Infernal Revolutions

by Stephen Woodville

  I gasped, quite astonished.

  ‘You lucky devil – that’s a job I wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Gotta be black, man,’ said Elzevir complacently. ‘And big too – to please her ladyship.’

  Just then a courtesan, being escorted into the house by two soldiers, passed by at close range and drenched us in the most alluring scent imaginable. Inflamed by the smell, the blonde hair, the artfully powdered face, the rouged lips and the luscious cleavage, I instinctively shot her a saucy oeillade. Unfortunately for my vanity, my attentions went completely unnoticed because she in turn could not take her lustful eyes off Elzevir. Poutingly jealous, I regretted ever having helped Elzevir take a step up in the world, and I was just turning to leave in dudgeon when Elzevir spoke again.

  ‘Anyway, who dis?’ said Elzevir

  ‘Dis…this…is my wife, Sophie.’

  ‘Tort you were gonna marry Eloise, man. She loved you. I could tell by de way she looked at you. First man she ever took into her room.’

  Clearing my throat loudly, I quickly changed the subject.

  ‘So what is life like with the Percy’s, Elzevir?’

  ‘Better dan it was with de De Witt’s, dat’s for sure. I cook and wash and skivvy just the same, but dis time I get tings in return. New clodes like dese, fine food and wine, but best of all I gets…’ Elzevir’s eyes went all dreamy, as though describing Paradise, ‘…Education.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ I said suspiciously, ‘what sort of education?’

  ‘Dis sort, man.’ Then, as feared, Elzevir launched into perfect hence hideous French, complete with Gallic gesticulation. ‘Je m’appelle Elzevir. Je suis valet de Monsieur et Madame Percy. Il est nuit. Les étoiles brillent. Une bombe explose. Pouffe!’ Elzevir glowed with pride, unaware of the truly abominable spectacle he was making of himself.

  ‘That’s not education, Elzevir, that’s decadence.’

  ‘You’m jealous, whitey, cos’ youm ain’t cultured.’

  ‘As an American, you don’t understand how disgusting the French language sounds to the average Englishman, and you never will. Something to do with the Battle of Hastings and mother’s milk. Very good though, what I heard. You will go far in the salons of the great with performances like that. Anything else they teach you?’

  ‘Just generally groomin’ me to be a great man in London. Dey’re gonna take me home to England wid ‘em. Make me a great man over dere.’

  ‘What about Lady Percy. Is she as wanton as they make out?’

  ‘Bitch has rubbed mah thigh a few times, always pushin’ her tits in mah face – dat kind o ting. Wants me to start bathin’ her soon, when de ‘ole man is out. Can’t plug her dough, in case de Lord finds out. Never get to London den. Black baby give de game away big time…but hey…quiet…here come de Lord now!’

  My legs went weak and my heart raced as a gaggle of flambeaux-lit adjutants appeared around the corner of the house. In their midst was someone they were all deferring to, but before I could make my escape back into obscurity the adjutants parted and out popped, like a pearl, the resplendent figure of, presumably, Lord Percy himself. Whether his reputation was doing all the work for him, or he was naturally superior in breeding, I could not deduce in that instant, but I was aware in myself of a raging sense of inferiority and humbleness as the gloves, medals and gold epaulettes advanced towards me. As contemporary generals occupied the same pages as classical ones in my books, seeing Percy in the flesh was like seeing Hannibal or Caesar come to life, and I was temporarily awed out of my composure. I was awed out of this world when the dog stopped and began talking to Elzevir.

  ‘Found a little friend, Elzevir?’

  ‘Dis is…er…what’s your name again, man?’

  ‘Oysterman,’ I croaked, hardly able to speak for nerves. ‘Harry Oysterman.’

  Aristocratic eyes scrutinized me, while the adjutants looked on with contempt.

  ‘Of what regiment, Mr Oysterman?’

  ‘Battalion Company, 85th Foot, Sir.’

  ‘A crack company. Lord Packham’s, if I am not mistaken. And who’s this?’

  Collectively, the adjutants sighed and pulled out their fob watches.

  ‘This is my wife, Sophie Oysterman.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, my dear. Bearing up in these unpleasant circumstances, I trust?’

  ‘Spewing up,’ I’m sure Sophie said in reply, though the mumbled answer could not be made out distinctly.

