Redcoat

by Bernard Cornwell

  “We shall begin the wickedness in the New Year.” Andre bowed to a passing lady, then looked back to Vane. “The problem, as ever, is women. I can find gentlemen players, but not enough women. You think Mrs Taylor’s girls would oblige?”

  “They aren’t at their best in costume,” Vane said drily. “Nor, I imagine, is she.” He gestured towards Lizzie Loring who, resplendent in green silk, held court in the room’s centre. But for once Lizzie was not the centre of attraction, for, standing close beside her was an extraordinarily uniformed man of immense height. “Who in God’s name is he?” Vane asked in wonderment.

  “General Charles Lee, but always known as Charlie.” Andre clearly relished the man. “I’ll introduce you.”

  “But what on earth is that uniform he’s wearing?”

  Mrs Elizabeth Loring was asking the same question of General Charles Lee, whose tall and painfully thin body was clad in an outrageous harlequinade of yellow coat fringed with white silk burdened by high, glittering epaulettes. A red sash, carrying an enamelled badge of a black eagle, crossed a pale blue waistcoat. A scarlet velvet stock was pinned about his throat, his breeches were of white satin, and his knee-high boots were topped with bands of scarlet leather. Over one shoulder, its sleeves hanging loose, was a fur-edged pelisse of cloth of gold. His sabre scabbard’s fittings were of silver. “It is,” General Lee said haughtily, “the uniform of the Polish cavalry. It was made for me by a ship’s tailor. Isn’t it positively delicious?”

  “You were never in the Polish army!” Lizzie said.

  “If you were not so beautiful, and I not so desperately in love with you, I would strike you for doubting my veracity. I was, ma’am, a Polish soldier! Three years in the saddle, smiting the heathen Turk. Hello, John!” The erstwhile Polish warrior smiled at Andre, whom, before Sir William’s expedition to Philadelphia had sailed south, Lee had known well. “You’re still alive? No rebel has cleansed the world by killing you?”

  “I’m alive, Charlie, and delighted to see you. May I name Kit Vane to you? He’s a new aide of Billy’s.”

  “Another son of Albion for the slaughter?” Lee nodded a cheerful greeting to Vane who, having returned it, offered a bow to Lizzie Loring.

  But Lizzie, who had taken Martha Crowl’s side in the battle over Jonathon’s fate, pointedly ignored Vane’s greeting, turning instead to General Lee. “Did you resign from the Polish army too, Charlie?”

  “I resign from every army, but only after I have assured its victory.” The English-born Lee had served with the Poles, the British, and was now a general in the rebel army. He had made his name in America by saving Charleston from the British, had afterwards been raised to second-in-command to George Washington himself, then, during a retreat across New Jersey, he had lingered too long with a tavern whore and thus been captured by the pursuing British cavalry. Lee delighted to confirm the story. “It’s rumoured that His Excellency, jealous of my triumph at Charleston, arranged for the trull to be there, but I doubt it. The poor man doesn’t really believe such ladies exist.”

  “His Excellency?” Christopher Vane asked.

  “General Washington demands to be treated with the most absurd dignity. How the dull man would hate this uniform!” Lee gave an odd, high-pitched giggle, then gazed happily about the busy room. “And how lucky you all are.”

  “Lucky?” Lizzie asked.

  “That I am here to brighten your gloom.” Though in truth Lee was fortunate to be in Philadelphia himself for, when first captured, it had been suggested that, as a former British officer, Lee should be executed for treason, and it was only his assertion that he had formally resigned his British commission, together with his undoubted popularity with Sir William, that had saved his life. Now Lee was a most favoured prisoner. A rumour, one of the many that accreted around his thin figure, said Lee had suggested the assault on Philadelphia as a means of ending the war.

  But it was a war that Sir William no longer wanted any part of. Sir William wanted to go home; to which end he had written his resignation that would be offered to the government in London. Sir William had not lost a battle, but he was a beaten man.

  As his party gathered in the lavish rooms downstairs, the Commander-in-Chief stood in the library, alone except for his brother, and stared through the persistent rain at the thin inadequate spire that carried the State House’s weathercock, and he thought how, given time, he would have liked to pull the spire down and put up a proper cupola. “And the clock,” he said aloud.

