by Unknown
That afternoon, however, any other possibility was put out of the question by the complete destruction of the remaining fortifications at Stanwix by fire. How it had started no one ever told; why, in the saturated condition of the fort, it had not been got under control, no one ever explained.
2. Return of Marinus Willett
The hope and confidence inspired at German Flats by the arrival of the garrison from Fort Stanwix were short-lived. The Albany command had conceded the necessity of their removal in May; before the first week of June they had withdrawn two companies for the defense of the Hudson Valley. At Fort Dayton were left only a few squads and at Fort Herkimer a Captain Moody with his artillery company of twenty men, and two light field pieces which were mounted on the walls.
Bellinger grimly supervised the spring planting with armed guards of militia. The small group of Rangers were no longer permitted to make long scouts, but were stationed close along the hills. It was not necessary any more to have long warning of a raid. The women and children were kept huddled to the forts, and the farming parties were instantly convertible to armed companies that might either cut their way back to the forts without assistance or, if the raid proved numerically small, attack the destructives in the open.
There was nothing left to destroy; and the parties that turned up early in June were only looking for stray scalps. More than half of the planting of wheat had been buried or washed out by the spring flood, and the spring planting of grain came up in serried patches of buckwheat, barley, and oats, put in as seed had been procured.
Gil Martin had made no attempt this spring to work the McKlennar farm. Most of his wheat had been washed out. The gutted walls of the stone house, the sashless windows, like lipless mouths, were good only to house stray hedgehogs. The empty barn, which had survived the burning of the house, was burned towards the middle of the month. The fire was seen from the two forts during the night, burning sullenly, with a small party of men surrounding it, but no one suggested going out against them.
Then, towards the end of June, as he came back to Fort Dayton from scout duty with Adam Helmer and John Weaver, Gil saw ten mounted Continentals riding east along the Kingsroad. Adam and John remained outside the fort to watch them, but Gil went in to make his report to Colonel Bellinger. While he was yet talking to Bellinger he heard the horses enter the stockade, and a moment later a sentry stuck his head in the door to announce the arrival of Lieutenant Colonel Willett.
It was a still hot evening, and the smoke from the cooking fires drew in through the windows, filling the small room. But Gil saw Bellinger’s dark eyes brighten as he got up from the table, and he himself felt a quickening of his heart. Both of them remembered Willett’s first arrival at the fort while St. Leger was investing Stanwix four years ago. Willett had come through the Indian lines; and Willett had ridden straight on to Albany to hurry up Benedict Arnold. They had forgotten Arnold in German Flats until the news had come last winter of his attempted betrayal of West Point. But for some reason no one had forgotten Marinus Willett.
“That’s all, Martin,” Bellinger said. “You can go now.”
“There’s no need of that, is there?” said the nasal voice from the door. “It’s his business as much as yours and mine, Bellinger.”
Marinus Willett looked just as they remembered him. The hard small twinkling blue eyes, close above the huge hooked nose, the red face, the square uncompromising shoulders, filled the doorway. As he came up to Bellinger he looked even taller, for Bellinger had the regular farmer’s stoop. His large nose sniffed while he shook hands, and he said, “I hope you’ve got enough extra to feed us, Bellinger.”
“I guess we can scrape up something.”
“I’m glad to know it. There’s lots of places down the valley that can’t do that. Even at my headquarters in Fort Plain we haven’t anything to drink.”
“We’ve had no liquor up here since last October, Colonel.” Bellinger stopped himself short. “Your headquarters?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
The blue eyes twinkled.
“They’ve merged the five New York Continental companies into two, and George Clinton came around and pestered me to come up here and command the Mohawk levies. He said I was going to be my own man and would have a regiment to work with and a couple of companies of regulars now in garrison. With that and the militia me and you we’re supposed to make this frontier safe.” Willett sat down and stared humorously along his nose. “I thought, with that, by God, I could do a lot more than anyone has done so far and I said I’d come. I’ve been up the valley for two weeks. I’ve reckoned up the men.” He didn’t look humorous now, his flat cheeks hardened. “I found Stark had drawn off the two companies: now the British won’t buy Vermont, he’s scared they’ll come and take it for nothing. God damn him.”
