Washington and Caesar

5

Head of Elk, Pennsylvania, April 6, 1776

Of all the drummers in the regiment, theirs beat the best assembly. He was the best at all the calls, which didn’t keep Bludner from hating him. He was standing in front of them now, beating the call to arms like an important man, and Bludner couldn’t abide it. The drummer was the captain’s pet. He turned his flare of temper on his men.

“You bastards going to take all day?” Sergeant Bludner watched the men fall in with something like contempt. “This ain’t the milishee any more, boys. This is the Continental Army. An’ we don’ jus’ fall in whenever we feel the urge.” He had the iron ramrod from his Brown Bess musket in his hand, and he used it viciously, cutting at the last man into the line. The man fell down.

“Jesus Gawd!” the man gasped.

“Get up! Get up before I hit you again.” The man climbed slowly to his feet and Bludner regarded them all with amusement.

“I’ll say this one more time, boys. We ain’t in the milishee no more. And when Captain Lawrence tells you to fall in, you fall in. You don’ dawdle around looking for food, or whatever you last few was doin’. Listen for the drum. That drum will tell you everything you need to know to keep me on your good side. You hear assembly, you jus’ drop what you’re doin’ an’ get here with your kit on an’ your musket clean.”

He looked over the company, mostly raised from men like himself and Weymes-back-country men, hard men. But a few were farmers’ sons from the Tidewater, and they resented his bullying. He didn’t care; they were fit, but they were soft, and he had to lick them into shape.

Bludner had served in Dunmore’s campaign against the Indians in ’74. He had a low opinion of militia at the best of times, and the politically charged militia who had come out to fight the British were the worst of the lot. Most of the men who had stayed to enlist in the Virginia Regiment and join the Continental Army were men to whom a steady job of soldiering came as financial advancement. The promise of land grants was too good to be missed. Everyone in Virginia knew someone who had been enriched by the land grants to the veterans of the last war. So most of the big talkers were gone, but a few lingered, and Bludner was watching them.

“Sergeant Bludner?”

“Sergeant McCoy. Your company, sir!”

McCoy nodded and Bludner walked back to his position on the left as the company’s junior sergeant. McCoy stood in front of them for a moment as if considering them.

“On the drum. Poise your firelocks!”

Beat.

It burned Bludner that they had to go through the motions to the nigger’s drum. He didn’t resent McCoy, who was a soldier, but he hated the appearance that the darky was giving orders.

They weren’t ragged. Every musket came up, and every eye was looking through his trigger guard at some invisible point in the distance.

“Rest your firelocks!”

Beat.

Almost crisp, the muskets sank to a position over the right knee, firmly grasped in both hands.

“Order your firelocks!”

Beat.

Every musket was brought down to the ground next to the owner’s right foot, held upright by his right hand. Sergeant McCoy had served in various armies since he was a very small boy; he had seen both better and worse. They were lucky to have such a fine drummer. It gave the men an advantage that they already knew how to follow the drum, because in battle the drum would still sound when all the voices were shouted out. He needed powder and ball to get much further. That, and time to drill with the rest of the battalion. McCoy executed a sharp about-face, glanced up and down to see if the other senior sergeants were in line, and took off his hat to indicate that his company was ready. Throughout the battalion, the same orders were repeated. Some sergeants walked along the ranks inspecting the men, while others simply talked to their men, made jokes, or stood silent. No two companies were commanded the same way.

When they were all ready, the adjutant, a small man with livid smallpox scars, called the regiment to attention.

“Fall in the officers!”

A long line of the regiment’s officers marched on to the parade. Captain Lawrence marched stiffly up to Sergeant McCoy, now posted on the right of the company. Lawrence seemed inconvenienced by the spontoon he now carried at the commander’s insistence, a weapon like a spear with a six-foot haft and a short spear blade and crossbar. McCoy fell back a step and Lawrence stepped into his place. Off to the center of the regiment, the adjutant passed command over to the colonel, who saluted him with his sword.

