by Tony Roberts
He got to his feet and turned. “With me, let’s go!” he called out and ran hard through the abandoned camp, leading his men on a full run to the other side where the rest were waiting. He slid into the ditch and came to rest alongside Captain Soderling. “Give them a volley, then come down the hill to the road. We’ll be waiting on the other side by the houses.”
“Right you are, sir.” Soderling was calmness itself.
Casca led the second rank down the steep hill to where the road that ran from Raway to Newmarket lay, running right to left. It was nothing but a dirt road but it was what the army used to march on. Houses lined the road, stretching off into the distance in both directions, each surrounded by a wooden fence enclosing their parcel of land. On the other side of the houses the land gradually rose on either side of a road that led north towards Westfield where General Washington and the rest of the army were supposed to be. Fifty yards up the road the cleared area ended and the woods began.
Casca and his men skidded round the houses and crouched in their shelter, reloading frantically. “Give our boys covering fire when they get off the skyline,” Casca commanded and waited, peering up at the lip of the hill where the backs of Soderling and his men could be seen. Beyond the hill Casca could see more of the regiment retreating, exchanging shots with the advancing enemy.
A shattering sound of the volley brought his head back and he readied himself. Wiping his face, he discovered the scratch was nothing but a dried line of blood, so he licked his fingers and rubbed the coagulated stuff off his cheek. He knew there would be nothing but a faint line on his cheek. As far as he was concerned, he’d never had the wound. Nobody had apparently noticed so he didn’t worry. The Curse was working well once more.
Soderling led the first rank down the hill, hands on hats. Casca raised the muzzle of his firearm and watched the lip of the hill. Nothing yet. Soderling came panting up to him. “A hundred or more of them coming across the camp.”
“Very well, Captain. Get your men to the woods and be ready to give us covering fire. We’ll make a stand there. They’ll have fifty yards of nothing to get across.”
“Sounds good, sir.”
It wasn’t long before the enemy appeared at the top of the hill, dark silhouettes against the sky. Shots spat from the men from behind the houses and the Hessians threw themselves flat and began shooting down into the houses. Windows shattered, planks split and screams began to come from one or two of them. Casca grimaced; the civilians were either frightened or hurt, but he couldn’t spare the time to find out which. “Lieutenant Connors, take squads one and three and get to the trees, now!”
Half the men peeled away and began running for the tree line and Soderling’s men while the rest fired up at the opposition, hoping to put them off. “Squads two and four, ready to go on my command,” he said, gathering his legs underneath him.
He waited until a couple of shots had smashed into the houses then yelled, springing to his feet and pounding hard across the road, around the houses on the other side of the street and through their gardens at the rear, vaulting the fence and leading his men up the slope to the trees.
Plunging into the shaded shelter of the leafy canopies, he knelt against the bole of an oak and gathered his breath. “Anyone hurt or dead?” he queried.
“No, sir,” Connors said, his chest rising and falling, sweat bathing his face. “It’s damned warm, sir.”
“It’s going to get damned hot if they get across this open ground, Lieutenant. Arrange the men in pairs; one to shoot, the other to reload. Independent fire.”
“Sir,” and Connors vanished around the tree, barking orders. Soderling did likewise the other way.
Casca peered down the slope to the houses. The enemy were coming down the hill and occupying the houses, entering them and taking up posts in the rear upper rooms to use them as firing positions. Fifty yards was close enough to hit someone, so Casca advised the men to keep their heads down and keep on shooting at the puffs of smoke that came from the houses.
The heat of the day grew and the smoke and movements added to the men’s discomfort. The exchange of shots went on at distance but nobody wanted to risk breaking cover. Three of Casca’s unit had been wounded and they had been taken to the rear where they were being tended to by the surgeons. Casca didn’t know whether they would survive their tender ministrations or not.
After an hour a runner came looking for Casca. He was called over and knelt next to the Eternal Mercenary. “Sir, orders from Lord Stirling. You are to pull back a hundred yards to the next hill on the road.”
Casca acknowledged. The ground further back was more broken and favored the defenders even better. It seemed the delaying action had worked, for the British and Hessians weren’t looking to push too hard. Howe and Cornwallis clearly had concerns about losing too many men, a lesson learned from Breed’s Hill at Boston two years before.
Casca waved Soderling back with half of the men, and ordered the rest to keep on shooting, then peel away in ones and twos. He was one of the last to pull back, shooting one last time at a window, then scuttling off deeper into the wood, following the backs of his men making their way as swiftly as they would up the slope.
After five minutes Casca emerged from the trees and joined the rest of his men, walking backwards up the hill, keeping a wary eye on the houses below them. They could see the soldiers milling about, emerging from the houses now that no shooting was coming their way. The land rose sharply and Casca could see a prepared position where the rest of the brigade had dug in and were waiting for any advance. Off to the right the land fell away and a watercourse ran along the bottom while to the left the ground dipped and rose in a series of ridges, covered in thick tangled vegetation. To either side of the hill the terrain was hard to pass; Lord Stirling had chosen his position well.
