Washington and Caesar (26 page)

In the manual of arms he had learned, he could remember no order that would enable him to disperse his men in the rocks as the marines had done. He turned to Virgil.

“Spread them out along the scree, Virgil. I’m going to find an officer.”

Caesar grasped his musket across the body and ran to where he could see an officer of the Fourteenth, a naval officer, and a man in a blue velvet coat, whom he thought to be Captain Honey of the marines. He stopped a few feet away, uncertain, and then stood at attention with his musket at the recover. It was a position designed to attract the attention of a higher officer; it meant that a soldier was requesting permission to speak.

The officer of the Fourteenth was the eldest, but apparently not the senior man in the group. However, he was the one man Caesar knew; he had led a company at the disaster at Great Bridge. When he caught Caesar’s eye, Caesar stepped forward.

“Sir!”

The man in the blue velvet coat turned and looked at him with distaste.

“Is this an example of our slave militia, Lieutenant Crowse?”

Caesar felt the blood run to his face and sweat break out all over his body, as if he was about to fight.

“Yes, sir.”

The man looked at Caesar, barely touching him with his eyes as if the sight were too painful.

“What do you want, darkie?”

“Where would you like my section, sir? My officer has not yet landed.”

“Get those men’s guns away from them before they shoot someone, and have them start hauling boxes up the beach.” He wasn’t addressing Caesar, but Crowse. He took a little silver whistle from his waistcoat pocket and blew it twice. The marines rose to their feet and began to move forward.
On the far right, Virgil got the Ethiopians to their feet and moved off on the flank of the marines.

Blue Coat whirled around and stabbed a finger at Crowse.

“If I wanted those blackamoors stumbling through my skirmish line, I’d ask for them. Now get them hauling boxes.”

Caesar was still standing at attention. Crowse, a man he barely knew, looked at him with a spark of pity, but that was all.

“Have your men stack their arms,” he said. “And then get them moving with the stores.”

“As you say, sir.”

Crowse looked unhappy.

Over the next six weeks, Sergeant Peters had them up early to drill with their muskets. It was the only time they handled them; otherwise, the guns were locked away in the magazine by the blockhouse that the Ethiopians had built in the first week of labor. They spent every waking hour building: first sheds for the men to sleep, then the blockhouse and its chimneys, then a set of entrenchments along the front of the camp. None of their officers could change the situation, and the white troops, many of whom had started to fraternize with them, began to grow used to the idea that they could order a black soldier to do all the dirty work. Some of the blacks accepted this; others, especially the veterans of Great Bridge, resented it. The resentment lowered morale, and the men became listless. In fact, to Caesar’s attentive eye, they began to show signs of acting like slaves. They moved more slowly and the joking disappeared, at least when any white soldier was about. The men became furtive.

Visits from the sailors provided their only relief. The sailors seemed immune to any notion of color, perhaps because so many of their own were Africans or lascars from
East India Company ships in the Far East. The ratings of the Royal Navy came in every color of the rainbow. The coxswain of the
Amazon
continued to pay well for tobacco, and to talk to Peters and Caesar as if they were members of the same mess, as they had been aboard ship.

The sick were brought ashore to recover from the fever that had them in its grip on the crowded ships. Once ashore, smallpox began to ravage the men who had survived the fevers onboard ship. The white Loyalists seemed to die faster than the blacks, but Jim caught it, and had the fever for almost two weeks. He lost all the weight he had gained since they had joined the army, and then even more, until he looked like a tight leather bag stretched over sticks. The others from their mess group, even the men like Tonny who hadn’t been in the swamp with Jim, took turns bathing him and cleaning him. As he lay there, his bright, intelligent eyes burned with greater intensity, as though he could cling to life by will alone.

Twice he had loud, angry dreams. Once, when Caesar was minding him, he was somewhere in his own distant past, forced to watch another man being beaten. If the sounds he made in the dream were reliable, the beating had gone on for a long time. The second dream came when Tom was tending him—a reliving of the battle of Great Bridge. Long Tom said it was eerie, hearing Jim say the words again, like being there, except they were lying on the ground in a dark hut.

