Brave Enemies (24 page)

I thought the sergeant was going to make me practice shooting the rifle, but he didn't. Instead he called together the men that were standing close to the tent and made us gather in a line. He showed us how to hold our guns at rest at our sides and how to raise them so they tilted over our shoulders. He made us move the rifles from the ground to our shoulders and back, faster and faster.

When Sergeant Gudger let us take a rest I tried to find a dry spot on the grass. The dirt had been torn up and thawed by all our tramping. I
found a tuft of broom sedge and sat down on that. Some of the men lay down on the grass like they were going to sleep, and some walked over to the edge of the brush and relieved themselves. Two men spread a coat on the grass and began playing with a soiled deck of cards.

I wrapped Mr. Griffin's coat around my belly and lay back on the broom sedge. I looked right up into the sky to where there were just wisps of cloud. A bird flew by way up high. Men yelled and barked orders around the field, but I just barely heard them. I looked deeper into the sky, and smelled the oil on the gun beside my head. I thought of the panther in the cave. I wondered if I would ever find out what had happened to John. I gripped the stock of the rifle. It seemed impossible that I was in the militia.

And then I felt the headache. My head felt like the sky had come crashing down and was pressing my ears and my brain. I felt my head was going to burst. I lay still hoping to make it go away. It was the kind of headache nothing but sleep could cure.

“W
AKE UP, YOU SLUG!
” Somebody yelled. It was Sergeant Gudger. He prodded my side with his boot. I'd been dreaming about the cabin on Pine Knot Branch. I rolled over and got to my feet.

“Pick up your rifle,” the sergeant said.

Gudger told a boy named T. R. and me to run in place. My headache returned and my head throbbed like it was going to break out of my skull. My head felt like it was balanced on my neck and about to fall off. I didn't know what the sergeant meant, so he showed us how to hold our guns over our heads and step high like we were running, without going anywhere. I held the rifle over my head and starting jogging. My stomach felt loose and rolled around inside me.

I thought if the captain was watching and not saying anything, then he must approve of what the sergeant was doing. And the other men were watching too. I didn't have any choice but to do what Gudger said. For about a minute I jogged all right. But then my arms got tired and my
belly felt numb. I started sweating badly under my coat. My brain felt like it was swelling and shrinking.

“Should these girls be wearing dresses?” Gudger said, and everybody laughed again.

I tried to keep jogging and looking straight ahead.

“Halt,” Gudger finally said. I was about to drop I was so worn out. The day before I was free in the woods, and now I was straining and being insulted. And I hadn't had anything to eat. Gudger told us to close ranks and to step forward. T. R. and I stepped back into the line. And then we started trotting across the field so close I kept bumping into T. R.'s elbow. A man behind me stepped on my heel and muttered, “Damn shitepoke.”

“Feet high,” Gudger hollered. “One two three four,” he yelled. He walked at the end of the line.

“About face,” Gudger shouted. I took another step and whirled around. Somehow I was out in front of the line.

It was past the middle of the morning when it occurred to me who Sergeant Gudger was. I had seen him in church a long time ago. He was a big red-faced boy a lot older than me. I hoped he didn't recognize me. I had seen him play mumblety-peg and hide-and-seek with the older Sunday school class, and here he was acting like a general in his blue coat with the rough stripes sewn on the sleeves.

I tried to recall what I'd heard about Harold Gudger. He had been in trouble with the law. He had hit a constable, or he had been caught smuggling untaxed goods. I couldn't remember the details, but I knew he had been in trouble of some sort. And here he was giving orders like he was the sheriff.

Captain Cox walked out in front of us. All the groups stopped drilling and gathered to our side of the field.

“We are going to drill hard today,” the captain shouted. “And we are going to drill hard tomorrow. Tarleton and his legion are on their way here from Fort Ninety Six. General Morgan has arrived in the area and is camped somewhere between the Pacolet and the Broad. He is the only
thing between us and Tarleton's sabers. When we are ready we'll march out and join Major McDowell and the rest of the North Carolina militia. And then we will join General Morgan and the Continental regulars.”

