Infernal Revolutions

by Stephen Woodville

  ‘They were a dispirited lot,’ said Sophie, as we rode out unescorted to the Paulus Hook landing stage. ‘Which Feet were they again?’

  ‘Not Feet, Foot. The 47th anyway.’

  ‘And which Foot are you in?’

  ‘The 85th.’

  ‘What number does it go up to?’

  ‘It stops at us.’

  ‘Well, I hope the spirit rises with the numbers, otherwise you have lost this war, sweetie.’

  ‘You should see them in battle though,’ I felt obliged to defend. ‘Ferocious.’

  ‘Seen them in battle, have you?’

  ‘No-one living has, except themselves; they are that destructive. Anyway, everyone is subdued at this time in the morning.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  Indeed she wasn’t. Her face glowed, her eyes shone, she sat bolt upright in the saddle, and she emitted a particularly strong bouquet of blackcurrant. I gazed at her in admiration, the complete woman.

  ‘Excited, sweetie?’ I enquired, patting her thigh.

  ‘Enormously, my dear. I cannot believe that all this is taking place so close to Hackensack – ‘tis another world.’

  There was even more rapture a few minutes later, when we turned the corner of the road and saw laid out below us a great swathe of the mighty Hudson River, on which sailed proprietarily what looked like every galleon, frigate, schooner and sloop in the British Navy. Having never seen the river myself in proper daylight before, I was just as impressed as Sophie, and I marvelled at its beauty, breadth and utility. Broad at the mouth as it washed into the Atlantic Ocean, the river appeared to narrow above Manhattan, until it rounded a bend and disappeared from view behind a wooded promontory. Along this upper length, variegated shades of brown, red, pink, yellow and gold foliage enrobed both banks, while directly across from us sparkled the city of New York, still with enough of its beautiful skyline left to excite the most jaded traveller. Sophie’s eyes lit up as though she were viewing Heaven itself.

  ‘So, do you still think we’re going to lose this war, my dear?’ I said with great pride, as I surveyed the glorious array of floating firepower.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sophie pleasantly, looking down with interest at our immediate destination, the Paulus Hook landing stage, whose difference in daylight was astounding. ‘By a mile. You might win a few early victories, but our boys – and more, the size of our country – will whip you in the end.’

  ‘Yes, the terrain might,’ I said grudgingly, not willing to give any credence to the view that Colonials were better than Englishmen, ‘but I hardly think your boys will.’

  ‘We’ll see, won’t we?’ said Sophie, a look of infuriating smugness on her face, which I tried to remove by airing a vision I had been thinking about for some hours.

  ‘No, we may not actually see anything, my dear. Except in print. Because long before the war is over we may well be safely ensconced in England.’

  The smug look on Sophie’s face quickly changed to one of horror, and for the first time since my rescue the sparkle went out of her eyes. I tried to revive it with an onrush of rhetoric.

  ‘Yes, yes, I can see it clearly now. I will come down to breakfast one morning in my dressing gown and nightcap, yawning in preparation for another hard but successful day’s wrestle with the quill. You will be in the kitchen, baking the day’s bread with a baby at your breast. I will pick up the week’s Sussex Advertiser, and there it will be – one month late – Terrain Beats British. Colonies Gone. Commons In Uproar. You will give a little whoop of joy, and say I told you so, and we will reminisce about our meeting and the part we played on the pages of history, and then we will both get on with vastly more important things, viz. our happy domestic life together, and the bringing up of our children.’

  By this time not just her eyes but her whole demeanour had lost its sparkle, so that I had to enquire if anything was wrong.

  ‘Just a little colic, sweetie.’

  We both knew that this was untrue, and we both knew that the other knew that it was untrue, but it conveniently postponed a row, and allowed me to change the topic, which I did with a fair amount of gloom, my tentative proposal of marriage having been effectively rebuffed.

  ‘You need food, my dear. In fact we both do. ‘Tis a long time since we ate. Come, let us get across to Manhattan as quickly as we can, there to fill our bellies with cabbage and real English chops.’