“God damn all Yankees,” Bellinger said fervently.
“God damn the whole shebang. I’ve got a sore tail. Man, I’ve been to every stockade and fort between Schenectady and this place like a God-damned census taker, checking the militia list Clinton gave me before I set out. That was the ‘77 list, Bellinger. There were twenty-five hundred enrolled men. Do you know how many of you there’s left?”
“I know that we’ve lost nearly half of our men in this district,” Bellinger said grimly.
Willett nodded his big head.
“There were twenty-five hundred in 1777. Now the total, including yours, is less than eight hundred.” He stared at Bellinger and Gil. “That’s why I said it was this man’s business as much as ours. God, it’s a mess. Besides the militia I’ve got one hundred and thirty levies, in good shape. But I’m responsible for Catskill and Ballston as well as this valley. And I’m sending most of them to those two places and the middle fort in Schoharie. I’ll leave Moody and his twenty men in Herkimer. For the rest of the valley I’d rather depend on the militia.” Suddenly he grinned widely, showing his large yellow teeth. “Clinton’s landed me on you, and, by the Lord, I’m not going to run off now. There’s nobody outside the forts, and I can get hold of men fast. We’ll do the job, one way or the other. Have you got a pipe around anywhere?”
Bellinger produced a clay, which Willett filled from his own pouch. “I’ve got a few exempts and a few levies not listed and I’ll keep them as my own garrison in Fort Plain and as the centre of any army I get together. This section, though, I’m going to leave to you. I’m not going to call you out, either, to go down the valley, but I want you to keep your men handy to join me if I ever come this way.”
Bellinger nodded with his usual sombreness. But for the first time in a long while there was a gleam in his eye. “We’ll be around. Can you get us a little powder?”
“I’ve got the Governor’s ear. By God, I ought to, after taking on this job! I’ll guarantee powder. Food’s hard to come by. There’s plenty of it in Albany, but the Congress has impounded it for the regular army. Even Heath can’t get it for his garrison at West Point. Lord knows what’s up. But there’s one satisfaction in it the destructives won’t find much to eat when they come this way.”
3. The First Rumor
One of Willett’s first acts was to impound the best horses at the various forts along the valley for use by his expresses. It had an immensely heartening effect on German Flats to realize that there was someone in the valley who was keeping close touch with them; and the first express to arrive brought news of an irruption in Currietown and Willett’s gathering of the militia, his quick pursuit, and total rout of the destructives at Dor-lach. For the first time a band of the destructives had actually been caught and licked.
The harvest of their mixed crops in August, after that, was comparatively undisturbed, though there were occasional brushes in the woods when stray Indians attacked the berry pickers.
Another effect of the expresses was the bringing of news from the rest of the country. Willett always included in his dispatches to Bellinger whatever word had come to him. Men began to talk about the war in the s
outh as if it were in some way allied to their own difficulties.
It was strange how that simple illusion had restored their courage. They were not aware of it themselves. They did not know that Willett was raising heaven and earth that fall to get even one company of well-equipped regulars sent up to him. To Governor Clinton he wrote how “the prospect of this suffering country hurts me.” He even went over General Clinton’s head to General Washington, describing the valley as he had first seen it, and as it stood now. But Washington was meditating his march into the south to join Greene and Lafayette against Cornwallis, and he would not spare a man.
In the Mohawk Valley the fall was early, arriving with a long stretch of northwest weather, small cold showers that pebbled the surface of the river, and day after day of rolling clouds. The roads became heavy, and the expresses, when they traveled, were coated with mud to their thighs.
