Washington and Caesar

by Christian Cameron

  And then it was over.

  It was the first time George Lake had watched a battle, rather than participated. He stood on the road below Chatterton’s Hill and listened to the Royal Artillery pound the militia positions on the ridge above him. The Royal Artillery were on the other side of the ridge, well over a mile away, but he could hear every round fired, count the batteries now with the experience of the veteran as each fired its salvo.

  Bang bang, bang, bang, bang bang. Six guns, each a four-pounder from the noise. They’d fire again before he breathed ten times. They were that good.

  Their fire was pounding Brook’s militia. George had watched them go up the hill with weary cynicism, knowing that they were hopeless just by listening to their chatter. And so it proved. Before long, the first of them came running down the long slope. His officers made no attempt to stop this flight, because they were so inexperienced they didn’t know that when one fled, the others were close behind. He watched it like some distant show, the way he used to watch a service in church, with detachment. The big guns kept firing, and in a few more salvos the whole of Brook’s was coming down the hill.

  George kept looking back to his left, where Wadsworth’s brigade stood casually. They could see the British columns beginning to form front to attack Wadsworth’s positions, but as they lacked the artillery that the British had, they couldn’t interfere with their deployment. Then he turned his attention back up the flank of Chatterton’s Hill. He could now see Smallwood’s Delaware regiment redeploying. It seemed like a terrible waste to countermarch in the very face of enemy fire, and yet it was admirable to watch American troops march so coolly while the shot fell thick on them. The Delaware troops had the reputation as the best in the army, and George Lake wanted to cheer them.

  Bludner came back down the line to him.

  “We’re beat,” he said quietly, pointing up the hill to where the remaining militia were already showing signs of flight. “Goddam but them milishee is wuthless.”

  “We was all milishee once,” George said.

  “We oughta shoot them milishee,” said Bludner. “Teach ’em it’s more dangerous to run than stan’ their ground.”

  Bludner’s attention strayed to the regiment halted beside them, a New York regiment in gray coats. They looked smart, and they marched well. George could see that Bludner’s attention was on some black soldiers in the front platoon.

  “There’s meat on the hoof,” said Bludner, with a smile that froze George’s heart. He hadn’t thought of their drummer in weeks, but in that moment he was again sure that Bludner had sold the boy. Bludner looked at him.

  “You squeamish? They ain’t soldiers. They don’ know a thing about your liberty. They just serve because someone’s filling their bellies. I know. I know their kind.”

  One of the black soldiers looked over and saw Bludner staring at him. He laughed and turned to his file partner and they both laughed. Bludner turned red.

  “No nigger’s gone make game of me,” he said, but George grabbed his arm.

  “We’re moving,” he said. Captain Lawrence was shouting about handling arms.

  Caesar pulled his men together after the skirmish and counted heads. The little outpost had held less than a dozen men and they were all dead, a shocking result of such a small affair. Romeo was their only casualty. Paget was gone again, back beside the now cooling corpse of his friend. Caesar watched as Stewart’s company halted a musket shot away and began to fire at some opponent he couldn’t see. He told Virgil to form the company and walked back to Paget.

  “Come along, Paget. We’ll all come back and bury him.”

  Paget looked up at him, his hands sticky with blood.

  “Wipe your hands, Paget, an’ come along.” He kept his voice low and soothing, as if talking to an unhappy child.

  Paget wiped his hands on the grass and stood up. His eyes were unfocused. “We know each othuh all ouw lives, Caesa’,” he said, his voice trembling like his hands.

  “Remember what I said last night?” Paget just looked at him. “Never mind. We’ll come back an’ bury him, Paget. Now get back in your place,” he said kindly, and walked back to the head of the company.

  As best he could see, they were now on the flank of the enemy, or could be if they moved to the crest of the hill. He couldn’t see what was happening through the brambles and hedgerow at the edge of the field. Somewhere in the next field, Captain Stewart was, or wasn’t, fighting the same war. He looked for Jim and realized the boy hadn’t come back, and he worried a moment, but there was no time.

  “Follow me,” he said, and started climbing over the low stone wall toward the crest.

  The Highlanders and Hessians to his front maneuvered slowly and precisely from column into line behind a deep screen of brush in the next field, but they made no move to attack. George Lake watched them with the intensity of a predator watching distant prey, but he could not conjure them to attack, and his views on the subject were deeply divided. Despite the victory, or at least the absence of disaster, at Harlem Heights, he still feared them, especially the Germans. Before he could really work through his worry, they were moving again, leaving other troops to face the Hessians and Highlanders.

  Bludner continued to watch the heights they were now climbing, leaving the staring contest with the Highlanders to the plain below. The firing from the crest rose to a crescendo, and George was proud of the Maryland and Delaware regiments. Their volleys were breaking down into little barks of fire from the platoons, but the volume of fire said they were holding their ground, and that made him proud.

  He couldn’t see anything beyond the next stone wall for the smoke. There was little breeze, and every round fired on the crest renewed the cloud. The acid sulfur smell, like hot rotten eggs, drifted over him and roused him to a new pitch of attention. He turned in place, still marching, but now facing his platoon.