Casca reported to Colonel Greystock who commended him on his performance and told him to take a rest along with his men and await further orders. They gratefully threw themselves down at the rear of the hill and found the water canteens.
“Do you think they’ll press on here, sir?” Connors asked, taking a deep breath.
Casca shrugged. “I wouldn’t, it’s far too hard for a frontal assault. They’d lose too many men. I don’t think Howe can afford heavy losses. He was looking to catch us out on a limb and smash us, but we’ve gotten away.”
He wiped his brow and lay back, closing his eyes. The British may have the battlefield but they’d failed in their objective.
CHAPTER THREE
Major Sir Richard Eley, Baronet of Sandwell, was impatient. He slapped his gloves against his thigh and peered over the ship’s rail at the shoreline, a few hundred yards distant. “When will we be landing, Captain?” he demanded of the navy commander stood next to him.
“When General Howe decides, Major. I’m sorry. We’re as eager to land and get you landlubbers off as you are to reach terra firma. My ships aren’t in good shape and if we keep on sailing up and down this river as if we were at the damned review at Spithead then we’ll all end up on the bottom.”
“Howe’s a damned fool,” Sir Richard declared. “All we need to do is to land, trounce those rapscallions and hang a score or two, then proper rule will be restored to these people. All this dithering is reducing my men to vomiting ghosts of themselves.”
“You’re a Tory, then, Major?” the captain said in a neutral voice.
“Absolutely! Perish the thought I should be a Whig! Held the Sandwell constituency a few years back until some damned Whig stole it from me. Bah! Elections. Damned fool games. Hereditary rule is the only proper form of government. We’re born to it, not like these common rabble who rise up out of the sewers and think they’re our equals! What’s the world coming to, Captain?”
“I don’t know, Major,” the captain said calmly, then put his telescope to his eye and scanned the shore, looking for any sign of American artillery. The blustering man alongside him was an irritant – but as a gentleman the
captain would have to put up with him. Besides, being a titled man, who knew when knowing him and being courteous might come in use later on in life? So he would humor him and put up with his attitude which, to be fair, smacked of feudalism.
“Neither do I,” Sir Richard said with feeling. “Give the commoners a say in government and what do they do? Vote for the wrong people. They have absolutely no idea of what’s best for them, damned fools. I tell you, Captain, no good can come of this.” Sir Richard was also impatient for another good reason. The letter in his waistcoat pocket. Received a month ago from Philadelphia. He was going to be a father! The thought was too much to bear. Rose, his wife, was pregnant! He had to get to Philadelphia and take his son – and wife – and put them in his household where he would be able to keep them from any harm – or to stop Rose from escaping again.
A son! Now if it were to be a boy, then the child would mean the title would go to him, and ultimately the boy would inherit Sandwell Manor and the land around it. Sir Richard’s stomach turned queasy at the very thought. The one fly in the ointment, so to speak, were the debts. If Sir Richard could pay them off then all would be well. To do that a man had to die, Ebenezer Maplin – Rose’s father. A wealthy merchant, a man through whom Sir Richard had managed to secure a lucrative munitions contract with the government, supplying the army via New York.
Once Ebenezer died, then the Maplin inheritance would fall to his only child, Rose, the woman whom he’d married for precisely that reason; and through her the profits would come to him so he could pay off the debts on the Sandwell estate. The future would be secure.
But he had to get to Philadelphia. And Howe, once he stopped his blithering fooling around on the rivers, would make for the American capital. That much he knew. Sir Richard just had to get to the city amongst the first units to catch Rose before she could slip away.
* * *
Casca and the Continental Army were kept waiting for the British landing until the middle of August. Then a messenger came galloping into the camp and handed an urgent message to General Washington. Within minutes all officers were called to their respective divisional command tents. Casca went with the other company commanders to Lord Stirling and they crowded into his tent, shuffling awkwardly in the stifling heat.
Lord Stirling sat on a canvas chair behind a foldaway table. “Gentlemen,” he nodded to the assembled Colonels and Majors, “we are to march at once to Philadelphia. The British have been sighted off the Maryland coast and it is clear they are going to land behind our lines. All these preparations have come to naught, damn it!”
The officers muttered for a moment. Too much time had been spent digging ditches and preparing positions to delay the advance of General Howe through predicted lines of march. All the roads from the Delaware had been given such special treatment, and now Howe had made all that superfluous.
Stirling sighed. “No matter. The British will still have to land, set up a supply camp and then march on Philadelphia. We can be between them and the city before they get there. Now go to your units and get them to pack everything up. We must be out of here by midday.”
Casca jogged back to where Soderling and Connors were waiting expectantly. “Get the company packed,” he said. “We’re to march off to Philly by midday.”
The camp was transformed as if it were an ant’s nest that had been kicked over. Men ran here and there, a seeming confused chaotic mess, but everyone knew where they were going and what they had to pick up. Tents began to collapse like a field of wheat before the scythe and fires were kicked into extinction. Muskets were grabbed and shouldered and packs crammed with equipment and flung onto backs. There was a last minute rush to the latrines and men found there were no spare places so a whole line of men stood on the bank that marked the edge of camp, urinating into the undergrowth that surrounded it.
