Said Terry Reeves to me when I told him what I had heard: ‘Good luck to his Lordship and the lass! It is unnatural for a man to live single, especially when he has so many cares upon his shoulders as has Lord Cornwallis.’
‘He is a man whom I hold in great esteem,’ I said.
‘Ay, esteem,’ said Terry, ‘but for all that I wish another commanded us. A cross-eyed officer never brought an army good luck.’
This was October 6th, on the evening of which, in heavy rain, the enemy completed their first parallel of trenches at about six hundred yards from our parapet. Our cannon and mortars from the forward redoubts continually disturbed them at this work, which was done at night. They replied with occasional shots from their heavy artillery at a distance, which knocked up great clouds of dust, demolished houses and did much military damage.
Two days later I was sent for to Headquarters for my usual task of duplicating despatches—for which, by the bye, I was rewarded by his Lordship at the rate of one shilling a page—but by some error, when I arrived at Mr. Secretary Neilson’s house, where Lord Cornwallis lodged, I was conducted by the negro servant to his private apartment and desired to wait.
I heard a female voice in the corridor singing a song from Mr. Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, which was very popular at the time, to the tune of ‘Patie’s Mill’.
‘I, like the fox, shall grieve
Whose mate hath left her side’
and, as the door opened, it continued:
‘Whom hounds from morn to eve
Chase o’er the country wide.
Where can my lover hide,
Where cheat the wary pack?
If love be not his guide,
He never will…’
Here it broke off suddenly, like a musical box demolished with a blow of a hammer; for seeing me, Kate Harlowe (who was dressed and coiffed in the finest French style) could only gasp and shudder. ‘You, Gerry! O, it is not you, Gerry? I thought you dead—I heard it for certain. O, had I been so advised I should never have taken to this life!’
‘You are his Lordship’s mistress?’ I asked in agitation.
She nodded in answer and began to weep. It was clear that she had altogether forgotten her resolve of coldness towards me.
‘Where is our child? Does she live?’ was my next question.
She wept still more and told me that she did not know. When General Sullivan’s army had laid waste Genesee village, the child, who was being suckled by an Indian woman, had been among a small party of fugitives whom the Americans had cut off. Kate had done her utmost to obtain news of the child and even made a long solitary journey into American territory for that purpose; but could learn nothing. She had then made her way to New York, where an exchanged officer of The Ninth had informed her that I was killed. She had in despair become the mistress of an artillery captain, who brought her to Portsmouth; but there he grossly abused her, when in liquor, and Lord Cornwallis happening to pass the house and hear her cries, entered and gave the officer a severe beating. She then passed under his Lordship’s protection, and he had since treated her with great affection and gentility.
‘But, Gerry,’ she cried. ‘Even had I known you lived, how could we have continued together? I am married to Richard Harlowe; and be sure he is the sort of salamander who will never die of gunfire.’
‘He is dead already,’ said I. ‘O, Kate, I killed him myself in battle in Carolina. He was fighting under General Greene.’
‘You are telling the truth?’ she demanded, her eyes now shining with joy.
‘I never lied to you,’ I replied. ‘My dearest, I have dreamed of this meeting for so many years, and your image alone has sustained me in my long misery. Cannot you break your connexion with his Lordship and marry me?’
‘When the siege is over, I will,’ she said. ‘But it would be most cruel to him at present, when he has such need of me—and ungrateful too.’
‘Will you not give me a kiss?’ I asked, seizing her hand, which was stone cold. ‘One single loving salutation in token of this promise?’
‘Until I pass from his Lordship’s protection, I cannot,’ she said. ‘I am his mistress. To kiss another man meanwhile would be to wrong him and make a common prostitute of me. Go now, dear Gerry. Be patient, and I will be true to you with my heart, since not with my body. Forgive me; but I cannot come to you now.’
