Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 .. (66 page)

Comfort indeed.

But what have I done to Uncle Will and the rest? Milking 'em of all that was theirs. But, Gammer! She wanted me to marry Sue, though I thought us too close kin. Gammer knew, she must have! Yet she made me Dalesview's master. Why, why?

When he raised his head again, the boy stood hesitantly in the doorway, but now, seeing him look up, entered. "Sir, my mother says you are my father." His English was labored. "Oh, sir, I am glad."

"Glad?" Ram echoed, thinking: There's no doubt who he is. He's my image. What if he is on the left side? He's minel

"Yes, sir. I have much wanted a father. My friends do not like the English, save those who are devoted to good King James. And vou would still be serving him if you had not been drowned and—" Juan broke off, giggling. "But you did not drown, did you, sir?" He added thoughtfully: "Do you think all English heretics are evil? I don't, because when I was little, here on the plaza, one of them saved me from a savage bull." Then, shy because he had talked too much to this sad-faced officer who was, strangely, his father, he blushed and lowered his long lashes,

"You?" Ram gaped. Oh, Fate!

"Sir, forgive me!" the boy cried, seeing his expression. "My mother will be angry that I disturbed you." He turned to leavej reluctantly, as if hoping to be called back. But Ram let him go, still too entangled in his maze. Ram Anstruther? Patrick O'Duane? Even John Royston!

But light was coming, sparked by this son of his, and by Erinne. God, she behaved as if he'd never wronged her, never let her suffer years of shame! These past days, when he had lain delirious and desperate, she'd waited upon him, tenderly, pityingly. And now his strength was renewed, she'd brought him to this quiet study and left him alone to examine these bewildering documents.

Here was Brian O'Duane's commission as cornet of Clare's Dragoons, in French and dated 1700. Appended, over James II's signature and bearing the Royal Seal of Britain, was a statement that le Sieur O'Duane was descended from an illustrious Connaught family; that his father had died fighting for his King at Limerick.

There was a patent of nobility from James III, dated at Rome in 1728, creating Colonel Brian O'Duane Baron of Lake Corrib in County Galway, together with a grant of ten thousand acres as soon as his Majesty again reigned over Great Britain.

There was a genealogical table of the O'Duanes, and one of Marie-Elise's family, with the written comment: "My son should have been Baron de la Roche-Kergan, in Brittany. By French law his mother was heir, there being no collateral males, and he would have inherited through her. The estate has since passed through the younger female line to the present Baron."

A double baron, Irish and French, and hkely not an acre I could call my own! But I still have Shoreacres.

Father—well. Colonel Dick—always said I brought him luck. He swore before he got me he'd been the unluckiest man in Howe's!

Got! Ram had always assumed that Dick had meant "begot." But suppose he meant he had "got" him at Ramillies and adopted him? Suppose Meg, looting, had found him first and given his amulet to Carla? It would be just like Father to make her look after the babe she'd robbed. And Captain Edwardes! Had he known? Was that why dear old Villebonne had killed him—to keep the secret?

Erinne came in quietly, her eyes troubled. "My John, many know you are here. Since the Baron's funeral there has been talk—spread by the man who came with you. Some say you must be imprisoned. They will not do that now, but they will send you away. Oh, John, 'tis been so long and now we must part again!"

"Imprisoned?" Yes, if they knew he was Oglethorpe's spy chief, a prison was the least he could expect. "Why will they let me go?"

"I asked them to." She didn't explain that for these past three days she had pleaded and fought with the town's officials, insisting that, though an English officer, he had come voluntarily, because he was the Baron's lost son.

Too, boatloads of wounded—and many with hurts only to their valor—were arriving back from St. Simon's and causing panic by their tales of what had happened to their supposedly invincible army. What, nervous officials reasoned, if Don Diego Ogletorp should again besiege the town with his wild Scotchmen and red fiends? Surely a chivalrous gesture in freeing one of his officers would compel him to restrain his brutal men from rapine and murder?

Ram knew nothing of her fight. Yet now, as he gazed at her and saw the misery in her eyes, the light grew brighter until its warmth glowed within him, melting the ice in his heart, the armor of hatred he had worn so long. For a little he felt dazed, caught up in a vast bright cloud.

