Washington and Caesar (62 page)

George ran to his commander, Colonel Weedon. “Are there any orders, sir?” he asked, pointing at the British grenadiers.

“None since we marched this morning, Captain.” He looked at his watch and then down at the British. “Last I heard, we were attacking.”

“Guess no one told them,” said George. He turned and found Caleb Cooke at his side.

“I’m holding this position until General Lee should choose to honor me with his commands,” said the Yankee captain. His bitterness was obvious.

George ran back to his company in time to see the head of the British column start forward up the hill aimed at the space to his left. He marched his company forward a few paces until they had a clear shot down the hill and
ordered his sergeant to open fire. Companies to his right were doing the same. Colonel Weedon was pushing two companies a little down the slope to fire into the flank of the attack when the woods in front of them erupted with more grenadiers. George had never seen an attack like it. The British were in no sort of line, and he watched a group of their officers run into the little patch of swamp at the base of the hill to his right and wade through, a dozen grenadiers pushing along strongly in their wake until the whole group was across. The two companies that had gone forward to flank the first column were now caught in the flank by this second group. Despite outnumbering them heavily, they were so caught by the initial surprise that they ran, with fewer than twenty grenadiers pursuing them to the top of the ridge. In a moment, both his flanks were lost and the hilltop was a sea of red jackets.

He wanted to stand and gape unbelievingly. This wasn’t some superior performance by the British, but massive incompetence by his own.

“Get them back!” he yelled to his sergeants, and then pointed at his new bugler, a little black boy of twelve or so that he had found in a cottage. “Sound retreat.”

Washington rode forward, listening to the sounds of musketry in the heavy air and concerned at its volume and direction.

“Surely that sounds closer than the last,” he said to Lafayette.

He began to gallop and his staff followed him forward. They began to pass panicked men and deserters, and the junior officers of the staff set themselves to round these up. Then they passed a trickle of wounded men moving to the rear.

“Damn the man,” Washington said aloud. These were his very best troops, the light companies of the old Continental regiments and the rangers and riflemen, as
well as whole battalions of crack veterans. Off to the left he could see a column of Massachusetts men standing to, drooping in the heat. He turned to Fitzgerald.

“Tell whoever commands that column to get those men out of the sun. What is he thinking of?” He rode forward, his horse lathered in sweat but still full of spirit. Washington didn’t seem in the least fazed by the oppressive heat. Lafayette was invigorated by his burst of energy, and the little flow of breeze generated by the gallop had helped.

He rode into the middle of a rout. The whole of the road was choked with disorganized units trying to force past each other, with officers striving to rally their men, and men too panicked to be rallied. A battery of guns had cut their traces and left their pieces sitting on the hard-packed road to get away on the horses. Washington fumed. He rode back and forth, suddenly everywhere, cautioning a colonel, soothing a jittery captain, praising the efforts of the men who suddenly found themselves in the rearguard. All his staff flew about like demons, riding from unit to unit, bringing up clumps of men who seemed willing to return to their duty, in some cases simply giving men heart who had lost it, or telling commanders to make their men drink water. It all helped, and little by little they turned the shambles back into the cream of the army.

Through it all, Washington looked for Charles Lee. He found him sitting quietly on his horse amidst his small staff, gazing at a distant hilltop where a battalion of British grenadiers were putting themselves in a state of defense.

“What are you about, sir?” asked Washington, as soon as he rode up. Lee looked as if he had been struck.

“I told you they wouldn’t stand,” Lee said bitterly. “Those grenadiers rolled the so-called elite of our army off that hill like so many children. They won’t stand.”

Washington looked at him with something pretty near loathing.

“Sir, they are able, and by God they shall do it! Your
retreat is a disgrace. Do me the favor of accepting responsibility for your own errors and not blaming the men who sought to serve you.”

Lee rounded on him. “There’s irony for you, sir.
You
are going to criticize
my
command?”

“I am. I can see that the scale of this operation was beyond your grasp.” Washington turned aside as a trooper of the light horse cantered up and saluted, presenting a message. Washington read it. Lee made no attempt to see it, but sat fuming.

“Was it your intention to attack the enemy rearguard from both flanks?” Washington asked.

