Headquarters had ordered that once a company moved into its hut, all tents had to be returned to the general stores so they could be mended, washed, and packed away for the spring campaign. Burns (in my own mind I never once thought of him as “Sergeant Burns”) ordered us to cut up our tents and fashion them into blankets. He bamboozled the brigade clerk into thinking that our tents had been returned right after Sergeant Woodruff died and that the clerk had made an error in his account books.
The fellows in our company all hailed Burns for this; Eben, too. I took my canvas blanket and kept my thoughts on the matter to myself.
We were in high spirits the night we first slept in our bunks. We had a roof over our heads, a door that closed most of the way, and a fire that gave off heat and light as well as smoke. Benny had the itch and Silvenus had lost another tooth, but on the whole, we were in fair health. We were hungry, but not starving, and there is a world of difference between the two conditions.
We were too riled up to settle into sleeping.
“Go ahead and snow, you poxy skies of Pennsylvania!” roared Greenlaw.
“Blow, blow, thou winter wind; freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,” Benny proclaimed. “That does not bite so nigh as benefits forgot. Though thou the waters warp, thy sting is not so sharp as a friend remembered not.”
“You said your aim was to be a philosopher, not a poet,” Faulkner said.
“I shall be both,” Benny said. “But I must not steal credit. Those words are from Mister Shakespeare’s pen, not mine.”
“Huzzah!” I called. “We’ve a roof over our heads and theatrical entertainment!”
Eben laughed. “Just like country squires, we are. Taking our ease in a mansion the King would envy.”
“Hardly.” Henry Barry dipped his mug into the pot of hot water at the edge of the fire. “More like a mess of bear cubs in a den.”
“That’s it!” shouted Faulkner. He crawled off his bunk and carried his small box of charcoal bits to the fire.
“That’s what?” asked Henry.
“I’ve been trying to figure how I could draw our likenesses.” Faulkner tested a piece of charcoal against a chimney stone, frowned, and rummaged in his box again. “To commemorate our momentous feat of construction. But the stones are not smooth enough to draw our faces proper.” He tested another charcoal bit by drawing a fat circle on the stone. “Watch this.”
He drew a smaller circle atop the first one, then added dashes and dots until the charcoal smear transformed into the image of a bear.
“Huzzah,” Henry said.
“That one is Silvenus, for he lacks most of his teeth,” Faulkner said. “Next one will be Ebenezer, so tall that he requires two stones!”
Watching him draw our crude likenesses and turn us into a den of bears was like watching a magical show, so much so that when he had drawn the last bear and signed his initials with a flourish, he bowed to his audience and we applauded with vigor.
“What is the date of this day?” he asked, prepared to write it down.
“January the nineteenth,” Greenlaw said.
I sat up straight and hit my head on the bunk above. “Can’t be.”
“Surely is,” he countered. “I’ve been marking it on a stick. I reckon we’ve got a dozen weeks or so before we march against the British.”
“The nineteenth,” I said. “Today is the nineteenth day of January?”
“Did you have an appointment?” Eben joked. “A coach arriving? A ship preparing to sail?”
I rubbed the sore spot on my noggin and lied with ease. “No, nothing like that. Just lost track of the days.”
Before
One year ago this night, Isabel ran from her owner, stole me out of the Bridewell Prison, and rowed us to freedom. The nineteenth of January would be her birthday ever after, she swore.
Tonight, then, she was fourteen.
When spring had come to Morristown, I made plans for us to journey north, far away from the newspapers that carried runaway notices about a girl with a branded face.
Isabel dug in her heels like a pig being dragged to market. She was going south, with or without me. We argued. I called her a peevish numbskull. She called me a poxy sluggard, a churlish ruffian, and a lazy scoundrel and would not speak to me for two weeks.
I finally begged her forgiveness and promised I’d go with her. I planned on hiding our money the night before we were to leave. I’d act like we’d been robbed. I had already arranged for a job as a cart driver for the army and was due to leave soon for Albany. With no money, she’d have to go with me.
But her mind was just as treacherous as mine, only hers moved faster. She stole the money before I could and left in the middle of the night, taking the small purse of coins, her shawl, and a blanket.
