City of Dreams

by Martin, William

  Halfway up the street they came to the intersection of Fluten Barrack, which cut from Broad Street over to Broadway.

  Loretta stopped on the corner, near an old man who had built a fire on the street and was stirring a large pot of coffee over the flame.

  “Mornin’, folks,” he said. “Care to buy some coffee?”

  “Coffee?” said Gil. “Where did you get coffee?”

  “Been savin’ it. Last coffee in New York, but the redcoats’ll be in our lap soon enough. So I’ll drink it now, and what I can’t drink I’ll sell. No tree bark nor ground-up shoe leather. Just fine roasted beans.”

  Gil pulled three copper pennies from his pocket.

  “That’ll do.” The old man snatched the coins, took a dipper from the side of the pot, and ladled out a measure of coffee.

  Gil had a sip. It was hot and bitter and tasted better in the early morning than rum at midnight. He offered the dipper to Loretta, but she ignored it because her eyes were fixed on a house across the street.

  “Old man,” she said. “There’s guards in front of that house.”

  “You mean John Blunt’s? The Tory? Colonel Silliman of Connecticut moved in there the other day. Colonel Gold Silliman. Some name, eh?”

  Gil stepped closer to Loretta and whispered, “That’s his actual name. Gold. And that’s as close as we’re getting’ to the gold in that house, I think.”

  “Did I hear someone say gold?” Big Jake’s voice came up behind them.

  “Go back to bed,” said Loretta dejectedly. “I’m doin’ the same. Alone.”

  They watched her scurry off, then Big Jake said to Gil, “I been at your side since we was boys. You hold out on me when some whore tells you about a stash of gold—”

  “There’s no gold, only a colonel named Gold.” Gil started walking back to the Queen’s Head.

  “You better not be lyin’, boy,” cried Big Jake. “That there would be somethin’ to break up a friendship.”

  “Coffee, mister?” said the old man to Big Jake.

  “Coffee?” Big Jake turned. “Where in hell does a feller get coffee these days?”

  iii.

  The next morning, Gil Walker heard thunder though the sky was clear. A second later, he felt it rumble in his chest, then its echo rolled across the green farmlands and before he could turn toward the sound, he heard a second clap, even more powerful.

  The British naval bombardment had begun.

  The Waterfront Boys were back in their trench.

  At the center of the line, on Bayard’s Hill, rose a fort that looked to Gil Walker like a giant dungpile. Captain Hamilton had built it, and his provincial artillery had been moved there, so now half a dozen cannon poked out of the dirt like strands of straw grass poking out of the dung.

  And from the smell that rose after that first cannon blast, Gil wondered if the whole trench might not fill with dung before the day was over. Someone had shit himself.

  Gil jumped up onto the lip of the trench and looked to the north. A white cloud was rising from the East River, and the thunder was rising with it.

  “What do you see?” Rooster scrambled out of the trench.

  “Five British ships openin’ up on the beach. Looks like Kip’s Bay.”

  “Kip’s Bay? That means we’re cut off.”

  “You men!” Bull Stuckey came striding along the top of the trench. “Get in line.”

  “But, Captain,” said Big Jake, “we thought the redcoats would land down at the Battery. Ain’t that why we pulled back to here? To form a second line?”

  “No tellin’ where they’ll land,” answered Stuckey. “So we got Washington up in Harlem, and Henry Knox in the city, and good men up and down the island.”

  “But if they’re landing north of us and south of Washington,” said the Bookworm, “they’ll cut us off like one of the heads of Cerberus.”

  “Save that fancy talk,” said Stuckey. “Do as you’re told or take a floggin’.”

  “Well, I ain’t stayin’ to get flogged nor trapped neither.” Rooster reached down to pick up his musket, and Bull Stuckey kicked him square in the ass.

  Rooster went headfirst into the trench, then he popped up with the musket clubbed. “No man lays a hand to me, and no man kicks me, neither.”

  Stuckey’s answer was a kick to the jaw that knocked Rooster cold. Then Stuckey pulled out his pistol and looked up and down the trench line. “The next man who challenges me, I’ll shoot him down like a dog, so help me God.” Then he strode off.