The white soldiers continued to get Jesuit’s bark for their fevers but the supply ran short and the black men no longer saw any of it. There was no medicine for smallpox, and the men died, black and white together, and as often as not the Ethiopians were ordered to bury them. The dead men seldom got anything like a funeral, just a deep hole and a few muttered words from an officer with a scarf over his mouth.

The surgeon hurried to explain to Sergeant Peters that
his people were tougher and less affected anyway. It might have been true, as far as any of them knew; certainly, more blacks survived the fever than whites, but it didn’t help the black soldiers with the notion that they didn’t rate quite the same treatment as the whites.

The winter winds bit through the tents and hasty cabins, that had covered the meadow with a patchwork of rude shelters, military tents, and mud. The constant movement of hundreds of men had worn through the grass. The incessant rain turned the ground to thick mud, and they never had the straw or forage to keep it from their tents. Some of the men went and slept in the woods. As the labor of camp building declined, there was more time for the men to brood on the unfairness of the white soldiers. Caesar began to encounter resentment when taking the men out for early drill. Men who had been eager to learn grew hesitant; men who had had little interest in the work to start with became rebellious. Caesar sensed that even the survivors of the swamp were losing interest.

Two mornings after Jim raved about the battle, Long Tom went down with the smallpox. Spirits were low as Caesar marched the men early to the magazine and stood them in front of the arms racks. Sergeant Peters was laying out a new storehouse, and Caesar was to command the morning drill for the first time. He was trying to pay close attention to what went on, but his thoughts were with Jim, and now Long Tom.

“Take up your arms,” he said as if by rote.

“Ain’t no need, corporal-man,” said Willy, a man from Peters’s old squad of inspection. “We ain’t soldiers. We slaves.”

“I am
not
a slave,” Caesar answered hotly. “Now get in line and pick up that musket.”

“Nope. Not taking no orders from no black mastuh, neithuh.”

Caesar had no experience with mutiny. His men mostly followed his lead because he had led some of them out of the swamp and the rest because of the trust of the first. Some of the new men were not so loyal.

Caesar snapped out of his reverie. He could see that Willy was keyed up, and that he was looking at his mates Romeo and Paget, flicking them expectant glances. He knew that this confrontation had been building since they landed. Caesar was astute enough to recognize that he and his authority might never have been challenged if not for the hostile attitude of the marine officer. As it was, he became the focus for his company’s discontent because he was both the newest noncommissioned officer and in some ways the most demanding.

Caesar took a step toward Willy but transferred his attention to Paget. Keeping his eye on the other man, Caesar spoke low.

“Get on the line and take your musket from the rack. Do it!”

Virgil recognized from his tone that something serious was taking place. Tonny shifted his weight a little, as he was the file leader of the next file over from Willy. The others looked vacant. They might know that something was up, but they had chosen not to take part.

“Wha’ don’ we jus sit somewheah fo’ a bit?” asked Willy in a slow, almost affected way. It was blatant disrespect. It was also no different from the way half the men behaved every day. Caesar was tempted to ignore it, or to jolly the man along. He expected he could do that; it worked well enough on slaves.

But these men were soldiers.

Caesar moved like a cat springing on its prey, his left foot stomping directly on to Willy’s instep and the butt of his musket smashing into the man’s midriff, doubling him in pain and surprise. He collapsed and Caesar stepped past him, thrusting the muzzle of his empty musket deep into
the pit of Paget’s stomach and then kneeing him in the face as he bent over with the blow. Paget fell atop Willy.

“We are soldiers, not slaves. We got some troubles here, but we’ll get through ’em by working harder. On your feet, you two. You ain’t dead, but if I hear a peep about drill again, you’ll wish you were. Move.”

Willy got up slowly, but Paget just lay and moaned. Caesar knelt by him, his musket cradled across his thighs.

“You think it ain’t fair I hit you so much harder than him? He isn’t smart enough to buck me without you helped him. You think I don’ know? I know. An’ I know how hard I hit you, so get up before I make that show real.”

“You broke my nose, you bastard!”

Caesar grabbed the man’s head and lifted it off the dirt floor of the magazine. He lifted until he could look into the man’s eyes. It was quite a display of strength and it must have hurt the man a great deal.

