When we reached the crossroads, she turned left to make her way to the cook fire. I followed but said nothing to her about what I had seen. She was more vexatious as the day went on, forgetting to turn the pork and thus burning it, and neglecting to return the knives to their box. Come suppertime she claimed she was not hungry, wrapping her bread and meat in a rag and stowing it in her haversack. I felt her forehead for fever and made her remove her boot to prove that the old wound on her foot had not again filled with pus.
She called me a looby and stuck the foot in my face so I could fully appreciate the everyday stink of it. The old wound had not reopened, and my relief was such that I did not scold her.
Our fellows had the duty of guarding the trench diggers that night. They marched off as soon as they’d devoured their meal. While I washed up, Ruth split enough firewood to keep the fire going and make sure that our breakfast tasks would be easier. She swung the axe with anger, it seemed, but only shook her head when I asked if anything troubled her. Once she’d split and stacked enough wood, she said she was tired and wanted to go to our hut and sleep, even though it was long before we normally turned in.
“I’ll walk with you,” I said, thinking to ask Sibby and Cristena if they’d heard the rumors that the British prince, William Henry, was to be kidnapped from New York.
“No!” Ruth exclaimed. “You stay here!”
“Are you sure you feel well? There is camp fever in the Pennsylvania regiment, all manner of bowel disorders, they say.”
“You stay here,” she repeated.
She would not meet my eye, which signaled to me that she was definitely up to mischief.
“Go on, then,” I said. “Sleep tight.”
* * *
I followed her.
Her mind was not devious enough to check behind her or try to disguise her path. She was not headed to our hut. I thought she might be planning to visit her friends in the horse corrals. That would explain why her supper was carefully wrapped in her haversack; she was bringing a treat for the pregnant mare owned by a French officer with an unpronounceable name. Critters made her feel better when people didn’t.
Dark comes early in October, bringing pumpkin-bright sunsets and showers of falling leaves. A few drifted down upon Ruth, but she didn’t look up, didn’t marvel at their beauty. She strode forward until she reached the hedgerow of thornbushes where I’d spotted her earlier.
She paused then and for the first time looked about her. Her face brought to mind a child stealing a forbidden slice of cake. I slid behind a sutler’s booth and watched, amazed, as the thorn hedge was mysteriously parted by unseen hands. Ruth removed her haversack and handed it through the opening. A moment later the sack reappeared, looking limp and empty. Ruth grabbed it, said something to the bushes that I could not hear, then hurried away in the direction of the women’s huts.
She was crying.
I was torn between wanting to talk to her and needing to know who was hiding behind the hedge. I waited until she was out of sight, picked up a stout stick, and walked up to the hedge. The thornbushes parted.
Aberdeen’s face appeared in the shadows.
“Please, Isabel!” he called hoarsely.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Monday, October 8, 1781
PERSUADED OF THE JUST RIGHT WHICH ALL MANKIND HAVE TO FREEDOM, NOTWITHSTANDING HIS OWN STATE OF BONDAGE, WITH AN HONEST DESIRE TO SERVE THIS COUNTRY . . . DID, DURING THE RAVAGES OF LORD CORNWALLIS THRO’ THIS STATE . . . ENTER INTO THE SERVICE OF THE MARQUIS LAFAYETTE. . . . HE OFTEN AT PERIL OF HIS OWN LIFE FOUND MEANS TO FREQUENT THE BRITISH CAMP.
–SECOND PETITION OF JAMES ARMISTEAD TO THE VIRGINIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY FOR HIS FREEDOM BASED ON HIS SERVICE AS A SPY FOR THE PATRIOTS
WE MET AT THE FAR end of the hedgerow, away from passersby and prying eyes. He resembled more the boy I’d met at Riverbend than the confident lad who had tried to convince me to join the British. His filthy, ragged clothes looked like he’d been chased through acres of thorn hedges, and he gobbled Ruth’s bread fast as a starving pig. But his appearance and manner did not move my heart.
