‘And I would have been able to do more than fondle you, Ladies, were it not for the fact that the gentleman you see here – along with his lady friends – ambushed and shot me.’
The girls gave me a curious look of hatred and disbelief combined, then continued with their dressing. By the time they had finished, they looked like prim and proper Puritan housewives rather than the cavorting sexpots I had just witnessed – a change that was astonishing, and quite instructive from a philosophical point of view. As they reluctantly left the room Burnley called out to the guard, ‘No more, Thomas, for a while!’ and received in return the genial reply ‘Very good, Mr Axelrod!’ Alone with him once more, I eyed the bandaged shark warily, hoping there was no pistol under the sheets.
‘So, Mr Oysterman, come and look at my wounds. They are healing nicely, so there is no cause for squeamishness.’
‘I’d rather not, thank you.’
‘Very well, pass me my breakfast then.’
I did so tentatively while Burnley, wincing, levered himself up. Once the tray was in his lap I made as if to leave.
‘Oh stay awhile. Now that you are here, we may as well have a chat.’
Burnley lifted the lids of his dishes, poured out a glass of wine, and began to eat.
‘So, Mr Oysterman, I hear through the grapevine that you informed Mr Washington immediately of your spying proclivities. That was rather a blow to me I must confess. I was looking forward to telling him myself. Presumably you have not been hung because I am such an important catch. Is that correct?’
‘Something like that,’ I said reluctantly, eyeing the door.
Burnley plunged a huge chunk of beef into his wine dish, then transferred the dripping mass into his mouth. His appetite looked dangerously healthy.
‘No need to be cautious with me, Sir. You are the victor and I am the vanquished after all. Whatever I say is of no consequence any more. Speak freely.’
‘What more is there to say?’
‘Tell me what you have been up to in the camp. Tell me, more excitingly, what that delectable little wife of yours has been up to.’
‘Your meaning, Sir?’
‘All the Generals are using her for their pleasure, you know.’
My stomach lurched. I’d feared something like this was coming.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Aye, ‘tis true sadly. But that is the way of the world, as Mr Congreve said. No point crying about it. Between you and me, Oysterman, one of the reasons I treat women so badly is because I fear what they will do to me if I treat them well. The most faithful wife itches to experiment, sooner or later. I get my attack in first, with women as with men. ‘Tis far simpler to roger them and leave them than it is to understand them – though I suspect there is not much to understand in most cases. No, I would not relish being in your shoes now. But though being cuckolded, at least you are alive. You were not when I first met you.’
Burnley forked more food into his mouth, and chewed happily.
‘Thank you,’ I said, my heart pounding furiously, ‘I am most grateful.’
‘So you should be, Sir. I do not perform such services for everybody. The trouble is, you now find yourself in a pretty pickle. Your exciting spying activities have condemned you to a lifetime in the dull, tedious wilderness that will be peacetime America. You cannot return to England now. I, on the other hand, will be exchanged sooner or later for hundreds of American prisoners, or General Lee, whichever is most suitable to Washington’s plans – and then I shall simply continue where I left off, chopping up Rebels. A very sporting war all round, this one, and when it is over I shall return to the glitter and sparkle of life in London. At dinners I will be feted by the bon ton; at games of faro I will accumulate wealth; and in the parks, theatres, fairs and gardens I will be numero uno with the ladies, vigorous taker of their clandestine love and their fat dangling fortunes. You never know, Sir, I might even drive down to Sussex, if the fancy takes me.’
This was added merely to goad me further, but I felt strangely calm now, and more than capable of holding my own in a verbal shoot-out. I trembled on the brink, then dived in.
‘I think you overestimate your postwar desirability, Sir.’
‘Oh you do, do you, Adonis? Pray tell me why’
‘It is because this is such a sporting war that your career in the army is now finished. As you rightly said the last time we met, your commanding officers would not believe any story I told against you, but they would believe a gentleman like General Washington, and he has accumulated quite a collection of Axelrod Tales, in all of which, strangely, you play the Big Bad Wolf. I gave him one further story free of charge, and then he told me what conditions he wants for your release.’
