Brave Enemies - A Novel Of The American Revolution

by Robert Morgan

  When I came out of the cedars I was at the edge of a clearing. It was a field way off in the woods. There were campfires around the edge of the field, and little clusters of men all across the field. I thought at first it was some kind of ball game. They had gathered to play football or some other sport.

  But then I saw some of the men carried rifles, and they marched in step, or were trying to march in step. And with every group there was a man hollering orders at them. Some men had uniforms or pieces of uniforms. Some had gun belts and others wore buckskin or hunting shirts, or plain carpenter’s jumpers. Some had muskets or rifles, and some had pistols in their belts. The men barking at them sounded angry.

  I backed into the cedars to sit and think. This was a militia on a muster ground. I should slip away into the woods and look elsewhere for something to eat. It was dangerous to have anything to do with soldiers. I had smelled bacon from their campfires, but I couldn’t walk out into the field and ask for something to eat.

  I stood up and started walking away, back toward the branch. But I knew there was nothing in that direction. I had come that way. Maybe I should slip around to the other side of the camp. There were wagons and horses there in the trees. Maybe I could steal something to eat.

  I worked my way through briars and brush and cedar thickets to the other side of the camp. There was a wagon backed between two pine trees there, but it had a canvas over the top and I couldn’t see inside. I figured if I could just crawl to the back of the wagon and look in maybe I would find a pone of bread or a piece of fatback. Holding the ax and stooping low as I could I threaded my way through the brush.

  “Throw down that ax!” somebody yelled at me. I turned to see a man holding a rifle pointed at my head. He wore a blue coat with stripes sewn on the sleeves.

  “I’m not doing anything,” I said.

  “Not yet you ain’t,” he said. He prodded me with the gun barrel and I dropped the ax. “Are you a spy?” he said.

  “I’m not a spy,” I said. I knew that spies got shot or hanged.

  “Then you are a thief,” the man said. “We’ll see what the captain says.” He pushed me with the gun and made me walk in front of him. I saw there were tents in the woods on the other side of the field. Horses were tied to trees and to wagons with covered tops. Rifles stacked in circles leaned against each other.

  I figured the man in the blue coat was a sergeant since he had stripes on his sleeves. Only he and a few others in the clearing had uniforms. Most were dressed as rough and dirty as I was.

  The sergeant marched me to a tent at the edge of the field. A man in a cleaner blue uniform sat at a table. A fire blazed near his chair and the top of the table was covered with papers weighted down by a pistol and musket balls.

  “This is Captain Cox of the North Carolina militia,” the sergeant said. He prodded me to stand in front of the table. The man behind the table wore a blue jacket and a black cocked hat. He was a handsome young man.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, and made the movement of what I thought was a salute.

  “And who might you be?” the captain said. He had blue eyes and a scar on his cheek.

  “I’m Joseph Summers,” I said, and swallowed.

  “Say ‘sir’ when you speak to the captain,” the sergeant said, and pushed me with the musket barrel.

  “Sir!” I said, and hiccuped.

  “Where might you be from?” the captain said.

  “From up the river,” I said. “From Pine Knot Branch.”

  “I caught him spying on the camp, sir,” the sergeant said.

  “I wasn’t spying, sir,” I said. My belly felt uneasy, like I’d eaten the wrong thing that morning, though I hadn’t eaten anything.

  The captain sat back in his chair and looked at me. He looked me up and down and studied my face. He looked at the leather rags on my feet and the dirty blanket wrapped around my shoulders. His gaze was so steady he seemed to be looking right through me. “Are you a spy?” the captain said.

  “I’m no spy, sir,” I said.

  Men all around the camp had turned to look at me. I hoped nobody would recognize me, unless they had seen me with John at one of his services.

  “Well, Joseph Summers, if you’re not here to spy on us then you must be here to join us,” Captain Cox said.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. The sergeant prodded me with the tip of the gun. “I’m here to join,” I said. I was afraid if I said anything else they would shoot me or hang me. But once I’d said yes, it came to me that I wanted to join the militia and fight the British. It was the only way I might get revenge for what they had done to John. I hadn’t thought of that before.