I retired from the room, my breast tormented with mingled feelings of joy and mortification, pride and shame. Hearing his Lordship below giving some instruction to an officer, I slipped into a closet to avoid encountering him as he ascended the stairs. Soon he came up, two steps at a time, and I heard him greeting Kate in his merry, manly voice, as he entered the parlour. My great esteem for him at once prevailed over my jealousy and baser feelings. He was saying: ‘Your bower is very prettily furnished, my lovely girl. You will be as safe there from the rebel shot as if you were in the Town of London itself. I will escort you there to-night, I promise you.’
I then went below and, his aide giving me the despatches which I was to copy, I concentrated my mind upon the task; but my hand shook, and though I made no blots or errors, my penmanship was not what it should have been. I excused myself to the officer, alleging that I was overtaken by a return of an old fever—as was, figuratively at least, true enough.
That evening our company was sent up to Fusilier Redoubt, as the right-hand post across the creek was named, to relieve another company. The French were constructing a counter-work at a short distance from us, and there was a hot exchange of fire. Captain Apthorpe commanded us, a very officer-like gentleman, who rejoiced that at last we stood confronted by our natural enemies the French, who fought moreover in a way that we understood.
‘I believe,’ he said, addressing Lieutenant Guyon, ‘that the Regiment of Touraine is in the Count de St. Simon’s division. Our Regiment has already had the pleasure of engaging them more than once, when we fought under the Duke of Marlborough. And were they not also at Dettingen?’
Lieutenant Guyon replied: ‘I believe you are right, Captain Apthorpe; and that we took them down handsomely.’
On October 9th, the enemy batteries opened upon the town from their first parallel, a distance of six hundred yards, making a very ominous noise. We sprang to arms, and soon the shells began flying about our own ears at Fusilier Redoubt, and in great numbers. This was by no means the first time that I had suffered a cannonade, but so well-nourished and violent a one did not lie in my experience. The whizz and roar was almost continuous, and the air was grey with the dust of our shattered parapet. Besides mortars and howitzers, they were pounding us with a battery of nine nine-pounders at only sixty paces distance. Our fraizing, that is to say the rows of palisades on the exterior of our parapet, was breached at several points and a number of men were killed and wounded. A shell broke directly over my head, so that I fell with my ears ringing and blood gushing from my nose and ears; and I imagined that I was mortally wounded. However, no metal had struck me and I staggered to my feet, prepared to continue with the fight.
Of what ensued I have no clear memory, on account of the dizziness of my head, but I was a veteran soldier by now, to whom battle was become second nature, and I gave my people their orders, I am told, in a very cool and sensible manner. At least, I remember tall French Grenadiers, in white uniforms with sky-blue facings, issuing from their works and advancing at a trot towards us; led on by officers who waved their swords and plumed hats and cried En avant, mes enfants! or some such encouragement. Our guns were trained point-blank on them, like infernal pointers at a dead set, and blew their leading files to ruin with grape-shot as they struggled through the obstacles of felled trees that intervened. On they came again in a great crowd with Vive le Roi! and Vive St. Simon! Our musketry halted them on the glacis, and then down we swarmed at them with charged bayonets and drove them back.
They re-formed out of range and came on again; but I cannot distinguish between the first onset and the second. They num
bered three thousand in all, and were volunteers, not impressed men, the best to be had in France. This time, I am told, they gained the lip of the parapet and it was very bloody work before we could dislodge them. Lieutenant Guyon engaged their leader (who wore a brilliant order), sword against sword, and took him with the point d’arrête in the throat. I have a confused recollection of seeing Lieutenant Guyon killed with a bayonet thrust and of seizing his weapon from him as he fell, and reviving my old practice of small-sword fencing in a combat with a French officer. But some person intervened, and then the smoke of battle cleared and the French were gone.
