Washington and Caesar (33 page)

Lawrence pressed on with Reed, since Washington didn’t seem interested.

“That party of officers came an hour back and ran ropes. Just before you came, the blacks showed up with tools and the officer in the red coat.”

“He’s an engineer.” Reed spoke softly.

Lawrence stopped and looked.

“How can you tell?”

“Black facings, but not from the Sixty-fourth Regiment. You’ll know them all soon enough. He came up with the tools.
Ipso facto,
an engineer.”

“And the other men, sir? The officers in the colored coats?”

Washington looked down at Lawrence and smiled.

“I’ll wager the man in the blue coat is General Howe. He’s dressed for hunting. Odd time of year for a hunt, but I honor his spirit.” The telescope went back to the black men, swept back and forth while he measured the pace of their digging, and then froze for a moment. His face darkened with an angry flush. Colonel Reed, aware that something was wrong, turned from Lawrence and rode up to him.

“General?”

“I must be mistaken.” The general wiped the lens of his telescope carefully with a cloth and then closed it sharply. When Reed leaned forward again, he just shook his head.

Lawrence waved his hand at the woods.

“We could send a patrol to rough up their diggers, sir. Down the ridge and through the woods.”

“I will inform your brigadier, then. Do it as soon as seems best, Captain. Bring me some prisoners. I want to know why those blacks are digging. Are they slaves?”

“They sure dig fast, for slaves.”

“You are Virginian, Captain?”

“Yes, General.”

“Where are you from, Captain?”

“Norfolk, sir.”

“Lawrence, you say?”

“My father ships tobacco in a small way, sir.”

“Of course. Carry on, then, Captain.” He raised his voice. “I look for strong action from my Virginians.”

Lake had considered falling the men in, but the digging seemed more important. He watched Washington every moment he could, though. If the cause were in tatters, no one had told General Washington; he was neat and shaved, his hair tight, his clothes clean. He looked confident, and as he gathered his staff, his eye seemed to catch every man in their company for a moment.

George hoped he would say something, but he simply rode by them, watching them. And then he smiled a little, his lips thin, wheeled his horse, and rode away.

“Well, boys, looks like we ain’t done yet.” George watched the general ride off with satisfaction.

Lawrence and Bludner asked for volunteers, and the whole company clamored to come, so when their ditch was just tenable, he let them have an hour to rest and clear their muskets, and then they started down the slope in Indian file, one man at a time with a few feet between men. They angled well over to get in behind the wood from which friendly fire continued to come in spurts. The British hadn’t tried to take it and gave it a wide berth, suggesting that Colonel Reed had been right; the men within did have rifles, which could kill at a much longer range than the typical smoothbore musket.

They made it to the base of the slope without attracting undue notice, and moved quietly to the rear of the woods. Captain Lawrence, at the front of the column, exchanged some sign with the men in the woods and then
they moved on among the trees. It was a woodlot like those any farmer might have kept at home, big old trees and some new growth. Lake halted with his section at the base of a large tree that grew like a tower in the middle of the wood.

He could smell the powder that the riflemen were firing from just a few yards away, and the distant replies of a few British skirmishers. A tall thin man in a linen hunting shirt and a small gorget stepped forward and took Lawrence’s hand.

“We’ve pushed them back almost half a mile. Of course, they can push us out any time they like if they are willing to pay the price.”

“General Washington asked us to disperse the men digging, there.”

Down the rank from Lake, Weymes looked slyly around him. The movement caught Lake’s eye, and he listened as Weymes muttered to the man next to him, another back-country man.

“Gon’ take some of they
diggers
for oursel’s,” he wheezed, and laughed. The other man laughed as well. Lake thought it typical of men like Weymes that they saw the war in terms of their own profit.

Bludner slipped out from under Lawrence’s eye and moved along the ranks to Lake. He paused a moment, looking at Lake as if judging him, and smiled a little. It was a threat, and Lake hardened himself to keep his head up and look directly at the man. Bludner moved past him, down the line of men to Weymes.

“Take a dozen men—not Lake’s. Go along the draw an’ get in behind that little fort. When they
diggers
make to run, you take ’em and drive ’em back to me.”

