Victory at Yorktown: A Novel (21 page)

The day was hot, and swarms of mosquitoes were tormenting them as they had skirted along the banks of the Passaic River, at last finding a muddy ford. He and Jamie had stripped down to cross, and wandering about in soaking wet breeches would certainly draw notice. The crossing had been unpleasant, the Passaic was here a muddy creek and stunk of tanning bark from an upstream mill. The banks were muddy and there had been a startled moment when they kicked up a copperhead that had nearly bitten Jamie. The lad was still a bit shaken.

The village was just a few hundred yards ahead, and all seemed quiet, though several militiamen were lounging in front of a tavern.

“Stay here, boy,” he said softly. “If anything happens to me, just get the hell out. Get back. Your best bet would be wait until dark and set out on foot. You know which ferryman to trust once back to the Hudson. Report to General Clinton.”

He paused.

“No, find his secretary, Colonel Smith, and report to him. He’ll believe you.”

As he spoke he handed over a purse filled with a couple of pounds of silver Spanish coins to buy his way across.

Jamie grinned at him.

“You know, if I lit out with this much money now, you’d be in a fix, wouldn’t you?”

Though the boy had been working for him for more than half a year, he did feel a slight hesitation, but then Jamie laughed softly.

“I’ll wait for you here, sir.”

With his breeches back on and nearly dry, he took a bottle of rum from his haversack and doused himself liberally with it, and for good measure took a strong tug on the bottle as well. Coming out of the woods and brush bordering the creek he struck out on to the main road, carefully checking first to make sure no one saw him emerging and then fell into one of his old routines of weaving a bit drunkenly, bottle in hand, and, nerving himself, headed straight into the village.

Chatham was not all that much—several mills along this, the upper reaches of the Passaic, and the farmland not as good as on the far side of the Watchungs down into Springfield—but it was on the main road from the coastal plain to Morristown, where the Rebel army had twice gone into winter camp. It was a main thoroughfare back and forth between Rebel territory and Loyalist-held Elizabethtown and thus patrolled by both sides.

As he weaved his way into the center of the village, the militia “guarding” the tavern barely stirred, several chuckling as he made a bit of a show of staggering about and then with a friendly gesture holding up the bottle of rum. One of them motioned him over.

“Started early today, didn’t you?” one of them said as he took the bottle without comment, took a long swig, grunted with approval, and then passed it to his friends.

He sat down on the edge of the porch in a shaded corner, took off his broad brimmed hat, and fanned himself.

“Got more of that,” he said with a slur, and patted his haversack so that the half dozen bottles inside clinked significantly, conveying the message that was his standard cover, a petty rum runner moving between the lines, smuggling bottles of blockaded rum, which flowed freely from the Carib to New York harbor.

He reached into his haversack and held a full bottle up for them to see.

“Jamaican, the best,” he announced proudly.

The four didn’t speak, just looking at the bottle and then glancing down significantly into their mugs, filled with local whiskey and most likely distilled only the week before.

“How much?” one of them asked, coming straight to the point.

“Fifty dollars Continental or a silver shilling.”

“For all of them. You got more in there—I can hear it,” announced the man who had taken the half-empty bottle from him.

He shook his head with an exaggerated gesture.

“Per bottle, friend.”

“You son of a bitch, that’s more than four months’ pay.”

“In paper, which we know ain’t worth a damn.”

“Suppose we just take what you got and the hell with you.”

Allen held up a finger and wagged it with an exaggerated manner.

“Then I won’t be back in a few days with more. Long walk it is from where I get this.”

“We most likely won’t be here in a few days anyhow, you thieving son of a bitch,” one of the others announced and there were grunts of agreement. One of them stood up threateningly.

Allen stood up, swaying.

“I’ll break ’em all before I’ll let you steal ’em.” As he spoke he fumbled in his haversack, pulling a bottle out and holding it up threateningly.

“If you do, damn it, we’ll break your skull.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, we can settle this and everyone will be happy,” he replied. “I spoke rashly. How about twenty-five a bottle?”

The four looked at each other.

