Conceived in Liberty (10 page)

One screamed: “Go on, Kenton—show them the killing of deer! Show them a swift killing of deer.”

They had courage, those officers. They stood there, in the middle of us, eyeing us one by one. Muller smiled a little. Ely went up to them.

“You won't be fools,” Ely said quietly. “You won't see murder done.”

Muller turned and walked through us. The other two went with him. They were followed by hooting, laughter. I felt that they would remember.

“They're no men to lead us,” Ely said to me. “They don't know us.”

“They're fools.” I said.

The meat was being turned by half a dozen men, roasting slowly, dripping fat that burnt with blue and yellow flame in the fire.

We cut it down when it was still half-raw. We stood close to the fire, gulping the meat. Charley Green sang a parody of a Boston song—“The Jolly Sons of Liberty.”

We joined in. It took our fancy, and we sang:

Come jolly sons of liberty, come all with hearts united,

We stink so high we scare the foe, not easily affrighted,

Our angry bowels we must subdue, now is the time or never,

Let each man prove this motto true, and droppings from him sever.

We sang it to the tune of “Glorious First of August.” We sang it again and again until the words had no more meaning. We were drunk with fresh meat in empty stomachs. Some of us were sick. Finally we stumbled back into our dugouts.

I go out on sentry duty. It is night—a clear, still night. The Pennsylvania brigades have exhausted themselves; the dugouts, small lumped huts, are quiet.

The cold has eased itself a little; there is almost no wind at all. I walk up and down slowly, and sometimes I turn and look at the glow in trees behind the huts—the embers of our fire. I think of how the Jew's lungs froze when we carried Clark Vandeer to the hospital. But Ely and I are still alive; we are two strong men.

Clark is dead, not even buried. I take my bayonet, and thrust through the snow at the ground. It's hard as rock. I go down on my knees, try to dig, and manage to turn up a little earth.

I must get rid of my fear. I look over the country, and try to see it as it will be in the spring. The Jew's words stay in my mind; he never saw the spring in America.

I attempt to rid myself of the fear that this will be our grave. There's no sound. Are we all dead? I cry out, and my voice comes back, a plaintive echo. I want to fire my musket. It's a great desire, and I have to use all my powers to hold back. How many men on sentry beat fire their guns for the same reason? Break the silence. The day before, a man had been whipped half to death for that.

The moon shows above the far hills. It shows a curved rim of yellow ice. It lights up the countryside, gives a weird, unholy beauty. The moon rises until it looks like half a mouth, laughing.

VII

The Jew is dying. Smith suffers from scurvy, and we can do nothing for him. To some degree we all have it, but Smith's face is like a rotten apple, and his teeth have fallen out. He lies in bed, groaning with pain and cursing the Jew. Or calling back memories of roasts in the kitchen of his inn.

His voice grows stronger as he talks. “—a roast of beef, a prime rib roast of beef. Give it fifteen minutes to the pound, and turn it slowly. Turn it slowly and catch the drippings. Drippings for gravy—”

We can't stand that. We tell him to close his Goddamned mouth.

The doctor came twice. Once he brought a slice of potato for Smith. It helped a little, but potatoes are rare. The second time, he asked the Jew if he'd go to the hospital.

“Good mother earth has relieved us,” the doctor said. “There's a place to spare. They squabble like chickens—give it to a New Jersey man, give it to a Massachusetts man, give it to a Vermonter. God, a stinking breed, those Vermonters, cold as their mountains and ignorant as pigs. Can I say I'm holding it for a Jew? Can I tell them that? I threaten to walk out, and they let me do what I want with the place, save it for my Jew. They listen to me. I tell them eighteen miles away—in Philadelphia—there's ten golden pounds a week waiting for an army doctor. I take their Continental money and use it for bandages. It doesn't make good bandages even.”

“How long have I got?” the Jew asked him.

“Any day now.”

“I'll stay here,” the Jew said, his smile curious.

The doctor looked at him oddly. He seemed to be really regretful. “I thought we'd talk,” the doctor said. “You can go mad, not having anyone to talk to.”

“You won't go mad,” the Jew said.

Then they looked at each other; there seemed to be a sort of understanding between them.

