Prelude to Glory, Vol. 2

by Ron Carter

  Thompson shouted orders. “Hold your step. Keep moving.”

  The column marched on, heads turning to stare at the melee. Billy tracked with his eyes as the Ninth Company passed, and the crowd opened enough for him to see the battle. Two men had been thrown to the ground, terrified, kicking, stripped to their underwear. Angry hands held them down while four men with long-handled mops smeared them with hot tar. Billy saw open burlap bags filled with feathers being passed forward, while half a dozen men stood by holding long rails, waiting.

  The regiment marched on, with the smell of hot tar in their nostrils, wondering what they had seen, who was being punished and why. At the end of Reade Street they turned to their campground, Thompson shouted orders, and ten minutes later the companies lighted cooking fires.

  The summer sun was directly overhead, oppressive, pounding down, as they lined up to take their ration of boiled salt pork, a boiled potato, and hardtack. Each man inspected his thin, brittle piece of hardtack for worms, knocked those they could see off into the sand and grass, and silently moved on.

  A somber mood moved across the campground, and there was little of the usual banter and grumbling at food not fit to eat and at the stupidity and arrogance of officers as they moved back to their blankets and settled down cross-legged to work on their smoking meal with their forks and fingers. Men looked at their plates, or the ground, or the sky, but not each other as they groped to come to terms with the sight, etched forever into their memories, of a man dropping through the trap of a gallows, and then the sight of a mob holding terrified men on the ground while they smeared them with hot tar.

  Billy sat on his blanket, split his potato, and watched the steam rise, then divided the chunk of salt pork into pieces with the edge of his fork and waited for them to cool. He broke a piece of hardtack with his teeth and tucked it in his cheek to let it soften while he waited for the potato and salt pork to cool. He glanced up when Eli sat down on the other edge of his blanket. For a time they remained silent as they worked with their food.

  Finally Billy spoke, but not of the hanging of Thomas Hickey. He and Eli had been too close to it, too instrumental, and had not yet come to terms with their role in the grisly affair. “Any idea what the tar and feathers was about?”

  “Tories and Patriots, I think. I don’t know which was getting the tar.” Eli fingered a piece of hot pork into his mouth and sucked air to cool it. “If we don’t get on with this war with the British soon, we’re going to have our own war right here in the streets.”

  The high, piercing voice of Sergeant Turlock interrupted. “Weems. Stroud. The colonel wants you at his tent. Now.”

  Billy looked at Eli, eyebrows risen in question, and Eli shook his head. They put their plates down on the blanket and rose to follow Turlock through the camp to the command tent. The officer at the flap took Eli’s rifle, announced them, then held the flap as the two ducked inside and came to attention.

  “Reporting as ordered, sir.”

  “Sit.” Thompson gestured and the two sat down at his table opposite him. “Thought you should know. There are three more traitors that were in the plot with Hickey that will be hung in the next few days. Two on Long Island, one across the river.”

  He paused and rounded his lips for a moment, then continued, eyes cast down at a paper before him on the table. “We learned that the names in those documents were wrong, but they had the same initials as the men involved. T. Horton signed some of those papers. The real name was Thomas Hickey.”

  Again he paused as though weighing whether he should reveal more, and then he continued. “Some of the other names were A. Taylor and H. Millman.” He raised his eyes to Billy and Eli and spoke evenly. “Taylor’s real name is Tryon. He’s the governor of the colony of New York. Millman’s real name is Matthews. He’s the mayor of New York City.”

  Billy’s face went blank, and Eli’s mouth dropped open for a split second.

  Thompson nodded acknowledgment of their expressions. “The plot included the royal governor of this province and the mayor of this city. At least eight other men high in government and commerce put up hundreds of thousands of English pounds sterling and all the power of their positions to put this plot together.”

  Billy exhaled pent-up breath.

  “We’re after them, but right now we don’t know if we’ll ever get enough evidence to convict them all. I doubt we’ll get the mayor or the governor.”

  Eli shook his head. “I killed the man who could convict the mayor. I regret that.”

  “Don’t worry. Even if we don’t convict him, he’ll never be able to do this kind of thing again.”

