Prelude to Glory, Vol. 2

by Ron Carter

  Twenty minutes later, after the last arc of the setting sun had disappeared and left the world in growing dusk, Captain Hornaby stood in his stirrups and pointed. “We camp there.”

  A quarter mile straight ahead the woods opened into a flat, open meadow with a small stream on the west side. They could see tall grasses and wildflowers in the fast-fading light. Between the column and the meadow, the path they followed passed between two large stands of trees, thirty yards apart, over two hundred yards long. The column moved steadily forward, their thoughts on camp and hot food and blankets.

  They reached the halfway point in their passage between the two stands of trees, fifteen yards away on either side of them, before an inner instinct rose hot inside Hornaby and he suddenly realized they were in a perfect place for an ambush. Instantly he jerked his horse around while the startled regulars drew reign, waiting, and Hornaby raised his cupped hand to his mouth to shout, “Forward at a gallop,” and those were his last words.

  Twenty deadly, hidden Pennsylvania long rifles blasted from the east trees, their muzzle flashes orange in the dusky light, and Captain Hornaby threw his hands up and his head back and pitched from his horse, rolling, finished. Four regulars slumped in their saddles and toppled forward, and two others rocked backwards and fought to stay mounted as their horses pranced sideways, away from the white smoke drifting from the trees. The two civilian outriders from Boston grasped at their chests and slowly slid to the ground and did not move. The men driving the first two wagons jerked and collapsed sideways against the women next to them.

  The red-coated regulars who were still mounted slammed their spurs into the flanks of their terrified mounts and leaned low over the necks, kicking them to stampede gait, trying to get past the trees, out onto the open meadow. As they streamed south, fifteen more rifles hidden in the west stand of trees erupted, and every regular jerked in his saddle. All but two slid from their running horses to hit the ground rolling, and the last two slowly buckled forward and toppled over the withers of their running horses and rolled to a stop in the wildflowers.

  A lone figure leaped from the lead wagon and sprinted after the red-coated regulars, arms flailing, screaming, “Wait! Wait!” He made it forty yards before a single Pennsylvania rifle spoke, and Cullen grasped his chest and slowed and stumbled to his knees and fell forward on his face, and did not move.

  When the first roaring blast erupted from the trees and men began dropping, and the drivers of the first two wagons collapsed and let their reins go slack, followed by red-coated riders streaking past into a second rolling blast of rifle fire from the west side, the wild-eyed teams of the first two wagons bolted. In ten yards they were at a full-out run, the women on the seats frantically straining to hold onto the dead drivers, while the reins flew free, dragging. The two teams behind knew nothing more than to follow, and in an instant what remained of the column was thundering south, wagons careening crazily as the big wheels hit rocks and mounds and holes.

  Brigitte had her feet braced against the front of the wagon, frantically hauling back on her reins with all her strength, but her team had taken the bits in their teeth and were following the tailgate of the wagon ahead, heedless of where they were going. Caleb was hunched forward, hands locked onto the iron railing on the driver’s seat, white-faced, mouth gaping, terrified.

  From the left, the deafening roar of six cannon echoed for miles, and the front end of the lead wagon disappeared in a cloud of smoke and a million shards of shattered wood. The hindquarters of the wheel horses dropped and the horses fell in their traces, and the lead horses went berserk, bucking, jumping, tangled in their harnesses and chains.

  At the same moment, the second wagon exploded in the center into two pieces. The dead driver and the women with him were blown forward, onto the rumps of the wheel horses and then onto the ground rolling, while the team continued in their wild run, dragging the front half of the wagon. The back half of the wagon cartwheeled and scattered blankets and shoes twenty yards in all directions.

  The team of the third wagon jerked to the right to avoid the wreckage and Brigitte’s team followed. They were closing with the trees on the right when the cannon hidden there opened up.

