“A minute of your time, Colonel?”
The question took him unawares from the side of the covered porch. Someone had been waiting for his exit. Hal took one look at the speaker and knew it was going to be more than a minute. The man was not a soldier, that was clear from the first glance. He was a portly man in a dark suit that was much marked by dirt, grass and other, unidentifiable, stains. The linen shirt under the coat might have been white at one time. He fanned himself with a broad-brimmed leather hat, but neither the cool air nor the breeze the hat stirred did anything to stem the flow of sweat that began as droplets on his bald pate, condensed to rivulets on his forehead and dripped from his eyebrows and trim goatee. Judging from the sweat and the wheeze that accompanied his question, he must have run some distance to reach the house. It made Hal sweat just to look at him.
“You can have the minute,” Hal said.
“Thank you, Colonel. I’m Hiram Skene, correspondent for the Nieuw Amsterdam Herald. I’d like to accompany you on your journey to Fort Donaldson. I have a pass signed by General Verplanck.” He pulled a sweat-stained sheet of paper from a coat pocket and waved it in front of Hal’s face.
Hal stared at the man. A newspaper reporter? That was something he had never considered. What was he supposed to do? Skene helped him with that by not waiting for an answer.
“Please consider, Colonel. You are bound east for the coast while the Lobster army descends south along the Post Road. Logic demands that you shall meet, and a correspondent who is with you shall have the story first. My editor pays me to be first. He doesn’t care for best—although I am that—but only first. So, I will be first, and the less I have to, shall we say, fill in, the more you may like it. Fact is, I can write you up to Brigadier, if you like. It’s good for the family and friends.”
Boggs and van den Heyden were going to be bad enough, but adding this man to the mix would make Hal’s life miserable. However, the only thing worse than having Skene along would be leaving him behind to make up what he couldn’t see. “You can come,” Hal said.
He looked away from Skene and saw Bel standing, arms folded across her chest, under the oak tree where they had sat waiting for Verplanck’s decision earlier that day. He hustled down the porch stairs without acknowledging Skene’s “Thank you.”
“I thought you were never going to finish in there,” Bel said as he came up to the tree.
In Hal’s opinion, the only way he could have been done more quickly at the house would have been not to go in at all. “Well, we did what we set out to do. Verplanck is set to block the English. Will you come with me to Fort Donaldson?”
“No.”
“No?” His mouth stayed open. That was not the answer he had expected.
“There is no place for me with your regiment,” she said. “You know that, Hal.”
Maybe he did. “Then where are you going?” he asked. “Back to Nieuw Amsterdam?”
“Not that either.” Bel sighed. “Look, Hal, this army needs eyes, scouts. Verplanck’s cavalry, they were Provi loyalists. They deserted weeks ago, went to the Nassau army, it seems. Maybe they learned Verplanck was going to join our rebellion, maybe they heard Harmsworth wanted to remove him, I don’t know. Verplanck sent to Montreal, where the rightful governor is, and the French did send cavalry. The valiant Fifth French Horse.” She snorted. “All talk about the charge and glory—they call it la gloire—and pretty uniforms in dark blue. Useless. They should have cut off the Provis’ retreat after Willenstadt Road, but they were late because that was not the honor of the first charge. Scouting work is beneath them, but believe me, the army will need it. There are bands of woodsrangers in this area. I’ll find them; they can do this.”
Hal remembered how the other woodsrangers had acted around Bel. “Do you think they will follow you?” he asked
“No. But if they think it’s their own idea, they will do it.” Bel tried to sound enthusiastic, but the slump in her shoulders belied her tone.
“Well, good . . .” Hal began, but Bel had spun on her heel and strode off before he could get the word “luck” out of his mouth.
• • •
Boggs and van den Heyden might have hated the sight of each other, but each had his own battalion in a high state of readiness. In the short time Hal had spent with Skene and then Bel, the new regiment had begun forming in columns for departure. Somehow, new battle flags had been sewn. Of course, they were not completely new. A Union Jack that served the English troops had been cut, diagonally, in half and stitched to half of an orange, white and blue Prinzenvlag from the Dutch. On the composite flag, a seamstress had sewn “1st Riflemen” in white thread.
