Washington and Caesar

by Christian Cameron

  “You gave me a silk roller at Christmas,” he said.

  “I had to give you something, goose!” She rolled her eyes at the eternal blindness of men. He leaned in and kissed her quickly, before she could make an objection, but she didn’t resist in the least. They’d had a talk on the subject, and Caesar now knew where the boundaries that might lead to his ears being boxed lay. He did continue to test them, but warily, like a good soldier on patrol. The enemy sentries remained alert, however.

  He motioned at Sally. Experience with Polly had taught him that he needed to honor her concern for the woman, although Sally was all one to Caesar—she drank, she made trouble, she was a memento from the swamp and had to be tolerated.

  “She’s in a bad way, Julius,” she said.

  “She will drink,” said Caesar, dubiously. Neither Polly nor her father was easily practiced upon, but Caesar rather thought that in this case the soldiers, not the priest, should keep Sally. He had wondered several times why Marcus White continued to help Sally when the relations brought him only gossip and trouble.

  “No, it’s not just that, Julius. She was happy. I think Captain Stewart keeps her happy, though it’s wrong, of course.”

  Caesar tried to hide a smile. “Does she love Mr. Stewart, do you think?”

  “Don’t be a goose, Julius Caesar. She don’t love nobody. But she likes him. She taught him to dance. And then the other day this man came to her…”

  “What man is that, then?” asked Caesar.

  “An ill-looking thin white man. You know the sort, that look mean and pinched whether they will or no?”

  Caesar nodded, staring at the rich red of the ribbon on his present.

  “The man made her afraid. She won’t tell me why, but she hasn’t been the same since. She was shocking to my father, too.”

  Caesar thought that Sally might be shocking to Marcus White in many different ways, but he kept his views to himself.

  “Jeremy blames Captain Stewart,” Caesar said, feeling disloyal to both.

  “Sally thought that Captain Stewart would take her in keeping, and not leave her at Mother Abbott’s,” said Polly, instantly destroying Caesar’s cherished notion that Polly didn’t really know what Sally did to earn her fine clothes and daily bread, or at least needed to be protected from the details. His surprise showed on his face.

  “Oh, Julius Caesar, you can be so blind. Open your present, then.”

  He pulled the bow apart teasingly, enjoying the feel of the satin ribbon and then rubbed it against her cheek.

  “That’s all the present I need,” he said.

  “If I wanted to listen to Jeremy’s compliments, I’d ask for them myself.”

  He wanted to flare with anger, but the truth was that the line did belong to Jeremy. He looked at her, unsure how to react, but she kissed his hand and then the ribbon.

  “Open it, then,” she said.

  He opened the piece of silk and there was a ball of jeweler’s cotton. When he opened it out, there was a gleaming silver whistle on a plaited cord. He gave a startled sound, wordless.

  “That’s beautiful,” he said, wishing to blow it immediately.

  “It’s the shape of Captain Stewart’s, but it has a different note. Sally took his for a few days to get it right. And Virgil plaited the cord.”

  Polly looked down demurely. Caesar kissed her and she responded vigorously. Her eyes half closed, which moved him. Then she ended the kiss, gently but firmly.

  “Listen, will you? I need a favor.” She placed the bed and its sleeping occupant between them. Caesar laughed at her and she smiled back.

  “What do you want, Polly?” She never asked him for anything, but made him shirts and gave him silver whistles.

  “I need to borrow your drummer, Sam. I need him to run some errands for me.” Something about the manner of her asking made him a trifle suspicious, but he could hardly refuse. Sam ran everyone’s errands. His cherubic looks made him seem even younger than he really was, if you ignored his eyes.

  “Thank you, Caesar,” she said, coming back around the bed.

  Caesar thought that it might be time to test her boundaries again, but Sally picked that awkward moment to wake up, and the chance was gone.

  New Jersey, May 19, 1777

  A month’s military activity made Polly a memory, left in New York when the light troops of the army moved suddenly into the Jerseys. Caesar relished the memory, though, pulling out her whistle and feeling its smoothness with his thumb for a moment, a habit he had developed from the day he got it.

