Casca 36: The Minuteman

by Tony Roberts

  “Gentlemen,” Washington said, having snapped out of his mood, “we must get the rest of General Putnam’s men out of New York. There’s three thousand still there. John,” he turned to the first of his aides, “can you get a message south now? Tell them the situation here. They must make their way to Fort Washington immediately, forget their equipment; time has run out.”

  “Sir,” the aide saluted and galloped out of the compound, dust flying in his wake.

  “Very good,” Washington said. “We must prepare the Haarlem Heights and White Plains now. We’ve got no time to tarry. Captain Lonnergan.”

  “Sir?” Casca saluted.

  “Here’s your report,” it was handed back to him. “Go with Major Franks here,” and he indicated a thick set swarthy individual, “and get the troops to start their defenses. I authorize your plans completely.” Both smiled ironically; both knew Washington hadn’t even looked at them. “Captain, we have no time to amend them. I’ll trust in your judgment.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Casca nodded to Franks and the two retrieved their horses and mounted up, Casca somewhat stiffly. They rode out of the fort and made their way swiftly along the road to the King’s Bridge, guarded by nervous soldiers, having been ordered by their officers to stand aside as the routing men had fled across it. Guns were leveled as the two came up. “It’s alright,” Franks called out, “we’re from Fort Washington on orders from General Washington. Major Franks and Captain Lonnergan.”

  The soldiers stepped aside and saluted. “Sir, what’s happening?” one young man asked, a catch in his voice.

  “Nothing to worry about, son,” Franks smiled kindly down at him. “The general has General Putnam’s men to pull out of trouble, then he’ll be along. The British are nowhere near yet.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The soldiers stood smartly to attention and the two officers rode across onto the mainland.

  “They’re young,” Franks commented.

  “Soldiers are usually young, Major,” Casca replied. “The young fight the wars the older ones want won.”

  Franks regarded Casca for a moment. “You some sort of philosopher, Lonnergan?”

  Casca chuckled. “Oh, no, sir, not me. I’ve just seen a lot of war. Germany.”

  “Really? So you’d have previous knowledge of those men back there, then?”

  Casca nodded. “Hard bastards, sir.”

  Franks tutted at Casca’s phrase. “I wish you’d tone down your phraseology, Captain. But I gather from what you say they would have given our men a difficult time.”

  “That’s an understatement, Major.” Casca concentrated on keeping his horse on the rutted road that led from Kingsbridge north. Washington’s headquarters wasn’t far and the two men soon reached it. Casca, having no other equipment or belongings than what he was standing up in, was shown a tent off to one side to use. He gratefully threw himself into it and lay there, boots off, his feet enjoying an airing. He pondered on the situation as he saw it. The British would now concentrate on taking the city of New York and probably consolidate their hold there, rooting out those who supported the revolution and securing it as their base of operations.

  Once that was done they’d look to strike out and drive the American army away from the area, just in time for winter to bring the year’s campaign to a halt. It was late September now so he guessed there were still six weeks or so to go before the weather really closed in and made things too difficult to effectively launch an attack. The snow and rain made gunpowder next to useless if it got wet, and the terrain was far too hard to take an army over it once winter set in, if the British were hoping to supply it properly. The Americans could live off the donations from their supporters the further into the interior they went, so retreating wasn’t that bad tactically, but the effect on morale was something else.

  Washington had a dilemma, that was for sure. He had to show everyone he was a decent leader, and that meant doing something positive other than retreating endlessly. He risked losing most of his men to desertion if he did that, but the untried and raw army surely wasn’t up to a stand-up fight with the British. Casca thought to the White Plains defenses he’d helped organize. Maybe there they could make a stand before the snows came down. If they could fight the British to a halt them perhaps the tide could turn.

  Ahhh, what the hell….. I’m just a soldier. I fight, I don’t worry about the long-term political picture. He lay back and closed his eyes, willing sleep to come, wondering if on the morrow he’d be facing the British in battle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Major Sir Richard Eley was not a happy man. He paced angrily up and down the drawing room of the mansion he’d appropriated upon his arrival in New York and spoke loudly to his personal valet, Bradbury, and two of his junior officers attached to his command, a lieutenant and a captain.

