Prelude to Glory, Vol. 5

by Ron Carter

  “Start now.”

  For a time Dorman studied Caleb’s face, especially his eyes, then rose to his feet. “All right. Stand up.”

  Caleb winced as he stood.

  “We’ll start at the beginning.” Dorman raised one hand. “Watch. This is how you make a fist.” He clenched his hand, knuckles forming an even bridge, his thumb tucked tightly against his fingertips. “Keep your thumb tucked in. You can dislocate it if it is sticking out, in the way. Do it.”

  Caleb raised his right hand, folded his fingers in, and tightened his thumb over the fingertips, then looked at Dorman, waiting.

  It had begun.

  The following evening Dorman had brought burlap, a sailmaker’s needle, and heavy cord. Within an hour they had cut and sewed a double-burlap bag, filled it with sand and dirt, and hung it from the branch of a heavy oak tree. Five minutes later, with Dorman hovering over him, Caleb felt for the first time the solid jolt up his arms and across his shoulders as he slammed his clenched fists into the swaying bag.

  Over the next nine days, after evening mess was cleared, Dorman patiently dissected the fundamentals while Caleb soaked up every word, every move, quietly repeating to himself over and over again each sentence Dorman spoke, miming Dorman’s every motion, slowly at first, then more quickly as he struggled to perfect it.

  “You don’t hit a man just with your fist, you hit him with your entire body—every pound—got to set your feet right to do it—footwork’s the trick—watch—like this—now you try it—no, don’t step, slide your feet—you get a foot off the ground you’re vulnerable—try it again—better—again—better—a good blow doesn’t have to travel more than eighteen inches if your arm is only an extension of your body—watch—try it—no, keep your elbows tucked in, not out—try again—better—again—better—watch your feet—keep your toes slightly in—you’re right-handed, so lead with your left foot and left hand—keep your hand up level with your chin for protection—elbows in—tuck your chin inside your left shoulder—three fundamental blows—the jab, the hook, the power blow—the jab just keeps your opponent off balance—the hook comes in from either side and can hurt him—the power blow can knock him out if you hit him right—the point of the chin—the temple—the forehead—watch the jab—you try it—flick it out and back fast, like a snake strikes—try it—no, no, no, out, back, quick—try again—better—again—better—try the hook, like this—watch, you’ve got to raise your elbow outward and keep your arm bent but set and bring it in hard—aim for the temple—come in over your opponent’s arm—like this—try it—no, no, keep your arm bent at the elbow—try again—better—now the power blow—straight out with your right hand—elbow locked, arm stiff, just an extension of your body—hit with your right foot planted, slide forward with your left foot—lean into it with all your weight—aim for the point of the chin or the forehead or the temple, whichever gives you the clearest target—there are nerves where the jaw joins the skull—hit the point of the chin and you stun those nerves and the man will go down—like this—you try—fair—be sure your arm’s stiff—hit off that right foot—keep your toes slightly in—slip that left foot forward—don’t step it, slide it—try again—better—there! that’s it!—good!

  “While you’re trying to do all this to your opponent, he’s trying to do it to you. Trick is, learn how to avoid it—make him miss you altogether if you can—if you can’t, at least avoid letting him hit you hard—that’s called slipping a blow—let him hit you, but not solid—can’t hurt you that way—keep your elbows in to protect your ribs and belly—a man can knock you out with a power blow over your heart—can stop you in pain with a blow over your kidneys—got to learn to slip his punches—keep your head moving slightly—keep your hands up in front of you, elbows in—try it—that’s it—good!

  “Time we start with combinations of blows. Watch it slow. Jab—hook—power—one, two, three—fast—left hand jab, left hand hook, right hand straight in—watch—try it slow—good—again slow—again a little faster.

  “Questions?”

  “I thought men stood toe-to-toe and just hit until one was beaten.”