  He blew it, and his pickets went loping out to the little hilltop where he had ordered them. Lieutenant Crawford watched him avidly.

  “Virgil, take the right platoon around through the outbuildings and cover the back. Sergeant Fowver, straight over the hill through the woodlot. Tonny, with me. Leave a file on that little copse by the road to guide the advance guard. If they come before I get back, tell them those woods on the little ridge ain’t cleared yet.”

  This sort of patrol had been their daily bread on the advance through the Jerseys, moving at the front of the army and looking at the ground. They had learned to be well ahead, and to leave men in secure posts to provide some communication with the advance guard. They had learned the fine art of being guides in more than name.

  They had another advantage, too.

  Lieutenant Crawford stood politely in the dooryard of the little farm, resplendent in an old red coat with no lace and decent smallclothes. His fighting clothes were better than any New Jersey farmer had seen in some time, and he overawed the middle-aged man who had presented himself at the door.

  “Have you turned out in the militia for the rebels, sir?” asked Crawford. A file of Caesar’s men was standing behind him. Not threatening, but very much present.

  “I have not, sir.”

  “Do you own a firearm?”

  “I never seen the need, as the Indians are a long ways away.” The farmer was anything but friendly. The fear hadn’t lasted long, and he was just on the border of respect.

  “Are any of your neighbors in the rebel militia?”

  “I can’t say.” His wife was much younger, although already worn. Several children were gathered in the hall, including one young man of sixteen or seventeen.

  Crawford tried anyway, his Scots accent minimal.

  “Sir, you realize we are here as soldiers of the king to protect you and your neighbors from these rebels. We mean you no harm. We are not the army that burns farms, I think.”

  His words were lost on the farmer, and probably on his brood, as they stood silent in their house. Nearer New York, Crawford had been fed tea or chocolate at the more prosperous houses. Here, he wasn’t even offered well water.

  Caesar came around from the big barn with two muskets and their accoutrements, each with its little tail of straw that told of where they had been hidden. Two young slaves trotted at his heels.

  “Bergen County Militia. He’s senior sergeant in the second platoon of Captain Meyer’s company, and his son is one of his soldiers.” The slaves smiled broadly. Caesar made quite a show of handing them the muskets.

  “You Christian men? Good, then.” He looked them over. “You have names?”

  The short one in the little straw hat poked out his chest.

  “I’m Moses Shaw and this is my brother Abraham.” They both smiled. “We guess we’re free.” They chuckled with mirth.

  “You are free if you swear to uphold King George and serve him in his army.” This was now the line that Caesar used every time they met with slaves in the Jerseys, though it was a most liberal interpretation of Lord Howe’s orders.

  “Raise your right hands and repeat after me. When I say I, you each say your names.” Both men raised their hands, smiling less and clutching their new muskets awkwardly. The other Guides, at least those with no immediate duties, formed up in two neat lines in the farmyard, with Sergeant Fowver and Virgil prodding the inept and awkward into the ranks
.

  “I,” said Caesar.

  “Moses Shaw,” said Moses.

  “Abraham,” said Abraham.

  “Do swear that I enter freely and voluntarily into His Majesty’s service, and I do enlist myself without the least compulsion or persuasion into the Black Guides commanded by Captain Stewart, and that I will demean myself orderly and faithfully, and will cheerfully obey all such directions as I may receive from my said captain, or the officers or noncommissioned officers under his command, and that I will continue to serve His Majesty in all such services as I may be employed in during the present rebellion in America—

  “So help me God.”

  The farmer tried to protest to Lieutenant Crawford that these were not his muskets, and that he couldn’t run the farm if his slaves were taken.

  Crawford smiled a little wolfishly.

  “Sergeant—I may call you that, mayn’t I? You are hereby a prisoner of war on parole, taken in arms against His Majesty, and it’s very lucky for you that I haven’t the men or the inclination to take you back to New York.”

  The man turned pale. Men died in the prison hulks of New York harbor.

