Accidental Warrior: The Unlikely Tale of Bloody Hal

by Colin Alexander

  “A strange tale you tell, Hal Christianson,” said Verplanck when Hal had finished. He turned back to look at the maps on the table. Hal stepped closer to look with him. Verplanck’s staff, intent upon at the maps, made no move to stop him.

  “We broke the Provi Army of Northern Nassau in battle along the Willenstadt Road two days ago. Harry Blackburn found their weakness—a shaky militia—crushed them with a tremendous charge, and they collapsed.” Verplanck was speaking to the map, or himself, as much as to anyone else in the room.

  “Yes,” said an officer across the table, “and if the ranjy-blanjy grenadiers had done half as much on their left, we would have caught them in a double envelopment. They would be destroyed.”

  “The fight was just as hot on our right,” shot back Captain Michiels.

  “Enough!” The one word from Verplanck ended the verbal sparring, if not the unfriendly glares around the table. “We are fighting the Provis, not each other.” He locked eyes, in turn, with each man around the table. The glares subsided. “The Provis lost cohesion and scattered west and southwest,” he said to Bel. “We are in pursuit, but I do not think they pose any threat to Nieuw Amsterdam now.”

  “Thank you for that,” she said. “But why were both of you on the Willenstadt Road at all? The news from Nieuw Amsterdam cannot have traveled that fast. In fact, you must have moved even before the revolt began.”

  Verplanck’s smile was close to a grimace. “We had heard that Harmsworth intended to remove me and my senior officers from the Army of the North. It seemed that he felt they would need an army to do that and even that, as it turns out, was not enough. When we called our militia and moved south to meet them, I felt like Caesar crossing the Rubicon. But now you tell me Massachusetts has made it more complicated.” He looked back at the map, gathering his thoughts.

  Michiels spoke into the silence. “We should withdraw to Fort Orange. They have not told us where Massachusetts will advance and we cannot leave the position with only a weak guard.”

  An officer across the table laughed. “Typical ranjy-blanjy strategy. You lose; you retreat. You win; you retreat. Always moving to the rear.”

  “If we lose Fort Orange, the whole upper Hudson valley is gone!” Michiels shouted. “Leave it to a Holier-than-thou to leave his base wide open. You probably leave your wife the same way. I wonder who sees her while you’re away.”

  “You sniveling little arsewipe . . .”

  Hands went to sword hilts; oaths sounded around the table. The thud of Verplanck’s fist hitting the table brought it all to a sudden halt. That and the glare on his face were enough to bring the room to silence.

  “I have said ‘enough.’ If I need to say it again, this staff will relieve the men cleaning out the cesspits. Is that clear?” Murmured apologies came from around the table. “Now.” Verplanck paused and traced a path on the map with his finger. “Meneer Christianson has told us that Massachusetts has called only a few first-response militia to supplement their standing forces. So, they mean to attack swiftly and hope the blow will fall before word gets out—it must be a single heavy fist. They will not try the north, toward Fort Orange. The roads east–west in the mountains are poor, and snow-covered still. An army would need preparation to move that way, preparation they have not had time for. Even if they would chance it, looking for surprise, if they knew somehow that we had moved, they need to think of the French out of Louisbourg. They will remember 1961.” He looked up at his staff. “They will not offer their flank to the French. No, gentlemen, the red and white flag will advance southwest along the Post Road. The border fortifications will not hold them. Fort Donaldson, perhaps—it has a commanding position on the Housatonic—but it is undermanned these days.”

  “But that was why we came here!” Hal exclaimed. “If you can move your army to Fort Donaldson instead of bringing it to Nieuw Amsterdam where, maybe, we don’t need it now, or chasing these Provis, you can stop them.”

  “The general does not need a woodsranger to map his strategy,” Michiels said angrily. He stepped in front of Hal and pushed him back. “You speak when spoken to and stay where you are put. An army does not change direction like a man on horseback, and this army has just fought a major battle, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  It might have been the condescension in Michiels’ voice, or maybe it was the stupidity of what he said. Hal stood his ground and retorted, “Yes, I saw the battlefield and I know this army has fought. But armies do that, you know, and, when they have to, they will march from one battle to the next, or will if they have leadership.”

