Victory at Yorktown: A Novel (17 page)

“Well?”

“Sir, if it was simply to build ovens to keep the army supplied if they should decide to winter again nearby in Morristown, why the haste? It would have come as a standard order, a month or two from now, not with such haste within the last day. To me, that indicates a preparation for a march by a large force, perhaps the bulk of Washington’s army.”

“What, pray tell, does that have to do with your equal concern about this Edward lad and his story of gathering boats with the intent of attacking Staten Island?”

“I agree, sir, that building ovens in Chatham, twenty miles from the coast, bears no relationship, but we both know that General Washington is a master of subterfuge, to have one plan but to lay out several false trails to confuse us.”

“You confuse me, good sir,” Clinton said and now there was an indulgent smile. “First you speak of Staten Island and their seizing the Narrows, an absurd move, and now you speak of this godforsaken village named Chatham and their army building a bakery of all things to support them as they march. March to where, sir? To where?”

Smith, who had been all but ignoring the conversation, turned and now looked at Allen with what appeared to be interest.

Allen hesitated; he had been grilled often enough before like this. He was simply doing his job, providing daily intelligence reports about what was transpiring in New Jersey, much of it trivial, he knew as well as Clinton, but beneath those trivial facts, there might be concealed a nugget of truth.

This war had dragged on far too long. There were rumors of peace feelers, that some in their Congress were even greeting such talk after so many years of exhaustion and destruction. Would Washington accept such an outcome? He had stood before that man twice, and both times had left on him a marked impression. He kept his composure but as he looked at Clinton the contrast between the two was all too evident. Clinton, though a good general, a man who even showed a higher degree of consideration and concern for his infantry, the common soldier, than most of the officers of this army, was a man of languid airs. He lacked a certain boldness, a “joie de vivre,” a zest for command, a challenge, and the willingness that Washington had shown for action and risk-taking if he detected an opportunity. Allen had witnessed that personally at Trenton and again at Monmouth.

From his daily intelligence, Allen knew that Washington’s army was spiraling downward, with no pay for months, no action, nothing that could even remotely be called a battle in this theater for more than a year. That had been at Springfield, in which only a fraction of the Continentals were involved. His army was increasingly disgruntled, and had damn near mutinied into full rebellion the winter before last. The only thing still propping them up here in the North was the support of the French. Washington’s army, in its current condition, most likely could not stand another winter like Valley Forge. Washington was a man of action. Between now and the advent of winter he would have to seek action, as he did on Christmas night of 1776. Most men feared battle to one degree or another, but Washington did not. Washington was a bold leader ready to stake all on a single roll of the dice, “the random chance of battle,” as one put it, the way Caesar, Alexander, and William of Normandy had.

He would seek some bold move before winter and all instinct told Allen it was about to begin. Yet this general, his commander, sitting across from him, sipping his tea, was content to let another year of boredom, of no action in the North, play itself out. It was the safe bet, a slow winding down of the war, and finally he would return to England honored with titles, an estate, and ten thousand pounds a year. He was not willing to risk that. Washington, with nothing more to lose, was willing to risk everything.

He cast a glance back at the charts on the table.

“Perhaps not here,” he finally said, breaking the long moment of silence.

“What do you mean, Colonel?”

“Sir, we both know, and Washington does, too, that the defenses you have designed for this city are perfect.”

It was a deliberate compliment and Clinton swallowed it whole and smiled.

“That, sir, is the problem here, now.”

“I do not understand your meaning.”

“Sir, with my compliments you have laid out fortifications ringing this city that even if outnumbered four to one, we would hold and repulse the attack with ease.”

He did not add that, of course, the major card in that equation as well was the presence of ships of the line of the Royal navy that from here, clear up to the barrier at West Point on the Hudson, gave their side complete mastery of any approach to the city. It would be sheer insanity or the final lunge of a madman to venture an attack on Manhattan.

But somewhere else?

“Thank you for your report, Colonel, but I have others that now await me. I will expect you again same time tomorrow.”

