Washington and Caesar

by Christian Cameron

  Willy got up slowly, but Paget just lay and moaned. Caesar knelt by him, his musket cradled across his thighs.

  “You think it ain’t fair I hit you so much harder than him? He isn’t smart enough to buck me without you helped him. You think I don’ know? I know. An’ I know how hard I hit you, so get up before I make that show real.”

  “You broke my nose, you bastard!”

  Caesar grabbed the man’s head and lifted it off the dirt floor of the magazine. He lifted until he could look into the man’s eyes. It was quite a display of strength and it must have hurt the man a great deal.

  “You get up, now,” Caesar said gently. “Or I’ll kill you.”

  The whole magazine was silent. Then Paget got a leg under himself and raised himself to his feet. He moaned, but he stood. Caesar ran his eyes over the whole platoon, hurt to see that even Virgil and Tonny seemed to flinch away from him a little. But he had chosen a hard way, and he couldn’t falter now.

  “Count off from the right,” he said. And they did.

  After an hour’s ferocious drill, he took himself to Sergeant Peters and reported the incident, angry that he had lost control, angry at the marine officer and the army. It was the kind of helpless anger he had felt working in the Great Dismal—the first time he had felt that way since his group had found the army.

  Peters had a good tent, courtesy of Mr. Robinson, and he sat on a tiny stool that had probably started life next to a fireplace or a kitchen hearth. He was so much too big for the stool that it vanished under him. Next to him was a small straw pallet in a forage bag. His backpack was open at the far end of the pallet.

  “Ah, Caesar. I would like to offer you a place to sit, but…”

  “Sergeant Peters, I have to report that I struck two of my men in suppressing a mutiny.”

  Peters looked up his long nose at Caesar thoughtfully, and fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for his eyeglasses.

  “The ground is hard even with the straw, and the nights are cold. The rest of you can curl around each other for warmth, but I have the solitary splendor and the lack of warmth it brings, and I’m stiff in the morning.”

  His fingers couldn’t work the catch on the eyeglass case, and he had to concentrate for a moment and press it repeatedly till he opened it. Then he brought the glasses out slowly, as if treasuring them, and slowly unfolded the lappets before he pulled them over his ears and tied the ribbon. They transformed his face from that of a tired man to that of a scholar.

  “Tell me about this mutiny, Caesar.”

  “Willy, Romeo an’ Paget…”

  “Willy, Romeo and Paget.”

  “Willy, Romeo and Paget refused to take up their muskets for drill.”

  “Perfectly understandable.”

  Caesar, bent over in the entrance to the tent and looking down at his sergeant, almost vibrated with shock.

  “Sergeant?”

  “I’m sure it has come to your attention that we are being used as a labor force and not as soldiers?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “So the mutiny is quite understandable.”

  Caesar shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

  “Caesar, when men are treated badly, they behave badly. Willy and Paget have always been slaves, correct?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “As such, they know only one code: when mistreated, slow down. You are lucky they didn’t spoil their muskets. Breaking tools is an honored practice, as I’m sure you know.”

  “I’ve done it myself, Sergeant.”

  “Good. Now you see their point of view. I’m glad I’ve shocked you, Caesar; you need to understand how other men think and feel if you plan to lead them. You expect too much from men; you expect them all to behave as you do. How did you handle them?”

  “I beat them.”

  Peters looked at him, his head tilted a little, and he reminded Caesar for a moment of Colonel Washington speaking to a particularly intelligent puppy. He had tilted his head in just such a way.

  “And did they drill?”

  “They did.”

  “It sorrows me to say it, but that is definitely one way of dealing with a mutiny. The best way, I think.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  “No, Caesar, you mistake me. It is the best way of dealing with a mutiny once it has become open. But I want you to consider how it became open, and how that might have been avoided. I have feared this for some days. I believe I mentioned it to you. In future I hope you will keep such instances from eventuating by giving the handling of the men your very best attention.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Do you have your roll? Give it here. That is still the most oddly formed ‘R’ in Christendom, Caesar. Look at the letters I wrote out for you. Tonny deserves a surname; only slaves have just one. See to it.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Same for Long Tom.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Lessons tonight, after dinner is cooked. And our women are being landed tomorrow. Take your squad of inspection down to the beach and see to it that we get the same women we had before. No harlots, if you please.”

