Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence

by Robert Conroy

  “Not the body, Sarah. More likely it is the mind that is trying to heal itself, perhaps even the soul, if there is such a thing. We know so little about healing the body, as you’ve learned from Doctor Young, and we know so much less of the problems of the mind and the soul. We are total illiterates in those areas.”

  “I didn’t know you believed in a soul, Doctor Franklin.”

  “Some days, my dear Sarah, I don’t know what I believe. While I certainly believe in a supreme being, I have no idea what shape or form it takes, or what interest it might have in our activities. For instance, does a god really care if young Mistress Haskill lives or dies?”

  Sarah nodded. “Perhaps he doesn’t care if anyone lives or dies. Perhaps god just permits things to happen, which would explain such things as war and plague.”

  Franklin smiled. She was so very smart. “Perhaps someday you will have the honor of talking to Thomas Jefferson. He is a very complex man with equally complex beliefs.”

  He sighed and continued. “In the meantime we shall concern ourselves with Mistress Haskill. I’ve spoken to some of the men who found her and they say that the place where she lived was a place of absolute and bloody devastation.”

  “I know. I spoke to some of them as well.”

  “Our soldiers think she escaped from the bodies of her family while the fire was just beginning and crawled her way into a cellar before she either suffocated or burned to death. Perhaps the pain of the flames even awakened her. They found a tunnel leading from the cellar to the woods. It must have been put there to provide for just such a need to escape, either from fire, or storm, or the depraved animals that call themselves men, and that is how she made her way to the forest where she was found. It’s no wonder to me that she stopped speaking after giving her name. Perhaps she gave it so that we would have something to put on her gravestone.”

  Sarah shuddered at the thought. “But will she get better?”

  “Only she knows,” Franklin replied softly. “And right now she isn’t telling. Some people say I’m a great and intelligent man, but situations like this make me realize just how ignorant I am.”

  “Does she even know that we won’t harm her?”

  “Have you told her that, Sarah?”

  Sarah nodded. “I hold her hand and whisper to her. I say her name and keep saying that she’s safe. Sometimes she seems to moan. Mistress Adams does it as well, and sometimes Mistress Greene takes a turn even though it means leaving her ill husband. We try not to leave her alone too much in case she should awaken and be frightened at being in such a strange place, but we do have other things to do.”

  “Then keep doing it as much as you can. No possible harm can come to her. And if she should awaken and be frightened, then we shall have to deal with it.”

  Franklin left the room. Sarah sat on a stool beside Winifred, took her hand, and talked to her. She told her that she was safe and free. She told her how beautiful the outside world looked, even though the new-fallen snow had done little more than cover the mud. Sarah told her a little gossip, such as how Faith was moping for a soldier who had gone away. She thought it was good to include mentions of family and the gossip of Fort Washington as a dose of the new reality.

  At length, Sarah tired. She went to leave Winifred and catch up on her neglected clerical duties. On impulse, she turned and saw Winifred Haskill’s eyes wide open and watching her. Sarah moved to the stool and sat down. The two looked at each other. Sarah felt like she was being measured, assessed.

  “Will you remain with us, Winifred Haskill? Or will you go back to the dark place where you’ve been?”

  The corners of the girl’s mouth flickered in what might have been the beginnings of a smile. “Yes,” she whispered. “I think I’ll stay for a bit.”

  * * *

  Leduc was amenable to the idea of taking them across the river, even though there was ice drifting downstream. “Mostly mush,” he said disparagingly. “Try not to fall in, though. The cold’ll grab your nuts in an icy grip and you’ll die in just a few minutes.”

  “We’ll keep it in mind,” Will said, unable to stop his hand from moving to his groin.

  Still, Leduc wanted them to wait a couple of days before crossing. He said he wanted their presence to be noted as normal around the farm. Will also suspected that the old bastard wanted some work done before the two men gathered their information and departed.

  When they finally did cross, they took a rowboat to push through the ice rather than a more fragile canoe, and Leduc, for once grinning happily, let Will and Owen do all the work. It was proper, he said, since they were supposed to be his hired hands.

