Time Enough for Drums (19 page)

“Lucy, what is it?”

“The Americans. They be attackin’.”

Then there came a pounding on our front door. Downstairs the British were scurrying about, cursing loudly, “By God,” an English voice boomed. “I knew it!”

I dressed. Doors slammed downstairs, and in a few minutes horses’ hooves galloped around our house and into the street. The snow was mixed with sleet out on Queen Street. The British dragoons galloped toward the Assunpink Creek south of town. A group of Hessians came out of a house across the street, half dressed, hailing them down. They did not stop. They almost ran the Hessians over.

Lucy wanted to go into the cellar, but I refused. “This is my house, Lucy. I won’t hide in the cellar like a rat. I want to know what’s going on around me.”

She gave me no argument, perhaps because she wanted to see what was going on too. “You jes’ stay away from those windows,” she directed. “I be goin’ down to make some breakfast. We might as well git some vittles in us. The Good Lord knows when we be eatin’ again.”

But I ran from window to window to find out what was happening. All I could see was smoke over on King Street and swirling snow. I could hear shouting in the distance, the breaking of glass, the whinnying of horses, the musket and cannon fire. And it was coming closer.

There was the awful sound of the beating-to-arms, the drumming that called the men to order, which anyone would recognize if they had a soul, no matter what side they were on. The battle seemed to be raging all around us. Hessians were still pouring out of houses on Queen Street, waving their arms and going back inside again.

Down the street came more British dragoons. They raced toward the bridge at the end of town. I knelt on the window seat trying to see up Front Street. I counted eight cannon being dragged by Americans. My heart nearly burst inside, watching them. Then I felt someone put a blanket around my shoulders.

“Come ’n’ eat.”

“Lucy, I want to find Daniel. He must be with them.” And John, I thought, but I couldn’t tell her that. She still thought he was a Tory.

“Daniel’s a big boy. He be findin’ his way home.”

“But we just can’t sit here!”

“You’ll get kilt out there, and Lucy ain’t gonna allow it.”

The Hessians were pouring down our street, trying to form some kind of order. No, they were trying to get out of town. They were running wildly up Queen, then coming back again. The Americans must have the cannon on the bridge over the Assunpink, I decided. They must be blocking the way out of town.

The cannon boomed, the drums beat, and it was all muffled by falling snow. From Daniel’s room in back of the
house I saw Hessians forming on King Street with their artillery. In the next moment I heard a roar that seemed to shatter my bones. Then horses screamed and I saw men go down. But because of the snow, it all had a far-off quality. Sometimes I could not even make out the color of the uniforms or see who was falling down.

Only three quarters of an hour had gone by since the battle started. About a block up on Queen Street I saw half a dozen Hessians on horseback followed by several hundred men. The one leading must be Colonel Rall, I decided. I watched them turn up Quaker Lane and take Fourth Street to march out of town.

I heard another roar, but it was not cannon. It was the unmistakable roar of human voices, as if thousands of maddened souls had been let loose. American soldiers were darting in between houses in ones and twos, skeletonlike, coming out of the snow. They looked crazed, with their clothes in tatters and their faces covered with mud. I could follow them by the puffs of smoke from the firing of their muskets.

The snow blew across my line of vision and blocked everything out like a curtain. Then it cleared again. In the distance I saw a figure on a dark horse wearing deep blue. It stood out from the others. Mounted officers followed it and then the long, tattered line of men.

Washington!

I could barely breathe. The snow swirled again, closing around the Americans. I wanted to cry. The Hessians were in the distance in a meadow off Fourth Street. In the next few minutes everything got confused, and they all looked like little miniatures moving on the white stage before my eyes.

I saw the man in the dark blue go down and his horse
roll to the ground. Then, amid the distant sounds of battle, men were running and falling while cannon fired. This continued for five more minutes, and then everything stopped.

It got quiet. All I could hear was the sound of the snow as it piled up on my window.

I went downstairs. Lucy was cooking. The smell of fresh-baked bread was in the kitchen, and I realized I was hungry. “Sit down ’n’ eat,” she directed.

I sat and drank some coffee and ate bread and honey. There was a knock on the front door. We looked at each other. She waved me to silence and went to answer it. I ventured into the hall, listening.

