Chase the Dawn

by Jane Feather

  Charlie, thoroughly discomfited, could only mutter an apology and walk away with as much dignity as he could muster. When he returned to the cottage much later, it was to find Bryony white-faced and red-eyed but perfectly composed. Ned was subdued but showed no other ill effects of the morning. Benedict greeted them all in neutral tones when he came in, his face showing neither anger nor pleasure.

  Supper was a meager, cheerless meal of watery broth and a heel of rye bread that Bryony had toasted over the fire. She toyed with her soup and gave her share of the toast to Ned, whose appetite was unimpaired by the day’s events. Ben’s lips tightened as he saw her slip the bread onto the child’s platter, but he said nothing. They lay that night, side by side as always, beneath the same blanket. But the distance between them was like a frozen tundra—icy and infinite.

  The following morning, Nathanael Greene revealed the plan for his first move against the British. It was breathtaking in its audacity, and most certainly guaranteed to take Cornwallis by surprise.

  “We go west and you go east,” announced Daniel Morgan with a rich chuckle at the end of the exposition. “You reckon the earl will divide his own forces, Nathanael?”

  “What would you do?” Greene’s eyes gleamed. “Unless I very much mistake the matter, he will send Banastre Tarleton after you—a small force, for why would he need an army against such a puny strength? If you can deprive him of his light corps, then our sinews will be much braced.”

  “To horse, gentlemen.” Morgan stood up, a hard, sturdy rock, radiating energy. “We’ll crack a whip over Colonel Ban, I swear it.”

  Only Benedict Clare showed no responsive enthusiasm, and Charlie knew well the reason. What was to be done about Bryony and Ned? Horses would be found for Ben and Charlie, but the army could not be expected to mount a man’s family.

  In the evening, they went back to the cottage in silence. The march westward into South Carolina would begin at dawn. Greene would take the rest of the army along the heights of the Pee Dee River, some one hundred forty miles to the east. There would be no place for an unmounted woman and child with that force, either.

  “If only Cornwallis were closer.” Ben spoke his thoughts, startling in the heavy silence. “Her father is with him.”

  “Is that what she would wish?” Charlie ventured hesitantly.

  “Wishes have little relevance at the moment.” There was no sharpness in the comment, and Charlie realized that it was not meant as rebuke. “If I leave them here, at least they have a roof over their heads. We can perhaps scrounge some provisions from the stores, and, after all—” he gave a short laugh that did not convey humor “—my wife is not unable to care for herself.”

  Bryony listened in silence as Benedict told her of the situation. He spoke to her as if he were briefing a troop of soldiers, calm, matter-of-fact, explanatory. It was not the way a man would propose a separation of untold hardship to his wife. When he had stopped talking, waiting for a response, his face without expression, she got up and went over to a portmanteau in the corner. She drew from it the little velvet pouch that she had taken from her bedroom in another life.

  “These belong to me. They did belong to my mother—baptismal gifts—so do not bear the Paget taint.” She laid on the table the chased silver filigree fillet that had confined her hair on the evening that Benedict Clare had walked into her father’s house. Beside it, she placed the matching silver pendant. “I imagine one may purchase a horse with such coin. Ned will ride with me.”

  Charlie did not quite understand what she had said, understood only that she referred to whatever abyss lay between her and her husband. Benedict looked at the silver, winking in the gloom, a shocking brilliance, an excess of riches in this hovel. Ned clambered onto a stool, reaching eagerly for the pretty toys, demanding to know what they were and if he could play with them.

  Ben moved them out of the child’s grasp, then looked at Bryony, “One of these will be sufficient. Which do you choose to keep?”

  She shrugged, still refusing to meet his eye. “It matters not a whit. I have no use for either of them and cannot imagine a time when I will. I brought them with me simply to serve as currency should the need arise. It appears to have done so.”

  Ben put the pendant in his pocket and left the cottage without another word. Bryony replaced the fillet in the pouch, and looked around the room. “Do we take everything with us, Charlie?”

  “I think so.” He tried to make his voice as calmly matter-of-fact as hers, but the atmosphere remained charged with currents that he could not identify. “We are on the move again, and I suspect that this time we will not stop until this is over, one way or the other.”

