“They play a damn sight better than George,” Lee said testily.
Martha, not wanting to provoke another burst of jealousy, went back to the subject of her brother. “As you’re returning, Charlie, I wondered if you’d be kind enough to offer Jonathon your assistance?”
“Gladly. Of course! Unless things are a lot better, which I doubt, the Commissary Office will be glad of a clever man.”
“And his wife.”
“Wife?”
“Jonathon plans to marry.”
Lee noted the unenthusiastic tone of Martha’s voice. “You don’t approve?”
“I like her extremely.”
“But?” the rebel General probed.
Martha veered away from the subject. “Jonathon can’t leave till the end of April. He has to stay and sign papers, or else lose his inheritance. Will you be gone by then?”
“I fear so. Did you want him to travel with me?”
“He couldn’t. Officially he’s a prisoner. I’ll have to smuggle him out of the city.”
Lee laughed. “You’re rather good at smuggling things out of the city, aren’t you?”
Martha smiled. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Nor do I,” Lee said happily, “but naturally I will do all I can to help your brother. It will be an honour. He and his bride will want lodgings, and he needs a post. Shall I write and tell you what I can arrange?”
“That would be kind.”
“How do I communicate with you?”
“Care of the Fisher house at Cooper’s Point.”
“Your favour is so easily granted.” Lee bowed. “Now you can return it by dancing with me and thus giving the gossips a chance to decry our characters.”
Lee offered Martha his arm, and they joined a quadrille that had been made gaudy by the discovery of some costumes which had been shared among the dancers. Lizzie Loring was in a cape of gauze that glittered with spangles. Sir William, presented with a massively plumed hat, swept it off in gallant obeisance to the applauding revellers whose laughter filled the candlelit arena.
Christopher Vane, handing off one partner to link arms with another, saw that he must inevitably be drawn to offer a hand to Martha so, with an elegant sidestep, he left the dance. He stepped under the gallery, took a glass of wine, and saw Major Otto Zeigler, Sir William’s Hessian interpreter, standing gloomy and alone in the shadows.
“I’m drunk,” Zeigler said in bald reply to Vane’s greeting.
“And why not, Otto?” Vane watched Peggy Shippen, draped in a robe of royal purple, staring enraptured into Captain Andre’s face.
“We should be fighting, not dancing,” the Hessian grumbled.
“Indeed.”
“You English don’t know how to fight a war. You can dance, ja, but you don’t fight. You are betrayed and you do nothing! Nothing!”
“We …” Vane turned, but Zeigler had abruptly gone into the antechamber where, with a marvellous dexterity, the Hessian officers ran their fast and profitable faro bank. Zeigler sat, took out a handful of coins, and joined the game.
Christopher Vane, the dancing suddenly forgotten, went into the antechamber and stood behind the interpreter. He watched for a while as Zeigler, drunk beyond caring, lost money fast. Faro was not a game of finesse but merely of luck, in which the players guessed the order in which the cards would be revealed. Zeigler consistently backed the Pharaoh itself, the King of Hearts on which any wager was doubled.
Vane leaned down beside Zeigler. “What do you mean, Otto, betrayed?”
Zeigler searched his pockets for more coins and found two guineas. “My last funds,” he said. “If I lose these I shall blow my goddamned bloody brains out.” A score of officers had similarly killed themselves because of the winter’s gambling debts.
“What do you mean,” Vane asked again, “betrayed?”
“Who damn cares?” Zeigler havered his last two guineas between the Pharaoh and the Three of Diamonds, then, with the air of a doomed man, plumped for the lesser card.
“Tell me, Otto!”
“I might kill myself and you pester me! Pester!”
Christopher Vane, smiling, took the two guineas from the Three of Diamonds and put them on the Pharaoh. “I’m feeling lucky tonight, Otto.”
“For Christ’s …” Zeigler’s hand shot out to move his money back to the safer card, but Vane gripped the Hessian’s wrist and held it firm until the bank began revealing their deck. Vane estimated there were sixty or seventy guineas depending on this hand, but only Zeigler’s money was wagered on the Pharaoh.