  Hal thought Michiels was going to go for his throat, but the officer who had spoken derisively about the Dutch stepped between them. “This is not your concern, Smith,” Michiels protested.

  Smith ignored him. “So, woodsranger, you would turn this army around right now and march it east to block the Lobsters at Fort Donaldson?”

  Hal nodded.

  “Well, these are good troops and, if Eugen ordered it, they would do it. But it would be futile. Even if we sent the wounded back to Fort Orange, you have not thought about how long it would take to cover the distance with the wagons and the cannon. This army is too big for the Hudson ferries near here to bring it across to the east bank. We will need to turn north, for the closest bridge over the Hudson. If the Lobsters are doing what your Swedish spy said, they will be at Donaldson days before we could get there. Then what? The fort is gone and we have an exhausted army facing Massachusetts in the open. I don’t like the Holier-than-thous better than any other man, but going against the Lobsters like that is asking to be beat.”

  Hal wanted to vomit. All the danger, all the hardship, and it would not matter if Verplanck ended up listening to his squabbling officers. He might as well have stayed in Nieuw Amsterdam.

  That could not be. “No!” he shouted. Verplanck stared at him, Michiels put a hand on his saber, the other staff officers started to move toward him. What was he going to say while he still had a chance to say anything? Think and talk fast, he thought.

  “Then don’t try to make it there with every last wagon. You have rifles, I know you have rifles. I know that because you got the rifles that Bel and Fons ten Eyck took from the Swedes at Nieuwmarkt. Send just the riflemen. They can move fast, and if you can get those rifles into the fort, maybe it can hold long enough for the rest of you to get there.”

  “The two rifle battalions!” Smith shouted. “Blackburn is dead.”

  “That will be the day!” came from Michiels immediately after.

  “And who shall we set in command of that troop—the Blessed Virgin, perhaps?” That shout came from another officer on the other side of the table. The others laughed.

  Hal did not see what was so funny, and was about to say so, when he realized that Eugen Verplanck was standing there silently, staring at him. Eugen’s eyes had never left Hal’s face. Finally, he spoke.

  “Be at peace, gentlemen,” said Verplanck. “There will be plenty of time for fighting, and better opponents than ourselves. Whether the lad should have spoken does not matter.” He paused; no one else spoke.

  “Gentlemen,” Verplanck continued, “it has been a long few days, so let us not mind the excesses. This matter requires some discussion before we make a decision.” He turned back to Hal. “Please leave us for a moment. You can wait by that tree over there.” He indicated a large oak about fifty yards away from the house.

  “Has anyone ever told you,” Bel asked when they were seated in the shade of the oak, “that you have difficulty knowing when to keep your mouth shut?”

  “But that is the right answer,” Hal protested. “They can’t just let the Lobsters through. It’s obvious what would happen.”

  “Yes, and I think Verplanck might have found that answer without your help and without nearly having a fight among his staff. He didn’t win this battle and others before it by being stupid.”

  They were left alone for a long time. The afternoon sun grew warm and
the council of war around the table in the house grew rather warmer, to judge by the raised voices. Finally, it ended with a small clump of officers, led by Verplanck, walking toward them. Hal and Bel stood up, glanced anxiously at each other, and waited.

  “Well, Hal Christianson,” said Verplanck, “you seem to have created some argument among my staff.” A little smile grew on his face. Set against the obvious discomfiture on the faces of Michiels, Smith and the third officer with them, that smile said that the general had a plan that he liked, but his staff did not.

  “As it happens,” Verplanck went on, “I agree with you. We do have two battalions armed with the new rifles, and if we can reinforce Donaldson with them, we may just hold the fort until the main army comes up. There is, however, a little problem we have to solve first.”

  Verplanck’s face wore a broad smile now. Michiels looked like he was going to be sick.

