by Jack Fernley
‘Two thousand, might be a few more. Town can barely cope with any more. Mind you, there’s hardly any of us locals left. Most of the families left for Philadelphia. Those of us still here are here because we have something to sell to the soldiery.’
‘Sure you’re not complaining about that, given the prices you’ll be charging these British and Germans?’
‘A woman’s got to make an honest living, especially when the menfolk are away. Men gonna lose out, mind you. Ain’t forgot, Patrick O’Leary, that you were sweet once upon my Olivia. An’ she’s still not betrothed. Not keen on seeing her being swept away by some fine Prussian, but a girl’s gotta look after herself.’
O’Leary shifted in his seat. There was a memory of a summer’s day and what might best be described as an indiscretion.
‘We ain’t got no time for matchmaking, Helen O’Flannery,’ interrupted Hand. ‘We’re here to do some scouting. How easy is it for men like us to take in the town?’
‘Well, on account of all the able menfolk running off to parry with the perfumed General Washington and his merry men, two boys like you striding around town is going to cause some attention and controversy. So you best have a story and a good one at that, or I’d suggest you stay here low. My Olivia will be around, so that may be pleasing for you, Patrick.’
O’Leary squirmed once again.
‘Helen, come on, there’s a time and a place. What time is this parade?’
‘Eleven. Listen, Doctor, I make no jokes about this. Trenton isn’t what it was. All the good uns have left; the men left behind are loyalists, true Tories. In their eyes, youse are all lawless rebels, ready to be taught a lesson. Look what happened to poor Nathan Hale up in Manhattan. Then the other night they strung up some boy not even old enough to have a shave, accused him of being a Washington spy. They’d like nothing more to have a hanging party in Trenton for someone like you who made such a big name for themselves up at Bunker Hill.’
Her eyes now lacked their usual humour, they were imploring Hand.
‘Keep safe, Edward Hand. We’ve lost enough good men. We can’t afford to lose you.’
EIGHT
Trenton, a town of no more than a hundred houses, ringed on the edge by orchards and farmland, a single mill for grinding corn and an iron furnace, owned by Stacy Potts, the host of Colonel Rall. A town barely started. Two main roads crossing the centre, King Street and Queen Street, running parallel to the River Delaware. In the centre, a two-storey courthouse, an Episcopal church and a marketplace. It was in this marketplace that the Germans had decided to hold their presentation.
The troops far outnumbered the citizenry that morning. But the seventy who had turned out had done so in their Sunday best and in good spirits. Many had come from the farms and settlements outside Trenton, evidenced by the carts and carriages resting in the square. The morning had something of the festival about it. A day of celebration, a precursor to the Christmas celebrations to come later in the week.
Hand and O’Leary held themselves back, on the very edge of the marketplace. They recognised many of the characters. Courtney Conte, the schoolteacher; Wilfred Wallace, the blacksmith, who had refused to shoe horses of any man he suspected of being a rebel, and who kept a portrait of King George in his forge; Peter and Ella Prop who ran an English dry goods store and a grocery store. All of them second- or third-generation immigrants, all of them resolutely loyal to King and Country.
It was Wallace who saw the Irishmen first.
It was the first time that Hand had seen him without his blacksmith’s smock, and, although he had made an attempt to scrub the dirt away, his hands and face still bore the taint of the forge, his neck scarred with scratches of black. He was with his wife – Amanda, Hand thought she was called – and their two young children, a boy and a girl, both of whom Hand had brought into the world.
‘What have we here? Have yer deserted your General Washington and seen sense, Doctor Hand? Brought back your Irish hound, I see?’
Hand ignored the blacksmith. ‘Good day, Mrs Wallace. Your wee ones seem bonny and well.’
The woman nodded silently back, but her husband was not to be stopped, ‘Come to see the Hessians who will finally put an end to your madness and return this land to a benign and tolerant government instead of lawlessness? Had enough of starving out on yonder riverbank with that fool Washington and his gang of cowards and criminals?’
