The Riddle of Penncroft Farm (16 page)

I shook my head sadly. “My father is gravely injured, Sandy. I doubt my mother can leave him, even for Will
.”

“
Then you must come, Geordie. Else he'll die
.”

I looked at Sandy, thinking of all the farmwork to be done and my mother's tired face. Then I pictured Will lying sick and fevered at Valley Forge and knew what I must do. “Come on, let's tell my mother
.”

Sandy shrank back “Nay, you go. I'll wait here for you
.”

I'd never met anyone who was such a mixture of bravado and bashfulness, but I had little time to think upon such oddities. I flew up the stairs to the sick chamber. My mother received the news about Will calmly. “Yes, of course thee must go. Master Derry will help me with the chores,” she said softly. “Ride one of the horses. Would that I could go in thy place, but . . .” She looked down at Father's face, his eyes shut, his ears unhearing, and sighed. “The doctor says Laban is a mite better. Perhaps when thee returns he'll be himself again.” With a weak smile, she
urged me to take the copper kettle and fill it with food. “And, Geordie, put in some apples to make Will some hot applesauce. He ate it by the bucketful when he was a lad.” Her gray eyes filled with tears as I turned away
.

I made haste to fill the copper kettle with apples and other food from the scant stores in the cellar. An impulse sent me up to the attic. I stood for a second, staring down at our side-by-side beds, remembering how Will had loved to apple-pie my sheets. I snatched up his old comforter and raced back to the barn. There I quickly bridled Buttercup
.

“
Come on, then,” I said, motioning Sandy to climb onto Buttercup's bare swayed back
.

Sandy paused a moment, looking oddly uncertain. Then, taking a deep breath, he threw his leg over. I climbed on behind and we started off at a slow plod for Valley Forge
.

It was nearly dark when we forded Valley Creek and entered the American camp. The valley was dotted with fires, but the figures crouched around them seemed scarcely human. Most of the men clutched ragged pieces of blanket about them, and few wore real pants. At first I thought it impressive that so many wore matching white gaiters from the knee to the foot. But a brief flare from one of the fires revealed
that what I saw was white, frigid flesh—nearly as white as the snow on the ground under the men's bare feet
.

Suddenly a strange moaning chant began, growing louder as it spread from campfire to campfire. “No meat, no meat, no meat, no meat,” swelled the sound as it rolled eerily through the valley. Then the words changed, and the growling chorus rose in pitch and speed. “No meat, no bread, no food, no clothes, no broth, no ale
, no soldier!”

Sandy shook his head gravely. “What do you expect? They're cold and hungry—they've had no real rations for nearly a week They go on like this for hours sometimes. Strange, but just chanting seems to help them endure it
.”

I looked at the soldiers huddled over the smoking campfires and wondered what made them stay in the face of such profound misery. If only my father could see what these men endured—surely even he would see the worth of these Continentals
.

I sighed and asked Sandy where my brother was
.

“
Back of Wayne's brigade near the outer defenses. Not far,” he said. We plodded up a hill and found the flying hospital—a large hut among smaller huts. We slid off Buttercup and looped her reins around a
nearby stump. With a sinking heart, I followed Sandy's slight figure to the hospital door
.

It was monstrous gloomy inside. On the wall burned one small rushlight, flickering and smoking badly. The smoke was almost welcome, however: It helped to mask the otherwise unbearable stench. Rough-hewn beds, stacked three high, reached nearly to the log rafters. On each bed, and on the floor, men were packed together on straw filthier than my father would have allowed in our pigsty
.

“
Over here,” whispered Sandy, moving toward the bottom of a triple bunk “He's alone, you see. Putrid fever victims have that luxury. Usually they're sent to hospitals outside the camp, but those are too crowded to take him
.”

Will lay on his straw, his bare legs sticking out below the small remnant of blanket he clutched to his chest
.

I reached out and felt his face. It was burning hot. “Will. It's Geordie. I've come to take care of you,” I murmured
.

