Washington and Caesar

by Christian Cameron

Bludner pulled him down easily and showed him to Lake.

  “He’s the only one that ‘ud fetch a price, any road,” he said.

  The black boy suddenly hit Bludner in the ear and Bludner dropped him, and then hit the boy as hard as he could, a great crashing blow with his fist. The boy went down as if hit by an ax.

  Then the man closest to Bludner fell, and the snow under him was suddenly a vivid red. Somewhere far distant, a shot rang out.

  Bludner reached for the boy, who was struggling to his feet, and George pushed him down flat in the road and crouched behind one of the carts. He looked at his priming. Something whispered through the straw of the cart and he heard another crack.

  Bludner was flat on his back where George had pushed him down. The black boy was weaving and sobbing, but heading away, for the most part.

  “Hessians,” George hissed. “Jaegers.” The short, heavy rifles that the Jaegers carried could kill at three hundred yards, and the best of the men who carried them were professional huntsmen at home. They could shoot.

  The shots had drawn the attention of an enemy post. Or perhaps, the little party of blacks and their straw had been a ruse to draw them out. The Germans were already famous for it, attacking foragers, using deserters as spies. They had a cunning that the British seemed to lack. Most men feared them, but George Lake’s mother was a Palatine, and he thought he knew them better.

  They simply had different notions of war. Given his mother’s stories, perhaps it was because all they did was fight.

  Bludner lay still, but he spoke quite clearly.

  “I want that boy.”

  “Go get him, then.”

  “See them Hessians ain’t shootin’ of that boy? They was spies. I know that kind.”

  “I see that they are shooting the men with guns, Bludner. Lie still.” He marveled that he had been afraid of Bludner so long. The man had no thought beyond making money and causing evil.

  The exchange of shots was drawing attention from the camp, and more men came out. There were more shots from the distance, and another man went down. The Jaegers hit about one man every four shots, which George thought was very good practice for the range.

  “Bludner, we’ve lost four men, now,” he said. “All a’cause of your greed.”

  “You’re a dead man, Lake.”

  “I jus’ saved your life, Sergeant Bludner. Most o’ the company watched me.” He leaned out and fired at the distant stand of trees where puffs of smoke located the enemy. He didn’t have a prayer of hitting, but he thought that someone should fire back. “You come for me, I’ll be ready. I could kill you now, for that matter, but I ain’t like you, Bludner.” He felt that he had just drawn an important line.

  “I’ll have you for—”

  “You ain’t worth a turd, Bludner. You jus’ shot an ol’ man for fun, you ignorant bastard. Now lie still or I’ll laugh when the Jaegers kill you. Maybe I’ll kick you when you’re gut-shot.”

  “You’re a dead man.”

  George shook his head, a calm in him that he thought might never go away.

  “No, but you talk big if it suits.” He had another round loaded, and he fired into the trees.

  Another man went down, somewhere on the road behind him. George lacked the interest and the will to lead a charge across the open snow-clogged fields to clear the Jaegers. They’d lose more men that way. He wished they had some of the rifles on their side; there were some riflemen with several regiments, but none of them close by. He wished that Bludner had not killed the blacks. It all made him tired, and it made him wonder if he would ever go back to a shop and polish boots or make hats. It didn’t seem likely.

  But the black boy, probably crippled, wandered across the field toward the distant wood, and eventually disappeared.

  Despite desertions and expiring enlistments, the want of provisions, the litany of defeat, Washington could listen to the young men of his staff exchange their jibes and mannerly quips with something like real pleasure. He missed his best counselor, Adjutant General Reed, who could be counted on to hear a quip or an aside and keep it to himself. Washington had just thought of the very line he wanted to describe what he saw happening on his staff, and in the best remaining regiments of his army.

  “A crucible,” he said to himself. “A crucible for forming Americans from the disparate colonies.” That was what he had wanted to express to Lee as they descended from Chatterton’s Hill. Lee was not American born, but surely he felt the change?