It was the servant girl from Stacy Potts’s house. The battle was over, the girl said. The Americans had taken Trenton. They had lost no one. Colonel Rall, the Hessian commander, had been shot.

Still, Lucy would not let me go out.

“I want to find my brothers. Lucy, I’ll die if they’re in town and I don’t see them!”

“Supposin’ I lets you go out in them streets and they come here? Cap’n Dan would kill me iff’n I lets you roam them streets with them men out there. Now go git me some eggs from the buttery.”

She kept me in the house. All up and down Queen Street I could hear the voices and sounds of men and horses. I peeked out the front windows, wondering if any soldiers would come to our door. But they were busy stacking captured goods, blankets, muskets, coats, and barrels of dry stuffs. Some men just sank wearily down on the wooden walks, unable to move farther.

They herded the Hessians into groups. Hatless and unarmed, they did not look like the fierce soldiers Rall had
paraded through our streets. They looked uncertain, like the rest of us, as if some seam had unraveled and come undone inside them.

There was a knock on our door about half an hour later, and I went to open it. A soldier stood there with long wet hair that had come undone from his queue and half covered his face, which was blackened from gunpowder. He was covered with mud, yet not so much that I couldn’t make out that the coat had once been red and blue.

“Will you come in?” I started to say, “We have food. And there’s coffee. Do you have anyone with you?”

Then I saw his sword and noticed there was something familiar about his shoulders as he leaned against the door, looking as if he would fall over in a dead faint.

“I’m Daniel, Jem,” he said.

“How are you, Jem?”

He was as confident and commanding a presence as ever, despite his bedraggled appearance. I reached out to him. “No, no, Jem, I’m filthy. Wait until I clean up a bit. Are you all right? Is everyone all right?”

But I couldn’t answer. I stood there staring at him as if I were suddenly dim-witted.

“In heaven’s name, Jem, has the war made you daft? Come along then.”

I followed him through the hall. Lucy stood in the door of the kitchen. “Welcome home, Cap’n Daniel.”

“Hello, Lucy.” In the kitchen he removed his sword and pistols, his hat and coat. He took the piece of flannel she offered him and washed his hands and face and tied his hair back. Then he opened his arms to me.

His embrace was fierce. “Jem, why are you crying?” He drew back, looked around the empty kitchen and saw the stricken look on Lucy’s face.

“Where are Mother and Father?” he said.

He sat next to the kitchen fire and sipped his mug of
coffee while we told him all that had happened. His face went very white, and he listened without saying a word. I saw tears come to his eyes, but he held them in check. And then I saw his jaw set forever in the ways of a man.

“So, the Hessians were here. And the British. And they did you no harm?”

“No, sir,” Lucy said.

“Jem?” He looked at me.

“They did me no harm, Dan.”

“Where …” He cleared his throat. “Where is Father buried?”

“In St. Michael’s churchyard,” I said.

“And Mama is with the Moores, you say.”

“Yes. She hasn’t been right since it happened. The Moores want to keep her and nurse her. I wanted to go there, but I didn’t have the chance. Perhaps I will now.”

He heard the tremor in my voice, saw my pain, and saw through it to something else. “My poor Jem. Lucy, would you see if you could get my coat a little clean, please? I have a meeting in an hour.” He picked up his sword and pistols. “Come along, Jem, we can talk in the parlor.”

He closed the door behind us, set down the sword and pistols, and put his mug on the mantel. He seemed so much taller. His face had a day’s worth of beard and he looked tired, but the aura of authority about him was unmistakable. “Good Lord, Jem, I’m twenty-one and I’m the head of a family. Well, it can’t be any worse than leading a rag-tailed regiment in a retreat across the Jerseys. How is Betsy?”

“The Moores wrote that they were well. They’ve lost Raymond and Mr. Moore has gone to … fetch him home.”

A shadow crossed his face. “I expected it. I blame myself. If I hadn’t asked to have him with me when I came south …”

“It isn’t your fault.”

“You were writing to him. Were you two—”

“No, Dan. I was fond of Raymond, but we ended up just being friends.”