“You can be a bastard, Vane.” Zeigler, his wrist released, watched the cards turn. “It’s my last money. If I lose that I have nothing. Only a bullet.”
“I told you, I’m feeling lucky. I pay your losses, you keep your winnings.”
The sixth card of the bank’s deck was the King of Hearts. Money was scooped from around the table, doubled from the bank’s hoard, and the whole golden pile pushed towards the drunken Hessian. “Sweet Jesus.” Zeigler stared at his fortune.
Vane scooped all of the winnings into his handkerchief. “Now come and talk to me.”
“That’s my money!”
“You can have it when you’ve talked to me.”
Zeigler grumbled, but obeyed. He fetched himself a bottle of claret and staggered to a small table where Vane waited for him. “Donop,” Zeigler explained when Vane repeated his question, “was betrayed.”
Vane had to think for a moment before he remembered that Donop was the Hessian general who had led the attack on Fort Mercer in the autumn. The General had been wounded in the carnage of the failed assault, captured, and had died three days later.
“They knew we were coming.” Zeigler poured himself a glass of wine. “You do not have a glass. You need a glass. Gentlemen do not drink from the bottle in front of ladies.” He turned and peered at the women who sat round the faro table. “Even whores.”
“Why do you think Donop was betrayed?”
“You do not have a glass!” Zeigler said in drunken indignation.
Vane patiently fetched himself a glass, poured himself wine, and sat again. “Why?”
“Because I was told it, that is why! You have my money!”
“I shall give it you. Who told you?”
Zeigler belched. “My God. We shall bet one guinea a bottle, Kit? We shall then drink the bottles, ja? The first to fall on the floor loses.” He laughed, pleased with the idea. “You agree?”
“Who told you, Otto?”
Zeigler frowned in the effort of memory. “I once drank seventeen bottles against a Russian. No one outdrinks a German, Kit, you know that? He was a big fellow, too! I shall fetch the bottles.” He made the declaration with great decisiveness, but was too weary to rise from his chair. Instead, he finished his glass of wine, poured another, then shook his head. “They shouldn’t have beat us. We were betrayed, Kit, betrayed!”
“Who told you?”
“The rebeller prisoners!” Zeigler said indignantly, as if he had already explained the whole matter. “The ones who fell in the river. I talked to them to find out about Donop. One of them told me.” He paused, and Vane prayed that the moment of lucidity would continue. Zeigler belched again. He was sweating and short of breath. He must have been drinking, Vane decided, since midday.
“What did the prisoner say?”
“It was a long time ago,” Zeigler said wearily.
“I know it was a long time ago, but what did he say, Otto?”
“He said they knew!” Again Zeigler was indignant. “The rebellers were told! They were ready! They were waiting!” He shouted the words, attracting glances from the faro players.
“Fort Mercer was warned?”
“Ja! Here.” Zeigler feverishly searched his pockets to produce a small notebook that he slapped as proof on to the table. He searched the pages. “A Lieutenant Lynch told me, there! You see? I make a note of it.”
The note
was in scribbled German and meant nothing to Vane. “What did he say?”
“He said they were warned! I want my money.”
“How could they have been warned. No one knew.”
Zeigler helped himself to Vane’s glass. “No one keeps secrets, Kit. They all have whores, don’t they?” He picked up the pack of cards that waited for the dollar whist which would start later in the evening. “Blab, blab in bed, my friend. Blab, blab. No secrets!” He spilt the cards across the floor in disgust. “And four hundred of my countrymen are dead in a ditch!”
“And Lynch didn’t tell you who brought the letter?”
“No. He was boasting at first, but then he became, how do you say, like the grave.”
“Silent,” Vane said. It made sense, too. Vane had seen newly captured prisoners brimming with defiance, not ready to accept that they had been defeated, and Vane had listened to them taunt and boast to their captors. Doubtless this Lieutenant Lynch, dragged from the cold river, had wanted to flaunt a victory in the face of his captors and had thus allowed himself the indiscretion.
“You are not drinking,” Zeigler accused Vane.