We sit, now, waiting for the Jew to die. We fear his death, more than he does himself. Of that I'm certain. We know it won't be long. He bled for a long time through his nose and mouth, and after that he lay quiet, hardly breathing. His face is like yellow parchment, old skin stretched over bones. But he can't be very old.

I ask Ely what guess he'd make of the man's age.

“There's no age to him,” Ely says slowly.

“He ain't seen thirty winters,” Jacob guesses.

“He never spoke of wife or children. He's a strange, silent man.”

I say, fretfully: “Why won't he die? He's been a week dying.”

“A black magic that struck me,” Smith says. “The scurvy comes from the heathen Jew.”

I crawl into my bed, and Bess asks me: “He's dead?”

“No—not yet.”

“Allen, I can't stand any more of this. I tell you, I can't. Only take me away, Allen. It's better to die outside than to die here. I wake up in the night, sweating—thinking that the place has closed in on me. Only take me away.”

“There's no fear,” I tell her, “no fear.”

“But take me away, Allen.”

“It's a long, weary five hundred miles to the Mohawk,” I say. “It's a road we could never travel. And the British hold all the country in between.”

“We don't have to go to the Mohawk, Allen.”

“Then where?”

“The British in Philadelphia pay a price and keep for information, Allen. Food and housing——”

“Christ, you slut!” I cried. “You turning, crawling slut. You'd have me sell Ely—you'd have me sell them all.”

“Only for you, Allen, only for you—only for my love of you, Allen. Only for my deep, abiding love of you.”

“You're not a fit woman to love a man—to be loved by a man. You're not a fit woman to hold a man's body——”

“Allen, what are you saying?”

“I'm saying the truth! Clark Vandeer put his curse on me when he lay dying. He predicted true. You're a little filthy slut, and you're not a fit woman for a man.”

“No, Allen—only my love of you to make me say it. Only my love that put thoughts in my mind. Loving and sleeping, sleeping half the day and night from weakness, dreaming all the time, you dream fancies, Allen. Like I dream I'm not here, but in a place where men and women are real. God forgive me, I think of a dress, Allen, almost go crazy making a dress in my mind, a dress of fine white flax, spun. I spin it myself, Allen. Day and night, I spin the flax. I can spin; I can card and weave and spin. I'm a fair, decent woman, Allen, and no bad woman could card and weave and spin. I make the cloth and cut a dress for myself, and sew it. With yellow thread, a cloth as white as snow. Like the snow outside, Allen—a dress of snow, clean and spotless. No marks on it, Allen—all over it not even a mark. To make me good, Allen, and I'm not a bad woman. Not a bad woman, Allen, only a dress of white to make me good. You wouldn't have to tell them truth, Allen. It's said the British are fair stupid beings. They'll believe you, Allen, whatever you tell them. They'll give us food and shelter to keep the winter——”

“You're no fit woman—let me go!”

“Allen, I'm good—stay by me, Allen. Allen, I could grow strong and round with a winter. Come spring, Allen, we could go to the southland and over Boone's road into Transylvania. There's no war there in the south, Allen, and I would be strong—a fit woman to weave for a man, to clean and to work for him. You wouldn't have to love me then, Allen—only let me work for you. I wouldn't be holding you down, Allen—only to work for you.”

I climbed out of bed, stumbled, and almost sprawled into the fire. I heard Bess' little cry of terror. I stood and watched the flames. Our wood is almost gone—a low fire. I tried to see something in the small flame.

Ely is by the Jew. He says something, and then over his shoulder to me: “Allen—come here.”

I go and bend over the bed.

“You've had schooling, Allen. You've read books.”

I nod.

“You've come on a fair prayer for a Jew in your reading?”

I shake my head helplessly.

He says a few words. The Jew sighs, and Ely closes his eyes. Ely says: “I'm not a man to think a lot about heaven and hell—but I'll go where he went, and content with that.”

I can't speak.

Ely says: “Come and cut a few sticks of wood with me, Allen. The fire's low.”

I take up the axe, and we go outside. Ely leads the way into the forest. I cut down a small tree, and then I rest while Ely lops off the branches. The work is good; it takes my mind off things.