“Ten,” their leader replied, but not coming any closer to Allen, obviously fearful of his threat.

He acted as if debating.

“Fifteen, that is ninety for the six I still have.”

The four huddled together, looking back at him as he held the bottle up over his head. Even as he did so, he took in the details around him. These were the only four militia about and, thank God, no officer who might be sober and question him more carefully.

The deal was struck at twelve and a half a bottle, the scrip handed over, coming out to eighty dollars for the six bottles since no one had any notes for less than ten dollars, and within minutes the four, joined by their new friend, were happily drinking and blathering away.

In another fifteen minutes he had all the information he needed, though he was feeling more than a bit lightheaded. The belligerent soldier of but minutes before, pouring a quarter of a bottle into a mug and insisting he join them in a toast to General Washington and the damn Congress and was not satisfied until Allen had drained the mug. Though, he tried to spill as much of it as possible as he downed it.

There was, indeed, a new bakery for hardtack built down by the river, with a call out for farmers to bring in their grain for a fair price, which was actually being paid. The miller and several bakers were now hard at work. As fast as the unleavened bread was coming out of the ovens, it was not going into storage but being shipped west.

Then one of them spilled it.

“Poor bastards, marching in this heat, gotta pity them, you do.”

“How’s that?” Allen asked, feigning disinterest as if more intent on getting another drink out of the bottles he had just sold.

“They’re pushing fifteen, twenty miles a day, just ten miles up that road,” one of them announced pointing to the west and shook his head. “I said to myself, Vincent lad, they only march like that when there’s a fight coming on. I had my fill of it, did my part years ago at Monmouth where I took a bullet,” he said, making a dramatic show of pulling his shirt up to show the scar, where a ball had, indeed, hit him in the lower chest.

“Still in there, it is,” and the others nodded sagely as he showed off his wound.

“So I convinced Captain Butler that the old wound had me down again.” As he spoke he hunched over and put on a good imitation of wheezing, which set the others to laughing, even though Allen could tell it was not entirely an act. “So he ordered me to fall out and guard this place.”

Allen looked off to the road that led toward Morristown. He was half tempted to push his luck, get back with Jamie, fetch some more bottles from their saddlebags, and perhaps try to ride farther up after dark by keeping to the fields and back lanes, though it would be very be risky.

“Anyhow, I’ll be damned if I’m going to march all the way to Virginia, like some are saying,” and he was silent now, just looking into his mug, not urging the loquacious veteran to say anything more that might arouse suspicion.

The others muttered approval.

“Joined to fight here in my home state, not go wandering off. There’s nothing but ague, snakes, and swamps down where they’re heading, and besides, I don’t like them damn Virginians. All haughty, just ’cause the general is one of them. Still, we heard the Continentals got their pay in good silver last week to bribe them to march, while all we got was some damn paper scrip, as usual.”

“Folks in Elizabethtown are all astir,” Allen finally ventured. “Word down there is the army is gonna swing around, cross over to Staten Island, and trap the damn navy in the harbor.”

“Oh yeah, with what? The pop guns we’re dragging along? Besides, the damn Frenchies got all the heavy guns and they took them off to Newport to put on their ships is what I heard. Bet they’re skipping out on us anyhow, even though word is they got thousands of them coming up behind our men on the road toward Princeton.”

“I’ll place a bet on Yorktown,” one of the group muttered. “Join up with Lafayette and ole Dan Morgan down there to take care of that bastard Cornwallis good and proper. I say let them; those that want to go. We’ve done enough fighting up here. Don’t see why we have to go all the way down there anyhow.”

“So that’s where all that hardtack is going,” Allen ventured, motioning to where he could catch a glimpse of wood smoke down toward the river.

No one spoke for a moment and the soldier who was so open-mouthed looked over at him.

“Why do you want to know?”

He could see that though rather drunk, the man was now giving him appraisingly glance.

He stood up, putting on his own drunk act.

“Gotta figure out how far I gotta hike with my next load of rum. Will you be guarding the bakery and this flea-bitten town or be ordered to join the march to Yorktown like you say, or is it Staten Island? I gotta know where my market is going.”

