Conceived in Liberty

by Howard Fast

  Smith was in the dugout two days when he learnt that Levy was a Jew. He said:

  “I’ll not sleep with a bloody Jew. I’ll not sleep with any Christ-killing bitch.”

  Jacob almost throttled him. We had to tear Jacob away, and the marks of Jacob’s fingers were on Smith’s throat for a week after. Jacob pleaded with us to let him go to let him kill Smith. Jacob cried:

  “His death won’t sit with me. I’ve seen too many better than he go.”

  Smith was afraid. He leaped for the gunrack, tore out a musket and faced Jacob. “I’ll kill you!” he screamed. “Stay off! I’ll kill any man who lays a hand on me.”

  Ely walked up to him and wrenched the musket from his hands. “You’re a low, bitter creature,” Ely said quietly.

  Smith crawled into his bunk and lay the rest of that night in silence. We pitied him; we were beyond hate. I could see the madness coming in Jacob, in myself, in Smith, in Henry Lane. I began to fear Ely’s death. One day, I pleaded with him not to die; I pleaded with him hysterically. We lived in him. Ely smiled; he was the only one who could still smile.

  Now we sit and talk a little. Bess crouches by my side, her hands touching me, feeling for me always. They tell me that when I go out on sentry duty, she lives in an agony of fear.

  “You’ll go out once—and not come back,” she told me.

  “There are other men.”

  “No other man,” she said.

  She sits by me now. We talk of the British attack and what holds it. We are all of us here but Kenton, who is on sentry duty.

  “There’ll be no attack,” I say. “The war’s over. In two months, there’ll be no army. Why should they attack?”

  “Ye’re wrong, Allen,” Ely says.

  Green says: “It goes that there are only five thousand men left in the encampment.”

  “Lies!” Jacob says bitterly.

  “Ye’re a crazed man, Jacob. Is John Adams or Sam Adams here in this camp? Is Thomas Jefferson here? Is Dickinson here? Is Sherman here, or Hancock here? They’re safe and nursing their fat bellies.”

  “They’ll nurse to a different tune when we’ve won. By God, they’ll sweat blood.”

  Charley said: “Ye’re crazy. It’ll be King John Adams—King Sam. I knew Adams—a filthy beggar who never did a day’s work in his life. He’d come to my store and say, Charley, I’ve written a fair beautiful pamphlet—blood and revolution. Print it for the cause, Charley. What cause? Hancock’s cause, a dirty cheating pirate. If I’d ask him ten shillings to buy paper, he’d foam and curse me. I’ll tell you about Hancock. He was a smuggler, he and his friends. Ye’re backwoods men, and you’d not know about that. All smugglers. Let us be forced to buy British goods and they’d run no more contraband from the Indies, from the Dutch. But who bought ours? England, I tell you. So Hancock and his friends made a war, with Adams for their man. I went. I had a fair pretty girl who put a tune in my head. She set me off singing Yankee-Doodle, God damn her. She’s not sleeping alone now.”

  “I’m not fighting Hancock’s war,” Jacob said. “By God, we’ve learned what to do with guns, and Hancock’s no better than British men I’ve seen dead.”

  “All right,” Charley nodded. He was flushed now and happy. He was a man of words, for words—a little Boston printer who had read Voltaire and Defoe and Swift and Plato, who knew Paine. Now he was happy, baiting Jacob, driving Jacob’s words into his teeth. “All right,” he nodded, “make an end of Paul Revere too. He’s a great hero. We rot here, but the newspapers make a great hero of their Paul Revere. I’ll tell you something about Revere. He made a famous ride and saved the revolution; but where’s he now? With Hancock, filling his fat belly, I’ll swear. Hancock the pirate and Revere the business man. Revere wanted copper. You damned backwoods louts wouldn’t know that, but there’s a fortune to be made in working copper. But before Revere could smelt, he had to have a revolution. Drive out the British and their smelting laws: drive out the British and their customs men. Then Hancock becomes an honest citizen, and Revere becomes a rich smelter. But mind you, they only started it—cleverly. You’re doing the fighting. God damn you, Jacob, you’re a fool. When you’re rotting a foot under Valley Forge, they won’t talk about Eagen. They won’t write in newspapers about Jacob Eagen. They’ll write about Paul Revere’s ride and they’ll dress Sam Adams up for a god. Mind me.”

  “We’re making a land,” Jacob insisted sullenly. “There’s a great, rich land to the west, and it’ll never be ours so long as England holds the country. There’ll never be peace in the Mohawk or in the Lake country while England lets the Indians kill and burn. I’m a backwoods lout, Charley, with no learnin’ for yer city ways. But by God, it seems to me yer city’s a middlin’ small thing in a land like this. All outa size, you Boston men are swelled with yer glory. You have no sense of the land to the west. I knew a French trapper once who had walked westward. Come spring, summer, winter an’ fall—he had walked westward; a great lot of walking, always with his face to the setting sun, an’ still there was no end to the land. A land bigger than all o’ Europe with their rotten little lies an’ deceits. That’s a mistake the Boston men make—to think we’re fighting the war for them. They have no knowledge of the land, but we’re fighting the war for the knowledge of the land that’s ours. All the time of the world, all the years and hundreds of years, men looked for a land to be free. Ask the Jew of that, an’ you’ll understand the forces in men that make them die or be free. Give Hancock his dirty ships an’ Revere his pound o’ copper. The land’s ours.”

