Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (104 page)

“I suppose he’ll have to.” It was a statement of fact, made with no emotion at all, but spoken
here,
with the air around them live and dangerous as a lightning storm, it struck Roger like a blow in the chest.

“Yes.”

“And he wants a—a
liaison
with the army, perhaps? A connection, but not a formal connection. Just so.” Marion’s lips were thin and bloodless; pressed tight together, they disappeared, making him look like a marionette with a hinged, carved jaw.

“He knows of you, too,” Roger said carefully. “That you have experience in forming militia units and…employing them effectively in a…a formal military context?”

“It’s much more effective to employ them outside that context,” Marion said, glancing toward the cemetery wall. There was a rising noise of horses and men, audible now that the guns had fallen silent. His large dark eyes turned back, focusing on Roger’s face. “Tell him that. He should keep his distance from the army. They will use his militia, certainly, they need every man they can get. But the risk to him—him, personally—is very great. If it had not been for Lee’s trial and La Fayette’s good word, Fraser would have been court-martialed himself after Monmouth; perhaps even hanged.”

Marion spoke casually, but Roger felt the scar on his throat tighten and burn beneath the concealment of his high white stock, and he had the sudden uncontrollable urge to fling his arms out, burst the memory of rope and helplessness.

He gulped air and tried to speak, but no words came. Instead, he turned violently on his heel, seized a stone from the ground, and flung it at the stone wall. It struck with a crack like a bullet, and a gull that had been sitting on the wall rose with a shriek and flapped away, dropping a large wet splatter of feces on the ground between the two men.

Marion looked at him with concern.

Roger cleared his throat and spat on the ground. He didn’t apologize; there wasn’t anything he could say.

“I’ll tell him,” he said, hoarse and formal. “Thank you for your advice, sir.”

He was trembling. The sense of something coming hadn’t gone away; it was growing. The ground seemed to be vibrating, but it must be only him.

A young lieutenant came through the gate beneath the Star of David, face lit with fear and excitement.

“They’re waiting for you, Colonel.”

Marion nodded to the boy and stood up.

“You can’t leave, I’m afraid,” he said apologetically to Roger. “It will begin soon. Do you want to fight? I can give you a good rifle.”

“I—no.” Roger touched the stock at his throat. Marion’s attention was focused on the sounds behind the cemetery wall. No, it wasn’t his imagination; the ground
was
vibrating.
Horses. The horses…
“But I—I’d like to help. If I can.”

“Bon,”
said Marion softly, almost absently. He slid his arms into the sleeves of his coat and hitched it up on his shoulders, fingers twitching the lower buttons into place without looking. But his attention came back to Roger, just for a moment.

“Go back into camp, then,” he said. “And wait. If things go wrong, you can help bury us. Or if they go right, I expect.”

Marion looked toward the gate and shook his head slightly.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this, no,” he said, as though to himself, and went off, the young lieutenant falling into step behind him.

Roger hesitated for a split second, then followed, stretching his legs to catch up.

“I’m no good with a rifle,” he said. “But if you can give me a sword, I’ll go with you.” Marion cast him the briefest of glances, nodded, and made a small gesture to the lieutenant.

“Bon,”
he said. “Come on, then.”

BRIANNA WAS CUTTING UP
a bit of fried chicken in the kitchen for Mandy when she heard a tapping at the window. She looked up in surprise to see Lord John outside, in uniform. He grimaced and nodded, indicating that he would like to come in out of the rain.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked, opening the door into the back garden. She’d had tea with him twice since their arrival, but hadn’t expected an informal visit.

“I wanted to see you for a moment,” he replied, stepping in and taking the towel she offered him, “but I can’t spare the time for civilities with Mr. or Mrs. Brumby. Thank you, my dear.” He took off his hat, wiped his face, and brushed at the shoulders of his blue cloak, then handed back the towel.