  Something in his tone gave Caesar the hope that he would be forgiven. The shock of censure had not been so deep. He recognized, even as Peters was speaking, the essential truth of his words, and realized that he had felt guilty about the incident and his use of force even as it happened. Yet he did resent that it had happened at all, and he was torn by conflicting feelings of anger and guilt. If Captain Honey were a decent man to the black soldiers, none of this need have happened.

  Peters watched him with concern. He wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder, or offer some gesture that would ease the sting of rebuke, but he had dealt with young men all his adult life, and he knew the lesson would have more effect if he carried his coldness through to the end. Tomorrow would be soon enough to relax his appearance of ill will. Poor Caesar. Being a leader was difficult enough. Training one half his age was almost too much, and though he loved his new-found freedom, sometimes the former butler missed his warm bed under the eaves.

  Caesar made his way down the tent row that housed his platoon, listening to the men as they patched garments or smoked, idle or busy according to their own inclination.

  One of the greatest complaints that the black troops had was that they were not allowed to patrol; the patrols inevitably returned with useful items, from barn boards to chickens. Kept in the camp as a labor force, the Ethiopians were missing out on what little there was to have. What they did have was tobacco. The plantation north of where they had landed was planted in tobacco, poor quality stuff that had stripped the soil, they all agreed, but worth something anyway. Virgil had led the other men in building a small drying shed and putting up some of the tobacco. Most of it was saved from the plantation’s own drying barn, but a little was from a field left unharvested in the autumn of war. It wasn’t much, but the sailors seemed to like it and it gave the Ethiopians something to trade. It also gave them a larger building in which to stay dry.

  When Caesar didn’t hear the voices he expected in the streets of the camp, he followed the stockade until he came to the little drying shed. Inside, he was surprised to see Mr. Edgerton. He was stooped over under the low roof, his hat in his hand and his greatcoat wet. He seemed quite at ease.

  “Caesar. Just the man I was looking for. Could we step outside?” Edgerton sounded polite, distant, and Caesar feared that the mutiny was still with him.

  “Good day to ya, suh,” called several voices from inside the shack. The sweet smell of dry tobacco filled the air. Outside, it had started to rain again, a cold rain that felt greasy where it touched the skin. Caesar expected that they would stop out of earshot of the shed, but Edgerton kept walking.

  Caesar elected to strike first.

  “Sorry about the…trouble, sir.” He turned his head and met Edgerton’s eyes directly. Some white men didn’t like that, but Edgerton didn’t seem to mind
.

  “Quite the little incident. Yes. I thought you handled it well, Caesar. But keep in mind that it had roots…” Edgerton looked away for a moment and then back at Caesar. His look had been in the direction of the marine camp, and it was as eloquent as it needed to be. “It had roots elsewhere. Is my meaning plain?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, but that’s not why I left a warm fire and a book just to find you. I didn’t want to alarm the other men in your platoon, but one of our men has just died.”

  “Little Jim?” Caesar tried to hide the hurt in his voice. Jim had survived so much to fall to a fever in the relative comfort of the army.

  “No, Caesar. Jim’s no better, but he isn’t dead yet. It’s Long Tom.”

  “He’s only just been sick!”

  “He’s gone. Come along.”

  Caesar walked through the rain, tears flowing unnoticed down his cheeks, head up, almost blind to the camp around him. Long Tom had been with them from the first—after Virgil, his most trusted man. Caesar could see him standing a watch in the camp in Great Dismal, or whistling tunelessly as he whittled a stick down to slivers with his long razor in the woods of southern Virginia. He thought about how far they had come from the swamp, and wondered if they would keep it. Even the attitude of the white soldiers was a far cry from life as a slave or a hunted runaway. Tom had died free. But he had died, and in the dismal light of the hospital, Caesar wondered how many of them would live to the end of the war, or whether they would even win through and keep their freedom. Sometimes, it seemed like a hard life to live just to lose it all again.

