George finished translating the poem, wrote it out fair and then built up the fire in his brazier, but a soldier called out from the door and asked him to attend the marquis immediately. He picked up the book and walked out of his tent and up the hill to his general. When he saw that Lafayette was entertaining General Washington he turned away, but Lafayette beckoned to him before he could slip off. Washington still had the power of a god for George Lake. He stood at attention until Lafayette invited him to sit. Washington inclined his head in greeting and Lake feared that the great man was angry at his intrusion.
A servant poured George a Madeira in one of the marquis’s exquisite glasses, and George touched it to his lips while Lafayette went back to his story about Madame d’Hunolstein. George had suspicions, fostered by the Comte de Noailles, that despite Lafayette’s love for his wife, he and Madame d’Hunolstein were more than just friends. Washington apparently thought the same, because he tapped his foot as the story drew toward a difficult conclusion. Lafayette blushed at his hero’s discomfort and changed the subject abruptly.
“You know that General Gates has been beaten badly in the south?” Lafayette directed this at George, who shook his head.
“We have lost Charleston and now we look to lose much of the back country. That is not the worst of it, George. I don’t want this spread to the camp at large, but you read my correspondence and it is only fitting that you know.” He looked at Washington, who turned his head away. It startled George, the raw emotion stark and open on Washington’s face: rage and something else. He shrank back into his chair.
“General Arnold has attempted to betray West Point to the enemy. Having failed, he has fled to New York.”
“The wretched traitor,” said Washington in a whisper.
George gulped. He was adept at handling men under fire, but this was different. He now understood Lafayette’s story: he had been attempting to divert Washington from his rage. George searched for something to say.
“That’s terrible,” was the best he could do.
Washington drank off the rest of his Madeira, his head turned away.
“I am poor company, my friend,” he said bitterly, and there was a sharp click. Washington looked at the fine glass he had just broken by the pressure of his hand, and shook his head. He tossed the glass through the door of the tent.
“My cloak!”
“But, General. You mustn’t think to go yet. Let us entertain you…”
“My thanks, Marquis. Captain Lake. I’ll not burden you, gentlemen. Nelson and I will see the evening out.”
He shrugged into his cloak and gave a little bow from the door, stooping low to get his head through the tent flap. His leaving was as if a lamp had gone out, so intense was his presence.
“Bah,” said Lafayette angrily. “Arnold was never more than the sum of his ambitions. We are better without him.”
“He was at Boston with the general. I believe Washington had a feeling for him.”
Lafayette smiled at Lake. “You know, you are too good for this world, George Lake. Do you know that many of the generals hate one another, and all strive for his approval or that of Congress, or both?”
“Yes,” said George simply. “It’s all one to me, sir.”
Lafayette poured himself more wine.
“If he were less a god…”
“How do you mean, sir?”
“Oh, if it were the old Maréchal de Noailles, I would send for one of the ladies of the camp, who would dance and laugh and take him to her bed and that would be the end of his rage. You Americans are not immune to the charms of Venus, but he is. He wants to return to Martha and only Martha. Would that I were so constant.”
“You want to return to Adrienne; you speak of her every day.”
Lafayette looked at George, hard, as if he feared to be made game of. Then he looked away, swirled his wine and stood up suddenly.
“This has affected me more than I realised. I am a bore. You think only of your Betsy, and perhaps you Americans are immune to Mademoiselle Venus after all. You are all great men.” The marquis sounded bitter, a side of him George had never witnessed before.
George took a deep breath. “I’m not a perfect man, Marquis. I’m a soldier. I’ve lain with other women an’ thanked ’em for it. But I wouldn’t ask one to go to the general. An’ he wouldn’t want it. An’ Betsy seems so far away, for all she’s just across the river.” He paused in thought for a moment, and then plunged on. “Think we’ll ever win this war? When we lost Charleston I thought of quitting. An’ you know what held me, Marquis? It wasn’t love of my country. It was the knowledge that there’s nothing else I’m good for. I’ve been a soldier so long I can’t go back, can I? I can’t make hats for the gentry in Williamsburg, although five years ago that was my only ambition.”
Lafayette looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.
“I’m not the perfect American, Marquis. Nor is the general.” George was no longer seeing Lafayette but the long marches of the last six years. He wondered how he had gone so far afield or spoken so much. He mumbled an apology, suddenly shy.
“I, too, have doubts, George. The general, he has doubts, or Arnold’s treason would not have him so angry. You know him as I do. He carries the weight of the cause on him and he can never appear to be weak or all of us will be afraid, yes? He is our Hercules. He carries the labours.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s just it, Marquis.”
“Go to bed, George.”
The marquis pulled his dressing gown closer about him. George wondered if he had a girl to warm his camp bed and decided it was better not to know. George had to write out the orders that drove the camp girls from the tents some mornings, and he wanted a clear conscience for his commander.
“Good night, sir.”
New York, January 12, 1781
The inn was cold, even though every one of the fireplaces was roaring. New York seemed empty, so many of the officers had gone home on the transports to England for the winter. Only those too poor to make the crossing or with nothing to go home to stayed behind. Even some of the Loyalists had left, looking for employment in the mother country.
