Washington and Caesar

1

Morristown, Pennsylvania, April 5, 1777

George Lake was on his last days with the company. Spring was bringing changes throughout the army, as had the victories at Trenton and Princeton. Princeton was a confused memory, hazier than the brief fight in the streets of Trenton. It had not felt like a victory until the last moments, when the British line wavered and fell back, leaving the Continentals the field and a clear route back to their own side of the river. But the victories were a tonic, and when the enlistments ran out more men stayed than George had ever hoped. Most of the men who stayed now felt that they would win the war, and the veterans had something that they had lacked before, a steady confidence in their movements and their drill.

One of the changes was that George was being promoted. He was leaving the rank of sergeant and moving up to be an officer in another company, the new light infantry company, supposedly composed of the best men in his regiment. He had watched the men being chosen and was aware that the new company had more than its share of awkward men, new recruits, and lazy men the other companies didn’t want, but he also noted that it would have the highest proportion of true believers, young men from trades and farms who had a stake in the new nation, and that meant something.

He had two days left until his promotion became official, and in those days he was the odd man out, with a new tent all to himself and new equipment to find, and he sat on the fresh straw over boards that made the floor of his tent and mended his ragged uniform. In the street outside, Bludner was preaching to his platoon.

Bludner sounded a little too pleased with himself. George Lake told himself not to care-he was on his last days in the company and Bludner’s opinion of him no longer mattered. But old habits die hard, they say, and he waited his time as the man went on with his bombast to his cronies, pulling on an old coat that wouldn’t mind the April mud. The rain had stopped for the first time in days.

“…found some of my property, gone missing on its legs, as it were. I hope you gentlemen take mah meanin’.”

George couldn’t help but hear him. Now that they had proper tents, everyone could hear everything that was said in their company street. He opened the hooks and eyes on his own and stooped out, passing his sword belt over his shoulder as he did so.

It pained George to see the eagerness with which some of Bludner’s men received his words. The divide between the true believers and the backwoodsmen was, if anything, deeper in the new drafts. Too many of the recruits were landless men, or laborers, serving for the land grants promised. Too few were young men from families or from trades. The war is using up our patriotism, he thought. It is going on too long. He felt it himself. He limped a little as he made his way over to the circle of men around Bludner.

“…nice piece, a black piece I mean to recover when this is over. An’ she can tell us a thing or two about what them lobsters is up to in New York. She’ll be scare’t of me from here!” He laughed at the thought, an ugly sound.

George Lake stopped by the edge of the group and stood silent with his hand on his hip.

“Why, lookee here, boys. It’s the new officer of the light company.” Bludner’s sneer was all too obvious. George thought the man looked a little drunk.

“Sergeant Bludner?” George spoke quietly. His voice was steady.

“Frien’ o’ mine jus’ got free from New York. He saw one o’ mah slaves there. An’ he says that the Jerseys is full o’ free blacks jus’ waitin’ for us to take them. Now that don’ interest Mr. Lake, here. He wants to protect them niggers, don’ you, Mister Lake?”

Bludner was looking for a fight, spoiling for it as he had been since the news of George’s promotion came down from the regiment. George was ready to give it to him, but wanted the man to make the fight himself. George could watch Bludner looking for a means to be offensive.

“Did you ever own a slave, Sergeant Bludner?” George knew that Bludner always claimed he had, but as he had never owned any land, George couldn’t see why.

“I owned a couple, yes. More ’an you, boy.”

George stepped toward him. “How did you come to own slaves when you didn’t own any land?” George was getting angry. He wasn’t even sure why he was angry, but the anger was growing in him. Perhaps it was the term boy. Perhaps it was just two years of steady abuse. “Was you a pimp, Bludner?” he asked, stepping in close.

Sometimes a chance remark touches a nerve. Perhaps someone else had once made the comparison, some time in the past, but Bludner was all rage, a blur of fists coming at George. Except that George had been ready since he left his tent.

He took the first blows on his arms and retaliated, hitting Bludner twice in the face, snapping his head back. Bludner was relentless, pounding away at his arms, slipping blows through into his chest and belly through perseverance and rage, but George hung on, punishing his man with punches to the head. Bludner tried to close and George leapt back, bent low and lunged like a fencer, smashing his left fist into Bludner’s throat and putting him down. As Bludner started to rise, George smashed him in the crotch with a kick, and then another to his head. He was breathing as if he had run a race. Bludner lay in the mud, spasming like a slaughtered lamb, his eyes open and blind.

George stumbled back and looked at the ring of men, some frightened and some deeply inimical. He stood straight, covering his panting, trying to be like the gentlemen officers he had seen. His voice was remarkably like Washington’s when he spoke, steady, commanding. “Clean him up and see he’s on parade,” he said, and walked through the circle. He felt cleaner.

George needed to get clear of the camp, clear of Bludner and the divided loyalties of the men. He decided to take his few shillings and his loot from Trenton into the city of Philadelphia and get himself some new shirts and a decent set of clothes, so that he could start life as an officer looking like one. He had no horse and no friend who owned one, so he walked out through the camp, got the password for the day at the adjutant’s tent, and made his way past the quarterguard and up to the head of the camp and the sentry line, where he showed his pass and started for Philadelphia, three miles away.

It was fast becoming a beautiful spring day, crisp enough to take the sting out of his knuckles and warm enough that he was never uncomfortable, although his right foot was nearly naked in a split shoe. What he wanted more than anything was a good pair of boots. He went over his loot in his mind: two big silver watches, ten silver thalers with Marie-Therese’s bust on the front, a silver mounted pistol and a telescope. He coveted the telescope, because it was so useful, but he had no place to stow or carry it comfortably, and knew that it would fetch too good a price to allow him to keep it.

Deciding to sell his loot was easier than finding a place to do so. After he had visited several small shops where he was treated as a tramp or possibly a deserter, he found that he was in the middle of town near the City Tavern with no idea where he should go. He looked up the broad street, angry at being made a pariah in the capital he was fighting to protect.

“That’s how my cat looks when he’s planning to bite me,” said a woman.

George turned and found himself looking at the girl who had brought the milk so many months before at this very corner. Her mother was standing beside her, smiling.

“Is that the best General Washington can do to keep you poor boys?” asked the older woman. “You didn’t look like such a scarecrow in the summer.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” He was sorry. He was standing on a prosperous corner in the center of the city, bringing the army into disrepute by his very presence. He looked too poor to be a private, much less…

“You’ve been promoted!” The girl actually hopped, despite her petticoats and her fur-lined Brunswick. George thought the girl’s jacket was worth more than everything he owned. It looked warm. He wanted to hang his head, but he didn’t.

“I have, too,” he said modestly.

“What brings you here…Lieutenant?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He indicated his sash. “I am a lieutenant. I’m here to buy some clothes. And to sell a few things, too. But I can’t seem to find a place to do that.” He smiled at the girl. Betsy. Not that he dared use her name.

Her mother smiled. “I don’t think we introduced ourselves. I’m Mrs. Lovell. This is our daughter. We live just there, in the house with the roses.”

“I am Lieutenant Lake, ma’am.” George wondered at the power of his new rank. The word lieutenant had visibly changed the woman’s demeanor. “Miss,” he continued, bobbing his head at Miss Lovell. “Of the light company of the Third Virginia.”

“Our pleasure, sir.” Mrs. Lovell gave him a level stare. “I won’t pretend to hold with Congress or Mr. Washington’s war, though such views aren’t popular here. My family is Scots. But you seem a decent young man, Lieutenant. It is a sad civil war that would keep us from being civil.”

George bowed. In a year, he had learned that answering was not always the thing. Tempted as he was to defend his patriotism, Mrs. Lovell’s steady gaze made him feel that this was not a conflict he would win.

“As to selling things, I don’t think I’ve been to such an establishment in some time.” She didn’t sniff, as George had thought she might. Instead she gave a smile, as if she knew a secret. “But I might go to Dodd’s, on the Lancaster Road, if I wanted to sell a few things at a good price. You may say that Esther Ogilvy sent you.”