  “Then it’s fortunate we do not have much to take. There is little to be gained by being overburdened.” She moved around the room, gathering up their few possessions, examining clothes to see if they required any last-minute mending. All the while, she was quiet and contained, enclosed in a world that Charlie could not penetrate, so he occupied himself with Ned, preparing the child for bed.

  It was late when Benedict returned. He looked tired and drawn as he placed a bundle on the table. “Try these.” He held out a pair of riding boots to Bryony. She took them in the same manner, as if they were being proffered by an acquaintance. He watched her put them on, a frown buckling his brow. “Do they fit?”

  “They are a little big.” She took several tentative steps. “But it is better that than too small. I will wear two pairs of stockings.” The boots were serviceable, the leather good quality, but they had clearly spent some time on someone else’s feet—a fact that Bryony did not regard in the least. “Did you find me a horse?”

  “Yes, an ugly brute but with stamina. He has an uneasy gait, but you will become accustomed. He will carry you without flagging, and that was my main concern.” It was almost as if he expected her to object and was forestalling her, Bryony thought distantly, examining the rest of the bundle on the table. In addition to the boots, Ben had procured for her a heavy hooded cloak and gloves. And somewhere he had found a pair of sturdy woolen britches and a jacket that would drown Ned, but would at least keep him warmer and dryer than anything in his present makeshift wardrobe.

  “You didn’t purchase anything for yourself?” Ben was also in dire need of stockings and boots.

  “I have no need of anything,” he replied shortly, laying a small heap of coins on the table. “That is yours, what’s left over.”

  She bit her lip. “It is ours, Benedict. Why would you not buy yourself some stockings, at least?”

  He turned on her, his voice low but intense. “Have you learned nothing?”

  Bryony walked out of the cottage, unable to bear the proximity of such animosity any longer. It was cold, but she hardly noticed as she walked aimlessly along the lane. What sort of a life could they possibly have together in this wasteland that had sprung up between them? Maybe it would pass; but if it did, there were no guarantees that it would not arise again. Just by being who she was, she could provoke it, for as long as Benedict clung to his bitter, vengeful hatred.

  “Bryony!” His voice rang out behind her, sharply imperative, but she ignored it, maintaining her pace. “Bryony, wait! You will catch your death of cold.” He broke into a run, coming up with her. “Did you hear what I said?” The heavy cloak went around her shoulders, and he turned her, pulling up the hood and fastening the clasp at the collar. “Why will you not do as you’re told?”

  Something extraordinary had happened. His voice was lightly teasing again, his eyes were inhabited by himself again, instead of that neutral, expressionless stranger. She shook her head in bewilderment, confusion filling her eyes.

  “If you fall ill, you will not be able to keep up on the march,” he scolded in the same tone. “I cannot be distracted by worrying over you.”

  “You will not have to be,” she managed to say, wondering if she would ever understand anything again. Part of her melted with relief at this incredible volte-face, yet a
deep-seated wariness remained, showed on her face.

  “I will if you are insubordinate and careless.” He touched her mouth gently with his little finger. “Let us put it behind us, lass. It happened, but it is over.”

  Until the next time, she thought wearily. “I do not seem able to forget as quickly as you, Ben.”

  “It is not forgotten,” he said quietly. “But it is over. We cannot live under that shadow. I beg forgiveness for my part, Bryony.”

  He was waiting, quite clearly, for her own apology, but she did not know how to apologize for being herself, for having sprung from tainted seed. She could only promise to try to refashion herself upon the anvil of love, to drive out of her all symbols and reminders of her antecedents, to submerge herself in Clare.

  The next morning, Morgan’s body of frontiersmen, a thousand strong, marched westward, back into South Carolina. The presence of a colonel’s wife and a child, both on the back of a raking gelding, drew from the brigadier general only the comment that their mount’s rolling gait was like to render them both seasick. Bryony simply laughed and said that she had always been a good sailor. It was a response that clearly pleased the old Indian fighter, who nodded with approval and told her to stay at his side when her husband had business elsewhere in the column.

