Prelude to Glory Vol, 3

by Ron Carter

  Billy glanced at Eli, then back at Washington. “When should we leave, sir?”

  “Immediately. Go back to your camp and stop only to get enough food for a few days and some ammunition, and then go. I’ll send a written order with you to have Colonel Glover get you across the river.”

  Once more Eli pointed at the map. “Could I take time to make a rough copy?”

  “Yes.”

  Five minutes later Eli folded a piece of paper and stuffed it inside his shirt and waited while General Washington sat down at the desk and wrote briefly, then folded and sealed the message and handed it to Billy.

  “Give that to Colonel Glover. He’ll get you across the river.”

  Billy nodded and tucked it inside his shirt. “Anything else, sir?”

  “Yes.” He raised his voice to call, “Major Harrison,” and ten seconds later a uniformed officer was standing ramrod stiff before his desk.

  “Major, would you go immediately to my quarters and get a telescope from the desk in the corner?” Two minutes later the major handed the scarred, black leather case to General Washington.

  “Thank you.” The young man was on his way out when Washington handed the telescope to Billy. “You should find it to be excellent.”

  Billy looped the leather strap around his neck. “Thank you, sir.”

  Eli drew a deep breath. “Anything else?”

  Washington paused to look at each man. “Yes. Good luck.”

  Eli nodded and Billy answered, “Thank you, sir.”

  The two men walked out the door and the aide led them down to the waiting room where they gathered their weapons and put on their coats, then walked out, squinting in the bright sunlight reflecting off the white snow. They stopped at the wood yard and Turlock leaned on his axe handle as they approached, and spoke above the sound of axes ringing and saws grinding.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Looks like we’ll be gone for a day or two,” Billy answered.

  “I figured.”

  Eli grinned. “Take care of things here.”

  Turlock shook his head and looked sour. “Anything to get out of work.” The two young men started on towards their lean-to and Turlock called after them, “You two be careful, hear? I’m savin’ four of them biggest logs for you to cut when you get back.”

  Twenty minutes later Billy handed the sealed order from General Washington to Colonel John Glover who opened it and studied it for a moment, then led them to two of his bearded sailors. Five minutes later the two sailors were thirty feet from the snow-covered banks of the Delaware, and the four men grasped the gunwales of a longboat and tipped it over, booming hollow, onto its bottom. They put their backs into it and skidded it down the slight incline onto the shore-ice of the Delaware, and drove it hard until the ice began to give beneath their feet, then they all leaped inside and rode it sliding until it broke crashing through the ice. The sailors quickly set the oarlocks into their holes and settled the big, flat-bladed oars into place and dug deep into the black water to drive the boat forward, cutting their own path through the thin ice that covered the main channel. The bow drove crunching into thicker ice as they approached the New Jersey side of the river, and Billy and Eli straddled the gunwales at the bow and kicked down hard to break through the ice on both sides while the sailors continued to stroke with the oars. Five minutes later the boat ground to a stop and Billy and Eli leaped from the bow and ran hard to thicker ice, then stopped to turn and wave at the sailors. The Marbleheaders waved back, then pushed the boat into the channel, reversed their seats, and began pulling for the Pennsylvania shore.

  The wintry sun was still an hour high when the two turned southeast on the Scotch Road and set out at a trot, avoiding the ruts cut deep in the frozen mud three days earlier by the cannon carriages and wagons of the American army going to and coming from Trenton. They slowed to a walk for a half mile to catch their breath, then resumed their trot. They stared in silence as they passed the dark, deserted outpost building near the junction of the Pennington Road, remembering Lieutenant Wiederhold ordering his small command of Hessian pickets outside in the howling blizzard to form a battle line to engage the horde of charging Americans, only to break and run in a wild panic to Trenton.