  And Big Jake looked at Gil. “Rooster was right. We should have deserted.”

  ALTHOUGH IT WAS the Sabbath, the Supreme Being did not seem offended by the British attack. Otherwise, thought Gil, he might have done something to stop it.

  Soon Henry Knox himself was retreating from the city, bringing cannoneers but no cannon, and bringing the thousand men in Colonel Gold Silliman’s brigade but no gold (as far as Gil could tell). Silliman’s Connecticuts crowded into the trench with the New Yorkers, and Gil smelled more shit. He knew it was not any of his friends. He hoped it was not one of the New Yorkers.

  All morning, the Waterfront Boys watched and listened and waited. They saw the glinting of shouldered muskets as other American units retreated across the folds in the green landscape. They saw flashes of red—British troops, expanding their beachhead from east to west across the island. They saw flocks of birds flushed from cover before advancing troops. And still the men on Bayard’s Hill waited.

  Then, just before noon, a rider approached from the north. He wore the blue sash of a major and was flanked by two big dragoons.

  “That’s Aaron Burr,” said the Bookworm. “A Princeton man.”

  “Princeton, eh?” Gil took a drink from his wooden canteen. “That means he should have more sense.”

  “It means he’s an educated man,” said the Bookworm.

  Big Jake laughed. “We’re in this fix thanks to educated men.”

  Burr reined up in front of the dungpile fort and shouted, “Who’s in charge here?”

  Colonel Silliman, who was striding back and forth atop the trench, stopped and said, “I am!”

  Colonel Knox, who was striding back and forth atop the rampart, stopped and said, “I am.”

  Burr looked from rail-skinny Silliman to mountain-belly Knox, and said to Knox, “You should retreat, sir, or your whole regiment will be cut off.”

  “We’ve received no orders,” said Knox.

  “Stay here and be sacrificed, then,” said Burr.

  “We have no orders, and no option for escape,” Knox shouted, “so we’ll put our faith in Captain Hamilton’s cannon and our strong position.”

  Hamilton’s little cocked hat appeared on the rampart above his little red face.

  “My compliments to the captain for his skill at piling dirt upon a hill,” answered Burr. “But your fort has no bomb-proof and no water, and it’s a damned hot day for September, sir.”

  “I’ll say.” Big Jake upended his empty canteen.

  “It’s my opinion,” Burr went on, “that a detachment of British could take this . . . fort . . . with a single howitzer.”

  “We will defend it, Major!” shouted Knox. “Defend it to the death!”

  “Death?” whispered Rooster, who had come to. “No one said nothin’ about defendin’ anythin’ to the death.”

  Burr turned to Silliman. “You’ll be cut off soon enough if the British keep moving west, but I grew up on this island. I know every trail from here to Harlem.”

  “I know every trail and every girl,” whispered the Bookworm.

  “So why ain’t you ’tween a pair of pretty legs,” said Big Jake, “’stead of in this fix?”

  “Because I’m takin’ a stand,” said the Bookworm.

  Rooster muttered, “Damn fool.”

  “He’s no damn fool,” said Gil Walker. “It’s the right thing.”

  “Right thing . . . wrong thing”—Rooster kicked at the dirt—“I say we’re a
ll damn fools. Let’s disappear while we still can. Get back to bein’ New Yorkers, lookin’ out for no one but ourselves.”

  “And your mother,” said the Bookworm. “Don’t forget her.”

  “Aye, and don’t forget the gold,” said Big Jake.

  “Gold?” said Rooster.

  “What gold?” said the Bookworm.

  “Ask Gil,” said Big Jake.

  “There’s no gold.” Gil kept his eyes on Burr, who was now leading his horse along the trench, so that all the men could hear what he said next: “If you stay here, half of you will be killed or wounded, the other half hung like dogs.”

  Men all along the line looked at one another, murmured, fidgeted. Gil fidgeted with the finial in his pocket. The possibility of hanging made most men fidget. So did lying to your friends. But why was he lying? Did he not believe Loretta? Or did he believe that there was something more important than gold? In that bright sun, he was not sure. But the Bookworm was right. They were making a stand, and it was the right thing to do.