  Each of us preoccupied with our own thoughts, we made our way in silence down to the landing stage, where we waited for the arrival of our ferry to Manhattan. As we did so, we stood chatting with a little crowd of other misfits, all of whom remarked on the glory of the weather and the scenery, but were strangely silent about the war. I thought that only two factors could account for this omission: either all had had enough of it, and felt a compensatory desire to discuss the eternal verities of life, or all were spies like me, from one side or the other.

  Whatever the reason, we were still waiting two hours later. By now thoroughly sick of eternal verities and magnificent views, we applauded sarcastically when Fatty Van Vorst’s ferry came weaving through the shipping, missing enormous men o’ war by what looked like inches. As it neared I could make out the ursine figurehead of Cedric, complete with aureole of leaping fleas.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ said suave Fatty, throwing a rope around a mooring post and disembarking with the lumbering Cedric. ‘But nature in the form of a monstrous fat whore delayed me.’

  The more delicate in our group, faces aghast at either Cedric, the state of the ferry, or the state of the clearly debauched Fatty, simply turned around and rode back into the hinterland of New Jersey. The less refined, the more foolish and the plain desperate – categories which included Sophie and I – stayed where we were and waited for the ill-looking passengers to disembark. One of them, a frail man with wet lips and collapsed cheeks, made plain his need for a horse, though for what reason was left open to the imagination, as he did not look as though he could ride one. Having no emotional attachment to ours, and thinking we would not need it again anyway, we quickly concluded a deal with the oddity, and pocketed the money. Then, seeing that Sophie did not like the look of the slippery gangplank, I gave her a piggyback and we staggered on board. As we did so, Cedric stood on his hind legs and made little circular movements with his front paws, for all the world as if ushering us to our seats.

  As it was likely that some of our fellow passengers might be American spies or militia members, I was relieved that Fatty was too far gone to recognize me. Cedric, however, was a different matter. He kept darting suspicious glances in my direction as we ventured out into the middle of the river, and perhaps would have swiped me overboard had not a gun door shot open when passing directly beneath the massive bow of HMS Hurricane. This startled Cedric, and he hardly had time to look up before there came the flash, fire, and hellish roar of a cannon ejaculating. There followed in the smoky confusion the no less hellish roar of Cedric agitated, and soon he was upright on his feet, head back, teeth bared and paws swinging like mallets. The ferry rocked wildly, ladies screamed, gentlemen screamed louder, and all seemed lost, until fish rained down from laughing sailors on the upper gundeck. Fortunately, this gesture of appeasement did the trick, for Cedric – whose hunger was obviously greater than his ancestral fear of being shot in the woods – instantly calmed and started ripping away contentedly at the flapping refreshments.

  ‘Ye scoundrels!’ called up Fatty when a modicum of order had been restored. ‘May General Washington skin your hides!’

  Such a blatant declaration of partisanship was quite shocking to a natural dissembler like myself, and instinctively I made frantic He’s not with me! gestures to the jeering sailors, for the general safety of us all. This was disapproved of by the colonials in the boat, especially my darling Sophie, and I was made acutely aware of the pain of divided loyalties. Should I side with my wife, my countrymen, or Right In General? ‘Twas a new dilemma that would no do
ubt continue to tax me until I was on that ship back to England, and perhaps even beyond that if Sophie returned with me. The war, if nothing else, had given me much to think about.

  Sophie on my back, I jumped onto the Manhattan wharf with all the confidence of one who had nearly slipped off it not six weeks earlier. Friction this time deigned to favour me, however, and I managed to stagger several yards up the wharf before buckling at the knees with my burden. This amused the idle crowd of onlookers, but I was so relieved not to be bobbing in the Hudson that I was impervious to their ridicule. On the contrary, I felt elated that my ordeals were over. A successful Orpheus, I had retrieved my Eurydice from the Underworld of New Jersey, and now all that remained was a quick ride home on the back of a westerly, and a lifetime of lawful lovemaking – subject, of course, to PP’s keeping of his promise. Indeed, ‘twas eagerness for reassurance on this point that dictated the order in which we conducted our necessary business affairs.

  ‘You will like Pete,’ I said to Sophie, dragging her away from the cowering mob. ‘He is that rare creature – an approachable English aristocrat.’

