the women who marched with the army’s backbone. They had left behind farms and cottages; children, in some cases; parents and siblings. And they were all frightened, and all resigned to living with that fear.

Bryony found herself drawing strength from her honorary
membership in this strange sisterhood and allowed her mind to drift as the long hours of the afternoon wore on. Whatever happened would happen. Then suddenly the elusive peace was shattered. Charlie Carter, out of breath, his young eyes anxious, appeared suddenly on the outskirts of the circle.

“Bryony, in the name of the good God! We are about to start out! Ben has been looking for you for this last hour.”

“But he did not say … tell me to be …” she stammered, apologizing profusely as she tripped over legs and feet on her impetuous way to join Charlie. “What time is it?”

“Near six,” he told her. “You have not eaten and there is all hell to pay. Gates is already mounted, and the first column is set to move out. He has already told Ben that he will not wait any longer and—”

“Oh, don’t say any more.” Bryony groaned, needing no expansion to imagine the scene that would be laid before her in a very few minutes.

“Ben, I cannot tell you how sorry I am,” she said swiftly, going to where he stood white with anger and mortification, holding the bridles of Bryony’s mare and the magnificent plantation horse, both given to them by Paul Tyler. “I did not realize the time and did not see any signs of—”

“Well, now that you
are
here, ma’am, perhaps Colonel Clare would be so good as to fall in, so we may get this army on the march,” General Gates declared with biting sarcasm.

Ben went, if anything, even paler and his black eyes blazed. “Get up,” he snapped, holding his cupped palm to receive her foot as she took the reins. He tossed her
onto the mare’s back and mounted his own horse without further word. From somewhere behind them, a drum began to beat, slowly at first, then with rousing fervency, and General Gates spurred his horse.

“Ben, please,” she whispered, her mare nudging the gelding’s flanks. “I would not have had that happen for the world.”

He looked sideways at her. The expressive blue eyes were liquescent, radiating distress and penitence. The soft mouth quivered anxiously, and he could not hold on to his anger. “Where were you?”

“With some of the women. I was a little afeard.” She shrugged in self-deprecation. “I found their company comforting, and the time just disappeared.”

“I do not need to be glaringly in the wrong with Gates,” he said ruefully. “It’s bad enough when he picks fault without justification, but when he has just cause …”

“Yes, I know. Am I pardoned?”

A reluctant smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Aye, lass, you are pardoned. I know it was not done on purpose, and I was not there for you, although I wish that I could have been. You have cause to be afeard—we all are.”

N
ight fell all too soon as the unwieldy army found itself squelching across squishy ground, their boots settling in at each step, requiring a heave to bring them free with a reluctant gurgle. It was slow, painful going, as hard for the cavalry horses as for the infantry, and conditions were not improved by the constant whining torment of mosquitoes, rising in clouds from the unhealthy swamp-ground to feast with a glutton’s delight on the sweat-slick skins of three thousand burdened men.

Bryony drew the hood of her cloak around her face, preferring the misery of near suffocation to that of exposure to the vicious darts that left great itching lumps—more virulent than those she remembered from home. All around her, men swore and slapped, and horses tossed their manes and flicked their tails. To add to the entire wretched discomfort of it all, her belly began to make vociferous complaint at its missed supper. The Lord only knew when the next meal would appear, or
where from; food seemed a thoroughly incongruous reality in this stinking, squelching, midnight oven.