3stalwarts (34 page)

Whereas a certain Barry St. Leger, a Brigadier-general in the service of George of Great Britain, at the head of a banditti of robbers, murderers, and traitors, composed of savages’ of America, and more savage Britons (among whom is the noted Sir John Johnson, John Butler, and Daniel Claus), have lately appeared in the frontiers of this state …

It was not what the proclamation said that roused the people. There were too few Tories left in German Flats to make the promised amnesty applicable to themselves. It was rather the choice of words. Here was a man who put down what he said as if he meant it, who wasn’t afraid of calling scoundrels by their proper names.

Militiamen who hadn’t thought of heading west again began to talk of going along with Arnold’s army. He was the man who had taken troops overland through Maine and would have conquered Quebec and all Can-ada but for one unlucky bullet that got him in the knee. In the knee, like Herkimer; the coincidence was striking. They listened to his invitation to all able-bodied men, militia or exempts, to join him in a victorious march against St. Leger’s camp. But they waited awhile to see what he would do.

He did a lot. He made an inspection of the forts round German Flats. In each he made another speech about his expedition. He also urged the people out to take care of the wheat.

“This valley’s not only got to feed you; it’s got to feed General Washington’s army. And the army will pay you high. Right now it’s buying unmilled wheat at seven shilling.” They listened to him, watching him— a black-visaged, hawk-like man, with arrogant round eyes and an opulent mouth. “You’ve got more than your families to look out for here. You’ve got the bread of the army in your care. That’s what St. Leger’s after. And that’s what Gansevoort’s saving by hanging out in Stanwix, and that’s what we’re going to save Gansevoort for.” His face was flushed high; his voice had a queer habit of sliding up the scale; but they liked the way he walked up and down, light on his feet, like a man who knew the woods.

“Listen to me. Over in Bennington, Vermont, Colonel Stark and a bunch of minutemen captured and licked and manhandled five hundred Hessian cavalry. Do you know why the Hessians went over there? Because Burgoyne’s getting pinched for food. General Schuyler has him bottled up. His murdering Indians have gone home, they can’t find any more girls to kill, like Jenny McRae. He’s just sitting still and praying for St. Leger, and that’s what we’re here to stop. Lick St. Leger and you lick Burgoyne. You people can do it. You damn near did. I’m here to help you take another whack at it, and both of us together can win this war, right here.”

He had Learned’s artillery manoeuvre in Petry’s field, and the men went from all the forts and stockades to look at cannon dragged on wheels. The soldiers lined one up and fired it down the river, and the awed people saw the heavy ball send up a tower of spray three hundred yards downstream. They thought of what that would have done to the Indians at Oriskany, and Arnold had a battery.

“By Jesus,” said Joe Boleo, making his first emergence from his gloom, “I calculate I’ll go along and see one of them balls let loose after Sillinger myself.”

Arnold’s next step was to court-martial Walter Butler. He appointed Willett Judge Advocate, which made men shake their heads and say conviction would be pretty near conclusive, with that arrangement. When they found that the trial was open to any and all spectators, they so crowded Dr. Petry’s store that a guard had to be thrown round it to keep out late comers.

It gave them a strange thrill to see one of the men who had run the valley standing up before an officer. Butler was self-contained but scornful. He argued in his clear attorney’s voice that he had come with a flag to parley with the inhabitants of German Flats. He did not know anything of this new law, he only knew the King’s law. He did not consider it necessary to report to Colonel Weston, for he did not know of any Colonel Weston or of any Fort Dayton. The natural pallor of his face was not accentuated when he was brought back into court and sentenced to the pain and penalty of death. The new law he had scorned, as administered by Willett and Arnold, had ground him down. It gave all men pause for thought.

By contrast the succeeding trial of Hon Yost Schuyler as a deserter from the Tryon County militia was an anticlimax. But it showed that General Arnold was not missing any tricks at all; and some of the spectators were reminded how nearly they might have found themselves in Schuyler’s shoes, guilty, and sentenced to a hundred lashes.

