“This shall be done,” Natanis agreed.
“It’s in my mind,” I said, “that the day will come when those who said Natanis was a spy will burn in hell. If we take Quebec, it will be further said we couldn’t have done it without Natanis and his brothers.”
We feasted on strips of moose meat dipped in sweetened bear’s fat, a toothsome change from the salt pork and trout that had so long sustained us.
The ways of a man’s stomach are beyond me. There are seasons when I turn up my nose at partridges and ducks, cooked juicily over coals, and long for salt pork and trout; and there are other times when I am like to gag at the mention of trout and pork. Yet I have seen the day when the sweetest food in all the world was a strip of pork rind, raw, that had lain for a week in the bottom of an Abenaki woodchuck-skin wallet.
XXI
FOR four more days the army wallowed back and forth across the stinking, moss-topped swamp at Bog Brook, all of it except Enos’s Fourth Division, which fiddled along behind, dragging itself into sight when everyone else was sick of waiting. One by one Greene’s rear guard washed themselves clean of mud and stench and poled off down the brook. Morgan’s riflemen, their canvas jerkins torn and frayed from road-making labors, had fallen back to second place for the first time, so that Greene’s men jeered at them. Yet Morgan’s men, ordinarily proud of their ability and speed, had no retorts to make except perfunctory ones. I knew there must be a reason for their silence, and I wondered what it was.
Meigs’s division pulled itself out of the mud and went out slowly.
For the first time every bateau carried a sick man or two, and in some cases three or four—men poisoned by the yellow water we had drunk at Middle Carry Pond, or limp from the flux, or with feet torn on the snags and barbs of the bog, or crippled with rheumatism so they could not stand.
When the men of Goodrich’s company, finished with their carrying, threw themselves down on the bank, waiting for the bateaux to start, I saw Phoebe among them. As ever, she was beside James Dunn, moving around him like a sparrow moving around a log. He was stretched out at full length, his clothes in a wretched state and a gray cast to his face. Nor was Phoebe much better. Her moccasins had completely worn off, so that the upper parts had been pulled up on her legs to afford added protection from brush, and the bottoms had been replaced with bags of moose hide, lashed around her ankles and insteps with a snake skin and sacking. Her buckskin jerkin was ripped and stained, and her eye discolored. Yet there was an alert and unbeaten look about her.
“Steven,” she said, “James must go in a bateau. He’s not fit to march.”
“I’m as good as any man,” James whispered. To prove it he sat up.
His shoes were nearly gone, but there was still flesh on his ribs; so I told Phoebe it might be better for him to keep going rather than give in to weakness. He might grow stronger instead of weaker, and so leave room in the bateaux for those more in need of help.
“Are there many in the bateaux?” James asked.
“There’s a sick man or two in every one,” I said, “but we can always find room for you if you need it.”
“I’m better than any of those sick ones,” James said. He sank back against the grass Phoebe had thrown behind him.
Phoebe gave me a dumb, baffled look. Then she leaned over and patted James on the shoulder. “You’re better than a lot of the well ones.”
Noah Cluff, patching the knee of his breeches with a square of wet buckskin, grinned fearsomely behind his whiskers. “You ain’t so bad yourself, Phoebe.”
The scar on my forehead ached and smarted, on the fourth day of our waiting, as though newly branded with a hot iron. There was a spit of snow in the air, and a veil of it over the top and sides of Dead River Mountain. Early that afternoon we saw the colonel and Captain Oswald struggling across the meadow. Two other Indians, Swan Islanders, had replaced Eneas and Sabatis in the colonel’s canoe; and from them we learned Arnold had sent Eneas and Sabatis with dispatches to friends in Quebec, sympathizers with our cause. I knew Eneas and Sabatis were best equipped of all of us to act as messengers, but I mistrusted them because they had been with Guerlac many years before.
I would be, I saw, a fool indeed to run with suspicions to the man on whose shoulders rested all the burden of our venture; nor could anyone remain in an ill temper with Colonel Arnold when he was happy at being on the move.