We come back loaded with wood and build up the fire. Jacob is kneeling by the Jew's bed. We both look at him, but neither of us speaks.

I go to my bed. Bess touches my face, timidly. I put my head on her breast and sob convulsively.

VIII

W
E
'
VE DECIDED
to desert, Kenton Brenner, Charley Green, and I. Not at once did we come to the decision, but slowly, working our courage, and giving ourselves all the arguments we needed to leave the army. First Kenton and I—then Charley.

Two days after the Jew died, I walked on sentry beat with Kenton. The fresh meat had lifted us, brought back little fires of strength that were all but gone. I came on Kenton at the end of my beat. He leaned on his musket, looking northward over the hills.

I said to him: “I was watching you—you were silent and unmoving here wondrous long. I thought to myself, you're frozen and sleeping on your feet.”

“I'm thinking a strong man could walk through the snow.”

“Where to?” I asked him. “Where would you be walking?”

“North—a great stretch north to the Mohawk. I'm sick to look at the Valley land.”

“For five hundred miles? Edward froze. Stiff as a log of wood. They brought him back and laid him down, and he was all ringed over with ice. I don't forget the sight of Edward, with the ice sealing his lips.”

“Edward was alone.”

Then I looked at him, and I could feel how the hope was tearing inside of me. “We're like rats in a trap—and lacking all courage,” I muttered.

We asked Charley that night. Charley a Boston man, a city man. A curious man who had read many hundreds of books. He had a round face, tiny blue eyes, and a stoutness that days of starving wouldn't rid him of.

“We're enlisted three years,” Charley said.

“For three years, and three hundred men in our regiment,” I said. “Six of us left. There'll be none of you left for ripe rewards at the end of three years—not enough to hang from an English gibbet.”

“I've a woman here,” Charley muttered. “I'd be sleeping alone many a night.”

“You've a dirty slut who won't hunger for you once ye're gone.”

“I'm sick to be home.”

“There's food on the way,” I told him eagerly. “There's a country full of food on the way. Rich, good food for our taking.”

“We've no money. Our Continental paper wouldn't buy a loaf of bread to the thousand dollars.”

“We don't need money. We'll take our muskets. Men with muskets can find food.”

“I'm no thief,” Charley said stubbornly. “By God, I've become a rotten mock of a man, but I'm no thief.”

“No plunder. I'm not meaning plunder, Charley. Old soldiers could find a little bit of food.”

Then we sit close to the fire, looking at each other, looking around the tiny smoke-blackened dugout. Ely is out on sentry duty. I try not to think about Ely; I try to think only of freedom—of an end to the awful monotony that's rotting my soul. Jacob lies in his bed, a cloak drawn over him, his feet protruding—ragged, bandaged stumps. His eyes are closed, and he lies without moving. Smith groans softly. Henry Lane is sick with the French disease. He has been sick and silent that way for weeks now—a living dead man lying quietly in his bunk.

We three look at each other and measure each other.

I say: “How long? I'm afraid to die here. Outside—anywhere outside. I'm not afraid to go to sleep in the snow, not wake up—just sleep in the snow. That's easy. There was no pain in Edward's heart for his dying.”

“We'd start without food,” Charley says.

Kenton grins. “We're used to that.”

“You'd go to the Mohawk?”

“Or to Boston until the winter's over.”

“No women——”

I stare at them, and they both look at me, and I glance over my shoulder; if Bess is awake.

“No women,” Kenton says dully.

I get up, and I go to my bed. Her arms are round me. I watch the fire, pretending not to know that she is awake. I lie there for a long time, not moving, watching the fire, until I think she is asleep.

Ely comes in. Slowly, painfully, he gets out of his clothes. He is very tired; his face is sunken and drawn. Each step he takes draws a grimace of pain from him. I had thought of pleading with Ely to come along with us. But his feet wouldn't carry him a dozen miles.

He puts wood on the fire. He stands there for a little while, wiping the smoke out of his eyes. Then he walks to Jacob's bed. He and Jacob are both older than the rest of us, both of them apart from us. He watches Jacob, draws the cloak up to Jacob's neck. Smith groans. Ely takes a cup of the thin corn-broth that we keep by the fire—when we have corn—and holds it to Smith's lips. The man drinks a little.