  “Clock, Willie?” Admiral the Lord Howe looked up from reading his brother’s letter of resignation.

  “At the side of the State House. Perhaps you haven’t seen it? A quite ridiculous brick tallboy! I think a cupola with a four-sided timepiece would be better. A blue dial with golden hands would look good.” Sir William shrugged. “If they don’t relieve me, Richard, perhaps I’ll build it. It would be pleasing to leave Philadelphia better than we found it.”

  “Indeed.” Lord Howe shared his brother’s predilection for the Americans; a liking which had been cemented when the people of Massachusetts, following the death of the eldest Howe brother in the French and Indian wars, had subscribed a memorial that now stood in Westminster Abbey. Lord Howe, older and stouter than Sir William, dropped the letter. What in the younger brother’s face was coarse, in his lordship was subtly changed into a heavy and statesmanlike cast. “How many people know about this, Willie?”

  “You, me, my secretary who made the fair copy, Lizzie, of course, but no one else.”

  “I wish you’d reconsider.”

  Sir William, crushed by Saratoga and worn down by the long siege of the forts, turned from the window and poured out words of exculpation. London would not listen to him, London believed the vast majority of the colonists were loyal, and perhaps they were, but not so loyal that they would take up arms. The war could be won, Sir William said, but not by the small forces now scattered between Halifax and the Floridas. “I’d need a hundred thousand men here, Richard. And for what? So the colonists can rebel again in ten years’ time?” It was hardly a new lament. Gage, the first general to fight against the rebels in this war, had said the business could not be done. The commander of Britain’s army had warned against conquering a wilderness. Others, like the Earl of Effingham, the Viscount Pitt and Admiral Keppel, had resigned their commissions rather than fight against their own kind in a land so vast that it defied the mapmakers. Near half of Parliament opposed the war, and Sir William, a member of that Parliament, wanted to go home and add his voice to the war’s opponents.

  “If London accepts your resignation,” Lord Howe said dubiously.

  “If they don’t, then they must let me negotiate!” Sir William had turned back to watch the clouds darken above the sheeting rain.

  “If negotiations can keep the French out,” Lord Howe said slowly, “then maybe London will agree?”

  “We must offer the rebels everything they want, everything! No revenue duties, no taxes, no more placemen from London, and all they need yield in return is their independence.” Sir William turned again to his brother. “If the King can be persuaded that republicanism is defeated, he might not notice that the rebels have won everything else.”

  “But what if they think they can win their independence?” Lord Howe crossed to his brother’s side and cast a sailor’s professional eye, first at the State House weathervane, then at the clouds. “The bloody French are itching to join the dance.”

  “Bugger the French,” Sir William said. “And God knows what Mister Washington will make of them! If he thinks us tyrannical, wait till he’s under King Louis’s tender care! Or does he think the bloody Frogs will help the rebellion out of the goodness of their treacherous hearts?”

  Lord Howe shook his head. “I hear the French have been offered their old lands in Canada. And all our sugar islands.”

  Sir William, despite his gloom, had to laugh at the rebels’ presumption. “They received a bloody nose when they tried
to take Canada for themselves, so I suppose they might as well invite the French to take it!”

  “It isn’t Canada.” Lord Howe hunched his broad shoulders beneath epaulettes that no amount of cleaning could quite rid of the tarnish of salt. “If the bloody Frogs do come in, Willie, I’ll need men to garrison the islands.”

  “Men!” Sir William crossed to the table and unstoppered a decanter. “And where do they come from? Do I give up Philadelphia to garrison the sugar islands? Doesn’t London know what’s happening here?”

  Lord Howe, taking a glass of wine, ventured to remind his brother that London would rather lose the wealthiest American colony than forgo the greater profits of a sugar island. “Damn the Yankee colonies, Willie, but keep the sugar. Or keep both?”

  “Both?”

  “Stop the damned Frogs from intervening.”

  “Oh, indeed, yes. Indeed.” Sir William knew what was coming.

  “By destroying that bloody man Washington.”

  “The winter will do that for us.” Sir William glanced at the window which was now darkened by nightfall. “They say the birds started south early, Richard, which evidently means a harsh winter.”

