New Jersey, July 8, 1781
Caesar heard the shots off to his right and stopped in the trail. He had been ordering one of his men to collect all the carts from a farm, but foraging was no longer the primary mission. He turned and ran to his right, gathering men as he went. Across a field, he saw Major Stewart put his horse over a fence and wave his helmet.
Mr. Martin was standing in the farmyard, his whistle to his lips. Caesar waved his musket.
“Enemy off to the right, sir.”
“I’m with you,” said Martin, and they ran through the farmyard and up to a fence where one of the new men, Saul, lay slumped and moaning against the clean split rails. His red jacket glistened with blood from a wound high in his chest. Caesar knelt by him a moment and shrugged to Virgil, who was on the other side of him.
“Rifle,” Caesar said. He looked for Saul’s file partner, a veteran named Delancy after his former owner. Delancy was ahead of them in the fenced field, lying under a tree. His musket barked. Caesar tried to follow the line of the shot and saw several men in dirty gray shirts on a low rise to the east. Caesar looked at Martin, who nodded and blew his whistle.
“Form front on the center. Quickly, now. Odd files will cover. Even files advance on the whistle. Listen for it.”
Martin was encouraging the men, and then one of them fell and gave a scream. Far off, there was a tiny puff of smoke. Some of the newer men immediately crouched, and one fired his musket. Virgil cuffed him.
“Don’ be a fool,” he growled.
Faster, Caesar thought. We have to move faster.
He blew his whistle. Something hit the barn right next to his head and splinters pricked his face. He shook his head. Fowver was ordering the stationary files to start firing, and they did, slowly and carefully to avoid their own men. They weren’t likely to hit much with muskets against rifles at this range, but they had all learned that any enemy shoots worse when he’s worried about keeping his own head down. Caesar’s men began to trot.
He was reading the ground, looking for cover, when he saw the little fold off to the left. He angled that way and the line followed him. They were well spread out but he began to sprint, the full power of his legs carrying him ahead. There was a fence and he hurdled it, his whole body crossing in one fluid motion, and then he was over and running on the other side.
“Files from the center, follow me!” he bellowed. The men crossing the fence began to run to him. He kept going forward.
Off to his right, he saw Major Stewart moving his men through an orchard. Then he was in the little fold and hidden from the riflemen. He paused a moment to gather his men, few of whom had his turn of speed. There were shots from the farmyard, and then more shots from over his head.
“Ready?” he asked. They all got their breath back, safe in the dead ground and none too eager to leave it.
Martin drew his sword. He looked at it a moment as if it was unfamiliar and then held it up. “Charge!” he yelled and ran up the fold. Caesar followed him and the moment they came over the little crest they began to cheer.
The rebels didn’t wait for them. Surprised by their appearance so close, they bolted. Off to the right, Major Stewart’s horse crested the rise and one of the rebels paused and shot him. Stewart’s horse crumpled. Caesar bellowed. Virgil stopped for one stride and shot the man down, and Martin gave a cry and ran on, Caesar at his heels.
There was a long hill behind the rise where the riflemen had waited, and they ran up it as best they could, Caesar and Martin now well ahead. The rocks grew bigger until they could no longer see their quarry, and then they came around a great boulder and they were on a road. A big man on a horse fired a pistol and the ball went wide. Then he laughed. Another man turned his horse and tried a rifle shot from horseback.
Caesar aimed his fusil and pulled the trigger. Nothing answered him but the clatch of the cock hitting the hammer. The rifle shot ricocheted off the boulder and Martin took a pistol from his belt, raised it like a duellist and shot the man’s horse. The big man gave one glance at his partner and rode away.
Suddenly Caesar knew the big man was Bludner. He gave a wordless cry somewhere between pain and rage and ran down the road, brandishing his useless fusil like a spear. He ran with the full power of his legs, the iron horseshoe plates on his heels kicking up sparks as he went, leaping the downed horse and on around the bend.
He could see for a hundred yards, and there was Bludner going over the next hill, his horse at a gallop. Caesar put his head down and ran. At the next hill he abandoned his fusil. He ran until he could no longer see Bludner ahead of him. And then he turned and started to trot back.
Stewart was lying under a maple tree at the edge of the rise where the riflemen had been. He looked as pale as death. Caesar ran up to him and saw that McDonald was smiling, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He had been convinced that Bludner had killed Stewart.
Stewart had a bandage on his left arm and his shirt, breeches and waistcoat were as red as his coat. His horse lay dead.
“Sergeant Caesar?”
“My compliments on finding you alive, sir.”
“No compliments needed, Caesar. I told Mr. Crawford and Mr. Martin to see to the detail. That shooting will bring the rebels down on us.” Stewart tried to move and gave a little grunt. “I think it’s time I went home to Scotland, Caesar.”
“That was Bludner, sir.”
“Really?” Stewart winced and moved, winced again. “And we missed him?”
“We missed him.”
Stewart shook his head, but McDonald smiled.
“We missed him this time, Julius. But your Mr. Martin took one of his men.”
Caesar brightened. “Took him?”
“Shot his horse. Took him prisoner.”
“Think he’ll talk?”