The corn was stacked about the stockades and the threshing went on in the barns close to the forts, and the winnowed grain was carried into the magazines and stored. Joe Boleo predicted a cold winter that would break early. He did not know why he thought so, when John Weaver tried to cross-examine him; but he had no doubt of it.
They were standing guard on top of the Shoemaker hill, bare to the wind, with the clouds passing over their heads, and occasional showers, which they could see entire from their height, leaving wet trails across the tossing wilderness. The trees were mostly bare, and the forests filled the air with the wintry smell of mouldering leaves. Now and then they saw small flights of duck scudding before the rain.
“Winter’s coming,” said Joe. “It’s getting cold. They hain’t ever bothered us none after October, only when Butler went to Cherry Valley.”
John was glad to believe him. All day he had been keeping scarcely half a watch. He had hardly felt the cold as he crouched down behind the windbreak Joe had constructed. It seemed to him that his whole being was filled with what Mary had told him that morning about being sure that she was going to have a baby.
He thought he would never forget her; she acted so proud.
“Do you think I should tell your mother, John?”
But he said, “Wait till I come home.” He wanted to have time to think. His mother hadn’t been herself for two years now. She kept very quiet. Sometimes it seemed to him as though a half of her mind had deserted her when George got taken; for while she did her share of work, she had fits of talking vaguely. She never wept any more as she had at first. Though she was convinced that since they had never heard a word of George he must be dead, it was plain that she could not reconcile herself. Sometimes John used to have the feeling that she was only keeping herself alive until she was sure. Now, he wondered what effect this news would have on her. Rarely, she would have flagrant bursts of temper, when she would try to take a strap to him or Cobus as if they were still children. He didn’t want to have her start a thing like that with Mary.
But when John reached the top of the hill and the wind surrounded him, he forgot about his mother and thought only of his wife. He had felt a month before that Mary had something on her mind apparently she had known then, but she had wanted to be sure. She was sure now. Her face shone with her tidings. She had stood with him outside the door in the cold October sunlight, proud and straight, tilting her thin face to speak over the wind, her eyes beaming on him he could not tell that at last Mary felt that she had raised herself to his level, nor could he ever know the love and gratitude and pride she had in him.
Instead, with the silent Joe on the hilltop, he had been wondering all day, remembering that time when Mrs. Martin’s boy was born: how he had been frightened, how slow the hours had gone by, how dark the night had been. He knew that Mary would laugh at him if she ever suspected how he dreaded it. Her face had been gallant and taut like a flag in the wind when she told him.
It made him think of the first time he had noticed her, in Fort Herkimer: the same thin eagerness in her face, the same anxiety to know what he was thinking. It used to make him feel foolish to think how often he had played with her in Deerfield without being aware. He might so easily never have discovered her at all.
Her face stayed before his eyes so vividly all day; she still seemed so young to him. He thought of her now at different times transformed by the same eagerness: that first time in the fort; and again in the fort when he had taken her up on the sentry walk to break the news of her father’s death at Oriskany; and again the cold day when they had walked towards McKlennar’s and been married, when Mrs. McKlennar put it up to them both; and again when he had gone away to join the expedition against the Iroquois, and when he had come home; and the day that Bellinger had made him corporal in the Herkimer garrison; and once there in the blockhouse when they were planning their own stone house like the McKlennar house.
Sometimes she had been anxious, sometimes sorrowful, and sometimes overflowing with joy; but always in every part of her he felt her love, her eagerness for their life together, and her pride in him. It made him wonder whether Gilbert Martin, for instance, felt the same way about Mrs. Martin, or whether, like most men, he took his wife for granted. At times John thought there must be something unmanly in feeling the way he did about Mary. He would try to be short with her and resolve not to answer her questions, but on those occasions Mary invariably was quiet. She was a quiet girl anyway. He had no chance to act like other men; and he always found out that he had no wish to once he was with her.
