Hamilton's Battalion

by Courtney Milan

  Rachel had avoided him for the better part of two days, and all she had accomplished was to make herself happier to see him.

  He carried a bundle in his arms, visibly apologizing to everyone he jabbed in the shins with his shackles. Since the trench was crowded, that was a lot of people. A wave of grumbles, insults, and rude gestures followed them as they got closer. Rachel remembered when that would have flustered Sarah; after a few years with the army, she rolled her eyes and marched determinedly onward. Rachel felt a surge of pride in all of them, how they had grown up and grown strong.

  If Mrs. Mendelson asked to give her dress to the maid now, Rachel would have choice words for the woman.

  Dinner was an approximation of beef stew: a few pieces of potato, onion, and the tough remains of yesterday’s beef floating in greasy water. Rachel would be hungry again in an hour, but for now the food was hot and Nathan let her use some of his salt.

  There was also water for their canteens, a few slices of fresh bread, and new packets of candied nuts, carried by Nathan. The sun hadn’t set, yet he had helped carry fresh-cooked food. It was stupid, and maybe unkind, to feel such hope over that. “It’s Saturday,” she said, and then wished she’d let it pass without comment.

  He shrugged, looking a little sad. “I don’t know what higher purpose would be served by not seeing you.”

  “Keeping civilians out of the trenches.” She felt sad herself. In not rushing him back to camp, she was breaking a rule whose rationale was far more self-evident. But she realized with a shock that their motives were the same: they wanted to see each other. “You should go back. It isn’t safe.”

  “They’re barely firing on this position,” he pointed out, although he flinched and sucked in a breath at every crack of the guns.

  Sarah lingered too, sitting in Tench’s lap. It was hard for Rachel, so hard, not to at least press her shoulder against Nathan’s, or knock his knee with hers as they sat side by side. Her desire for closeness felt more dangerous than the British cannon. She should make him go.

  But he stayed, fidgeting and flinching and talking the ears off a couple of her privates as it grew dark. Every half hour or so, she told him to go, and didn’t argue when he shrugged and said, “A little longer.”

  Around ten o’clock the engineers began building a battery just ahead of their position, aimed at the British redoubts. The infantrymen were instructed to make noise all along the line, to hide the construction from the British. Flanagan and Scipio were in the work party with some of their men, but she could hear Zvi singing and Tench leading a group in prayer.

  Since enlisting, Rachel had tried never to talk too much or too loudly, afraid that in an unguarded moment her voice would give her away. She walked grimly up and down the line, inquiring after each man’s health and listening to the answer—or shaking him awake if there wasn’t one—and sharing her candied nuts with anyone who seemed colder or more scared than his fellows. She barely felt a pang of regret as she parted with them; just now she wanted to feel like a good NCO more than she wanted the nuts.

  No deaths yet, thank God. Rachel sat with the few men who were shot, or struck with shell fragments, until someone came to take them to the hospital. For all the new skills she’d learned in the army, she’d enlisted already knowing how to sit cheerfully by a sickbed.

  She still hated it. Nathan’s voice helped, even telling an unpleasant ghost story. Soon half the men had joined in with ghost stories of their own. Elijah Sutton—ordinarily a cheerfully levelheaded fellow—spun the most hair-raising tale Rachel had ever heard, beginning, “My true love, Kate, had this from a woman who witnessed it, and Kate says her hair was white as snow, though she was a young thing….” The men hung on his every word, eyes wide.

  “That’ll keep them awake,” Nathan whispered to her as she passed.

  He’d been trying to help? That fountain of affection overflowed again inside her. In truth, having the men jumping at shadows was less than ideal—but it was better than asleep, and they were all so tired. She wanted to curl up on the ground and put her head in Nathan’s lap, herself.

  “You should go,” she told him firmly. His leg had not stopped vibrating for the last hour.

  “I’m not frightened,” he said, not particularly trying to make it convincing. “I’m clanking to aid the Patriot cause.”

