The Rebels: The Kent Family Chronicles (8 page)

He dropped to his knees, madder than ever. But the burly Virginian who’d punched him had already turned his attention to one of his own—a tall, skinny, mud-slimed man with a mouthful of crooked teeth and one eye that pointed off at the oblique. Positively the ugliest specimen Philip had ever seen.

Philip’s attacker kicked the tall fellow in the groin. The man grimaced as he lost his footing, toppled into the mud. He floundered on hands and knees. His burly opponent bellowed a laugh, laced his fingers together, intending to chop them down in a murderous blow to the other man’s exposed neck.

Philip could have avoided further involvement by sneaking away. But he was tired, and thus not hard to provoke. Finding steady footing at last, he grabbed the burly man’s shoulder, pulled hard.

The man wheeled, aborting his vicious blow at the tall fellow’s neck. The burly man took one look at Philip, smiled an oafish, infuriating smile and resorted to his favorite tactic—a lightning kick between the legs. Philip clenched his teeth to keep from screaming in pain.

“Dunno who the hell you are, little boy,” the burly man growled. Philip realized the man was ugly drunk. “But this here’s Virginny territory. You go play someplace else ’fore I spank you good.”

Shaking, Philip said, “Come on and try.”

The tall, ugly fellow darted up from behind and bashed his opponent in one ear. The burly man didn’t appear to feel it. Only his eyes showed a reaction. He stabbed his hand down past a tangle of thrashing, mud-covered arms and legs. Instantly, Philip saw what he was after—

A spade someone had used as a weapon.

The man seized the spade’s handle—but Philip wasn’t the target. The burly man swung the spade toward the tall fellow, howling:

“I’ll take yer head off, Eph Tait!”

Philip made another two-handed lunge at the burly man’s forearm. The Virginian with the cocked eye ducked and the spade hissed on through the air. Except for Philip’s restraining grip, it would have completed its arc—

To smash into the face of the officer who had climbed from the phaeton.

The spirit seemed to drain from the burly man in a second. His mud-daubed face lost color. All he could breathe out was a raspy, “Oh, heavenly Christ—”

Philip was equally alarmed, to put it mildly. No man in the American lines could fail to recognize the towering officer. His thrown-back cloak revealed a dark blue coat with buff facings, a buff waistcoat and, above the white breeches, his purple sash of rank.

He had somehow lost his hat. Rain glistened in his clubbed reddish-brown hair. He was in his early forties, with huge hands, equally large feet whose size was emphasized by his big boots. In fact the man looked almost ponderous. But he moved with startling speed as he seized the spade and hurled it to the ground. Philip noticed a light pitting of pox scars on pale cheeks that bore traces of sunburn—or the flush of anger. The man’s gray-blue eyes raked the brawlers:

“I expect better than this from Virginians! Where is the commanding officer?”

The fighting had all but stopped. One of the mud-covered men shouted:

“Dead drunk—as usual.”

“To your quarters, every damn one of you. And think about this while you wait for the orders for punishment I intend to issue before this night’s over. I have made a pretty good slam since I came to this camp. I broke one colonel and two captains for cowardice at Bunker’s Hill. I’ve caused to be placed under arrest for trial one colonel, one major, one captain and six subalterns—in short, I spare no one, particularly men of my own colony, and you will find that reflected in the redress of this disgrace.
Dismissed!”
he shouted, suddenly pointing at Philip. “All except you.”

Philip stood frozen, swallowing hard. The officer’s temper had moderated. His speech took on a softer quality; the genteel, almost drawling quality of his native Fairfax County:

“You don’t belong to this regiment, do you, soldier?”

“No, sir.”

“What’s your name?”

“Philip Kent, General.”

“Your unit?”

“Twenty-ninth Massachusetts.”

“Why aren’t you with your unit?”

“I have my commander’s permission to visit Watertown, sir. My wife’s there—she’s expecting a baby and not doing well—”

“I can vouch for this man’s identity, General Washington.”

The new arrival stumping up on fat legs brought Philip momentary relief from the absolute terror he felt under the blue-gray stare of the chief of the American forces. The new arrival was a pie-faced young man with a white silk scarf wrapped around his crippled left hand. He weighed close to three hundred pounds and wore civilian clothes.