  ‘Or perhaps by now that even rarer creature,’ panted Sophie, in between stick-thrusts at a few of the braver souls, ‘a grilled English aristocrat.’

  This was true, and in my desperation to find out I hurriedly led the way through the singed streets to the place where Pete was last resident. Along the way, however, we passed so many chop houses that we could resist the smell of them no more, and stopped to dine at one. The result was the most atrocious meal I had ever had in my life, at the most extortionate price, so that we left feeling both grimy and robbed.

  ‘That was probably Pubescent Pete we were eating,’ observed Sophie, unsuccessfully trying to wipe grease off her mouth and hands. ‘Truly, Sir, that was a most disagreeable experience. Indeed, if that is the sort of cooking England is foisting upon us, then there needs to be a revolution in the culinary world as well.’

  ‘There is one underway,’ I said, bitterly aware that my advocacy of English supremacy had been undermined yet again, ‘and its leader, if you remember rightly, is Dolly Potter. Squirrel pies, geese with cherries and boiled maple syrup on snow.’

  ‘Far superior to the muck we have just been served.’

  ‘Aye well,’ I was forced to concede, ‘’twas not of the best quality, I agree. But to eat the best English meal you must actually be in England.’

  ‘Must you?’ said Sophie, with devastating intonation. ‘’Tis a long way to go to risk disappointment.’

  Again I kept my counsel, wishing to postpone the inevitable confrontation for as long as possible. So, in brooding silence once more, we walked on, until we came to a rough-looking area that I was sure had not been there before the fire. This was located at the foot of Broad Street in the south-west corner of the town, and seemed to contain every drunk, derelict, prostitute and runaway slave in America. The sights, sounds and smells of the place rivalled even Portsmouth for horror. Street copulation thrived, as did begging, stealing, drunkenness and cruelty. Living quarters, such as they were, seemed to consist of hundreds of dirty tents, and the skeletal remains of burnt-out buildings.

  ‘Sodom and Gomorrah!’ was Sophie’s enthusiastic response to all of this.

  ‘Aye, life in the raw,’ I pontificated, ‘and the natural outcome of your little revolution. These poor people are victims of a war they do not understand.’

  ‘I wonder if that slave of the De Witt’s is here. What was his name?’

  ‘Elzevir Black,’ I coughed, as the smoke from hundreds of camp fires began to infiltrate my lungs. ‘Well, I suppose he might be, but now is not the time to start looking. The sealer of our Fate awaits.’

  Reluctantly, Sophie dragged her eyes off the bare chests of passing negroes, and we traversed down quieter streets where the sound of our own footsteps on the cobblestones was the only noise. Indeed, there was nothing to suggest a war was going on at all until we turned a corner and had our ears assailed by a stirring parcel of drums and fifes. Looking around, we saw a battalion of redcoats goosestepping towards us with great precision and purpose. Pinning ourselves to the wall to let the automatons pass, we saw from the numerals on their hats that we were in the presence of the 79th Foot, an outfit formerly so ramshackle that even my own battalion had mocked it.

  ‘Luck,’ I whispered to Sophie. ‘They aren’t as efficient as they look. You watch, any moment now one of them will march off at right angles to the others, or fall over drunk.’

  We watched and waited, and I was proved a poor pundit. My words withered on the vine, and my hopes faded with the sound of the boots.

  ‘So is that what you do when you’re not spying?’

  ‘Did do, Sophie,’ I said distractedly, sticking my head round the corner in the forlorn hope I might witness a distant error. ‘My marching days are over.’

  ‘I bet you looked lovely in a scarlet jacket.’

  ‘I suppose I did,’ I said complacently, ‘I never really thought about it.’

  ‘More exciting than selling books, though, sweetie. Or writing poems. You must admit that.’

  ‘No I do not admit that,’ I retorted with great petulance. ‘It might have been before I met you, when I had no hope in the world. But now I have you with me what further excitement could I wish for?’

  ‘People need adventures, Harry, to keep them interested in life.’

  ‘There will be adventures enough in Brighthelmstone, sweetness, don’t you worry. We will dance naked in our garden, we will tar and feather Frenchmen, we will talk dirty to each other, anything you want – but let us have adventures together, and not put our lives in the hands of people who do not care about us.’