John Stewart did not follow them. He had been mentioned in dispatches again for an action in New Jersey and he expected to be made major in his regiment in the spring. He’d already arranged the purchase. Major Leslie wanted to go home. And Stewart would stay. Until Jeremy was avenged, he thought.
Stewart had doubts aplenty. He felt that the war was lost, and his beloved was not growing any younger waiting for him. He had enough military glory to last him a lifetime and enough laurels to win his love and marry her. Each winter, Stewart told himself that this was the last, and then he stayed for another. Yet something kept him here.
One reason was Julius Caesar, who was sitting at a table playing whist with three other sergeants. Then there was Sally. He tried not to think of her, although she was often in his thoughts.
Jeremy, and Caesar, and Sally. And the war. He hated it, but not all of it, and when he thought of these things and then of Miss McLean waiting in Scotland, he felt a cold guilt in his stomach.
He shook himself and raised his glass to Mr. Martin.
“I thought you planned to move to the Queen’s Rangers.”
“I did, once. Now I wouldn’t leave the Guides for anything. Everything I know I learned here. And besides, the Rangers are in the south.”
“Which is damned far from Miss Hammond. I agree. Let’s drink her health, you and I.”
Caesar had appeared by his elbow.
“Captain? Lieutenant? Reverend White begs the indulgence of a word in the private room.”
Caesar was tense, his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides. The two officers rose and followed him into the relative warmth of the private room in the back, by the kitchen.
“If I’d known this place was so warm I’d have been back here afore ye,” said Captain Stewart, settling in a broad wooden chair by the fire. He
started to see Sally sitting in the chimney corner with Polly, dressed modestly. She was mostly modest these days, although every month or so she’d kick the traces, drink hard and come back to his bed with a bruise on her face. He tried never to ask. He wanted to hit her, sometimes, but he had never asked her for faithfulness.
She gave him a nervous smile.
Reverend White shot Mr. Martin a look and waited for Caesar, who was checking up and down the passage. Stewart had a glimpse of his own Sergeant McDonald outside before Caesar shut the door.
“As snug as you could wish, Reverend. And no one the wiser but them that knows.”
Reverend White nodded sharply.
“Gentlemen,” he said to the two white officers. “I beg your pardon for dragooning you like this, but we have a matter of some importance to put to you and we require complete security.”
He looked around the room.
“We wish to make a plan to kill or capture Mr. Bludner and we need your help.”
Stewart nodded. “I would be happy to help. Why now? And what do the ladies have to do with it?”
Sally stood up slowly. Stewart could see she was very nervous.
“Captain Stewart…” she began. Tears rolled down her face, but she smiled and he smiled back. There was no one present who did not know he kept her, except maybe Martin, who would have had to be blind. And Stewart was not one to care particularly. He remembered Jeremy ordering him to see to Sally in the upstairs hall of this very building, and the thought made him smile the more.
“John, surely, Sally.”
She bobbed her head. “John. I have wanted to tell you this for a year. I am a spy, honey.”
Stewart nodded. It wasn’t that he had known, more that he had sensed that something wasn’t right, and this fit perfectly. He was even happy, for a moment, because it was so much better than what he had expected her to say.
“For us, I hope,” he said, looking around. Of course, Reverend White was a spymaster. Now he could see the whole thing.
“Not always,” growled Caesar.
“Bygones is bygones,” said Polly, and then she let her eyes fall.
“What’s past is over, and Sally has more than atoned for her sin. She’s doubled for me for two years, and she has led us to half the spies in New York. We feed them what we want. They run at our pleasure. And we have Sally to thank for it.”
White looked around the room. He had the attention of every man and woman.
“Bludner thinks he runs Sally. He sends a man to her every fortnight, who beats her and collects her reports. Now he wants her back in person. We are determined that she won’t go. When Sam was taken, we were afraid that Bludner might learn something from him, but Sam must have held his tongue until he was sold south. We honor that memory. When Major Andre was taken, we held our breath because he knew about Sally, but he has kept her secret so far. I hope he may go free or take it with him to the gallows.”
“Amen,” said Lieutenant Martin, who knew Andre.
“But Bludner keeps getting closer, and he’s foul. I don’t need to tell you, any of you, what we owe to Mr. Bludner. Jeremy. Sam. And he nearly had Polly.”
Polly smiled bravely. She feared Bludner, now, but not so much that she wouldn’t volunteer again. She hadn’t been pregnant since her second miscarriage. Caesar blamed Bludner.
“Thanks to something Polly heard a year back, we have one or two clues about where he might have his quarters. What I want to do is beat the bushes until we find him and then use his own messenger to get him into our grasp. Then I want to take him and all his men.”
Stewart nodded.
“We’re capable of that sort of action, Reverend. Do you know where he is?”
“Not yet. We have to do this so that his masters will never know he was betrayed by Sally, or they’ll never rest until they get her. We need to take all their men in New York in a single night and parade one as the Judas. Leave me to plan that aspect. I want you gentlemen to plan the military operation and find some way to cover it so that it looks like part of a larger whole.”
