Conceived in Liberty (24 page)

We sit on the bank, our feet dangling in the water, and scrub ourselves with curiosity. We pick the lice out of our hair. We investigate each part of our body as the winter accumulation of dirt disappears. We're a curious lot—thin, bony, hollow-eyed. We curse the Virginia men goodnaturedly. The spring has washed away hatred, washed away the differences between the north and the south—the east and the west. We've suffered together for too long.

I wash Ely's feet—and then he stares at them curiously. Somehow, they are healing. Long, raw scars are ingrained with dirt, but the bleeding has stopped. The poor, tortured flesh is knitting itself together once more. Soon the scabs will fall off. The dead white skin will be replaced with new flesh, and new blood will flow through the blue veins that stand out so sharp. He stares at his feet as if he had never seen them before. He takes a few steps through the water—then goes back to the bank and sits down. He attempts to say something to me, and his words choke up. He moves his feet back and forth, watching the water wash over his toes. Finally, he asks me:

“You'll shave my beard, Allen? I'm longing to feel my face clean and smooth.”

He lies on his back while I shave him. It's strange to watch his face emerge from under the whiskers. The wind is sighing through the trees, and dogwood blossoms fall over us.

I lie down for my turn. While the knife scrapes over my chin, I close my eyes. I feel the bite of the blade as Ely plucks at my whiskers. Every so often he dips the knife into the cold water to wash it. When it touches my face again, it is chilled and clean. Bit by bit, Ely removes my beard. The years drop from me. I'm a boy again. My skin is firm and clean and hairless. Ely's fingers wander over my face, kneading what's left of my beard to soften it, so that it will come off more easily. Under the lulling play of his fingers, I doze. When I open my eyes, he is finished, looking at me and nodding his head.

Later, we play in the water, lean white men, childish. We throw handfuls of water at each other, duck each other. We find deep holes where we can paddle round. We find two wooden buckets, and a couple of Massachusetts men appoint themselves a bucket squad. We line up and pass between them, and they douse us with water. It's a rare treat, and we keep up until the Massachusetts men are dog-tired. Then we lie in the sun, drying ourselves, telling stories, exchanging the latest jokes about the British, about our officers and their wives.

We put on our tattered clothes and walk back bare-footed. We rub our feet into the lush, green grass. When we see flowers, we stoop over to pick them, and then stand and look at them. We put the flowers in our hair and prance round. We become pagans and children: we do foolish things and we are not ashamed.

In between drills, we lie out in the sun. That, we can't get enough of. Our bodies are like sponges. As much sun as we soak in, there is always need for more. We lie about, talking, laughing, rolling dice: but we say little of the winter. It's too near us.

The women try to make themselves pretty. There's no whole dress or hat among them, but they fill their hair with blossoms. They parade back and forth—smiling at us. They even wash, and once we surprise a lot of them bathing in the creek. They try to hide their nakedness in the shallow water, and we stand on the bank laughing at them, like gangling boys. Finally, they seize their clothes and dash away. We chase them, laughing wildly, roll over in the woods, plaster wet bodies with dead leaves.

Recruits are coming into camp, along with food. A great wagon train from the north brings thousands of pounds of meat. The militia come and sign papers for three-month terms. We have no love for the militia; and for their part, they're awed and a little afraid of the regulars. They stand around and watch us. On the parade, they blunder about, while we go through Steuben's Prussian drills like well-trained troops.

Baron von Steuben is losing weight, but he delights in us the way a father would delight in his children. We're his men. Half of the Pennsylvania line he knows by name.

We let the fire in our dugout go out. Ely stands in front of the empty fireplace, poking at the ashes with a stick. The door to the dugout is open, and a breeze from outside stirs the dry ashes. It is the afternoon, toward twilight, and the two of us are alone in the dugout. The two women are gone. They went after Charley died, and afterwards I saw Anna with a Massachusetts man. It doesn't matter.

“A forlorn place without a fire,” Ely says. “I'm not bemoaning the cold, but there was life in the fire.”