Arnold had no authority for court-martialing Butler. Both Gates and Schuyler had sent definite orders that the captured men be removed to Albany. But he and Willett had been putting on a show to divert attention from their unavoidable delay. The militia were not coming in as they had expected, and the commissary train as usual was lagging no one knew quite where.

That night while he and Willett sat together in headquarters tent trying to think up some new game and wondering whether they dared disobey instructions and execute Butler anyway, the guard announced two women to see the general. The women were Mrs. Schuyler and her daughter, Nancy.

Both officers were men to whom directness invariably appealed. Mrs. Schuyler wasted no time in pleading her own shame, she only mentioned that she was Herkimer’s sister, they could see her position for themselves. She had brought a proposition from her son. If Arnold let him off, he guaranteed to go to Sillinger’s camp and, pretending he had escaped from the American army, to put the fear of death into the Indians. He volunteered the information that when he left with Ensign Butler, the Indians were already getting restless. He believed that if the Indians left, the Tories, and maybe Sillinger himself, would lose their nerve.

It was the kind of notion to appeal to men like Arnold and Willett. They admitted it. But Arnold said, “What guarantee can you give us of your son’s good faith?”

“I’ve brought my daughter with me,” said Mrs. Schuyler. “You can keep her for a hostage.”

Arnold studied Mrs. Schuyler and then glanced at Nancy’s face. Nancy was pale and her eyes were wide with emotion. As she met the general’s eye her lips parted. She had made the suggestion herself to her mother, and she was ready, if anything happened to Hon, to take his punishment.

Arnold smiled grimly.

“Mrs. Schuyler, you’re too intelligent to think I could accept a girl for a hostage. What would people think of me if I ordered my sergeant to give a girl a hundred lashes on her bare back?”

Mrs. Schuyler sighed.

“I thought so. Very well, my son Nicholas has agreed to put himself in your hands till Hon returns.”

Nancy’s face flushed darkly, then it went pale again. And she stood there shivering. The two officers smiled sympathetically. It seemed quite natural; they admired her heroism. Her mother said, “Be still.”

Nancy did not move or speak.

On the twenty-first of August, militiamen began to appear at Fort Day-ton. They came from as far east as Klock’s, and with the arrival of the first groups the men of German Flats started to turn out. By nightfall the count had reached three hundred, and Arnold called Willett and all local militia officers into his tent for a council of war.

“Gentlemen, we start tomorrow.”

His eyes swept over the circle of faces, and fastened on the hesitant ones. Peter Tygert murmured, “Give us another day and maybe we can get another hundred rifles out for you.”

“In another day,” said Arnold, “Colonel Gansevoort may have to cut his way out of Fort Stanwix. It’s my opinion we could be more useful there than here. You can fetch the other hundred along tomorrow.” His eyes protruded at them. “This country’s rotten with its hemstitch policies. It’s time somebody acted. I’m going to. How about those militia? Are they decently organized?”

Captain Demooth said quietly, “They’re pretty disorganized. A lot of the officers got shot or captured. Most of these men were in the first two companies.”

Arnold nodded.

“Very well. I suggest that they be turned over to the surviving officers and made into an irregular brigade. Bring them along in the rear. They ought to shake down as we march. We march tomorrow after sunrise.”

It was a still morning, a little cooler than usual. The river lay like glass between the rifts, not stirring the reflection of a leaf.

At dawn, so still was the air that from Little Stone Arabia Fort to Eldridge Blockhouse people heard the muster rolling of the army drums. Gil Martin, reporting, was appointed temporary sergeant of those of the Schuyler company whom he could get together. Of twenty-five he found eleven. Reall was dead, Weaver wounded, Kast wounded; of the other eleven men one was known to be dead, two taken prisoner, three wounded, and the rest disappeared.

Survivors of other companies even more unfortunate, Joe Boleo and Adam Helmer among them, asked to be attached to Demooth’s company. They made a compact knot of men when Demooth himself rode up to count them. “Good work, Martin,” he said, and wheeled his horse to let General Arnold pass on the narrow road.

But the general reined his horse.

“Is this your company, Captain?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They aren’t all sound.”

“Sound enough, I think,” said Captain Demooth.

Arnold smiled suddenly.