She smiled in secret satisfaction and Miss Lovell looked at him in a way he found very pleasing. He made his bows to both of them and hoped he might renew his acquaintance on a later visit, a turn of phrase he had learned from watching the officers in his regiment. Mrs. Lovell hesitated, and then smiled.

“Of course, Lieutenant,” she said, and they parted.

Miss Lovell’s face remained before his eyes as he walked the muddy mile of the Lancaster Road to Dodd’s. The clerk behind the counter barely spared him a glance.

“I was told to say that Esther Ogilvy sent me,” he said, eyeing the beautiful fabrics behind the counter and wondering if his walk had been for nothing.

An older man with lank gray hair pushed past the clerk and came out into the store. “Did she now?” he asked, grimly. “What’s she called, lad?”

“Mrs. Lovell.”

“Well, that’s true enough, soldier. An’ you’ve a few things to sell?”

George didn’t need a second invitation. He laid the watches, the pistol and the telescope on the counter. The clerk reached for the telescope and Mr. Dodd (if it was indeed he) rapped the younger man sharply on the knuckles.

“That’s a Dollond,” Dodd said after he’d tried it. “And it works. May I ask how you came by it?”

“The German officer who owned it gave it to me,” said George easily. “I confess that I didn’t offer him a great deal of choice, but such affairs are accepted in war.”

“Oh, yes. She’s a beauty, though. I shouldn’t say that, but ’tis true. I’d go to ten guineas real money for the telescope.”

George gasped. He’d expected less than that for everything.

“Two guineas for the pistol. It’s good work, but guns are easy here. The watches? Well, they’re Dutch, not as good as English either way. I’ll let you have a guinea apiece.”

George nodded. He suspected he should bargain, but it wasn’t in him. He’d have boots and good breeches and even a coat. He might visit Mrs. Lovell and her Loyalist house yet.

“I’ll keep a watch for myself, then,” he said, and picked up the smaller of the two.

Dodd shook his head. “I’d like you to try to bargain, at least, for the form of the thing. Otherwise, I’ll know I offered too much and I’ll kick myself all day.”

George rubbed his chin, eager to get the money.

“Throw in a watch fob, then.”

Dodd nodded. “That will have to do. Stillwell, count out the money. I take it you want it in hard money? I’d offer more in Continental.”

“Thanks,” said George with a broad grin. “But we get paid in paper, an’ we know just what it’s worth.”

New York, April 12, 1777

John Julius Stewart had learned to dance. He couldn’t dance well, or gracefully, but it scarcely mattered. He could stand up with a woman at a subscription ball or a small set in a private house, and although the act might not give her great pleasure, it was an improvement on a lifetime of mumbled apologies. He danced regularly with Miss Hammond, whom he could now look in the eye, and who tended to tell him the truth of his shortcomings as a dancer; and he could dance with her sister, Miss Poppy, who would prattle about cats and paintings and had he seen the new house being put up on Queen Street? And he could dance with whatever offered on afternoons in the black taverns. He could watch Sally smile with delight every time they completed a set together. It didn’t happen often, as there were few places he would go with her, but late at the tavern he would sometimes fight his way through an easy country dance while the musicians played on and on to please her.

And then, as spring came, something happened to change her. She became morose and easily angered, listless in a wooden way, and was drunk nearly every time he came to her. Stewart was sufficiently taken with her to care, but he had never fancied himself her sole supporter.

He found himself making excuses to shun her. He told himself that he shouldn’t see her anyway. He spent more time drilling the Black Guides. He was busy enough with shaping the new draft of recruits from England for his own company and seeing that every man in his company had their new equipment and all their clothes that he didn’t have time to see her every day. It was the busiest time of year for a company commander. Every spring the army issued new clothes, new equipment to bring the army back up to the mark. The work took him out to the lines north of the city and kept him from Sally anyway.

But when business sent him back to headquarters for the day, as it did when he had to complain to the regimental agent about the quality of shoes he had received, he still preferred to come to the Moor’s Head. Many of the officers in New York did. The music was better, and louder, and the food the best on the island. Jeremy made it plain to him that he preferred to visit the place. It had a rare air to it, with soldiers and sailors and officers, blacks and whites and the occasional Indian all intermingled in the same rooms.

He often tried to meet Simcoe at the Moor’s Head. Simcoe had grown to be his particular friend since the fall. They planned the future of the war together, bemoaned the defeats at Trenton and Princeton together, and wrote letters to each other. Simcoe’s company was in the Jerseys, too far for daily conversation, but they corresponded as often as practicable. Soldiers of the Black Guides, who watched over the frequent convoys, often carried their letters.

Stewart was dancing with Mrs. Innes, the handsome sharp-faced woman whose husband was something in the commissary. He was conscious that he had a letter from Miss McLean in his pocket, and that his attention was focused on Sally, who was drunk, and Jeremy, who was attempting to restrain her. He could tell that he was not amusing Mrs. Innes, who clearly expected better of him. He was frustrated, and angry, and felt the weight of layers of his own sins in a way that seems to be the exclusive preserve of the Scots. He saw Simcoe in the doorway and sighed with something like relief, a sound that did not escape his partner.

“Somehow, Captain, I don’t think I have your full attention.” Mrs. Innes giggled and tapped him lightly with her fan. She was unsure herself how much raillery was acceptable with a man so much older. He bowed to her.

“Pray, madam, will you excuse me for a few moments?”

“I cannot promise I will not have gone elsewhere for my dance, Captain,” she said. Stewart walked her over to Simcoe, who was just in the process of handing off his dripping cloak to a maid.

“Captain Simcoe?”

“Your servant, Captain Stewart.”

“And yours, sir. Have you met the lovely Mrs. Innes?” Stewart said, turning to introduce his partner. Captain Simcoe bowed over her hand. She giggled again, her least engaging habit. Simcoe didn’t come in any further, as he was still wearing boots caked in mud, and spurs.

“I have, too. She giggles. Otherwise, quite engaging. Your servant, ma’am.” Simcoe was wearing a green velvet coat and a double-breasted waistcoat, fine clothes for riding or for an evening in town. He got his gloves off and was still fumbling with his heavy riding boots when Jeremy appeared as if by magic with a bowl of water and a small boy who flung himself on the boots with gusto, pulling them off and carrying them away. Simcoe washed his hands.

“That boy is smaller than the boots,” said Mrs. Innes.

“Do you have a dry shirt, Captain Stewart?” Simcoe was embarrassed. “I lost my portmanteau somewhere on the road. Never saw it go. The buckle must have slipped.”

Jeremy nodded to Stewart. Stewart smiled at his friend. “I do. I have a room upstairs, if you’d like to change.”

“Your humble servant. Do you ever think, when you are out in the wet on a night like this, how close the comforts of New York are?”

“I do.”

“It’s a wonder every officer and man doesn’t desert the lines and come here, especially with such loveliness as these.” Simcoe waved at Mrs. Innes and her friend Miss Amanda Chew. Mrs. Innes giggled. Miss Chew made a face.

Jeremy led Simcoe upstairs. Stewart talked to Miss Chew for a moment, earning a glare from Mrs. Innes for deserting her. He spoke idly, trying to find Sally in the crowd on the other side of the room. It complicated their lives, that he couldn’t cross to her side of the room any more than she could seek him on his side. He told himself that he only wanted to know how she was.

Jeremy reappeared with Simcoe, who looked better for Jeremy’s attentions. Mrs. Innes made a motion to indicate that another dance was ready to start and she was impatient with her abandonment.

Stewart nodded, his attention on Jeremy, who was trying to communicate something.

“Perhaps Mrs. Innes would be kind enough to accept Captain Simcoe as a replacement while I am gone?” Stewart asked.

“And I suppose you expect me to relinquish this paragon the instant you reappear? Be warned, Captain. I am not an easy man to displace.” Simcoe, so often grave, was in high spirits.

Mrs. Innes giggled again, clearly delighted by his attention. Jeremy pulled lightly on Stewart’s arm.

“I’ll return to see which of us has the better claim, then, ma’am,” Stewart said, and followed Jeremy down a passage.

“What’s the hurry?”

“Sally is in a heap in your room. I managed to steer Captain Simcoe to another. I think she means herself a mischief.” Jeremy stopped and leaned in close to him, a hand up on the wall beside him. They were very much of a size, and their eyes were inches apart.