“What in the name of heaven is wrong with you?” I demanded. “What did you do to Ruth to make her cry? And why are you hiding in the woods like a rogue?”
“Shhh,” he warned. His desperate eyes darted, searching the shadows. “I did nothing to harm her; I never would! Walk with me. I’ll tell you all, I swear.”
“I cannot tarry.”
“Please,” he said. “I can talk quick.”
I took in the sounds of the camp around us, measured which direction would offer a bit of privacy without danger. “Follow me,” I said at last.
His story came out between bites of food and sips from the canteen slung over his neck. He had not been driven out of Yorktown like the dead we saw in the woods. Indeed, he was still acting the spy, reporting on conditions in the encampment to the British.
“When they treat you like this?” I asked, aghast.
“Like what?” He chewed a grisly bit of beef. “Everyone in Yorktown is hungry. But that will change any day. Redcoat army’s coming from New York.” He held up one hand. “Half will arrive in ships.” He held up the other hand. “Half will arrive overland.” He softly slapped his hands together. “Patriots and French gonna be trapped, smashed to bits between the two.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not.” He tried to smile, but it looked uncertain. “That’s why I’ve come for Ruth. I mean to marry her.”
“You’re barmy.” I snorted at the absurdity. “She’s only twelve years old, and younger still in the way she sees the world.”
“You ran off with Curzon at the same age.”
“We escaped,” I pointed out. “We journeyed as friends, as companions, nothing more. Ruth is not going anywhere with you.” I picked up my skirts to leave him. “Farewell to you.”
He grabbed my elbow. “Come with us.”
I stopped as if he’d hit me in the face with a board.
“The noose is tightening, Isabel,” he said. “This is my last trip. If you both come with me now, I can keep you safe. You can wait upon the table of Lord Cornwallis himself!”
“He told you that, did he?”
“Nay,” he admitted. “But we’ll figger something.”
“We’re safe here,” I said. “We have work and food and at least a few folks we can trust. The British deserters say that everyone in Yorktown is in despair, that people there are living in caves by the river.”
His laugh startled me. “Never trust folks who betray their country.”
“Like you?”
He lifted his chin. “Patriots ain’t fighting for us, Isabel.”
I thought about the men in our company, even the white ones, who were all committed to the same kind of freedom. However, there were more white people like Lockton, Hallahan, and Bellingham who looked at me and mine and saw not people, but tools that would earn them money. They did not see us for the people that we were, people just the same as them.
But Curzon’s habit of remembering the sunshine that waited beyond the clouds had begun to infect me. “Some of them are fighting for us,” I said. “And I mean to help them win.”
“Then you’ll lose everything,” Aberdeen said bitterly. “Come with me, and bring Ruth.”
A loud burst of laughter from a group of fellows on the road caused us both to freeze in the shadows. We waited until the boisterous voices had faded away.
“If you try to steal my sister,” I warned, “I’ll hand you over to General Washington myself.”
“Don’t fret.” He sighed and sipped more water. “She won’t leave without you.”
“What?”
“Tried three times to get her to join me. She’s a stubborn cuss, worse than that old donkey was.”
His words made my heart sing, but his downcast face made it clear that his view of Ruth’s choice was much different from mine.
“Mebbe my dreaming is over
large,” he admitted. “But with the three of us working for the King’s army, we could get to New York for certain, or mebbe some other place.”
“Like sugar plantations in Jamaica?” I asked. “Barbados? Oh, indeed, the British have plenty of work for people like us.”
A shower of leaves fell between us.
“You used to say that both sides were wrong,” he finally said.
“Mostly they are,” I admitted. “But there might be enough good-hearted souls fighting for the Patriot cause to make a difference.”
“Might?” he echoed. “What if you’re wrong?”
“What if you’re wrong about the British reinforcements?”
He shrugged. “King George rules the world, they say. They’ll come.”
“Your place is here. Stay with us,” I urged. “We’ll find you work with the French, if you can’t stomach the Continentals. Think of how happy Ruth would be.”