He stood, saluted, and started for the door, again glancing at the charts. Opening the door he was surprised to find himself confronting an admiral. It was Rodney himself, and he stiffened, offering a salute. Rodney, followed by a long trail of staff, walked past him as if he were a servant, holding the door open for him. Clinton actually came to his feet, offering a warm greeting.

Rodney had not even noticed him, and a few captains shot him sidelong glances as they followed their commander in.

There was a call for tea with something to “stiffen” it. Allen stepped outside looking for his mount, and walked around the ornate carriage that had most likely borne up Rodney from a dock down by the Battery. His duty done for the day, he looked forward to a good breakfast, a good stiff drink or two, and a few blessed hours of sleep before repeating the same damn ritual yet again, from nightfall until dawn.

“Colonel?”

He looked back to the entryway into the mansion. It was Colonel Smith.

The man came bounding down the steps and approached. It caught Allen slightly off guard. This man had always been diffident, apparently bored whenever present as Allen reported.

“A moment of your time, sir, before you depart,” Smith said and motioned for Allen to join him on a walk down across the open lawn that led down to the East River.

“I have but a few minutes before the meeting with the Admiral begins, may I beg your indulgence as to a few thoughts.”

This did, indeed, catch Allen off guard. Smith had dropped the outward display of effete superiority nearly every officer on Clinton’s staff showed toward a “mere Continental, even if on our side,” especially one who dealt in the distasteful world of spying and counterspying, with the exception of course of his old friend, John Andre.

“I am at your disposal, sir,” Allen replied cautiously.

Smith actually took him by the arm, guiding him away from a knot of officers, the hanger-ons, who always lingered about army headquarters, hoping to pick up tidbits of news, or to be noticed.

“I am curious, sir.”

“However I may be of help,” Allen replied, still cautious.

“You implied more than my general was willing to discuss with you.”

“I am not sure I follow you, sir,” Allen said, voice even, showing no emotion, something he’d had to learn in order to survive, whether in this world of headquarters or back during the time when his life was on the line if he misspoke one word while behind enemy lines.

“I think, Colonel van Dorn, you were trying to warn my general that General Washington is planning some bold stroke. You are not yet sure what it is, but your sense of things, your knowledge of our opponents has led you to that conclusion.”

“I did not say that, sir.”

Smith laughed softly.

“Let us exchange confidences, sir. Say it is for the good of our king whom we both serve. I shall keep your words, as coming from you, in strictest confidence and upon that, sir, you have my pledge of honor as a gentlemen. So I do pray, just be frank with me.”

He looked into Smith’s eyes and at that moment did feel somewhat disarmed. The gaze was the same as his old friend Andre. Open, frank, noble to be certain, but one of honesty and integrity, even if he, Allen, was merely a “Continental” who had thrown his lot in with the Crown.

He forced a smile in reply, his smile greeted in turn by Smith, who, still holding him by the arm, squeezed him tightly as a sign of confidence, and then released his grasp.

“Washington knows his army will not hold together for another winter,” Allen said. “Six years since 1775 have exhausted the will of nearly everyone to continue the fight. They believed at the start of this war that it would be over in six months; it has now been six years. Washington knows he must risk all, in one bold stroke, to revive the will of Congress, his army, the people, and their allies the French to continue the fight. I think it shall happen here, or pass before our doorstep within the next few weeks.”

“What then?” Smith asked.

“As I said to our general, and he did not catch my full meaning…” Allen hesitated.

“Go ahead, sir, I have pledged on my honor that this is in confidence.”

He hesitated, then nodded, thinking of the old saying “in for a penny, in for a pound.”

“The defenses here are too perfect. I did mean that in one way as a compliment, but combine that with the support of the Royal navy, and Washington knows he cannot attack with even the remote hope of a victory as he achieved at Trenton.”

Smith nodded in agreement.

“Dare I say he should have left some point weakly held. At least to outward appearances. A point to lure Washington into one of his bold ventures. We have seen before there is no weak point. That leaves Washington with only one alternative. To seek a bold stroke in another location, another theater of operation entirely, to win a battle he must win, no matter what the risk, before the onset of winter. If he hesitates in this, he knows he will lose this war by spring.”

Smith stood silent, not replying.

