Outraged, Washington had sent Hamilton himself through the lines under a flag of truce to file a vehement protest and Cornwallis replied that if the culprits were found, they would be publicly hanged within sight of the American army. Everyone was still waiting for that hanging and the mood among more than a few was so bitter that orders had to be passed repeatedly that the rules of war would be obeyed, enemy prisoners and wounded treated humanely.
If there had been some insane purpose to that obscenity it had surely turned against the British as word of the atrocity spread across the countryside. The ranks of volunteer militia had swelled as a result, the same as they had when a similar incident had happened just before the Battle of Saratoga.
The skirmishers, light infantrymen mixed in with detachments of Morgan’s rightly feared long riflemen, set out from the edge of the marsh to which Washington had moved all his infantry, Americans on the right flank, according to Rochambeau the position of honor on any battlefield and that he insisted Washington and his men were to have. Close to eight thousand French, their numbers increased by the regiments transported by Barre, were deploying out to the left. It was a battlefront several miles wide that had waited out the damp chilled night. The building of fires was forbidden, with the silence broken only where some Virginia boys had kicked up a nest of wild pigs and decided to give chase for their breakfast. The commotion had not caused the outer line of British pickets, half a mile away, to bestir themselves.
Peter stayed close to Dan Morgan, figuring at least he could fall back on his old role of courier if need be. Beside Dan was a curious character who had taken a liking to Peter, calling him lad, even though Peter was officially a lieutenant colonel, and the old man addressing him was a private. It did not bother him in the slightest. Old Mose was very much a legend. Peter had even read about him before the war. Taken by the Shawnee in the Ohio country, he had faced death by torture, a favorite ritual that if properly done could take several days of hell. If one broke or begged for mercy, the man was handed over with contempt to the women of the tribe, who were truly to be feared.
They had burned most of the flesh off of Mose’s feet and his response was unrelenting taunting back with suggestions, including scalping him while still alive, even offering to perform the act upon himself if they would give him a knife.
His tormentors had quickly shifted from hatred to outright admiration, spared the man, and adopted him into their tribe, where he lived with them for more than a year while his feet gradually healed. Then one night, in the dead of winter, he just simply walked off, leading his somewhat startled and less than amused adopted family on a weeklong chase clear back to Fort Pitt. After the hostilities of that war had passed, Mose was eventually an honored guest with his old family, and would frequently drop in for extended visits. He was treated with awe as the man who, though his feet were little better than charred stubs, had outrun them for nearly two hundred miles. Bent now with age, shuffling like a wounded bear, he was a constant companion of Dan’s. No one would ever dare to say it to Dan’s face but in recent years his vision had begun to fail him, but it was said that Old Mose could still spot a flea riding on the back of a horsefly a hundred yards off and shoot the flea off without even nicking the fly.
Peter felt honored to be in their company this day. A crescent moon marked the eastern horizon off to his right, the sky shifting from darkness to indigo, then to the first streaks of deep red and gold. They drifted around the ruins of a farmstead that once must have been prosperous, but all of it gone except for charred timbers and broken-down fences. There was the sickening stench of a dead ox, bloated and having burst open after a week in the Virginia heat, causing even some of Dan’s hardened men to gag and curse under their breath at the senseless waste of it all.
The British picket line was now less than a quarter mile off, at least their campfires were that distant. It was fair to assume that they should at least have some men out forward and that was who Dan and the light infantry were now hunting.
At last it was Mose who stopped, putting up his hand, the signal silently passing down the line, the skirmishers halting. Peter could see him point; he himself saw nothing, just shadows. All stood silent as Mose shouldered his rifle and took careful aim, his finger at last brushing against the trigger.
The flash of the powder in the pan of the rifle was startling, blinding Peter for a second. He had, as if still a green militiaman, been looking straight at Mose, rather than averting his head, or at least closing and covering one eye. The sharp crack of the rifle thundered, echoing across the open plain, greeted a few seconds later by a startled cry of pain.
It had begun!
Within seconds rifles and muskets began to crackle up and down the long open formation, and, finally, after some obvious confusion on the far side of the open pasture, a scattering of return fire, no balls hitting, but one did hum by between Peter and Old Mose, who was reloading his rifle.
“Shouting like a stuck pig he is, must have just winged him,” the old man announced.
“Come on Dan, let’s go see what we bagged!”
Dan motioned for the line to press forward. In the few intervening minutes the light had risen enough to reveal British light infantry, standing up in the high pasture grass, some firing off a quick shot, others turning and just running.
A wild taunting cry rose up from the riflemen, bone chilling, like the sound of wolves on the scent of blood, as they dodged forward, some pausing to fire a round, others just pressing in on the chase. The entire encampment line of the British pickets was now astir and obviously confused by this sudden onslaught. They were definitely not heavy infantry, who would have formed into volley line for this kind of fight, but instead were deploying out as skirmishers in open order. Most were already giving ground, abandoning their position as they fired and retreated.
