Ashes (29 page)

Curzon trusted them. I'd normally be frightened or angry, because trusting others had caused so many problems for us in the past. But these fellows were different. They understood our sentiments, our fears, our thirst for true liberty. The kindness and concern in their faces near overwhelmed me. They were indeed our brothers of the heart.

“You've no need to worry,” Henry said. “He's with men just as smart, fast, and strong as he is. Though likely not as brave.”

Somehow I had moved from my position standing by the fire to sitting on a log. A damp cloth rested across my neck, and Ruth was handing me a mug of water. It was not clear how much she understood, but her face was solemn.

“Drink,” Henry urged. “This has been a bit of a shock, this news.”

I did so, trying to hold at bay the vision of all the terrible fates that could befall Curzon. He could be captured and held again as a prisoner of war, which usually proved fatal. He could be injured in countless ways that would mean a slow and painful death. When I considered all the suffering he might be forced to endure, it seemed a quick death would be the kindest mercy. But the thought of his death threatened to send me headlong into despair. I had to fight against that. I didn't know how, but I would have to find a way.

Drums rattled through the camp. A few curses were muttered as the fellows rose, throwing back the rest of their coffee.

“We're needed in the trenches tonight,” Drury explained. “Digging continues.”

“Would you like some of us to stay?” Henry asked. “We can report sick.”

My thoughts were still stuck fast in the frustrating mud of Curzon's decision. Ever since I met him, he'd chosen fighting for the new United States of America time and time and time again. And now he had volunteered for a perilous mission, put himself at risk of death for a country not yet fully formed, that could promise us nothing.

“Why are you here?” I asked Henry.

The unexpected question puzzled him. “Beg pardon?”

“You're a very clever man,” I said. “I know you enlisted for your freedom, but surely you've had countless opportunities since then to liberate yourself from the army and make your own way in the world, on your own terms.”

“Indeed I have.”

“So why have you stayed? That is the thing I cannot understand. Why do any of you stay and fight this bloody war for a confounded army that doesn't care about us?”

The other men stopped their leave-taking preparations to listen.

“We're earning our freedom,” Henry said quietly.

“Only because by Fortune's strange luck you were born a slave in Rhode Island. Had you been born here in Virginia, you'd have been given as a prize, an enlistment bonus to a white man who didn't have the stomach or honor to join the army without the suitable temptation of slaves and a guarantee of land.”

“The entire enterprise of this war seems to be by the grace of Fortune's strange luck.” Henry looked at his mates. “Remember that preacher we heard outside Philadelphia, the young man who drove a salt wagon?”

Many heads nodded and quiet agreement was murmured.

“That fellow was like all of us: descended from good people who were stolen from their families and country, sailed over the sea, and forced into slavery. ‘We don't let them steal our dignity,' that preacher said. Richard, his name was. He said they cannot steal our honor, our strength, or our love.”

“True words,” I said.

“Do you know what he said about this America?” Henry asked.

I shook my head.

“Remember, lads?” Henry asked his mates. “Join with me. He said, ‘This land . . .'”

A half dozen voices spoke with Henry, strong black men sharing the preacher's words like a hymn or a prayer. “‘Which we have watered with our tears and our blood, is now our mother country.'”

The words drifted up to the stars with the sparks from the fire.

“We go to war, Missus Isabel,” Henry added, “in order to make our mother country, this land, free for everyone.”

I
T GIVES ME MORE PLEASURE THAN
I
CAN EXPRESS TO LEARN THAT YOU SUSTAIN WITH SO MUCH FORTITUDE, THE SHOCKS AND TERRORS OF THE TIMES
. Y
OU ARE REALLY BRAVE MY DEAR, YOU ARE A HEROINE
. A
ND YOU HAVE REASON TO BE.

–L
ETTER FROM
J
OHN
A
DAMS TO HIS WIFE
, A
BIGAIL

R
UTH AND I WASHED UP
after the supper, filled the kettles with water, and set them over a low fire. By the time we'd finished, the sun had set.

The emptiness of the camp unnerved me.

“Come, sister,” I said.

Ruth took my hand.

We walked fast, our strides long and silent but for the swish of our skirts, ruffling like feathers in the night breeze. I had no destination in mind at first. Moving my legs was the only way to calm my agitated spirit. We walked up and down the rows of tents, past the New Jersey regiments, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland. Past the hospitals, one French, one American, and the loud artillery parks, where the cannons and mortars fired, fired, fired at the enemy.

General Washington's giant marquee tent was lit up by candles and lanterns. The shadows of the men inside moved like puppets, bending over tables, gesturing with their arms, flipping back their coattails before sitting on a stool. The flaps of the tent stood open to the night air. A steady flow of aides-de-camp moved in and out, papers in hand. Tall Life Guards stood at the ready, charged with protecting His Excellency, General Washington, against any attack.

Ruth yawned and complained about being tired, but I wasn't ready to go back to the cook fire yet. We retired to a spot on a hill above the large marquee. She leaned against my shoulder, her thumb in her mouth, that childhood habit that appeared when she felt deep melancholy.

From our vantage the tent looked like a lantern itself, the shadows within it fluttering moths. The cannons continued their attack, mortar shells drawing comet trails of fire across the sky before dropping onto Yorktown. The distance created a sense that I was watching a play acted out upon a vast stage. If only that were true and we could applaud gently as the players bowed at the end of the performance.

The war for independence had been playing out in this, my mother country, for one third of my years. I'd never felt honor-bound to either side of the conflict, for both sides looked at me and mine with evil intent. Their distorted vision saw only property, not humanity.