Shooting a quick glance at Philip—a warning for him to stand fast—he continued:

“He served with me in the Boston Grenadier Company before the trouble broke out. If he says his wife’s in Watertown, and that he’s been given leave to see her, it’s undoubtedly the truth.”

“I’ll take your word, Knox,” Washington said. He smiled faintly. “Especially since this soldier’s hand on that fool’s arm—” He pointed at the burly drunk being lugged away by two companions. “—saved me from a broken skull. My thanks, Kent.”

Washington whirled on the goggling laggards:

“Inside, the rest of you. Smartly—
smartly!”

The Virginians ran, including the toothy, cock-eyed fellow who seemed to be trying to grin some sort of appreciation at Philip. Washington pulled his rain-drenched cloak down across his blue-and-buff uniform and turned to stride back to his phaeton. Henry Knox lingered, his round young face beaming:

“I’d heard you were out here, Philip.”

“But not in officer’s territory.”

“Oh, I’m not there myself. Only on the border. Neither fish nor fowl, it seems. Still, I’m happy to serve where I can be useful.”

“Your name’s been widely circulated, Henry. I understand General Washington’s impressed with your knowledge of artillery.”

“I trust he will increase his reliance on what little I’ve learned,” Knox said, no longer smiling. “Only cannon can defeat the British garrison in Boston.”

“I’ve also heard you may be commissioned a colonel.”

Knox made no comment. But he couldn’t hide a prideful look. Before he’d shuttered his Boston bookshop to join the American army, Henry Knox had deliberately turned the shop into a haven for British officers of the occupying force. He had a purpose: to draw out the enemy’s best thinking on the subject that fascinated him—the proper use of artillery. “Lucky you had a good reason for your presence,” Knox observed finally. “The general’s determined to birth an army out of this dismaying collection of ruffians. He was correct when he said he spares no one—least of all himself.”

“Well, that may be true, but—” Philip hesitated.

“Go on with what you were about to say.”

“Maybe I’d better not. It concerned the general.”

“You can be candid. God knows everyone else in this camp is!”

Still Philip held back. Knox smiled wearily:

“Did you intend to tell me that most of your compatriots have doubts about the general’s ability?”

Embarrassed, Philip nodded. Knox waved:

“Don’t worry, I’ve heard that ten times over—from high and low. I’ve heard it all. That he was nothing more than a militia colonel before. And that while fighting the French and Indians, he lost several engagements. But I tell you this, Philip. Judge him by what he does now, not by his past.”

“I suppose that’s the fair way,” Philip agreed. It was pointless to go into all the widely expressed reasons many soldiers considered Washington a poor choice for his high post.

Aware of the general watching impatiently from the phaeton, Knox himself changed the subject:

“So you’re on your way to see your wife, are you?”

“That’s right.”

“I do believe I heard you’d married Mistress Ware—”

“Back in April.”

“And she’s with child. You’re to be congratulated.”

Philip didn’t smile. “As I said, she’s been sickly—”

“Knox!”
Washington’s shout from the phaeton hurried the fat young man’s departure:

“I hope that condition reverses itself promptly. Give Anne and her father my compliments. I’m glad to find you again,” he added as he waddled off. “I might have need for a couple of quick-witted men for a scheme I’m hatching—”

With a wave of the silk-wrapped hand, he was into the phaeton, a cloaked mountain hulking beside the general and the other officer as the carriage vanished in the murk.

Philip turned and hurried away from the Virginia encampment. He had only a few hours—and he was already late.

“Anne?”

Kneeling beside the bed, Philip kept his voice to a whisper:

“Annie? It’s me—”

Slowly, Anne Kent’s eyes opened. Her head moved slightly on the sweat-dampened bolster. The brown eyes reflected the flame of a candle by the bedside. Rain pattered the roof of the cramped upstairs bedroom in the house on a shabby side street in Watertown.

His mouth dry, Philip closed his hand around his wife’s, felt its heat. Her chestnut hair glistened with sweat just above the forehead. The light dusting of freckles on either side of her nose—prominent when her skin was wholesomely tanned by sunshine—had almost faded into invisibility.

Suddenly Anne rolled onto her side, gasping while her hand sought and touched the great mound of her stomach beneath the comforter.