“You have more power over her than the rest of us, sir. Don’t tell me she means nothing to you.”

Stewart almost hit his head on the passage wall, he was so taken aback by the look of Jeremy, and his tone. He thought to resent it, but he couldn’t. He knew he had some sort of power over her, and he knew she liked him. The letter in his pocket made it all the worse. He suspected himself of the worst of motivations. He wondered if he had taken a black mistress because somehow that wouldn’t count so much with Mary as a white one. He hung his head a moment.

“She’s drunk and angry, sir. None of us knows why she’s this way. Caesar says he’s never seen her like this, and Caesar’s man Virgil is beside himself.”

Stewart suspected that his treatment of Sally would reflect in his relations with all of them. He shook his head, feeling as if he had just taken a series of blows. Then he straightened up.

“I’ll see what can be done, Jeremy. But she’s more a force of nature than a woman.”

Jeremy nodded. “I apologize for my tone, sir. I wanted you to see the gravity of the situation.” Stewart noted that Jeremy didn’t look particularly apologetic, and he wondered if his man had a tendresse of his own for Sally.

“Never mind, Jeremy. If a man can’t bear a reprimand from his manservant, he’s pretty far gone, I guess.” He walked down the passage to the room that Jeremy indicated, and went in.

It wasn’t the scene from hell he had expected. There were no visible signs of carnage, and Polly White was sitting quietly on the bed. She was reading in the firelight.

“I came to see her.” Stewart didn’t fully open the door.

“I’m glad, sir. If you allow, I’ll come for you when she wakes.”

“Polly, you’re a dear thing. Why is she so bad, of a sudden?”

Polly looked down at her book, as if it could answer his question. She took so long to answer that he thought perhaps she didn’t intend to speak.

“I don’ think it’s so sudden, sir. I think that she’s had a hard life, and sometimes it comes home to her. And I think that sometimes she wants a different life, and she can’t see how to get to it from where she is. My father says that great beauty in a woman can be a curse. I think it was, for her.” She looked at the woman on the bed.

Stewart thought she was going to say more, but she didn’t. He looked at the woman lying on the bed, and the woman sitting on the end of it, and shook his head.

“There’s truth in what you say, Miss White,” he said, somewhat moved. “Please send for me instantly when she wakes.”

“We’ll be off across New Jersey in a few weeks,” Simcoe said, rubbing his hands in front of the fire. “I expect the lights will be in the vanguard. We’re to clear the ground back down to the Delaware and reclaim some of the support we’ve lost since Washington’s victories in the winter.”

“And then on to Philadelphia?”

Simcoe looked around the tavern as if expecting to spot a spy. He lowered his voice.

“I wouldn’t expect it. There is a great deal going on at headquarters that is not what we might expect, if you take my meaning.”

Simcoe so seldom spoke in this manner that Stewart was puzzled to understand him.

“I can’t say that I do take your meaning, John.”

Simcoe actually pulled his chair closer.

“There was supposed to be a grand campaign, with Lord Howe marching north from New York and John Burgoyne, or perhaps Guy Carleton, taking an army south from Quebec, with the objective of taking Albany.”

“Albany!” Stewart rose to his feet and looked over the map until he found it, up the Hudson. “What the devil do we want with Albany?”

“The plan was that we would meet there, and split the northern colonies from the southern.”

Stewart grimaced. “That’s an armchair general’s plan. Something that Gentleman’s Magazine might suggest.”

“I believe Lord Howe is very much of your mind, John Julius. He has decided to let the northern army take Albany on their own, or perhaps with a little divertissement from General Clinton. He himself intends us for Philadelphia.”

“Just so.”

“By sea.”

Stewart sat back in his chair, struck dumb. All the way south to Virginia, into the mouth of the Chesapeake, up the Chesapeake to the Delaware.

“One pounce and we’re in his capital,” said Simcoe.

“That would be a bold stroke.”

“You see why the march through the Jerseys is nothing but a raid in force.”

“And I see the necessity. A bold feint that way will pin Washington in place while we go round by sea.”

Stewart raised his glass. “A glass of wine with you, then. Here’s to a long campaign and many promotions.”

Simcoe raised his and drank.

“You were supposed to have it for Christmas, but it wasn’t ready,” Polly said quietly, so as not to awake the sleeper. She handed Caesar a tiny bag of silk, tied off with a fine red ribbon.

“You gave me a silk roller at Christmas,” he said.

“I had to give you something, goose!” She rolled her eyes at the eternal blindness of men. He leaned in and kissed her quickly, before she could make an objection, but she didn’t resist in the least. They’d had a talk on the subject, and Caesar now knew where the boundaries that might lead to his ears being boxed lay. He did continue to test them, but warily, like a good soldier on patrol. The enemy sentries remained alert, however.

He motioned at Sally. Experience with Polly had taught him that he needed to honor her concern for the woman, although Sally was all one to Caesar-she drank, she made trouble, she was a memento from the swamp and had to be tolerated.

“She’s in a bad way, Julius,” she said.

“She will drink,” said Caesar, dubiously. Neither Polly nor her father was easily practiced upon, but Caesar rather thought that in this case the soldiers, not the priest, should keep Sally. He had wondered several times why Marcus White continued to help Sally when the relations brought him only gossip and trouble.

“No, it’s not just that, Julius. She was happy. I think Captain Stewart keeps her happy, though it’s wrong, of course.”

Caesar tried to hide a smile. “Does she love Mr. Stewart, do you think?”

“Don’t be a goose, Julius Caesar. She don’t love nobody. But she likes him. She taught him to dance. And then the other day this man came to her…”

“What man is that, then?” asked Caesar.

“An ill-looking thin white man. You know the sort, that look mean and pinched whether they will or no?”

Caesar nodded, staring at the rich red of the ribbon on his present.

“The man made her afraid. She won’t tell me why, but she hasn’t been the same since. She was shocking to my father, too.”

Caesar thought that Sally might be shocking to Marcus White in many different ways, but he kept his views to himself.

“Jeremy blames Captain Stewart,” Caesar said, feeling disloyal to both.

“Sally thought that Captain Stewart would take her in keeping, and not leave her at Mother Abbott’s,” said Polly, instantly destroying Caesar’s cherished notion that Polly didn’t really know what Sally did to earn her fine clothes and daily bread, or at least needed to be protected from the details. His surprise showed on his face.

“Oh, Julius Caesar, you can be so blind. Open your present, then.”

He pulled the bow apart teasingly, enjoying the feel of the satin ribbon and then rubbed it against her cheek.

“That’s all the present I need,” he said.

“If I wanted to listen to Jeremy’s compliments, I’d ask for them myself.”

He wanted to flare with anger, but the truth was that the line did belong to Jeremy. He looked at her, unsure how to react, but she kissed his hand and then the ribbon.

“Open it, then,” she said.

He opened the piece of silk and there was a ball of jeweler’s cotton. When he opened it out, there was a gleaming silver whistle on a plaited cord. He gave a startled sound, wordless.

“That’s beautiful,” he said, wishing to blow it immediately.

“It’s the shape of Captain Stewart’s, but it has a different note. Sally took his for a few days to get it right. And Virgil plaited the cord.”

Polly looked down demurely. Caesar kissed her and she responded vigorously. Her eyes half closed, which moved him. Then she ended the kiss, gently but firmly.

“Listen, will you? I need a favor.” She placed the bed and its sleeping occupant between them. Caesar laughed at her and she smiled back.

“What do you want, Polly?” She never asked him for anything, but made him shirts and gave him silver whistles.

“I need to borrow your drummer, Sam. I need him to run some errands for me.” Something about the manner of her asking made him a trifle suspicious, but he could hardly refuse. Sam ran everyone’s errands. His cherubic looks made him seem even younger than he really was, if you ignored his eyes.

“Thank you, Caesar,” she said, coming back around the bed.

Caesar thought that it might be time to test her boundaries again, but Sally picked that awkward moment to wake up, and the chance was gone.

