by Ron Carter
She released him and stepped back, and he saw the smile. “Your tea is getting cold.”
He grinned. “I don’t mind.” He raised the jar and drank.
“Have you finished your cabin?”
“Close. The roof leaks.”
“Have you been doing any writing?”
“For the orderly book?”
“That. Or anything.”
“A few days ago. Some things about the regiment. Bad. Too many officers resigning. Fifty in one regiment. Too many men sick. Nearly three thousand. Six thousand without blankets. Half without shoes. Commissary empty—no food. If the British came tomorrow the generals believe we could lose the whole army.”
“That bad?”
“That bad.”
“Do you ever write letters to your mother?”
“I did. I lost it.”
“Lost it?”
“At a battle.”
“You should write another.”
“I will.”
“You should write to people you care for.”
Looking down into her face, Caleb could not miss her meaning. “Yes, I should. If I wrote to you, would you read it?”
She raised a hand to her throat. “Yes. I would. Truly I would.”
He finished the tea, pressed the lid back on the heavy jar, and handed it back to her. “Thank you. Out here in the cold, something warm means more than you know.”
“I’m glad. I should go back. I’ll sleep now.”
“I hope so.”
She turned, then stopped as he spoke.
“Nancy, I’m glad you came.”
“So am I.” She had gone five paces when she stopped and turned once more. “Write me that letter.”
“I will.”
He watched her disappear into the trees and stood for a full half minute, heart racing at the remembrance of her face—the feel of her as he held her—the transcendent magic of their kiss—her request that he write her a letter.
The creeping numbness and pain brought him back to the reality of standing on a riverbank in the dead of winter, and he stomped his feet, then threw his arms about himself, slapping his sides to keep the blood circulating. The slow arc of the moon settling toward the tree line was his clock, and when he gauged enough time had passed, he walked back to the hut and pushed inside, into the dim light and the smoke and the huddle of eleven men. With nearly frozen fingers, he fumbled to unlace and pull off the shoes, then peeled off the coat and the scarf for the man who was to take next picket duty, and watched him slowly put them on, stand, and step to the door. The man stood for a long time, hand on the latch, taking a last look at the sputtering fire. Then he opened the door and was gone.
Caleb was shivering when he got back into his bunk and pulled the folded tent completely over his head. He curled into a ball, and slowly the warmth came. The last clear thought before he slipped into sleep was of her—the sweetness of holding her for that brief time, the feel of her kiss.
The sun rose to turn the thick frost that coated every tree, every hut, into endless, shimmering, tiny prisms of blue, green, yellow, and rose. Smoke from two hundred chimneys rose straight into a blue sky. Men squinted against the brilliant sunlight reflecting off the frozen, crusted snow as they went about their duties of gathering firewood and drill. There was no food for breakfast—nothing—and they tightened their belts and promised themselves there would be food for supper. Savory meat. Meat and bread. Potatoes. Butter, home-churned butter, laid thick on the bread, and berry jam. Fresh milk in a tall, heavy, porcelain pitcher with trees and cows painted on the sides. And pie. Hot apple pie. They wiped at their mouths and hunched forward to relieve the pangs in their empty, clamoring bellies.
Four men scaled handmade ladders to take their positions on the roof while the other eight passed rough-cut planks up to be laid in place on the framed roof. Then they passed cut pine boughs up the ladders, to be laid thick on top of the planks. While they worked they watched for the officers walking or riding through camp. When one passed, they waited until he was five yards beyond their hut before they all chanted, “No meat, no soldier, no meat, no soldier.”
Most officers slowed but did not turn. They had heard the chant a hundred times in the past few days, and they knew there was nothing they could do about it. Any officer who turned to reprimand the complainers would see only a squad of men working on their cabin as though nothing had been said.
At noon O’Malley climbed down from the ladder and put his hands on his hips. “Two more days and we’ll be finished. Take one hour of rest. Get off your feet.”
