Ashes (24 page)

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The rhythm of our days was driven by the drums. Uniformed drummers gathered at the artillery park, at headquarters, and at the brigade common places to act as clocks of sound for the vast encampment. They drummed at dawn, then later to assemble the men for inspection and orders. They drummed to send them off to their duties of the day–patrolling, doing work details, standing guard, and foraging–and again when it was time to return to camp.

We worked from the dark before dawn to the dark after sunset. Sometimes we worked in the cool of the night, when the constant sound of British cannons firing hundreds of shots provided a strange rhythm of its own. After those nights we hungered for sleep as if it were bread.

At first Ruth kept close by my side, but as she became acquainted with a few of the camp's women, she began to venture with them on errands and chores. She smiled easily and enjoyed teasing me, though from time to time I found her staring at the columns of soldiers as they tramped by our cook fire, looking each one in the face. When I asked whom she was seeking, she claimed she was watching for Thomas, the donkey we'd left behind at the laundry. She said this with eyes downcast and her hands twisting at her skirt, both signals that she was lying. We'd discussed Thomas Boon frequently, and she understood that in all likelihood we would not see him again. I was certain that she was keeping an eye out for Aberdeen, but I resolved not to question her about it. I did not want to rob her of her dreams.

The men worked as if their breeches were on fire. Patrols constantly roamed the edges of the encampment, keeping a sharp eye out for sneak attacks of the British. Men rotated duties; one day felling trees, building bridges, and keeping the camp in good order, and the next drilling with muskets and bayonets. The anticipation of the day when they'd finally clash with their enemy built like steam in a lidded pot.

The fellows in our company were high spirited and friendly. Listening to the manner of their Rhode Island–flavored speech gave me comfort. Near half of them had joined the army to earn their freedom, Rhode Island being the only state to offer that opportunity to enslaved men. Black or white, they accorded me the respect due a married woman and teased Ruth as if she were their own sister.

Only one fellow among them kept his distance: Curzon Smith. He'd greet me same as his mates, thank me for the stew, bread, or coffee, then take himself away to eat out of sight of the cook fire. No one mentioned this odd behavior, but everyone noticed it, I was sure. I'd discovered that though he had signed us up when he enlisted himself, it was clear that I ought not read any sort of sentiment, any feeling of his heart, within that gesture. Likely he had not wanted to suffer the discomfort of filthy clothes, or mayhaps he wanted to have me close by in case there was a need to battle snakes or gators.

I was content to care for my fellow statesmen, filling their bellies and tending to washing their shirts. Ruth and I were safe, for the time being, and we had decent work. I decided that this temporary circumstance suited me just fine.

A thin, gray-grizzled soldier in our company named Henry took it upon himself to teach me the army's intents and purposes. The coming encounter with the British was not to be a great battle, as had been fought in Brooklyn in 1776 or Monmouth in 1778. Nay, this was to be a siege, a long, drawn-out affair that could last weeks or months. We had two soldiers for every one of theirs, so we could afford to move slow and steady.

He used a long stick to draw a map in the dirt for me. The river looked like a snake. He carved the shape of a bread loaf pan to show Yorktown's position upon the riverbank. Then he drew a vast shape of half of a pie–the straighter edge of it being the river, and the rounded part extending far from Yorktown. At the far edges of the half pie was the entire allied encampment, he said. The French controlled the west portion, and the Patriots controlled the east, though from a goodly distance, on account of the British continuing to shoot cannonballs through the air. In between the encampment and Yorktown the land was in some places dry, in others quite marshy.

Henry drew a circle in the middle of that no-man's-land. “Lobsterbacks have a redoubt, a small fort filled with sharpshooters, here at Pigeon Hill. We need to take control of that first off, if you ask me. With that in hand, our cannons will determine everything, soon as they arrive.”

“But how?” I asked. “We sit here”–I pointed to the rounded edge of the encampment–“where the cannons cannot harm us. Can our guns shoot farther than theirs?”

“Not at all,” Henry said. “That's why we're so busy chopping down every tree in the woods. We're preparing to open a parallel.”

I'd never heard of such a word, “parallel.” Its true meaning was “trench,” Henry said. The troops were going to dig a dreadful-wide and deep trench that zigged and zagged through the middle of the no-man's-land. Once it was dug, they'd drag the cannons through the trench, aim them at Yorktown, and start blasting. Our cannons would inflict greater damage on account of being much closer to Yorktown than the British cannons were to us, and the deepness of the trench would help protect the men.

I thought it would take months to dig a trench that large, but I kept that opinion to myself. I stirred the barley soup that bubbled over the fire and asked Henry why the lads were so busy flattening the forest when their true aim was to dig a trench and blow up the town.

He laughed at that, but it was a kind laugh, not intended to make me feel like an ignorant looby. “The wood serves many purposes to protect the diggers. It helps hold the walls of the trench in place. From its branches we fashion large baskets that will be filled with the dirt dug from the trench. These will then be set as a protective wall at the front edge of the parallel.”

“When you're in the woods,” I said, lowering my voice, “have you seen fugitives out there, our people? The British drove them from Yorktown without food or aid. I've heard many died of smallpox.”

“Aye,” Henry said somberly. “We bury the bodies that we find. The officers don't like us taking the time to do it, so we don't burden them with the information. I'm a preacher of sorts, did the lads tell you that? I pray over each grave. I hope that gives those poor souls some comfort.”

