To Try Men's Souls - George Washington 1 (20 page)

Peter let go of his side and squatted down, turning Jonathan’s trousers and jacket over against the side of a log so that the heat would strike the inside of it, and a least drive out some of the icy water.

“The book,” Jonathan gasped.

“What book.”

“Paine. In my haversack.”

His haversack lay limp against the log, water dripping out of it.

“Get it out.”

“Oh, forget about it.”

“Get it out!”

Peter opened the haversack, inverting it. A few pathetic things within. A spoon, a folding pocketknife, a few pieces of hard bread and salt pork that were now soaked and useless. The extra ammunition issued out, thirty rounds, all the paper cartridges soaked and useless. A small bundle wrapped in oiled seal skin. Peter handed it up to Jonathan. Water was leaking out as he unwrapped it, to his dismay it, too, was wet, but at least not completely. The front of his pocket Bible, most of the Old Testament, was soaked, and the pamphlet tucked in behind it wet but not destroyed.

Now feeling scorched on one side, he turned, shifting his blanket cape around to his front to cover his nakedness, bare backside facing the fire. Again the moment could be taken as either absurd or pathetic.
But as he looked over his shoulders “pathetic” was clearly the word. This was an army that was supposed to sweep the Hessians aside at dawn?

Pathetic.

Another coughing spasm, a bit more river water coming up, gasping again for breath.

“The General,” he heard someone announce.

He looked up. Washington had been standing on the dock for some minutes watching as another boat came in, this one carrying several horses, one of them his. Now he was making his way up the icy slope, leading his white stallion by its bridle, stepping carefully, steadying the animal so it wouldn’t slip, behind him his African servant leading his own horse.

Washington looked toward him and nodded.

“I saw what you did, son,” the General said. “Thank you.”

Jonathan could not reply, afraid that if he spoke his voice would break. He could not salute, afraid and ashamed that the blanket might slip off, revealing his complete nakedness.

“Can you dry out and stay with us?”

“Of course, sir,” Jonathan gasped.

Washington nodded and continued up the slope.

“Now you are being a fool,” Peter snapped angrily. “He offered you a chance to get out of this madness.”

“Go to hell” was all Jonathan could whisper in reply.

Peter laughed.

“You escapee from Bedlam, we are in hell. At least our bare asses facing the fire are being roasted.”

Several around them, hearing this, laughed ruefully.

The General was gone. Fire roasting his back to the point he could no longer stand it, hot sparks peppering him, Jonathan turned about, switching the blanket to cover his back. Men pressed in around him, some cursing, a few praying, most silent; more than a few were so cold he could hear their teeth chattering even as one side of them roasted and the other froze. And all the time the nor’easter continued to
howl through the treetops. Smoke, heat, freezing rain, sleet, and snow——mixing, swirling, choking, blinding——warming for an instant, then freezing again those who stood around the fire.

Jonathan looked down at the book and the pamphlet clutched in his numbed hands. The paper was soggy, but where it was not touching his hands, it was actually freezing together into a lump of pulp and ink.

“Out of the darkness I cry unto Thee, oh Lord,” he whispered and then, removing the pamphlet from the back of the waterlogged Bible, he tried to separate the first leaves. It was useless, he would have to wait till later, to let it dry out . . . but there was no need to do so . . . the words were in his heart.

With Peter by his side, he stood by the fire, turning, then turning, then turning again, and the chill stayed, down deep in his bones. The wind continued to howl, driving its mixture of sleet and freezing rain, and one thing the fire could not help . . . the ground he was standing on was trampled into a churned-up glue of semifrozen mud. The pain in his feet was gone. He could no longer feel them. They had gone completely numb.

He thought of his brother James. Most likely at this very minute he was sitting by the fireplace of their home in Trenton, feet up, warmed by the fire, drink in hand, his older brother with him. If they saw me now, they would call me the fool.

Again he turned, facing back to the fire. Behind him another boatload of troops marched past. This time an artillery crew, groaning, pulling on two lengths of cable hooked to their heavy nine-pounder, toiled up the slope, the gun itself weighing more as mud and ice clung to the wheels, barrel, and carriage, and yet still they toiled, laboring past him.

“New York line! New York line! Fall in! Once on the road, column forming to the left, ahead of the Connecticut line.”

Some of the men gathered around the fire, grumbling, shouldered muskets, those who had stripped down struggling to pull on trousers that though warmed were still damp, putting on jackets, damp blanket
capes drawn back over shoulders that within seconds after being drawn back from the fire, would instantly turn chilled again. The men staggered off, the man who had given Jonathan a sip of gin, pausing, looking at him.

“Luck to you, boy,” he sighed.

“You, too, and thank you.”

The men scrambled up the slope, disappearing into the night. There was more room by the fire, but within a minute, soaking wet men coming off the boats staggered up to fill the empty spots.

He looked at these men, thought of his brothers in Trenton, and looked over at Peter. His friend stood by his shoulder, silent.

Jonathan van Dorn knew who his brothers were now and where he had to be, even as he turned, and turned again, roasting on one side, freezing on the other, as if caught somewhere between hell and some strange dark mystery that was building in the shadows beyond.

Philadelphia
December 9, 1776

The blustery wind cut through his thin jacket, knifelike, driving into his back.

Tom Paine pressed his chin down and held on to his hat to keep it from being swept away.

General Putnam, riding beside him, said nothing; he had said nothing for several hours. They had found little in common. Both were exhausted, and there really wasn’t much to say. Putnam was in a mood to match Tom’s. In a way Tom was grateful for the silence. At least Putnam had not pestered him about what he had written and was now carrying in his haversack or offered suggestions as to what he should write next.