“How the hell did you get your hands on good rum like this anyhow?”

“I stole it, a whole case, being off-loaded.”

“Where?”

Now the other man was standing up, drunk but fixing him with a steady gaze.

“Down by the wharf in New York, got it yesterday.”

“That’s a long walk in a day, and why only six bottles with you? You could of sold it for damn near the same, at half the walking you did to get here.”

The somewhat drunk soldier was now turning interrogator as he looked down at Allen’s feet.

“Nice riding boots for a man who claims he walked all the way.”

The boots, damn it! He should have put on some old walking clogs or even gone barefoot. His boots were of the finest leather and craftsmanship, Andre insisting that a friend of his should always be turned out proper. It was a stupid mistake.

As his interrogator spoke Allen looked back to the road heading east and as he did so, his heart froze. Two riders were coming across the bridge, coming on fast, and instinct told him in that instant that the game was up. He had ridden too many races against Peter not to recognize the way he could barely keep a saddle, even now.

“I feel the flux coming on,” he muttered and without further comment he started up the alleyway alongside the inn, asking where the privy was.

“Hey you, hold on a minute!”

Fortunately they were far more drunk than he was. As he reached the end of the alleyway along the side of the tavern, he turned off into the back garden, out of sight to the road, and then took off at a run. It was long seconds before he heard the hue and cry go up behind him and he was already a good hundred yards out of the village before he looked back. None had shouldered their muskets. He was already out of range and thanked God they didn’t have a sober rifleman in their group. Besides, they were just staggering drunk, but pointing in his direction as the two horsemen came riding into the village.

The riders slowed to get information, giving him valuable seconds of lead time as he tried to keep low, running behind a split rail fence piled high with summer honeysuckle that acted as a shield. Reaching the end of the fencerow, he saw it was going to have to be a dash across an open field to the woods. Now he set off at a full-out run. He turned to look back, and it was, indeed, Peter in pursuit, drawing a short barrel musketoon out of a saddle holster. He dodged into a couple acres of corn, nearly head high in the August heat, crouching low, weaving back and forth, but realizing that as a horseman mounted up high, Peter should be able to see the wavering corn as he stumbled and shoved it aside. He came out the far end of the cornfield and saw Peter was galloping along the edge of the corn, his other mounted companion riding along the opposite flank to try to cut him off. He vaulted a low split-rail fence, gasping for air as he reached the edge of the woods where Jamie, still loyal to him was still waiting, pistol out, leveling it toward Peter, who was still a hundred yards off. The range was too far. Better to run for it, and besides …

He knocked the weapon up.

“Run, you damn fool!”

Together they sprinted for the narrow river, downstream from the bridge. If Peter had posted men on the other side he feared it was about to go bad, but only his old friend and whoever was with him were in pursuit, their mounts lathered and blown. Jumping into the river they half swam, half waded across, gaining the far bank, scrambling up it. Jamie looking around nervously, obviously more afraid that the snake might be lying in wait rather than Jersey militia.

“Allen!” he heard.

It was more a question, as if Peter was not sure who he was pursuing. Allen did not look back, running hard, weaving through the brush and bramble into the next woodlot where they had left their horses tethered, fortunately still saddled. He could hear Peter cursing as he splashed across the muddy river, stinking of refuse from the tannery, his exhausted mount struggling to get up the muddy bank even as Allen swung into the saddle of his mount, leaning over to grab Jamie by the shoulder and helping him to mount as well.

There was a crack of gunfire and he heard a ball clip through the branches overhead. That startled him and he looked back to see Peter, half concealed in dirty, yellow gray smoke, short-barreled musket recoiling.

Was he shooting to kill?

He was not about to hang around to discuss the issue, as he kicked his mount to a gallop, taking a farm lane that would swing wide of the Rebels guarding Springfield. It was obvious they were onto him and he’d have to head north, up through the Short Hills and the crossroads of the Mill Burn on the forward slope of the Watchung range. He could lose Peter, who obviously could not keep up, then wait until dark, leave the horses behind and hike it back to the Hudson.