“That’s Royal Governor, John Murray,” Talako said. “Fourth Earl of Dunmore. And we can’t be late for a meeting with an official again.”
“Royal, my dilberry maker,” Tye said. “That cock robin is only alive because he provides us with the iron horses and the opportunity for runaways to go free and to kill white folks without getting hung.”
“That’s a lot,” Talako said.
“We wouldn’t need freedom if they had let us be free like we were in the first place,” Tye replied.
“Well, we can kill him after the war,” Talako said with a shrug. “Right now, we have to be on time.”
Yeah, yeah,” Tye sighed. “We’ll be back in about half past the hour, Barbey.”
“Yekkir,” Barbey replied. “Yes, sir.”
Tye and Talako trudged through the muddy brown slush along Broad Way Street to the intersection of Broad Way and Dyes. There, they approached a large building where there stood a pair of young British soldiers, whose carnation faces told Tye the men had been on guard for several hours. The guards snapped to attention. Tye nodded as he passed them, pushing the door open. He stepped inside with Talako close behind him.
Soldiers bustled about a capacious hallway, moving in and out of rows of offices on each side.
Tye and Talako strode to the end of the hall, where two more young soldiers stood at a pair of red oak doors trimmed in brass.
One of the soldiers rapped on the door with his knuckles.
The door opened a crack and a thin, angular face peeked out. The door closed. A few seconds later, the door opened wide. The man with the angular face stood in the doorway, his nose in the air. His gray hair showed around the edges of his brown, horsehair wig; his green coat and breeches smelled new.
“Looks like a leprechaun,” Tye whispered.
Talako snickered.
The man spoke. “The Royal Governor John Murray, Fourth Earl of Dunmore, will see you now, Colonel Tye. Your man may enter, too.”
“My man?” Tye hissed. “My Captain! Captain Talako. He’s chewed more dirt than any of you in this place.”
“Apologies, sir,” the man said.
“Timothy, let the gentlemen in,” Governor Murray said.
“Yeah, Tim,” Tye said. “Step aside.”
Timothy’s eye twitched as he stepped out of the way.
Tye and Talako walked past him.
Talako stopped and then pointed at Timothy’s eye. “You should get that checked out.”
Tye and Talako stood before the Governor, who sat behind his desk.
“Have a seat, gentlemen,” the Governor said, pointing at three chairs opposite him.
Tye and Talako sat down.
Tye glanced at the empty chair beside him. “Who’s the third chair for?”
“For me.”
Tye peered over his shoulder. Standing in the doorway was a tall, athletically built woman with skin as black and shiny as the curly knots of hair all over her head.
She was stunningly beautiful to Tye, even though she was dressed in men’s clothing – a waistcoat, breeches and stockings; the only somewhat feminine article of clothing was a lace jabot she wore on the front of her shirt.
“Well, hello,” Tye crooned.
The woman sat beside him. “Hello,” she said. “Colonel Tye, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Tye replied.
“I’m Ngozi Edochie,” the woman said. “Pleasure.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Tye said, scanning Ngozi with his eyes. “I assure you.”
Talako rolled his eyes.
“And my friend here with the condition is Talako,” Tye said.
Ngozi frowned. “Condition?”
“Yes,” Tye said. “His eyes roll about uncontrollably. The doctor said if he keeps doing it, his eye muscles might spasm and eject his eyeballs.”
Ngozi laughed.
Talako started to roll his eyes again, but thought twice and did not.
“Alright, alright, enough twaddle,” Governor Murray said. “I have an assignment of utmost importance for you, gentlemen. Ngozi will assist, providing her services as your tinkerer and weapon-smith.”
Tye turned his gaze to Ngozi. “Are you any good?”
“Ngozi is Britain’s Chief Tinkerer and the inventor of the iron horse,” Governor Murray chimed in.
“What he said,” Ngozi said.
“Impressive,” Tye said. “We’ve got us a bonafide bigwig to keep us clods in line. So, what’s the work, Governor?”
