City of Dreams (7 page)

“We will defend it, Major!” shouted Knox. “Defend it to the death!”

“Death?” whispered Rooster, who had come to. “No one said nothin’ about defendin’
anythin
’ to the death.”

Burr turned to Silliman. “You’ll be cut off soon enough if the British keep moving west, but I grew up on this island. I know every trail from here to Harlem.”

“I know every trail and every
girl
,” whispered the Bookworm.

“So why ain’t you ’tween a pair of pretty legs,” said Big Jake, “’stead of in this fix?”

“Because I’m takin’ a stand,” said the Bookworm.

Rooster muttered, “Damn fool.”

“He’s no damn fool,” said Gil Walker. “It’s the right thing.”

“Right thing . . . wrong thing”—Rooster kicked at the dirt—“I say we’re all damn fools. Let’s disappear while we still can. Get back to bein’ New Yorkers, lookin’ out for no one but ourselves.”

“And your mother,” said the Bookworm. “Don’t forget her.”

“Aye, and don’t forget the gold,” said Big Jake.

“Gold?” said Rooster.

“What gold?” said the Bookworm.

“Ask Gil,” said Big Jake.

“There’s no gold.” Gil kept his eyes on Burr, who was now leading his horse along the trench, so that all the men could hear what he said next: “If you stay here, half of you will be killed or wounded, the other half hung like dogs.”

Men all along the line looked at one another, murmured, fidgeted. Gil fidgeted with the finial in his pocket. The possibility of hanging made most men fidget. So did lying to your friends. But why was he lying? Did he not believe Loretta? Or did he believe that there was something more important than gold? In that bright sun, he was not sure. But the Bookworm was right. They were making a stand, and it was the right thing to do.

Silliman shouted at Burr, “You’ll not address my men without permission, mister. Now, we’ve received no orders from General Putnam.”

“But
I’m
General Putnam’s aide, sir” said Burr.

“But he did not order anything,” said Silliman.

“Therefore,” boomed Henry Knox, “
I’m
ordering that we defend this place . . . to the death. Unless we receive orders to the contrary.”

Aaron Burr seemed to lose all patience. He pulled his reins so hard that his horse nearly went over. Then he and the dragoons galloped about a quarter mile north to a barn in a field. They disappeared behind it for a few moments, then they came galloping back.

“What
is
he doin’?” Rooster asked his mates.

“Playactin’,” said Gil. “Savin’ us by playactin’.”

“Helluva way to fight a war,” said Big Jake.

Burr reined his horse again, looked up at the ramparts again, shouted again: “I now bring orders from General Putnam. You are to place yourself under my command and allow me to conduct your brigade north with as much baggage as you can carry.”

Skinny Silliman looked up at fat Knox. “That’s good enough for me, Henry! I’m takin’ my men out.”

Knox gave a snort and turned to Hamilton: “Prepare to remove your fieldpieces.”

T
HE
P
OST
R
OAD
, which ran up the east side of the island, was now in British hands. But the Bloomingdale Road, which began north of the Common, led up the west side, through farmers’ fields and past rich men’s manors, and it was still open. And west of it were smaller roads, trails, cart paths, and ancient deer runs where a man who knew his way could confound anyone who was chasing him.

Soon, a thousand Connecticut infantry, along with Stuckey’s company of New York militia and Hamilton’s provincial artillery were seeking to confound the most powerful army on earth.

Their column stretched over a mile. They turned west toward the woods, then north along the river. They went four abreast, as any good army did, but that was their only similarity to a
good
army. Gil knew that this was no more than a freshet of human panic running uphill for Harlem. And by some quirk of military fate, the Waterfront Boys were the last men in that last unit, the absolute rear guard.

“The redcoats must’ve stopped for tea,” said Gil, “else they could have cut straight across the island and trapped us.”

“Don’t like movin’ north,” said the Bookworm.

“Quiet in the ranks!” Aaron Burr, who seemed to be everywhere on his lathered horse, galloped past them and up to a little rock outcropping. He pulled out his spyglass and peered into the woods, then slammed it shut and turned back.

“Captain!” he said. “If the enemy advance party strikes, turn your men and hold.”

“I have scouts back there,” said Stuckey. “They’ll sound the alarm.”

“‘Turn your men,’” muttered the Bookworm. “That means us.”

“That’s means we’ll have to fight,” said Big Jake.