  They slowed again as they entered the big junction of the four roads at the north end of the town and they stopped in awe as they looked south down King Street, then Queen Street. Not one thing moved in the freezing shadows cast by a sun half-set. Litter and wreckage lay everywhere, just as it was when the battle ended. For a time they stood transfixed, staring, as scenes flashed in their minds from what now seemed to be a battle fought in a dream world in a time far past. They could see no smoke rising from any chimney in town. Open doors hung crazily on their hinges, splintered by cannonballs, and shattered windows stared like dead, accusing eyes.

  Without a word the two moved on past Trenton to the orchard east of town, angled through the open field to the Assunpink Creek and followed it nearly due north for a time, then crossed on the ice where it narrowed, and angled nearly due east to the Quaker Road. They followed Quaker Road to the bridge where it crossed the branch of the Assunpink, and beneath a nearly full moon high in the freezing night, they slowed as they came to Sandtown.

  One dim light showed in one house, and the two silently came in behind the largest of the two barns. Inside, they talked low to settle the two horses in their stalls, then leaned their weapons against the wall and sat down in wheat straw piled in one corner used for cattle bedding, and waited for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. They chewed dried beef and drank water from their canteens, then covered themselves with the straw and drifted into a dreamless sleep.

  The sun rose on a world sparkling with a thick covering of frost and found them seven miles northeast of Sandtown traveling through open, undulating farmlands, wet to the knees from the snow and frost in the fields and woods. They stopped long enough to break a frozen biscuit on a rock and chew at it until it softened and drink from their canteens water so cold it hurt their teeth.

  Eli raised a hand to shield his eyes from the rising sun as he squinted due east. “About forty more miles to Perth Amboy. Should be getting close by nightfall.”

  Billy nodded and glanced to the west. “Right about now Glover’s putting the first boatloads ashore on the New Jersey side. That’s going to be a hard crossing.”

  Eli’s rare grin showed in his beard. “I wonder if Turlock got all that wood cut?” He sobered. “Getting across the river will be hard enough, but the worst of it is going to be getting the army to stay after they get there.” He turned his eyes west and stared thoughtfully for several seconds. “Their enlistments are up tomorrow night. I don’t know how much more Washigton can ask of them—how much more they can give. He’s crossing the river today to get ready for the next battle. That might be a little hard if he’s left there all alone to fight it.”

  Billy shoved the plug into the neck of his wooden canteen. “We better finish and get back.”

  Eli looked at him. “You and me and Washington against half the British army?” He shook his head. “Of course if Turlock stays, that would just about even things up.”

  Billy grinned, then became thoughtful. “I wonder what he’s doing right now.”

  The two picked up their weapons and turned their faces into the rising sun and once again settled into the swinging, ground-eating trot, while Billy turned his head to peer once more back towards Trenton.

  Twenty miles behind them, to the west, Sergeant Alvin Turlock and the Continental army stood on the frozen banks of the Delaware at McKonkey’s Ferry in morning sunlight that caught the thick frost crystals to turn every tree, every bush into a great glowing jewel in the dazzling white world. Vapors billowed from the faces of the soldiers in the still, freezing air, the coldest morning they could remember since Glover brought them across so long ago. Six inches of crusted snow crunched beneath their frozen feet, and the horses threw their heads and moved their legs
, nervous, sensing what was coming. Wood smoke from a hundred cook fires rose three hundred feet into the still air, straight as a string.

  Glover’s fishermen had skidded the fifty-two great, dark Durham boats from the frozen banks onto the river-ice in the gray before dawn and broken them through to the water. Washington had ordered a Delaware regiment to board first, and with the first arc of the sun throwing long shadows to the west, the Marblehead fisherman shoved off the Pennsylvania shore and heaved into the long poles, driving the boats, loaded and riding low in the water, for the New Jersey shore, five hundred yards distant. The muted sound of released breath came from those waiting their turn on the Pennsylvania side when the big boats thumped into the inclined bank on the New Jersey side and soldiers jumped over the gunwales onto the snow, grasping the stiff, frozen hawsers to hold the boats steady. They unloaded quickly and the officers shouted their companies into rank and file to prepare for the march south on the River Road to Trenton, while Glover’s men poled the boats back into the wisps of steam rising from the open channel to return for the next load.