“A dull, lonely place.”

“I hope we march soon.”

“I hated this place at first,” I say. “I don't hate it now.”

The brigades build fires outside. I ask Ely to go out with me, but he shakes his head. I go out alone. The Pennsylvania men are roasting meat over the fire. We sit round in a circle, drinking, singing.

I find myself with a woman, a round young girl with light hair. Three or four men are playing for her attention, but I manage to draw her off. I take her back from the fire, where there's a bit of grass, and we lie down there.

“Your name's Allen Hale,” she says.

“How do you know?”

“I seen you around. I heard tell you deserted and were whipped nigh to death.”

“Yes——”

“My name's Bella.”

“You've no man?”

“I had a man—he deserted without me. I never heard word of him.”

“I'm a fit, fair man for a girl to love.”

She giggles, and when I put my arms around her, she comes to me willingly. We lie there, watching the blaze of the fire, the dark figures moving in front of it. I pass my hands over her body.

“They say you're no man to be without a woman,” she says to me. “They say you took a fair woman away from a Virginian brigade——”

“Yes.”

“What was her name? Tell me her name? You're not thinking of her now—in my arms?”

“Her name was Bess Kinley.”

“Did you love her? Were you pained to see her die?”

I cry, suddenly: “Be quiet, God damn you!” Then, as she draws away in fright, I hold her back. “I'm sorry—I was not meaning to fright you,”

I come back to the dugout, and Ely sits where I left him, next to the empty fire. He says:

“Allen?”

“Yes, Ely.”

“Allen—make me a promise.”

“What?”

“You'll have faith in the revolution. There'll be no peace for many years. There'll be strong men needed.”

“You'll be with me, Ely.”

“No—you'll be alone, Allen.”

I go to my bed, and for a long time afterward Ely sits motionless. I can't sleep—and I watch him.

I sleep, and I wake later and still Ely sits there. The door is open, and a vague moonlight seeps into the dugout. Jacob's long form is stretched out in his bunk.

“Ely?” I say.

He looks up at me. “I thought you to be asleep, Allen.”

“You'll not sit all night, Ely, not resting?”

“For a little while, Allen—I'm noways tired.”

I go back to sleep, but even in my sleep I see Ely's form, bent over the ashes, stirring them with his stick. A man with a deep knowledge—a knowledge that comes out of his heart. A man with a great heart.

The next day, a May day that is like a benediction. An order comes to the brigades for a grand parade—a review of the entire army. A parade, and then a day of rest and celebration. To celebrate …

All sorts of rumours; but Melrose, a Massachusetts man, says that he carried dispatches to headquarters. He says that it's an alliance with France.

The brigades form, and we talk about it eagerly.

“A great country over the water. A country that has warred with England these many hundreds of years.”

“It's La Fayette's doing—it's said that he brought about the alliance himself.”

“Mark me, Ben Franklin's the man who had a hand in this. Old Ben himself.”

“An army they'll send—an army of ten thousand men.”

“Washington in tears, crying like a child. That, I saw myself.”

Wayne is laughing like a boy. He has rum served out while the brigades are forming. We stick blossoms and green leaves into our jackets and our hair. The drums beat out Yankee-Doodle, and we sing it as we march down to the parade.

Yankee-Doodle went to Boston,

Riding on a pony,

Gave all hell to old man Howe,

Called it macaroni.

Yankee-Doodle keep it up,

Keep the lobsters running,

Let the bastard redcoats know

Yankee-Doodle's coming!

We roar it out, and it echoes back from the parade. We cheer Wayne as he rides up and down our ranks. We sing verse after verse.

Yankee-Doodle went to hell,

Claimed it was right chilly,

Take six months in Valley Forge,

Hell is willy-nilly.

Yankee-Doodle keep it up,

Keep the lobsters running,

Let the bastard redcoats know

Yankee-Doodle's coming!