She's mine! he almost cried aloud. She's the lass I took beside the Thames, aye, and who let me in through her window. And I spent my love on a pretty-faced slut! God, I've been blind, blind!

She, watching him in turn, tried to interpret the strange emotions that flitted across his face.

"You must leave tonight. You will be set ashore at the nearest

English outpost under a flag of truce." She was fighting for control. "Oh, my love, now I will have only Juan left. When the war ends, you will come back to us?"

"Never!" His cry was so violent that she drew back in dismay.

"No!" His arms closed around her. "No, you come with me—you and our son!"

CHAPTER 21

THE ROAD TO DUQUESNE,

1755

Curse these Alleghenies! Ram thought irritably. They're like Hindustan mountains, but with all Georgia's pinewoods piled atop 'em. How the devil can Braddock get his troops even close to the fort, if it's like this all the way?

The road dropped abruptly into a void, and the enclosing trees gave place to open sky as they tumbled like green velvet to carpet a wdde valley below.

"The way falls steep," he warned Nathan and Job. "See the bat horses don't override you." He gave his stallion free rein.

Nathan's best for Juan, he decided. He'll make him a good body servant. Juan! Nine years since I've seen him and now he's twenty-three. Ecod, when I was his age, I was leading a horde of Marathas. But he's had small chance for action in an Irish garrison town, and this campaign can't promise him much either. Likely he'll spend years in some frontier fort.

Glowing inwardly, he thought of the past years with Erinne. Perfect wife, devoted mother, magnificent colonist! Not for her the dubious prestige of two baronies, but pride in being mistress of Shore-acres and spouse of Colonel Anstruther.

For he was still Ram Anstruther. When he'd brought Erinne and

the boy from Augustine, it was James who'd advised him to keep the name and to remain in Georgia, and also, as a concession to convention, to legally adopt Juan ''Royston/' The children who'd come since were, of course, Anstruthers by birth.

As for himself, he commanded all southern Georgia's militia, was an Assembly member and, since slavery had been permitted, owned fifty Negroes to work his cotton fields.

Yet he thought nostalgically of the old days, with James as his closest friend and leader. But James had long since returned to England and was now a lieutenant general. Too, Georgia had become a Crown colony, with a royal governor, and grown so strong that the St. Augustine Spaniards could never dare to invade it again.

His reverie held until he was far across the valley floor and had reached the Little Crossings over the headwaters of the Youghioheny. The ford there was guarded by a platoon of the Forty-eighth Foot— regiments were now numbered and no longer known by their colonels' names. The ensign in command said he knew "Johnny" Anstruther well, a rare fine fellow. He was certain the troops had not yet driven the French from Fort Duquesne, for the advance had been painfully slow through the interminable forests.

"All the fault of the cursed provincials not providing us enough horses and wagons," he added pompously.

Why, Ram fumed upon leaving him, do new men from home look down on us? If this jackanapes dares criticize us to my face, what of old Braddock? He'd ever a bitter tongue. Damme, we're as true Britons as any of 'em!

As he was leaving next morning, a Forty-eighth private limped up. He was, he said, Tom Faucett and he'd been left behind because of a tick-infected leg. Could the "Gunnel" give him a ride to rejoin his company? Ram ordered the slaves to redistribute one bat horse's load onto the other and their own mounts, and bade the soldier mount.

"You don't sound like a home man," he commented, as they rode.

"Lancaster, in Pennsylvaney's whare I'm frum—one o' them pore fools what 'listed in the reg'lars. 'Most half both reg'ments was recruited up to strength from my province and Mar)'land and Virginia. Me brother 'listed with me, and right regretful we are. Reg'lars is all drill, drill." Under further questioning, Faucett said he'd been an ostler and his brother a laborer before the lure of army pay had put

them into red coats. He'd never been away from Lancaster before, and he was highly critical of anything not Pennsylvanian. "The gin'ril couldn't git no hawses ner wagons ner nawthin' till our Dr. Ben Franklin got 'em for him," he confided. "Marylanders an' Virginians ain't wuth the powder to blow 'em away. And the home men's worse."

At day's end they came up with the heavy baggage train as it was making camp. Its commander. Colonel Thomas Dunbar, of the Forty-eighth, was frigid till he learned Ram had once held the King's commission.