  The second evening brought the return of the scouts, with the news that Colonel Tarleton, with a force not much larger than their own, and two small cannons, was riding to meet them. Bryony, wrapped in her cloak, sitting beside a brazier, heard the rapid discussions and felt the familiar tightening in her gut as she contemplated the upcoming battle. Strangely, she had found the raids and the skirmishes when they fought undercover less fearful than the pitched battles. She seemed to feel that Ben was in his element in the former, but that on the battlefield he had no more advantage than anyone else.

  “Lie down and try to sleep, lass.” Ben came over to her, his face grave. “We march at first light in search of good ground.”

  “Ground for battle?”

  “Aye. We will wait then for Tarleton to reach us.”

  Bryony shivered—thinking, like lambs for the slaughter. But she kept her own counsel. Benedict did not need to be burdened with her anxieties; he had enough of his own. The ground at Cowpens that Daniel Morgan chose for the confrontation did nothing to improve her spirits.

  “Why here?” she asked Charlie, looking aghast at the open hillside, exposed in front and on the flanks, without undergrowth, even, to provide concealment. “It is so unprotected.”

  Charlie nodded. “It was suggested to Morgan that he move elsewhere, but he says the men must have no opportunity for retreat. When they are forced to fight, they sell their lives dearly.”

  “Harsh judgment, but correct nevertheless.” Benedict appeared beside them. “Bryony, you and Ned must wait behind the rear lines. There will be no rout this time.” It was said with grim satisfaction. “Morgan has ordered riflemen posted in the rear to kill deserters.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Where I am told to be, lass.” He would not tell her in which line he was to fight, in case stories of the battle positions filtered through to the rear and might alarm her unnecessarily. “As you will be, it is understood? This time there’s to be no moving the minute my back is turned.” The black eyes bored into her until finally she submitted with a little shrug.

  She did not see Benedict that night. Having escorted them to the rear, he had left her with Ned and gone to join Morgan and the other officers, who were making the rounds of the men, bolstering their courage, joking with them, raising their spirits as they prepared them to meet the fast-approaching enemy in the morning. Bryony found space for Ned in a covered wagon, and rolled him in his blanket, then she left him sleeping, knowing that he would not stir until sunup. She skirted the lines of soldiers, looking for a place from which she would be able to watch the battle. It didn’t matter that her plan was in direct contravention of Ben’s orders. She could not stay in the rear, hearing the cries and the firing, not knowing which way the tide turned.

  Thus it was that when Colonel Tarleton arrived on the field in a cold, clear January dawn, Bryony was crouched, chilled and stiff, but with a bird’s-eye view, in the crotch of an oak tree at the top of the hill.

  After the first charge by the British cavalry, she lost her fear completely, becoming utterly absorbed in the awesome beauty of a scene that seemed to have broken away from reality. The sun rose, shedding a weak, wintery benediction on the field as the British line of dragoons goons advanced at a trot toward the massed American ranks. Bryony could make out General Morgan galloping along the files, flourishing his sword. Then a loud, challenging cheer went up from the advancing dragoons. Bryony felt the hairs on her scalp lift. There were shouts coming from the American lines, and she could see officers pounding down the rows, gesticulating. They were telling the riflemen to hold their fire and for a breathless instant, as the British line advanced inexorably, they did. Then the air was rent with a sheet of flame as the regulars fired simultaneously in one devastating volley. It was a sight of the most magnificent destruction. Still, for Bryony, it was unreal, as if she were looking into a painting.

  Then the clear strokes became blurred as if someone had smudged the picture. A troop of American cavalry plunged in among the dragoons and all was confusion, impossible to sort out for the watcher in the tree. The American infantry seemed to be falling back, up the hill. The redcoats broke ranks and charged after them. As one body, the Americans turned and another volley cut their pursuers to ribbons before they charged after them, down the hill, scattering them to the four winds. It was over in a few minutes—the complete destruction of Tarleton’s army. To Bryony’s eyes, the field was littered with redcoat bodies, and she could see no others. There would be some, though, she knew, and as the dreamlike wonder dissipated, cold reality took its place.

