Ashes (23 page)

The delighted reaction of the new arrivals confuddled me even more. The soldiers hurried over, bowing, shouting huzzahs, babbling about my illness and Ruth's poor health, and how pleased the sergeant would be, and “of course, your husband.”

Husband?

I
T IS
V
OTED AND
R
ESOLVED
, T
HAT EVERY ABLE-BODIED
N
EGRO
, M
ULATTO OR
I
NDIAN MAN SLAVE IN THIS
S
TATE, MAY ENLIST INTO EITHER OF THE SAID TWO BATTALIONS TO SERVE DURING . . . THE PRESENT WAR WITH
G
REAT
B
RITAIN; THAT EVERY SLAVE SO ENLISTING SHALL BE ENTITLED TO AND RECEIVE ALL THE BOUNTIES, WAGES, AND ENCOURAGEMENTS ALLOWED BY THE
C
ONTINENTAL
C
ONGRESS TO ANY SOLDIER ENLISTING IN THEIR SERVICE. . . .
E
VERY SLAVE SO ENLISTING SHALL . . . BE IMMEDIATELY DISCHARGED FROM THE SERVICE OF HIS MASTER OR MISTRESS, AND BE ABSOLUTELY
FREE,
AS THOUGH HE HAD NEVER BEEN INCUMBERED WITH ANY KIND OF SERVITUDE OR SLAVERY.

–A
CT OF THE
R
HODE
I
SLAND LEGISLATURE
, F
EBRUARY 1778

I
OPENED MY MOUTH TO
explain that a mistake had been made, but before I could say anything, the first fellow ran off, waving his hat and shouting, “Sir! They're here! Missus Smith and her sister!”

Mayhaps I didn't hear him proper. I was certain that I would know it if I were a wife . . . or if I had a husband, which was largely the same thing. Mayhaps I was coming down with a fever that had stopped my ears from working. I felt my brow. Warm, it was, but not fevered.

Then Curzon arrived.

He wore the same dusty Continental breeches as the other lads and his old shirt with the ragged, too-short sleeves. Sweat trickled down his face and along the thin scar on the left side of his chin. His gaze traveled to Ruth, to his companions, up to the heavens, and down to the dirt. He looked at every blessed thing, every person, but me.

Ruth bounced on her toes, as happy as I'd seen her since we left Riverbend. “We come to help you fight the redcoats, Curzon!”

The other fellows laughed heartily.

“Have ye been struck dumb and blind by the beauty of yer missus?” called one of the fellows.

“Give her a kiss!” called another.

He finally looked in my eyes. His haunted gaze was filled with misery and made me feel the worst sort of wretch, though I could not figger why. We seemed to be players in a game, but no one had explained the rules to me, and the stakes seemed dangerously high. What would a wife, a proper wife, do in a situation such as this?

“Good day,” I said formally, bending my knees in a brief curtsy, keeping my back straight and tall.

“Good day,” he answered. “Dear wife.”

“We have much to discuss,” I said.

“In more private circumstances,” he said.

“Go on, you lout!” a soldier called. “Show her that you missed her!”

Curzon grimaced, as if the words had been a punch in his belly. He lifted his hat and performed a dramatic bow, like a highborn gentleman or a fop on a stage. It recalled to me the first time I saw him, at the end of a wharf in New York. He stood again and replaced his hat with an air of weariness. I knew now what made him seem so strange. He was not smiling. He looked as if he'd forgotten how.

“'Twas not my intention–” I started.

“Are you feeling well enough, wife?” Curzon asked in a hollow voice. “The intermittent fever had taken such a strong hold of you and Ruth.”

“We are both well,” I said. “Husband.”

That word had never come forth from my mouth that way. It near choked me.

“I told the lads about your delicious way with pies.” He sounded as joyful as a thief on his way to the gallows. This could have been because he had eaten my pies, or rather, tried to eat them. I'd not developed the kitchen skills of most lasses on account of our wanderings. I could cook the most basic of foods, but pies were beyond my reach.

One of his mates draped an arm around Curzon's shoulders. “I'd give my arm for one of my Phoebe's peach pies. She uses butter and peaches, but I don't know what else. Might be an incantation involved too. She's a magical lass, my Phoebe.” He gave Curzon a hearty slap on the back. “Aren't you a lucky rogue!”

Ebenezer appeared between the tents, speaking with quiet intent to an officer of his same complexion and build. Curzon stiffened at the sight of the new man. The other fellows quickly turned back to the task of stacking the logs they'd brought.

“Missus Smith,” the new officer said as he approached. It took Ebenezer clearing his throat uncommonly loud to remind me that the new officer truly thought that was my name.

The shock of it caused me to curtsy much lower than I needed to. Ruth imitated me and had the sense to mind her tongue in the presence of a white stranger.

“Sergeant Armstrong,” he introduced himself. “We did not meet when your husband enlisted. A bit out of the ordinary, but Sergeant Woodruff is a man I trust. He assured me that he knew you both at Valley Forge and commended your skills and reputation. Have you fully recovered from your illnesses, you and your sister?”

I fought to make sense of this suddenly strange and swirling world. “Yes, sir,” I answered. “Thank you, sir. We are quite well.”

“I am relieved to have you restored to health and ready for service, ma'am. We sorely need your aid.” He peered over my shoulder at my haversack. “Is that a washing bat I spy?”

“Indeed, sir. My sister has one as well, and we've a small crock of soap.”

