Читать книгу Listen, the Drum!: A Novel of Washington's First Command - Robert Edmond Alter - Страница 7

The long, cold, monotonous weeks of January and February passed fitfully for Matt. Always there were rumors of war and threats of war and talk of punitive Indian raids along the fringe settlements and tales of the French army that was manning itself in Canada. Yet there was never anything definite, and nothing was decided. The entire country seemed to be suspended in buzzing indecision.

The snow left the ground grudgingly, and Matt spent more of his time than his father approved of standing at the stockade gate watching the turnpike that ran to Northumberland, waiting for the latest postrider.

Shad had been gone for weeks, off on one of his many mysterious errands, and he had returned only once in the beginning of February—on a horse that he said he had “found somewhere up the road.”

He had remained one night with the Burnetts and was off again the following morning, saying, vaguely, that he had to “see a man about a horse” down at Wrights Ferry, “or somewhere near there.” He had, he said, news of Chief, and also of the young major they had met in December near Murthering Town. Taking first things first he told Matt that Chief had been reinstated in his tribe.

“That old bug-eater!” he bellowed. “Know what he done? He was rootin’ around one day near a settler’s cabin and just accidental-like stumbled over an oil lantern. The lantern, you see, wasn’t in the cabin when Chief bumped into it, but sort a sittin’ on a stump near the chicken pen, and Chief, fearin’ it might get busted out there by its lone, took it along with him. Well sir, he took it clear back to Laurel Ridge and presented it to the ne Shadodiowe’go’wa—medicine man, to you. Didn’t them Laurel Ridgers go crazy when they seen it all lit up? Hi-yi! They almost made Chief a sachem. ’Course, ain’t no way of tellin’ what them Laurel Ridgers will think when that lantern runs out a oil and Chief ain’t got no more to refill it with; but till it does, he’s set!”

Things, he said, were happening down in Williamsburg, but just what he wasn’t sure. No one was sure. St. Pierre’s letter to Governor Dinwiddie had been a refusal to withdraw, and Dinwiddie had written King George, asking for orders. The King had notified Dinwiddie that he must at all costs push the French back, but had been lax in sending funds to outfit an expedition.

Dinwiddie, in desperation, had ventured to order a draft of two hundred men from the Virginia militia, and Washington was to have the command. He had also sent messengers to the Catawbas, Cherokees, Chickasaws and Iroquois, inviting them to take up the hatchet against the French. As usual, no word regarding their decision had been heard.

Next, Dinwiddie had written urgent letters to the governors of Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, Maryland and New Jersey, begging for contingents of men to be at Wills Creek by March at the latest. But again no action had been taken because of the lack of funds.

“But, Shad,” Matt cried, “when will they take definite action?”

Shad tossed his hands into the air helplessly, letting them fall where they would.

“Dunno, Matty. But I can tell you this, if them governors and that fat King don’t shake a leg soon, you’re gonna look out the gate some morning and discover them Frenchies building a fort across the road from you!” And then he was gone, leaving Matt in a grim mood of nervous anticipation.

Matt’s father owned a truck house in a hamlet situated near the Harrisburg turnpike. Grouped about the trading post were a blacksmith shop, barn, and a low squat garrison house, the whole stockaded against hostile Indian tribes.

It was a rare night when the truck house was not filled to capacity with noisy travelers, settlers, militiamen, backwoodsmen and an occasional pseudocivilized Indian. And now in the last days of March, with the threat of a French and Indian war hanging ominously over the land, the house was nightly packed with rabble-rousers, pacifiers, and all kinds of table-pounders.

Everyone talked war, but few wanted to go help fight it. The travelers from other states seemed content to let Virginia and Pennsylvania handle the trouble, seeing that the trouble was in their backyards, and the Pennsylvanians seemed satisfied with letting Virginia solve the dispute; though it was said that Hamilton, their governor, had expressed his sympathy for Dinwiddie, but could do nothing with the placid Quaker noncombatants and the obstinate Dutch farmers who made up his Assembly.

Night after night Matt would listen to the shouts, arguments and table-pounding as he tended the serving counter, and he would shake his head in dismay. It was beyond his comprehension how people who were actually in the same boat could sit back and be willing to let others row for them.

One night young Harry Curry, an acquaintance of Matt’s, entered the truck house. Harry was a newcomer to the hamlet, having come to the Colonies only six years before. His father was a retired British officer who had left a leg behind at Culloden Moor in the famous battle of ’Forty-six, and much of Harry’s mannerism came from the old school of English superiority.

