“What happened here in the end?” Hal asked.
“We beat seven bells out of them is what happened, sir,” said Gareth. “After you drove in their right flank when you led the French across the river, they broke. We drove ’em off the wall into the creek, across the creek, ran ’em clear across this whole damned field, pardon my language, sir. I think they’re runnin’ yet.”
“How do you know about the French?”
“Everyone knows, sir. I was there when some of them rode in afterwards with their colonel’s body. They said it was the most magnificent charge ever, sir.”
Their colonel’s body. That would be Ligny. Another one dead on this deadly day. Had Colonel Ligny thought it glorious to die in a magnificent charge? He might have. Hal shook his head.
The tent flaps were open, revealing men working inside by the light of oil lamps. Moans and cries filled the air. To the side of the left-most tent stood a cart piled with arms and legs, hands and feet. Hal stopped and stared at it. It could have been a pile of spare parts but, of course, it wasn’t. Each of those limbs had come off the body of some soldier in the surgery tent.
A man in a long, bloody apron left the closest tent and came over to them. “More?”
“Four,” said Gareth. “Three in the wagon.”
The man hopped into the wagon’s bed and took a quick look at each of the soldiers there. “This one,” he said, pulling on a sleeve. Two more men came out of the tent when he spoke. “Take this one in,” he said to them, “and have the surgeons work on him. Then come back and put these over there.” He indicated two rows of men on the ground to the side of the tents. “There’s nothing we can do for them.”
“You’re not going to do anything?” Hal asked. “They’ll die if you don’t.”
“They’ll die anyway,” the man answered. “We need to work on the ones who might live.” He looked to see who had spoken and saw Hal holding the cloth against his side. “You’re walking,” he said. “You need to wait.”
“This is Colonel Christianson,” Gareth said.
That was enough to snap the man’s head around. He peered at Hal in the firelight. “Colonel Christianson? My apologies, I did not know you by sight. My name is Dr. Edwards, Jonathan Edwards. Come with me, we’ll take care of you right now.”
Hal allowed himself to be led into the right-hand tent. An orderly peeled his coat and shirt away so that Edwards could inspect the wound.
“Nasty slice. I can bind it up and it should heal. Not pretty, but it should heal.” Edwards rubbed his hand over the stubble of his beard. “The thing you should know, Colonel, is that if it does mortify, where it is, there won’t be much we can do. It’s not like a leg, where we can just cut it off and it’s done.” He paused. “You may know, Colonel, that physicians have long taught that a healing wound forms pus. Only if the pus is foul-smelling is it a problem. Back during the Border War, though, before the revolt, it was my observation, and not only mine, that clean wounds produced no pus but healed better. Wounds where cloth, for example, was driven into the wound were the opposite. I know this sounds odd and contrary to common sense, but that is what I saw. I really think we should clean this wound, sir, if you will permit. I really recommend that.”
Hal stared at him. Why was there any question? “Of course you’re going to clean it,” he said.
Edwards nodded. “Right, then. So, we’re going to clean it, really clean it. We are short of chloroform. You understand me, sir?”
Hal nodded.
The orderly came back with a bottle of clear liquid. Edwards made Hal lie down on the table, then poured the liquid into the wound. Burning shot through it; Hal’s chest felt like it had been set on fire. Edwards poured more of the liquid onto a cloth. He used that to scrub out the wound. The screams tore out of Hal’s mouth.
“If cleanliness is next to godliness,” Edwards said, “and alcohol is what makes it clean, then alcohol is godly.” He went back to vigorous scrubbing and paid no further attention to the sounds that came from Hal. When he was satisfied with the state of the wound, he packed it with lint. The orderly brought a length of clean linen that they wrapped around Hal’s ribs.
