Redcoat

  “We sawed an inch off his peg once,” Sam grinned. “He thought he was drunk. Went lurching up the street like a cart with a broken axle!” He laughed, suddenly at his ease. “Had my ears boxed for that.”

  “Deservedly,” Martha said.

  “He didn’t mind! Thought it was a rare jest! He was the fellow who soaped the belltower steps so the sexton slipped off in a wedding. Came down like a flour sack in a tower-mill!” Sam was suddenly aware of hogging the conversation and, embarrassed, he stopped. He looked at Martha. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “It’s a pleasure to hear you, Sam.” Martha was watching Sam and Caroline, and had seen how the girl smiled at Sam’s tale, and how Sam blushed for Caroline, and Martha, feeling suddenly so much older and wiser than her twenty-six years, thought what mischief might be brewed here. A clean Sam, she thought, looked remarkably handsome in his borrowed clothes. “Perhaps you’ll go and frighten Lydia with a bedtime story, Sam?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Sam smiled a nervous farewell at Caroline, then, obedient, he left the room.

  “But don’t leave the house.” Martha had followed him on to the landing. She hesitated, then smiled. “Caroline shouldn’t walk the streets alone. You can see her to the quayside?”

  Martha half expected Caroline, who prized her independence, to protest, but no word came from the bedroom. “I’ll be glad to, ma’am,” Sam said.

  So, two hours later, but now in a damp uniform and with his hair once more flour-whitened and once more tight about its leather pad, Sam walked beside Jonathon’s girl. Sam carried a bundle for Caroline; a gift of candles from Martha to Caroline’s grandparents. A light rain fell, but Sam did not notice. He wanted to watch Caroline as though, in the intermittent pools of lantern light, he could fix the lineaments of her looks into his memory for ever.

  They talked of Jonathon. “He’ll never fight again, will he?” Caroline said.

  “Not with a pegleg,” Sam said. “But there’s more to fighting than pulling triggers. There’s more paperwork than you’d dream of! And he’s a scholar, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.” Caroline sounded wistful.

  “Our lot are always scribbling,” Sam said scornfully. “You can’t put a shoe on a horse without a barrowload of paper. Waste of time.”

  Caroline walked in silence for a few paces. “Will Jonathon get better?”

  “He’ll get better.” Sam said it with a grim determination.

  Caroline smiled at Sam. “He’s lucky to have you.”

  Sam shrugged. “He was good to my brother, you see. I owe him for that.”

  “Jonathon said your brother died.”

  “Yes.” And oddly it was not hard to talk of Nate now, not with this girl. Sam found himself telling Caroline about Nate and Maggie, and how they had planned to run and find their perfect paradise together, and how the dream had ended with a bullet in his brother’s back.

  “What happened to the girl?” Caroline asked.

  “I heard she ran off. Best thing, really.”

  Caroline walked in silence for a few yards. The lights of a gin shop glinted in her hair and made shadows on her cheeks and beneath her lips. “Poor Nate,” she said suddenly.

  “He was a fool.” Sam smiled sadly. “He only became a soldier because of the red coat, and because of the money they never gave us. But he shouldn’t have joined the army! Nate hated fighting. He used to run away from single-stick!”

  “Single-stick?” Caroline asked.

  “They’re like wooden swords,” Sam explained, “but heavier. It’s a game we play in England. You fight with them, see, and the first to draw an inch of blood from the other fellow’s skull wins.”

  They had entered a dark narrow alley which led towards the lights on the city wharves. Caroline’s teeth showed white as she smiled at Sam. “I somehow think you were good at single-stick?”

  “I loved it.” They left the alley, coming on to the wide flame-lit quays. Sentry posts, each with its own blazing fire, were set all along the wharves, part of the great ring which the British had set about Philadelphia.

  Caroline led Sam north towards one of the artillery batteries where the gunners, recognizing her, shouted a friendly greeting. “Got yourself a boyfriend, girl?”

  “I’m sorry,” Sam said on their behalf.

  “They don’t worry me.” Caroline went down dark steps and untied a boat.

  “You sail that yourself?” Sam asked with some astonishment.

