Prelude to Glory, Vol. 5

by Ron Carter

  Billowing white thunderheads piling high in the western sky were alive with spectacular reds and yellows as Caleb jerked the knots holding the bag to the tree branch, and it dropped. While he was loosening the rope and dumping the sand and dirt, Dorman spoke once more.

  “You’re coming along. See you again tomorrow.” He had turned to walk away when Caleb called after him.

  “Can you talk for a minute?”

  Puzzled, Dorman turned back, waiting. Caleb folded the bag and tossed it onto his bedroll, then spoke haltingly. “You’ve . . . uh . . . been in battle before?”

  Dorman looked intently into Caleb’s eyes. “Several. Sea and land.”

  Caleb sat down on his bedroll. “What’s it like? The shooting, I mean. Men hurt. Killed.”

  Caught by surprise, Dorman reached to touch his chin, sorting out his thoughts, searching for words. “Worried?”

  Too quickly, too nonchalantly, Caleb shook his head. “Worried? Oh, no, not . . .” He caught himself. “Yes, a little. I just wanted to know.”

  Dorman sat down on the ground, feet crossed, elbows on his knees, and he spoke with slow deliberation. “I doubt one man can tell another how it is. I can tell you about the shooting and the bayonets and the cannon. The screaming. I can tell you about men being wounded. Dying. I can say all the words, but you won’t know how it is until you’ve been through it. It’s a little different for each man.”

  “Is it . . . bad?”

  Slowly Dorman locked eyes with Caleb. “I think it will be for you, at least at first. It’s different from man to man. It seems like some find they were made for battle. Born for it—love it. Others find out they’re cowards. Still others—maybe most of us—find out it’s a terrible thing, but we learn to live with it.”

  “Any way to . . . uh . . . know . . . what you’ll do?”

  “You afraid of what you’ll do?”

  “Not afraid, exactly. Just . . . wondering.”

  The older man didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, “I think you’ll do fine.”

  Caleb sat without speaking for a time, staring at his hands, and he did not raise his head as he asked, “Did you ever . . .” The words trailed off, and he did not finish.

  “Run? You worried you’ll run?”

  The answer came too quickly, too decisively. “No. Not worried. I just . . . yes. Worried.”

  “Don’t be. I never ran, but sometimes I was so scared I wanted to. Sometimes I was so full of anger I charged when I shouldn’t have—should have been killed half a dozen times. Twice they declared me a hero, but I wasn’t. I was just so filled with hatred and anger I wasn’t responsible for what I did. It was foolish.”

  “What did you do?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes it does.”

  Dorman shrugged. “Once I refused to retreat. Stood off a British attack with a bayonet and a sword. Another time I cleaned out a British redoubt alone.”

  “You? One man?”

  “Don’t make it something it wasn’t. The cannon in that redoubt killed seven men in my company. I saw it—my companions blown apart. I got inside the redoubt and to the cannon before the British could reload. It was all over quick.”

  “Did you feel . . . fear?”

  Dorman shook his head. “No. Not that time. Even after things quieted and I realized what I had done, I felt only anger. I had to punish those redcoats. A terrible feeling. A terrible thing.”

  “How many?”

  “Six. The cannon crew.”

  “You had your musket? Bayonet?”

  “No. I used the sword I took away from their officer. A captain, I think.”

  Caleb slowly leaned back. “You charged six men, empty-handed?”

  “Don’t make more of it than it was. It was a bad thing.”

  “You weren’t wounded? Hurt?”

  “That night I found a bayonet hole in my right side. Went clear through. I don’t remember it happening.”

  “You what?”

  “A bayonet. I didn’t know it.”

  “How bad? How long were you in a hospital?”

  “I didn’t go to a hospital. I didn’t report it. I bound it up with some jimsonweed and carbolic salve. It healed.”

  Caleb wiped at his mouth and tried to speak but had no words.

  Dorman rocked up onto his feet. “Don’t worry about battle. Worry can bring on mistakes. Keep a clear head. Handle it when it comes.” He waited until Caleb raised his face and looked directly into his eyes. “You’ll do well. Hear?”