Seeing us on the far side of the brook, he picked up a setting-pole from a bateau and ran with it to the edge, thrusting one end against the ground and vaulting over by holding to the other end, as easy as stepping over a log.
“The worst of it’s past,” he said, pleased as a boy when we gave him the tails of the two beavers we had shot for him. “We’ll be halfway up Dead River to-night, and at the gates of Quebec before you can say Boh to a goose!”
Yet his face lost its cheerfulness when we had been at our paddling for a few hours; for the river twines and twists around the foot of Dead River Mountain, dark and glistening and silent, as though waiting to gather a victim in its coils. When a person sets out upon it, he sees the frowning bulk of the mountain at his left shoulder. Then he bears off to the right, and then he turns to the left and then he turns to the right, and then to the left and right again; and at the end of hours of twining, the gloomy mountain is still at his left shoulder, no farther away and no nearer than when he started.
Half an hour before sundown we came to the beautiful point on which we had built the cabin for Natanis, my father and I; and my mind turned back to the day when the two of us had taken a drink to red-headed James Wolfe for capturing Quebec. I wished to God my father could have been sitting in the canoe with us. I think Hobomok read my thoughts; for he said there was a belief among the Abenakis that when they went to war, the spirits of their fathers went with them to give them strength and protection. Such things, it seems to me, are vain and childish. Yet they did me no harm, since I thought that if what he said was true no Britisher that ever lived could stop me from going over the walls of Quebec and taking away what I most wanted.
By nightfall we had passed well beyond Natanis’s cabin and come among the bateaux of Colonel Greene’s division; so when we found a likely meadow on the top of a high bank we camped there all together, pleased because the snow was over and the river full of salmon trouts, with no shallows to wet us. Only the scar on my head stung and throbbed to a degree that led me repeatedly to lay my fingers against it, fearful lest it might have burst open.
Before the night was over there were complaints; for companies that supposed themselves to have three and four barrels of flour had found no flour when they searched their bateaux. At first it was thought the flour belonging to one company had been picked up by bateaumen of another company; but when all the flour in all the companies of Greene’s division was scraped together there was only enough for each man to have one-half pint—scarce enough to feed my dog Ranger for half a day.
Hobomok and I were making cakes out of the meal we carried in bladders for emergencies when Captain Oswald came past us in a pother. “Did you take the flour?” he asked, eyeing our cakes suspiciously.
“Nay,” I said, “not I; and I’ve known enough to guard what I’ve got.”
“Well,” said Oswald, “this division’s in a pretty mess, with next to nothing to eat. We’ve got to draw on Enos for reserve supplies.”
He started off, but came back again. “What did you mean,” he asked, “by saying you knew enough to guard your supplies?”
“What do you suppose I meant?” I was in bad humor because of the throbbing of my scar, which seemed to tap on the front of my brain like a hammer.
“I suppose you meant that if you hadn’t watched your supplies they’d have been stolen.”
“That’s what I meant,” I said. “I learned long ago that food, or anything else for that matter, can’t safely be left near any body of men, unless they’re Indians. It’s becoming dangerous to trust Indians overmuch, now they’ve
benefited by the society of their white neighbors.”
“What are you trying to say?” Oswald demanded.
“I’m trying to say nothing! You’re nosing about in search of a mystery, and I’m trying to help you say something. My opinions have no value in this army. You’ve seen that. All I want to do is march to Quebec with the rest of you, and help you fight in whatever way I can. Other persons can advance the opinions.”
“Very well,” said Oswald, “I’ll advance the opinions if I can find out what maggot is crawling in your head.”
“The maggot is this,” I said. “Daniel Morgan’s a hard driver and a proud man. You saw him refuse to serve under Greene, and God knows that’s a spectacle that won’t be equaled in some time: a captain refusing to serve under a lieutenant colonel. Also, Morgan’s riflemen are hard men, good soldiers; no doubt the best we’ve got. They know it, too. If you ask ’em, they’ll tell you so.”
I stopped; but Oswald stood gawping at me expectantly; so I saw he was still as blind as I had been, and must have his nose rubbed in it. “It’s simple enough,” I said. “Morgan and his Virginians, and the rest of the riflemen for that matter, can hold first place in the line of march against us clumsy New Englanders, whether they go by bateau or by land. Before they’d give up first place to Greene’s men or anybody else, without good reason, they’d work their legs to stumps and tear the flesh from their fingers.”
Oswald nodded.
“Morgan’s men weren’t so busy at road-making,” I said, “that they couldn’t have held first place in the line if they wished; for Greene’s men set off up Dead River less than two hours ahead of them.”
“That’s so,” Oswald said.
“Of course it’s so! Would Daniel Morgan, or his men either, have allowed Greene’s division to precede them by little more than an hour without a fight, unless they had a reason for wanting Greene’s division out of the way? No, they would not! Daniel Morgan would have bawled like an unmilked cow; and his men would have pushed Greene’s men into the bog and trampled on them, rather than let them start first! What’s more, there’s good reason why Morgan’s men didn’t catch up with Greene in no time.”
“Finish it up,” Oswald said.
“So I will! Morgan’s men lagged behind at the Great Carrying Place to give Greene’s men a chance to pass through them. While they were passing, Morgan’s men stole their flour!”
“Hm!” said Oswald.
“Yes,” I said, “and then they let Greene’s men start off down Bog Brook ahead of them so Greene’s men couldn’t see the extra flour packed in Morgan’s bateaux.”
“Well, the dirty rats!”
“No,” I said, “there’s more than one way of looking at that. I remember my father telling how the men from his company, during the siege of Louisbourg, stole thirty lobsters that had been caught by Lieutenant Benjamin Cleaves’s men. Men have stolen food in all wars, even those fought by the Egyptians. These Virginians are no psalm-singing deacons, but rough and reckless citizens who’d break their rifle stocks over the heads of those who displeased them, whether Patriots or Tories. Since they hold themselves more valuable than the rest of us, which I suspect they are, there’s little wonder they think nothing of preserving their health and strength by appropriating whatever food they can find. It seems to me if anyone’s to blame, it’s Morgan’s captains for not keeping a stricter hold on their men, or Greene’s captains for not stationing a guard over the victuals.”
“Could you prove these things?”
“Leave me out of it. I give you the information to use as you wish.”
“Then say nothing concerning your suspicions,” he said, “and I’ll see how to use the information.”
“Indeed,” I said, “I don’t want to see Morgan’s and Greene’s divisions at each other’s throats, so I’ll be silent.” As Oswald started away, I added: “There’s one other thing. I’ve given you information; now give me some in return. Where did the colonel learn about his messenger Eneas and about the guide Treeworgy?”
“He had information concerning them while he was still at Crown Point,” said Oswald.
“As long ago as that! Where did the information come from? Boston?”
Oswald hesitated and muttered something about secret intelligence.
“I swear to my God,” I said, “I’ll keep it as secret as you or Arnold could. I want it only to protect all of us from harm.”
“Well,” Oswald said, “he has correspondents in Quebec. This information came from one of them.”
“Spit it out!” I cried, irritated by the throbbing of my scar and by the withholding of the name I hoped to hear. “Who was the man?”
“His name,” Oswald whispered reluctantly, “is John Woodward.”
“John Woodward! John Woodward!” I flung at him, in a rage of disappointment. “Who in hell is John Woodward! Where does he live and how does he know about Eneas and Treeworgy?”
“I don’t know,” Oswald said. “The colonel lets me copy letters to him in the letter book, but the address he withholds until the letters are given to the messenger. He says Woodward would be killed if it should be known in Quebec he was sending information to us.”
With this, which helped me but little, I was forced to be content.
The wind was in the southwest when we threw off our blankets the next day, and I couldn’t understand the unceasing throbbing of my scar, for in Arundel a southwest wind usually brings only short storms, not enough to set a small scar to burning and pounding as mine was doing.
The colonel dispatched Major Bigelow and twelve bateaux to get provisions from Colonel Enos, so that Greene’s division might have food on which to proceed. Enos was still fuddling around on the Great Carrying Place, meaning that the provisions would be a matter of three or four days in coming up; so the rest of us went to catching trouts to satisfy the hunger of the entire division—an easy task because the river was alive with them, all the same size, seemingly, about half a pound apiece.
Morgan’s division passed us at noon, the men poling and paddling on the far side of the river; content, for once, to hurl none of their jeers at Greene’s men. They were a hardy lot, those riflemen. I called across to a bateau, asking how their flour was holding out, and the bateauman shouted back, seriously, “We’re eating fish, Brother, and saving our flour.” I looked for some of them to fall overboard from laughing, but not one of them so much as smiled.
Morgan alone came ashore here to pass the time of day with Arnold; and Oswald told me afterward that Arnold said only one thing to him—“Captain, I shall expect your division to be always in the lead hereafter; always in the lead!” Oswald said Morgan stared at him as if intending to be haughty or thick of understanding; then changed his mind suddenly, saying, “Sir, that’s our fixed intention!” I’m sure that whatever Morgan had replied, Arnold would have said no more, lest the welfare of the army be further endangered; for if ever a man would have sacrificed pride or health or his life to see our campaign succeed, it was Arnold.
Being, as the colonel said, so near our destination, the men were put to work making cartridges and packing them in barrels. When the Third Division had come up behind Morgan’s and made their cartridges and gone on, the colonel said we could serve no good purpose by longer waiting; so we too pressed on behind Meigs. The men were catching rides on the bateaux, walking across the neck of land at wide bends in the river; then begging rides until they came to another neck. I saw James Dunn lurch from a bateau, with Phoebe, strangely deformed-looking, pushing him. I shouted at them to know how their food was holding out and went closer to see what ailed Phoebe. James walked on without raising his head; but Phoebe lifted the buckskin jerkin over her hip and I saw a raccoon dangling from her brass-studded belt by his hind legs.
“Jacataqua killed it!” she called to me. “I almost had to hit Burr with this to get it away from him!” She waved her leather-bound bullets at me gaily and steered James around a young pine thicket through which he
seemed about to walk.
The proceedings of the next few days are grouped in my mind around a Friday—not because I think Fridays bring evil, but because so many of our calamities fell on Fridays, though God knows worse things happened to us on other days, especially on Sundays, which I have never heard called a day that brings disaster.
At any rate, it was on the day before a Friday that this bad business started: on Thursday, that is, the nineteenth day of October. It was raining when we came out of our blankets, a cold and mournful downpour, nor was its cheerlessness relieved by the appearance of the country, which seemed as flat as a salt marsh in the direction we were moving, with barren spots on the soil and the trees smaller, as if they had been starved, and all of them pines and spruce and fir, with no pleasant maples or elms or oaks such as help to make the Arundel countryside so beautiful.
The river grew narrower, with pestiferous little rapids and falls at frequent intervals; and for fear of upsetting and losing more provisions, we carried around each one, slipping on our faces in the slimy ground and dropping everything on which we laid our hands because of its wetness.
The rain came in bursts, as if the clouds were ripping in spots and spilling masses of goose shot in the water. The wind, too, blew harder and harder from the southwest, so that our skins grew numb from the driving of the drops against us. When we camped at our last portage we were more than two hours finding dry wood and starting fires.
When Friday broke the wind was higher, moaning dolefully through the spruces and dead tamaracks, and the rain was heavier. It bounced from the surface of the river and from the meadows, whirled upward by the raging wind, so we were rained on from above and below. Thinking it must let up soon, we lay snug in our lean-to’s, watching Meigs’s division go past, bateaux and bateaumen oozing water like ledges of rock over which a wave has just broken.
Arundel Page 31