Hamilton's Battalion: A Trio of Romances Page 4

  Nathan was lying about becoming a Patriot. He must be. Trying to save his neck with a wild story seemed like something he would do. Colonel Hamilton would laugh at her and tell her not to be gullible, and Nathan would…

  Go to prison, at best. The American prisons were nicer than the British ones, but not by much.

  “Have you seen the colonel?”

  Scipio checked his watch. “I walked past him half an hour ago, reading the sutler a lecture about properly rationing alcohol. As if the officers don’t down a cask of brandy with every meal.”

  Zvi shook his head. “I will never understand how much goyim drink.”

  That was Rachel’s cue to agree with him, but she couldn’t muster up the good cheer to do it. These were her friends—Ezra Jacobs’s friends, anyway—and she wanted to tell them about Nathan’s claim and ask their opinion. But she couldn’t explain who he was to her and why it mattered, and in the absence of that they’d gleefully pick the whole thing over like prime gossip. She was alone in this, as she’d been in everything since her mother died.

  “I’m going to look for him,” she said. “Thanks, Zvi, I’ll clean your musket tonight if you like.”

  He grinned at her—well, at his whetstone. “I like.”

  “Is everything all right?” Scipio asked. “You look shaken. What do you need to talk to the colonel about?”

  “I’m fine. I—” She hesitated. “I’m fine.”

  The sutler was able to tell her that Colonel Hamilton had gone to the artillery park with General Knox, and there she found him.

  She had spoken to the colonel many times on the march south and in camp, and had never found him particularly difficult to talk to. But she’d never had to approach him on personal business before. She’d never had to approach any field officer on personal business before. She had no family to beg favors for or to visit on furlough.

  At least, she had pretended to have none. What would the colonel say if he knew the truth? Go home, you unnatural woman, presumably.

  But she had no home.

  “Yes, Corporal?” Hamilton prompted.

  Rachel stood stiffly to attention. Could he read anything in her face? “Sir,” she said quietly, hoping General Knox, who had moved tactfully a few paces off, couldn’t hear, “I was visiting with the prisoner Mendelson, as you had given me leave to do, and he told me he has been spying for His Excellency, and not the British.”

  She hadn’t realized until this moment how much she hoped it was true: Nathan had changed his mind, he had come round to her way of seeing things, he was safe… Please, let it be true.

  Hamilton’s mouth made a thin, tight line. “The things a man will say to save his skin. The improbability of that must be as obvious to you as it is to me.”

  “Yes, sir. I—” Her throat closed. She was a fool, and Nathan must be desperately frightened, to tell such a stupid, pointless lie.

  Unless he was just trying to impress her.

  Hamilton’s face softened. “As you were, Jacobs. Listen to me. Your friend is a Loyalist, not a deserter. I’ve no desire to see him hanged, and neither does General Washington. Indeed, the commander and Colonel Laurens were discussing just this morning if there was any prisoner of the British in Charleston we might exchange him for. Enjoin Mendelson to stop telling tall tales and provoking the guardhouse sentries, and he’ll come through this with a whole skin.”

  His pity was worse than if he’d laughed at her. Her colonel saw her for the soft fool she was, who’d wanted to trust Nathan against all her common sense.

  As if she would enjoin Mendelson to do anything after this. If she visited him, she’d be tempted to shut his mouth with her fist like Coburn. He wouldn’t hang; she owed him nothing further. Let him lie and cajole his way to dinner if he could, and if not, let him starve.

  It was growing late and Nathan was trying to decide whose arrival he would welcome more, his dinner or an apologetic Rachel, when the door opened to admit Colonel Hamilton.

  It was Colonel Hamilton, wasn’t it, and not another uncommonly handsome young commander of middling height? Nathan had never met him before yesterday, and it didn’t help that the whole officers’ corps wore their hair so thickly powdered its color was indistinguishable.

  Nathan held up his candle. Red eyebrows, that was promising but still inconclusive. Should Nathan just wait for him to speak and hope he introduced himself?

  “Mr. Mendelson,” maybe-Hamilton said, very straight and slender and stern.