  “It’s simply intolerable, I tell you!” he said, slapping his thigh irritably. “How can a man of my position maintain himself without servants? No butler, no cook, no wardrobe attendant, no coachman, no drinks waiter!” The last was almost a shriek. “What in God’s name is the world coming to, I ask?”

  “Major, Sir,” the captain began hesitantly.

  “What?” Sir Richard wheeled sharply and fixed the bewigged man with a gimlet-like stare.

  “These New Yorkers have been under revolutionary rule for months. They have been subjected to their promises of equality…”

  “Equality!” Sir Richard snorted in derision. “How can anyone maintain those peasants are my equal? Do they have my wealth? My possessions? My education? My breeding? No! They are inferior! Bloody revolutionaries, they fill people with damn’ fool ideas about being above their station, and it makes them unhappy, I tell you. Can they eat at dinner with the correct cutlery? Absolutely not! Equals? Bah!”

  The captain glanced at the lieutenant and drew in a deep breath, exerting patience and courage in equal measures. “Sir, it may take a little time to find people willing to take up service again, particularly to our side.”

  “Our side? Our side?” Sir Richard slapped his thigh once more. “There are no sides, just loyalists to the crown and traitors. Traitors should hang. And where are all these – ‘revolutionaries’? We get here and not one can be found, just people cheering our arrival. So where in damnation were these who held the city all these months in defiance of King George?”

  “Gone sir, fled north to Haarlem.”

  “I know that, Captain!” Sir Richard snapped, “I was asking a rhetorical question! Do you know what ‘rhetorical’ means, Bradbury?”

  Bradbury, his head adorned with a poor dull off-white wig and dressed in a white shirt and black jacket and trousers, shook his head. “No, Sir.”

  “There!” Sir Richard pounced, pointing at the valet, “how on earth can the two of us be classed as equals when one does not have the grasp of the King’s English to the extent the other does? What was I saying? Oh yes. I know the traitors have fled north because our esteemed commander General Howe spent the time he should have used chasing the bloody rabble, eating cakes at some woman’s house! Hell’s teeth, if Oliver Cromwell had shown such incredible stupidity then we’d never have had that blasted man winning the civil war!”

  The lieutenant looked uncomfortable and glanced sideways at the captain again. Both had their tricorns tucked under their left arms and were standing stiffly to attention.

  Sir Richard noticed the look. “You wish to make a comment, Lieutenant?”

  “Uh, no, Sir.”

  “Good, as I doubt it would contain much I would find of use. Make yourself useful and get me servants so I can live a civilized life here. Once my wife joins me here I will require a household fit for a man of my station, you understand? This house is mine by right of conquest; the former owner was a damned traitor and has forfeited any claim to it; if he sticks his head up out of whatever hole he’s crawled into I’ll have him hung.”

  “Your wife is coming here, Sir Richard?” the captain asked.r />
  “I just said so, why do you sound surprised? We’re married. I won’t have her skulking up in that God-forsaken outpost alone!”

  “Well, Sir, the city has only just been cleared and the American army is undefeated a few miles to the north. It may be a risky thing to bring her here.”

  Sir Richard laughed in derision. “Oh, Captain, you really give these – ‘Americans’ as you call them – too much credit. They ran from Boston once our army got to them, they ran from New York, and they’ll damn well run from the holes they’re digging up at this Haarlem place. By the time that ship that sailed to Halifax this morning has arrived there and returned with my wife, it’ll be deep into autumn and if it’s left any later the winter will be upon us and it’ll be too late for her to sail. It’s now or next spring and I simply will not tolerate that, you hear?”

  “Sir,” the captain stared at a point a thousand miles over Sir Richard’s left shoulder.

