Читать книгу Thaddeus Lewis Mysteries 3-Book Bundle - Janet Kellough - Страница 9

Upon his return home the next day, Betsy informed Lewis that some men had come to the house, again asking why her husband had not yet reported to Kingston.

“I told them you’re a minister now and won’t fight. They said it didn’t matter, everyone was to report, and that if you didn’t, it would prove what everybody knows — that the Methodists are traitors. You won’t have to go, will you?”

“I won’t go to fight, but I will have to go to Kingston and straighten it out,” he said. He had put it off too long already. He made arrangements with the local preachers to cover his meetings for a couple of days, repacked his saddle bag, and set off.

As he picked his way along the road, he reflected that, conscience notwithstanding, he was happy of an excuse not to go to war again. He had been a young man when he fought the Americans in 1812, full of himself and ready to achieve glory. The reality of the thing had been quite different than he had imagined: smelly, noisy, chaotic, and at times terrifying. Blood, vomit, and lice had been everyday companions.

When he wasn’t terrified, he had been bored. But it was those moments of terror that stuck with him most, those moments that still caused him to wake from the nightmares in a cold sweat. He had seen legs blown off, a man with half his face shot away, dead bodies stiffening in the winter wind.

He’d got off lucky, in a way. He had fallen ill — a malady that later proved to be typhus — and he had been invalided home. After he had recovered, he’d begun to drink and had been drunk for fifty days straight, he was told, though he could scarcely remember any of it. He could only recall not wanting to remember anything about the war. After he recovered from his binge, he’d found both Betsy and the Lord in the same week. He felt sure that the juxtaposition was no accident. Without Betsy, he would never have realized the depths he’d sunk to; without the Lord, he wasn’t sure that Betsy would have given him the time of day.

He was perspiring by the time he reached the gates of the stone fort at Kingston, even though it was a brisk day and the wind was switching to the north. He asked the sentry if he could speak with the officer in charge.

“Why do you want him?” the sentry asked in that arrogant and challenging way that soldiers adopt when dealing with civilians.

“That’s my business,” Lewis replied.

“Are you ex-militia? If you’re militia that’s been called, you have to wait in the ready room.”

“I’m ex-militia, but I have no intention of being called.”

“You’ll have to wait in the ready room.”

Lewis shrugged and went in the direction the sentry pointed.

It was cold in the room; no one had made a fire for the soldiers being called in. The place was overflowing with grumbling farmers and tradesmen who were annoyed at the time that was being wasted while work waited for them at home. Lewis finally found a seat beside an old man who must have been seventy if he was a day.

“Good afternoon,” the man said pleasantly, “although it could well be good evening by now.”

“How long have you been waiting?” Lewis asked him.

“I got here this morning.”

This was unwelcome news. Lewis had been hoping to dispatch his business in a few minutes and be on his way back home.

“Are you here for the fighting?” the old man wanted to know. “They say the Americans are coming across to burn Kingston.”

“I was supposed to be, since I’m a militia veteran, but I won’t fight again. I’m a Methodist Episcopal minister, and I’m here to get an exemption.”

The man peered at him closely, and Lewis realized that he was half-blind, his eyes clouded with a milky film. “Oh, I should have seen that you’re a man of the cloth. Of course you won’t fight, or at least not for anything less than men’s souls, eh?”

“I should have thought that there was an age exemption as well,” Lewis said.

“Oh, there is, there is. I ignored it. I don’t hold with revolutions or with Americans invading either, for that matter. Don’t care how bad things are, there’s no call for armed insurrection. Nasty things happen during revolutions, I tell you. Nasty, nasty things.”

Lewis took a guess. “Loyalist?”

“And proud of it. I was a young man back then in Dutchess County, New York. Had a wife and two children already. Damn Yankees came and took all my livestock on the first go round, then they came back and took the farm, too. I’d have stayed out of it if I could, but they didn’t leave me much choice. Fought with Rogers’ Rangers on the British side just to get back at them. Settled up here on land the government gave me for fighting. Fought them again in 1812 … lost my oldest son in that one … and I’m telling you, I’ll fight them again tomorrow before I let them take one damn thing more from me … pardon my language there, Preacher.”

He took great rasping breaths between sentences and Lewis realized that he suffered from emphysema as well as being old and blind.

“You know, whenever people take things into their own hands … the only ones who suffer … are the good hard-working folks who have better things to do with their time.” The man subsided into an exhausted silence.

Lewis smiled. He’d heard much the same sentiments from the older folks on any of the circuits that had been settled by United Empire Loyalists, those Americans who had stayed true to the King during the Revolutionary War and who had been hounded out of the States for their pains. They had a basic mistrust of rabble-rousers, and with good reason, he figured. It was ironic that many of these were now the same people who were viewed with suspicion by the government as harbouring pro-American sentiments, an opinion based almost solely on their stubborn refusal to accept the established religion. How many times do you have to prove your loyalty?

He sat for another hour while the old-timer got his second wind and rambled on. Every once in a while someone would get up and disappear somewhere on the other side of the parade ground, but would almost immediately be replaced by someone else coming in. The call for militia must have been quite general, but what on earth they were going to do with the old fellow next to him, he had no idea.

He was about to get up and go looking for something to eat when an officer in a commandant’s uniform strode through the room. He looked neither to the left nor the right, but Lewis realized that this must be the man he was looking for, and rose to block his path.

“What can I do for you, sir?” the man said impatiently.

“You can give me an exemption.”

“What? Former militia? Been pestered into coming here?”

Lewis smiled. “Yes, that’s about it.”

The officer snorted. “Honestly, I don’t know what they’re thinking. Anyone can see that you’re a preacher. Preachers and old men — what am I supposed to do with any of you? Have you got your papers?”

Lewis nodded.

“Follow me.”

Lewis almost had to run to keep up with him. They entered a small office, and the officer rummaged through a pile of papers and extracted a form.

“Let’s see them, then.” He held out his hand. Lewis passed him his documents.

“Oh … Methodist. Been having a rough time of it?”

“There are some who seem to think that just because my church originated in America that that is where my loyalties lie,” Lewis conceded.

“Damn bunch of fools. Let me guess — your parents were Loyalists, you were born here, you fought in the War of 1812, and you’d be perfectly willing to fight again except for the fact that you’ve found the Lord.”

“All true, except for the last part. I don’t think I’d ever be willing to fight again. I saw too much the last time around.”

He knew he was taking a chance by saying this, but the officer didn’t strike him as the sort of man who would take offence at an honest statement.

He didn’t. He treated him to a penetrating stare, then signed the form with a flourish.

“There you go, Preacher. And if I were you, I’d be careful who you share your sentiments with.”

Lewis nodded and was about to go, but turned back. “Just one thing …”

“Yes?”

“There’s a blind old gaffer out in the ready room who’s determined to do his bit. Can you find something for him that wouldn’t be too taxing? You’ll break his heart if you send him home.”

The officer heaved a sigh. “You know, I’ve got a whole platoon of old men who do nothing but sweep the parade ground every day because they’re not fit for anything else.” Then he smiled. “But I’ll do my best to get him enlisted again. Good luck.”