At the other end of the company, Sergeant Bludner was allowing his body to run like an automaton; his mind was elsewhere. While the colonel addressed them on the seeds of tyranny and love of liberty, Sergeant Bludner was examining the Captain’s drummer, and seriously considering how to seize him before they marched into Philadelphia.

Because on the docks in Philadelphia, he’d fetch them a pretty penny.

Near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 5, 1776

George Lake wanted to whistle along with the fifers, his heart was so high as they marched through Philadelphia. The regiment looked splendid, in good brown coats and new breeches, all of Russian linen that wore like iron. Their hats were already showing the signs of shoddy workmanship and poor edging. George had made his share of hats as an apprentice, and his own was stiff with shellac and as fine as any regular’s, as well as possessing the fine quality of shedding water. And George had a white mohair knot on his shoulder, indicating that he was a corporal in the Virginia Regiment, and hence in the Continental Army. He’d obtained the knot only because he could read and write, but he’d held it fair and square, though there were other men with more experience.

His company looked well, and they marched well, too, thanks to the drummer. Although more than half the men were back-country hicks who were fighting only for the pay, the other half were men of conviction, who had read all the letters from the Continental Congress and felt honored to be allowed to stand up for their colony and their conscience. George was honest enough to admit that the back-country men were harder, tougher on the long marches coming north, and stronger in the daily camp fights, but the younger men were coming along, and George thought they’d have the edge when it came to battle.

He’d heard a great deal about battle from the older men. Some had fought Indians in the West, although that seemed neither here nor there. McCoy had fought in Europe and been in a real battle. Simmons, another older man, had been all the way to Fort Pitt in the last war, and though he’d never come to grips with the French, he knew his way around the camp like the other veterans. But all the veterans agreed that it was no easy thing to stand and receive the enemy’s fire, the great crashing volleys that sent thousands of musket balls whirling about your ears. And it was there, where it came to standing your ground, that George felt the younger men had an advantage. They believed. They wanted their liberty with a passion, and that liberty had some very concrete meaning. Other men might fight for rations, comrades, or a land grant in the Ohio country. They might stand the enemy’s fire, or they might not. But the true believers would be there until the end; of that George was sure.

George could see the second platoon sergeant, Bludner, slightly out of place as he always was on the march. Sergeants had their spot in the line, marching even with the front rank and just to the right of the rightmost man, and Bludner was never quite there, as if he wouldn’t quite admit he belonged to the regiment despite his rank. He tended to carry his weapon, one of the company’s few rifles, in the crook of his arm instead of at his shoulder or at the advance like the other sergeants in the regiment. But Captain Lawrence seemed to tolerate him, despite the fact that even now he wasn’t in step. George had heard him tell his men that “marching in step is taking orders from the Negro.” It made George wild. He’d never seen much of black men, working in a trade as an apprentice until his master went broke and headed west, but Noah was the company’s pride, the best drummer in the regiment, and he made them look better in the drill.

Bludner enforced discipline with a cheerful violence that Lake hated. He didn’t want the Continental Army run by bullies like the despotic British, but an army of men of conviction who didn’t need petty tyrants to beat them into line. Lake was determined to outshine Bludner. He wanted Bludner’s type out of the army, and he wasn’t alone. As the true believers hardened their muscles, they also became firmer in their convictions: the old ways had to go; there could be no compromise with the king; America must be free and independent. He had heard the rumors that the Congress intended such a declaration, and it raised his heart to think that soon they would not just be defending their liberties but taking the cause of liberty to the enemy.

He looked across the front of his rank. Tanner was inching up and just out of rhythm, although not quite out of step. He prodded the man with his eyes until Tanner caught the signal and adjusted himself, and then they were entering the main concourse of the city of Philadelphia, and the cheering began. Lake knew from the meetings in camp that many of the inhabitants were Tories or worse, or Quakers who wouldn’t fight for the cause. But he saw many a pretty face under black bonnets in the crowd, and many in caps as smart as anything he had seen in Williamsburg. Philadelphia was the largest city he had ever been to, and he was finally seeing the world.