I surprised myself by bringing up Ruth like that. I’d been jealous of her affection for Aberdeen from the first moment I realized the depth of their friendship. Now I was encouraging him to join with us because it would cheer her and be the safest course for him.
He brushed the crumbs from his hands. “When the troops come from New York and destroy your army, I’ll try to find you both.”
The words were harsh, but his voice cracked as he said them. He was caught between boyhood and manhood. It pained my heart to see him trying to be braver than he was.
He walked a few paces closer to the thorn hedge and peered through it before returning to me and asking in a low voice, “When will the rebel cannons get here?”
The question startled me. “Beg pardon?”
“They’re digging the trench to blast cannonballs at us. So how many days until the cannons arrive? I need to know, so tell me.”
“Your mission here is to spy on us?” I asked coldly. “You can go to the Devil. Get out of my sight before I scream and turn you in myself.”
“The redcoats already know the cannons are here,” he said, eyes sad. “I just wanted to know which side has truly claimed your heart.”
CHAPTER XXXVII
Tuesday, October 9, 1781
HOW CHEQUERED IS HUMAN LIFE! HOW PRECARIOUS IS HAPPINESS! HOW EASILY DO WE OFTEN PART WITH IT FOR A SHADOW! THESE ARE THE REFLECTIONS THAT FREQUENTLY INTRUDE THEMSELVES UPON ME, WITH A PAINFUL APPLICATION. I AM GOING TO DO MY DUTY.
–LETTER FROM COLONEL ALEXANDER HAMILTON TO HIS WIFE, ELIZABETH
I DID NOT SLEEP WELL and rose long before dawn. That day’s rations included a heavy bag of rice. I cooked it up with a lump of butter and added it to pork that had been stewing. It didn’t taste of much, but it would fill the lads’ bellies, and that was all that mattered.
They had been digging the trench all through the night. As the sun climbed into the sky, they returned to camp, tired and filthy, but in high spirits. I heated more water for washing. In those days of digging no man was ever clean in the proper sense of the word. The best I could do was to keep lice and other varmints from infesting their clothes, and insist that they dried their feet after working, so mushrooms wouldn’t grow between their toes.
After eating, most of the fellows went to their tents to sleep while they could. Ruth sat by the fire holding the wooden cup and ball that Aberdeen had bought for her the day he first told me he was spying for the British. She stared into the flames, her face downcast, and did not play with the toy. She’d not spoken a word all morning.
Three men remained close to the campfire: Isaac and Tall Will, who cleaned their muskets whilst nattering about the best way to defeat the lobsterbacks, and Curzon, who was sharpening the axes. I washed the cook kettles, then washed them again, waiting for the moment when Curzon and I might be alone enough for a quiet confab, but it did not appear on its own.
Finally I cleared my throat.
“Curzon, might I trouble you to walk with me to fetch some water?”
He looked up in surprise as Isaac and Tall Will grinned. The lads of our company were as fond of romantical notions as any hero in a storybook.
“Aye,” said the husband whom I had never married. “But I can fetch it on my own, if you’d rather stay here with Ruth.”
My sister didn’t even look up at the sound of her name.
“She’s a bit poorly,” I said. “And my legs are hungry for walking.”
Isaac and Tall Will chuckled, but both Curzon and I ignored them. He glanced at the keen edge of the axe, then leaned it against the woodpile, picked up the two empty kettles, and joined me.
“Lead the way,” he said.
* * *
I did not lead, nor did he follow. We walked side by side, occasionally so close to each other, when the path was crowded, that my skirts brushed against his legs and our elbows bumped. ’Twas a comfort to be walking in his company again, for it recalled the simpler days of our friendship. But we both held ourselves stiffly, recoiling from the elbow bumping as if burned by unseen sparks. He made a few observations about the dreary weather. I mentioned my irritation with the lack of variety in the meals I prepared for the company. Otherwise we walked in silence all the way to the spring and most of the way back.
Finally I stopped.
“You and Ruth are leaving?” he guessed.
“Beg pardon?”
