The Rebels Page 12

  As always, Tait’s chatter helped relieve Philip’s gloom, and the immediate prospect of a warming drink took his mind off his yearning to be back in Massachusetts with Anne and their son. He slogged on toward the bank where oxen lowed and men huddled around a log fire built near the sledges with their precious cargo lashed down by a webbing of ropes.

  At first the journey with Knox had been a delight. Philip reveled in unexpected vistas of mountainous country; the vast, silent forests of York State blanketed with fluffy, fast-melting snow. They had reached Fort George in early December, then pushed north to star-shaped Fort Ticonderoga where the “noble train of artillery,” as Knox termed it, waited for them.

  Fifty-eight pieces. Four-pounders to twenty-four-pounders. Howitzers and some small coehorns and a few mortars including one giant that had been nicknamed The Old Sow. In size, the captured cannon ranged from a foot long to eleven feet; in weight, from a hundred pounds to over five thousand. A hundred and twenty thousand pounds in all, Knox calculated. To be transported through wilderness, south and then eastward, three hundred miles in the depth of winter.

  Initially, the artillery—along with one invaluable barrel of fine-quality British flints and twenty-three crates of shot—had to be freighted down Lake George in a collection of pirogues and batteaux. A single big scow took the largest pieces. At Sabbath Day Point, the scow foundered and sank. But in shallow water. Bailing operations set her afloat again.

  With the help of the wealthy York State patrician Philip Schuyler, already appointed a major general in the Continental forces, Knox secured eighty specially built sledges and eighty yoke of oxen. But thawed, mushy ground prevented the caravan from getting underway immediately. Finally, late in December, snow pelted down—and the drivers began to lash their beasts forward, the sledges slipping and sliding on runners. New Year’s brought the train of wrangling men, laboring animals and precious guns to the river junction—where capricious weather once again betrayed them. In hopes of strengthening a route to the Mohawk’s southern shore, the hired men and local volunteers had been set to work making holes in the ice.

  “Be damned if I ain’t goin’ home, and my team too,” Philip heard a man complain as he and Tait approached the welcome warmth of the bonfire. “Twenty-four shillings a day ain’t half enough when the animals won’t be fit to work after this here trip’s over. Hell, they’ll probably be drowned ’fore it’s done.” Philip recognized a yellow-bearded farmer named Crenkle. The man had hired on with his oxen at Glens Falls.

  “Twenty-four shillings is what you agreed to, neighbor,” Tait said in an unfriendly tone as he picked up a dirty earthenware cup. He popped the bung of a whiskey cask resting on a trestle. “You should of bitched to Colonel Knox then.”

  “Don’t give me that colonel shit,” Crenkle said. “He ain’t nothin’ but a civilian. A lazy one to boot! Sittin’ on his ass in the village—eatin’ dinner while we work ourselves half to death on that blasted river—”

  “No, sir. Not dining.”

  The voice whirled Crenkle around. In the firelight his breath plumed as he exhaled.

  Cloaked, Henry Knox came waddling out of the darkness leading his fretful horse. Despite his girth and his pudding face, there was a severity in his eyes that made Crenkle step backward.

  “I have been hunting men to serve in the stead of cowards and malingerers like you.” Knox snatched a cup from Crenkle’s hand and flung it away.

  The cup shattered against the muzzle of a howitzer. Filthy, half-frozen men around the fire exchanged furtive looks. Some of the men were amused; others far from it. Their guilt showed.

  “Drag home like a cur if you wish, Crenkle,” Knox said. “But if you do, you’ve broken your contract. I will feel free to confiscate your oxen as a penalty.”

  “Confiscate—!” Crenkle screamed. “You ain’t got any right whatsoever—”

  “Why sure he does, brother. Here ’tis.”

  Philip spun, startled. He hadn’t been aware of Eph Tait slipping off into the dark. Tait had returned as silently as he’d gone—bringing with him his Kentucky rifle that traveled carefully lashed in place on the sledge carrying The Old Sow. The long muzzle glittered with highlights from the fire.

  “She’s primed and ready to jine the argument,” Tait advised the furious Crenkle. “What was you sayin’ about the colonel’s rights?”