He tried not to turn his head to watch the crowd, but he did from time to time and what he saw always pleased him: men cheering lustily, and women waving and yelling with shrill, clear voices. They halted several times, not from purpose but because the long column of companies regularly jammed when an inept officer timed his wheeling motion badly, or just because of the different marching rates of all the battalions. When they halted, men and women would come out and offer the troops bread or beer.

Near the City Tavern, in the prosperous heart of the city, they halted in the sun for so long that men were calling out to Captain Lawrence asking if they could fall out. Tanner took his tinderbox from his coat and lit a pipe, which the men passed around while Lake glowered.

A very young girl, barely old enough to be thought a “young lady”, came out to them from a fine brick house with a stone pitcher of milk. Another older woman in an apron followed with another pitcher, and they began to serve it to the men. One of Bludner’s men laughed.

“I thought all you Phillydelps was Tories or Quakers.”

The older woman stopped and glared at him. “I think it no shame to say that I remain loyal to the king. He has some poor ministers, that I’ll allow, and no man serving this province should stand in the sun in front of my house without a drink. But if you want to argue politics, lad, then you can just hand me back my pitcher.”

The man looked shamefaced, then he laughed along when he was jeered by the others.

George smiled at the pretty girl. “That your ma?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes cast down. Close up, she was a little older than he had thought, perhaps fourteen or fifteen. She wore a printed cotton gown from England that would have cost him a year’s wage and he grew shy.

“She put him in his place,” George said, at a loss for anything better. She looked up from under her cap, and he saw her eyes were dark blue, with a sparkle he’d not seen before. She smiled impishly.

Tanner jogged his elbow. “Don’t keep her for yourself, George,” he said.

Ahead of them, the column was moving again, and George regretted it, although this little sprig of a girl was three years his junior and several classes above him.

“Betsy, is your jug empty?” asked the older woman, coming up George’s file. George handed the jug back to Betsy, aware suddenly that he must be wearing milk on his mouth like a fool. She smiled as he wiped it off, and gave him a little wave when they marched. And then they were gone.

Sally’s Neck, Virginia, May 18, 1776

Jim was gaining weight, and the Ethiopians had their women back. Caesar thought that the two might be connected. Virgil took sick soon after he saw Sally coming up from the boat-went down, lay sick, and then began to mend on his own. He was the last man in the company to go down.

It seemed odd, now, because after Long Tom’s death they had all taken for granted that Jim would die, too, but he didn’t. For a month, he just lay there, neither alive nor dead. Jim just lay sick, a sickness that seemed endless, and there were men in the ranks who knew their drill and had never known him except as a sick man. Caesar knew that Sally had nursed him, brought him treats and both food and wine from the officers’ table. Caesar knew that she lived with Captain Edgerton and made no secret of it. Her nursing, both of Virgil and then of Jim, won her some grudging praise within the ranks, but she wasn’t liked by the men, especially those with wives of their own. She was the only unmarried black woman and she was loose. Many thought it brought them all down.

Caesar went every evening to see his sergeant and get a lesson. Back in the winter he had helped the other men build a cabin for Peters and his wife, and later they had built cabins for every mess, until their billets were better provided than the marines or the Fourteenth. Peters kept him at reading, and writing, and started him on basic mathematics. None of it was pleasant for Caesar, to whom learning came late and seldom without pain. But he wouldn’t let it go.

Mrs. Peters, once installed, was an education in herself. Alone of the married women, she spoke well of Sally and had her in the cabin sometimes, sewing or speaking softly in the fire corner while Caesar and Sergeant Peters sat at the desk by the door. When Sally was not about, and her name came up for censure, Mrs. Peters would simply look over her sewing and say that some people had to find their own way, or that uncommon looks weren’t always a blessing. It was always said in a tone that reduced a corporal’s or private’s wife to silence.

As the weeks of inaction stretched to months, Caesar’s grasp of reading went from ignorance, through frustration, to accomplishment. And once accomplished, he wanted to use it as a key to unlock all the things he didn’t understand. But the foremost thing that interested him was the origin of his name, and on that head Sergeant Peters could give him immediate satisfaction. They began to read together through Colonel Bladen’s C. Julius Caesar’s Commentaries of his Wars in Gaul, which Peters had, bound in vellum. It was difficult going, both in style and content, and Caesar began to see patterns in Peters’s speech that were affected from this very book, which interested him. He also learned that the original Julius Caesar had another name-Caius. And that Caesar understood something about war, and spoke of it with a detachment that he had never experienced in a warrior.

