The Rebels: The Kent Family Chronicles (31 page)

At that point, Philip stopped and returned the paper-covered essay with the other two, saying:

“Mr. Paine certainly has a grasp of the mood of an army camp. He’s doing his best to keep spirits up.”

And my own need it badly,
he added in the silence of his mind. He wondered again whether he would ever live to embrace Anne; hold his child; or pull the lever on a flatbed press and watch a sheet come forth, miraculously inked with the thoughts of the author.

Royal said, “My father’s letter reports that Mr. Paine is planning a whole series of these
Crisis
articles—written as the need arises. Someone will certainly put them together in a book one day. Why shouldn’t it be you, Philip?”

Philip smiled wearily. “Well, it’s a mite early to consider that, seeing as I have no press, no pressroom and precious little money.”

But his eyes had brightened a bit; the suggestion had caught his fancy. Reality quickly took control again:

“Very likely some printer who isn’t with the army will seize on the idea first.”

“Yes, but a Kent edition could be finer and more handsomely prepared—and I’m sure it would have a guaranteed sale. Look at all the different versions of
Common Sense
that are circulating.”

Philip nodded, enjoying the fantasy of a collection of Paine’s essays offered under his own imprint. He didn’t even think about the legality of it. Every respectable printer practiced piracy, despite copyright statutes of various sorts in force in the former colonies. Massachusetts Bay’s law had been enacted in 1672, Ben Edes had told him once. But it was largely ignored, and the penalty was relatively paltry: a fine three times the manufacturing cost of the illegal edition. Anyone could reprint foreign authors such as Milton and the Reverend Young with absolute impunity. Existing copyright laws didn’t apply to works by non-Americans.

“All right, Royal,” Philip smiled at last, “I’ll consider an edition of Mr. Paine one of my first priorities. But don’t pin me to a calendar, please. Who can be certain when we’ll be back in Boston?”

Royal’s somber nod showed that he caught the undertone of resignation and apprehension. He scooped up his shipment and headed for the tent.

“I’ll get busy reading so you may have these quickly—”

Philip barely heard the remark. He was staring into space, seeing the title page of the Paine book as he would compose it.

Lucas Cowper, not the least interested in matters literary, had paid no attention to the conversation, occupying himself instead with an ox horn he’d obtained at the camp slaughterhouse. He was fashioning a new container for his powder. Left-handed, Cowper needed a horn that would fit snugly on his left hip; an ox’s right horn would have done him no good.

While Philip and Royal talked, Cowper worked away with the tip of his knife, carefully chipping letters from the bony surface. Now he held up the horn and displayed its legend to Philip:

Lucas Cowper, His Horn, August 1777

“A handsome job, Lucas,” Philip told him.

“I don’t know about that,” the other grinned. “But maybe it won’t be stolen like the last one.” He applied himself to a few finishing cuts to smooth rough edges of the letters.

Paine’s phrase kept stealing back into Philip’s mind.
Times that try men’s souls.
It was certainly apt. Fear and frustration combined to harry the strongest man’s nerve; erode his will; fill him with anxiety. In a few moments, Philip was almost regretting that Royal had brought up the subject of an edition of Paine. The tempting idea only reminded him of the impossibility of fulfilling any dreams or ambitions in the immediate future.

Stretching, Pettibone emerged from the tent to take the air after completing his letter to his wife Patsy. Breen appeared, having vanished to the sutler’s for a while. As the regimental drums began to beat the night’s tattoo, Breen announced disparagingly:

“More of them goddamn Frenchies comin’ out tomorrow.”

Philip looked up from his unfinished sewing. “Officers?”

“Fortune-hunters, more like. Figger to make a killin’ sellin’ their fancy selves to lead us poor ignorant clod-foots. Feller told me the Congress is gettin’ mighty sick of them monsoors paradin’ off the ships and askin’ for high rank and lots o’ pay.”

“If there are more coming out tomorrow, I imagine we’ll have an inspection,” Philip said. “Maybe even a grand review. That’ll break up the day, anyway.”

Anything to break up the day—!

And the waiting.