Most of the youths of the hamlet would have little to do with Harry, having been snubbed too often by his haughty attitude, and Shad Holly would have nothing to do with him at all. Shad called him “a dandified nose-tilted perfume bottle with legs.” But because Harry’s mother, who had been a French woman, had died during the siege of Louisburg, and because Matt had also lost his own mother at an early age, Matt had always felt a sort of strange kinship for this lonely proud youth, and he went out of his way to be kind to him.

Harry picked his way carefully through the throng of noisy table-pounders, somehow giving the impression that he didn’t want them to touch his clothes. His nose, Matt noticed, was pinched slightly as though he smelled something not quite to his liking.

“Evening, Harry,” Matt offered with a smile.

The youth nodded his handsome head without a hint of expression, saying, “Are they still shouting war—for lack of anything better to shout about?”

“I’m afraid it’s coming, Harry. The French will see to that.”

“The French,” Harry said confidently, “don’t want war any more than we do. They merely want a share of the land.”

Matt was annoyed and showed it in his quick reply. “They have all of Canada; why must they act like pigs? And besides, how can you, the son of an English officer who has fought the French all his life, stand up for them?”

Harry’s smooth thin face was reflective for a moment, then he spoke thoughtfully. “If this were to be a war between gentlemen—Englishmen and Frenchmen, I mean—I would say go to it. But it will not be. It will be fought with boors and bumpkins such as this.” He waved a slim hand over the house’s company.

“Backwoodsmen,” he continued, “settlers, Indians, and the usual rabble. It will be disgraceful to the name of war.” Matt’s temper as a rule was held in strong leash and, because he had always tried to understand the English youth, he had made a point of not taking offense at the unkind things Harry was wont to say. But he had put in a hard day and had heard enough dissension for one night, and he spoke with sudden heat.

“If war does come, you can sit at home and tell yourself that it’s disgusting and disgraceful if you want to, but I’m going! And so is Shad Holly and Stefen Caspary and Tammy Ferguson. I don’t know much about gentlemen and their wars; all I know is that the land belongs to the Americans and we’re going to fight for it!”

Harry stared at Matt with cold eyes. “All very melodramatic,” he said calmly, “but hardly probable. I greatly doubt that there will be a war. Good night.”

The following morning Shad Holly returned. It was the first of April.

Matt was standing at the stockade gate waiting for a rider to bring news, when a great bellow boomed from the direction of the hamlet.

“Yo, Matty! It’s come! Hi-yi! It’s come at last!”

Matt turned his head and saw Shad puffing up the hill, shouting and waving at every broad step, and bringing their two friends Tammy Ferguson and Stefen Caspary along with him.

Matt knew that Shad’s news must be important, for although he usually entered the town with as much gusto as possible, it being his jovial habit to shout ribald songs and to catch all the pretty girls within reach and give them great sweaty bear hugs and send them shrieking home to their mothers, on this day he had no interest in girls and songs but confined himself to mere shouting.

“All right,” Matt said, as his three friends swaggered up to him, “do you want the settlement to think there’s an Indian raid?”

“To hades with Indian raids!” Shad roared, as if Matt were standing twenty yards from him instead of two. “That’s pokey stuff for old men and little kids that hide in stockades and throw bean bags at one or two smelly Catawbas. There’s gonna be a battle, Matty, an honest to gosh battle!”

Matt reached for the gatepost for support. It had come at last!

“A battle!” he echoed. “Where?”

Shad took a swipe at his moist face and sucked in air to holler again. “At the Forks of the Ohio, that’s where! Just below Murder Town. Old Dumwiddie finally got things moving; told Georgie the boy major—only he ain’t a major no more, he’s a lieutenant colonel now—told him to hotfoot up to the Forks and build him a fort.

“Then, when them frog-eaters come marchin’ down from Canada to ask Georgie what he’s about, he’s gonna whap ’em over the head with his muskit and jab ’em in the pants with his bay’net and slap ’em in the face with the tips of his fingers, and say, ‘This here Ohio belongs to the Americans. We don’t want no frog-eaters here. Now you just count one-two-three, spin yourselves about and march out a here double quick!’ That’s what he’s gonna do!”

“Now wait a minute, Shad,” Matt said. “You’re adding to the facts. Tell it to me straight. How do you know there’s going to be a battle?”