‘And what are they?’ Burnley tried to sound bored, but his voice betrayed pleasing undertones of apprehension.
‘He has written to General Howe listing all the known atrocities you have committed. He has demanded that you are stripped of your commission and returned to England immediately. If Howe does not agree to the terms within a month, Washington will hang you by the neck until you are dead.’
‘I think you are lying, Sir.’
‘I would start counting the days, if I were you, Sir. Washington is not a man to go back on his word.’
‘On intimate terms with our George, are you?’
‘Intimate enough to know that gentlemen stick together, regardless of sides, and that is why you are on your way out, Burnley. Your fall begins here. When you get back to England your new title of cashiered officer will attract neither Amanda nor society women in general, so you had better rediscover your taste for the commonest, cheapest drabs available; they will be your only solace in your declining years.’
‘Why, you….’
The tray went up in the air as the rogue reared, grabbed me around the waist and pulled me back onto the bed with him.
‘Guard!’ I cried as we tussled amongst the remains of his dinner. ‘Guard! Guard!’
A huge hand immediately smothered my mouth, but ‘twas too late from Burnley’s point of view – the door shot open and the guard rushed in, accompanied by a shrieking wave of disrobing women. Knowing I was safe now, I relaxed long enough for Burnley to get his justification in first, and I was done for in the common perception.
‘Help!’ cried the rogue, before I could get my cry out, ‘He is trying to bugger me in my bed! Get him off me!’
I was quickly seized, and my protestations of exclusive fondness for the female sex were brushed aside without ceremony. I was frogmarched out of the room and passed on to another guard, while the first one rushed back to deal with the women who had no doubt dived straight into Burnley’s bed to offer succour.
‘Loathsome, despicable, vile rascal,’ exclaimed this new guard with great venom as he cuffed me. ‘If you were not the General’s blue-eyed boy I would arrange with the cook to have your damned bollocks chopped off!’
‘You should not believe everything you are told,’ I admonished him, as I was taken roughly down the stairs to the kitchen.
‘So you, the scurviest turncoat on the Continent, are saying that Mr Axelrod, the greatest gentleman on the Continent, is a liar?’
‘Indeed I am, Sir, though I would take exception with you on the choice of the word gentleman. He is no more of a gentleman than….’
But an original comparison was not required, for I was heartily cuffed again, as though I had insulted his mother. ‘Twas clear that public opinion was very definitely against me, and there was nothing I could do to remove the stigma that had build up around my name, or the adulation that had built up around Burnley’s. ‘Twas time to vacate the camp, a feeling that was echoed by the chief cook-surgeon as he threw me out of the door.
‘There, you little trug – cool down in the snow. And don’t come back in again until you have learnt not to bugger your betters.’
50
Nassau Hall
&nbs
p; The door was slammed shut behind me, and I was an outcast in the snow yet again. But curiously, after I had taken a few minutes to compose myself, I began to feel ludicrously light-hearted. Indeed I chuckled to myself as I recalled my tussle with Burnley, and his parting cry for help. The very fact that his name now induced mirth instead of terror was proof enough to me that he was finished as a major force. I felt I had drawn the teeth of the rogue, so that even if the impossible happened, and he escaped and came looking for me again, I was confident that I could handle him with greater ease than I had done previously. Even the no-doubt slanderous disclosure about Sophie did not trouble me as much as it had done upon first hearing: at least now my problems were out in the open, and hence clearer to see. What I would do, I quickly decided, was pay Sophie a surprise visit. If I found her chaste and spent after the excitement of her final battle, I would remind her of her promise and take her with me to Philadelphia as planned; if I found her in the arms of an officer, I would head for Philadelphia and find another girl; if I found her dead, I would bury her and mourn, then move to Philadelphia and find another girl. ‘Twas all so simple now that I was free of the sickly daydreams that had hung about my sickbed; ‘twas time at last to be up and active, even if that meant negotiating the perils of a live, or perhaps now dead, battlefield.