  “Further, as you are a rebel, your slaves are free men. They have chosen to enlist in His Majesty’s army, which shouldn’t surprise you. You may, perhaps, feel that they bear you some ill will, and I recommend that you consider well what you are at, sir. I hereby require you to present yourself to the sheriff of this county in the next fortnight to sign an oath of loyalty to His Majesty. If you do not do so, or if anyone reports that you turn out to serve the rebels, we’ll return. Do you understand?”

  The man was watching his slaves and his muskets filing out on to the road. The loss was enormous, if calculated as property.

  “Do you understand, sir?”

  The man nodded. He clenched his fists by his side and opened them.

  Caesar came up to Crawford, saluted, and handed him a military pack.

  “In case you had any doubts, sir.” In the pack was a set of shirts, a homespun overshirt like those the militia and even some of the rebels wore, and a knitted cap. Caesar pointed to the pack, which was painted with the insignia “III VA.” Crawford took out the cap. Embroidered around the base of the cap was the motto “Liberty or Death”. He held it up.

  “It puzzles me how you Americans can prate about liberty while you own slaves,” he said. “I’ll keep this. It ought to fetch a good price from the laggards in New York.”

  Caesar rifled the pack, which had a broken strap, and sniffed it. It smelled of smoke.

  “This ain’t been around here long, sir.”

  He looked at the farmer.

  “When did this pack get here? You, there. The tall boy. Step out here.”

  There looked to be resistance for a moment. In the end, good sense won out and the older boy stepped out. Caesar sent him off to the barn with Virgil.

  Crawford nodded. They were learning to question rebel sympathizers separately, so that they couldn’t coach each other.

  “What are you bastards doing to my boy?” cried the father.

  “He’ll be questioned. When did the patrol come through your farm?”

  “I don’t know.” He was white and shaking. His wife was clutching him from behind. Crawford hated these scenes, as these people were essentially Englishmen and he despised having to brutalize them. It reminded him of bad times in Scotland. He thought of the slaves outside, the lives they led, and hardened his heart.

  “I’d recommend you reconsider. I can take you or your son to New York, and I will if I feel you are placing my men in danger.”

  “What are you doing to my son?” shouted the man. He looked over to where Moses and Abraham were standing with the other Guides on the little road that led past the farmyard. “What did we ever do to you that you would betray us like this?” He raised his fists at them and they both flinched, although they had guns and he had none.

  Caesar stepped up to him, very close, where he could smell the man’s breath and the fear in his sweat.

  “It isn’t about them, sir. It’s about you. You are the traitor. You have been serving the rebels. You get to pay the fiddler now. An’ if Mr. Crawford wants to know when the patrol passed, I think you’d do well to tell him. You have a mighty big family to be taking these risks with.” He was a foot taller than the man, and he quailed.

  “Yesterday, damn you. Rot the lot of you. Yesterday.” He spat.

  Caesar watched him, unimpressed.

  “How long were they here?”

  “Not long. They told us to hide the muskets…” The man stopped, knowing he had said too much.

  “So they knew we was coming? What did they tell you, exactly?”

  The man looked at his wife as if he needed support.

  “Don’t look at her,” said Caesar. He had stepped past Crawford now. Crawford couldn’t force himself on a man like this. Caesar didn’t like it, but he found it was easier with the slave owners. They feared all blacks and responded appropriately. He felt that somehow it made their punishment fit the crime. He thought of the ancient Caesar, crucifying the men who would have made him a slave.

  “Don’t look at her, little man. Look at me. What did they say?”

  “They said…” The man was ready to sob. He looked like a cornered animal. He glanced at his wife and daughters, his younger son, and Caesar, who was doing his best to look like the image of vengeful Africa. “They said a company of blacks might come through, an’ we’d best hide our muskets and keep quiet.”

  Crawford shook his head. “Was that so hard, sir?”

  Caesar threw him a glance, asking him to stay quiet.

  “What else did they say? Tell me, now. They knew we was a company of blacks, you say?”

  The man was gray. His wife and family were now crying.

  “Want to cough your life out in the hulks?”

  “I won’t, neither,” said the man, clawing for self-respect. The fact that he said he wouldn’t, though, served to point out that he had more left to say. Caesar nodded.