And that Caesar sold slaves by the thousand.

No night with the Peterses passed without discussion, or even argument, because the matter buried in C. Julius Caesar’s Commentaries of his Wars in Gaul was too important not to be argued. And sometimes Sally, or another woman, would be there, or Virgil, when he started to mend, lying on their good bed and listening. Virgil was too quiet a man to contribute when he had so little to say, but the quality of his silence always suggested that he took a great deal away with him.

It was after one of these evenings that Caesar emerged to the first rattlings of the night drum, paid his respects from the doorway, and started back down the line to his own hordled tent only to hear an argument in progress in the next street-Mr. Robinson’s company. Caesar crossed his street of tents and then walked between two of them into the Robinson company street, where he found that Mr. Robinson himself and Captain Honey were the combatants. Caesar stopped dead. They were both obviously the worse for liquor and cared nothing that their voices could be heard throughout the street.

“If we use your black savages to fight this war, we will be dishonored! This is a white man’s war, a war of ideas. These primitives have no place in it.” Honey was drunkenly adamant, almost pleading for Robinson to understand.

“There’s no moral difference between using them to dig your ditches and using them to fight, Captain. But I’ll leave that argument aside, because I can see that moral philosophy holds no interest for you.”

“What do you mean by that, then? I can take moral philosophy as well as the next man, I think.”

“You cannot, Captain Honey. You are a slaver and your family is all Bristol blackbirders, and you stand condemned as such. You cannot bear the weight of reasoned morality.”

“You sneer at the trade? When it is the lifeblood of England’s riches? When six in ten of our ships carry goods for the trade? When seven in ten of every yard of cloth we produce goes to Africa? Where will we replace that? In the palm oil trade? Who will work the plantations in the Indies? No white man would stoop so low, and even if he would, his body wouldn’t last the labor.”

“I find your ‘trade’ so iniquitous that rather than suffer it, I sold my plantation. Rather than suffer it, I lost my fortune. And now, moved by the hypocrisy of those who live off that trade ranting about ‘freedom from tyranny’, I find myself at war with all my former acquaintance.” Robinson didn’t slur a word, but his face was bright red, even in the light of the lantern he carried, and his tone carried a vehemence that belied his usual manner.

Heads were coming out of tents and cabins. Honey was not on friendly ground. He was in the Loyal Ethiopian lines, and the next street held the Fourteenth, where he was scarcely more popular. Caesar knew that the two men were far enough gone that they were heading to violence, and he feared the effect on discipline that this argument would have. But he was also fascinated because the arguments about slavery and trade were among those that came up in Peters’s cabin.

“And you prove your love of these animals by living with them and fucking one!” Honey’s anger swelled by this thought, he stepped forward and raised his lantern. Robinson stood his ground so that they were standing nose to nose.

Robinson could hardly argue that it was not he but Mr. Edgerton who lived with a black woman, or that such cohabitation was common as common on the plantations. But he did resent Honey’s tone and his advance.

“Lower your lantern, sir.”

“I’m looking to see if your skin is really white.”

Caesar caught Robinson’s arm as he reached for his sword. Later, he wondered why Robinson had to react to the last as a mortal offense; he seemed to accept blacks totally, but then couldn’t accept being identified with them.

“Gentlemen. Your pardon, but the drummer has beat the night call and I must inspect the street, gentlemen.” Caesar kept his voice low and calm, willing them to move on to their separate quarters, to get his message and act on it.

Robinson started like a man coming awake and stepped back.

“Saved by your slaves, you cowardly bumpkin!” Honey, sure he had the situation in hand, glared.

“I cannot challenge you as you are my commanding officer,” said Robinson calmly. “But the moment you lose your authority over me, I’ll show you who is a coward, Captain. Good night.”

