Victory at Yorktown: A Novel (12 page)

“Oh, Peter, I suspect why you ask. You know I love you as well…” her voice trailed off.

“But not in that way,” he sighed.

She tried to smile, and leaning over she kissed him lightly on the forehead, not saying a word.

“Now tell me what really happened at Guilford,” she said, and there were tears in her eyes again.

He returned to his seat on the other side of the fireplace, heart filled with sad longing as he gazed at her, telling her all of being with Greene, the winter campaign, the lies of the report that had raced ahead of him, her interjecting that it obviously had to be part of the old Gates’s “cabal” but the truth would come out.

He suddenly felt very weary. Was it the long days of riding, or the sad shock of looking at Elizabeth, realizing more than ever how much he loved and idealized her, but that her heart had been captured by Allen.

He at last fell silent and then was startled by a light touch on his shoulder, a kiss to the top of his head, the scent of her body and perfume.

She laughed softly.

“You dozed off in midsentence there my young hero, come with me.”

Yawning he stood up and followed her into the living room where she motioned to the sofa.

“You have a long day ahead. Sleep for an hour or two. Don’t worry, I’ll wake you up in plenty of time. I already took that poor exhausted mount of yours out to the barn and got the saddle off him.”

“Elizabeth, I should have seen to that.”

“Can’t a lady know something about horses? When Ben used to tend to father’s mount I would help him. Now get some rest.”

He did not resist, even accepting her loving gesture of helping him take his boots off, though embarrassed that his socks were little better than rags. When he awoke two hours later, she was sitting on a chair by his side, a simple repast of yet more tea, toast, and several thin slices of bacon waiting for his attention. She had also laid out fresh socks, riding breeches, and a freshly boiled shirt.

“The pants belonged to my father. They are a bit portly but seriously, Peter, you can’t appear before your general in those stinking leathers. Now eat and change and I’ll leave you to your privacy.”

He did as ordered as she retreated to the kitchen. He was embarrassed to take off his shirt, for it was full of lice and fleas, the same as the breeches. After changing he picked up the filthy gray shirt, pants, and tattered socks and nervously walked into the kitchen where Elizabeth appeared to be busying herself with tending the fire.

He did not even have time to ask before, with a wrinkling of her nose that he found all so loveable, she gestured straight to the fire.

“Not even worth handing over to the rag man,” she announced as he tossed them into the fire, and she even managed to laugh as she shifted them deeper into the flames with an iron poker.

“Just that one hug, I most likely caught a few of your traveling companions.”

“I am so sorry,” he stuttered.

“I’m not, even though Doctor Rush is convinced they carry disease.”

“Elizabeth, I am so…”

“Stop apologizing to me, Peter Wellsley,” she snapped. “That one time we danced together, every time you trod on my toes you kept muttering apologies.”

Then she stepped forward and kissed him yet again on the forehead.

“You know something, Elizabeth,” he began, unable not to stammer.

“Don’t say it,” she whispered, even as she gave him a gentle hug then stepped back.

“Now get you on your way, I dare say our general needs to hear the truth as to events.”

He smiled at the way she said “our general,” a touch of reverence in her voice.

She followed him to the back door, opening it, but before doing so, she again embraced him.

“You will always hold a special place in my heart forever, Peter.”

He could not contain himself any longer.

“Elizabeth, I do love you and always will.”

“Peter, don’t.”

“I know about Allen. Even though now he is my enemy, out of love for you I pray that all shall be well for him and for you.”

His voice began to choke.

“If need be, I will help him on his path to you, once all of this madness has ended.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and she was unable to reply as he left her side. He looked back as she slowly closed the door, knowing he would be forever haunted by her gaze. Saddling his poor weary mount he trotted back out on to Market Street. All was abuzz with rumors about Guilford Court House, people gathered around the office of the
Gazette,
snatching up copies as quickly as they came off the press.