“I came to tell you that the siege will shortly be at an end,” he said carefully, glancing at Jem, Mandy, and Mrs. Upton, the cook.

“Really? That’s—” she stopped abruptly, seeing his face. “What…makes you think so?” she asked carefully, and he gave her a brief smile.

“The Americans have begun to move their guns,” he said.

“Oh, have they? Time enough!” Mrs. Upton said, eyes on the eggs she was whisking. “The master said as he thought the Frenchies and their ships would be off soon, they not wanting to be blown to bits by hurricanes.”

“Hurricanes?” said Jem, perking up. “Do they have hurricanes here?”

“Indeed we do, Master Jem,” Mrs. Upton said, nodding portentously at the rain-spattered window. “See that rain? You can tell how hard the wind’s blowing—see the drops run slant-wise down the glass? This time of year the wind comes up—and sometimes it doesn’t go back down. For days.”

“I know you haven’t much time,” Bree said, eyeing John, “but come along to my studio, will you? I’d like your opinion on something.”

“It would be my pleasure.
Bonsoir,
monsieur, mademoiselle.” He nodded to Jemmy, then solemnly picked up Mandy’s chubby hand—fork, chicken, and all—bowed over it, and planted a discreet kiss upon it that made her shriek and giggle.

“Mrs. Upton is correct, to a point,” he said to Bree, once they were safely down the hall. “D’Estaing does
not
want to lose half his fleet to a hurricane. But neither does he want to sail away without trying to get what he came for.”

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning that the Americans are indeed moving their smaller guns—but not back onto the ships. A large number of troops appear to be moving to the south of the town, circling round through the marshes, which is not something I personally would do, but styles of command vary.”

She’d clenched her hands without noticing; now she noticed and unclenched them with a small effort.

“You mean they’re going to try to—to take the city? Now?”

“They’ll certainly
try,
” he assured her. “I don’t think they’ll manage it, but they have quite a few more men than we do, which no doubt gives them a sense of optimism. Just in case—” He pushed back his cloak in order to reach into the haversack he had slung over his shoulder and pulled out a small bundle of cloth, folded into a packet and tied with string.

“It’s an American flag,” he said, handing it to her. “Hal took it off a prisoner. If—and I do mean ‘in the extremely unlikely event’—the Americans do get in, hang this out a window, or tack it to the front door.”

Roger.
She swallowed. He’d been going to visit an elderly, retired Presbyterian minister who lived in the tiny settlement of Bryan Neck. With luck, he was nowhere
near
Savannah at the moment. But he
had
mentioned maybe going to see Francis Marion on Jamie’s behalf, if the Swamp Fox should be in the American camp…but…it wasn’t supposed to be
now
….Her heart was beginning to thump erratically, and she put a hand on her chest to still it.

“They have more men, you said.” He was resettling his cloak, ready to go, but looked up at this. “How many?”

“Oh, somewhere between three and four thousand,” he said. “At a guess.”

“And how many do you have?”

“Not that many,” he said. “But we
are
His Majesty’s army. We know how to do this sort of thing.” He smiled, and rising slightly on his toes kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry, my dear. If anything drastic happens, I’ll come for you if I can.”

He had almost got to the back door before she shook off her sense of shock enough to run after him.

“Lord John!”

He turned at once, eyebrows raised, and she thought for an instant how young he looked. Excited at the nearness of battle.
Roger. Oh, Lord, Roger…

“My husband,” she managed, breathless. “He’s on his way home, from—from an errand. He thought he’d make it for supper…?”

Lord John shook his head.

“If he’s not here now, he won’t be.” He saw the look on her face and added, “I mean, he can’t get into the city. The road is closed and the city is surrounded by abatis. But I’ll send word to the captain of the city guard. Remind me: What’s your husband’s name and what does he look like?”

“Roger,” she said, through the lump in her throat. “Roger MacKenzie. He’s tall and dark and he looks…like a Presbyterian preacher.”
Thank God you wore your good clothes today,
she thought passionately toward her absent husband.