“Half ranjy-blanjy and half jack. A true bastard flag for a bastard regiment,” was all Boggs said when two of the banners were presented. What van den Heyden said was muttered in Dutch, but Hal doubted it was any more complimentary. One banner went to each battalion, to be carried along with the rest of the gear. With this less than auspicious start, the march east got underway.
The regiment made a daunting sight, or so Hal thought, a thousand grim-faced men in butternut uniforms showing the stains of the recent battle, rifles at shoulder arms, with bayonets a quarter the length of the rifle sheathed at their belts. Officers wore orange coats similar to Hal’s. The men had their bedrolls on their backs or slung from shoulder to hip, but both Boggs and van den Heyden had made them leave much of their gear behind in order to speed the march. How much speed they would gain was hard to say because each man was carrying sixty extra rounds of ammunition. In the warmth of the sun, sweat stood out on their faces almost as soon as the march started, but there was no sign that any of them noticed it. A hot, heavy uniform was an inconvenience they knew well.
The battalions marched in parallel columns, as it was inconceivable that one should go in front of the other. Boggs had his men on the left, while van den Heyden’s were on the right. They moved out in silence at first, the two battalions as far from each other as possible while still making up one regiment. Then, in the English battalion, two men produced flutes, another a small drum. A jaunty marching tune rose to accompany the column. No sooner had they begun, however, than three men in the Dutch battalion pulled bongo drums and a conga drum from their packs. Their beat, and the chant that went with it, owed more to the Caribbean than Europe, in keeping with a quarter of the Dutchmen being black.
The two majors rode at the head of their troops, with the same spacing between themselves as their columns, and exchanged not a word. They kept their eyes straight ahead and paid no attention to the cacophony created by the clashing music styles. In desperation, Hal placed himself in the middle, exactly between Boggs and van den Heyden. He tried to ask questions about the troops and the equipment—anything to start the two of them talking—but the only consequence was that van den Heyden dropped to the rear of his column, leaving Hal with Boggs at the front.
From Verplanck’s camp, they marched east to the Hudson. Boggs, at least, did not seem to mind talking to Hal. “Twenty miles or so a day,” he said when Hal asked how fast they would move. “Maybe twenty-five. We’ll get to Fort Donaldson in under a week, assuming the weather holds.”
“Will that be fast enough? We don’t know where the Massachusetts army is right now or how far they have to march. I’d hate to do all this and be too late in the end.”
Boggs kept his eyes on the road ahead as he spoke. “I wouldn’t want to be late either, but there is only so much you can do. I can’t push the men any faster than this, not over this distance and not if I want them ready to fight when we arrive. And we had better have them ready to fight, because if we are not late, we will probably be there with little time to spare.”
“And van den Heyden?” Hal asked, glancing toward the rear of the column. “Does he think we’ll be too late?”
“I wouldn’t know what he thinks and I would be the wrong person to ask about it. The ranjy-blanjys will fight when the time comes, and that’s all I care to think ab
out.”
That was the last time Hal asked either one about the other. As long as he stayed away from the subject of their Dutch comrades in arms, Boggs was a treasure trove of information on military matters. He was happy to discourse on everything from how to move the men from a marching column to a line of battle to how much salt pork should be allotted per man when the battalion was on the march. It made the hours in the saddle pass almost unnoticed. It also kept van den Heyden anchored in the rear.
They made camp for the night within sight of the Hudson so that they could begin the crossing first thing in the morning. Boggs was willing to share the space by his campfire with Hal, but Hal saw quickly that if he sat with Boggs, van den Heyden would not sit anywhere near. The Dutchman already looked sour enough over Hal spending the march with Boggs. Hal figured that if he seemed to favor the company of one over the other, it would create even more problems than he already had.
