Redcoat

by Bernard Cornwell

  “Don’t curse to me, Ezra.”

  “Don’t lecture me, girl!” There was no trace now of the obsequious subservience with which Woollard treated Abel Becket. Woollard was a hard man, and he was determined to discover what had happened to Jonathon. Five days had passed since the boy had ridden from the city, and in those five days there had been no news of him. Ezra Woollard was certain that, had Jonathon ridden to the British army as his uncle had ordered him, some news would have come to the city by now and so, with Jonathon’s whereabouts still a mystery, Woollard had followed Caroline to snatch this chance of discovering the truth. “He’s gone to General Washington, hasn’t he?”

  “What is it to you, Ezra?”

  Woollard smiled. “If he’s gone, then there’s a chair to be filled, isn’t there? His uncle’s getting on, ain’t the young man he used to be. So if it isn’t to be Jonathon, who knows?” He let the question linger. “Tell me where he is.”

  “I told you where he went.” Caroline twisted away from the big man, but Woollard reached out and plucked her back. This morning Abel Becket, with other prominent merchants, was waiting to surrender the State House to the British, and Woollard would have liked to take some firm news to his employer. He wanted to tell Abel Becket that Jonathon had forfeited his share of the business, but Caroline, whom Woollard was certain knew the truth, was contemptuous and defiant.

  Woollard pinned her against the wall with his left hand, while his right threatened to strike her face. Water lapped in the creek behind him, carrying its stinking load of ordure between the muddy margins that were littered with dead rats. “I want to know where he is, and you know. So you tell me, girl, or I’ll have you in front of the magistrates this morning and we’ll see “how you like a taste of the Correction House.”

  “The Correction House!” Caroline was scornful.

  “I’ve got some Hambro Line missing from the warehouse. I might just discover it on your boat! Who are they going to believe? You or me?”

  Caroline pushed against his rigid left arm, then, in sudden submission, she leaned on the wall and sighed. “Do you really think someone as badly crippled as Jonathon can fight?”

  Woollard frowned. “So if he ain’t with the rebel army, girl, where is he?”

  Caroline shrugged in resignation. “He went to Frankfort.”

  “Frankfort?” Woollard’s surprise turned into a sudden gasp as a slice of pain shot through his left arm. The arm, stung as if by fire, jerked back and Caroline slashed with her knife again, this time towards his eyes and Ezra Woollard ducked and twisted away from the blade. It was then that Caroline, unable to resist the temptation, pushed him with her left hand and watched as he teetered, arms flailing, then fell, bellowing, into the fetid mud of the creek. Water spewed up, Woollard’s hat fell off, and the girl’s mocking laughter echoed from the high dark walls.

  Caroline did not wait. She crossed the drawbridge over Front Street, then turned up past the City Tavern bedecked with bunting to welcome the Redcoats. The crowds, whom she had tried to avoid, blocked her path still, and now, far away, she could hear a sudden thumping in the air; a rhythmic, pounding sound that punched at the sky. Thin over the thumping came the sound of instruments. It was a band playing “God Save the King”.

  Caroline glanced behind her, fearing the apparition of a mud-drenched pursuer, but there was no sign of Ezra Woollard. She laughed at the memory of his flailing fall, then tried to push between the people who stood thick on the pavements by Christ Church.

  “Get back, girl,” someone growled. Then the street erupted into a huge cheer and Caroline, sidling through the press of bodies, saw the first horsemen riding by. They were all Americans; Philadelphians who had ridden to guide the British home.

  For the British had come at last. They thumped and strutted their bright way between the houses, and were cheered for their arrival. Bands played, officers’ horses caracoled elegantly, while their riders doffed plumed hats towards the prettier women. When one officer, more handsome than the rest, bowed towards a fair-haired beauty leaning from an upper window, the crowd erupted into cheers and laughter. “God save the King!” someone called aloud, and the cry was taken up along the whole of Second Street, gaudy with British flags. A general, looped with golden aiguillettes, rode amidst his aides. His name was whispered along the pavement. It was Lord Cornwallis, sent by Sir William Howe to take possession of the city. Caroline thought he rode like an insolent conqueror into an enemy capital.