  She hid a smile. “You’re not a soldier. You don’t have to be here.” She knew he’d go if she insisted. If something happened to him, it was on her head.

  “It’s less frightening here than back there.” He laughed nervously. “I mean. Sorry. I’m trying to give you room to breathe. Do you want me to go?”

  He had asked her, point blank. “Yes” would be a lie. What would he think it meant if she said no? What would it mean? He had just told her he would be more afraid in safety than in the trenches, because there he wouldn’t know how she fared.

  We could build a new house after the war, he’d said. If we wanted. What did she want? She hesitated, frozen.

  “A shell!” the sentry called. “A shell!”

  She whipped around, searching the sky for the idly skipping arc of light that meant a shell—just slow enough they were worth trying to dodge, unlike cannonballs.

  It landed at her feet, throwing off sparks.

  “On the banquette,” she shouted. “Everyone on the banquette!” Men scrambled onto the raised walkway along the back of the trench, hurling themselves flat atop the muskets they’d been storing there.

  Nathan.

  He was curled into a ball on the ground, arms protecting his head. “I’ll be fine,” he lied repeatedly to no one in particular.

  “I’m going to die, and it will be your fault,” she shouted. “Get the hell up!” She dragged him to his feet and realized the problem: he couldn’t climb in the shackles. But he got his arms on the banquette and heaved, and she was able to tip his legs gracelessly up.

  He was a civilian. She should have made him go. She climbed on top of him and pressed them both into the banquette. He shifted as if to push her off, which would land her right back down in the trench with the shell if he managed it. “Stay still, you piece of shit!” she yelled in his ear. He wriggled an arm free anyway, and used his hat to shield the back of her neck.

  The shell didn’t explode. They lay crushed together, her legs tangled with his, her chest against his chest, her hands splayed over the sides of his face. He was trembling, whispering—she strained and made out the words. The Shema, greatest prayer of all, small and frequent and supposed to be said one last time at the hour of death. Hear O Israel, Adonoy is our God, Adonoy is one.

  She fought the overwhelming urge to kiss his temple. “We’ll be fine,” she whispered. He nodded, his nose brushing her cheek.

  The shell exploded.

  Chapter Seven

  Rachel wasn’t moving.

  Rachel wasn’t moving. In a panic, Nathan put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her up so he could see her face, but it was too dark to make out anything. Her eyes were open, but people died with open eyes, they—

  She blinked. “Are you hit?”

  Air rushed into his lungs, freezing and welcome. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Are you?”

  She shrugged, sitting up and patting her head and legs. “I don’t think so.”

  He should sit up and check himself for shell fragments. He was probably unhurt, even if he’d heard that wounded men often couldn’t feel it. The body spared them that, somehow. Boruch atoh Adonoy, Eloheinu melech ho’olam, asher yotzar es ho’odom b’chochmo…Blessed are You who in wisdom fashioned the human body…

  Making a frustrated sound, Rachel ran her hands over his body, quickly and carefully. Nathan let her. He deserved something nice after all that terror. “You’re whole,” she said brusquely. “Go back to camp. Now.”

  Only now she’d moved away did he realize how close they’d been. He could feel the imprint of her body on his, the stiffness of her pomaded hair against his
cheek.

  He wished there was something he could leave behind with her, some charm against misfortune. His amulet had shared a pocket with his nutmeg grater, and been stolen in its company. He wished now he’d made more of a fuss.

  Nathan had always wanted so badly to protect her, to take care of her. He’d never managed it.

  “When my mother was dying,” she said. “You helped. I should have said so before. Thanks.”

  He…had? He breathed in, full of emotion—

  “Brearley’s company, form here!” someone called out.

  “That’s me.” She turned away. “Prescott, he’s talking to you too! Carvalho, are you hurt? Then why are you holding your arm like that?” She strode off.

  In the sudden merging of past and present—the new bride caring for her sick mother and the corporal commanding her men—Nathan saw how impossible it had been for her to handle Mrs. Mendelson the way he’d asked her to. Rachel was built to face fear and injustice head-on. To deal as directly as she could, and to stand and fight.

