The Proud and the Free (23 page)

Mason and Ogden were hanged, but that was later, and I tell it now only so as not to dwell on it. We come to the end of things, and I must get on with my story.…

It was Friday, around noon, that the Philadelphia Light Horse arrived, with Lafayette and St. Clair. With them was Laurens, one of the brigade officers of the Line; and altogether there were forty cavalry prancing up the road from Philadelphia. There were building up by now a thousand rumors, the two main ones being firstly that Sir Henry Clinton had moved six thousand British troops across the Bay into Staten Island, and was marching from there to confront us – either to join him or be wiped out by him; and secondly to the effect of George Washington gathering together every Continental regiment to march with against us. As to the first, I think there was no man in the Line who would not have welcomed the release from tension that would follow a British attack, and I myself wanted it, for I sensed somehow that there was no other resolution of our fate than in battle. And as for the second, I knew now, even as Wayne knew, even as every man in our encampment knew, that there was no American soldier north of the Virginia border – except for the Light Horse Troop – who would raise a musket against us; and as for the Light Horse …

Let them come, the men said. Let them come, by all that is holy, bring them to us!

And at about two o'clock in the afternoon, as I was standing in front of Nassau Hall with the Jew Levy and Danny Connell, there was a burst of gunfire from the Philadelphia pike. The three of us set off at a run, and as we passed through the village, I saw Andy Swain talking to one of the girls, his long trumpet slung over his shoulder, and I shouted to him to get to hell off his behind and sound To Arms. But even then, the drums at the encampment were beating To Stations, and everywhere men not on duty were racing back to the parade to join their regiments and stand to arms, a remarkable point of discipline when you consider what an urge there was for them to go to the perimeter. As we passed Hyer's house, I saw that Wayne and Butler and Stewart were standing outside, Gonzales and his men around them, and Wayne called to me:

Can we come, Stuart?

The devil you can! Hold them there, Gonzales!

We ran on. There were two more shots, and then silence except for the shouting of men. We turned the bend of the road and came to the barricade, and there was our guard, raging, the cannon shotted up with grape and a lighted match over it. Powder smoke drifted on the wind, and a man of ours lay in the shelter of a tree, stretched out and made as comfortable as possible by his comrades, but spitting blood and retching clots, and dying, as anyone could see. He was a Polish man, Piotr Lusky by name, a broad-shouldered, quiet blond man, flat-faced and slow of speech, having little English for all his years with the Line, and one to be filled with hunger for his own faraway land. Well, he was going there or somewhere now, for he died in the next few minutes; and I saw that and also the cluster of the Light Horse down the road out of musket shot, and also in between one of them whose own horse had been shot under him and who had broken a leg coming down and now crawled on his belly along the road, pleading for one of his gallant gentleman comrades to come to his aid and bear him from our anger.

Next to me, big Andrew Yost, who was corporal over the guard, was sighting a musket on the crawling man; and I watched him, fascinated, waiting, gauging the pace of his finger on the trigger – until some spark of sense made me strike up his gun.

Ah, let him shoot the bastard, Jamie, a man pleaded, and Connell told them:

Och, shut yer mouths, the lot of ye! What in the name of hell made ye fire on them?

They called us names, answered Yost.

Names they called ye!

They fired first … someone else put in.

And what did ye call them?

The poor Polish man breathed out his life then, the Jew Levy holding his head and wiping his mouth and whispering to him in his own heathen tongue. Angus MacGrath and Billy Bowzar came running up now with the whole of our own 11th on the double behind them, and it did my heart good to see how those sweet and terrible men of the 11th, whom Angus and I had given our hearts to so long ago, fanned out among the trees without a word of instructions needed, and took up their places in cover. Now all the cavalry on the continent could come up the pike, and all they'd have for their pleasure would be a bloody ruin in the dirt.