‘I fear there are more criminals on General Howe’s army than there are in General Washington’s. Your king cleared out all the drunks, debtors and rapists from the slums of Bristol, Liverpool and London for his army to come and take our common rights away.’
‘Our common rights! Pah! It is you, sir, and those brigands you call an army who are looking to take away the common rights of the hard-working people who have carved and clawed a civilisation out of this hard land! Look here, Thomas—’ He lifted up his small boy, no more than six. ‘Look upon this creature. The man who delivered you into this world, but who now would throw you to the wolves. You are not welcome in Trenton any more, Doctor Hand. But I will implore you to stay for this morning, and look upon the troops who will render your cause worthless. Come, children, Mrs Wallace, let us move away, the stench of these Papists is overpowering. I fear for the health of our young uns.’
Wallace pushed away, his wife passing an apologetic look at Hand.
‘Charming as ever,’ said O’Leary. ‘I would have you notice, Ed, how I refused to allow myself to engage with the fella, even when he called me a hound.’
‘A newly discovered reticence that demonstrates rare maturity.’
‘Nah, I just didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his bairns. Otherwise I would have knocked him down flat. The cunt.’
There was a sudden commotion on the edge of the square. To applause from the citizenry, first came a small marching band, with pipes and drums, and then, on a chestnut mare, came what Hand took to be Colonel Rall. To the Irishman he bore the unmistakable gait of the mediocre military man he had come across throughout his time in the British army. Overweight, arrogant, late fifties, plump and preening his way into the square on a wave of obsequiousness from the yapping Tories.
He pulled the horse up, two young lads ran to hold it, and with no little difficulty, Rall dismounted, stumbling as he did so. In Boston, New York or Philadelphia, there would have been plenty in the crowd jeering and mocking him; in Trenton, he was only met by applause, as if he were Julius Caesar returning in triumph to the Roman forum.
Rall adjusted himself, bowed in the direction of the local ladies and in halting English, declaimed, ‘Lords and ladies of Trenton, the warmth of your hospitality to myself and my soldiery, the munificence you demonstrate us, touches my heart. It, ah, it demonstrates strong passion for King George . . . beating throughout the Americas . . . Today we wish to advance those strong feelings of pride and belief in victory that lie deep within your hearts.
‘Three days ago our opportunity for a swift cessation of the present difficulties was enhanced by the . . . ah, arrival in Trenton by one of the finest military generals in all of Europe. By now, there will be few citizens in Trenton, and I hope in other towns and villages throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey, who have not marvelled at the tales of General von Steuben . . . Ah, he arrives on this continent fresh from a period as the Chamberlain of Fürst Josef Friedrich Wilhelm of Hohenzollern-Hechingen. Before he served in the service of his most excellent King Frederick of Prussia and was involved in the many triumphs of that most magnificent of kings during his campaigns in Pomerania, Silesia and Austria . . . Ah, just as the ancient Emperor of Rome would have around him the very best men of the Empire in the Praetorian Guards, so too Baron von Steuben has brought with him the finest regiment to be found in the whole of Europe! Yes, the finest from Europe!
‘This regiment will unleash themselves on the usurpers like a mighty and powerful winter! The rebels will soon be shivering and cursing von Steuben’s men! Today, we celebrate
General von Steuben and with him the beginning of the end of this bloody conflict!’
With that, the drums began to roll once more, and into the square came another charger, a white mare, proud and strong, and on it rode a man very different to Rall.
Von Steuben seemed magnificent to both Hand and O’Leary.
He sat upright in his seat. In the cold winter air, he had neither hat nor wig, his greying hair cropped short and tight. His physique was trim, muscular, highlighted by the cut of the grey-green uniform. Decidedly, this was a man of great character, whose mere bearing set a standard for his troops in how they should look and behave. Now came those troops.
