3stalwarts (55 page)

At seven o’clock they heard a challenge on the road, and the sudden frantic galloping of a horse. The army moved behind it at the double. Wolff’s squad followed the main force for the gate of the fort. They passed houses. People were stupidly looking out of their doors. The file of eighty men swung off towards the Wells house. Then in the fog ahead of Wolff the palisade loomed like a dark mass, and he saw the closing gate. Musket shots made little orange blobs. A lieutenant cried, “Lie down.” Wolff fell in the slush and felt its cold soak through his coat. He started firing. At the same instant the cannon of the fort discharged over their heads. Be-hind where the town lay, he heard the wild shrill screeching of the Seneca war cry.

Just ahead of him Captain Butler raised up on one arm to look back. His face was bitter and hopeless. He said distinctly, “Oh, my God. Brant’s taken all the Indians into the town.” There was no firing from the other side of the fort. Every man there knew— both inside and outside the palisade—that the fort was safe. But they fired at each other for three hours, until the burning houses began to show up the Rangers’ position. Whistles shrilled along the line of prostrate, slush-sodden men, and a slow crawling retreat was effected. The men rose up behind the first houses they came to and stayed there in the heat of the burning walls. It was the first warmth they had experienced in forty-eight hours. They began fishing in their wallets for scraps of smoked meat and chewed hungrily. It took them several minutes to realize that the houses burning in front of them must contain better food. And at the same time their numbed consciousness made them aware that the Indians were running amok.

The weary Rangers were mustered and sent to protect the burning houses, but it was then too late. The whooping and firing had receded into the edges of the woods. Only a few inhabitants were discovered unharmed. All through the settlement were signs of the Indian work, women lying beyond their doors indecently soaked even in their deadness, a child, an old man.

Butler was traversing the road like a madman. He gathered up an old man and his daughter and sent them to the fort with a flag and passed them in. Brant saw them enter too late to stop them. He confronted Butler with the warning that the Senecas demanded that the other prisoners be reserved. He said he could do nothing. He pointed out that if the Senecas were roused, they could and likely would annihilate the little army of whites. His face was expressionless, his voice as casual as if he talked of driving rabbits.

Butler withdrew his Rangers to the woods behind the Wells house, where they found Captain Crysler and his men surrounding forty shivering men and women and children. One of these, a man in a nightshirt, turned out to be Colonel Stacia, second in command of the fort. He reported that Colonel Alden had been killed, and surrendered himself to Butler.

The women huddled together like sheep. They did not move except to turn their heads when Indians whooped in the woods. When the mist began to clear and a colorless November sunlight fell upon them, they still looked cold. The ragged, soaking Rangers regarded them without interest.

After a while the army withdrew to a hillside and made a camp and lit fires. They rounded up some cattle and killed a dozen cows and skinned them and threw the meat in pots as fast as it could be dissected.

The Indians, suddenly returning, took the remainder of the cattle and killed them for themselves. They lay around all day watching the burning settlement and the palisade of the fort with all the firing platforms alertly manned. Butler kept by himself. A little way off Brant camped with a few Mohawks and watched Butler. John Wolff lay on his back with his comrades and digested food. He was too weary to do more.

They stayed all day, and at night they made windbreaks of bark, and brush, keeping the prisoners in the middle of the white encampment. The mist came up again from the snow, smelling of wet earth and charred wood and rotting leaves.

Early in the morning they skirmished the fort for an hour or two; but the business was half-hearted. They withdrew to their camp, and then orders were passed for the long retreat to Canada. Nothing had happened except the destruction of the houses and the murder of twenty-five noncombatants.

The weather was turning colder and a little after noon the snow began again. Butler unexpectedly sent back thirty-eight of the prisoners under guard and waited till the escort had returned. By then it was too late for the Indians to object. Three hundred miles confronted them, cold days, colder nights, and the steady and inexorable increase of snow, and, yet more bitter, the loneliness of the woods and the consciousness of failure. Only the Indians who had scalps at their belts took any comfort. The rest, Indians and white troops, marched on with the touch of snowflakes on their faces, in dogged silence.