“I know you’re not happy here,” he said, his eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead. “I figgered you’ve been busy finding a way out. The army will let you both leave, if you want. You’re not bound to it the way an enlisted fellow is.”
“We’re not leaving,” I said.
“You’re not?” he quickly asked.
“That is, uh, I’ve not planned on it,” I stammered. “It’s hard enough keeping up with the work that every hour brings.”
“You lasses work every bit as hard as we do,” he said.
The words filled me with an unaccustomed sense of pride.
“Thank you,” I said with great feeling. “’Tis kind of you to notice.”
He kicked at the ground with his boot. “Have to be blind not to notice such a thing.” He put his hands on his hips, then he crossed his arms over his chest, as if he was not certain how he should stand. “If you’re not leaving, then why did you want me to walk with you? Was there something else on your mind?”
“Indeed.” I glanced about to make sure that we could not be overheard. “I saw Aberdeen yesterday.” I quickly told him all about my encounter. He listened close, frowning through much of it.
“Is there a way to tell the captain of the spying, without telling him the particulars of the spy?” I asked. “It’s just . . .”
“You don’t want Aberdeen in trouble, do you?”
I sighed. We’d met many folks on our journeying who had family or friends who supported the British. For the first time I truly understood how hard that was for them. “He chose the side he thought was right. He doesn’t deserve to be punished for that.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” Curzon said gently. “What he told you is commonly known throughout the camp. We have spies too, more skilled than Aberdeen, I daresay. It’s why we’ve been digging all night, every night. We must position the cannons closer to Yorktown before the British ships arrive from New York if we’ve any hope to win.”
I was relieved that the Continentals were already aware of the threat, but I was still worried. “Is it possible to alert the officers to Aberdeen, mayhaps to describe him, so that if he is spotted–”
“Spying is a deadly business, Country. It matters not that Aberdeen is a friendly lad or that he’s sweet on Ruth. It would go worse on him if I were to tell everyone what he looks like. It could guarantee his death.”
“Best to keep quiet, then,” I said.
He nodded. “If you see him again, come find me. Mayhaps I can talk sense into his thick head.” An enormous yawn overtook the rest of his words.
“You must rest,” I said. “A few more hours and they’ll hand you a shovel again.” br />
“I dare not lie down,” he answered. “Captain ordered Isaac, Tall Will, and me to attend him at Colonel Hamilton’s tent when the drums sound. . . .” He broke off speaking as the call of the drums echoed forth from the center of the encampment.
“What business would three privates from Rhode Island have with a colonel?” I asked with concern. “Are you in trouble?”
“Doubtful,” he said with another yawn. “Might be the fellow needs the lines of his tent tightened or some such. Officers are strange creatures. Does no good to try to understand orders; we just have to follow them.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Tuesday, October 9–Saturday, October 13, 1781
I CONFESS I FELT A SECRET PRIDE SWELL MY HEART WHEN I SAW THE “STAR-SPANGLED BANNER” WAVING MAJESTICALLY IN THE VERY FACES OF OUR IMPLACABLE ADVERSARIES; IT APPEARED LIKE AN OMEN OF SUCCESS TO OUR ENTERPRISE.
–JOURNAL OF SERGEANT JOSEPH PLUMB MARTIN, CORPS OF SAPPERS AND MINERS
LATE THAT AFTERNOON THE CONTINENTAL army’s fife players and drummers gathered by the tall flagpole at the artillery park, playing loud and proud, stirring every spirit to hope. To the west a similar band played at the flagpole of the French, behind a row of French cannons. They raised their flag up its pole and cheered. Then the starred and striped flag of the United States of America was hauled up its own pole, to even louder cheering, drumming, and the shrill of pipes that sounded like eagles on the wind.
Both flags snapped to attention, mocking the British.
“I think that’s General Washington,” said a black-haired lass with a spray of freckles across her nose.
“Nay,” said an older woman called Annie. “Too short. General’s that giant of a man chatting to the round fellow. He’s the German, Stooben.”