  “Massachusetts Regiment next,” came the shouted order, and twenty minutes later Turlock was crouched in one of the huge boats, watching the Marbleheaders settle into their rhythm with the long poles, listening to the ice chunks slam jolting into the side of the boat as it moved steadily across the black water. To the north, General Washington and more than twenty of the officers were in another boat, and the three boats north of them carried their saddled horses, blindfolded, heads lowered, legs spraddled out to take the roll of the boat and the shock of the ice chunks plowing into the side.

  The boat thumped into the New Jersey riverbank and Turlock leaped ashore to grasp one of the heavy hawsers and back up, holding it taut as other men did the same, and they held firm as the boat rose in the water until it was empty. Turlock quickly coiled the rope and cast it back to the waiting Marbleheader as others set their poles and pushed off. He stopped to peer upriver where General Washington and his officers were waiting to finish unloading their mounts. Downriver, the Delaware Regiment had landed first and was already in rank and file, waiting for marching orders.

  “Massachusetts Regiment, fall into rank and file!” The order echoed along the riverbank and into the woods as Turlock looked for his officers and followed their point to take his position at the left end of the leading rank and wait for the others to form on him. While the soldiers worked into their proper places, Turlock came to attention as General Washington cantered his tall, bay gelding past, tossing its head, wanting to run in the cold. Behind came a dozen officers, each holding their horses in as they followed Washington down past the Delaware Regiment. Washington paused at the head of the regiment long enough to give orders to the officers, and within two minutes the Delaware column was moving down the River Road towards Trenton.

  Washington reined his horse around and spurred back and Turlock watched him pull the horse to a stop facing the officers of the Massachusetts column. He could not hear the orders, but within ten minutes the column was moving south in the tracks of the Delaware Regiment. The men were glancing north and east from time to time, watching for the first flash of red in the brilliant sunlight that would signal the arrival of the British regulars. Every man in the army knew they were coming; the single unanswered question that hung over them was, when?

  An hour later they passed the tiny hamlet of Birmingham, and forty minutes later the road turned slightly to run parallel with the river, thirty yards to their right. With the sun climbing to its apex they stared as they passed the Hermitage, the vacant home of Philemon Dickinson where Hessian Lieutenant Grothausen and his small command of pickets had fled in terror four days earlier after General Sullivan’s command had suddenly materialized out of the raging blizzard and the cannonballs had come whistling from across the river.

  It was shortly past noon when they marched past the Old Barracks at the south end of King Street and stared north in silence at the vacant town, still strewn with the wreckage and destruction of the battle. They crossed the Assunpink on the Queen Street bridge and continued south more than a mile to stop short of where the Delaware Regiment had halted with their backs to the Delaware and a small rise in the ground before them as they faced east. Three minutes later they peered back north at the sound of incoming horses as General Washington loped his mount past them, followed by most of his general officers. Turlock paused to study them as they came.

  The general rode with eyes narrowed, focused intently on something ahead. The officers riding behind looked neither left nor right as they passed the Massachusetts Regiment and pulled their horses to a stop five yards short of the first file of the Delaware Regiment and gathered about Washington. Turlock was in the first file of the Massachusetts Regiment and less than fifty feet from the cluster of officers, watching the expressions on their faces, listening to their every word. Washington spoke.

  “I’m going to speak to them. Remain here.”

  His officers nodded and remained mounted as Washington reined his horse around and trotted twenty yards further south, brought it to a halt, and turned. He was facing the Delaware Regiment, their backs still towards the Delaware, his back towards the slight ridge. The big bay mount stood in six inches of snow in the still, freezing midday air, vapor rising from its muzzle and wisps of steam from its hide. Washington was tall, dark in his winter cape as he studied the bearded, expectant faces of the men in the ranks. He began to speak and a strange hush fell; Turlock leaned slightly forward on his musket, watching, listening intently as the usually quiet voice was raised to reach every man in the Delaware company.

