TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

SCHERZO - STAVE XXXII

S C H E R Z O

S T A V E

XXXII

August 1778 - Long Island & New York

The women gathered, secret-like at the end of the day, come one by one from the camp to a clearing Obedience had discovered. A Coven.

She'd found it one evening, past the fire pits and marquees, out the back of the camp, wandering to the Heights of Guan, her thumb stroking Grace's Welsh hat. She held it as a child would hold her mother's hand passing in a crowd of strangers. It was all she had; Geordie busy on Hyde's kit, and camp, with its cliques, offered no good fit. She'd climbed the rise and looked back – a city of tents in the dusk taking on a hue of coral with a thousand yards of fire pits, and the bay beyond, all sapphire and sparkling. She lingered, Grace invisible beside her. She climbed to the summit and looked again. How pretty, she thought, if only it was so. She walked through a cathedral of trees and found this open space. Man-made, the vestige of a crude redoubt. Beyond it the woods grew thicker though a number of trees were split and dead. Then she remembered: the dying Light Bob on the ground, her face the last thing he saw and his queer smile as he passed, and there, under the muzzle of a six-pounder, the dead rebel boy with his brains bashed out. She imagined this is where they'd fallen, in her mind, their shadowy forms. And here again. Tears rolled down her cheek – two years – the decisions she'd made, moving her from this to that. Prize and Price. Never one without the other, and Price, always Price, that Wicked Friend. In the Clockwork, Good is measured in minutes, while Bad tolls the hour. Better not to think, move, or feel. What is Good will be gone – Grace is gone . . . She'd heard footsteps through the treeline – Bess Waddley. "There you are. I saw you wander off sad. Do you mind?" And they sat – and began to Talk, couldn't help but Talk, and the old redoubt was no longer a place of Men and Violence.

When the taptoo sounded, they returned to camp, but came the next night to watch the sunset with the encampment below, and came every night after that, not knowing how long the brigade might stay; Clinton and Lord Howe with most of the army off chasing the French near Rhode Island, but leaving the Guards behind with so few officers.

At first there were three – Obedience, Bess and Grace's hat, Obedience its keeper, until Bess said that Grace was her friend too; they would talk as if she was there. Obedience put the hat down, but that was disrespectful, then brought a rod and mounted the hat so it made them a circle. Bess approved. It was fitting as Grace lay in a mass grave somewhere in New Jersey. Her husband, at least, would be listed on the rolls. But these few nights, Grace remained a bit longer.

One evening Jaruesha had appeared. "So this is where you two go." And saw the hat. "What's that?" Her voice a slur.

"Is that your business?" Bess asked.

"There's talk about where you sneak off to every evening."

"No sneaking," Bess said. "Just here."

"Sit if you want," said Obedience to her own surprise.

"Brought anything with you?" Bess asked. Jaruesha pulled a bottle. Bess smiled. "Sit."

So it went. Other women found their way, more women than the brigade had seen since coming to America, soldiers' wives, courted and married over the winter months in Philadelphia. They sat in the circle passing a jug, Obedience their de-facto principal with Grace's hat on the rod, a hole at the base of the crown stained with dried blood.

Salonnière. Who shall do the reading? Flummucks me though, I forgot me Hume or that shit, Tom Paine. A toast to Sunshine Patriots may ever they reign. Here's to the Jersey Maid that might spirit up her country, spirit them up her cunnie."