He felt all so weary at the sight of it all, and heartsick now that he had left Elizabeth’s side, his longing, he believed, forever to be unanswered. He felt shaken to the core, the thought of dickering with the remount officer and then the long ride across Jersey filling his soul with exhaustion. He still had a couple of shillings and a thaler in his haversack and in spite of his sense of duty and urgency, there was no harm in taking a few minutes for a cool mug of German beer to fill his stomach after the thin repast with Elizabeth. Spotting a tavern, one of many lining the waterfront, he dismounted and walked in.

Of course all were talking loudly about the supposed news from North Carolina. Taking a frothing tankard, which would have cost him five dollars Continental but only a few pennies of hard coin, he looked about for a place to sit for a few minutes to gather his strength before moving on. A table near a fly-splattered window had but one occupant and approaching he motioned to the empty seat on the other side, the thin, somewhat bedraggled man sitting there offering a smile and a welcoming gesture for him to sit down.

The man looked at him appraisingly.

“Pennsylvania Rifles? First Continental?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Peter offering the usual lie.

“Hmmm,” was the only response as his host drained the rest of his glass of dark rum, and slamming it down, slapped the table, calling for the barman to bring him another.

The service was surprisingly prompt Peter thought, the barman taking the genuine shilling gladly and nodding his head.

“Thank ya, Mr. Paine.”

“Mr. Paine?”

The hawk-faced man, features flushed obviously from too much drink, simply nodded then in the gesture that had become common and showed the egalitarian nature of a revolutionary by extending his hand.

“Thomas Paine at your service, my young rifleman.”

Peter could not help but contain his shocked surprise. Before him sat “the” Thomas Paine. The author of the immortal words that he had listened to, while shivering on the banks of the Delaware, waiting to cross. “These are the times that try men’s souls…”

Yet the man who sat before him now? He would have expected Thomas Paine to have the look of a scholar, an intellectual, a young Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson. Instead his coat was seedy looking, stained, his face covered in stubble, the classic look of a man lost in drink, clouding his eyes, pinching in his cheeks.

“Don’t look at me with such surprise, young Patriot,” Paine said with a chuckle before downing half the glass of rum. “I am mere mortal as any other.”

“I remember your words, sir,” Peter replied, unable to hide his awe, “I crossed the Delaware with Washington, your words filled our souls with fire.”

“That was, let’s see, that was over four years ago and still it goes on,” Paine sighed now looking into his glass. “So you were one of the gallant few, the winter soldier and not just the sunshine Patriot.”

He laughed softly.

“If there is a God, may He not hold against me all who died with my words in their souls.”

Peter could not reply.

“Now news of yet another defeat,” Paine sighed, taking another sip of his rum.

“It was not a defeat, damn it,” Peter snapped.

Paine looked straight at him.

“Well pray, sir, do you carry some winged message from heaven to the contrary of what all are crying in the streets.”

Peter hesitated.

“I’ve become a good judge of truth versus falsehood if I dare to praise myself,” Paine said, “and you, sir, do not look like a rifleman. You don’t have that hardened steely eye and sinewy, at times, murderous look about you, and good God, sir, those breeches you wear are the pants of rich man and not a rifleman who has been the army for four years.”

Peter looked down at the pants Elizabeth gave him and inwardly sighed. Sure enough, to a practiced eye it was a dead giveaway. They were not velvet, thank God, he would have rejected that, but they were, nevertheless, good riding breeches of rich material.

And this was Thomas Paine.

“I know it is the oldest question in the world, sir, but can you keep a secret, at least till I am clear of this town.”

Paine smiled.

“I’m a stranger, why would you trust me thus?”

Peter looked down into his own mug. Thomas started to call to the barkeep to bring a fresh one, but he held out his hand in refusal. The last thing he needed at this moment was to fall drunk, shoot his mouth off, and fail in his mission.

He hesitated, and Paine smiled.

“I am who that barkeep said I am, and, good sir, one of the reasons I am good and properly half-drunk this hour of the day is that I am to take ship with the tide for France. I am to accompany the young son of the president of our confederation, Colonel Laurens, bearing dispatches to Mr. Franklin, God bless him, and John Adams to beg the French yet again for more help. So if you have some secret intelligence, let it sail with me on the tide rather than news of yet more disaster.”

