Washington and Caesar (41 page)

“And we’ll be paid regular, and uniformed?”

“Absolutely.”

Caesar nodded. He was happy that they would become regular soldiers, and he feared to offend the two officers by not falling in with their plans, but he still felt that something was lacking. He trusted Jeremy, though. Indeed, for the most part, he trusted Stewart, who was the bravest man he had seen in action, and that was worth something.

“I’m very pleased, then,” he said. If you have to accept another’s wishes, do it with a good grace. So his mother had always said. He smiled. Jeremy squeezed his shoulder. The two white officers shook his hand.

“We’ll muster the men you have tonight, so that you can be paid immediately. Do you have women?”

“A dozen or so back on Staten Island. One or two that the new boys have collected here.”

Simcoe counted quickly. “You can have only sixteen on the rolls, Sergeant, so best choose the ones who will work and push the slatterns off on another corps.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You choose them and get me the names when you can,” said Stewart hurriedly.

Caesar knew it was a matter of great importance. Women on the rolls of a regiment were members of the army. They got preference for barracks space, they drew rations, and they had a place. Other women, the camp followers and slatterns, could expect to be drummed out of the tents on a cold morning, or worse. He thought
of Sally, and Big Annie, and the local girls who had black skin but spoke Dutch. Sixteen women would be hard. Of course, none of them had anything at all now, and none of the boys was really married except Angus to Big Annie.

Whatever he decided, there would be fighting. He was far away when he felt Jeremy jostle his shoulder.

“The problems of command, eh, Caesar?” asked Stewart. “And I see you came off New York Island with a bolt of brown cloth. Shall we continue in brown jackets?”

“I’d rather, sir. They are serviceable enough.”

“Round hats. I notice most of your men have no hats, or old rebel hats.”

“I like the round hats well enough, sir, but most of our equipment has been donated by the rebels, and we haven’t come across a company wearing just the hats we desire.”

Simcoe laughed and Stewart smiled.

“Jeremy, give Caesar part of our cold chicken. We’re off to walk the posts for a bit. When you’ve had a bite, Caesar, meet us at your company so we can muster.”

Caesar stood up. “Yes, sir.”

“Just so, Caesar. Carry on.”

The men mustered eagerly enough. Few of them cared if they were Ethiopians or Guides, and the prospect of regular pay, allowances for quarters, proper uniforms, and status was so alluring that even Caesar’s band of veterans seemed to think he had accomplished a miracle.

“Bettuh than I evah expec’,” said Virgil. “An’ Captain Stewart, he’s good. Been good to us, too.”

Virgil was holding a crown, a large silver coin worth five English shillings. Stewart had given one to every man as “bounty”, he said. Caesar thought of the last time he had received a crown from a white man, when Washington told him not to be
familiar.

“You look like someone walkin’ on yo’ grave, Caesar,” said Tonny.

Caesar tried to shake off his unease. He thought it might be that from Peters’s death until today he had been in sole command, and now others would be above him. Perhaps his freedom had been unbounded, at least within the war, and now it was bounded.

Caesar could see that some of the men of Stewart’s company were coming in, despite the late hour, and shaking hands with the
Black Guides.
Pipes were lit, and rum began to make the rounds. Some men were dancing, and suddenly there were women.

He put his hands on the shoulders of the two men.

“And now you’ll both be corporals,” he said.

“Gon’ hav’ to learn to cipher from Cese’s big book,” said Tonny, poking around in Caesar’s backpack.

Jim came up from the dark, with a girl by the hand. He didn’t introduce her, and she kept her face half turned away, perhaps embarrassed to be in a camp full of men. Caesar nodded to him, and Jim smiled back, a huge gleam of delight.

“Nevah thought it would be so good, when we was in the swamp,” he said.

Caesar felt his elation begin to conquer his misgivings, and he nodded. He thought of Virgil calling him Cese, just now, a name he hadn’t heard in months, and it brought it all back to him. Then he frowned.

“You be careful with that girl. She from here?”

“Belongs to the big house.”

“What’s your name, girl?”

“I’m Morag, if you please,” she said shyly, with a little curtsy. Then, “I never see so many black folk before.”