New Jersey, May 19, 1777

A month’s military activity made Polly a memory, left in New York when the light troops of the army moved suddenly into the Jerseys. Caesar relished the memory, though, pulling out her whistle and feeling its smoothness with his thumb for a moment, a habit he had developed from the day he got it.

He blew it, and his pickets went loping out to the little hilltop where he had ordered them. Lieutenant Crawford watched him avidly.

“Virgil, take the right platoon around through the outbuildings and cover the back. Sergeant Fowver, straight over the hill through the woodlot. Tonny, with me. Leave a file on that little copse by the road to guide the advance guard. If they come before I get back, tell them those woods on the little ridge ain’t cleared yet.”

This sort of patrol had been their daily bread on the advance through the Jerseys, moving at the front of the army and looking at the ground. They had learned to be well ahead, and to leave men in secure posts to provide some communication with the advance guard. They had learned the fine art of being guides in more than name.

They had another advantage, too.

Lieutenant Crawford stood politely in the dooryard of the little farm, resplendent in an old red coat with no lace and decent smallclothes. His fighting clothes were better than any New Jersey farmer had seen in some time, and he overawed the middle-aged man who had presented himself at the door.

“Have you turned out in the militia for the rebels, sir?” asked Crawford. A file of Caesar’s men was standing behind him. Not threatening, but very much present.

“I have not, sir.”

“Do you own a firearm?”

“I never seen the need, as the Indians are a long ways away.” The farmer was anything but friendly. The fear hadn’t lasted long, and he was just on the border of respect.

“Are any of your neighbors in the rebel militia?”

“I can’t say.” His wife was much younger, although already worn. Several children were gathered in the hall, including one young man of sixteen or seventeen.

Crawford tried anyway, his Scots accent minimal.

“Sir, you realize we are here as soldiers of the king to protect you and your neighbors from these rebels. We mean you no harm. We are not the army that burns farms, I think.”

His words were lost on the farmer, and probably on his brood, as they stood silent in their house. Nearer New York, Crawford had been fed tea or chocolate at the more prosperous houses. Here, he wasn’t even offered well water.

Caesar came around from the big barn with two muskets and their accoutrements, each with its little tail of straw that told of where they had been hidden. Two young slaves trotted at his heels.

“Bergen County Militia. He’s senior sergeant in the second platoon of Captain Meyer’s company, and his son is one of his soldiers.” The slaves smiled broadly. Caesar made quite a show of handing them the muskets.

“You Christian men? Good, then.” He looked them over. “You have names?”

The short one in the little straw hat poked out his chest.

“I’m Moses Shaw and this is my brother Abraham.” They both smiled. “We guess we’re free.” They chuckled with mirth.

“You are free if you swear to uphold King George and serve him in his army.” This was now the line that Caesar used every time they met with slaves in the Jerseys, though it was a most liberal interpretation of Lord Howe’s orders.

“Raise your right hands and repeat after me. When I say I, you each say your names.” Both men raised their hands, smiling less and clutching their new muskets awkwardly. The other Guides, at least those with no immediate duties, formed up in two neat lines in the farmyard, with Sergeant Fowver and Virgil prodding the inept and awkward into the ranks.

“I,” said Caesar.

“Moses Shaw,” said Moses.

“Abraham,” said Abraham.

“Do swear that I enter freely and voluntarily into His Majesty’s service, and I do enlist myself without the least compulsion or persuasion into the Black Guides commanded by Captain Stewart, and that I will demean myself orderly and faithfully, and will cheerfully obey all such directions as I may receive from my said captain, or the officers or noncommissioned officers under his command, and that I will continue to serve His Majesty in all such services as I may be employed in during the present rebellion in America-

“So help me God.”

The farmer tried to protest to Lieutenant Crawford that these were not his muskets, and that he couldn’t run the farm if his slaves were taken.

Crawford smiled a little wolfishly.

“Sergeant-I may call you that, mayn’t I? You are hereby a prisoner of war on parole, taken in arms against His Majesty, and it’s very lucky for you that I haven’t the men or the inclination to take you back to New York.”

The man turned pale. Men died in the prison hulks of New York harbor.

“Further, as you are a rebel, your slaves are free men. They have chosen to enlist in His Majesty’s army, which shouldn’t surprise you. You may, perhaps, feel that they bear you some ill will, and I recommend that you consider well what you are at, sir. I hereby require you to present yourself to the sheriff of this county in the next fortnight to sign an oath of loyalty to His Majesty. If you do not do so, or if anyone reports that you turn out to serve the rebels, we’ll return. Do you understand?”

The man was watching his slaves and his muskets filing out on to the road. The loss was enormous, if calculated as property.

“Do you understand, sir?”

The man nodded. He clenched his fists by his side and opened them.

Caesar came up to Crawford, saluted, and handed him a military pack.

“In case you had any doubts, sir.” In the pack was a set of shirts, a homespun overshirt like those the militia and even some of the rebels wore, and a knitted cap. Caesar pointed to the pack, which was painted with the insignia “III VA.” Crawford took out the cap. Embroidered around the base of the cap was the motto “Liberty or Death”. He held it up.

“It puzzles me how you Americans can prate about liberty while you own slaves,” he said. “I’ll keep this. It ought to fetch a good price from the laggards in New York.”

Caesar rifled the pack, which had a broken strap, and sniffed it. It smelled of smoke.

“This ain’t been around here long, sir.”

He looked at the farmer.

“When did this pack get here? You, there. The tall boy. Step out here.”

There looked to be resistance for a moment. In the end, good sense won out and the older boy stepped out. Caesar sent him off to the barn with Virgil.

Crawford nodded. They were learning to question rebel sympathizers separately, so that they couldn’t coach each other.

“What are you bastards doing to my boy?” cried the father.

“He’ll be questioned. When did the patrol come through your farm?”

“I don’t know.” He was white and shaking. His wife was clutching him from behind. Crawford hated these scenes, as these people were essentially Englishmen and he despised having to brutalize them. It reminded him of bad times in Scotland. He thought of the slaves outside, the lives they led, and hardened his heart.

“I’d recommend you reconsider. I can take you or your son to New York, and I will if I feel you are placing my men in danger.”

“What are you doing to my son?” shouted the man. He looked over to where Moses and Abraham were standing with the other Guides on the little road that led past the farmyard. “What did we ever do to you that you would betray us like this?” He raised his fists at them and they both flinched, although they had guns and he had none.

Caesar stepped up to him, very close, where he could smell the man’s breath and the fear in his sweat.

“It isn’t about them, sir. It’s about you. You are the traitor. You have been serving the rebels. You get to pay the fiddler now. An’ if Mr. Crawford wants to know when the patrol passed, I think you’d do well to tell him. You have a mighty big family to be taking these risks with.” He was a foot taller than the man, and he quailed.

“Yesterday, damn you. Rot the lot of you. Yesterday.” He spat.

Caesar watched him, unimpressed.

“How long were they here?”

“Not long. They told us to hide the muskets…” The man stopped, knowing he had said too much.

“So they knew we was coming? What did they tell you, exactly?”

The man looked at his wife as if he needed support.

“Don’t look at her,” said Caesar. He had stepped past Crawford now. Crawford couldn’t force himself on a man like this. Caesar didn’t like it, but he found it was easier with the slave owners. They feared all blacks and responded appropriately. He felt that somehow it made their punishment fit the crime. He thought of the ancient Caesar, crucifying the men who would have made him a slave.

“Don’t look at her, little man. Look at me. What did they say?”

“They said…” The man was ready to sob. He looked like a cornered animal. He glanced at his wife and daughters, his younger son, and Caesar, who was doing his best to look like the image of vengeful Africa. “They said a company of blacks might come through, an’ we’d best hide our muskets and keep quiet.”

Crawford shook his head. “Was that so hard, sir?”

Caesar threw him a glance, asking him to stay quiet.

“What else did they say? Tell me, now. They knew we was a company of blacks, you say?”

The man was gray. His wife and family were now crying.

“Want to cough your life out in the hulks?”

“I won’t, neither,” said the man, clawing for self-respect. The fact that he said he wouldn’t, though, served to point out that he had more left to say. Caesar nodded.

“Very brave,” he said, and motioned to the file.

“Take him.”

