Prelude to Glory, Vol. 5

by Ron Carter

  It was approaching two o’clock when Pryor dropped to his haunches and they stopped while he whispered, “Two hundred yards. The first picket. They should be changing about now. We wait.”

  On bended knee they waited and watched until Caleb felt the muscles in his legs begin to cramp. Silently he shifted, stretched his legs, and settled once again. Minutes passed before the sounds of a man tramping through the forest came clear. They listened to two voices, then the sounds of a man leaving before Pryor picked a stone from the forest floor, gave a hand sign and moved forward silently. They were less than twenty feet from the picket before they saw the black form suddenly jerk alert and bring up a musket.

  In that instant Pryor lofted the stone over the man’s head to land forty feet beyond him, bounding through the forest foliage. The picket spun, and they heard the flat sound of his musket hammer being drawn to full cock as Pryor dropped his rifle and sprinted. The man was turning when the tomahawk struck. Pryor caught the picket as he fell and laid him silently on the ground. He detached the bayonet from the picket’s Brown Bess musket and threw it into the forest, then threw the musket the other direction. He shoved the tomahawk handle back through his belt, and Caleb waited while he retraced his steps to retrieve his rifle from the brush. One minute later they were once again moving west, searching for the next picket.

  There was no tobacco smoke. There was nothing. They nearly overran the man before his voice came booming from the shadows less than fifteen feet away. “Halt! Who comes there? Answer or I shoot!”

  They saw the raised musket as Pryor spoke loudly, his voice echoing in the forest. “Loyalist scout. I’m coming in. My hands are raised.” He gave Caleb hand signs and for a moment Caleb could not believe it. Pryor shoved him to his feet and pushed him forward. Caleb walked slowly toward the man, his heart in his throat, hands high, clasping his musket, feet rustling in the fall leaves on the forest floor. Pryor silently disappeared to his left. When Caleb had closed to within six feet of the picket, the man opened his mouth to speak as the tomahawk struck from behind, and he dropped like a stone.

  Pryor threw the man’s musket and his bayonet in different directions, and they continued on west, picking their way through the trees. They had gone nearly three hundred yards when Pryor stopped. For ten seconds he stood straight up, testing the frosty air, listening for anything that would betray the third picket. It came quietly in a hoarse whisper.

  “Henry, is that you? I heard talking over there.” The voice was soft, young, strained, frightened. Pryor pointed to a stand of pine trees and gave Caleb a hand sign to walk, while he again disappeared into the night, crouched low, reaching for his tomahawk.

  They left the third man in the trees where he fell. Pryor paused only long enough to slip his tomahawk back into his belt and peer eastward at the heavens, judging the time until sunrise. The morning star was still strong in the velvet black of the heavens. He turned to Caleb long enough to hold up one finger. Only one picket left to find and silence.

  Twenty minutes later Pryor stopped and dropped to his haunches with Caleb right behind. Pryor waited until their breathing slowed before he closed his eyes, bowed his head, and listened intently to the sounds of the night. From their right, at a distance, came the soft gurgle of the Wissahickon Creek flowing over rocks. For a moment something small stirred the brittle fall leaves on the forest floor and was gone. Then, silence. All summer insects were gone. The toads were buried in the mud for the winter. Overhead a night bird glided on silent, silken wings.

  Pryor was rising when the brush less than eight feet to their left erupted, shattering the quiet. He had only time to partially turn toward the black shape of a man hurtling at them and raise his rifle at the bayonet that came flashing in the moonlight. From behind Pryor, Caleb heard the gasp as Pryor went down backwards, and Caleb saw the British picket jerk his musket back and poise it for a second thrust. In that grain of time Caleb’s right hand reached for the bone-handled knife on his left hip, and he dived. He struck the picket from the side, and they went down in a tangled heap. Caleb rolled free and came to his feet with the knife drawn, low in front of him, cutting edge up as the picket came to his knees. He was rising when Caleb reached him with his right hand swinging forward in an upward arc. Caleb felt the knife strike the softness of the man’s belly, just below the place the white belts crossed on the man’s chest, and he heard the grunt as the man sagged away from him, clawing at the wound. Caleb jerked the knife free and struck again, and a third time. A strange, unearthly whine came from the man’s throat as he sat down backwards, then toppled onto his side and became still.

