Christian Cameron: Washington and Caesar

Pompey walked up behind his master and took the empty horn cup.

“Dat be trouble, suh.” He inclined his head, the slightest gesture toward their tent.

One of the younger women had a white ruffled shirt on. It was clean and probably out of their equipment. Other women were laughing at her. They were also stealing glances at Dr. Craik. Craik remained oblivious for a moment, and then his thin face grew mottled with red.

“Doctor.” The tall man put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

“That woman has my shirt on!”

“Pay her no attention, Doctor.”

“I’ll have my shirt back.”

“You may take one of mine. We are in their country, and they are testing us. Think of it as the price of dinner. Resent the next theft, but not the first.”

Nicholson nodded curtly and called something across the camp. One of the older women roared. The others looked uneasy.

None of the men had stirred, but their attention seemed to focus on the whites for the first time. It made Dr. Craik feel uneasy. There was menace to it, an alien scrutiny from beyond his world of manner and custom.

“She looks a damn sight better in that shirt than you, Doctor.” Nicholson settled himself back against his tree and set to getting a spark on to some charcloth for his pipe.

Craik took a deep breath and made himself smile. “She does, the vixen. Even with shirts at six shillings apiece and not to be bought in this country.”

Nicholson was busy pulling at his pipe, clay turned black with use. He had laid his tiny scrap of lit char atop the bowl and was drawing the coal down into the tobacco. He was so fast with his flint and steel that Craik had missed the spark. When it was alight, he puffed for a moment, looking hard at Craik from under his unkempt eyebrows.

“Look at yon, Doctor. The men don’t show what they think, and nor should you. Angry or happy, keep your thoughts to yourself. Now, when they’re in drink, mind, then it’s the strongest to the fore and de’il take the hindmost.”

“He seems easy with them.”

“Oh, aye. Well, he doesna give much away, our colonel. And he stands tall. But mostly he’s a name to them. The chief there, he marked him soon as we rode in, an’ that counts for something.”

“It’s like another country.”

“It is another country, Doctor. This is the wilderness. He knows, and I know. Even Pompey knows. You were here in the war?”

“With the Provincials.”

“Well, now you’re with the savages. Best learn to please ’em.” The man laughed.

Craik wanted to resent his tone, but the advice was kindly given, even from a low Scots Borderer with rum on his breath and an old plum greatcoat, and the tension seeped out of his shoulders.

“That’s right, Doctor. Dinna fash yersel. Dram?”

Before night fell, the camp took on new life and new smells as the best of the deer went on to the fires. The men made a circle on the grass, some on blankets or robes, some already sprawled from the effects of Nicholson’s rum. The women cooked and moved about, a separate community from the men, still at work while the men took their ease. Craik was handed a large mound of meat on a bark platter by the girl wearing his shirt, and he smiled at her, but she didn’t meet his eyes. He wondered for a moment what he looked like to her, or to any of them. Handsome? Ugly? The shirt already had a line of black across one shoulder, and a red handprint on the back.

He took out his traveling case and unfolded his fork before cutting the meat. One of Washington’s blacks handed round a horn with salt and pepper. The savages just sat and ate, men with men, women off to one side.

Washington spoke into the stillness and the sound of many jaws working.

“Ask him from where he knows me, Mr. Nicholson.”

Nicholson spoke without slowing his meal. The old man put his pipe down on his robe and leaned forward a little, his whole attention on Washington.

“He says he nearly took you at the Monongahela.”

“Tell him I was too young to know one warrior from another.”

“He says you were guarded from his gun, and hopes you have a great future.”

“Ask him to tell it.”

The old man spoke for a moment, his right hand moving as if pointing at invisible things. Washington, too, looked at the invisible things. For the second time in a day, he thought of that bitter hour. All around them, the younger warriors stirred and settled themselves, even the drunk ones craning their heads to listen. The old man started, a sing-song quality to his narration, as if the beginning had been related many times, which it had. Nicholson picked it up almost immediately, listening and speaking with conviction, mere words behind his host. It was quite a feat, only the occasional occurrence of Scots Border brogue interrupting the impression that the old man was speaking the English himself.

“I was with the French captain at the first discharge, and he fell. We fired back at the high-hats and killed many, and they broke. Then we spread to the woods on either side of the trail. I killed four men in as many shots. Then I moved again, farther off the trail. Many warriors followed me. We fired and ran, fired and ran, trying to circle to the back. For many minutes, I didn’t know who was taking the worst of it.”

Washington held up his hand for a moment. “Did you go to the left of the trail, or the right?”

Nicholson cocked his head to listen to the old man, then nodded.

“We went up the hill, he says. He thinks that answers you.” Washington nodded.

“After some time we found a little hill with thick trees and we stayed there, firing into the men below us. That was the first time I shot at you. You were on a fine horse. I shot at you and hit the horse.”

“I remember that.” Washington looked into the fire. The battle was not yet a disaster. The grenadiers of the Forty-fourth, the only veterans in the regiment, had formed at the base of that deadly little hill. They kept up a hot fire, and Washington’s Virginians had started to gather on their flanks, staying behind trees but shooting steadily. Some of the raw battalion men of the Forty-fourth had begun to rally from their initial panic. Washington had just asked the grenadier captain to take the hill when his horse went down.

Nicholson paused in his translation to drink, but Washington was still there, kicking his feet free of the stirrups and sliding over the crupper, his boot pulls caught in the buckles of his saddlebag. By the time he was on his feet, the young captain had his jaw shot away, a third of the grenadiers were down, and they were past saving, the recruits and the Virginians with them.

It marked the bitterest moment of his life. The moment in which he knew that they were beaten, that the whole expedition, the empire, the army, the foundations of the world were undone.

Nicholson wiped his mouth and went on.

“You disappeared when the high-hats ran. I followed you. There was nothing to stop us-most of the English had stopped shooting. The next time I saw you, you were with the big general. He was struggling with his horse. I think it was hit. I tried for you again. Perhaps I hit the general. It is possible. He fell. You caught him. You and others carried him off and I couldn’t follow in the press.”

Washington nodded.

“I thought I’d lost you. Then, right at the end, there you were, all alone, sitting on another tall horse.”

Washington looked back into the fire. It was not a moment he liked to dwell on. He had ridden back into the rout and perhaps he had hoped to be killed. He couldn’t remember that part with any clarity, but it came to him some nights, when there were bills due in England or a crop failed.

“My musket was empty, and I started loading it. You yelled at some men running by, but you didn’t move. That is when it came to me that you had a spirit and it was not your day to die, and I thought I will take him for my own, and his spirit will join my clans. Others fired at you. I saw you pull a long pistol and shoot it somewhere else, and I was just ramming my ball home. I pulled the rammer clear and threw it down to get a faster shot, and I began to run toward you. You just sat. You never saw me. When I was almost close enough to touch you, as close as I am now, a boy came at me out of the brush. He spooked your horse. And I hit him with my club, but you were moving away. Indeed, I took him. Since I already had my captive, I thought I would kill you. I looked down the barrel and pulled the trigger, and the pan flashed, and no shot came, and still you rode. Then I looked down at the lock, as one does…you know?”