  “Two years we’re gone,” I said. “The Valley land’s raped. I hear no house stands.”

  Then we look at each other—with dumb, senseless longing. And even Charley longs for the comfort of Boston town. We look at Ely’s feet, and we turn our eyes away quickly. We sit in silence until the door opens.

  The doctor enters. He wears a great coat and a woolen cap. He stands at the door, stamping his feet and peering at us through the smoke of the fire. We haven’t seen him since we were at the hospital. For a moment, I don’t recognize him. The others stare.

  “He’s a doctor from the hospital,” Ely says.

  “No air,” the doctor says. “Even the beasts seek air. This place stinks. It’s the fifth stinking hole I’ve been in. Ah, there’s my Jew.” He walks forward gingerly, stands in the middle of the room and glances from face to face. The women watch him with hostile fear. The Jew smiles a little. Jacob’s face is dark.

  “Sullen, silent beasts,” the doctor says. “If I were to paint pictures for an Inferno made glorious in the verse of Dante, I would come here. Hell holds no fear; sometimes I envy you, my friends. You have tasted all; you have searched the bottom. You have become beasts——”

  “Hold yer tongue,” Jacob growls.

  “A beast of beasts. There’s murder, my friend, in what part of your face shows through that beard.”

  “The hell is ours! Get out of here!” Jacob cries.

  “Easy—let him be,” Ely says wearily.

  “I wonder why I came up here,” the doctor says. “Maybe to speak with my friend the Jew. He’s a creature of another world, and that cough may journey him there swiftly. Did he get it from the deed of bringing a comrade to me?”

  He saw the hate, the burning resentment in us. He had no fear. I don’t think he understood fear, or maybe he was only dulled beyond fear? He grinned at us.

  “The man’s dead!” he said suddenly, “I walked a mile and froze my hands to tell you he’s dead. There’s a lot I don’t do that for.”

  “Clark’s dead?” Jacob asked, unbelieving.

  “You let him die!” I cried. “You let him die!”

  “God and me. Jesus Christ, I’m sick of the lot of you, sick of filthy, whining beggars. That Jew there—he and I are civilized. If I trimmed his beard, I’d make him into a pretty Christ. One of Rembrandt’s.” He went over and spoke to Levy in New York Dutch:

  “You’ve a fine cough, my Jew friend.”r />
  The Jew smiled at him. He watched the smile, and felt the smile’s meaning, a deep understanding that the doctor tried to brazen off.

  “You and I know,” Levy said. “We’ve seen men die.”

  “And you’re not afraid,” the doctor insisted. “Tell me that you’re not afraid, my Jew friend.” He took off his glasses, wiped them carefully, and put them back on again. He pulled off his gloves.

  “Tell me you’ve conquered fear of death,” he insisted.

  I listened, and I couldn’t take my eyes from the Jew’s face. In the back of my mind—Clark Vandeer, who had been a preacher once. Clark was dead. But we had known—we were used to death in others. But death in ourselves …

  Even Jacob—whose face was a mask of pain that reflected Clark’s death—even Jacob listened. Bess was holding tight to me. Mechanically, my hand covered her ear, as if I didn’t want her to know.

  “Is there a fear of death?” Levy asked the doctor.

  “An Oriental way, always a question with a question.”

  “I wanted to stay,” the Jew said. “I wanted to see the spring come. All my life I dreamed of a day when I’d come to this land. It would be beautiful——”

  “Here?” the doctor snorted.

  “Here in this place—beauty beyond man’s conception. A land of milk and honey.”

  “You’re a dreamer,” the doctor smiled.

  For the first time, deep anger in the Jew’s voice:

  “Not romance. You make a mockery of this—to find romance here.”

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor said shortly. “Christ, when you see them come and go—all day long. You can’t bury them—the ground’s like rock—so you stack them like wood. All day long. You don’t want me to pat your head. It’s no use bleeding you. You and me, we’re civilized. We’re not like these beasts. We don’t have to lie. There’s a line in Pope, I think—the men who grope and grope. We’re past that. You’re dying, why should I lie to you?”

  Jacob cried: “By God—hold your tongue!”

  At his deep, black rage, the doctor turned. The Jew was lost in thought, his eyes half-closed. The doctor smiled. He crawled into his coat and went out.

  Panting, Jacob walked to the Jew. But he could find no words. He stood there.

  Smith said: “He stinks to hell of rum. They have it, but we’ve had no drink for weeks now.”