Lord John had been fully concentrated on her words, but that made him smile.

“In that case, I’m sure no one will shoot him,” he said, and lifting her hand, kissed it briefly. “
Au revoir,
my dear.”

“Good…” she began by reflex, but then froze. He politely pretended not to notice, touched her cheek gently, then turned and went out, pulling down his hat against the rain.

THE SOFT LIGHT
woke her, next morning. She lay for a moment, confused. What was wrong?

“Mummy, Mummy!”

A small curly black head with bright brown eyes popped up at eye level, and she blinked, trying to focus.

“Mummy! Mrs. Upton says there’s flapjacks ’n’ hash for breakfast! Hurry up!” Mandy vanished, and Bree heard both children thundering down the stairs, both evidently already dressed and shod. It was true: enticing smells of food and coffee were drifting up from the dining room below.

She sat up and swung her feet out of bed, and then it struck her. It was quiet. The guns had stopped. After five days of being jerked awake in the black predawn by the distant French ships practicing bombardment, today the house was rising peacefully, early sun seeping through the fog, calm as honey.

“Thank God,” she muttered, and crossed herself, with a quick prayer for Roger, and another for her father, her first father. She’d believed what he’d said in the book; the siege of Savannah would fail. But it was hard to have complete faith in history when it was exploding around you.

“Thanks, Daddy,” she said, and reached for her stays.

In the Marshes Outside Savannah

An hour past midnight

October 9, 1779

THE QUILL WAS LITTLE
more than a blunt stub, the greasy feather mangled by dogged hands determined to send one last word. Roger had written more than one such word tonight, for the men who could not write or had no notion what to say. Now the camp lay sleeping—lightly—all around him, and he faced the same problem.

Dearest Bree,
he wrote, and paused for a breath before going on. There was only the one thing
to
say, and he wrote,
I’m sorry.
But she deserved more, and slowly, he found his way.

I didn’t mean to be here, but I have the strongest feeling that here is where I should be. It wasn’t quite “Whom shall I send? Who shall go for us?”—but something close, and so was my answer.

God willing, I’ll see you soon. For now and for always, I am your husband and I love you.

Roger

The last few words were ghosts on the scrap of rough, rain-spotted paper; the last of the ink. His name was no more than scratches, but he supposed that was all right; she’d know who’d written it.

He let the ink dry and folded the scrap carefully. Then realized that he had no way to send it—nor any ink left with which to write Bree’s direction on it. The other letters had been given to Marion’s company clerk, now snoring under a blanket near one of the many watchfires, anonymous among the huddled, sleeping sheep.

With slow hands, he tucked it into the breast pocket of his coat. If he died in the morning, someone might find it on him. Francis Marion would survive this battle; Roger could trust him to send it on—to Jamie, at least.

He lay down on the squelchy ground, commended his soul to God, and was asleep.

Two hours before dawn

October 9, 1779

THERE WAS A
shimmer of light in the eastern sky, but fog lay so thickly on the marshes that the city wasn’t visible. It was easy to believe that it wasn’t there at all, that they’d lost their bearings in the dark and were now facing inland, away from Savannah. That when the order was given, they’d charge, yelling like banshees, straight out into peaceful farmland, startling sleeping cows and slaves at their work.

But the wet, sluggish air stirred, and suddenly Roger caught the scent of baking bread from the public ovens in Savannah; faint, but so heady that his empty stomach growled.

Brianna.
She was there, somewhere in the fog with the fresh-baked bread.

Someone murmured something in French, too low to catch the words but evidently witty, for there was a ripple of laughter and the tension relaxed for a moment.

They were bunched into columns now, four columns, each column eight hundred strong. There was no need to keep quiet; the British certainly knew they were here. He could hear shouts from one of the redoubts at the edge of the city now, echoing oddly in the fog. Spring Hill, they called it. There was another redoubt, somewhere to the left, but he didn’t remember what that one was called.