Mayo Adams hadn’t come back by the time the last drumbeats died out across the Pennsylvania countryside. Philip lay sweating in his underdrawers, on top of his bedroll instead of in it. Breen’s loud snores, augmented by the click of his wooden dentures, added to the other irritants—the heat; the boredom; the uncertainty about what might lie ahead—that kept Philip awake and restless.

Eventually he dozed off. A sudden clumping and heavy breathing shot him upright:

“Who is it?”

“Adams.” Crawling past the other sleepers.

Adams still reeked of gin. General Washington believed that a certain amount of alcohol was necessary to a soldier, but that too much was disastrous. A man could only obtain more than the daily ration if he had a friend. Adams did.

“You gwan back to sleep, Kent. Let’s hope you wake up tomorrow, huh?”

Chuckling, Adams passed on, a dimly seen bulk in the stifling gloom of the tent. He took his place on his roll at the rear corner. Philip settled down again, tense.

Not a sound came from Mayo Adams. But Philip had the uncomfortable feeling that the brewer’s apprentice was still awake.

Staring at him.

Watching him.

And maybe thinking secret thoughts—?

Two things plagued the Americans encamped above Philadelphia. One was in the past, the other yet to come.

The first was the devastating plunge in morale produced by news from the north. Practically on the anniversary of the declaration of a year ago, the American defenders of Fort Ticonderoga had been forced to evacuate the position as untenable. Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne was marching south from Canada with eight thousand British soldiers, Canadians, and Iroquois tribesmen recruited by the king’s agents.

Word of Ticonderoga’s recapture had arrived in the Pennsylvania encampment in mid-July. Virtually every man took it as a grim sign. Horatio Gates, a capable American general, was supposedly moving to blunt Burgoyne’s thrust. But there was no guarantee he could do it. God knew what bloodshed was being perpetrated in northern York State this very moment.

Then there was the second worry—the future.

The uneasiness sprang directly from no one knowing the whereabouts of General Sir William Howe, His Majesty’s commander-in-chief in America.

For months, Howe had dallied at New York. First there were reports that he intended to go north to link up with Burgoyne. Then other reports said his objective was Philadelphia. All the while, his troops remained garrisoned in New Brunswick and Amboy, supplied from across the Hudson and capable of retaking the whole of Jersey—
if
they received orders.

Howe was too busy to issue orders. He was occupied with balls and fetes in the captured city. And, so the story ran, with his new blonde mistress, one Mrs. Loring.

The charming lady’s husband, a fervent Boston Tory, had been appointed commissary-general in charge of American battle prisoners. The position permitted Loring to fatten his own purse by selling off prisoner rations at a profit. The scoundrel seemed happy with his lot—and not the least jealous when General Howe commandeered his wife for a bed-partner. Perhaps, in some bizarre way, he considered her surrender a duty to the Crown that was making him rich.

At last, in late July, Howe had moved—but in an unexpected direction. He and his Jersey army disappeared into the Atlantic aboard the three hundred ships commanded by Howe’s brother. Somewhere on the ocean, that armada cruised out of sight of shore—and no one could say where the eighteen thousand British and Hessians would ultimately land. Nearly every day, new rumors reached the Pennsylvania camp—

Howe had been sighted off the Virginia capes—

No, he had not.

Yes he had, but the fleet was gone again.

Whatever the truth, it seemed obvious to Philip and his messmates that the plan to relieve Burgoyne had been abandoned. So what would be Howe’s objective? A southern port? Philadelphia, where a nervous Congress was receiving a stream of foreign officers who had sailed to America bearing papers from Silas Deane, the commissioner in Paris? The papers guaranteed the foreign officers high ranks in the Continental army in return for their services.
Guaranteed it!
Their American counterparts complained, with justifiable bitterness.

Some of the soldier-adventurers were reasonably well qualified. Washington had already appointed a skilled Polish engineer, Kosciusko, to a colonelship in that “learned” branch of the service. But many of the officers were not qualified for much of anything, and had only come to the new country in hopes of deposing some native-born officer—for profit.

And tomorrow, Philip thought, dozing again, a new contingent of Europeans was due to arrive.