Governor Murray leaned forward in his chair. His perused the room as if searching for some spy hiding in the shadows of the corners.
“This mission requires the utmost discretion,” he whispered. “No one is to know except for those in this room and those directly involved.”
“Go on,” Colonel Tye said.
“I want you to put together a small force – twenty soldiers at the most – men as hard as iron with the dark stain of war on their souls,” Governor Murray said. “Train them in your…unorthodox fighting methods and when they are ready, you and your unit will destroy a base erected by the rebels in Monmouth County, New Jersey. Ngozi will supply you with any weapons and transportation you need.”
“Obviously this base is a threat,” Colonel Tye said. “Why?”
“The rebels are manufacturing a vapor there,” Governor Murray replied. “Intelligence reports say this vapor eats the flesh of men, stripping skin and sinew from bone.”
“And where, exactly, am I allowed to pull the soldiers who will join me on this perilous mission?” Colonel Tye asked.
“From any company, with the exception of the Queen’s Rangers,” Governor Murray said. “And, of course, not a company’s best; we need them on the front lines.”
“I figured as much,” Colonel Tye sighed. “So, I get the dandy prats, the chalkers, the cock robins and fart catchers, then?”
“Well, yes,” Governor Murray said. “But I am confident that you and your merry band will be able to whip them into shape in no time.”
“You can keep your whip,” Tye said. “And how much time is ‘no time?’”
“Six weeks,” Governor Murray said.
Ngozi snickered.
“You have a deal,” Tye said. “Under one condition.”
A blast of air rushed from Governor Murray’s nostrils. “I figured your freedom would be condition enough, but what is it?”
“Ngozi here is my first recruit,” Tye replied. “Her skills can be quite useful during the training and on the mission.”
Ngozi’s smile faded. “What? I have much work to do in…”
“Agreed!” Governor Murray said, interrupting her. “I will have an escort show you to the area I have set aside for the training and housing of your men. Good day, gentlemen.”
Two
A platoon of soldiers stood, in four rows of five soldiers per row, in the middle of a great expanse of land that was blanketed in snow. Piles of logs surrounded them. Atop the logs sat several axes, hammers and small boxes.
All of the soldiers, except for Ngozi Edochie, were men. Their expressions ranged from curious to unconcerned, but they all bore a hardness; a hardness only forged in war.
One soldier, a bullish man named Hawkins, stood in stark contrast to the others; even more than Ngozi. Unlike the rest of the soldiers, who were Black, Private Hawkins had long, blond hair and a complexion that looked as if he had run a mile – a constant tinge of pink under his milky skin.
Colonel Tye, with Talako and Barbey flanking him, sauntered toward the formation.
“Welcome to Casa Incognegro, you rogues and whip-jackets,” Colonel Tye said.
Snickers rose from among the platoon.
“I see some of you looking around, taking it all in,” Tye continued. “Maybe you’re looking for the tea pot, or the piss pot, depending on your mood.”
Tye a big step forward, stopping within less than an arm’s reach from the soldiers in the front row.
“Well, gue
ss what?” He said. “We ain’t got either one! What we do have is three acres of land and a fartleberry feast of lumber. So…”
“Twaddle!” Private Hawkins spat.
Tye shot a glance toward him. “What did you say?”
“I said ‘twaddle’,” Private Hawkins said. “This is complete and utter nonsense. It’s colder than a witch’s teat out here. Where are our bunks?”
“Watch your mouth!” Talako said. “You are addressing a superior officer.”
“Superior? Officer?” Private Hawkins chuckled. “You ain’t a real officer. Not in this white man’s army, you ain’t.”
“Real enough,” Tye said. “Step forward.”
Private Hawkins tromped out of the formation and walked up to Colonel Tye. “What is it?”
Colonel stared into Private Hawkins’ eyes. His expression was stone. “How many people have you killed?”
“What?” Private Hawkins said, scratching his head.
“I am speaking English, I believe,” Tye replied. “How many people have you killed?”
“Thirteen,” Private Hawkins said, thrusting his chest outward and raising his chin.
