by Ron Carter
Eli and Billy raised their eyes and squinted across to the New Jersey side of the river, wishing for a telescope. They strained to see the detail of a gun emplacement with the snouts of six cannon covering every ship, every soldier and sailor within one mile, where Cooper’s Creek emptied into the great river. South of the guns, thousands of red-coated soldiers moved about, leading horses into massive rope pens, tying oxen to picket lines strung along the far docks, stacking boxes and crates and kegs of gunpowder, wheeling cannon to an ordnance depot, shouting as they rolled empty wagons into a close-quarter line, side by side, to make room for more coming in. The growing stockpiles of all things necessary to maintain a marching army were growing as far as the eye could see.
Isaiah worked his way through the swarming mass to finally haul the lathered horses to a stop. On the ground, a sweating sergeant stood beside a mountain of sacked oats. He was bareheaded, with his tunic lying on a table nearby where a wide-eyed lieutenant sat with a sectioned tray of coins and printed British money and a stack of vouchers. A nervous private stood behind him, musket at the ready, watching closely everyone who came within ten feet of the money tray. The sergeant peered up at Isaiah, wiped the sweat from his eyes, and bawled, “Oats?”
“Three tons. Horse feed.”
“You got a contract?”
Isaiah handed down a paper, the sergeant read it briefly, then pointed. “You got men to unload it?”
Isaiah pointed back at Billy and Eli.
Dour, frowning, the sergeant pointed. “Add it to the stack. You break a sack, we dock your pay. We check the weight on every fifth bag. One comes up short, we reject the load. When you’re unloaded, come back here.” He pointed at the young lieutenant with the money at the table. “He’ll pay. You’ll sign for it. Move on.”
Isaiah moved the wagon to the great pile of sacked oats and climbed down. Billy dropped the tailgate, they set the chains to hold it level, Eli stepped up onto it, and reached for the first bag of oats on the top of the load. He set it on the tailgate, Billy shouldered it, carried it to the stack and settled it into its place, then returned to the tailgate for the next one.
A sweating private, still wearing his tunic and hat, wheeled an avoirdupois scale next to the tailgate and set a bucket with the numerals “50” painted on the side on one of the two arms. He gestured, and Billy set the next bag on the opposite arm. The two came to a balance, and the needle on the register showed the sack of oats slightly the heavier. The private nodded, Billy hoisted the sack, and added it to the stack while the private made a mark on a paper.
The three settled into the routine.
The sun was approaching its zenith when they stopped to drink. Eli paused for a moment to peer upward at a cloudless sky. The air was heavy—humid, hot, dead, sultry. Eli wiped at sweat and spoke to Billy. “Feels like weather coming.”
It was past two o’clock in the afternoon when the last sack was in place. The private initialed his tally sheet, handed it to Isaiah, and wheeled the scale away. Isaiah took the paper to the sergeant, who studied it for a moment, added his initials, and handed it back.
“Take it to the lieutenant.”
The lieutenant marked the paper and counted bills and coins from his tray. Isaiah counted them again, and the lieutenant handed him the quill. Isaiah signed to acknowledge receipt of the money, stuffed it into a leather purse, shoved it into his shirt, and walked back to his empty wagon where Billy and Eli were waiting. Without a word he mounted the driver’s seat, unwound the reins from the brake pole, set his team of horses in motion, and the empty wagon rattled away to disappear in the din and stench of the sweltering, crowded waterfront.
Billy looked at Eli, took a deep breath, and made a motion with his head, toward the sergeant. “Ready?”
“Let’s go.”
Billy led the way, pushing through the crowd. He stopped at the table where the sergeant was checking a paper with the lieutenant, still seated with the money. The private with the musket eyed them closely, then settled. The lieutenant raised his head, and the sergeant turned, irritated, brusque.
“We already paid for the oats.”
Billy nodded. “We got our wages. Just wanted to know if you could use some more oats. Same price.”