  For a moment Caleb stood over him, waiting, and when the man did not move again he spun and in two strides was beside Pryor. The old man had risen to one knee.

  “How bad?” Caleb demanded, and Pryor could hear the fear in his voice.

  “Nothin’. I think that frog-sticker got a little piece of my arm.” He pulled the left sleeve of his leather shirt toward his elbow and raised his forearm to look. “Yep. Got just a little of it. Nearly missed. No real damage. We’ll let ’er bleed a little to clean ’er out and then we’ll bind it with somethin’. Can I borrow a chunk of your shirttail?”

  Caleb opened his coat and pulled out his shirttail, cut a long strip with the knife and handed it to Pryor. Pryor flexed his hand while he spoke.

  “Used the knife?”

  It had happened too fast. Caleb raised his right hand, still clutching the knife, and he stared as his mind caught up with the fact that he had killed a man with it, face to face. He felt a sudden surge of weakness come over him and for a moment was not sure his knees would support his body. Knowing that he had again taken a human life rose to choke him. He licked dry lips in the cold October night air and stared back at Pryor.

  “Yes. The knife.”

  Pryor could hear the flat, dead sound in Caleb’s voice and for a moment his thoughts reached far back. Forgotten images rose in an instant, and he saw himself at age fifteen standing over an Indian writhing on the ground with a knife embedded deep in his chest. He remembered the leap of fear as his heart told him he had offended God and nature by killing another human, and it did not matter that the man was an Indian who had tried to kill him.

  He looked at Caleb in the shadowy moonlight. “It’s a hard thing. Hard.”

  Caleb heard the anguish and the hope in the voice, and Dorman’s words came back to him—It’s a hard thing.

  “Might help to remember you likely saved my life.”

  It did not help.

  Pryor handed him the strip of shirttail and gestured, and Caleb wiped the knife blade before he pushed it back into its sheath. Half a minute later Pryor quietly said, “It’s bled enough,” and Caleb carefully wrapped the cloth around the wounded arm and tied it. While he worked his shirtsleeve over the bandage, Pryor looked to the east. The black velvet of night had changed almost imperceptibly to a deep purple.

  “Sunrise in less than an hour,” he said. “We’re just about in the middle between Skippack Road to the east and Van Deering’s Mill’s on Ridge Pike Road to the west, which is where we should be. If Gen’l Washington’s on time for the five o’clock attack, we should be hearin’ from him soon. If it gets too far past sunrise the British are goin’ to start wonderin’ where their last shift of night pickets are, and things could get testy. We wait.”

  They sat on an ancient wind-fallen log, nearly hidden by overgrowth as the minutes stretched on, until suddenly Pryor raised a warning hand at the same insant Caleb heard it. From the Skippack Road half a mile to the east, came the sound of coordinated feet moving at a trot.

  “That’s a patrol, and they’re movin’ fast,” Pryor said softly. “Question is, ours or theirs?” They listened intently for a full minute before Pryor spoke again. “They’re movin’ south. It’s got to be theirs.”

  Caleb heard the instant concern in Pryor’s voice and felt the rising tension as they both peered into the darkness as though in the st
aring they could see the distant road.

  On the Skippack, a panting British lieutenant kept his ten-man night patrol moving at double time down the center of the dirt road, breathing hard and sweating, despite the cold bite in the air. They crossed the road leading west to Van Deering’s Mill, and five minutes later swung toward the east end of the breastworks, barely visible in the darkness. The young officer answered the camp pickets and led his patrol to the tent of General James Grant, British commander of the eastern breastworks.

  Three minutes later he stood at rigid attention in the dim light of a lantern before a disheveled General Grant, who was wearing his nightshirt and pants, with one suspender looped over his shoulder.

  “Sir, Lieutenant Robert Cartwright reporting. Sorry to awaken you, but I thought you would want to know. There is a massive movement of rebels coming south on the Skippack Road.”