  “…Yes, sir?”

  “Did you confide the secret of your employment to Corporal Jacobs?”

  His heart leapt. “…Yes?”

  The officer sighed. “I suppose that’s better than someone else spreading it.” He gestured at Nathan’s shackles. “We did not provide you with those out of spite, Mr. Mendelson. We have gone to great lengths to preserve your secret, and consequently your life. Show some sense and don’t loosen your tongue to every distant childhood acquaintance.”

  Nathan tried to start upright and banged his shin on his shackles again. “Ow! So what did you tell him?”

  “I told him no, and when you consider the matter rationally, you will thank me.”

  Nathan took a deep breath, trying not to panic or shout. “I really won’t.” Rachel thought he’d lied. That he’d dreamed up a wild story to make himself look heroic, probably. Or worse, that he was a coward grasping at straws to save his neck. He got carefully to his feet. “Go back and tell him yes.”

  The colonel stiffened.

  “I mean, please. Sir.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Corporal Jacobs isn’t a distant childhood acquaintance,” he said with far too much conviction ringing in his voice. He clenched his fists so he wouldn’t take very-likely-Hamilton by the sleeve for emphasis. Rich goyim started fights over things like that. “I know him well and I rely absolutely on his discretion. Inquire yourself, you’ll see—” He almost said she.

  Drek. If he spilled her secret, Rachel would be right about everything: that he was useless and weak-willed and incapable of keeping his mouth shut. “He won’t have told a soul about any of this.”

  Probably-Hamilton’s eyebrows winged upwards. “A close friend who arrested you.”

  I like her better than she likes me. But despite the bitter taste in his mouth, he knew she would have arrested a Loyalist spy she loved just the same. “Because he’s…”

  Nathan searched for a word to explain Rachel’s infuriatingly uncompromising, burning sureness. This goy wouldn’t understand “tzadeikes,” and its English equivalent “righteous” was too silly to say out loud.

  “Principled,” he said inadequately. “Because he’s believed in this cause since he was eleven and the first Liberty Pole went up on the Commons.”

  Eyes shining, she’d told him her memories of every pole that got chopped down by the British and every new one that went up in its place, as lovingly as Nathan might talk about a favorite book.

  All this time, he’d wanted her to know he’d gone over to her side. Nathan bit his cheek until he tasted blood, thinking of the times he’d cried himself to sleep with a hand on the pillow where her head should have been, longing to talk it all over with her. To tell her that he was terrified but he was doing it, he was doing it for her, for the America she’d cared so much about and he’d never been able to imagine. It had broken his heart that she would never know, when—he’d thought, maybe, she would have been proud.

  Now he just needed her to know how wrong she was about him. “You have to talk to him again.”

  “I’m afraid that’s out of the question.”

  Nathan gave up and took almost-definitely-Hamilton by the white leather swordbelt crossing his chest. Gingerly. His shackles hit the colonel in the ankles. “Sorry, I—”

  The young officer jerked away. “You forget yourself, Mr. Mendelson,” he said furiously.

  “I’m not forgetting.” Nathan’s voice came out low and thick. He wondered w
ho was more shocked by his vehemence, himself or let’s-just-call-him-Hamilton. “You’re forgetting. I’ve risked everything for your army. You’re planning to send me back into a town you’re building artillery platforms to bombard. So I want to risk this one more thing—what’s it to you?”

  “The dangers you choose to run may be your affair, but the success of this siege is mine,” Hamilton bit out, “and who knows but that secrecy about your role may materially affect it. Men desert every day. If any of them were to go over to the enemy with knowledge of your true loyalties—if we send you into Yorktown with false intelligence and they don’t believe it—men will die. My men. Maybe Corporal Jacobs. I’m sure you see my difficulty,” he finished in a tone that said he was sure Nathan didn’t see, because he was a self-serving Jew and not an American.

  Hamilton could be wrong about him all he liked. But Rachel…if Nathan died in Yorktown and she went the rest of her life smugly ignorant of all the dangers he’d chosen to run…

  He crossed his arms. “You don’t command me,” he said stubbornly. “I’m not a soldier, I’m a contractor. Tell him, or I don’t go into Yorktown at all. He’ll keep it secret if you ask him.”