Instead of being afraid for her, I was angry. Instead of setting out after her, I drove that cart to Albany, vowing to keep her out of my thoughts by twisting my ear violently whenever she slipped into my mind.
It never worked.
Everything from that moment on had been plagued with misfortune. The truth of the matter was that I missed her fiercely, and more than anything, I wanted to wish her a happy birthday. Had she found work in Philadelphia? Did she come to her senses near Baltimore or Williamsburg? Had she been captured and returned to the Locktons?
Was she alive?
CHAPTER XXVI
Tuesday, January 20–Friday, February 6, 1778
WE HAVE NEAR NINETY MEN IN THE REGIMENT THAT HAVE NOT A SHOOE TO THEIR FOOT AND NEAR AS MANY WHO HAVE NO FEET TO THEIR STOCKINGS. IT GIVES ME PAIN TO SEE OUR MEN TURNED OUT UPON THE PARADE TO MOUNT GUARD OR TO GO ON FATIGUE WITH THEIR NAKED FEET ON THE SNOW AND ICE. IT WOULD GRIEVE THE HEART EVEN OF THAT CRUEL TYRANT OF BRITAIN TO SEE IT.
—LIEUTENANT COLONEL SAMUEL CARLTON, LETTER TO GENERAL WILLIAM HEATH
IT WISTED MY EAR SO OFTEN IN THE weeks that followed, it swelled like a puffball. Did me no good; I still thought about Isabel. Her face had poisoned my mind the way the cold had taken hold of my bones.
Sore ear and cold bones aside, life had become tolerable on account of our little hut. Sleeping whilst sheltered by walls and a roof is vastly more comfortable than sleeping under the open sky, even if the roof did leak in spots.
Though most huts in camp were completed, thousands of soldiers were unfit for duty because their clothes were falling to pieces. Those without shirts covered their form with blankets or rags when necessity forced them out to use a privy trench. Many suffered from the death of their toes and fingers on account of the frostbite. I cannot bring myself to describe the state of the lads who had no breeches.
Because my company was mostly clothed and shod, we worked more hours than some. We fell into a regular pattern: dawn reveille, work on the fortifications meant to protect us from attack, breakfast, more work, dinner, chop and haul firewood, supper at dark. The middle of the day was tolerable warm, but after dawn and near sunset, the cold ate through my clothes and gnawed on my bones.
The best hours came after the sun dropped behind Mount Misery. We’d retire to our hut, cook up the day’s rations of dried peas and meat (with a few cabbage leaves or a potato when Fortune smiled), and eat as slow as we could manage. We devised a rotation to take turns sitting directly in front of the fire, two by two, to play checkers. Greenlaw had fashioned a checkerboard on a plank. Bits of twig stood in for the black checkers and shards of bone for the white.
Silvenus stole extra time where it was warmest by cooking tonics for our health, boiling butternut bark or spruce tips or moss in the kettle. These remedies required constant stirring and tasting. The tailor was near three times as old as us and had grown painfully thin, so there was little protest about his unlawful hearth-sitting.
(Aaron Barry did once whine about Silvenus’s habit. Greenlaw lost his temper and offered to remove all of Aaron’s teeth with his fist, which caused Aaron to crawl up onto his bunk, gnawing on his toothstick like a discontented beaver.)
Wh
en we were not the appointed checker players, Eben and I worked on our wood carvings. My bird was slowly transforming from the beaked pig into a sheep carrying a knapsack. Eben was much better than I; he could carve the likeness of a horse in two nights’ work. He was never satisfied, though, and threw each one into the fire.
The hut filled with boasting, conversating, wagering, and wild tales every night. We’d itch the vermin feasting on our flesh and share the day’s many rumors:
The King had declared peace.
No, the King was sending German and Russian mercenaries to destroy us.
A ball of fire as big as a man’s head fell from heaven to Hatboro—a good omen. But there’d been an earthquake near York just as a cat gave birth to puppies, which meant the worst.
Congress was fleeing to Spain. No, Congress was coming to Valley Forge.
Smallpox was killing thousands of soldiers. Nay, the variolation against the smallpox had killed them.
Birds flew backward over Philadelphia. A talking cow had been displayed in Georgia.
