Prelude to Glory, Vol. 2

by Ron Carter

  Fires were impossible. The day ended, and the gray gloom gave way to a thick blackness in which the sole sound was the drumming of the rain into puddles and onto drenched blankets. General Washington had not erected a command tent, but sat at his table with a lantern, continuing to write orders and directives under a tarp set up to cover the paper and quill. He remained available to any man, officer or foot soldier, who had reason to seek him, and he was muddy, hungry, soaked to the bone just as they were.

  It was past nine o’clock when Eli suddenly stiffened and turned to Billy. “If I was Howe, I’d have some of Brant’s Mohawks up here taking a look about now.”

  Billy raised his head. “In this? They couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces.”

  “That’s just the time to send them.” He handed his rifle to Billy. “Watch that. I’ll be back in a while.” He eased out of the trench headed back into camp. Billy listened, but heard no one challenge Eli in the pitch black. Billy turned back to once again take up the vigil of watching south, waiting for the attack that was bound to come. He found his thoughts running and he was too weary to care, and he let them go.

  My knapsack’s gone—Brigitte’s letter, everything. No razor, no soap, nothing. Nothing to write on—I’ve got to write Mother. When she hears about yesterday she’ll worry. Is Brigitte all right? Matthew? Kathleen? I wish someone would write and tell me. I wonder what Mother had for supper tonight. Mutton roast. And peas. The peas are on. She had fresh peas.

  A longing ache rose in his breast and he pushed away all thoughts of home.

  Behind him, Eli worked his way north through camp, plowing through water and mud, pausing to peer into the blackness, listening, avoiding the huddled soldiers and the pickets. He cleared the rear of the camp and dropped to his haunches to consider.

  If they come, they’ll likely take the high ground around the east end where Fort Putnam is, away from the river and the swamp.

  He turned east, working through the brush and trees, then cut back towards the rear of the American lines and came up behind Fort Putnam. He walked to the northeast corner, then paced twenty yards due north and sat down in the brush and bowed his head to concentrate on any sound, any hint that broke the rhythm of the sound of the steady rain.

  If they circle to the back of the fort, they should come within a few yards of me.

  He lost track of time as he sat in the rain, head down, intense in his concentration on sound, and then it was there, too close, and the thought flashed through his brain—somehow they heard me, they’re looking for me—and in that instant a foot hit water three feet to his right and Eli threw himself violently towards the sound and struck the knees of a man. He felt the bite of a tomahawk on his right shoulder blade as he rolled on through the legs to sweep them from beneath the man, and he pivoted and dived to grapple with the body as it struggled to rise in the slippery mud. Then they were locked in a death struggle, and Eli was desperately grasping for the tomahawk he could not see. His hand closed on the iron head and he jerked the handle free and threw it blind into the blackness while he groped for the man’s throat. The man’s fingers came clawing for his eyes and Eli turned his head, and then he found the throat and his left hand closed on the windpipe and jugular. He wrenched them and the man gagged and jerked back and Eli did not release, and the man grabbed his arm with both hands to tear him loose as Eli brought his own tomahawk up and struck once, twice, and the man relaxed.

  Instantly Eli dived away and tried to control his heaving breath to listen for a second man. He heard the whispered name, and he waited until the sound was close and he stood. For a stunned moment the dark shape faced him. In that instant Eli dived into him and he went over backwards splashing in the mud with Eli on top of him. Eli found the soft throat and the man strangled and reached for Eli’s arm as Eli struck him just above the ear with the flat side of his tomahawk, and the man groaned and settled.

  Eli rolled away, poised, waiting, counting twenty breaths, but there were no sounds other than the steady rhythm of the rain.

  Quickly he found the body of the first man and tucked his fingers under the jaw and there was nothing. He turned to the second body, and he felt for a sign of life and there was the steady, slow pulse and deep breathing. He felt for the man’s weapons belt and threw it away, then lifted the man to his feet and draped him over his shoulder and turned towards the fort.

