TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

SCHERZO - STAVE LIV

S T A V E

LIV

Geordie couldn't sleep, the tang of the camp smoke pestering. Green wood. Better that though than Hospital with its rank and misery.

He'd survived, miraculously so, even as the drummers relented. They cut him to ribbons and the wounds became infected. The physicians feared pneumonia settling in. But Geordie refused to die, even in Delirium.

"Not in my prerogative," he said after coming out. "Whatever do you mean?" asked Dr. Rush, a Brigade surgeon. "I'm not allowed," Geordie said with weak lucidity. "Not allowed? What's that? Some damn fool prattling? You get no sympathy from me. Look to your station. You struck an officer, much less, relieved yourself on his tent. Damn lucky you didn't hang. You played your trump – so from now on, you'd better be spotless. You've no more defenders in the Ton." "Has my wife been by, sir?" "I believe," Dr. Rush said with disquiet, "she came 'round. You've had a spell of rum days and had yet to come out of it. Your condition was too hard for her to take. She looked ill herself. Near distraught, I'd say." "Did she leave any message?" "None with me."

He was released from Hospital after his six weeks, put on light duty and confined to camp. Obedience did not see him.

He could roll now on his back, but declined; time enough for that Permanent Position. His regimental, as always, hung where he could see it, with its pewter buttons . . . He'd come across a Bible the other day, and opening it to the Gospel of John, spat on its onionskin pages, then threw it to the ground and kicked it. Kicked and kicked it till the pages flew out.

He must see her and do the same.

Would he?

Could he?

Life is breaking – for him, for the Brigade – something's up and to no good. Abuzz about the camp. Will they go south? Britannia's cracking: anti-Catholic riots in London, the Spanish at Minorca . . . on the banks of the Mississippi, in the West Indies – the French, Actions in the North Sea. The Russians, Swedes and Danes coming in with an anti-British treaty. India stirring. The Dutch on the brink of declaring war. Linen exports blocked and the price of black cattle collapsed due to bans on France. The countryside taxed to Poverty to subsidize the war. And Clinton, the "Saviour of America", again begging for scraps.

"If Sir Henry wishes to resign, he is free to do so," his Majesty said. "America is no longer the prime theatre of war. There are more pressing concerns of stretching finite troops in a global conflict. Charlestown was brilliant, but what's he doing now?"

What he's doing now is sitting in New York, while Cornwallis, whom he cut loose with four thousand, drives into the Carolina Midlands. The Midlands – fine horse country; Clinton took most of the cavalry back. No complaint from Cornwallis though – anything to be free of Clinton. The Continental Congress dispatched an army, which Cornwallis chopped at Camden and Fishing Creek. If Sir Henry would send a force to invade Virginia, the entire South would peel away. Clinton squabbled instead with Arbuthnot – another French threat – a new fleet thought to appear at anytime and anywhere.

Then a Clintonian event: Admiral Rodney arrived off Sandy Hook with ten ships in mid-September. Senior to Arbuthnot, Rodney combined their fleets with those of Admiral Graves who had just come over and had more than enough to protect New York and trap the French up in Newport. Rochambeau, the French commander, gave himself up for loss – the American cause over. Sir Henry balked. He'd another plan, over the weeks he'd been in a clandestine exchange with a disgruntled Rebel general. No name, but he thought it Benedict Arnold in command of West Point. If so and Arnold induced to 'come over', Clinton could strike for the Highlands and seize the Hudson River forts. Washington, then, could not move, nor detach another army South, and Rochambeau isolated. Checkmate. Sir Henry – the Hero.

Rodney thought the plan cracked, but agreed, reluctantly; any move on Newport dependent on a Clinton-Arbuthnot collaboration could spell Disaster.

Arnold proved the Disaster. They did not gain the Highlands, only Arnold, whom they did not particularly want, and Clinton's popular aid-de-camp, Captain Andre, captured and hung. Then come word Cornwallis is checked by a defeat of his flank column at King's Mountain. Unfathomable –

And there lay Geordie, things beyond his control. Had he sinned holding her above All, above Conscience, Honour? This some test? Or the Second Act of a Comedy? Think he'd know. He'd seen it time and again in the old Dramas – the entire war a Drama, with Lofty Notions, Great Thoughts, clashing Philosophies – Nations, Armies, Persons. And this Angst for a Good End . . . Or does it Die, not at once, but in Pieces? Decay. So slow you don't see it, till one day you wake up Dead. Geordie and Obedience.

"All right, sleeping the day away, MacEachran?"

Geordie looked up at a newly promoted Third Guards sergeant, John MacChesnie. "Tim and me had the night guard – him on the bell tent and me on Norton's hut. Ask Webb."

"You've been back since dawn. Strike me why you're on the Colonel's hut. Probably piss on it like a dog . . . Wake that Neger Irish next to you and get down to the magazine to make cartridges."

"Make cartridges?"

"Buck-and-Ball."

Geordie sat up. "We shipping south?"

"They're not sending us home."

"When?"

"Get to the magazine. Roll and pack until Roast Beef."