TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

ALLEGRO - STAVE XIV

S T A V E

XIV

George Washington, for all his entrenchments, his battlings, abandoned New York. Gave her up like a Wife he'd no longer use for, like the Concubine of Lot's guest – tossed her out to the Sodomites and left her in a shambles. Billy can have her. After all, a city ain't a Country. And a Country ain't the land. It's a Thought. But whose Thought? . . . Nevertheless, a fine city to occupy, though not with the Guards, consequently, the most urban of troops, as they and the Main of the Army camped about Harlem for Washington's next move.

******************

Geordie, asleep under the night sky – forty days since the weather deck, six days from between her legs. They'd not touched since – the women assigned their own tent and the Army always on the move, the Quartermaster Corps surely exhausted from the constant decampment – break it out, lay it down, take it up, pack it. A tedium to war. Private men and sergeants erect their own tents. Batmen for the officers personal effects – tighten the bed ropes, assemble the camp desk. For the Private man – cobble a new sole over the worn one, patch the tear in the knee of the trowsers, mend the broken leather spatter dash strap . . . This American heat – damn the long hair with its clubs and queues. Cut it off as the Light Bobs do. This ain't the Cont-tinent. They ain't the Hessians with moustache wax and fancy curls. Billy won't care if they do it. Any relief.

He dreamed – Obedience pulling him across the field, tugging his fingers with a pensive look as if the slightest jostle might free them. But a power in her touch – something gypsy. She knew it, it held her too. Ahead, the sycamore, as she seemed to pull him from as much as take him to. What did he think they'd do? What indeed? But once there, she was gone and him in a different place the way Dreams tend to do. An attack on New York, great and fantastical, with fearful Engines not seen before – warships that sulk beneath the waves, rockets that leveled street blocks, gigantic balloons with fighting platforms sailing overhead, their silk in Regimental Colours: here – the 23rd with its three feathers, there – the 55th's green with roses and white thistles. On a Guards' balloon, Geordie's lifted in the air, weightless and dizzy. They float over the Bowery and fire down into the fleeing crowds, light grenades and drop them to see them burst about rebel heads . . . The Enemy replies with exploding shot. Balloons go up in flames and the King's Men fall. Geordie falls. A horrible rush. Certain death . . . Will Jehovah catch him? He thinks not. A Consequence of the Great Awakening . . . He falls and falls into some distant Future. The dream shifts again – play actors stroll a fanciful Camp, fat old men in Regimentals, studying knapsacks and counting threads, Scholars on the shape of French coat frogs, Virtuosos on military buttons – Archivists of Minutia – the precise dimensions of a fatigue cap frontlet. Teamsters as Generals, smug in their gold tape, swinging swords to make the firelocks go Bang. Quickly! Quickly! . . . And Geordie with a derisive laugh . . .

The drums.

The Call to Arms.

Shocked from sleep, he scrambles.

"What is it?" Tim cries as they snatch their firelocks and boxes from the bell tent and rush into line. Officers shouting. Sergeants shouting. The drums like a storm.

Prime and Load.

A slap on the pouch. Pluck the charge. Pull the rammer.

They hear nothing.

Fix bayonets.

A rattling in the dark.

What's coming? It sees them surely, silhouetted by the campfires. An attack?