“
Geordie?” he said, his voice hoarse beyond all recognition. “You shouldn't have come. You'll take the infection. Go . . . go away.” He struggled to sit up, and moaned with pain
.

I gently pushed him back down against the straw. “Don't you worry about anything except getting well. I am come to help you, Will. Mother sent food. And here's the cover from your bedstead at home. Remember?” I spread it over him. He only moaned again and drifted off to sleep
.

Sandy touched my arm and beckoned me to the hut door, where the February wind whistled through the cracks. “I must leave,” he said, “but I'll send someone to help you get settled. You'd best sleep alongside Buttercup. So many horses have starved for lack of forage that there are not enough to pull the artillery should the British attack, so private horses are liable to be confiscated. You must stay close to her until it's known you're only visiting to nurse your brother. Besides,” Sandy added with a lopsided grin, “when a man is hungry enough, even a horse might seem a great delicacy
.”

“
You don't mean these men have been eating their horses!” I said, genuinely shocked
.

“
No—at least, not that I've seen. But they've been without meat for a long time now. So you'd best bundle with Buttercup—at least she'll keep you warm!
”

“
But where are you
. . .”

Sandy's eyes fell. “Oh, I hang around here and
there. But now you've arrived, I'll be easier about leaving Billy. He's like a brother to me, and I couldn't bear it if he should . . .” He manfully choked back a sob and straightened his shoulders. With an odd, desperate glance at me, he went out into the darkness
.

Will's haggard appearance made me feel like sobbing myself. Then I thought to make him something hot and soothing to eat when he awoke. I busied myself cutting up some of the apples I'd brought. I put them into the copper kettle and went outside. I scooped up some snow and added it to the apples, then set the kettle over the coals. I felt bad doing this in front of the hungry soldiers ringing the campfire, but after I explained it was for my sick brother, they gamely wished me luck in nursing him. Still, they watched the simmering applesauce with longing eyes. To take their minds off their empty stomachs, once again they took up their gloomy refrain: “No meat, no food, no shoes, no breeches
, no soldier!”

When the applesauce was done, I started into the hut with the kettle. Just then, a shadowy form appeared behind me
.

“
Geordie?
”

“
Aye?” I was so startled, I nearly dropped the kettle

“
I've been ordered to show you about
.”

This time it was my jaw that nearly dropped to the floor. It was Ned Owens, still as pudgy as ever, though now dressed in the full regalia of a drummer boy. His nose wrinkled in disdain at the smell of sickness and smoke permeating the hospital hut
.

His disdain gave me back my tongue. “Ned Owens. How is it you look so stout in the midst of this near starvation?
”

“
Let's just say I know which side my bread is buttered on
.”

“
Obviously,” I muttered scornfully
.

“
And I know the important people in this camp
.”

“
You mean Washington?
”

“
Nay, I mean Inspector General Conway.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “He says Congress will soon replace Washington with Gates as commander in chief. And as Conway is a favorite with Gates and I am a favorite with Conway . . .” Under my astonished gaze Owens preened himself, smoothing down his blue tunic and fingering the brass buttons. “Inspector General Conway has made me his aide, so I sleep at his headquarters, whilst that Sandy bunks down at Washington's headquarters, no less.” He sniffed disdainfully “Lady Washington mollycoddles that smock-faced toad-eater Sandy something shameful. But they'll all be sorry when Gates
and Conway take over,” he added in a venomous voice
.

“
We'll
all
be sorry if that craven coward Conway takes over anything,” someone hissed from atop one of the bunks
.

Owens laughed aloud. But it was a sound full of scorn, not mirth. “I don't know how Sandy expected me to help you. I seldom come to
this
part of the camp
.”

Through clenched teeth I said, “I won't trouble you further then, Owens. I'm sure I can learn what is necessary from these good fellows
.”

