The Proud and the Free (21 page)

So we called out the soldiers to dispose them. We sounded the trumpets and had the brigades parade, the ten infantry regiments and the artillery, and we formed them up four square to hear the orders. Jack Maloney and Jim Holt joined me, representing the Committee, and they stood with me in the center of the square and listened as I read the plan. When that was finished, before we disposed ourselves, the whole Committee came and we had an inspection parade. We made a fine, proud, handsome square, and if we were not uniform, we were clean-shaven and we carried well.

We dressed like British show troops, and our bayonets were gleaming and rustless, and every man was smooth of face and sharp of spine, and the forty drummer lads stood across the corners of the big square, ten at each point, beating to dress. Every regiment had repaired its faded and tattered banners, and many regiments – because this habit like so many others had fallen into disuse from neglect – set to work to sew the banners they had not carried since '77, so that now the 1st carried its segmented rattlesnake, the 2nd its clenched fist, the 3rd its wolf's head, the 4th its depiction of Romulus and Remus nursing at the wolf's udder, and so forth and so on – while at each side a color guard of the Citizen-soldier Guard bore the Stars and Stripes. Our cobblers had been busy with every scrap of leather we could turn up, and there was not a man in the Line that day who was not shod with a piece of leather on his soles, even if the uppers were sewn from tent canvas. Overalls were sewn and patched and made presentable, so if you had looked at us from the road, as the townspeople did, crowding there to see our display, you could well have said that this was the prettiest, neatest, trimmest body of fighting men that had ever marched among the Continentals.

The artillery had formed inside the square, where every man could look at the six cannons, four of bronze, two of iron, all shining; and by every gun, stiff and proudly self-conscious that they served cannon which had never been left on a routed field – cannon which had been fought since the first engagement outside of Boston in '75 – stood two gunners, two layers, two caddies and two plungers, while behind them were sixty buckskin men from Fincastle, not standing to arms-parade as were the regiments, but leaning on their long, six-foot, snakelike Pennsylvania rifles, dressed in smock and shawl, with a powder horn and a bag of shot girding every hip – these the only riflemen in the entire Line, and snipers for the artillery.

The women and children stood outside the square, some clapping to the drums, some weeping to see what a proud and strong thing we were with every man standing to his place with only a whisper or a word from sergeant or corporal; and indeed I could have wept myself to look at them, and I would have given all the years of my young manhood to march them on York city where the Enemy was and show the British how men could fight when they fought for themselves, for their own soil and their own dreams.

But the evening was coming on now, with its snapping cold wind to chill the unseasonable warmth of the day. The sun dipped down to the trees, leaving a dazzling warp of pink and purple, and there was much to be done. I threw a look at the Committee, where they stood alongside the cannon, all grouped together, their faces filled with pride and sadness and wonder and joy and bereavement, all of it mixed and struggling with the past and the future, the know-able and the unknowable, the victory and the defeat; and then I shouted:

Brigades to station!

And the regiments marched away to take their places. I checked with one and another as they left, put the Gary brothers on horse and set them to checking over the perimeter and establishing the easy contact of all the regiments, sent Angus to the inn called Sign of the College, to empty it and close it down, and then took twenty of the Citizen-soldier Guard with me to Jacob Hyer's inn.

It would be a lie to say that I did not relish the job. What would you have of a lad who was twenty-two years old and had known nothing but camp and march and battle in all of his precious youth, so that all the softness within had to be compensated for by a hardening of the shell? Hard we were, and I was a little harder than most, as you will see, hard at the beginning and hard at the end too, God help me.