  “My countrymen, it is my great privilege to pay to you that praise and tribute which you have so abundantly earned, both from myself as your commanding officer, and from your country. The service you rendered four days ago in the battle at Trenton was a great tribute to your courage and your dedication to your country. News of your victory is reaching out to cities and people both here and abroad. Those who would rob us of our liberty will know that your dedication is undimmed. Your fellow countrymen will rise to new heights of support for the cause.”

  He paused and for a moment he stared at the ground, searching for words.

  “I frankly confess my inability to speak with the power of Thomas Paine, but I do know that you are the soldiers of whom he wrote. You are not the summer soldiers who shrink in the trials of winter. You have so nobly suffered unbearable hardships and deprivations in silence, and finally have risen in impossible conditions to defeat a powerful enemy. For these things I, and your countrymen, are indebted to you forever.”

  Again he paused and Turlock saw him struggling to form what was coming next.

  “Were it in my power, I would send you home when your enlistments expire tomorrow with my greatest blessings for yourselves and your families. But I cannot. Our victory at Trenton will surely bring the wrath of the British empire down upon us, and unless we meet them and somehow turn them, we will have lost all we have gained at such a terrible price. I put the question to you: can we allow that to happen? We cannot. For that purpose I am here before you today to beseech you to consider the opportunity that fate has now delivered into your hands. You can deliver to your country a service that may never again be within your power. As a reward, I am offering every man of you who will remain with the army for another few weeks, a bounty of ten dollars. It is little enough for what you have done and what you will yet do for your country.”

  He stopped and Turlock saw him ponder for a few seconds while he tried to judge if he had said enough. Then Washington reined his horse back to his right and loped it to his group of officers and stopped. Four of the officers tapped spurs to their horses and rode back to stop, facing the Delaware Regiment, and one raised his voice.

  “You have heard General Washington. You know what you have done and you know what you can yet do for your country. You have heard the bounty offered for those who will remain with the Continental army fo
r a few weeks past your enlistments.”

  The officer stopped and drew in a great breath and Turlock knew what was coming next. His breathing slowed and he straightened, waiting.

  The officer concluded. “Each man who will remain with the army after your enlistment has expired tomorrow, step forward.”

  Turlock turned his head slightly to watch for movement in the ranks of the Delaware Regiment. Five seconds passed. Ten. Twenty.

  Not one man moved in the awful silence.

  The officer stiffened in his saddle, shocked, unable to gather his shattered thoughts. He reined his horse around and trotted back to Washington without saying a word. General Washington was less than fifty feet from Turlock as the officer reined to a stop facing him. The officer’s face was white as the snow. Turlock saw the shoulders of the tall Virginian slump for one split second, and then something happened.

  Washington straightened in his saddle and he squared his shoulders. He raised his face, and his jaw was set like granite. The pale blue eyes were points of light as he reined his horse around and once again rode the fifteen yards and stopped, back straight as a ramrod as he faced the men once again.

  As Turlock watched, the expression on Washington’s face softened. A tenderness crept into his eyes that Turlock had never seen in the eyes of any officer. The hard lines around his mouth disappeared, and his brows peaked as in one moved by seeing the deep suffering of another. He looked down into the faces of the men with a sense of understanding, of compassion that Turlock never supposed Washington possessed, and Turlock felt the hair on his arms lift, and stiffen on the back of his neck. A feeling crept into his breast like none he had ever known before and it spread silently to touch the men rank by rank. Their eyes dropped and they glanced at each other for a moment, then stared at the ground.

  Washington spoke. It seemed his voice was subdued, quiet, yet it reached every man in the Delaware Regiment.

  “My brave fellows, you have done all I asked you to do, and more than could be reasonably expected; but your country is at stake, your wives, your houses, and all that you hold dear. You have worn yourselves out with fatigues and hardships, but we know not how to spare you. If you will consent to stay only one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty, and to your country, which you probably never can do under any other circumstances. The present is emphatically the crisis which is to decide our destiny.”