  He’d never fully understood that until now, any more than she’d understood that Nathan’s nodding agreeably when his mother talked didn’t mean he was under her thumb. It was just easier to pretend to go along, and then do as he liked.

  To name an obvious example, he’d married Rachel.

  He glanced at the battery under construction. The Allied guns were smashing Yorktown to splinters, but Cornwallis refused to surrender, hoping for help from Clinton in New York. The Allied armies wouldn’t wait forever. If Cornwallis dawdled long enough, Rachel and her comrades would charge his earthwork walls and bristling wooden spikes.

  She had her way of fighting. He had his.

  Rachel skidded to a stop in front of him and crossed her arms. “Why are you still here?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “Carvalho, kindly take your musket and escort Mr. Mendelson to the guardhouse before going to the hospital to have that splinter pulled. Report back here when you’re patched up.”

  “Yes, Corporal.” A scrawny Jewish adolescent tried to salute with his injured arm and stopped with a frightened whimper.

  Her voice softened. “Do you remember the password?”

  The boy nodded.

  She put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s just a scratch, Isaac. Keep it clean and you have nothing to worry about.”

  As they walked off, Nathan wished the awkwardness of shackles didn’t prevent him from slinging a friendly arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Do you know where Colonel Hamilton is, Mr. Carvalho?”

  Carvalho frowned suspiciously. “Um. Why?”

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “Look, sir, I may be young, and”—the poor kid gulped—“maybe I seemed a little scared just now because I’m bleeding, but you won’t make me compromise the safety of my commanding officer by sharing information with a known spy.”

  Nathan pressed his lips together very tightly and shoved his hands in his pockets to keep them from vibrating with frustration. “I gave my parole,” he tried. “I swore on the Bible. The front half, anyway. The part that’s ours.”

  Silence.

  “If you don’t want to tell me where he is, can you take me to him?”

  “What if you assassinate him?”

  Nathan rubbed at his eyes. “Search me for weapons, then! Tie my hands together. Whatever you need to do. Believe me, it’s of the utmost importance I speak with him. I know something about Cornwallis’s troops.” Did the lie sound plausible? Did it matter?

  The boy pressed the tip of his finger to the shell splinter in his arm. People did the strangest things when they were nervous. “Ow. And why do you want to tell him now if you didn’t before?”

  “Because Corporal Jacobs is my friend and I want him to be safe.”

  That sounded plausible, apparently. Carvalho took a deep breath and capitulated. “I like Corporal Jacobs too,” he confided as he led them through the trench.

  “That’s because you have good taste,” Nathan said. “Who do you dislike?”

  “I’m not sure I should tell you.”

  “Fair enough. Just chitchatting.”

  After his meeting with Hamilton, Nathan said his evening prayers and made himself sleep. He needed to have his wits about him tomorrow—or maybe the day after. Who knew? But best be prepared. He lay down on his pile of straw, shut his eyes, breathed in and out, and repeated part of the prayer to himself over and over, the part that began, Hashkiveinu.

  He didn’t think about anything but the Hebrew words. He didn’t even think about who he wasn’t thinking about. Spread over us the shelter of Your peace…

  He slept.

  “But you have to say what happened at the meeting,” Rachel interrupted. “Mrs. Hamilton will want to know.”

  “It was more or less what you’d expect,” Nathan said. “At least, I’m sure it was.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “I don’t really remember anything Hamilton did or said,” he admitted. “I was extremely nervous. Just mention his coolness under fire. I remember that it annoyed me at the time.”

  October 14

  Nathan spent the morning staring at his watch, waiting either to be summoned to Washington’s presence, or for it to be noon and for Rachel to return from the trenches. To pass the time, he also kept track of how many times he was threatened with violence for absentmindedly kicking the wall between his room and the guards’.

  He tried to finish Pilgrim’s Progress, but could only absorb the meaning of a sentence or two at a time, so he flipped to the end to see how it turned out. He discovered a second part, written later, in which Christian’s wife followed him to Heaven. Nathan could only assume the author had been deluged by angry letters on the poor woman’s behalf. That gave him hope; even Gentiles were not entirely heartless.

