Brave Enemies

by Robert Morgan

  For though we had heard so many terrible things about the king’s army and Tarleton’s regiment, about depredations and cruelties, and though I witnessed many cruelties myself, I soon came to see that most of the soldiers were heartsick and exhausted, marching day after day through mud and swamps, canebrakes and brush, in cold and rain, in confusing wilderness, crossing raging rivers and creeks, camping in marsh and mire, burning and looting.

  I saw these were men who had come to loathe their service and perhaps themselves. They were angry at the rebellion and the rebels, or they were too tired to even be angry. Their clothes and boots were wearing out, and they were far from resupply in Charleston.

  Every day we rode farther into the backcountry of South Carolina and seized what pork and cattle, corn and wheat, we could find. I prayed with the men in the morning and led in song in the evening. Soldiers no older than boys came to me and wept, while others spat at my feet and blasphemed. I had never seen men more distraught, or scared, though some pretended nonchalance, irreverence.

  One day I was brought to Colonel Tarleton himself. I was led to his tent in the pine grove and stood before him. Though short, the colonel was a strong figure of a man, with an air of authority, confidence, and a face as pretty as a woman’s. His uniform was bright and fine, and he wore an expensive sword. As was often reported, he was arrogant of manner. It was said he had squandered a fortune at Oxford and in London before he joined the dragoons. He was known to have a terrible temper. It was reported he had executed his own soldiers with a sword or pistol.

  “Reverend Trethman,” he said, “I am pleased you were able to join us.”

  “It is my duty to serve the Lord,” I said.

  “And to serve His Majesty,” the colonel said.

  “I will pray and sing where I am needed,” I said.

  “You are badly needed here,” the colonel said. His manner changed as quickly as if a new wind had swept through a forest. His face softened and he looked like the boy he almost was. He and I were about the same age. His eyes were troubled.

  “Reverend Trethman,” he said in a lower voice, “my men need to be inspired. They are far from home and far from safety. This wilderness has exhausted them. The traitors harry us and burn our supplies. We are far from the main army of Lord Cornwallis. The men wonder if this rebellion will ever end.”

  He gestured for me to come closer.

  “We need you to inspire us,” he said. “We need you to give us hope, to fortify us to do our duty.”

  The colonel spoke as I had not expected. He said that without a sense of blessing, of the rightness of a cause, men would never serve at their best. He said a chaplain could be worth more than an extra piece of artillery if he could encourage men to see the justice of their cause. A chaplain must ease troubled minds and strengthen hope. He said men have to fight with a sense of purpose and pride, and it was my job to spirit up the men and restore their sense of purpose and justice. I told him I was just a plain minister of the Gospel.

  Colonel Tarleton patted my shoulder and said he knew I would do my duty, that I would serve his men well. I did not tell him I would do the same for a patriot army, or any army, where men were in need of fellowship and prayer.

  My impression of the colonel was different from what I had expected. He was a more considerate man, and a more varied man, than I would have thought. And he was wiser than the rumors had led me to believe.

  I felt I was learning something important there, though I couldn’t say precisely what it was. I was learning not to be so quick to judge, to be patient and willing to learn, from strangers and enemies, from anyone. I was learning to be humble and compassionate. And I was learning from my love for Josie, which sustained me. And I was learning to love my enemies, as we are told to do, and to see that there were no enemies, only brothers in need and confusion.

  WHILE I WAS SERVING with Tarleton’s legion and seeing daily the brutality, the boredom, the stupidity of war, I, oddly enough, began to think more about my own deficiencies, my shortcomings and guilt. Day after day I was exposed to floggings and hangings, to rape of captured women, to men wounded in skirmishes, men dying of fever and blood poisoning. But while I observed and mourned the viciousness around me, as we flung across the wilds of South Carolina and back, I thought of my own sins. My own deceptions preyed on my mind.

