Читать книгу Rabble in Arms: A Chronicle of Arundel and the Burgoyne Invasion - Kenneth Roberts - Страница 15

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It was nearer two o’clock than one when Captain Wilkinson came out from headquarters and found the seven of us sitting around a small fire we had kindled on the opposite sidewalk, the night being overcast and as black as the inside of a stove, and therefore cold. The general, he informed us, very secret and impressive, was now able to see us. When he had given us the message, he moved his jawbones so that an enormous pulse seemed to throb slowly and angrily in the lower part of his face. “Don’t you know,” he added, “you oughtn’t to light a fire close to headquarters like this?”

Cap Huff heaved himself to his feet. “Why not?” he asked hoarsely.

Captain Wilkinson looked at him patronisingly. “Why not? Why, because it isn’t military. It isn’t dignified.”

Cap Huff seemed to mull over this explanation for a time; and at length he appeared to find reason in it—which surprised me; for to me it seemed no explanation at all. None the less, Cap said to the young man, in as mealy a voice as I ever heard, “Well, it ain’t, now that you speak of it. It certainly ain’t dignified! I’ll have it stopped right away.”

On that Captain Wilkinson turned away with a satisfied air, and we followed him into headquarters. As we went, I thought to myself that no matter how military Captain Wilkinson might be, he was no woodsman, since he walked with his toes turned out, and with a gingerly deliberateness, as though he trod on ostrich eggs.

The general was writing when we crowded into his office and lined up before his desk. The four men we had brought, according to orders, were Nathaniel, Verrieul, Tom Bickford and Doc Means; and in that dim office, lighted only by the four candles on Arnold’s paper-strewn desk, the seven of us, in our shapeless tow-cloth smocks, must surely have displayed little of soldierliness or ability. Yet this general, in his bright uniform of blue and buff, seemed to find nothing strange in our appearance; for when he had finished his writing, he waved his letter to dry it and looked up at us as if what he saw gave him actual pleasure. “Well, well!” he said, “I haven’t smelled an asafœtida bag since I worked for the Lathrops in New Haven. Who’s wearing it?”

Cap Huff pushed Doc Means forward. “This is Doc Means. He’s a good deal more useful than he smells.”

“You’re a doctor?” Arnold asked.

Doc Means wavered weakly before him, looking helpless. “Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t like to say I was a regular doctor—not from what I know about some of ’em.”

Arnold laughed. “We won’t go into that! I’ve sold drugs myself!” To Nason he said impatiently: “Who are the others?”

It seemed to me there was pride in Nason’s voice. “This here’s Nathaniel Merrill, brother to Cap’n Peter. He went to Harvard College, and he can talk like an Englishman so you wouldn’t know the difference. He’s been supercargo with Cap’n Peter. Next to him’s Tom Bickford of Arundel. He’ll catch fish where they aren’t any, and track deer across solid rock. He wanted to go to Harvard and be a minister, but he had to go to sea on account of his family.”

“Seaman or officer?” Arnold asked.

Tommy smiled his polite smile. “I can navigate, sir, but I never had a vessel of my own. First mate, I was.”

Arnold’s eyes glittered in the candlelight, and he hitched himself forward in his chair to look at Verrieul. “And what does this young man do? Something unusual, I hope.”

“Well, you might say so,” Nason admitted. “His name’s Joseph Marie Verrieul, and he went to Dartmouth College. He speaks French, Iroquois, Abenaki and Chippeway, and can make orations in all of them.”

“Not Dartmouth College!” Arnold protested. “Why, it was only ten years ago that I contributed the profits of a sea-venture towards the establishment of that institution! Surely such an investment can’t be showing a return!” He laughed silently; and in the wavering glow his rounded face took on a lean, satirical look. He was pleased with Nason’s men: no doubt of that; and I feel free to admit I would have counted myself fortunate if, in an hour of need, I could have had them on any vessel of mine.

Arnold’s laugh died quickly, “All right,” he said. “You’re scouts, all of you. I sent Nason to Arundel to get good scouts, and I believe he’s got ’em. I’ve heard a lot, up here, from Pennsylvanians and Virginians and Jerseymen, about what cowards New Englanders are: how they’re no good, and not to be depended on. Personally being one myself, I don’t hold with their ideas.”

He eyed us from under thin, arched brows. Cap Huff cleared his throat with the sound of a brig rubbing barnacles from a wharf.

