Washington and Caesar (71 page)

The second essential was to know Bludner’s location and to be able to plan to attack it. The prisoner had added to their store of knowledge about Bludner’s posts. He knew
of three, and the prisoner said that Bludner moved among them often. Only his couriers knew which post he’d be at. But the prisoner knew a good deal about the locations of the posts: one in an old cabin in a wood, one in a big stone barn and one in an old Dutch farmhouse. They knew a little about each but they needed more to strike.

Polly had gone to be with Sally after McDonald’s report. She came back toward evening. She had been crying, he could see, and she was subdued. Caesar had been blacking his belts, part of a ritual he did to calm himself. His whole kit was hanging from hooks, the leather gleaming softly, the weapons bright. His offering on a private altar. He wiped the blackball from his hands, reminded by the smell of the regulars of the Fourteenth Foot and his days in the Ethiopians.

When his hands were cleaner, he took Polly’s between his. Hers were cold.

“Sally’s drunk,” she said, quietly.

Caesar just sat.

“He beat her, and there was nothing we could do. She’s going to break, Caesar. We have to get Bludner before Sally gives up.”

Caesar hung his head.

“Next time will be the last. I swear.”

“Tell Sally that. I’m not afraid, or if I am, it’s nothing to her terror.”

“We’re making a plan. We can’t move until we have some cover, or the rebels will know what we were after.”

“My father agrees. You know that. And he’s trying to sound out…other quarters. We followed the messenger last night, through three other stops. We know where to follow him, and whom he meets. It will make the big night easier.”

Caesar considered Polly.

“I worry about you, Polly. I think this is a great deal more dangerous than standing guard with a musket.”

She smiled and looked down, and Caesar thought that it was something they shared, the secret love of the excitement. He even wondered if sharing this plan wouldn’t bind them in a way that few couples could be bound. He held her close and she kissed him suddenly, her mouth opening under his and her lips melting and unlike anything he had ever known, and her eyes were liquid.

Then she pushed him away.

“I have something else to tell you,” she said with her secret smile. Caesar sat on his heels and looked up at her, waiting.

“I think I’m pregnant,” she said. “Don’t go gettin’ any ideas.”

Caesar’s smile filled his face.

“It’s a pleasure to have you back with us,” said Colonel Robinson, pouring a fresh glass of claret.

They were back under the map at the Moor’s Head. Stewart’s hair was a mare’s nest of red ends, but he was otherwise looking cheerful, if not well. He had a leg up on a chair like a gout sufferer, and one of his arms was strapped to his chest with a black silk sling.

“It’s a pleasure to have so much female sympathy and never need to dance,” said Stewart, acknowledging a smile from a distant Miss Hammond, who was being instructed on the big floor with Mr. Martin. They were learning a ballet. He inclined his head in return. Simcoe gave a snort.

“I gather that when the use of your limbs returns, we shall find you a very passable dancer, Stewart.”

“Lies. All lies.”

Robinson looked around the tavern. “I hear that our army in Virginia is in difficulties.”

“Lord Cornwallis seems to have been maneuvered into a position where the navy has to retrieve him. My friend Simcoe is not too happy about it.”

“Friends of mine outside the line say that General
Washington may be preparing to march that way,” said Robinson. “And we think it might be worthwhile to have a little raid to keep him pinned to his lines here.”

Stewart nodded absently, an idea forming in his head.

“How many men would you use?”

“Oh, two hundred at least. We’d beat up one of their outposts and they would assuredly have a covering party behind them, so any trap would need enough muskets to keep the covering party off.”

“Quite a big show, then,” said Stewart with satisfaction. “Any notion when?”

“We need intelligence. I think they are very careful about their movements.”

“But you’d be ready to go soon.”

“Oh yes. Do I sense a spark of professional interest, Major Stewart?”

“I am interested in being active, sir.” Stewart smiled dangerously. “And I’m trying to please friends.”

“We have to be ready to move,” Hamilton repeated. The staff was gathered around the table in the main room of the tavern, and to their number had been added a dozen French officers, most very young men in splendid uniforms. The Duc de Lauzon, one of the most powerful young men in the world, lounged on the back of a windsor chair, his powder blue leg contrasting sharply with the dark wood all around him.