  While we traveled and while we waited in camp, I saw vividly and felt keenly my own guilt. While serving as a minister of the Gospel I had concealed from my flock the nature of my relation with Josie. She had deceived me and the world, it was true, but she was little more than a child and acting perhaps in desperation. I was not only older; I had the responsibility to set an example, to lead.

  It was easy to be pure and moral when there was no trial of character, no challenge to the conscience. But when faced with a drastic decision I had chosen the easier path. I had failed Josie and my congregation, I had failed the Lord and I had failed myself. You are not worthy to lead in song and prayer, I said to myself as we traveled to yet another camp. You want to judge others but are reluctant to judge yourself. What is your witness? What is your testimony to these desperate men if you are no better than they are? You are now paying for your sins.

  I remembered that my hero, Archbishop Cranmer, had been married secretly, twice, but that was no salve to my conscience. That was a matter for the archbishop’s conscience. And besides, Cranmer was at least married presumably by another priest, not in some mongrel ceremony performed by himself on Pine Knot Branch.

  If I ever returned to Pine Knot Branch and Josie, I would confess to my congregations what I had done and what I had not told them. And I would confess to Josie my weakness of spirit and the weakness of my flesh. I was deficient in courage, and was perhaps ruled by lust and vanity, as much as any of the rude men I served.

  DAY AFTER DAY Colonel Tarleton’s vanity was on display. He always wore a fine uniform, even when riding through brush and briars and canebrakes. He held himself erect in the saddle, and he swung his saber like it was a bolt of lightning shot from his right hand. He was not a tall man, but he could leap onto a horse in an instant. He rode as though he had been born in the saddle. He was such a brilliant horseman I found myself watching him and admiring him.

  One day the colonel saw me staring as he rode into camp and dismounted. He tossed the reins to an aide and stepped to the campfire. “Were you ever a rider, Reverend Trethman?” he said.

  “Not often,” I said. “But I need a horse for my circuit.”

  “Every man should have a mount,” the colonel said. “For nothing else, except perhaps one thing, will give him so much pleasure.” He looked at me and added, “I beg you pardon, Reverend.”

  “A horse is a thing of beauty,” I said.

  “The best beauty is in the riding, in the coordination and harmony with the steed. I love to feel the power of the horse under me, and the spirit of a good horse. A good horse loves to run, loves to race, and loves to win. A good horse has the courage to run down boars. And there is no greater sport than hunting foxes.”

  The young colonel took a drink from his flask and wiped his mouth. “Are parsons permitted to hunt?” he said.

  “I never knew a clergyman who did hunt,” I said.

  “Everyone should know the thrill of the chase,” the colonel said. “It would make you a better parson, to feel the moment a horse breaks into a gallop as you stretch out across a hill in pursuit, and catch sight of a fox disappearing into a copse.”

  Several men had gathered by the fire to listen to Colonel Tarleton. He spoke with the enthusiasm of a boy, a young athlete.

  “Only one other sport surpasses hunting,” Tarleton said, “and it is this, what we are doing here, serving the Crown. From the moment I arrived in North America I have enjoyed riding against the rebels. These militias hide behind trees and brush. They shoot from ditches and behind rocks and logs like cowards. But I have yet to see a rebel force that can stand and face a cavalry charge, or a b
ayonet charge for that matter. They see us riding down on them and they melt away. Our music scares them, and the sight of our uniforms. In their hearts they know they are guilty of treason and they run like rabbits, soiling their ragged pants.

  “There is no exhilaration like riding down such rabble, these buckskin farmers. Often with one swing you can chop a man’s head off, or chop a shoulder off. If you lean down you can run a saber through his heart. I have cleared many fields of cowardly militias, from New York to Georgia, and it is capital sport. I will clear the Carolinas of traitors also.”

  ONE DAY LIEUTENANT Withnail brought a captured horse into the camp. It was the tallest, most slender white stallion I had ever seen, taken from a farm near Fort Ninety Six. It was so wild and strong it had to be led by two men who had put a sack over its head. They held the horse with chains stretched from its halter and bridle.