Sergeant McDonald gave Caesar an ugly smile. “Oh, I’d say.”
Stewart wriggled again and closed his eyes. “I’ll stay a little longer, then.”
Dobb’s Ferry and New York, July 19 and after, 1781
Washington saw the courier arrive outside his window and signed a general order without flourish, then made a sign to David Humphreys, who was acting as his secretary, to hold his private correspondence. The courier was doubtless about to deprive him of his afternoon.
Fitzgerald leaned in from the common room. “Captain Lake from General Lafayette,” he said formally and withdrew.
Washington remembered Lake well, one of the companylevel officers who had been with the army for so long that he seemed to personify it. Lake saluted smartly. Washington bowed a little while remaining seated and held out his hand. Lake gave him a canvas packet.
“I am surprised to see you so far from your company, Captain Lake,” he said. The words sounded cold though he had meant them to be warm. He winced a little. The lack of news about the French fleet had him on edge.
“The marquis wanted his message delivered in person, sir. He says, if the Comte de Grasse will come to the Chesapeake, we’ll have Cornwallis like a rat in a trap.”
Washington smiled. As he repeated those words, George had looked out of the window and his features had undergone a strange transformation, as if he had become Lafayette for a moment.
“We are all waiting on the Comte de Grasse, Captain. If he comes to Newport, we will act in the north. If he offers the British battle off Sandy Hook, we will attack New York.” Washington opened the packet with a knife and began to read the dispatch. “How badly was Wayne handled?”
“More than one hundred men lost, sir.”
Washington shook his head. “Impetuous. But Wayne has spirit.” He shook himself. What spirit indeed, that he would criticize a general to a captain? Although sometimes he felt that Lake was like his staff, his military family.
He read on. “Ahh,” he said, when he read that Cornwallis had retreated on Williamsburg. This was country he knew well, so that he could see the action at Green Springs, taste the air, see the horses trampling the tobacco and s
mell the result. “So Lord Cornwallis is well down the Peninsula?”
“He was when I left the marquis.” George continued to stand at attention.
“Captain, please refresh yourself and hold yourself in readiness to deliver my answer. You can join my staff.” He gave a hard little smile. “While we wait on the Comte de Grasse.”
Caesar stood in his room in the barracks and polished the blade of his sword with an oiled cloth and some ash. He moved the blade rhythmically beween his fingers while his mind was elsewhere.
The first essential of the plan to take Bludner depended on constant knowledge of his agents in New York. For that reason, someone watched Sally every moment of the day. Major Stewart tended to spend more time with her, and when he was absent from her rooms Sergeant McDonald or one of his friends watched her door. Even so, in late July, Bludner’s agent met her, hit her and terrified her. They couldn’t touch him as he left her. It would have ruined the plan. But McDonald told Caesar he had never been so close to killing a man and not done it.
The second essential was to know Bludner’s location and to be able to plan to attack it. The prisoner had added to their store of knowledge about Bludner’s posts. He knew of three, and the prisoner said that Bludner moved among them often. Only his couriers knew which post he’d be at. But the prisoner knew a good deal about the locations of the posts: one in an old cabin in a wood, one in a big stone barn and one in an old Dutch farmhouse. They knew a little about each but they needed more to strike.
Polly had gone to be with Sally after McDonald’s report. She came back toward evening. She had been crying, he could see, and she was subdued. Caesar had been blacking his belts, part of a ritual he did to calm himself. His whole kit was hanging from hooks, the leather gleaming softly, the weapons bright. His offering on a private altar. He wiped the blackball from his hands, reminded by the smell of the regulars of the Fourteenth Foot and his days in the Ethiopians.
When his hands were cleaner, he took Polly’s between his. Hers were cold.
“Sally’s drunk,” she said, quietly.
Caesar just sat.
“He beat her, and there was nothing we could do. She’s going to break, Caesar. We have to get Bludner before Sally gives up.”
Caesar hung his head.
“Next time will be the last. I swear.”
“Tell Sally that. I’m not afraid, or if I am, it’s nothing to her terror.”
“We’re making a plan. We can’t move until we have some cover, or the rebels will know what we were after.”
“My father agrees. You know that. And he’s trying to sound out…other quarters. We followed the messenger last night, through three other stops. We know where to follow him, and whom he meets. It will make the big night easier.”
Caesar considered Polly.
“I worry about you, Polly. I think this is a great deal more dangerous than standing guard with a musket.”
She smiled and looked down, and Caesar thought that it was something they shared, the secret love of the excitement. He even wondered if sharing this plan wouldn’t bind them in a way that few couples could be bound. He held her close and she kissed him suddenly, her mouth opening under his and her lips melting and unlike anything he had ever known, and her eyes were liquid.
Then she pushed him away.
“I have something else to tell you,” she said with her secret smile. Caesar sat on his heels and looked up at her, waiting.
“I think I’m pregnant,” she said. “Don’t go gettin’ any ideas.”
Caesar’s smile filled his face.
“It’s a pleasure to have you back with us,” said Colonel Robinson, pouring a fresh glass of claret.