A few words told us what had happened. The Light Horse, led by General St. Clair, the Marquis de Lafayette and Colonel Laurens, had come up the road and demanded that they be let through into Princeton. One word led to another, and when one of the troopers would have forced his horse over the barricade, Piotr Lusky seized its bit and turned it back. The horseman drew his pistol and shot Lusky through the chest. A dozen men fired at him but the horse reared and received the lead and went down on the horseman, and the rest had clattered away out of musket range. That was when I came, when Andrew Yost was evening the score; and now Yost said:

It is a long shot, but you let me try, Jamie – just let me try.

No! cried Bowzar. We'll have no murder!

And was it not murder when they shot down that poor Polish man?

Let him be – let him crawl – let him crawl to them.

And Bowzar, making a trumpet from his hands, cried out, You can come back now, and safely! Pick up your man! We'll not shoot!

Stow that damn match, Connell said to the man hanging over the cannon. Ye make me nerves crawl.

And back on the wind came the thin reply:

How do we know you will keep your word?

Ye don't know! Bowzar shouted. Ye can go to hell or Philadelphia and be damned!

Children from the village were pressing up now, staring goggle-eyed at the dead man, and we shooed them away, nipped them over their behinds and sent them running. I did not know what would be, but it was no place for children; and I wonder now how many of the children who were there recall that cold, clear winter afternoon as the Light Horse troop came back, urged on by St. Clair and Colonel Laurens and the little Frenchman, who was mopping the sweat from his face, for all of the weather.

*    *    *

They were a pretty lot, that Philadelphia Light Horse, and in all the Continental Army there was nothing else like them. In those times, all around Philadelphia were the great manors of the squires. What they were in blood, I don't know and care less, for I have little taste for this business of blood and birth; but in every detail they aped the English squires; and their one passion was to tear up the fields of honest farmers, hunting fox. If a farmer protested, they could prove that they had the right to ride roughshod over him by law, decree and immortal grant. When the war came, because they were too close to Philadelphia to be comfortably Tory and because they stood to be rich in the way of land grants from a free Pennsylvania, they made sounds for our side and they organized themselves into what they were pleased to call “the Loyal Philadelphia Light Horse.” They were rich enough to do it properly. Every one among them turned out a fine chestnut mare. While we wore our canvas overalls into shreds for which there were no replacements, they kept Philadelphia tailors working on what they were pleased to describe as the sweetest suit in all America: brown shortcoat which was faced and lined with white twill, white doeskin breeches, white satin vest. Their black boots were knee-high and cuffed with white, and their gloves were of the best white chamois. White lace at throat and cuff, a little black hat with a stiff brim, all bound around with silver cord, the same silver cord that swept from one shoulder. Their harness was white leather, intricately worked, and the saddle on the horse we had shot down could not have been bought for five thousand paper dollars, so heavy was it with silver inlay and fine relief. They were great ones for parties and balls and dances of state, and whenever some foreign visitor came to Philadelphia, they were turned out to show what a handsome military force Continentals were, and whenever we of the Line marched into Philadelphia, there they were to welcome us with their sedentary gallantry and maybe to reassure the Congress, who were never too easy about the black-hearted men of the foreign brigades; but whenever we marched out of Philadelphia, they remained behind, so that the ladies would not grieve for them. Each of them carried two pistols and a carbine that was a marvel of beauty and workmanship, each imported from the finest Italian house of gunsmiths, and each carried a saber of Toledo steel priced – to quote Jackson Lunt a swordmaker in my regiment – at sixty guineas; but I know of no occasion when their swords drew blood unless it was against the poor crippled, unwanted outcasts of the Line, who in '80 came to Philadelphia where they shook their stumps of arms and legs before Carpenters' Hall, claiming that it was not right for those who lost limbs in the service of the state to die of hunger and be forced to beg in the streets, and who were properly cut up and courageously dispersed by the Light Horse – who received a special regimental insignia for that deed; and I know of few occasions when one of their pistols or carbines had been lifted against a man until they slew this poor Polish fellow.