  Silliman shouted at Burr, “You’ll not address my men without permission, mister. Now, we’ve received no orders from General Putnam.”

  “But I’m General Putnam’s aide, sir” said Burr.

  “But he did not order anything,” said Silliman.

  “Therefore,” boomed Henry Knox, “I’m ordering that we defend this place . . . to the death. Unless we receive orders to the contrary.”

  Aaron Burr seemed to lose all patience. He pulled his reins so hard that his horse nearly went over. Then he and the dragoons galloped about a quarter mile north to a barn in a field. They disappeared behind it for a few moments, then they came galloping back.

  “What is he doin’?” Rooster asked his mates.

  “Playactin’,” said Gil. “Savin’ us by playactin’.”

  “Helluva way to fight a war,” said Big Jake.

  Burr reined his horse again, looked up at the ramparts again, shouted again: “I now bring orders from General Putnam. You are to place yourself under my command and allow me to conduct your brigade north with as much baggage as you can carry.”

  Skinny Silliman looked up at fat Knox. “That’s good enough for me, Henry! I’m takin’ my men out.”

  Knox gave a snort and turned to Hamilton: “Prepare to remove your fieldpieces.”

  THE POST ROAD, which ran up the east side of the island, was now in British hands. But the Bloomingdale Road, which began north of the Common, led up the west side, through farmers’ fields and past rich men’s manors, and it was still open. And west of it were smaller roads, trails, cart paths, and ancient deer runs where a man who knew his way could confound anyone who was chasing him.

  Soon, a thousand Connecticut infantry, along with Stuckey’s company of New York militia and Hamilton’s provincial artillery were seeking to confound the most powerful army on earth.

  Their column stretched over a mile. They turned west toward the woods, then north along the river. They went four abreast, as any good army did, but that was their only similarity to a good army. Gil knew that this was no more than a freshet of human panic running uphill for Harlem. And by some quirk of military fate, the Waterfront Boys were the last men in that last unit, the absolute rear guard.

  “The redcoats must’ve stopped for tea,” said Gil, “else they could have cut straight across the island and trapped us.”

  “Don’t like movin’ north,” said the Bookworm.

  “Quiet in the ranks!” Aaron Burr, who seemed to be everywhere on his lathered horse, galloped past them and up to a little rock outcropping. He pulled out his spyglass and peered into the woods, then slammed it shut and turned back.

  “Captain!” he said. “If the enemy advance party strikes, turn your men and hold.”

  “I have scouts back there,” said Stuckey. “They’ll sound the alarm.”

  “‘Turn your men,’” muttered the Bookworm. “That means us.”

  “That’s means we’ll have to fight,” said Big Jake.

  “Instead of that,” said Rooster, “what say we drop out and go get this gold?”

  “We signed our names,” said Gil. “We give our word. I mean to see we keep it.”

  And they marched in and out of woodlots, up and over gentle hills, across orchards and cornfields, along pathways that kept them out of the enemy’s sight for much of the afternoon. And when they were a bit more than halfway up the island, they swung back to the Bloomingdale Road.

  The Dutch had called this area Bloemendael, and the name told a tale of purple asters and yellow sunflowers and orchards heavy with apples. In every September of his life, thought Gil, Manhattan Island had appeared as garden paradise. But—

  That was when they heard musket fire in the woods to the east. A moment later three Americans came crashing through the underbrush, shouting that light troops were coming fast.

  Stuckey bellowed, “New Yorkers! Fall out.”

  Gil said to his friends, “That’s us, lads.”

  Rooster gave a hoot and unshouldered his musket. If there was a fight, Rooster became a fighter, even when he didn’t want to fight.

  “Now we’ll see how bookworms do it, eh, Augie?” said Big Jake.

  Augustus the Bookworm answered by vomiting onto his shoes.

  Aaron Burr galloped out of the same woods and called to Stuckey, “What’s your disposition, Captain?”

  Stuckey glanced at the Bookworm. “We got a few pukers, and a hundred and fifty men ready to do their duty.”

  “Get them into that field yonder,” said Burr. “Volley on my pistol shot, and my dragoons’ll strike the redcoats in the flank.”