Hal was gasping but, once the wound was covered, it did not hurt as much, or so it seemed. He would have preferred a clean shirt to the filthy near-rag that he had, but there was no choice but to put it back on, and the bloodstained jacket over it. Somehow, he got back to his feet. The tent threatened to spin around his head, but he swallowed hard and the world stabilized. Miraculously, he found that he could walk, although maybe wobble was a better word. Gareth steered him to the campfires of the First Anglo-Dutch Riflemen. They were in the rear of the army, although that rear was past where the Massachusetts lines had been that morning.
The soldiers by the fires answered the questions in Hal’s mind about the kind of reception he would receive the moment they recognized him. Men pressed close to give him thanks, more than a few begged leave to shake his hand, some just grabbed his hand or even clapped him on the back. Then the cheering started. “Three cheers for Bloody Hal!” echoed around the campfires. “Drie hoera voor bloedige Hal!”
Sergeant-Major Bailey rose up in front of him, made gigantic by the flickering light. “God damn!” Bailey roared. “It is the colonel, beggin’ your pardon, sir. I thought you were done for sure.”
“Not quite yet,” Hal managed to say in a voice that was little above a whisper.
“Not yet, indeed!” Bailey roared again. “Come, sir, a drink with the men, the staunchest bunch of ne’er-do-well bastards ever put lead into a Puritan!”
Bailey thrust a full cup into Hal’s hand. Hal took a gulp, then had to fight to keep from spitting it out. It was neat whiskey!
“God, where did this stuff come from?” he asked when he could talk again.
“Massachusetts supply wagons,” was Bailey’s answer. “We got all their stuff: food, ammunition, you name it. Hasn’t been a victory like this in I don’t know how long.” Bailey had clearly been indulging in some of the captured supplies.
Hal’s head was spinning again, and not just from the long day and loss of blood. He needed rest, but first there was something he needed to do. “Can you take me to Captain Groot?” He wanted to apologize.
“Captain Groot is dead,” said Bailey. “You said ‘stand and die’ and, well, he stood and died, sir. A brave man in the end and we held that line, sir.”
“I don’t think I said it quite like that.” Bailey did not seem to hear him. “How many—how many are left?”
But Bailey was gone, back to a campfire. In his place stood Skene, his left arm in a sling. “Well met again, Colonel,” he said. “I’d not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it, but I did and my editor will be pleased.”
“What happened to your arm?”
“A minor insult from a ball. The surgeon did worse with his tools.” Skene spat in the direction of the closest fire. “Fortunately, I write with my right hand.”
“And can you tell me how many are left?”
Skene shrugged. “We’ll see how many muster tomorrow. A few more may straggle in over the next day or two, but it still won’t be more than an under-strength battalion all together. Lieutenant Jeffries is the senior officer surviving in the regiment and there’s also a junior lieutenant, De Jong, from the Dutch. Although, one thing that’s gone is the division into English and Dutch. Ranjy-blanjy and Holies disappeared when they all charged together at the end. They just call themselves the First Riflemen now, and I pity the man who questions that.”
“Jesus.”
“Jesus had nothing to do with it. You did. You led them.”
Nothing made sense. “I would think they would want to hang me for leading them to this. They act like they’re celebrating.”
“Well,” said Skene, “you heard your sergeant-major. Greatest victory anyone can remember. And, they’re alive. That matters. And the liquor doesn’t hurt.”
Hal turned away. He needed to be by hims
elf. Needed to think. He could not make sense out of how the men felt about what he had done, or even how he felt about what he had done. What was he?
He was steadier on his feet than he had been before, although maybe that was the whiskey making him think he was steadier. He walked away from the campfires, out toward the trees. Was this where he had brought the French? Possibly nearby. It was darker there, the voices from the fires reduced to the background buzzing of insects. He found a patch of clear ground and sat.
Light came from the campfires in the field and the moon overhead, but the darkness hid the debris of battle. Hal looked out toward the fires where his men were camped. What was left of them. Names ran through his head, the names of the dead he had known from the march or just met on that day. How many more were dead whose names he did not know? Was it all his fault? How was it that he was still alive? How was it that he had stopped feeling scared? How was it that—dare he even think the word—that he had felt exhilaration in the fight? What was worse, to be a coward or to lust for battle? Nothing made sense. Head down, he stared at the ground between his feet.