  Ten minutes later he was challenged in the dark by a picket whose eyes opened wide when Eli answered and then walked past him. The startled picket muttered, “One Indian carrying another one.” Eli had disappeared before it occurred to the picket he should have held him and called for help.

  Eli walked on towards the center of camp until a picket stopped him at bayonet point. “Who comes there?”

  “Eli Stroud. Boston regiment. I got a Mohawk spy. Where’s the nearest officer?”

  The man’s head jerked forward. “You got a what?”

  “Get an officer!”

  Thirty seconds later a major appeared before him, staring at the rare sight. “You want an officer?”

  “This is a Mohawk Indian sent to scout out this camp. I think General Washington might want to talk to him.”

  Five minutes later Eli settled the man onto a chair at the command table of General Washington, with the single lantern hissing in the rain, casting great, grotesque shadows into the blackness.

  General Washington stared for a moment, then spoke to Eli. “Didn’t you report to me about General Howe last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is this man?” Washington peered at the buckskin hunting shirt and breeches, and the moccasins, and the high roached hair.

  “A Mohawk scout sent by Howe. I caught him over by Fort Putnam. There’s a second one over there, dead. I think there might be others.”

  Washington looked closely. “Is he alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you talk with him?”

  “I can if he wakes up. Got some alcohol?”

  Two minutes later Eli tipped the man’s head back and held his nose until his mouth opened, then poured half a cup of medicinal alcohol into the gaping mouth. The man choked at the bitter bite of the raw liquid and threw his head sideways and gagged and spat onto the ground. He blinked his eyes and raised his head, and Eli dropped to one knee beside him. He drew his belt knife and laid it gently at the man’s throat.

  The man’s eyes grew wide as he heard Eli’s words spoken in perfect Mohawk. “Why are you here?”

  The man raised his eyes to look around, trying to understand where he was, and Eli continued. “This is General George Washington. You are in his camp. Your companion is dead. We know Joseph Brant sent you here because General Howe told him to. We want to know why you are here. What were you sent to find out?”

  The man turned defiant eyes to Eli and clamped his mouth shut.

  George Washington interrupted. “What have you said?”

  “I told him where he was. I asked him what he was sent here to find out.”

  “Do you think he’ll answer?”

  “Maybe.” Eli turned back to the Indian. “If you do not answer, you will be hanged, here, tonight. I will ask you one more time. What were you sent to find out?”

  The man stared defiantly into Eli’s eyes and said nothing.

  Again Washington interrupted. “What did you say?”

  “We’d hang him if he didn’t answer. Indians don’t much fear being dead, but they don’t like being hanged. It disgraces them. I got one more thing to tell him.”

  He turned back to the Indian. “If you tell us what we need to know we will let you go.”

  Eli understood one thing. Being caught had shamed, humiliated the Mohawk badly. If given his freedom, his pride would not let him return to the British camp. He would go north, eventually to rejoin his own people after a time had passed for him to purge himself of his guilt and for his people to have forgotten it.

  The Indian spoke. “Brant said co
unt soldiers. Find gunpowder.”

  “You came to count our army and find our gunpowder?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not enough. What else?”

  The Indian’s eyes flashed defiance in the yellow lantern light, and then they softened and he continued. “Blow up gunpowder.”

  Eli’s eyes narrowed. “What else?”

  “Count cannon at river.”

  “At river? Why?”

  “I do not know.”

  “What is Howe going to do at the river?”

  The Indian shook his head.

  Eli continued. “How many did Brant send with you?”

  The Indian held up four fingers.

  “Where are the other two?”

  The Indian shrugged.

  Eli rose to his feet and faced Washington. “He was sent to count our soldiers, and find our powder magazine if he could and blow it up, and to count our cannon at the river. He says Howe sent four Mohawk. He doesn’t know where the other two are.”

  Washington’s eyes narrowed. “Where do you think the other two are?”

