To Try Men's Souls - George Washington 1 (16 page)

The flash of flint striking, a puff of smoke, the cracking recoil of
the long-barreled rifle, the two peering through the smoke, one of them laughing.

“Ya missed the son of a bitch,” his companion said. “Clipped his hat, though.” A few seconds later both ducked as a bullet shattered another windowpane above them. Tom could imagine laughter on the other side. It was nearly a game to them.

The skirmish was spreading out, with dismounted jaegers on the far side of the river, Pennsylvania and Virginia riflemen on the near side running across a field behind the tavern, a couple sliding in behind an ancient oak.

He liked these men——tough, sinewy, self-confident——not the types to stand on the volley line. They were more at home in this kind of fight, loading carefully, working as a team, one man spotting, pointing out a likely target, providing cover while his comrade reloaded and then took careful aim.

“Paine? Thomas Paine, is that you? What are you doing here?”

Startled, he looked back to the road and there he was——General Washington, horse mud-splattered, cloak dripping with wet flakes of snow, and beside him his black servant, mounted on a horse every bit as good as the General’s.

Tom stepped down from the porch, not sure what to do and offered a salute. That felt strange. There were few men in this world he would ever offer a salute, but somehow, with this man, it seemed the right thing to do.

A humming whistle cut the air between them. He flinched. Washington remained unmoved, except for a flicker of a smile. Behind him, though, the servant did react, nudging his horse, moving himself between the General, the river, and the far shore. The General looked peeved but said nothing.

A sharp crack erupted. On the far side of the road one of Hamilton’s guns kicked back, yellow gray smoke boiling out, wind whipping it around the General, for an instant almost like a portrait of a war god in battle. He turned toward the far shore and saw a chimney collapse.

“A bit lower, Captain Hamilton, if you please,” Washington called out, his voice almost cheery. “But try not to hit the houses. There are civilians inside.” Then he whispered. “Even if they are Tories now.”

Tom barely heard the words.

Young Hamilton, obviously proud to be noticed, saluted and turned to his section of gunners, shouting for them to adjust aim.

“Now, Mr. Paine, you have not responded to my query,” the General said, a slight chiding to his voice.

“Ah, sir, don’t you think we should move around this building, out of the way of fire?”

As he spoke, another bullet whistled close by, Washington’s servant not flinching, but edging his horse closer in to act literally as a bodyguard.

Washington did not move.

“Your response to my question, Mr. Paine.”

“Sir, I was with the army, felt I should come along with the rear guard and observe things a bit. And now I’m here.”

Washington looked down at him.

“Have you been drinking again?”

No sense in lying, and he merely nodded his head. But what the hell, half the army was drunk, and the half that wasn’t wished they were.

Washington sighed.

“Mr. Paine. I have some officers at least who know how to lead,” and as if in reinforcement to his argument Hamilton behind them shouted the order for his crew to stand clear, a gunnery sergeant touching off one of the four-pounders. The two stopped their conversation to watch the effect. A second small group of dragoons, thinking they were well beyond the range of the harassing rifle fire, scattered, one of the horses going down, screaming, its rider jumping off, limping, obviously wounded.

“Better, Captain Hamilton!” Washington announced, then turned his attention back to Tom.

The flurry of snow increased in intensity, driven by the north-westerly wind, obscuring the far bank. Tom shivered as the cold blast cut through the thin blanket draped around his shoulders.

“Mr. Paine, as I was saying, I have some officers who can lead, and I still have some soldiers who can fight. But you, sir, how many do I have who can write as you do?”

Tom did not reply. Part of him was complimented beyond all measure that this man was taking the time to address him while a battle was obviously building. The snow cleared for a moment and he could see where two British field pieces were moving into position about three hundred yards off. Hamilton called for his two six-pounders to begin counterbattery fire.

The General and Tom watched as the two guns fired, the second shot so well aimed that it shattered the wheel of one of the British guns, its crew running for cover.

“Excellent, Captain Hamilton. Excellent. Now keep at it. I wish Colonel Knox were here to see your men at work like this!”

