Victory at Yorktown: A Novel (35 page)

“Give it up,” he said coolly, and obviously terrified the boy let his weapon drop.

“Don’t shoot me,” he began to beg.

“We don’t shoot wounded prisoners.”

“Sergeant Patrick said you’ll geld all light infantry, that’s what your Mad Anthony promised,” and he began to sob. “I wasn’t even there.”

Peter realized he was referring to the Paoli Massacre from back in ’77, that after the battle and forever after any British light infantry that fell into the hands of the survivors of that night under Anthony Wayne’s command could expect rough treatment. The passions of that had cooled somewhat during the three long years without much action after Monmouth, but in the Southern campaign of light infantry against partisans led by men like Francis Marion there were many dark rumors.

Mose knelt down by the boy’s side, pulling his hand back from the lad’s elbow.

“I must be getting old,” Mose sighed, “I was off by a good foot or more to the right,” and he shook his head.

“What does he mean?” the boy cried, looking up at Peter, who had a cocked pistol aimed at the boy.

“He means what he said. He’s the best shot in the army, and he was aiming for your heart. You’re almost a disappointment to him.”

“No scalp,” Mose muttered, turning his head to one side to spit out a stream of tobacco juice, but then fished the wad out of his mouth, slapped it onto the wound, and taking the boy’s free hand, guided him to hold the wad in place.

“We’ll cut your arm off, laddie, but you’ll live, but damn me, that’s the worse shot I’ve made in quite awhile, especially at this range.”

“It was still dark,” Dan Morgan interjected to soothe Old Mose’s wounded pride, coming up to look at the wounded soldier, while ahead of them the skirmishers were continuing to press forward.

“You’re Dan Morgan, aren’t you?” the boy asked, looking up at him wide-eyed. “I had nothing to do with that farm over yonder or that woman, I swear it.”

“I didn’t accuse you,” Morgan said coldly, “but don’t lie to me now, boy. What regiment are ya.”

“The 44th.”

He nodded.

“Licked them before, will lick them again. Now, on your feet.”

The boy weakly tried to stand. Peter uncocked his pistol, holstered it, and helped him up.

“Colonel, perhaps he’s worth you having a chat with as you take him back to the surgeons.”

“I’m not going to lose my arm, am I?” and the boy was stifling back sobs.

“Sure are,” Mose announced, “better than you with a busted heart and your scalp on my belt, now get along with you.”

Dan was smiling as Mose, muttering under his breath, turned and pressed forward to catch up with the advancing skirmishers.

“Someone to keep your skills up with, Colonel, while you take him back. If you want some fun later, come back on the line and I’ll loan you my rifle for a shot or two.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Later then,” and Dan set off at a slow trot.

“Come on now,” Peter said, helping to brace his prisoner up as he pointed him back to the rear.

“What did he mean about practicing your skills? You aren’t going to torture me or something are you?”

Peter could not help but chuckle, but then again, could understand the lad’s terror after talking with him for but a few minutes. From the streets of London, caught as a petty thief that he swore he was innocent of. Rather than dancing at the end of rope, he had taken the king’s shilling, swearing it had all been a set up by a corporal who said he had tried to pick his pocket, and after a quick trip to the magistrate, had his new recruit for the day.

Peter pulled out a flask, offering it over, the boy first asking if it was gin, but taking it anyhow, grimacing from the taste of sour mash. With the rising dawn the sight that confronted them as they crested over a low rise back of the destroyed farmstead caused Peter to stop in awe.

The advancing lines of American and French heavy infantry were a sight to behold. He had not seen anything like it since Monmouth, and the three years of training since showed. They were not expecting a fight this day, only moving forward to stake claim to land for what would be the first siege parallel, laid out just beyond the range of British artillery. It was also a bravado display to let the British clearly see what they now faced. Muskets were unslung, bayonets fixed, glinting red in the dawning light, the men moving easily but keeping disciplined formations. Now that dawn was breaking he could catch glimpses of the white uniformed French, a mile or more away to the left. Fifers were playing “Chester” or “Yankee Doodle,” drummers keeping the beat, officers forward and mounted.