  “Very brave,” he said, and motioned to the file.

  “Take him.”

  The man held to his resolve as they tied him and led him into the yard. Caesar went off to the barn, where the boy glowered at Virgil, who sat smoking quietly.

  “Any trouble?”

  “Boy said he’d kill me if’n I harmed his pa, which is kinda’ funny considerin’ I’m here with him.”

  Caesar nodded and walked around the barn back to the yard. He had a notion what it was the man wouldn’t tell. He knew which unit the Third Virginia was. He remembered them from Long Island. He stood in front of the defiant man for a moment, as if considering. Then he walked slowly around the man until he was behind him.

  “Your boy says they came through late last night. He says they meant to lie in ambush for us. That right?”

  The man sagged. His whole body seemed to shrink, as if the courage was flowing from him. He tried to turn to face Caesar, but Tonny held him.

  “Let him go,” said Caesar to Tonny.

  The man wouldn’t meet his eye.

  “Look at me.”

  The man flinched away.

  “Look at me, mister. Tell me what they said.”

  “Promise you won’t hurt my boys.”

  “I won’t if you don’t give me cause.”

  “They were a big company. They said they was goin’ to lie for you at Dick’s farm, down the pike. Dick’s got a parcel more slaves than I do, they figured you’d go there.”

  Caesar looked at him carefully, and nodded, although his blood was up now.

  “Get his boy and put them all together.” He still sounded threatening.

  Crawford came up to him. “I hope that was worth it, Sergeant. We just made these people rebels for life.”

  “I think they were already there, sir.”

  “I think that war is a lot uglier than I had thought,” said Crawford.

  “How’d they kno
w we was comin’?” asked Paget. The story was all over the company in a flash, helped by the additional testimony of Moses and Abraham. Virgil heard him and frowned.

  “Stow it, Paget. There’s hundreds of ways they could know. They have scouts, too.” They moved quickly over a hill, well away from the rebel house in the little valley, and then halted.

  Caesar ran up and tapped Tonny and Silas Van Sluyt, the fastest runners in the company. “Follow me,” he said. They ran to the crest of the hill, where Crawford was waiting with Sergeant Fowver.

  “I want to take these two and follow that boy.”

  Crawford shook his head.

  “What boy?”

  “The one at the house. He’ll head off to warn the Virginians as soon as they think they are safe.”

  Crawford shook his head.

  “Damn me for a green boy. Of course they will. My apologies, Sergeant Caesar, I should have seen that—”

  “Never you mind, sir. I’d like to take these three an’ follow on his heels. We’ll see how they lie and report back. You can send to Captain Stewart an’ bring up the advance guard, if you are of a mind to.”

  “I do like being managed by a professional, Sergeant Caesar. It is good for my amour-propre. Very well, carry on.”

  “Yes, sir.” He winked at Fowver, who gave him a quick smile. Then he ran.

  They almost missed the boy, because he chose to run right out on to the road, and they had never counted on him being so daring and so blind. Once they had him, however, they paced him easily, running well behind and off to the boy’s left. They lost him several times, when they had to go well off the path to detour round woodlots or patches of muck, but his white shirt and old green waistcoat made him an easy mark on the dusty road.

  He ran over a mile before he flagged. Caesar wasn’t even into his pace yet when the boy stopped, breathing hard. The Guides all lay down. The boy breathed a moment and then left the road, bearing west. Caesar sent his men well to the left and right, so that if the boy tried to mislead them or double back, one was bound to spot him. He didn’t do any such thing. Guileless as a lamb, he ran cross country, as straight as a ball from a rifle-gun, until an outpost challenged him. Again, Caesar threw himself flat and then began to crawl up. He could see Tonny off to his right, but he didn’t know whether Van Sluyt was still with them. He could hear the boy speaking in a rush, could hear the excitement in his tone but not the words themselves. He moved closer. He motioned to Tonny. Tonny pointed at something off to his own right, and Caesar had to wonder if it was another post. There were a great many rebels out here, if they could space their posts so closely.