Although too tired most of the time to think about Burnley Axelrod, an instinct for survival made me gravitate towards the centre of any parading group, thereby lessening my chances of being ridden down and butchered in a typically bold and unexpected cavalry charge. But the weeks passed without event, and soon I was as dead in body and soul as I had been before my excursion up the Hackensack. Then, gradually, the mood of the camp changed as the prospect of battle neared. The men became even quieter, tempers shortened, and the number of attempted desertions started to increase. Artillerymen began using in earnest the strange vocabulary of their trade, and the air filled with talk of demilunes, fleches, chandeleers, merlons, cheveaux de frise, caltrops, fraises, gabions, abatis, canisters, grape, shrapnel, buck and ball, swanshot, fascines, glacis, grasshoppers, howitzers, mortars, siege mortars, coehorns, linstocks, mattrosses, ravelins, redans, redoubts, saucissons and traverses. In equal and opposite reaction, Parson Blood – once he had recovered from the shock of my marriage – was particularly active with the vocabulary of his trade, to remind people that behind the fascinating words lay a grisly reality. But grisly or not, eventually the fateful day arrived, and the regiment prepared to move up to Fort Washington under the invisible command of Lord Cornwallis and the not-much-more-visible command of Pubescent Pete. I forced Burnley Axelrod into my mind more and more.
‘This is it then, sweetie,’ I said to Sophie, as the last of our paltry belongings were thrown onto the supply wagon, and we prepared to part, ‘Let us hope that my first engagement of the war will be my last – for though I may look like a soldier, I cannot admit to feeling like one.’
‘’Twill all be over by Christmas, say the experts,’ said Sophie, in a curiously muted voice, as she adjusted the straps of my knapsack.
‘Aye, let’s hope so, for then we can get on with our lives.’
‘You are not nervous, I hope?’
‘Nervous, me?’ I laughed, quaking with sadness and fear. ‘No, not I.’
‘Because if you are, remember my advice, and think of Burnley Axelrod.’
This was cold comfort, if the intention was warm.
‘Oh, I have been doing; he has been on my mind a great deal.’
Sergeant Mycock began to bawl out urgent commands along the lines, and it was time to move on.
‘Oh Harry!’ suddenly burst out Sophie, to my great surprise. ‘How I wish you were fighting on the right side!’
‘I suspect my contribution to the battle will make little difference to the outcome one way or the other, no matter whose side I am on.’
‘Perhaps not, but it would be very good if you were on the side of Liberty and Truth.’
‘Nobody is ever free,’ I said, quite doomladen, ‘and what is Truth? as Pontius Pilate once asked.’
Whatever it was, Sophie said no more, and we parted with many tender looks, and a great burden of sadness. All around us similar partings were taking place, so that the whole scene was a most melancholy and affecting one, which quite subdued us.
So, an unhappy band of brothers, we began our march northwards at four o’clock on the afternoon of 18th November, 1776. The sun was setting most beautifully over the huge sky of New Jersey, meaning that for once our red coats provided camouflage, even if it was only from Rebels lurking in the east. A little band of roguish boys ran alongside us, shouting and squealing with excitement, and this set me thinking of my own childhood, and my parents, and Brighthelmstone, and – Sophie notwithstanding – how it had all Gone Wrong, so that soon I was in a fearful vapour, and quite distraught. In an effort to relieve my symptoms I sought solace in the bold, manly faces of my fellow soldiers, only to find that they too seemed sunk in their own private thoughts and miseries, so that by the time we were over Harlem Creek, and out into the countryside, many seemed on the verge of tears. ‘Twas a truly grotesque troop, and it took me a long time to realize what the problem was.
‘Pete!’ I hissed out of the corner of my mouth, when Lieutenant Wriggle eventually trotted up alongside me, accompanied by his faithful hound. ‘Pete!’
Though Hartley’s ears pricked up, there was no reply from the Pocket Tempest himself, so I hissed again.
‘I cannot speak to you, Harry,’ he eventually hissed back without looking down from his horse. ‘I thought we had established that.’