“The charts on the table. May I ask why they were there. Charts more for the navy, extending clear to the Caribbean and our coast clean up to here. That indicated something to me.”

Smith still was silent but he could see by the narrowing of the man’s eyes that he had hit on something.

“You know that the campaign in the Carolinas has all but failed. Cornwallis has pulled back to Virginia, under the guise of taking the war there, but essentially he is in a defensive position at this moment.”

“But still supplied by sea?” and Allen said it more as a question than a statement of fact.

Smith hesitated, then nodded.

“As long as His Majesty’s navy controls the approaches to the Chesapeake, yes.”

Allen took that in and finally nodded.

“In order for Washington’s and Rochambeau’s armies to link up with that of Greene and Lafayette, to then have a superior force to challenge Cornwallis, they first must pass through New Jersey.”

He let the words slip out in one quick rush, a thought that had been forming ever since he walked into Clinton’s office and saw the maps on the table. Was that what Rodney and Clinton were talking of even now? Was something in doubt? He had heard, of course, as all had, that the French admiral, de Grasse, was in the Caribbean raising havoc. But … but perhaps, with the advent of the hurricane season, when most fleets wisely withdrew from that region, his destination was this campaign in North America. Where would be the logical place to strike?

Smith looked at him and seemed to draw in, as if he dare not say more of what he felt.

“I really must get back in, the meeting with Rodney has started by now and I am needed there,” he finally said.

Allen nodded with understanding.

“Of course, sir.”

There was a moment of hesitation.

“Perhaps, if you permit, I may call on you later in the week. Ever since the murder of our friend Andre, the general has hesitated to send officers behind enemy lines, but I would like to discuss some thoughts with you.”

“But of course, sir,” Allen said, and he offered his address, a rather lowly place down near the wharves off of the Wall Street, but a convenient location for the work he was engaged in.

Rather than salute, Smith actually shook his hand, so uncharacteristic of the British, then turned and ran back to the mansion. An orderly led up Allen’s mount, freshly groomed while he attended to the general, and held the lead as he mounted and started back to the city.

As he rode along the Broad Way, passing several parties of officers accompanied by their ladies of the day, out for picnics in the countryside, his gaze lingered on the Palisades.

What exactly was going on behind that ridge?

He had a feeling that in a few days, he would be seeing for himself what was afoot, and the thought filled him with anticipation, and as he remembered the fate of his friend John, it filled him with fear as well.

Seven

TAPPAN FERRY ON THE HUDSON

AUGUST 19, 1781

The first boat cast off as nightfall blanketed the river.

For Washington this was not like the nightmare of evacuating after the horrific defeat at Long Island, or the lunge of desperation that Christmas night on the Delaware. After receiving word from Admiral de Grasse to expect him by month’s end at the mouth of Chesapeake, Washington had made his decision in less than an hour and the die was cast. He would take more than half his ragged army on a five hundred mile march, to be covered in less than a month, down into Virginia to link up with his old comrades and friends, Lafayette and Dan Morgan, whom Greene had detached to reinforce the young French general, while he took the rest of his intact army south to retake the Carolinas and Georgia. Rochambeau had agreed without hesitation to Washington’s plan, eager for action at last, to place four thousand of his elite troops at “mon Général’s” disposal.

The gamble would settle things one way or the other, once and for all, before winter. Though the odds were long, nevertheless it was a far better chance than a slow flickering out and dying of the cause for which he had given the last six years of his life.

To coordinate land and sea forces separated by thousands of miles? Yet the thought lingered in his nightmares that in spite of Rochambeau’s reassurances, the letter from the French admiral could be an elaborate forgery, a ruse of war. Then there was the vast array of other unknowns upon which he was now gambling all. Hurricanes were known to strike the tropical isles as early as May. At this very moment de Grasse, along with his twenty-eight ships of the line and twenty thousand sailors, might be cast up onto the shores of a tropical atoll or the barrier islands of Florida, nothing but splinters and marooned men surrounded by floating, decaying corpses. The history of over two hundred and fifty years of fleets sailing the Caribbean was replete with stories of elaborate plans, smashed by the whimsy of fate and an ill wind.