  “Is this crazy creature of any use to us?” Lieutenant Withnail said to the colonel. Colonel Tarleton whistled with awe and took one of the chains. He walked up close to the horse’s head and said something to the horse too low for the rest of us to hear.

  “I didn’t expect to see such horseflesh in these woods,” Tarleton said. “American stables are usually worse than poor.”

  He lifted the sack off the horse’s head and revealed the stallion’s eyes wide with fear. The horse tossed its head around and reared. And when the animal dropped on all fours again it wheeled around and kicked at the colonel. Tarleton dodged but the hoof caught him on the thigh, not the full blow but a glancing lick. His face turned white with pain and then bright red.

  “Bring me my spurs,” he shouted to his valet.

  The colonel strapped on the very long spurs that looked like knife blades and grabbed two thick riding quirts from the orderly. He told the men to hold the white stallion with the chains while he saddled him. And then he fitted a bridle with a Spanish bit in the horse’s mouth. Last he tied two sets of reins to the heavy bit.

  Colonel Tarleton leapt into the saddle on the tall horse as if he had been thrown there. The stallion must have been seventeen hands high, or more. I never understood how a short man could mount so quickly. “This American horse needs some instruction,” the colonel shouted.

  As soon as the chains were taken from the halter the stallion broke away. First it reared on its hind legs as though trying to throw the colonel off backward. The colonel held the reins and kept his seat in the cavalry saddle. He drove the long spurs into the horse’s sides. The stallion dropped to its front feet and began running. We were in open country with scattered brush and trees. The horse rushed toward an oak tree as if to knock its rider off on a limb.

  The colonel jerked the stallion to the left and whipped its flank with the two quirts. The horse leapt forward and ran several hundred yards before it began bucking. I had never seen a horse buck so. The white stallion humped its back like a camel or a cat. It jumped forward and dropped, kicking out its hind legs. It jumped and twisted backward in midair, trying to swing the rider off. The great stallion seemed to be tying knots in itself. The horse ran forward and stopped abruptly.

  It leapt over a bush along the creek.

  The horse and rider disappeared and we heard the pounding of hooves. The galloping horse was loud as the sound of my heart knocking. The hoofbeats faded and I was sure the colonel had fallen off and the horse had run away into the forest. But then I heard the galloping again, and after a few minutes the colonel and the stallion came into view. The horse still tried to buck, but it was getting tired. It made a twisting jump, as though trying to touch its nose to its tail.

  Even at a distance I could hear the stallion panting, as the colonel rode it round and round and back and forth among the brush and bushes. He made the horse run like it was racing. There was blood on both sides of the horse’s belly.

  Finally the colonel rode the stallion back to the camp, and as they got closer I saw the horse was drenched in sweat. There was a foam of sweat on the hide so the stallion seemed lathered with soap. And mixed with foam at the mouth there was blood on the lips and jaw where the Spanish bit had cut into the skin and into the tongue.

  The stallion panted and sweated and trembled, it was so weak. The stallion was tired like it had pulled a wagon or plowed all day. The colonel jumped off the horse and flung the reins to his orderly. “This is the way we will treat all rebels,” he said. He was soaked with sweat; he went into his tent and I never saw him again that day.

  But Colonel Tarleton surprised me several times. He could act like a brute and then behave like a gentleman. You never knew which side of him was going to be displayed. He intimidated his men with his unpredictability. They were never able to judge how he might respond.

  One day a slave was brought into the camp. He had been an orderly for Lieutenant Withnail, and he had run away. The slave’s name was Steve, and he had been caught by a patrol hiding in a canebrake. They tied him to a tree near the campfire. Steve was covered with sweat and dust and looked too exhausted to care much what they did to him.

  Lieutenant Withnail tore Steve’s shirt off and struck him across the back with his riding whip. “So you would steal from the Crown?” he said.

  “No, sir,” Steve said.

  “You are both a runaway and a deserter,” the lieutenant said.