After the numbing march across New Jersey to the eastern shore of the Delaware, the first hour or so of riding had been a blessing. Fear that at any minute British dragoons or mounted Hessian jaegers might close in was now on that far shore as well. But as they rode through the night, muscles began to protest. The swayback Putnam had rounded up for him had an uncomfortable gait and on occasion would stumble. Within two hours Tom’s backside was rubbed raw.
Putnam had refused to stop until just before dawn, when they reined in at a tavern in Bristol.

The food there had been his first decent meal in days. Strange how the army was starving to death, a few hours’ ride away; but if you had a guinea or a Dutch or Spanish silver in your pocket——as Putnam did——smoked ham, eggs, and even a warm apple cobbler washed down with beer were there for the asking.

Few had been about as they rode up before dawn; most staying at the tavern overnight were still asleep, but the smell wafting from the kitchen chimney was signal enough that the inn was open. Tom had felt faint at the scent.

Many had been the maddening nights in the alleyways of London when, if the opportunity had arisen, he might very well have waylaid someone and knocked him senseless in order to steal a few farthings for a meal. At this moment he said nothing, for Putnam was a general, and though he had undying respect for Washington himself, he had noted, along with others in the ranks, that generals rarely starved. If Putnam wanted to eat, so would he, and that had indeed been the case.

The innkeeper, German or Dutch from the sound of his thick accent, had been wary when they first walked in, until Putnam laid a shilling on the counter and told him to fetch them both a meal and be quick about it and to see to their horses as well.

The innkeeper’s wife, portly, face red, obviously well fed, had come protectively out of the kitchen, but at the sight of the coin in her husband’s hands she was suddenly all smiles.

“Soldiers with money, a miracle this day,” she exclaimed.

“Is that so unusual now?” Tom ventured, in spite of his exhaustion. The woman’s fat round face triggered a vague memory of his company stopping here months back as they marched north to the wars. Then the innkeeper and his wife had greeted them gladly, even offering a small barrel of beer for free to their brave defenders and heroes.

But that was in the world of the sunshine patriots, and he thought again of the new pages rolled up in his backpack.

The husband shot her a stern glance, and she fell silent and returned to the kitchen.

The two ate their meal in silence, and that added to the strangeness. Innkeepers were usually a garrulous lot, always eager for news and gossip. This man said barely a word other than to announce that the oats and hay for the horses would cost an additional sixpence.

Finishing his meal first, and acting as if he were heading out to the privy, Tom managed to barter with a boy in the kitchen for a few long pulls on a bottle of rum, five dollars continental a shot. Tom wasn’t quite sure who had gotten the better of the bargain.

“Soldiers been passing here now for a couple of weeks,” the boy told him. “A whole company from Virginia going home. Said their enlistments were up and the war lost. A lot more by themselves or in twos and threes. Mr. Dorman took pity on them at first, would usually give them some bread or porridge and let them sleep in the barn, but the missus . . .”

The boy lowered his voice.

“Tory, she is. Oh, all patriot until the weather changed, and she says they better come out on the right side for when the British march through. So she drives them away when they come begging. You’re the first in a week with real money in your pockets.”

“The old man in there’s a general,” Tom replied.

“General of what?” the boy asked, and for a moment Tom wasn’t sure if the boy was being sarcastic or not.

“He’s going to report to Congress.”

“Then he better ride quick. A dispatch rider stopped here last night and said Congress is running south to Wilmington or Baltimore.”

Telling Putnam that bit of intelligence cost Tom his rest. Cursing roundly, the general finished his meal, paid the extra sixpence the wife demanded for the oats and hay, and they were on their way.

Few were on the road from Bristol to Philadelphia except for occasional small knots of soldiers heading south. At their approach more than a few cleared the road and made off into a nearby wood-lot or field, though twice a group of men glared at Putnam with
defiance and muttered taunts about generals riding off now as well.

Farmhouses along the way were shuttered. If anyone was about, there were no longer shouts and waves or pretty girls by the fence smiling as the gallant boys marched by.

He became used to that reception on the retreat across Jersey, but here, so close to the capital, where there had been endless days of joyous celebrations and every hand had been open to anyone in uniform going north, it was unnerving.

War had brought devastation to New Jersey. On the retreat from Fort Lee to Trenton houses and inns were broken into, barns stripped clean of food, the road itself churned into a morass. Here in Pennsylvania the farms were still well tended, animals out in the fields, the land fat and rich, as if there had never been a war at all.

Finally they crested a low rise and the church spires of Philadelphia appeared in the distance, illuminated by the clear light of a morning sun. The wind at their backs was still cold, kicking up whitecaps across the broad Delaware, as yet devoid of traffic. Not a boat, barge, or punt appeared on its broad expanse. The dockyards were nearly empty of traffic as well, the oceangoing ships there bottled up by the British blockade at the mouth of Delaware Bay.

As they reached the outskirts of the city Tom could sense an indefinable “something,” an instinctive awareness imprinted in any who had survived in the slums of a city, especially that greatest cesspool of them all, London. It was learned quickly, else one was quickly dead, or beaten senseless and left for dead, or snatched up for some petty crime and press-ganged into the fleet or dangled at the end of a rope. Learn and survive——and he had learned it well.

Houses were shuttered, businesses closed, except for one tavern, which was doing a roaring business, its patrons coming out to see the two ride by and offer taunts about heroes back from the war.

Putnam, as if made of stone, rode on stoically, Tom trailing in his wake and watching warily until they were around a bend in the road.
Every step the horse took was a jolting agony. He had never liked riding. He could feel the animal beneath him flagging, ready to collapse from exhaustion. Yet another emaciated veteran of the army, he thought sadly, and there was a momentary pity for the beast as it stumbled, recovered, and slowly pushed on. Even Putnam’s fine mount was ready to give in, but the general kept urging him forward.