“I am drinking.” Vane felt the horror of Zeigler’s revelations. Only a handful of officers, those closest to Sir William, had known of the attack on the forts. One of those officers had, at best, been indiscreet or, at worst, was a traitor. Vane remembered, too, how Sir William’s December march north had been betrayed, else why had Washington been fortified and ready? He frowned. “Why didn’t you tell anyone earlier, Otto?”
“I did! I told Billy, didn’t I? But Billy doesn’t care.” The German began to laugh, then solemnly declaimed a mocking verse that had swept the city:
Sir William, he, snug as a flea,
Lies all this time a’snoring,
Nor dreaming of harm, as he lies warm,
In bed with Mrs Loring.
Vane, in his growing impatience with Sir William’s inactivity, had assiduously spread the scurrilous verse himself, but nevertheless smiled polite appreciation as though he now heard it for the first time. “Billy must have done something, Otto?”
“He said I should forget it. Forget it! Four hundred men dead! And I must forget it!”
Vane looked sideways through the arch. Sir William was dancing with Martha Crowl, and the sight put a spasm of hatred through Vane’s jealous soul. Forget treachery? That was typical of Sir William who believed that a soft answer would turn away wrath. The rebel army had been at Valley Forge all winter, scarce three days’ march away, yet Sir William had done nothing. Vane, seeing victory frittered away by inactivity, had broadcast the mocking verse to try and shame his master into action. Instead, Sir William danced with Martha Crowl, who was allowed to flaunt her patriotism in the highest circles of the British command.
Zeigler gave a sour laugh. “The English aren’t serious about war, Kit. I like Billy, truly, but you cannot be nice to the enemy.” He suddenly became angry. “Nice! Nice! Nice! You must hit them and cut them and make them frightened. We shouldn’t be dancing here, we should be slaughtering Yankees!”
“We can’t if we’re betrayed.”
“Then hang the betrayers.” Zeigler put the bottle to his lips and finished the wine. “Where’s my money?”
“Here.” Vane pushed the handkerchief across the table, but palmed some of the coins into his own hand. “Is Lieutenant Lynch still alive?”
“Who cares?” Zeigler hiccupped, then rested his head on the golden pile of guineas. “I shall sleep.”
Christopher Vane took the small notebook and tore out the page with the prisoner’s name. He pushed the folded paper into a pocket. The war was not lost yet. The French still havered, and there was yet a chance that the enemy could be brought to battle in the early spring. Crush Washington and the French would flinch from another beating, but not if the British were betrayed. And Vane, watching the Widow glitter in the candlelight, was determined that, this time, there would be no betrayal to cheat the royal army of its victory.
Thirty
White clouds sailed across a blue sky. There was warmth at last in the sunlight. The nights were still cold and the wind could yet cut like a blade, but the land had lost its deadness and a sparkle touched the waters. Spring was bringing its green to a seaboard, and Philadelphia prepared for a new season of war.
Gunners practised their aim by firing at casks floated down the Delaware, the infantry ran with full packs to harden muscles grown lazy in winter, and cavalry sabres spewed sparks from grindstones as edges were honed for the killing.
Horses as well as men had to be hardened and Sam exercised his charges into battle strength. He took them to the Neck and pounded them across softening ground to put muscle beneath their pelts. Back in the Lutheran church that had been their winter stable he would bang their coats with bundled straw, then brush them till they gleamed. He trained Captain Vane’s young stallion to war; firing muskets close to its ears, shouting at the beast, trying to scare it, yet always reassuring the horse that, whatever danger seemed to threaten, it could live and survive. Sam taught the stallion to rear and lash out with its hooves so that infantrymen, trying to attack its rider, would flinch away. Each morning the training went on, and each morning Sam would lead his string of horses past Jonathon’s house and once, soon after the river ice melted, Sam had seen Jonathon through a downstairs window. He waved, but Jonathon did not see him.