  ‘Splendid, though I’m sure we’ll all feel better when this dreadful war is over. Won’t be long now – we have the rascals on the run. A few more damned crushes like the one they got at Long Island and it will be all over bar the inevitable whining. Then we can all go back to England and get on with our lives. Isn’t that so, Elzevir?’

  ‘Dat so, Mister Percy. Can’t wait.’

  ‘Good man.’ He paused to look with pride at his acquisition, then turned back to me. ‘Anyway goodbye, Mr Oysterman. Fight well.’

  With a pat on my shoulder, off he went to his inevitable wining, with Elzevir in close attendance.

  ‘Now you’re two rungs from the top of the ladder,’ snarled Sophie, ‘Big deal.’

  ‘What a great man,’ I swooned. ‘How can we fail to win with heroes like that in charge?’

  ‘Harry, I am disgusted with you. He is a man – no more, no less. A patronizing one at that.’

  ‘But I want to be patronized.’

  ‘As a poet you do, but not as a man. Had you not known who he was, would you have acted the way you did, like a fool?’

  ‘I was just being polite.’

  ‘Which plays right into the hands of these people. Smarming the oil around is the way they keep power. He is killing you with politeness. He won’t shed any tears when you’re lying mangled in a field somewhere.’

  ‘Ah, well, there you are wrong. He is well known as a benevolent man. After the battle of Bunker Hill, for example, he paid for the widows of his men to return home to England. Then he maintained them when they got there. All out of his own pocket.’

  ‘He can afford it,’ said Sophie sourly, though I fancied I saw the ghost of a dollar sign dance in her eyes at this disclosure.

  ‘Anyway,’ I added weakly, perceiving that I had perhaps transgressed the thin line between politeness and grovelling, ‘somebody’s got to lead.’

  ‘And why shouldn’t that leader be you? Why should he not be going weak at the knees when he meets you? Why should you not be sending him into battle?’

  ‘Sweetie, I do not understand what you are saying. He is an aristocrat, so ‘tis only natural that he leads.’

  ‘’Tis obscenely unnatural, Sir – as Thomas Paine would explain to you.’

  At the airing of the hallowed name, I sensed a way of deflecting some of the remorseless attack back to Sophie. I waded into the storm.

  ‘But supposing you were to meet Thomas Paine in the flesh, or George Washington, or Thomas Jefferson, or any of your heroes. Are you telling me that you would not be flustered by their very presence?’

  Sophie snorted indignantly.

  ‘I would be perfectly composed, as is proper in a democratic society. There would just be a meeting of calm, rational minds, because all levels of society meet on equal terms here. There is no sycophancy in America, Sir.’

  ‘Oh my dear,’ I scoffed, ‘Come, come, face reality. Human nature is the same the world over. Sycophancy is a human trait, therefore it must exist in America in some form or other.’

  ‘It does NOT!’ shouted Sophie, angry far in excess of the facts. Then, to my utmost amazement, she punched me squarely on the chin with great power. With shock as much as anything else, I collapsed to the ground, from whose ungainly vantage point I saw Sophie stomping off into the woods.

  ‘Shrew-ish!’ came the first comment from the interested onlookers.

  ‘No wife for a man, that.’

  ‘Gone to get rogered by a Grenadier.’

&nbs
p; ‘Someone needs to give her a bloody good seeing-to.’

  Feeling like the butt in a vicious, cynical Restoration comedy, I was about to go after her, as much to get off stage as to see what was really troubling her, when Sergeant Mycock – that other victim of American womanhood – reappeared, looking as though he’d made a full recovery. As an example of how to show brazenness after humiliating public defeat, Sergeant Mycock was magnificent, for not one of us dared laugh at him now, or even vaguely refer to his ordeal; indeed, we scurried back to our positions like tortured sheep.

  ‘Order restored, ladies. The party is over. In line! In line!…Get on with it, Masson…Wherever you were going, Oysterman, yer not going there now…Into line! Into line!…that means you too, Scattergood…’

  Crashing into members of other companies responding to similar orders, we formed ourselves quickly into marching formation. Standing in line, staring once more at the back of another soldier’s tricorne, I realized all of a sudden how pointless was my existence without Sophie, and I began to fret. I desperately needed immediate confirmation that this was no more than a Lover’s Tiff, and I teetered on the brink of disobeying orders and running into the woods anyway, but Sergeant Mycock’s eagle eye was sharper than ever after his recent loss of control, and I was prevented from doing so by swirling cracks of his cat. I was in terrible anguish, not knowing whether Sophie would be following in the baggage train or not. I kept casting despairing looks over my shoulder, but I could see nothing beyond the glinting bayonets of the men behind me. I was locked into position for the attack on Fort Washington, and there was no way out. I doubted that I would Fight Well.