  “The rebels will endure winter if they know the French are coming. They’ll hold on!” The Admiral’s voice became insistent. “But if the French hear that Mister Washington has dangled on a rope’s end, they’ll think twice, Willie! They won’t want to put their troops into a shambles. They’re hesitant already, because they’re scared of getting their usual whipping. They’re worried Saratoga might be a false signal. If you can crush Washington before the snow comes the French may sheathe their swords.”

  Sir William stooped to his dog that slept by the fire. “I’m not sure it was a false signal. Oh” – he hurried to prevent his elder brother interrupting – “Johnny wasn’t outfought!” Sir William had now received reliable reports of Saratoga. Burgoyne, harassed and skirmish-ridden, had been stranded in a hostile wilderness where he could not be supplied. Hunger and thirst had been the allies of the rebel soldiers who had defeated Burgoyne, and the first of those spectres had already haunted Sir William in Philadelphia. “I should have marched to meet him, shouldn’t I?” Sir William’s confession of fault, spoken mildly, seemed to be addressed to his dog, though the Admiral chose to reply.

  “You weren’t to know that, Willie. Not then.”

  But Sir William could not be so easily consoled. He was thinking of all the shattered dreams. If the British went to Philadelphia, the American Tories had said, the middle colonies would rise for their King and the rebels would be beaten by their own compatriots. It had not happened. Instead, Sir William held the city and the rebels ruled the countryside almost to the very ends of Philadelphia’s pavements. There was no peace, no dukedom, no New Jerusalem. Sir William looked up at his brother. “You know Washington sent Hamlet back to me?”

  “He did what?” There were times when the Admiral found his younger brother hard to understand.

  Sir William flinched with a pain in his back as he straightened up. “Under a flag of truce. I thought that was a remarkably decent thing to do.”

  “Thank him before you kill him. And do it before the spring, Willie. The French won’t make a move till the weather improves.”

  Sir William nodded heavily, as though the effort of launching another attack on the rebels was, however necessary, too onerous to contemplate with any pleasure. He folded his resignation letter and hid it in a drawer, then gestured towards the library doors. “I suppose we should go down? Your admirers wait to applaud you.”

  And applause did greet the Admiral who had brought supplies into the city. The clapping rippled across the ballroom, was reinforced by huzzahs, then with loud shouts of bravo as the brothers, uniformed arm in uniformed arm, came down the wide stairs.

  As the applause died away, Christopher Vane was astonished to find the rebel General Lee at his elbow. Lee bent towards Vane. “You will forgive me, Captain? I know we’ve scarcely been introduced, but I wondered if I might beg a favour of you?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Lee plucked at the lace cuffs which protruded from his yellow sleeves. “John told me to talk to you.” He lowered his voice to a confiding whisper. “When this folderol’s over, would you be so kind as to name me at a decent house? John said you knew one. There’s nothing on board ship, you see, unless you fancy midshipmen, which I don’t.”

  Vane smiled. “I have a house. Mrs Taylor’s.”

  Lee’s eyes flicked from side to side as though he feared eavesdroppers. “Clean?”

  “Very.”

  “Red girls?” Lee asked anxiously.

  “Red, sir?”

  “I was married to a Princess of the Seneca Indians once. Well, sort of married, just as she was a sort of Princess. Got a taste for them, you see.” Lee said the last apologetically.

  Vane, despite Lee’s rebel allegiance, was amused by the man. “I haven’t seen a red girl, but she’s got whites, cuffies, octoroons, mulattos, even a Chinese?”

  Lee smiled wolfishly. “You’ll do the kindness of naming me?”

  “With great pleasure, sir.”

  “I mean it’s no good asking Lizzie for a rogering. She’s too damn loyal to Billy.” Lee suddenly stretched to his full height and stared towards the entrance hall. “Oh, my sainted arse. Who is that?”

  Vane looked. The Widow Crowl, on Lord Robert Massedene’s arm, had come to the celebration. Vane said nothing. He had hoped that Martha’s defeat over Jonathon would end her defiance, but instead, and bolstered by the new friendships of Lord Robert Massedene and Lizzie Loring, the Widow still flaunted her patriotism in the face of her enemies.