  The captain looked at my hands. “Do you have a rifle, boy?” he said.

  “I have an ax,” I said.

  There were snickers all around and the captain started laughing. The sergeant laughed also.

  “Were you thinking of chopping down the redcoats?” Captain Cox said. “Are you a Viking, or do you plan to keep us supplied with firewood?”

  “I want to join the fight, sir,” I said. The words just came out like somebody else was saying them. My life took a turn in that instant with me hardly knowing it. But I saw I didn’t really have a choice. My tongue had thought quicker than my brain. They could do anything they wanted to me. Joining was my only chance to not be hanged or shot for a spy. I had to eat and I had to live. I couldn’t live on my own in the woods in the cold winter. And I had to make them think I was a boy. A boy might have a chance to live in this world gone crazy. A girl unprotected would be shamed and killed, or beaten and cast away.

  I saw I had to join the militia, and I had to stay with the militia until things changed or something different came up. There was no other way to live until a better time. And I hoped I could pay the Tories back for taking my husband, and killing my husband.

  Something in my belly squeezed and turned. The pain was a sick ache that made me feel dizzy. I was going to be sick, and there was no way I could avoid it.

  “Then you must take the oath of allegiance,” the captain said.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “The sergeant will administer the oath,” the captain said. But as he said it something broke loose in my belly. There was a roll and turn in my gut, and brash punched right up into my chest and into my throat. I closed my mouth and put a hand over my lips and just had time to turn aside and stumble to the brush beside the tent.

  What rushed out of my mouth was bitter as the worst sadness. I hadn’t eaten in a long time and my vomit tasted like gall. I threw up again something yellow, and something bitter and sour at once. I threw up so hard I coughed and it felt like I was going to choke or smother, for all the air was pushed from my chest. It felt like my heart had bursted and the bitterness bursted out of my heart. I felt like I was puking up venom and the marrow out of my bones.

  When it stopped I was so weak my knees trembled and my face was covered with sweat. The sergeant led me back to the table.

  “Well, Joseph, I hope you haven’t brought the flux to us,” Captain Cox said.

  “No, sir,” I said. My mouth tasted like the floor of a chicken house.

  The sergeant made me repeat after him the oath of allegiance to the Continental Congress and the North Carolina militia. I swore the oath before God.

  “Give this boy a rifle,” the captain said. The sergeant took a gun from one of the piles and handed it to me. The rifle was heavier than I expected. The long barrel made it heavier than it looked. He showed me how to load it, pouring in powder and pushing in the patch and bullet, and how to cock it.

  I had rarely held a gun before. I was almost afraid to touch the hammer and the long rod that fit in the rings under the barrel. The metal and the wood had been oiled, and the oil rubbed off on my hands. The oil made the gun smell like the inside of a clock, except for the burning smell in the barrel.

  I thought the sergeant was going to make me practice shooting the rifle, but he didn’t. Instead he called tog
ether the men that were standing close to the tent and made us gather in a line. He showed us how to hold our guns at rest at our sides and how to raise them so they tilted over our shoulders. He made us move the rifles from the ground to our shoulders and back, faster and faster.

  When Sergeant Gudger let us take a rest I tried to find a dry spot on the grass. The dirt had been torn up and thawed by all our tramping. I found a tuft of broom sedge and sat down on that. Some of the men lay down on the grass like they were going to sleep, and some walked over to the edge of the brush and relieved themselves. Two men spread a coat on the grass and began playing with a soiled deck of cards.

  I wrapped Mr. Griffin’s coat around my belly and lay back on the broom sedge. I looked right up into the sky to where there were just wisps of cloud. A bird flew by way up high. Men yelled and barked orders around the field, but I just barely heard them. I looked deeper into the sky, and smelled the oil on the gun beside my head. I thought of the panther in the cave. I wondered if I would ever find out what had happened to John. I gripped the stock of the rifle. It seemed impossible that I was in the militia.

