Infernal Revolutions (45 page)

‘No wife for a man, that.'

‘Gone to get rogered by a Grenadier.'

‘Someone needs to give her a bloody good seeing-to.'

Feeling like the butt in a vicious, cynical Restoration comedy, I was about to go after her, as much to get off stage as to see what was really troubling her, when Sergeant Mycock – that other victim of American womanhood – reappeared, looking as though he'd made a full recovery. As an example of how to show brazenness after humiliating public defeat, Sergeant Mycock was magnificent, for not one of us dared laugh at him now, or even vaguely refer to his ordeal; indeed, we scurried back to our positions like tortured sheep.

‘Order restored, ladies. The party is over. In line! In line!…Get on with it, Masson…Wherever you were going, Oysterman, yer not going there now…Into line! Into line!…that means you too, Scattergood…'

Crashing into members of other companies responding to similar orders, we formed ourselves quickly into marching formation. Standing in line, staring once more at the back of another soldier's tricorne, I realized all of a sudden how pointless was my existence without Sophie, and I began to fret. I desperately needed immediate confirmation that this was no more than a Lover's Tiff, and I teetered on the brink of disobeying orders and running into the woods anyway, but Sergeant Mycock's eagle eye was sharper than ever after his recent loss of control, and I was prevented from doing so by swirling cracks of his cat. I was in terrible anguish, not knowing whether Sophie would be following in the baggage train or not. I kept casting despairing looks over my shoulder, but I could see nothing beyond the glinting bayonets of the men behind me. I was locked into position for the attack on Fort Washington, and there was no way out. I doubted that I would Fight Well.

Having been harried into formation by the snarling, snapping Sergeant Mycock, we were kept waiting indefinitely pending the arrival of our shepherd, PP, whose job it was to lead us to the slaughter at Fort Washington. As he did not seem in a hurry to come out of the farmhouse, the men were given ample time in which to curse, fret and ponder on the concept of pointless self-destruction.

‘Bloody marvellous,' opined Roger Masson, gazing anxiously like the rest of us at the increasingly vivid firework display in the north, ‘kept waiting like common criminals at Tyburn. I'd King and Country those fuckers in there, given half a chance.'

‘Steady, Roger. Resentment only harms thyself.'

‘Aye, Simon is right. ‘Tis the way of the world that some should have everything while poor buggers like us have nothing. God decreed it long ago.'

‘Did he?' queried sceptical Roger. ‘When exactly? Where exactly?'

‘'Tis in the Good Book, somewhere or other.'

‘Then Bollocks to the Good Book, say I. I tell you, brothers, if I get the chance I am off to the American side. At least the men there have the say as to who will lead them to their grave. The world is changing, brothers; it is the Americans – the descendants of our bravest and best forefathers – who are the real English now anyway.'

‘Oh, and then you will be shooting at us, will you?'

‘No, of course I won't shoot at you – you are my friends. But I will take great pleasure in shooting the causes of our misery.'

‘Accept thy fate, Roger, and be happy for it. Death gets everyone in the end, whatever their rank.'

‘Aye,' piped up Laurence East, ‘and some come to a more grisly end than others. I mean, what about that sailor friend of Harry's?'

‘What?' I said, jolted out of my despair by the remark, ‘Isaac Tetley?'

‘Aye. What happened to him was not very pleasant, was it? Or have you, er, not heard yet?'

‘No, I have not heard yet. Now tell me.'

‘He's been found scalped. Terrible hacking job apparently. Not the usual clean slice. Must have been an apprentice Indian, say our own butchers. Still, I suppose even Indians have to start somewhere.'

As do dragoons, I thought shakily, convinced that this was the work of Bloody Burn himself. I fancied I could see Isaac's face at the moment of dissolution, his dreams of castles and limitless whisky oozing out with his brains. A decent man had come to grief, and I could not help thinking that it was partly my fault. Wanting even more to run off howling into the woods, I had no alternative but to stay in line and brood darkly on Isaac's fate, piling guilt on top of all my other miseries. ‘Twas all most harrowing, and I wondered how much more I could take.

Eventually, however, Pete appeared in the lighted doorway of the farmhouse, and I turned to watched with little interest as he stood there swaying and belching and squinting into the darkness. After a few moments he staggered out and lurched to his left, one hand stretched in front of him groping for obstacles. Retrieved eventually from the Light Infantry of the 45th Foot by Sergeant Mycock, he was placed on his horse, and we were off, following his beckoning hand.

‘This way, lads,' he called, with unfamiliar familiarity. ‘You too, Hartley.'

Hartley, who had been dozing under a dilapidated cart, let out a joyous bark, and used the flank of Pete's horse as a springboard for an astounding backward somersault, the effect of which was spoilt only by the dazed and disorientated look on Hartley's face when he landed.

