by Ron Carter
A half mile behind Washington and his officers, plodding on a winding dirt road, came the core of the Continental Army—in a long column that stretched north out of sight in the rolling New Jersey hills. They had labored fourteen hours a day since reversing their line of march, crossing the Pompton, Whippany, and Raritan Rivers and countless streams and brooks in their headlong plunge toward the Delaware, where they hoped to intercept Howe. If Philadelphia was Howe’s objective, the Continentals meant to make a fight of it.
Washington put his horse down the south slope of the hill, raised her to a lope across a quarter mile of lowlands, splashed through a small stream, then slowed to a walk as they began the next climb. His back was straight, man and animal moving as one through the undulating hills. Finally, with the sun directly overhead, he called a stop near a brook.
“Loosen your saddle girths and water your mounts. We’ll continue in twenty minutes.”
At two in the afternoon the dank smell of the river reached them, and half an hour later they reined in their sweating horses on the New Jersey bank of the broad, rolling, green-brown waters of the Delaware. For a time they remained mounted while they studied the river and searched the distant Pennsylvania shore for anything that would tell them if Howe had been there.
Square barges and the familiar Durham freight boats, filled to the gunwales with iron ore and riding deep in the water, were being poled upriver by sweating crews, toward the smelters above McConkie’s Ferry. Other traffic was moving downriver, boats and barges filled with pig iron, wheat, sheep, cattle, and fresh vegetables for the Philadelphia market. Rowboats moved in all directions as farmers, merchants, bearded frontiersmen, itinerant preachers, and countless others with untold business moved on the great water-highway that served three states. Among all the vessels, there was not a military ship to be seen, nor a sign of the red, white, and blue of the British Union Jack, nor a single red-coated British regular.
Washington broke the silence. “They might be above us or below us.” He turned to General Nathanael Greene. “We have about six hours of daylight. Take three officers and go south.” To General John Cadwalader, he said, “Take three men and go north. I’ll go back to bring the column in. Report back when you’ve found the British, but not later than midnight.”
Both officers saluted, nodded to those who were to accompany them, wheeled their horses, and cantered away in opposite directions. Washington and his two aides turned their horses and walked them east, searching for a clearing in the woods that would provide enough open land, firewood, and fresh water for the oncoming column to make camp for the night.
* * * * *
They came sweat-soaked, footsore, standing in respectful, expectant silence as General Washington reined his horse to a stop and spoke to the leading regiment.
“The Delaware is two miles ahead. There are no British ships or soldiers in sight.”
A hushed murmur arose and quieted. Washington continued.
“We have patrols moving up and down the river. Until we know the location of the British, we will camp and wait. There’s open ground just over a mile ahead with two streams running through. We’ll camp there until further notice.”
He turned to Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, the nearest of his two aides, pointing. “The two of you ride on and give the message to those behind. I’ll lead back to the campsite.”
Murmuring in the marching ranks began before the aides had covered a quarter of a mile. By the time they had gone half a mile, there was open talk.
“From Morristown south to Middlebrook, then back north halfway through the Ramapos, and turn right around south clean back here to the Delaware, and what did it get us? Nothin’ but wore out!”
“Marchin’ in circles! That’s what we’re doin’! Won’t even know when the war’s over ’cause we’ll still be out somewhere marchin’ in circles!”
Reaching the meadow, Washington reined his mount around and faced the leaders of the column. Wordlessly he pointed to each succeeding regiment as it entered the campground, directing each to its position. It was after six o’clock before the wagons arrived. Overloaded with the sick and the precious little equipment, munitions, food, and medicines the Continentals had to meet the unending demands of a marching army, the wagons came creaking and rattling into the clearing.
The women and children rode in the wagons when they could, or walked silently beside when they couldn’t, waiting to see the place that would be their new home. They would remain until the next day, or two days, or until an advance or a retreat or a battle won or lost would force them to once again quickly pack their meager possessions, load them into a wagon bed, and march on to a new meadow or a field or a hill or a valley they had never seen before. They had learned not to attach themselves to a place, or to things, but only to each other. All else was fleeting, transient.
By dusk, a haze of smoke from the cook fires hung in the sultry dead air above the camp, dimming the stars and blurring the treetops. Tents for the officers and women and children were scattered about. Blankets and bedrolls littered the ground wherever the soldiers had dropped them for the night. With evening mess finished, camp talk flourished in the deepening shadows. New York’s Ninth Regiment, Third Company, bedded on the south side of the sprawling camp, finished scrubbing the supper cook pots with clean sand from a brook, and the weary men sought the comfort and reverie of an evening campfire. They sat cross-legged on the ground, in clothes damp from sweat, elbows on knees, fingers interlaced before them, studying the shifting, dwindling flames.
“We should’ve had scouts out before we come all this way, so’s we’d know if we was goin’ to finally catch Howe.”
“Gettin’ ready to fight’s bad enough. Gettin’ ready and havin’ nobody there to fight is worse.”
“We oughta go on down to the river and shoot at somethin’. That’d be better’n comin’ all this way to do nothin’.”
Caleb Dunson sat among the men, listening for a time, then went to his bedroll for the worn canvas strips to wrap his hands. He was finishing when the familiar voice of Dorman came from behind.