  The thronged pavements went silent a moment later as a company of Grenadiers goosestepped past. At their head, pacing magnificently, a sergeant led a black bear on a silver chain. At times, prodded by its keeper, the bear reared hugely on its back paws and flailed the air. Behind their prancing mascot the soldiers were helmeted in mitred shakos faced with brass, while their faces had huge, thick moustaches that were waxed into upturned tips. They had silver buttons on yellow waistcoats and silver cords hanging from the shoulders of their dark blue jackets. Short golden-hilted swords hung from white leather straps by their hips. Their muskets had scarlet slings and fittings of gleaming brass. Meaty white-breeched thighs rose in the grotesque march before the gaitered boots slapped down into the mud.

  “Hessians!” a voice near Caroline said, and the hiss went through the crowd. The Hessians seemed so demonic. Behind them came a Hessian band playing a doom-laden march. Caroline, appalled by the sight of such men, tried to console herself with the memory of the Hessian prisoners, taken from Trenton last Christmas, but even that could not take away the fearfulness of these moustached veterans who seemed so huge and magnificent and capable. Their tread seemed to shiver the very street, and Caroline thought with despair of the volunteers who made up General Washington’s army. What chance did Jonathon have against these automatons? For Jonathon had volunteered, and was now in the rebellion’s service. The letter Caroline carried had confirmed it.

  Behind the Hessians, mounted on mud-flecked horses, came a troop of the Queen’s Rangers, American Loyalists all, dressed in their plain green Hussar uniform with their black plumes and cresset badges. Many had relatives in the crowd and they laughed, waved, and blew kisses towards the women.

  A louder cheer greeted a group of British cavalry officers dressed in fur-edged pelisses, embroidered sabretaches, and loops and buttons and froggings of brightest gold, and even Caroline reluctantly thought she had never seen anything so splendid in all her life.

  “God save the King!” the woman in the window called aloud, and again the cry echoed through the city to startle pigeons up from the shingled roofs.

  Caroline remembered how, just weeks before, the crowds had cheered General Washington’s army when it marched through the city to give battle to these men. Now, though, it seemed the cheers were louder, and the thought shamed her. She edged away, as if she could blot this procession from her mind, but a jangling, rumbling, and thunderous sound made her turn back to watch again. The great guns were passing, deadly machines of brass and wood and iron, with vast blurring wheels that spewed mud high into the air, and with carriages hung with dangling buckets and coiled chains. The mouths of the cannons were stained a deep, ragged black; evidence that these machines had fired and, Caroline presumed, killed. She felt a sudden despair for Jonathon. How could such a gentle boy live in a world where these guns ruled? Yet she also felt a surge of pride in him, so much so that, to her surprise, the tears welled up in her eyes.

  Then gasps sounded from Caroline’s right, and she looked, expecting some new marvel of the British army, but instead found herself staring at the first true horror of the day. The camp followers had come, and the crowds fell into a silence as they understood for the first time just what guests were being fetched into their city.

  Women with insolent eyes stalked beside wagons heaped with grimy bundles. Grinning, filthy children eyed the crowd. A toothless hag riding a wagon cackled towards the well-dressed spectators. One woman had a baby at her bare breast, while another woman, fat a
s a barrel of salt cod, waddled hugely down the centre of Second Street and, in mockery of the officers ahead, waved at the onlookers. She had a goat tied to her belt, while behind her, like some parody of the days before the flood, a ragged flock of cattle, goats, sheep, and razor-backed hogs was herded by urchins with long staves. A woman with bleeding sores on her face limped behind, and next to her a laughing Negress who had none of the subservience a Philadelphian would expect of the servant race. It was a circus of beggars come to town, the effluent of the slums parading like conquerors. The women were guarded by Redcoats who marched at intervals on either side of the convoy, but every watcher in the street wondered what would happen when this rabble was released upon Philadelphia’s kindly streets.

  It was only when the camp followers had gone, and the sound of the bands was fading down Chestnut Street, that Caroline could cross the road and run down Market Street. She twisted into an alley, let herself into a backyard, and thence down a flight of stone stairs to a basement kitchen where Jenny, Martha’s black maid, looked surprised to see her. “It’s not market day, Miss Caroline!”