  “Damned high-handed bunch of army bastards—!” Crenkle began, wiping his beard with a wind-raw hand. But he sounded less than sure of himself.

  Knox glared. “Get back to the river or go home. Now.”

  Muttering, Crenkle crept away from the campfire.

  Toward the river.

  Knox sighed in a disgusted way, tramped to Tait and Philip. “Tonight I sent a letter to General Washington, advising him of our delay. I assured him we’ll cross the Mohawk the moment it’s reasonably safe to do so. Can we hope that’ll be soon?”

  “Ice is still pretty weak, Henry,” Philip said through stiff lips.

  “We must risk it. We’ve another crossing down at Albany—and after we turn east, the hardest terrain of all. The longer we wait, the worse the danger of a blizzard.”

  Neither Philip nor Tait required convincing. Having ridden west with Knox and pored over his maps, they were well aware of the mountains separating the Hudson valley and Boston. There were no conventional roads or easy passes through the range. To be caught there in a full-scale winter storm might mean days or weeks of delay.

  Eph Tait sighed. “We was goin’ to lay off half an hour like the rest of ’em. But I guess we better not. Come on, Philip, let’s go chop us some more ice.”

  “And watch that man Crenkle,” Knox advised. “I’d count on him to sacrifice one of the guns—or any one of us—to save his scurvy hide.”

  iv

  The Mohawk was crossed a day later, with the temporary loss of only one eighteen-pounder. Several hours’ labor with pulleys and chains retrieved the sunken cannon.

  By the end of the first week in January the straggling caravan reached Albany, a substantial town where a spirit somewhat more patriotic than Crenkle’s prevailed. The ruddy-faced burghers turned out to cheer the arrival of the first sledges and half-frozen men.

  General Schuyler was a resident of the district. His influence produced a good-sized party of new volunteers who helped speed the guns across the Hudson, reasonably solid now thanks to a spell of much colder weather. On the crossing another large cannon drowned, but next morning it was raised back up through a fourteen-foot hole in the ice. In return for the help of the citizens who manned the salvage equipment, Knox christened the piece The Albany.

  The caravan was far behind schedule. In November, Knox had told Washington that the entire overland journey of three hundred miles could be accomplished in fifteen days. On the tenth of January, the first teams were just starting their climb toward the snow-powdered spruces and pines in the foothills of the mountain barrier that still lay between the guns and the general who needed them so desperately.

  v

  At a night camp, fresh snow ankle-deep on the ground, Eph Tait asked Philip how he’d come to be involved in the military struggle:

  “I mean, once or twice I heard kind of a funny turn of phrase out o’ you. Like you was foreign, maybe.”

  Philip held stiff palms toward the fire, ignoring a sullen stare from Crenkle across the way.

  “I am, Eph. I was born in France. I learned English early, but sometimes I don’t say a word quite the proper way.”

  “Be damned,” Tait declared. “How’d you get to Boston?”

  Philip shared the entire story with his friend. Described how his father’s wife and son, the Amberlys in England, had tried to dispute his claim to his inheritance, then had cruelly hoaxed Philip and his mother into believing James Amberly had died. Because he had incurred the wrath of Amberly’s one lawful son, Roger, Philip and his mother had been forced to flee the Kentish countryside. They sought sanctuary in London, hoping t
o hide in its crowds and teeming streets.

  For a time, the plan worked. Philip learned the printing trade at a shop operated by a family named Sholto, met Dr. Franklin, the American, who encouraged him to emigrate to the colonies.

  But in Kent, Philip had done more than make his half-brother angry; he’d crippled Roger Amberly’s hand in a fight. The vengeful young man hired a professional assassin to track Philip and his mother. Again they were forced to flee.

  This time, Philip followed Franklin’s advice and chose new opportunity in a new land, instead of a return to their life of poverty in France. Broken-hearted because her dream of wealth and position for her son had been destroyed, Philip’s mother died on the sea voyage.

