Conceived in Liberty (15 page)

Charley said: “He has no thought to offend these men, Mr. Hamilton.”

Wayne said, coldly: “You will address your advocate as Colonel Hamilton.”

We stand there, silent again. We feel helpless. We move our feet uneasily, glance down at the filthy wrappings that cover them.

Washington said: “Mr. Wayne, do you have anything to say in behalf of these men? They are in your command.”

“Nothing.”

Hamilton said: “Your excellencies, may I ask the court to extend its mercy?”

Washington tapped the top of the table with a quill. Greene was whispering something to him. He said a few words to Wayne, softly, and Wayne shook his head. Finally, Washington said:

“The court finds you guilty of desertion with arms. Out of respect to Mr. Hamilton's request, the court with-holds a decision of desertion in face of the enemy. The court sentences you to twenty lashes each before the assembled brigades of the Pennsylvania Line.”

Hamilton stepped forward and said: “I thank you for your leniency, sir.”

We wait there, still not moving, the strain of standing so long on our feet beginning to tell on us. I glance at Kenton and Charley, and both their faces are set in masks. I wonder what my face is like. I touch my beard. I look at Kenton again. There is a certain dignity about him. His thin yellow beard juts out from his chin; his moustache droops. I say to myself, “He's seen twenty-five winters, only twenty-five.” But he has become ageless, old; a marvellous mesh of little lines is etched about his eyes.

We wait, and I wonder what is meant by the first sentence. A sort of hope wells up inside of me. I have no fear of lashes, no fear of pain added to pain: only of a gibbet on Mount Joy, with the wolves leaping for my feet. I never felt life more, wanted life more than I do now, standing here.

They are talking among themselves, heatedly. Wayne rises, kicking back his chair. Across the table Colonel Conway stands facing him.

“I'll have no slurs on my men, sir!” Wayne says.

“I meant none.”

Washington says, coldly: “Gentlemen, we are trying men for their lives.” He says to Mercer: “Continue.”

Mercer reads: “A charge brought by Captain Allen McLane of the First Continental Light Horse, that on the morning of February seventeenth, seventeen hundred and seventy-eight, returning from a foraging expedition, his party intercepted three deserters, who later gave their regiment as the Fourteenth Pennsylvania, and their names as follows: Allen Hale, Kenton Brenner and Charles Green; that these men were in uniform and under arms, and that they ignored repeated commands to halt for examination. That as they were about to be taken, they opened fire, killing one of Captain McLane's men, David Seely. That they were taken on the King of Prussia Road, a mile and a half north of the Schuylkill. That there was a fourth member of their party, a woman, shot and killed by the fire of the light horse.”

When he had finished reading, he placed his papers on the table. The officers handed them round. Washington took no notice of the papers; he kept his eyes on us.

He said: “Mr. Hamilton, do you wish to deny any point in the charges?”

Hamilton answered: “I should like to question Captain McLane, sir. I should like to call at least two of Captain McLane's men, who were with him on the morning in question.”

“The last will not be necessary. Colonel Mercer—will you have Mr. McLane in here?”

Hamilton said: “As a point of justice, your excellency, I ask the court that it summon two more men to testify along with Captain McLane.”

“The court denies your request. Captain McLane's word is enough.”

“Sir, I demand this. Captain McLane is prejudiced. Any cavalryman is against the foot.”

“You forget yourself, Mr. Hamilton.”

“I apologize. May these men be seated until the court calls them to speak?”

“They may.”

“I thank the court.”

We drop into the chairs gratefully. We stare at our feet. Then our eyes go to the window. We sit there, men dumb as beasts, staring out the window.

I feel an awful resentment at the whole business—at the trial, at the mockery of their reading our charges, at the well-dressed, warm officers sitting at the table. Who are they? What have they to do with us? What of the weeks when we lay in the dugouts, like diseased animals? How is it that they materialize now, to take hold of our lives, to hang us, as murderers and thieves are hanged? I know that they will hang us; I have no doubt of that. Only to draw it out, to play with something called justice, to make an example.