Shad made like a windmill, waving his arms about excitedly. Then he got himself in hand and lumbered up to Matt with a dark scowl on his round moon face.

“I suppose you don’t believe there’s gonna be a battle? I suppose you think I made it all up, eh?”

“How can I believe you?” Matt yelled. “All I’ve heard so far is your wild imagination. What about the battle?”

“They’s got to be a battle, Matt! Old Dumwiddie is gonna force it. He’s tired a chasing himself in circles, and he’s made up his mind he ain’t gonna powder his wig again unless he gets Georgie and Cap’n Tram to build him a fort on the banks of the Ohio! Georgie is at Wills Creek right now waiting for reinforcements, and Tram and Ensign Ward has already gone up with a band a backwoodsmen to start the fort.

“Now, Matt, you know as well as I do that the French ain’t gonna let this happen without they grumble about it just a little bit. And that’s why I say there’s gonna be a battle!”

“And we’re going to help them fight it!” young Tammy cried, pitching his cap into the air.

Matt looked at him, then at Stefen who was grinning with delight.

“Do you mean that Pennsylvania is sending a company of soldiers?”

Shad grinned and winked. “ ’Course she’s sending a company,” he said. “She’s sending us, ain’t she?” Then he broke into loud laughter and pounded his fat thigh.

Matt looked beyond Shad and saw that Harry Curry had silently joined them. Harry stared at Shad for a moment along the line of his nose and then nodded to Matt.

“Shad says there’ll be a battle at the Forks of the Ohio,” Matt informed him.

“Why?” Harry asked. He didn’t look at Shad.

“Why?” Shad cried. “Why because Lieutenant Colonel George Washington’s gonna build a fort there! And because he’s gonna ask them frog-eaters real polite-like to please go home as soon as possible.”

Stefen and Tammy grinned and Shad panned his moist red face to Matt to tip him another wink.

“Very funny, I’m sure,” Harry said coldly, and he turned to look at Shad. “However, it doesn’t follow that there will be a battle or a war simply because the French have built three forts and the English one. Perhaps it means nothing to you that we have a peace treaty with France. Or haven’t you heard of the Aix-la-Chapelle treaty?”

“The Ox-la-Chapelly!” Shad roared, and he hit his thigh a great smack. “Ain’t that a dandy? He thinks the French’n Indians’n English have lived up to the treaty! Haw! Haw! Don’t you know they been at each other’s throats ever since that blame treaty was signed? Brother, a treaty ain’t worth the paper it’s printed on these days. And if you think them frog-eaters is gonna let Washington set up a fort without them tryin’ to knock it down, then you just come along with me’n Matt and see!”

“Shad,” Matt said, “how soon are you leaving?”

“Just as quick as you fellas get ready. Tell you one of the last things I heard; a Colonel Fry has been given full command of the expedition, pushing Washington back to second place. I want to get up to Wills Creek right fast and do some complaining. I’m gonna tell ’em that Georgie is the best durn soldier, officer, woodsman, fort-building man in the Colonies! I’m gonna tell ’em . . .”

Matt didn’t wait for more. He turned and hurried to the house, as did the others for their homes, leaving Shad ranting and raving by himself at the gate.

In Matt’s family, as in most families, the final decision on any important matter rested with his father. Regardless of who wanted what or how many words were said or tears shed, his father always had the last word. And this, Matt believed, was as it should be. So he sat at the board table in the gathering room with his father and the twins William and Smite, his two younger brothers, and waited with bated impatience as his father stared at the dead fireplace and puffed absently at his pipe.

Finally his father set the pipe aside and cleared his throat. Abruptly his three sons straightened themselves on the bench.

“Matt,” his father spoke slowly, as though feeling for words, “I’ve known for years that your heart belonged to the wilderness and not here in the settlements; that’s why I’ve never restrained you from going off with Shad. It’s been good for you, made a fine strong man of you . . . but war, ah, that’s another matter. You’re still a child when it comes to war.”

Matt said nothing. He stared at his father’s pipe and waited.

“This land that the French and English would fight over is far removed from us. Why do you think it’s your concern?”

“Louisburg was farther, sir, when you went against it with William Pepperell,” Matt countered. “I’ve heard it said that that war was fought over the rights of who should have the taking of fish on the Grand Banks. You’ve never been a fisherman, sir, so I doubt if you went on the expedition with that worry in mind. I always believed you fought because you thought the French were infringing on the Americans.”

