The Midshipman Prince (14 page)

      
Walker was looking at the prince like he had crawled out from under a rock, while Smith just sat and sputtered. Under normal circumstances, Smith was one of the most confident people Walker had ever known. Be that as it may, he was still a commoner and had a commoner’s tendency to come unglued in the presence of royalty.

      
“Sir... I mean, your Highness... Ah... We’ve just come from Admiral Hood and... ah...” Smith was tripping over words like an adolescent boy trying to ask a girl to his first dance.

      
“Hood? Sammy Hood? I thought Graves was in charge?” The bar maid had returned with a tray of wooden tankards which she was distributing. The prince had his hand underneath her dress this time.

      
“Will that be all, my Lord?”

      
“For the moment, yes; but who knows about later on.” She blushed, smiled, and moved to another room.

      
Turning back to Smith and Walker: “Well, gentlemen, do we not drink a toast to our great fleet’s victory? I’ll bet Graves has those frogs running, or should I say hopping, halfway back to Brest by now.”

      
“Well, sir, not exactly. You see, we’ve been tasked with...” Smith was stammering again.

      
“Barney, you old snake!” The prince was waiving at a senior officer who had just walked in.” Walker wished he understood British army insignia better. He had no idea if the new officer was a general or a coronet. “Good to see you!”

      
“Your highness, if I may continue. You see...”

      
It was at that moment that the prince somehow managed to both burp and fart at the same time. At a college student party, Walker might have expected it; but coming from this overbearing charter member of the Lucky Birth Club, it was too much.

      
Walker’s voice was low and conspiratorial. “Your Highness, what my friend here is trying to say is that there are some matters we need to discuss that are... state secrets, for your ears only, you understand,” he said as he furtively looked around him. “If we could perhaps adjourn to a more discreet area.”

      
“Oh yes, I see. Quite. Quite.”

      
“Perhaps out back, Your Highness.”

      
Walker and Smith half supported the prince as they made their way down the brief stairs and out the back door.

      
“So, what is...” the prince started to say.

      
“Not here. Perhaps over there.” Walker led the prince to the back right corner of the yard where there was a slightly dilapidated livery stable with a large, very full, watering trough in front. When they got to the trough Walker turned the prince around so he was facing him. He then slipped his right leg behind the prince and flipped him over his hip into the trough.

      
“Walker!!” Smith let out a horrified yell, but Walker was already on the prince. Despite Smith’s best efforts to drag him off, Walker grabbed the prince by his shirt collar, plunged his head under water, and then brought him up.

      
“Now listen up, gumdrop! We’ve got some important business here so...” The prince’s head went under again, then back up. “So it’s time for you to sober-up.” Back under and up. “Is that reasonably clear to you?” The prince was coughing which mattered not a bit to Walker. Under and up again. “Are you starting to get the picture here?” He started to put him under again but the prince was shaking his head and grabbing Walker’s arm.

      
“No. Please, that’s enough.”

      
Walker threw him back in the water and stood up. Smith was wide-eyed and utterly paralyzed. And the prince? The prince started laughing.

      
“Oh my,” he said as he got up out of the fetid trough. In between peals of laughter he said: “Oh my, you have no idea how bad that water tastes.”

      
Climbing out of the trough the prince immediately grew serious and said: “All right, now what’s going on.”

      
The prince was a slightly built lad with light brown hair, thin lips, and a pale almost feminine complexion. His blue eyes were set off by a natural rosy coloration in his cheeks, and he had an underlying air of confidence, almost cockiness, about him. All in all, he was a very handsome young man.

      
“Perhaps we should start this again from the beginning. I am Lucas Walker, ship’s surgeon from the
Richmond
. This is her First Lieutenant, William Sidney Smith. We’ve just come from the fleet,” and Walker explained the situation and the very real danger that existed for the prince.

      
“I see,” said the prince. “And you’re convinced that the frogs will again secure control of the Chesapeake?”

      
“Yes, I am, and so is Admiral Hood. That’s why he sent us to get you the hell out of here. You can understand the international implications of your being captured or, worse, killed.”

      
“So, what are we to do?”

      
“From here we go to someplace called Moore House and spend the night. General Cornwallis will have your things packed and sent there. Tomorrow at noon, we’ll rendezvous with a boat and go out to the ship. From there, we head to New York to give you over to Governor Clinton. And from there, I don’t know; I suspect you’ll probably be shipped back to England.” The prince looked saddened by the news, especially the prospect of being sent back to England.

      
“All right,” the prince sighed. “It’s getting late so we’d better get some horses.” The three men turned and started walking back to the tavern, the prince still sopping wet.

      
“Oh yes, Walker, one more thing.”

      
“Yes?”

      
The prince turned and caught Walker on the side of his chin with a roundhouse right that sent him staggering back several paces and almost knocked him down.

      
“That’s for dunking me in the tank.”