Robinson walked up the street to his own hut, quite steady. Honey stood for a moment, glaring, and then subsided, perhaps even embarrassed by his last outburst. He glared at Caesar, then began to stumble toward his lines. It occurred to Caesar to help him. Part of Caesar still admired the man for his skills as a soldier, but he couldn’t bring himself to help the man back to his quarters, and he turned back to his own.

It had been a wonder to all of them that they had made it through the winter without contact with the rebels. The word in camp was that the rebel army had melted away after the battle at Great Bridge. It was an army composed entirely of militia, and they were farmers and shopkeepers and needed to be home. Nor did they have the discipline or the equipment to live out in the fields. And the winter had given Caesar a taste of the cost of such camps; the rations that had to be rowed ashore every day by the navy, the two little brigs kept moving constantly to bring supplies to them from somewhere far to the north. But as the spring began to turn the gray landscape back to green, the rebel army was recalled to its duty. The farmers were grudging, because it was time to plant. But they came.

A marine patrol encountered rebels beyond the creek, ending their isolation. Without any fighting, their outposts were called in. A large force of rebel militia began to dig trenches across the top of the peninsula. Two days later, the governor decided to withdraw his troops back to the boats.

Embarkation was orderly, and the navy did its usual workmanlike job of transporting several hundred soldiers and their wives and material from the small cantonment out to the waiting ships. The guns came off first, and the marines last.

The Loyal Ethiopians worked from dawn until dark, packing their equipment and then dismantling the lines they had dug with so much labor, hauling the cannon that had been landed from the ships, and loading the longboats. There was no time to drill, or talk, or learn to read. For two days, they labored every hour of daylight.

Virgil, back on his feet and almost healthy, managed to secrete several barrels of their tobacco among the military stores, ensuring a continued supply of cash. They were supposed to be paid as soldiers, but they hadn’t received pay since Williamsburg. The lack of hard coin was hardly limited to the black troops. Most men of the Fourteenth hadn’t seen their pay since the start of the campaign.

On Tuesday, the guns went into the boats, a piece of engineering that delighted Caesar, as he watched the sailors set up a spiderweb of ropes and hoist the guns off their cradles and crane them into the ships’ boats, one tube at a time. On Wednesday, they loaded the Fourteenth’s baggage and women, and on Thursday they loaded their own. The marines had no followers or women, and they loaded their own kits.

Friday morning dawned bright and calm, the sun already giving the promise of great heat in the first moments of dawn while the drummer beat. Caesar got his section up and in their jackets, and then marched them to the parade, where they met the other sections and formed their company. Gradually, all three of the companies formed up in the new light, and then Mr. Robinson led them down to the magazine, the last structure left in the cantonment, to take their arms and accoutrements. Two sentries from the marines were waiting for them, and they looked unhappy.

Their confrontation with Mr. Robinson was far to the front of their column, but the rumor filtered back to Caesar fast enough. No arms. They won’t give us our arms. Caesar heard Mr. Robinson quite clearly when he lost his temper.

“These are not slaves! These men are soldiers!”

And the sentry replied, “We have our orders.”

They stood for a while in the rising sun, and then Robinson marched them back to their own parade. It had a forlorn look, no longer surrounded by huts and tents. The tentage had been folded and packed out to the boats, and the huts knocked down, and their parade was just an open space in the middle of the wreckage of their camp. They all felt naked to be standing here without muskets-here, where every morning of the winter had seen them parade under arms and drill, even if the drill was followed by a day of labor. Robinson paced up and down in front of the three companies; Mr. Edgerton had already found a stool, sat upon it, and opened a book. Finally, Robinson called for the officers and sergeants. As Caesar was acting in lieu of a sergeant in Mr. Edgerton’s company, he moved forward hesitantly, but no one seemed to resent his presence.

Robinson spoke angrily. “I’m going to the governor. Mr. Edgerton, please do not take the men to the ships until this matter is resolved. Remember, there are other companies in our battalion, at other posts. We owe it to them to resolve this. I don’t need to tell you, gentlemen, that it will be very difficult to keep the men to their duty if we lose our arms. Frankly, it will be difficult to keep me to my duty. That is all. Have the men rest on the spot. I’d like them ready to move at a moment’s notice.”