‘Yes, we had, but I must just inform you that the men’s spirits are drooping back here. We are all sunk in misery. And you know why that is, do ye not?’
The only reply this time came from Pete’s cheeks, which began to glow redder than the sky. Nevertheless, I felt ‘twas necessary to pursue my point, so at the risk of inducing apoplexy, and ending our friendship forever, I pushed on.
‘Sunset and birdsong is a killing combination at the best of times for lost and lonely men. And, let’s face it, Pete, this is not the best of times. We need something to stir our blood, and drive away the melancholy vapours, or we shall not see the enemy for tears.’
‘You’ll get something to stir your blood in a moment, Harry,’ hissed Pete in a fearful temper, ‘By God ye will, Sir.’
‘Don’t be like that, Pete. I’m only trying to help. Get Little Bob drumming, and Billy Corden fifing, and you watch the change come over the men; they will be ready for anything that the scoundrel Washington can throw at them. ‘Tis an observation only.’
‘According to the maps I have, we will soon be marching through woods so dense they are dark in daytime. Do you think it would be a good idea to announce our presence to every rebel for miles around?’
‘All the local rebels are bottled up in Fort Washington waiting to be slaughtered. Everyone knows that.’
‘You are not privy to the same higher information as me then,’ said Pete, in such a haughty manner that I suspected he was privy to nothing, and had simply forgotten to order the musicians to play.
‘So you are leading us into a possible ambush, is that what you are saying?’
‘No!’ said Pete, turning round to me at last, his face the colour of a giant blackcurrant, ‘I am not saying that. And I would rather you did not use words like…’ he mouthed the word ambush silently, and made furtive gestures towards the men behind us.
But ‘twas too late. Next to me Jacob Wilkinson, a former shepherd from Devizes, – who had hitherto shown no interest in the conversation – turned to Roger Masson next to him, and said with perfect acceptance, ‘We be walkin’ into a hambush, Roger.’ Roger repeated the words to Laurence East, and within seconds the word was out, and the regiment had put itself onto a battle footing of its own volition. Instinctively, Little Bob loosed off a superb drumroll that tingled everyone’s spine but Pete’s, before settling into a rhythmic tattoo that provided a perfect bass for Billy to tootle inspirational tunes over. Regimental backbones straightened like the spines of a threatened hedgehog, and animation returned to the men’s faces. ‘Twas a wondrous transformation, and I hoped Sophie and the drabs were getting distant vibrations of it at the rear end of the baggage train, if only as proof of the bravery of their menfolk in the face of Death.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ said Pete, tears welling in his eyes. ‘I’ve a good mind to have you court-martialled for this.’
Hitherto, any threat of Pete’s had had little effect on me, not caring much if I lived or died anyway, but now that I was a married man with hideous responsibilities – even if at this stage they were mainly of a metaphysical order – I was vaguely alarmed by this remark, and quickly sought ways to repair the damage.
‘What’s that, Pete?’ I shouted out at the top of my voice. ‘No hambush after all? False alarm?’
As hoped, there was no reply from sullen Pete, so I nudged Jacob Wilkinson with my elbow, and winked hard.
‘Hear that, Jacob? No hambush after all. False alarm.’
Jacob digested this information for several minutes, then sighed the sigh of one condemned to live, and passed it on to Roger Masson. Roger fed it through the slo
w-turning seasons of his mind, and passed it on to Laurence East. Within fifteen minutes the regiment was silent again, though not as dispirited as before, having proved that it could flex its collective muscle when it wanted to.
Mightily relieved, I resolved to risk no more banter with my superiors until the war was over, when – if I ever met them again – I would lay into them with all the verve of acquired-by-marriage republicanism. Or so I consoled myself as I submitted without demur to one ludicrous command after another, until we arrived around seven o’clock at the meeting point of McGown’s Pass.
Here the scene was one of high excitement, rather like a military version of the Vauxhall Gardens, as under flaring flambeaux we rendezvoused with other silent regiments arriving from different parts of the country. Officers departed to consult with each other in a commandeered farmhouse, and we were left once more in the sensitive hands of Sergeant Mycock. Ignoring his continual stream of tedious obscenities, we threw down our packs, stacked our muskets, tried not to think about the sounds of gunfire in the north, and waited for the comforts of the baggage train to arrive.