A bullet struck my head, furrowing through my scalp, and what then occurred I can only relate as it appeared to me, for its actual occurrence can only appear an absurdity to a judicious mind. From the tangle of trees a man came strolling very calmly up the glacis, wearing the dress of a French chaplain, with a little purple cap and lace at his neck. He had in his hand what appeared to be a breviary, and stooping over the prostrate bodies of the French soldiers he gave them each in turn the valedictory sacrament. So far my account will pass muster, but then, as it appeared to me, he rose and came towards me with pointed forefinger, revealing the wet black lock and sallow features of the Reverend John Martin! He said to me in a cold, sneering voice: ‘How now, friend Lamb, have we met again? And will you take the stick to me as you promised? But listen, for I have news for you: I shall never have the pleasure of joining your hand with Mrs. Kate’s in holy matrimony. For she was killed this morning at about nine o’clock by a bomb-splinter at the entrance to her green-baized retreat.’
I ran at him with my sword. But my feet caught on a broken palisade and I fell, and seemed to continue falling and falling, for a thousand years into a bottomless pit, such as that which is said to be prepared for the reception of the damned souls at the second coming of the Saviour.
***
I came to my senses some hours later. I was still in the redoubt. Smutchy Steel was by me, and grinned with delight to see me recover. I asked him in a weak voice, that seemed to proceed from a great distance away, what had occurred.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘we beat ’em off, the third time, and that was the end. Your wits were a little turned, I think. You went rushing out with a sword against a poor harmless French priest—now I had thought better of you, Gerry—you always told me that you had no quarrel with the Papists. But here’s sorrowful news for you and me. When you fell in a faint and were carried back, poor Terry Reeves was given your command. He is dead. A nine-pounder ball struck him.’
I fell to sobbing from mere weakness, but soon as I had rallied my forces I called the faithful Jonah to me. I told him that, when he went down that evening with the party to draw the rations, he should enquire whether the rumour was true that a lady had been killed at such and such a spot by the cliff, that morning at nine. When he returned, it was to tell me that it was true: a ‘very beautiful young woman in a green sprigged dress’, killed with a bomb-splinter through the throat. But nobody seemed to know her name.
For the next three days I rambled in my speech, so Smutchy told me after, wept frequently and said many ridiculous things, telling of sights that were mere mirage and invisible to other eyes. But I was kept at my duty, for I had no fever.
The enemy meanwhile had battered our unfinished defences on the left of the town, silenced the guns that we mounted on them and searched the whole line of houses at the cliff top. Mr. Secretary Nielson’s house was holed in a number of places, but Mr. Nielson himself was so philosophical as not to quit until his negro servant was blown to pieces at his side. On October 11th, the enemy crept nearer, and established his second parallel at but three hundred yards from our parapet. Our people defended themselves with howitzers and coehorns (or light mortars of four and a half inches calibre), but the guns at our embrasures were dismounted as soon as shown. For the enemy worked sixty powerful breaching-guns and a number of heavy mortars. About this time a despatch from Sir Henry Clinton came up the river for Lord Cornwallis, informing him that the departure of the relieving fleet had been delayed by a complexity of mischances, and expressing great anxiety for his situation.
A desperate project was pressed upon Lord Cornwallis by Colonel Tarleton and others; which was to remove the greater part of the garrison by night and take it across the river for an attack upon the forces of the French General, Choisy, who was investing Gloucester. It was believed that we might easily break our way through; and by travelling very light and seizing all the horses of the Roanoke country, which was rich in provisions and fodder, we might force a passage through Maryland, Pennsylvania and the Jerseys and attain New York. His Lordship seemed confused in his mind and unable to agree to this project. His vaccilation surprised his officers, for he had hitherto shown himself very collected and resolute. But I heard privately from his chief clerk, under whose direction I had worked and with whom I was intimate, who had it from his Lordship’s own valet, that his Lordship on the morning of October 9th, had been ‘struck with great horror and grief by the news of pretty Miss Kate’s death’. He had since been drinking more than was his habit, and soliloquizing to himself as he paced about his parlour alone. The valet added that Lord Cornwallis had not shown himself so unmanned since news had reached him two years before of the death of his lovely Countess. I must decline to enlarge upon my own feelings of grief, not wishing to present them as it were in rivalry to those of Lord Cornwallis.