The sergeant eyed them. “Who are you? What are your names?”
“I’m Billy Weems. This is Eli Stroud.”
“Looks like an Indian to me.”
“Raised Iroquois. Good worker. You need more oats?”
“You from around here?”
“Here and close by. We hire out. Know a few farmers around here with oats. Good horse feed. You need more?”
The sergeant was emphatic. “No. Our orders say no more contracts this side of the river. We’re moving all the horses across. We’ll get our feed over there. Save moving it all over there.”
Billy’s eyes widened. “The New Jersey side? Which way from there?”
The sergeant stopped, suspicion evident in his face. “What’s your interest in direction?”
“We worked for some farmers over there, north in Bordentown, and further up in Allentown. Good grain country. They got oats. Just thought if you’re moving north up near there we could go ahead of you and have sacked oats waiting. Same price. Good quality. How many horses you feeding? For how long?”
Eli was to the side of and one step behind Billy, standing loose and easy, from all appearances paying little attention. He did not look directly at the lieutenant as the man laid down the paper he was holding and turned to study Billy.
The sergeant went on. “You contractors?”
“No. When we deal for oats, we get to load and unload. Good wages. And we’d rather get paid in British gold than American Continental dollars.” He shook his head ruefully. “Those American paper dollars are near worthless.”
The sergeant pondered for a moment before he spoke. “Five thousand horses. Headed north.”
“How far? Middlebrook? Amherst?”
“New York.”
The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed. Eli did not change expression.
Billy scratched his head. “All those horses working? Pulling wagons?”
“All five thousand.”
Billy whistled. “That’s a lot of wagons. How many men will be going?”
“About fifteen thousand.”
Billy recoiled, wide-eyed. “Fifteen thousand!” He made swift calculations, then began to shake his head slowly. “Four horses to the wagon, that’s about twelve hundred wagons going ninety miles or more. It’ll take close to three weeks to move that many men and wagons that far through the hills between here and New York. I can get some horse feed, but not near enough for all five thousand working every day. I can get maybe eighty, ninety tons of oats and have them any place you want between here and New Brunswick. That help?”
The lieutenant picked up the quill, wrote something quickly, folded the paper, and handed it to the private with the musket. The private looked down at him, the lieutenant pointed, and the private pivoted on his heel and disappeared into the crowd. Eli reached to scratch under his chin, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and waited.
The sergeant was obviously dubious. “We’ll need signed contracts in advance. Can you get them?”
Billy shrugged. “We can try. If I do, you the one I deal with?”
“You’ll deal with Colonel Henry Jarvis, but you’ll do it through me. Ask just about anyone in the command for Sergeant Quincy Morton. The forage sergeant. They’ll find me.”
“Where will your army be? When do you leave to start north?”
“Orders say June eighteenth. I don’t know how they think we’ll get all this across the river by then, but we will.”
Billy nodded vigorously. “That’s four days. I’ll try to get back before you leave.”
“You have no guarantees. By that time we could have enough contracts to carry us.”
“I understand. If I get contracts, I’ll find you on the other side of the ri
ver.”
The sergeant turned back to the lieutenant, puzzled that the armed guard was no longer standing watch over the money. Billy gave Eli a head signal, and they walked off into the crowd. Eli waited until they were fifty feet away before he spoke.
“That lieutenant was paying too much attention to you and the sergeant. He sent the private somewhere with a note.”
Billy slowed. “Think we’re being followed?”
“Don’t know. Let’s find out.” In two strides Eli was beside a jumble of open, discarded shipping crates, and stepped up on one. He was head and shoulders above the crowd. In two seconds he located the sergeant, then the lieutenant, and as he watched, the private came leading six redcoated regulars at a run, muskets at the ready, bayonets gleaming in the hot sun. They stopped before the lieutenant, and he spoke to them, excited, animated, then barked orders. As he turned to point the direction Billy and Eli had taken, Eli dropped to the ground.