  Caleb nodded, and Dorman bobbed his head before he turned on his heel and walked away through the dusk and the evening fires and the thick undergrowth and oak trees, toward his own company.

  Caleb sat on his bedroll for a time, struggling with the startling things Dorman had confided to him, going over again and again the advice he had been given. Keep a clear head—don’t worry—worry makes mistakes—you’ll do well.

  The evening star winked on, huge in the purple of the western skies, and then others came twinkling until the dark sky was a sea of lights. Caleb raised his eyes, and the thought struck him—Is Mother looking up at these stars right now?—Prissy and Adam?—Billy and Eli?—Matthew? Where’s Matthew?

  And then without warning the thought froze him: And Father? Is he up there somewhere?

  It had come too fast, and he could not stop the warm tears that trickled down his face, onto his shirt, and he didn’t care. Slowly a hard caste formed on his face. No, Father is dead. Just dead. And dead is nowhere.

  He felt the wrong of it inside, but more than that he felt the hot, bitter anger rise to drive out all other thoughts, all other feelings. The British killed him. They shot him in the back, and Matthew had to go and Billy and Kathleen, and Mother was left alone to provide for us, and I’m going to make the British pay. They’ll pay.

  A high voice rich with Irish came calling, and he started, then quickly wiped at his eyes with his shirtsleeve.

  “Dunson! You here somewhere? Caleb Dunson?”

  Caleb stood and answered. “Here.”

  Barrel-chested, bearded Sergeant O’Malley came striding, followed by tall, lanky, Captain Venables.

  “Here he is, sir.” O’Malley said, stepping aside.

  Venables spoke. “You did the writing about that snake story?”

  Caleb’s eyes narrowed in question. “Yes, sir.”

  Venables cut to the heart of it. “Once in a while we need someone to keep up the regimental orderly book. We give you the facts, you write ’em. Never know when someone’s going to ask to read them, someone like Gen’l Washington, or maybe Congress. The way we’re going through courts-martial, that’d keep Congress busy for about eight years, just tryin’ to catch up.”

  Caleb’s mouth dropped open, then clacked shut. “Courts-martial?”

  Captain Venables flashed a wry grin. “Three or four every day.”

  “For what?”

  “Just about everything you can think of. Stealing food, assault, disobeying direct orders, fighting, desertion, sleeping on picket duty—it goes on and on.” Venables caught himself and concluded, “Anyway, once in a while we need someone to do the writing. Any reason you can’t do it when that happens?”

  “Well, no, except I’ve only been here just over a month. I don’t know—”

  “You don’t need to know nothin’ but how to write, and you do that good. So you’re it. Next time we need you, I’ll tell O’Malley. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” Venables shook his head. “Be just my luck for you to stop the first British musketball that comes whistlin’.” He thrust a bony finger under Caleb’s nose. “You stay out of the way of those redcoat musketballs, hear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right.” He turned to O’Malley. “I’ll send for him when we need him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Venables turned to go, and Caleb called to him, “Sir, could I get back that writing ab
out the snake? I’d like to have it back.”

  “Oh, yeah. I meant to bring it. O’Malley, remind me tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Venables quickly became a black shadow in the campfires, then disappeared, and O’Malley turned to Caleb.

  “I’ll get that writing back.” He pointed to the folded bag on Caleb’s bedroll. “You still trying to learn fighting?”

  Caleb shrugged but said nothing.

  “You intend getting Murphy?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Let it go. Nothing good can come of it.”

  “That depends on Murphy.”

  “Well, you stay away from him.”

  O’Malley waited, but Caleb remained silent. O’Malley bobbed his head in emphasis, turned, and walked back the way he had come. Caleb watched him disappear, then continued to stare for a time, in heavy thought. He’s wrong. Murphy can’t go on beating people. Someone has to stop him. Just like the British. They can’t go on like they are. Someone has to stop them.