Mose angled off to the right, Peter following him. Someone was sitting up in the grass, cursing, clutching his right arm at the elbow. The soldier, not much more than a boy, looked up at them wide-eyed and began to fumble for his musket. Peter leveled his pistol and cocked it.
“Give it up,” he said coolly, and obviously terrified the boy let his weapon drop.
“Don’t shoot me,” he began to beg.
“We don’t shoot wounded prisoners.”
“Sergeant Patrick said you’ll geld all light infantry, that’s what your Mad Anthony promised,” and he began to sob. “I wasn’t even there.”
Peter realized he was referring to the Paoli Massacre from back in ’77, that after the battle and forever after any British light infantry that fell into the hands of the survivors of that night under Anthony Wayne’s command could expect rough treatment. The passions of that had cooled somewhat during the three long years without much action after Monmouth, but in the Southern campaign of light infantry against partisans led by men like Francis Marion there were many dark rumors.
Mose knelt down by the boy’s side, pulling his hand back from the lad’s elbow.
“I must be getting old,” Mose sighed, “I was off by a good foot or more to the right,” and he shook his head.
“What does he mean?” the boy cried, looking up at Peter, who had a cocked pistol aimed at the boy.
“He means what he said. He’s the best shot in the army, and he was aiming for your heart. You’re almost a disappointment to him.”
“No scalp,” Mose muttered, turning his head to one side to spit out a stream of tobacco juice, but then fished the wad out of his mouth, slapped it onto the wound, and taking the boy’s free hand, guided him to hold the wad in place.
“We’ll cut your arm off, laddie, but you’ll live, but damn me, that’s the worse shot I’ve made in quite awhile, especially at this range.”
“It was still dark,” Dan Morgan interjected to soothe Old Mose’s wounded pride, coming up to look at the wounded soldier, while ahead of them the skirmishers were continuing to press forward.
“You’re Dan Morgan, aren’t you?
” the boy asked, looking up at him wide-eyed. “I had nothing to do with that farm over yonder or that woman, I swear it.”
“I didn’t accuse you,” Morgan said coldly, “but don’t lie to me now, boy. What regiment are ya.”
“The 44th.”
He nodded.
“Licked them before, will lick them again. Now, on your feet.”
The boy weakly tried to stand. Peter uncocked his pistol, holstered it, and helped him up.
“Colonel, perhaps he’s worth you having a chat with as you take him back to the surgeons.”
“I’m not going to lose my arm, am I?” and the boy was stifling back sobs.
“Sure are,” Mose announced, “better than you with a busted heart and your scalp on my belt, now get along with you.”
Dan was smiling as Mose, muttering under his breath, turned and pressed forward to catch up with the advancing skirmishers.
“Someone to keep your skills up with, Colonel, while you take him back. If you want some fun later, come back on the line and I’ll loan you my rifle for a shot or two.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Later then,” and Dan set off at a slow trot.
“Come on now,” Peter said, helping to brace his prisoner up as he pointed him back to the rear.
“What did he mean about practicing your skills? You aren’t going to torture me or something are you?”
Peter could not help but chuckle, but then again, could understand the lad’s terror after talking with him for but a few minutes. From the streets of London, caught as a petty thief that he swore he was innocent of. Rather than dancing at the end of rope, he had taken the king’s shilling, swearing it had all been a set up by a corporal who said he had tried to pick his pocket, and after a quick trip to the magistrate, had his new recruit for the day.
Peter pulled out a flask, offering it over, the boy first asking if it was gin, but taking it anyhow, grimacing from the taste of sour mash. With the rising dawn the sight that confronted them as they crested over a low rise back of the destroyed farmstead caused Peter to stop in awe.
The advancing lines of American and French heavy infantry were a sight to behold. He had not seen anything like it since Monmouth, and the three years of training since showed. They were not expecting a fight this day, only moving forward to stake claim to land for what would be the first siege parallel, laid out just beyond the range of British artillery. It was also a bravado display to let the British clearly see what they now faced. Muskets were unslung, bayonets fixed, glinting red in the dawning light, the men moving easily but keeping disciplined formations. Now that dawn was breaking he could catch glimpses of the white uniformed French, a mile or more away to the left. Fifers were playing “Chester” or “Yankee Doodle,” drummers keeping the beat, officers forward and mounted.
He saw General Washington at the center, a white-clad rider beside him, without doubt Rochambeau, and he could only imagine what they were thinking at this moment after so many tension-filled weeks of wondering if all their elaborate plans would be in vain. This display of power, of their combined armies marching together in battle formation, was something unseen in any war on this continent, and it filled both friend and foe with awe.