He saw General Washington at the center, a white-clad rider beside him, without doubt Rochambeau, and he could only imagine what they were thinking at this moment after so many tension-filled weeks of wondering if all their elaborate plans would be in vain. This display of power, of their combined armies marching together in battle formation, was something unseen in any war on this continent, and it filled both friend and foe with awe.

Leading his captive through the lines, several men taunting the poor boy as they passed to the rear, Peter guided him into the low marshy ground, where thousands more were now busily at work, nearly all of them the militia guided by the engineers of the American and French army. In the previous days thousands of trees for miles around had been dropped, thinner logs split in half, the heavier ones laboriously sawed into planks If only a sawmill had been nearby, the work would have been easier, but the British had made sure to burn that in their retreat. Though even now, men were laboring to repair it, and fetched inland for replacement blades. Causeways big and strong enough for supply wagons and even artillery up to the heaviest of the siege guns were now being constructed out of the split logs and planks. With thousands of men at work, the plans carefully laid out days before, officers briefed on what was expected, even surveyors carefully marking out the routes, the roadways were already under construction though the day was barely an hour old.

Peter guided his prisoner along, offering as much as he wanted to drink without letting him get truly drunk and his skills, as Dan had put it, worked, gaining the boy’s confidence that he would protect him. Yes, he would send a letter to his mother letting her know he was safe. Soon Peter knew the dispersion of the regiments to either flank, their strength, the fact that a fair number of men were down with the bloody flux and summer ague, barely able to stand for inspection let alone engage in an open-field fight, and that the boy had only joined the army as a reinforcement early in the spring.

“I heard in the court in London and God strike me if I am being untrue, good sir, that a fellow was caught up just like me,” the boy slurred, “same ruse, got taken before the magistrate, offered the rope or the king’s shilling, and he said to give him the damn rope! He had been in the last war, wounded twice, and he’d rather dance with the rope than come back to this godforsaken wilderness to get scalped by Indians than burned alive the way his brother was.”

With that the boy looked at him, wide-eyed.

“Are there Indians with this army?”

“A few.”

“You’re not going to give me to them are you?”

“Just tell me the truth when I ask a question, lad, and I’ll protect you from them.”

Peter laughed and patted him reassuringly, the boy looked at him face pale. He began to cough and then, suddenly, there was a flood of bright red blood frothing out from between his pale blue lips.

“Lay down, boy,” Peter ordered.

He gently moved the boy’s arm up, the lad crying out with pain, and he saw the hole drilled into his side and drilled into his chest.

“Am I dying?” the boy asked, eyes wide with terror.

“No, lad, no. I’ll get you to surgeon, and we’ll get that bullet out in no time.”

“I’m dying, ain’t I.”

“No, lad, not while I got you.”

He tried to lift him back up, but the boy cried out in agony, and more blood came gushing out. Now the youth began to weep.

Peter stood up, looking around, for though a scrawny lad out of the slums of England, there was no way he could carry him all the way back alone.

*   *   *

Some militia came by, leading a cart that had been loaded with spilt logs for the laying out of the corduroy causeway across the marsh and had dumped off the last of the load.

“Can you men give me a hand getting this boy back?”

“Son of a bitch,” one of them grumbled, “leave the bastard out here to die, or if you just turn your back, sir, I’ll finish him.”

Peter stood up about to argue, but knew it was one he couldn’t win, even if he did try the stupid routine of pointing to the epaulette on his shoulder. The man was more than twice his age, brawny, covered in sweat from his labor, and could undoubtedly knock him cold with a single blow to the cheers of his comrades.

“Bastards burned my farm out before you sharp looking boys with those Frenchies came struttering down here. Why should I help him or you?”

“Then why are you here?” Peter asked.

“Pay them back.”

“Then help me get him back to the surgeon before he bleeds to death. He’s spilling his guts to me like a frightened girl. I’m on Washington’s staff, I’m supposed to find things out from prisoners, and he’s my first one.”

“Come on, Josiah, he’s right,” one of the other militiamen said, and the older man simply picked the boy up and unceremoniously dumped him in the back of the wagon as they turned it about, the jolt of it stirring the lad half awake, a groan of pain escaping him.

“I’m not a frightened girl,” the boy whispered, looking up at Peter.