  “Since you insist.” Hamilton looked utterly disgusted, but Nathan’s heart thrilled feverishly with victory. “I hope we don’t live to regret it.”

  Nathan hastily spat three times over his left shoulder. “Bite your tongue!”

  Hamilton sighed, rubbing Nathan’s fingerprints off his swordbelt with his sleeve. “Yes, I should have said, I hope we do live to regret it; hoping not to regret it at all seems a lost cause. But I’ll engage to sound out the corporal’s friends in a day or two. If he has remained discreet that long, I shall do as you ask, and on your head be it.”

  October 7

  Rachel’s feet, knees, and back ached from standing in the cold trench, and her eyes ached from staring into the darkness for any sign of a British attack. She checked again with the men in her squad: Are you awake? Are you pointing your bayonet anywhere stupid? Is your powder dry? Do you remember the orders?

  She was proud to find that, while a few of them were indeed pointing their bayonets somewhere stupid, they were all awake and they all remembered the orders: fire one round at an approaching sortie, rush over the parapet, and meet them with the bayonet.

  Rachel thought they might relish the opportunity to bayonet a few redcoats. News was spreading through the division that in spite of prayers and hopeful prognoses, Colonel Scammell had died yesterday of his wounds; the men stamped their feet and blew on their hands and muttered angrily to each other.

  Private Carvalho, only sixteen, had forgotten to bring anything to eat with him and had also failed to mend the hole in his jacket’s elbow against the night breezes, even though Rachel had reminded him of both this morning. With a sigh, Rachel handed him her packet of sugared almonds and her sewing supplies.

  “You owe me sixpence for thread, Private, and don’t drop the needle.” Sometimes it amazed her how much an NCO had in common with a nursemaid.

  Tench wordlessly held out his own almonds as she passed him. His wife, Sarah, who cooked for their mess, had brought the almonds with their dinner—a rare delicacy to relieve her feelings about Tench marching into the trenches. Rachel didn’t want to deprive him of that little reminder of love, but they were delicious and it had pained her to sacrifice her own. She picked out two nuts, enjoying the buttery crunch and the lingering flavor of nutmeg.

  Suddenly she wanted to ask Tench, who she knew had read Pilgrim’s Progress, if he really thought Mount Sinai was an ugly black cliff belching smoke. If he thought she was going to burn in a lake of fire. But she didn’t want to hear the answer.

  Instead she asked Zvi, as she passed him to return to her place in the line. “Have you read Pilgrim’s Progress?” In the darkness and secrecy of their position, she felt as if she ought to whisper, but the roar of the British guns made it both impossible and unnecessary.

  “Obviously not. Have you?”

  “No. Nathan Mendelson was reading it when I went to visit him. He said it describes Mount Sinai as a terrifying hill about to fall on Christians’ heads.”

  She caught the edge of Zvi’s smile in the darkness. “I wouldn’t mind dropping a mountain on their heads some days.” His face turned towards her. “You and Mendelson were talking about books? He must be a cool hand.”

  She laughed. “Nathan, a cool hand? Not likely.” Abruptly she remembered him politely stepping aside to let her pass as she chased after him shouting Loyalist spy! A chill ran up her spine, a sudden queasy suspicion that she didn’t know Nathan anymore.

  Which made her all the more foolish for half believing his lie about working for the Patriots. For treating him as if he were the same old eager puppy nipping at her heels, when he’d grown teeth. Well, she’d learned her lesson.

  “You wouldn’t catch me talking about books if they were holding me for my hanging,” Zvi said cheerfully. “I’d divide my time evenly between weeping, begging, and bribery, I expect.”

  “And what would you be bribing them with? If you’ve got more than a few dollars in cash left, you’ve been holding out on us.”

  Zvi spread his hands. “Anything I’ve got they might want. I’m not too proud to yield up my virtue to save my life.”

  Rachel laughed. “Well, the sages say that to save a life is the greatest mitzvah.”

  “Corporal Jacobs?” a third voice intruded.