He excused himself from Boggs, then, and tried sitting with van den Heyden. The Dutchman showed little inclination to talk, however, so after a short stay, Hal moved off by himself. He had just made himself comfortable when Skene lowered himself to the ground next to Hal with a loud grunt.
“Not too bad a day, eh, Colonel?” said the newspaperman.
“I suspect they will get longer and harder,” Hal replied.
“No doubt, no doubt. But you are confident of the outcome, are you not?”
“And if I am,” Hal retorted, “does that make me an overconfident fool, while if I’m not does that make me too timid to lead the regiment?”
“Could be either, I suppose. It all depends on how it turns out,” Skene said blandly.
“And how do you think it will turn out?” Hal asked.
Skene chuckled. “I always prefer to write about victories.”
“But anything will do as long as you’re first.”
“You have that right.” There was another chuckle.
Hal stared into the fire and the thought struck him that Skene might be useful in a way. “You tell me something for a change,” he said to Skene. “Why do the English call the Dutch ranjy-blanjys?”
Skene stared at him. “You must have grown up in the middle of nowhere past the Delaware,” he said. “The Prinzenvlag is orange, white and blue, oranje, blanje, bleu in Dutch. Ranjy-blanjys. It’s not a term of endearment.”
Hal sighed. He’d said the wrong thing again. “It seems that Major Boggs and Major van den Heyden do not care for each other.”
“Is the colonel always given to such understatement? Do you know the joke about the English settler walking through the woods and coming upon a white man and a filthy savage drowning in a pool?”
“No.”
“Who does the Englishman save?”
“Tell me.”
“The savage, of course. The white might be a Dutchman.”
Skene laughed, but Hal just shook his head. “That’s pretty sad.”
“Maybe so, but that’s just where it starts. You have an English battalion and a Dutch battalion in this regiment. That’s not good. Then you have Boggs and van den Heyden. Did you know that when the rifles were to be distributed to the troops there was a furor over who would actually have them first? It was so bad that they actually put the crates out in the field, lined up the troops and sent each sergeant-major out to pick up the first rifle for each battalion simultaneously.”
“That’s absurd.”
“I was there. As it happened, a buckle came loose on the Dutch sergeant’s uniform while they were walking out. He stopped to fix it, but the English sergeant didn’t wait. He went to the crate and took out a rifle, which meant the English got the rifles first. There was nearly a riot, but Blackburn, may he rest in peace, stopped it. Then van den Heyden challenged Boggs to a duel. Verplanck rode up just as they were about to start and said that if they fought, he would shoot the winner himself.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe it,” Skene said. “Why do you think Verplanck handed you a commission and gave you the regiment for the march?”
“He told me about the problems of putting an English and a Dutch unit in the same regiment,” Hal said. “He said that none of his officers would be acceptable.”
Skene laughed. “That’s true enough as far as it goes, but the whole truth is that none of Verplanck’s officers would take this command. Not willingly. If it had been a direct order, well, we might have had resignations or courts-martial. So, it had to be you.” He rose and tipped his hat. “Good night to you, Colonel.”
• • •
The ferries were there in the morning to carry them to the east bank of the Hudson. That alone took the whole morning, as the ferries shuttled back and forth across the river to get the entire regiment across. From the landing area on the eastern side a road ran south, roughly along the line of the river. The land was mostly wooded, with clusters of houses in scattered clearings. It reminded Hal of the journey to Nieuwmarkt and it was an effort to avoid looking nervously into the trees, no matter how much he told himself the thought was ridiculous. Even if there was a band of ambush-minded woodsrangers about, they would have to be insane to tackle a regiment bound for war. He watched Boggs, instead. The short major slouched in his saddle, eyes on the horizon, looking as though he might fall asleep at any moment.
After the second day their surroundings changed. The trees were now in clumps; most of the land was farmed. They passed through two towns of fair size, their appearance more ominous than the darkest woods. The houses were shut tight, shutters drawn. Not a soul was about—whether hiding or fled, Hal never knew. It was telling evidence that word of war and revolution had reached the area.