  “All by my small self.” She smiled up from the dark well of the dock. Behind her, reflecting the small moonlight, the water rippled silver and black. She held out her hands for the bundle of candles. “You and I, Sam? We’ll get Jonathon better?”

  Sam handed her the package, and felt the warmth of the implied complicity. “We will.” He watched as she pulled a single dark sail up the mast. “How do you know where you’re going?”

  “There’s a light over there. It’s home.”

  “Get there safely, miss.”

  Caroline smiled her thanks, then thrust a single scull over the shallop’s transom. Sam, stepping back, saw a white rectangle on the bottom step. He ran down, picked it up, and felt the blob of wax that sealed a letter. “Did you drop this?”

  Caroline was already fending the boat away from the quay. Her face, as she looked back, showed sudden alarm. “It fell out of the bundle,” she said.

  “Here!” Sam stretched so far across the widening gap that he almost fell into the water. Caroline reached towards him and steadied him with her hand. Their fingers clutched for safety and Martha’s letter nearly slipped into the river. Sam lurched upright, safely handed the letter to Caroline, then apologized for his clumsiness.

  “Thank you, Sam.” Caroline’s eyes seemed bright in the dock’s watery gloom.

  “Good-night, miss.” Sam was remembering her touch, the warm strong touch of a girl.

  “Good-night, Sam!” Caroline, with an easy skill, was twisting the single stern scull to drive the boat out of the wharf’s shelter and into the wind. She waved when the boat heeled, then sat to the tiller.

  Sam did not move. He watched the dark shadow all across the river, watched till the boat was nothing but a blur against the black shadows of the far bank. He felt something he could not describe, but knew it to be a part of happiness. Then he remembered that Jonathon was to marry Caroline and he flinched from what he had been thinking. Sam climbed the steps and walked into a dark city, but, whether he wished it or not, his head was filled and startled with the surprise of golden hair, the memory of fingers strong on his, and of laughter so easily shared. And Sam’s world, for the best of all good reasons, but without good hope, suddenly seemed brighter.

  Twenty

  On the morning of the attack on the rebel forts, Sir William Howe awoke with a wondrous sense of well-being, quite belying his forty-eight years and also in defiance of the port and fried oysters which, taken at a late supper, he had been sure he would wake to regret. On the contrary, however, he felt almost young again.

  Abandoning Lizzie amongst a warm tangle of blankets, he went to his dressing-room where Thomas Evans shaved him and remarked that it was a fine day. It was indeed, Sir William replied as he inhaled the mingled scents of shaving soap and brewing coffee. A street huckster, up betimes, was crying his wares below, reminding Sir William of the noisy and cheerful chaos of London’s streets.

  Which thought only provoked a pleasant melancholy of happy London memories. The river stairs on a spring day when the Thames danced with sunlight. The Rotunda at Ranelagh Gardens. The Drury Lane Theatre where David Garrick was King, or the Little Theatre in the Haymarket where Samuel Foote would warn the women in the audience to loosen their stays lest their laughter provoke rupture. Sir William dreamed of Almacks on a winter night, of watching the whores in Covent Garden and guessing which would die of the pox and which marry into the gentry. And the coffee houses! Why, there were more coffee houses in the Strand alone than in all Pennsylvania!

  ?
??You’re looking pensive, sir.” Lord Robert Massedene, the day’s duty aide, fetched in the morning business as Sir William was being arrayed in stockings, breeches, shirt, stock, waistcoat, coat, wig, shoes, and sword.

  “I was remembering Somerset Coffee House, Robert. You recall that extraordinary plump waiter who’s so very disobliging?”

  “Slaughter’s Coffee House,” Robert Massedene said teasingly, “the Turk’s Head? The Piazza?”

  “Clifton’s Chop House, eh?”

  “Dolly’s Steak House,” Massedene riposted.

  “Where the whores drink porter for breakfast!” The conversation only increased Sir William’s happy disposition. “And we must make do with the London Coffee House on Market Street!”

  “Where last night, sir, there was a rumour that General Burgoyne had surrendered.”

  But Sir William’s good humour could not be dented. “Rumour, Robert! There’s always rumour! How many times have we been told of Mister Washington’s death, eh? Of quinsy, ague, flux, colic, even of battle!”