“No, you aren’t. You’re a good soldier. You’ll get good treatment, and then later we’ll talk over a drink. I promise you.”

The boy looked up at him, gasping as the wagon bounced and swayed over the corduroy road through the marsh. The night air was thick with mosquitoes swarming about them.

The boy began to blather, something about his mother, a woman named Johanna, said he couldn’t write, a snatch of a prayer about laying down to sleep, and then he just began to sob softly.

“Tell him to…” the brawny soldier snapped, but a look up from Peter still him.

“For God’s sake, show some pity,” Peter whispered.

“He’s right,” the other driver replied and the brawny man fell silent as the boy struggled to sit up, gasping that he couldn’t breathe.

“Write me mother,” the boy whispered looking into Peter’s eyes and then fainted away.

“I promise I will,” Peter replied.

They had reached the edge of the marsh. In a tent by the side of the road illuminated by torches was a hospital area.

“Just help me get him up there.”

The brawny man seemed to have relented, and he reached into the cart and lifted the boy out, paused, then looked at Peter.

“He’s a dead un,” the man said, and then just laid the body down by the side of the road.

Across the years of war, Peter had seen hundreds die, but this one seemed to him to be so pathetic, so futile. The boy’s death would not change the outcome one iota. Inwardly he cursed all the bastards who had dragged him to this place to die.

Peter looked down at the body, so pathetically small now.

“You get the laddie’s name?” the other driver asked.

“No.”

“Then no letter to his mother then,” the brawny man replied, but there was now a touch of pity in his voice.

“Damn war,” he continued, and reaching into his pocket he pulled out a flask and handed it to Peter.

“Think you need a drink, son.”

Peter nodded his thanks.

“First time you seen a man die like that?”

Peter took a long pull on the flask. “If you only knew,” was all he could say. Peter offered the flask back but the man refused.

“Keep it. Call it an apology for what I said earlier.”

“Thank you.”

The militiaman turned and walked off, Peter put the flask in his haversack, slowly walking through and around the thousands of laboring men, the causeway gaining yards with every passing minute. Coming at last out of the far side of the marsh, he saw that the main battleline had come to a stop, a good quarter mile closer in to Yorktown, while a quarter mile beyond them a lively duel between skirmishers now ensued.

Off in the distance he saw Washington riding along the line, pausing to chat with officers and men as they waited for the order to continue the advance. He wondered yet again what the general was thinking and feeling at this moment. Most likely joyful as he should be, as any general would be after so many years of struggle and the agony of the long march here, and in the equation of all of that the death of a British soldier was just one more step closer to victory.

An occasional musket ball hummed past the general, but he paid it no heed, he rarely did, and would be stunned when after a battle someone would point out the number of bullet holes in his coat, a shattered canteen, a bent saber scabbard, a ball clipping his hat. During the blessed times that Martha had stayed with him in winter quarters, if bored, she would rummage through his uniforms for something to darn and then cry out with horror when she discovered another near miss. She would then lecture him sternly, even bringing his staff in on several occasions, yelling at them to keep better watch of their “beloved general.”

Of course, old Billy Lee would always side with her and she would lovingly patch his poked clothing. Billy Lee, ever-present, was up to his usual routine of trying to ever so casually move himself between his general and the incoming fire and if confronted too crossly would fall back on the defense. “Sir, Missus Washington, she ordered me to do this, and you and I both know we don’t go against her word.” No one would dare laugh if within his sight, but he knew the response would always draw chuckles behind his back and nods of approval and encouragement from his staff.

Today with Rochambeau by his side, Billy Lee was up to his usual routine, and Washington could not help but note that on Rochambeau’s staff, several were doing the same, though with more than a bit of French bravado, striking heroic poses as in a painting. Though there had been a moment of levity when one ball had nicked the mount of one of his staff, poor animal had its nose badly creased. The animal had bolted off in a panic, finally throwing the now-frightened young officer. Rochambeau, ever the gentleman and concerned officer, had leaped from his mount and gone to the side of the shaken and now thoroughly embarrassed young man. The old line infantry behind them struggling to contain their laughter, while Rochambeau made a great display of praising him, patting him on the back, offering him a drink, and then diplomatically sending him to the rear with some trivial dispatch.