The man held to his resolve as they tied him and led him into the yard. Caesar went off to the barn, where the boy glowered at Virgil, who sat smoking quietly.

“Any trouble?”

“Boy said he’d kill me if’n I harmed his pa, which is kinda’ funny considerin’ I’m here with him.”

Caesar nodded and walked around the barn back to the yard. He had a notion what it was the man wouldn’t tell. He knew which unit the Third Virginia was. He remembered them from Long Island. He stood in front of the defiant man for a moment, as if considering. Then he walked slowly around the man until he was behind him.

“Your boy says they came through late last night. He says they meant to lie in ambush for us. That right?”

The man sagged. His whole body seemed to shrink, as if the courage was flowing from him. He tried to turn to face Caesar, but Tonny held him.

“Let him go,” said Caesar to Tonny.

The man wouldn’t meet his eye.

“Look at me.”

The man flinched away.

“Look at me, mister. Tell me what they said.”

“Promise you won’t hurt my boys.”

“I won’t if you don’t give me cause.”

“They were a big company. They said they was goin’ to lie for you at Dick’s farm, down the pike. Dick’s got a parcel more slaves than I do, they figured you’d go there.”

Caesar looked at him carefully, and nodded, although his blood was up now.

“Get his boy and put them all together.” He still sounded threatening.

Crawford came up to him. “I hope that was worth it, Sergeant. We just made these people rebels for life.”

“I think they were already there, sir.”

“I think that war is a lot uglier than I had thought,” said Crawford.

“How’d they know we was comin’?” asked Paget. The story was all over the company in a flash, helped by the additional testimony of Moses and Abraham. Virgil heard him and frowned.

“Stow it, Paget. There’s hundreds of ways they could know. They have scouts, too.” They moved quickly over a hill, well away from the rebel house in the little valley, and then halted.

Caesar ran up and tapped Tonny and Silas Van Sluyt, the fastest runners in the company. “Follow me,” he said. They ran to the crest of the hill, where Crawford was waiting with Sergeant Fowver.

“I want to take these two and follow that boy.”

Crawford shook his head.

“What boy?”

“The one at the house. He’ll head off to warn the Virginians as soon as they think they are safe.”

Crawford shook his head.

“Damn me for a green boy. Of course they will. My apologies, Sergeant Caesar, I should have seen that-”

“Never you mind, sir. I’d like to take these three an’ follow on his heels. We’ll see how they lie and report back. You can send to Captain Stewart an’ bring up the advance guard, if you are of a mind to.”

“I do like being managed by a professional, Sergeant Caesar. It is good for my amour-propre. Very well, carry on.”

“Yes, sir.” He winked at Fowver, who gave him a quick smile. Then he ran.

They almost missed the boy, because he chose to run right out on to the road, and they had never counted on him being so daring and so blind. Once they had him, however, they paced him easily, running well behind and off to the boy’s left. They lost him several times, when they had to go well off the path to detour round woodlots or patches of muck, but his white shirt and old green waistcoat made him an easy mark on the dusty road.

He ran over a mile before he flagged. Caesar wasn’t even into his pace yet when the boy stopped, breathing hard. The Guides all lay down. The boy breathed a moment and then left the road, bearing west. Caesar sent his men well to the left and right, so that if the boy tried to mislead them or double back, one was bound to spot him. He didn’t do any such thing. Guileless as a lamb, he ran cross country, as straight as a ball from a rifle-gun, until an outpost challenged him. Again, Caesar threw himself flat and then began to crawl up. He could see Tonny off to his right, but he didn’t know whether Van Sluyt was still with them. He could hear the boy speaking in a rush, could hear the excitement in his tone but not the words themselves. He moved closer. He motioned to Tonny. Tonny pointed at something off to his own right, and Caesar had to wonder if it was another post. There were a great many rebels out here, if they could space their posts so closely.

Caesar nodded to Tonny and pointed back to where they’d come. He pointed at his chest and made a little gorget with his finger, then patted his shoulder as if he had an epaulet. He saw Tonny brighten as if he understood, and begin to move away slowly until he had a few trees between him and the sentries, and then, with a wave, he was gone.

Caesar was alone.

He lay flat and stripped his equipment off until he was wearing only his jacket. He took the hunting sword out of its scabbard carefully and then began to creep forward alone. The post was on a little knoll, shaded by a big chestnut tree and guarded by a loose abatis of fallen branches piled around like an open fence.

There was only one man in the post. The other had gone off with the boy. He hadn’t gone far, because his musket was propped against the great chestnut tree that provided the post with its cover of branches. Caesar crept closer, urged to move faster by the knowledge that the boy was getting farther away with every moment, but he relied on caution to take him close, and he crawled.

Time passed. The sun beat down on his back and he sweated rivers through his coat. He was up to the little abatis of downed branches that the pickets had made, and he prepared himself. Far off, carried on the wind, he heard the slight rattle and clank of a well-ordered company on the move, and he knew that the Guides were down on the road and moving fast. They would still be over a mile away. He rolled up and caught his foot in a branch. He saw the sentry flinch in surprise, then reach for his musket, which was a few feet away. He wrenched his foot clear and threw himself forward, but the man bent to his musket, took it, and aimed. The seconds slid by as Caesar ran, already doomed, at the man. He saw the cock fall on the hammer, the sparks, the ignition of the powder in the priming pan, all as if they were separate acts, and he threw himself down.

Damp or ill-maintained, the gun hung its fire for some fraction of time that saved him. He felt the heat from it, and the ball scored his shoulder and down his back. He rose in a leap, the sound of the shot still in his ears. The man had his mouth open to shout when Caesar cut with the sword and hacked him down, but he could already hear shouts of alarm in the distance and he cursed his own eagerness.

The man at his feet gurgled. He was cut badly in the neck and Caesar killed him, squeamish about cutting a man who couldn’t fight back but too aware that the man was all but dead already and in pain, like an animal. His blood was everywhere and couldn’t be hidden.

The shouts of alarm grew and Caesar moved a little forward into the shadow of more of the big trees. He was in an old woodlot, he could now see, and there was the farmhouse below him in a little vale. He could see the coats of the Virginians as they moved about, probably forming up. They looked confused.

One man was running back toward the post that Caesar had just taken. Caesar thought the man was probably the file partner of the dead man. Before he could reach the post a shot rang out and the man went down, hit somewhere low. He gave a sudden sharp scream of pain and then lay still for a moment. Caesar tried to follow the line of the shot and saw Van Sluyt reloading on his back on the next knoll. Caesar broke from cover and ran for his equipment, only forty paces to the rear but now seeming like a mile, and there were shots. None came near him, and he had no way of knowing if the shots were even meant for him. He reached the log where he had left his kit and rolled behind it. His fowler was loaded and ready and he scooped his bag and horn over his shoulder, cleaned the blade of the little sword as well as he could on the grass while lying flat, and put it in the scabbard, and then buckled on his pack. The whole process seemed to take forever. He worried about Van Sluyt, left alone on the hilltop. Van Sluyt had seen action, but not like this, not alone, and Caesar feared to have the man’s blood on his conscience.

But he was an old soldier, and he hated being far from his equipment. He had feared that if they were driven off he’d never see his carefully gathered kit again. He heard another flurry of shots and rose to his feet, and ran back up the far knoll toward Van Sluyt. He heard Van Sluyt fire, felt relief that the man was still fighting and alive, and then saw the Virginians right in front of him, ten men coming up the knoll.

Caesar fired into them with no apparent effect. The sound of the second shot gave them pause, though. A big man at their head looked to the left and right and Caesar blew his whistle three times, as loud as he could. In the distance, his whistle was answered. He watched the big man as he reloaded, knowing him as the slave-taker who had nearly killed Jim and Virgil in the swamp. He had fought the man on Long Island and he didn’t think his presence in an ambush laid for them in New Jersey was happenstance. He watched a man aiming at him and he rolled back behind a tree. His back hurt like hell.

Van Sluyt fired into them and missed. They were spreading out now and moving back toward their main body, which was just visible through the trees in the farmyard. Caesar leaned well out and took his time with his shot. He couldn’t get a line on the big man, so he shot another, who went down. He blew his whistle again. The answer was closer.