  Caroline opened her bag and brought out a crumpled and sealed letter. “That’s for Mrs Crowl, Jenny. It’s important.”

  Jenny wiped her hands on her apron. “What a day! You heard the din of the soldiers? Thumping away!”

  “I watched them march in.”

  “It’ll break the mistress’s heart.” Jenny took the letter. “You want to wait, Miss Fisher? There’s tea in that pot.”

  Caroline waited as Jenny took the letter upstairs, then, to Caroline’s surprise, the black woman returned to say that Mrs Crowl would like to see her in the upstairs parlour. “It’s up the stairs and first door you see,” Jenny said. Then, seeing Caroline’s nervousness, she offered an explanation, “She’ll be glad of company on a day like this.”

  But when Caroline reached the elegant and beautifully furnished parlour, she found that the Widow Crowl already had company in the form of the Revd Donald MacTeague who, teacup in podgy hands, turned in some astonishment as Caroline arrived. Such girls, he thought, should not be invited into the parlours of society, but Martha Crowl had ever favoured flamboyant behaviour, and the Revd MacTeague was too much of a gentleman to make any comment. He stood, gently disposing of the six-year-old Lydia who had been trying to crawl on to his lap. “It’s Miss Fisher, is it not?”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  “I have enjoyed your grandmother’s most excellent pies, indeed I have. You watched the arrival of the legions?”

  “I did.”

  “Such a happy day! Such a happy day!” MacTeague sat again, then tilted the teacup to drain its dregs. He smiled benevolently at the ragged girl who, he guiltily thought, was rather beautiful in a hoydenish sort of way. “I thought I would offer my protection to the Widow Crowl.” He thus explained his presence to Caroline, then bowed to Martha, who, in a wide-skirted dress of lilac silk, sat in the window with the unopened letter beside her. Martha’s black hair was piled elegantly, and decorated with silken bows. She looked calmly fashionable, dressed as if for a ball rather than in mourning for a city lost.

  “The Revd MacTeague,” Martha said drily, “is concerned that I might be killed by the vengeful British. In which case he would lose my pew-rent.”

  “You jest, dear lady!” MacTeague was pained. “I come on a Christian duty, nothing more!”

  Lydia was standing by a window and now turned excitedly to her mother. “Is that a lobster?”

  “Yes, my dear. They’re best boiled.” Martha stared at a lone red-coated soldier who wandered down the far pavement and stared in awe at the high houses of stone and brick. Martha sighed. “It must have been like this when the Goths descended upon Rome. Or was it the Vandals? The Huns, perhaps?”

  “On the contrary.” MacTeague had placed his cup upside down on its saucer; the polite indication that he wished for no more refreshment. “This day more closely resembles the retaking of Rome from the barbarians. It is the restoration of lawful authority and I rejoice in it.”

  “More lobsters.” Lydia was delighted with the word. “We have to boil the lobsters.”

  MacTeague offered a pained smile, while Caroline, made nervous by the elegance of the room and the presence of the unctuous priest, hovered nervously by the door. Martha, however, with what Caroline thought was a peremptory gesture, indicated that she should sit on the sofa beside the hearth.

  “So!” said MacTeague, trying hard to keep up the flagging conversation and looking at Caroline, “you ignored the warning to stay indoors, Miss Fisher?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “An egregious warning, I thought, though doubtless kindly meant. We are in no danger from our friends, and certainly a fatherless child and a widowed gentlewoman have nothing to fear!” He raised a hand in vague blessing over Lydia’s head.

  “There weren’t many of them,” Caroline blurted out.

  “Many of whom, child?” MacTeague asked.

  “British. Hessians.”

  MacTeague smiled. “They haven’t sent their full power, dear me, no! Most of the army remains at Germantown, I’m told. Mister Washington is loitering to the north so Sir William awaits to do battle there. Our prayers will support him.”

  “Yours might,” Martha said, “but not mine.”

  “Dear Mrs Crowl,” the priest murmured, then twisted in his chair to look down into the street where an elegant group of officers strolled as unconcernedly as though walking down London’s Strand, ‘it seems we are not in any danger. May I assume that my protective duties have been adequately discharged?”