  Please, HaShem, let all this be worth it, he prayed. Let America lie down in peace and awaken to life. Let Rachel awaken to life. I don’t suppose I have anything You need, but if I do, it’s Yours—well, everything I have is Yours anyway, but…

  Noon came and went. Nathan tried to count how much time for the soldiers to form up, how much to fuss about with drums and flags and saluting the new troops, how much to march from the trenches, how much for Rachel to escort her men back to their tents… Maybe she would be too tired to visit and he should try to bribe one of the sentries into sending a messenger.

  The door opened.

  It was only one of the sentries, who tossed a scrap of paper at him and shut the door again.

  Nathan dove for the paper, tripped, and fell on his face. He felt about on the floor in darkness, seized the paper, and, still kneeling, stretched it towards the light. I’m well. I’ll be there soon. Ezra.

  That had been kind of her, to remember that he worried.

  He had ascribed to her any number of wonderful qualities, but he had never particularly thought of her as kind. He’d even had a sneaking admiration for her hard-heartedness, had fancied himself the rose twining round her briar, like in the song. But now he thought it over, the song was nonsense: roses had thorns and briars flowered. He had deluded himself that kindness came in one guise, and that was a sweet voice and never saying anything that might wound his own delicate feelings.

  She had hurt him, it was true. But she hadn’t done it out of cruelty or lack of feeling. She’d pricked his fingers because he’d been poking at her.

  The door opened again. This time it was Rachel. The door shut behind her, and the sentries locked her in with him. He didn’t know when he’d started smiling. It hurt where he’d scraped his chin on the floor. “I was just thinking about you.”

  There was a pause. “I don’t—” she started. “I’m not—I should sleep—” She took two abrupt strides forward, fell to her knees, and kissed him, their hats knocking together and tumbling to the floor.

  Five years went up in smoke. His whole life went up in smoke, and it was pretty while it burned. His hands flew to her wai
st and were confused by her uniform, layers of threadbare wool so different from anything they’d felt on her body before. He felt underneath her coat, underneath her waistcoat, there was her shirt and it might almost have been her nightdress but her body—was her body different or did he just not remember?

  It must be different; she had marched a thousand miles since he touched her last. Her lips were chapped and her hair smelled like lemon, cloves, and slightly rancid fat. Lard, he thought. That was disgusting, pig fat in her beautiful hair, he couldn’t think about it.

  But it was easy not to think about it, it didn’t matter, nothing mattered because she was climbing into his lap and her lips were on his, her breath warm in the autumn chill. She kissed him with silent desperation. Was he allowed to pull her shirt out of her breeches and put his hands on her skin? Better to wait, better not to do anything that might make her stop.

  She pressed her forehead into his shoulder. “Oh damn, this is ill-advised, I’m so tired I can’t think straight.” She turned her face into his neck and kissed it. The shock of it went all through him. “Shut up,” she murmured. “Don’t make a sound. I’m begging you.”

  He dug his teeth into his lower lip and kept them there, a bright sharp reminder as she clumsily unbuttoned first his breeches, then hers, and pushed him eagerly inside her.

  “Not a so-o-ound,” she whispered. He shook his head. She was rubbing at herself, she moved against him with tiny silent jerks of her hips. She kissed him as if she was driven to it, and he had to stop biting his lip to kiss her back.

  Not a sound, he chanted silently to himself. Not a sound. Oh, but it was hard, he had missed her, she was hot and wet and wanted him. She was a magnet and every atom in his body was an iron filing turning towards her, straining painfully to get closer, screaming in pleasure and relief at finally having somewhere to point.

  But he couldn’t come inside her. He was proud of himself for remembering that. “I, um, pregnant,” he got out under his breath.

  Rachel froze. Once, they had made sure he always, always came inside her, because they’d wanted a baby and it was a mitzvah not to waste seed. Never mind, he almost said.