Hamilton, grinning like an excited schoolboy, stood there glowing and then turned to his guns.

“Have you been writing?” the General asked, shifting his attention to Tom.

Again he could not reply. A mere nod of the head.

Washington was silent, gazing at him for a moment, and he dreaded what would come next. The man would ask to see what he had done. His work was rolled up inside an oilcloth wrapping inside his pack, pages of it, poured out, starting in Newark, more added last night, the title now clearly
The American Crisis,
the words memorized in his heart and scribbled down on foolscap.

“Mr. Paine, what is your value to us, to this army, to me at this moment?”

He stood there, feeling a bit like a child being chastised but aware of a building defiance as well. God damn it all, he had been with this army now for months and not once fired a shot. All he had known was suffering, hunger, dysentery, watching others freeze, watching
others die. At this moment he felt utterly useless. Perhaps the two backwoodsmen in the tavern behind him were right after all. At least he could be a decoy, a target, and he was drunk enough that he no longer gave a damn.

“What you’re writing, do you have it with you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Washington gazed at him. If he asks to see it, do I refuse? Tom wondered. He hated it when someone asked to see something before it was done. Would someone walk into a silversmith’s shop, stare at a rounded lump of glowing metal, and exclaim that the work wasn’t proper and explain what was wrong?

“Mr. Paine, suppose you get yourself killed out here? What then? What happens to what you write?”

Tom stood silent. If whoever took the time to bury him was literate, he might read it and wonder. If not, well, the paper was still of use for other things . . . and yes, it would be lost forever. “These are the times that try men’s souls.” His words, his words about these men, about all he had seen of them, all they were enduring.

“I’m sorry, sir,” was all he could say. It was a damned rare day when he offered an apology.

“Mr. Paine, fall in with this army and head to the rear.”

The General turned, and as he looked about for the last few stragglers heading south, Tom heard an audible sigh.

Army? A few days from now, enlistments for hundreds will expire and he doubted that even one would stay on. New England men would simply pack up at dawn, and since the way north to home was blocked by Cornwallis’s advancing army, they would turn westward, heading for the Watchung Hills, with the intent of circling west around the enemy and then turning north. Men from the south would just walk off. As for the remainder of the Jersey militia, they had already melted away. If unarmed, they would be allowed by the British to pass back to their homes, and there, upon signing oaths of allegiance to the king, all would be forgiven.

What army? While waiting with the throng to cross over the
bridge, he had heard a disgusted officer announce that barely three thousand men were still with them this morning. He had predicted not one would be left by the time they reached the Delaware.

Still he could not reply. Washington actually forced a smile.

“Your duty, sir. My orders to you are this. Fall in with the army, stay with it till Trenton. I’ll make sure someone is there to get you across and carried to Philadelphia.”

Washington could see the last of his men trudging southward on the half-frozen mud that was their road of agony.

“Just remember what you see here,” the General said, his voice weary. “Remember it and write of it.”

Paine could only nod, unable to speak.

The General turned his mount away and galloped off, his servant following by his side, forcing his way to keep himself between the General and the fire from the jaegers on the north shore of the Raritan.

“Paine, you Tom Paine?”

The call came from within the tavern, and he stepped up onto the porch. One of the riflemen, Joshua, was leaning against the wall inside.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. And here I was happy to use your head as bait for those damn Germans. I’ll be damned!”

“There he is again.” It was the other rifleman, still peering cautiously out the window.

“Where?”

“Same as before. Son of a bitch, second floor, window to the right.”

“All right then,” Joshua announced, stepping toward the window, leveling his rifle, aiming it through a broken windowpane.

He squeezed off the shot. There was the beginning of a laugh, “Got him,” and then with a grunt he staggered back, dropping his rifle.

Tom could see the blood, arterial blood, spurting out of the man’s left arm, just below the shoulder.

“We got each other, I think.” Joshua grunted, sitting woodenly on the floor, looking at his arm with self-reproach, as if a part of his body had betrayed him.