  “In the meantime, Captain, take care of all those tiresome details you’re supposed to deal with, whatever they are. Billeting the common soldiers and what have you. I’m tired and need sleep. Bradbury, run a bath for me, will you?”

  “Very good, Sir,” Bradbury bowed and backed away.

  “I trust the water supply works here,” Sir Richard said darkly. “Or were these traitors too busy with their slogans to actually do any proper work?”

  “I’m told the utilities function correctly, sir,” the captain responded.

  “Jolly good. At least they have learned some civilized manners from us. Time we taught them the rest. You may go, gentlemen.”

  The two officers donned their tricorns and left, relief on their faces. The captain waited until they were outside in the fading light before speaking to the lieutenant. “I’m thankful we don’t have too many like him running the army, Dick. If we did, I’m sure we’d have regular floggings and a hanging a week at least. And he’d have New York up in revolt before he could say Dick Whittington.”

  Dick nodded. “I have more important duties to perform, sir, rather than find him servants. He’s lucky to have a valet.”

  The captain grunted. “And bringing his wife here when the rebels are a few miles north of us? I’d wait and see if we can drive them away from here first, even if it may mean waiting a season or two.”

  Dick paused, concern on his face. “You think we can win the coming battle, sir?”

  “I hope we can, but Sir Richard is right about one thing.”

  “And what’s that, sir?”

  “General Howe is not the most aggressive man we have. I fear he’ll let the enemy retreat rather than crush them in battle. We won’t win this war if those tactics are allowed to continue.”

  * * *

  Casca toured the lines of redoubts and defenses that were being constructed along the line of hills in the White Plains area over the next couple of weeks. General Washington had been relieved that the British hadn’t pressed their forces north, and hadn’t even cleared Manhattan yet; Fort Washington was still garrisoned and men were positioned along the shore of the East River, watching for any move that the enemy may make by ship.

  Pete Courtney sat eating his lunch with Casca on the slope of one of the hills that had been reinforced. “You think that fire was deliberately started, sir?”

  Casca shrugged. New York had suffered a bad fire shortly after the British had taken it. “Probably, but I guess we’ll never know. I’m wondering what’s keeping Howe from attacking. He’s giving us the chance in building up decent defenses here and if he does a ‘Boston’ on us he’ll lose loads of men again.”

  Courtney nodded. “That’s what we’ve been hoping they’ll do. They won’t shift these men that easily if they come up this route,” he waved a hand at the plains in front of them, looking south towards the river. “Unless they go up Hudson’s River and land behind us.”

  “Doubt it; the river’s not that easily navigable and there’s forts along the river there. It’s easier along the Sound; more sheltered bays and it’s a longer bank. Washington’s got to defend a long, long front and he just hasn’t the men to be everywhere at once.” Casca was secretly hoping Howe wouldn’t be that imaginative; frontal assaults would be coped with by the raw untrained men of Washington’s motley army, but if the British outflanked them and used their numbers anywhere, it was likely the American position would fall. Time. They needed time. Time to train the men up, to get them experienced. A good performance in battle would help enormously.

  “I just hope we can keep them shut up on Manhattan,” Pete commented before attacking his lunch,

  Casca doubted they could. With command of the sea the British had the luxury of picking the place they wanted to land, as they had at Kip’s Bay. After lunch they completed their tour and went back to their respective units. Casca reported to Washington again. “Sir, what would be my role in the event of the enemy offering battle?”

  Washington thought for a moment. “You’re a valuable member of my staff, Captain. I wouldn’t want to lose you in battle.”

  Casca smiled briefly. “Don’t worry, sir, I’m not that easy to kill. I’d like a position to be able to fight. A commanding role in the defensive lines I’ve helped design.”

  “I’ll consider it, Captain,” Washington said, then was distracted by the arrival of another messenger. The general read the message and scowled. “Damn it – Howe’s landed men at Throg’s Neck. Fortunately our men there are able to bottle them up. Where’s Throg’s Neck?” he demanded of his staff.