“Yes,” Arnold went on. “They say you New Englanders are cowards—ignorant bumpkins who never do as you’re told; and I must admit I come across a few answering to that description—a few! I’m just back from clearing up a mess two of ’em made! Bedel and Butterfield!”

The very thought threw him into a passion. He made a whishing sound between his teeth, leaped to his feet to glare at us; then threw himself into his chair once more.

“Heart-breaking poltroonery!” he exclaimed. “Shameful! By God, I can’t believe it yet! Two weeks thrown away, trying to salvage four hundred soldiers, surrendered by those two capons—those two she-rabbits!” He thumped the desk and seemed about to burst with rage.

Surprisingly, he laughed. “Well, fortunes of war! That’s done—all a part of the mess behind us! What I started to say is this: I’ve had enough to do with New Englanders, to know they’re all right, taking ’em by and large—all right! If you men do scout duty, you’ll work under my orders, and I expect those orders to be obeyed. If any one feels he can’t obey orders, he shouldn’t hesitate to say so. There’s plenty that can’t in this army! Probably there’s no help for it, only I don’t want any of ’em! I’d rather have ’em attached to Hazen, who has trouble obeying orders himself!”

He seemed to be listening for a reply. I was glad when Nason said quietly: “You don’t need to send these men to Hazen, General! I’ve been watching ’em. They’re all right.”

From the manner in which Cap Huff heaved himself about, he had something to say. He prefaced his words with an explosive cough. “Hazen? Colonel Hazen? Seems like I heard that name before! Who was it lied to Schuyler about what he’d find in Canada when he started up to take Montreal? Wasn’t that Hazen?”

Arnold glowered at Cap. His face was dark, and the name seemed to irk him. “Hazen!” he said contemptuously. “Yes, that was Hazen—always a thorn in the flesh! Always the starting-point of trouble and disaster! It seems as if there can’t ever be an army without a Hazen in it!”

He jumped up from his desk and went to stand beside the rough map on the wall. The broad St. Lawrence swept diagonally across it; Quebec in the upper right-hand corner, and in the lower left the monstrous divergence of river channels around the high land of Montreal. Half-way between the two was the broad oval of Lake St. Peter, with the Richelieu River extending straight downward from the western end until it merged with Lake Champlain.

“You don’t know it yet,” he told us, “but scout duty’s apt to bring you strange orders. Your orders’ll be between you and me. What you hear from me is our business—yours and mine: nobody else’s! There’ll be times when you’ll be supposed to know what’s going on; but if you try to find out what’s going on in Canada, you’re going to hear wild tales. You want to be careful what you believe. Don’t believe too much. I don’t like to see people misled; so if you’re still of a mind to serve under me, I’ll supply you with your first batch of information, just to make sure you start to stock the right goods.”

He ran his finger along the line of the St. Lawrence, from Quebec down to the edge of the map, west of Montreal. “That’s a roadway, the St. Lawrence is,” he said. “The roadway between the English and the Indians. If we have to get out of the road, the Indians can join the English when they please and where they please, and raise hell with our people.”

He turned and faced us. “We’re in a mess! We’re in as bad a mess as ever was! There’s such a mess here, and in Sorel and St. John’s, and up and down the river, that no man can comprehend it all. We’ve got an army, thanks to General Washington; but thanks to Congress it’s got nothing to eat, nothing to wear, nothing to put in its guns. There never was an army as sick as this army. It’s rotten with smallpox. Half the men are inoculating themselves; and those that don’t inoculate themselves are catching it from those that do. We’ve got no money. We’ve got no officers worth their salt.”

He reached over and slapped a pile of letters on his desk. “Here’s letters from forty officers, begging leave to resign their commissions and go home! Forty officers! Forty puling nanny-goats. We’ve got Commissioners from Congress here, trying to help us win the war—Commissioners with no money and no knowledge of war! There’s one good thing about ’em—they know enough not to try to get help from France! At least they can see the danger in that! They told Walker that rather than call in the assistance of France, they’d come to a reconciliation with England on any terms. They’re fine gentlemen; but a mule knows more about discipline and the need of it! They encourage suggestions and letter-writing, these Commissioners do! Letter-writing! They think you can fight a war with letters!