  She climbed stiffly down from her tree, stretching her cramped muscles, wondering at how she had been able to watch that violent destruction of men by men and find it beautiful. But she had and it had been. The cries of the wounded reached her as she skirted the field, making her way back to the wagons at the rear, worried now about Ned. If he had woken and found her gone, he would be scared. Catching up her skirt, she began to run through the cold.

  “Well, where the devil is she, Clare?” Morgan was demanding as Bryony came into view. “We don’t have time to scour the countryside for her.”

  “I am here.” Bryony arrived, panting, cheeks pink with exertion and cold air. “I hope I have not delayed you, sir.”

  “Where the hell have you been?” demanded Ben. He was bleeding from a long scratch on his cheek, and his jacket was ripped, but apart from that he looked whole, Bryony thought, taking rapid, automatic inventory.

  “Up a tree.” She beamed at him, unable to contain her joyous relief. Ned was plucking insistently at her skirt, and she bent to pick him up. “Are we to move out now? I am quite ready.”

  “How very fortunate for the rest of us,” Ben said sardonically. “I was once advised to put a leash on you. It was advice I should have heeded.”

  “Oh, don’t be stuffy, Benedict! I was not in any danger, and I cannot have kept you waiting. You have all only just left the field yourselves.”

  Morgan chortled. “Quite right, my dear. But now we are on the run, so unless you wish to fall into Cornwallis’s hands, since he’ll be on our tail in no time, you had best keep up with us.” He swung onto his horse and rode off.

  “You are a constant embarrassment,” Ben declared, taking Ned out of her arms and setting him on his feet. “Would you get on that horse, please.”

  “Are we really in retreat?” She scrambled onto the gelding’s broad back, assisted by a flat hand on her bottom, shoving her upward.

  “Nothing else for it.” Ben handed Ned up to her. “We’re not strong enough to fight the entire British army, and they’ll be after us once Tarleton gets back to Cornwallis with news of this day.” He
turned to mount his own horse and did not see the sudden stricken expression on her face as the mischievous amusement borne of relief died abruptly and the little cold spot in her soul that she usually managed to ignore began to ache.

  With Cornwallis rode Sir Edward Paget. As she fled with the Americans before the British pursuit, she fled her father. And she knew, despite the love and loyalty she owed and felt for her husband, that she did not wish to run from her father … that there had to be some way of reconciling the two parts of her.

  But throughout the remainder of that bitter winter, she did run. Greene joined Morgan, and the American army raced from river to river, Cornwallis on their heels, sometimes so close that they had barely snatched their last wagon from the flood-swollen torrents before the first redcoat line appeared. Bryony came to understand the true meaning of fatigue. Her horse fulfilled all Ben’s expectations and carried her without flagging through the freezing rivers, Ned clinging to her if Ben was not there to take him up himself. But there were days when Bryony did not know if she was asleep or awake. Her knees gripped the saddle, the reins were imprinted upon her hands, her eyes saw nothing but the crude road ahead. Occasionally, Ben or Charlie would take Ned and lead her horse so she could doze uneasily in the saddle. But mostly, she had to manage for herself. Ben was too busy with the men who tramped the frozen ground, barely clad, their feet leaving bloody prints as shoes wore down and the cloth that they used to wrap their feet shredded.

  They crossed the Dan River into Virginia at the beginning of March, and there, for the first time, paused. They were not followed. Ben wrapped Bryony in her cloak as if she were a baby and put her to bed in one of the wagons. She took his hand, her eyelids fluttering as she struggled to stay awake for one more minute. “I miss you, Ben.”

  He smiled and squeezed her hand before tucking it under the cloak. “I miss you, too, lass.” She fell asleep as he kissed her, and he sat on his haunches for a minute, looking at her. He missed her to a point beyond pain, sometimes. The splendor by the tree in the churchyard seemed to have happened to two other people in another lifetime. He had not even seen her naked since then. And he longed for her body, would sometimes feel her movements against him, hear the little whimpers and cries of pleasure. But they were waking dreams that brought him to an erect and throbbing arousal despite exhaustion, and had to be banished with stern resolution.