  “We are going into the belly of the beast,” said Owen.

  Will thought much the same thing, although the beast seemed almighty disinterested in their coming. No one glanced more than casually at them, and only a couple of men waved at Leduc, whose presence in and around Detroit was clearly considered normal.

  Will tried to take in the area with a soldier’s eye even though he knew it was extremely unlikely they’d ever attack the place. The ground was flat to gently rolling, and the area had been largely denuded of trees. These had gone to build small but sturdy Fort Lernoult. More wood had gone to make the flimsy stockade that surrounded the town, and the town itself, as well as for use as firewood. Farms had sprung up on the Detroit side and sent thin fingers of cultivated land inland, like Leduc’s on the other side of the Detroit River. Will noted that a large number of buildings and homes had been built outside the fort. Apparently, there was no longer any threat from Indians, which was interesting since Pontiac’s uprising and subsequent siege of Detroit had taken place only a couple of decades earlier. Of course, the presence of the British Army had a lot to do with that sense of security.

  As they walked towards the town’s wooden wall, Will found it a cause of wonderment that British soldiers walked by and past them without apparently noticing them.

  “Arrogant bastards, aren’t they,” whispered Leduc. “I’d like to slice their fucking throats.”

  They entered the town of Detroit with only a nod to the guards. Leduc explained that the guards around Lernoult and the town proper belonged to the regular garrison of fewer than a hundred men and he knew most of them by sight. A transplanted Dutchman, Colonel Arent de Peyster, commanded them. The garrison troops hated the new arrivals since they clogged the taverns and chased what few women there were. The regular garrison couldn’t wait for Burgoyne’s army to depart so they could get back to their comfortable existence.

  “What kind of man is this de Peyster?” Will asked.

  “He’s fairly decent. He won’t hang you unless it’s absolutely necessary.” He laughed when he saw the look on Will’s face. “No, he’s quite genial and tolerant for an British officer. He took over from Richard Lernoult who built the citadel, and is a far, far better man than Henry Hamilton, the lieutenant governor who was known as the ‘hairbuyer’ because he delighted in buying the scalps of rebels. He didn’t much care if the scalps came from women or children.”

  “Still, we will have to watch out for de Peyster’s men,” Will said. “They will likely be able to recognize most of the locals and might wonder where we came from.”

  “We will indeed,” he said and pointed to a close by wooden building. “But now we will go to this store that has a barn. It’s where we will buy feed and supplies that I don’t need,” Leduc said. “That will be my excuse for being here in case I should happen to need one. There is a loft above the barn where you can go and observe.”

  The barn was quite large, and they went into the back of it and up a ladder to the loft. The owner was a friend of Leduc’s and a rebel sympathizer who said he was going out and discreetly left them alone. The loft overlooked a narrow road that led to a two-story log building that had been whitewashed. Sentries stood guard around it.

  Leduc came and crouched beside them and sucked on his pipe. He’d lit it from a candle in the owner’s office. Wil
l thought it was dangerous to smoke a pipe in a barn filled with hay and straw, but declined to comment. Leduc was touchy enough without some stranger telling him how to live.

  “Are you happy, Major Drake? You are now staring at the headquarters of Tarleton the butcher and Burgoyne the fool. Major De Peyster knows enough to stay in his little fort and leave them alone. Since there was no room for them in Fort Lernoult, the British command has had to make its headquarters in the town.”

  “I wonder if we could break in and find some information of use to us,” Will mused.

  Leduc laughed harshly. “First, Major, I don’t think you could break in and, even if you did, what would you find that you don’t already know? They are coming in the spring and, if there is any reason at all for the boats, at least some of the soldiers or their supplies will arrive by water.” Leduc yawned. “Don’t even think of trying to get in. I would have a devil of a time explaining why the men I hired as temporary labor had to be hanged.”

  “Then there’s no real point in us being here, is there?” Owen asked.