Sergeants shouted at the men, officers tutted and waited for the maelstrom to come to order, horses shied and whinnied and men grunted and called out that they were ready and reporting for duty.
Satisfied that all were there who were fit – there were always those too unwell to take part in active duty – the company was ordered to shoulder arms and march out of camp. Casca, once again on foot, led the men out of the camp and along the road to Philadelphia.
The capital was full of cheering people and some women threw flowers at the troops as they marched through. Congress turned it into a full scale parade, ordering Washington to slow the men’s rate of march down as they went through the wide streets so that the citizens could see the large numbers of troops and how well they were turned out.
The men grinned and were heartened by the show of support they were receiving as they passed through. Casca walked along the side of his troops, getting special attention as he was an officer. As he was passing through Front Street, close to the Philadelphia Coffee House, a voice called out to him. “Major Lonnergan! Over here!”
He looked round and saw to his surprise Claire Kelly waving at him frantically. Casca stopped and allowed the rest of his unit to pass. As Captain Soderling, marching at the rear, came past, Casca nodded in Claire’s direction. “I’m wanted, Captain. Will be back shortly. Carry on, I’ll catch you up.”
“Very good, sir,” Soderling said in a disapproving voice.
Casca nudged aside a couple of townsfolk and took Claire’s hand. “What’s the matter, Miss Kelly?”
Claire leaned forward and spoke into Casca’s ear. “Rose has given birth to a boy! Yesterday. She’s going to call him Cass!”
Casca looked at Claire in surprise. “Well, I’ll be damned. Is she, by hell? I’ll have to somehow come and see her – if we can work round that fool Lowe, that is.”
“Don’t worry,” Claire smiled, “I’ll arrange it. He’s always away during the day and I’m betting he won’t wish to be around much now the kid’s born. If ye ask me, Case, I’m thinking he wants Rose out and back with Sir Richard.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Casca exploded. “What’s he got for brains? What does Katherine say about it?”
“She’s against it of course, but Lowe’s such an arse and I’m thinking he’s going to get his way. He’ll invite Sir Richard to the house to pick up the kid. He doesn’t like children, ye see.”
“Damned man.” Casca thought for a moment, ignoring the pats on the backs from the enthusiastic townsfolk. “Once we’re in camp I’ll write to you at your home and we’ll work out some scheme for me to see Rose and Katherine. Alright?”
“Ye’re on,” Claire agreed. “Now ye’d be best on ye’re way now.”
Casca kissed her hand and touched the brim of his hat and trotted after his men, his mind whirling. So Sir Richard was a father; that would make his determination all the more intense. Lowe was playing with fire, not to mention putting Rose in grave danger. He was considering whether Rose would be better off away from that household. And what if the British took control of the city? What then? Sir Richard would certainly seek to get his hands on his son, the next Baronet Sandwell. Oh dear God.
They marched to a place called Wilmington, down the Delaware River, blocking any advance the now landed British would make directly to the American capital. Casca joined in digging the defenses, much to the amusement of his men and the disapproval of his fellow officers. He cared not for all he wanted to do was to keep himself busy, and the hard work in the sun of late August also felt good. He stripped off his shirt and toiled hard, the sweat glistening on his chest and back and he knew the men and officers were looking at his scars. His body was a mass of criss-crossed lines, many of them a legacy of his wars in the centuries past; wars for and against Islam, Viking raids, the many times he’d fought for Rome and her offspring, Byzantium, the Crusades, wars in the far east for Japanese warlords, Chinese emperors and of course, the Mongols. Wars fought for England against the French. They just went on and on.
Then had come gunpowder and the small but deadly projectiles it spat out. Some of his wounds were bullet wound
s but he found they didn’t leave as big a scar as the swords and other bladed weapons had.
He paused and leaned on his spade, looking at the soil he’d excavated and piled up in front of the ditch. It was light colored which indicated that once it had been sand under the sea. Some geologist had once told him that, a British pioneer in the army he’d been in during the campaigns of Marlborough. How they knew that he didn’t know but increasingly things of the past interested him, since he himself was a relic of the past.
“Sir, where did you get those scars?” one of the men asked, leaning on the handle of his shovel. The other men were staring in a morbid fascination at him.
“Bear attacked me once,” Casca grinned, “and some of the other wounds I got fighting for the Prussians in Europe. Bayonets cause a nasty injury.” Best to lie about them – it wouldn’t do to say something along the lines of Teotec priests, Gothic warriors, Persian cataphracts, Saxon huscarls and Turkish sipahis.
“You’ve been whipped, Major Lonnergan,” one of the officers of a neighboring regiment observed. “Those marks are unmistakable.”
“You’re right, Captain. Punishment for being a patriot.” Casca decided to embellish his tale of rivalry with Sir Richard Eley. “I fell foul of a particularly nasty British officer called Major Sir Richard Eley of the 67th foot. It seems I stole his woman.”
The men laughed. Even the captain smiled. “Punishment for being a patriot?”
“Indeed; why should I allow a good American woman be taken by a Britisher?”
More laughs. The captain nodded and looked away, finding the marks on Casca’s body a little too gruesome for his liking.