  36

  The Assault

  Having been harried into formation by the snarling, snapping Sergeant Mycock, we were kept waiting indefinitely pending the arrival of our shepherd, PP, whose job it was to lead us to the slaughter at Fort Washington. As he did not seem in a hurry to come out of the farmhouse, the men were given ample time in which to curse, fret and ponder on the concept of pointless self-destruction.

  ‘Bloody marvellous,’ opined Roger Masson, gazing anxiously like the rest of us at the increasingly vivid firework display in the north, ‘kept waiting like common criminals at Tyburn. I’d King and Country those fuckers in there, given half a chance.’

  ‘Steady, Roger. Resentment only harms thyself.’

  ‘Aye, Simon is right. ‘Tis the way of the world that some should have everything while poor buggers like us have nothing. God decreed it long ago.’

  ‘Did he?’ queried sceptical Roger. ‘When exactly? Where exactly?’

  ‘’Tis in the Good Book, somewhere or other.’

  ‘Then Bollocks to the Good Book, say I. I tell you, brothers, if I get the chance I am off to the American side. At least the men there have the say as to who will lead them to their grave. The world is changing, brothers; it is the Americans – the descendants of our bravest and best forefathers – who are the real English now anyway.’

  ‘Oh, and then you will be shooting at us, will you?’

  ‘No, of course I won’t shoot at you – you are my friends. But I will take great pleasure in shooting the causes of our misery.’

  ‘Accept thy fate, Roger, and be happy for it. Death gets everyone in the end, whatever their rank.’

  ‘Aye,’ piped up Laurence East, ‘and some come to a more grisly end than others. I mean, what about that sailor friend of Harry’s?’

  ‘What?’ I said, jolted out of my despair by the remark, ‘Isaac Tetley?’

  ‘Aye. What happened to him was not very pleasant, was it? Or have you, er, not heard yet?’

  ‘No, I have not heard yet. Now tell me.’

  ‘He’s been found scalped. Terrible hacking job apparently. Not the usual clean slice. Must have been an apprentice Indian, say our own butchers. Still, I suppose even Indians have to start somewhere.’

  As do dragoons, I thought shakily, convinced that this was the work of Bloody Burn himself. I fancied I could see Isaac’s face at the moment of dissolution, his dreams of castles and limitless whisky oozing out with his brains. A decent man had come to grief, and I could not help thinking that it was partly my fault. Wanting even more to run off howling into the woods, I had no alternative but to stay in line and brood darkly on Isaac’s fate, piling guilt on top of all my other miseries. ‘Twas all most harrowing, and I wondered how much more I could take.

  Eventually, however, Pete appeared in the lighted doorway of the farmhouse, and I turned to watched with little interest as he stood there swaying and belching and squinting into the darkness. After a few moments he staggered out and lurched to his left, one hand stretched in front of him groping for obstacles. Retrieved eventually from the Light Infantry of the 45th Foot by Sergeant Mycock, he was placed on his horse, and we were off, following his beckoning hand.

  ‘This way, lads,’ he called, with unfamiliar familiarity. ‘You too, Hartley.’

  Hartley, who had been dozing under a dilapidated cart, let out a joyous bark, and used the flank of Pete’s horse as a springboard for an astounding backward somersault, the effect of which was spoilt only by the dazed and disorientated look on Hartley’s face when he landed.

  Sensing the relaxation of regulations, men began to pipe up one by one.

  ‘Permission to drum, Sir,’ called out Little Bob.

  ‘Permission granted, drummer.’

  ‘Permission to fife, Sir.’

  ‘Permission granted, fifer.’

  ‘Permission to desert, Sir.’

  ‘Permission gran….Ha! Ha! Ha!…Oh no it’s not! Refused, ye saucy scoundrel!’