  The first shot ripped through the side of the ammunition wagon just above the front wheels into the wooden cases of cartridges. The nearest cases ruptured and exploded instantly, and within one second the entire load of more than a ton of cartridges blew. Flame leaped one hundred feet upward, and burning cartridges arced in all directions, leaving fiery trails in the darkening sky. The driver and assistant were blown forward over the heads of the team. The wheel horses were killed in their tracks, the lead horses knocked unconscious to lie on their sides, legs still working back and forth.

  The noses of Brigitte’s lead horses were forty feet behind the tailgate of the ammunition wagon when it blew. Her lead horses were killed instantly, blown back into the wheel horses to jam them backwards over the singletrees, against the front of the wagon, and their screams echoed in the trees. Brigitte and Caleb were blown backwards, rolling over the top of the load of their wagon, off the back, to hit the ground stunned, hair singed, ears ringing, unable to focus their eyes for a moment or to rise or think. The wagon plowed into the wreckage of the ammunition wagon and the wheel horses, still alive, tangled in their own harnesses and trace chains and the shattered hulk of the burning ammunition wagon.

  As quickly as it had erupted, the rifle fire and the cannon fell silent. Pieces and shards of the wagons, some burning, lay scattered for one hundred yards between the two stands of trees. Moans of the injured and dying rose in the silence, and the heartrending sounds of horses with broken legs and necks and backs came from the shattered remains of the wagons.

  Caleb stirred and tried to rise, and Brigitte frantically shoved him back down. “Don’t move,” she hissed in his ear. All she knew was that for two minutes the world had been filled with rifle and cannon fire that had killed nearly everyone in the column and most of the horses, and blown the wagons to oblivion. Who had laid the ambush, and what they intended doing next, she had no idea. She lay beside Caleb in the tall grass, waiting in the falling darkness, frantic, unable to know what to do next.

  She jumped at the lone crack of a rifle, and then another, and another, and she clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming, certain the unseen enemy was moving among the wounded, shooting them. She did not know the shots were fired to mercifully end the suffering of the crippled horses. She lay perfectly still, breathing shallow, waiting for someone to loom above them to aim a rifle or musket.

  Caleb touched her arm. “We better go see what happened.”

  She twisted her head and thrust her face close to his to stare into his eyes. They were wide, vacant, and she realized he was stunned out of his mind, in shock, and a wave of terror ran through her, followed by hot anger.

  She clamped her jaw shut and hissed, “Can you hear me?”

  For three seconds Caleb looked at her before he slowly nodded his head.

  “Then turn around and start crawling. On your stomach. Don’t get up. Just start crawling and don’t stop until I say.”

  Again he looked at her without a change of expression, and she shook his shoulder and ordered him. “Move. Now.”

  He nodded and then slowly turned on his stomach and began crawling through the tall grass, away from the flickering fires and the sounds of men moving among the wreckage and the dead, and Brigitte followed him, watching, never rising.

  The moon was up and they were dirty and their hands aching before Brigitte once again whispered to him. “Stop.” She rose to one knee to peer south under the stars, looking for the light of a fire or a lantern. There was none. Caleb rose beside her, and they did not move for a full minute as they watched and listened.

  Brigitte stood. “Let’s go.” Her whisper sounded loud in the darkness.

  She led and he followed. They tried to find the ruts made by their wagon, and they could not see
in the darkness. Brigitte got down on her hands and knees and felt, but the soft, spongy grass told her nothing. They walked on, driven by panic of what was behind.

  At midnight they stopped to rest, and suddenly Caleb thrust his hand inside his shirt, and he exclaimed, “My notepad! It’s gone! I have to go back.”

  Brigitte’s shoulders slumped. “You’re not going back.”

  The chill of night settled and they shivered, and Brigitte stood. “We’ll have to walk to keep warm.”