They numbered around two hundred and fifty, and again there was something different in the way in which they followed their leader into the square. Their lead man carried a huge flag, red with a white circle and within it the unmistakable spider-legged symbol. The manner in which they held their muskets, marching with a lengthy, loose-limbed and pacey stride, was very different to the usual parade style of the age. Their faces were firm in a jaw-locked countenance; their uniforms, tight, clean, belted grey-green jackets, slate-grey trousers and the leather boots so admired by Helen O’Flannery. They seemed much superior to the regular Hessians, previously admired as the finest fighters on the continent. Hessians were the most experienced, most weather-beaten and most disciplined troops in the Americas, but set against these men, they seemed almost of a different age altogether.
‘You gotta say, fella, that’s as smart a band of Prussians as you’ll ever see.’
‘Aye, but what good is what, two hundred, hired hands against twenty thousand freeborn Americans?’
‘Well, if we could count on twenty thousand that’ll be an argument we might like to have,’ Pat passed a frustrated smile at his friend. ‘Put those buggers in the field and most of our men will feel beaten before a single musket gets fired, even if there are only two hundred of them.’
Hand did not reply. He didn’t much care to. Pat was right.
Von Steuben sat atop his horse while his men paraded around the square. The response from the townsfolk bordered on the hysterical, one teenage girl swooned and fell to the ground, her clothes ruined by the soft mud underneath, her mother chiding her. Others threw perfumed, paper roses while the men watched in awe, applauding. Von Steuben’s men never broke a step, never looked anywhere but straight ahead, with a determined precision.
‘These are how I imagine the Spartans at Thermopylae would have appeared,’ mused Hand, the Trinity scholar.
‘What’s that?’ asked O’Leary.
‘The most acclaimed fighters of the ancient world, disciplined in iron since their infancies. They numbered but three hundred and they all but held off the entire Persian army. It wouldn’t surprise me if these lads were taken from their mothers while still in swaddling and left on some rocks to see if they could survive.’
‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, fella, but I’ll say this: we saw off one of them just a few hours back. They may look the part, but they may not act it. These could be but preening peacocks.’
And then they noticed a further surprise.
At the rear of the troops was a woman. At first they took her to be a short man, but as the parade continued and passed close by them, it was clear. She was a blonde, her long hair pulled back into a ponytail, slim and attractive. They would have been no less surprised if a mountain gorilla were marching in formation.
‘That’s a woman.’
‘Yes, Pat, that’s a woman.’
‘And she’s a regular soldier by the looks of things. And a very fine-looking woman at that.’
Hand did not respond, but he did not disagree either.
Their parade around the square completed, the troops came to a smooth halt in front of the courthouse and Rall. Von Steuben dismounted from his horse and threw a javelin-like salute into the air towards Rall. The smaller man fumbled a reply. The crowd moved itself forward. There were some formalities in German between the two generals and von Steuben passed some kind of pennant to the more senior man.
As von Steuben stepped back towards his men, he had a noticeable limp. The ceremony was broken by a sudden tumult from outside of the square and with it came two civilians, shouting, carrying behind them a cart on which lay a grey worsted blanket, covering something. Clearly nervous, the two men nevertheless brought the cart to the generals.
‘What have we here?’ thundered Rall. ‘Our celebrations interrupted!’
‘Please excuse us, sir, but we were down on the Delaware, looking to do a spot of fishing, and we came across this broken body and we thought best to bring it to you. The uniform is of one of your new recruits. Looks to us as if a Washington spy has beaten him to death.’
Von Steuben strode forward and pulled the blanket off.
‘This is one of my men, Neuville. He had been out to scout positions.’ He pulled the blanket over the dead figure and spoke to the crowd: ‘People of Trenton, we came here to aid you in your struggle and now I see that the opposition we face are cowards, hiding in the shadows, looking to pick us off one by one. This man, Neuville, he came from a small town in Bavaria, Munich. It is very far from here, his parents will grieve for him, but they will understand his sacrifice. We will look to avenge his death.’
‘Avenge it now, sir! Avenge it this minute!’ It was Wallace the blacksmith. ‘Two of those cowards are among us this very minute, fresh from Washington and his camp. I’d wager they be the cause of this outrage!’