  “King’s Rules—wrong—if you want to win you do what I’m showing you—the Conlin Murphys of the world don’t know the King’s Rules—and what I’m teaching you will beat the bullies or a professional in the ring—look at my face—every scar you see taught me something, and I’m trying to pass it on to you—spare you looking like me—so you listen and you learn, understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  And now, on the ninth day, in the light of the evening campfires, Dorman paused, eyes lowered, staring blankly at the ground, and Caleb recognized he was struggling with his thoughts and searching for words. Caleb waited. Seconds stretched to half a minute before Dorman raised his head, and Caleb started at the strange mix of emotions on the battered face. For the first time Caleb saw traces of doubt, mixed with a feeling of suppressed anger, but most of all he saw a tenderness, a compassion that reached deep. Dorman spoke slowly.

  “That second night, I warned against being a bully. Remember? Tomorrow we talk about the single most important thing.”

  The sound in Dorman’s voice froze Caleb. “What is it?”

  “Why you’re doing this.”

  For long moments Caleb locked eyes with Dorman, and it seemed that those aging, steely blue points of light beneath the gray, shaggy brows sliced to his very center and laid bare his every thought and secret. Caleb dropped his eyes and swallowed, and in that instant Dorman sensed the wall the boy had built within, thick and high, to shield something dark and foreboding that was consuming him.

  Caleb tried to speak. His voice cracked, and he tried again. “Why is that important?”

  “Because what I’m teaching you can become something good or something bad. That’s up to you. You think on that. We’ll talk tomorrow.” Dorman fell silent and for a moment dropped his eyes to the ground while he pondered whether he had said enough. Then he turned and walked away with Caleb staring at his back as it disappeared in the shadows.

  Caleb sat staring into the fire for a long time before he went to his blankets. The fires dwindled to coals and ashes before the regimental drum sounded tattoo and the camp quieted. The boy lay on his back, hands behind his head, staring unseeing through oak and maple branches into the starry heavens. Unwanted thoughts and images came flitting into his mind, beyond his control, without logic or reason. He threw an arm over his eyes to shut them out, but still they came, bright and scalding. He rolled onto his side and curled up, eyes clenched, unaware of the small moaning sounds coming from his throat as the inner pain grew.

  Father—in his bed dying—was it a Wednesday?—No, Thursday—the Concord battle was on Wednesday, April nineteenth—Tom Sievers brought him home from the battle the night of the nineteenth—shot in the back—a British musketball in his right lung—bleeding inside—Mother wiping blood from his mouth—Doctor Soderquist shaking his head—nothing to be done—Tom Sievers, the town derelict, who loved Father, silently weeping—all of us there helpless—me—Mother—Matthew—Brigitte—the twins, Adam and Prissy—it was the morning of Thursday the twentieth he died—he asked us all to leave while he talked to mother alone—he died in her arms—she called us all in—he bled to death in his lung—face white, sagging—dead—dead—dead.

  Caleb clenched his eyes shut but could not close out the image of his dead father, an image that was burned into his memory forever. He balled his fists in the blackness as new scenes came.

  Mother alone—heartbroken—how she loved him!—struggling to take care of us—no time to mourn him—taking in laundry—anything to get food—working dawn to dark—Matthew—home from the university—stepped into Father’s place—the letter from General Washington—needed Matthew as a navigator on a ship—Matthew gone to sea—Mother trying to be both father and mother to us—me and Brigitte taking work after school to help—Matthew and Kathleen—loved each other since childhood—se
parated by the war—never see each other again—Billy Weems—like a brother—shot and bayoneted in the battle at Concord—should have died but didn’t—gone to the army—his mother, Dorothy, alone with Trudy—making candles, taking in ironing—anything to stay alive.

  All gone—the life we all had—no more—dreams gone—hope gone—everyone saying this war is the work of the Almighty—America destined to be free—they’re wrong—if we’re doing the work of the Almighty, then why is Father dead?—Matthew gone?—Kathleen gone?—Billy gone?—Dorothy and Trudy alone?—Mother killing herself for us?—everything we lived for gone forever?—if that’s the work of the Almighty, then he’s someone I don’t want to know.

  Suddenly he sat up, and in the black of a moonless night pounded his fist on the ground, muttering, “They’ll pay! I’ll make them pay!”

  He did not know when he drifted into a sleep filled with tortured dreams nor did he know when he cried out in the night, the sound echoing strangely through the woods. He was awake at dawn when the drummer hammered out reveille. He cut his share of wood for the breakfast fires, then hung his blankets on a clump of scrub oak to dry from the morning dew. While he and the other men were finishing their fried mush and burned sowbelly, Captain Venables came striding.