The captain was not much older than John, but I figured he'd organized the volunteers himself. I reckon when somebody becomes a captain or a major they have to talk like one. I'd noticed that people mostly do what their station calls for.

L
ATER THAT DAY
a horse and wagon pulled to the edge of the clearing. As we marched past I saw the driver was a slave getting baskets and a black washpot out of the bed. We marched around the field again and when we came back next a fire had been lit under the pot, and the next time we came around the pot was steaming and I could smell coffee boiling. I looked at Gudger, but he didn't give us any sign to stop.

The line seemed to speed up, as if we could get around the field faster we might get to stop sooner. I felt like hurrying too but knew it was just wasted effort.

Next time we came around the sergeant almost let us go past. But when we got several steps beyond him Gudger hollered out, “Halt. Fall out.”

The washpot was boiling full of coffee. I'd never smelled anything better. The scent was rich as roasted nuts and secret herbs and powders. I had forgotten about my belly in all the marching. It felt better and it was growling. And the headache was gone, though my brain was a little sore where the pain had been.

The baskets by the wagon were full of hard rolls. Some of the men had cups to dip the coffee out with, and some used their canteens. All I had was a pewter bowl the sergeant handed me. I dipped up coffee in that.

We squatted there in the weeds at the field's edge. I don't know which was better, the sweetness of the rest after all the marching or the sweetness of the stale rolls dipped in coffee. The bread was hard, but the hot coffee melted it. The coffee went out through my belly and into my legs and arms where I had dropped to my knees in the stubble.

I
DIDN'T KNOW IF
I would ever see Josie again, and I had no way of sending her a letter, no way of knowing where she was or if she was still alive. But my heart and my faith told me she was.

I thought of writing to her lines that in the event of my death might reach her. Perhaps one of my flock might find her and give her my words. But I had no pen and paper for such a message.

When I left Josie tied to the tree in front of the burning cabin, I thought my heart would stop, for everything I cared for most was there in the burning forest. I hated that we had quarreled just before we were separated, and I knew it was my fault. I looked into the gulf of emptiness that surrounds us on every side where there is no faith or love. I saw the abyss open around me and above me.

Lord, what is your will? I prayed as they led my horse into the wilderness behind the lanterns and mounted redcoats. And I thought in my heart the Lord was letting the devil try me, as he tried Job, in the spirit of cruelty. And I vowed to myself I would survive, like Job, and return
from the wilderness to my congregations and my wife. In the cold Christmas darkness I swore and prayed, and I shuddered.

We stopped at a camp before daylight, and they brought me bound to an officer in a tent. It was not Tarleton but Lieutenant Withnail, the tall man with a saber scar on his cheek I had met before.

“So we meet again,” the lieutenant said.

“Not by choice,” I answered.

“You have aught to tell us, parson,” he said. “You know perfectly well what I mean.”

“I am a minister and psalmodist,” I said.

“You help recruit militias west of the Catawba,” he said.

“I do no such thing,” I said.

He slapped me hard across the face and my nose began to bleed. I had nothing to wipe the blood with but my hands.

I will not describe the long hours of my interrogation. He threatened me with hanging and with shooting. He threatened to cut off my fingers one by one, and to cut out my tongue. He had two soldiers hold me and a third whip me with a stick.

“I am just a humble parson,” I said.

The lieutenant was so angry his face streamed sweat and he paced back and forth in the tent. “I will find the seed of this rebellion and I will cut it out,” he said.

But in the end he found I had nothing of use to tell him. He found I was nothing but a simple preacher and psalmodist, useless to him. I hoped he would release me to return to Josie.

“Can you read Latin?” the lieutenant said. He handed me a little book of Ovid and I read and translated a few lines of the
Amores.

“Because you have right of clergy I will not hang you,” Lieutenant Withnail said.

“Then I am free to go?” I said.

“You are not!” the lieutenant shouted. “Because you are clergy I will not hang you. But I will draft you into the king's service.”