“Too tired tonight?”
Caleb shook his head and stood. “I’m ready.”
Dorman hesitated for a second. “We start the next step. You try to hit me any place you can above the waist.”
Caleb started. “Hit? How hard?”
“As hard as you can.”
Caleb stammered. “I . . . that doesn’t . . . don’t you—”
Dorman cut him off. “Don’t worry. Go ahead. Remember your feet. Start.”
Caleb took his stance—left foot slightly forward, hands up to protect his face, chin tucked into the hollow of his left shoulder, elbows close to his ribs. He centered his gaze on Dorman’s chest but took in the whole man, then began moving to his left, slowly circling Dorman. His left hand flicked out, aimed at Dorman’s forehead, but Dorman tipped his head to the side, and the blow missed its mark. Caleb flicked his left hand out again, but to no effect—Dorman turned his head just far enough that the blow brushed harmlessly by. Surprised at how easily Dorman avoided being hit, Caleb jerked his fist back, cocked his arm, and brought a left hook aimed at Dorman’s right temple. Dorman’s right hand moved up and out to deflect the punch while it was yet six inches from his head, and Caleb’s fist harmlessly grazed Dorman’s rounded shoulder.
In the grain of time between Dorman’s hand coming up and Caleb pulling back from his missed punch, Dorman was inside Caleb’s left arm. In that instant it flashed in Caleb’s mind—He’s inside my guard—could hurt me bad—break my ribs.
Dorman said nothing nor did he change the dead expression on his face. Only his eyes were alive, focused on Caleb, closely watching every movement, every expression as it flitted over Caleb’s face.
The dance went on. Again the boy jabbed and hooked, and once more Dorman slipped or picked off Caleb’s punches. Frustrated, Caleb threw all his weight into a power punch aimed between Dorman’s elbows, at his c
hest. Instinctively, Dorman brought his forearms together in front of his chest and twisted slightly to one side, deflecting the blow while Caleb tried to recover. In that fleck of time Caleb knew. He could hook my ribs or my head, hard.
Men seated around nearby campfires turned to watch the two spar—the gray-haired man and the smooth-cheeked boy—warily circling each other, the boy swinging, the man blocking. They watched for a few moments, then smiled and shook their heads and turned back to cursing the British, their officers, the weather, and the fact they had come prepared for a battle that was not to be.
In full darkness, with only the shadowy light of the campfires showing their perspiration, Dorman finally backed away and dropped his hands.
“That’s enough for now. Questions?”
“How do you know when I’m going to swing?”
“Your eyes. Your expression. How you position yourself.”
Caleb’s eyes widened. “My eyes?”
“A split second before your hands move, your eyes narrow just a little. Concentrate on not changing your expression. No matter what happens, try to keep the same expression. You hit him, he hits you, he gets hurt, you get hurt, it’s all the same. Don’t change your expression. And learn to set your feet a little closer to the time you swing. If there’s too big a gap between the two, you’ve told the other man what you’re doing. It has to be quick.”
Caleb stood still for several seconds, memorizing the words he had just heard, putting them in place in his mind. Then he began to unwrap his hands.
Dorman turned to go, and Caleb called, “Tomorrow night?”
“Unless we’re marching.” Dorman reflected for a moment. “You’re learning. Doing well. A few times tonight you came close. Could have hurt me.”
Caleb started. “I don’t want—”
Dorman raised a hand, smiling. “I know. Let me worry about that. A little more work, and I’ll start hitting back.”
Caleb’s mouth dropped open. “You’ll fight back?”
“Let’s say you’ll learn to slip and block, or you’ll have a bruise here and there.”
A thrill surged through Caleb as Dorman turned and was gone.
In the moment Caleb dropped his eyes to finish unwrapping his hands, a shadowy movement in the trees forty feet away caught his eye, and he jerked his head up, peering into the darkness. The shape of a blocky, bearded man stepped back out of the glow of the fire and disappeared while Caleb stared, uncertain of who it was or what the man had been watching.
Was it Murphy? Conlin Murphy? Watching? He shrugged. Let him watch.
He rolled the hand wraps and was putting them back into his bedroll when Sergeant Randolph O’Malley came striding, red hair and beard shining in the firelight. He slowed, and his gravelly voice came rasping.
“You got that writing you did about the snake?”
Caleb stood silent for a moment, caught by surprise. “In my bedroll. Why?”
“Cap’n Venables is looking for someone who can write, to help keep the regimental orderly book. Wants to read it.”
Caleb’s head fell forward in shock, then he asked, “What’s the regimental orderly book?”
“Nothin’ much. Just a book that tells what the regiment done each day.”
“Venables wants me to keep it? How did he know?”
O’Malley cleared his throat, and for a moment his eyes dropped as though he were about to confess having done something wrong. “He asked me if I knew anyone. I told him.”
Caleb started forward, unaware he was moving. “O’Malley, I won’t do it!”
O’Malley waved a hand to brush aside Caleb’s refusal. “Cap’n Venables will decide, and if he orders you, I don’t reckon you have a choice. Now where’s the snake story?”