“Ah, there you are.”
The voice came out of the darkness. A familiar voice. Ghosts, that’s what I’m hearing.
“Bel?” he said aloud. “No, that can’t be. I’m hearing things.” He looked up. Someone was standing near him.
“Why can’t it be me?” the voice said.
“You’re dead!” he cried.
“I am, am I?” She squatted in front of him, moonlight and firelight reflecting off every ridge and seam of her scars. “Why would you think I was dead?”
“I saw you go down at the river. Belisarius walked out with no rider.”
That brought a harsh laugh. “Make sure you see my body before you say I’m dead. There was a lot of jostling in that melee, maybe as much as there was cutting. I am, as you know, small. I was knocked into the water. Aside from being wet and bruised, I’m fine.”
“Thank God.”
Bel’s expression changed briefly, went very still, as though that was not the sort of comment she expected. “Why are you sitting out here? Once the word got around that you were still alive, I’d say most of the army, English and Dutch, was ready to raise a cheer and drink a toast to its new hero, Bloody Hal.”
Her words crystallized all the wrongness Hal felt. He thought of how he had been frozen at the start at Nieuwmarkt, and again when the rapier was at his throat in Nassau City. He thought of being scared, of all the times he had been scared.
The stream of words came out of him, as heated and uncontrollable as the tears that coursed down his cheeks. “God dammit! That’s wrong, that’s so wrong. I’m nobody’s hero—hell, a hero is the last thing I am. Do you know what I am, what I really am? I’m a fake! You think I’m such a good fighter? Oh, I know how to use a sword, but the rest of it? It’s an illusion.”
He felt himself shaking. The truth was coming out and he couldn’t stop it. “Every time before a fight, I get this scared sick feeling inside. I’m scared. Even today, I felt that at the beginning. I’m just scared, and someone who gets scared all the time like that, well, that’s a coward.”
He told her all of it. He was ashamed he had even thought he belonged with the men of the regiment. He was ashamed of his outburst now, but he could not stop saying these things to this strange girl with scars carved into her soul as deep as the ones on her face.
Bel did not laugh at him. Neither did she walk away. After he had finished, she was quiet for a time.
When she spoke, her voice was soft. “Hal, I am probably the worst person to speak about this because for so long I haven’t cared whether I lived or died. But you are confusing courage with a lack of fear. Courage is doing what you have to do in spite of fear. I’ve seen what you do, what you actually do in a fight. Everybody knows what you did today. That’s what matters, not what you feel inside.”
“No.” Hal’s voice was a whisper. “I only did what I did because there was no choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Hal. Cowards run. You’re no coward. You should think about that.” She rose and then the darkness hid her face from him. Silently, she walked away toward the woods.
It was a long night on that patch of ground.
• • •
They spent another day camped just past the battlefield of Gardiner’s Farm. In fact, less than forty percent of the First Anglo-Dutch Riflemen answered the roll. Lieutenants Jeffries and De Jong were the only officers, other than Hal, to survive the battle. Both were promoted to captain.
The only way to re-form the units was to mix all the men together, so they were no longer divided by English and Dutch. Just as Skene had said, none of the men cared. Verplanck addressed the unit and congratulated them for their stalwart defense that had set the stage for the army’s victory. Then he made official what the men were already saying, and said to a sustained cheer that, henceforth, they were the First Riflemen. Then they were assigned, along with two other regiments, to march to Nieuw Amsterdam and clear the Provis from the island of Manhattan.
Hal rode at the head of the shrunken column that was now the First Riflemen. His wound no longer hurt too badly, unless he twisted around. It looked as though it would heal cleanly, as the doctor had claimed. Someone had found a clean shirt for him, but he was still wearing the coat that was more blood-red than orange. The men behind him looked similarly ratty.
