Jack Fernley - America Über Alles

He looked down at the man, whose eyes burned fiercely. There seemed a dark hatred to the man, a harsh defiance. And then, most extraordinary, he started to hit out at Hand’s arms, as if he wanted to fall.

There was a tear in the fabric of the jacket, so Hand had a clear view of the man’s neck. There was an odd tattoo across it. Numbers, as if a code. And then the jacket tore apart. And the man fell silently to his death, crushed by the rocks below on the bank of the river.

Hand pulled himself to his knees, still clutching the remnants of the grey-green torn collar. O’Leary was next to him now.

‘What happened, Ed?’

‘He kinda… he kinda refused my help, like he threw himself down. He didn’t want me to pull him up.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The collar of his jacket.’

‘No, what’s that silver thing on the collar? I’ve never seen that on a Hessian before.’

Hand looked at the cloth in his hand. He had never seen the marks before, different to anything he had seen on a British soldier or a Hessian mercenary. A silver cross of sorts, four arms, each bent at ninety degrees.

Dawn had given way to a frosty, but clear morning. After the incident on the bluffs Hand and O’Leary had moved quickly, skirting the edge of the River Road to Trenton, wary of running into any other Hessians. Reaching the edge of the town, they heard the typical sounds of a camp rising, men coughing, pissing, murmuring, complaining. Hand turned to O’Leary.

‘There’s a couple of sentries to the left over there. If we make a quick run for the wall to the right, that’ll get us to Helen O’Flannery’s. Fancy some eggs and coffee for your breakfast?’

O’Leary nodded. Of course, he knew what also lay to the left – the town cemetery, where Hand’s Catherine and their child lay. He noted that his old friend could not bear to look towards the picket fence of the graveyard. So they moved off to O’Flannery’s cottage.

Helen O’Flannery, a Limerick girl by birth, had come to America twenty years before with her new husband, Seamus. Settling in Trenton, they had set up a grocery and hardware store, and raised a family of eight girls, the last three of which Hand had brought into the world. Seamus had died a few years earlier, one of the victims of the 1770 cholera epidemic, along with three of the girls. Tough, rough and a bitter enemy of the British, Helen supplied food and drink to both sides of the conflict, ‘But there’s never a pound of apples I’ve sold to the Brits that I haven’t pissed on beforehand.’

‘Doctor Hand and that wastrel Patrick O’Leary, now what could bring you here this morning at such an early hour, your clothes all wet and dirty?’ she asked, a twinkle in her eye, as she opened her parlour door, a broad fire already burning.

Walking in, the immediate warmth of the room a more than welcome respite, Hand replied: ‘And I might ask what would you be doing up at such an hour with this fire already so well established, Helen O’Flannery?’

‘You’ve a lot of questions for a man who I would wager is looking for some eggs, bacon and coffee, Edward Hand. Many more of those and I’ll send you back out of the yard and into the warm embrace of those Prussian soldiers who look so pretty in their blue coats and breeches, unlike scruffy monkeys like youse.’

‘I wouldn’t mind getting meself one of those coats, Helen, you know, to keep the cold out.’

‘Yes, and it’ll be typical of a stupid lad like yerself that you’d pick one up and then get shot by a Yankee soldier looking for an easy mark, Patrick.’

‘You know the boy too well, Helen.’

‘Aach, if it kept me bloody warm, I’d run the risk of getting shot in it. We’re supposed to be an army, but we’ve no uniforms. Some of the lads are barely shod. The British know how to look after their boys, so they do,’ said O’Leary.

‘They have to, otherwise they’ll bugger off back to Germany. That’s the price we pay for being a free army of lads, Pat,’ Hand said, taking his place at the table.

‘From what I hear, there’ll be no lads left come this New Year’s,’ said Helen, stoking the fire. ‘Out of New Jersey and hanging by a thread in Pennsylvania, what the hell are youse playing at? You had the bloody Brits on the run; now all the talk is of begging for forgiveness and Washington being taken off to London in chains. Marie, get your arse out of bed and get some eggs scrambling for our gentlemen callers, and some bacon frying while you’re at it.’

‘You wouldn’t be having some chops would yer, Helen? I’d die for a chop.’

‘If you want, you can have porridge and damn the bacon, Pat O’Leary. Chops? Who’d you think yer are? King George and Lord North come a-visiting?’

Marie, thirteen years of age, entered the kitchen, mock bowed with a ‘Doctor Hand, Mister O’Leary, pleased to see you both’ and immediately started to work the food.

O’Leary joined Hand at the table, while O’Flannery began to pour three cups of warm black coffee.

Hand took his and said, ‘Thank you, Helen. Good to be seeing you. Been a long few months.’

‘Aye, all the best men in Trenton are camped with yours on the other side of the river. Just some of the Tories left here. The girls around these parts getting mighty itchy though; those Germans are a very handsome band, believe me.’ She paused. ‘I’ve had the girls keep an eye on Catherine’s grave. You’ll find it as sweetly manicured as it could hope to be.’

Hand looked away, his eyes scattering around the room.

‘Thank you, thank you all.’ Then an urge to find something else to discuss. ‘So, tell me, how many are there?’

‘The Germans?’

Hand nodded.

‘They bring in fresh troops regular. Last group came in, what, three days ago. Smaller group, maybe two hundred or more, led by a proper general an’ all, von Steuben they call him; right bastard, I’d say. Seem a different bunch to the rest. Most of them are the kind, as you say, mercenaries, been around, fight for anyone, would fight for the damn Indians if they had money to give ’em. This lot. This lot are different. They are what you’d call disciplined. Proper discipline. They shave, their hair is short and well kept, their uniforms ironed and different to the others. And such uniforms, like none you’ve seen before.’

‘Grey-green, short, buttoned up?’

‘That’ll be them. They have some very nice boots as well. You’d be snug with their boots, believe me. Proper cowhide, them. If I didn’t know better, I’d be thinking the British have paid these to come and finish the job off. And they look like they could, believe me.’

‘Where are they settled in?’

‘Well, they’re with most of the troops, camped out back of Morgan’s field. Their general, this von Steuben, he’s not like Rall, the fella in charge. He’s a lazy arse, make no mistake. Living it up in Pott’s house on King Street like King George himself. Nothing he likes more than entertaining himself with some of the finer ladies of Trenton, as it were. To bed late, up late. I ain’t got none of your military training – look at me, I’m just a poor grocer from Limerick with no sense whatsoever – but even I might be a-thinking: the Continental Army – what’s left of it – is parked outside across the river. I’d be looking to make some fortifications. Not him though.’

‘We passed through their lines with barely a muster.’

‘Aside from one fella who must be with this von Steuben. The same uniform and a silver mark I’ve never seen before,’ added O’Leary.

‘Like a spider’s legs?’

‘Like a spider’s legs, yes.’

‘They’re fond of that one, make no mistake. They march behind a banner with it, black and red, quite fetching it is too. You can see for yourself this morning.’