“I have personally killed 878 men while looking them in the eye; more with my musket and my long bow,” Colonel Tye said. “I have hiked thirteen days straight without sleep or food and stuffed four feet of my own intestines back into my stomach. That’s why I wear the rank of colonel. That’s why you will respect it.”
Private Hawkins spit a glob of mucous into the snow. “Why are we here?”
“I can tell you why I’m here,” Tye said. “To teach.”
“What are you going to teach me?” Private Hawkins said with a smirk.
“Nothing,” Colonel Tye replied. “You are going to teach them.”
“Me? Teach this lot of bucks and belly-warmers?” Private Hawkins grunted. “What could I possibly teach them?”
Colonel Tye slapped Private Hawkins across the jaw. A loud crack echoed across the field. “That what I say, goes.”
Private Hawkins stumbled sideways. He pressed his palm against the red spot on his face. “I’m gonna kill you, nigger!”
Private Hawkins drew his saber.
Colonel Tye drew a pair of small daggers from the cuffs of his sleeves.
Private Hawkins charged forward, his cutlass whistling as he slashed away in an x-pattern.
Colonel Tye evaded each blow, delivering a slash of his own with each duck, weave and fade.
While each of Private Hawkins’ blows missed, all of Colonel Tye’s connected, opening several chasms of flesh on his arms.
Blood poured down Private Hawkins’ sleeves and pooled at his feet.
The private lunged forward with a deep thrust toward Colonel Tye’s chest.
Colonel Tye side-stepped the blow and then darted forward, jabbing the knives repeatedly into Private Hawkins’ throat, neck and face.
Blood sprayed into the air.
Private Hawkins collapsed onto his face, unmoving.
Colonel Tye stood on Private Hawkins’ back. “Anyone else think what I have to say is nonsense?”
He perused the faces of the soldiers.
They answered with silence.
“Good,” Tye said, smiling. That was your first lesson, courtesy of Private Hawkins. Your second lesson is this: all muscles, because they depend on blood, depend on breath. Before you are any good to me, you will first learn to breathe.”
Tye pointed at a pile of logs. “Around you are five piles. On top of each pile are three axes. Grab one. Come back without an axe and Barbey here gives you a new fundament hole right between the eyes. You have two minutes. Go!”
The soldiers scrambled toward the hills of wood. Nineteen soldiers fought for possession of one of the fifteen axes. As one soldier neared the top, another grabbed his ankle and then yanked him into the snow.
“Fall in!” Colonel Tye commanded after two minutes had passed.
The soldiers reformed – four rows; three, with five soldiers per row; one, with four soldiers, who stood at the rear, shrinking into each other’s shadows.
Ngozi Edochie stood in the middle of the front row, her axe resting against her thigh.
“Well done, Captain Edochie,” Colonel Tye said. “You get to live.”
Ngozi smiled.
“This time,” Tye said.
Ngozi’s smile faded.
“You four in the back…front-and-center!” Tye commanded.
Three of the men plodded toward the front of the platoon. The fourth bolted in the opposite direction.
Colonel Tye craned his head, peering over the soldiers at the running man.
“Barbey,” he said after nearly a minute, letting the man sprint several hundred yards.
Barbey drew the arquebus from his back.
“This, lady and gentlemen, is Nomo,” Colonel Tye said. “As in whatever she hits isno mo’.”
Barbey opened his chest plate and then reached inside with a perfectly formed hand. He withdrew an iron ball about the size of a man’s fist and slid it into Nomo’s open breech. He then closed the breech portal and sealed it.
The soldier continued to gallop across the ankle-high snow.
Barbey fired.
A moment later, the soldier was gone. Only his boots, with his feet still in them, remained.
Barbey pressed Nomo against his back, where it remained. With lightning speed, he drew a pair of flintlock pistols. He fired, hitting two of the soldiers who had no axe between the eyes.
The soldiers fell. Wisps of smoke rose from their foreheads.