Stewart looked at Martin, and at Sally.
“Just so.”
Green Springs, Virginia, July 6, 1781
Captain George Lake watched General Wayne’s Pennsylvanians break under the weight of the British fire and retire. Some ran, some walked and a few units marched back smartly, but there were more than a hundred bodies left behind. The attack had been foolish and Cornwallis, the British general, had baited the trap and sprung it, just as Lafayette had said.
George waved his arms and blew his whistle, and his company broke into a run. The men at the back of the long files had to sprint to reach the new front, which George formed in the cover offered by a raised road.
“Five pace intervals!” he yelled.
Men began to space themselves out. In a few moments, his men covered almost two hundred paces of the front, and Caleb’s company were doing the same on his right.
Something reached out and plucked away his shiny leather helmet, which hit the ground well behind him. George crouched down.
“Rifles! Keep your heads down.”
Wayne’s Pennsylvanians filtered through his men and started to form behind him, temporarily safe from the fire because of the raised road’s embankment. As soon as his front was clear, he turned to his bugler.
“Sound skirmish,” he said.
The boy raised the instrument, a fine brass hunting horn bought in France with the marquis’s money, and sounded the call. File leaders leaned their heads up over the embankment, picked their targets and fired. The moment their shots rang out, they rolled on their backs and began to load while their file partners searched the ground ahead for targets. George leaned up against the damp earth and raised his head carefully, one hand over his gorget to hide the flash. He could just see some green-coated men in the field beyond the embankment, lying prone and firing carefully. They too had leather helmets with curved half moons as their insignia.
“Queen’s Rangers, lads. Always a pleasure to fight the best.”
His corporal, Ned Simmons, laughed and then fired, his French rifled carbine making a crack that contrasted with the softer bangs of the muskets.
George saw cavalry forming beyond the field at the edge of the woods. He looked behind him to see if the Pennsylvania men were rallied solidly. They were not, but behind them he saw General Lafayette and his staff galloping across the tobacco fields and he smiled.
He trotted over to Caleb, keeping his head well below the top of the embankment.
“Cavalry, Caleb,” he said by way of greeting as he dropped to the ground beside him.
“Whereabouts, then?”
George pointed to where the cavalry were trying to stay hidden.
“Colonel Simcoe hopes to keep us amused with his lights and his rifles until we are well strung out…”
“And then ride us over. Those Pennsylvania boys are done for the day, George. I’d say it’s time to get out of here.”
“Let’s hear what the marquis has to say.”
Lafayette dismounted behind them and handed his horse to an aide, who instantly fell wounded. The horse spooked and ran off in a long curve, looking for a place to gallop free. Lafayette shook his head and laughed and started to walk across the plowed ground as if unconcerned by the fire.
“Well done, George,” he called. When he was closer he condescended to crouch behind the embankment with the two light officers. “The army will thank you for getting here so quickly. General Wayne is rallying his men, and then we’ll be away.”
“So we are retreating?”
Lafayette laughed, one short bark. “You wish to attack?”
“Not in the least, sir.”
“Excellent. As soon as the Pennsylvanians begin to withdraw, you may move into those woods. You will be the rearguard. There will be dragoons to cover you…ahh, there they are.”
George nodded, trying to time the arrival of the friendly cavalry against the po
ssibility of the enemy horse charging him.
Lafayette slapped his boot. “Come and see me when this is over. I have a job for you, as you Americans say.”
He rose and bowed, regardless of the bullets. George couldn’t help but return the bow.
Simcoe sat on his horse in the shadow of the trees with his black trumpeter, Harris, and his staff and watched the arrival of the rebel horse.
“The enemy have put their house in order, gentlemen,” he said, scanning the field under his hand. He made a clucking noise. He had been close to snatching away two of their best companies but the chance was gone.
One of his riflemen in the tree nearest to him called down. “Colonel? I have a good shot at a general who just stood up. Little fellow. Must be Lafayette!”
Simcoe made his clucking noise again. “Let him go, Dodd.” He turned his horse and motioned to his bugler, who immediately started to blow the recall.
An hour later, George and the marquis watched the end of the British column as they withdrew across the river toward Williamsburg. A shot rang out as one of their rearguard tried the range against Lafayette’s dragoons.
“They beat us and then retreat,” said George.
“General Cornwallis has limited supplies and quite a few wounded men. He is eager to secure his escape.” Lafayette mounted his horse, recaptured by the dragoons, and motioned to an aide.
“What’d you want me for, Marquis?”
“I want you to take my dispatches to General Washington as quickly as you can.”
George nodded, already worried about his company in his absence.
“It is essential that General Washington should understand the situation as quickly as possible, George. You know that the Comte de Grasse and his fleet are on their way?”
“I know they are coming this summer, yes.”
“They may come here. Perhaps they will go to New York or to Rhode Island, but they may come here. And George, if they do, you must tell the general that we will have Cornwallis like a rat in the trap.”
Washington and Caesar Page 62
