Proceed, Sergeant Lamb Page 7

  We walked slowly through the trees to the farm, in order to allay the Corporal’s suspicions; but immediately we were fairly out of sight began running away through the woods, avoiding any beaten track, and within a few minutes had put a mile at least between us and the line of sentries.

  ‘Now,’ said I, as we paused for breath on the banks of a rivulet, ‘who’s for pushing on, and who’s for lying hid?’

  Harlowe and Smutchy were for pushing on, but I argued that it was better to lurk close to the camp. In the first place, the searchers would expect us to go off as far as possible; in the second, if unluckily we were apprehended, it would be better that this should happen before the twenty-four hours had elapsed that would make us deserters. If we pushed on and were caught at a distance we might be sent back too late to benefit by the grace.

  Harlowe held that the farther we ran, the less likely were we to be caught and brought back; but against this I argued that the farther we ran the more people we were likely to meet who might inform upon us.

  ‘How do you expect to get to New York then, you sot?’ he asked.

  I patiently explained that, though our prime intention was to get safe through, we must reckon with the danger of apprehension. In the latter event, our hope lay in being caught either soon or so much later that our guards would by then have given up the search—which they would shorten doubtless in order not to miss their sight of General Washington, whom they looked upon as a national hero—and would have crossed the river. I believed that the Dutchmen, if they caught us, would not trouble to row us across the river under guard; for desertions in general were encouraged. Our greatest peril would be in the last stage of our flight, when we attempted to rejoin the British Army.

  Smutchy then came over to my opinion, so that we were in a majority against Harlowe. We crossed the rivulet and soon perceived a small hut on the verge of a wood. Smutchy went forward to reconnoitre, and after a while motioned to us that all was well. We came up, knocked, entered and there found a poor woman, with two young children, in the act of filling their maple-wood bowls with ‘soupaun’ or maize porridge, as they sat at table.

  The woman proved to be a Mrs. Eder, a New York woman, widow to a Dutchman who had been lately killed by a falling tree. The family was in very poor circumstances, as we could learn from the poverty of the kitchen furniture, and the pinched faces of the children. The little boy was sadly crying as we came in: ‘No more ’lasses, Mama? No more ’lasses!’ And she answered as sadly: ‘No, my little one, no molasses and no milk neither, for the cow’s gone dry!’

  I apologized to Mrs. Eder for our early visit and entreated her to hide us in her house for a few hours. I told her that our German guards would soon miss us and make search for us, adding: ‘I do not know what your politics are, Madam, and shall not enquire; but I can see that your little ones would do well this winter on a little butter and milk and molasses, which this money will purchase for them.’ Here I showed her three Spanish silver dollars, and could see at once that I had come to the right market with them. The widow, who was young but had lost all title to beauty through the hard life she had evidently led, living alone in this wilderness, eagerly agreed to all that I asked. She even undertook to observe the movements of the guards, and if necessary mislead them by giving them false information.

  ‘Where will you hide us?’ I asked. ‘Is there perhaps a hollow tree that you know in the woods, or a cave?’

  She shook her head. ‘The best place for you,’ she said, ‘is right here in this house. I will go out and lock up, and you may be sure that if any guard comes he will not be at pains to break down the door, unless he has previous information that you are here.’

  When Harlowe asked her, how did he know she was not a double-dealer, she replied that she would leave her youngest child in our care as a pledge of her sincerity.

  I said: ‘Madam, we do not doubt your sincerity, but we accept your offer gladly. The little lass is a sweet child and will be good company to us. Can you give us some provisions into the bargain, for we have not yet breakfasted?’

  She gave us what little remained of the soupaun, a few sour apples and a pickled pig’s tail, which was all that she had in the house to offer. Presently she went off with her little boy, after locking us all into a small, clean apartment; where the little girl amused us with her prattle, of which we could understand hardly a word, being lisping English of the backwoods, mixed with Dutch.

  We spent our time compiling our geographical knowledge of Hudson’s River and reckoning on our chances of successful evasion. There were some Dutch books in a case, but they treated of law and theology, with not an Atlas among them. We knew that we were now about a day’s march above the fortress of West Point, but upon the opposite bank, and that General Washington’s Continental army lay squarely between us and safety, posted on the Eastern Highlands. Smutchy was of opinion that we must, if possible (using this woman as a first link in the chain), obtain recommendations from stage to stage that would persuade persons well disposed to our cause to help us through to safety, and travel only by night. I believed him to be right and Harlowe did not disagree.

  About ten o’clock in the morning we heard voices: a German talking in halting English to an American. The German said in a deep voice: ‘We must make search inside this hut, brother.’

  ‘No, Hans,’ drawled the American, ‘Cannot you see, the key hangs on the nail outside? You can save yourself the pains. If the prisoners were there, I calculate the door would be locked from the inside.’

  ‘Dumbhead,’ returned the German, ‘the people of the hut, perhaps they have locked the Englanders in from outside, not so?’

  The American retorted: ‘You are a dumbhead yourself. If the people of the hut wished to shelter deserters against us, I reckon, they would not have left the key hanging up where we could find it; unless perhaps they were dumbheads, too. It an’t reasonable.’

  The German insisted: ‘Perhaps they have forgotten it in their haste. I go to see.’

  ‘You’re a mighty thorough man, damn you!’ was the reply.