We desert with arms; whose arms? We desert in uniform. I look at Kenton's uniform. His coat is cut from a blanket, sewed with strips of cloth, shredded all round the bottom. The blue skin of his knees shows through his breeches. His mittens are made of a piece of blanket. His neck is bound with a strip of our old regimental flag. But we desert in uniform.

McLane comes in. He never suffers for food, the dashing Captain McLane. His men plunder the British food trains, the produce that the Quaker farmers haul in to the Philadelphia market. They eat well and they eat first. He comes in with a brisk stride and salutes. He wears a hunting coat of grey felt with red facings. He wears high, polished kneeboots and doeskin breeches. He wears a cocked hat of grey kid.

He wears his sidearms, a sabre and a pistol, a bunched hand of lace where his coat opens. He walks up to the table, salutes and stands at attention. Hamilton has dropped into his chair by the window. He leans his elbow on the window-sill, and lazily rubs away the frost with his fingers. I watch, fascinated, as the scene outside comes into view—a sentry passing, a picket fence coming out of a mound of snow, two women picking their way along the road. Then Hamilton turns to us, watches us a moment, and smiles. His smile is reassurance. He's slight as a girl, but the story goes that he is fearless. He doesn't like McLane; the smile is causal contempt of McLane.

Washington glanced at McLane fondly. “You may be at ease, Mr. McLane,” he said.

Hamilton rose, walked across the room slowly, staring at a few sheets of paper he held in his hands. He paid no attention to McLane. He walked across the room to the farther wall, and there he turned, resting against the wall. He never looked directly at McLane; his eyes were shaded by long, girlish lashes.

He said: “Mr. McLane, will you describe to the court the incidents that led up to your intercepting these men? Will you tell just how you happened to be returning along the King of Prussia Road at that hour? I believe it was early morning.”

McLane said: “Your excellencies, I resent Colonel Hamilton's implication. I was in the line of my duty.”

Hamilton: “There was no implication intended.”

The court: “You will answer his questions, Mr. McLane.”

McLane: “Your excellencies know the work I have done in providing forage for the army. Lately, I have had information that the Quakers are given to travelling at night. They form their produce wagons into trains, start out at sundown, and trust to reach the British outposts, near Philadelphia, before dawn. I make it my practice to range during the early hours of the morning. On the morning of February seventeenth, I was damnably unlucky. I was returning with forty horses along the road from Norristown, when I noticed four persons on foot, bearing arms. I rode forward to investigate, crying for them to halt and stay where they were. They ran across a field, but luckily were bogged in a drift of snow. My men rode them down, but at the last moment, when they saw that escape was cut off, they turned and deliberately fired into my men, killing a trooper.”

Hamilton said: “Thank you, Mr. McLane.” He walked over to us, turned his back on McLane, and asked softly: “The girl bore arms?”

“No, sir.”

He walked back to the table, rested one hand upon it, and faced McLane. “Mr. McLane,” he said, “you speak of four deserters. Were they all men?”

“No, sir. One was a woman.”

“Then there were only three deserters. To my knowledge, there are no enlisted women in this army.”

“Yes, sir—three men.”

“And you spoke of four persons on foot, bearing arms. Did the woman bear arms?”

McLane seemed to hesitate.

“Mr. McLane, I call you to answer! Did the woman bear arms?”

“I don't recall.”

“Mr. McLane, what is the weight of the average musket?”

The court: “Mr. Hamilton, will you keep to the point? You are not here to dramatize, but to help formation of a just decision.”

Hamilton: “If the court will permit me to go ahead, I can prove this all to be to the point. Please answer my question, Mr. McLane.”

McLane: “One stone—more or less.”

“Or in pounds—fifteen, or twenty. Wouldn't you say a musket could easily weigh twenty pounds, Mr McLane?”

“I don't make a practice of weighing muskets.”

“But I do. Here is a woman, half-starved, weighing eighty or ninety pounds, and you don't know whether she was armed.”

McLane said: “Your excellencies, I object to being baited this way by Colonel Hamilton. I am not on trial here.”