“If a lieutenant doesn’t like a captain’s orders, he’s free to write to the Commissioners and tell ’em about it; and the Commissioners generally write to the captain and tell him not to do it again. If a captain or a major or a colonel doesn’t like my orders, he writes to the Commissioners and complains, and the Commissioners ask me to explain the matter to them so they can write home and explain it to their wives, maybe, or maybe to Congress. Smallpox is a curse to this army, God knows; but it’s less of a curse than the Commissioners of Congress! We’re handsomely supplied with Commissioners, but not at all with contractors, commissaries or quartermasters. Not one of these have we got! I do duty for all!

“So there you are: no food, no blankets, no shoes, no tents, no medicines, no surgical instruments, no nails, no powder, no bullets, no pay, no credit, no reputation; and above all, no discipline. That was Wooster’s fault! He let ’em get out of control before Quebec—no more fitted to command men than a dressmaker!”

He muttered under his breath, and I caught the word “midwife.” He shrugged his shoulders and snapped his fingers, as if to snap Wooster out of his life. “After Wooster came the panic, and then the Commissioners. And now the bulk of the army’s at Sorel—tattered, hungry, frightened, sick, helpless, headless!

“General Thomas came to replace Wooster, but he no sooner started to take hold at Sorel than he came down with smallpox. The Commissioners brought along one of their damned foreign generals—Baron, he calls himself: Baron De Woedtke; but he’s too busy drinking to bother with such a small matter as discipline!

“Men whose time has expired are going home. They won’t stay to help us. They’ve had a bellyful of war and sickness and hunger and disappointments. They wouldn’t stay if you told them the British might destroy us next week!

“As for the Canadians, the weaker we get, the more insolent they grow. Two months ago they were our dear friends. To-day they’d cut our throats if they had half a chance! And on top of everything, you tell us the British have sent thousands of their own troops against us, and other thousands of Hessians as well: as fine an army as ever left England! It may not be true, but probably it is! Thousands of the best-trained, best-armed soldiers in the world, and we with nothing to oppose ’em but a starved and naked rabble! That’s how badly off we are! Can you men stay here and keep up your courage? Can you do as you’re told under these circumstances?”

Cap Huff cleared his throat with a sound of ripping canvas. “In case anybody thinks he can’t,” Cap said, “Doc Means’s got a sure cure for fear: pepper and gunpowder, mixed with molasses and maybe some rum.”

“You got to have a touch of Digby’s Sympathetic Powder added to it,” Doc Means reminded him in a low voice.

Arnold nodded. “There’s another side to the picture. General Sullivan’s coming up from Albany with four regiments—good regiments: none better, General Schuyler writes me. Properly handled, four healthy regiments can hold the St. Lawrence against all the ministerial troops that England can send against us. It’s got to be done! We’ve got to hold as much of this country as is needed to prevent communication between the English and the Indians to the west.

“If they turn loose the Indians on us, God only knows what’ll happen! With four fighting regiments, properly officered, we can hang on here all summer! Hang on till winter! It can be done! Then when Carleton has to move back on account of the ice, we can take the city!

“Lee could do it! I asked Congress to send Lee up here to take command; but he was the best man for the place, so of course Congress sent him elsewhere!

“Well, it can still be done! I can do it myself! Give me the men and the money for supplies, and I’ll guarantee to do it!”

There was a clipped, penetrating shrillness to Arnold’s voice that sent shivers along my spine; and deep inside me I felt that what he said was the truth: that given half a chance, he would somehow find a way to bring victory out of ruin.

He went back to his desk and settled himself in his chair. “But if we had forty fighting regiments, and they shouldn’t be properly handled,” he added—“if they should be commanded by officers of mean abilities, no education and little experience, they’d do us no good. Such officers cannot understand the precautions necessary to successful defence. We’d have to retreat! We’d have to give up all that General Montgomery won for us, and leave the gate open for our enemies to attack us from the north!

“What would happen to all of us if we had to retreat, God only knows: yet it’s something we have to prepare for. With no money, no food, no ammunition, I’ve got to seize enough supplies from the people of this city to get us safe home, in case the worst comes to the worst. I’ve got to seize supplies and give my personal receipts for them!” He laughed harshly. “My accounts’ll be in a tangle for the next thousand years; but it’s got to be done! That’s as much as I can tell you; and if you don’t like the sound of it, go down to Sorel and join Hazen! I want no man unless he’s willing. And I want no schoolgirls, unable to hear the truth without flinching!”

He looked up at Nason suddenly. “What’s that you say?”

Nason seemed to have the solidity of a rock as he stood rigidly before the desk, staring down into Arnold’s glittering eyes. “Nothing, I didn’t say anything. I was just going to ask you for that order for peas.”