  “Well?” Lee asked.

  “She’s one of your rebels, sir.”

  Lee heard the distaste in Vane’s voice and put it down to jealousy. “Robert has seduced her?”

  Vane had to fight to keep anger from his voice. “He protects her, sir, or else the Loyalists would whip her from the city.”

  Lee stared unashamedly at Martha who, as ever, looked superb. She wore one of the slashed skirt polonaises that Lizzie Loring had made fashionable in Philadelphia, and her hair, though not so highly piled as Lizzie’s, was magnificently sculpted and hung with jewelled ribbons. “That’s a woman to make the winter amusing,” Lee said reverently.

  Martha looked towards the exotic Polish uniform and Vane turned away, but fractionally too late, for the Widow had seen him and, without a qualm, now strode across the wide room towards him. Guests turned to watch, for everyone in Philadelphia society and every officer in the garrison knew what bad blood existed between the two.

  General Lee preened himself for the introduction, but Martha ignored the tall man. “Captain Vane?”

  “Ma’am.” Vane bowed, wishing his heart would calm. He needed wit now, not hostility, and he feared that the right riposte would only come to his lips after the Widow had turned away.

  “You have heard about my brother?” Martha asked loudly enough for every interested listener to hear.

  “I heard, ma’am, that his leg is wonderfully improved and I rejoice for it.”

  “Your rejoicing, Captain, like your celebration of victory this evening, is premature.” Martha’s gaze was bitter. “He has the quinsy and the fever. I hope you are proud of your work?”

  “I will pray for him,” Vane said scornfully.

  “Save your prayers for yourself, murderer.” The room had gone as silent as if an angel had passed over Vane’s grave. Even Sir William and Lord Howe watched the Widow now. “If my brother dies, you will need all your prayers for you will have none of my mercy.” Martha paused, then, with magnificent scorn and in a voice loud enough to reach the deepest recesses of the great room, she fired her parting and lacerating shot: “Kitten.” She turned away and the room suddenly filled with the babble of conversation as people pretended that no embarrassment had been observed.

  “Oh dear me,” Lee said. “Dear, dear me!” He ste
pped away from Vane as if fearing that he might catch a contagion.

  Vane turned on Lee. “You wish to leave now, sir?”

  “Now?” Lee had not proposed leaving the reception for some hours.

  “Now, sir.” Vane’s anger was made worse by impotence. He had clashed with the Widow, he had hurt her by removing Jonathon, but she had used her connections to come back and thus humiliate him in society. “I’m going now, sir.”

  Lee looked around the room, then shrugged. “Either that or a midshipman, I suppose. Very well, Captain. To the fray!”

  They went into the night, where, in a cold wind, Captain Vane dreamed of revenge’s solace.

  Twenty-Six

  Caroline waited in the shadows of an alleyway behind Abel Becket’s substantial house and, through chattering teeth, counted aloud to three hundred.

  An infantry patrol, miserable in the cold rain, slouched past the alley’s far end and Caroline shrank back under an archway that led into the college grounds. “Two hundred and three,” she whispered, “two hundred and four.”

  The sound of music came thin above the hissing rain from the British Commander-in-Chief’s headquarters which were only a short distance away. Caroline could not remember a time when so much music had been played in the city: there were military bands on the Centre Commons, orchestras in the big houses, and sailors singing in the grogshops. “Two hundred and ten, two hundred and eleven, two hundred and twelve.”

  The city was drenched with music, drunkenness, and gambling. The preachers of Philadelphia spat vitriolic sermons against the prevalence of gambling amongst the garrison officers, but the diatribes only encouraged more gambling. Two guards’ officers had opened a book in the London Coffee House on the length of the various sermons. The longest so far had been a four-and-a-half-hour peroration by a splenetic Presbyterian who, as he finished, had been mockingly applauded by a group of winning officers in the gallery. Sir William had thereafter forbidden such provocations, though he would not ban the craze for gambling. Caroline’s grandfather, reading his morning scripture across the river, had said that gambling was the devil’s work. Caroline now wondered what Caleb Fisher would make of his granddaughter’s nocturnal prowling. “Two hundred and sixty, two hundred and sixty one.”