  One of the attendant staff slapped a map onto the table and ran his finger down and along the river line before jabbing it at a point to the south of White Plains. “There, General.”

  Washington mused over it for a while. “Hmm. If they can be kept there, good. I want the other units stationed along the shore to be put on full alert in case Howe tries anything else.”

  Casca waited until the commotion had died down, then Washington realized he was still there. “Ah, Captain. It seems you may get your battle sooner than you think. I’ll attach you to McDougall’s Brigade on Chatterton Hill. It’s an important position as you know. You must hold that if possible.”

  * * *

  The early morning chill was an unwelcome greeting to Casca as he woke. The nights were getting longer and the temperature was falling. The year’s campaigns would soon end. He blearily got to his feet and stumbled out of his hastily arranged bed made out of a pile of packs, canvas sheets and odds and ends of discarded clothing, and looked out over the edge of the corn stalk and wooden branch fence that passed for their defenses. The ghost-like scenery was eerie, reminding him of some of the mornings he recalled from the past in Germania and Helsfjord, and a brief wave of nostalgia came over him.

  At the foot of the steep slope in front of him there was a field of tall grass, and the ground mist was creeping through this. Beyond that the Bronx River flowed, curving from the right and then turning north around the left hand end of the hill. It effectively cut Chatterton Hill from the remainder of the American lines and put them out on an exposed limb. Casca knew the British would seek to take this hill first. There was one bridge down the bottom off to the left and this was guarded, but if things went wrong up there on the hilltop then a thousand or more men would be hurriedly making their way to it and the crush would be terrible. Casca had a memory of the Goths being crushed at the Milvian Bridge when he and his Byzantine comrades had slaughtered them after bursting out of Rome in the days of Belisarius.

  Belisarius. Now there was someone who could make something out of almost nothing. He’d rout the British and drive them back into the sea. Or, more worryingly, he’d lead the British and rout the Americans. Best he remained in his grave and not get involved with man’s petty arguments twelve centuries on.

  He examined his musket. He much preferred using a sword. These things were too prone to misfiring, jamming or having the powder get too wet. Damned things. It was like fighting with a pike that used Greek F
ire. The few bayonets they had were all issued out to the continentals they had on the hilltop here amongst the Marylanders and the Delaware unit. Off to the right the militia nervously waited without any, and if the British got to them it was certain they’d not hang about. He could hardly blame them.

  He hawked up phlegm and spat over the parapet. He badly needed a piss and then a drink of water. There was a unit latrine so he relieved himself there and then sought out the water cart, standing to the rear just out of harm’s way. He used the pewter mug, battered and well used, tied to the cart, and then filled it a second time to wash his face. It helped wake him up. He rubbed his bristly chin. Maybe if he got the time he’d shave, but he doubted there would be time just yet. Returning to the unit he began waking the NCOs. They would get the men up. “Sergeant, make sure the men all get their rations.”

  “Yes sir,” the sergeant yawned, then remembering who Casca was, saluted. Casca returned the salute and went about inspecting the rest of the company. If the colonel or even General McDougall happened by and the men were still in the arms of Morpheus, he’d be for it.

  The mist was slowly giving way but movement was happening over to the right. He leaned forward and peered through the mist and distance. Ghostly figures were advancing towards the hill and then he began picking out more further back but opposite his position. “Christ,” he exclaimed, alerting the sentries, “all hell’s about to break loose. Sound the alarm, man!”

  As the shouts went up Casca slowly began loading, thoughtfully watching as the advanced American troops below the hill began shooting at the advancing British. There were thousands of them, all making their way towards Chatterton Hill. The company formed up behind Casca and the sergeants and corporals got them assigned to their positions. Casca beckoned his immediate subordinate, a middle-aged lieutenant who had seen service in the Seven Year’s War, to stand with him.

  “Sir?” he said, his voice low and gravelly. Casca had the idea the lieutenant carried a grudge at not being higher in rank due to him having been in a war before. Shit, if that’s the case I ought to be the general here, Casca thought.