  “Not really, although please recall that this was your idea,” Leduc said and added a Gallic shrug. “So I hope you are enjoying yourselves and will be satisfied soon so I can get home.”

  Will admitted that Leduc was right. It was nothing more than curiosity that brought them to the barn, although it was fascinating to see impeccably dressed and high-ranking British officers strutting about the headquarters only a literal stone’s throw away.

  He stiffened as another distinguished looking officer left the building. “Is that Benedict Arnold?”

  Leduc chuckled. “That is the lord high traitor himself. No one likes him and I wonder if he can even stand himself. Burgoyne, Tarleton, and Grant are trying to figure a way to get him out of Detroit and away from the campaign.”

  Another man left the headquarters. He wore an officer’s coat, but was decidedly unmilitary. “Joseph Brant,” Leduc muttered angrily. “I didn’t know he was here.”

  “This means he’s brought Indian allies,” Will said. Brant was half-Mohawk and half English, and had allied the Iroquois with the British in the revolution.

  “Of course has brought his goddamned Iroquois,” Leduc snarled, thinking of his mangled hand. “I hate those savages more than I hate the English.”

  “And why is it that you hate the English?” Will asked. “I know they killed your brother, but that was war. Haven’t they treated you well since then?”

  Leduc took another pull on his pipe. “They think they have treated me well, but I hate them because the English are liars and frauds. I am French and Catholic and they hate the French and Catholics. They tolerate us French men and women and they will tolerate our faith only for as long as they have to. When they have achieved full dominance here, which means after they have crushed you poor fools, they will turn on my people and treat them as poorly as they now treat Catholics in Ireland.”

  He blew smoke from his pipe towards Will. The tobacco was less than cheap and Will nearly gagged. “Personally, I don’t care what happens to Englishmen who fight other Englishmen, especially since I don’t trust your people at this Liberty place any more than I trust the English. Still, you seem to be the best possibility from a batch of very bad choices.”

  Will didn’t comment. He did, however, think that sighting Brant made the foray into Detroit at least a little bit worthwhile. Still, it was time to go. Perhaps they could have a drink at a tavern and listen to post gossip. No, he decided, that would be too foolhardy. Time to get away safely. He nudged Owen and they stood up.

  “Hey!” came a loud voice from the ladder. “What the hell are you sons of bitches doing up there?”

  Chapter 7

  Will froze as two burly British soldiers climbed up and joined them on the loft. One of them, a sergeant, pointed at Leduc. “I asked you what you were doing up here?”

  Leduc smiled thinly, “Just trying to avoid work while minding the store for my friend, Sergeant. Is there something you wish to buy?”

  The sergeant looked around and then out the window. He took in the view of his army’s headquarters. He turned and glowered at them. “There was, but not anymore. I don’t know what you were doing up here, but I think it’s possible you’re all spies.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” exclaimed Leduc, “How can you say that? You must have seen me before. I live here. I have a farm just across the river. How can you dare call me a spy?”

  “Maybe you are loyal and maybe I’m King George.” The sergeant smiled wickedly and pulled a bayonet from its scabbard. They did not have their muskets, which was normal if they were simply running an errand. To counter the soldiers’ bayonets, Will and the others had their hunting knives. Will noted that Owen had slid to the soldiers’ side and a little to their rear. Will tried not to look at him. The two Redcoats had apparently dismissed the short and shabbily dressed Owen as a possible threat.

  “What I think,” said the sergeant, “is that we should have the provost talk to you.”

  Will’s spirits sank. If they were taken, he had no idea how he would get out of this mess. Owen’s accent was Welsh, and his own was from the east, while he had his branding scar. No one would believe they were farm help for Leduc. He saw another prison for himself and hanging for Owen, and God only knew what for Leduc.

  “Non!” screamed Leduc as he hurled himself at the sergeant. At the same moment, Owen took the sergeant in the rear and wrapped his powerful arms around the man’s throat. Will grabbed the second soldier, who was shocked by the suddenness of the assault. He kicked the soldier in the groin and he dropped like a sack, gasping and clutching his crotch. Leduc fell backwards and Owen tightened his grip on the sergeant’s neck, which gave with a sickening crack. Will took out his knife and rammed it into the other soldier’s chest. In seconds, he was as dead as the sergeant.