7

ONONDAGA (1779)

In the opinion of some people, the winter had been providentially mild; but in another way it had been hard, for after the beginning of February the snow had so far decreased in the woods that the deer no longer yarded. With the steady hunting round German Flats, they had also become wild; and by March most of them seemed to have moved south to the grass flies on the Unadilla tributaries. It often meant a two days’ hunt for even good woodsmen like Joe Boleo and Adam Helmer to pick up one deer.

But to Gil Martin, the problem was more than one of food. He had worked hard and had his logs all cut and ready to roll for the new barn. Now, as the snow went down in the valley, bringing up to the eye the lay of the soil again, he wondered where he would find seed for his fields. There had been no wheat to plant last fall. He would have to find oats and barley. He had none left. During the first months Mrs. McKlennar had bought oats, and wheat and barley flour, not only for herself, but to help the neighborhood. There was no question of her paying Gil’s wages. Such things as wages and money belonged to a former time. But her supply of cash was nearly spent.

It was in Gil’s mind this Monday, the fifteenth of March, to go down to Fort Dayton. He wished that Captain Demooth were back from Schenectady; but failing him, Gil thought he had better talk to Colonel Bellinger.

He stood outside the shed, looking up at the sky. The blue was softer than it had been all winter, and a white cottony tier of cloud hung over the southern hills. Some of the brooks already had opened, loosening a smell of earth.

He said through the open door, “I’m going down to Dayton. I don’t know when I’ll be back. You’ll be here, Adam?”

“Till five o’clock,” said Adam. “I’ve got an errand over to Eldridge’s.”

Lana smiled over his head and Mrs. McKlennar tossed hers. They all knew that Adam was making his play at Mrs. Small. “Her and her red hair,” Adam would say. “And just wasting her time with Jake.” So far he had made no progress.

“I’ll be back,” said Gil.

Whenever he went to Fort Dayton, Gil realized how lucky they were at McKlennar’s. The stamp of hunger was bitten deep into all the people’s faces. You could see it at McKlennar’s, and you could feel it too, in the sharp answers they gave one another. But many of these people looked apathetic, or their eyes were like the eyes of ghosts.

Even Bellinger’s eyes were unnatural. He opened the door of his cabin to confront Gil. He was a big man, and rangy, with a great coarse-cut head on his stooped shoulders. He looked tired.

“Oh, it’s you, Martin. Come in. I’ve company.” His voice was dry. “But he’s about through here. Come in, will you?”

Gil entered.

A man in a brown coat was sitting at Bellinger’s plank table. He had a rather studious face and mild eyes. He didn’t look like a farmer or a soldier; but by the way he folded the papers before him, it seemed to Gil that the man’s soul was filled with a love of writing. For the papers were covered with neat, pointed script, precisely ruled.

Bellinger said tiredly, “Mr. Martin, let me acquaint you with Mr. Francis Collyer. Mr. Collyer has been sent up by the Governor at the request of General Clinton.”

Mr. Collyer made a slight bow. He took no interest in Gil, but addressed himself to Bellinger.

“Thank you, Colonel. You’ve given me everything. I’m sorry that I shall be compelled to report as I have told you.”

“That’s all right, sir. It’s your business.”

“Of course, Colonel, I have no idea what action Congress will take in the matter. I merely report. I am leaving you a copy of my summation. You know the figures anyway, as you’ve obligingly supplied them yourself.”

“I don’t give a damn what Congress does,” Bellinger said suddenly. “You can tell the Governor so. Put it in your report, sir.”

Mr. Collyer wisely said no more. He took his leave politely and walked to the fort, where his horse waited for him. Bellinger closed the door on his back. He leaned against it for a moment, staring at Gil. Then he began slowly and wearily to swear.

“I’ve had that gentleman on my hands for a day ‘and a half, Martin. He’s made me feel sick to my stomach. It’s queer how sick to your stomach you can feel when you’re half empty. Oh, he was very polite. A nice quiet gentleman. Mr. Collyer. Sent by Congress! Think of it!” He wiped his mouth and stepped to a stool and sat down. “Listen, you know I took things into my own hands in January and started signing requisitions for food from the army depot at the falls. But, by God, somebody had to do something! I signed the requisitions as on Congress. People had to have flour. I had to keep them. If I hadn’t done it they would have been forced to leave. It was the only wheat in this part of the country. Thank God I got a double requisition yesterday! Just in time.”

He stopped.

Gil asked, “What’s Mr. Collyer?”

