Victory at Yorktown: A Novel (27 page)

“They have gained much from it in their own right,” Morris replied softly, “capturing more of the Spice Islands of the Caribbean. Their near success with the Spanish at Gibraltar … there are even reports they might drive the British out of India.”

“Maybe so, but one reversal at sea and they risk that for us, and everything they have gained will be for naught. Let us face this fact, gentlemen. They gain not a single livre by maintaining more than ten thousand troops here and supplying us as well. The only gain is diverting their natural enemy to fight here as well and perhaps stripping him of thirteen of his former colonies. From their perspective, the efforts of Rochambeau and their fleets would be far better spent in taking Gibraltar or securing their hold on India.”

He sighed.

“That is why I will not, unless directly ordered by you, ask for one livre more in order to pay our troops. We must do that ourselves. General Rochambeau has been the most gracious of allies any man or country could ever pray to have, but he is not under my direct orders, sir. He has been magnanimous in playacting but we all know, if the whim should seize him tomorrow to turn his troops about and march back to Rhode Island and from there take ship home, he could do so under his own authority, and there is nothing we can do to stop him. I will not add to our ledger of debt or perhaps even provoke a reaction by going hat in hand to him tomorrow morning.”

He was tempted to add one more sentence but his judgment prevailed. It would be foolhardy to say he would resign if ordered to do so. There could always be a plot behind all of this, and without doubt, some in Congress would leap at the suggestion, still fearing his private goal was to become a Caesar before this war was done.

Morris half stood up, leaned across the table, and fetched the bottle of brandy, motioned to Washington, who again shook his head in refusal, and this time, forgetting all proper etiquette Morris poured his own brandy sniffer nearly to the brim and drained down several ounces in one gulp.

He sighed, leaned back, and stared at the ceiling, his features turning red from the impact of the very stiff drink.

“You won’t have the money tomorrow, nor the full amount,” he finally said.

He sighed deeply, his gaze now shifted to President Laurens.

“We will, however, promise a few months more within forty-eight hours.”

For a moment Washington wondered if the man was drunk, and now deciding to joke with this somewhat cryptic statement.

“There is still money to be found in Philadelphia,” and now Morris looked over at Laurens.

“Where?” Laurens asked.

“I’ll just loot every bank clean and every merchant in the city I’ve not already tapped out.”

“We already have.”

“There’s always more,” Morris replied, “and, damn my soul, if I don’t know every trick in the book, gentlemen, how the hell do you think I got rich to start with?”

“What guarantee of repayment will you offer if you actually do find this money?”

“Well, I could do as Caesar once did,” he replied and now he was looking straight at Washington as if to gauge him. “I’ll just have them condemned as traitors, executed, and all their property confiscated. I recall that is how Caesar helped fund his last campaign against Pompey.”

Washington saw no humor in that, in fact he thought the words to be absolutely ill-advised, even in this private conversation, and his expression showed it.

Morris sighed and drained the rest of his drink and then looked back up at the ceiling, as if this were a necessary part of a ritual for the alcohol to take full effect, before he spoke again.

“I’ll offer my personal voucher in repayment, and my stock in those ships of mine running the blockade as collateral,” he said softly as if about to choke on his own words.

“My God, man,” Laurens replied, “you did that with the last payment. You are already in over one hundred percent, everything you own is mortgaged.”

“Only you and a few others know that, sir. The rest do not. So I’ll be bankrupt twice over,” Morris now laughed, “they can only throw me in debtors prison once, and by the way, I think once this war is done, a law should be passed outlawing debtors prisons. It is a stupid system. A man goes bankrupt then you lock him up so he can’t earn his way out of it.”

He now laughed out loud.

“I’d propose it myself that a man cannot be thrown into prison merely for bad debts, but if I did so, it might look self-serving. Heaven knows we are setting precedents and Congress should never appear to be self-serving with the laws it passes.”

Neither Laurens nor Washington laughed at his attempt at humor.