A month later, on the morning after the theatre’s subscription ball, Sam was rasping down the hoof walls of the black stallion. A breeze fretted at the broken windows which let out the fumes from a brazier which stood in the chancel of the church. Sam, whistling tunelessly as he worked, was alone. He had stripped off his red coat and donned a farrier’s apron. Sparrows which had taken up residence in the church during the harsh winter flew down to peck at oat husks.
He heard the church’s main door open and, assuming it was another groom, called out a cheerfully rude reminder not to leave the bloody door open.
“You’re just another arrogant Englishman,” said a voice, “ordering us humble colonials about.”
Sam dropped the file, let go of the stallion’s fetlock, and stared down the aisle. “Jonathon!” He kicked the stool over and ran down the church. “Just look at you! Pegleg!”
“Hello, Sam.” Jonathon smiled with shy pleasure at the reunion.
Sam had no shyness. He threw his arms around Jonathon who had stumped in on his one good leg and on one leather-tipped wooden peg. Two crutches gave him stability. “I told you!” Sam said triumphantly. “I said you’d be walking!”
“It’s my first proper walk,” Jonathon explained. “They fitted it two weeks ago, and I’ve been hopping round the house ever since.” He leaned against one of the empty stalls to take the weight off his stump that had been rubbed raw by the friction of the leather cup strapped to his thigh. “It’s better than the old leg but it’s awful sore.”
“It will be.” Sam saw there was a new hardness in Jonathon’s face; lines put there by pain. “It takes time to settle a wooden leg, you know.”
Jonathon still smiled. “I have to thank you, don’t I? It was the beestings.”
Sam shrugged the thanks away. “Caroline did most of that.”
“She says it was you.” Jonathon looked up the aisle towards the vestry door. “She said she’d meet me here.”
Sam felt an immediate quickening of his pulse, but knew he must hide the sudden excitement. “Here?” He asked the confirmation casually, as though he did not care one way or the other.
“There is a guard on me,” Jonathon spoke mockingly, but through the still open door Sam could see a servant leaning against the outer porch. Jonathon pushed the door closed with his crutch. “My uncle still thinks I’ll run away, so I’m only allowed outdoors with a groom to keep me loyal. He’s had enough of horses, though, so he won’t come in.”
“Then how does Caroline …?”
“We write to each other.” Jonathon’s face was
still thin from the illness, but there was colour in his cheeks and a brightness in his eyes. He grinned, evidently pleased with his cleverness. “One of the kitchenmaids smuggles letters to Martha’s house, and Martha sends them to Caroline.”
“I haven’t seen Caroline, oh,” Sam shrugged, “for months!”
“She says she was frightened by those two men. Remember? I have to thank you for that, too.”
“She was wonderful!” Sam said warmly, then remembered how he had held Caroline in the wet night after their escape, and the remembrance of that intimacy, which seemed so long ago, made him silent.
Jonathon looked up the aisle again, evidently impatient. “She said she’d come in the back way.”
“She always used to,” Sam said, “before …” Again his words tailed off. “You must have missed her?”
“More than the leg.” Jonathon laughed grimly, then heaved himself on to the crutches and began pegging and lurching towards the chancel.
Sam walked beside him. He saw the stallion’s ears prick back and he knew someone had made a sound in the vestry. Sam told himself that his winter dreams about Caroline had been just that: dreams. Absence made the heart grow fonder and also made the absent one seem even more desirable, and so Sam tried to convince himself that when Caroline walked through the low arched door he would see a commonplace girl and he would have no cause to feel the jealousy of which he was so ashamed.
Then the door opened, and she stood there.
Jonathon hurried forward, clumsy on his crutches, and for a moment Caroline looked past Jonathon and stared at Sam.
And Sam, who had been so impatient for the ice’s melting, suddenly felt tongue-tied. “Hello, miss.”
“Hello, Sam.” Caroline said, then she walked towards Jonathon, and Sam turned away as the two embraced at the foot of the chancel’s steps. He stroked the stallion and tried not to listen to the joy of the reunion behind him.
But Jonathon would not let Sam be excluded from that joy. He bombarded Sam with questions. Wasn’t Caroline looking well, wasn’t this the happiest day, and wasn’t it wonderful to be together again?