The Turning of Anne Merrick (43 page)

“To my father?” Anne shuddered. “I’d rather make the collections for Mr. Binny’s pus plate.”

“Then have a little patience. Everyone is heartily sick of this war, including the British. We routed Burgoyne, and this summer’s campaign will break the Crown’s back. I know it…
Goddamn
this worthless chinking!”

The dried mud fell out once again, and the rumble of drums blew in with the icy air. Jack called to Titus, “Hear that? Sounds like they’re beating the call to assemble.”

Anne and Jack hopped onto their feet, and Titus was already donning his coat and running out the open door.

Sally stood wide-eyed, the shirt she’d been stitching in a tumble on the floor. “Could it be a call t’ battle?”

The drums were getting louder and louder. Pink ran out after Titus, and, throwing on her cloak, she yelled over her shoulder, “Everyone’s runnin’ toward the parade ground.”

Brian and Jim joined Anne and Jack at the open door. “Sounds like the whole drum line is out in force.”

In no time, Pink and Titus were running back to the cabin. Waving her arms over her head, Pink shouted, “No attack!” Flying in through the doorway, she said, “I need a hat…”

“The army’s assembling on the parade ground,” Titus said, shutting the door. “They’re drummin’ some officer out of the camp.”

“An officer!” Jim and Brian were practically jumping out of their pockmarked skins. Transgressing officers were rarely punished so publicly. “Which one?”

“I don’t know,” Titus said, tying his plain felt hat down with a woolly muffler. “But if anyone plans on going to watch, best bundle up. Don’t let that sunshine fool you—it is jeezly cold out. The wind is a razor.”

Brian turned to Anne. “Can I borrow your old shoes and coat?”

Jim jumped up. “I need to use your cloak, Sally.”

“Are yiz both daft?” Sally shrugged into her Hessian coat. “Ye canna go prancing about all pocky-faced on the parade ground.”

Anne swirled into her cloak. “Sally’s right. You two have to stay put.”

“No!” Jim stamped his stockinged foot.

Pink handed dumbfounded Brian a spoon. “Mind the stew.”

Jack donned his overcoat and tricorn, and scrubbed the top of Jim’s head. “We’ll tell you all about it when we get back.”

They joined the masses streaming to the call of the drums like farmhands to the dinner bell. Positioning themselves on a slight rise, as close as they could for a good view, they huddled together—Pink clung to Titus, Anne looped her arm through Jack’s, and Sally nestled in between the two couples.

“I think we’ll be within earshot,” Jack shouted over the drums.

The scene on the parade ground was a combination of chaos and order. Drummers from every regiment were gathered into one massive
band, and their music was so resounding, the sound seemed to penetrate up through the soles of Anne’s feet to thrum in her breast. Thousands of soldiers scrambled into position, pushing and shuffling to form even ranks on the snow-packed field.

The effects of the recent supply train were evident. Many of the officers straightening the lines and several companies were sporting red coats and clean white breeches salvaged from the British supply ship. But seeing the entire army turned out made it clear the overall need far outweighed whatever was carried in from the ship, as most of the enlisted men were still lacking decent clothing and footwear.

The center of the field was the heart of order. General Washington and his brigade commanders sat in a row mounted on horseback, as still as statues, engulfed in vapor clouds snorted up from horse nostrils. Standing to the left of the commander in chief, with colors in full array, were the ranks of officers and soldiers serving with Washington’s Life Guard, David among them.

“My David sparkles on parade,” Sally boasted. “I’m glad I saw to polishing his buttons.”

With one swoop of the drum major’s sword the drumming ceased. The drum major turned and in a loud, clear voice read out the charges.

“At a General Court Martial whereof Colonel Tupper was President, Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin of Colonel Malcolm’s Regiment was tried for attempting to commit…” The drum major hesitated. “For attempting to commit
sodomy
, with John Monhort, a soldier.”

Though armed with foreknowledge of the Lieutenant’s court-martial and admitted crime, hearing the charge read aloud, Anne could not help but join in the crowd’s collective indrawn breath. But for the noise of the regimental colors snapping on the breeze, the parade ground was as quiet as a graveyard.