Now he looked from one to the other, a bit bleary-eyed, but deadly serious.

“No one will trust a note from the government of this Confederation, as we call it now, but until the word gets out, my notes on my personal assets are still worth something. I know at least a score of men who have held back, when I went knocking on the doors of their counting houses last month. Give me until the end of tomorrow and they shall be persuaded. Good God, the way our men looked today as they marched through the city, compared to the French behind them, that should have at least stirred a few hearts. A rumor or two as well that if the men are not paid the army just might mutiny, loot the city clean, and declare Washington emperor will scare them to turn out their pockets as well.”

“Sir,” Washington’s voice was cold, and obviously filled with personal insult, “never joke on that subject using my name, or even remotely use it as a threat to get this money in.”

He did not add, though the three of them knew without saying, that the potential of that was all too real at this moment. All it would take would be a few disgruntled men, drunk, refusing to fall into ranks when ordered to continue their march south, and the tension was running just high enough that like a spark in a dry forest, it could explode into flames. To even offer a rumor that such a threat was real might actually trigger the event.

When planning this march, he had actually contemplated bypassing Philadelphia completely, marching around it to the west out of just such a concern, that his troops, many of whom were already drunk tonight, might turn ugly. Every officer had received the strictest orders to remain cold sober and on the watch throughout the night.

Morris bowed low while remaining seated.

“Apology most properly asked for and most humbly offered in reply, sir. I meant no disrespect and let me blame it on this fine brandy, if you will. I will be frank, sir, and perhaps the brandy has loosened my tongue a bit too much but there was a time I did fear you might harbor such thoughts. I was purged of that affliction long ago, as if Doctor Rush himself had given me a physic, and though I know relations between you and the good doctor are strained at the moment, due to his aligning with Gates, he himself has said that you value your code of honor more than any man in our republic. I know you are a man who would fall on his own sword first, rather than ever raise it in a dishonorable act, and please believe that though I am without doubt drunk at this moment, I beg apology of you.”

“Accepted, sir,” and Washington let his features relax.

“It might be helpful if some of your men, the dragoons of Light Horse Harry, were posted to guard the exits of the city. Our local militia, being known to my brothers in the financial and legal world, can easily be bribed with half a crown to let a man pass. We just seal the town for a day or two, so our wealthier friends cannot find some excuse to wander out to the countryside to visit their farms and estates or cross over into Jersey, and I’ll do the persuading. If we do that…”

His voice trailed off again as if he was mentally calculating sums, and then he looked back at Washington.

“I can promise a month’s pay in hard cash, with luck maybe two months, to be shipped down to Head of Elk in three days’ time at most.”

“Nothing more?”

“Unless we take the books of the ancient Torah as literal and tomorrow we look to the heavens and manna—or in our case gold doubloons and nice fat guineas—tumble from the sky, I fear at best a month’s, perhaps two, pay.”

“Will your men march out of the city with that promise?” Laurens asked hopefully.

“Some of them will march with no promise. I know those men almost to a man … many have been in the ranks for years. Our men are Patriots, but even of a Patriot, willing to give his life, we are asking too much. They need to be paid if we are to ask them to put their lives on the line for this desperate gamble.”

“You do think it is a desperate gamble, don’t you.”

“All of this is based on one letter, sent by a French admiral, who, at the time he wrote it, was more than two thousand miles and still a month away. For all we still know, we could arrive before Yorktown and instead of seeing a French fleet there we see thirty ships of the line flying the British Royal ensign and all of this will be for naught.

“We must think of what Admiral de Grasse is thinking this very moment. Did his message get through? He must surely worry about that. We are two forces moving blindly, in total darkness relative to each other. The odds are long, very long, indeed.”

Then he forced a smile, looking at Morris and extending his hand to take Morris’s.

“You have narrowed the odds ever so slightly, good sir, and for the rest of my life I shall be indebted to you.”

“Do you think we can actually win this one?”

There was no sense in playing any games with these two.