‘Sweetie – there you are!’ came the hoped-for call, twenty minutes or so after the babble of rough female voices had first reached our ears. ‘Had the very devil’s job to find you. So dark – yet so exciting!’
As if on cue, a loud explosion rocked the ground to the east, causing horses to dance and whinny, and men to wonder where the boundary line lay between excitement and panic.
‘Just a stray one, girls,’ bawled out Sergeant Mycock, trying to have us believe that he could tell a stray one by the sound and smell it made. ‘So you can put that drum down, Bob.’
Stray one it might have been, but ‘twas close enough to get me thinking hard on the whereabouts of Burnley Axelrod.
‘No sighting of him yet then?’ I babbled, throwing fearful glances at the smoke and flames rising from the treetops.
‘Who?’ said Sophie, almost laughing with delight, as at a firework display.
‘B-Burnley Axelrod?’
‘I wouldn’t recognize him if….’ Then the penny dropped, and my remark was quickly deciphered. ‘Oh, I see…quick, quick, sit on the ground and put your head between your knees.’
Not so shocked that I felt no shame, I sneaked a quick glance at my fellow soldiers to see how they were coping with the rigours of combat, and saw that many of them were already being administered to by their floozies, some horizontally. Reassured, I did as I was bidden, and received for my complacency a thrilling neck massage – first with fingers, then with bubs – which quite restored my nerve and spirit, so that for the first time I could look upon the twin horrors of Fort Washington and Burnley Axelrod with equal equanimity, at least until the next stray mortar exploded.
‘Oh my poor babies,’ came a sarcastic Yorkshire voice, ‘My poor, poor FUCKIN BABIES!! WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS GOING ON HERE!!’
We all turned to see Sergeant Mycock glowering at us. Standing foursquare, fists on hips, cat o’ nine tails dangling ominously from his right hand, he made many of us squeak involuntarily.
‘We’re resting, Sergeant,’ said the impressively unperturbed Roger Masson. ‘As commanded.’
‘Rest, yes. Actively seek to catch pox, no. Now get those whores back in the wagons. Immediately.’
These words showed a poor understanding of the type of wench that the Glorious 85th Foot attracted, for no sooner were they out than a shrill ululation of outrage went up, and Sergeant Mycock had to scamper for his very life as a female horde advanced upon him, talons outstretched.
‘Good girls,’ laughed Sophie, admirably restrained as befitted her new matrimonial status. ‘A bit raw, but the spirit’s certainly there. I could do a lot with them.’
Sophie clearly approved of the action, which no doubt brought back to mind her glory days with the Belles. Sensing restlessness, I quickly escorted her to a knoll overlooking the farmhouse, where several men of the regiment had gathered.
‘Come, come, sweetness. Let us go and see what big guns we can identify. They say Lord Cornwallis and Earl Percy are here amongst us tonight. Pete himself might be dining with them. If so, and he plucks up the courage to speak to them, we will know someone who has spoken to someone who has spoken to the king. In other words, we will be three rungs from the top of the tallest social ladder in the world.’
I had not expected this to impress Sophie, and it didn’t, but it diverted her from dwelling on the past.
‘We may as well be three hundred rungs from it, for all the difference it makes. Anyway, what do you want to be top of that dunghill for? Parasites, the lot of them.’
‘I don’t want to be top of it. I am just observing how thrilling it is to be so close, physically, to men whose actions are shaping the world we live in.’
Sophie scowled, unimpressed.
‘They won’t be shaping the world we’re going to be living in.’
This seemed vaguely threatening, as though Sophie had a suicide pact in mind; but though troubled, I said nothing, not wanting to ignite what was possibly red paint. Instead I found a space where we could sit down to observe the comings and goings of the great, pending the return of Sergeant Mycock with more definite orders.
‘Anything happened yet, my good fellow?’ I said to the soldier next to me.
‘Earl Percy has just gone in.’
‘Earl Percy? Really? What did he look like?’