  “We march out at nine o’clock. Due west, right down that dirt road. Be ready.”

  With eyes squinted nearly closed against the morning sun, a dour sergeant wiped greasy fingers in his beard and asked, “Cap’n, we been marching up and down for ten days—east, west, east, west. Anybody know ’zactly where we’re goin’, or why?”

  Venables shrugged. “Orders are we march west. We’ll know why when we get there.”

  The entire command—now more than six thousand soldiers—marched sweating eight miles west on the narrow dirt wagon trail winding through the thick New Jersey woods. They forded three streams—two shallow, one chest high and running hard with the muddy brown runoff from the Appalachian Mountains. The wagon mules balked at stream’s edge, and the men had to blindfold them and jump them, bucking and kicking, into the swirling water. In the late afternoon they set up camp, their tents and bedrolls scattered along the banks of a clear-running brook. Caleb took his place with the crew assigned to set up the tripods and hang the smoke-blackened kettles from their chains. They set fires under them to boil up an evening mess of bitter, shriveled turnips and fatty chunks of meat from a sow they had butchered three days before.

  After eating, Caleb was assigned to a detail that hauled fresh water to heat for cleanup, scrubbed out the kettles with sand, rinsed them, and tipped them against a log to dry. Then, with the evening campfires burning, Caleb went to his bedroll, shook out the burlap punching bag, and waited, tentative, unsure, undecided about what he would tell Dorman if he pried into the past.

  Dorman came with shovel in hand, and they walked to the brook to fill the bag with sand and some leaves and dirt. Five minutes later it was swaying from its tether as Caleb began the established routine. Fists up, left foot and left hand forward, chin tucked in, elbows over the ribs, move, slide the feet—don’t step—jab, hook, power, jab, hook, power.

  With eyes that had survived battles, in and out of the ring, reaching back thirty-five years, half of them long since forgotten, Dorman studied Caleb’s every move. He saw the intense concentration, and he felt a rise of excitement at the skill that was slowly emerging. Knees and elbows and feet still slightly too large for the rest of him—but the reflexes are a little more refined—He’s an instant quicker with his fists each day, a fraction smoother on his feet, hitting the bag more solidly with most of his weight. Only a matter of time—let him grow into his frame, keep him working, and one day soon he will be deadly.

  Dorman narrowed his eyes to study Caleb and reflect on what he knew of him.

  Good breeding, educated, intelligent, Puritan Boston.

  He considered the rage in the boy’s eyes, the ugly hate that contorted his face, driving him past his limits as he poured an inner wrath out through his fists. Dorman saw it, and he remembered the white-hot hatred that had consumed him, driven him from the orphanage, out into the harsh world of the sea. And he remembered the wicked joy of release as he learned to pound out his anger with his fists.

  Caleb was stripped to the waist and sweating when Dorman called, “That’s enough for now.” Caleb threw a final, vicious punch at the bag, then walked to the brook, where he splashed cold water on his face and torso. He dried himself on his shirt as he walked back to Dorman, who had lowered the bag and dumped its contents out. Dorman motioned, and they sat on the ground, facing each other across the fire.

  Caleb held his silence. It’s coming.

  Dorman picked a sprig of green oak from the ground and began peeling the new, tender bark with his thumbnail. “You have family in Boston?”

  Caleb answered warily, and Dorman caught the telltale hesitation.

  “Yes. How did you know I’m from Boston?”

  “The way you talk. Mother and father? Brothers? Sisters?”

  “Mother. Two brothers. Two sisters.”

  “Father?”

  “Passed on.”

  Dorman’s eyes dropped for a moment. “I am truly sorry to know that.”

  Caleb saw pain come onto Dorman’s face and fade, and suddenly he wanted to know more about the aging fighter.

  Dorman continued. “How long ago? Your father?”

  “Two years.”

  Dorman stopped picking at the oak twig while he made time calculations, and suddenly he knew. “How did he die?”

  “The battle at Concord. Shot. In the back.”

  Dorman could see the barely controlled flare of anger in the boy and fell silent for a moment while he let the developing picture settle.

  “Your brothers. Older or younger than you?”

  “One older, one younger.”

