Washington and Caesar Read online

  The boy smiled and the drumsticks flashed as he raised them beside his head, held them rock steady for a moment, and then brought them down like thunder on the taut skin of the drumhead. He rattled through the point of war like a regular army drummer, and every head on the street turned to watch.

  “Serve your country and earn the bounty!” called McCoy. A piece of silver flashed in his hands.

  “Five shillings hard specie! Drink to Virginia on the colony’s money! Preserve your rights against the grasping king! Drive Dunmore into the sea!”

  It was as much excitement as the market town had seen in a long time. Rural Virginia didn’t see a great many fine laced coats, or drummer boys, or martial sergeants. Men began to come around, reading the proclamations and broadsheets on the table from a safe distance.

  The first recruit they attracted here was typical: George Lake, an apprentice. He was healthy and fit, not indentured, and had enough teeth to bite a cartridge. He didn’t own his own weapon, which cost him part of his bounty, but he still got two shillings and a place to sleep. He looked intelligent and delighted to be part of the army. Once Lawrence had his name on the books and had given him his bounty in cash, he asked the young man if he would stay with the company if it were taken into the Continental service. The boy replied that he was sure he would.

  “I do long to see the world.”

  “Can you read, George?”

  “I can read some, sir.” Lawrence let him go, wishing he could have a dozen such. The boy left, glowing, to find more friends to join.

  After the first man tested the waters, there was a rush—a mix of patriotism and economic necessity, as the poorer classes who had been hardest hit by the troubles with England rushed to the bounty and the hope of regular pay. There were other recruits, too: several decent yeomen’s sons, and one young man who himself owned property, a small farm in the local red soil. Lawrence took him aside and ascertained that he came from the Carters, a distant relation, and that his people were prominent in this part of the county. Lawrence was holding his lieutenant’s commission vacant for a friend, but he was allowed two ensigns. He had heard that some of the militia companies were electing officers and sergeants, but he had no intention of letting such rot spread in his own company. He wanted them to be like regulars, and hoped that he would be able to place the whole company on the Virginia establishment, or better, the Continental establishment, when he had filled his roster. So it was natural enough that, although this young farmer was willing to join in the ranks, Lawrence took him aside and offered him a commission, which the man instantly accepted.

  He filled a platoon in the morning, although a few of the men who took the bounty were sorry men who would make dismal soldiers. Most, however, were strong men, farm labor, with some experience of arms, or eager boys like George Lake. Lawrence liked Lake. Good material.

  The afternoon was slower, as he expected it would be. Most who would join did so in the first rush; those who went home to have a think seldom came back. The original militia raised by the counties had all the best local men already; it was the additional companies that had to complete in this difficult and expensive way. Lawrence was already doubting what he had heard, that the Continentals were going to have to recruit from scratch as well, and not out of the militia. Farms still had to be farmed, and magistrates could not all go off to be officers.

  He sat well back from the table and drank sherry as the afternoon wore away, unaffected by a pint or so, and tolerably happy with the success he had. At two by his big silver watch he went in and dined, and sent good meals out to the sergeant and the drummer. By three they were all tempted to doze off, and Lawrence kept the drummer at it to keep them awake.

  “Find us a fifer, lad!” he kept saying. “There must be a blackie here who can play the fife!”

  And the boy would smile, a little shy, and look away.

  Sergeant McCoy thought that they should take their recruits and march away.

  “Rendezvous at the camp is in two days’ time.”

  “We can get there in a day, Rob, and every man we have at muster is going to be gold when we have to fight. This town’s been good to us; give it the afternoon. And don’t be in such a rush to leave the comfort of a bed. Especially when it comes with something in it, eh?”

  McCoy laughed mechanically. The captain may have had something bouncy in his bed; all McCoy had for companionship were little biting bugs.

  “Let’s see if we can’t complete the company. We’ll march in the morning.”

  Just after three, two men rode up to the tavern on spent horses. They looked badly used: one had his face swathed in dirty bandages, and the other rode with his knees up so high that he looked like an old sack on a tall horse. The two men had a look of meanness that might have deterred normal approaches, but it was like an invitation to the recruiting sergeant.

  “Do you gentlemen fancy five free shillings hard currency?” Sergeant McCoy held up his big fist with the money.

  The taller man smiled a little. “Milishee?”

  “That’s right.”

  McCoy could see that there was old dried blood on the filthy bandage that the smaller man had on his face.

  “Could have used you boys in the swamp. Had a set-to with some runaways.”

  “We aren’t being raised for slave-taking, friend. We’re raised to fight the Governor, drive the British out of Virginia.”

  The taller man nodded. “Regular pay, though?”

  “Regular as clockwork, friend, and paid every week. Victuals at the colony’s expense and the best of living for every soldier.”

  “Save it, Sergeant. I’ve served with the milishee before, an’ so has Mr. Weymes here. No one ever offered us no bounty, though. I think we’ll sign.”

  “You both have your own weapons?”

  “Yep.”

  “And horses?”

  “You ain’t blind, is you? Them’s our horses, then.”

  The other man opened his mouth and then shut it, like a fish. No noise came out for a moment, and then he opened it again.