The men went to the shelter wall facing the sun and sat down on one of the logs to absorb what warmth they could. Two massaged their bare feet, trying to work the blue color from their toes. Caleb leaned back against the wall, eyes closed, head resting against the rough pine logs and the mud chinking, trying not to think of the ache in his belly and the weariness that had become a constant torment. He opened his eyes to scoop snow and thrust it into his mouth to ease his thirst. He scooped more and sucked and swallowed, then leaned back once more and closed his eyes. The noises and sounds of a massive army camp under construction blended into a oneness as drowsiness came, and then he was seeing her again, the moonlight on her upturned face, her dark eyes, and he was holding her and feeling the thrill of her kiss.
O’Malley’s bark roused him. “All right. Back on your feet. We have a roof to finish.”
The men silently rose to stretch set muscles and gather their strength for the afternoon. They squinted up at the sun, calculating time, then slowly moved back to their work positions. Caleb was walking toward the ladder, shoulder to shoulder with O’Malley, when a thought struck him for the first time.
Billy Weems! Is Billy in camp?
He wondered why he had not thought of it before and turned to O’Malley. “Is there a Boston regiment in camp? Or a Massachusetts regiment?”
O’Malley shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. Why?”
“No reason. Just wondered about a friend.”
“From home? Boston?”
“Yes. Billy Weems. My older brother’s best friend.” A wistful look came into Caleb’s eyes. “I can’t remember not knowing Billy. I wonder why I never thought of him being here.”
“You sure he joined the army?”
“Yes. He was nearly killed at Concord. Shot and bayoneted. Took him a year to mend, and then he left to join.”
O’Malley started up the ladder. “There’s bound to be a Massachusetts division somewhere in camp. Ask.”
Caleb followed him up the rungs. “I will.”
They crawled on their hands and knees to their positions on the sloped roof and waited for the men on the ground to pass up the clumped pine boughs. Without nails they could only jam the boughs into the cracks between the uneven planks and stack them deep, knowing that snow would sift through and wind would move them and they would leak when the spring thaws and rains came. They were counting the days until they would have shakes and nails.
Caleb took the first load of deep green boughs and began jamming the smaller branches into the cracks.
Billy. He’ll want to know why I left Mother and Trudy, and I’ll have to tell him—to punish the British. Make them pay for what they did to Father and Mother and the family. And to him. What will he say? Will he preach?—tell me that this revolution is in the hands of the Almighty? If it’s in the hands of the Almighty, then why is the whole Continental Army starving and freezing to death out here in the wilderness? Where’s the Almighty when we need Him? What will Billy tell Mother?
Do I really want to find him?
Caleb paused, knowing he should find the oldest and dearest friend Matthew had ever known but unable to reconcile himself to what such a meeting might bring. A sense of peace would not come.
He accepted the next load of pine boughs and worked on.
Notes
In late December 1777 and early January 1778, the deplorable, wretched condition
s at Valley Forge continued and worsened. The men lacked food, blankets, clothing, and shoes, and they were freezing. They used useless army tents to cover themselves against the cold. They shared clothing and stood barefoot on felt hats to keep from freezing their feet while on picket duty. Leckie, George Washington’s War, pp. 435–436; Freeman, Washington, p. 363; Jackson, Valley Forge: Pinnacle of Courage, pp. 48–50, 64, 68, 70; Stokesbury, A Short History of the American Revolution, p. 176.
With medical equipment in critically short supply, when they had no scalpels for surgery, the doctors substituted razors used by the men to shave. Fisk, “The Organization and Operation of the Medical Services of the Continental Army, 1775–1783,” p. 97.
Valley Forge
Late January 1778
CHAPTER XXIII
* * *
Vapors streamed behind their heads, and frozen snow crackled beneath their feet as Turlock and Billy made their way through the stark, frigid twilight toward the supply wagon that had rumbled into camp at sunset. Their eyebrows and beards were crusted with frost. Both men had ragged strips of cloth tied over their heads to protect their ears, and they walked hunched forward, trying to relieve the hunger pangs that gnawed in their empty bellies. They said nothing as they took their place in the line that was rapidly forming, two men from each company in the Massachusetts Regiment.