  And then I felt the headache. My head felt like the sky had come crashing down and was pressing my ears and my brain. I felt my head was going to burst. I lay still hoping to make it go away. It was the kind of headache nothing but sleep could cure.

  “WAKE UP, YOU SLUG!” Somebody yelled. It was Sergeant Gudger. He prodded my side with his boot. I’d been dreaming about the cabin on Pine Knot Branch. I rolled over and got to my feet.

  “Pick up your rifle,” the sergeant said.

  Gudger told a boy named T. R. and me to run in place. My headache returned and my head throbbed like it was going to break out of my skull. My head felt like it was balanced on my neck and about to fall off. I didn’t know what the sergeant meant, so he showed us how to hold our guns over our heads and step high like we were running, without going anywhere. I held the rifle over my head and starting jogging. My stomach felt loose and rolled around inside me.

  I thought if the captain was watching and not saying anything, then he must approve of what the sergeant was doing. And the other men were watching too. I didn’t have any choice but to do what Gudger said. For about a minute I jogged all right. But then my arms got tired and my belly felt numb. I started sweating badly under my coat. My brain felt like it was swelling and shrinking.

  “Should these girls be wearing dresses?” Gudger said, and everybody laughed again.

  I tried to keep jogging and looking straight ahead.

  “Halt,” Gudger finally said. I was about to drop I was so worn out. The day before I was free in the woods, and now I was straining and being insulted. And I hadn’t had anything to eat. Gudger told us to close ranks and to step forward. T. R. and I stepped back into the line. And then we started trotting across the field so close I kept bumping into T. R.’s elbow. A man behind me stepped on my heel and muttered, “Damn shitepoke.”

  “Feet high,” Gudger hollered. “One two three four,” he yelled. He walked at the end of the line.

  “About face,” Gudger shouted. I took another step and whirled around. Somehow I was out in front of the line.

  It was past the middle of the morning when it occurred to me who Sergeant Gudger was. I had seen him in church a long time ago. He was a big red-faced boy a lot older than me. I hoped he didn’t recognize me. I had seen him play mumblety-peg and hide-and-seek with the older Sunday school class, and here he was acting like a general in his blue coat with the rough stripes sewn on the sleeves.

  I tried to recall what I’d heard about Harold Gudger. He had been in trouble with the law. He had hit a constable, or he had been caught smuggling untaxed goods. I couldn’t remember the details, but I knew he had been in trouble of some sort. And here he was giving orders like he was the sheriff.

  Captain Cox walked out in front of us. All the groups stopped drilling and gathered to our side of the field.

  “We are going to drill hard today,” the captain shouted. “And we are going to drill hard tomorrow. Tarleton and his legion are on their way here from Fort Ninety Six. General Morgan has arrived in the area and is camped somewhere between the Pacolet and the Broad. He is the only thing between us and Tarleton’s sabers. When we are ready we’ll march out and join Major McDowell and the rest of the North Carolina militia. And then we will join General Morgan and the Continental regulars.”

  The captain was not much older than John, but I figured he’d organized the volunteers himself. I reckon when somebody becomes a captain or a major they have to talk like one. I’d noticed that people mostly do what their station calls for.

  LATER THAT DAY a horse and wagon pulled to the edge of the clearing. As we marched past I saw the driver was a slave getting baskets and a black washpot out of the bed. We marched around the field again and when we came back next a fire had been lit under the pot, and the next time we came around the pot was steaming and I could smell coffee boiling. I looked at Gudger, but he didn’t give us any sign to stop.

  The line seemed to speed up, as if we could get around the field faster we might get to stop sooner. I felt like hurrying too but knew it was just wasted effort.

  Next time we came around the sergeant almost let us go past. But when we got several steps beyond him Gudger hollered out, “Halt. Fall out.”

  The washpot was boiling full of coffee. I’d never smelled anything better. The scent was rich as roasted nuts and secret herbs and powders. I had forgotten about my belly in all the marching. It felt better and it was growling. And the headache was gone, though my brain was a little sore where the pain had been.