But now it was still a long time from the end, and I led my men over to the inn, kicked open the door, and had them file into the taproom with bayonets fixed and the winter wind sloshing behind them. Oh, there was good business in the tavern, all right, for the rising of the Line had provoked a great buying and selling, and the commission merchants and the dirty and indifferent traders – who owed allegiance to the hard dollar and the pound sterling and to nothing else – were scurrying over the road between York city and Philadelphia like rabbits, buying low and selling high, spreading every filthy rumor they could concoct, buying what they did not own and selling it before they ever had it, dealing in uniforms unworn, shoes we never saw, food we never ate, guns we never handled, munitions we never shot and bodies not yet dead. They were all there as I have told you, packed in with the warmth and the smell of roasting meat and smoking rum, and I relished what I did, believe me.

What now, Jamie, what now? Jacob Hyer squealed, spreading his arms against me and pressing his great paunch to me as my men crowded into the room. Haven't I been a good friend to the Line? Haven't I sent, noon and night, a gallon of hot flip to the Committee? Didn't I roast up in my kitchen, special, a chicken pie and a hasty pudding? What now, Jamie? Is an honest man not to do his business undisturbed? Is that a way to have folk think of the Line, that you torment an honest citizen?

You're as honest as Judas Iscariot, I said, and if the truth were known, what a dirty spy's nest you operate here!

Not so, Jamie! You got no right to blacken my character. I'm a legal-commissioned colonel of militia, and as ready to serve –

To hell with all that! I interrupted him. I will not touch a penny you own or a stinking cut of beef from your racks, but the whole town is now within the perimeter of the Line and under the government of the Line, and I want every transient person out of here in ten minutes and out of Princeton too.

You mean my custom?

Precisely what I mean.

His face turned white, and then as the blood returned, suffused with an angry blush. I had spoken up and loud, and every person in that packed and silent room heard my words. Then a babel of sound commenced, led by the landlord himself.

You got no right … no justice, no right, no warrant!… I will not submit to this!… Here I stand, and my house is my castle!… I will lay down my life first … Here I stand, and you go no further into this, Jamie Stuart!

You fat, foisonless man, I said, you shut your mouth, or I will drive a bayonet up your butt and pin yer tongue with it. What a cackle you make! And look at this room here, you damned bugger – look at this collection of scavenging crows! Look at them and you would never know that this is a country at war and that one or another has taken sides and that there's no inch of Jersey soil without a drop of American blood on it! What are they doing, traveling the roads between York city and Philadelphia? Honest work?

At this moment, Wayne with Butler and Stewart behind him appeared at the foot of the staircase. Wayne didn't come forward into the room, but remained there on the stairs for the moment, listening to me and watching, his long, thin cold face composed and emotionless. But some of the guests had risen while I spoke, and now one of them, a lean, middle-aged man with side-whiskers and a mustache and dark, calculating eyes, came over to us and interposed:

Son, how old are you?

Twenty-two winters if it is any of your damned business.

That's a harsh way of speech, my lad, and harsher for your elders. Don't you think it's a little foolish to drive us out of here this winter night? Will that bring you friends? There are many men in this room who would make good friends to you, for they are men of influence and instruction, and it would be better for you to befriend them. Now suppose you sit down at our table and have a glass of grog on this. Hot words and hot heads never accomplished anything constructive.

What do you do? I said. What do you do that you grace this world so?

I buy and I sell, he answered, which is as honest a way as I know.

What do you buy and sell? I roared at him, grasping his cravat and pulling him up to me. Do you traffic in men's lives and men's souls? What is north of here for an honest man to buy and sell? Do you sell a little information to the British enemy? Do you buy the dollars the people have, to make them more worthless than they are? Och, I could spit on all your sweet-tongued kind. Get out of my sight!

And I hurled him from me, so that he went down and rolled over, crashing against a table and then crawling on his hands and knees to be out of harm's way. But Jacob went wild, gabbling and gabbling, running first at me and then to the stairs where he began to plead with Wayne. But Wayne shook him off and pushed him away and brushed the sleeve of his uniform where Hyer had touched it.

All of you! I shouted. Get your goods and be out of this inn in ten minutes! Ten minutes, or a bayonet will prick a little haste into you!