Leading his captive through the lines, several men taunting the poor boy as they passed to the rear, Peter guided him into the low marshy ground, where thousands more were now busily at work, nearly all of them the militia guided by the engineers of the American and French army. In the previous days thousands of trees for miles around had been dropped, thinner logs split in half, the heavier ones laboriously sawed into planks If only a sawmill had been nearby, the work would have been easier, but the British had made sure to burn that in their retreat. Though even now, men were laboring to repair it, and fetched inland for replacement blades. Causeways big and strong enough for supply wagons and even artillery up to the heaviest of the siege guns were now being constructed out of the split logs and planks. With thousands of men at work, the plans carefully laid out days before, officers briefed on what was expected, even surveyors carefully marking out the routes, the roadways were already under construction though the day was barely an hour old.
Peter guided his prisoner along, offering as much as he wanted to drink without letting him get truly drunk and his skills, as Dan had put it, worked, gaining the boy’s confidence that he would protect him. Yes, he would send a letter to his mother letting her know he was safe. Soon Peter knew the dispersion of the regiments to either flank, their strength, the fact that a fair number of men were down with the bloody flux and summer ague, barely able to stand for inspection let alone engage in an open-field fight, and that the boy had only joined the army as a reinforcement early in the spring.
“I heard in the court in London and God strike me if I am being untrue, good sir, that a fellow was caught up just like me,” the boy slurred, “same ruse, got taken before the magistrate, offered the rope or the king’s shilling, and he said to give him the damn rope! He had been in the last war, wounded twice, and he’d rather dance with the rope than come back to this godforsaken wilderness to get scalped by Indians than burned alive the way his brother was.”
With that the boy looked at him, wide-eyed.
“Are there Indians with this army?”
“A few.”
“You’re not going to give me to them are you?”
“Just tell me the truth when I ask a question, lad, and I’ll protect you from them.”
Peter laughed and patted him reassuringly, the boy looked at him face pale. He began to cough and then, suddenly, there was a flood of bright red blood frothing out from between his pale blue lips.
“Lay down, boy,” Peter ordered.
He gently moved the boy’s arm up, the lad crying out with pain, and he saw the hole drilled into his side and drilled into his chest.
“Am I dying?” the boy asked, eyes wide with terror.
“No, lad, no. I’ll get you to surgeon, and we’ll get that bullet out in no time.”
“I’m dying, ain’t I.”
“No, lad, not while I got you.”
He tried to lift him back up, but the boy cried out in agony, and more blood came gushing out. Now the youth began to weep.
Peter stood up, looking around, for though a scrawny lad out of the slums of England, there was no way he could carry him all the way back alone.
* * *
Some militia came by, leading a cart that had been loaded with spilt logs for the laying out of the corduroy causeway across the marsh and had dumped off the last of the load.
“Can you men give me a hand getting this boy back?”
“Son of a bitch,” one of them grumbled, “leave the bastard out here to die, or if you just turn your back, sir, I’ll finish him.”
Peter stood up about to argue, but knew it was one he couldn’t win, even if he did try the stupid routine of pointing to the epaulette on his shoulder. The man was more than twice his age, brawny, covered in sweat from his labor, and could undoubtedly knock him cold with a single blow to the cheers of his comrades.
“Bastards burned my farm out before you sharp looking boys with those Frenchies came struttering down here. Why should I help him or you?”
“Then why are you here?” Peter asked.
“Pay them back.”
“Then help me get him back to the surgeon before he bleeds to death. He’s spilling his guts to me like a frightened girl. I’m on Washington’s staff, I’m supposed to find things out from prisoners, and he’s my first one.”
“Come on, Josiah, he’s right,” one of the other militiamen said, and the older man simply picked the boy up and unceremoniously dumped him in the back of the wagon as they turned it about, the jolt of it stirring the lad half awake, a groan of pain escaping him.
“I’m not a frightened girl,” the boy whispered, looking up at Peter.
“No, you aren’t. You’re a good soldier. You’ll get good treatment, and then later we’ll ta
lk over a drink. I promise you.”
The boy looked up at him, gasping as the wagon bounced and swayed over the corduroy road through the marsh. The night air was thick with mosquitoes swarming about them.
The boy began to blather, something about his mother, a woman named Johanna, said he couldn’t write, a snatch of a prayer about laying down to sleep, and then he just began to sob softly.
“Tell him to…” the brawny soldier snapped, but a look up from Peter still him.
“For God’s sake, show some pity,” Peter whispered.
“He’s right,” the other driver replied and the brawny man fell silent as the boy struggled to sit up, gasping that he couldn’t breathe.
“Write me mother,” the boy whispered looking into Peter’s eyes and then fainted away.
“I promise I will,” Peter replied.
They had reached the edge of the marsh. In a tent by the side of the road illuminated by torches was a hospital area.
“Just help me get him up there.”
The brawny man seemed to have relented, and he reached into the cart and lifted the boy out, paused, then looked at Peter.
“He’s a dead un,” the man said, and then just laid the body down by the side of the road.
Across the years of war, Peter had seen hundreds die, but this one seemed to him to be so pathetic, so futile. The boy’s death would not change the outcome one iota. Inwardly he cursed all the bastards who had dragged him to this place to die.
Victory at Yorktown: A Novel Page 27