  Billy asked, “How far did the plan reach?”

  “All over the colonies. Here, Boston, New Jersey, Connecticut.”

  Eli leaned forward. “On the gallows, did I hear Hickey say something about someone named Greene?”

  Thompson nodded. “General Nathanael Greene. In command on Long Island. They had barrels of gunpowder over there to blow up his entire command headquarters.”

  “Any others?”

  “General Putnam, General Sullivan, General Scott, half a dozen others.”

  “Anything besides the officers?”

  “At least eight powder magazines. Four hundred thousand cartridges, over a hundred cannon, thousands of muskets—they intended to disable the entire Continental army over about a two-day period.”

  Billy eased back in his chair, face a blank.

  Thompson picked up a pencil and idly twisted it between his fingers for a moment. “General Washington knows what you two did. He may never get the time to thank you personally, but General Scott says he was ordered by Washington to convey his thanks. I add mine.” He raised his eyes. They were, as always, firm, direct.

  Billy murmured, “Thank you, sir.”

  Eli said nothing.

  Thompson laid the pencil down. “That’s all. No need to spread this.” He gestured to Eli’s arm. “How’s it coming?”

  “Good.”

  “You resting it?”

  Eli smiled, his eyes dropped, and he said nothing.

  “That’s what I thought. Stroud, I’m giving you a direct order. You put that arm in a sling within the next ten minutes and leave it there until the surgeon takes the stitches out. If I hear otherwise I’ll have you in the stockade. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right. Weems, if he disobeys, you’re to report it immediately.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Dismissed.” Thompson busied himself with paperwork, and the two men rose and walked out the tent flap into the sweltering heat. Eli took his rifle, and they said nothing as they walked to the surgeon’s tent, where Billy got a roll of clean, torn sheeting, and they made their way back to Billy’s blanket. Billy tore off five feet of the roll of white sheeting, knotted a loop, and fashioned a sling around Eli’s neck and left arm.

  They ate the cold potatoes, picked at the cold, greasy salt pork, ground the hardtack between their teeth, drank from their canteens, and set their plates aside.

  Eli spoke. “I can hardly believe what Thompson said about the mayor and the governor and those other men in high places. Out to kill General Washington.”

  Billy nodded. “Washington, Greene, Putnam, Sullivan, Scott— it’s like some fable.” He raised his eyes to Eli. “A couple days ago, you mentioned you wanted to meet General Washington. Something interrupted and you never said why.”

  Eli sobered and he stared at his hands for a moment. “There’s a story among the Iroquois. They don’t think he can be killed by a bullet or cannon or gunpowder.”

  “What? I’ve never heard that.”

  “It comes from a long time ago, when he was young. The Iroquois were with the French when they ambushed some English, and Washington was one of the English officers. His commander got hit, and Washington tried to save him. Six or eight Iroquois got so close with muskets they couldn’t miss, and shot at Washington. They hit his hat and coat, but
they couldn’t hit him, and it scared them. Washington got his commanding officer out of there but he died, and Washington buried him in the road and made the English march over the grave so the Iroquois couldn’t find it. The Iroquois told their chief about trying to kill Washington, and the old chief said he had seen them shoot, and he told them, maybe like a prophet in the Bible, that Washington would never be killed by a bullet or a cannon, but he would live long.”

  Eli stopped, and Billy watched his face become sober, reflective, and he waited.

  Eli concluded. “And he said George Washington would become the father of a great and free land.” Eli raised his eyes to Billy, and in them Billy saw the deep need to see the man, to meet him, to feel his spirit, to be able to judge.

  Was it true? Would George Washington live long? Would he survive the war? win? be the leader of a great, free land? Could an old Iroquois chief make such a prophecy? If he could, was it from God?

  Billy’s words came quietly. “Do you believe it?”

  Eli hesitated for a time. “I don’t know. That’s why I want to meet him. Maybe I’ll feel it. Maybe I’ll know. I’d like to find out.”

  “What happens when you find out?”

  “If I believe it’s true that the Great Spirit—God—sent him to set this land free, then I do everything I can for him.”

  “And if not?”

  “I leave.”