  Clearly something had happened to PP in the farmhouse, but I was too absorbed in my own misery to ask him what it was. Others, however, not troubled at the loss of their wench or their friend or the thought of their own impending Death, were invigorated by the marching music that had started up, and fired questions freely, in gross breach of regimental etiquette. Eventually Pete let slip that he had been promoted to the rank of captain after another officer had resigned his commission, and that he had been forced to celebrate with two bottles of the finest claret known to man. Cries of congratulation rang out, but none belonged to me, and it was noticed.

  ‘What, not sharing my joy, Harry?’ called Pete, sliding in his saddle and slurring noticeably.

  ‘Not before a battle, Pete, if you do not mind.’

  ‘Bugger you then,’ he announced good-humouredly. ‘That’s what your Captain says.’

  ‘The world is more of a graveyard than a playground to me.’

  ‘Sententious Dog!’’ roared Pete, highly delighted at this. ‘A career as a schoolmaster awaits you back in England, Sir. I am convinced of it.’

  ‘He’s sulking because his wife’s left him and his friend’s died, Sir. Taken it badly.’

  ‘Is that true, Harry?’ Pete swivelled round to look at me, almost coming off his saddle in the process. ‘Then condolences, Sir, especially about your wife. What happened there?’

  ‘Look, my problems are my own affair. Now are we turning north soon, or not?’

  ‘Why should we be turning north?’

  I sighed deeply at the idiocy of Man, and rolled my eyes in exasperation.

  ‘How else are we to sacrifice ourselves on the ramparts of Fort Washington?’

  ‘Ah, did I not say? No Fort Washington for us, boys. We’re going west – straight across the Hudson to Fort Lee. The bateaux are waiting for us. Things are moving for us at last.’

  An excited hubbub rose from the men at this news, as though the prospect of Death By Water only added to the relish of the adventure. To me, however, across the Hudson meant New Jersey, and New Jersey meant Sophie, and Sophie meant Paradise Lost, and another skewer went through my heart at the association. Still, by now aware that I was on the earth only to suffer, I accepted my fate with Stoic gloom, and marched on with head bowed until we came to the banks of the mighty Hudson, where
a string of boats was waiting to ferry us and our artillery across to the thick, dark line of the New Jersey Palisades in the distance.

  ‘Into the boats, ladies,’ yelled Sergeant Mycock, as we stood around waiting for further instructions. ‘Eight in each! One -two – three – four – come on, Scattergood – five – six – can’t swim, Jankinson? Who the bloody hell can? – now get in you wet jessie! Seven – Eight. Right, next lot over here…one, two, three…come on, come on…’

  As not all the craft waiting for us were of the same type and quality, I leaned forward, looked along the line, and mentally counted the men off in eights. Seeing I was in the third eight, I looked at the third boat. Aghast, I tried to shuffle further back along the line, but others had been doing the same, and there was much scuffling until a sergeant from another regiment put a stop to it, and sealed our fates.

  When my turn came, I clambered into a dilapidated rowing boat with wood the thickness and stiffness of a pancake. I was reluctantly joined by seven other damned souls, who stepped into the boat with extreme caution, evidently not wanting to ignobly drown whilst there was still a chance of being gloriously shot. Soon the boat was as crammed as a Cripplegate graveyard, yet once in I was not as scared as I might have been, thanks to my experiences on Fatty’s ferry, and I was able to offer words of succour to the petrified, much to the disgust of the bandanna’d oarsmen who were taking us across.

  ‘One here who fancies himself a sailor, Nathan,’ called out one of them, nodding in my direction.

  ‘One dollar the bonehead pukes before we get to the other side,’ snarled his companion, after some consideration.

  ‘You’re on,’ said the first oarsman, as though I were a fly crawling up a wall. A surge of anger at this disrespect momentarily flared inside me, but though the sailors looked small and easy to push over the side, I decided, perhaps wisely, not to bother. So, much money riding on the outcome, we ventured forth onto the increasingly wild and choppy river. Silence being essential if the garrison at Fort Lee was to be surprised, the oars of the boats were muffled, and we were all under instructions to keep conversations to the level of a whisper. Nevertheless, the rain that started to fall soon turned our hats into waterspouts, and before long everyone was coughing and sneezing loudly, so that any American scout must have thought an Invalid regiment was on the way over. Halfway across the river a dog, perhaps Hartley, started barking far to our right. From even further away came cries of ‘Quiet!’. The sea breezes began to whistle, and ever larger waves thudded against the sides of our boat.