"Damme, it seems here if a man commands half a score militia, he's a field officer and thinks he knows more than do gentlemen who've spent half their lives in the service," he grumbled.

"I've no advice to give anyone, save my son," Ram said, nettled. "But I've found making war in Georgia and Florida's far different from what it was in Europe."

"All provincials say that!" the other shrugged. "But I admit it's cursed slow business, hacking a road through these forests. That's why the general's up with the advance, leaving me to bring on the main stores and heavy guns. I'm not gaining four miles a day!"

If he's an example of our present officers, they'll never learn our colonial ways. Ram felt as he left Dunbar. I must check such a tendency in Juan, lest he grow too rigid in his thinking.

He had bivouacked well away from the troops, and soon Faucett joined him. "All the home men is awful scairy," the private chuckled. "I was a-tellin' some what Injians do to captives, an' the yaller-bellied rogues turned green. And me jist a-funnin' with 'em!"

"Rot your soul!" Ram exploded, remembering how idlers had tried to frighten the Highlanders newly arrived in Georgia. "All are fearful, home men or provincials, till they grow used to the forest. Are you so valiant, you, who've never before left your town?"

Next day he began overtaking a long column of wagons that carried rations for the fighting troops ahead. The twelve-foot road, bordered by raw tree stumps and with boulders still on it, was taking heavy toll of the vehicles; while the horses were gaunt from over^vork.

As he was passing the column's head, a sallow provincial officer poked his head from the hood of a wagon.

"Your pardon, sir!" he called to Ram. "Would I be imposing too much to request the use of one of your horses and to ride forward

with you? I've been down with the flux. Name's Washington, sir, and I'm acting as one of the general's aides."

Ram knew who he was; knew of how, the previous year, he'd led a Virginian force against the French but had been trapped in a half-built fort near this very spot and forced to surrender—though with honors of war. Introducing himself, therefore, Ram told Faucett to ride the rest of the way by wagon and order Job to take the private's seat on the bat horse, thereby freeing Juan's future stallion for young Colonel Washington's use.

Young! He wasn't more than twenty-five; yet now, as he crawled down, he was as bent as an old man from his late sickness. But he straightened in the saddle at once, complimenting Ram on the fine animal.

Ram told him about the Dalesview-Shoreacres strain and how it had provided officers' chargers for half a century. Chatting as they rode, Washington soon asked if Ram had ever met Braddock.

"Not since he was a Guards' lieutenant." Then Ram flushed at the other's stare of surprise. Damme, does that make me a relic? he smoldered. Braddock's ten years older than I.

But the Virginian was saying: "He speaks much of the late wars in Flanders. What battles! But in Europe the French still practice chivalry. Here they're not so nice and are like to send Indians scalping in our rear."

"So do the Dons," Ram agreed. "These Indians must be like ours in the south and rarely fight save from cover." Ram told about Faucett, adding: "Home troops are peerless in a set battle or a siege, but I've found 'em poor in the woods. And this raw fool spreads terror tales among 'em!"

"Yes, we've many like him," Washington agreed. "But with deference to Georgia, Colonel, I venture ye'll find no better woodsmen than our Virginia Rangers. We've four hundred fifty with us now. Had they been with me at Fort Necessity, I'd never have had to capitulate."

Ram chuckled. "Let me send for my own rangers to add to 'em, and we'll drive every Frenchman back to Canada!"

Soon afterward they caught up with the advanced division, which was halted while axmen hewed out a further stretch of roadway ahead. Washington indicated some mounted officers. "There's the

general and, by his looks, he's in no good temper. May I presume to present you to him. Colonel?"

As they approached him, Edward Braddock's florid face darkened at sight of Ram's blue coat, as if he feared more gratuitous advice from a "cursed provincial." But when he heard the name, he grinned ponderously.

"The Nabob, egad! Damme, never thought to find you here. What've ye come for? To teach me how to fight the French, hey?"

"No, General. Only to see my son in the Forty-fourth. I'd like to give him some hints as to what's expected of an ensign on campaign."

"Gentlemen, Nabob Anstruther was the gayest blade in the town," Braddock told his staff. "Rolling in lucre! Many's the wench I've had with guineas I won off him. So now you're an American, Nabob!"