“Secondly,” the drum major read, “for perjury in swearing to false accounts, the accused is found guilty of the charges exhibited against him, being breaches of Fifth Article, Eighteenth Section of the Articles of War, and do sentence him to be dismissed from the service with infamy. His Excellency, the Commander in Chief George Washington,
approves the sentence and with abhorrence and detestation of such infamous crimes, orders Lieutenant Enslin to be drummed out of camp by all the drummers in the Army, never to return.”

“I’m glad he’s not sentenced to hanging,” Anne said.

Jack said, “Many would prefer hanging than suffer being drummed out.”

The drum major gave a signal, and, coming from behind the ranks of the Life Guard, Lieutenant Enslin was paraded out and presented to the High Command. Unbound, and dressed in a complete uniform with hat and shoes, the condemned Lieutenant presented a much better figure than when she’d seen him last.

The Lieutenant’s regimental commander, Colonel Malcolm, marched forward to stand before him. “On your knees, sir,” he ordered.

Malcolm began the drumming out by knocking Enslin’s tricorn to the ground. Very methodically, using his short sword, the Colonel started at the shoulders, ripping and cutting away all signs of rank and regimental honor. Every single epaulet, decoration, and button taken from the Lieutenant’s coat was thrown with utter disdain to the snow.

“Your sword, sir.”

Enslin drew his weapon from its scabbard and the very quiet crowd gasped when Colonel Malcolm held it in gloved hands, and snapped the blade in two over his knee. “See to his dress,” Malcolm ordered, tossing the broken halves away.

The drum major jerked Enslin’s uniform coat off and, after turning it wrong side out, handed it back to the Lieutenant to don.

A pair of very young drummer boys, no older than Jim, stepped out from ranks and spun their drums to rest on their backs. The first boy slipped a halter over Enslin’s head, and the second pinned a fluttering sheet of foolscap to his back.

Pink asked, “What does it say?”

“Hard to make it out,” Titus answered. “But it can’t be nothing good.”

The drum corps began beating a slow, ominous tattoo, and the
little drummer boy jerked Enslin’s halter, and tugged him up to his feet.

“A funeral dirge,” Jack noted.

To the sad music, the little drummer led the disgraced man before all the ranks, as if he were a rare beast on display, first from right to left—then left to right. Enslin bore this indignity with shoulders back, head high, and eyes forward, focused on some distant horizon. The wind plastered the paper sign to his back, and the message was clear for all who knew how to read the big black letters—SODOMITE.

The drum major signaled again and the drum corps struck up the “Rogue’s March.” The little drummer boy turned to lead the Lieutenant off the parade ground, followed by the drums. The ranks were dismissed, and entire crowd followed along, many of the soldiers running ahead to fling snowballs and insults Enslin’s way.

Jack shook his head. “The last time I heard this tune was when the mob knocked down the statue of King George down on the Bowling Green. This pitiful fellow doesn’t appear to be in the same league, does he?”

Anne said, “My heart aches for him. He’s a very nice man.”

“He is?” Jack asked.

Anne nodded. “He’s the officer who helped me to find the boys in quarantine. I was so upset—in tears—and he was more than kind to me.”

“What’s become of the other fellow—the one he dallied with?” Titus asked.

Sally said, “Run off afore he could be arrested.”

Jack watched Enslin. “The punishment seems out of balance. His partner in this crime was a willing participant. This fellow didn’t desert, or thieve, or plunder… and from what I’ve heard, if he hadn’t forgotten to pull the latchstring in, all would still consider him a model officer.”

Marching to the solemn dirge, the little drummer led Enslin all the way to Sullivan’s Bridge crossing over the Schuylkill. Cutting the man from his halter, the drummer boy issued one last indignity, sending
the banished Lieutenant from camp with a hard kick in the backside and with orders to never return.

The crowd cheered, and let fly a barrage of snowballs to rain down as Enslin ran full speed across the bridge without a backward glance.

“Flog the bloody bugger.”

“Bugger the bloody bugger!”

“Hang him!”

A gang of jeering soldiers ran up on the bridge, shouting and throwing snowballs, and when their target disappeared out of range, they began flinging them at one another.

Sally grabbed Anne by the forearm and pointed. “Look there—th’ tall soldier—th’ one wearin’ a Third Yorkers coat—I swear he’s sportin’ the shirt you made for Brian.”

Anne studied the fellow Sally pointed out, and as he swung around to pitch a snowball, she caught sight of the familiar green-striped flannel petticoat she’d sacrificed, peeking up above the edge of his weskit.

“The thief!” Anne said.