‘Looked like he had a broom stuck up his arse. Walked funny anyway. Piles perhaps. Or the pox. Or the gout. Who knows?’
‘Think ‘twas the horn colic, mate,’ called another voice helpfully.
‘Not bloody surprised, the state of the women going in.’
I strained my eyes even harder, desperate to get a tantalizing glimpse of a famous courtesan, as the whores of the aristocracy were known.
‘Down, ye dog,’ came a cold blast from Sophie. ‘Four weeks married and already I am playing second fiddle to common harlots.’
‘’Tis of academic interest only, my dear. There is a book entitled Famous Courtesans of the Great Commanders. I just wondered if I might be able to spot one.’
‘You must think I am stupid. Now pull yourself together or I shall be forced to go out and get rogered by the biggest grenadier I can find.’
‘That’s told him,’ chuckled someone behind.
‘I’m up for it, love!’
‘How tall are you, Joshua?’
Abashed, hurt that the threatened punishment far outweighed the supposed crime, I sat meek as a mouse, and sulked. Joyful, my fellow soldiers took it in turns to playfully pull my pigtail and tip my hat over my eyes, a naive game which only vexed me more. Swatting at them irritibly, I sank into an even deeper trough of misery, a condition relieved only by the appearance of a suave and elegantly-dressed black man in front of the house.
‘Don’t tell me there is a book on the famous negroes of the British army,’ said Sophie, in a conciliatory enough mood to note my interest.
‘That is not any old negro,’ I said, examining closely the face atop the rigging, ‘that’s Elzevir Black, I am sure it is. You know, the one who should have been at the De Witt’s the day we shattered it.’
‘I don’t know how you can tell – they all look the same to me, especially in this light.’
‘No, I am sure that is him. Elzevir! Hey, Elzevir!’
I waved my hat and shouted his name at the top of my voice, but ‘twas not until Sophie stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled piercingly that he began to look in our direction.
‘I am going down,’ I declared excitedly, eliciting a roar of laughter from my simple-minded fellows. ‘Are you coming too, my dear?’
Another roar went up as we picked our way down the crowded hillside, for all the world like two members of the audience being called onto stage at the Haymarket.
‘Who dat?’ called Elzevir suspiciously as we approached within spitting distance.
> ‘’Tis me, Harry Oysterman. Dick Lickley and I stayed with your Mr De Witt about two months ago, if you remember.’
We stared at each other for several tense moments before Elzevir deigned to speak.
‘Never took much notice o’ people goin’ tru’ dat house, man. Too tired.’
‘Well, we were there, I assure you – but you were not when I returned again. Mr De Witt said you had run away.’
‘De cat right. Sick o’ cookin an’ potwashin’ an’ bein’ hounded by dat Clara bitch. So I’s packed me some clodes an’ some food an’ cut loose one night when they were least expectin’. Even stoppin’ to burn a few haystacks along de way, still halfway to New York by de mornin’. When I’s reaches de big city, I tries to get on a ship to England, dare to meet de great Dr Johnson and begin a new life…’ A glimmer of recognition flickered in Elzevir’s rolling eyes. ‘Eh, maybe you was de one who mentioned de writer cat.’
‘Er…possibly…’ I wanted to hear how the rest of the story turned out before deciding whether to claim credit for introducing Dr Johnson into his fevered imaginative world. ‘What happened next?’
‘Almost starved, white boy, dat’s what happened next. No captain would take me – said I would only stir up mutinies. Ended up in Canvas Town with de rest of de vagrans. Terrible time of it till one day dis lady appeared, and got a couple of soldiers to line twenty of us up against a wall. Tought we were all dead meat den, but no, dis lady comes up to us and examines us all one by one. Feels our muscles, looks at our teeth, squeezes our pods, as dough we were cattle. I’s about to spit in her face when she points me out to her soldiers. Next ting I know I’s whisked away in a carriage, and taken to a big house on Broadway Street. Tort I was gonna end up on a plate, man. But no – who should come down de staircase but some big lord or udder. Says “I’m Lord Percy, and dis my wife, Lady Percy. We want you to be our valet.”‘
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