PATRIOT (1778)
"Garrett! Garrett, wake up! Hurry now, we're to assemble!"
The image of Susan's face was out of my mind in an instant. I rolled quickly, too quickly, forgetting the arctic temperature. My blanket rarely kept it out, but in smallclothes it was unbearable. I grabbed the blanket and threw it over myself, ignoring William's pleas for the more pressing concern of finding boots for my bare, and freezing, feet.
"The Prussian wants us lined up, from what I can tell. Hard isn't it, when you're taking orders in a language you don't understand?" William mused, satisfied that I'd gotten the message. He rambled on as I struggled into the clothes I'd been wearing, with a few additions, for nearly two years. The cracks and holes in my boots I'd gotten used to, though the damned Prussian made that hard with all the drilling. I pulled on the navy blue coat, thoroughly used to the holes and patches, to the fact that whatever I put on would not stop the cold from creeping into every part of my being.
I did not like being cold. Perhaps, when this was over, I'd find a warmer place. Not in the South, they were too much like the English, with their plantations and their Africans, might as well be kings themselves. Maybe if the war came to them as it had come to Philadelphia, they would finally change their haughty airs. No, not the South, but not Philadelphia either. She would come with me, no matter what I did, no matter how I had changed.
I looked at William then. I wanted to think of him as young and untrained, but he had survived this winter, this winter that had taken so many others, this winter that was as horrible as all the battles I had seen, that made the victory of Trenton more glorious, that took some of the horrors of my memories of White Plains, and of Brandywine, and of Germantown, and placed them in perspective. Yes, sometimes there was something worse than the blood of a dead friend. Watching him die for what he believed? I could live with that. Watching him freeze to death? That was something I could no longer bear. This winter was nearly over, and I hated the cold. I patted the letter at my chest, and felt the cold leave me for a moment.
William was younger than I, but he had faced this cold too, and he had lived, as I had lived. He was no unseasoned lad, for he had witnessed the horrors of finding the dead, of scavenging their frozen bodies for clothing that might be useful, of listening to orders he did not understand, of repetition, all while surviving this monstrous winter that made me hate my home, hate what it had done to my friends, to my new family. He wore the lines on his face at the loss of a brother, and he had stayed, he had believed, he had survived.
"Let's get going then," I murmured so he could not hear my teeth chatter. It was not as bad anymore. The snow, or ice, for it was so hard packed and frozen over that it was more like ice now, was beginning to thaw a little. This was my home, and I knew that by the middle of April, the snow would be gone, the rain would come, that the land would become sodden and muddy and the skies grey and ominous, but that the cold would finally leave us. The wet would be miserable, but not lethal. We would complain, but only for something to do or say, for we would be happy that winter was over, and we were still here.
"You reckon we've got more marching and pacing to do? This stuff is so boring. When I signed up, I certainly didn't dream I'd be sitting in a tent freezing all night, only to wake up and have to walk around all day," William sighed as he left the tent, holding the flap for me, looking very little like a soldier with his blanket wrapped around him. No, I doubted any of us besides the officers, and of course Steuben, looked much like soldiers. I smirked at William's words as I left the tent, for they were the same words I would have said had I been sixteen and with the Continentals for only ten months, had I not seen New York, that wonderful and horrible city, fade away piece by piece to the damned Redcoats. I'd rather liked New York, yet hated it too. I would not be moving there when this was all over, but I understood the allure.
No, I was twenty-one and I had seen us lose at Harlem Heights, and at White Plains. I hated the Prussian, but if it helped, if I did not have to feel as hopeless as I had when we finally retreated to Morristown, if I could once again feel as I did in Trenton, when we had surprised those other Prussians, the less friendly ones - though to call Steuben friendly was laughable beyond measure – then it was worth it. It was why I had signed up, whether to live or to die.
We moved quickly into the line, heard the orders, first in German, then in French, and finally in English, our German brothers reacting first while the Americans waited for the order to filter down in translation, heard the curses at the soldiers who did something improper, and we moved through the drills, through the repetition. Washington was a good general, and he understood our limitations, but he had much on his mind, too much for him to properly train us. He had a campaign, a war, he had to keep men alive to fight again, to make sure we would not lose everything all at once. And he had politics. If there was one thing I had not expected to come from our revolt, it was the politics.
I tried to understand why I could not have a new jacket or a new pair of boots, but it was difficult. There was no money. The Congress could barely survive. No other country would accept the money they printed, for it was worthless. Our own people would not accept it. When we first arrived in Valley Forge, the army had tried to buy supplies, but we had nothing to offer in return, and Washington did not want to steal from the very people we were trying to free, though we did, from time to time, just to keep going.