Sensing the relaxation of regulations, men began to pipe up one by one.

‘Permission to drum, Sir,' called out Little Bob.

‘Permission granted, drummer.'

‘Permission to fife, Sir.'

‘Permission granted, fifer.'

‘Permission to desert, Sir.'

‘Permission gran….Ha! Ha! Ha!…
Oh no it's not! Refused, ye saucy scoundrel!
'

Clearly something had happened to PP in the farmhouse, but I was too absorbed in my own misery to ask him what it was. Others, however, not troubled at the loss of their wench or their friend or the thought of their own impending Death, were invigorated by the marching music that had started up, and fired questions freely, in gross breach of regimental etiquette. Eventually Pete let slip that he had been promoted to the rank of captain after another officer had resigned his commission, and that he had been forced to celebrate with two bottles of the finest claret known to man. Cries of congratulation rang out, but none belonged to me, and it was noticed.

‘What, not sharing my joy, Harry?' called Pete, sliding in his saddle and slurring noticeably.

‘Not before a battle, Pete, if you do not mind.'

‘Bugger you then,' he announced good-humouredly. ‘That's what your
Captain
says.'

‘The world is more of a graveyard than a playground to me.'

‘Sententious Dog!
'' roared Pete, highly delighted at this. ‘A career as a schoolmaster awaits you back in England, Sir. I am convinced of it.'

‘He's sulking because his wife's left him and his friend's died, Sir. Taken it badly.'

‘Is that true, Harry?' Pete swivelled round to look at me, almost coming off his saddle in the process. ‘Then condolences, Sir, especially about your wife. What happened there?'

‘Look, my problems are my own affair. Now are we turning north soon, or not?'

‘Why should we be turning north?'

I sighed deeply at the idiocy of Man, and rolled my eyes in exasperation.

‘How else are we to sacrifice ourselves on the ramparts of Fort Washington?'

‘Ah, did I not say? No Fort Washington for us, boys. We're going west – straight across the Hudson to Fort Lee. The bateaux are waiting for us. Things are moving for us at last.'

An excited hubbub rose from the men at this news, as though the prospect of Death By Water only added to the relish of the adventure. To me, however, across the Hudson meant New Jersey, and New Jersey meant Sophie, and Sophie meant Paradise Lost, and another skewer went through my heart at the association. Still, by now aware that I was on the earth only to suffer, I accepted my fate with Stoic gloom, and marched on with head bowed until we came to the banks of the mighty Hudson, where a string of boats was waiting to ferry us and our artillery across to the thick, dark line of the New Jersey Palisades in the distance.

‘Into the boats, ladies,' yelled Sergeant Mycock, as we stood around waiting for further instructions. ‘Eight in each! One -two – three – four – come on, Scattergood – five – six – can't swim, Jankinson? Who the bloody hell can? – now get in you wet jessie! Seven – Eight. Right, next lot over here…one, two, three…come on, come on…'

As not all the craft waiting for us were of the same type and quality, I leaned forward, looked along the line, and mentally counted the men off in eights. Seeing I was in the third eight, I looked at the third boat. Aghast, I tried to shuffle further back along the line, but others had been doing the same, and there was much scuffling until a sergeant from another regiment put a stop to it, and sealed our fates.

When my turn came, I clambered into a dilapidated rowing boat with wood the thickness and stiffness of a pancake. I was reluctantly joined by seven other damned souls, who stepped into the boat with extreme caution, evidently not wanting to ignobly drown whilst there was still a chance of being gloriously shot. Soon the boat was as crammed as a Cripplegate graveyard, yet once in I was not as scared as I might have been, thanks to my experiences on Fatty's ferry, and I was able to offer words of succour to the petrified, much to the disgust of the bandanna'd oarsmen who were taking us across.

‘One here who fancies himself a sailor, Nathan,' called out one of them, nodding in my direction.

‘One dollar the bonehead pukes before we get to the other side,' snarled his companion, after some consideration.

‘You're on,' said the first oarsman, as though I were a fly crawling up a wall. A surge of anger at this disrespect momentarily flared inside me, but though the sailors looked small and easy to push over the side, I decided, perhaps wisely, not to bother. So, much money riding on the outcome, we ventured forth onto the increasingly wild and choppy river. Silence being essential if the garrison at Fort Lee was to be surprised, the oars of the boats were muffled, and we were all under instructions to keep conversations to the level of a whisper. Nevertheless, the rain that started to fall soon turned our hats into waterspouts, and before long everyone was coughing and sneezing loudly, so that any American scout must have thought an Invalid regiment was on the way over. Halfway across the river a dog, perhaps Hartley, started barking far to our right. From even further away came cries of ‘Quiet!'. The sea breezes began to whistle, and ever larger waves thudded against the sides of our boat.