  I knew, of course, what was on Sophie’s mind – that she was having doubts about returning with me to England – and though usually I did not like to interfere with the mechanisms God had wound up and set running, after my weakness with her at the De Witt household I was determined to act for what I was sure would be her own good. Staying in America, with her vitality and versatility, would inevitably end in her early death, and probably mine too. Grimfaced, resolve not feeling pleasant, I hurried Sophie on to Pete’s. At last, after a few false turnings, I located the street by the Presbyterian Church on its corner, and the house by the presence of a guard at the door. I saw as we approached closer, however, that it was not just any old guard, but one of my favourites, and immediately my gloom started to lift.

  ‘Thomas Pomeroy!’ I called. ‘How’s your hernia, Sir?’

  By the look of bewilderment on Thomas’s face, I had caught him plumb in the middle of a juicy daydream. It took several seconds for his eyes to focus.

  ‘Why! ‘Tis Harry!’

  ‘I was looking for you at Paulus Hook. Thought you might have been with the Invalids there.’

  ‘I am working on it, my dear boy, indeed I am.’

  With a lack of flash that endeared him to me all the more, Thomas carefully propped his musket up against the wall, made little Stay! gestures to it with his hands, then turned and shook my hands warmly.

  ‘Is Pete in?’ I asked, even as I shook.

  ‘Yes, he is resting in his room; you know how tired he gets. Though between you and me, the fire has turned him into a veritable salamander. He is much tougher than he used to be, and quite snaps people’s heads off if they so much as look at him queerish. And talking of the fire, we thought you had started it, and then run off. Very ominous, the timing of your disappearance.’

  ‘Started the fire? Me? Why, no, Sir. I have been…’ I cupped my hand around my mouth and continued in a whisper, ‘…spying for Georgie Boy…’

  ‘What, George Washington?’

  ‘No, thou varlet! Farmer George.’

  ‘Monstrous! So you have met real Rebels then?’

  ‘Met ‘em, drunk with ‘em, danced with ‘em, even captured one of ‘em. Look…’

  I handed Sophie forward for inspectio
n. Thomas wiped his hand clean on his jacket, and shook her proffered hand very courteously.

  ‘Though to be accurate, Thomas,’ I beamed proudly, ‘’twas Sophie that captured me.’

  ‘I can see why,’ said Thomas, ‘Oh yes I can indeed.’

  This was a remark as gratifying to me as it was presumably to Sophie, reassurance at last that my taste was not defective.

  ‘I must introduce you to Mrs Pomeroy, my dear, and you can have nice conversations together about cooking and darning and the right way to braise a chop. English cooking, you know, is the finest in the world.’

  Sophie gave me a sidelong look of utter disgust. The peace, I fancied, was kept purely for my sake.

  ‘So how is Anne?’ I quickly went on. ‘Still missing England?’

  ‘Dreadfully, Harry. Spends most of the day working as a nurse in the military hospital, or handwashing shirts at a rate of a penny a score. The rest of the time she just cries, especially since the news came in that we are to move against the Rebels at Fort Washington soon.’ Thomas’s jaw suddenly dropped. ‘Oh dear, should I have said that?’ he continued, as he threw worried glances at Sophie.

  ‘Say what you like, Thomas. Sophie is more of an observer than a Rebel these days. Is that not right, sweetie?’

  Clearly annoyed at having the Little Woman role foisted upon her, she snarled threateningly. I determined not to push my luck with her any more.

  ‘No relations at Fort Washington, my dear?’ enquired Thomas with some concern.

  ‘None anywhere,’ said Sophie.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Thomas. ‘Having none at Fort Washington, I mean. Dead dogs, those, I fear, especially as the Hessians are being asked to lead the attack again. However much I try to reassure Mrs Pomeroy that there’s little chance of my being called into action because of this…’ Thomas patted his groin, and winced superbly, ‘…she is becoming chronically fretful, a state which even the tender felicitations of young Peter cannot dissolve.’

  ‘But don’t worry, Harry,’ he went on brightly, trying to lift the mood, ‘You shouldn’t be called upon to do much either, except perhaps dig a few Continental graves.’