  Now I had seen men whipped in camp with ropes and sticks and cato’-nine-tails. I had seen men tortured with red-hot pokers applied to tender parts of their bodies and mutilated with razors and bayonets. But something about Steve’s plight moved me more than usual. I watched him wince and groan as the whip fell on his back.

  “Colonel,” I yelled. Tarleton was in his tent with one of the camp women. I knew he was there. “Colonel,” I shouted, “you must stop this.”

  “Keep to your prayers and songbook, parson,” Lieutenant Withnail snarled at me.

  “You have done enough,” I said.

  Tarleton appeared at the door of his tent with his shirt hanging loose over his pants. His boots were off and his hair uncombed. He looked at the lieutenant and at Steve and he looked at me.

  “The padre wants to interfere,” Lieutenant Withnail said. Since Tarleton had ordered many men whipped to death I didn’t really expect mercy from him. But this time his mood seemed mild. He walked over to the slave and examined his back. He said something to Steve I couldn’t hear.

  “Cut him loose,” the colonel said.

  “This slave deserted,” the lieutenant said.

  The colonel looked me hard in the eye as he spoke to the lieutenant. “He will not desert again,” Tarleton said. “The Reverend Trethman guarantees it.”

  Tarleton’s generosity seemed like a threat somehow. I felt I had been given a warning, but I was still relieved that Steve had been spared.

  NINE

  AS THE TASTE of the coffee and bread flushed through me, I sat on the grass and wondered if I could last in the militia. They’d find out about me sooner or later, and then they would learn I’d killed Mr. Griffin. I was almost certain my husband was dead. But I wanted to find some justice for him, and then maybe I could live in peace. And I saw that serving in the militia would be my way of paying for what I had done to Mr. Griffin. At least my stomach was settled. At least I could hold down the coffee and bread. I just hoped my mind would stay clear.

  “This bread was took out of a tomb,” somebody said.

  “We got loaves but we ain’t got no fishes,” the skinny redheaded boy named T. R. said.

  The bread was hard, but it tasted good, soaked in the coffee. Took several dunks to make a roll soft enough to chew, but once it was melted by the coffee the bread tasted like a memory of summer on the tongue.

  When I finished the rolls I was ready to lie down in the grass and go to sleep with the sun on my face. I knew I’d better not say much to anybody. The more I talked the more likely I was to be found out. My best hope was to say nothing. Make them think I was a dull young boy.

  Capt. William Cox stood up and
walked over to the washpot. He stood by the fire like a preacher at an altar. The fire made our place important in the woods. The thought gave me a chill for it made me think of John.

  “While you all were drilling I got a message,” the captain shouted. He held his rifle gun in the crook of his arm. “General Morgan wants us to march down the river and meet his army at Grindal Shoals.”

  A groan went through the company. The captain said Grindal Shoals was about twenty-five miles away. That was a day’s walk, carrying our guns and blankets. It would take till midnight if we walked it straight through. There was muttering all around.

  “I didn’t ‘list to go walking all over South Carolina,” somebody said.

  “Are we in South Carolina?” I said.

  “I ain’t going to cross the Broad River,” T. R. said.

  “Tarleton is coming up from Ninety Six to meet Cornwallis at the Broad River,” Captain Cox shouted. “We will be joined to Major McDowell’s North Carolina patriots.”

  “Why can’t we fight on our own?” somebody yelled.

  “We will fight where we are told,” the captain said.

  Everybody on the field was quiet. It was like they hadn’t thought before they’d be part of a big army. They had forgotten why they were there. The day was quiet as only a winter day can be. There were some crows way across the woods, and you could hear the breeze in the broom sedge and in the pines.

  “This evening we will march as far as we can,” Captain Cox said. “And don’t tell anybody where we’re going. There are Tory spies everywhere.”

  “What if we meet Tories?” somebody said.

  “And we will not plunder our own people,” the captain said. “Of course, if a Tory has a horse or ham he doesn’t need we can accept it as a donation.” Everybody laughed.

  “Anybody caught sending a message to Tarleton will be hanged from the closest tree,” the captain added.