  The drummer hammered out tattoo, and the camp quieted. For a long time Caleb lay on his back, hands clasped behind his head, staring into the infinity of stars overhead. If the Almighty is up there, where? Which star? So many. Too many. What makes us think He cares about us—even knows we’re here? If He cares, where is He now when we’re getting ready for battle? If killing is wrong, why doesn’t He stop it? If He hears prayers, why didn’t He hear Mother’s when she asked for Father to live? Why?

  He felt a dark cloud creep into his mind, coloring his thoughts with doubt and hopelessness that turned to frustration and anger. He turned on his side, his face drawn in cynicism. It always ends this way when you try to understand. Better to let it go. Let the Almighty take care of the Almighty. I’ll take care of me.

  He drifted into troubled sleep filled with incoherent snatches of scenes, both real and imagined. One moment he saw his mother hanging fresh wash in the backyard behind their house in bright Boston sunshine, ignoring him when he called to her. The next moment there was an old man with long hair and decayed teeth and a thin face, pointing at him, laughing insanely. In an instant the man faded, and he saw Adam and Prissy crying.

  Tossing, turning, he jerked awake sweating and heard his own voice echoing in the woods. Angry calls came from the darkness, and he lay back down, fighting to stay awake.

  The line of light separating earth and sky was faint in the east before he once again slept, and less than half an hour later the drummer came walking through camp banging out reveille. Caleb rose from his blankets with the jumbled, disjointed, bizarre visions of the night flicking through his mind. He swallowed at the sour taste in his mouth as he tied his shoes, then walked to the woodpile and picked up the ax to wait for the rest of the morning wood crew. They came hitching suspenders over their shoulders, and Caleb led them away from Neshaminy Creek, into the oaks, watching the ground for snakes.

  They had carried their first load back to dump it at the cook fires and were turning when the sound of a running horse brought them up short. A rider came in from the south on a lathered horse while men scrambled to get out of his way, then raised their fists at his back as he plowed on. O’Malley shook his head in disgust.

  “That fool’s going to kill someone, he keeps that up.”

  They watched the horse out of sight, then went on about the dull, mindless duty of preparing morning mess.

  The rider found the tent of General Washington, with its rounded ends and flagpole, and brought his horse to a skidding stop, throwing a shower of soft, decayed flora from the forest floor. He hit the ground at a run and pulled up before the two pickets, breathing hard while the horse stood spraddle-legged, fighting for wind.

  “Message for Gen’l Washington,” he exclaimed. He patted his chest where the message was wrapped in oilskin inside his shirt.

  “I’ll take it.”

  The man shook his head violently. “My orders is to deliver it to the gen’l personal. I got to do it myself.”

  “Wait here.”

  The picket disappeared through the tent flap and thirty seconds later pulled it aside. “The general will see you.”

  Inside, the rider came to rigid attention, heels together, chin sucked in, and saluted with one hand while he dug out the oilskin packet with the other. He didn’t wait for Washington to return the salute. Standing to Washington’s right was Alexander Hamilton.

  “Gen’l, sir, I was sent special with this here message yesterday evenin’.” He thrust it forward. “Cap’n Iverson said it had to be here this mornin’. Took all night and two horses, but it’s here.”

  General Washington laid the message on the table to unfold the oilskin, then the message, and read it. The only change in his expression was a slight widening of his eyes. He read it once again, then raised his face to the messenger.

  “Do you know what is written here?”

  “Well, sir, I don’t because, well, I can’t read, but I got a good idee.”

  “What?”

  “I was there, sir. I seen ’em. Right there where the Elk River hits the Chesapeake, sir. Head of Elk. The whole bloody bay was filled with them sails and British flags.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Certain. Counted as many as I could see. Way over two hunnerd of ’em, sir. I expect they was close to two thousand cannon snouts stickin’ out the cannon ports on them ships. Maybe fifteen, twenty thousand redcoats on board. They was gettin’ ready to come on ashore. Dumpin’ dead horses all over the bay. I seen it. I reckon that’s what Cap’n Ingersol wrote, sir. Told me to get it here like the devil hisself was nippin’ at my hocks, so I come a-foggin’ it, sir.”