Tom scurried to his side. The rifleman’s comrade, knife out, was already cutting into Joshua’s hunting shirt, ripping it open.

The bullet had slashed into flesh several inches below the armpit, and with every pulse blood welled out.

“You got a good one this time,” Joshua’s comrade muttered as he cut a long strip of cloth from the man’s sleeve, wrapped it several times around his arm, just above the wound, looked around, finally picked up a wood fragment from the broken window frame, stuck it into the bandage and started to rotate it, Joshua clenching his teeth, hissing as the tourniquet clamped down and the pulsing of blood slowed to a trickle.

Tom reached into his haversack, pulled out the bottle of gin, uncorked it, and held it to Joshua’s lips, the man taking a long gulp this time.

“You need a surgeon,” Tom announced.

“Go to hell. Leave that on awhile, it’ll clot up. Bullet went clean through. Had worse.”

“You need a surgeon,” Tom repeated forcefully, and Joshua’s comrade nodded in agreement as the two half dragged him to the far doorway. They went out to the porch, Joshua regaining his footing, using his rifle for support. Tom darted down and across the muddy road to where Hamilton was working his guns. Two more pieces had been rolled up, the battery of six making good work of keeping the dragoons back, spraying the far shore with grapeshot, crews cursing as the long-distance harassing fire of the German riflemen whistled about their ears, while the two six-pounders continued to pin down the remaining British field piece.

Hamilton saw him approach, nodding as Tom saluted.

“A friend of mine over there”——he pointed back to the porch of the tavern——“took a bullet in the arm. He needs a surgeon. Got any idea where I can find one?”

“Most likely set up down the road a bit,” Hamilton replied and then turned back to his work.

Not much help.

Minutes later the three were on the muddy road, following the tracks of the army, the booming of Hamilton’s guns and the occasional crack of rifle fire echoing behind them. A quarter of a mile on was a well-built house of brick, the porch crowded with exhausted men, injured men, dying men. Helping Joshua up the steps, he eased the man down. Though obviously someone tough from the backwoods, he was apparently not used to hard liquor; the half bottle of gin Tom had poured down his throat along the way had left him uproariously drunk and more than a little belligerent, cursing that no damn surgeon was going to take his arm away.

He left them there and returned to the road, half regretting his democratic leanings in sharing the last of his newfound liquor with a stranger, but feeling guilty as well for leaving him. He was glad to be moving south, the contents wrapped up in his backpack almost burning him with a sense of haste, yet he was reluctant to leave, wanting to take at least a few shots at the bastards on the other shore. What a pleasure it would be to shoot one of those damn aristocrat officers. Instead, some poor clod of a German had shot the man next to him and been shot by him in turn. Strange, war. More than a few of the Pennsylvania riflemen were of German stock; had they not crossed over here, they might be wearing jaeger green instead of hunting frocks and leather leggings.

Thus he had mused from Brunswick to Kingston, the weather turning colder, snow increasing, the road at last freezing over. This was a war about the freedom of the common man, and yet it was common men on the other side who were doing the killing for their officers and kings.

On occasion the General would ride by, harrying the rear of the column, urging them to keep moving. He no longer noticed Tom, who was as filthy, worn, and slump-shouldered as the rest, a part of
the dark, herded mass crawling along a muddy road heading south and west. Some responded to the General, looking up and saluting or telling him they were still with him. A few looked at him sullenly, cursing under their breath. When no officer was in sight, these would turn off the road and head into a nearby wood to disappear from the war. Tom no longer had the spirit to raise even a feeble argument. No one knew him. He was just another soldier, his regiment long since gone, drifting with the wreckage of an army in retreat.

They slept in the open that night in Kingston, and on the following day marched on to Princeton. More snow, but at least there were dry quarters that night. He actually slept in the library of the college. What a strange war. To fall asleep reading Locke, with a couple of works by Defoe as a pillow. In the morning he was tempted to slip Locke into his haversack, but it weighed a few pounds, too much to carry, and he pushed on.