  In Boston Philip again took up the printing trade, with Mr. Ben Edes. As a result, he was slowly drawn into the patriot movement. He met Samuel Adams. The rich, dandified merchant, John Hancock. Paul Revere—

  Philip exhibited a front tooth for Eph. A tooth carved out of hippo tusk and wired in place by Revere, who practiced dentistry to help support his family—when he wasn’t grinding out engravings on popular subjects, working in silver, or riding express for the patriot committees.

  Philip told Eph about the unexpected arrival of his half-brother Roger as an officer in the British forces garrisoning the city. He even described how he’d helped an infantryman, a redcoat named George Lumden, to desert—and how he’d run Roger through with a British bayonet to save Anne Ware.

  “I suppose secrets like those don’t matter much any more.”

  “Wouldn’t think so,” Eph said. The gazes of both men were drawn almost unconsciously toward the steep, dark slopes where great evergreens soughed in the night wind. Tomorrow they would begin the ascent of those slopes.

  Eph got tickled then, huddling closer to the fire and wrapping his hands around his body as he laughed:

  “My Lord, I didn’t realize I fell in with such fancy company. A duke for a papa—!”

  “And his son’s blood on my hands,” Philip said somberly.

  He had omitted only one major part of the story: his violently emotional affair with the young woman who was Roger’s fiancée in England and, later, his wife. Alicia Amberly, daughter of the Earl of Parkhurst, had undertaken the difficult Atlantic crossing to be with her mortally wounded husband, who was being cared for by Alicia’s relatives, wealthy Philadelphia Tories. In answer to a letter from Alicia, Philip had ridden to the Quaker city to see her, and for a time, he thought of resuming their liaison. Even thought of marrying the beautiful, passionate young girl.

  Then, in a chance encounter with Franklin who had just returned from England, Philip discovered the hoax perpetrated by Roger and Lady Jane Amberly. Philip’s father was still alive. And Alicia knew it. She’d only reestablished contact because Philip stood to inherit everything now that Roger was dead.

  Though Alicia professed love for him, the revelation of her deceit was a turning point for Philip, bringing him at last to a sorting-out of his own thoughts and emotions. He returned to Boston to marry the girl he knew he really loved; and to fight in the army.

  “To date, a not particularly distinguished career,” he said at the end. “I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve done to survive. I’ve killed more than just my half-brother—”

  “Figgered that,” Tait said. “It shows in a man’s eyes. Philip—you ’spose this crazy-quilt army’s got any chance atall? I heard the lobsterbacks might even bring over hired Germans.”

  “So did I. To answer your question—I don’t know, Eph.”

  “But you think all this is worth it, whatever happens?”

  “I guess I do. Most of the time any more, I don’t go that deep. I just go day to day.”

  “Smart, I reckon,” Tait said, looking again to the star-silvered foothills above them. “Tomorrow ain’t gonna be one of the better ones, I bet.”

  vi

  “Another checkrope! You up there—tie her fast!”

  Philip’s shouted order started the teamster moving. The man was behind him, near the top of the forty-degree slope. The hillside was layered with fresh snow; patterned in blazing white and deep shadow by the January sun falling between the huge trees. The sun was melting the snow’s crust just enough to worsen the already treacherous surface.

  On its third day in the roadless mountains, the artillery train was stretched out for several miles. Each descent of the rolling terrain had to be negotiated with special care, and proper distance maintained between the sledges in case of accident. Philip was about halfway to the bottom of the hill, tramping beside the sledge bearing The Old Sow.

  Below, on level ground, another sledge carrying two coehorns was about to start upward again. Eph Tait ran alongside while the drivers lashed their balky horses. Over his arm Tait carried a number of heavy drag chains which he’d unhooked from the runners as soon as the coehorn sledge reached the bottom of the steep hill.

  Now The Old Sow was being freighted down that same hillside, and four checkropes fastened to trees higher up were proving insufficient. One had already frayed and popped, causing Philip to yell at the man near the summit. The teamster was starting to string another rope around a thick bole. But slowly. Too damn slowly—

  The drag chains under the Sow’s sledge seemed to be having little effect. The sledge kept sliding faster. Foundering in the snow, the yoked oxen felt the push. Crenkle, their driver, didn’t help matters by screaming obscenities and whipping them frantically with a supple stick.