Since Ruth was stolen away, I had only ever sought to find her and free us both. And, in truth, Curzon. Our friendship had been peppered by frequent battles as foolish and unresolved as the clashes between Patriots and the British. The biggest source of our unending conflict had been his affection for this army. Or rather, that was how I perceived it.

The conviction in Henry's voice still rang in my ears, louder even than the booming cannons. He knew his purpose, same as the other fellows in the company. Same as Curzon. They believed that they were fighting for a country that would offer liberty to all of us. I did not share their certainty, but for the first time I found myself wanting to believe that it might be possible. Freedom would not be handed to us like a gift. Freedom had to be fought for and taken.

I was finally beginning to understand what had driven Curzon for as long as I'd known him. He favored the larger stage, the grand scale at which folks sought to improve the world. I had chosen to focus on the smaller stage, concerning myself only with my sister's circumstances. Now, from atop that hill, I recognized that there was a middle way, a purpose one could strive for that allowed personal concerns–those you love–to be on the one side, whilst the concerns of an entire people, of a country, to be on the other. I realized that Curzon did not care more for his army than me, or even feel that there was a choice to be made. His heart was so large, it could love multitudes. And it did.

My own heart was a curious organ, one that I'd tried to ignore for a very long time. But as the sparks flew heavenward and the officer moths danced round the lantern light of the marquee, I faced the true sentiments hidden within it. America was my mother country too. If this country could produce lasses like me, Ruth, Sibby, Serafina, and Becky Berry, and men such as Curzon, Walter, the lads of the Rhode Island regiment, Ebenezer Woodruff, and all the others willing to fight for the freedom and happiness of all, then our mother country was worth fighting for. My heart was large enough to love multitudes as well.

And I loved Curzon.

I'd been so afraid to admit love, terrified that my affection would be scorned. To love someone leaves you vulnerable. To admit love opens the door to the possibility of pain and sorrow. However, to ignore love, to pretend that it does not exist, though you feel it every waking moment, guarantees not only pain and sorrow, but a withering of your very capacity to love, blaspheming the holy purpose of our days on this earth.

I must tell him. No matter what comes of the confession, I must tell him.

Most of the toads in my belly leapt with joy. A few quivered with fear.

Ruth's voice startled me. I thought she'd fallen asleep.

“They gonna die?”

Her question fell like a burning shell and shattered my reverie.

“Who?” I asked.

“Nancy Chicken. Thomas Boon, our donkey. Aberdeen.” She wiped her eyes on the shoulder of my shift. “Curzon.”

“They are survivors.” I stood up and offered her my hand. “Like us.”

  *  *  *  

We stopped first at the American hospital tent. It was not so much a hospital as it was a place to treat the worst of an injury. If the patient survived, he was shipped up to Williamsburg in the bottom of a jolting wagon. If he still lived by the end of that journey, he had a decent chance, for Bess was good at keeping lads alive, they said.

Worried about the injuries that Curzon, Isaac, and Tall Will might suffer in the attack, I requested bandages and fine thread from a hospital attendant.

“Can't give you none,” the self-important looby said, his eyes bulging. “Need all the supplies here for the wounded.”

“You must, good sir,” I replied firmly. “We've got a fellow just put a pickaxe through his foot. His uncle works for the Congress in Philadelphia. The captain himself sent me, said we should care for him at camp, leave the hospital free to treat those injured in fighting.”

The looby's eyes widened and he complied. I curtsied, grateful that the confusions of war would make certain he never discovered my falsehood.

As we stood in line at the commissary, I overheard that the traitor Benedict Arnold had slaughtered militiamen in Connecticut. Any mob that ever laid its hands on that scoundrel would tear him limb from limb. When it was at last our turn, Ruth and I acquired a small cask of vinegar, flour, sacks of apples and turnips, and a fist-size ball of butter.

Back at our cook fire I boiled a bit of the vinegar, then covered it. I used all of the company's pans and pots but one to make apple and turnip pies, having questioned many women of the camp about the proper way to do such a thing. Ruth split wood till she couldn't hold the axe any longer. She fetched the blankets from our brush hut, spread them by the fire, and was soon asleep. I cooked my pies in the red-hot coals, then lay next to my sister, watching the planets of Jupiter and Venus descend through the western sky, and pouring out my heart in prayer for Curzon's safe return.

  *  *  *  

Next I looked, Jupiter and Venus were long gone. The pale of morning had crept into the east. I'd fallen asleep.

Shouts. I could hear shouting. Lots of voices, all hollering loud as possible, all of it coming from the direction of the trenches. Ruth awoke confuddled and anxious.

I stood up.

The noise grew louder with each heartbeat. It seemed to be rising with the same speed as the sun. Every moment the air brightened, the thunder of boots and the chorus of soldier voices strengthened by the same measure. And then a wave of soldiery invaded the camp, all bedecked in Patriot mud, shouting laughter and good cheer. They danced reels between the rows of tents, kicking high, crowing “Huzzah!” to the morning sun like an army of ten thousand roosters.

I grabbed a lad by his sleeve. “What news?”

“We took both redoubts! Dug all the night long until the new parallel was finished! We've got 'em trapped like rabbits in a bag!”

“Did anyone–” I started, but he ran off.

Every face I saw was alight with joy, but I could find not one fellow from our company in the throng. Were they in the trenches still? Had the men in the redoubt attack been taken straight to the hospital tent, or were they charged with staying in the redoubt to guard it?

“Isabel,” Ruth said, joining me.