“You get up, now,” Caesar said gently. “Or I’ll kill you.”

The whole magazine was silent. Then Paget got a leg under himself and raised himself to his feet. He moaned, but he stood. Caesar ran his eyes over the whole platoon, hurt to see that even Virgil and Tonny seemed to flinch away from him a little. But he had chosen a hard way, and he couldn’t falter now.

“Count off from the right,” he said. And they did.

After an hour’s ferocious drill, he took himself to Sergeant Peters and reported the incident, angry that he had lost control, angry at the marine officer and the army. It was the kind of helpless anger he had felt working in the Great Dismal—the first time he had felt that way since his group had found the army.

Peters had a good tent, courtesy of Mr. Robinson, and he sat on a tiny stool that had probably started life next to a fireplace or a kitchen hearth. He was so much too big for the stool that it vanished under him. Next to him was
a small straw pallet in a forage bag. His backpack was open at the far end of the pallet.

“Ah, Caesar. I would like to offer you a place to sit, but…”

“Sergeant Peters, I have to report that I struck two of my men in suppressing a mutiny.”

Peters looked up his long nose at Caesar thoughtfully, and fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for his eyeglasses.

“The ground is hard even with the straw, and the nights are cold. The rest of you can curl around each other for warmth, but I have the solitary splendor and the lack of warmth it brings, and I’m stiff in the morning.”

His fingers couldn’t work the catch on the eyeglass case, and he had to concentrate for a moment and press it repeatedly till he opened it. Then he brought the glasses out slowly, as if treasuring them, and slowly unfolded the lappets before he pulled them over his ears and tied the ribbon. They transformed his face from that of a tired man to that of a scholar.

“Tell me about this mutiny, Caesar.”

“Willy, Romeo an’ Paget…”

“Willy, Romeo
and
Paget.”

“Willy, Romeo and Paget refused to take up their muskets for drill.”

“Perfectly understandable.”

Caesar, bent over in the entrance to the tent and looking down at his sergeant, almost vibrated with shock.

“Sergeant?”

“I’m sure it has come to your attention that we are being used as a labor force and not as soldiers?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“So the mutiny is quite understandable.”

Caesar shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

“Caesar, when men are treated badly, they behave badly. Willy and Paget have always been slaves, correct?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“As such, they know only one code: when mistreated, slow down. You are lucky they didn’t spoil their muskets. Breaking tools is an honored practice, as I’m sure you know.”

“I’ve done it myself, Sergeant.”

“Good. Now you see their point of view. I’m glad I’ve shocked you, Caesar; you need to understand how other men think and feel if you plan to lead them. You expect too much from men; you expect them all to behave as you do. How did you handle them?”

“I beat them.”

Peters looked at him, his head tilted a little, and he reminded Caesar for a moment of Colonel Washington speaking to a particularly intelligent puppy. He had tilted his head in just such a way.

“And did they drill?”

“They did.”

“It sorrows me to say it, but that is definitely one way of dealing with a mutiny. The best way, I think.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

“No, Caesar, you mistake me. It is the best way of dealing with a mutiny once it has become open. But I want you to consider how it became open, and how that might have been avoided. I have feared this for some days. I believe I mentioned it to you. In future I hope you will keep such instances from eventuating by giving the handling of the men your very best attention.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Do you have your roll? Give it here. That is still the most oddly formed ‘R’ in Christendom, Caesar. Look at the letters I wrote out for you. Tonny deserves a surname; only slaves have just one. See to it.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Same for Long Tom.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Lessons tonight, after dinner is cooked. And our women
are being landed tomorrow. Take your squad of inspection down to the beach and see to it that we get the same women we had before. No harlots, if you please.”

Something in his tone gave Caesar the hope that he would be forgiven. The shock of censure had not been so deep. He recognized, even as Peters was speaking, the essential truth of his words, and realized that he had felt guilty about the incident and his use of force even as it happened. Yet he did resent that it had happened at all, and he was torn by conflicting feelings of anger and guilt. If Captain Honey were a decent man to the black soldiers, none of this need have happened.