Seven men worked in the bed of the wagon, where eight flour barrels had their tops knocked out. Two men stood with muskets at the ready. Two held large flour scoops. Two reached over the sideboards of the wagon to take sacks or buckets or wooden boxes or whatever the soldier from each company handed up to them to get their ration. The last man in the wagon asked the number of the company and the name of the soldier, then with numb fingers penciled entries on a paper while the flour ration was scooped from the barrels into the container.
The line moved slowly, and the men stomped their feet to keep the blood flowing and shivered, teeth chattering, as they waited their turn. They looked at the four horses that stood in the harnesses, winter hair long and ragged, heads down, withers and hips pointed, ribs showing through their hides. There was little talk.
The man with the scoop reached over the side, and Turlock pulled the empty flour sack from within his coat and handed it up, then turned to the man with the pad.
“Turlock. Massachusetts—”
The man cut him off. “I know who you are, Sergeant.” He made the entries as one man held the sack and the other scooped four loads into it, then lifted it over the side to Billy.
Turlock peered up. “Meat?”
The man with the pad shook his head but did not look at Turlock.
“When?”
Again the man shook his head as Billy peered into the half-filled sack. His eyes narrowed before he twisted the neck of the sack, then hoisted it onto his shoulder and walked away with Turlock beside him. They were halfway back to their hut before Turlock spoke.
“Been three days without meat. Nothing but flour. How much you got there?”
“Maybe forty pounds. A little less.”
“What’s it look like?”
“Mold. Weevil. Pretty bad.”
“Forty pounds of bad flour for the company. Less than one pound per man. How long will it last? Two days? Three if we eat once a day? Keep this up, there won’t be a Massachusetts Regiment.” Billy glanced at Turlock. Breeches in tatters, feet wrapped in blood-stained sailcloth, a ragged, threadbare coat he had cut and sewn from the blanket of a dead man. The beginnings of deep fear for his men was in the eyes and the hawk-nosed face of the little man.
They stopped at their hut, and the men of the company came with a gourd or a wooden bowl or whatever they had to carry flour and stood in line while Billy held the sack and Turlock carefully portioned out a share to each man. “Don’t know when you’ll get more, so make it last.”
The only question that was asked, over and over, was, “Meat?” And the only answer Turlock could give was, “Later.”
Eli stood behind Turlock until the last man had received his share and silently walked away. With aching hearts the three of them watched the men gather snow and knew what their supper would be tonight—the same as it had been last night and would be tomorrow. They would melt snow at the fireplace inside their huts and, with smoke from green wood smarting their eyes, would pick what weevil they could from a halfcup of flour, ignore the mold, mix the flour with snow-water, shape it into a small, thin cake, and lay it on the coals at the edge of the fire to bake. They had no salt, no leavening, no lard—nothing but bad flour and snow-water. When the cakes were browned they would work them out of the coals with a stick and sit at the rough plank table in the center of the dirt floor and break off small pieces of the thin, hard cake and chew slowly, to get all the flavor, all the good they could from it. They drank melted snow-water and waited for the hunger pangs to leave for a time. They could not remember the last time they had anything to eat with their firecakes.
In full darkness Turlock turned the flour sack inside out, shook it, folded it, and stuffed it inside his coat. He picked up his wooden bowl of flour and without a word he, Billy, and Eli entered their smoke-filled hut. They paused for a moment to peer at the emaciated men, who were gathered about the fireplace, each watching his firecake with sunken eyes as it browned.
Eli spoke quietly. “This army won’t last without meat. Vegetables. Straw. Something besides a dirt floor or boards to sleep on.”
Turlock stared at his men but did not answer.
Billy answered. “How long before they break?”
There was no answer.