The big man let loose his children’s hands and pushed his way towards Hand and O’Leary. The crowd around them started to part.
‘Ed Hand! Pat O’Leary! Those traitors to our King and our Land!’ Now the schoolteacher Conte, pushing his way towards them, joined Wallace.
‘Time to run, Pat,’ Hand said, and the two of them hightailed it out of the crowd towards Queen Street. The blacksmith and the teacher and several others gave chase, but they were soon overtaken by six of the new Hessians, who had immediately broken rank on command from von Steuben.
‘Where the hell should we be heading, Ed?’
‘Make out to the orchards, then the woods. If we get there, we may just have a chance.’
Down the iced track that was Queen Street they ran, past the houses marking the edge of the town, down the still frost-hard pathway and towards the orchards and the cemetery. But their flight was pointless. The blacksmith, the teacher and the other citizens had fallen away, but the Hessians were too fast, too fit.
Vaulting over the picket fence of the cemetery, Hand stumbled to the ground and could see the Germans were gaining on them as they came through the open gate. As he scrambled to his feet, he was aware of O’Leary shouting behind him. They had caught his friend. He began to run on, but spotted a Hessian standing before him, Hand darted to his right and weaved in and around a number of headstones. But another stood in front of him and as he turned around, he saw he was surrounded. He went to charge one, but before he could strike him, a huge blond man let out a single punch that felled him. As his head fell to the cold earth, he was already unconscious, so he never saw the simple engraving on the wooden cross: ‘Catherine May Hand, 1753–1776, Edward Thomas Hand, 1776’.
NINE
When Hand regained consciousness, his face and hair were soaked from a bucket of cold water that had been thrown over him. Coming to his senses, he found his arms bound to the back of a chair in an empty room, dimly lit by candlelight. He was alone; the bucket thrower had no sooner deposited the water than he left the room. Unable to turn, so tightly was Hand bound, he became aware of footsteps behind him: more than one person he thought, and a few steps later a figure appeared in front of him, dragging a chair into which he then sat.
Hand studied the face of von Steuben up close. The closely cropped grey hair, the smooth face, freshly shaved, a small cut on the underside of the jaw where the blade had gone awry.
‘What is your name?’ The accent was almos
t perfectly English, a slight German hint, but he could have passed for an English aristocrat.
‘I asked, “What is your name?”’
Hand resolutely stared back at him, refusing to give his name.
‘You see, you have made a mistake there, because my question is rhetorical. I already know the answer. You must know I know the answer. The people of Trenton were queuing up to tell me about Edward Hand, the traitorous Irish doctor, even those whose children you brought into the world, even those who you saved through your professional skill. The traitor Edward Hand. So what would be the point of wasting your energy on refusing to answer something I already know? You see, Doctor Hand, you have much to learn if you are to survive an interrogation.’
Interrogation? Hand was unsure what this man was suggesting. Survive an interrogation – what did he mean?
‘So please, let us start again, Doctor Hand. Let us not waste each other’s time. Life is too short for that and we have much to get through. I know who you are. I know you fought with distinction at Boston and Bunker Hill, played a major role in the army escaping from New York. No losses on that retreat. Most impressive. I know that from my men. They are very knowledgeable about this war and they respect great warriors. You recently lost your wife and child. I heard that from the townsfolk who would have me hang you as a spy. For that is what you are, I suppose, a spy. A spy sent here to find the lay of the town before Washington launches a crossing of the Delaware, attacks Colonel Rall and wins a famous victory.’
Hand blinked. He knew nothing of Washington’s plans. ‘I am no spy, sir. I am a proud and honest member of the Pennsylvanian Riflemen, a free man of a free America.’
‘Indeed, of course you are. In my experience, spies are worms who slither on the ground unnoticed, hiding themselves, living in the shit. Spies do not distinguish themselves on the battlefield. Now that we have agreed on that point, perhaps you would like to ask me about myself.’
‘I know who you are.’