Christian Cameron - Washington and Caesar

When they reached the outer post, they found Reverend White sitting quietly with a Bible, reading. Caesar sat next to him on a fence rail where he could see the road.

“She’ll come today,” said White, looking down the dusty pale road at the heat ripples in the distance.

“Where have you been?” said Caesar. “Why didn’t you go with her?”

Marcus White looked at him with eyes of sadness and pity.

“Don’t you think I wanted to go with her, Julius?” he asked. “They almost know me now, Julius. There are one or two who might take me just for crossing the lines. They seldom molest women, or even question them. Men are different.”

Van Sluyt sat quietly, but he was so upset that his hands shook.

“They’ll hang my girl,” he said. “Or put her back to a slave, an’ I’ll never see her again.”

Marcus White shook his head with a calm like that which Caesar had on the battlefield.

“They’ll come today.”

“Why?” asked Caesar, his tone more accusatory than he had intended.

“I’ll tell you when they come.”

They hadn’t come by midday. The sun beat down, and the Loyal Americans changed their guard, and the surly sergeant was replaced by a courteous one, and there were two black men in the platoon that came on duty. Caesar didn’t know them but he went to them somewhat mechanically and introduced himself. It passed the time.

They didn’t come in the afternoon, although parties of women passed with eggs and geese, and one pair of very handsome girls leading a pig. None of them was black. None of them had come far, and most were just farm women taking things in for the market.

They didn’t come in the evening. The Loyal Americans shared their mess kettle with good heart and Caesar ate well, sharing his tobacco and a little bottle of rum in return. Van Sluyt didn’t talk or eat, but simply sat on a rock by the side of the road and polished the lock of his musket over and over again. Marcus White began to walk down the road in little spurts. He walked forward a few paces as if to have a different view, and then farther and farther until he was almost at a musket shot from the post itself. All Caesar’s suspicions returned at the gallop and he followed into the gathering gloom, walking fast on the road in such an agitation of spirit that he realized that he had left his fowler propped against the stand of arms in the little post. He was unarmed except for his sword and Jeremy’s dagger.

But when he caught up with Reverend White at a single great oak tree that marked a slight turn in the road, White was making no attempt to escape. He was weeping silently, great tears flooding down his face, a look on him that made Caesar flinch, and Marcus White raised his arms and Caesar felt his heart stop and he looked into the last red shreds of the setting sun.

There were two white caps in the distance, and one had a basket on her head and the other walked in just that way. They were black women, and Caesar’s heart beat once, thud, as if all the promises of the world had all come true and again, thud, and they were closer, the dark coming down like rain between them so that no matter how fast the two women moved they seemed to be getting no closer. He realized that Van Sluyt was still polishing his musket, unknowing that happiness awaited him, and he shouted, and the slighter of the two women looked up, and began to run.

He covered her in kisses and her father hugged her and they tried to accomplish all of this as they hurried Mrs. Van Sluyt down the road to her own husband. All the while the two excited women poured forth their story, of lines closed, of messengers missing their appointments, of an endless tangle of mistakes and missing friends. And then Hester Van Sluyt was in her husband’s arms, and Caesar had Polly’s hand, and they were back within the post.

Without a thought but his own heart, Caesar said, “Promise me you’ll never do it again.”

Polly glared at him like an angry cat. “Pshaw!” she said. “It suits you! I feel it every time you go out. And worse as I like you more!”

He fell back, astounded for a moment and then chagrined, and caught her hand again and she let him. Marcus regarded them tenderly. To make a change, Caesar turned to him. “How did you know?”

White laughed. It was a shaky laugh at best.

“I didn’t know, Caesar, but it was my place to offer comfort if I could. He was afraid for you, my honey,” White said to Polly, and she bowed her head.

“That’s all?”

“Their passes…”

“He means to say our passes were for a Saturday, and he knew that if I thought we were in danger I’d wait and cross on a Saturday,” she said.

Caesar nodded, as if he understood. “You are very brave,” he said.

“Pshaw,” she said.

Yorktown, Virginia, October 14, 1781

Washington looked out over the lip of the trench into the dark and listened to a dog barking somewhere in the British lines. Lafayette stepped up close to him and cautiously placed a hand on his shoulder. They could see nothing, could hear nothing, but they stood in the cold darkness and waited for the verdict of the battle.

It was less a battle than a siege. Cornwallis, hugely outnumbered, had built a fortress of earthworks around the Tidewater town of Yorktown and had gone to ground like a fox, waiting for the Royal Navy to come and take him off. But the Royal Navy, for the first and only time in the war, had been outguessed and outnumbered, and now it was a French fleet that lay at anchor out in the Chesapeake. Cornwallis had little chance of succor but, being an excellent general and a professional, he was determined to hold his ground as long as he could.

Washington, the farmer, was now the commander of the largest joint Franco-American army of the war. He had dug his approach trenches, planted his guns and bombarded the star forts and redoubts of the British. He had the advice of the best French engineers and some gifted Americans. He had the support of professional officers from all of Europe. But he was the commander and this was the best chance the fledgling United States would ever have to win the game. He tasted fear tinged with anticipation. They were so close to victory.

Tonight, the picked men of his light infantry and the best of the French grenadiers would assault the most exposed British forts at the point of bayonet, in the best tradition of European arms. It was all managed like a play. In Europe, Kings came to sieges to watch the show. In America, there were only the actors. And in a few moments the last act would open and his best men would fling themselves on Cornwallis’s veterans, and then…

Somewhere in the darkness a dog was barking, but George Lake was somewhere else.

He could read Betsy’s last letter in his head, even standing in a dark and muddy trench. She’d said “love”, which was a hard thing for a young girl to say to a man she hadn’t seen in two years and who served the enemy. She’d said it several times, and constant rereading had imprinted the letter on him to such an extent that he could close his eyes and see the shape of her writing and the color of the paper.

Someone nudged him and he opened his eyes. Even in the dark he could recognize Hamilton, his commander for the night. Hamilton squeezed his arm. “You’ll be a major in the morning, George,” he whispered, and George just shook his head. He had volunteered to lead the first rush over the top of the trench. It wasn’t for the promotion, although it was natural enough for the ambitious Hamilton to think so. It was to get it over with. They were close to the end and George had a chase in view, as the Virginian hunters liked to say. He wanted his Betsy, and a farm somewhere or a shop. It was close. So close that he chose to feel it was just over the top of the rampart of the great British redoubt a few hundred yards distant, if he could only get there.