  The baskets by the wagon were full of hard rolls. Some of the men had cups to dip the coffee out with, and some used their canteens. All I had was a pewter bowl the sergeant handed me. I dipped up coffee in that.

  We squatted there in the weeds at the field’s edge. I don’t know which was better, the sweetness of the rest after all the marching or the sweetness of the stale rolls dipped in coffee. The bread was hard, but the hot coffee melted it. The coffee went out through my belly and into my legs and arms where I had dropped to my knees in the stubble.

  JOHN TRETHMAN

  I DIDN’T KNOW IF I would ever see Josie again, and I had no way of sending her a letter, no way of knowing where she was or if she was still alive. But my heart and my faith told me she was.

  I thought of writing to her lines that in the event of my death might reach her. Perhaps one of my flock might find her and give her my words. But I had no pen and paper for such a message.

  When I left Josie tied to the tree in front of the burning cabin, I thought my heart would stop, for everything I cared for most was there in the burning forest. I hated that we had quarreled just before we were separated, and I knew it was my fault. I looked into the gulf of emptiness that surrounds us on every side where there is no faith or love. I saw the abyss open around me and above me.

  Lord, what is your will? I prayed as they led my horse into the wilderness behind the lanterns and mounted redcoats. And I thought in my heart the Lord was letting the devil try me, as he tried Job, in the spirit of cruelty. And I vowed to myself I would survive, like Job, and return from the wilderness to my congregations and my wife. In the cold Christmas darkness I swore and prayed, and I shuddered.

  We stopped at a camp before daylight, and they brought me bound to an officer in a tent. It was not Tarleton but Lieutenant Withnail, the tall man with a saber scar on his cheek I had met before.

  “So we meet again,” the lieutenant said.

  “Not by choice,” I answered.

  “You have aught to tell us, parson,” he said. “You know perfectly well what I mean.”

  “I am a minister and psalmodist,” I said.

  “You help recruit militias west of the Catawba,” he said.

  “I do no such thing,” I said.

  He slapped me hard across the face and my nose began to bleed. I had nothing to wipe the blood wit
h but my hands.

  I will not describe the long hours of my interrogation. He threatened me with hanging and with shooting. He threatened to cut off my fingers one by one, and to cut out my tongue. He had two soldiers hold me and a third whip me with a stick.

  “I am just a humble parson,” I said.

  The lieutenant was so angry his face streamed sweat and he paced back and forth in the tent. “I will find the seed of this rebellion and I will cut it out,” he said.

  But in the end he found I had nothing of use to tell him. He found I was nothing but a simple preacher and psalmodist, useless to him. I hoped he would release me to return to Josie.

  “Can you read Latin?” the lieutenant said. He handed me a little book of Ovid and I read and translated a few lines of the Amores.

  “Because you have right of clergy I will not hang you,” Lieutenant Withnail said.

  “Then I am free to go?” I said.

  “You are not!” the lieutenant shouted. “Because you are clergy I will not hang you. But I will draft you into the king’s service.”

  “I am not a soldier,” I said. “I will not kill.”

  “You will do your duty as a subject of the Crown,” Lieutenant With-nail snapped. He said that Colonel Tarleton needed a chaplain. The regiment had no clergyman to perform funerals or to pray before battles. The men had no spiritual counselor or confessor. I protested that I was not a priest of the Church of England, but he brushed my protest aside.

  “I know what you are,” the lieutenant said. “In this godforsaken land we must make do with what we have, even Methodists, dissenters, Baptists, though I draw the line at Roman Catholics.”

  In short, I was impressed to serve as chaplain for the Crown’s regiment. And to tell the truth, I wasn’t sure any longer where my duty lay. For though unwilling to join the Tory cause, still I had a duty to serve these men as minister and song leader, counselor and comforter. An ordained minister cannot refuse to lead in prayer or raise a song for men who need hope and guidance, men in danger and perhaps on the brink of despair or death.