  “Our black girl runned off.”

  “Pay him no mind.”

  “They the milishee, Bludner. You tell ’em about our black girl, Sally.”

  “We’re joining the militia, Weymes, and we’ll find her in our own spare time.”

  “Make your mark, here, and here. And I’ll sign for your horses and arms.”

  “I don’ have to make no mark, boyo. I can sign my name.”

  Lawrence had never liked back-country ruffians, and he stood up smoothly and walked forward.

  “If you want to serve in my company, keep a civil tongue in your head.”

  Bludner looked at him, meeting his eye unblinking. They stared at each other for just a moment—too long, in Lawrence’s book, but not long enough to count as open defiance. Then Bludner bowed his head, a quick, jerky motion—a man who retreated before superior social position but reserved judgment.

  “I’ll ax your pardon then, sir. Didn’ mean no harm. Just plain talk. I ain’t ignorant.”

  On the whole, Lawrence liked him now that he had retreated. And men who could read and write were too rare. Perhaps Bludner would make a corporal; he had the skills. The little man looked like death, though, and Lawrence didn’t think he’d last long.

  Virginia, October 1775

  They didn’t really follow the deer tracks, as Caesar had a strong idea that the deer were headed across the little creek and up the flat ground toward the next little wooded ridge. He could neither see nor smell a cabin, and yet the fields looked like they had been tilled at one time. They might have been over-used; Caesar knew tobacco could play the soil out. But it seemed odd that Washington and others were trying to drain the Great Swamp while there was good ground like this right near the coast. It didn’t stand to reason. The red earth showed through the early fall stubble of browned grass and weeds shot through with the stillvibrant green of autumn thistle. He followed the deer by watch
ing the ground, sometimes confirmed by bent grass and the occasional deep mark in the soft soil.

  The deer had stopped suddenly; that much was plain. Caesar thought he knew why and in a moment the smell of blood and ordure made it obvious. Someone else had killed the deer, right here. Caesar suddenly felt hunted himself, down in the low ground between two ridges, and he was stooped to the ground in the dry grass before he had given it any thought. Jim flattened out beside him.

  “I smell smoke.”

  Caesar had scented something several times, well away to the north, carried on the wind. He wouldn’t call it smoke, just yet.

  “I smell something, right enough.”

  “Someone else killed our deer.”

  “Like the man who owns the ground. Shush now.”

  He lay still for a while as the morning passed away toward noon, and nothing seemed to move. He felt hunted, and he couldn’t lose the feeling. He had checked his priming too many times. He had to move, although his instincts were to lie low.

  Or were they telling him that the threat was to the camp? He was suddenly haunted by the image of the slave-takers appearing during his fever. He couldn’t let that happen again. He raised his head, and a little eddy of breeze brought him another smell of fire.

  “Somethin’ burnin’.” He nodded over the ridge. “We got to know. Stay quiet.”

  He moved as quickly as he could over the rest of the autumn grass to the base of the ridge and started up it, his heart easier with cover over his head and his back. It was pure panic that led him to worry about Tom and Virgil; no one could have got round him and Jim, leastwise not with enough men to take his friends. He climbed up the ridge, his legs pumping him over fallen timber, his footsteps light on the leaves and broken branches. Jim was just as quiet. When they crested the hill, they saw a line of fires off west, less than a mile away and mostly showing as smoke in the afternoon light. Beyond the line of fires was a low ridge with cabins, tents, and brush huts, and another line of fires. As far as they could see at the distance, there were no patrols.

  “Is that the governor’s army?” asked Jim. He sounded eager.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t see no red coats.” It struck Caesar then that if the governor had enough redcoats, he wasn’t going to need black soldiers.

  “We need to get closer.” The ridge gave an excellent vantage point of the ground to the north, and Caesar saw another, several miles away and even higher. He crept back away from the opening he had used to look north and across the summit to the south side, where he could clearly see the little creek and the small ridge where Tom and Virgil were. Then he looked out to the east, where the ground was broken by patches of cultivated land and woods. He slipped back into the cover on the north slope and lay there for almost half an hour, watching the sun angle change and the movement in the distant camp. Men came on horseback, and tiny figures moved about, although no one seemed particularly on guard.

  At his feet, a tiny watercourse ran into some low ground to the northwest. Beyond that, across a few hundred yards of muddy fields, was a patch of woods, the woodlot of a small cabin well off to the west.

  “Jim, you go on back to the boys and tell them to be ready to move. We’ll be going hard tonight and there won’t be no food unless they gets it themselves.”

  Jim nodded soberly.

  “I think that’s the militia, a whole army of slave-takers.” He nodded his head. “Gon’ make sure, and meet you back to camp.”

  “I could come with you.”

  Caesar smiled. He suspected that Jim could do this better than he could himself, but he couldn’t order a boy to do something like that, because Jim would do it in a flash, with no thought to the consequences.

  “You could,” said Caesar, and smiled broadly, to show that he understood the boy’s point. “But you ain’t.”