He chuckled. “That is most welcome. The stink of my men has become the talk of the brigade. Mayhaps you could turn your hand to washing their togs tomorrow. Some of the women of the army have established tents and brush huts at the back of the encampment. Would you care to sort out your sleeping arrangements now?”

“If I may sir,” I said. “I'd rather prepare supper for the lads. They'll be hungry.”

“Soldiers are always hungry.” Sergeant Armstrong smiled. “A stew that didn't taste like rotted fish would be a welcome change. Two moments with your lady, Private Smith, then back to work.” He touched his fingertips to the brim of his hat. “A pleasure to have you with us.”

“Thank you, Sergeant, sir.” I curtsied again. “And thank you, Sergeant Woodruff.”

I gave Ruth a little kick. She bobbed and did not say a word, for which I said a short prayer of thanks.

Sergeant Armstrong turned and walked away, followed by his men and Ebenezer, who winked at us before he left. I watched them stride away until they were swallowed up in the hubbub of the growing camp.

Curzon still had not moved.

“Where is the best water found?” I asked him. “That beef wants to be boiled.”

“No good water close by.” He frowned. “You have to wade deep into a frog pond to get some that doesn't stink of sulfur. I'll fetch it for you.”

I stepped closer. “It was not my intention for any of this. Ebenezer, this was his doing.”

He ignored my words, pointing at a short stack of crates near the woodpile. “You'll find dried peas in one of those. Meat needs cutting, but I don't know where you can find a knife. Everything is still a jumble.”

“My hatchet is plenty sharp,” I said.

He paused, then nodded in a melancholy way. “Always was.”

Two cannons fired in Yorktown. Ruth and I flinched. This part of the American encampment was closer to the British fortifications, and the noise was disturbingly louder.

“Their shots cannot reach this far,” Curzon said. “You are well out of danger here.”

He hesitated. For a moment I thought he'd say something about this strange circumstance we found ourselves in. That he'd explain and then laugh, and then we'd sort out the mess and everything would go back to the way it had been when we were friends.

But all he said was, “I'll fetch that water now.”

A
MILITIA MAN THIS DAY, POSSESSED OF MORE BRAVERY [THAN] PRUDENCE, STOOD CONSTANTLY ON THE PARAPET AND D[––]D HIS SOUL IF HE WOULD DODGE FOR THE BUGGERS
. H
E HAD ESCAPED LONGER THAN COULD HAVE BEEN EXPECTED, AND, GROWING FOOL-HARDY, BRANDISHED HIS SPADE AT EVERY [CANNON]BALL THAT WAS FIRED, TILL, UNFORTUNATELY, A BALL CAME AND PUT AN END TO HIS CAPERS.

–D
IARY OF
C
APTAIN
J
AMES
D
UNCAN
, P
ENNSYLVANIA LINE
, O
CTOBER 3, 1781

R
ISE, DEAR.” A WOMAN WITH
a kind voice and jolly face shook my shoulder. “The sun will awake soon.”

I sat up reluctantly. “Thank you, Sibby.”

She nodded and crawled backward out of the brush hut. Sibby and a one-eyed white woman called Cristena had helped us construct this brush hut the night before, using poles and hemlock branches.

“Wake up, sister.” I shook Ruth's arm. “We're in the army, heaven help us.”

After visiting the women's privy trench, it took us only a few moments of swift walking to travel from the back of the encampment to the cook fire of our company. The ghostly forms of other lasses moved through the mist with us, everyone slapping at the infernal midges, mosquitoes, fleas, and lice. More tents had been put up in the night. Most could hold six, some bigger, others smaller. A few soldiers slept sprawled on the ground, on account of the heat, mayhaps, or the stench of their tent mates. All of them snored.

To earn our food rations, Ruth and I had to care for a company of forty-five lads. Sibby had given me bushels of advice about how to keep the fellows fed, clean, and fit for duty. “Get the cook fire going first,” she said. “Once you trust that it won't burn out, hurry to the frog pond for water. Boil that soon as you can, for hot water is always in short supply. Beans take longer than peas to cook, and peas take longer than porridge. Maggots don't hurt no one, long as they are boiled with the meat.”

When we arrived at the company that first morning, our lads were still asleep. Their snores made me wonder if their tents were inhabited by fat oxen instead of young soldiers. Someone had been kind enough to fill two of the kettles with water. That was a trip saved. But all of the firewood that had been split the night before had burned down to coal and ash.

“Niff-naffy nincompoops,” I muttered.

Ruth sat on an upturned log. “You cursed.”

“Beg pardon,” I said automatically. “But they could have set some wood aside for the breakfast cooking.” I picked up one of the axes that leaned against the woodpile and tested the blade. Not as sharp as I'd like, but it would do the job.

“I can chop,” Ruth said.

She was willing, but I doubted she had the knack of it. At the laundry I'd done all the splitting of logs whilst she was out on her delivery rounds.

“You're too slender to swing an axe,” I said. “You'll topple over backward.”

Ruth held out her hand. “Bigger than you.”

Much as it pained me, there was no denying that. And starting the day off with an argument would help no one.

“You can try,” I said. “But that wood's green. Gonna take strength that you don't have. Go slow and take care.”

Ruth rolled up her sleeves, muscled a log onto the chopping block, then hefted the axe in her hands, finding its balance. She eyed the log, stepped back, and swung the axe with skill. The blade cut the log cleanly in two, like it was made of butter, not newly felled pine.

She turned to me, smiling with pride.

“Huzzah indeed,” I said in surprise. “Well done, sister.”

“I'm no nincompoop,” Ruth said.