“Keep them amused,” he said to Van Sluyt. It was one of Simcoe’s sayings, and he liked it. Silas nodded happily. Caesar ran off down the knoll and back along the path they had run up until he found the Guides moving at the double over the open fields. Lieutenant Crawford was running well, right in the center of the front as if they were running on parade.

“Just over the little ridge, sir. About a company. They’ve called in their ambush and it looks like they’re leaving.”

Out of breath, Crawford merely nodded and panted. He turned and trotted back a few paces, looking at the men, and put his whistle in his mouth, then spread his arms wide and blew twice. They began to pound up the hill, the line extending itself as they went, and again Caesar felt that burst of pride in them. Moses and Abraham, green as grass, were following Paget and Virgil. The line extended out and out, seventy strong, and they came to the knoll almost together, as pretty as any company Caesar had ever seen. Van Sluyt was smiling like a loon, nodding his head, and Caesar grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Where are they?”

Van Sluyt pointed past the house to the road beyond it, where they could just see a little rearguard forming on the road.

“Well done, Silas.”

Van Sluyt continued to smile.

By the time they swept through the farm, no one was smiling. There was an old black man in the yard, hanging from a tree, and a black woman was dead on the ground, her throat slit. Otherwise, the farm was empty.

They chased hard for over an hour, firing at various ranges and trying to provoke the rebels to stand, but they weren’t raw anymore. They ran well, kept together, and both Crawford and Caesar feared they might be led into a second ambush. They had to break the pursuit when the Virginians entered a narrow defile covered in thick woods. None of them wanted to risk that there weren’t a hundred enemy sheltered just inside. The rebels jeered at them when they halted. They halted immediately, over half a mile away, and fired a volley that hurt no one.

Caesar and Van Sluyt together had knocked three of them down, and they had one prisoner, an older man who had not been able to keep up the pace. It wasn’t much to show for a day spent running, and they were weary men when they marched back to the farmstead where the Virginians had prepared to ambush them.

“We didn’t lose a man, though,” said Crawford, scraping the pork stew out of his little china bowl. The farmhouse had been deserted, and Crawford had not complained as the Guides pillaged it and the surrounding barns. The owners had decamped, indicating where their allegiance lay.

“Last fall, all these farms declared they was loyal,” said Caesar. He looked out over the little hills in the failing spring light. “I remember when we came through here in November.”

“Trenton changed that,” said Crawford. He looked guilty, as if just saying the words was disloyal.

Caesar nodded and ate.

“We’ll win them back when we take Philadelphia and end the war,” said Crawford. Caesar kept eating.

He was watching the smooth conduct of his mess groups. Women didn’t cook in the British Army. The men cooked for themselves, usually in the same groups that shared a tent and fought together. One man carried the tin kettle for cooking, and another carried the shovel or the ax. Mess groups were usually little families within the company, although the newer ones could be more like little wars, as men struggled for dominance or fought to resist tyranny and avoid the worst chores. The new man always cleaned the pot and carried it and most of the rations.

When he looked at them, he saw them as individuals and then as mess groups and platoons. He thought about the surprising calm and courage of Van Sluyt, considered the change in Paget and the steady virtue of Virgil, the quick wit of Tonny, the solidity of Fowver. He watched Moses and Abraham struggle with sand and straw to clean a pot. He watched Jim directing his mess group with unlooked-for authority. Jim was ready to be a corporal.

He thought of how many blacks he’d liberated in the last few days, either into his own ranks or back to New York City, and he wondered a moment why he no longer saw them as BaKongo or Yoruba or Ashanti, but only as black. Perhaps the change had been gradual, but he couldn’t remember it. He could remember how important it had seemed on the plantation. The war had changed it all.

“Do you think we’ll win the war, Lieutenant Crawford?” he asked.

Crawford looked at him as if he had blasphemed.

“Can we fail? We’ve been beaten a handful of times. We beat them whenever we find them. They’ll never build an army that can defeat us.”

Caesar ate a little more and watched twilight fall, already concerned for his outposts. Something was nagging at him.

“If we don’t win, every man in this company is a slave again, sir.”

Crawford looked at him with sudden comprehension.

“If you lose, you get to go home to England.”

“Scotland, Sergeant.”

Caesar was suddenly impatient with Crawford. “Scotland, then. You go home. The white Loyalists will go to Jamaica, or Florida, or Canada. But we’ll be slaves. Forever. Or they’ll hang us.”

Crawford looked at him strangely, like a man who has discovered a friend has a terrible disease.

“We’d better win, then,” Crawford whispered.

“Aye. Aye, but it isn’t looking that way.” Caesar realized he had bottled the thought up since the first defeats at Great Bridge in Virginia. He shook his head. “My apologies, Mr. Crawford.”

“None needed. This war…this war is ugly.”

Caesar didn’t like the look of the future, so he contented himself with the outposts.

“I think we ought to move before we sleep. We made fires here.” Caesar pointed at the little smudge of smoke in the sky.

Crawford looked as if he wanted to protest, but the silent Fowver nodded and he was quick enough to nod as well.

“Just so,” he said, imitating his hero.

“These people sure hate us,” Caesar said, thinking of the family they had questioned and the old man hanged. He stooped to grab a handful of the sandy soil and used it to wipe his little wooden bowl clean. Then he pushed the bowl into his pack and motioned to his mess group to douse the fire and get their packs on. They grumbled, but they moved. He stood up, admiring the quick way that Crawford cleaned his little knife and fork and readied himself without fuss. Crawford was green, but he learned fast, and he never slowed them down.

“What of it? They have betrayed their king, and they will pay the price.”

Caesar shrugged, pulling the straps of his pack over his shoulders. He thought he knew a little more about hate than Lieutenant Crawford did, and there was something at the edge of his mind, about hate, and fear, and how it could serve to bring men together the way the Guides were together.

And he wondered how the Virginians had known where to wait for them.

“They do hate us, though,” he said, and went to form the company.

Philadelphia, August 1, 1777

Washington squirmed a little in the big chair while Billy dusted his boots. Washington had not grown up rich and had never become accustomed to having other men fuss at him, and he couldn’t abide having anyone put on his boots. Lee put the pulls into his hand and he set the right boot on his foot and pulled it smoothly up his calf to the knee before attacking the left, which never seemed to fit quite as well.

“Here’s another report that the British fleet has left Sandy Hook, General,” said Colonel Hamilton. Hamilton, despite his West Indian origins, was probably the wittiest, most sensible and genteel of the permanent staff. Washington grunted slightly as his left heel finally slid home in his boot, and then sat back so that Lee could set about his hair.

“By all accounts they sailed on the twenty-fourth,” Washington said quietly.

“Where bound, is the question,” said his Irish aide, Fitzgerald, with a stretch and a yawn that drew a grave look from the general.

“They can land anywhere they like,” said Hamilton. “Up the Hudson, the Jersey shore, or around Cape May and into the Chesapeake.”

“It certainly explains the withdrawal of their forces from the Jerseys,” said Washington. “I have long feared that Lord Howe, as I believe he is now styled, would decide to use the full mobility that his brother’s fleet allows him. I believe that our fears are now upon us. With Ticonderoga fallen to Burgoyne, it must seem to Howe that he needn’t cooperate with Burgoyne, and can launch some scheme of his own. How I wish for better intelligence.”

“How I pray we may yet have it,” said Hamilton, arranging the military letters that Washington would have to read for himself.

Lee put a curl on each side of Washington’s head with economy and then stood back to measure the effect, smiled, and handed his master a plain buff wool waistcoat. Washington pushed it away.

“Give me a double-breasted one, Billy. I’m always chilled in the morning.”

Lee took another from a trunk and brushed it.

“Any other business today, gentlemen?”

“Can you bear another foreign officer, General?” asked Johnson. Fitzgerald made antic motions as if he were an ape. Hamilton rose and took snuff with theatrical gestures that were clearly meant to be French. Even Billy Lee, the slave, felt free to join the laughter.