It was cold, so early, but sweat trickled down the side of his face and he wiped it away, morning stubble rasping under his palm. The officers had all shaved before dawn, putting on their best uniforms like bullfighters preparing for the ring, but the men had risen from their blankets and bed sacks frowsty as scarecrows. Wide awake, though. And ready.

It’s the wrong day. Surely it’s the wrong day…

He shook his head violently. He was a historian, too—or had been. He of all people should know how imprecise history really was. But here they were, swallowed up in swirling fog, facing an invisible armed city at dawn. On the wrong day.

He drew a deep, trembling breath.

We’re going to lose this one.

Frank Randall said so.

His stomach clenched, hunger forgotten.

Lord, help me do what You want me to do—but in the name of Christ Your son, let me live through it.

“Because if You don’t, You’ll have my wife to answer to,” he murmured, and touched the hilt of his borrowed sword.

General Marion was bending down from his saddle, speaking French to two of the officers from Saint-Domingue—murky as it was, he was close enough to see the bright yellow of the officer’s lapels and cockades.
Yellow-breasted sapsuckers,
he thought.

They might as well be, too, for as much of their speech as he understood. Theoretically, Roger spoke French, but he didn’t speak this kind of French, full of hissing and glottal stops.

No one was trying to be quiet. Everyone knew what was about to happen, including the British garrison. The Americans and their allies had given up their position before the city, and—dragging their unwieldy cannon through the marshes, in the dark—had circled Savannah, the army gathering again before the two points where they might break through the city’s defenses, south of the Louisville Road.

Lord, help them. Help me help them. Please, deliver us.

And he knew it was a vain prayer and still he prayed with all his heart.

“Les abatis sont en feu!”
He heard the shout above the rumble and murmur and clanking of the army, and felt the jolt of hope like a stroke of lightning in his heart.

Someone had managed to set the abatis on fire! The news was rocketing around the marshes, and Marion stood up in his stirrups to peer through the fog.

Roger licked his lips, tasting salt. The British knew how to defend against a siege; the whole city was encircled on the landward side by trenches liberally spiked with abatis, sharpened logs jammed into the earth, points outward.

He could smell smoke, different in character from the smell of the ovens or of chimney smoke from the town—a wilder, rougher kind of smoke.

But then the wind changed and the smoke died. There were groans and curses in multiple languages; evidently the fire had gone out, been extinguished by the English, failed to catch hold in the damp, who knew?

But the abatis remained, and so did the cannon, aiming from the ground between the redoubts. He stared in fascination as they faded slowly into sight. The fog was beginning to shred and orders were being shouted. The faint skirl of a bagpipe floated on the air; there were Highlanders in the redoubt. The black snouts of the guns poked through the thinning fog, and now there was another kind of smoke that he knew must be slow-match, to touch off the cannon.

It was time, and his heartbeat echoed in his ears.

“You go back if you want, Reverend.” It was Marion, bending down from his horse, his breath visible in the chilly air. “You aren’t sworn nor paid to be here.”

“I’ll stay.” He couldn’t tell whether he’d said that or only thought it, but Marion straightened up and drew his sword from its scabbard, resting the blade on his thigh. He had a blue tricorne on his head, but there were dewdrops in the puffs of hair that covered his ears.

Roger took hold of his borrowed sword, though God knew what he’d do with it.
God knew.
That was, in fact, a comforting thought, and for a moment he was able to draw a deep breath.

“Save your life, maybe,” Lieutenant Monserrat had said, handing it over yesterday. “Even if you don’t mean to fight.”

I don’t mean to fight. Why am I here?

Because they’re here.
The men around him, sweating in the chill, smelling death with the scent of fresh-baked bread.

There was a roar from the first column that spread over the field, and he was seized by panic.

I don’t know what to do.

Mortars nearby fired with a sudden
bomph!
and he found that his knees and his hands were shaking and he urgently needed a piss.

