The Rebels: The Kent Family Chronicles (51 page)

Soon Philip completely lost track of his surroundings. He heard a clatter of hoofs, a creak of wheels—then Royal’s jubilant exclamation:

“Here’s a medical wagon! We’ll have you aboard in no time.” Royal raised his voice: “Driver, hold up! Wounded man—”

Royal’s supporting arm inadvertently relaxed. Philip sagged forward onto his knees, then slammed face first into the dust, never feeling the impact.

He woke in the inferno of a medical tent, wishing he hadn’t. It was like living Brandywine all over again, except that this time, the man writhing on the gory planks wasn’t Lucas Cowper.

He tasted rum in his mouth. Bit the ball when he was ordered. Shifted and moaned softly as unseen pincers dug into the flesh of his calf just a few inches above his ankle.

Then he saw two spheres floating near; one huge, white and moist, the other smaller, red and wet—

“Got her out nice and clean.”

The white sphere was the surgeon’s perspiring face, the red one the flattened lead ball held in dirty pincers. The surgeon discarded the ball and the instrument, gripped Philip’s shoulders.

“Hold steady, now. We’re going to cauterize it with an iron.”

Before Philip could move his lips, the heated metal touched his skin. He started to scream. From behind, a hand jammed his jaws together so he wouldn’t swallow the ball held between his teeth.

A foul odor of burning flesh rose into his nostrils, starting uncontrollable gagging. At once, the ball was jerked from his teeth.

Rough hands seized the injured leg, held it. His calf and foot, numbed again by the searing iron, felt curiously thick. The surgeon’s sticky face peered down. A lantern hanging above him lit droplets of sweat in his unpowdered hair.

“They’re wrapping it with clean rags, and we’ve a crutch for you,” he said. “One of your messmates is outside. He’ll help you walk. We can’t let you lie in here, we need the room for more serious cases. You understand—”

The man’s exhausted voice indicated that he didn’t care whether Philip did or not.

The surgeon barked over his shoulder, “Let’s have his crutch! And one of the chits, so he can draw all the rum he needs to kill the pain.”

“Is—will I walk all right?” Philip gasped out.

The surgeon wiped his hands on a filthy scarlet apron. “You saw the ball. It came out clean. I can’t say whether or not there’s muscle damage.”

And that was the end of his attention, because another patient on the next table was shrieking as the bone-saw rasped back and forth. Philip’s doctor ran to answer a cry for assistance.

Like some animal being shunted out of a pen, Philip was propped up on one foot, dizzy as he was. The crutch-pad was jammed under his right armpit. Then he was helped to the tent entrance, where Royal waited anxiously, his face indistinct in the glow of the lanterns flaring in the twilight.

Philip breathed hard. Moving was difficult. But he wasn’t excessively uncomfortable. The rum, the cauterizing iron and the rag bandages had reduced his lower leg and foot to little more than a lump of meat, devoid of feeling.

“Come on,” Royal said, maneuvering Philip’s left arm over his back again. “I think I can locate our unit. Are—are you all right?”

“Little—out of my head,” Philip answered truthfully. Something fluttered from his hand. “Royal—that paper—need it for extra rum tonight—”

Dutifully, Royal stretched and half-squatted, recovering the chit. Philip closed the fingers of his hand as if the bit of paper were a nugget of precious metal or a priceless gem.

He was too dazed to worry about the possibility of gangrene, or how his leg would feel when the mortifying effects of the hot iron wore off. He wondered if he would ever walk properly again, but he couldn’t bring himself to think much about that, either. For that he was thankful.

Not long after dark, they were resting in another apple orchard, among several hundred men, quite a few of whom had light wounds. Philip was grateful the day’s action had been called to a halt. He couldn’t have hobbled one more step if General Washington had personally ordered him to do so under threat of court-martial.

Royal lay near him, sprawled on his side. Philip sat against the trunk of a tree, his right leg stuck out straight, the bandage that wrapped him from sole to mid-calf looking gigantic and grotesque in the dim light. His crutch rested across his thighs.

Royal had brought Philip his extra ration of rum. He sipped it from his hand-carved wooden drinking mug, taking a little every time the pain became hard to bear. With his other hand, he slowly slapped at sand flies deviling his cheek. It was all the effort he could manage.