Africans were thin on the ground in New York, Caesar knew. Many of the men in camp were recent recruits, escaped slaves from New York or New Jersey, and they were capering with excitement. One, Silas, kept telling all
the men around him that he
“ain’ never going to be slave, not no more”,
in a strong Dutch accent. Caesar listened with amusement.

“Listen up, here,” he called, in his parade ground voice, and the little yard grew still.

“We are a company in the army now, and under discipline. Drink the rum and enjoy your money, boys, but don’t you do nothing to bring us infamy. Do you hear me? What we do here will decide what a lot of folk think of black soldiers.”

He looked around the yard slowly, trying to catch every eye. “Some of us started this war in Virginia. Some of us just joined today. That’s fine. But all of you remember that just getting to here, where we are free men, and soldiers, has cost us. Remember that better men than us died just to get us here. Remember that we are free and there are a lot of folk that ain’t. And remember that the army is marching early tomorrow and we’ll be right at the front, so no hard heads and no missing kits.”

He looked at them all with something close to love, and it was too much for him, and he turned away from the fire in the yard and walked off a little, and he heard Virgil lead them in a cheer that mixed the company with the white soldiers around them and the shriller voices of women, so that by the third cheer the
HUZZAH
almost lifted the night away.

He saw two officers standing in greatcoats at the edge of the big fire. Simcoe and Stewart were there. He thought they might have drifted off after the parade, but they hadn’t.

“Forty-one men, Sergeant. We’ll want to recruit up to strength as soon as may be.”

“Yes, sir. With respect, sir, there are so many runaway blacks around these parts, we shouldn’t have any difficulty.” Caesar watched his men around the fires, and he was glad. “Where do we march, sir?” he asked.

Stewart looked out into the night for a moment.

“It won’t last, but until someone comes and takes the company away, we’ll just add it in with the Second light infantry. Do you have tools?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Make sure you have picks and shovels when we step off tomorrow. I don’t know the plan as well as I’d like, but I’ll opinion now that we’re to have a go at turning Mr. Washington off the heights at White Plains, and that may mean some digging.”

“Yes, sir. But we’d rather fight.”

Stewart nodded.

“Need money, Sergeant?”

Caesar looked puzzled. “I have a little, sir. What would I need it for?”

Stewart nodded as if he had discovered something he suspected.

“Here’s five guineas. You talk to Sergeant McDonald and Jeremy about what it’s for. Keep an account, mind. It’s my own money. But everything in this country costs, and I suspect that won’t be different for black men.”

Caesar had never held so much money in his life as the five heavy gold coins, together worth one hundred and five shillings, or half the price of a young, fit slave in Virginia. He put the coins carefully inside his hunting pouch, as neither his waistcoat nor trousers had any pockets.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll keep a good account.”

“Get some sleep, Sergeant. We’ll be at it before dawn.”

Simcoe pulled his greatcoat tighter around him in the chill air and reached out to get Caesar’s attention.

“Sergeant, is it true you were a slave in Virginia?”

Caesar stiffened, but nodded.

“Nothing to be ashamed of, Sergeant. Pirates took your namesake, Julius Caesar, and held him as a slave, you know. It was quite common in the ancient world.”

Caesar was impressed at Simcoe’s knowledge, interested in spite of himself. His inclination was to join the party,
despite the prospect of action in the morning. Talking to Simcoe worried him. But the idea that the great Julius Caesar had been a slave held his attention. Why had Sergeant Peters never told him that the mighty Caesar had been a slave, taken by pirates?

“How’d he escape?”

“Oh, his family paid a ransom. And then he hunted the pirates down and crucified them.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“He nailed them to crosses, just as Pontius Pilate did to Jesus.”

Caesar was a little stunned, but then he smiled wolfishly.

“I like that, sir.”

Simcoe nodded seriously.

“I thought you might. And is it true you were a slave of Mr. Washington’s?”

Caesar nodded again. He was still thinking about Julius Caesar coming back with fire and sword on the men who had enslaved him.

“Can you tell me anything about him? Was he cruel?”

Caesar thought for a moment. It was difficult sometimes for him to remember his life before the swamp.