“That’s it. What is he? He’s a damned accountant sent up from Albany to look into all my requisitions of wheat. We were very patient together. We visited people. He heard their stories. Then he made a report. There’s the summation. Read it! Read it, will you!”

What Gil read in the precise writing was this:—

Copy of the summation of my report to Governor George Clinton, March 15, at German Flats, Tryon County, State of New York, U. S. A.

(Re requisitions on Army depot at Ellis’s Mills by Col. Peter Bellinger, 4th Company Militia, for wheat for the inhabitants.)

Having thus collected all evidence and made due personal investiga-tions thereof, with the aid of said Col. Bellinger, who was in every way obliging and whom I may say I believe to have acted in the best faith, it is my finding that undue employment of his power has been made by said Col. Bellinger and that from my investigation it is plain that most of the inhabitants drawing said rations were not sufficiently destitute to warrant the use of Continental Army supplies. Respectfully submitted.

Francis Collyer

Bellinger was regarding Gil with deep-set angry eyes. “I suppose we ought to have been dead to warrant using army food. My God! Can’t they realize that if we don’t stay here, the frontier will automatically drop back to Caughnawaga? Can’t they realize anything?”

Gil had nothing to say.

“I don’t care what they do to me. I’ve pilfered, stolen, robbed the damned Continental army of enough to see us through till April. They can’t hurt me, now. I’ll resign my blasted commission. It won’t make any difference if I do.”

He stared hard at Gil.

“What did you want to see me for?” he asked belligerently. “You aren’t out of food, are you? You haven’t been on rations yet.” Suddenly Bellinger smiled. “Come on. I won’t kill you. Though I’d like to, too.”

Gil felt better.

“Maybe this will kill you, sir. I came down to see where I could get twenty bushels of oats or barley for seed.”

“Oh, my God!” Bellinger burst out laughing. The little cabin rang with his deep voice. “That’s good.” He slapped Gil’s shoulder. “And I’d clean forgot about seed! Christ, what a man!”

“What can we do now?” asked Gil.

Bellinger got up.

“We’ll take some wagons down to the mills. We’ll beat the conscientious Mr. Collyer, who’s going to leave an order with Ellis not to issue any grain except for Continental use. And we’ll take along enough men to make the Continental guard surrender it, too, by God.”

It took them two hours to round up men and wagons, and then the half-starved horses went so slowly through the pawsh of snow that they did not reach the mills until late afternoon. Mr. Collyer had already been there. The sergeant in charge of the mills forbade the entrance of the German Flats men. But the sergeant wasn’t armed, and neither were the guard. They were sitting in the miller’s loft playing a chilly game of cards and drinking beer. Bellinger simply locked them in.

The sergeant watched them with grim eyes.

“What do you dumb-blocks think you’re doing?”

“We’re going to help ourselves to a little oats and barley,” said Colonel Bellinger, returning from the loft. “If we can find any.”

“You’ll catch it plenty if you do,” threatened the sergeant. “I’ll name the bunch of you by name in my report.”

“You’d better explain how you came to be caught like this. Garrison! As your superior officer I ought to have the lot of you court-martialed.”

“Superior bug-buttocks,” said the sergeant.

Bellinger’s shoulders suddenly hunched towards the man.

“What kind of buttocks did you say?”

The sergeant was furious with himself as well as the world for having been caught without a single guard on duty.

“I didn’t name no bug.”

“No? Why not?”

“I wouldn’t insult no bug,” said the sergeant.

The men had forgotten all about the grain and were now crowding the space between the bins to watch. It was too close quarters for them really to see. But even over the roar of the falls and the empty clack of the wheel ratchets, the impact of Bellinger’s fist against the sergeant’s middle was a solemn sound. The man’s wind shot out all beery in the floury atmosphere. His hands went to his middle and his jaw came forward and his eyes swelled directly at Bellinger’s fist. The fist traveled beautifully to meet the jaw. The sergeant straightened, went over backwards flat on his back, bursting a sack of flour in the process, so that a white cloud engulfed him. He lay there, dead to the world. The men yelled suddenly as Bellinger breathed on his knuckles. He turned on them. “Get to work,” he bawled. “And don’t waste any.” He waited till they started to the bins. Then he sat down beside the prostrate sergeant and studied the gradual discoloration of his face until the wagons were loaded.