Eventually, the road they were following intersected the Post Road that ran between Nieuw Amsterdam and Boston. There they turned east. The Post Road was empty too—normally, it would have been filled with farmers’ wagons going from town to town and big coaches carrying passengers up and down the coast.
The Post Road stayed empty until they were about a day out of Fort Donaldson, when the sight of a group of men walking down the road in their direction brought the columns to a halt. Boggs sat ramrod straight in his saddle. As they came nearer, Hal could see that the men wore the orange uniforms of Nieuw Netherlands, dirty and torn. There were, perhaps, thirty in all. Few of them carried weapons. They were neither in column nor line. Rather, they looked like a collection of individuals who happened to be walking in the same direction.
“This is certainly not the welcoming committee.” The voice was van den Heyden’s. He had ridden to the front while Boggs and Hal were focused on the group of men.
“Not at all,” said Boggs. He did not turn to look at van den Heyden. “I think we are too late.”
The oncoming men took no notice of Hal’s regiment beyond spreading out beyond the road in order to avoid it. They showed no intention of stopping.
Boggs rode out ahead of the column. “Halt!” he shouted and, when that had no effect, “Halt, or the regiment will halt you, willing or not.”
The threat worked. The men in the lead stopped several yards from where Boggs’ horse stood. The others clustered behind them. Their eyes were focused on the horizon, not on the major on his horse.
Boggs scanned the collection in front of him and spotted one in an officer’s uniform. “Lieutenant!” he called out. “You will report now!”
The snap in Boggs’ voice was enough to clear the dazed expression from the lieutenant’s face. He looked at Boggs as though seeing him for the first time.
“Lieutenant Worthy, sir.” His salute was little more than a wave of his right hand toward his face.
“What happened, Lieutenant?” Boggs asked.
Worthy straightened up. “It was at least two divisions, sir. Bay Colony Regulars. We held the fort as long as we could, but there were too many men, too much artillery. We didn’t surrender the fort, sir; we fought ’til we couldn’t hold any more. I don’t think many others got away.
” He looked like he might cry.
“When did the fort fall?”
“Yesterday, sir. The Lobsters, they’ll be coming down this road for sure. If all you have is this regiment, you won’t hold them either.”
“Possibly not.” Boggs’ voice was soft. “The wagons will have enough extra rifles to arm your men. See that they take them. There is an English battalion here for you. Whatever we do, we can use some extra help.”
“And that will be the question,” van den Heyden said as the men from the fort moved to the rear of the columns. “What are we going to do?”
“We have to hold them, somehow, until Verplanck gets here,” Hal said. “Otherwise, they’ll march straight to Nieuw Amsterdam.”
“That’s why we were headed to the fort,” van den Heyden replied, “and we weren’t sure we could hold that with this regiment plus the troops there, who have now been killed, scattered or captured. Two divisions! That’s equal to Verplanck’s strength before Willenstadt.”
“Well, we don’t really have much choice,” Hal said. He was a little surprised he could talk that way, but figured that was because no enemy was actually nearby. As long as it was abstract, there was no problem. “There was a place we passed a day ago.” He formed a picture of it in his mind. “The road crossed a small river there. The bridge over it wasn’t too wide, the river banks looked steep and had bushes, and there was a wooded hill on the west bank.” He looked from Boggs to van den Heyden. “That looked like a strong spot,” he added. “And if we go back there, we’re another day closer to Verplanck. All we have to do is hold that position until he gets there. If Verplanck can’t hold them with the whole army, we lose.”
“I remember the place,” Boggs said. “It looked like good ground, and from there Verplanck should be no more than two day’s march.”
“It seems chancy,” said van den Heyden.
“However chancy,” Boggs replied, “we can’t stay here. That may be the best choice we have. Does anybody remember what the place is called?”
Accidental Warrior: The Unlikely Tale of Bloody Hal Page 34