  The hospital was worse in the light of day than it ever was lit by fire in the night; the men looked paler, their filth was more evident, and the hopelessness stood out on every face. Tom lay just under the shed outside the door, his dirty white blanket thrown loosely over him. Caesar stripped off Tom’s brown wool coatee—they had so few he couldn’t bear to waste one—and then he rolled his friend gently on to the straw, laid out his blanket, and rolled him up in it. He did these things almost automatically; it wasn’t really Tom, and he thought obscurely that he needed to get back to work. He didn’t worry especially about the smallpox; he thought he’d had it already. Mr. Edgerton stood under the shed, water trickling down his greatcoat, his once-fine tricorn now just a shapeless mass.

  “Sergeant Peters told me to make sure Tom had a surname on the next muster.” Caesar was breathing hard as he tried to lever the body over without seeming disrespectful.

  “I beg your pardon?” Edgerton sounded distant.

  “Apologies, sir. I was just…just saying that Tom, he had no family name.”

  “I suppose not. Many slaves don’t. Pity, that. The army should issue them along with freedom. Perhaps he could be called ‘Hanover’, after the king.” Mr. Edgerton kept his head turned away from the corpse.

  Mr. Robinson stepped under the roof of the shed. “He’s welcome to mine, Caesar.” His greatcoat was soaked through, and he had the silver crescent of a gorget around his throat. He was the officer of the day. He hadn’t shaved and looked rough.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “No thanks needed. I remember Tom at Great Bridge. He stood until the end, and the Robinsons can always use a few brave men.” Mr. Robinson looked at Mr. Edgerton for a moment as if willing him to say something, but Mr. Edgerton took a snuffbox out of his deep pockets and took snuff, then blew his nose into a handkerchief from another pocket.

  “I’d like him to have a military funeral.” Caesar stood up from the body to make this announcement.

  Edgerton just shook his head in the negative, still playing with his handkerchief. Robinson leaned against one of the pilings supporting the shed, and put his chin in his hand. He looked at Edgerton and raised one eyebrow.

  “Mr. Edgerton, I dare say we could give him a military burial. The Fourteenth do it every day.”

  “Captain Honey would never allow it. He barely tolerates us as it is.”

  “Captain Honey already uses our troops as a labor force, Mr. Edgerton. He should be the soul of tolerance.”

  “This is not the place for this discussion, Mr. Robinson. But if you insist, on your head be it.”

  “Truer words were never spoke, Mr. Edgerton. Corporal Caesar, please see to arrangements for a military burial party. Three files with muskets and full equipment, the rest of the platoon in workshirts, turned out in thirty minutes in the company street.”

  “Yes, sir. Military burial party. Three files armed, rest of Mr. Edgerton’s platoon in the street with work shirts and no arms.”

  “Carry on.”

  Caesar saluted smartly and marched off, leaving Tom lying between the two officers with his old white blanket around him as a shroud. As he headed off toward the streets of the camp, he heard the two men continue to argue.

  The only difficulty turned out to be from the soldier on duty at the magazine, who had no orders to allow any troops access to the arms stored there. He was a soldier of the Fourteenth, and he stuck by his orders until Sergeant Peters stepped forward and ended the contest of wills between the sentry and Caesar.

  “Private, we have orders from our officer to conduct a burial party. We need six muskets for the firing party. We’ll be back with them double quick. Didn’t the Fourteenth have a burial party yesterday morning?”

  “We did, at that.” The man was hesitant, knowing that a positive answer would weaken his case. He was divided, as the white soldiers often were with the Ethiopian noncommissioned officers—training versus prejudice. He shrugged, as if dismissing responsibility.