  Grant’s mouth dropped open, and he clacked it shut. “How many? How far?”

  “Thousands. We saw them up at Chester Hill just after three o’clock a.m.”

  “Show me.” Grant scrambled to lay a map flat on his worktable.

  “Right there, sir.” The lieutenant tapped with a finger.

  Ten minutes later a gasping British captain pulled a winded horse to a sliding stop before the command tent of General William Howe, pitched where the Old York Road intersects Skippack, just over one mile south of Grant’s tent.

  “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but General Grant sends this message and ordered me to wait for a written answer.”

  A scowling William Howe, clad in a nightshirt and robe, broke the seal and read the few lines.

  Ten minutes later the laboring horse was standing with its head down, fighting for wind while the captain once again stood before General Grant in his tent at the breastworks. “General Howe sends his respects and this message, sir.”

  Grant read the message and a smile formed. “Get my officers here as quick as you can, and send word to General Grey to get his officers over here, too.”

  Half an hour later Grant stood at the head of his council table. The eastern sky was bright with a sun just ten minutes from rising, and a heavy mist was beginning to rise along the creek beds and in the forest.

  Grant spoke loudly. “The rebels are coming down the Skippack Road in force from the north. General Howe has issued written orders. Put all your men under arms immediately. Issue ammunition and rations for two days. General Howe’s doing the same at the camp to the south of us. We do not go out to meet them. We wait here and let them show their hand first.”

  General Grey interrupted. “Are we certain this isn’t just a scouting party? A small force to probe our defenses?”

  Grant shook his head. “A Lieutenant Cartwright brought his night patrol in at double time for four miles to tell me he personally saw them. Thousands of them. This is no small force. Get your commands under arms and wait.”

  Grant watched the officers file rapidly out of the tent, then stood for a moment in deep contemplation. So Washington’s bringing his rabble down to engage us. He slowly shook his head in wonderment. Did he think he’d catch us by surprise? Another Trenton? The only surprise is that he’s able to attack us so soon after the beating he took at Brandywine. I wonder where he is right at this moment.

  To the north, Washington drew his watch from his vest pocket. Nearly five o’clock—late—too many fences—too many wooded hills. He glanced to his right at General Sullivan, prodding his men along, then to the east, where the sky was already bright. The rising ground mist was beginning to obscure trees and split-rail fences. Nearly sunrise—perhaps the mist will hide us for a while—General Greene should be nearing Lime Kiln Road soon—he’ll be moving in to protect our left flank and hit the British on their right—is he on time?—he has to be—has to be. Armstrong will be coming in from the west.

  Four miles to the northeast a frantic General Greene sat his horse, walking it beside his guide, a man who had spent his entire life within thirty miles of Germantown. The ground mist swirled about them, blurring, obscuring known landmarks.

  “Where are we?” Greene demanded. “We should have crossed the road just south of Chester Hill an hour ago. We’ve got to be at the Lime Kiln Road marching on Luken’s Mill and the British breastworks at five o’clock. Where’s the road? Where are we?”

  The man peered back up at Greene. “I followed the marching orders you gave me, but they were wrong. I can’t see in this mist. Too many fences, too many woods. Lime Kiln should be right here.”

  “Speak plainly, man! Are you lost?” Greene was barely holding himself under control.

  The man shrugged. “It’s hard when you can’t see. We got to be close. Keep pushing south.”

  Greene bit down on his anger and his rising sense of desperation. He turned in the saddle once to peer to his right in the mounting fog. Where’s Washington?—no sound of battle to the west—is he waiting for us?—got to find him.

  More than three miles to the west, Washington held his place at the rear of the column and helplessly watched the sun rise, a dull orange ball barely discernible in the heavy mist. He sat erect in the saddle, watching, listening, every nerve alive. Ahead of him was the division commanded by Maxwell. In front of Maxwell were the divisions of Stirling, then Wayne, and leading, Conway.

  Sun’s up—it’s past five o’clock—we’re late—where’s Greene?—if he gets to the Lime Kiln Road junction before we do, what will he do?—he won’t know if he’s ahead of us or behind us—what will he do?—what?—and what’s happening at the head of our column?—what’s Conway doing?