Jack asked, “Are you certain?”

“I’m positive.”

“What do you want to do?” Titus eyed the soldier. “He got his mates around him.”

“I don’t care.” Jack handed Anne his hat. “I’ll knock him down, Titus. You keep the others at bay.”

Titus put his hat and muffler in Pink’s care. “Let’s go!”

They ran full speed, straight for the thief. Jack plowed into the fellow, knocking him flat to the snow. Titus didn’t have to do much more than look fierce with fists clenched, and announce, “This man’s a clothes thief!” to deter any interference from the gathering crowd as Jack sat with his knee dug into the man’s gut, and tugged a fistful of green-striped flannel tight at his throat.

Anne came running up with Pink and Sally. “That’s it—that’s my petticoat!”

Titus said, “This rascal’s also wearing the gaiters I made for Brian.”

“Give over—the shirt, the gaiters…” Jack jumped up and delivered
a swift kick to the ribs. “Along with anything else you stole, you fucking thief.”

Curled in a ball, the soldier coughed and sputtered, “I din’t steal nothin’, mister—God strike me blind if I’m not tellin’ the truth.” With difficulty, he sat up to remove the gaiters, his fingers trembling with cold or fear, fumbling on the buttons. “I paid in hard silver for both this shirt and these gaiters. Ask Theo there; he’ll tell ye—I paid an officer two shillings for ’em—I never thieved.”

“I tell you what,” Jack said, snatching the gaiters from his hand. “Give me the name and regiment of the man who sold these thieved goods to you, and you can keep the shirt.”

“I’ll gladly take that deal, mister.” The soldier rose up to his feet. “Lieutenant William Williams, Thirteenth Virginia—he be the scoundrel yer looking for. My word on it.” The soldier offered Jack his hand. “I hope you wallop the bejesus out o’ the bastard.”

Anne hiked her skirts and took the stairs two at a time. She marched right into the first door on the left without knocking and said, “David Peabody, tell me it isn’t true.”

David looked up from a table scattered with papers and ledgers, shaking his head. “Oh no… You’re not allowed up here without authorization…”

Anne folded her arms. “Just tell me it isn’t true, and I’ll be on my merry way.”

Footsteps pounded up the staircase and the breathless old sentry poked his head in the doorway. “Paid me no mind, Cap’n. I tried to stop her, but she squittered right past.”

“My apologies, sentry. Rest assured, nothing short of a round from your musket could stop my sister when she has her mind set on plaguing me. You can return to your post.” David leaned back in his chair. “I told you, Annie—I have no control over these matters.”

Anne slapped her hands down on his desk. “You have to do something! A most vile thief—an officer, no less—preying on young soldiers
in such a vicious way is charged with ungentlemanly conduct? This cannot stand.”

“What does the charge matter? Williams has been tried and cashiered from service. Justice is served.”

“By what wicked design is this considered justice? Williams has walked out of this camp, la-di-da, the silver realized from the sale of his thievery jingling in his pocket, while poor Lieutenant Enslin was humiliated and vilified before thousands for a crime that harmed no one. Where’s the justice in that?”

David leaned to his left, looking beyond his sister, and said, “Yes, Billy?”

A stocky black man dressed in powdered wig, feathered tricorn, and Continental blue and buff stepped into David’s office. “The General kindly asks to see you and yo’ sistuh in the dining hall, presently.”

“My sister?” David repeated, pushing up to a stand.

Billy nodded. “Yessuh. General’s order.”

“Wonderful.” David limped around the table donning hat and muffler, staring daggers at Anne, and gave her a little shove toward the door. “G’won. Now we’re in for it.”

Anne shoved him back. “I didn’t do anything!”

“You came up here and caused a rumpus, didn’t you?”

Billy chuckled, and led them down the stairs and out the back door to the new annex cabin everyone had taken to calling the “dining hall.” Bigger than the standard cabin, the dining hall boasted two windows cut into the log walls on either side of the doorway, fitted with leaded panes of crown glass. It was hard to make out anything through the blurry, frosted panes but the fuzzy bright spots of light from lanterns and candles.

Mounted on brass hinges, the door swung open easily, and Anne stepped onto a plank floor to find Sally sitting on a chair beside the door. She looked up from twisting her mittens in a knot. Her face was as white as a floured piecrust and she answered the unasked question, “We dinna ken why we were summoned.”