  For a time Billy fell silent at the profound simplicity. Eli rose and picked up his plate and utensils, and Billy followed him to the river, where they scrubbed them with sand, rinsed them, and returned to the blanket and set them to dry.

  “If you ever meet him, do you think you’ll know?”

  “I hope so. I hope I’ll feel something, one way or the other. Maybe enough.” He looked at Billy. “Once before I said white men have let many things inside go to sleep. They don’t feel. If I meet Washington, I hope I can feel his spirit try to speak to mine. I hope it will be strong.”

  “You’re white.”

  “Raised Iroquois. Raised to feel. Like Joseph Brant. If he’s with the British . . .” He did not finish the sentence.

  Billy stuffed his plate and utensils into his knapsack and was rising when a rumble from behind turned both of them around to look. A great freight wagon built of heavy oak, double axled, wide, heavy-spoked wheels six feet in diameter, rolled from Reade Street eighty yards distant. Two pedigreed Percheron draft horses, eighteen hundred pounds each, in well-oiled, brass-studded harnesses, swung the wagon to the right, and the wheels sank eight inches into the sandy, stony soil as the wagon made its way around the encampment towards the command tent. The driver came back on the lines and talked the horses to a stop, and Billy peered, aware there was something different about the flat-crowned, stiff, flat-brimmed costly straw hat and the wrist-length sleeves shoved back to the elbows. A civilian sat next to the driver on the high seat, with a musket between his knees, and two other armed civilians were in the back, sitting on whatever was loaded behind the high, thick sidewalls. Their eyes never ceased moving, watching everyone.

  A nearby officer spoke to the driver, who handed him a document, and the officer disappeared inside the command tent. A moment later Thompson ducked under the flap and strode to the wagon. He handed something up to the driver, spoke, and pointed. The driver slapped the reins on the rumps of the horses and gigged them. The big bay geldings heaved into the harnesses and dug into the loose soil, and slowly the massive wagon lurched into motion, headed towards the powder magazine twenty yards past the north end of the encampment.

  Billy and Eli watched it rumble past, and their eyes widened when they realized the driver, sitting high and straight on the seat, was a woman. She held the reins locked between the index and middle fingers of each hand, left foot thrust forward and out, riding the cleat of the brake pole, and she talked low to the horses, eyes straight ahead as she approached the powder magazine. The straw hat sat low and level on her head, held in place by a leather thong tied beneath her chin. Her long-sleeved, ankle-length calico dress was of high quality, with lace at the throat, down the front, and on the cuffs. Her dark hair was caught in back by a leather cord. Her eyes were dark, wide set, serious, nose straight, aquiline, mouth drawn as she clucked and talked to the horses, chin firm, with a hint of a cleft, and there was a slight gap between her front teeth. They saw perspiration on her forehead as the wagon rolled past. She did not look at them.

  She rolled to within forty feet of the powder magazine, and the double pickets moved to meet her. She came back on the reins and the wagon stopped.

  Wide-eyed in surprise, the pickets challenged. “Uh, ma’am, this is a munitions magazine. No one gets close without orders from the colonel.”

  She leaned to hand the picket the document Thompson had given her, and he studied it for a moment, then turned to the other pickets. “Colonel says she’s got munitions. Let her pass. Company Nine will be here to unload.”

  She moved the wagon forward, near the heavy oak door that opened into a stairwell downward. The magazine was twenty-five feet by thirty feet, sunk seven feet in the ground, with a roof of heavy timbers covered by two feet of compacted dirt and rocks. Behind her a young lieutenant talked to Sergeant Turlock, who was working at his hardtack. He handed a document to Turlock, who scanned it and then turned to look at the wagon beside the powder magazine. He stood, and Ninth Company watched him, waiting.

  “All right, you lovelies. We got cartridges to unload, and a lady waiting. Follow me.”

  The men stood, brushing dirt and sand from their trousers, and fell in behind Turlock as they walked to the waiting wagon. Hard hands that had been soft and blistered only days earlier pulled the pins and lowered the tailgate. The soldiers glanced guardedly at the woman, who stood near the door to the sunken stairwell, tugging her sleeves down to cover her arms. The three armed men who had arrived with her stood silently nearby, muskets in hand, watching everyone.