  A few bellowing commands sent Stuckey’s company scrambling over a split-rail fence and trampling through hip-high asters.

  Stuckey and two sergeants put themselves in front and directed the men into two ranks.

  The Waterfront Boys took their positions on the far left of the first rank.

  Gil looked at Jake. Jake looked at Rooster. Rooster looked at the Bookworm. And the Bookworm whispered, “I think I’m gonna puke again.”

  Then the brass buckles on the British crossbelts glinted through the trees.

  “There they are,” said Big Jake. “Shinin’ like gold.”

  “Speakin’ of gold,” said Rooster, “you better not be holdin’ out on us, Gilbie.”

  “Poise your firelocks!” shouted Stuckey.

  And the New York muskets rattled into place.

  “Cock your firelocks!” shouted Stuckey.

  Gil grabbed the hammer and pulled it back.

  Stuckey raised his saber. “Take aim.”

  For a moment, the British captain, now just forty yards away, seemed to reconsider an attack, then he called his men into line.

  Gil thought he might puke, too.

  Fifty or sixty redcoats were pulling tight into two ranks. Their sergeant was shouting and the men in the front were kneeling, so both ranks could fire at once.

  “I read how they do this,” the Bookworm was saying. “They put up as much lead as they can, then they come with the cold steel.”

  “You read too much,” said Rooster. “One volley from us and they’ll all be down.”

  Then Aaron Burr’s pistol popped off in the woods.

  “Fire!” shouted Stuckey.

  Gil pulled his trigger and the musket kicked. Thunder erupted to the right and the left of him. Smoke billowed so thick that he could not see the British. But their musket balls came whizzing into the cloud.

  Gil heard one scream past his ear. Another whipped over his head and another thumped into something on his left. He heard Rooster give out with a strange grunt, and as the musket smoke blew off, Rooster dropped down among the trampled flowers.

  Stuckey was screaming for the front rank to pull back and the second rank to step forward, as if men who had drilled a few times on the Common could execute complicated field maneuvers in the face of the hardened regulars now lowering their bayonets and preparing to ch
arge.

  “Rooster!” cried the Bookworm.

  Rooster was curling on the ground, clutching his chest, groaning, “Goddamn it, I’m shot through.”

  “Front rank, fall back!” shouted Stuckey. “Second rank, forward!”

  Gil ignored the order and bent to help Rooster, so Stuckey smacked him with the flat of his saber. “I said front rank fall back! Second rank forward!”

  But the second rank faltered. The Americans were about to do what they had become famous for in New York—break and run, this time before a unit half their size.

  Then Burr and his dragoons swept out over an outcropping and galloped straight at the British.

  And nothing so unnerved infantry in line, even British infantry, as the sight of cavalry attacking their flank, even if it was no more than three mounted men waving sabers. Whatever courage had inspired this small redcoat detachment to take on the rear of the American line vanished, and so did they, back into the woods.

  “HE EITHER MARCHES or we leave him.” Stuckey took off his hat and wiped sweat from his forehead.

  “I can walk.” Rooster knelt on all fours, then lifted himself to his knees.

  Stuckey said, “Those redcoats’ll have the main body on us right quick. We have to move, now.”

  “I said I can walk!” Rooster looked down at his bloody shirt. “Just don’t take me for one of the redcoats and shoot me again.”

  “All right!” bellowed Stuckey. “Fall in!”

  With the help of his friends, Rooster managed to walk another half mile before he sank to his knees next to an orchard heavy with red apples.

  Stuckey came stalking back. “He’s gut shot. It’s a wonder he made it this far.”

  Gil knelt beside his friend in the middle of the road. “We can’t leave him.”

  Stuckey pulled his saber again.

  And Gil stood. His face was covered in sweat, and a long streak of black powder ran up his right cheek. He leveled a gaze at Stuckey that said, Do not strike me again.

  And Stuckey seemed to soften. He pointed the saber toward a big house about fifty yards back from the road. “That’s the Woodward Manor. The squire’s a patriot. He’s even entertained General Washington. A wounded soldier’ll be safe there.”