“Then who is it? Come, now, don’t pretend innocence. I haven’t time for games. I don’t even have time to see Mother. I have an idea we’ll be crossing back into Pennsylvania before this day is up, and I must be off soon.”

“It’s John Reid, Dan. But how did you know?”

He showed no surprise. “I should hope I’ve had enough experience with my men to know when someone is aching to ask me something. John, is it?” He smiled. “I must say I’m glad of it. So you two managed to stop fighting long enough to realize you loved each other. When did you last hear from him?”

“He was here on the thirteenth, on a mission.”

He nodded. “That would be right. He also could have been one of the volunteers in farmer’s clothing who preceded our march this morning. They were to reconnoiter Hessian outposts and prevent Tories from carrying warnings.”

“You mean he might be here today?”

“No, Jem. If he was one of them he wouldn’t show his face in town until it’s safe for a Tory. He took enough of a chance being recognized this morning. My guess is he’ll want to keep his Tory identity and you’ll be hearing from him when you least expect it.” He smiled. “Or I will, most likely, when he discovers I’m the one he has to ask for your hand.”

“And what will you say?”

“I’ll tell him I’ll give you a substantial dowry and wish him well. With you, Jem, he’ll need all my best wishes. Come along, you can walk through town with me before my meeting.” He put on his pistols and we went to the kitchen, where Lucy had his coat brushed and dried.

“Beautiful, Lucy.” He put on the coat and the sword. “I know you’re dying to know about Cornelius. I haven’t seen him. Or David.” He turned to me. “The last I knew they were supposed to cross nine miles below town with General Cadwalader. As far as I know they haven’t shown. But I’m sure they’re all right.”

“Dan, Lucy is free now. Father freed her and Cornelius before … the British and Hessians came to town.”

“Wonderful, Lucy. I’m so glad.” He reached out and took her hand. “You’ll stay on, I hope. I’ll pay you whatever you ask to stay and look out for Jem in my absence.”

Soldiers saluted Dan as we walked through town. Once or twice he stopped to nudge some poor weary soldier who was drunk from confiscated rum. He’d scold him, bawl him out, and send him on his way, but gently. “They can’t be faulted,” he said. “They’ve won their first battle in months—and against the most powerful army in the world. Do you know what it means, Jem? We were retreating for months. We were beaten. It was all lost and so hopeless, and then Washington decided to take this chance.”

He told me about the crossing in the sleet and dark, with the ice floes on the river hitting the boats, about the endless march, of having to keep his men’s spirits up. “Washington was everywhere, it seemed, encouraging us.”

There was a crowd in front of Stacy Potts’s house. Dan took my arm. “There, Jem, now you can see him. It’s Washington.”

I scarcely saw the two men with him. My eyes were drawn to the man in the dark blue cloak as if I were bewitched. I saw the way he strode through the lines of Pennsylvania Riflemen, who parted ranks, the way his cloak swung open to reveal his buff breeches and sword, his stature,
the breadth of his shoulders, the way he turned before going into the Potts’s house, his eyes briefly surveying the crowd.

A silence fell over everyone. For a moment he seemed to look right in my direction. I felt a sort of calm come over me as I saw the look on his face. For there was a sternness, a forbidding manner that made one cringe and remember all one’s sins. And then, just as one was about to despair, there was a kindness in his eyes, lighting the way for a steady, strong compassion that came from within that I would remember for the rest of my days.

Colonel Rall died that day in Stacy Potts’s house. Our army left town late that afternoon, with over a thousand Hessian prisoners. Dan had given me permission to run Father’s shop. For the first time that night I felt at peace. John Reid would be coming back soon, I was sure of it.

Almost two thousand American soldiers were back in Trenton on the last day of the year, concentrated on the banks of the Assunpink Creek.

Lucy and I had no idea what was going on. There was all sorts of activity outside, and someone told us that General Washington had taken up headquarters in the home of Major Barnes, which was right up the street from us.

At nine there was a knock on our door. It was Daniel. He stepped in out of the cold with another officer. “This is Lieutenant Edward Rawlings, a friend of mine. My sister, lieutenant.”

The lieutenant was tall and rangy, and he bowed. I remembered to curtsy. “Have you any hot coffee?” Dan asked. “We’ve just traveled that nine miles for the third time in a week.”