  The sledge lurched sideways, to the left. Philip jumped back to keep his feet from being crushed by the runners. Despite the chill air, he was awash with sweat under his filthy clothing.

  “Crenkle, ease up with the stick, they’re panicky enough,” Philip bawled at the farmer. Crenkle threw him a defiant look and kept flailing.

  The back end of the sledge lurched again, further left—toward a natural drop-off of about twenty feet. If even part of the sledge slipped over, oxen and all would go. The mortar might be cracked beyond repair—

  “Hurry up with the rope!” Philip screamed, hand cupped around his beard-stubbled mouth. The man higher up still seemed to be moving with maddening slowness. He was just starting to secure the end of the rope that led all the way back down to the vehicle bearing the Sow. Six ropes in all were lashed to staples on the bed of the sledge. One had broken; only one more was available, trailing loose on the hillside, tracing a snake pattern in the snow.

  Tense, Philip watched the sledge slide again. Only a couple of feet this time—

  He whipped his glance back up to the man struggling with the rope. Why couldn’t he get it tied faster?

  One of the oxen bellowed, a terrifying sound that echoed through the mountain stillness. Philip spun, saw Crenkle flogging the left-hand ox, down on both forelegs. The rear of the sledge started another slide, straight toward the drop-off—

  Just as the man fastening the checkrope around the tree finished his last knot, the sledge’s back end swung all the way left, pointing toward the drop. The newly tied knots failed to hold. The rope snapped, uncoiled from around the trunk, end whipping free—

  Another rope broke, leaving two in place. At that precise instant, Crenkle’s maniacal beating of the oxen achieved results—disastrous ones:

  The left-hand ox lurched up and lunged ahead. The other beast felt the pull and responded in tandem. The sledge was jerked forward too precipitously—no longer in danger of slipping over the drop, but given a sudden giant yank that started it sliding straight down the melted, slippery track—

  The sledge picked up speed, spuming snow from the runners despite the drag chains. Crenkle saw the sledge gathering momentum. His reason deserted him. Before Philip could react, Crenkle dropped his stick, jerked a hatchet from his hide belt, started chopping the traces.

  “Don’t release them, Crenkle!” Philip yelled. But the frightened farmer paid no attention. He hacked the last of the traces, stretched out his free hand and jerked the pin conne
cting the yoketree to the front of the sledge.

  The freed oxen lunged to the right, off the dangerously melted path. An instant later, the sledge left Philip and Crenkle behind, then hurtled by the oxen, still gathering speed.

  Philip reached Crenkle and knocked him down with one mauling fist. “You stinking yellow animal—!”

  Crenkle snuffled, on his knees and trying to stop blood leaking from his nose. The sledge was a good way down the hill now, thundering toward the bottom where Eph Tait was just releasing the last drag chain from the coehorn carrier.

  Tait heard the rumbling, turned his head. For a moment, sunlight made his bad eye glow like a star—

  Time seemed to suspend. Philip was only marginally conscious of his legs pumping through the deep snow. He shouted incoherent warnings.

  He saw Eph Tait frozen with surprise in the patch of sunlit snow; Eph’s jaw dropping at the sight of the juggernaut hurtling toward him. The Virginian started to run.

  The drag chains draped over his arm fell to the ground. Somehow he tangled his feet in one of them. Thrashing, he sprawled in the snow—

  The mortar sledge hit the bottom of the slope and careened ahead. Tait threw an arm up in front of his face—

  He disappeared as the sledge ran over him and slid on past the coehorns, losing momentum on the flat. The sledge’s front end rose at the bottom of the next slope, the hillside soon braking its forward progress completely. In the snow behind, something grotesque and loose-limbed flopped.

  Philip kept running toward his friend. Then the Virginian screamed.

  Philip’s beard-matted face distorted. Other teamsters were rushing to Tait’s side. Squinting in the sunlight, Philip whirled and ran back up the hill in a shambling gait.

  Above him, Crenkle crouched defensively, hatchet upraised. The defensive posture crumpled the moment Philip came close enough for the yellow-bearded farmer to see his almost bestial face. Crenkle threw his hatchet away, turned and jumped from the edge of the drop-off.