Help them along, I told my men – while the landlord was pleading with Wayne:

Will you let this be? Is no law and order left? Is an honest man to be robbed of his custom?

Standing there at the foot of the steps, Wayne listened to the landlord without particular emotion or interest, and he might have been hearing a dog bark for all the effect it seemed to have on him. When the landlord moved to touch him, he shook him off – and then, as the press of people mounted the stairs, he and the two colonels stepped into the taproom and to one side, from where Wayne watched me curiously.

And out of the village! I shouted after them. Every one of you out of the village. If you came by horse, saddle up and get out. If you came by stage, walk out.

Jacob Hyer stopped gibbering, stared at Wayne for a moment, and then walked weakly over to the bar and leaned against it. But then he recalled that customers were leaving without paying their score, and prudence overcame grief as he dashed past me and outside, calling them to pay up. Meanwhile, Wayne sauntered over to me, followed by Butler and Stewart.

What does all this mean, Sergeant? he asked.

It means that we are placing the whole village inside our lines, and that anyone who doesn't live here is to get out.

Why?

I don't know why. I am given orders and I carry them out.

I think you know why, Sergeant. You're making a hard score for yourself, and, as you may have heard, I have a long memory.

That's just as it may be, General Wayne, and if you want to know more I'll take you over to the Committee of Sergeants and you can ask them.

I can wait. I'm a patient man.

As I am also.… And then I started to turn away, but he caught my sleeve and said:

Does that order about nonresidents apply to myself and Colonels Stewart and Butler?

It does not apply to yourself and Mr. Stewart and Mr. Butler. Yourself and Mr. Stewart and Mr. Butler can stay here, General, if you wish, or you can go out of our lines or you can go over to Nassau Hall – or do anything you damn please except talk to the men. I will leave six of these men of mine here at the inn, but they are only to see that you can go where you want to go safely, and as for talking to the men – well, you can do whatever talking you have to do to me or to the Committee. That's the way it is.

So that's the way it is, Sergeant.

Yes, sir.

And the news I am expecting from Philadelphia?

Who is bringing it?

The Marquis de Lafayette or General St. Clair or both, with Colonel Laurens, said Wayne – holding onto his temper remarkably well, which was something for him, since he was as hot-tempered as he was arrogant.

When they arrive, I will let you know.

You will not conduct them here?

I will not take them or anyone else into our lines until I have orders to do so.

Said Wayne to that, looking me up and down: We have an old saying, Sergeant, that if you would skip a jig, you must pay off the fiddlers.

Or, among the Scots, I grinned, that he who dances must pay the piper. But the hell with that, with the dancing I've seen these five years, and many a lad who had no ground under his feet when he danced and no breath for song, either. But I must say, General, I added, that we are a sober folk with the gentry, for when you cracked the whip, you were never one half so gentle with us.

We cracked it lawfully, whispered Wayne, and not for a God-damned cursed mutiny.

Ye have always had the making of the law, haven't you, General?

And will have it again, Jamie Stuart.

Then if you know my name, I said, and I didn't think you knew the name of any of the dirt you led, call me when you want something.

Then I turned away and told off the men for the inn. I put Aaron Gonzales over them, who was a lad with a level head, and I told him that if one dram of spirits was touched, I'd see that a court-martial took place. I was burning with anger – for no matter what I said, there was that cold, thin, assured face of Wayne to tell me who would have the last lick – and he knew that I meant what I said. Then I took the rest of my men and went out of the damned place, with Hyer plucking at my coattails and pleading his cause.

Let go, you scut! I threw at him, and marched off past the raging ousted guests up the road to the bridge. The men had done their work well, but such was my mood that I found grounds for complaint wherever I went. The cannon at the bridge was at the further instead of the nearer end; the barrier of logs and branches across the road was not filled in with dirt; the opening was too wide. At the side roads I swore because the men had crowded the roads instead of picketing the fields, and at the Philadelphia direction, there was a little knot of town girls, joshing the men as they made bastions and built match fires.