“I wrote that to send back to Boston to the print shop.”
“You’ll get it back.”
“When?”
“Likely tomorrow mornin’.”
Caleb rounded his lips to blow air for a moment while he accepted what O’Malley was forcing on him. Then he turned, dug into his bedroll, and brought out the sheaf of papers. He folded the first two sheets and handed them to O’Malley.
O’Malley bobbed his head once, turned, and walked away into the darkness.
At ten o’clock tattoo sounded. Men banked the glowing coals of their campfires for the morning cooking fires and broke away from their small groups to seek their blankets. From a long distance to the north came the mournful sound of wolves baying at the thin crescent moon as it cleared the eastern skyline, and for a long time the soldiers stared north in the blackness, not moving as they listened, unconsciously counting the voices of the pack.
For a few minutes the baying quieted, and then came the sounds of the pack in full voice, first one, then another, and another as they took their rotation in running something to ground. A moose? Elk? Deer? In the darkness, each man created his own scene of half a dozen of the tireless, long-legged, gray and black wolves, yellow eyes glowing in the night as they relentlessly, patiently, worked their prey, maintaining a chase that was divided among the six of them, driving their terror-stricken prey to exhaustion. When the victim could run no more, it would find a rock or a wind-fallen tree, whirl, and back up to it with lowered head, antlers poised, ready for the death struggle that was coming. It would end as quickly as two wolves were able to attack the throat long enough for two others to seize and rip the big tendons in the hind legs. With the hindquarters down and the animal unable to rise, it would be over in less than two minutes. Quick, efficient, the end known from the beginning.
None of the men were conscious that they were lying motionless, staring into the blackness. Nor did any of them ponder the reason the entire Continental Army camp on the Delaware was hushed, quiet, listening to the progress of the chase. Who knows what the primal sound of wolves in full voice touches in the deep recesses of mankind? Is it the ultimate fascination of knowing the eternal cycle of hunter and hunted, of life and death, is playing itself out somewhere in the night? That something will die that another might live? Is it the subtle, unspoken sureness that the seeds of hunting and being hunted, of killing or be killed, lurk within the human heart, tenuously restrained by the rules of civilization? In their minds, are men seeing themselves when they hear wolves in the night? Hear the rush and snarling and snapping as they rip at throat and tendon? Are they seeing men of one uniform facing those of another, each with cannon and musket to kill? Listening to the wolves, are they seeing themselves?
Who knows? The only thing the men and women of the sprawling Continental Army camp knew was that they listened until the voices stopped because they were unable to do otherwise.
In the quiet that followed, Caleb turned on his side, away from the north, and closed his eyes. He let his muscles go slack while his mind reached for a warm, dark, quiet place. He was brought back from the comfort by a whisper from behind.
“It’s me, O’Malley. Cap’n Venables says you can get your paper back in the morning. Might want to see you.”
Caleb rolled toward the sergeant. “You hear the wolves?” the boy asked.
“Yes.”
“Makes you think.”
“Wolves always do.”
Caleb drew a deep breath before he continued. “A lot of the men were surly today when there were no British. Why?”
O’Malley arranged his thoughts before he answered. “The Almighty put it in a man to want to live. In the end, maybe that’s the strongest thing men feel. Maybe that’s what makes men want children. So something of them can live after they’re gone. I don’t know. But I do know that it’s hard for a man to get ready to kill another man, and it’s worse to get ready to die. When a man’s gone through that misery and then finds out there won’t be a battle, he’ll complain. It’s normal. Don’t worry about it as long as they’re complainin’. The time to start worryin’ is when they quit and just get quiet. That usually means they’re plannin’ to run.”
Caleb remained silent
in the darkness.
O’Malley finished. “I’ll bring that paper in the mornin’.”
Caleb watched the dark shape disappear in the darkness before he turned on his side and curled his arm under his head. He did not remember drifting to sleep.
Sometime in the night a faint vibration of the ground reached him through his blanket, and his sleep-fogged brain identified the sounds of saddle leather creaking and shod horse hooves hitting the ground somewhere to the west, closer to the Delaware. That small, quiet, vigilant voice that never sleeps whispered to his mind, It is all right—you need not awaken. He sighed, shifted set muscles, and slept on.
Half a mile to the west, General Nathanael Greene swung down from his weary mount. For a moment he stood on stiff legs, hands on his hips, seeking to ease muscles cramped from fifteen hours in the saddle. The three officers with him also dismounted and handed the reins of their spent horses to waiting soldiers, then walked the ten feet to the pickets standing on either side of the entrance to General Washington’s tent. The pickets drew the tent flaps aside and held them.
“The general’s waiting.”
In the pale yellow lantern light that cast huge, misshapen shadows, Washington seemed to tower larger than life, standing behind his desk, his tired face showing the crushing weight of ultimate command.
Greene and those with him came to full attention and saluted. Washington returned it as he spoke.
“Report.”
“We went as far as the outskirts of Philadelphia. I personally talked to some of the officers in the Pennsylvania militia.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “No one has seen the fleet, or any sign of Howe, or his command. Nothing.”
Washington started. “Nothing? Have they heard anything reliable?”