“What has Mr. Deane sent us this time?” Silas Deane, the Continental Congress’s appointed diplomat in Paris, had developed the annoying tendency of granting Continental Army commissions to foreigners on the spot. Some of his appointments outranked existing American veterans, who were angry to find themselves outranked by foreign aristocrats. Most of the aristocrats seemed to feel their time in America could best be spent educating ignorant Americans about their own superior martial virtues. It could be quite wearing, witness Colonel Hamilton’s continuing charade.

“A marquis,” said Hamilton, desisting from his antics instantly.

“Come,” said Johnson. “That’s handsome in Deane, I must say. We’ve had our fill of chevaliers and barons, so a marquis will make a nice change.”

An uncomfortable silence fell.

All Washington’s aides were young. They had to be, as he led them a rough and hard life, but sometimes the general’s rather staid sense of humor oppressed the young men. They knew he was tired of the foreign officers, but each was suddenly aware that they had offended him, or rather, taken their humor beyond some definite line of his approval.

Johnson stood up.

“My apologies, sir. I let my tongue get the better of me.”

“Not for the first time,” muttered Hamilton, quietly, and Johnson rounded on him like a cat annoyed by another, but Washington was quicker than either.

“Very well, gentlemen. Let’s see this marquis. I do hope we can all master our humor in his presence, as I’m sure that his good opinion of us will carry heavy weight with His Catholic Majesty, the King of France, on whom we are very dependent. Do I make myself clear?” Every Frenchman had claimed that their opinions carried great weight with the King of France, and apparently a few of them were telling the truth.

“Colonel Hamilton, who is the officer of the day?”

Hamilton opened his orderly book and ran through a list of names.

“Our officer of the day is Lieutenant Lake of the light company, Third Virginia.”

Washington looked at him.

“Recall him to me.”

“Intelligent, fit, soldierly. Up from the ranks-began the war as an apprentice to a hat maker, I believe. Led the charge on the Hessian guns at Trenton.” Hamilton knew these facts by heart. He had been the one to notice Lake at Trenton. Hamilton liked to see the self-made men rise.

Washington nodded as Billy began to help him into his coat.

“Very well, then. Send for him a little after the marquis arrives.”

Hamilton nodded and made a note.

The man who presented himself in the front parlor was of average height or a little less and well dressed, in a dark blue velvet coat and with a beautiful sword that had already excited the admiration of every soldier who beheld it. It was a hunting sword, short and broad, with a heavy blade and a black horn hilt worked in silver. The coat and the sword went together and spoke of wealth, which made today’s Frenchman a distinct entity, in that most of the men Deane had sent were clearly poor, if not destitute.

He was young, too-perhaps only twenty-one or twenty-two-and he stood before them with so much selfpossession that his bearing was like a lesson in genteel behaviour. Indeed, Hamilton said later that he liked the man before he ever opened his mouth.

He waited until Washington was done speaking. Washington had been addressing the commissariat officer on a scheme to increase their stock of shoes, a subject that could only be of interest to a veteran. The young man stood still, his manner open and yet expectant, a small but wonderfully candid smile upon his face as if to say that, just by being there, he had reached the summit of his ambition. For their part, the staff were content just to regard a man of such wealth and breeding. Washington completed his animated conversation on shoes and Mr. Turnbull, the commissary, bowed and withdrew. Washington turned the full weight of his gaze on the young man and his eyes widened imperceptibly as he, in turn, took in the coat, the sword, and the youth of the man.

“The Marquis de Lafayette,” said the captain of the guard.

“Please allow me to introduce my…self,” said the young man, “as our titles are not easy on the ears of a young republic. I am Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Montier. In France I am the marquis, it is true, but here, I think not, yes? So I will be just Mr. Gilbert du Montier.”

He bowed to them all, managing in a single bow to include every man present but present his deepest respect to Washington.

Washington returned the bow.

“How may I serve you, Marquis?”

The young man smiled again, a wonderful smile.

“But it is I who seek to serve you!” He drew his sword in a flourish and handed it to Washington hilt first with a bow. He moved with more grace in the instant of that bow than any of them had ever seen, but then, none of Washington’s staff had seen a Versailles-trained aristocrat before.

Washington watched him with surprise. Other Frenchmen had been theatrical, but despite the theatrical presentation of the sword, no one present could resent it. Perhaps the other aspirants hadn’t smiled quite as well. He touched the beautiful sword hilt and leaned forward.

“Why do you seek to serve with us, Marquis? I understand you have arranged to be appointed a major general. Do you know how rare that rank is here?”

The smile never faltered. “The rank, it is nothing,” he said. “Liberty now has a country, and I am here to serve her.”

Washington was moved by the young man’s frankness, but his experience had made him wary. Washington waved the sword away.

“Then serve her, not me. I am not a king, or emperor, to take your sword.” He looked away, trying to hide that he was moved. “Do you have any military experience?” he asked.

“None that would apply in a young republic, Monsieur le General,” he said. “I have been an officer, it is true. I commanded a troop in the Mousquetaires Gris de la Maison du Roi until they were, as you say it, taken from the establishment. I was second in command of an esquadrille in the regiment of my father-in-law, the Comte de Noailles.”

Hamilton nodded to Johnson and bent over him. “A guards unit. Very prestigious.” Johnson nodded.

“And then?”

“Nothing, General. I have never seen action, nor commanded more than two hundred men. But I am afire for liberty, and I have brought equipment and money. I will buy you shoes, if that is the only way I can be of service. I am not poor. I require no pay, no special allowance, nothing. I ask only to serve you with my sword and my heart’s blood.”

The marquis had them all spellbound, and obscurely, Washington wished he had Martha by him to tell him what to think of a man who exuded so much charm, such palpable enthusiasm. Behind the young marquis, he saw his guard captain, Caleb Gibbs, make a motion and the door opened a little.

“Please take a seat, Marquis,” he said. All his aides found themselves chairs, and the marquis sank into one with enviable grace. Most of the men felt a little dirty just looking at him in his perfectly tailored clothes, his sparkling white stock and cuffs. Hamilton couldn’t resist the urge to look at his own shirt cuffs, and having inspected them, to hide them under his coat.

“Lieutenant Lake of the Third Virginia,” said Captain Gibbs.

Lieutenant Lake couldn’t have presented a greater contrast to the figure in the chair. His blue coat had faded to a color closer to the color of mud, and his linen was, despite his best efforts, dirty everywhere it showed. A long visible thread at his cuff indicated that the fabric was losing its edging. He wore a captured Hessian sword with the blade cut short, and he carried a plain Charleville musket with the bayonet affixed. He stood straight as an arrow, anything but at his ease, and waited for his doom. It was clear from his demeanor that he expected the worst.

“Lieutenant Lake, I have never had the chance to convey my compliments for the dashing way in which I saw you take the guns in King Street at Trenton.” Washington seldom had the time to compliment his officers. In fact, a lifetime of experience warned him against it. Compliments often ruined the young, he thought, but then he had an unaccustomed thought of Braddock, who had been quite free with praise.

George Lake swelled to almost twice his former size.

“Thankee, General.”

“I understand that you are becoming a fine officer. I thought that as this was your first day as officer of the day for our section of the camp, I would take the opportunity to thank you.”

Lake was too moved, and too awestruck, to speak.

The marquis shot from his chair and grabbed him by the hand with both of his.

“This is the genuine hero!” he said, bowing and clasping Lake’s hand. Lake seemed to see him for the first time.

“The Marquis de Lafayette,” said Hamilton into the silence, trying to introduce the two from a distance of twenty feet.

“A pleasure, Marquis,” Lake croaked out. On balance, he thought facing the Hessians again would be easier than this sort of thing.

“Please, monsieur, the pleasure is all mine. You have been a soldier a long time?”

Lake bowed a little, as he had seen the gentry do whenever they spoke civilly to one another, and nodded. “Just two years, sir. Marquis.”

The marquis nodded enthusiastically.

“It is the same with me, except that I have never taken a Hessian gun. Two years, General, and he is an officer of merit. I will give him my sword,” he suited the action to the word, “and carry a musket for two years until I have performed such a deed.”

George Lake found himself holding a sword that must have cost the value of every furnishing in his whole town. The dogs’ heads at the ends of the quillons had most amiable expressions.

Washington watched him with astonishment. Hamilton eyed the sword with something like lust.