  They trudged on in the darkness, stumbling on stones, with brush and tree limbs reaching to snag their clothes and scratch their hands. Half a dozen times they stopped at the sound of things moving in the brush, terrified, expecting the crack of a rifle. With the morning star fading in the east, Brigitte sat down on a rock, and Caleb slumped to the ground next to her. For ten minutes she let him rest, and then spoke to him. “Do you remember what happened?”

  His forehead wrinkled as he struggled. “I think so.”

  “Tell me.”

  “We got shot at.”

  “What happened to our wagon?” She watched his eyes as he worked at remembering, and suddenly they opened wide and his face blanched and his voice rose.

  “The ammunition wagon blew up and us with it.”

  “Do you know how we got here?”

  He licked dry lips. “Crawled.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Why? Haven’t I been?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Do you remember it all now?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Scared. Mad. Mostly mad.”

  A smile flitted across Brigitte’s face, and she continued. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

  “Sore. Not hurt. Where’s everybody else? Are we going back?”

  Brigitte looked west, back from whence they had come, for a long time, and there was pain in her voice when she spoke. “No. I don’t know where the rest are. Some are dead. I hope some got away. But we can’t go back and get captured or killed.”

  Finally she set her jaw and stood and squared her shoulders and spoke with resolve. “We can’t go back. We don’t know where we are. We have no food, no blankets, no map, no coats. But we do have some things. We know that home is where the sun is going to come up, and we know we can find water. We can eat nuts and berries, and we’re bound to find a farm. So we’re going to walk home. Are you ready?”

  ______

  Notes

  The night of August 21, 1776, a tremendous wind and thunder and lightning storm struck the New York area, killing three American officers and one soldier (see Johnston, The Campaign of 1776, part 1, p. 140, particularly the footnote).

  The storm having quieted in the night, the morning of August 22, 1776, broke favorably, and the British executed the amphibious crossing from Staten Island to the southern portions of Long Island, and dispersed their troops to occupy the village of Flatbush and take up defensive positions, preparatory to moving north to Brooklyn (see Johnston, The Campaign of 1776, part 1, p. 140 and following).

  The incidents concerning Brigitte and Caleb Dunson and their efforts to bring supplies to the Continental army are fictional.

  Part Two

  * * *

  Long Island

  August 26, 1776

  Chapter XV

  * * *

  Stroud!”

  Crusty little Sergeant Turlock slowed from a run to stand on the rim of the trench where the Boston regiment was dug in, south of the Brooklyn breastworks, looking down at Billy and Eli in the rose colors of dawn.

  “General Washington’s in Thompson’s command tent,” he panted. “Wants to talk with you.”

  Eli’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Me? What about?” His thoughts raced. Washington! Why me?

  “That don’t matter. Get out of there and move.”

  Eli vaulted out of the trench, Billy tossed his rifle up to him, and he broke for the command tent at a trot. The picket saw him coming, took his rifle, and without a word opened the flap. Eli stepped in and stopped, startled, not expecting the gathering into which he had been thrust. He stood still while his eyes swept the faces of the men who surrounded the large table.

  Generals George Washington, Putnam, Sullivan, Stirling, Scott, and Colonels Thompson and Knowlton. Eli recognized Thompson and Scott by sight, and Washington by description, but no others. He did not salute but stood waiting for direction while the officers studied his buckskins and beaded moccasins.

  Thompson took control. “General Washington, this is Eli Stroud of the Boston regiment, Ninth Company. He has been acting as my scout.”

  General Washington was seated at the far end of the table. He stood and bowed. “Private Stroud, thank you for coming.”

  For a split second Eli stood silent, unsure of how he should respond in the presence of the most powerful assembly of men he had ever seen. Instinct rose. He stared steadily back into the blue-gray eyes of the tall figure at the head of the table. “Glad I could.”

  Washington gestured. “Would you like to be seated?”

  “Could I stand? Thoughts come easier standing.”

  Washington smiled. “Mine come best sitting a good horse.” He sobered. “Colonel Thompson informs me you were on scout yesterday.”

  “Yes.”