‘Reminds me of Quebec this.'

‘Everything reminds you of Quebec, Thomas.'

‘No, but this
is
similar. Amphibian force. Secret night attack. Silence essential. Precipitous climb when we land. Immediate battle when we get to the top.'

‘What precipitous climb?' Simon Scattergood piped up with horror.

‘Ho, ho, Simon's taken the bait.'

‘'Tis no bait, gentlemen, ‘tis fact. Look closely ahead if you don't believe me.'

We screwed up our eyes against the driving rain, and peered at the cliffs looming up in the mist.

‘Yes, I know, the New Jersey Palisades. Fort Lee stuck on top. But surely we're sailing past them, to land where ‘tis safe?'

Thomas shook his head sagely.

‘No, ‘tis straight up for us, boys. I've heard they've found a landing stage for us at a place called Closter Dock. From there ‘tis a steep path all the way to the top.'

This was not what the boys wanted to hear, for Heights ranked second only to Water on their Most Feared list, and they expressed their disgust with a volley of fearful imprecations.

‘Quiet over there!' came a lordly, authoritative voice, surprisingly near in the darkness. ‘Or I will order your oars to be removed, and the whole lot of you will drift downstream into the merciless currents of the Atlantic Ocean. There you will be carried ever further out to sea until hunger forces you to eat each other, or thirst causes you to go mad, or an American corvair comes along and either captures you or scuttles you. So what's it to be, my brave lads, food for worms, or food for fishes?'

‘'Tis Cornwallis himself, by the sounds of it,' whispered Roger Masson in awe.

‘I don't care who it fuckin' is,' grumbled Simon Scattergood, in an undertone nevertheless. ‘I've had enough of this game.'

‘We had the same trouble at Quebec,' recalled old Thomas fondly. ‘Troops didn't like the look of the Heights of Abraham, not one little bit, but you should have seen them the next day – absolutely joyous they were as they cut the Frenchies to ribbons. Laughing away, they were, laughing away, all the happier for having had such a rough time of it beforehand.' Thomas, laughing away, drifted back in his mind to the
Annus Mirabulus
of 1759.

‘Shut up, you bloody old fool. They were Frenchies, as you say. Some incentive to fight there. None here, is there? I might even be related to some of this lot.'

‘Little difference that will make when the balls begin to fly. Your blood lust will rise just the same, no matter who's firing at ye.'

‘There will be no balls flying in this rain; ‘tis bayoneting weather, thank God.'

There was plenty of aye-ayeing at these last two remarks, and a gradual quiescence spread through the boat at the prospect of marching up a cliff face and gutting colonials, especially when the alternative was madness and cannibalism out at sea. By the time we were nearly across the Hudson everybody was quite composed, as if quietly anticipating the bayonet feast to come. For myself, I was too melancholic to care what happened now that Sophie had abandoned me; I minded neither madness nor cannibalism nor balls. Sitting with one arm resting on the side of the boat, and the other cradling my upright musket, I simply stared stupefied at my knees and meditated on the vanity of human wishes. Until, that is, the battle of Fort Washington came into view around the northern corner of the New York shore, and the flashes of fire and the boom of cannon there quite shook me out of myself. Indeed, so engrossed was I in the unfolding spectacle that the only liquid to drench my knees in the entire crossing was the water spouting from my hat – much to the irritation of the out-of-pocket Nathan, who called me vile names and proved himself a very poor loser as I splashed onto land with exaggerated aplomb.

Disembarked and bedraggled, we stood at the foot of the New Jersey Palisades in the lightening grey of a dismal dawn, and gawped up at the mass of wooded rock we would have to climb. A narrow footpath wound up to the top, and far above us we could see the bobbing caps of men inching their way up it.

‘Well,' said Roger Masson, examining the ground around us, ‘I can't see any broken bodies lying around, so the path must be safer than it looks.'

‘That's because the Rebels haven't got wind of us yet,' said Simon Scattergood, ‘but when they do we'll see how safe the path is; we will strew the floor like pine needles. They will fire down at us, pour boiling water over us, and generally have a field day. We will be sitting ducks.'

‘Tush, tush, Simon,' said old Thomas, ‘keep those thoughts to yourself. It is no disgrace to be afraid of heights, but it is a disgrace to try and infect others with a fear akin to your own.'

‘Afraid!' spluttered Simon, charged with the most heinous crime in the British Army, ‘I will show you who's afraid, old man.' And off he went, storming off to elbow his way past the queue at the base of the path.

‘Now you've done it, Thomas. He will get to the top and bayonet the whole garrison single-handed. There will be none left for us.'