September 1777 -Philadelphia
Most of the British force was out carousing, either to shore up their bravery, Hagman thought, or perhaps to forget the need for it. Ferguson's Rifles, however, were not among them. The small contingent of the 70th - 80 green-clad troops, each picked for their marksmanship, were enjoying their most comfortable billet in many weeks.
After the heaving of the ships that carted them first to the New World, and then again, round the coast to Chesapeake, after the bitter cold camps on the road, this big barn, with its quantities of soft straw was almost heaven, or seemed so. Perhaps, in the morning, he'd have a chance to discover.
The thought brought a grim smile to Hagman's lips. No-one was more eager than he to make the comparison. About him, there were men praying, and he guessed that most of them were soliciting preservation from the Lord. Not so, his silent pleas.
He sat, like many of his companions, oiling the barrel and stock of his weapon. The rifles were an odd bunch, he thought -made of long serving troopers in the main, battle hardened and grim faced, seemingly unafraid, but amongst them was a scattering of new recruits, like Dan, countrymen who knew how to shoot, and who proved themselves masters of the new gun, the rifle that Ferguson himself had developed.
It was a fine weapon, Dan thought. It shot straighter than a musket time after time, and the loading -from the breech, not the muzzle -- was faster. It was a damned effective piece. Some part of him, though, was telling him that he'd rather use it for picking off deer in the Cheshire wood than killing men who were little other than Englishmen in different coats, their names shared by many of his companions -but he was a trooper in King George's army, and his job was not to choose the enemy, but to load and fire as many rounds a minute as possible into his midst. He eased his conscience with the thought that the damn Yankees would be firing as fast at him.
Young Billy Price brought him a hot mug of thick black tea, and sat beside him. The boy was the oddest of all the oddities in the troop. Scarce more than a babe, a runty kid of sixteen or a little more, whose voice still squeaked into childish registers from time to time, he was as accurate a shot as any man in the troop, but he'd nothing of the older men's hardness, and hadn't learned how to hide his fear.
He sought Dan out often, seeming to gravitate toward the taciturn Cheshireman, perhaps because, like Billy, he was new to soldiering, more likely because the older man didn't tell him to "keep your bleedin' marf shut, and your questions to yerself, Kid!"
The lad reminded Dan of Davey, his brother-in-law, who'd gone into a line regiment at Chester, and he suffered his nervousness for Davey's sake. You could scarce blame him for it, tonight - the morning just coming would be the Rifles first major engagement as a troop, and they were leading the advance, together with the Queen's Rangers.
"Be ye scared, Dan?" the boy whispered, gazing into his mug.
"Nay Billy, what for? We'll die or we'll not, and all the fretting in the world'll do nowt to change it."
"I'm feared of dying, Dan, I am. I've lived a bad life, Dan and I'm feared that I'll be cast straight into the fires of Hell."
"Oh, Billy, dun't be foolish. You're nowt but a lad, you cannot have done anything so dreadful. And did not the Chaplain himself say God fought along of us? Where else could we be headed, if we fall but to His own side?"
Dan made himself sound convincing, though he didn't believe that if God there was, he cared anything for the souls of the poor, like young Billy. Heaven and Hell were for the rich -if there was any justice whatsoever in the afterlife, the poor would just get to rest.
The boy smiled at him then. Nodding as if in agreement and picked up his rifle, and imitated the others, running an oily rag up and down it. Silence fell, and Dan's thoughts drifted away from the present, to tomorrow when they would walk silently down the mist clad roads toward the ford on the Brandywine River, where George Washington's forces awaited them. Dan had little doubt he'd die in the morning, and hoped only to die well and swiftly. Perhaps. . .
"Give us a song, Dan" It was the Captain's quiet voice that broke into his reverie -making the words a command. "Something cheerful, I think."
With a nod -Hagman spoke little, if he could avoid it -- then he began to pick out tune well known, well loved and more tan a little bawdy. As the first notes drfited out there were catacalls, which quited to a merry beating of time.
A lusty young smith at his vice stood a'filing
His hammer lay by but his forge still aglow
When to him a buxom young damsel came smiling
And asked if to work at her forge he would go
A cacophonous choir of voices and accents took up the chorus with delight, getting louder as the verses grew ever lewder, so that by the final verse it was like to raise the roof.
With a jingle bang jingle bang jingle bang jingle
Jingle bang jingle bang jingle hi-ho
"Sing The Girl I Left Behind Me, Dan" Billy Price urged as the laughter died away. Hagman's hand tightened on the fiddle's neck, wishing that they wouldn't always ask for this, that he could just deny the request, but already other voices were joining Billy's and he knew he'd not say no to them. None could know the pain it brought him, for he'd not told them, and all the other lads from Cherisbrooke had gone into other regiments where they could tell no tales.
Pulling the bow back and forth across the strings, and twiddling the keys to tune the old fiddle, Hagman procrastinated, but in the end, he had to sing.
I'm lonesome since I crossed the hill,
And o'er the moorland sedgy
Such heavy thoughts my heart do fill,
Since parting with my Betsey
I seek for one as fair and gay,
But find none to remind me
How sweet the hours I passed away,
With the girl I left behind me.
O ne'er shall I forget the night,
the stars were bright above me
And gently lent their silv'ry light
when first she vowed to love me
But now I'm bound to Brighton camp
kind heaven then pray guide me
And send me safely back again,
to the girl I left behind me
Her golden hair in ringlets fair,
her eyes like diamonds shining
Her slender waist, her heavenly face,
that leaves my heart still pining
Ye gods above oh hear my prayer
to my beauteous fair to find me
And send me safely back again,
to the girl I left behind me
The bee shall honey taste no more,
the dove become a ranger
The falling waters cease to roar,
ere I shall seek to change her
The vows we made to heav'n above
shall ever cheer and bind me
In constancy to her I love,
the girl I left behind me.
Mostly, in the company of these men, amid their coarse jokes and rough comradeship, he could forget the reason he joined up. He could draw a blanket around him and roll up by the fire, a place so different from his home and forget it ever existed.
He could forget his Mary lying stiff on the bed, yellow hair clinging to her head in the damp of sweat gone cold, the roses fled from her cheeks, while his mother rocked wept over the tiny, quiet bundle of flesh she held in a shawl against her breast. The babe, oddly did not cry -not Tom, the son Dan Hagman had so longed for, and had seeded in his beautiful young wife's body to grow there till, in the end, it killed her. That was what he'd fled when he joined the army, not Lord Aversleigh's justice for a few poached birds, whatever he might have said.
And yes, mostly, he escaped from it. But on the night before a battle, when men pushed him to this song, and with death hovering in the darkness to rise with the dawn, he couldn't help but see her again, and the longing to lie with her in her cold bed, in the same way they had lain together so often in the long, hot, happy nights of their married life, came upon him like an ague.
He put the bow aside and turned away at the end of the song, to hide the shaking of his body and the tears in his eyes. In time, he slept.