  Martha smiled gratefully. “Most honourably discharged, sir.”

  MacTeague stood. “We may disagree about earthly things, dear lady, but about the more important matters, I trust, never.” He bowed to Martha, then, less formally, to Caroline. “If you need me, then summon me! Good day, ladies.”

  “He wants,” Martha said when the priest was gone, “to ingratiate himself with our conquerors. I think MacTeague fancies himself to be the first Bishop of Philadelphia.” Martha spoke scornfully, then critically examined Caroline who, till now, she had only glimpsed delivering vegetables and fruit to the kitchen downstairs. The widow’s face betrayed neither approval nor condemnation; instead, looking away, she picked up the letter. “I presume, from the handwriting, that it’s from Jonathon?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It came this morning.”

  Martha slit the letter open with an ivory-handled knife, then unfolded the crumpled paper. She seemed to take a long time reading her brother’s words.

  Caroline waited. Lydia, bored with watching the strangely dressed men in the streets, crossed the room and stared solemnly into Caroline’s face. Caroline smiled nervously, and the invitation was sufficient to make Lydia climb on to the sofa.

  Martha laid the letter down. “Did Jonathon write to you as well?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Martha sighed. “He shouldn’t have volunteered.”

  “No.”

  “It isn’t as if there aren’t enough two-legged men in America to fight without Jonathon being sacrificed!” The words were said angrily, but, immediately they were spoken, Martha shook her head in rueful sadness. “However, I suppose I’m proud of him.”

  “I think you should be,” Caroline said defiantly.

  “Uncle Jonathon?” Lydia had heard the name and now sought news of her missing uncle.

  “He’s become a soldier, dear,” Martha explained. The letter said that Jonathon had been appointed an aide-de-camp to a cavalry commander called Colonel Jackson Weller. Jonathon explained in the letter that the appointment was not due to any virtue inherent in himself, but rather because he had brought the rebel army a good horse, saddle, and bridle. Martha tried to explain to Lydia what an aide-de-camp was, then, failing, ordered the child to go down to Jenny in the kitchen. “I have to talk to Miss Fisher, my dear.”

  After Lydia left, Caroline felt even more nervous. Martha
picked up the letter once more. “Jonathon says he’s going to marry you.”

  Martha’s voice had been cold. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “If he is,” Martha said with a flash of annoyance, “then for the Lord’s sake stop calling me ma’am. You make me sound ancient!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Forgiven.” Martha again examined Caroline. “I must say my poor brother has an eye for a certain sort of beauty. Do you want to marry him?”

  Caroline shrugged. “I said I’d wait for him.”

  “Which doesn’t answer my question.” Martha stood and, in a susurration of silk, crossed the floor to stand close to the sofa. “Are you going to marry him?”

  Caroline felt offended by the questioning, and was driven to a sulky defensiveness. “I know his family doesn’t wish for that.”

  Martha seemed amused. “Why on earth should you think that?”

  Caroline gestured at her thick, heavy skirts and plucked at her blue ticken jacket. Compared with the luxury of the room and the lavishness of Martha’s clothes, she felt poor and negligible, and her gestures spoke it all without needing words to point the contrast.

  Martha turned away from the girl. “My husband’s family disapproved of me, most strongly. I was not wealthy enough, though God knows I brought him a large enough portion. They wanted Thomas to marry some spineless child from Virginia who’d have brought him eight thousand acres of tobacco land. They’d have preferred an English bride, I suspect, with English land, but they were willing to compromise for the lesser reward. But they were not happy with me. I was definitely shoddy goods.”

  Caroline was not certain why she was being told the story. “But your husband defied his parents?”

  “Clearly he did.” Martha said it a little too sharply, then shrugged. “I’m not sure he was very wise, for we were not well suited. I was too self-willed for him. I suspect you’re self-willed?” Caroline made no answer, and Martha, who had crossed to the window again, turned to look at her. “But I married Thomas for his money. I wanted to be rich, you see. I never wanted to be thought shoddy again. Is that why you want to marry Jonathon?”