“Instead of that,” said Rooster, “what say we drop out and go get this gold?”

“We signed our names,” said Gil. “We give our word. I mean to see we keep it.”

And they marched in and out of woodlots, up and over gentle hills, across orchards and cornfields, along pathways that kept them out of the enemy’s sight for much of the afternoon. And when they were a bit more than halfway up the island, they swung back to the Bloomingdale Road.

The Dutch had called this area Bloemendael, and the name told a tale of purple asters and yellow sunflowers and orchards heavy with apples. In every September of his life, thought Gil, Manhattan Island had appeared as garden paradise. But—

That was when they heard musket fire in the woods to the east. A moment later three Americans came crashing through the underbrush, shouting that light troops were coming fast.

Stuckey bellowed, “New Yorkers! Fall out.”

Gil said to his friends, “That’s us, lads.”

Rooster gave a hoot and unshouldered his musket. If there was a fight, Rooster became a fighter, even when he didn’t want to fight.

“Now we’ll see how bookworms do it, eh, Augie?” said Big Jake.

Augustus the Bookworm answered by vomiting onto his shoes.

Aaron Burr galloped out of the same woods and called to Stuckey, “What’s your disposition, Captain?”

Stuckey glanced at the Bookworm. “We got a few pukers, and a hundred and fifty men ready to do their duty.”

“Get them into that field yonder,” said Burr. “Volley on my pistol shot, and my dragoons’ll strike the redcoats in the flank.”

A few bellowing commands sent Stuckey’s company scrambling over a split-rail fence and trampling through hip-high asters.

Stuckey and two sergeants put themselves in front and directed the men into two ranks.

The Waterfront Boys took their positions on the far left of the first rank.

Gil looked at Jake. Jake looked at Rooster. Rooster looked at the Bookworm. And the Bookworm whispered, “I think I’m gonna puke again.”

Then the brass buckles on the British crossbelts glinted through the trees.

“There they are,” said Big Jake. “Shinin’ like gold.”

“Speakin’ of gold,” said Rooster, “you better not be holdin’ out on us, Gilbie.”

“Poise your firelocks!” shouted Stuckey.

And the New York muskets rattled into place.

“Cock your firelocks!” shouted Stuckey.

Gil grabbed the hammer and pulled it back.

Stuckey raised his saber. “Take aim.”

For a moment, the British captain, now just forty yards away, seemed to reconsider an attack, then he called his men into line.

Gil thought he might puke, too.

Fifty or sixty redcoats were pulling tight into two ranks. Their sergeant was shouting and the men in the front were kneeling, so both ranks could fire at once.

“I read how they do this,” the Bookworm was saying. “They put up as much lead as they can, then they come with the cold steel.”

“You read too much,” said Rooster. “One volley from
us
and they’ll all be down.”

Then Aaron Burr’s pistol popped off in the woods.

“Fire!” shouted Stuckey.

Gil pulled his trigger and the musket kicked. Thunder erupted to the right and the left of him. Smoke billowed so thick that he could not see the British. But their musket balls came whizzing into the cloud.

Gil heard one scream past his ear. Another whipped over his head and another thumped into something on his left. He heard Rooster give out with a strange grunt, and as the musket smoke blew off, Rooster dropped down among the trampled flowers.

Stuckey was screaming for the front rank to pull back and the second rank to step forward, as if men who had drilled a few times on the Common could execute complicated field maneuvers in the face of the hardened regulars now lowering their bayonets and preparing to charge.

“Rooster!” cried the Bookworm.

Rooster was curling on the ground, clutching his chest, groaning, “Goddamn it, I’m shot through.”

“Front rank, fall back!” shouted Stuckey. “Second rank, forward!”

Gil ignored the order and bent to help Rooster, so Stuckey smacked him with the flat of his saber. “I said front rank fall back! Second rank forward!”

But the second rank faltered. The Americans were about to do what they had become famous for in New York—break and run, this time before a unit half their size.

Then Burr and his dragoons swept out over an outcropping and galloped straight at the British.

And nothing so unnerved infantry in line, even British infantry, as the sight of cavalry attacking their flank, even if it was no more than three mounted men waving sabers. Whatever courage had inspired this small redcoat detachment to take on the rear of the American line vanished, and so did they, back into the woods.

“H
E EITHER MARCHES
or we leave him.” Stuckey took off his hat and wiped sweat from his forehead.