Now they returned, and they picked up their lad with the broken leg on the way. They sat their horses a good thirty yards from us and would come no nearer, those bold and gallant men of the saddle, and the three officers came on alone, St. Clair to the fore and Lafayette and Laurens behind him. St. Clair was superior to Wayne in Pennsylvania, and the one attitude of Anthony Wayne which we held in common with him was a lusty hatred for General St. Clair of the land of Pennsylvania. But you had to give St. Clair credit for the way he came on up to the barricade and the muzzles of our muskets and the hungry mouth of the shotted cannon, where he said:

A mighty strange welcome for the general of the commonwealth.

Bowzar had been to look at the dead man, and he walked now to the barricade, where he stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the haughty, flushed face of St. Clair.

You come with blood on your hands, General, he remarked quietly. Is this a curse on you? What a history you have of blood and suffering! We are good soldiers. We are disciplined soldiers. If we were not, you would not be alive this minute, you and those dirty Philadelphia barons behind you. How long is our patience to last?

St. Clair did not answer, not because he had no will to, but because his anger clotted the words; his face turned the color of a beet, and his lips trembled and coiled as he sought for proper speech. Meanwhile, Lafayette had advanced his horse up alongside the general's, and the French boy, throwing back his white cloak – heavy wool lined with silk of powder-blue – burst into excited speech:

Clods – what is this! How do you dare! This is Gen'ral the whole Pennzl'vania! How dare you!

But even that is only an indication of how he spoke; I can do no more than to suggest his accent, to give an indication of the babble of indignant sound, high-pitched, his body trembling, the saliva spattering out; until Danny Connell, who was observing him thoughtfully, his head cocked as he contemplatively rubbed his nose, said several things unprintable and told Lafayette specifically where he could go, concluding:

… Sure, for me nose cannot tolerate the scent of you!

I will see you all in hell! roared St. Clair, but Bowzar said nothing to this, only standing there in silence with his hands on his hips.

Now Laurens had pushed up his horse, and was speaking earnestly and quietly to the general, plucking his sleeve, and when the general shook him off Laurens said bitterly:

But I must insist, sir!

How dare you insist! You and Wayne! Damn it all to hell, why isn't Wayne here?

Please, said Laurens, softly but murderously, I will not hold this kind of talk here. I will not be responsible.

St. Clair swung his horse around and rode back to the Light Horse troop, Lafayette and Laurens following. There, they conferred again, Laurens arguing determinedly. Then Laurens dismounted, handed his reins to one of the horsemen, and walked up to the barricade.

I'm sorry, he said to Bowzar simply. I'm sorry as the devil, believe me.

It was a bad day's work, Mr. Laurens, said Billy Bowzar. It was murder, and that's all that it was.

Where is General Wayne?

He is at Jacob Hyer's house and comfortable enough, as are Stewart and Butler.

Are you holding him prisoner, Sergeant?

He's no prisoner. He can leave when he wishes to leave. Of his own free will he came, and of his own free will he may go.

Will you take the general and the marquis and myself to him?

Bowzar thought that over for a while, before he made any reply. Levy had come over to stand next to him, and he looked at the sad, bitter, hollow-cheeked face of the Jew before he spoke, saying:

No – No, we will not. We will not have any dealings or words with that man St. Clair or with that Frenchman. You must understand, sir, that when we cast out our officers, we were in deep earnest. So long as we are in command of the Pennsylvania Line by the edict of the men of the Line, we talk on our terms. You can take that or leave that, Mr. Laurens.

Standing there on the other side of the barricade, his cocked hat tilted back, his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat, Laurens studied us shrewdly and not without respect. He was a very young man, was Johnny Laurens, only twenty-seven years old or so, and a very brave man too, and not long for this earth; for only a year later he was slain in the fighting in the South. He was one of the very few of our regimental officers who had some respect for the men who served under him; and when he fought a duel against Charlie Lee and near killed the wretch, it was not only because Lee plotted and connived and talked against Washington, but because Lee treated us like dirt and dogs, and because that sat poorly with Laurens.

Why do you call me Mister? he asked now, not angrily but curiously.