He knew that the coming winter would probably bring more months of short rations, and he did not think that Mary was the sort of woman who could nurse a child. A child needed a lot of food in cold weather. Suppose that it was born in March. But Joe Boleo had just told him that the winter would break early. Suddenly he decided to believe Joe. It would have to be a short winter.
John felt that divine Providence had taken a hand in all his life. His eyes were so rapt that the old woodsman hesitated momentarily before touching his elbow.
“Express coming in from the falls,” he said.
John saw the rider driving his horse to a sluggish trot through the sticky going. It was growing dark.
“Come on,” said Joe. “We might as well go down.”
Mary met him at the door.
“Come in, John. I’ve got supper ready for you.”
She kissed him, putting her thin arms hard about his shoulders, but her eyes were tender and calm. He supposed that women acted that way.
“I’ve told Mother,” she said softly. “I thought it was best. There may not be much time.”
She had closed the door behind them and was leaning against it with her hands clasping the latch. He now saw that she was pale and was watching him with that level regard that invariably stirred him so, as if she were hoarding him up like a treasure.
“Time, Mary?”
He heard his mother rise from the hearth. Emma’s gaunt face showed that she had been crying.
“I’m glad she did, John. It’s made me happy. I ain’t been so happy since when … I can’t think, hardly. I wish your Pa knew of it. Maybe he does.”
The door swung open, putting Mary aside, and Cobus entered with some wood.
“I wish they’d let me go too. Can’t you make ‘em, John? You’re a corporal.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Gil Martin was here just a short spell ago. He said for you to come up to the fort. Butler’s this side of Johnstown heading this way.”
It was hard to take it in. Even Joe Boleo had thought that the raiding must be over for the year. John stood for a moment staring from one to the other.
“I guess I’d better go up there,” he said.
“Can I go with you, John?”
John turned to his brother.
“You stay here, Cobus. I want to know somebody’s looking after Ma and Mary.”
Cobus looked down at his feet.
“All right, John.”
Emma came up to John and put her arms round him. “We’
ll look after her while you’re away, John. Don’t you worry. But come back here before you leave, if they’ll let you.”
“I will,” John promised.
He looked at Mary as he picked up his musket, and she went to the door ahead of him. It had begun to snow. He could see the flakes snared in her hair against the light from the small window.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Mary said, “I told her we’d call the baby after your Pa, John. Do you mind? It made her happy.”
“I don’t mind.” He answered without thinking, mechanically. He was thinking of the long marches through the woods with Sullivan’s army, in the Indian country. He suddenly shook himself out of it. They wouldn’t be going into Indian country. “I think it’s fine,” he said. “Did she ask you?”
“Oh, no. I just thought of it, when I started telling her.”
Mary was silent again.
When she lifted her face her eyes were clear.
“You’d better go up now, John.”
She hated for him to go. But she didn’t want men thinking John behind-hand, now he was corporal.
“Yes,” he said. “Good-bye, Mary. I’ll try to come back before we leave. But take care of yourself.”
“Don’t worry about me.” She made herself smile, not thinking how dark it was. “I’m tougher than I look. You ought to know that, John.”
He leaned over her quickly, kissing her, and turned away towards the dark wall of the fort.
The wind was going down. Already, under the falling snow, a heaped bonfire in the centre of the parade was putting light on the inner walls of the blockhouses. The points of the stockade stood out needlelike and black. John saw men moving in through the snow, carrying their guns under their arms, the muzzles pointed down. The dark tracks they left on the whitening ground were like the gathering of a web towards the open gate.
There was no noise inside the fort, except the crackling of the fire and the mutter of men’s voices. When John entered, he found them lining up in companies along the four sides of the parade. They went to then-own companies; Demooth’s (Demooth was gone, but young Lieutenant Tygert was in command of it) had only twelve men left. John, the corporal, Gil Martin, Boleo and Helmer, the Rangers. Clem Coppernol was not fit for a march. And a few men who used to live in Schuyler; Spankrable and the two Kasts. John moved over to join them, asking Martin in a low voice whether he had heard the news.