Barbey hurled one of the pistols at the third man with no axe. The barrel pierced the man’s brow, sinking into his head up to its trigger guard.
The soldier shook violently, but remained standing until Barbey snatched the pistol out of his skull. He then fell onto his back.
“That was lesson number three,” Colonel Tye said. “We complete our mission at all costs.”
Colonel Tye pointed at the piles of wood again. “When you climbed those piles, I am sure you noticed the hammers and boxes of nails resting up there with the axes.”
“Yes, sir!” the soldiers replied.
“Outstanding!” Colonel Tye said. “You are going to build our encampment – the barracks; the privy; the mess hall; the officers’ quarters – all of it. You don’t eat; you don’t sleep until you do. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!” the soldiers shouted again.
“And by the way, since we have a lady among us, you will have to build a small barrack for her, too,” Colonel Tye said. “I told you, this is a lesson in breathing. Captain Talako will take it from here. I will see you all in the morning.
Colonel Tye sauntered off.
The soldiers became ants, working together to erect a shelter against the cold and snow.
“Press down the breath,” Talako ordered as the soldiers swung their axes and hammers. “Pull it down into your loins, behind the fundament, where the emotions reside. Calm yourselves. Calming your emotions makes a calm soldier and a calm soldier feels no fear. As you breathe, clear your mind of thoughts and impressions from outside you. Then the thing inside you…your mission…can receive all your attention.”
The soldiers, spurred on by Talako, worked on, until even the stars were in need of respite from the observance of their toil.
####
March, 1778
The soldiers crouched low, huddling together in a clearing in a forest. Colonel Tye and Captain Talako squatted among them. Barbey stood watch a few feet away.
“A week ago, I leaked word to the seediest dives in New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania that a cache of the Queen’s gold was hidden in these woods,” Colonel Tye whispered. “Last night, I leaked the gold’s exact location and that a platoon of Black soldiers is securing it, but is relieved by the Queen’s Rangers from dusk until dawn.”
“We’re securing gold now, Colonel?” A young soldier asked.
“Talako, I tho
ught you said this boy had sense,” Colonel Tye said.
“Normally, he’s sharp,” Talako said, glaring at the young man. “Didn’t have your coffee this morning, Robinson?”
“No sir,” Robinson lied.
“Drink three cups when we get back,” Colonel Tye said.
“Yes, sir!” Robinson said.
“For the rest of you who have not had your coffee yet,” Colonel Tye sighed. “There is no gold; I used that to draw pirates, thieves and rapscallions for this exercise. Talako…”
Talako nodded. “There are about forty men searching this forest right now; men who would slit their own mother’s throat for an ounce of silver. You have each been given a knife. They have swords, guns and maybe worse. Kill each and every one of those bastards before they kill you. None of you leaves this forest until they are all dead.”
The soldiers nodded in unison.
“Now, go!” Talako hissed.
The soldiers leapt to their feet and then crept into the forest.
“Forty men?” Talako whispered in Tye’s ear. “There’s more like sixty men out there.”
“Nothing like the unexpected to test a man’s mettle,” Colonel Tye said.
“Or to make him soil his breeches,” Talako said.
The men laughed.
Let’s get up in the trees, so we can get a bird’s-eye view of this shindig,” Colonel Tye said. “Barbey.”
Barbey thrust his fingers into a thick oak tree. He then scaled the tree until he found a thick branch strong enough to hold his comrades’ weight. He then climbed back down. “Ig ah yog – “It’s all yours.”
Colonel Tye climbed the tree, using the gashes made by Barbey’s fingers as hand-and-footholds. Talako followed close behind him. They sat on the large branch and observed.
Barbey pulled branches from the tree and then covered himself as best he could with the wood and dying leaves.
####
There was no cover for the soldiers, however, except for the thin mist and the shadows of the trees that shifted with each howl of the wind.
The soldiers advanced, stepping carefully across the snow with their shoulders hunched low and the points of their knives trained on the flickering shadows in the forest that grew more distinct all the while.
Rococoa Page 25