“Then you'll admit the woman was not armed?” Hamilton asked.

“Your excellencies——”

“Answer Mr. Hamilton's question.”

“The men were armed.”

“And the woman wasn't. And the woman is dead, shot by your men. You omitted that from the story, Mr. McLane. Will you explian why you omitted that fact—why your men shot an unarmed woman who was certainly not a deserter?”

“We had no knowledge that she was a woman at the time. She was dressed as they were.”

“But unarmed. How many of your men fired, Mr. MacLane?”

“I don't know—a dozen perhaps.”

“Did you give the command to fire?”

“I did. It was in the line of duty. They were armed men, resisting arrest.”

“Yet the one shot that took effect brought down an unarmed woman. How do you account for that?”

“I can't account for the marksmanship of my men, and I see no reason why I have to. They were on horse, firing at moving figures——”

“Mr. McLane, you indicated that the man in your brigade whom these deserters killed was shot before you opened fire. You admit that when twelve moving men, on horse or on foot, fire at targets that are not stationary, one hit out of a dozen attempts is a reasonable score. You indicate that your return fire was given immediately after these deserters opened fire, and that at the time the deserters were moving. Let me make myself clear: three moving men fire at your brigade, and one of their shots takes effect. Does that suggest anything to you?”

“That General Wayne's men are better marksmen than mine? My men are cavalrymen, not marksmen.”

“Or that your men fired, killed the woman—that the three men halted and fired from a stationary position.”

The court: “Mr. Hamilton—you will not attempt to influence the court by conjecture.”

Hamilton turned to McLane, said quietly: “Mr. McLane, who fired first, the deserters or your men?”

McLane said: “Your excellencies, do I have to answer that question?”

“You will answer.”

“I gave the order to fire when I saw the men were about to escape in the forest.”

“And who fired first?”

“My men.”

“Yet you stated, Mr. McLane, that these three men returned your fire simply to resist capture. You said that they returned the fire when they saw their position was hopeless. Also, your implication was that they had fired first. Deliberately, Mr. McLane, you portrayed these men in an act of treason and murder.”

“Your excellencies, must I be baited like a common criminal?”

Washington said: “Mr. Hamilton, you have no right to ascribe intentions to Captain McLane. He is not on trial.”

“But these three men are on trial for their lives.”

Wayne said: “Your excellency, an act of treason reflects upon my command. I demand that it be substantiated.”

Hamilton: “Mr. McLane, did these three men fire deliberately, when about to be taken, or was their action simply a burst of fury at the killing of the woman?”

“They killed one of my men. They were deserters.”

Conway leaned across the table and said: “Colonel Hamilton, what are you driving at? We are not trying officers or gentlemen. We are trying three deserters. Look at them. You profane the name of soldier when you call them soldiers.”

Wayne cried: “If Colonel Conway desires to indulge in personalities at the expense of my troops, he can answer to me. Whether or not these men are soldiers ——”

“Gentlemen,” Washington said coldly.

Wayne stood up, trembling, facing Conway. Washington said:

“Be seated, General Wayne. You forget yourself.”

Hamilton said: “If Colonel Conway wishes to make any remarks, I'll answer them personally. There are five thousand men like these in camp, and if I can't address them as troops of the line, I'll resign my commission.”

Washington's voice was like ice. He said: “Mr. Hamilton, you are not here to engage in personalities. If you are through, you have the court's permission to leave.”

Hamilton stood there, biting his lips. For a moment, I thought he'd walk out. Then he said:

“I beg your pardon sir, humbly. I have no interest in these men. I was asked to take up their rights. That's my duty, I think.”

Wayne said: “Your excellency, I add my voice to Mr. Hamilton's. I beg your pardon.”

“Go ahead, Mr. Hamilton,” Washington said shortly.

Hamilton said: “Mr. McLane, if your wife were shot down and you had a loaded gun in your hand, and the man who committed the crime were before you, what action would you take?”

McLane stood in silence.

Washington said: “Captain McLane will not answer. If you can't confine yourself to facts, Mr. Hamilton, I'll dismiss the witness.”