  “Weems!”

  Billy’s head swung around to Turlock. “Here.”

  Turlock motioned and Billy walked to him.

  “You the one who keeps accounts?”

  “Yes.”

  Turlock thrust the document to him, with a stub pencil and a piece of pine planking. “Here’s the manifest on that load. Be sure everything on that manifest gets off the wagon. Any shortages or overages, stop everything until we figure it out. The lady’s name is Mary Flint.”

  Billy nodded.

  “Stroud around?”

  “Over there.”

  “Get him. Colonel says he’s not to lift anything with that arm. He’s to help you count. He’ll have to sign off on that manifest with you.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  Turlock called out orders, and four men climbed into the wagon bed. The others lined up shoulder to shoulder in a chain down into the magazine, and the men in the wagon began handing down the small, heavy pine boxes with handles on both ends. The boxes were labeled “TWO HUNDRED COUNT .75 CAL BALL PAPER CARTRIDGES,” “TWO HUNDRED COUNT .60 CAL BALL PAPER CARTRIDGES,” or “TWO HUNDRED COUNT .50 CAL BALL PAPER CARTRIDGES.”

  Billy stood at the top of the stairwell, Eli beside him, and as the first box passed them, Billy’s eyes narrowed and he read the stencil again, then turned to Turlock. “Those markings aren’t regular military marks like the ones we’ve seen,” he said.

  Turlock shrugged. “Take the count and ask about it later.”

  Billy took the count, making a mark on the manifest for each box that passed them. On the other side of the door, Mary Flint was intently making her own count, watching every box, marking her own copy.

  The work settled into a rhythm beneath the relentless sun. Sweat ran dripping from noses and chins and soaked shirts. Mary drew a large handkerchief from a pocket in her dress and wiped her forehead, never losing her count. Turlock left and returned with two buckets of cold springwater and two dippers, and the work stopped for five minutes while thirsty men rinsed their mouths, spouted wa
ter, and then drank long. Steadily the load in the wagon dwindled, and then the men up in the wagon bed set the last box on the back edge and dropped to the ground. The box disappeared into the magazine, and moments later the men climbed back to daylight.

  The heavy door was lowered into place, and the double locks snapped in their hasps. Billy quickly added the columns on the manifest and entered the totals, then watched Mary. She finished her figures and looked at him, waiting.

  “One hundred eighty total,” Billy recited. “Ninety-two .75-caliber, fifty-five .60-caliber, thirty-three .50-caliber. Thirty-six thousand paper cartridges.”

  Mary studied her figures for a moment. “That’s what I have.”

  Billy bobbed his head. “Good.” He signed his name, Eli signed his, and Mary signed hers and took her copy. She briefly checked it, then raised her face directly to Billy. “Thank you.”

  The open expression in her dark eyes startled Billy, and he answered, “My thanks to you, ma’am.”

  She turned to Eli, and for an instant her eyes swept his buckskins with the Iroquois quillwork, his moccasins, and then the weapons belt with the tomahawk. For a moment their eyes met, and in hers Eli caught a glimmer of frank directness that came from having lived with deep pain or sadness. He also saw compassion and strength, and he saw the unspoken question he had seen so many times in the eyes of others—how did an Indian come to have blue eyes and brown hair?

  She gestured to the sling on his left arm. “Broken?”

  “It’s all right.”

  Turlock’s voice rose to interrupt. “Back to camp. We have work yet today.”

  Billy and Eli both nodded to her and turned to Turlock. Billy handed him the signed manifest; then both he and Eli fell in with the company, moving back towards camp. Mary turned on her heel, climbed the wagon wheel, and used the step to climb into the driver’s box, while her escorts took their places, one on the driver’s seat beside her, the other two in the wagon bed. She unwrapped the reins from the brake pole, threaded the long leather lines through her fingers, and slapped the reins on the rumps of the two horses. They leaned into the horse collars, the traces tightened, and the big wagon moved. The men of Company Nine watched her make the tight right turn and slowly pass them as she returned to the Reade Street entrance and swung the team left, the empty wagon clattering when the heavy iron-rimmed wheels reached the cobblestones.