  “Bel says that you are from Trans-Delaware, so maybe you are unaware of some of the politics in the Provisional Army today. English serve with English and Dutch serve with Dutch. It was inconceivable that the first shipment of rifles to the Army of the North should go to an English unit and not a Dutch unit, or to a Dutch unit and not an English one. We had enough rifles to equip two battalions, so we equipped one English and one Dutch. They do not serve in the same regiment, nor in the same division, for the English must have an English colonel and general and the same for the Dutch.” Verplanck paused and watched Hal’s face. Hal nodded.

  “Blackburn, God rest his soul, could have led both together,” Verplanck continued. “But he is dead and there is no other man in this army, save myself—and I am not always sure of that—who can command English and Dutch units together.” Verplanck’s expression belied his tone. Hal thought the man was going to laugh, but he could see nothing funny in what was being said.

  “Since the best chance to save Fort Donaldson is to put both rifle battalions together as a regiment and send it to Donaldson, and since there is no one in this army who can take command of such a unit, we must find someone who is not in the army to command it. Colonel Christianson, will you accept command of the First Anglo-Dutch Riflemen?”

  Hal’s jaw dropped. He searched Verplanck’s face, but the general just smiled back at him. He seemed to be enjoying the moment immensely.

  “That’s crazy!” Hal shouted.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Verplanck. “You were the first to say this was the way to save the fort and block the Massachusetts advance.”

  “Why?” Hal spluttered. “I’m not a soldier, not really, and I’m certainly not an officer. I don’t know what to do or how to do it, and they won’t listen to me if I try.”

  “You think that, Colonel?” Verplanck asked. Hal did not miss the fact that Verplanck had emphasized the word in calling him Colonel.

  Hal could only nod.

  “Well, let me tell you this,” Verplanck said. “If you had a wealthy father and he wanted to see his son in a pretty uniform, he could buy you a colonelcy. You could know less than you do now and it wouldn’t matter. He would pay the money and you would be a colonel. If it was a good regiment, you would have officers and men who would teach you most of what you needed to know, hopefully before you got you and them killed. Majors Boggs and van den Heyden are two of my best. The fact that one is a stiff-necked Englishman and the other a stiff-necked Dutchman, and that they can barely be in the same room together, is beside the point. Their battalions are excellent, that’s why they got the rifles. All you need to do is be Colonel Christianson who is, God bless it, neither English nor Dutch, so that they can accept you in command of this little regiment.”

  Hal stole a look at the three staff officers, all of them frowning.

  “Just ride in front until you get to Fort Donaldson,” Verplanck said. “Then you turn over command to the garrison commander and it will be his headache until the real English show up, which should be soon enough. Then you can retire from your glorious career in the Army of Nieuw Netherlands and receive my heartfelt thanks, if nothing else. Well, Colonel?” Eugen held out a folded sheet of paper. “I would hate to think that I wrote out your commission for nothing.”

  30

  The Accidental Colonel

  IT WAS ALL so ridiculous and it had all happened so fast. Hal stared at the image of himself in the dented metal mirror Johnny Haines held in front of him. The buckskin clothes he had worn since the morning after the revolt were gone. In their place was a costume. That was the only word he could find for it. Heavy wool pants were clayed white. Above them was a snow-white shirt of soft linen with ruffles at the neck and wrists. Most of the shirt was hidden now by the coat. That was made of even denser, heavier wool than the pants. It was dyed a bright orange, with white facings and all manner of brass buttons and metal straps. The epaulets at his shoulders, with their little tassels, stuck out so much that Hal felt the costume had wings. The only concession to practicality was a broad-brimmed leather hat, although even that had an orange, white and blue emblem on the crown that looked far too much like a target. Of course, the same garb, in varying states of cleanliness and order, was worn by all the officers from Michiels to Verplanck himself. On them, however, it looked serious. Hal thought he looked ridiculous. He sighed.

  “What’s wrong, sir?” asked Johnny. “I’ve scarcely seen an officer look as good, and we have plenty of them here.”

