Washington and Caesar (54 page)

When his accounts were cast and sealed ready for
inspection, Caesar lay down at the fire his own squad had, with Virgil and Paget and their section. The old veterans from Virginia were spread thin, now. With Jim’s promotion to corporal, all the survivors of the swamp were in positions of leadership.

Virgil was whistling softly, sharpening a knife that didn’t need any more sharpening. He had already patched shirts for every man in the squad and resewn several other items. He never slept before an action. Caesar knew that Virgil hated actions as much as he himself enjoyed them, and he wondered why. Virgil was no coward, but there was something to the thought of action he dreaded, dreaded so much that he never told war stories or relived their battles, although he had survived every one since they killed the overseer together. Caesar rubbed the scars over his eyes, remembering. He smiled a little, and went to sleep. Virgil looked at him as he started to snore, kicked him lightly, and went back to his knife.

“Keep us safe, Caesar,” Virgil said softly.

Chad’s Ford, Pennsylvania, September 11, 1777

For George Lake, it was a frustrating day. The Third Virginia stood in neat ranks, or lay in the shade, depending on the emotional state of General Greene’s staff. Riders crossed in front of them again and again on their way to General Greene or General Washington. Rumor after rumor came down the ranks to the light company—they were to fight at Chad’s Ford; the enemy was marching to flank them up the river; the enemy was concentrating in front of them; they were to attack; they were to patrol across the stream. The last had proven true, and George had followed Captain Heller across the stream, where they immediately encountered strong enemy patrols supporting the big guns that were exchanging rounds with the Continental artillery posted on the opposite bank. They made it across in relative safety, and moved up a small creek only to find that
green-coated Loyalists covered the approach. A skirmish developed that George felt they couldn’t win; the enemy fire became brisker as more and more of the green-coated men came up, and their fire slackened as their men sought cover. It was vicious, with men hunting each other from tree to tree and bush to bush all along the little creek, with no quarter asked or given. George had lost sight of his captain in the first moments and now took several chances that would have given his mother great unease as he sought the man along the creek bed, moving from one knot of his men to another. He wanted them to withdraw but lacked the authority to say it.

He lost his helmet to an enemy shot that took it clean off his head and landed it in the middle of the creek. He left it there. While he would expose himself for the cause, he wouldn’t do it just to retrieve the damn helmet.

Sergeant Creese was at the outlet of the stream with a party of wounded he was shuttling back to the regiment. He hadn’t seen the captain either but concurred that they were outnumbered and in a bad case.

“Shall I go ask Colonel Weedon, sir?” he said, clearly eager to get free of the creek.

“If we wait for you to go to the colonel and get back, we’ll all be dead, Sergeant.” George raised his head and looked up the creek bed. It was hot, and his coat was soaked with sweat. He was glad his hat was gone, although the deer flies were dogging him. He wished he didn’t have to make this decision. He liked being junior and invisible, and he could see that every man around Creese was now depending on him to do the right thing, to save them all, or whatever they pleased. He wished he knew just what the captain’s orders had been. He felt overcome with worry, and then he saw some bluecoats a hundred paces or more away, hauling a four-pounder.

“Sergeant Lilly!” he called, as loud as he could. He heard an answering shout.

“Withdraw! Bring your platoon back through Sergeant Creese’s! Second Platoon, stand fast and cover them!”

Lord, his voice was hoarse. When had he done all the shouting? He watched the enemy bullets skip along the water of the creek and thought how nice it might be to just lie down in the cold clear water. There might be trout in such a cold stream. He’d eaten trout on Long Island and liked them. He thought about Betsy Lovell, and her secret glances at dinner, and he smiled despite his current situation. He had developed the habit of thinking of Betsy when things were low.

He shook his head clear of such notions and splashed some water on his face and then grabbed one of Creese’s corporals.

“Get over the Brandywine, find that battery commander right there and get him to fire grape! Right away. Tell him where we are and that we’re hard pressed by these greencoats. He’ll understand.”