Fearful, Philip bent closer. He smelled the staleness of her breath. “I’ll find you a doctor, Annie. I’m trying hard as I can—”

Her glazed eyes showed no sign that she heard. The hand on the comforter knotted convulsively.

Gradually the pain passed. She relaxed again. Philip’s voice sounded hoarser than ever:

“Annie, look at me. Don’t you know me?”

The brown eyes closed. Her breathing became more regular.

Despairing, Philip stumbled to his feet. In the shadows behind him, a sneeze exploded.

“I’ve caught a plagued disease myself! Guess I shouldn’t be in here—”

Sneezing into a kerchief a second time, Abraham Ware stumped back into the lamplit parlor crowded with large and small trunks: the belongings of a prosperous Boston lawyer who had been forced to flee his home, and his livelihood, because of his patriot convictions. Philip heard his father-in-law walk into the other bedroom.

Gently, he stroked Anne’s forehead. He wished she could speak to him. Wished she could listen to a pledge that he would desert the damned army, if necessary, to locate a physician. But she neither saw nor heard.

Just looking at her pale, drawn face was agony for him. Despite her youth, she bore little resemblance to the pretty, quick-witted and independent girl he’d first encountered in Henry Knox’s London Book-Store. She seemed frail and altogether vulnerable as she muttered in her sleep.

Close to tears, Philip remembered the joyous moments of their courting. And the times when he had questioned his own feelings for her, tempted as he was by the daughter of the Earl of Parkhurst, who had almost lured him away from Anne in Philadelphia—

Then the past receded. Only the present counted. He loved his wife with every fiber of his soul That love made his helplessness all the worse.

He uttered a frustrated curse, blew out the candle, tiptoed out leaving the door ajar. Abraham Ware, disheveled in an expensive suit that showed hard use, had returned from the bedroom with a fresh kerchief and was helping himself to what amounted to little more than a thimbleful of precious claret. With overseas trade at a standstill because of the hostilities, everything was in short supply—including money to buy life’s necessities. Ware was spending his savings to shelter himself, his daughter and her near-penniless husband during these days when no man could accurately predict what would happen next.

Philip sat down wearily on the battered travel trunk in which Anne had carefully stored the sum of his worldly possessions—three items. The first was a small, worn leather casket with brass corners. It contained letters from James Amberly, Duke of Kentland, to the French actress from Auvergne whom he’d loved and reluctantly left in Paris. The Duke, still alive in England, was Philip’s father.

Just the preceding spring, after fruitless and near-fatal attempts to claim the portion of Amberly’s fortune which he’d been promised, Philip had finally burned one particular document from the casket. That document was a letter declaring Amberly’s intention to share his riches with his illegitimate son. Philip had decided he wanted no part of Amberly’s world, in which the rich and the powerful exploited others. Destroying the letter, he’d become an American in spirit as well as in fact.

Also in the trunk was a memento of his boyhood in the French provinces: a splendid sword. The grenadier’s briquet had been presented to him by a young nobleman he’d helped out of a difficult situation. The nobleman’s title was the Marquis de Lafayette. But Philip would always think of him by one of his given names—Gil. One day, he’d hang Gil’s sword in a place of honor above the mantel in his house. Provided he lived long enough to build a house!

The last of the three items was a small bottle of green glass filled with flakes of dried English tea. He’d found the tea in his shoes on the December night in 1773 when he’d joined Samuel Adams’ band of bogus Indians and helped destroy three shiploads of tea chests in Boston harbor, as a protest against one of the king’s repressive taxes. The souvenir of that evening had another, much more memorable meaning as well. That same night, in his cheap cellar room at the Edes and Gill printing house in Dassett Alley, he had first made love to the young woman he’d married—

The young woman whose condition now tormented him with anxiety.

“How long has she been feverish?” Philip asked his father-in-law.

“Since last evening.” Ware’s protuberant eyes were doleful. The man had lost weight. Appeared bent; shriveled. He extended the decanter. “You’d better down some of this yourself, lad. You look like you bathed in mud, and your teeth are knocking like a bride’s knees.”

Philip didn’t move. From the hem of his soaked coat, a drop of water plopped to the shabby carpet. The rain beat on the roof.