  She started guiltily, saluting. “No sign of movement, sir.” Heavy clouds blocked the waning full moon. She could make out the buff facings of the field officer’s uniform, but not the face or voice.

  “Thank you, Corporal. Might I speak to you apart a moment?” As he turned away, her eyes caught the glint of a gold lace epaulet and a dim flash of aquiline profile—Colonel Hamilton.

  There was really no “apart” to be found, not and keep behind the cover of the earthworks protecting them from British cannon fire. But he led her away from her own squad, and leaned in. “Your captive friend has importuned me most urgently to inform you that he is indeed employed by us. I hope you’ll understand that my earlier liberties with the truth were a general caution, and no mistrust of you. Not only his safety but our own may depend on your keeping strictest secrecy.”

  She couldn’t see Hamilton’s face, but she felt his eyes boring into her. “Yes, sir,” she said reflexively. “I shall be worthy of your confidence, sir.”

  In the last few days she had spoken more with officers of high rank than in the last two years. A few days ago, it would have seemed significant: an opportunity for advancement to be exploited, a risk of discovery to be carefully managed. Now… “For how long?” she demanded. “How long has he been working for our side? Sir.”

  A pause. “Two or three years?” Another pause. “Since the summer of ’78, I believe. But we must both get back to work. Ask him the rest yourself tomorrow.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Remember, Corporal, French and American lives depend on your discretion.”

  “Yes, sir.” He turned. She shouldn’t badger him; he had more important business to be about. “And you’re sure of his loyalty?” she asked his queue anyway.

  He turned back, straight shoulders slumping a fraction. “There are very few people of whose loyalty I am sure, Corporal. I was sure of General Arnold once. But for whatever it’s worth, I think Mendelson sincere. Now put it from your mind and return to your squad.”

  She returned to her squad, but she couldn’t put it from her mind. She watched for British attack as the hours dragged by. Dawn broke. Noon neared. They had been awake nearly twenty-four hours, and her eyes drifted shut despite the booms and cracks of British fire aimed at the men building batteries. But still she couldn’t put Nathan from her mind.

  Is this a dream? she wondered suddenly. She did dream of Nathan now and then. Not in any particularly interesting way; his presence rarely surprised her in the dream. She was reading her own name on the casualty
lists in the newspaper while they sat at breakfast, or some terrifying creature was pursuing her company and he was there in uniform, or she was quarreling with his mother and he didn’t take her part. Had she fallen asleep on watch?

  She strained to open her eyes—but no, they were open already. She felt for the ribbon around her neck—it was still there, the same fuzzy velvet it had been since the old satin one, worn to shreds, caught on the strap of her cartridge box during drill and ripped in half.

  Nathan was a Patriot. He had been for two or three years. What did it mean? How did she feel about it, other than relief he hadn’t lied to her face? Tired, mostly, and on edge, her nerves jangling even though they hadn’t lost a man all night. One farther down the line had been hit in the arm, and another in the leg, but that was all.

  At noon Baron Steuben’s men relieved them, drums beating and colors flying. Rachel prodded her squad into its place in the column.

  Back in camp, they were obliged to strike their tents and change ground a little to the right, to leave a wider path for the artillery to be brought up from its park to the trenches. Rachel was glad of it, after an initial moment of bright fury at being denied her bed. Send the men into their tents with their nerves still buzzing from a dangerous night, and half of them would have gone in search of liquor instead. Half an hour’s steady work would calm them enough to sleep.

  Tench gave her a gentle kick. “Wake up, Ezra!”

  Rachel realized she was kneeling by a pounded-in tent peg, staring in the direction of the guardhouse. Should she go see Nathan? Had he eaten?

  Should she eat something? Her stomach felt hollowed out…

  Sarah Goodenough seized her arm and dragged her upright. “Come along, Ezra.”

  Rachel allowed herself to be shepherded into their tent. Exhausted and jittery and lingeringly afraid though they were safe in camp now, she knew a moment of envy when Tench slung an arm around Sarah and pulled her close.

  She rolled over. Don’t think about it. Sleep.