Christian Cameron - Washington and Caesar

Caesar looked at Jeremy with an eyebrow raised, and Hangar caught it. He smiled and rose to his feet, his command aiguillette bouncing as he dusted his knees.

“Rifles are my passion, Sergeant. I can’t help but prose away about them.”

Another ball passed between them and made its little musical note.

“That’s just seven or eight men firing to amuse us. I’ll see to that immediately with my lads. You’ll sweep the ground? I think you’ll find they have a force in those woods, but I doubt it will prove considerable.” Hangar took Crawford’s glass, looked for a moment, and handed it back. “A pleasure, gentlemen. Damn me, I hate the heat. Let’s get this done.”

Lieutenant Martin came up to them and was immediately touched by a ball fired from the gloom to their front. It was a slight wound but he seemed proud of it. Caesar wrapped it with his handkerchief as they scrambled back from their exposed position.

“Good practice,” said Crawford. “They can shoot.”

“They shoot best when there ain’t anybody shooting back,” Jeremy quipped.

A moment later they could hear the heavy barks of the Jaegers’ rifles returning fire off to their left. Caesar looked at Martin. “It was my intention to take the company out and cover the ground as quickly as possible.”

Martin nodded. “I expect you know the business, Sergeant. I just want to see it done.” Martin was jealous of Lieutenant Crawford, who was shouting orders rapidfire at Captain Stewart’s company, already formed off to the right. A further company, the Forty-second lights, was moving cautiously down into the low ground farther off to the right. Captain Stewart could be seen riding that way.

Caesar hated the oppressive heat, which made both uniform and equipment uncomfortable. He used a cloth to wipe his face, shifted his belts to allow a little more of the fetid air to reach his skin, and blew his whistle twice. The company moved forward.

The rifles fired again, off at the woodline in the distance, and their smoke hung in an ugly cloud just over the position of the shooters. Because there was no breeze to move the smoke away, it provided a screen that kept them safe. Caesar could just see the shine of the new sun on a ramrod or a barrel as the man loaded. Caesar raised both his arms and waved them forward and started to trot. Captain Stewart came up behind him on horseback.

“Right to the woods!” Stewart shouted. Caesar just raised a hand in acknowledgment. He could see the riflemen scrambling now, one pausing to take a last shot, another leaping over a log. The last shot vanished into the morning, doing no immediate harm that Caesar could see, and then they were at the woodline. He blew a long blast on his whistle and heard the corporals shouting “Skirmish” just as Stewart’s bugles began to send the same signal. He aimed at a retreating figure and fired to no effect. The range was already too long for muskets.

Caesar waved Fowver’s platoon forward. Willy Smith passed him, yelling “Moses, get it loaded, there.” From his vantage point commanding the stationary platoon, Caesar watched Fowver’s men with pride as they picked their way forward, the files staying together and the men covering both the front and flanks with their eyes. Off to the left, Stewart’s company was moving forward more aggressively, and Caesar could hear McDonald pushing them with his voice. Caesar started his own platoon forward.

It seemed only a moment later that Stewart and Jeremy appeared by him at the far edge of the wood.

“No point in it,” said Jeremy, looking through his master’s glass. Stewart held out his hand for the instrument and shook his head. They had come three-quarters of a mile from their camp and Caesar was soaked in sweat from the little run. Jeremy looked as if he had a private store of ice in his coat, but Captain Stewart’s hair was every which way, as if he had come to battle straight from his pillow. Caesar wondered if Sally were with the army baggage back in the center of camp, or whether she had gone to New York by ship, like the Guides’ women.

Stewart shook his head, cocked his leg over the cantle of his saddle to steady himself, and looked into the gloom again.

“Damn the heat,” he said, snappishly.

Jeremy shrugged. “Drink some water, sir.”

“I don’t want water.”

“You should drink some water, sir.”

Stewart turned and glared at them both for a moment, and then smiled.

“Well, gentlemen, we missed them.”

Caesar nodded. Lieutenant Martin approached and Caesar gave him a description of what they had hoped to accomplish. Stewart handed Martin the glass and he looked into the haze for a moment before giving an exclamation.

“Isn’t that the gleam of bayonets?” he said, pushing the glass at Stewart. Stewart finished a long pull at the canteen that Jeremy had held out to him and looked guilty for a moment before seizing the telescope and taking a look.

“Look at that,” he said. “Jeremy, get back immediately. Find Colonel Musgrave and tell him that the Continentals are forming to attack our right.” He looked for a moment. “Well spotted, young Martin. Look at them all. Tell the colonel that I have no idea of a count in this haze but that they appear to be formidable.”

Caesar shook his head. “I don’t want to fight in this heat,” he said.

“Just so.” Stewart motioned at their companies. “I had thought to leave a detachment here, but there is no purpose if they are coming to contest these woods.”

“We could give them a little harassing fire as they came up,” said Martin eagerly.

Stewart nodded, motioning to his bugler to sound the retreat.

“Good thought. Keep the Guides here for a bit. Be ready to move, though-if the army marches, we won’t keep this ground.”

Martin looked at Caesar. “Did I do right, Sergeant?”

Caesar smiled. “We’ll see, sir. But I’d rather be doing the harassing fire than taking it all morning.”

George Lake led his company at the head of the column, and he saluted General Lee as he passed him, turning his head to the right and bringing his sword up in a smart salute. Lee waved with his whip.

All the light companies of the army had been concentrated in a single division with several crack regiments. They were all veterans and all tried troops, and George gathered that they were actually going to attack the British, a thing that hadn’t really been done since he was at Trenton. He was excited, but under the excitement he worried about the heat, which was already affecting his older men, and he worried about the dissension. He knew officers who said that General Lee thought this plan to be fatally flawed, and he knew officers who thought that there was no plan. George knew that Lee had not ridden out to view the enemy or the ground in any detail, and this negligence worried him. But Lee was popular, and he looked every inch a soldier, sitting on his horse and watching the columns march forward. Lake could only hope.

In three years of fighting, Caesar had never been a spectator in a major action. They occupied the fringe of woods facing west and waited. Twice in the morning, they drove off parties of the enemy, but although these actions helped steady the new men, they were minor affairs. The enemy only came in small patrols and were happy to be seen off with a burst of fire. They took one prisoner from the second patrol, an elderly private in the Second Virginia.

To the south, they could just make out the enemy columns forming in the dust and haze. After they repulsed the second patrol, Caesar went to the edge of the woods at Virgil’s urging and watched both of the grenadier battalions forming front from columns to attack a steep hill over a mile away. Caesar nodded.

“I wondered last night why we didn’t occupy that hill, and today we have to take it back.”