And then he was gone.

An hour later, Caesar was sitting on a broken twelvepounder ammunition crate, sharing a smoke with Virgil. Caesar’s pipe was foul, and he thought he might start a small fire to rebake the pipe and burn it clean. He mentioned this to Virgil, who agreed enthusiastically.

“Won’t get another chance when we’re on board ship,” he said. “I heard we goin’ out for months.”

“I heard they’re sending us to Jamaica,” said Caesar. He shrugged. “I don’t want to go back to Jamaica, even less if I don’t have arms.”

“We wouldn’t stay free a minute,” agreed Virgil, already digging in his pack for his tinderbox. Caesar laid up a fire from the abundant scrap, and in a moment they had a small blaze. As soon as they had coals, other men came and placed their pipes in them. A few minutes in the coals would burn a clay pipe back to the chalky whiteness that meant it was clean and restore the taste. So absorbed had most of Edgerton’s company become in this ritual that they missed the first navy midshipman altogether. He came and demanded that the Loyal Ethiopians board their transports. Edgerton refused, pleading orders.

They all heard the second messenger. By this time, the only troops ashore were the Ethiopians and some marine pickets out beyond the former earthworks. There were rebels in the area, although they seemed as anxious to let the British and Loyalists leave as the former were to be gone. The second messenger was an older midshipman, blond and heavy set and glowing red in the heat. He towered over Edgerton, who would never have been called large.

“Sir, we must get your men aboard.”

“Sir, please inform your officer that I have orders from my superior that these men are not to march without their arms.”

“Your arms have already been moved from the magazine. It is not a navy matter. My captain assures you that once we are aboard ship the matter will be looked into.”

Edgerton held firm. Caesar was surprised. Edgerton had never seemed as firm in their cause, or in any cause for that matter, and that he now stood up to a growing queue of naval dignitaries raised the man in his estimation. But they all began to wonder at the absence of Mr. Robinson.

As the morning wore into afternoon and Caesar’s fire died and the pipes became cool enough to be enjoyed, the rank of the navy officers reached a new height when the captain of their vessel himself came ashore. He didn’t appear angry, though. He walked purposefully up to Edgerton and took him off to the side. Every man in the Ethiopians watched the exchange, although none could hear it. The captain spoke for a while, and Edgerton suddenly straightened as if struck or shot, then slumped. The impression of injury was so strong that several of the Ethiopians started forward but halted when they saw him shake his head and address the captain briefly. Then he bowed, wiped his eyes and moved slowly back to the men where they waited, defeat written on his features, and ordered the sergeants to have them fall in. The navy captain stood nearby, clearly unhappy. When the men were standing in their ranks, Edgerton looked them over, and when he spoke, his voice had aged.

“You are to march aboard the boats immediately. The navy doesn’t wish you to know, but to hell with that. Captain Honey has shot Mr. Robinson. They say it was a duel. Any rate, we are to go to a different ship lest there be a ‘difference of opinion’.”

Sergeant Peters spoke up strongly from his place at the right of his company.

“How is Mr. Robinson? Sir?”

Edgerton looked at him, his eyes red from tears held back. He looked older, a broken man in middle age.

“He’s dead. Now get them moving.”

Philadelphia, late May 1776

Weymes held back, the lantern under his watch coat, an enveloping garment provided by the grateful ladies of Williamsburg. Bludner stood in his sergeant’s uniform at the edge of the parade, his arms crossed, the picture of impatience. The camp was dark; the last drum call had sounded. Weymes had to strain to see Bludner, but eventually the man nodded to him, and Weymes began to pick his way through the camp, counting tents and brush huts until he came to the one where their fifers and drummers lay. It was a cunning work of layered brush and added thatch, both warm and dry but a refuge for every mosquito in the camp, even on a night as chill as this. He tugged at the wool blanket that hung across the entrance.