“Move where?” asked a French officer. “We cannot plan a campaign when we don’t know the object, surely?”

Washington held out a hand to George Lake, who passed him a large chart.

“We have an opportunity to act in Virginia,” he said, showing them a new theater of operations. “Always assuming that the Comte de Grasse will condescend to visit us there. But first I want to secure the ground between the ferry and the river, and perhaps farther down toward their
posts. A raid in force, gentlemen, to keep their ears pinned back while we go off after the other fox.”

Robinson came into the tavern, dejected, and passed Caesar without a word and sat in the fireplace nook. He stripped off his gloves and began to tap them against his boot. Caesar approached him cautiously, unsure of his welcome, but Robinson seemed to notice him for the first time and beckoned to him.

“Sergeant?”

“Sir.”

“It’s off, Sergeant. Washington has flooded his outposts with men. There must be six thousand militia in the ground along the river. Suicide to try for one of his posts. It’s as if he knew what we were up to,” he said, and Caesar caught a chill.
Sally might break,
Polly had said.

“Can you stir your friends for reports on the rebels?” Stewart asked. Marcus White and Stewart had shared all their information.

“I can’t see that it is essential, although I’d be happy to please Colonel Robinson and General Clinton.”

Caesar nodded his head. “We have two men from up that way. Van Sluyt comes from one of the plantations on the river. It may be that we could get a report from the blacks up there.”

“Is it so important?” asked Marcus White.

Stewart nodded. “They have moved forward in strength. Some of my friends at headquarters think that Washington may be looking at a proper attack on New York. If that’s the case, Bludner won’t be in our reach. But others aren’t so sure. Lord Cornwallis has got himself in some difficulties in Virginia. Washington has been cunning at covering his movements before. He may be moving. If he is, we need to know what those rebels are doing.”

White turned to Caesar. “Even if it means sending Polly?”

And Caesar felt a nip of fear.

New Windsor, August 14, 1781

Washington read the message calmly, masking his exultation and the resulting nerves with the ease of long practise. He had his plan in place and he was ready.

“Note to General Knox. Please tell the general to suspend the movement of our siege train north. We will keep it at Philadelphia. Fitzgerald, please fetch me Captain Lake.”

“At once, sir.”

Washington dictated a series of orders to his secretary. Militia to fill the posts. More militia to be called out from Connecticut. Commands for the Hudson forts. Commands for the reserves. One of his aides handed him a report from a spy, from which he gleaned that the British had no idea what his real target was. He frowned.

“Do I know Captain Bludner?”

“He has his own company in the outposts, sir. Something to do with intelligence.”

“Leave him here. General Heath will need all the intelligence he can get if the British choose to strike in my absence.”

“Captain Lake, sir.”

Lake entered and saluted. Washington took off his hat and bowed. “I’m sending you back to the marquis.”

“Sir!”

“Captain, I am bringing the army to Virginia, and the French as well. We are going to have a go at the rat in our marquis’s trap. I want you to tell him that I will be on the Peninsula, God willing, in three weeks. He must keep Cornwallis occupied for that long.”

Lake beamed. All motion in the building had stopped and every man hung on Washington’s orders. Word had passed. Virginia. Cornwallis.

“We will march on the nineteenth of August, in four
days. And with luck and the benevolence of heaven, gentlemen, we will go to Virginia and win the war.”

“The French have moved south and the whole rebel army is in New Jersey,” said Robinson, pointing at the map over the fireplace.

Martin took a draw on his pipe. “Mr. Washington can be a deep one, sir.”

Stewart favored his arm, now healing well, and reached his left hand for his wine. “Mr. Washington is marching to Virginia to take Lord Cornwallis,” he said carefully, looking into his glass. The other two officers took sharp breaths, and Robinson cursed.

“Gentlemen, there is nothing we can do to stop him. But, Beverly,” this to Colonel Robinson, “in his absence, I think it would be surprising if we didn’t snap up some of his posts.”

Robinson leaned forward. “Because his army can’t be in two places at once?”