“Once I had lured them with a feigned retreat.”

Washington looked at the reforming army.

He turned his horse so that he was nose to tail with the messenger, scanning the distant hill where the grenadiers could be seen. He beckoned to Hamilton and looked at a map for a moment.

“I’m taking command,” he said. Lee was clearly stunned. He rode off a distance and sat quietly. Perhaps he had mistaken his man.

Washington finished his map study, lining up features visible in the endless heat shimmer with marks on the map. He turned back to the messenger.

“Attack!” he said.

George Lake’s men were not beaten. They made that clear by cheering Washington as he rode up to them in the full heat of the afternoon, despite their parched throats, and the cheer was taken up along the line, even by men who had run from a handful of grenadiers an hour before. They cheered and cheered. Washington smiled a little, hiding his teeth but visibly pleased. Lake stepped out of his spot at the head of his company and caught at Lafayette’s bridle. The young general smiled down at him.

“What happened?” Lake pleaded.

“I don’t think we will ever know. I am not experienced, eh? But it seems to me that Lee had no plan.”

Lake shook his head in angry negation. “We marched out there smartly enough and
then
there were no orders.”

“Perhaps he had a plan. And the British attack surprised him. I think perhaps General Lee does not like being surprised.”

Lake nodded, agreeing now.

“But war is nothing but a series of surprises and disappointments. That is why this one is so very good,” and Lafayette pointed at Washington. “He is never ruined by a surprise, eh?”

Lake smiled up at Lafayette.

“Now we attack? General?” Lake was never quite sure if Lafayette really was a general as he was twenty years younger than the others.

“It is hot,” Lafayette responded warily. “And many of these troops have already fought, whether well or badly. I think that I have learned that most soldiers will only fight once in a day.”

The men behind Lake cheered again, as if to prove the young general wrong.

Lake went back to where his company was waiting in the shade and told them to be ready. Then he took out his horn inkwell, suddenly his most precious possesion, and started to add to his endless letter to Betsy.

Caesar watched the grenadiers attack in the distance and then settled down to a long exchange of fire with some militia to their flank. As the morning wore on, the militia began to come closer and there were some rifle balls among the shots coming at their woodline. Mr. Martin moved up and down the line quite boldly and set a good example, and Caesar developed a new liking for the man. Several of the soldiers of the Guides who had been down on him noted that he did not hesitate to share his canteen with a
black soldier—a sin that had been imputed to him at spring drill.

Jeremy visited them from time to time, checking on their position and a similar one occupied by some men from the Queen’s Rangers just to the south. In late morning his horse took a ball, and he had to walk back to the light infantry camp. It was quite a feat of bravery, unnoticed on that busy day, but Caesar watched him go the whole distance, under fire much of the way, with deep misgiving, because Jeremy seemed to be above such notions as using the available cover, or running.

He was back on a new horse by early afternoon. He rode up to Mr. Martin, and Caesar trotted over through the heavy air. There were guns firing to the north, or perhaps low summer thunder—it was difficult to be sure. Caesar had soaked his jacket with sweat, and his hatband and even his leather equipment was damp.

“Men are low on powder and we’re all out of water,” Caesar said without preamble.

“I just said the same,” added Martin, a little defensively.

“What’s in front of you?” asked Jeremy, scribbling on a little pad.

“Militia and some rifles. Perhaps more rifles now than there were.” Caesar looked at Martin, who nodded.

“I think they are just waiting for us to leave so they can get in these woods and start firing on the camp,” said Martin.

“Rotate another company out here so we can get powder and water,” said Caesar. Martin was proving to have a head on his shoulders. He nodded at Caesar’s pronouncement. Jeremy handed them his canteen, which was full, and another.

“All I could bring. Lieutenant Martin, Captain Stewart says that this is not going well, and that the column has been very slow to leave camp.”

Martin nodded slowly.

“I think the attacks by the grenadiers are an attempt to force the enemy to break contact so that the rest of us can withdraw in something like safety. Captain Stewart thinks the grenadiers have gone too far, and so does Major Simcoe.” He paused as if he feared he was saying too much. “The Jaegers are right there behind you, where we started this morning. If you have to pull back, at least they can fire over you once you are in the low ground.”

