‘I try my best,’ Dick smiled, shaking my hand. ‘Tell my boys to send the first girl in on your way out, there’s a good man.’
I turned to leave in disgust.
‘And oh, Harry, if they catch you first, be an even better man and tell them I am dead.’
He said this in such a strange manner that I suspected he was aware of the double nature of the remark, but it was too late to discuss his inner demons, and I proceeded on my way without bothering to turn round. But getting out was no easy matter. I could not return the way I came because of the press of female flesh being held in check by the picket line, so I had to sneak out the back way, through the gate of a temporary stockade that had been erected. Even here some of the wilier girls were milling around, trying to seek out a more exclusive entry point, and they looked at me with wild-eyed interest as I was ejected from the temple by a surly Walthamstow Boy.
‘Is Gad in there? Oh please God tell us he is!’
‘Did he touch you?’
‘Are you one of the Lost Tribe?’
‘Look,’ I said plainly, ‘you are being used. You are in great danger. Go back to your homes and love your families.’
Even as I said it I thought this sounded a bit rich coming from me, but I hoped it might strike a chord with them. It didn’t though, and they just repeated their questions with their faces twisted in agonies of desire.
‘They have no special powers at all, and certainly have nothing to do with God,’ I persisted. ‘They are just a bunch of louts who are deceiving you so they can roger you free of charge.’
They gasped, and for one moment I thought they had seen the truth. But the gasp was for my blasphemy, not my truth.
‘You are a liar, Sir – a blasphemous liar! We will not allow Gad to be talked about in this way.’
And with that they were after me, forcing me to run faster than I had ever done in my life. When eventually I stopped, gasping for air, I looked around and saw that they had given up the chase, the magnetic pull of Gad and the Walthamstow Boys being
too strong for them. From my new vantage point at the furthest edge of the clearing, I listened to the howling and screaming in the distance, and shuddered with relief that I was free of it. What madman would want to be in the middle of that lot? If that was the price of fame, I would seriously have to abandon my ambition to be a published poet.
43
The Snowstorm
After experiencing man- and womankind at their basest, the walk back through the forest was bliss, and I heaved many sighs of gratitude at the beauty and peace of nature. In contrast to the Dionysian madness I had just experienced, every sight and sound was as nectar to my soul. I goggled at the dripping trees with newfound joy, and listened enraptured to the warblings of strange birds. Inhaling deeply of the gorgeous damp pinescented air, I felt cured forever of the fever of lust, and just wanted to dwell on the simple things of life. Even the relationship I had with Sophie, formerly such a source of confusion to me, now seemed charmingly innocent and straightforward in its general outlines. Indeed, as I retraced the route of my crosses, I felt increasingly like a swain returning to his maid, and I almost skipped along until I realized that I would be in trouble if I had not beaten Sophie back to the wagon; then I ran for my very life. But as it happened, I need not have bothered; Sophie had been back for a good twenty minutes, and there was no way to avoid the frigid interrogation.
‘And where have you been?’
‘Just walking, sweetness,’ I said, panting. ‘Acquainting myself with the flora and fauna of New Jersey. I found I could not stay cooped up in the wagon all day.’
‘You are covered in mud.’
‘Aye. I slipped at one point.’
‘Why did you not leave me a note to say you had gone?’
‘I expected to return before you.’
Sophie scrutinized me closely. I prayed that the mud stains on the front of my breeches covered the deeper stains that lurked beneath.
‘Well, after what I have found out today in Bound Brook, I think ‘tis best if we part no more, and make our way as fast as we can to Philadelphia, mud or no mud.’
Relieved, I asked why, though knowing full well.
‘General Howe appears to be on the verge of vanquishing our boys. No sooner does our rearguard enter a town than the van of Howe’s army is in sight, lobbing shells at them. Already Cornwallis has chased Washington nearly as far as Princeton, which means that both are clearly heading in the general direction of Philadelphia. It seems unlikely, however, that Howe can take Philadelphia before Christmas – his supply line will be too stretched – so that is where we need to be before the winter campaign ends, otherwise we will find ourselves cut off by the British at the Delaware. If that happens, then we are condemned to a winter in New Jersey, being hounded by Burnley Axelrod for sport. So, say I, we abandon the wagon, and continue our journey on horseback for greater speed.’