“Noah?” He mimicked McCoy’s Irish accent. “Yer wanted on the parade, my lad.” He kept his voice low, to make the disguise work the better, and as soon as he heard a response and movement from the hut, he pulled the watch coat around him and, lantern visible, began to walk back to the parade. Decoying blacks had long been part of his trade; he was almost pleased to be doing something more useful than shouldering a musket.

He looked back once, to see that Noah was close behind. It wouldn’t really matter now if the boy identified him; it was important that the other musicians remember McCoy coming to the tent, not he or Bludner. Weymes didn’t understand the plan, but it didn’t trouble him. Bludner tended to make large plans and Weymes knew he need only play his parts to get his share of the reward.

As he passed out of the streets of tents and wigwams and on to the parade, the boy caught up with him.

“Wait, suh! I need ma’ drum!”

“Not where you’re going, my lad!” said Bludner, and clamped a huge hand over his mouth. The boy tried to fight, squirming and scratching until Bludner pulled him close and hit him almost gently, just behind the ear.

Weymes held the sack while Bludner dropped him in. They hoisted it, and were out of the camp in a minute. The night was hardly even old before they passed the lines of sentries, and the buyer was waiting in the old apple orchard by the river, just as he had said. He opened the sack and ran his hands over the boy, inside his mouth and over his teeth and gums, then over all his limbs-nothing sensual, just the rough touch of the horse trader.

The buyer looked happy. “Just as you said, gentlemen. Did he put up much of a fight?”

“He took it ‘ard. They always do, the poor beggars. But he’ll be happier when he’s back to real work. They’re bred to slavery. Freedom don’ suit them.”

“Right, then. Here’s the price as agreed.”

Bludner counted the money. Spanish dollars and some English silver, well over ten pounds English, and hard currency.

“You’re a real gen’leman, sir. A fine price. I think I must add that it wouln’ be fair for you to sport this lad around ‘ere for a while. The company would know ‘im if they saw ‘im.”

The other man laughed, a hard laugh that might have touched Weymes if he’d been alone.

“He’ll be in the Indies in five weeks, given a fair wind. Good night, then.” He hoisted the bag and headed off toward the city. They split the money there, and Bludner repeated their story until Weymes had it right. They knew the game.

In an hour, they were asleep in their straw.

George Lake never really believed that McCoy had anything to do with the disappearance of Noah, but most of the men did, although the true believers muttered that Bludner had been a slave-taker and that once a man had fallen so low he was there forever. George never quite figured what Captain Lawrence thought; he never mixed with the men, and after Noah vanished he seemed harder than ever. The other drummers insisted that McCoy had called Noah to the parade at night, which he sometimes did when he wanted to practice an alarm. McCoy repeated to anyone who would listen that he had never called the black boy, that he was innocent, that the whole company was hurt by the loss.

It was the wonder of a few days, and much discussed. Bludner beat a man very badly for suggesting that he had been involved, but didn’t bother to hide his satisfaction that the boy was gone.

“He made us look low,” was Bludner’s response to any suggestion that the boy had been valuable.

The other drummer was passable, although he did tend to mix his signals when he got flustered. His sticking was good enough, and he started training a young soldier from Lake’s own section. For two weeks, their marching suffered, as the new drummer beat his drum a little too slow or a little too fast, throwing the men off in one evolution or another and forcing an angry Captain Lawrence to demand that the drummer stay silent so that the men could perform their maneuvers.

The aftermath of the boy’s loss split the company even more deeply. Bludner blamed the new drummer for being “unfit, like all these soft boys”, and the true believers rallied behind their own and suspected that Bludner had shown his colors and taken the boy. Fights got worse, and McCoy had suddenly lost the authority to deal with them. Too many still suspected him, and someone had whispered that he blamed Bludner to cover his own guilt. It was an ugly time.

But rumors that the British were moving on New York City began to drown the concerns of their company, and by early June, when they were issued with ball ammunition and three days’ rations for a march, it became clear that they were going north. No one knew where the British would land, or whether there would be a fight, but at last they were leaving Philadelphia. They didn’t march so well, and Captain Lawrence never seemed to be pleased, but they were done with the camp and going to the war.