And always the wild tales that more food, better food, and blankets and clothing were on the way. And we would soon be paid for the first time in months. That made us laugh.
Sooner or later, someone would throw a pebble or twig at Benny and beg a story from him. The lad had read every book ever printed, it seemed, and happily recounted for us the ancient tales of evil kings, beautiful queens, quarreling gods, monsters, and heroes.
At the start of February we enjoyed clear skies and warm days that melted most of the snow and thawed my fingerbones some. Captain Russell armed us with shovels, axes, and hatchets, ordering us to strengthen the Outer Line fortifications. Half a thousand of us dug trenches deep enough for a man to stand in up to his neck. We wove an abatis—a giant tangle of a fence with long, sharp-tipped poles that would gut any British horse that tried to leap the barricades.
I made a point to be friendly with a few of the black soldiers I met on fortification duty: a fellow named Salem from Massachusetts, Shadrack from Virginia, and Windsor from Rhode Island. The vast encampment was home to hundreds of fellows like us, mostly free, tho’ some had been enlisted by their masters. We complained about the food and the water and everything else under the sun, the way all the soldiers did, but we were able to do it in full companionship, without worrying about lackbrains like John Burns. It was an uncommon sensation and most pleasant. I asked them to keep a watch out for Isabel, a girl with a scarred face and an irritating manner, after the war, and to show her kindness if they ever met her.
One day it became so warm while we worked on the abatis, we all stripped off our coats and wiped the sweat from our faces. Some lads from Gloucester made a game of hitting at rocks with stout sticks, but officers put a stop to the sport before it caused us to forget our duties. Once they’d gone, the game started up again.
We took care to post sentry guards and took turns batting at the sphere. My company scored the greatest number of hits and claimed the top prize: a freshly killed opossum. We hurried back to the hut to cook it, arm-sore and ravenous. The provision wagons from Maryland and New Jersey had arrived near empty that week, and the whole camp had been on half rations because of it.
Opossum tastes better than you might think.
CHAPTER XXVII
Friday, February 6, 1778
LIEUTT. ORR, OF 10TH. PENNSYLVANIA REGIMENT, TRIED FOR UNGENTLEMANLIKE BEHAVIOR AND CONNIVING WITH SERJEANT HUGHES IN SECRETING STOLEN GOODS, SECONDLY FOR COUNTENANCING HIM IN CARRYING OFF AND OFFERING FOR SALE A MOLATTO SLAVE BELONGING TO MAJOR SHAW, FOUND GUILTY.
—GENERAL ORDERS OF GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON, VALLEY FORGE
WY KIDNEYS WOKE ME LATE IN THE night. I needed to piss.
I tried to ignore the sensation, turning this way and that for relief. The wind had picked up and water no longer dripped onto the floor. This evil portent meant that the roof was again iced over and relieving my kidneys would be a painfully chilly exercise. I shut my eyes tight and resolved to sleep until it was warmer.
My kidney distress increased. I groaned a bit and stood, wrapping my blanket around me and resolving to walk only a few steps from our door before I did the necessary business.
“Don’t you dare piss next to the hut,” warned Silvenus, above me. “I’ll be checking in the morning, I swear. Can’t abide lads too lazy to do the proper walking.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I muttered.
I stepped with caution on the dark, frozen path. The cold jabbed my kidneys harder, and I was forced to trot lest I spoil my breeches.
“You there!” called a harsh voice in the shadows. “Negar of the Burns company!”
I ignored this insult and hurried on. The foulmouthed dastard did not follow me.
I took care of the business of the privy trench quick as possible, buttoned my breeches, pulled my collar up and hat down, and headed back to the hut. Snow had started to fall.
I managed only a dozen paces before three figures stepped out of the darkness and blocked my way. I turned on my heel but was grabbed before I could start running. A hard fist drove into my belly. I would have fallen to the ground, but the hands held me fast whilst I coughed and fought to get back my breath.
“That’s no way to greet your commanding officer,” said John Burns.
I regained my breath and stood. The two men holding me grasped my arms tighter. These new allies of John Burns were larger and more dangerous than the Barry brothers, now snoring in my hut.
“I’ve come to extract my payment,” Burns explained in the tone of a foppish dandy.
“I don’t owe you anything,” I said.