Once twilight came on, the fighting had ended. In the steaming darkness Philip heard a dim buzz of many conversations. He wondered which portions of the field he and Royal had occupied during the frantic maneuvering of the afternoon. He supposed he’d never know—

He grew aware of Royal speaking in a tired monotone:

“—some say we whipped them. But I’ve heard just as many say it was a standoff. Clinton’s gotten away in the dark with his baggage, and we’ll never catch him now.”

Philip could only utter a single wordless syllable to show he’d heard.

“They say we lost over a hundred dead from sunstroke, too.”

Again Philip could do no more than murmur.

A lantern spread a widening glow off to their right. Several subalterns and a senior officer, shadow-figures, were slowly working their way among the resting men. Philip thought he recognized a voice that was asking a question for which no one had the answer.

Royal did, though:

“General Wayne?”

“Who spoke?”

“Over here, sir.”

“Who is it—?”

The party of officers approached. Philip lifted his head, saw a disturbing double image of a bedraggled Anthony Wayne.

“Private Rothman, sir. I heard you ask about General Washington.”

“Can’t find him anywhere.”

“One of the other fellows told me he’d already gone to sleep. Yonder under a tree at the far side of the orchard. He found General Lafayette lying exhausted and spread his cloak over both of them.”

“Many thanks—”

Wayne started on, then hesitated, his eye fixing on Philip.

Wayne said, “I recognize you. Kent, am I right?”

Each word seemed to weigh a ton in his mouth:

“Yes, sir.”

“You were at McGellaird’s Brook.”

“Yes, I was.”

“Took a British ball, it appears.”

“Yes, sir. Nothing—” He forced each word, hoping they were true. “—nothing too serious.”

“Well, savor that rum, Kent. You and the rest of these men earned it.” His handsome face broke into a prideful grin; the kind of devil’s; grin that had earned him his fierce reputation. “Today wasn’t Brandywine, by heaven.”

“No, sir,” Philip said. “Thank God for that.”

“We can thank the commander-in-chief while we’re at it. God grant you a swift recovery.”

Before Philip could offer a reply, Wayne strode off, a tall silhouette between the two resting soldiers and the subaltern leading the way with the lantern.

Philip closed his eyes, let his whole body go slack. No conscious effort was required. His right leg was throbbing again.

He brought his hand up; tilted the cup; dribbled rum over his chin before his tongue caught the rest.

Royal sighed. Then:

“Philip?”

“Uh?”

“Do you feel any better?”

“Some.”

“Then I think I’ll sleep a little myself.”

“Good.” It was barely audible.

After a moment’s silence:

“Philip?”

“Mm?”

“Captain Webb told me General Washington ordered a huge celebration back in camp at Englishtown tomorrow. Said we’d behaved like a real army, and won a victory over the flower of the British troops.” Royal’s tone was unmistakably proud. “The flower of the British troops, those were his exact words. Captain Webb said there was very little panic, despite all the confusion at the beginning. I suppose a lot of the credit goes to that German. Maybe our luck’s changing. Maybe we’ll win against them yet—”

Philip’s answer was a snore.

Before a week passed, Philip knew something was seriously wrong with his right leg.

The wound had been re-dressed twice by army doctors. Each commented that Philip had been lucky to escape the kind of ravaging infection that produced gangrene, then amputation. But when Philip was told by the second doctor to test his weight on the wounded leg, he fell over in a child-like sprawl. The doctor avoided Philip’s eyes when he was back up on his crutch. Philip demanded an explanation.

“I think the ball may have damaged internal tissues,” the doctor said. “A great tendon, possibly. If it doesn’t heal properly, you—you may have difficulty walking.”

A cold lump clotted in Philip’s throat. “For how long?”

“For life. Our knowledge of anatomy’s inexact, you understand. But—”

Philip’s ghastly whiteness made the doctor stop.

“You mean I’ll have to get about on a crutch from now on?”

“I can’t be certain. I saw a somewhat similar case after a pistol duel over cards at Valley Forge. The man was left with a permanent limp.”