  We sit in silence, and outside, night comes. The light in the cracks of the door fades and vanishes. The days are shorter now. We wait for Kenton. There is no other event, nothing else to look forward to. Kenton will come back from sentry duty, his story the same: cold—freezing feet. When he bares his feet, perhaps a toe from which all life is gone.

  We wait—and we hear Kenton’s steps, running. He bursts in, and there’s blood on him, blood on his face and hands and all over his coat. A knife in his hands. He stands there, panting, his eyes like a madman’s. He says:

  “Two buck deer, great, beautiful bucks. I heard their horns clash. They fought on the Philadelphia road, locked with each other. I killed both.”

  Henry shakes him, frantically. He touches the blood, tastes it. “Deer? Deer?”

  “He’s lying,” I say to Bess. “He’s lying.”

  “By God, the wolves’ll have them before you.” Kenton brandishes his knife. He’s a horrible, grim figure of a man.

  We scramble for clothes. We put on whatever we can find. We have forgotten about Vandeer, about the doctor, about the Jew.

  We go outside, and for once we are unaware of the cold. Kenton starts off, running, and we string after him. Then he goes down. We stop, and our breath steams; we are weak, sick. We move more slowly. The women are with us. They run with short, hard cries. Bess’ arms and head are bare.

  Ely warns us: “Slow—slow, you’ll have no strength to return.”

  We are laughing hysterically, laughing and crying at the same time. Then we see the deer, two large buck deer, locked in the snow. Kenton shows us; he cuts fiercely with his knife, drives it to the hilt in one of the deer.

  “Like this—they fought and I cut the life from them.”

  Ely cries: “You’ll go mad—leave off the deer.” I try to touch the blood, taste it. Ely strikes me, a hard blow on the side of my head. The tears come to my eyes, and I plead with him to forgive me.

  We dragged the deer back. Men and women, we fought through the snow, dragging them. Somehow, the word had spread, and men poured out of the Pennsylvania dugouts. We had a hundred hands on each animal, men laughing and singing.

  We got the deer up on the hill, and Kenton stood over them. The rest of us formed a little ring to keep off the Pennsylvania men.

  “Food for all!”

  “You’ll not keep it to yourself!”

  “We’re dying for the want of a bit of fresh meat!”

  “There’s food and plenty for all!”

  Jacob’s deep voice rang out: “It’s Kenton’s spoil—let him say!”

  They caught the name. Women tried to break through and reach Kenton.

  “Ah—Kenton!”

  “He’s a fine, good man!”

  “You’ve got the light in yer eyes, Kenton. You’ll not keep the meat!”

  “I’ve rum to go with it—meat for rum, Kenton!”

  Kenton took on dignity. A lean, bearded wretch, his yellow hair all stained with blood, he took on dignity nevertheless. He waved his arms for silence.

  “A haunch for us,” he cried. “You’ll grant us a haunch. Roast the rest. By God, build a fire—a great, roaring fire!”

  They screamed for Kenton. Haggard, death-stricken women clawed through our line to touch him. We cut a haunch from one of the deer, and Henry bore it into the dugout. They were gathering wood for the fire. Weariness gone for a moment, the wood grew into a pile. We strung a log from the top of a dugout to a tree for a spit. Eager hands skinned the deer. We took out the entrails and divided them up for separate roasting. Kenton was drinking rum. Hoarded bits of rum came to him from every side. He did not work; he stood close to the crackling fire, drinking rum and getting good and drunk. A dozen times over, he had to tell the story of how he had killed the deer. He called me over, said:

  “Ah, Allen—they’re noways such bad men, these Pennsylvanians. I got a little bitch for you who speaks a round, fine German. No arguments.”

  I laughed and tasted the rum. I was in a mood for laughing. Bess stayed close to me.

  “You’ll be with me, Allen—all night. You’ll not leave me go, Allen, for a German Pennsylvania woman?”

  “For no woman,” I said.

  The deer were pierced by the spit and set to roast. We spread the fire, so that it would give out more heat. We laughed the way we had not laughed for long. Even when the officers’ horses sounded on the hill, we laughed.

  Muller was there, with two others—Lieutenant Colby and Captain Freestone. They dismounted and pushed through us.

  “What’s all this?” Muller demanded.

  Jacob answered him: “You’ve eye enough to see we’re roasting deer.”

  “All plunder goes to the commissary. Take that meat down. Colby—have a dozen men carry it to the commissariat.”

  “To the officers’ bellies!” Jacob roared.

  “You fat bastards!”

  “You bleeding, dirty swine!”

  Kenton cried: “Since when’s deer plunder? I killed them, free beasts of the open.” He held his knife in his hand. “I’ve good fair use for the knife—better game than deer.”

  The officers wore small arms. Some of us had muskets. We were a hate-maddened bunch. The women egged us on. They hated the officers not so much as they hated the officers’ wives, the well-dressed, well-kept women who lived in the stone houses of the Quakers near by, along with their men. They didn’t come to the camp very often; but sometimes they came halfway, to look curiously. To look at beasts, male and female. Our women hated them.

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