To Try Men's Souls - George Washington 1 (22 page)

“For God’s sake, man, toss out those stinking rags you have on and buy some clothes with this. The war is over.”

Tom took the shillings, looking down at the image of the king stamped upon them. For the first time in his life he threw money aside.

His exhausted mount, it seemed the only friend he had in this city, stood patiently by the curb. He did not have the strength to mount, and taking the bridle he slowly led it away. He weaved along for a few blocks and then, as if driven by some instinct, turned down the lane that led to his first benefactor in this land.

He stopped in front of the home of Dr. Rush and found that for a long moment he could not even move.

The door to the smart three-story home cracked open, an elderly black servant looking out at him, finely dressed in dark broadcloth and hose. The man was dressed better than many a general.

“What do you want?”

“I’m here to see Dr. Rush,” Tom gasped. “He’s busy.”

Tom didn’t respond. His mind was not functioning clearly anymore. Too much, far too much. This time yesterday he was staggering through the mud on the road from Princeton to Trenton; he had ridden all night, had only one greasy meal at dawn, and now this, a return to a city that seemed to be dying.

The servant stood onto the top step and looked down at him. “You sick? A patient of the doctor’s?”

“Michael, isn’t it?” Tom whispered.

The man came down the steps and stared at him.

“Mr. Paine?” His voice was quizzical, rich with the melodious inflection of the Indies.

“The same.”

“Why didn’t you say so, sir.” Michael’s tone softened. “I’m certain the doctor will want to see you at once.”

The servant turned, as if pointing the way, but Tom did not move. After so long a journey, the last few steps seemed insurmountable.

“I can’t move.”

The man came to his side. Tom was afraid he was going to collapse,
his legs numb. The servant supported him and led the way up the steps, calling for someone to tend to the horse.

In the parlor Michael took Tom to a straight-backed chair by the fire, eased him into it, and left to fetch the doctor.

Tom sat in silence, the warmth of the fire making him suddenly light-headed, the room closing in, almost choking him.

“Tom Paine?”

Benjamin Rush swept into the room. Tom tried to stand, but Rush put his hand on his shoulder and forced him to remain seated. He stared down at Tom, then wrinkled his nose.

“My heaven’s, man, but you stink.”

Tom tried to smile. “You should smell the rest of the army. I fit right in there.”

Rush sat down beside him. Suddenly he was transformed; a doctor, not a member of Congress. He put a hand to Tom’s forehead, the other feeling for his pulse, as he leaned to look into his eyes.

He removed his hand from Tom’s forehead and shook it in disgust.

“You are lousy, man, absolutely lousy.” With the heel of his shoe he crushed a louse that had sought the warmth of the doctor’s hand.

“You’re a bit feverish as well. How is your stomach?”

“Empty.”

Rush drew back slightly.

“Michael!”

The servant was already returning, carrying a tray with a decanter of wine, two glasses, and some pastries.

“Put that down, Michael. Have one of the girls draw a bath out in the kitchen for Mr. Paine. The man is filthy with lice, so just strip him down.” He turned to Tom. “Burn those rags and find him something clean to wear.”

“I already got the water heating over the fire,” Michael announced. He left the tray on a small table by Rush’s side and hurried back to the kitchen shouting orders.

“I don’t hold with the notion some have against bathing in winter,” Rush announced. “Bathe first. Let Michael cut and comb out your
hair to get rid of the lice. And that beard will have to go as well. I think I should bleed you later and draw out some of the bad humors.”

Paine looked at him sullenly.

“Some rum inside of me would be better.”

Rush smiled, filled a thick crystal glass with wine, and handed it to him.

“Drink slowly, my friend. It is just about the last of my port. Blockade and all, it’s running short.”

Tom drained the glass in a single gulp.

Rush shook his head. “I have to go to the state house but will be back later and we can talk then.”

“Is it true Congress is running?”

“Damn cowards. Yes, at least most of them are. They’re going to Baltimore, and it’s triggering a panic. A few of us are staying on, though.”

Tom liked the edge in the man’s voice.

“My God, man, your breath is as fetid as a sewer. You do need bleeding, but first the bath.”

He took the glass from Tom and offered a pastry, which Tom wolfed down in two gulps.

“Now tell me before I leave. Are the British truly marching on Philadelphia?”

“I don’t know,” Tom sighed. “I don’t think so, though. Their pursuit slowed once we got south of the Raritan River. I heard some say they are going into winter quarters. Others say Howe is going to sail around Jersey and come up the Delaware instead. It would only take one day of good weather to do so. I just don’t know.” His voice trailed off.

“Well, Congress is all in a panic,” Rush replied. “The last of the fearful are leaving now, taking lock, stock, and barrel.”

“And you, sir?”

“Damned if I’ll run. I volunteered to stay behind as a special observer. They want me to investigate General Washington.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I think you know as well as I do. Some want his head. They talk of Lee or Gates being put in command instead.

Rush patted his knee and then withdrew his hand, looking at it carefully first.

“We’ll talk more later. I’d best be off.”

Rush left him to sit by the fire. Once Rush was out of the room Tom forgot all decorum and gulped down the sweet cakes and drained the decanter. As the effect of the wine took hold, he heard Rush shouting some orders to Michael about getting Mr. Paine into the bath, burning all his clothes, and then putting him to bed.

The mention of burning set off a momentary panic. He fumbled into his backpack and drew out the sheets of paper, some of them crumpled by McKinney, placed them on a side table, and carefully flattened them out. As Rush headed out the front door, slamming it shut, Tom was unfolding toward the floor.