      
It was Walker’s turn to laugh.
Maybe this guy isn’t so bad after all,
he thought.

* * *

      
Horses were waiting for the three when they got back to Nelson House and they began their journey along the road headed southeast out of town. As they were getting on their horses, however, Walker looked back and saw the man with the red hair and his companion walking down Main Street. Walker got Smith’s attention.

      
“Sidney, don’t do it obviously, but look behind me at those two men walking by the Custom’s House across the street,” he said. “Notice anything strange about them?”

      
Smith casually glanced over Walker’s shoulder and quickly studied the two over.

      
“They’re sailors, aren’t they?”

      
“Yes, but how did you conclude that?”

      
“Look at the way they walk or, I should say, waddle, with their feet wide apart as if expecting the ground to start rolling and pitching under them at any moment.”

      
Walker was impressed with young Smith’s power of deduction.

      
The prince quickly assumed the role of the affable host pointing out the uniforms of the various regiments as they headed out of town—the 17th Foot, 33rd Foot, the Royal Artillery and the two units composed of American loyalists: the British Legion and the green-coated Queen’s Rangers. He saved special pride, however, for the Brigade of Guards and the Jagers.

      
The Brigade of Guards was composed of men from three units that ordinarily served as bodyguards to the king—the Grenadier Guards, the Coldstream Guards, and the Scots Guards. The brigade that was presently at Yorktown consisted of 15 men chosen from each of the three companies. They were the elite of the elite, knew it, carried themselves that way, and backed it up with a reputation as utterly fearless fighters.

      
Equal in reputation to the Brigade were the Jagers. Very early in the revolution, King George III realized he didn’t have enough troops to defeat the rebels and meet all his other military obligations around the world. However, in addition to being the King of England, he was also the King of the German Principality of Hanover; so, he drew troops from there and from neighboring kingdoms and sent them to America. In all, some 30,000 troops were raised in that way.

      
The Jagers were from Hesse-Kassel and were recruited from among the gamekeepers and foresters of the area. These men had lived their lives in the woods; and, coupled with being crack shots, this made them extremely useful as light infantry and reconnaissance units.

      
“Look, over there,” the prince pointed out. “See those men with the green coats and brown pants. Those are the Jagers.

      
“Want to know their ranks? There are two officers, one sergeant and seven enlisted.”

      
“How can you know that from this distance, Your Highness?” They all looked the same to Smith.

      
“Simple. Look at the feathers in their hats. If the feather is all white, the person is an officer. If it is white with a red tip, he’s a sergeant; and if the feather is green, the person is an enlisted man.

      
“Terrific fighters, those men. It’s said they can knock the eye out of a squirrel at 300 paces with those new rifles they’re carrying. They cost us a fortune, make no mistake; but the Jagers and their rifles have paid for themselves a dozen times over.”

      
They passed through the close-in town defenses and crossed the second defensive line at Redoubt #9 with a friendly wave toward the soldiers stationed there. The redoubt itself was nothing more than a large circular trench with the earth piled on a mound on the inside. Sticking out of the mound and hanging over the ditch was a series of sharpened logs. To take the redoubt the opposing force would have to lose valuable time overcoming those sharpened logs in the teeth of an enemy firing down on them. Redoubts #9 and #10 were designed to anchor the British left flank and Walker could see no easy way of defeating them.

      
About a mile later, the three turned off the main road and up a long drive to a neat white frame, two-story, building. It was nearly dusk but the house staff saw them coming and were lined up outside to greet them in typical English manor fashion. A black groom led the horses away and the housekeeper showed them into the parlor, poured them each a glass of a spectacularly good Cabernet Sauvignon, and left several bottles.
 

      
Walker, the ex-alcoholic, looked very uncomfortable and slightly agitated. He demanded that the servant remove his wine glass and produce a pitcher of lemon-drink, which was quickly done.
 

      
The three sat around the parlor table looking down at the green felt in awkward silence.

      
Smith finally spoke first. “Your Highness, would you like...”

      
Walker rolled his eyes. The prince caught it.

      
“Right, Walker. I quite agree.”

      
“Look, Smith, I am a midshipman in His Majesty’s Navy. As such, I do not use my title. You are a lieutenant and you are senior to me, so how about we dispense with the ‘Your Highness’ and ‘Your Lordship.’”

      
“Certainly, Your...” Smith began, and then corrected himself.

      
Silence.

      
“All right then,” the prince broke the lengthy pause. “If you two are going to be my rescuers, perhaps I should know a bit more about you, what?

      
“Lieutenant, could we begin with you?”

      
Smith started as the prince topped off his and Smith’s glass with some more wine and Walker’s with some more lemon-drink. He provided an abbreviated version of the story he told Walker several days earlier, omitting the parts about his father’s character, but mentioning his resignation because of the Sackville Scandal. The prince asked several pertinent but not unkind questions about the affair and let it go.