  Washington looked down the main table in his lodging with something like benevolence, and sent his cup back for another fill of the landlord’s coffee. Outside he heard the stamp of feet that indicated a sentry saluting, and he raised his eyes from the report from an outpost of the Third Virginia about an encounter with German Jaegers to see a messenger in a greatcoat.

  “I have an express for Colonel Reed?” asked the man, holding up a twist of paper as if to prove his errand. One of Washington’s young men took it from him, sat him at the table and gave him his own cup. They were a well-bred set of men, and Washington was proud of them.

  “You are from General Lee, I gather?” said Washington, looking at the express. The man nodded, his mouth full of bread. The letter was sealed and addressed to Colonel Reed, but as it was official from General Lee, Washington broke the seal and read it without any hesitation. He always read Reed’s official correspondence when the man was absent.

  Camp, Nov’r the 24th, 1776

  My Dear Reed,

  I received your most obliging, flattering letter—lament with you that fatal indecision of mind which in war is a much greater disqualification than stupidity or even want of personal courage. Accident may put a decisive blunderer in the right, but eternal defeat and miscarriage must attend the man of the best parts if cursed with indecision…

  …I only wait for this business of Rogers and Co. Being over—shall then fly to you—for to confess a truth I really think my Chief will do better with me than without me.

  It was signed by General Charles Lee, with a flourish.

  Washington sat quietly, the buzz of the table lost to him, his morning contentment smashed and replaced by an awful hollow of personal betrayal and a darker fear that it was true. He sank and sank, whirling into alien depths of self-examination and despair. Only the total silence of the room brought him to his senses, or at least back close to the surface. Every officer in the room was looking at him, and he realized that he had crushed the note in his great hand and he thought he might have cried aloud. Their looks of shock were too eloquent.

  He made his way to the door and out. His man, Billy Lee—curse the name—brought him his greatcoat and he shrugged it on and went for his horse, blind to salutes and courtesies on all sides. He was so seldom angry that the soldiers didn’t know what to make of this mood. They watched him go in wonder.

  He rode off, alone as he was never alone, blind to direction and purpose, anxious to get away from those eager young men and their accusing faces. Was he indecisive? He held councils of war, and asked advice. Was that not the way of liberty that he had learned since Boston? Was he to rule alone over the army?

  Washington had never much fancied any role but that of command, and whether on his estates or in the Virginia Regiment, he had always given the orders or avoided situations where other men could order him. He had served under Braddock willingly enough, but so great was Braddock’s authority that serving him rendered the server all the greater. The hard lesson Washington had learned in this war was that the inclination of liberty demanded constant subordination, and that he, the commander, was little more than the servant of the men who fought for their liberty. It was that acceptance that moved him to accept counsel, that and some modest hesitancy on his own part to exercise sole authority even when offered it.

  …that fatal indecision of mind which in war is a much greater disqualification than stupidity or even want of personal courage…

  Or perhaps he was an indecisive blunderer wh
o could not win a battle, and was best out of the way. Unaccustomed to self-examination, he rode and thought, compared his accusers and his own inner voice as if he were casting the accounts of his plantation, and calmed himself. His horse, wiser than he in some things, brought him back to the inn before the cold and wind made his internal debate moot, and he dismounted, already weary. There, in the babble of his officers in the yard, he discovered that the routine crises of the day, the movements of Howe and Cornwallis and the defection of his militia could sweep his personal discontent aside.

  Later, when the routine was dealt with and the staff had gone to their beds, he climbed the stairs to his room on the second floor and stopped in front of the door. It all came back like a kick from a horse and he turned and slammed his fist into the wall. The house shook.

  Billy flung open the door to his room, clearly startled. “I’m sorry, sir. Did you need me?”

  “No, Billy.” It was said with desperation, a hint of emotion in the throat that Billy sensed immediately. He looked closer and saw tears flowing down his master’s face and he flinched, afraid of something nameless, the end of the world, perhaps.