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Loud cries of “Huzzah!” spread through the camp one morning shortly after sunrise. Under the cover of night the British had abandoned the Pigeon Hill redoubt and retreated to Yorktown. Our lads had taken control of the little fort, and we all celebrated. The army now controlled the middle of the no-man's-land. Better still, we controlled the stream of clean water that ran along the bottom of the hill; water the camp desperately needed. Our soup and coffee no longer tasted of frog, rotted eggs, and copper. We used the pond water only for washing after that. This must have surely distressed the poor fish, for the clothes of soldiers are the nastiest imaginable.

Sibby took Ruth with her to fetch potatoes and corn from the provision wagons, then to the new bake ovens established by Mister Ludwig, the Baker-General. Fresh-baked bread cheered the entire camp, but our lads most of all. I'd tried to bake a loaf in a small kettle and produced a hard lump of coal for my troubles. Took me most of the night to chip out the burnt bits with my hatchet.

The complications of a siege seemed endless.

I
T IS JUSTIFIABLE THAT
N
EGROES SHOULD HAVE THEIR FREEDOM, AND NONE AMONGST US HELD AS SLAVES, AS FREEDOM AND LIBERTY IS THE GRAND CONTROVERSY THAT WE ARE CONTENDING FOR.

–M
ASSACHUSETTS LIEUTENANT
T
HOMAS
K
ENCH, WRITING TO THE
M
ASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE, 1778

S
ATURDAY DAWNED RAINY AND COOL
. I kept a rag tucked in my pocket for the momentous sneezes that exploded from my snout at the worst times. Ruth had a cough, but at least her nose did not resemble a dripping spring.

We executed our daily maneuvers: cooking breakfast, washing up after the cooking, fetching the rations for the next three meals, preparing the lunch and starting on the supper, more washing up. We had a brief respite between lunch and supper, as the sergeant explained that our fellows would be late returning from fatigue duty. To take advantage of this break in our action, Ruth went with Sibby and the other women to the stream. I'd been tasked with convincing the brigade armorer to repair our smallest cook kettle, which now leaked, thanks to my chipping efforts with the hatchet.

The poor fellow was so busy hammering, he scarce had time to listen to my request. “Nay, lass,” he said, sparks flying in the air. “Only allowed to repair digging tools today.” He jerked his head toward the mound of axe heads, shovel blades, and billhooks behind him. “Yer welcome to leave it, if ye please.”

Kettles and pans tended to go missing from the blacksmith's, Sibby had told me.

“I'll bring it on the morrow, thank you, sir.”

I worked my way through the crowd, wondering if burning porridge to the bottom of the kettle would fashion a patch that would stop up the leak, when someone called out to me.

“Isabel!”

I turned to see Curzon running. I could scarce believe my eyes. He'd barely spoken to me since our arrival. Oh, he'd been polite enough when I served him roasted meat or coffee, but he never lingered for conversating or joked with me like the other lads did. Once his tin mug and wooden bowl were filled, off he went, his face cloudy and unreadable.

“Do you need something?” I asked, puzzled by this sudden change in his habits. “Lose a button from your breeches?”

He cracked his knuckles. “Nay.”

We stepped off the rough road as a bear-size man drove a wagonload of tools to the blacksmith.

“Feeling poorly?” I asked. “Your belly or your pate?”

“It's not that.”

The blacksmith and the wagon driver started arguing, shaking their fists at each other.

“Can we . . . ,” Curzon started. “I was told . . .”

The wagon driver shouted that he had orders from headquarters requiring that everything in his wagon must be repaired by nightfall. The blacksmith erupted with a fountain of foul language that set everyone to chortling.

“May we go elsewhere?” he asked. “To talk?”

“I have to start the supper.”

“No, you don't.” He cleared his throat. “Sergeant told me to take you for a walk. On account of . . . how busy I've been, and . . . anyway. I tried to tell him you were occupied with your tasks, but he insisted. Fact is, he ordered me.”

“He ordered you to take me for a walk?” I looked over his shoulder. Isaac, Drury, and Tall Will, all tent mates of Curzon's, stood between us and the blacksmith. They waved at me with great vigor and amusement. “Are they to accompany us?”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “They're making sure I follow the order. Our predicament gives them great sport.”

“What predicament?”

He turned and scowled at his mates, then answered my question with one of his own. “I pray you, Isabel, may we take that walk?”

“Long as we head back to the company.”

“By an indirect path, if it's all the same to you.”

It wasn't, but his mysterious manner caused me to agree. We walked a bit in an awkward silence, passing a sutler's, where strong drink was sold to soldiers with coin to pay for it, then a slaughter yard, where the stench of steaming piles of offal had attracted battalions of buzzing flies.

“Mayhaps we ought turn upwind,” I suggested.

“Agreed, but give me that kettle,” he said. “Else the lads will chide me for being uncourtly.”

I handed over the wounded pot. It felt wondrous strange to walk along with nothing in my arms or on my back. Then I sneezed loud as a horse and fumbled for my snot rag.

“You're not well,” Curzon said. “You ought rest a day or two.”

“Ruth can't do all that work herself. I'm fine.”

“But you allow her to go on errands alone.”

“She's more capable than I gave her credit for when first we found her. She doesn't have the wit for everything, but she is a fair hand at remembering the location of places–how to reach the washing stream, commissary stores, and the camp kitchen. Regular compass in her brainpan.”

“She's never gotten lost?”

“Not once. She dawdles to talk to the horses, of course, but that's no crime.”

He shifted the kettle to his other arm. “Seems her manner to you has softened some.”

I tucked my rag back in my pocket. “We've softened to each other.”

He returned my smile. “She's lucky to have a sister like you.”

“I am lucky to have her. And grateful . . .” I paused as heat rushed my face and head. “Grateful for your steadfast assistance in finding her. I could never have done that on my own.”