  “No way to know. Might be good to double the pickets at the powder magazine, and send a company of men down to the river.”

  “What’s this about counting cannon at the river?”

  “He doesn’t know why.”

  Washington’s forehead wrinkled. “What’s at the river? Howe’s got maps. He’s seen our gun placements. Why would he want to count our cannon when he already knows?”

  The two men stood stock-still for ten seconds while their minds ran with the question, and slowly it came to both of them. Washington spoke first. “He wants to know if we’ve added cannon on the waterfront, because he plans to send their gunboats up the river to bombard Brooklyn from the river!”

  Slowly Eli nodded. “Sounds like yesterday all over again.”

  Washington straightened. “What did you promise this man for this information?”

  “Freedom.”

  Washington’s eyes widened. “Let him go? to return to Howe?”

  “He won’t go there. He’s disgraced by being caught. Finished. He’ll go north, back to his people. I’ll take him a mile north of camp and turn him loose.”

  Half an hour later Eli dropped splashing into the trench beside Billy.

  “Find anything?”

  For three minutes Eli spoke in the rain while Billy listened, eyes narrowed when Eli finished.

  “Is Howe going to trap us again?”

  Eli pursed his mouth for a moment. “I doubt it. But I’ll tell you one thing. We better hope this storm gets worse. If Howe gets his gunboats up the East River off the Brooklyn shore, some of those heavy guns can probably reach us here. We can’t stop them, but the weather can.”

  Eli raised his right arm and flexed it, shrugging his right shoulder.

  Billy caught the grimace on his face. “You hurt?”

  “Barely broke the skin.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Tomahawk. Back of my shoulder.”

  Billy laid his musket on the lip of the trench. “Pull off that shirt.” He helped Eli shrug out of the soaked buckskin, and in the blackness he leaned close to look and to feel.

  “You’re cut, but not bad.” Billy used Eli’s belt knife to cut both sleeves of his own shirt off at the elbow and fold them into a compress. Eli tugged the shirt back on and Billy positioned the compress in place.

  “It’ll stop the bleeding if you’ll try not to move.”

  Behind them, General Washington sat at his command table, staring at his folded hands in the pale lantern light. By force of an iron will, he slowed his racing thoughts and began to put them in order.

  I missed it—too caught up in yesterday—could only think of stopping Howe from the land side—didn’t think of the men-of-war down south—How many? Seventy-three. If they come up the river, Brooklyn is lost and so are we. How could I miss it? How?

  Minutes passed before he suddenly stiffened and his head snapped up.

  What have I done? We’re in a trap and I ordered thousands of more men to walk into it! Backwards—all backwards. I should have gotten every man out of the trap, not into it. Have I lost it all? The revolution? America? Have I? Have I?

  Half an hour later he called to his aide. Ten minutes later, well past midnight, Colonel John Glover stood before him, rain dripping from the flat brim of his black hat. His eyes glittered in the lantern light as he raised them to Washington’s, who stood one foot taller than Glover, and John Glover took his measure of General George Washington. He wasn’t sure how much he could like a Virginia aristocrat who had spent a fair part of his life riding high-bred horses, chasing small red foxes in green meadows, wearing costly uniforms covered with gold braid and gold buttons, and attending seasonal balls and great banquets for the rich and powerful. He wasn’t sure if such a man had the common sense and grit to make the hard decisions, and enough steel in his backbone to drive himself and his men to make the right things happen. One thing Glover did know. This man was his commanding officer, and the rule on which he had built one of the finest fighting units in the American states was obedience to superior officers and to orders.

  He came to attention. “Colonel Glover reporting as ordered, sir.”

  Washington stared into his gray eyes and for a moment studied the small bandy-legged man before him. He saw the clear, perceptive eyes, the leathery face that had seen a thousand violent storms on the sea, the set of the mouth and chin, and he saw the hands that were hard and callused. “Colonel, I’ve been in error. I need your help.”

