“The Battle of Prestonpans, that was near London, correct?” the major asked.
“Edinburgh, actually,” Valnor corrected.
“Of course,” the major said, feigning regret at his ‘error.’ “Despite your lack of training, I hear your lot fought well there. It was a great victory.”
“The battle was lost, sir,” Valnor corrected again while pushing down the corners of his lips at the cleaver attempts to mislead him into making an error in his story. “When our commanding officer fell on the field, I was granted the battlefield commission of lieutenant. We were able to reorganize our forces again and managed to harass the Jacobite advance to Carlisle long enough for divisions from Austria to arrive and push them back.”
“We spent the next two years fighting them and their Scottish supporters before finally crushing the uprising at Culloden. I was a captain by that point,” Valnor concluded with his chest sticking out a little further than usual with pride.
“I know, I was a captain in one of the divisions recalled to fight the Bonnie Prince and his forces,” the major said. “I was there when they caught him and ran Charles Stuart through for his treachery.”
“He got away,” Valnor challenged. “Charles Stuart fled the battle with a price on his head and received asylum in France.”
“Yes, he did,” the major acknowledged. “You understand that I could not just take your word that you served, but I believe you now. Tell me, what did you do after the war?”
“I used my army grant to study at Cambridge for a year before a business opportunity arose in Paris that I could not pass up,” Valnor answered.
“That explains the ghastly accent then. How well do you speak the language?”
“Je parle couramment le français et je parlerai autour de leur noblesse d'élite consanguine,” Valnor recited to assure the major that he spoke French fluently.
The major looked satisfied, which gave him leave to shift his penetrating eye from Valnor to young Paul. “Can you play a drum as well as he says?”
When an immediate answer did not come, the major looked away for a moment, giving Valnor an opening to nudge his young companion with a sharp elbow to the ribs. “Yes, sir. I can play the drum quite well.”
“Good, we need a good drummer. Even if you’re lying, there is no real harm done since even a monkey can be taught to bang a drum. You’re smarter than a monkey aren’t you boy?”
“I have never seen a monkey to make the comparison, sir,” Paul replied.
“Hah, I like you boy. I take that wit as a good sign. You are in. As for you, my fellow veteran, I am granting you a commission of captain. You will serve under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Washington, whom you just saw,” the major announced as he feverishly scribbled his orders onto a piece of paper, folded it three times, and handed it to Valnor. Report to the fortress immediately. You ship out with your new company the day after tomorrow.”
“Thank you, sir” Valnor and Paul said in unison after rising to their feet and snapping to attention.
“Dismissed.”
Neither of them said a word as they made their way out of the governor’s mansion. On the streets heading back to the fortress, Paul spoke first while massaging his ribs. “Bleeding Christ, did you have to jab me so hard?”
“I told you to go along with whatever I said,” Valnor admonished.
“But it was a lie,” Paul objected. “I can’t play the drums worth a lick. Was anything you said back there true?”
“I lived in France long enough to learn the language.”
“What about serving in the army? Did you really fight up in Scotland?”
“Oh god no,” Valnor admitted, “and before you ask, I didn’t study at Cambridge either. I was too busy being educated by the real world.”
“You carried on a lie that elaborate, under such scrutiny, for that long?” Paul asked in amazement and a hint of revulsion lurking beneath the surface. “That’s not very honorable.”
“No it’s not, but look what it got us,” Valnor instructed. “Instead of being two homeless immigrants sleeping on the streets and stealing food to survive, we are soldiers. Not just soldiers, I am a well-paid officer now. That harmless lie served a greater purpose for you and me.”
“The ends justified the means. Let me ponder the meaning of that while we walk all the way back to that fortress again,” Paul mocked, which provoked Valnor to stop the youth in his tracks and grab hold of his head on both sides to drive home a pivotal life lesson.
“How many loafs of bread or potatoes did you steal while living on the streets of London? Were any of those thefts an honorable action? No, they were acts of necessity to survive,” Valnor insisted.
“What if instead of committing petty crimes your whole life, you could have committed just one dishonorable act and lived honorably for the rest of your days? Would the ends not justify the means?” Valnor asked. Before Paul could mouth a response, he let go of his head to ask, “What is honor anyway? It’s a frivolous concept that the rich have convinced the poor is important, leaving the rich to pursue more riches with fewer challengers.”
“Except Mr. Washington,” Paul countered. “You know what he gave up in favor of his honor. It will be a privilege to serve under a man with that much integrity.”
“We’ll see. I’ve seen far too many men die for someone else’s honor,” Valnor said before pointing their strides toward the fortress once more.
Chapter 13: Getting Things Started (1752)
“Lieutenant Colonel, I have a letter containing orders from Governor Dinwiddie,” a courier announced as he dismounted his horse and offered the letter to its intended recipient.