Yet they sang as they marched. They were, after all, marching behind Bloody Hal, the bravest officer in Eugen Verplanck’s army. Hal still shook his head whenever he thought of that. Perhaps Bel was right. Perhaps even brave men felt fear. Still, he feared that, in the end, he would disappoint them.
Skene rode along with him, anxious to return to Nieuw Amsterdam and give his writing to his editor. All he would say about it was that Hal would be satisfied with what he read. Hal did not know what to make of that, but no amount of inveigling could get Skene to divulge more. What Skene would discuss, interminably, was the likelihood of fighting when they reached Nieuw Amsterdam.
“I put it at even odds,” Skene said, for what could have been the twentieth time. “The Provis will know that Verplanck scattered the Army of Northern Nassau and they will know, by the time we arrive, that the invading force from Massachusetts has been routed. Maybe they will not put up much resistance, knowing there is no help. But maybe they can bring up units from southern Nassau and make a stand on Manhattan. Then we could have a hard fight.”
Hal wondered, at first, if Skene said this to unsettle him. It did unsettle him. Then it occurred to him that this might be how Skene dealt with his own nerves. Hal had seen the man at Gardiner’s Farm. At the wall, he had looked as calm as any man, and he had not even had to be there, but, maybe he was nervous too, and talking, over and over, was how he handled it.
Hal wondered if even someone like Bailey got nervous, but there was no way he could ask the question—not of Bailey, not of any man. He might have been able to ask Bel, but she stayed clear of the troops. Now and again, he saw her on Belisarius, flanking the army as it moved down the Post Road, but she never came near.
The Army of the North made camp outside of Haarlem. Verplanck sent his orders to all the units that evening. The next day, they would assault the Provi positions in front of Nieuw Amsterdam, relieve the city, and destroy the Provi threat. Hal read the orders, folded them, re-opened them, read them again, then repeated the sequence. The orders did not change with re-reading. He stuffed them in a pocket and thought of the Lobsters at Gardiner’s Farm assaulting the wall. Tomorrow, that would be him and his men charging the Provi positions, which the Provis had had plenty of time to prepare. How many would be left after that?
He could not think of sleep, so he walked around the campfires of his troops. Albert de Jong, the boy lieutenant made a veteran captain by Gardiner’s Farm, met him along his path.
De Jong saluted. “Good evening, Colonel,” he said. “Everything is prepared for tomorrow. You will
find the First Riflemen in complete readiness.”
He thinks I’m out to inspect his preparations. Probably, that’s what a conscientious senior officer should do. Hal fought to keep a grin off his face and waved a return salute. “I have no doubt. How are the men?”
“Morale is excellent! They know that you will lead them tomorrow.” De Jong hesitated. “Colonel,” he went on, “your men would charge the gates of hell for you.”
Your men. His men. The words sounded strange in Hal’s head. “Well, let’s just charge the Provis and send them to the gates of hell. Will that be good enough?”
“Ja, Colonel!”
Hal walked back to his tent where he tried, without success, to sleep. At daybreak, the horns and drums sounded; men scrambled to fall in with their units. The First Riflemen formed up in a column with Hal mounted at their head. At the command to march, they headed down the road to the Provi lines in front of Nieuw Amsterdam.
In the end, though, there was almost no fighting at all. Skirmishers, moving ahead of the main body, found empty breastworks and camps. The Provis had decamped from in front of Nieuw Amsterdam and headed for the ferries across the Hudson to Nassau. Only the campfires had been left burning, to create the impression of an army in its positions.
The French cavalry took off after the retreating Provis, had some sharp action with their rearguard and, with that, Manhattan was cleared of the enemy. Other units were detailed to guard the Hudson crossings while the First Riflemen camped in front of Nieuw Amsterdam.
Skene left them that same day. “There’s no need for me to wait, not with the Provis gone,” he said, “and plenty of reason for me to rush. There’s no one else who’s got what I have, but remember, it’s first that counts.”
Accidental Warrior: The Unlikely Tale of Bloody Hal Page 38