Well, it
would
provide diversion. Something to break the endless tedium of the days spent waiting and wondering when Howe’s flotilla would appear again; and where.

The drummers hammered in the blistering sun. The fifers tootled the melody of
The White Cockade.
Standing in the ranks on the parade field, his musket held at shoulder firelock position, Philip squinted across the sere grass toward the approaching horsemen. Out in front of Philip’s company, the commander, Captain Walter Webb of Worcester, stood as straight as the spontoon he gripped in his right hand.

Philip wished he could wipe the sweat off his forehead. It trickled down both sides of his nose and into his eyes. He had trouble seeing the brightly uniformed officers cantering toward the Massachusetts companies.

Of course Washington was immediately recognizable because of his white mount and his customary blue and buff. But the two men beside him, riding out ahead of the staff officers, were unrecognizable blurs—

Until they drew up opposite Philip’s company. Suddenly one of the two with Washington reined in. Philip gasped aloud at the sight of a long-forgotten face.

A youthful face. Aristocratic. Crowned under a tricorn by red hair far brighter than the commanding general’s. But Philip was sure his own eyes were playing tricks—

No, no, there could be no mistake. It
was
the same face; a face he’d first seen in a howling blizzard near his mother’s inn, when he’d come upon a thirteen-year-old boy struggling with two would-be kidnappers. The boy had been born to the French nobility; destined for a military career—

The Marquis de Lafayette caught Washington’s attention, pointed. Next to Philip, Lucas Cowper said under his breath:

“My Lord, he’s singling out somebody in this company!”

Washington stood in his saddle, spotted Philip. The general’s face seemed to register recognition too; perhaps from that night in Vassall House before the expedition with Knox.

Washington said something to Lafayette. Instantly, Gil’s face burst into a smile.

Royal Rothman, his cap concealed under his round-brimmed hunting hat, hissed from the front rank where the shortest men stood:

“It isn’t me. It’s somebody behind me.”

“Damn if that froggy ain’t wavin’ at you, Kent,” Mayo Adams said from directly behind. “How’d you git your ass in trouble this time?”

Unbelievably, Washington himself had now ridden back to consult with a staff officer. The main body of the inspection party rode on, Lafayette casting one glowing smile back across his shoulder. The staff officer wheeled his horse toward Captain Webb, who appeared ready to fall over in a faint from the sudden flurry of attention.

The staff officer dismounted, spoke with Webb. Philip could hear their voices but not the words. Then Webb’s eyes literally bugged.

As the staff officer re-mounted and cantered away, Captain Webb turned to give Philip a disbelieving stare. Lucas Cowper whispered again:

“Philip, do you know that officer who went by?”

“Yes, I do.”

From behind, Mayo Adams sneered, “Way it’s goin’, Kent’s liable to be suppin’ with old George ’fore long. My God, I didn’t know we were in such highfalutin company.”

But Adams’ jibes couldn’t unsettle Philip now. He was too stirred by memories, by excitement, by the astounding reappearance of the young man who had given him the treasured sword—

The young man Philip had never expected to see again in all his lifetime.

Then he recalled something the young marquis had said the last time they met at Marie Charboneau’s inn, just before Gil returned to Paris for more military training. Something about comrades in arms always encountering one another again on battlefields.

Comrades in arms.
Gil had said they were exactly that because Philip had saved his life—

And the prediction had come true.

Officers began to shout orders to break up the review formation. Captain Webb barked Philip’s name and headed straight for him:

“Kent, are you aware of the identity of that Frenchman? The one who singled you out?”

“Yes, Captain, I am. Let’s see whether I can give you all his names—”

Philip’s friends crowded around, listening. Even Mayo Adams lingered, a disgusted curiosity on his face. Philip recalled the names one by one:

“Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier—”

Webb continued to look utterly stupefied as. Philip added:

“His hereditary title’s Marquis de Lafayette. I always called him Gil.”

“Pretty damn familiar!” Webb exclaimed.

“I was born in France, Captain. I knew him there. His family home was in the same province as mine.”

“Well, I don’t care what you called him then, you’re going to have to call him sir when you go to supper.”

“Supper?”