The man looked intelligent and calm, which was better than he could have expected. He saluted smartly and threw himself across the stream, and Lake watched him until he was up the bank and clear.

The presentiment of disaster had been greater than the reality. Lilly’s platoon was pretty healthy as it fell back, and the whole company was still game, although there were men missing in several files. He held them at the edge of the west bank, willing the corporal to get the message across, and his dreams were answered by two loud bangs almost over his head. He heard one of the Tories yelling at his men to lie down, and he waved his men back to the Continental bank of the ford. As soon as they were across, he got them up the bank and fell them in again behind the first good cover so he could count heads. They had lost five men, including the captain and the trumpeter. No one seemed to know where they had gone.

Lake took his men back to the regiment, and then left them under Sergeant Lilly while he went to make his report. It was two o’clock.

After a day of slow marches and an age while they waited for other units to cross the Brandywine, and after mistakes of their own as guides that raised tempers all along the column, they were now marching back to the sound of the firing. They had made the long march and they were around the enemy’s flank, but the question remained as to whether they would arrive in time to do any good. However, they had begun to move faster and faster, and now Caesar had to keep his men from trotting.

They could hear the guns all day, but they were off to the south and Caesar wasn’t sure how they could be part of the same battle. He knew the general plan of movement, because he had been privileged to hear it explained by Colonel Musgrave in the pre-dawn chill by the embers of their last fire. He knew their column was intended to pass the northern posts of the rebel army and swing well into their rear before coming down on them, a crushing blow, as described.

What he did understand was that it was all taking longer than the generals had expected, and that most of the officers and sergeants who had been around him in the dark, listening to the plan, had suspected this very problem. They would be late, and for all they knew, Lord Howe was trying to defend Chad’s Ford with a handful of men while they picked their way through the maze of tracks and minor roads north of the rebel positions.

Jeremy and Stewart came up on horseback as they came to a bend in the road. Just beyond, he could see a vista of open ground, farmland, and a plowed hill with some woods in front of it. There were Continental regulars all along the line in front of them.

Stewart watched the line in disgust. Jeremy threw his
hat on the ground and then had to dismount to fetch it, which made him angrier.

Caesar grabbed their bridles and pulled them back before Stewart’s bright red coat could be seen.

“Go back and tell the column to halt,” said Stewart, taking his glass from Jeremy and dismounting. He handed his horse to Caesar, who handed it directly to one of his men and followed him into a stand of trees that shaded the corner of a stone-walled field.

Stewart lay down behind the wall, worked a stone loose and pushed his glass through. Caesar crouched behind him.

“It appears we are too late,” he said. Behind them, Virgil was all but physically restraining a party of red-coated officers who wanted to go ahead into the field. Sergeant McDonald and Lieutenant Crawford came up, and then several other officers from their battalion. The staff officers were kept back.

Caesar could see the Continental troops start to move. Every one of them lying in the corner of the field took a breath together as the long blue and brown lines suddenly began to form columns on their center or rightmost companies and march away. It wasn’t well done; every battalion seemed to have its own manner of forming a column, and the enemy brigades were slow to move.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” Stewart announced, closing his glass with a snap. “Apparently our country cousins are determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” He ran back to the knot of mounted officers around the bend and reported what he had seen, and the general ordered them forward. It was just past three o’clock by Jeremy’s repeater. And the enemy, perfectly positioned to stop their thrust, was marching away.

Lafayette reined in his horse by George Lake and looked over George’s company. He had an air about him that made other men want to follow him, although he was as young
as their youngest man. He
looked
like an officer, and he was well equipped and so well uniformed that he made most of the other officers look shabby. Certainly George Lake, whose only claim to elegance was the superb sword that hung from a double frog at his waist, had no business standing next to the marquis’s horse.

“Monsieur,” said the young marquis companionably. “Can you direct me to the General Greene?”