  “Jesus, Major, what have we done?” Owen’s eyes were wide with astonishment.

  Will was gasping. He’d never killed a man so close up like that. “I think we’ve outlived our welcome. We’ve got to leave, right Leduc?”

  Leduc’s answer was a groan. He lay on his back with the sergeant’s bayonet sticking out of his stomach. “My God,” said Will. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “Too late,” gasped Leduc. “A knife in the gut kills. It may take a while, but it always kills.”

  Will sagged. Leduc was right. If the rising stench was any indication, the bayonet had ripped his stomach and bowels. The wound would be fatal and agonizingly painful. Nor could they move him out of the barn. There was no way they could hide such a seriously wounded man.

  “I will die here,” Leduc said with great difficulty. “Hide the two bodies.”

  Will and Owen buried the two dead British soldiers underneath a pile of straw.

  “Now you will leave me,” said Leduc. “You will take the boat and slowly row across the river like nothing is wrong. If anyone asks, and it is most likely that they won’t, you will tell them that I am fornicating with a whore and you will come back for me in the morning. They will believe that because it is what I have done in the past. Now go.”

  The statement exhausted Leduc. Blood continued to seep from the wound. If they removed the bayonet, it would gush. Leduc was indeed dying.

  They made Leduc as comfortable as they could. He asked for his pipe and some flints and they left them beside him. They walked out of the barn, down the street, and past the guards at the gate. The guards, of course, were not at all concerned about people leaving the fort, only those coming in, and made no notice of them.

  They pushed the boat out into the water and rowed slowly across the river. It seemed ten times wider than before. Poor Leduc. Will hoped he was dead before anyone found him and could question him. Of course, someone was bound to recall that he’d come across with two companions and, sooner rather than later, someone would miss the two British soldiers. He and Owen would pack up and return to Fort Washington as quickly as they could.


  They were pulling the boat onto the Canadian shore when they heard a strident clanging behind from the fort. Alarm bells? Had Leduc and the dead soldiers been discovered? No. A plume of black, greasy smoke was starting to billow upwards and it came from behind the stockade and just about where they’d left Leduc.

  “God bless that man,” Owen said softly, and Will agreed. There would be no alarm for them and no one would chase them, at least not right now. Jean Leduc had set fire to the barn and it was beginning to rage furiously. It was the funeral pyre of a hero.

  * * *

  Dispatches, reports, and orders that needed to be registered and copied were the bane of any staff officer, and Major James Fitzroy was heartily sick and tired of them all. He wished that neither the printing press nor paper had ever been invented. Damn Gutenberg and damn the Egyptians. Or was it the Phoenicians? He longed for the moment when his day would be over and he could leave the stifling atmosphere of Burgoyne’s headquarters and return to the loving arms of Hannah Van Doorn. At least he thought that her arms were loving. Sometimes he had the nagging feeling that she was using him, but then, that was only fair since he was using her.

  Love was unlikely, but he was fond of the little Dutch wench, and felt that she was fond of him. He would settle for life as it is, rather than as it could be.

  He yawned. He was tired, bored, and the fire in the stove was overheating the room and making him drowsy. He shook himself awake. It would not be good to be found napping while at work. Burgoyne might laugh, but Benedict Arnold was around and that arrogant turncoat shit would tear him apart.

  Danforth entered the little room off Burgoyne’s office and dropped another pile of papers on Fitzroy’s desk. “It never ends,” Danforth commented.

  “I’d rather be in battle,” Fitzroy muttered. “This is no fate for a soldier. In battle I might die honorably. Here I might die of boredom or worse, be suffocated under piles of paperwork.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have told anyone how literate you are. Then you could be an infantry officer out there in the freezing muck with your men who, of course, would hate you and would, if the opportunity arose, run a bayonet up your ass and call it a regrettable accident.”