  “That, sir” – Robert Massedene laid the papers on Sir William’s table – “would be a death I would deeply regret.”

  Sir William, closing his eyes as Evans perfected the powdering of the wig, laughed. “You think they’d replace him with someone better?”

  “Could they find worse?”

  “I doubt it, Robert. He even makes me feel like an adequate general.” Sir William smiled to show that his modesty should not be taken too seriously, then went to the table where a pot of coffee, sliced ham, bread and butter waited. He glanced at the waiting reports. “Do I have to read them, Robert, or will you just tell me the news?”

  “Donop marched on time, sir. Your brother’s ships are coming up river. The sun has duly risen. God, the preachers assure us, is in His heaven.”

  “For which, amen.” Sir William spread butter on bread and cocked a professional ear to the gentle thumps that shook the casements. “No great increase in cannon fire, Robert. You think Donop’s late?”

  “We shall know soon enough, sir,” Massedene said comfortingly. “Captain Vane will be first with the news, I’m sure.”

  “How he does yearn for the smell of powder!” Sir William had been amused by Captain Vane’s earnest request that he be allowed to accompany the grenadiers in their assault on Fort Mifflin. “Is he so tired of life?”

  “He is avid for reputation, sir. And victory.”

  “And for the Widow, I think.” Sir William chuckled.

  “Doubtless, sir. May I tempt you to some salted shad?”

  “You may not.” Sir William shuddered at the thought, then considered the notion of Vane and Mrs Crowl. “It would be a very good match for him. She’s wealthy.”

  “And beautiful.” Massedene spoke drily.

  The thought of Vane’s marriage had sparked Sir William’s enthusiasm. “I do hope it works for them, ’pon my soul, I do! It’s what the city needs, Robert! A romance in a city at war! A love story to unite us! My dear Robert, don’t you agree?”

  “I’m forced to wonder whether the Widow would agree, sir.”

  “Why ever not? Vane’s a decent enough fellow. His people aren’t from the top shelf, perhaps, but they’re not negligible. She could do a lot worse!”

  “She could do a lot better, sir.”

  Sir William stared at his aide, then, understanding, he gave a slow smile. “You’re jealous, Robert! The Widow has conquered you as well!”

  Massedene denied it, though without conviction. “It’s Vane I find hard to stomach, sir. He has a tradesman’s view of life. There’s profit or loss, and nothing in between. I try to be civil to him, though.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Sir William said quickly.

  “And I don’t deny his bravery, sir, and I trust he brings us news of victory today.”

  “Oh, indeed!” Sir William, reminded of the day’s real business, carried a cup of coffee to the window as though he hoped to see victory across the intervening rooftops. He wondered if the tempo of the gunfire had increased, then allowed himself a silent wish for the safety of his aide, Christopher Vane.

  Who, crouching beneath a dike to stay out of a chill wind, waited for the attack to start. Vane had been waiting since the first grey wolfish light before dawn, he had waited as the handful of frigates and gunboats, their topsails washed pink by the rising sun, had laboriously threaded their way past the sunken obstacles of the river bed and crept upstream, and still he waited. “Donop’s late!”

  “Sir?” Sam shivered as he huddled at the dike’s base, armed with musket and bayonet.

  Vane did not repeat the words. He was wondering why he had volunteered for this mission, and decided that, in truth, he could not bear to think of a great venture put at risk because it lacked his efforts. That, Vane decided, was a monstrous conceit, but it was still true. Ever since Sir William had plucked him from the shadows Vane had felt marked for greatness, and he knew that this period of youth was the mere apprenticeship to fame. He risked that greatness, of course, by offering himself to this fight, but he did not believe fate had death by battle marked against his name. “Are you frightened, Sam?”

  “No, sir.”

  Vane turned. “Truly?”

  “No more than another man, sir.”

  Vane smiled. “I’ve seen you frightened, Sam. I’ve seen you scared half to death! It was that sergeant. The one who was hitting you when I so kindly rescued you.”

  Sam thought about it. “Anyone’d be scared of Scammy, sir. Right bastard, he is.”