  “Pick up the step there, Jenkins. Watch your interval.” Jenkins, while bright, didn’t seem to understand that if they didn’t keep their dress and their intervals, they’d never make the wheel that would carry them back into line. George had learned that all these minute defects had to be cured before they were under fire, because once the balls started flying by, no one thought enough about anything. Most of the men would start to huddle together, loading and firing like automatons, or lying down and refusing to rise. It wasn’t cowardice, he now understood, but he didn’t know what it was, except that in every battle he had to fight it himself, the urge to get behind someone or something.

  The Delawares looked magnificent. He watched as one of their companies loaded, the rammers going up and down so near together that they sounded like they were demonstrating the firings for inspection.

  Lawrence held his hand in the air, made a fist and jerked it down.

  Halt. They had started to make signals for these things, because they had learned that no voice could carry the orders over the sounds of battle.

  He began to hear that low murmur that wouldn’t leave his ears for days, the mumble of screams and curses from the wounded that lay as an undercurrent beneath the main flow of the battle. If he listened, he would hear them more clearly, and he hadn’t the time or the inclination. He was afraid that they would tell him something about the battle, that it was his turn to feel the ball in his guts, or the destruction of a leg. He didn’t fear to die, or not more than any other young man, but the maiming he had seen and the results scared him. He’d seen men thin as rails with huge scared eyes, wasting away from fever and despair with a leg gone, or a foot, and he swore he wouldn’t be one. He had a little pistol, something for a lady’s muff or a gent’s pocket that he had picked up after Harlem Heights. He thought he might be able to use it, if ever he was hit and became part of that horrible murmur below the battle.

  There was a giant volley, a great crash of fire like the long roll of a massive drum, and then the field seemed to be silent. The murmur grew louder, and the insects, undisturbed by all the violence,
droned on.

  The Delawares had held. They were cheering.

  Caesar heard the cheering and looked to his right, trying to see through the scrubby trees and the smoke, but he couldn’t. Jim was still missing and he sent Tonny off to the right to find Captain Stewart and get a report. Caesar was at the crest or even over it, in some wasteland that had never been enclosed with a stone wall. He placed his men in the cover of some larger, older trees and crept forward on the same path that Tonny had taken. He went a certain distance and froze, undecided. He wanted to go forward and talk to the captain, but he hadn’t left Virgil with any clear orders and Virgil needed to know what was expected of him. He stood there in the smoke for a moment and then went back, running, suddenly panicked by a vision of disaster, but there was nothing under the shelter of the big trees but his men, many of them lying down to rest.

  “Virgil!” he yelled, and Virgil came toward him, a small pipe clenched between his teeth.

  “I’m going to find Captain Stewart. You hold here with the Guides and don’t fall back unless you is hard pressed, do you hear me?”

  “I hear you, Caesar. Don’ worry none about us.” Virgil waved his hand, almost a salute, and went back to the rock where he had been sitting as another great cloud of smoke drifted over them. Caesar started back into it and there was Tonny, his eyes staring wide.

  “Tonny!” he yelled. He was tempted to slap the man, he looked so panicked, but Tonny straightened up immediately.

  “Ah thought I’d lost you for sure, Sergeant,” he said. He was covered in sweat. “I got turned round in that smoke. Lord, be kind.”

  “Did you find Captain Stewart?”

  “Ah nevuh saw him, Sergeant. He ain’t ovuh theah. That’s rebels behind a wall, and they look like they just won the battle.”

  “Won the battle?”

  “Ah saw the redcoats pulling back. They was beat. An’ the rebels ovuh theah is cheering like they jus’ won money.”

  Caesar pointed him over the stones and brush to the woods. “You go talk to Virgil. Tell him I said stay there anyway, but put some pickets out in case we really have lost and they try to surround us. I’m going to find the captain.”

  Tonny nodded. “Pickets out, stay where we is. Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Good,” said Caesar, and he ran off to the right, now aiming down the hill. He ran well, fast when he had a clear path, and just loping when he didn’t trust the footing or the smoke obscured his vision. He had already gone further than he wanted and he began to worry about the company when the sound of firing was renewed, the steady British volleys easy to follow and just to his left. Any further forward and he’d have been in front of them when the shooting started.

  He passed the flank of the Sixty-fourth lights and ran along behind them, passed the Fortieth lights. And there he was. It took Caesar a moment to realize that Stewart must be commanding the whole battalion, or that the ranks were thinner than he remembered. He ran to Stewart’s stirrup and saluted, waiting for a chance to speak. Stewart was busy, surrounded by officers.

  “We’re going back up. We’re going to fire six more volleys by alternate fire and then we’re going up the hill in one rush, do you all understand? No stopping to fire, no pause, no conversations in Greek. Just fire, listen for the whistle, and go. Any questions?”

  If there were any, his manner defeated them, and they bowed, many doffing their hats. Caesar loved that they kept their courtesies even in battle, because it reminded him of his own father who was renowned for such little acts of bravery. His father would certainly have doffed his hat and bowed, even under fire. Caesar hadn’t thought of his father in weeks, and the little memory in the midst of the smoke and fire seemed to him a good omen.