So, surveying the abandoned camp for the last time, I dodged past the wandering husks of old men, women and waifs, and set off once more in the direction of the river. Though making my way alone for the first time, the route was not difficult to find: the feet of hundreds of men and the wheels of wagons and artillery had created a wide swathe of dark and muddy snow, much of it streaked with blood. As I followed this Via Dolorosa, I reflected that this was the first time I had seen the wide Pennsylvanian countryside in the daylight. ‘Twas glorious in its snowbound freshness, and whenever lurid visions of orgies involving Sophie and the Belles shot unbidden into my brain, I found relief in contemplating the silent beauty of the trees, and the stirring grandeur of the panoramas. They helped to put everything into perspective, for as against this huge land, never mind the sun and the planets, what did it matter, really, if one little creature liked to prig with different partners now and again? The robins that sang me on my way were not bothered about fidelity, after all, and look how perky they appeared.
Feeling quite the little Rousseau, if a more acceptable English version of the villain, my philosophical and uplifting ramble was quite solitary until I came to the river itself, where a group of soldiers stood around chatting and calling to comrades on the opposite bank. Taking a deep breath, I went up to them and asked to be taken across.
‘A bit late now, is it not?’
Thankfully, ‘twas not a soldier who knew me. I exhaled with relief.
‘I have been ill, and have only just recovered. I have heard that General Washington is short of men. I want to do my bit for the cause.’
He looked me up and down, and seemed particularly puzzled over the provenance of my uniform.
‘Which company are you with?’
‘I am not with any company.’
‘Amazing what a victory can do for recruitment,’ said another, glancing down at three keen-eyed backwoodsmen seated on a log, who looked as though they had just joined up too. ‘But nevertheless thank you, citizen. You may, however, be too late, as Declan says. The battle at Princeton will probably be over by now.’
‘Princeton, eh?’ I ruminated, looking at the numerous boats battling their way to and fro across the almost-frozen river. ‘Well, surely there is still something I can do?’
‘Can you fire a musket?’
‘Aye, well enough.’
‘Then take these, and we will get you across as soon as possible.’
I was handed a Hessian musket and ten rounds of cartridges. Then I was told the latest news whilst waiting for the next boat to arrive.
‘There was no second battle of Trenton, as everyone thought there would be. What happened was this. The two armies were lined up facing each other across Assumpink Creek, waiting for the battle to begin at dawn. Some say that Cornwallis was so confident of victory with his freshly arrived troops that he scoffed at the advice of his officers to attack immediately, and slept all night like a baby. But he reckoned without the genius of The General…’ The soldier’s eyes turned dreamy and mystical. ‘Aye, Washington knew he couldn’t win this one against a superior force in a pitched battle, so he sets up decoy lights and quietly removes his army from the field, wrapping rags around the wheels of his gun carriages and ordering his men to communicate in whispers. Then he heads off to attack Princeton, where a weaker British force is expecting nothing. Ho, ho, I would have loved to have seen Cornwallis’s face when he realized the fox had outwitted him once again.’
My esteem for Mr Washington rose even higher. At this rate my first house would contain nothing but pictures of him, to be gazed at constantly in swooning rapture.
‘So where is Cornwallis now?’
‘Chasing Washington to Princeton, of course. Or was. He may be there now for all we know. Battle may have started. We expect news at any minute.’
‘No-one hurt at Trenton then?’ I asked, wondering if I needed to go into the town to search for Sophie.
‘Not a soul. As I say, there was no battle this time around.’
Thoughtful, but having no further questions to ask, I joined the other volunteers on the log. They regarded me out of the corners of their eyes for a few moments, then edged away slowly as if I was a carrier of the Itch. Whatever they thought of me, however, my assessment of them was that they were steady, saturnine, powerful men, no doubt very proficient with their weapons, and this made me fearful for the safety of my friends in the British Army. If men of this calibre were suddenly appearing from nowhere, the outlook was bleak for the likes of Pubescent Pete and Thomas Pomeroy, who had all the natural strength of ruptured popinjays.