They were back under the map at the Moor’s Head. Stewart’s hair was a mare’s nest of red ends, but he was otherwise looking cheerful, if not well. He had a leg up on a chair like a gout sufferer, and one of his arms was strapped to his chest with a black silk sling.
“It’s a pleasure to have so much female sympathy and never need to dance,” said Stewart, acknowledging a smile from a distant Miss Hammond, who was being instructed on the big floor with Mr. Martin. They were learning a ballet. He inclined his head in return. Simcoe gave a snort.
“I gather that when the use of your limbs returns, we shall find you a very passable dancer, Stewart.”
“Lies. All lies.”
Robinson looked around the tavern. “I hear that our army in Virginia is in difficulties.”
“Lord Cornwallis seems to have been maneuvered into a position where the navy has to retrieve him. My friend Simcoe is not too happy about it.”
“Friends of mine outside the line say that General Washington may be preparing to march that way,” said Robinson. “And we think it might be worthwhile to have a little raid to keep him pinned to his lines here.”
Stewart nodded absently, an idea forming in his head.
“How many men would you use?”
“Oh, two hundred at least. We’d beat up one of their outposts and they would assuredly have a covering party behind them, so any trap would need enough muskets to keep the covering party off.”
“Quite a big show, then,” said Stewart with satisfaction. “Any notion when?”
“We need intelligence. I think they are very careful about their movements.”
“But you’d be ready to go soon.”
“Oh yes. Do I sense a spark of professional interest, Major Stewart?”
“I am interested in being active, sir.” Stewart smiled dangerously. “And I’m trying to please friends.”
“We have to be ready to move,” Hamilton repeated. The staff was gathered around the table in the main room of the tavern, and to their number had been added a dozen French officers, most very young men in splendid uniforms. The Duc de Lauzon, one of the most powerful young men in the world, lounged on the back of a windsor chair, his powder blue leg contrasting sharply with the dark wood all around him.
“Move where?” asked a French officer. “We cannot plan a campaign when we don’t know the object, surely?”
Washington held out a hand to George Lake, who passed him a large chart.
“We have an opportunity to act in Virginia,” he said, showing them a new theater of operations. “Always assuming that the Comte de Grasse will condescend to visit us there. But first I want to secure the ground between the ferry and the river, and perhaps farther down toward their posts. A raid in force, gentlemen, to keep their ears pinned back while we go off after the other fox.”
Robinson came into the tavern, dejected, and passed Caesar without a word and sat in the fireplace nook. He stripped off his gloves and began to tap them against his boot. Caesar approached him cautiously, unsure of his welcome, but Robinson seemed to notice him for the first time and beckoned to him.
“Sergeant?”
“Sir.”
“It’s off, Sergeant. Washington has flooded his outposts with men. There must be six thousand militia in the ground along the river. Suicide to try for one of his posts. It’s as if he knew what we were up to,” he said, and Caesar caught a chill. Sally might break, Polly had said.
“Can you stir your friends for reports on the rebels?” Stewart asked. Marcus White and Stewart had shared all their information.
“I can’t see that it is essential, although I’d be happy to please Colonel Robinson and General Clinton.”
Caesar nodded his head. “We have two men from up that way. Van Sluyt comes from one of the plantations on the river. It may be that we could get a report from the blacks up there.”
“Is it so important?” asked Marcus White.
Stewart nodded. “They have moved forward in strength. Some of my friends at headquarters think that Washington may be looking at a proper attack on New York. If that’s the case, Bludner won’t be in our reach. But others aren’t so sure. Lord Cornwallis has got himself in some difficulties in Virginia. Washington has been cunning at covering his movements before. He may be moving. I
f he is, we need to know what those rebels are doing.”
White turned to Caesar. “Even if it means sending Polly?”
And Caesar felt a nip of fear.
New Windsor, August 14, 1781
Washington read the message calmly, masking his exultation and the resulting nerves with the ease of long practise. He had his plan in place and he was ready.
“Note to General Knox. Please tell the general to suspend the movement of our siege train north. We will keep it at Philadelphia. Fitzgerald, please fetch me Captain Lake.”
“At once, sir.”
Washington dictated a series of orders to his secretary. Militia to fill the posts. More militia to be called out from Connecticut. Commands for the Hudson forts. Commands for the reserves. One of his aides handed him a report from a spy, from which he gleaned that the British had no idea what his real target was. He frowned.
“Do I know Captain Bludner?”
“He has his own company in the outposts, sir. Something to do with intelligence.”
“Leave him here. General Heath will need all the intelligence he can get if the British choose to strike in my absence.”
“Captain Lake, sir.”
Lake entered and saluted. Washington took off his hat and bowed. “I’m sending you back to the marquis.”
“Sir!”
“Captain, I am bringing the army to Virginia, and the French as well. We are going to have a go at the rat in our marquis’s trap. I want you to tell him that I will be on the Peninsula, God willing, in three weeks. He must keep Cornwallis occupied for that long.”
Lake beamed. All motion in the building had stopped and every man hung on Washington’s orders. Word had passed. Virginia. Cornwallis.
“We will march on the nineteenth of August, in four days. And with luck and the benevolence of heaven, gentlemen, we will go to Virginia and win the war.”
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