George Washington took the letter and dismissed the courier with a lazy salute. While his hands worked to open the letter, he turned back around to face the wooden fortifications his men were erecting. At this point, there was little need for oversight. His company of three hundred soldiers had been constructing small forts throughout the frontier territories for the last six months. The process now carried on like a well-practiced orchestra.
Soon this fortress would be occupied by employees of the Ohio Company, who would use it as a base of operation for fur trapping, fishing, and other lucrative activities. It bothered Washington to no end that the soldiers under his command, whose wages were next to nothing, risked their lives in these unsettled areas to set up fortifications. Then this corporation strolled in to utilize the fruits of their labor to turn it into a fortune for their shareholders.
Washington breathed a sigh of frustration as he opened a letter from the man giving him orders, the governor and primary shareholder of the Ohio Company.
A company of French soldiers, under the command of Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville, has driven off a crew of workers from a fortification east of your location.
You are to act on the defensive, but in case any attempts are made to obstruct the workers or interrupt our settlements by any persons whatsoever, you are to restrain all such offenders, and in case of resistance to make prisoners of or kill and destroy them.
“My God, he’s giving me invitation to start a war. All to line his pockets,” Washington said in a quiet voice.
“What was that, sir?” a captain standing nearby asked.
“Nothing. We have new marching orders. We will leave thirty men behind to finish construction efforts here and take the remainder on a march east,” Washington explained.
“East?” the officer repeated with confusion evident in his voice. “We just came from there.”
“We have our orders, now set that drummer boy of yours off to assemble the men. We leave in twenty minutes,” Washington ordered before heading for his command tent.
After a day and a half spent marching east, Washington stood in the burned out ruins of the small fortress his men constructed three weeks earlier. The only things remaining of the central building and walls that once stood eight feet tall were the ashes. Smoke still rose from the smolderin
g piles, indicating that the French offenders could not have gotten far.
Washington’s native scouts made quick work of picking up their trail heading north. The sight of Captain Hamilton riding up with one of the natives in tow made his pulse quicken with anticipation. This would be his first real combat situation. The prospect of action was both terrifying and exhilarating.
“What news?” Washington asked in a voice he filled with false bravado.
“We’ve found them. A force about forty strong is camped five miles northwest of here. If we press the pace a little, we should be able to ambush them when they are setting up for evening meals,” the captain reported.
“And so we shall,” Washington ordered with an excited grin. The chances of victory in his first combat command looked promising.
On the ride north, Washington explained his plan of attack to his officers’ corps. “The scouts tell me there are numerous rocks and trees all around their camp site within fifty yards or so. We will surround them and move in using the boulders as cover. Once we ‘re spotted, every company is to fire one volley, then take cover and reload.”
“While you reload, I will state the terms of their surrender. If they fail to give a prompt surrender, you will fire a second volley and immediately follow with a bayonet charge,” Washington concluded. “Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” the officers replied in unison, and then set out to execute the orders.
As expected, the rushed pace allowed Lt. Colonel Washington’s men to fall upon the French contingent wholly unprepared. There were a few armed guards around the perimeter, but the rest of the soldiers had their muskets stacked in circular pyramids in camp center while tending to their dinners cooking over numerous campfires. The timing could not have been better.
Washington approached the camp with a cluster of his men from the east. Across the open field, he spotted a hint of movement from his men approaching from the other cardinal points of the compass. By the time a shout of alarm came from a French guard, Washington’s forces were no more than thirty yards from the camp; well within effective range of their muskets.
“Fire!” Washington ordered, and had his words answered by twenty muskets sparked to life. Three more sets of blasts came from the other groups, and left the French camp in complete chaos.
When the smoke cleared and the panicked shouts fell silent, Lt. Colonel Washington yelled at the top of his lungs. “We have you surrounded and outnumbered. Throw down your weapons and you will be placed under arrest for the destruction of his Majesty, King George’s, property at Fort Tanachar. If you do not, we will have no choice but to arrest you by force.”
“I have terms for you,” a voice laced with a thick French accent said in labored English. “You have been warned already about encroaching on French-claimed territory. We have six-hundred soldiers based only a day’s march from here. They will allow you to retreat back to the recognized British controlled territory unharmed if you leave now.”
The acerbic response tempted Washington to give his men another order to fire, but that would likely end in casualties for his men. He would not risk their lives unless it was absolutely necessary. With that in mind, he spoke again to the French commander who now struck a defiant pose out in the open near camp center.
“If they really were so close, then you should have continued your march to reach the safety of their numbers. That shows rather poor judg…” Washington began, but had his words interrupted by the blast of a musket from the northern edge of his encirclement. The shot struck the French commander in the head, sending his blood and gore through the air, and his body crumpling to the ground.
The shot triggered a prearranged sequence of events where the British forces let loose a second volley of fire, and quickly followed the blast with a bayonet charge that fell upon the French forces like a bolt of lightning. All but a brave, or stupid, few threw down their weapons at once and raised their arms in surrender.