  Glover covered his surprise. “Help, sir?”

  “I’ve assembled nine thousand men here to oppose General Howe, who has twenty thousand. If he now brings his gunboats up the East River, he can cut Brooklyn to shreds from the river, and some of his heavy guns can reach us here. We’ll be in a trap with no way out.”

  Glover nodded. “I know, sir.”

  Washington paused at the frank statement, then continued. “I’m told your regiment is composed of men who know boats and water.”

  “We do.”

  Washington selected his words carefully. “Can you transport this army across the East River to Manhattan Island in one night?”

  Glover neither moved nor spoke for nearly half a minute while his mind raced, making calculations. “Yes, sir, we can, if we can get the boats.”

  “What kind of boats?”

  Glover’s answer was simple. “Anything that floats, sir. It makes no difference to us.”

  Washington stopped for a moment and stared into the steady eyes. “I gathered up a great many boats when we crossed over to Long Island.”

  “How many?”

  “Maybe one hundred.”

  “A good start. We’ll need more. Give me the order and my men can get them in twelve hours.”

  Washington’s mouth dropped open for a split second. “Where?”

  “Here. Across the river. Down on Gravesend. Up on the sound. Wherever we find them. My men know where to find boats.”

  “What if this storm holds?”

  “We can make the crossing in this storm, but if a heavy wind moves up the river we’ll have to wait. If we have to wait, so will the British gunboats.”

  “If the storm quiets?”

  Glover shook his head. “If it quiets and the British bring their gunboats up the river, we’ll have trouble.”

  “Wait.” Washington sat at his table and his aide held the tarp while he wrote orders to Glover. He folded them and stood and handed them to the colonel. “There’s my written authority to get the boats. If you need anything else from me, I am at your service. Bring the boats near the Brooklyn ferry, and try to do so with as little notice as possible. We must keep this from Howe as long as we can.”

  Glover shoved the written orders inside his sodden tunic. “Yes, sir.” He saluted and started to turn, when Washington stopped him.

  “Colonel, I, uh . . . Do you believe . . .” Washington�
��s voice trailed off.

  Glover’s eyes were steady, his voice matter-of-fact. “I do, General. We’re in His hands. Anything else, sir?”

  Seldom had Washington felt the surge that filled his breast. He swallowed hard before he could answer. “No, Colonel. Thank you. Carry on.”

  The rains held throughout the night. Dawn changed the black pall to a gray pall, and the rain continued relentlessly. The men in the trenches and behind the breastworks mixed with the officers at the commissary tents to take their rations for the day, which were exactly the same as the day before—two hard biscuits and four ounces of raw pork. They had had nothing hot for forty-eight hours, nor had they slept, nor felt the warmth of a fire. They moved about in silence, doing only what had to be done, taking their rotation in the trenches that had four feet of water and mud, and rising.

  Quietly the Marblehead regiment had scattered throughout the night and were returning with boats from everywhere. Flat-bottomed boats, longboats, barges, rowboats, whaleboats—anything they could find. Twice Glover asked Washington for specific orders and Washington gave them.

  One was to General Mifflin and on to General Heath at King’s Bridge. The message was terse. Get everything that will float and deliver it to New York, now. Glover’s sailors crossed the East River and brought the boats across to the Brooklyn shore under cover of the rain.

  The second one was to Assistant Quartermaster Hughes at New York, with the same blunt message. Anything that floats, oar or sail. Get it. For twenty-two hours Hughes never dismounted his horse, but rode the New York shoreline relentlessly commandeering everything he could find that would make it across the East River, and Glover’s men, along with sailors from Salem, brought them to Brooklyn.

  In the midst of it all, Washington sat at his command table, poring over a plan that would move the entire army across the river in one night.

  In their condition, if they know what we’re doing, there’s the strong risk of panic that could cripple the whole operation. And if Howe’s scouts discover it, he’ll be on us instantly.