“M’pleasure,” rasped Weymes.

Up at the head of the column, the rifle officer leaned back and laughed at something Lawrence had said.

“What, them blackamoors? Have at ’em. We’ll cover
you. I don’t think the British have much else here right now. I take it they are digging a fort?”

“That’s what the general thought.”

“So it will only get harder to get at ’em.” The rifle officer took out a little antler whistle and blew it, then waved his men to the left of the wood, away from where the Virginians were going out. The rain had nearly stopped.

Lake heard a wet pop next to his head and Ben Miller, the man next to him, sighed and seemed to burst, red spray everywhere. It was so fast that George wasn’t able to sort out the order of events. He didn’t hear the shot, either. George had never seen a man shot, and neither had most of the other men in the company. Ben Miller was one of his own men, someone he had cooked with and yelled at for losing the mess pot.

“Damn, you Virginnies is plain unlucky. We haven’t lost a man all day.” One of the riflemen was slumped under another tree, smoking. He didn’t seem very concerned. He inhaled deeply, looked at one of his mates, a short man in a dirty linen shirt. “Plain unlucky.”

The Pennsylvania voice and the flat pronouncement stayed with Lake.

Bludner appeared, his face red with exertion. “Face front. He’s dead, and nothing we do is going to help him. We’ll get his equipment on the way back.”

The rifle officer nodded.

“Come on, boys, let’s help these Virginny boys get the blackamoors.”

“You boys sure you’re tough enough to take some unarmed black folk?” asked another of the riflemen. He didn’t sound mean, just spoke flat, but Bludner bristled. Lawrence pushed Bludner forward, past the riflemen.

“Check your prime,” called Lawrence. He gave them a minute to check it and replace it if the last of the rain had turned it to sludge.

“Form front when we pass the edge of the wood. Eyes front…march!”

Brooklyn Heights, New York, August 28, 1776

Jim saw them first, as the rain slackened off, coming from the little patch of woodland that they knew was full of rebels with rifle guns. They all looked off that way from time to time, because there had been shooting in the morning. They were covered in sweat, despite the rain and the cool breeze, but they had a good trench and the upcast was getting to be three feet high. Already, a man swinging a pick in the trench had nothing to fear from a rifleman, no matter how proficient. The knowledge of the rifle guns had helped them dig. So had the quick praise of the engineer, Mr. Murray.

“Rebel soldiers comin’. They fo’min reg’lar like, an’ I think they comin’ fo’ us.”

Caesar could see that Jim’s words were lost on the engineer, and he swung out of the ditch where he was working, took in the approaching soldiers for himself, and turned to where Sergeant Peters was writing for the officer.

“Enemy coming, sir. A full company, if I may.” He was quite proud of both the tone, and the sentence. Calm and soldierly.

The officer stood up from his stool, handed Peters his lap desk, and ran forward to where he could see over the scarp and down the hill.

“We’re buggered,” he said. “Where the hell are the dragoons we were promised?”

His lone soldier, a corporal of the Sixty-fourth light company, spoke up hesitantly.

“My company is the other side of the woods, sir,” he reminded the engineer.

“Not the same as dragoons, lad, but fetch them. Leave that musket. You won’t need it, and we may.”

The soldier shucked his cartridge box, bayonet belt, and musket. The engineer scribbled him a note and he ran off. He was fast, Caesar noted. Not as fast as Caesar himself, but Caesar had other plans. He walked over to the engineer and grasped the musket.

“I’m a fair shot, Mr. Murray.”

“Who are you, then?”

“I’m called Caesar. I fought in Virginny, for the king.”

Murray smiled, given the situation, at the tall black man’s earnestness.

“I’m sure you did him credit, too. Now show me. Show me, and be quick about it.”

Caesar put on the cartridge box and reached back, taking a paper cartridge in his fingers and biting off the base, priming the pan and then ramming the whole cartridge, ball, paper and all, down the clean gun. You couldn’t load that way with a dirty or foul gun. Murray could see immediately that he knew his business. Sergeant Peters folded the camp desk closed and began to run to the edge of the trench. He was smiling at Caesar.