The entire engagement was over before Washington’s mind could even process if he was excited, afraid, or angry about the outcome. Either way, it happened and now he would have to deal with the repercussions. The larger French contingent was probably farther than a day’s march from here, but he did know for a fact that they were in the area and had his men outnumbered.
“Secure the prisoners for transport. See to the wounded and bury the dead as quickly as possible,” Washington ordered the Lieutenant standing near him. “Also, bring me the soldier who fired the shot that killed Mr. de Jumonville. His disobedience may very well have sparked a conflict that we are ill-prepared to wage.”
Chapter 14: The Bigger Picture
As Valnor marched with the rest of Lt. Colonel Washington’s brigade, he kept a close eye on Paul as the boy marked time with his drum to keep the soldiers on pace. Paul was strong-willed and a survivor, but seeing combat for the first time was a lot to handle. The noise and smoke of musket fire, all the blood, severed limbs, and screams from the wounded had an impact on even the most hardened men, to say nothing of a twelve-year old boy.
Paul’s eyes were locked straight ahead as if focusing on something a thousand yards off in the distance. That was a good sign. After first combat, the ones who smiled and joked about the experience were usually the psychotics or thrill junkies who ended up getting themselves or others killed. The ones with tears running down their cheeks were obviously overwhelmed by what they saw and were not cut out for a soldier’s life. The ones who stared off into the distance in quiet contemplation were the good ones, they brave yet caring.
“How are you feeling?” Valnor asked of Paul as he came up from behind to walk alongside him for a while. “That was a lot more action than most were expecting.”
“To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about the battle,” Paul responded without missing a beat on his drum. By now, keeping the marching cadence was second nature to him. “I’ve seen plenty of dead men before, but they were always just lying in the corner like they were still asleep or something. Watching a bullet blast a man’s skull apart, or a foot long bayonet stab a man and poke out the other side of him was something else. I just don’t know.”
Valnor placed a reassuring arm around the boy and gave him a shake. “It’s a hell of a thing to kill another man, but in war it’s either them or you. That makes it easier for me I suppose.”
That statement threw Paul off his drumbeat for a moment as he swung his head around to look at Valnor with a fiery stare. “Their commander was standing unarmed in the middle of their camp negotiating an honorable surrender with Lt. Colonel Washington when you raised your musket and shot him. That was not his life or yours, it was murder.”
“He wasn’t negotiating anything. Their commander was attempting to buy time for his men to seek cover and prepare for a spirited defense. The lieutenant colonel’s adherence to his honor was allowing that to happen, and would have gotten a lot of us killed in the end. It was regrettable, but shooting their commander resulted in the best outcome for us,” Valnor countered, but did not see Paul’s scowl improve much with that argument. That being the case, he opted to take a more playful approach, “It was a heck of a shot though wasn’t it?”
Before Valnor could lighten the mood further, a voice from up ahead cut him short, “Captain, the lieutenant colonel would like to have a word with you.”
“Seems you have another admirer of your marksmanship,” Paul whispered before Valnor sped up his pace to follow the officer.
About a quarter mile up the trail, the path opened into a field where Lt. Colonel Washington had a command tent pitched. The soldiers continued marching past as the senior officers gathered for a strategy session. Valnor found himself on the defensive the second he stepped under the canopy.
“Captain Hamilton,” Lt. Colonel Washington stated with frustration simmering just beneath the surface. “You were in command of the northern flank during our engagement with the French forces. The shot that killed Mr. de Jumonville came from the north. I
want to know who from your regiment fired that shot, and I want to know now.”
“He stands before you already,” Valnor admitted while standing at ease with his hands clasped behind his back. “I fired the shot.”
“You?” Washington asked with surprise and confusion furrowing his brow.
“Yes me. My vantage point let me see better than you that their commander was stalling for time while his men dug in. I signaled the attack with that shot so we could fall upon them while they were still unprepared.”
“We lost one of our men in that attack,” Washington protested.
“There would have been far more casualties had I not fired,” Valnor countered. “We killed ten, wounded three, and captured twenty-one while losing one man on our side. That, sir, is an overwhelming victory.”
“You were supposed to wait for my signal. You disobeyed my order!” the Lt. Colonel snapped. “Now, though we won the first engagement, we are badly outnumbered by French forces in the area. They are corralling us back to the last fortification we were constructing,” Washington said while gesturing to the map opened up across a table in the middle of the tent as evidence.
Valnor evaluated the map, which showed them surrounded on all four sides by French divisions. Escape was unlikely. “We have their captives. Hand them over in exchange for letting us return to recognized British territory.”
“Clear the tent,” Washington shouted to his officers’ corps. “Press the pace back to the fort, finish construction if possible, and make ready your divisions for a defensive struggle.”
“Yes, sir,” they all answered and headed their separate ways.
“Not you, Captain,” the Lt. Colonel ordered of Valnor. “We need to talk.”
“As you wish,” Valnor answered and proceeded to wait while the other officers stepped out of listening range. “I did what I thought was right to spare the lives of our men.”
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