It was not until October 14th that his Lordship could be persuaded to agree to the plan of escape; by which time our palisades were all down and but one single shell remained for the remaining eight-inch mortar, and a few boxes of coehorn shells. Undismayed by a sortie from our lines, in which eleven of their guns had been spiked, the combined armies of the enemy were preparing for the assault. The spiking of these guns, it may be observed, was a botched task, the soldiers who took part in the sortie not being provided with spiking irons. They merely broke off the points of their bayonets in the touch-holes, and these were readily removed afterwards. By now our effective forces were reduced to four thousand men, two thousand being unfit for duty from sickness or wounds, but continued of undaunted spirit; and since we were seasoned troops, who could march and starve with the best, we had no doubt at all but that we would pull the chestnuts out of the fire.
On the evening of October 15th, therefore, the Light Infantry, the greater part of the Brigade of Guards, and seventy Royal Welch Fusiliers (Smutchy and myself among them) were embarked upon boats and taken across the river to Gloucester Point. We were to effect a landing there and with our fire cover the passage of the rest of the army. But hardly had we reached the other side, which was about midnight, when the weather, from being calm and moderate, changed to a most violent storm of wind and rain. Our boats were blown down the river nearly to the Ocean. The passage of the rest of the troops, who counted upon these same boats, now became impracticable, and though the storm abated and we managed to make our way back to York Town before morning, we were greatly harassed by fire from the banks and lost a number of men.
Thus expired the last hope of the British army. Our defences were tumbled to ruin and it was the opinion of the principal officers at a Council of War that it would be madness to maintain them. In the morning, at Lord Cornwallis’ orders, a drummer mounted upon our parapet and beat a parley. The Duke de Lanzun then came forward alone, waving a white silk handkerchief; and was informed that Lord Cornwallis proposed a cessation of hostilities in order to settle terms for a capitulation.
To be short: this was granted by General Washington and terms adjusted for our surrender as prisoners of war on the following day. The capitulation was signed on October 19th—the very day that Sir Henry Clinton, after long delays, sailed to our relief from New York with seven thousand men.
The honours of war granted to us were much the same as General Lincoln had obtained at Charleston, and he himself, being now exchanged, received the surrender of Lord Cornwallis’ sword; but at Genera
l O’Hara’s hands, his Lordship being sick. We marched between a long lane, with well-groomed French troops on one side, ragged Americans on the other; and piled up our arms. We were forbidden, in revenge for the Savannah terms, to use either a French or an American march. Our musicians therefore very properly played The World Turned Upside Down. Our standards were cased, not flowing, and this enabled two of our officers—Captain Peter and, I believe, Lieutenant Julian—to remove the Colours from the staves and conceal them upon their persons. The field officers of the Count de St. Simon’s Brigade sought out Captain Apthorpe and highly praised him upon our defence of the star-shaped Redoubt. They could hardly credit it when they learned that we had fought that day against odds of nearly twenty to one. They observed at the same time what a pleasure to them it was to converse thus agreeably with Englishmen of distinction and sensibility—glancing rather severely at their American allies as almost totally ignorant of the ‘language of culture’, namely French. At the same time the young Duke de Lanzun sought out Captain Champagné to congratulate him upon the fine bearing of his mounted Fusiliers in the skirmish near Gloucester. These compliments to some degree comforted our people for the disgrace of the surrender, which was the first (as I trust the last) occasion that the Royal Welch Fusiliers were ever forced to yield since their first enrolment in the year 1689. Our losses, of thirty-one officers and men, had left us the weakest corps in the whole army.
The usual jealous quarrels broke out between the officers in the victorious army. An Ensign Denny, of the Marquis de La Fayette’s division, was in the act of planting the American flag on our broken parapet in sight of the three armies, when up galloped Major-General Baron Steuben, General Washington’s Prussian drill-master, seized it from him and planted it himself. This raised great laughter among our people and great scandal and argument among theirs. An American colonel challenged the Baron to a duel. But General Washington hushed the matter up, for the old Baron was better acquainted with the laws of war than the Marquis de La Fayette. The Baron had commanded in the enemy trenches when the drum first beat the parley, and the honour of planting the flag was therefore his.
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