Caesar stepped down into the trench and placed the musket to his shoulder. He raised his head above the upcast, found the target, and fired. The flint snapped down hard and the trigger pull and the flat bark of the big musket were simultaneous. Caesar had never fired at soldiers formed in a line before, and it was easy. There was a body lying on the ground and a little disturbance. He smiled.

Rifle fire sounded from the woods below him, and one shot actually creased his scalp. It made him leap and sit suddenly in the ditch. Tonny laughed. None of them noticed that one of the rifle balls had gone through Sergeant Peters’s chest.

Caesar looked right and left.

“Keep your tools to hand and don’t stand up till I tell you,” he said, and started to load again.

Mr. Murray was right down in the trench with them, his coat off to keep it out of the mud. He cursed the mischance that had caused him to wear his only good coat today. He had expected the visit from Lord Howe. Now he was crouched in a muddy trench on a wet day in his best smallclothes and he was damned if he was getting mud on his only proper coat. He rolled it tight and put it inside a linen forage sack that one of the black men handed him silently. The tall fellow fired the musket again. Murray knew his type—a killer, if ever he’d seen one.

Murray was puzzled that all these men were staying. He’d watched work parties run off at the first sign of enemy activity throughout his career, in Holland and Germany and Spain, and he’d never seen a parcel of native diggers grab their tools as if they meant business. His professional honor and maybe his advancement were at stake. They had nothing to gain or lose.

Another patter of rifle balls against the lip of the upcast earth. The tall black man was lying behind it now, covered in mud that made him even more difficult for the enemy to distinguish. He fired again, and some of the black men raised a small cheer. Murray saw that his assistant, the black man who did his writing, was down. That was a waste. Peters had been as educated a man as Murray had seen in the army.

The black man next to him was pointing down the field.

“They gon’ be some mad now!” said the smallest black, a mere boy. He laughed.

The advance across the low autumn grass was exciting at first. The silent parapet of the distant earthwork seemed like the pretend enemy in one of Captain Lawrence’s exercises. They formed their front rapidly, although slow for the lack of the drum, and then they moved forward. Their line was steady enough, bowing slightly and recovering as
the men tried to overcome their nerves and remember the lessons of the drill fields.

The first shot was a shock, as the little earthwork had seemed undefended. A man went down off to Lake’s left. He couldn’t see who it was, but the man screamed and flopped on the ground. George snapped his head back to the front, tearing his attention away from the downed man, but others didn’t, and the line bowed badly.

The second shot missed. It passed close enough to George that he could hear the distinctive sound that the passage of the bullet made. He looked around and met the eyes of his friend Isaac. Isaac had heard the sound too. His eyes had a hurt quality that they hadn’t had before, almost like the shot hadn’t missed. George knew that the bullet had passed between them. His heart beat even faster.

The third shot took Captain Lawrence just in the middle of the chest. It hit both his gorget and his silver belt plate, and the combination saved his life, but he had no way of knowing that at the time. He went down hard, and there was blood and pain. He screamed. Men ran to him, and several competed to lift him up. Bludner shouted at them and finally dismissed two men to carry the captain back.

“He’s one man, ya’ bastards! The niggers won’ fight. Now
come on
!” Bludner seemed enraged by their hesitation after the captain went down. Lake settled his pack on his shoulders and pushed forward. They weren’t so much a line anymore, even after just a few shots, but most of the men were going forward, a little quicker than the parade ground had taught them. The enemy musket fired again and George tried to imagine what whole volleys of musketry might do to a line like this.

“…niggers won’ fight. Now
come on
!”

The words sounded distinct over the few yards that now separated them. Virgil and Jim knew the voice instantly. They both started shouting at Caesar. He was loading again,
eyeing the range. Murray grabbed the shoulder of the black man crouching next to him.

“Are you lads going to fight?” Murray had to know.

“Oh, yas, suh!” said Tonny. His eyes were almost glazed. He didn’t turn his head. He was looking just over the top of the upcast.

Caesar was listening to Jim, now. He brought the musket up to his shoulder and fired again, but missed. He thought he had time for one more.