  Washington pursed his mouth and turned to Hamilton. “Take this man and his mount for food and rest and then return as quickly as possible. Neither of you is to say a word about this to anyone until further orders. Send Colonel Laurens the minute you find him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With his usual quick movements, the slightly built Hamilton led the larger man out into the bright August morning sun, in a straight line toward the fodder wagons.

  Inside his tent, Washington grabbed a map, quickly unrolled it, and weighted down the four corners. He shifted it once to lay true to the compass, and instantly began locating places with his finger.

  Three minutes later the picket ushered Colonel John Laurens through the tent flap to stand facing Washington. Laurens had been inside his tent shaving when Hamilton burst in. He had swept the lather from half his face and come at a run.

  “Sir, are you all right?”

  “Yes. We’ll wait for—”

  The sound of running horses interrupted, and moments later the tent flap was once again thrown aside as Generals Greene and Cadwalader pushed inside. They saw Laurens half-shaved and Washington standing motionless, as though he had been chiseled from granite, and they stood in silence, waiting. Thirty seconds later a winded Hamilton threw aside the tent flap and quickly stepped inside, followed moments later by Generals Stephen, Stirling, Lafayette, and Wayne.

  With his war council assembled, Washington took a deep breath. “I have just received a message from a Captain Bosley Ingersol of the Maryland Militia. The British fleet is at Head of Elk, at the top of Chesapeake Bay.”

  For a split second a stunned silence held, and then the tent exploded with wild exclamations of shocked disbelief. Half the generals lunged to their feet, gesturing.

  “What? Head of Elk?”

  “Insane!”

  “In the name of heaven, what is Howe doing? Has he lost his mind?”

  Washington let it run for a full minute before he called them to order. “I make no attempt to explain it because I find that impossible. I only know that I am reliably informed they arrived there yesterday. The messenger saw it himself and also carried the written message from his captain.”

  Again raucous exclamations resounded, then quieted.

  “Let me show you.” Washington spent one moment orienting hims
elf to the map spread before him, then tapped it with a long index finger.

  “This is Amboy, on the New Jersey coast, just opposite Staten Island. This is where General Howe had his army assembled last June. The distance overland from Amboy, here,”—his finger traced a line—“to Philadelphia, here, is just about sixty miles, north to south.”

  He straightened. “I believe General Howe feared we could hurt him badly if he marched his troops through New Jersey to Philadelphia, so he decided to avoid it by taking them on ships. He probably meant to go up the Delaware River and land them at Chester or Red Bank Redoubt, some fifteen or sixteen miles from Philadelphia, and march them overland from there.”

  He once again tapped the map. “But he didn’t do that. He stopped in Delaware Bay and for some reason known only to him and the Almighty sailed right back out, down the coast past the Virginia Capes, then Maryland, and turned west, then right back up the Chesapeake Bay to drop anchor, here, at the very top of the Chesapeake, at Head of Elk, where the Elk River empties into the bay.”

  He paused to shake his head in profound bewilderment. “I believe he intends marching his army overland from Head of Elk to Philadelphia.” He raised his face. “The distance is about fifty-seven miles, south to north.”

  All the officers in the tent leaned back in their chairs, their faces dead blank in wonderment.

  “He loaded his army on those ships on July ninth. He will probably have them unloaded by about August twenty-fifth. I am not able to invent an explanation as to why he would have his entire army on those ships in the worst heat of the summer for forty-seven days, and at the conclusion be just as far from Philadelphia as he was when he started.”

  Every man on the war council stared at the map, re-creating the movements of General Howe and his fleet, trying to understand. It was impossible.

  Washington called them back to attention. “Why it happened no longer matters. What does matter is that it is now on us to march our army back to Philadelphia as quickly as possible. We have a mandate from Congress to defend the city and keep it from British hands if we can.”

  Every man at the table sobered.

  “When you leave, go immediately to your commands and give orders that we march for Philadelphia the moment we’re ready.”