  “I’m losing the war, Billy. And I’m losing the good will of my generals.”

  Billy let a breath escape him in a rush, and he realized he hadn’t breathed since he saw the tears. He almost laughed for relief. Something understandable. He pulled Washington into the room and closed the door. Then he took Washington’s greatcoat and sat him on a chair. He pulled off his boots.

  Washington recovered his composure under the constant attentions.

  Billy took the silk ribbon out of Washington’s hair and laid it aside to be pressed. At Mount Vernon, he’d have cut a fresh one for tomorrow, but silk wasn’t so available here.

  “I am indecisive, it appears,” Washington said, gone from tears to anger.

  “If you are going to move about, I’ll brush you’ hair later,” said Billy.

  “Damn it! First they think I’m a tyrant! And then, when I open my counsels and my heart to ’em, they think me indecisive!”

  Billy poured out a glass of Madeira and handed it to Washington. He picked up the brush from the camp table and walked around behind him, where he was invisible. He looked out of the window for a moment and gathered his courage, and when he spoke, his voice was very quiet.

  “I don’t think you can ever do harm, opening your heart to men worth your trust. General Lee ain’t worth it. Never was, though he claims the same name as me.”

  Billy was a little shocked that he’d spoken aloud, but Washington nodded.

  “It shook me.” The admission was flat, spoken without timbre. Washington might have been commenting on the weather.

  Billy just nodded.

  Washington returned to the yoke.

  It became obvious that he must retreat again, and that General Charles Lee would be late in meeting him with the part of the army that Washington had assigned him. In a day’s work, he dealt with the wholesale defection of the militia in the flying camp and the instant need for hard money to pay bounties and keep the regulars who were willing. When he returned from hours ahorse, visiting his colonels and trying to keep a tired and dispirited army together, he finally sat back at the head of his table. He actually had the strength to laugh, because his “young men” of the staff looked gray with fatigue, and he was not yet tired. And when he had laughed, he took a fresh-cut pen and paper, and wrote to Colonel Reed. Whatever Reed’s failings or feelings, he was invaluable as the adjutant general.

  Dear Sir,

  The enclosed was put into my hands by an express from the White Plains. Having no idea of its being a private letter, much less suspecting the tendency of the correspondence, I opened it, as I have done all other letters to you, from the same place and Peekskill, upon the business of your office, as I conceived them and found them to be.

  This, as it is the truth, must be my excuse for seeing the contents of a letter, which neither inclination nor intention would have prompted me to.

  Personal issues decided, he then changed to a separate sheet and addressed General Lee. He didn’t mince words, as he had on three prior occasions. He directly ordered him to bring his part of the army to Washington, by forced marches if necessary. He made the order as plain as day, lest Lee think he could flout it.

  Washington had the glimmer of a plan whose execution would require every man in the failing army. A plan that was bold to the extreme, and would not, he thought, leave him open to any accusation of indecisiveness ever again. And it would require him to trust his subordinates to execute independently.

  He was learning.

  5

  New York, December 22, 1776

  Caesar saluted and sank quickly into his en garde, his legs bent and his feet making a perfect L as Jeremy had instructed him over and over for months. He bent his elbow slightly, stiffened his wrist until his point was up, and advanced on his toes. Jeremy met him halfway and they both circled, first one way and then another, until Jeremy chanced a thrust, which Caesar parried. They then exchanged simple thrusts for a minute, back and forth as if they were doing line drills. It was a game. London’s finest maître, Monsieur D’Angelo, had taught Jeremy. D’Angelo did not teach secret thrusts and twirling parries like some of the fashion fencers and mountebanks, and he insisted that a perfect thrust, well delivered and fast as lightning, could defeat any guard. Indeed, Jeremy did hit Caesar several stunning blows, especially when he varied his tempo or stamped his foot for a distraction. Caesar, in turn, pleased himself immeasurably by planting his foil’s rawhide-bound point high on Jeremy’s breast in a simple attack that was so well executed that Jeremy had to stop to congratulate him on it. So Jeremy and Caesar thrust and parried like mad, until both of them were lightly covered in sweat and they began to make use of some of the feints and caveats that were more the norm in the swordplay of the day. Caesar’s caveat was still too wide, too slow for Jeremy, and he backed up a step and held up his hand.

