TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

ADAIGO - STAVE XIX

S T A V E

XIX

Head of the Elk, MaryLand, a pleasant little village: fieldstone and red brick houses, some plastered and whitewashed, others a subdued yellow . . . like its citizenry. Fortress-like rock and mortar churches, and Quaker Meetings equally strong – fine for barracks and defensive positions should they need them. The fields beyond, a bucolic scene: cleared land and farmhouses, corn and tobacco crop crisscrossed with fences, mills and apple orchards, dense copse of trees. They marched in, but no one greets them. Doors and windows locked and shuttered. On second glance, the town looked ill-used. Just two days prior, Washington had been here.

No Marauding upon Pain of Death – Billy's orders.

Right – must mean Hessians. The Light Bobs and Grenadiers had marked out houses as they marched to their camps outside Town. Their Captains won't stop them, most likely lead them on. How's it Plunder when a house's abandoned? Commandeering more like it – the prevention of Means falling to the Enemy. And is it stealing to find a dropped coin? It's a sin not to pick it up. And what can Billy do? Hang the whole army? Officers too? But there – Handbills, tacked to every door, on posts, on trees, rendering a look of celebration. They waved in the breeze and those come loose blew over the street, catching in fences.

Sir William Howe, regretting the calamities to which many of His Majesty's faithful subjects are still exposed by the continuance of the Rebellion, and no less desirous of protecting the innocent, than determined to pursue with the rigors of war all those whom His Majesty's forces, in the course of their progress, may find in arms against the King, doth hereby assure the peaceable inhabitants of the Province of Delaware, and the counties of Maryland on the Eastern Shore of the Cheaspeak-Bay, that in order to remove any groundless apprehension which may have been raised of their suffering by depredation of the army under his command, he has issued the strictest orders to the troops for the preservation of regularity and good discipline, and has signified that the most exemplary punishment shall be inflicted upon those who shall dare to plunder the property, or Moldst the persons of any of His Majesty' well-disposed subjects.

Security and protection are likewise extended to all persons, inhabitants of the Province and Counties aforesaid, who, not guilty of having assumed legislative or judicial authority, may have acted illegally in subordinate station, and, conscious of their misconduct, been induced to leave their dwelling provided such persons do forthwith return and remain peaceable at their usual places of abode.

Considering moreover that many officers and private men, now actually in arms against His Majesty, may be willing to relinquish the part they have taken in this Rebellion, and, return to their due allegiance: SIR WILLIAM HOWE doth therefore promise a free and general pardon to all such officers and private men, as shall voluntarily come and surrender themselves to any detachment of His Majesty's forces, before the day on which it shall be notified that the said indulgence is to be discontinued.

'Pardon'? They could tear the bill to shreds. Criminals, bloody criminals. I'll pardon you, Yankee Doodle, with a bayonet up your arse, you bog-trotting reptile.

So thought Geordie, he and his mates like corpses come off the boats. They had cantoned on open ground in the reed bottom land the first night off the ships. A line of Militia had tried to stop them, but ran as the first wave hit. There'd be no stopping, better a ball in the brain than retreat to the stinking ships.

On the fens, laying against their packs by the fires, thunder sounded, yet no man pulled his blanket – it'd be one more thing to dry out and clean.

"Untie those packs and use your blankets – for your own bloody health." Webb and Crookshank going down the line. "Colonel Osborn will have it. General Mathew will have it. Lazy Guardsmen, I'll throw any blanket in the mud myself I find in the pack."