  He moved briskly enough down the face of the ridge and into the muddy rill of water. The brush along its bank was still green and gave good cover, but the muddy water was colder than he had expected. The bottom was mud and gravel, and as he approached the low marshy ground he found the creek bottom turned to pure mud. He sank in a hole so deep that it took him several moments and a great deal of thrashing to free himself. He crawled out into the night air, and the breeze cooled him more, so that his teeth chattered. Then he moved, crouched right down, around the marsh; he couldn’t stand to be any wetter, even if he risked detection. He crossed the open ground at a run and entered the trees with relief. Had he been more experienced in the ways of armies, he would have expected the militia to have a post in the wood to cover the rear of their camp, but his luck was in and his inexperience was shared by the summer soldiers in the camp. There was no post.

  Nonetheless, men were moving on the other side of the wood. Caesar lay silent for minutes, his body heat seeping away into the damp ground, before he crawled forward a little and realized that all the movement was that of men going to and from the downed trees along the northern edge of the wood that they used as latrines. That made him smile; men are seldom at their most alert when dealing with such fundamental issues.

  He crept closer. There were no sentries, but the conversation of two men using a latrine told Caesar that this was the encampment of Virginia militia. He gathered from their conversation that they had been digging trenches and that both wanted to be home getting their crops in. Mostly it was griping, little different from the daily staple of Virgil or Tom. But a third man, noisily settling himself on another downed tree, brought the real news; he had been with a patrol and seen the enemy camp—the governor’s camp—which he indicated was not too far to the north.

  Caesar had a long way to go to get back to his friends. He ran across the open field, slipping twice in the mud, running as much for the warmth as for the speed. He leapt the creek and headed straight up the ridge, pulling himself up the steep slope by grabbing the smooth trunks of smaller trees in the failing light. He paused at the top, half afraid, perhaps expecting Jim with bad news, or an ambush on his back trail. He was conscious that he was going back exactly the way he had set out, a serious mistake, but he didn’t know another way and didn’t want to waste the time finding one in the gathering gloom.

  Once down the other side, though, he felt free, and he was almost unwary as he began to cross the open ground to the south. The smell warned him just in time—the fresh smell of a dead animal. That deer carcass wasn’t too far away. Then he heard the movement and he froze, his fowler coming up to a line with his eye and pointed at the sound. He moved to his left, cautious now, his heart thumping away like horses’ hooves in his chest.

  Wolves or coyotes. Maybe dogs. They were all bad, if they caught you alone. And his one shot might not slow them, might just bring something worse, like militia. He kept walking off to his left, the fowler tracking the tearing, rending noises. It sounded like fiends from hell ripping bodies asunder—too many for one poor deer carcass. Caesar shivered again and moved a little quicker, back to the small creek and then up the side of the ridge he’d made camp on last night. He smelled fire and thought he smelled roasting meat, which made him suspicious. He was so worried that he crawled right up on them and listened for a minute to make sure that slave-takers hadn’t left an ambush for him, but it was just Virgil griping nervously to Jim about how late he was.

  He wanted to say something about the fire, but he was so cold that he needed it, and he was so relieved to see them that he wanted to hug them all. There, at the base of the last hill, with the wolves close, he had thought it might be some dreadful devil’s trick to let him hear how close they were to the governor’s army and then take his hope away. With warm tea in him and a blanket on his shoulders, he almost had to cry, but he covered it.

  “Governor’s army isn’t far, friends.” He looked around at them in the flickering light of the tiny fire. “We gon’ make it tonight, or we won’ make it at all.”

  They nodded. They could all see that wherever he had been, it had been a hard place�
�not just in the cold, but something in his face.

  “I got a rabbit,” said Jim.

  “How’d you do that?” asked Caesar. “I didn’t hear a shot.”

  “Damn thing walked into here bold as brass, just as the light started to go. Jim gets up nice and slow, then fzzt! And he’s off after the thing.”

  “Caught it, too,” said Virgil. “Never seen nobody catch a rabbit with their bare hands.”

  Jim drank in the teasing praise. “You said we needed food, an’ we’d have to catch it ourselves, so I did.”

  Caesar sucked the marrow out of a bone and shook his head.

  “Never seen nobody catch a rabbit with their bare hands,” said Virgil again.

  The moon was just rising when he started them north, even farther east than the night before. He aimed for the little ridge he had seen, but he wanted to make a big circle around the militia camp, going well east, and come back on his ridge. He had done such navigations in the swamp with mixed success, but the moonlight helped, as did the rabbit. By the time he had been moving for an hour, he was warm again. They were in the low ground where he had seen patches of cultivated land. He thought from the furrows that it was slave-cultivated, not tobacco but food. The slave cabins must be close but he hadn’t seen them and he guessed they must be further east, nestled up against an invisible plantation house. He kept moving, his little band right on his heels in Indian file.

  The rabbit was just a memory by dawn. The men had been on their feet for nine hours, and they had started short on sleep. They were done. The rising sun was at their backs, as Caesar had hoped, as they moved west, aiming for the slope of what he still thought was the ridge he had spied while he watched the militia camp. He led them quickly despite their fatigue; more and more he used speed to cross open spaces instead of stealth. When they were in among the trees on the ridge’s wooded slopes, he felt as safe as he permitted himself to feel.