“Looks like there’s a six-man squad coming after us.”
Instantly Billy veered away from the docks, Eli following, pushing through the crowd in the cobblestone streets, dodging, working their way south, away from the tumult and din of the waterfront. They covered six blocks before they slowed, watching for a place to disappear. They passed a white frame church with the front doors chained shut and continued to the corner, where they circled back to come in behind the old building. They pushed through the gate in the unpainted fence, and rattled the backdoor to the quarters of the cleric. It was bolted, but the outside cellar door was open. They looked about to be certain they were unobserved, then descended the nine wooden stairs and pushed through the lower door into a dark, dank room that reeked of musty decay. They waited until their eyes adjusted, then strained to see in the darkness. The room was small, bare, dirt walled and floored, with two heavy timbers supporting the floor overhead.
Nose wrinkled against the thick, rank air, Billy said, “There’s usually an overhead door and stairs in these church cellars.”
Eli answered. “The door’s right here, but no stairs.”
Billy pondered for a moment. “The British probably tore them out for firewood. Is the door nailed shut?”
Eli stood tall to push upward with both hands, then slammed the butt of one hand against the door. It swung open on its hinges to fall banging on the floor above, sending the sound echoing through the building. Both men froze, waiting for anything that would tell them they had been heard. Three minutes of silence passed before Eli spoke again.
“I’m going up.”
He pulled himself upward into the small parlor of the quarters built for the reverend. Sunlight from a single window showed the room to be abandoned, stripped of any furnishings, bare to the walls. Moments later Billy pulled himself up, and the two men stood peering about.
The door in the entrance to the chapel was gone, and the two men silently walked into the large, high ceilinged room, lighted by dusty sunlight filtering through the accumulated grime covering six high windows on each side. The pulpit and sacrament table had been torn out, and every pew in the building was ripped out and gone. Dust covered the scarred, bare wooden floor. The temperature in the closed room was stifling. The two men felt an eerie, surreal sensation as they stood in the dull light, staring at the wrecked house of worship.
Billy broke the mood. “I doubt they’ll search here,” he said quietly. “I’ll go close the cellar doors.”
“If they find us, we’re trapped.”
Billy paused. “Might be six or eight squads out there looking for us by now. Shall we take our chances back in the streets?”
Eli shook his head. “We stay. We can leave at dark. Get some rest while we wait. From the feel of it out there, I expect weather soon. That’ll help.”
After Billy came back from the cellar, they sat down on the floor, backs against the plain wooden walls, knees drawn high to support their forearms. They could not stop the beads of perspiration that trickled down their faces, nor did they dare speak aloud. They sat in silence, sweating, each with his own thoughts, eyes closed as they tried to rest after spending forty hours without sleep.
The afternoon wore on with the shafts of sunlight moving slowly across the floor, and then the irregular rectangles of light faded and were gone. Deep purple clouds came rolling to cast the room in a dark blue haze, and then they heard a rising wind, rattling the shutters on the building and whipping the trees outside into a frenzied dance. Minutes passed as the wind mounted, and then from a long distance to the west came the deep rumble of thunder.
Eli raised his head. “It’s coming.”
The distant roar of the rolling storm became louder, and then it was upon them, sending sheets of wind-driven rain to slash at the windows. Lightning bolts raced through the billowing purple clouds for miles, and thunder shook the building. Rainwater ran in streams from half a dozen leaks in the roof to form huge puddles on the floor of the old church, and the sticky heat dissipated in the chill wind.
Eli stood. “I doubt the soldiers will be looking for us in this. Let’s go find a tavern. People talk in taverns.”
They made their way back through the cellar, out into the weeds inside the fence, and were soaked to the skin in thirty seconds. Turning into the vacant cobblestone streets, they moved toward the heart of town, wary, watching. After a time, Billy pointed at a sign swinging in the gusting wind, with the words “The Red Goose Tavern and Inn” carved into the wood.