We form on the Grand Parade. Washington rides up with La Fayette and Baron von Steuben. Washington sits on his horse, smiling, his eyes wrinkled up with tears. He waves his hand, awkwardly, and begins to dismount. We break ranks. We press around them, half-mad, trying to touch Washington, to touch Steuben. Steuben is crying, frankly the tears pour down his face. Washington nods his head, like a man in a dream. Steuben says:

“Mine children—mine children——”

We go back to our ranks, staring around us, at the trees, at the green spread of the Grand Parade, at the cloudless blue sky. We are men out of a dream. The winter was a dream. More than one man is weeping quietly as he walks.

On the edge of the parade, the officers ladies stand; a little away from them, the camp women. They wave at us and nod. They make little splashes of delightful color.

Steuben puts us through a parade drill. Bareheaded, he marches at the front of the Pennsylvania and Massachusetts brigades, waving his sword. He's as happy as a child. He beats his sabre against the ground, in time to our marching. He runs down the line of men, glancing along the ranks, nodding his head with approval. Winded, panting, he stands in the centre of the field, smiling.

He calls Washington at the top of his voice: “Mine commander, vatch—der bayonet movements!”

He walks towards us on his toes, his hands spread out. “
Ja
—mine children, you vill do it for me! Like I teached you.”

He calls for the bayonet charge, names out brigades for flank attack, marshals in the brigades one after another as covering bodies, pivots us, rearranges brigade formation, and laughs like a delighted child.

“Such troops—vere in der vorld do you find such troops?
Gott
—dey're splendid!”

Washington speaks a few words. He says: “We have made an alliance with France. What we suffered this winter, you know and I know. Nor shall we forget. I thank you from my heart.”

He sits on his horse, nodding at us, swallowing hard. He takes off his hat.

The rest of that day we sprawled over the parade, drinking, eating, or lying quietly, soaking in the heat of the sun …

The days go slowly, warm days. Lazy days with blue skies overhead. The heavens are a bowl of blue, and Valley Forge is in blossom. The apple trees are like balls of snow, and under the trees the white blossoms make a carpet for the ground. We walk through the woods and try to understand that this is the same place we came into in December.

We have buried the men who died during the winter, and the crosses make long rows along the Schuylkill. I go there with Ely, and we pick out seven of the graves—mark them for our men. Most of the graves are nameless. We mark a grave for the little doctor, and I carve the rhyme on it very painstakingly.

He did his work,

He healed the sick,

He did not shirk

To keep men quick.

God rest his soul,

Forgive his sin.

“They're fair words,” Ely says. “A good rhyme for a man to leave behind him.”

“He was a strange, hard man.”

Charley's grave is a mat of green grass. I am glad that he lies where he does, looking over the gentle hills toward Philadelphia.

One night, we sit and talk. We sprawl outside the dugout, around a fire, Ely and Jacob and myself and half a dozen Pennsylvania men. It is a warm, cloudy night, and a mist rests in the valleys.

“They won't remember long,” Ely says. “They'll forget how this winter was.”

“It's something to forget.”

“It was a hard, cold winter—no such winter before in all the memory of man.”

“My father and my grandfather—take back a hundred year—I can't call to mind that men ever spoke of such a winter as this one.”

“It's something to forget—to have no bitter memory of.”

“The chill is in my bones yet.”

“There'll be no getting the chill outa your bones.”

Ely says, thoughtfully: “I puzzle sometimes to make out what will come of it.”

“War's not a thing for simple men to understand.”

“It's like death. There's no thinking of war or death.”

But I wonder whether I understood it then, long past when Kenton died, with a vision in his eyes. I have enlisted again—for three years. I can't think of that, only believe; whether or not there is anything to believe, I must believe.

The days go on—a lush heat flowing over the land, until men predict a summer as hot as the winter was cold. Valley Forge is ripe with beauty—a grand, flowing beauty, as soft as the hills. The hills are green, except where the Quaker farmers are turning over the land with their ploughs, and there the red-brown furrows make warm gashes.

Rumours come that we will march soon, but nobody knows where.