Martin looked up at him.

“I take it that means the light infantry are going forward. To
rescue
the grenadiers?”

“It could mean that, sir. I’m sorry to be obtuse, but it could mean that.”

Caesar leaned in. “But Jeremy doesn’t feel he can say, because it wasn’t in the message he was given, but rather in something he overheard, am I right?”

Jeremy smiled. “Just so, Julius.”

Martin shook his head. “We need water and powder.” He sounded worried. As Jeremy rode off, Caesar touched his arm and smiled. Martin brightened up immediately.

“You just remind me if I forget, Sergeant,” he said in his official voice, immediately cheerful and businesslike.

“You’re doing very well, if I may say, sir.”

“Why thankee, Julius Caesar. Thank you for that.”

Because they weren’t running, they could make their water last, and the shade of the trees was a relief that many soldiers on that field would have killed for, but the heat grew until it seemed the principal enemy. Men stopped firing because they lacked the energy to load, and everyone was wet with sweat. Caesar and Martin moved constantly and were the most tired because of it, but the action was never anything but an exchange of shots at extreme range. Jeremy’s first horse was their only casualty except for a graze to Angus’s head that ruined his hat and made him proud as Lucifer.

But it went on and on. The smoke simply sat on them and seemed to do nothing to drive off the incessant whine of the mosquitoes. They lay in their sweat and the stink of their powder, coughing at the heavy air and eaten by the bugs, worse than any day Caesar could remember in the swamp.

The firing began to rise again to the south, but the smoke and haze of the day now hid the hill where the grenadiers were all together. Moments later, though, Major Simcoe came riding up on his big gray charger almost white with lather and dust. He had a bugler behind him and two junior officers, all in the dark green jackets and blue facings of the Queen’s Rangers.

“Damn, it’s hot,” he said when he met Martin. He waved to Caesar, and this time Caesar brought Fowver so that they would all have the same story. He waited until they were near him and then unrolled a little map drawn on the back of a letter.

“I think they are trying to pin the rearguard here,” he pointed at the hill, “and then get around to attack us here and here,” he pointed at the woods they were in and another opposite, where the Highlanders were, “to cut us all off and force our surrender. I think that General Clinton decided this morning to attack here,” he pointed back to the hill that the grenadiers had taken, “to break up the attack and give us time to get free.”

Caesar followed it all. It was the most spread-out battle he had been part of, and it seemed to move at a glacial pace, perhaps because of the heat. And even with a map and Simcoe’s explanation, it was too confused a battle for him. They seemed to be defending in two directions and attacking in a third.

“It seemed to work, and then something has spurred the rebels to another effort, and I think they are building to an attack right here.”

“Where are the light infantry?”

“Gone off to support the grenadiers.”

Caesar looked at the camp they had left that morning, now nearly deserted. Simcoe pointed him off to the right, where a column of green-coated men was approaching.

“I want you to launch an attack here and try and get a prisoner. I’ll move into these positions behind you. Then you fall back through me, get some water and powder and join the lights of Colonel Robinson’s Loyal Americans as a reserve with the Jaegers and my rifle company.” He pointed to the rear, where green-coated men from the Loyalist regiments were moving into the shade.

Martin nodded to Caesar and he had his whistle to his lips in an instant. Fowver ran for the head of his platoon.

It was like a repeat of the early morning. The enemy fired sporadically but wouldn’t stand, and the Guides moved forward to a patch of brushy ground by a little stream just a few hundred paces away. The move took them five minutes. Their reward was a trickle of cold water in the stream, and Caesar ignored Simcoe’s wave that they should return immediately while he had Willy and Jim filling canteens at a basin in the little stream. The canteens had narrow necks and they didn’t fill fast, and their situation in the patch of brush was too precarious to allow them all to fill at the same time, so the corporals moved up and down, risking their lives in the new volume of fire from across the hazy flats. As soon as the last canteen was filled, Caesar gave the signal and they all fired together, not to hit anything but to make a solid screen of smoke that hung, concealing them for a minute or more, and then they ran back as quickly as a day’s fierce heat and too little water allowed.