  Nearly two miles ahead of Washington, hunkered down in dense cover, Pryor and Caleb heard the hushed sounds of British voices giving orders south of them and then the rustle of men pushing through the forest foliage in the thick mist. In two minutes the sounds were all around them, and they saw the shapes hunched forward, muskets and bayonets at the ready, as the red-clad troops moved north. Instantly Pryor clamped a hand onto Caleb’s shoulder and shoved him down behind the log and whispered softly, “Something’s gone wrong—too many British going north—don’t move!”

  Minutes passed while the two men lay behind the decaying log, barely breathing, as the British soldiers flowed silently past them, quietly moving through the fog toward the oncoming Continental Army.

  More than a mile dead ahead, Captain Allen McLane, commanding the Delaware Light Cavalry that was leading General Conway’s division, leaned forward in his saddle, squinting, trying to make out the dim, shadowy figures moving in the swirling ground-mist forty yards ahead. As he walked his horse forward, the figures took form and shape, and suddenly they were British regulars with the white belts crossed on their crimson tunics. In that instant McLane knew they were an advance patrol and had seen him. The trap was sprung. There would be no surprise bayonet charge. There was but one command he could give.

  “Charge!”

  He jerked his sword from its scabbard and jammed his blunted spurs into the shoulders of his horse. In three jumps he was at a gallop with his full cavalry command thundering right behind. The British patrol stood stock-still for the split second it took to realize the Americans meant to overrun them, and then they fired one volley before they turned and ran before the swinging swords. They came pounding back past Caleb and Pryor with McLane’s cavalry crashing through the brush right behind them. Pryor shouted, “That cavalry’s ours! Follow them!” In an instant both men were surging forward with the Americans as they chased the running British.

  At the rear of the column Washington heard the British muskets, and he tensed as he stood tall in his stirrups to peer into the impenetrable mist. Too soon!—too soon—the British are warned—who’s firing?—what have we run into?—I should be there, not here! He reined his horse out of the column and dug his spurs home.

  At the front of the column, as by magic, the red-coated regulars of the British Second Light Infantry came marching out of the fog in a line, bayonets lowered, straight i
nto McLane’s oncoming American cavalry. In five seconds the opposing armies were locked in a wild melee, swords swinging, the hated bayonets thrusting, muskets blasting orange flame and .75-caliber lead balls in the thick mist that was now mingling with a fog that came rolling, and gun smoke. Within minutes the fog and smoke were so thick no one could discern what was happening thirty yards away.

  McLane’s cavalry slowed, confused, unsure of what they had run into and which direction they should attack. Then, out of the mists, Colonel Thomas Musgrave led his British Fortieth Light Infantry into the bedlam to support the Second Light Infantry, a battle cry surging as they came. They plowed into the fight in a bayonet charge, and McLane began to fall back onto his own infantry coming in from behind. The fog, mingled with the gun smoke, cut vision to less than twenty-five yards, and the din of the battle was strange, distorted in the blinding mist. No one—enlisted man or officer—knew what was happening up and down the battle line—who was winning, losing, advancing, retreating.

  When McLane’s cavalry stalled and began to fall back, the infantry behind them stopped, then began backing up in the dense fog. Only then did Conway realize his leading regiments were in full retreat. I’ve got to stop them—turn them—before we’re thrown back on Wayne and Stirling and Maxwell—can’t let them start a panic—must prevent a full-scale rout!

  He drew his sword and spurred his horse forward into his own men, shouting, “Stop! Form a line! Make a stand!” His officers picked up his voice in the fog and echoed his command, and the entire division surged forward to meet the charging British, slow them, stop their advance, but in the fog it was impossible to know the tide of the battle, and the entire front ground to a standstill.

  Behind, Sullivan paused long enough, listening in the fog, to understand that the line of battle was not moving and shouted his first command to his own division.

  “To the west! To the west!”

  His command went charging to the sound of the guns, headlong into the British Fortieth Light Infantry, muskets and rifles blasting, bullets whistling as the redcoats stubbornly met them with bayonets, and once again the two armies stalled.