  Hal sighed again. Johnny Haines, who looked no more than fourteen years old, had materialized as if from thin air, identified himself as Eugen Verplanck’s aide, and began extracting the uniform Hal now wore from a large linen package. Hal’s protests were unavailing. Johnny was there to “help” him with the uniform. In no time at all, it seemed, Hal was standing in front of the mirror being complimented on his dashing appearance.

  “You do look right smart, Colonel.”

  “There’s more to being an officer than looking good in a uniform,” Hal said.

  “I know that, sir.” The boy’s face fell. “I know you’ve been in many battles and I know the general gave you the commission himself, and that’s a rare honor, sir, and I didn’t mean to make light of any of that. I just meant you cut a fine figure, as they say, and you do.”

  What could he say? That he was nothing more than a pretend officer for Verplanck, a nobody whom both English and Dutch could report to precisely because he was a nobody, whose appointment was a bandage for a self-inflicted wound? The boy was actually right. Hal looked like an officer in that uniform, and that was all that mattered.

  “I wasn’t criticizing you,” he said to Johnny. “Just don’t judge a man by how his uniform looks, that’s all.”

  “You sound like the general, sir. I heard him say something like that to Captain Michiels once. I haven’t really been in a battle myself, yet. I only saw a little of the action on the Willenstadt Road from the staff tent, but I’ll be in one soon. Then I’ll prove myself.”

  “Don’t wish for it too soon,” Hal said. “It’s not all that glorious.”

  Johnny looked down again and scuffed at the dirt with one boot. “Would you like to meet Major Boggs and Major van den Heyden? They’re waiting for you.”

  Said the wrong thing again, didn’t I? Maybe I should take the hint and go see these two, who must be so delighted they have been ordered to serve under me.

  The area around the farmhouse was clear and quiet. Verplanck and his staff had gone off to ready the army to turn around and march to another battle, the outcome of which would be chancier than the last. One man, though, was in the dining room that had served as the map room earlier. He was taller even than Hal, with the face of a hawk and a nose built as stoutly as the rest of him. He saluted as Hal walked in. Hal gave a salute that was good enough for the other to drop his hand.

  “Jan van den Heyden, Colonel,” the other said.

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Yes.” Van den Heyden hesitated. “I do not know quite what to say, Colonel. You are colonel of this n
ew regiment by the general’s order and that’s a fact. Still, I must tell you that had anyone but Verplanck ordered this, I would have refused, even if I had to resign.”

  “Thank you for being honest,” Hal said.

  “Yes, well, I am always that, sir. Our relationship is to last until we reach Fort Donaldson, I believe.”

  “That is what the general told me.”

  “So be it, then.”

  “Yes.” Hal was running out of things to say, but could not think of how to end the conversation. “I thought there was also another officer here to meet me.”

  Van den Heyden’s face twisted into a grimace. “That would be Major Boggs, Colonel. He is, I have no doubt, waiting outside for me to leave. It would take a direct order, I think, to have him in the same room with me, absent some dire need. Typical Holier-than-thou, if you will. No class at all, although he will fight his men well. By your leave, Colonel?”

  That was an obvious request to go, which Hal granted with a wave of his hand and much relief. No sooner had van den Heyden left than another entered. This man was short where van den Heyden had been tall, thin where van den Heyden had been broad, and sported curly black hair and beard where van den Heyden had been gray and clean-shaven.

  “You must be Major Boggs,” Hal said.

  “Yes, Colonel. Pleased to meet you.”

  It’s interesting how we all say ‘Pleased to meet you’ when we’re not, Hal thought. “I would have been more pleased to meet you both together.”

  “Yes, well, if it were that simple, the general wouldn’t have made you colonel of this regiment. The truth is, van den Heyden can scarcely abide having me in the same battle line, much less the same room. There should be no trouble once we’re on the march, though, and I can’t see having any now. Which is why I waited outside.”

  The interview with Boggs was nearly a duplicate of the one with van den Heyden. Indeed, the only difference was Boggs’ comment that the Dutch had no class. Hal watched the Englishman leave with a sense of relief. It was time to find Bel and, hopefully, some food.