“I can walk.” Rooster knelt on all fours, then lifted himself to his knees.

Stuckey said, “Those redcoats’ll have the main body on us right quick. We have to move, now.”

“I said I can
walk
!” Rooster looked down at his bloody shirt. “Just don’t take me for one of the redcoats and shoot me again.”

“All right!” bellowed Stuckey. “Fall in!”

With the help of his friends, Rooster managed to walk another half mile before he sank to his knees next to an orchard heavy with red apples.

Stuckey came stalking back. “He’s gut shot. It’s a wonder he made it this far.”

Gil knelt beside his friend in the middle of the road. “We can’t leave him.”

Stuckey pulled his saber again.

And Gil stood. His face was covered in sweat, and a long streak of black powder ran up his right cheek. He leveled a gaze at Stuckey that said, Do not strike me again.

And Stuckey seemed to soften. He pointed the saber toward a big house about fifty yards back from the road. “That’s the Woodward Manor. The squire’s a patriot. He’s even entertained General Washington. A wounded soldier’ll be safe there.”

“I know the maid,” added the Bookworm.

“You know all the maids,” said Rooster.

Gil thanked Stuckey and said, “We’ll take him there, then rejoin you.”

“No,” said Stuckey. “Pukin’ Mary here can take him. You two, step off now.”

“But we’re militia,” said Big Jake. “There’s militia desertin’ all over this island.”

“There’ll be no desertin’ from my unit.” Stuckey puffed himself up. “I won’t lose two men who stood enemy fire like you boys just done.”

Rooster held his hands to the bloody wound and said, “Get goin’, but Gilbie boy, don’t be holdin out on us . . . that there would be somethin’ to break up a friendship.”

So Gil and Big Jake marched on toward Harlem Heights.

iv.

By ten o’clock that night, Gil Walker had come to a conclusion: no man ever got rich swinging a shovel. He got calluses and a sore back. He got dirty. He got tired. And no man ever got rich in an army, either. He got shot at, and chased, and yelled at, and sometimes he got killed, and sometimes his friends got killed.

And no army had ever spent more time digging than this one. The only thing they did more than dig was run. And such an army would never win freedom for anyone.

Gil’s mother, who had scrubbed floors in the homes of rich Tories, who had seen as best she could to his learning and his faith in the Anglican church, had told him that he was made for bigger things, but here he was, in the miserable drizzle, at the end of the most miserable day these new United States had yet seen . . . digging a trench. And behind him, men were digging more trenches, and behind them, more men were digging.

And out there, beyond the greasy tallow light of the American torches, lay the British army.

Gil did not say what was on his mind, because Stuckey was too close. So he swung the shovel and tossed the dirt. Swung the shovel and thought his thoughts. Swung the shovel and stopped for a moment and fingered the brass finial in his pocket.

“Keep diggin’,” muttered Big Jake, who dug right next to him, “or that one-eyed dog fucker is liable to come down and hit you with the shovel.”

“Dog fuckers . . . educated fools . . . officers who don’t march for common sense but do for a bit of playactin’ . . . these ain’t the men to be desertin’ your friends for, Jake.”

“Nope. No honor in servin’ fools. No gold, neither.”

The shovels crunched. The dirt thumped. And the smell of turned earth reminded Gil of an open grave.

“It was a bad idea to start,” said Big Jake. “It’s a worse idea now. Best thing would be to slip away, find the others, then find that gold. Pretend like we was never in this army.”

“Well, I do have to admit it”—Gil swung the shovel again—“sure is a helluva way to get rich.”

“Quiet down there!” shouted Stuckey.

And Gil Walker made his decision. He put down the shovel, picked up his musket, gave Big Jake a jerk of the head, and dropped into the shadows of the hillside on the far right of the American line. He did not worry that he was now a deserter, a fugitive who might be hunted by two armies instead of just one. He was on his own again, answering only to the few friends he trusted.

G
IL AND
B
IG
Jake knew the woodlands and meadows of Manhattan Island as well as Aaron Burr did. These were places where they had hunted as boys, places that were like old friends, even in the dark. And nature was a friend, too, bringing a steady drizzle that dampened the sound of their movement and settled into the folds of the landscape so that they could disappear when they saw a British patrol or a pair of British officers clopping along, passing a bottle between them, drunk with port and the arrogance of victory.