“A chance. I will say in private only to you two that there is a chance, but that the odds in reality are against us.”

“If this does not work?”

Washington looked at the bottle of brandy, and held out the empty glass that had held his claret and motioned for a drink, letting Morris pour but a few ounces, which he drained in a single gulp, something he rarely did.

“Then we have lost the war, gentlemen.”

Laurens and Morris exchanged glances.

“You know, sir, the efforts by Catherine of Russia.”

Washington nodded, remaining silent.

“I have been approached by more than a few to send an envoy accepting her offer to at least consider negotiations.”

Washington shifted uncomfortably.

“Gentlemen. I am a soldier of a republic. By ancient tradition, politics must not be my realm, it is you the elected members of government that control that.”

“But you do know of it?” Laurens pressed.

“Yes, sir, of course I do.”

“If you think this venture is such a desperate gamble, am I hearing you in some way suggesting that I consider opening negotiations?”

Washington stared straight at Laurens so that the man lowered his eyes.

“If we are defeated in front of Yorktown, I plan to retreat back into western Virginia, if need be beyond the Bull Run or Blue Ridge range, while ordering what few forces I have left in New York to retreat to West Point and if pressed, to withdraw up into the frontier as well. If need be I can keep a small force alive out there for years until the embers of liberty are rekindled, although that will mean another generation will have to suffer because of our failure. Those of us who signed the Declaration, you can go over the mountains with me into exile. I recall that the king swore a solemn oath that those who signed will find their end dangling from a rope in London. Though perhaps the way some will be willing to negotiate, it just might be exile to some South Sea island in the far Indies.

“I will of course resign my commission to this government if such transpires and will not disobey orders while I still hold that commission, but I will not submit, sir, nor will many still in the ranks. That is all I can say on the subject, sir, as bound by my own sense of duty and code of honor.”

He said the words with sharp emphasis, still staring at Laurens.

“You have made yourself clear, sir,” Laurens whispered.

Morris nervously cleared his throat and raised his goblet and refilled it again.

“I don’t like hot climates,” Morris announced. “Well then, a play on Mr. Franklin’s words about death and taxes: A proper hanging is certainly one way to avoid your debtors, at least in this world. I don’t see myself as doing well out on the frontier, where it is said prisoners are burned rather than hung.”

Laurens finally looked back up to meet Washington’s gaze.

“I will not negotiate as long as you offer me some hope of victory this year, sir,” he finally said.

Washington stood up, the brandy not having affected his balance or sense of proper manners and decorum.

“Gentlemen, I have duties yet to attend to: staff meeting, planning the order of march, and the distribution of rations. I will write out an order to be read that promises payment at Head of Elk.”

He paused looking down at Morris.

“I am putting my name on that promise, sir,” he announced, his intent clear in his tone of voice.

Morris stood and clasped his hand.

“I saw those men today, sir,” and now his voice was choked. “The way you describe that one poor man struck me hard. Not to sound like a rank sentimentalist, but my wealth came at the expense of his suffering. If I am one day to stand before God, I do not want that man’s starving children there ahead of me. You have my promise, sir.”

Twelve

HEADQUARTERS, ROYAL FORCES IN NORTH AMERICA

NEW YORK

SEPTEMBER 2, 1781

To Allen’s absolute amazement, young Jamie was actually waiting for him at the dock as he disembarked from the small rowboat that a Loyalist ferryman used to get him across the Hudson. He gave the man a shilling as promised in payment for his service.

“What, in the name of good heavens, are you doing here?” Allen asked, unable to contain himself, all but embracing the lad.

Jamie, smelling as he always did from not having bathed in years, was obviously embarrassed.

“Well, sir, you told me to wait for you here.”

“That was what? Five days ago?”

“Six, actually, sir.”

“You are insane and belong in bedlam,” Allen said with a weary laugh.

“Sir, if they had caught and hanged you, then where would I be? Jamie a-thieving back in the streets again and doomed to the gallows as you predicted the night we met?”