“I am not a soldier,” I said. “I will not kill.”

“You will do your duty as a subject of the Crown,” Lieutenant With-nail snapped. He said that Colonel Tarleton needed a chaplain. The regiment had no clergyman to perform funerals or to pray before battles. The men had no spiritual counselor or confessor. I protested that I was not a priest of the Church of England, but he brushed my protest aside.

“I know what you are,” the lieutenant said. “In this godforsaken land we must make do with what we have, even Methodists, dissenters, Baptists, though I draw the line at Roman Catholics.”

In short, I was impressed to serve as chaplain for the Crown's regiment. And to tell the truth, I wasn't sure any longer where my duty lay. For though unwilling to join the Tory cause, still I had a duty to serve these men as minister and song leader, counselor and comforter. An ordained minister cannot refuse to lead in prayer or raise a song for men who need hope and guidance, men in danger and perhaps on the brink of despair or death.

And I saw that I was being punished for my failures and my deficiencies, for my deception and my anger. I was being forced to pay for what I had done with Josie. It cheered me a little at that desperate time to think there was a larger plan and I was paying my debts.

Though I was drafted against my will, I saw that I must do my duties with a will and dedication. I longed to return to Josie, to escape the war and return to my flocks and my love. But since I could not, I resolved to serve the Lord where I was. And I began to see also the Lord might have called me out to minister to these troubled and desperate men of Tarleton's legion. Perhaps my captivity was part of a larger plan I knew nothing about.

For though we had heard so many terrible things about the king's army and Tarleton's regiment, about depredations and cruelties, and though I witnessed many cruelties myself, I soon came to see that most of the soldiers were heartsick and exhausted, marching day after day through mud and swamps, canebrakes and brush, in cold and rain, in
confusing wilderness, crossing raging rivers and creeks, camping in marsh and mire, burning and looting.

I saw these were men who had come to loathe their service and perhaps themselves. They were angry at the rebellion and the rebels, or they were too tired to even be angry. Their clothes and boots were wearing out, and they were far from resupply in Charleston.

Every day we rode farther into the backcountry of South Carolina and seized what pork and cattle, corn and wheat, we could find. I prayed with the men in the morning and led in song in the evening. Soldiers no older than boys came to me and wept, while others spat at my feet and blasphemed. I had never seen men more distraught, or scared, though some pretended nonchalance, irreverence.

One day I was brought to Colonel Tarleton himself. I was led to his tent in the pine grove and stood before him. Though short, the colonel was a strong figure of a man, with an air of authority, confidence, and a face as pretty as a woman's. His uniform was bright and fine, and he wore an expensive sword. As was often reported, he was arrogant of manner. It was said he had squandered a fortune at Oxford and in London before he joined the dragoons. He was known to have a terrible temper. It was reported he had executed his own soldiers with a sword or pistol.

“Reverend Trethman,” he said, “I am pleased you were able to join us.”

“It is my duty to serve the Lord,” I said.

“And to serve His Majesty,” the colonel said.

“I will pray and sing where I am needed,” I said.

“You are badly needed here,” the colonel said. His manner changed as quickly as if a new wind had swept through a forest. His face softened and he looked like the boy he almost was. He and I were about the same age. His eyes were troubled.

“Reverend Trethman,” he said in a lower voice, “my men need to be inspired. They are far from home and far from safety. This wilderness has exhausted them. The traitors harry us and burn our supplies. We are far
from the main army of Lord Cornwallis. The men wonder if this rebellion will ever end.”

He gestured for me to come closer.

“We need you to inspire us,” he said. “We need you to give us hope, to fortify us to do our duty.”

The colonel spoke as I had not expected. He said that without a sense of blessing, of the rightness of a cause, men would never serve at their best. He said a chaplain could be worth more than an extra piece of artillery if he could encourage men to see the justice of their cause. A chaplain must ease troubled minds and strengthen hope. He said men have to fight with a sense of purpose and pride, and it was my job to spirit up the men and restore their sense of purpose and justice. I told him I was just a plain minister of the Gospel.