A banging at the door brought all heads around, and Eli’s hand dropped to his tomahawk. Turlock lifted the latch and opened the door six inches and peered out. The dim light from the room reflected off the bearded face of a tall man in a tattered woolen coat.
“Lieutenant Nathan Wasserman. Sent by Colonel Hamilton for Gen’l. Washington. You from the Massachusetts Regiment?”
“Yes. What’s your business?”
“Got someone in there named Stroud? Eli Stroud?”
Eli stepped to the door, behind Turlock, and Turlock answered. “Stroud’s here.”
“Gen’l Washington wants to see him at eight o’clock in the morning.”
Eli’s eyes widened. “What about?”
“Who are you?”
“Stroud.”
Wasserman’s eyes widened at the sight of a man clad in a wolf-skin coat, with an Iroquois weapons belt and tomahawk at his waist. “Didn’t say. Just be there. Know where Washington’s headquarters is?”
“Big stone house up by the creek? Valley Creek?”
“Eight o’clock.” The man turned and vanished into the night.
Turlock closed the door and turned to Eli. “Any idea what Washington wants with you?”
Eli shrugged. “None.”
“Anything in your report that could cause trouble?”
“Nothing I can think of. I told him the men were in hard times.”
Turlock shook his head. “I imagine he had that figgered out by hisself. Well, you go see him in the morning.”
Eli wiped at his beard. “I’m going to be gone a while. Up to see Mary.”
Turlock nodded. “If anybody challenges, tell ’em I sent you for medical supplies.”
Billy and Turlock watched Eli walk out the door into the frozen night before they set about mixing and shaping their own firecakes. When they were finished eating, Billy went to his bunk to draw out an oilcloth and laid it on the table. He unfolded it, then carefully lifted the writing pad from inside and laid it on the table. It was dog-eared and frayed, and he treated it with a reverence that Turlock could not miss.
“You writing to that girl again—Brigitte?” Turlock waited.
Billy nodded.
“How many letters you got there for her?”
Billy shrugged. “A few.”
“You ever going to mail ’em?”
“Don’t know yet.”
/>
“That the girl who’s got her eye set on a British captain?”
“Yes.”
“Might be wastin’ your time.”
“Maybe. Probably.”
Turlock shook his head and remained silent. He knew only too well the futility of interfering in matters of the heart. There are some things in life that each person must learn for himself, in his own way, and in his own time. He turned away, toward his own bunk as Billy reached for his pencil and began to write.
My Dear Brigitte:
I am sitting at the table in the hut we have nearly finished here at Valley Forge. The fireplace is warming the room, and we have finished supper.
Billy stopped and for a time sat in the chill twilight of the tiny room, crowded with ten other men, uncertain in his heart what his duty was to Brigitte. Do I tell her the truth about camp?—starving—freezing—dying—or do I use softer words—everything I write to Brigitte, or to Mother, will be shared between the families—do I spare them the pain of the truth?—do I?
With cold fingers he continued.
There are some things in camp that are unfavorable, but we will manage.
A voice from behind brought his head around. A middle-aged man sitting cross-legged before the fire was turned around, staring at him. His beard was full, clothing ragged, feet wrapped in burlap from a bean sack.
“Writing a letter home?”
Billy nodded. The man’s eyes dropped, and Billy saw the embarrassment as he spoke.
“I . . . uh . . .” He stopped, rose, and came to the table to sit opposite Billy. He leaned forward to speak softly.
“I ought to . . . I got a wife and three kids at home. A house me and Maudie built. Logs.” The pride and the longing shined in his face as he went on. “I ought to write to her.”
Billy asked, “Need paper? I got a few sheets.”
“I’d appreciate it. I asked for some from the captain. He said it’s hard to get. They got to save it for the army. Reports and orders and such.”
Billy carefully tore two sheets from the back of his pad and pushed them across the rough tabletop. “Need a pencil?”
The man nodded, and Billy laid his pencil on the paper.