Tears of humiliation and rage sprang to Philip’s eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

“Here, here,” the doctor said with false heartiness, clapping Philip’s shoulder. “At least there’s one benefit. You’ll be mustered out very promptly now.”

“To go home and live as a cripple?”

“I—I told you, soldier. I can’t be positive one way or another—”

“I’m sorry, doctor, but I think you’re lying.”

The man said nothing, averting his gaze a second time. White-lipped, Philip hobbled out of the tent.

The July twilight was cool. After picking up the mail that had finally come north through Jersey to Washington’s summer encampment at Haverstraw Bay, Philip started immediately for the bluffs.

The doctor’s prediction had proved partially correct. Two days ago, Philip had started getting about for short periods without the crutch. The injured right leg no longer caused him much pain; the wound was healing, and evidently no bones had been broken.

But there was permanent damage. His foot was stiffer than before, lacking natural springiness. He had looked at the foot closely the last time it was dressed, and it seemed to him that the arch of the sole had flattened somewhat.

Tonight he leaned on the crutch. Without it, his progress was awkward, and the limp noticeable—just as his bitter, brooding silences had become noticeable to Royal and Gil and Captain Webb and others who knew him.

The doctors had also confirmed that he was no longer fit for fighting. His separation orders were being prepared. Before many more days passed, he would be free to return to Boston. It was ironic that the prospect filled him with so little joy, when it was all he’d wanted for so long.

But he’d never planned on returning to his wife and his son as a cripple.

Behind him, Philip heard singing around the cook fires. Even on the tiring march north from Englishtown—a march on which he’d been permitted to travel most of the way in a medical wagon—the spirits of the other men had improved dramatically.

True, the army had lost a prime chance to destroy Clinton’s force. The enemy commander was now safe on the island of New York, some miles downriver. But for the first time, the Americans
had
fought like first-class troops. Even Gil said so, riding in the medical wagon and trying to cheer his friend. Washington, awaiting Clinton’s next move and planning his own, expressed his pride in his men openly and frequently.

General Charles Lee, relieved of command and facing disciplinary action—perhaps even court-martial—had not been heard from on the subject.

To hearten the men even more, a courier had arrived at headquarters this morning bearing word that spread through the encampment by noon. The Count d’Estaing’s frigates and ships of the line had been sighted off the Delaware capes!

Extra rations of alcohol were allowed, on Washington’s order, and permission was given for another all-out celebration. Perhaps, as Royal had said that night in the orchard, the fortunes of the Americans were reversing at last—

But that was of small importance to Philip just now. He was finally able to forget his own injury, and the problems it posed for the future. Forgetfulness came with concentrating on the two much-wrinkled letters he pulled from his pocket as he reached a secluded place where the cliffs dropped away to the wide, blue-black Hudson. The river flowed serenely, its surface pricked silver by the first summer stars.

Philip had practically snatched the letters from the postal clerk, noting only that one was in a man’s hand, the other in a woman’s. Clumsily, he lowered himself into the long grass and laid his crutch aside, unable to suppress a smile as he started to open Anne’s letter.

All at once he noticed what he hadn’t noticed before. The handwriting, though feminine, was not hers.

A moment after he tore the seal, the first thunderblow fell.

The letter from the neighbor woman, Mrs. Eulalie Brumple, was dated the end of April. Phrases leaped out to sear him:

—
sad duty to report distressing events—

—and when I returned, she was not present—

—within hours I had begun to fear for her safety—

—a seafaring gentleman of your acquaintance has called, and believes he may have some clue to the perpetrator of what now seems a most foul act of abduction—

—hope this will reach you with dispatch, bringing you at least the small assurance that I will care for your son Abraham devotedly until some resolution of the situation is effected—

One word burned Philip’s brain and set him trembling.

Abduction.

The second letter, dated the tenth of May, was from Captain Will Caleb. It told the rest of the dreadful story.

Returning from a voyage aboard
Fidelity
—a voyage capped by seizure of a valuable British prize—Caleb had discovered that his other new vessel,
Gull,
had vanished from Boston harbor with Malachi Rackham in command. Even Caleb’s somewhat stilted phrasing—an indication, perhaps, of how difficult it had been for him to write the letter—couldn’t conceal his fury: