Conceived in Liberty

by Howard Fast

  “Attack?” Ely asked.

  No more shots now. It didn’t matter whether we were being attacked. Two officers galloped past, their sabres bare and glistening in the firelight.

  “More hell to pay.”

  Silence and Jacob’s hoarse breathing. I glanced at them, the man and the woman together. Only a glance. Moss Fuller had buried his head in his arms. He was coughing softly. Ely hummed a lonely French tune of the Valleys.

  I tried to think of a time when it had been different. I tried to think of a time when there had been shame and humility. I tried to think of the fire in our hearts that had sent us out to fight in the beginning.

  I speak my name. My name is Allen Hale. I am twenty-one years old. I am a soldier with the Continental army of America. I have come great distances to fight for freedom.

  The fire burns low, and Kenton rises to hack at the fruit tree. He comes back and drops the wood on the fire. He says:

  “I wouldn’t think to destroy a fruit tree. For a matter of ten years I saved the seed of cherry and plum. We thought to make a great planting in the Lake country when we moved westward. After the war we’ll move westward—I’ll save the seeds again.”

  The fire burns up. The brigades are quiet; perhaps they sleep. Moss lies with the woman, and his deep, regular breathing tells us that he sleeps. We none of us would take the woman now and rouse Moss from his sleep.

  Some Massachusetts men come and stand about the fire. Most of their brigades are without fire. They crowd close to the fire and break the wind from us. One is an officer, a bearded boy in a tattered field dress of grey homespun, carrying a rusty sword at his belt.

  The talk is soft, because some of the men sleep.

  A Massachusetts man says: “I hear the retreat will be in a great circle. I hear the General has in mind to strike south around Philadelphia and march across the mountains. They tell of a rare fair land there in Transylvania, a land surveyed by a man called Boone. We can live there and take our food from the ground and defend the land.”

  “And our wives—children?”

  “A man with bonds is no man for an army.”

  “There’s no army now,” Kenton muttered.

  “If there are five thousand men here with bonds, will they lay down their arms and go back for hanging?”

  “There won’t be hanging after peace.”

  “There’ll be no peace so long as George Washington lives. And there’s a hell’s broth in Wayne and his Pennsylvania brigades.”

  Vandeer said, softly: “At Haarlem, we held while Wayne’s men ran.”

  “The ground’s fallow two years now. When the army’s gone, they’ll take the ground. If there were women in this land of Kentuck——”

  “Where do we march tomorrow?” Eagen asked.

  The Massachusetts officer answered: “A place to the north and east called the Valley Forge.”

  “We camp there?”

  Later, the Massachusetts men went back. The fire burnt down. There were sparks of dying fires all over the fields.

  I tried to sleep. Ely Jackson rose and took his musket.

  “Ely?”

  “I’ll stand guard awhile,” he said.

  Green began to laugh. It was that strange for a man to stand guard. For what was the point in guarding? Any blow would crumple us. We were no army. Once we had been an army—but not now.

  It began to snow, large, dry white flakes. Ely stood there, holding his musket with bare hands. He became a lump of white, motionless, the flakes floating past him.

  II

  I SAY to myself, oh, give me a long sleep with an end in the hot sun of the long morning. I yearn for a fire, all of my body stretching toward where the fire had been. There is no fire. I realize that my sleep has been broken, on and off through the night. A bugle is trilling. I sit up and the snow falls from me, two or three inches of snow on the ground, Green and Lane and Brenner and Eagen—piles of snow.

  I stand up, trembling with cold, my body half numb. The men are dead. I glance around. The brigades are covered with snow. Ely Jackson stirs and Jacob Eagen climbs to his feet, trembling with cold. We blow on our hands, slap them against our sides, dance up and down.

  “I had a wild, terrible fancy,” I say, “that all the brigades are dead.”

  Ely smiles. His beard is all white with ice and snow.

  “Ye’re a strange being for thinking such thoughts,” Jacob tells me.

  The rest of us wake. We’ve slept close together, yearning toward each other for the body’s heat. Only Moss Fuller still sleeps, the fat woman clutching him close.

  “A woman’s a good thing for a sleeping man,” Edward nods.

  Figures of ice and snow: we try to build a fire, but it’s a hopeless task. We give it up and crunch the dry corn, chew on the salt meat enough so that we can swallow it. All the time, we move for warmth. The brigades are up, and the broken sound of voices carries over the fields. Officers canter by. Everywhere men are stamping for warmth. Here and there, a fire that was nursed through the night is built up.

  “We’ll go into camp soon, or we’ll die,” Vandeer says.

  I nod, trying to rub the chill out of my arms and legs. One or two nights like this can be endured, but no more than that. I have never wanted anything so much as I desire heat now.

  Ely points to a fire over among the Pennsylvania brigades. “I can get a brand,” he suggests. The bugle blows, to arms.

  “We march soon.”

  “To hell with that!”

  “I am thinking hell’s a rare cold place,” Kenton Brenner smiles. His face is blue and purple with frost, the dead flesh breaking on his nose. I wonder how men endure it, how I endure it. But I keep stamping round. Only get warm, I think. The idea of warmth, any warmth, possesses me.

  “Wake Moss.”

  With the toe of his boot, Jacob prods the woman. He says: “High time to be moving, Jenny.”

  Charley Green grins, standing feet apart, his face dull with sleep, his hands in his armpits for warmth. Ely walks toward the Pennsylvania men, slowly, stiltedly, as if each step pained the bottom of his feet. I can understand how his mind is set only on fire; he’ll bring back the fire. He’ll talk to them gently; he has a way with him.

  We stand round Moss and Jenny. The woman moves and stretches her arms. The cold bites, and her hands seek out Moss. Then she screams and sits up.

  “He’s cold,” she whimpered.

  Vandeer laughed. Her nose had turned bright red during the night and her hair had spread all over her face. She was an ugly, fat, gross creature. We were all of us filthy and ugly, broken in one way or another. But I hated her because she reminded me of things that had once been and brought them back to me, because she was a mocking caricature of a woman. The kind of woman I had known, once.

  I dragged her to her feet. I held her, her dirty blanket clutched in my hands, shaking her back and forth. The others watched me. Henry Lane was smiling stupidly, but the others didn’t move. They just watched.

  “You’ll kill me!” she cried.

  Then I let go of her. “Get out of here,” I whispered.

  She arranged her blanket, turning round and round, patting the loose strands of her yellow hair into place. “I’m a good woman, I want you to know,” she said. “I’m a good, respectable woman.”

  Vandeer was laughing again. He was a little man; he had been a minister before the war. He had had two brothers who were killed at White Plains. Lately he had been like this. I could understand that. He was forty years old, yet he had become as lightheaded as a boy.

  “Better go,” Jacob Eagen told her.

  She stumbled away, turning every now and then to swear at us and to scream at us that she was a good woman. Jacob bent down next to Moss, shaking him gently. Jacob was hard and bitter, but now with Moss he was gentle as a woman. He took the hair away from Moss’ face, and we saw blood clotted and frozen above his thin beard.

  Jacob stood up, said: “He’s cold.” When he said that,
we knew.

  The boy’s eyes were open. Vandeer had stopped laughing. I bent over Moss and pulled off his thin cloak, scattering snow. I forced my hands to go to his eyes and close them.

  “It’s a hard man needed to stand many nights like this night,” Brenner said softly.

  “He’s dead?” Jacob asked me, and then demanded, querulously: “Where’s Ely? This is no time for Ely to be away from us.”

  “Ely went for fire,” Edward said, dully.

  “Why’d he go for fire? It’s too late for fire, ain’t it? There was a time for fire before, but it’s too late for fire now. The fire will not bring Moss alive.”

  “He went to wheedle a little fire out of those Pennsylvania men—he has a way, Ely——”

  “Shut up!”

  “We couldn’t be starting a fire with flint. Ely’ll come with a burning brand. Cold hands can’t hold flint.”

  “There’s nothing Ely can do now, Jacob.”

  Jacob knelt down by Moss. I went over to the fruit tree and sat down with my back against it. The cold was all through me, but it was not such a cold as Moss Fuller knew, nowhere near such a deep and silent cold.

  “You’re sure he’s dead?”

  “He’s dead,” Jacob said.

  The bugles were blowing, and all along the line, brigades were picking themselves up and starting to move. The sun came up, showing through the stretch of forest east of us. Along the forest, men were moving in a thin line. They wore the shapeless grey smocks of Virginian riflemen. The officers were prancing their horses, shouting orders. In a long file, McLane’s cavalry rode from behind the grey stone house and paraded across the fields. The Massachusetts men were laughing with their women while they formed into ranks.

  He’s dead,” Jacob said again, covering over Moss’ face with the cloak. He said to me: “Come and give me a hand, Allen.”

  I stood up. The broken branches of the fruit tree brushed my face. Past Jacob, I saw Ely Jackson coming back with a piece of burning wood in his hand. It was a wonder how Ely got things, how he could work men.

  “A fine fire soon!” Ely called.

  Then he came up, saw how we were standing. He glanced from face to face, puzzled, meanwhile kicking the snow off the ashes of last night’s fire. He said:

  “Take an axe, Allen, and bleed the tree a little. Just a little, Allen—it’s a fine tree.”

  I didn’t move. He said: “Moss is sleeping? Wake him—or he’ll not be able to march.”

  “Moss isn’t sleeping,” I said.

  “He’s dead,” Jacob said. “The boy’s dead, Ely.”

  “It was a fierce cold last night, and too much for him,” Kenton muttered.

  Ely stared stupidly, shook his head, and let go the torch. It fell into the snow, spluttered a little, and then went out. Nobody moved to pick it up. Ely went over to Moss and uncovered his face. He knelt there for a while, and I could see how Ely’s feet were a frozen mass of ice and blood. The thought came into my mind immediately: Moss had shoes. They were worn thin now, but they were boots nevertheless. Jacob had pulled them off a dead Hessian a month before and given them to Moss. I wondered who would speak about it first. I couldn’t understand that Moss was dead; only his shoes mattered now.

  Looking at Ely’s feet, I told myself: “Ely will have them.” I glanced down at my own feet. I told myself that Ely had seen his youth already and that Ely would die soon. That was not true. Ely would live. His feet could become rotten stumps, and still Ely would live. I cursed him, and then I hated myself for cursing him—for his strength.

  Ely stood up, but said nothing. He looked at me.

  “He was a fine, tall, Valley boy,” Edward Flagg said. “I wouldn’t have thought him to die so soon.”

  “He had a cough——”

  “He died for wanting home. It’s a long distance to the Valley country.”

  We nodded. We stood around, striking our hands together. Clark Vandeer came and stood above Moss. We watched him.

  “You’ll bury him and I’ll say a few words,” Vandeer said. His face seemed to be remembering.

  “The ground’s uncommon hard,” Lane muttered.

  Ely said: “Go to the Massachusetts men, Charley, and ask for a bugler to sound a call.”

  We took our bayonets and jabbed at the ground. I chopped with my axe. The ground was frozen, hard as stone. Once Jacob stopped, and I saw him looking at Moss’ boots. I knew what was in his mind.

  We dug a foot deep, and it seemed to exhaust us. We stood back and waited for Green to come back with the Massachusetts man. We stood there thinking, and maybe we were all thinking the same thing.

  Finally, Jacob said: “The boy has an uncommon fine pair of boots——”

  “We won’t bury him naked,” Ely said. “Two years together, so we’ll not bury him naked.”

  “I was thinking only of the boots.”

  “Let him wear his boots.”

  “You need a pair of boots, Ely.”

  “I said he’ll wear his boots. I swear to God, Jacob, I’ll kill you if you take off his boots.”

  “There ain’t no call to rage, Ely,” Jacob said. “He’s dead and no more feeling heat and cold. He don’t need the boots, and you need them, Ely.”

  Ely said nothing, only staring at Moss’ figure on the ground. Jacob went over and pulled off his boots, every so often glancing back at Ely, but Ely didn’t move.

  “I’m sorry, Ely.”

  Now Charley was back with a bugler from the Massachusetts brigade. A good many of the Boston men came with him, out of curiosity. They stood round in a circle, while we lifted Moss’ body into the grave. A Massachusetts man said:

  “They plough this land come spring. That grave’s not deep enough.”

  We pushed in the dirt, and Vandeer said a few words. Vandeer’s voice clogged up.

  “A long way home,” Ely said.

  The bugle call drifted up, fine and clear in the morning air. It was what I would have wanted, if I were in Moss’ place. There was a drummer, and he rolled several times. That was nice too. The brigades were moving now, and many of them stopped to watch what we were doing. But it was too common a sight to keep them for long. They marched on. The whole army was moving.

  Jacob took Moss’ bayonet and thrust it into the head of the grave. The bayonet was rusted and bent, and not much good. We gave the musket to a Massachusetts man. None of us was in any condition to carry two muskets, and a good many of the Massachusetts men were without arms.

  The Massachusetts brigades were moving, and their men drifted away. We stood awhile, watching Washington and his aides come out of the grey stone building, mount and ride away to the head of the army.

  We walked to the road.

  “A long march today,” Lane said.

  “I don’t remember knowing a place called the Valley Forge. An iron smithy, perhaps. This has the look of iron country.”

  “It rests on the Schuylkill.”

  “Why march north, if he plans a march southward after?”

  “They say he’s a rare quiet man to tease the British in his own way.”

  “He’s a great fool if he thinks these an army.”

  Clark said suddenly: “Where’s Moss?” He had forgotten.

  We are on the road again. It is the sort of day when the sun makes a mirror of the snow, and after a while the snow can blind you.

  The whole army is moving, slowly, but moving nevertheless. I wonder how that is and what makes us move. I seem to lose myself in the common soul of beggars strung out for six miles.

  We march behind the Pennsylvania men. And behind us the Massachusetts brigades. Twelve lumbering wagons pass us by. From inside, there is the squalling of women, of the whores who are almost as many as the men. One of them puts her head out between the canvas curtains, and sticks her tongue out from between her teeth.

  Charley Green calls: “Come and walk with us, lassie!”

  “She’s a pretty little wench,” Edward nods.

>   We walk along and we don’t think of Moss. There’s no use thinking of Moss. We’re too near to him. The veil between the dead and the living has been drawn too thin.

  The Massachusetts men are singing, and we join in. The song runs, rocking the line, mile after mile:

  “Yankee-Doodle went to London,

  Riding on a pony——”

  III

  WE’VE COME, and there’s a feeling now that we’ll go no farther. We’re not resting; I understand that vaguely, but still I understand it. There is no rest.

  Ely Jackson says it. It’s a terrible thing to see a strong, proud man die slowly, bit by bit. Ely says:

  “There’ll be no march to the south. He was a wonderous strong man, that Daniel Boone, to go on all his journeys. But we won’t follow over his wilderness road to Transylvania. We’re no more an army.”

  “A tired feeling,” I said. “I can’t march.”

  Kenton says: “We make a stand here—to meet the British. I call to mind how it was at Breed’s Hill, with their red coats flashing. A proud lot of good men. Moss cried. He was sixteen of age.”

  “Not a thing for a boy to see,” Ely says. “A bitter thing, the way they marched the hill—to be blown to bits. I recall there was a boy drumming for the British. He was shot in the belly, and still he tried to drum. Just a boy——”

  That was Breed’s Hill—Bunker Hill, they call it now.

  “A boy like Moss,” Ely went on. “It put iron into his soul, and he was too young, too young.”

  We sit around a fire, this time a great, roaring fire. But it has no power to warm us. The cold is in our bones. The cold beats down the flames and adds up on itself.

  We are camped on the top of a hill, forest to one side of us and a sweep of meadowland on the other. All over the hill and down into the valley fires burn. Westward, in the bed of a creek, the valley drops to the Schuylkill. The place is called the Valley Forge. There was a forge once where the creek enters the river, a few, houses there. It goes that the officers are taking up quarters in the houses.

  East, across eighteen or twenty miles of the same rolling land, is Philadelphia. We glance again and again in the direction of Philadelphia. We try to picture a British army, correct, uniformed. They sleep in warm houses. At night, they gather in the taverns and toast each other with warm ale. Philadelphia—men, women, and warm beds—is theirs.