Even in the uncertain candlelight, I could see Ned's outrage at my rejection of his reluctant offer of aid. Quickly collecting himself, however, he sketched an insolent bow and left. No sooner had the door swung shut on its leathern hinges than gruff voices sounded in the flickering shadows
.

“
That Owens brat is as much of a disgrace as his father, who turns a handsome profit selling the army weevily food and shoddy uniforms
.”

“
Aye, the elder Owens was as fervent a Tory as the king himself until he realized that Independency might erase his debt to his London suppliers. Then didn't he turn every inch the patriot! But he won't accept anything but gold coin in payment—no worthless Continental paper money for him. Save that to pay the soldiers!
”

“
As for Conway,” the speaker audibly spat, “he's a coward and a braggart who's gulled the Congress into making him inspector general. He's bent on stirring up trouble for General Washington—with no thought for anything but his own glory
.”

“
I fancy both Conway and Owens would be much improved by a new coat in the very latest fashion: tar and feathers,” another said with an exaggerated simper
.

“
As for me,” the first speaker went on, “I say that Washington is the only one we follow. No Washington, no army!
”

“
No Washington, no army!” a voice outside took up the chant, and it spread around the camp in the same manner as the other, earlier, more ominous cry. “No Washington, no army!” rasped hundreds, thousands of voices, until the wintry hills echoed with the brave words
.

The noise woke Will up. I managed to get a little of the applesauce into him, then parceled out what remained to the other sick men in the hut. Afterward, drooping with fatigue, I went out to fall asleep huddled next to Buttercup—surely the unlikeliest tempting morsel in history
.

13

I don't know if it was the doctor's leeches or my applesauce that brought my brother through that terrible sickness, but after I'd been at Valley Forge for about a fortnight, Will's fever broke. One morning he awoke acting a little like his old, teasing self, though still exceedingly weak
.

As I attempted to bathe away some of the scabies and lice on his skin and hair, he looked down ruefully at the scarlet rash on his chest. “Just look at this, Geordie,” he said. “I'm as red as a lobsterback—and that without a tunic on!
”

One of the other men guffawed. “You'll soon be reduced to the official colors—Continental buff and blue—like most of us. We're nearly stripped to the buff and blue with cold!” By then I'd learned that making such pitiful jokes was one of the only
weapons these poor fellows had in facing their foes: hunger, cold, and grinding boredom. Not that anyone was actually starving to death—from time to time supplies did arrive at camp, but the roads were often nearly impassable. And sometimes the wagoners lightened loads by draining off the saltwater that preserved the food, so that what did arrive was rotten. When that happened, the soldiers survived on firecake, a tasteless mixture of flour and water charred over the fire. They even joked about this, saying they varied their diet by sometimes eating “firecakes and water” and other times eating “water and firecakes
.”

Oddly enough, the British seemed to be the least of the soldiers' worries. Rumor said that General Howe couldn't bear to leave the comfort of his Philadelphia mansion—or the company of a certain Tory lady—to attack the weakened American forces at Valley Forge. The men made many a mock toast with cups of melted, dirty snow to the health of the lady in question
.

Sandy never joined in these rowdy measures. Owens had been right about my friend having a snug billet in Washington's headquarters—Isaac Potts's stone house near the
Y
made by the Schuylkill River and Valley Creek. Passing Washington's quarters one day, I peered curiously through the window. There sat
Sandy, holding up a figure eight of yarn between his hands whilst a lace-capped Lady Washington rewound the wool into a snug ball
.

When I next saw Sandy, I teased him about playing lapdog to Lady Washington. He refused to speak of it. He did tell me, however, each time he was to leave camp. After our experience at Whitemarsh together, I presumed he was going into Philadelphia for messages from American agents
.

Whenever he returned to Valley Forge, he would help me take care of my brother. When Will slept, Sandy and I would explore the camp. My friend delighted in the irony of many of the place-names of Valley Forge, such as
Fatlands Ford
and
Mount Joy.