Peter nodded and could not help but draw a bit closer, having made his decision. Besides, in another hour he would be out of this town and on the postal road to West Point.

“I’m bearing a dispatch from General Greene to General Washington.”

Paine sat back and laughed out loud.

“Go on and tell another.”

“If you don’t believe me, sir,” Peter sighed, and he motioned as if to finish his drink and then depart.

Paine laughed and gestured for him to stay.

“Let us share conspiracy, and if I think you tell the truth, I will tell you truth as well.”

For the next half hour Peter told him all of what he had witnessed in what was called the “Southern Campaign,” and his own firm belief that Greene, having lured Cornwallis to the edge of disaster while keeping the bulk of his army intact, would now swing south, abandoning Cornwallis to whatever fate he might decide upon, with the goal of winning back Charleston, Savannah, and forcefully pulling back the Southern states, which had been wavering, to the revolutionary cause.

“You place great trust in this Greene,” Paine finally said, and though he had drained the rest of his glass and called for another, he now seemed cold sober.

“Only one man I trust more and that is General Washington himself.”

Paine nodded thoughtfully.

“Young sir, Peter, isn’t it? I believe your words and they are heartening after listening to the ballyhoo of that confused crowd, egged on even by some members of Congress this morning.”

“I tell you, sir, Greene believes victory could be in sight if Cornwallis either is bottled up in Wilmington or turns north into Virginia and is trapped there with his back to the sea. Such will be impossible as long as the British control access to those ports and can either resupply him, or simply pull him out, and transport him back to New York, or reaffirm his hold on Charleston before Greene can march his army there.”

Paine nodded after Peter fell silent, and then smiling, wearily shook his head.

“They actually think I can somehow hold some sway with the French court. Silly creatures many of them, for even as they support us, the very system they live on I would see brought down as well, but there are some there I hope are of good heart.”

He shook his head, a bit bleary eyed and looked at Peter.

“I’ll believe your story, young sir. Perhaps because it is so fantastic. I’ve learned in this war to believe the near unbelievable. So if, indeed, you will be in the presence of General Washington by tomorrow, carry this to him from Thomas Paine.”

Paine ordered another glass of rum and then looked about the room as if fearful of being overheard, then leaned forward, his voice barely a whisper.

“Congress totters on the edge of giving up this fight. Except for the elder Laurens, the president of this so-called confederation, many of the delegates of the deep South are ready to break away and seek some sort of accommodation with the British with the vain hope it will end the slaughter and destruction. Nevertheless, the wounds there run too deep now, it must be total victory for one side or the other, otherwise it will be a perpetual running sore of civil war. If they do break away while the rest of our states hold true, there will be another war in short order, a belligerent border we would have to guard from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Even some of the northern delegates mutter that a treaty now with England, with some concessions by both sides, will open the ports back up to trade and to hell with the Southern states. Others, as always, mutter against Washington.”

“Who?” Peter asked angrily.

Paine smiled.

“I dare say he knows and to recite the names? It would just be the usual list and he most assuredly knows them after five years, otherwise he would not have kept his saddle. Now there are rumors floating in from Europe that the Czarina of Russia, Catherine, has offered to broker a peace and even some in the French court are turning to listen to her.”

“Catherine of Russia?” Peter asked, and there was confusion in his voice.

“The old game of European politics, my young friend. A war involving the powers of western Europe does not fit her own game. While England, France, Holland, and now even Spain struggle because of a shot fired, most likely by accident at Lexington Green, she would rather see one or more of them grateful to her and to lend support for her own designs. To throw the Turks out of the Balkans in some sort of holy crusade to free Constantinople from the Turks, which of course gives her far better access to trade. Or to turn against Sweden or whatever she is scheming. So, she is sending her agents to Paris, London, and here, with honeyed words that she will bring about peace between all, acting as if she is giving a holy offering to help negotiation. Just tell your general that some in Congress are turning their heads and seeing it as a way out. That unless there is a firm conclusion in the field by the end of this year, they will broker a compromise peace before next spring.”