‘’Tis risky.’
‘’Tis riskier still to dither, and find ourselves unable to reach the Delaware before it is cut off.’
‘Agreed. Though ‘twill be a shame to waste all our provisions.’
‘We have saddlebags; we should be able to carry a sufficient amount for our needs.’
‘That still means we leave enough behind to feed a platoon, if not a regiment.’
‘Then so be it. ‘Twill be an exciting and baffling discovery for someone, be it a bear, a wolf, a trapper or a deserting soldier. But we have the night to sort out what we need to take, because though we should start off immediately, I am too tired from riding today and need a rest. Tomorrow morning at first light, though, we will need to begin the race as though our lives depended on it, which they do.’
This delay was acceptable to me, equally shattered as I was from my own exertions. However, after a brief rest with Sophie in the back of the wagon I felt somewhat restored, and began looking round wistfully at all the barrels we were soon to abandon. Before long an idea had germinated, and this I shared with my dozing wife.
‘My dear, if we are not setting off until first light tomorrow, what do you say to a final night of indulgence? After all, life without joy is only a form of dying. It cannot be all misery and desperation.’
‘No Harry, ‘twill weaken us. Besides, we had a final night of indulgence with all those pancakes at Abigail’s.’
‘That night was rather ruined, if you remember – at least for me. No, this is different. We are alone here. No-one has ever feasted and celebrated life on this spot of earth before. It may weaken our bodies, but it will strengthen our spirit. Especially if we combine it with a little lovemaking.’
‘Before or after?’
‘Both?’
Sophie looked doubtful.
‘Well, if we do, it must definitely be the last time before Philadelphia.’
‘Agreed.’
‘Let us first sort out our provisions for the journey while it is still light, then we can light the candle, Sir, and get on with it.’
And get on with it we did. Excited and surprised by Sophie’s capitulation, a fresh surge of vigour welled up inside me, and the night turned into a feast of chaste sexual joy, fuelled by the more luxurious provisions that Abigail had packed for us. Needless to say, we did not see the first light next morning, nor any subsequent ones until ten o’clock, when I was all for setting off immediately to make up for lost time.
‘Come back to bed, Harry,’ sighed Sophie, raising a languid hand to my breeches, ‘and entertain me one more time.’
‘No, Madam,’ I said sternly. ‘We must be on our way. Now up with you, and let us be gone.’
Brushing away the fingers, I jumped down from the wagon and started preparing Quick and Easy for the journey. ‘Twas raining again, though the rain now felt several degrees colder than it had the day before, and seemed like a prelude to hard frost and snow. I shivered, sneezed and felt decidedly weak and vulnerable, especially in the head an
d groin area. But not to be defeated, at least until we were safe in some fleapit of a Philadelphia bedroom, where no doubt I would collapse and display all the will to live of a ruptured popinjay, I gamely battled on. Once I was done, and the horses were saddled and laden with maximum oats for them, and minimal subsistence for us, I returned to Sophie and told her that if she was not ready within the next ten minutes I would leave without her.
‘Aye, I bet you would as well, the mood you are in,’ she croaked. ‘You are a glorious Bastard at the moment, Sir.’
I permitted myself a small glow of pride, which I concealed from my temporarily conquered wife, and watched with secret delight as Sophie came creakingly to life, all stretching, grimacing, smacking of lips, and the pulling up and on of dishevelled garments. Then she tried to stand upright, but could not.
‘You will have to carry me to Quick, Harry. My legs are still trembling, and will not support me.’
Highly gratified, I did as I was asked, pouring her onto the saddle and passing up her stick before I in turn clambered up onto Easy.
‘Now, have we got everything – maps, stick, rations, knives, pistols, balls, shot, powder, spyglass?’