“Marquis, I think perhaps we can find you a place. May I leave that to you gentlemen?” He turned to Fitzgerald and Johnson. They nodded, bowed deeply to the young man.

George Lake didn’t want to touch the sword, worried that he’d do it a mischief.

“Please, sir, Marquis. You’ll be wanting this.”

Lafayette bowed to him.

“I give it to you. Perhaps we trade, yes? I have always wanted a Hessian sword like that, and to have it from such a hand as yours makes it beyond price.”

“I could never take this,” said George Lake.

Hamilton took his arm.

“Lieutenant, I think you must.” He smiled and tried to wipe the envy from his mind. “See that you take care of it.”

“Lord, yes,” breathed Lake.

“I was struck by his grace,” said Washington, as he rode down the main street of Philadelphia. Several people called after them, or cheered-a pleasant change from a year before.

“If I may be so bold, sir, I was struck by the handsome way he gave young Lake his sword. Lake’s never seen such a thing in his life, and now he owns it.”

Washington bowed to acknowledge a group of delegates on a corner and rode on.

“Yes,” he said finally, after Hamilton thought the moment had passed. “Yes, he won me there. I wanted to see how he’d play to one of our rankers. And he played up like trumps, I thought.”

“Certainly was a lovely sword, General.”

Washington was silent again for a while, and then he said, “It was the kind of thing our Government ought to do. In England, they’d give a man a sword with an inscription. Handsomely.” He shook his head. “Another thing to organize. Some sort of society for the officers, when the war is won.”

Hamilton followed with that last ringing in his ears, because Washington never predicted and seldom bragged.

When the war is won.

Later, after Billy had taken his coat and pressed a fresh stock and put him in his nightshirt, Washington was reviewing the temerity of his comment when Billy spoke out, a rare event in itself.

“That, there, was a fine young man,” he said. He was behind Washington, as he often was when he had something to say.

Washington, still thinking of the sword and the possibility of winning the war, looked around, distracted. “Who, Billy? Lieutenant Lake?”

Billy laughed, musically. It was a feminine laugh for so big a man. “He seems fine enough, sir, if a little comic. No, sir, I meant the foreign gentleman.”

“Ah, Lafayette?”

“Yes, sir! I liked him directly. An’ I thought a funny thing, sir. Which I wanted to say, if allowed.”

“Go ahead, Billy. There’s never been secrets between us two.”

“He’s like your son, sir. If’n you had one.”

As he was on duty for the staff that day, Lake was sporting his best clothes, worn though they were. They had been new when the twelve guineas had been paid over, but constant service had already ruined the two new shirts, and the smallcothes were dull with dirt. The new sword and its beautiful belt of red silk and gold lace looked odd against his stained waistcoat, and he covered the magnificence of the belt with his sash during the rest of his duty.

When he was done, he borrowed a clothes brush from one of the servants at headquarters and gave himself a good brushing, and then took himself to the fine brick house near the City Tavern to pay his respects. He told himself that he owed it to the lady of the house to thank her for her help in selling his plunder.

A pretty Irish girl opened the door and made a curtsy to him, an unaccustomed politeness. He smiled back.

“Lieutenant Lake to see Mrs. Lovell,” he said, and she showed him into the hall. She gave a sniff when she got a better look at his clothes, and his spirits plummeted.

She vanished and was replaced a few moments later by a middle-aged man rather run to fat, dressed in resplendent black wool with fancy buckled shoes. George bowed and the man returned it very civilly.

“It is not often that one of Mr. Washington’s officers graces me with his attentions.”

George was not familiar enough with civil society to know what to make of this apparent raillery, nor to know how to deal with a man to whom he had not been introduced. He bowed again. “I had hoped-”

“To see my wife? She’s in the drawing room, where I’ll escort you. Damn, don’t they feed you in the Continental Army? I’m Silas Lovell, by the way. And I remain loyal to my king.”

George was somewhat taken aback by the last declaration and indeed was feeling quashed by the whole experience, so that when he entered the parlor he missed Betsy altogether. He made a small bow to Mrs. Lovell, sitting by the fire in a wingback chair.

“Your servant, ma’am,”

“George Lake. Goodness, sir, have a seat. Mary, put a cloth on that chair. Lieutenant Lake, your breeches are too…filthy to be intimate with my furniture.”

George sat hesitantly and realized that Betsy was behind her mother, smiling at him where her parents couldn’t see her.

“I called to thank you for your kindness in sending me to Dodd’s, ma’am.”

“I thought he might serve you. But you might have bought some new clothes.”

“These are new, ma’am. Or were.”

Silas Lovell laughed. “Dear heart, the army of Congress has no money, no clothes and no food. Mr. Lake is doing the best he can by us, I’m sure. Look at the quality of the sword he’s wearing!” He leaned over. “May I see it, sir?”

“With pleasure.” George hadn’t had it out of the scabbard since he had buckled it on. His reasons were superstitious. He still didn’t feel it was really his. He drew it and handed it to Mr. Lovell.

“Superb. French, I think. Yes, a Klingenthal. There is the mark. My goodness, sir, that must be worth a pretty penny. My wife said you were poor?”

“I am, sir.” He didn’t want to say that it had just been given to him. He’d sound like a beggar or a braggart.

“And you aren’t afraid of being marked a Tory by visiting this house?”

“I care little for politics, sir, except that I’m a Patriot and I stand for Congress. But if every man cannot have his say, then there is little point in having liberty.”

Mr. Lovell turned slowly, his eyes kindled. “That’s a form of sense I haven’t heard often in your camp. In this city, we’ve heard more insistence that every man must love Congress or be a traitor.”

George nodded. “I hear plenty of that, too.”

Mr. Lovell looked at him. “Come, don’t you want to call me a traitor? I’m country born and bred, and loyal to the king.”

“Silas! Stop picking a fight. This boy is too well bred to meet you in an argument in your own home.”

George wanted to laugh aloud at the notion that he was well bred.

Mr. Lovell waved the sword in his hand. “I’m sorry, sir. I am so used to this ignorant argument: that I’m a traitor because I stay loyal to my king and his government, and that these men who have overthrown all I hold dear are patriots.”

George rose. Betsy looked unhappy and George knew he would not come off well from any encounter with Mr. Lovell about politics.

“I should take my leave,” he said.

Mr. Lovell lowered the sword and smiled warmly. “No, no. I shall apologize for my warmth. Here is your sword. We will sit to supper in a few moments and I hope you will join us. Indeed, I’ll support Mr. Washington’s army to the cost of a shirt, if my daughter will fetch one from my things. I was not always this gargantuan size, sir.”

“I couldn’t…”

“I insist. Go change your shirt and join us for dinner.”

The dinner was better than anything he had enjoyed in months, and the china dishes and silver were finer than anything he had eaten from in his life, but neither made as great an impression on him as an hour of Betsy’s company. Her gaze, under lowered lids, flicked across his with a flirtation he found both frightening and pleasing. She was older than he had thought, perhaps seventeen. She spoke twice, both times at her mother’s prompting, and it seemed that she spoke directly to him. When the ladies left the room after dinner, it felt empty. He had a pipe with Mr. Lovell, and then insisted that he had to go or be late passing the lines at camp. Mr. Lovell breathed smoke out through his nose and nodded.

“I’ll see that a boy with a lamp escorts you, then. Please forgive me for my illiberal attacks on Congress, Mr. Lake. It isn’t often I am allowed to speak freely, and even now I dread that you’ll report me to some officer.”

“I’m sorry you think I have the look of an informer,” said George, rankled. “I care nothing for your politics. I believe every man should speak his mind. But I’ll fight for my cause and not apologize for it.”

Mr. Lovell had taken a little wine and more sherry. He was not angry at George Lake but he was angry, and the two became mixed.

“Fine, then. You’ve had my hospitality. You’ve ogled my daughter, who’s to be wed in the spring. Now be gone.”

Wed in the spring. George bowed and choked out a refusal of the loan of a boy with a lantern. He couldn’t be angry at Mr. Lovell, who was clearly a little drunk. And he barely knew the girl. But it stuck with him, and he had a long walk back to camp in the dark.