‘Good day, gentlemen,’ I ventured. ‘Let us hope it is one for good hunting.’
The dogs nodded acknowledgement, and the ice was broken between us. Further nods followed in response to further dissembling pleasantries until the ferry arrived – which, to my relief, was manned not by the skeletal crew but by members of the Marblehead Regiment of Massachusetts, who beguiled our crossing with songs and anecdotes of a revolutionary nature. When we came at last to the New Jersey shore we were met by a pipe-smoking guard, who patted our backs and pointed out the way to Princeton, obvious though it was by the continuing tracks.
‘Keep going down the River Road until you come to the Ferry Road. Turn left, and go straight to the end. Turn right at the Pennington Road, and follow that into the northern end of Trenton. Then the second road left will take you to Princeton, which is ten miles further on. So good luck, lads, and be careful; Cornwallis is one angry wasp. Find our boys, find an officer, and attach yourself to a unit before you start shooting; we don’t want you firing on your own men.’
Feigning smiles for the facetious dog, we set off down the same road I had taken as a spy the week earlier. We walked fast, but I made sure we walked even faster when we passed Chesney Lovett’s house, primarily because I had forgotten to ask for the return of Daniel’s bemerded clothes from my captors, and therefore could not do the decent thing. Ensuring that I was furthest in line away from the house, I glanced across the breasts of my companions, and saw to my horror that Mrs Chesney was in the front garden. She was, however, too preoccupied to notice me, for she was animatedly discussing a piece of paper with a soldier. Guessing that this document was the letter of protection from Washington, I stuck my head back into line, and marvelled at the thoroughness and integrity of the American leader. I felt almost proud to be on his side, until we came onto the Princeton Road, when the nearness of the battlefield induced in me a terrible dread of what his thoroughness and integrity might have led to. Fearing the discovery of known British faces among the anticipated dead, I walked along like one hypnotized, and sure e
nough, the first signs of battle soon began to assail my senses. In the distance, plumes of smoke rose above the trees, and the boom of cannon fire and the crack of musketry became audible. Not knowing which way the battle was going, or what stage it was at, we were wary in case we encountered a large contingent of British troops heading in our direction. Once more I was caught between the physical fear of going forward and the moral fear of turning back, and my heart began to pound furiously. Still I walked on, however, as did my white-faced companions, so I could only conclude, interestingly, that moral fear was the greater. Nevertheless, on the outskirts of Princeton itself, in a smoky orchard to our right, the point of all the physical fear became apparent.
Bodies were lying on the ground, some in very curious attitudes, as if they had been collected up in a giant fistful by God and then dashed to the ground in a prodigious temper tantrum. Some were still and some were writhing, but nearly all were lying in vivid red pools of blood that sluiced around on the frozen snow. A few of the injured were propped up against trees, holding their heads in their shaking hands and crying, as though they had just encountered the most terrible thing in the world. Groans and whimpers from the dying mingled with the sobbing and shrieking of female camp followers, who were going round trying to identify loved ones and administer what comfort they could. And while all this shredded the heart, nerves were cut to pieces by the intermittent screams of soldiers reaching the very limit of physical suffering.
Shuddering with horror, I nevertheless managed to question one of the helpers, and found out that these were the shattered remains of a company belonging to the 17th Foot, a British regiment I thankfully did not know much about. I was also told that their attackers were on their way to Princeton, and this made me think – as there was nothing useful we could do here – that it was best to join them quickly, so as not to find ourselves cut off in what was still clearly a very active battle. So, after managing to dissuade my fellow volunteers from bludgeoning the wounded to death with the butts of their muskets, we continued eastwards, and left the unknown soldiers to make their peace with God or their womenfolk, depending on which way their minds twitched at the last.
Infernal Revolutions Page 64