His father was silent for a long moment, then he picked up his pipe and checked the dottle it contained in the bowl. He smiled suddenly and turned warm eyes on his son.

“I think I understand what you mean,” he said simply.

In the gathering room, with the young twins underfoot, so that he tripped over them a dozen times in five minutes, Matt arranged his kit, rolling most of his small needs in his blanket.

Already a large group of townspeople had gathered in the yard, and when Matt glanced through the window he saw Shad talking to his father. Then he looked again, surprised. Harry Curry, dressed in a new deerskin shirt, tight-fitting pants and polished jack boots, stood a little aside from the others. A pack and blanket roll were at his feet, a musket in his hand. He seemed to be waiting with a bored, self-contained air.

“Well,” Matt murmured. “What of that now?”

He gathered up his gear and, with a final promise to young Smite that he would do his best to bring him back a St. Francis scalp, he left the house to cross the yard. Harry turned his head and nodded casually at him.

Matt smiled warmly as he approached Harry. “Why, Harry,” he said, “what makes you want to go?”

“It’s my country too,” Harry answered shortly.

Shad was now having an argument with Tammy’s father. Tammy stood back slightly with a red lowered face, and shuffled his feet in the dirt.

“But me no buts!” the old Scot cried angrily. “I don’t fancy to my laddy fighting for the English! And more, I’ll tell ye, I don’t take lightly to his dying for them!”

“Dyin’ for ’em!” Shad cried, and contrived to look aghast. “Why, Mr. Ferguson, we ain’t gonna fight them Frenchies! What ever give you that idea? Say, them frog-eaters is gonna take one look at Colonel Washington’s thousand or so militia and volunteers, and they’re gonna roll up their eyes in dismay and cry, ‘Oh, qui-qui, thees American fellas is some hotsy stuff! Queek, Pierre, turn you foolish self about and let us run, may-qui!’ Naw, we ain’t gonna have no fighting.”

But the old man remained unconvinced. “Who might this Colonel Washington be?” he asked sourly.

“Who is he?” Shad gasped, and he slapped a palm to his forehead as though amazed at Mr. Ferguson’s ignorance. “Why, he’s the soldier that old Dumwiddie thinks the sun rises and sets on. Dumwiddie says give him ten officers like Washington and he’ll have every frog-eatin’, snail-boilin’ Frenchy back whittling clay pipes in Canada within two weeks! That’s who Colonel Washington is!”

“Jim,” Matt’s father said kindly, laying a hand on the old Scot’s brittle shoulder, “it isn’t a question of fighting for the English. That’s something a lot of us are overlooking. These boys want to fight for us, for our land. Washington’s an American like Shad; like you and Tammy are, Jim.”

The old man was silent. He sniffed and stared at the ground, then looked up at the silent ring of intent faces watching him.

“Get the claymore, Tammy,” he muttered.

Tammy’s face brightened with a sudden spasm, and he ran to the west wall of the house, where a blanket roll and a heavy old sword leaned in its frayed scabbard. The boy fetched the sword back to his father and watched him with an expectant eye.

Mr. Ferguson stared at the sword in his hands as though recalling the glory of thousands of long-gone Scotsmen charging across a moor with nothing but blades in their hands, against the slamming English cannons. Then he gave Matt’s father a surreptitious look.

“I but brought it along just in case I decided to lei the laddy go,” he mumbled in half-apology. “Here, Tammy, I have no musket to give ye, but this old claymore was good enough for my father, and good enough for me when it came to a hackin’ ruddy battle. It will have to do ye.”

Then, as the crowd cheered and as the youths were given many hearty backslaps, Shad bent over with a grunt and rooted through his pack. He came up with a silver-plated gorget, the sort of doodad that English officers wear at their necks. He gave it a polish on his sleeve and placed it over his head so that it hung right over his fat throat. Then he picked up his pack and musket and grinned at Matt.

“All right, Matty?” he asked. “Ready to get on?”

Matt nodded. “Ready.”

Shad in the lead, the five youths swung out through the gate and started down the pike. For a moment Matt felt rather absurd, what with all his friends cheering and waving them off.

Then, because the day was clear and bright and the fields green and rippling, and because Shad was striding along like a great war lord, muttering—Hup! Hup! Hup!—he suddenly felt that it was glorious, and he lifted his head and stared straight ahead.

It seemed that somewhere he could hear a lonesome drum calling.