  “Describe his bastardy, Samuel. Amuse me.” Vane, bored, wanted to pass the time, and so it was that Sam found himself describing Sergeant Scammell. He astonished himself by hearing a grudging admiration in his own voice as he depicted Scammell’s bravery, but there was no admiration when he spoke of the night when Scammell had been on picquet duty before the battle.

  “He killed that lad, sir!”

  “Truly?” Vane was intrigued by the story.

  “But don’t do nothing, sir!” Sam was alarmed. “I shouldn’t have told you!”

  “I would not take from the army a man who sounds so valuable,” Vane said. “We need ruthless men, Sam, if we’re to put this rebellion down.” Vane stood and stared across the river, wondering why Donop still did not attack. “Why did you bathe the other day, Sam?”

  “Bathe, sir?”

  Vane looked down on his servant. “I did notice, Sam! One day you’re encrusted with filth, and the next you’re suddenly smelling like a whore’s parlour! Have you found a girl?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I think you have. Who is this doxie?”

  “Only a girl, sir,” Sam said lamely.

  “What kind of girl? A kitchenmaid?”

  “Yes, sir.” Sam seized on the invention, then, thinking he should say something more to embroider it, spoke the truth. “She’s lovely, sir.”

  “I’m sure she is.” Vane wondered just what kind of passion it was that private soldiers felt. Something squalid, no doubt, a mere passage of flesh that could not be compared with the sacramental ecstasy Vane felt for Martha Crowl. The thought of Martha, and of taking his victorious sword in a lover’s tribute to her house, made Vane smile. Tonight, he thought, when this business was gloriously concluded, he would gently take the Widow past the constraints of friendship into the more exciting passions of love, and that thought was as exciting as the anticipation of the action that had yet, inexplicably, to start around the beleaguered forts.

  Clouds raced their shadows over the long waters and hid the sun. A heron stalked the river shoals while Captain Vane impatiently strolled up and down the line of the dike. At any moment he expected to hear the thump of the light galloper guns that had accompanied Donop’s Hessians, but, as the morning ached slowly, coldly, onwards, no firing came across the still grey sheets of water. Two frigates and three gunboats, with leadsman chanting the fathoms, inched upstream. By noon the clouds threatened rain, but a wind had ris
en to ruffle the water and heel the warships over. A rebel galley, nosing from one of the intricate creeks of the New Jersey shore, tried a shot at a frigate with its bow gun and was answered by a rolling, thunderous broadside that made a vast cloud of dirty smoke in the river’s centre. The galley, unharmed, sheered gracefully away.

  “This is insanity!” Captain Vane’s temper, despite his happy anticipations of the night, was frayed by waiting. At dinner, taken at half-past one with the officers of the grenadier companies that would take the surrender of Fort Mifflin, he even thought of returning to the city to see whether Sir William, for some strange reason, had called off the Hessian attack, but curiosity held him to the marsh dike beyond which, heavy on the river bank, longboats waited to ferry the grenadiers to the shoals off Mud Island. The grenadiers were the shock troops of a battalion, and six battalions had contributed companies towards the capture of the island fort. The men, bored by waiting, slept beneath the dike or sharpened already-sharpened bayonets. Vane, fretting, snapped open the lid of his new watch that had once hung from a chain on Benjamin Franklin’s belly. “It was supposed to be a surprise attack!”

  “It could still succeed.” A moustached major sliced a rancid slice from a joint of salt pork.

  “They should have attacked at dawn.”

  The major put the pork in his mouth and chewed it slowly. “This is the army. When does anything happen on time?”

  Sir William Howe, still in Philadelphia where he had been persuaded he must stay lest his absence alerted the enemy to some extraordinary effort, also fretted because of the advancing hours. “Is the man lost? Gone back to Germany? Damn it!”

  Lord Cornwallis, a dour, efficient man who dined this afternoon with Howe, said nothing, but by his silence suggested that he, given the authority, might have arranged things better. Cornwallis wanted to return to London and Sir William felt a pang of jealousy. Why should Cornwallis go home? And what mischief would he concoct in the drawing-rooms and antechambers where the government’s real business was conducted?

  Lord Robert Massedene carved the brawn and waited for the guns to fire in the rhythm of battle. “Perhaps, sir,” he ventured, “Fort Mercer surrendered without a fight?”