‘Aye, I think we have,’ sighed Sophie, ‘and if we haven’t, who cares as long as we have each other?’
For all my hard man pretensions, these were my sentiments exactly, and I reflected how strange it was that on those occasions when she was a woman after my own heart, and I was a man after hers, we really were most compatible. She wanted a hard man, and I wanted a tender woman, but I was too often tender and she was too often hard. ‘Twas all very Jack Sprattish, and the situation between us gave me much food for thought as we set off once more along the miry track towards Philadelphia.
At first we seemed to make good progress, soon reaching the very turbulent Raritan River, but perhaps ‘twas only an illusion after a day of inactivity, for then we found the going as tough as we had with the wagon. The continuing rain, fog and mud meant that we could rarely manage more than five miles a day, whether we stopped at night or not, and what with the continual coughs and sneezes and aches that plagued us, we were not the happiest travellers. No wonder, I often thought, as the now inaptly-named Quick and Easy ploughed on up to their fetlocks in squelching mud, that most people travelled by water in America. Even on good roads, of which this was not one, the sheer distances involved were extremely prohibitive to easy land travel. Sometimes, to break the monotony, I would practise handling my pistols as I rode; sometimes I would get off and squelch a few yards to give Easy and my saddlesore thighs a rest; sometimes I would just feel like crying, as the wilderness of America battered us with its vastness. My whole body ached for a smoky chophouse and a pint of hot bishop in convivial company. But though we sometimes saw farms in the distance, teasing us with visions of rest and shelter, we were determined, after the horror at Abigail’s, that no others should be dragged into our messy affairs. Besides which, as Sophie had found out to her disgust, almost all of the locals had returned willingly to the British side following Howe’s free pardon, and they would surely inform on me as a deserter as soon as they clapped eyes on me.
But as the weary days passed the weather slowly changed. The rains at last stopped, and were replaced with bleak cold winds from the north-east. Mud, puddles and lakes all froze over, as did our lungs, which made our breathing very stertorous. Still we pushed on, thinking progress might be quicker on hard surfaces, but strain as we might, the moment came when we could go on no more, and were forced, through lack of sleep, warmth and food, to look around for shelter. So when the spire of an isolated Dutch church loomed in the distance, the invitation was too great to refuse, particularly as, according to our map, we were near the town of Pennington, which Sophie wanted to visit to buy food and find out whether Washington and his troops were over the Delaware yet. If any further incentive were needed to halt, the look of the sky and the stillness of the air suggested that heavy snow was imminent.
‘A pleasant place to spend a white Christmas,’ I said, coughing badly, as we rode up to the church and checked that it was as deserted as it looked.
Sophie looked at me pityingly.
‘I suppose you have never experienced a true snowstorm, have you?’
‘Of course I have,’ I said hotly, ‘we have them every winter in England.’
‘Well, they cannot be the same as ours, or you would not talk about them with such relish. Continental ones are howling, scarifying monsters.’
I chuckled derisively, which brought on another coughing fit.
‘Serves you right,’ said Sophie, investigating the hidden interiors of the church, which like most American buildings was light, spacious and elegant. ‘Now, make yourself comfortable and wait here until I get back. Keep as warm as you can. Do not go off exploring this time. I will be as quick as I can. I will have to be, if I am to beat the storm.’
‘Twas high melodrama, and gave a much-needed boost to my spirits.
‘The storm!’ I could not help but wail facetiously, as I waved my arms around wildly. ‘The storm!!’
‘Well, at least you will have your words to eat if you are buried alive in the snow.’
Chastened a little by this remark, and the look of worry on Sophie’s face, I modulated my mirth to the level of concerned amusement, then shut up.
‘But I hope there will be no such disasters, especially now that we are so near to our destination. So come, give me a kiss, and I will be gone.’