You didn’t know what to do when the bear killed Amy Higgins,
a voice that might have been his said inside his head.
But you did something anyway. Things would have been worse if I hadn’t, I know that much. I have to go.

The first column suddenly began to run, not in tidy lines but a mob, surging toward the redoubt and the crack of musket fire, yelling their lungs out, some firing, some just running and screaming, a knife in one hand, clawing their way over the abatis, and they were falling as the bullets struck, those farther out knocked down like bowling pins by bouncing cannonballs. A panicked frog erupted suddenly from a patch of wiry yellow grass near Roger’s foot and landed in a puddle, where it vanished.

“I don’t like this, me,” Marion said, in a brief moment between explosions. He shook his head. “No, I don’t.” He raised his sword. “God be with you, Reverend.”

IT WASN’T GOD
he found with him, but the next best thing. Major Gareth Barnard, one of his father’s friends, an ex–military chaplain. Barnard was a tall, long-faced man who wore his graying hair parted down the middle in a way that made him look like an old hound dog, but he’d had a black sense of humor and he’d treated Roger, thirteen years old, as a man.

“Did you ever kill anyone?” he’d asked the major when they were sat around the table after dinner one night, the old men telling stories of the War.

“Yes,” the major replied without hesitation. “I’d be no use to my men, dead.”

“What did you do for them?” Roger had asked, curious. “I mean—what does a chaplain do, in a battle?”

Major Barnard and the Reverend had exchanged a brief look, but the Reverend nodded and Barnard leaned forward, arms folded on the table in front of him. Roger saw the tattoo on his wrist, a bird of some kind, wings spread over a scroll with something written on it in Latin.

“Be with them,” the major said quietly, but his eyes held Roger’s, deeply serious. “Reassure them. Tell them God is with them. That I’m with them. That they aren’t alone.”

“Help them when you can,” his father had said, softly, eyes on the worn gray oilcloth that covered the table. “Hold their hands and pray, when you can’t.”

He saw—actually saw—the blast of a cannon. A brilliant-red flowering spark the size of his head that blinked in the fog with a firework’s
BOOM!
and then vanished. The fog blew back from the blast and he saw everything clearly for a second, no more—the black hulk of the gun, round mouth gaping, smoke thicker than the fog rolling over it, fog falling to the ground like water, steam rising from the hot metal to join the roiling fog, the artillerymen swarming over the gun, frenzied blue and brown ants, swallowed up the next instant in swirling white.

And then the world around him went mad. The shouts of the officers had come with the cannon’s blast; he only knew it because he’d been standing close enough to Marion to see his mouth open. But now a general roar went up from the charging men in his column, running hell-bent for the dim shape of the redoubt before him.

The sword was in his hand, and he was running, yelling wordless things.

Torches glowed faintly in the fog—soldiers trying to re-fire the abatis, he thought dimly.

Marion was gone. There was a high-pitched yodeling of some sort that might be the general, but might not.

The cannon—how many? He couldn’t tell, but more than two; the firing kept up at a tremendous rate, the crash of it shaking his bones every half minute or so.

He made himself stop, bend over, hands on his knees, gasping. He thought he heard musket fire, muffled, rhythmic crashes between the cannon blasts. The British army’s disciplined volleys.

“Load!”

“Fire!”

“Fall back!”
An officer’s shouts rang out sudden in the heartbeat of silence between one crash and the next.

You’re not a soldier. If you get killed…nobody will be here to help them. Fall back, idiot.

He’d been at the back of the rank, with Marion. But now he was surrounded by men, surging together, pushing, running in all directions. Orders were being barked, and he
thought
some of the men were struggling to obey; he heard random shouts, saw a black boy who couldn’t be more than twelve struggling grimly to load a musket taller than he was. He wore a dark-blue uniform, and a bright-yellow kerchief showed when the fog parted for an instant.