TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

ADAIGO - STAVE XX

S T A V E

XX

11th September, 1777

A soupy morning heavy with mist, the kind to make the skin crawl. Fog in the Toughkenamon Valley, in the woods and the fields like the brume of a black powder battle; whole regiments can vanish in such fog. Perfect for subterfuge. Five thousand down the Baltimore Pike without fife, drum or song. A turn north onto the Great Valley Road. Flankers to the column's right and left, bayonets fixed. Little could they see in front of them. Move quick while it's cool and the fog burns off. And burn off it did in a cloudless white heat as the merciless sun rose.

Insects hummed. Crows darted over head with a racket of caws and turkey vultures wheeled on the thermals. The crunch of hobnails on a hardened dirt road that dipped and snaked from open fields into copse of trees where mosquitoes swarmed, and then suddenly, an open vista as pretty as could be seen – farmland with the stench of manure, but better than the sulfur of spent powder.

Geordie route stepped with his firelock sloped, its barrel polished as were all, giving the column a lustre. They would meet the Enemy in style. Spit and Polish. Though, in fact, they were ragged. Geordie was. Rain and sweat had worn his coat thin. His trowsers, with many rips, were patched at the knees with calico and canvas. At Kennett Square he'd lost his musket sling, and off his coat on Iron Hill, three buttons, the slow match off the back of his cartridge box strap . . . Crookshank stopped him a week's wages. But what did that matter? He'd been issued sixty rounds and a day's worth of cooked rations, and a blanket roll to rest upon after a long day's action – Washington making a stand along the Brandywine River to defend Philadelphia to the last. But Billy'll take them in his usual fashion – Cornwallis on a roundabout north from the river.

Geordie wished Obedience had been in camp. He'd not seen her since the landing, not touched her since. She and the women traveled with the baggage, like the tents and what the men needed most. He flexed his fingers, imagining her hand, walking him to the action. Even better – strolling on this summer day, and was with him now though many miles back, she must know and is plying God for his safety. And God'll keep him. He cannot die. God would not be so cruel. Besides, he had the watch to give her, one he 'lobbed' from a house at Head of the Elk, worth ₤ 5. Five P., he thought, over three years pay, all the money in the world. He felt its weight in his pocket – had he left it in his pack, some Highlander bringing up the rear would steal it after they were dropped . . . Nothing'll happen, Providence will not widow her again – he wore his old hatt-cap with the hole in the frontlet where the bullet should have taken off his head; when Crookshank saw it, he put Geordie in for more stoppages. Let him, Geordie thought, Death had his chance and must go touch someone else. Someone far away . . . He looked across a meadow of goldenrod and timothy grass. Single oaks and walnuts commanded plots of ground and taking him back – him and Obedience under the sycamore. If she was here, they'd lie under a tree . . . Tomorrow. The goldenrod nodded on a breath of wind. Pretty field . . . Will there be a fight? The rebels run. Drunken dogs, take them at the quick. Don't waste ball and powder . . . A flash in his mind – eyes shot out, ears shot off, a bullet through the jaw, the grass mashed down and the fog of smelly powder, arms and legs gone, those with their insides across the ground, not killed outright and tortured. And Invisible Wounds – souls pierced and characters altered. The firelock solid on his shoulder and the column as far as he could see. He trusted in their training. Trusted in the Cause. That and liquid courage. For all his bravado, he play-acted in his uniform, hoping always to find in himself that capricious warrior who came and went as he pleased. He'd not failed him thus far. Liar, Uncertainty whispered.

"Are you with me, brother?" asked Tim next to him.

"I am," Geordie said.