  “Where’s the older one?”

  “At sea. Navigator on a ship. Graduated from Harvard.”

  “Warship?”

  Caleb nodded.

  “If your father was gone, why did he leave?”

  “Got a letter from General Washington. They needed navigators to go down to the West Indies and get cannon and gunpowder. Matthew is one of the best navigators on the coast.”

  Dorman saw the pride, coupled with the rising sense of rebellion as the boy spoke. Dorman went on. “Is Matthew married? Still alive?”

  Caleb wiped at his mouth before he answered. “Matthew was going to marry when he got the letter. Now he’s gone, and the war has changed that forever. He was alive when we got his last letter.” Caleb shrugged. “I hope he still is.”

  “Your sisters. Older or younger than you?”

  “One older, one younger. My younger brother and sister are twins.”

  “The older sister—still at home?”

  “Yes.”

  “Church?”

  “Do you mean did I go to church?”

  “Yes. Your family.”

  “Congregationalist. Every Sunday. All of us.”

  “The Bible?”

  “Father and Mother read it to us, and we read it ourselves. We prayed every day.”

  “You attend school?”

  “Yes. Preparing to go to Harvard, like Matthew.”

  “What was your father’s work?”

  “Clockmaker. Gunsmith. Made the best clocks and muskets in Massachusetts.” Again, deep pride sounded in Caleb’s words and shone in his face, and then was lost in defiance and pain. Dorman paused for a time as he pondered the dichotomy of the two boys sitting before him: one raised in a genteel, Puritan Boston home to become a true gentleman and leader, the other consumed by an inner rage.

  “You were the oldest man remaining in the house, and you left?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your mother agreed?”

  “She knew I was going.”

  “I didn’t ask that. Did she agree?”

  “She didn’t try to stop me.”

  “Tha
t’s not the same as agreeing. Now she’s alone with your older sister and the twins?”

  “They’ll be all right.”

  Dorman rounded his mouth and softly blew air while he let the implications of the answer settle in. He raised his eyes to look squarely at Caleb’s face.

  “Why did you join the army?”

  The prologue was finished. The waiting was ended. Caleb’s breathing slowed. He did not change expression as he made his answer.

  “To fight the British.”

  With insight born of being a nameless, fatherless orphan, a child of poverty and pain and anger at the ugliness of the only world he knew, Dorman reached past Caleb’s words to the brutal truth. Silence lay thick between the two men while he decided it was time to lay it bare before Caleb.

  “You mean revenge. Make the British pay for what they did to your father. Your brother. Your mother. Your family.”

  It had come too quick, too harsh, and Caleb recoiled slightly. “I mean, fight the British.”

  Dorman leaned forward, elbows on knees. His words were spoken softly, but they cut deep. “Some things you need to know about me. No one ever knew who my father was. My mother died when I was born in a Liverpool alley. Some old sailor took me to an orphanage. For fifteen years I watched as people came to adopt children, but no one ever looked at me. We were taught to read and write, and that’s all the school we ever had. We worked eleven hours a day making brooms and rag rugs. Make a mistake, and the beadle would beat us with a hickory stick. I still have the scars. At fifteen, I beat him and left. I signed onto a ship, and I knew only one thing: the world was my enemy. I was so filled with hate and anger that scarce a day went by I didn’t fight someone, and it made no difference who or where. I think I killed a man—broke his neck in a drunken tavern fight. When I was seventeen I joined the Royal Navy. Someone there saw me in a fight and trained me. I became fleet champion at age twenty, then champion of southern England at twenty-one.”

  Caleb was scarcely breathing, not daring to move.

  “I was thirty years old before I got enough of the hate worked out that I could see things more clear. By then I was in America, a British sailor, fighting the French. There was something about this country . . . I don’t yet know exactly what . . . a spirit, or a feeling . . . like I had finally found someplace I could belong . . . it got inside me. I stayed on here after my British navy enlistment ended—joined the New Jersey militia. I came with General Washington when he made his run from New York across New Jersey and then the Delaware to Pennsylvania last year, and I been with him since. Trenton, Princeton, then on to Morristown for the winter, and now here. I never married because when I was young enough all I knew was how to hate. I have no home, no children. I’m an old man with nothing to show from a wasted life.”