  “That caveat is near to being vulgar, Julius.”

  “Vulgar?”

  “Can you think of a better word? It is too big and too slow for fashion. I’d call it showy if it had any right to be shown.”

  Caesar all but hung his head. He whirled his blade through a smaller caveat.

  “Use your fingers, not your wrist! That’s it. Just a tap on my blade and then around. Like this and look! I have hit you again. Tap and hit. And again. I really must teach you the parry to that—this is not the place for a display of temper.” They exchanged parries, and then Jeremy stepped inside his guard, grabbed his wrist, swung his own sword around behind his back and pricked him in the side.

  “Oh, well struck,” Caesar said, surprised. Jeremy looked pleased with himself.

  When they were finished, they were replaced by Sergeant McDonald of Stewart’s company and an officer of the Highlanders, who looked at them with considerable respect.

  “Ah won’t be givin you any trouble, then,” said McDonald to Jeremy, as he passed.

  Jeremy laughed and pointed at the wooden baton in McDonald’s hands. “I’d rather not face a broadsword with a smallsword, though.”

  “Oh, aye! A duel of broadswords wi’ a fencing master like yourself!” Both the Scots laughed. McDonald waved to Caesar, who nodded back. They had been closer since he learned whist.

  “Come on, Caesar. I have to be back before Captain Stewart needs me.”

  “You wait on him all the time as it is!”

  “Yes, well, he rather needs me all the time.”

  “You like him, don’t you?”

  “I do, then.” They were putting on dry shirts and waistcoats in an outer dressing room. The salle, an open floor in a former warehouse, was another location in the city that was colorblind. Indeed, Jeremy was quite popular. Caesar had heard men—white men—suggest he was the best swordsman in the city. Caesar thought of Washington. He had almost liked Washington, of all the masters he had had. But Washington had owne
d him. Perhaps it was different if you were a servant, but free.

  When they walked back into the Moor’s Head, a group of soldiers was singing.

  How stands the glass around?

  For shame, ye take no care, my boys

  How stands the glass around?

  Let mirth and wine abound.

  The trumpets sound

  The colors they are flying, boys

  To fight, kill or wound,

  May we still be found

  Content with our hard fare, my boys

  On the cold, cold ground.

  Oh why, soldiers, why

  Should we be melancholy, boys?

  Oh why, soldiers, why?

  Whose business ’tis to die.

  What, sighing, fie!

  Damn care, drink on, be jolly, boys.

  ’Tis he, you or I,

  Cold, hot, wet or dry,

  We’re always bound to follow, boys,

  And scorn to fly.

  ’Tis but in vain

  (I mean not to upbraid you, boys)

  ’Tis but in vain

  For soldiers to complain

  Should next campaign

  Take us to Him who made us, boys

  We’re free from pain,

  But should we remain,

  A bottle and kind landlady,

  Cures all again.

  Simcoe and Stewart were installed in chairs under the map of the northern colonies. Simcoe was in uniform, his gorget hanging loose at his throat, while Stewart wore a neat plaid coat and heavy breeches suited to riding in the weather. They had pipes and cards on the little table between them, but those diversions had been pushed aside.

  “He’s done,” said Simcoe. “Look at this bend in the river. Washington has to defend the whole navigable stretch, all the way along the front of Philadelphia. There are four ferries and his front must cover all of twenty-five miles. Grant says that Washington has less than four thousand men. All we require is a cold snap to freeze the river and we’re across. Then Philadelphia falls and we all go home.”