  “Sir?” he asked, trying to get Stewart’s attention. Stewart was standing in his stirrups, trying vainly to see through the smoke. Bullets from the enemy buzzed past them every few seconds, sounding slow and harmless, like big bees on a summer day.

  “Sergeant Julius Caesar, as I live and breathe. A pleasure to see you. I take it you are somewhere to my left in the smoke?”

  “Yes and no, sir. We’re at the crest, in a little wood.”

  Stewart whirled, his whole attention suddenly fixed on Caesar.

  “At the crest? On your honor, now.”

  “We’re on the crest. We had a little fight with an outpost, and swept them, and then we were at the crest. We’re all alone.”

  Stewart was already riding toward his own company, where McDonald was handing out paper cartridges to men nearly black with smoke and powder from their muskets.

  “Crawford?” he called, but McDonald shook his head.

  “Down, sir.”

  “McDonald, Sergeant Caesar here says his lads are on the crest off to our left. Take our lot and follow him. The two of you try to get into their flank. Do it now. I’m taking the Lights up this bloody hill in three minutes.”

  McDonald yelled “On your feet!” at his men. They were up like hounds on a hunt day, despite their losses or perhaps because of them.

  “Advance by files from the center! Follow me!” said McDonald, and he was off into the smoke following Caesar. He was older than Caesar, but powerful, and he kept up easily.

  “They’ll fall behind, Caesar. They’re good lads, but the wee ones haven’t the legs for this kind of run.”

  Caesar slowed his pace a fraction. He was trying to see the next step.

  “If you will…” he said carefully. McDonald always seemed a good man, but he was senior. Yet Caesar knew what to do. He could see it.

  McDonald nodded.

  “Unless it’s daft, I’ll follow your lead.”

  Caesar smiled. They ran on.

  Crash.

  A great volley rang out beside them. McDonald’s men were opening out, the better-conditioned men forging on and the others falling back. Still running.

  Crash, bang.

  The second volley, and some answering fire from ahead. Caesar could see his trees. The pause in firing had thinned the smoke. He fell back a pace and loped along beside McDonald, who was equally effortless in his running. His words came out in bunches to the rhythm of the run.

  “If you…form front there…and start forward…I’ll bring mine…in above.”

  McDonald simply nodded and put his whistle in his lips. He didn’t blow it, but began to look around him. Caesar increased his pace and left the regulars behind. He bounded over the low rocks until he was in among the trees. He felt like he could fly, he was running so fast.

  Crash!

  Threeet! From McDonald’s whistle.

  “Guides! Form on me! Guides! Form front on me!”

  They were all around him in a moment, Virgil stepping into the space behind them as easily as if on parade. Many of them were smiling. They didn’t look like the British soldiers, because they still weren’t really in uniforms and because McDonald would never have allowed Tonny to finish his smoke in the ranks. Even Virgil was smacking the remnants of his clay against his boot heel to clear the coal. They all seemed unconcerned.

  “Tonny, I want you to take us into the flank of that regiment along the wall. Do you know the way?”

  Crash!

  “I’m a Guide, Sergeant!” Tonny said as if this explained everything. He loped off into the brush.

  “Skirmish line on the move, then. Spread well out and keep going forward. See Stewart’s company, there? Virgil, you link up on their flank. Now go, go, go!” Caesar ran ahead and turned back to watch them come up on to line and dress themselves. The new men could never be trusted to keep the dress, and would sag the line or bell it out, making it hard to maneuver. But there was Virgil, and Paget, and Jim, thank the Lord, back from wherever he had gone and pushing some new boy back to his place, and they were rolling forward almost at a run.

  Crash! Louder now, and closer, the great volley was like a hammer blow on a great anvil.

  The Guides were level with McDonald’s men now, and they formed a line togethe
r, the redcoats to the right of the brown coats, all the men dark in the smoke. Caesar paused just for a moment to watch them, a single mighty machine like two great horses yoked to the same plow. He had never been so happy, though so much of war was so grim. Here, in the heart of the battle, he was the master. He knew it. He could feel the mastery, the knowledge of time and space. They would strike the flank of the rebels just there, and at just the moment when they were preparing the volley that would crush Captain Stewart’s attack. It was like powerful magic running through him, the mastery, and it was powered by these men who went like horses on the same team, pulling him to victory. He no longer saw them as Yoruba and Ashanti and BaKongo, but just as soldiers. He had never felt it quite this way before, but it was the most powerful thing he had ever known, and he wanted to stop them and tell them how brave they were, and how he honored them, every one.

  But war never stops, and he reached for his bayonet and remembered throwing the bent thing away just a few minutes ago. He ran until he was in his place at the right of the company.

  Crash. That was the last. Stewart would be ordering the bayonets fixed, and then he’d order them to march. Caesar went over the corner of a stone wall without a pause and turned to make sure the line was kept as the men negotiated the change in terrain. The other side of the wall was a field, open and flat, running along the crest, and there were rebels in crisp blue coats, a long line of them running off to the left. They were behind them a little and their appearance was greeted with consternation. Caesar ran down the ranks.