I did as bidden, then followed Sophie outside and helped her to mount Quick. Wishing her Godspeed, whatever that was, I watched as she was swallowed up by a giant purple sky on the northern horizon. As I returned shivering and coughing inside, I could not help but keep glancing up at the lowering clouds, which seemed to be getting darker and heavier before my eyes. Sophie was right, they did not look English, being bigger and far more bruised-looking, and I felt the first twinge of apprehension.
I settled down Easy in the corner of the church, and then thought of ways to settle myself. To alert me in case of unwanted intruders, I placed a bench behind the door, and put clattery collecting trays on top. Then I chose a pew, covered myself with a blanket, and tried to get to sleep in spite of the cold. I must have been successful, for I awoke into a strange stillness that was even more dreamlike than dreams themselves. Everywhere was silent and muffled, and I realized gradually that the snow had arrived before Sophie. Hoping she had not been defeated by the barricade I had erected, I quickly removed all the obstacles and opened the door. Instantly a hellish, howling wind plastered my face with dense wet snow and obliterated my vision. While I stood there scraping away the snow from my eyes, another gust clawed at me and pulled me screaming into the void. Disorientated immediately, I tried to battle my way back to where I thought the church had been, but my outstretched groping hands touched nothing. Panic overwhelming me, I staggered in all directions, frantically trying to find the church until another violent gust of wind twirled me around and smacked me against it a few times. Bruised and battered, I felt for the door with my fingers, then dived back in to contemplate this phenomenon of Nature from a safer perspective. Winds increasing in ferocity all around me, there was nothing I could do but fret until the storm abated sufficiently for me to venture outside again. At last, about an hour later, I made a tentative reappearance at the church door, and saw that the only features still visible in a sea of white were the tops of trees and the taller gravestones; everything else had been obliterated. Duly awestruck, I stepped out and went in search of a buried wife, but even simple walking proved difficult. I had to lift my legs to a great height to make any progress at all, but by using my arms as counterweights I managed to crunch my way around the church listening and looking for signs of life. Finding nothing, I then used my spyglass to scour the various horizons in search of even the most sluggish movement, but making out nothing at all apart from the floundering leap of the odd rabbit, I soon made my way back into the
church to warm up and fret afresh. This pattern repeated itself several times, until on the fourth occasion, when the snow had almost stopped, I managed to make out a moving dot on the northern horizon. Soon I was able to distinguish it as Sophie and Quick, picking their way towards me. Elated, I made my way towards them as best I could.
‘Sophie!’ I cried, when she was near enough to hear me, ‘Are you all right, my dear.’
‘F-f-freezing!’ Sophie called back, her cloak and Quick’s coat packed tight with compacted snow and hundreds of tiny iceballs. ‘F-f-fucking f-f-freezing!’
Having never heard Sophie swear before, I was duly taken aback. I chose, however, not to show it, in consideration of the ordeal she must have been through.
‘Then come inside, quick.’
I took hold of the reins, and led the brave pair once more into the sanctuary of the church. There I rubbed them down as best I could, and then, while Sophie recovered her powers of speech, I prepared the bread, cheese and salt pork I found in her saddlebag. We ate the resulting sandwiches in shocked, contemplative silence, as befitting a house of God and a pair of starving outcasts.
‘So, my dear,’ I asked, when I thought Sophie had recuperated sufficiently, ‘did you obtain any information prejudicial to our position?’
‘I d-did indeed, my d-dear. T-two things have happened. One of which I think is good for us; one of which is very definitely bad. Which would you like first?’
‘The bad,’ I said unhesitatingly. ‘Always the bad first.’
‘Our boys are already over the Delaware. They got over last night. That means we are stuck in New Jersey, surrounded by the British. Our getting to Philadelphia now depends upon luck, fate, bribery, or the river itself freezing over so that we may slide across on the horses.’
I pondered this intelligence for a moment, uncertain what it meant. Then, unable to work out all the implications, I asked for the good news.
‘Well, ‘tis perhaps good news for us personally, if not for the prosecution of the war in general. Burnley Axelrod has captured General Charles Lee, and taken him back to New York.’
Infernal Revolutions Page 56