  “You are ordering me to give you the arms?”

  Sensing victory, Peters smiled mirthlessly and nodded.

  “Right, then, Sergeant. Here are the keys. Please sign the book.”

  In a moment, the three files in coatees had their arms and accoutrements, consisting of a cartridge box, bayonet carriage, and bayonet. They fell in at the head of the parade, bayonets fixed. Peters, Caesar, and the other corporal, Fowver, took their arms as well. The officers joined them with their swords belted on and their greatcoats slung like capes. The last two files carried picks and shovels. The whole platoon marched briskly outside the palisade and over the field that had been cut to give the defenders a clear line of sight, to the little cemetery at the edge of the apple orchard.

  “Halt!” Mr. Robinson held his hand in the air. The rain fell harder. “Work detail, dig the grave. The rest of you, under the trees and see to your arms.”

  The burial detail was commanded by Virgil, who had volunteered, and otherwise consisted of the morning’s mutineers, looking a little the worse for wear.

  Virgil and Paget dug the outlines of the grave with the spades they had carried, cutting deeply into the sod and lifting squares clear until they had a hole six feet long and three wide. Then Romeo and Willy began to break the ground with their picks. Romeo cut away with a will, clearly anxious to please; Willy looked as if every cut hurt him. The platoon watched them work in total silence. Mr. Edgerton took snuff; Mr. Robinson removed a tiny tinderbox from his pocket and got a pipe lit, quickly and easily. Several of the men watched enviously; none of their tinderboxes was waterproof enough to keep their tinder dry in the rain.

  Mr. Robinson was an astute man, and he caught the looks soon enough.

  “Got a pipe packed? Bring it here.” He took Tonny’s pipe and lit it from his own and passed it back. The spark was passed to other pipes, and gradually all the men who smoked either had a pipe or shared with another. The grave went down, and the platoon sat under the apple trees, cold and wet.

  When the men with picks had broken the ground, the men with spades would come in and throw the earth up out of the grave. By his third round of breaking ground, Willy looked used up. Caesar took off his brown cloth coatee and laid it on the ground, then went and took the pick out of the other man’s hands.

  “You go rest a while.” Caesar jerked his head sharply toward the trees, where the ot
hers were resting. Then he began to break the ground. When he was done with his half, he found that two more men had stepped forward to take the places of Virgil and Paget. Tonny took the pick from him, and two by two the whole platoon dug down through the red clay and the sand until the grave was deep and wide.

  Another month of waiting and working. The camp was more orderly now, laid out in streets, long rows of hordled tents with planks gray in the sun, stretching out like small houses facing another across an empty street of mud. There weren’t enough tents for all the troops, and many of the Loyalists, black and white, had built huts of brush in the shape of tents. Boards from the plantation’s barns had been used to hordle some of the tents, and many of these were now thatched in straw. Every day the camp looked more permanent.

  Caesar was out alone, standing in the rain under the same apple trees and watching Captain Honey drill his men. He had them strung out across the whole field, each file of two men separated by some yards, and every man seemed to be loading and firing his musket on his own time. There was so much to it that was different from the soldiering Caesar knew that at first he couldn’t see that the men were under command at all; it looked as if each man were making his own decisions. But after an hour of drill, Caesar could see that they expanded and contracted on the captain’s little silver whistle. They could also halt or advance on the whistle, and when they fired, Caesar gradually sorted that each man in a file was aiming while his partner was loading, so that half the line was loaded at any given time. It looked like a very sensible way to fight in close country, but it asked more from the soldiers because they lost the comfort of the solid wall of their fellows.

  He heard Captain Honey give an order, although it was indistinct, and there was a groan from the ranks, a sense of levity that Caesar hadn’t seen from regular soldiers, but he knew that Honey was well liked by his men. Then both ranks threw themselves down on the wet ground and seemed to roll on their backs and then on their stomachs like acrobats. Caesar stepped out from among the apple trees to see better, his movements not quite conscious, until he was halfway toward them in the dying light.