  Half the officers at the table shifted their eyes between Washington and Eli, aware that Eli was not addressing Washington as “sir” and wondering when Washington was going to correct him. They waited.

  Washington pointed to the large map on the table. “Where did you scout?”

  Eli stepped to the table and studied the Long Island map for a moment, then pointed. “Here.”

  Washington raised startled eyes. “Gravesend Bay?”

  “Yes, and other places.”

  Washington glanced at Thompson, then back at Eli. “Below the battle lines, right in among the British?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get in and out without getting caught?”

  Eli shrugged. “Stay out of sight. Move quiet.”

  For three full seconds Washington locked eyes with Eli, and in those moments Eli knew Washington had probed deep, and he also knew that he had seen deeply enough into Washington to sense the steel in him.

  Washington broke it off. “Do I understand more troops came ashore yesterday?”

  “Yes. About six thousand. Their uniforms were dark blue, and they brought drums and fifes.”

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “Hessians, I think.”

  “With the British, what is their total strength now?”

  “Fifteen thousand four days ago, six thousand yesterday. Twenty-one thousand.”

  Washington pursed his mouth for a moment. “What can you tell us of their dispersion? Where are the British troops, and where are the Hessians?”

  Eli pointed as he spoke. “Yesterday at sunset all the Hessians and some of the redcoats were here, at Flatbush, in the middle. To their south was the biggest body, all redcoats, here, near what’s marked Flatlands. To the west, back over here, near the Narrows, the rest of them.”

  For ten seconds Washington studied the locations pointed out by Eli, mouth a thin, straight line, eyes narrowed in intense concentration. “Their cannon?”

  “Divided up. They all had some.”

  “Horses?”

  “Maybe seven hundred, scattered out on picket lines through all three of those places.”

  “Did any of these groups have tents set up? a camp?”

  “Not many tents. Looked like they were expecting to move.”

  Washington nodded as he absorbed the implication, and he moved on. “How far east have you scouted?”

  “About six miles.”

  “What did you see?” Washington was probing and testing, and Eli knew it.

  He began pointing at the map. “We got fortifications at Brooklyn, and down on this ridge. I’ll call it the south ridge. There are four natural passes through the sou
th ridge. On the west there’s Gowanus Road, here, and then there’s Flatbush Road here that runs right through our breastworks, and then there’s the Bedford Road, here, and farthest east, here, there’s the Jamaica Road. Then there’s this unnamed road, right here, that runs from Flatbush north up to the Jamaica Road.”

  He stopped to gather his thoughts. “Jamaica Road runs from here, nearly on the beach, north through Jamaica Pass, then swings back west, and Bedford Road joins it right here, and Flatbush Road joins it right here and goes right on into Brooklyn. The Jamaica Road passes behind all these trenches and breastworks that we’ve been building to stop the British, including where we are right now.”

  He stopped and raised his eyes to Washington’s, and the room became so quiet they could hear the flies buzzing.

  “Maybe we can stop them if they try to march up the south ridge straight at us, but if they send troops up to take the Jamaica Road and they get in behind us while we’re fighting the rest of them coming up that south ridge straight at us, we’re caught on three sides, and the swamp and river are on the fourth, over here. And the Gowanus Road leads up north from where the British are over there on the west, right to that swamp and the river. And the way these roads all tie in with the Jamaica Road, once they got that road they got a way to reach all of us, both here on the south ridge and north, up at Brooklyn.”

  Eli stopped and waited to see if Washington understood.

  Washington slowly turned his head to Generals Putnam and Sullivan. “Gentlemen, I presume you are aware of the danger and will take appropriate actions to prevent a flanking movement through Jamaica Pass. At any cost.”

  Both generals nodded.

  Washington turned back to Eli. “General Greene has taken seriously ill with the fever and has been moved to New York. General Putnam is in command of the Long Island forces. General Sullivan will be in command of our left, towards the Jamaica Road.”