“He sent me to the swamp for laughing at him. That’s cruel, I think. But in the main, he was fair.”

Simcoe nodded, clearly dissatisfied.

“Can you say anything else, Caesar?”

Caesar smiled. “He’s the best horseman I’ve ever seen. He hates being crossed, but most people do, I’ve found. He don’t like arguments, especially from the young. I’m sorry, sir. I was a slave, an’ I kept his dogs. I don’t know him like a house slave might.”

Simcoe nodded distantly, and Caesar sensed that he might be nearing the line of too
familiar.

“Do you hate him?”

Caesar shook his head. “No, sir, I do not,” he said. He couldn’t see himself crucifying Mr. Washington. The men
who had hunted him in the swamp, now, or the men who had made him a slave. That was worth some thought.

Simcoe nodded.

“I’ll give you good night, then, Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir.” Caesar watched him go. No one had ever asked him about Washington before, but Caesar sensed that Simcoe had an intensity that carried him past other men, made him capable of asking harder questions. He walked back to a large fire that his men were feeding from a rail fence. The ferry master would not be pleased.

Virgil and Tonny were waiting for him, and he was pleased to see them sober. Paget and Romeo, once malefactors, were now pushing the new men into their blankets.

“An’ now we really are soldiers,” said Tonny. His eyes were shining.

Virgil bit his crown again, and smiled. “We gon’ have some fun.”

“Tomorrow we may be fighting,” said Caesar. “Mr. Stewart says we may fight at some place called ‘White Plains’. Get the boys to ask around about the lay of the land, see if there are any black folks off that way we can meet in the morning. Start with that girl of Jim’s.”

They were already practised at using local slaves for information. Local slaves had helped them all the way up the island.

“Better catch ’em quick, then, befo’ the interruptin’ is too messy.” Virgil laughed. Caesar thought that Virgil had laughed more in the last few days than he had ever laughed in the swamp.

“White Plains?” asked Tonny.

Caesar nodded. “If we’re going to be Guides, better get ready to guide.”

“May I trouble you for your glass?” asked General Lee, reaching for an aide’s telescope.

It was the dawn of a beautiful autumn day, and the two senior generals and their staffs had ridden forth early to go over all the ground south and west of the heights in hopes of finding a position where they could make a stand. Lee was already laying out lines in his mind. He looked at the bulk of Chatterton’s Hill rising in front of them and turned to Washington.

“Let us have a look from the height,” he said, and they rode on up the slope, the two staffs chatting amicably. The shadow of the defeats on Long Island and Manhattan were still there, but the air was different. Lee had beaten the British in the south, and Harlem Heights had given them all a ray of hope.

Washington listened to the accents and he smiled to hear the Virginians and the New Yorkers gossiping and showing away, each eager to impress the others. They were young, and most of them were personable. He walked Nelson over by General Lee, who was looking through his aide’s glass at the works in progress behind them.

“Do you ever consider the wonder of it, that these young men go along so easily together?” Washington said quietly. “But for the war, they would not even know each other. They would be New Yorkers, or Yankees from Massachusetts, or Marylanders.”

Lee nodded, still looking at the ground, his face largely hidden by the heavy wooden telescope.

“If I may, sir, it is your achievement. Most of the rest of us
are
yet Virginians and New Yorkers.” He snapped it closed, and gave Washington one of his rare looks of total loyalty—tenderness, almost. Then he pointed back down the slope, to the ground well to the north, beyond their camp.

“This hill stands alone. It dominates the plain, but it is too easily flanked and too hard to hold. Yonder,” said Lee, “is the ground we ought to occupy.”

“Then let us go and view it,” said Washington. He took in the broad sweep of the heights at a glance, and led his men back down off Chatterton’s Hill just as the sun began to clear the heights.

They were well on their way, past the camp and riding hard, when a trooper of the Light Horse came up the road after them, his horse lathered with sweat. He rode straight up to Washington and touched the back of his hand to his iron-rimmed helmet.

“The British are on us,” he said. Washington took in the man’s evident panic and whirled his horse. He showed no sign of fatigue.

“Gentlemen,” he shouted, “we now have other business besides reconnoitering.”