They pushed through the door and slammed it closed against the wind, then stood dripping while their eyes adjusted. The room was smoky and pungent with the odor of sweet pipe tobacco and wet wool clothing. It appeared that no one took notice of their entrance, as the occupants continued their conversations—some loud and raucous, some jovial, some profane. Civilians and soldiers alike sat at small tables, nursing pewter mugs of ale and rum, waiting for their clothes to dry and the cloudburst to pass. A fire burned bright in the soot-coated fireplace, popping pine knots smoking onto the stone hearth. Along the wall to the left of the door was a rack, holding thirteen, heavy Brown Bess British muskets.
The two men scanned the faces in the room as they worked their way to a battered wooden bar. A balding, corpulent little man and a large woman with unruly hair and bad teeth nodded to them.
“Ale? Rum?” the woman asked.
Billy shook his head. “Do you have rooms for the night?”
The man answered. “Might have one. Pay in advance.”
“Don’t know yet if we’ll need it. Depends on the storm. We’ll stay and see. What do you have for supper?”
The woman answered. “Boiled vegetables and roast pork. Hot. Good.”
Billy dug in his shirt for the leather purse and laid out coins.
The woman asked, “What to drink?”
“Cider.”
She nodded, made change, then pointed to a table against a wall, not far from the fireplace.
“Two chairs there. I’ll bring the food.” She turned her bulk and disappeared into the kitchen.
Eli sat down with his back to the wall, Billy to his left, and each nodded to the two men at the table next to them. They wore the clothing and had the hard hands of laborers. Each had a tankard of ale, and their talk was loud. Two tables further over sat four red-coated regulars, uniforms soaked, working on mugs of hot buttered rum. Both Billy and Eli quietly studied them, catching bits and snatches of their talk. One was heavy, ponderous, offensive, as he led the others in loudly degrading their officers, their orders, the work of the day, and the storm.
Billy and Eli leaned forward on their elbows, rubbing their palms together, heads down as they studied their hands and waited for their food, straining to catch fragments of the talk.
“ . . . won’t finish before dark . . . bloody storm.”
“ . . . finish tomorrow . . .”
“ . . . ready to march in three days? . . . three days to load the wagons . . .”
“ . . . not three days, four . . .”
“ . . . twelve hundred wagons? . . . twenty days’ cooked food for the whole bloody army? . . . at least four days . . . maybe three nights!”
“ . . . four days food in our packs besides . . .”
As Billy and Eli worked at their food, the wind at the door gradually slackened. They drank from the mugs and continued with their forks, still listening.
“ . . . heard it from Langley . . . two of ’em on the docks . . . askin’ too many questions . . .”
“ . . . forage sergeant . . . Morton . . . told ’em too much . . .”
“ . . . lieutenant says they’re likely spies . . .”
“ . . . squad went looking . . . storm hit . . .”
Eli stopped chewing. Billy laid down his knife and fork. Without moving his head, he made a silent count. Two redcoats at the corner table—two by the front door—four officers in the right corner—four regulars talking—twelve—too many—never make the front door. He turned his head slightly, searching. A hallway just past Eli.
In the manner of fighting men who have been inside each other’s heads so many times in life or death battles, who without a spoken word know each other’s thoughts, their reactions, their instincts, their strengths and weaknesses, Billy made the slightest head-nod to Eli, who glanced to his right and saw the open archway. Both men shifted their feet beneath their table, ready, while the four regulars nursed their hot rum and talked on.
“ . . . might still be on the waterfront . . .”
“ . . . one burly . . . other one looks like an Indian . . .”
Eli laid down his knife and fork and reached for his cider mug.
The wind at the door had died, but the sound of steady rain drummed on the roof. The four soldiers raised their mugs once more, finished their rum, set the mugs thumping on the scarred tabletop, and stood to leave.