“Even Mr. Washington can’t do that.”

“It will take some time to plan all over again,” said Robinson.

“We’ll need new intelligence. They’ve moved all their posts,” said Martin.

Stewart raised his glass to a distant corner where Sally sat sewing with Polly.

“Here’s to Mr. Washington, gentlemen. In his absence, great things may be accomplished.”

New York, September 10, 1781

In New York, the weather had turned to rain, a harsh, cold rain that kept everyone indoors. It promised to be a hard fall. Caesar stood in the bow window of the Moor’s Head watching a few laborers run through the wet, mud splashing up their thighs. He pitied the soldiers out in the lines.

Major Stewart had a pint of Madeira and a map, and
he used them to make his points. “If you really want to leave the impression that the whole thing is an accident, or perhaps that it was about something very different, then I think our best hope is to hide it under Colonel Robinson’s expedition. If Robinson attacks the outposts near the Hudson, we can take Bludner in the same sweep with the same men. But we need to know just where the rebel posts are and just where Bludner’s men camp. We need the whole layout of the area. When we take Bludner’s courier he may spill all of it or he may try and lead us into a trap. I want to know the ground in advance.”

“So we take the courier the night that Colonel Robinson plans to go after the rebel posts?”

“Just so. It came to me when Robinson was telling about his plan. Caesar, do you concur?”

“I do, sir.”

“And do you know the area?”

“We were all over that ground last year.” Caesar could see it in his mind’s eye.

“And Reverend White says that Bludner’s covering party is usually by the Van Cortland house. Look here. That’s less than a mile from the ferry.”

“Stands to reason, sir. There are only so many approaches between our lines and theirs, and Bludner’s spies need the ferry.”

“Just so, Sergeant Caesar, just so. Do you see it, Reverend?”

Marcus White looked at Caesar carefully, as if judging him all over again.

“Doesn’t Mr. Van Sluyt have a wife?” White asked.

“He does, but that has never kept him from his duty…” Caesar trailed off as he saw that he had missed the mark entirely. Marcus White was looking off into the distance.

“Perhaps his wife would go. Women pass the lines very easily. She could take Polly…”

Caesar shuddered.

“I’ve done it before, Julius.” She fairly bounced with enthusiasm and his heart died within him. He wanted to say,
“But you are pregnant.”
Yet he understood that would be a betrayal.

“But we already know all this,” he protested.

“No, Caesar. We guess it. And if we’re going to commit hundreds of men up the river, we have to
know.”

Marcus looked at Polly and they smiled at each other, a smile of private communication. Stewart shook his shoulders a little.

“I don’t like sending them in harm’s way…”

“I’d do anything to get Bludner,” said Polly.

Mount Vernon, 10 September, 1781

Truro Church brought a lump to his throat. As he pulled his horse to a stop and looked at the church’s pattern of Flemish brick for a little, the church unleashed a flood of memory, of obligations and uncompleted tasks from another life. For the first time in five years he wondered who was a warden and whether the rector’s roof had ever been repaired. He could see bricks missing from the churchyard wall.

David Humphreys, the only one of his staff to accompany him on his dash to Mount Vernon, looked ready to fall off his horse. Billy Lee looked better, tired but easy on his tall bay. Washington’s decision to go home for one night on the way to his campaign had been the product of a rare whim, and he had ridden sixty miles in a day to get here. Few men had the stamina to stay with him.

Past the churchyard, he was really home. Those were his fields on either side of the road, and the road itself, which needed repair, he was sorry to note, was also his. All the way from Baltimore the roads had been bad, but here in Frederick County they were virtually impassable, just near his home and in the path of his army that
needed speed for his troops and more speed for his supplies.

“Good to be home, eh, Billy?” said Washington, turning slightly in his saddle. He was concerned that Humphreys might have a fall, and took the opportunity to give him a glance.

“Yes, sir,” said Billy.

The sun was setting as he finally turned his horse through his gates and was greeted by the moving sight of Mount Vernon glowing with the last light, and all the windows lit from inside. A white man he didn’t know ran from behind the Greenhouse, calling that there were visitors, and Washington smiled, the spell of his own house strong on him.