When Michael came in a few minutes later to help him to his bath in the kitchen, he found Tom Paine lying on the floor by the fireplace, drunk and fast asleep. The servant debated what to do and then noticed the sheets of paper on the table. Picking them up he scanned the first page and, for the moment, the man snoring by his feet was forgotten as Michael stood riveted, reading the words.

Born a slave in Barbados, Michael was now a free man, and he could read.

What he read cut into his soul like lightning.

East Shore of the Delaware, Nine Miles North of Trenton
2:45
A.M.
, December 26, 1776

Fuming with impatience, Washington snapped open his watch. It was becoming a nervous gesture, he knew, one that could only annoy the men observing him, but he could not help it. Shielding it against the storm, he held it to reflect the firelight off the face. Seeing the time, he snapped it shut again.

Lord, help us move faster, he prayed under his breath.

“Grab hold there, damn it!”

He looked back to the dock. It was Glover, angrily pacing back and forth on the icy planks, directing his men.

They were exhausted, chilled, moving woodenly after nearly ten hours out in this blow. Their pace was slowing. All could sense that, but Glover was still driving his company to their tasks. A hard man.

Though Washington doubted he would ever completely shed his mistrust of most New Englanders, his admiration for Glover was complete.

If ever there was a night of total humiliation in his life, in this war of unrelenting humiliations, Long Island transcended all on the night of August 29. Others had counseled that his deployment was folly,
splitting his numerous forces between fortifications along the Jersey side of the Hudson, the island of Manhattan, and his main force on Long Island, dug in beyond the village of Brooklyn.

Though outnumbered at the point of battle, his men had spent the last two months digging in, ringing their positions with bastions, moats, trenches, deadfalls, and revetments.

It had taken only minutes for the disciplined lines of British and the dreaded Hessians to roust them out.

Monongahela had been an utter disaster, but this was different. Monongahela had been a surprise, at least for the general and the troops of the line fighting in an alien land. Brooklyn was supposed to be free men, defending their land, in an open fight——and they had fled, all of them. Briefly, the Maryland line blocked the way, gaining time for thousands to escape while sacrificing themselves. When they were surrounded and attempted to honorably surrender, the Hessians had shown their true mettle and slaughtered prisoners and wounded by the score.

The memory of that slaughter would never leave this army, he thought, these shivering ranks deployed along the road, waiting for the last of their comrades to cross. Would the memory at dawn drive them forward with a fury, or cause them to turn in panic when the first shots were fired? He hoped for the former, but feared it might very well be the latter, especially if the Hessians were forewarned and aroused, as it seemed they must be after all the hours of delay. If the enemy was deployed for battle and waiting for his exhausted men to stagger into the fighting ground, then another disaster and slaughter would ensue.

“Clear this damn boat away!”

Glover, nearly losing his footing as he leaned over perilously, was helping to push a boat off. Its cargo, a single artillery piece, had been lifted by a couple of dozen men and manhandled out of the boat and was now being rolled up the icy slope. Its crew and some infantry drafted to help were slipping in the mud, cursing, one man yelling
out loudly as his foot went under a wheel. Fortunately for him the ground was so soft that as the wheel passed over him he was able to stand up, hop about, then gingerly try to put weight on the injured member. From the looks of it, the bones were not broken as he limped off. Normally such an event would have triggered some laughter among the soldiers, but not now. Everyone was too cold, too miserable to take much notice of the suffering of another.

“Bring the next one in. Hurry now, you sons of Massachusetts!”

Glover again. God bless him.

As darkness descended on the night of August 29, the army on Long Island appeared to be lost . . . except he still had Glover and his men.

The Maryland line had gone down to bloody defeat, barely a third of its men escaping the trap; the rest of the troops had been routed. Much to his shame, some of the best from Virginia had cast aside their muskets and run. There had been barely a corporal’s guard left that would stand and fight.

As twilight deepened, he had stood defiant, expecting death, but it had not come. Either the British were incompetent, or, as so often happened in war, they had not realized how close they were to true and total victory. Howe had not advanced the last mile to crush the rebel troops huddled along the banks of the East River. The trap seemed sealed, and the Revolution would die at dawn.

He had skipped all courtesies and small talk and took up the issue at hand, going straight to the point with the Marblehead fisherman.

“Glover, can you get us out of here tonight?”

It had been raining hard for the better part of a day, what Glover and his men called a “nor’easter” and the Marblehead man smiled that the plan they had considered as a final act of desperation was about to be played out.

Glover turned to face into the wind sweeping down the East River.

“Better tonight than tomorrow,” was his laconic reply.

“Why, sir?”

“This storm will pass, wind back around to the southwest, and they’ll be behind us, that’s for certain.”

And as he spoke he gestured down toward the vast anchorage below Manhattan where dozens of Royal Ships could at times be seen through the curtains of rain.

“Surprised they haven’t run up already,” Glover continued, “wind, tide, that’s all that’s holding ’em back.”

“Or Providence,” Washington replied, voice barely heard.

“It’ll take more than a night though,” Glover continued. “Can get the wounded out, maybe some of the officers before dawn, but then . . .”

His voice had trailed off, gaze fixed, impassive.

An oath had nearly exploded at the implication of Glover’s words, but he had held himself in check.

“My staff and I will take the last boat out, sir, the very last boat, after the entire army has been seen to first.”

Glover did not flinch.

“Well, sir. Like I said, the first wave of boats across, I take the wounded. If you insist, sir, on staying, that is your wish,” he paused for a moment, “your Excellency. But when they finally figure out that we’re slipping the noose and if my men and I are on the far side of the river . . . Well, sir, after it is all over, I guess I’ll see you in hell when my end finally comes, because there is no way that I will be able to venture back to you here on this side of earth if the Royal Navy decides to stop us.”