“By God, then, let them come. Do they know the woods? Good. I suggest they act as an advance guard.” He turned to Gil. “Keep a quarter mile ahead of us.”

The way he said it made Gil feel inordinately proud.

“Yes, sir.” Then he asked, “How far will this day’s march go, sir?”

“Just as far as we can get.” Arnold grinned again. “You do a thorough job of combing the woods and I reckon we’ll keep up.”

They took the road, with the rolling of the drums recommencing be-hind them. It prickled their scalps to hear the fifes break out.

The woods covered them with their green silence and they went swiftly westward. In Gil there was a lifting of the heart. He nodded when Helmer said, “This beats the militia. Being our own men and eating nobody’s dust.” As soon as they had passed Schuyler, Joe Boleo and Helmer took over the direction of the company, but Joe Boleo was tactful about it.

“You ain’t timber beasts like me and Helmer, Martin. The two of us can find out a whole lot more of what’s going on if we don’t have you to keep track of. The rest of you keep on the road and go a little slow. Well let you know fast enough if we find anything. Wait at the ford until we pick you up, though.”

The two men broke away and trotted forward into the woods, one on each side of the road. Their moccasined feet made no sound. Gil and the others continued along the road.

They could still see traces of the first march towards Stanwix; deep ruts off the road where an ox cart had bogged down, a rotting blanket, a dropped bayonet. But already the growth of the woods was beginning its work of hiding them. The ferns had straightened round the edges and grass was growing through a hole in the blanket. A deer runway crossing the road had blotted out the wheel tracks.

Well before noon they passed Deerfield and turned toward the river. There, where the oxen had balked, they sat down on the bank and ate.

They were still eating their food when Gil heard a hail from the woods across the river. Helmer appeared with his hand raised. A moment more and he had splashed over the ford. One look at his big handsome face told that he carried good news.

“Joe’s got a squad of Gansevoort’s men up the road. They say Sillinger’s pulled foot.”

“Pulled foot?”

“Yes, pulled foot. Bag and baggage. The Indians lit out yesterday. The whole mess of them, and Sillinger pulling his foot with the rest. They’ve left everything they’ve got behind.” He burst out laughing.

The other men suddenly joined in.

“By Jesus!” A British brigadier galloping hell for leather down the In-dian track towards Oneida. They could see it themselves. Bed, tent, writing desk, and chest of likker, cooking pots and silver forks, sword, spurs, epaulets, and oaths. They saw the whole shebang. “Pulled foot.” It was a joke.

They fell silent after a few minutes and started looking at each other.

“Where’d you find them?” Gil asked.

“About where Honnikol camped, at the crick.”

“What are they doing there?”

“Eating,” said Adam. “Eating their lunch. When Joe walked in on them they asked him to set down and eat.”

Inexplicably they all burst out laughing again.

The rest of the march went swiftly. As soon as Arnold was notified he let his baggage and artillery come on at their own pace and pushed ahead with the troops alone. The army crossed the Mohawk early the next morning. Two hours later they had reached and forded Oriskany Creek.

Gil and his small company marched at the head of the column. As they went on they began to recognize the lay of the land and their talking gradually stopped.

It was Joe Boleo who first began sniffing. He stopped his shambling stride and lifted his face, and the others crowded up behind them.

“What’s the matter, Joe?” Gil asked.

“Smell for yourself, lad.”

He started forward again. The road was familiar now, running in the gloom of hemlocks above the river bottom. And as they proceeded they began to pick up more strongly the odor of decay that the woodsman had spotted long before.

It became an overpowering stench. It rose up in their faces, like a wall, through which they felt they could hardly pass. They found themselves suddenly on the edge of the ravine, staring down at the causeway. They all stopped again. Then Helmer said, “God! Come on,” and they went down the incline and out along the corduroy.

Some of the men looked curiously right and left, but Gil, after one glance, kept his eyes to the track. And even then more than once he had to step carefully round the disintegration of the dead.

They lay, not as they had fallen, but as the foxes and wolves and Indian dogs had left them. The grass or ferns were trodden down around each body, impartially, horse or man, Indian or white; and the half-opened skeletons were like white roots of a miasmal wilderness.