“Yes, sir. General Greene is just there at the head of the road. What’s happening?” George had seen the fine marquis often enough since their first meeting to qualify as an acquaintance. Lafayette shook his head.

“Our General Sullivan has allowed himself to be flanked again. I gather he does this with some regularity?”

George nodded, remembering Long Island and the painful, rainy retreat. His mouth set bitterly.

“Do not worry, George. General Washington has all General Greene’s division in reserve. Sullivan need only hold until we arrive, and we shall win a victory that will end the war.” He laughed. Everyone knew that he was ambitious to command a division himself, and that he could be a demanding companion. But Lafayette was already well loved, not least because he always referred to the Continental cause as “ours” and “we”, where so many of his French and German compatriots referred to it as “yours” and “you”.

He reared his horse a little, showing away, and waved his hat.

“Get ready to advance, George!” he called, and galloped off.

Down the ranks in the old company, Bludner said something coarse, and the men around him laughed. But they did it nervously, like schoolboys.

The whole battalion of lights raced across the open fields toward the copse at the foot of the little plowed hill in
front of them. It was a disciplined run, but they had all dropped their packs at the stone wall and none of them expected to cross so much open ground without a great many casualties. Caesar’s men started a little in front, because he had put them there where their brown coats would lie unnoticed in the autumn fields. And they ran a little faster.

They were a quarter of the way there and not a shot had been fired at them. It didn’t seem possible and Caesar had to force himself to look up at the woods, rather than down at his feet. If he was about to take a volley, it seemed better that he not know it was coming.

That was not proper thinking for a soldier. He looked up, and almost stopped in astonishment. He was watching the better part of a battalion
leaving
the woods and falling back. He couldn’t reckon why, and feared a trap, one so cunning that its purpose would be hidden from him or Captain Stewart or even Lord Howe.

More than halfway now. Some of the newer men were panting with exertion. The veterans were running easily. One or two held their weapons high, ready to take a shot the moment a target was offered. Most ran with their muskets across their bodies. Stewart’s company was close behind, and the other lights were almost up with them on both sides. Well off to the left, he could see Captain Simcoe and the Fortieth grenadiers moving along. Simcoe stood out because of his heavy gray horse.

Caesar knew he had slowed unconsciously when he had seen movement in the wood, and the whole company had slowed with him.

Captain Stewart rode up to him. Jeremy was nowhere to be seen.

“I…think…they’re…leaving…the wood,” said Caesar in time to his pounding feet.

“Get into it and start shooting. Make as much noise as you can. Make them watch us and not what’s coming
behind us.” Caesar raised his musket in salute and Stewart took off his cap for a moment, and then rode off.

Now he was close enough to start looking for a route in. Usually a wood was densest at the outside edge, where the sun had full play and the brush could grow thickly. Most woodlots had little paths and this one was no exception. Caesar still expected to be met by a volley any second, and he looked at the company. They were well spaced out in extended order, each file pair two paces separate from the next, across sixty paces, or almost a third of the front of the wood.

He knew they were all loaded. He knew that speed was all that mattered. He blew his whistle twice and yelled, “Charge!” And they gave another spurt of speed, and were into the trees with a crash.

George began to think that they were going to run the whole way to wherever the British might be. The column moved too fast, so that the men got spread out and some had to fall out or fall behind, where the stragglers got mixed into unfamiliar units and wrecked their order of march. Despite all that, they were marching faster than George had ever marched, and they were moving toward the musketry.

Despite their desperate skirmish in the early afternoon, the men were acting as if they had plenty of heart. George had stopped wondering where his captain was. The man was plainly dead, or captured. Now George wondered if he could command the company in action by himself. He was about to find out.

The woods were empty of all but a terrified picket who fired once and fled without causing a casualty. Caesar leapt over some fallen trees and hurried to the side of the wood facing the enemy, who were formed a little over one hundred paces away.