He chuckled. “I told these gentlemen all about the card games you lost and how you refuse to honor your debts.”
“I’ve never played cards with you!”
“Shut it.” The fellow to the right smacked my head so hard, it sent my hat flying.
“I will have your boots now, Private Smith,” Burns continued. “It is fair compensation.”
“I’ll report you to the captain,” I threatened.
“Please do,” Burns answered. “I’ve already told him what a troublemaker you are. He is not fond of dark-skinned soldiers, did you know that? He thinks it’s against the laws of nature. Anything you say, he’ll take for a lie.”
“Eben will tell the captain,” I said. “And Greenlaw and the others. He’ll believe them. You won’t get away with this.”
“Of course I will, you fool. I’m not going to wear those boots. Your feet have been in them for months. I shall find a home for them far away from here. Any complaints taken to the captain about me will be dismissed as nonsense.” His voice hardened. “Take them off.”
“Do it yourself, dogmeat.”
Burns lunged for me. Both my arms were held fast, but my feet were not bound. As he reached for my throat, I kicked his belly hard as I could with both of my boots. He made a most satisfying sound as he flew through the air.
But then he stood and looked at his companions. “You know what to do.”
The two men holding me each had six fists.
When I finally woke up, my boots were gone, my belly hurt wicked, and my skull felt like it had been hit with a hammer. My feet were cold, but not frostbit, so I could not have been lying there overly long.
Burns and his picaroons had vanished, their tracks hidden by the fast-falling snow.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Saturday, February 7– Wednesday, February 11, 1778
I AM SICK, DISCONTENTED, AND OUT OF HUMOR. POOR FOOD—HARD LODGING—COLD WEATHER—FATIGUE—NASTY CLOATHS—NASTY COOKERY—VOMIT HALF MY TIME—SMOKED OUT OF MY SENSE—THE DEVIL IN ‘T—I CAN ‘T ENDURE IT— WHY ARE WE SENT HERE TO STARVE AND FREEZE— WHAT SWEET FELICITIES HAVE I LEFT AT HOME! A CHARMING WIFE—PRETTY CHILDREN—GOOD BEDS—GOOD FOOD—GOOD COOKERY—ALL AGREEABLE—ALL HARMONIOUS. HERE ALL CONFUSION—SMOKE AND COLD—HUNGER AND FILTHINESS—A POX ON MY BAD LUCK.
—DIARY OF DR. ALBIGENCE WALDO, SURGEON,
FIRST CONNECTICUT REGIMENT, VALLEY FORGE
DO, I DID NOT TELL THEM WHO STOLE my boots. Yes, that was a mistake, for it led to evil. But no, I would not go back and change that if I could.
My friends woke to find me sitting in front of the fire trying to warm my toes and dry my stockings. I explained my lack of boots but gave few details of the attack. Claimed I’d been knocked senseless at the start of it. I had hoped they’d be too tired or hungry or cold to pay much heed to my misfortune. Instead, they clustered around me and weighed the matter carefully.
Eben sat on the log seat next to mine. “My stockings are dry,” he said, tugging at his boot. “Put them on.”
“You need to tell the sergeant,” Faulkner said.
“Don’t be a half-wit,” Eben said. “Sergeant Burns doesn’t give a fig for Curzon.”
“Then find a lieutenant,” Faulkner said. “Tell the new captain, or report it to brigade headquarters. The officers need to know this kind of thievery is afoot.” He paused and cleared his throat. “Beg pardon, Curzon, for saying ‘afoot.’”
“Ha.” I put my left foot on my right knee and rubbed the bottom of it. “There’s no point in telling anyone. The officers know we’re desperate for boots and blankets—”
“And everything else,” interrupted Aaron Barry.
“Their time is best spent finding supplies for all of us,” I continued, “not chasing after rogues they will never find.”
Greenlaw picked at his teeth with a splinter of wood. “I’ll tell the sergeant to mark you ‘present but unfit for duty’ at the roll call.”
“So he can sleep all day whilst we work in the cold?” Aaron’s face twisted up with petulance. “That’s not fair.”
“I agree,” I said. “We have seven pair of shoes and boots and eight pair of feet. We should take turns being barefooted. On your day without shoes, you get to stay in the hut.”