We moved through the drills, which had become part of my being over the last month since Baron von Steuben had arrived, and I was left to my thoughts, responding automatically when a new order was called. When I broke from my reverie, on occasion, I was pleased to see how well we were regimented in so short a time. We would not be the same army in 1778 that we had been in the years past, with our few victories and our awful failures. And I smiled, a small smile, that maybe we could win this damned revolution after all.
We finally broke at midday to enjoy the meager rations we had, though the fires we surrounded were far more enjoyable than the spare bits of bread and coffee that had become my only source of sustenance. The coffee was strong and bitter, but it was hot and gave the illusion that the cold was not there, if only for a little while, and it broke me from darker musings and made me feel awake, much more so than William's shouts that morning.
"When we beat those English bastards, you can come back to New York with me and work for my father. When he knows what you've done for me, he'll be happy to give you a job. You'll bring her too." William's suggestion broke me from my thoughts as thoroughly as the coffee, and I turned and gave him a condescending smile. He saw the pain in my eyes that I tried to mask.
"Well, I know you don't want to go back to Philadelphia, the way you talk, or rather don't, about your family and your life before the war. And I owe you, obviously, and my father is a patriot too, and he'll be happy to have you. Well, he'll just be happy to not have any Englishmen around in New York anymore." William looked at me brightly. He had remained close since I had taken him under my wing at Germantown in October. God, October, only six months since Howe had stopped our last advance on Philadelphia, on my home, and routed us thoroughly. Had we not held them back at White Marsh, we might not have endured this unendurable winter, but we wouldn't be fighting anymore either. William had insisted on bunking up, and he was near me every day. He was about the only New Yorker that I could bear to be around, though all of them were better than the insufferable men from Boston, who seemed to think they were the only true patriots among us. I had an older brother in my old life, but William had become the younger brother I'd never had, and I felt far closer to him than I ever had to John.
William looked like me too, the sandy hair tied loosely beneath the tricolor, the long face that had experienced more years than his age would indicate, the tall, lean body that was stronger than it initially appeared, despite months of cold and starvation. But his face was bright, his eyes were bright, revealing the youth that I no longer had. On the rare occasions I saw myself, with my haggard beard and my blue eyes dulled by the years of death surrounding me, I no longer saw that youthful exuberance that my mother had seen. Had loved.
"I don't think so William," I responded, as jovially as I could. "I don't think, when this is over, that I'll be ready to work on a dock, to lead so normal a life. How can I? The spirit of this war has infected everything in me. This has all been far too much fun to go back to the old life!" I finished with a grin on my face. I could see in his eyes that he did not believe me, but I knew it was right, that I had made my decisions and that I was a changed man, a man who no longer could live as he had before, that Susan would meet a different man when I returned to Philadelphia to ask her to join me
We returned to training in the afternoon, the sunlight bouncing off the ice, and it was a relief to once again return to the fires and the friendship of my brothers for supper. We talked into the night as the wind blew colder air, warming ourselves and remembering why we were here, why what we were doing was so important. We laughed at new jokes about the tyrant George that the soldiers had come up with during the tedious repetitions of the day, cursed the Redcoats and their Indian companions, spoke warily of our month old alliance with the French. We did not know what to make of that. By all accounts, their Louis was worse than our George, but they wanted to help, and we needed the assistance.
William and I retired to our tent early, knowing the coming day would be as long as this one. He looked at me as we entered. "I know you don't think you can fit in the new world we're making," he said, "but you're a good man, Garrett, and a good friend. When you aren't all dour over your family and the cold, you're easy to be around. I wish you would consider what I'm asking. You could make a life for yourself. And I never would have survived without you." The sincerity of William's statement stopped me, and I looked him in the eye.
"Mine is a life of solitude I think," I responded after a moment's hesitation. "I have found this cause, and it's all I know now. I think, for me, that freedom is not just an idea for America. It is what I need in my own life as well. Perhaps Kentucky and the west for me. There are plenty of Indians left to fight when this is over. Fighting Indians sounds like fun." I smiled again, and William understood. I would always be looking for the next adventure. I did not know if anyone else would understand, but I had been so selfish in many ways that I wasn't concerned.
I stripped quickly down to my filthy smallclothes and wrapped myself in the blanket, shivering hard. After a few minutes, I heard William moving through the tent flap. Business to take care of, I supposed, as I curled up and attempted to sleep.
When I woke the next morning, William was gone. No one had seen him. He had simply vanished. The officers sent a unit to retrieve the deserter, and I hoped they would not find him and send him to the firing squad, but wished to see my friend. When they returned empty-handed, the feeling was bittersweet.
I would be sure to tell his father, to go back to New York one last time, when the war was over. Perhaps William would be there. Unlike me, he longed to return to his family…