  ‘At least I will look in at the window,’ the obstinate Hans said.

  We had been unaware that Mrs. Eder had left the key hanging on the door, and quaked inwardly when we heard the German approaching the hut with a heavy tread. He went first to peer in at the kitchen window, where he reported that nobody was at home.

  Then he came to our window. We shuffled and lay close against the wall under the sill, to put ourselves below the angle of his vision as he looked through the glass. The child was lying in her cradle, sucking a stick of coarse sugar that I had found in my pocket and given her as a means of pacification. The German must have made some ludicrous grimaces at the child, for she set up a howl.

  He told her playfully that she was a naughty child and must not fear a poor honest German. Then we heard him depart.

  He shouted back to the American: ‘Excuse me, I was wrong. There is one pretty child in that apartment who eats candy. The mother, she go away and lock it in there, so that it shall not fall in the fire, and do it a mischief, yes? Pardon! Let us go, brother!’

  We could then hear them searching in the barns and sheds contiguous, and the attic over our heads, reached by a ladder from without; but they never entered the house. However, the American, standing close to our window, reported to an officer who had come up that they had investigated the whole place and found nothing.

  Then the voices died away in the distance. The danger having passed, I said to Smutchy Steel: ‘Now, faith, only a woman could have contrived that trick of hanging the key so invitingly on the nail! And I swear no man but a German would have been industrious enough even to peep in at the windows.’

  ‘Ay, just like a woman,’ asserted Smutchy.

  ‘She nearly ruined us by over-shrewdness,’ said the contrary Harlowe. ‘And that is just like a woman, too.’

  There were no further disturbances, and at nightfall the woman returned and, finding
us still where she had left us, evinced great relief. She picked up her little girl and hugged her close. ‘O I declare,’ she cried, between tears and laughter, ‘you have mussed your nice dress with a candy stick! What a pickle you are in, you greedy little wretch.’

  Then she turned to us: ‘You see, my friends, that I have been faithful to you. Your comrades have by now all crossed the River with most of their guards. There were very few American soldiers to be seen when I came away.’

  To the three promised dollars I added a fourth from our store, believing that the outlay would justify itself. Then we told her that we intended to make our escape into New York, which we had not yet disclosed to her.

  ‘You have set yourselves a very hard task, my friends,’ she said. ‘Now, sweet Pieterkin, run off and play with your little sister, for I wish to think in peace.’ She pressed her knuckles hard against her temples. We did not interrupt her cogitations, which presently bore fruit. She gave us very minute directions to the house of her husband’s sister. This woman was married to a Rhode Islander who was very lukewarm in his loyalty to the revolutionary cause. We must pass through a pine forest, around a naked hill and over a considerable stream. She herself had not been that way since the heavy flood of a month before, and feared that we might find the bridge carried away. Thereafter our route lay through cornfields and cleared ground for another two miles; and on the northern skirts of the next forest we would find the house we required, which lay remote from any others and was to be recognized by a ring of clipped red cedars which enclosed a duck-pond. The husband’s name was Captain Webber.

  We took affectionate leave of our faithful hostess and her children. I gave the little boy the crystal prism I had obtained from Diamond Island on Lake George in the previous year; which greatly delighted him. I told him to set it in the window when the sun was up next morning, for it would throw ‘jackies’ (or rainbows) upon the ceiling.

  We followed our directions with care and picked up each consequent landmark until we hit the stream, which had the same name, Fishkill Creek, as that which watered General Schuyler’s domain at Saratoga. The current was rapid, and I could not plumb the depth with a long stick; nor was there any sign of a bridge where our track ended. Neither Harlowe nor Smutchy knew how to swim, but I proposed to go across myself, taking one of them at a time with me. I assured them that if they would faithfully and courageously do as I said, namely gently lay their hands on my loins, striking out with their feet at the same time, I would soon ferry them over. However, they both declined my offer, as too hazardous an attempt in the dark, and proposed to trace the creek upwards in order to discover a fording place.

  We were in luck; for we had not gone more than two hundred yards upstream before we found a tall tree that had been felled to lie across the river at a narrow place; and so went over dry-shod, after all. Such conveniences for crossing rivers are very common in America.

  We considered now that we were well on our way, and must henceforth get along in good earnest.

  CHAPTER V

  At length we arrived at Captain Webber’s substantial house, to which we had been directed, and recognized it by the ring of cedars. There was no light showing in any of the windows, which was not surprising, for it had passed midnight. We went up to the door and rapped loudly.

  A man’s voice called to us: ‘Who’s there?’

  I replied: ‘Three friends of your sister-in-law, the widow Eder.’

  ‘What friends?’ the same man enquired, in some alarm.

  Smutchy was bold enough to reply: ‘Three British soldiers.’

  A woman’s voice then cried: ‘Begone, soldiers. We want no Britainers here, and my brother Yan’s sister should be ashamed to foist any such upon us. She was ever a troublemaker in the family.’

  The man here evidently remonstrated with his wife, for upon our continuing to plead for admittance he came downstairs in his shirt, carrying a lantern, and unbolted the door for us. He was a tall, large man and wore a night-cap. ‘Now, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘what is your business? My wife is greatly alarmed by your appearance at this hour and asks you to hasten your explanations. Besides, it is very cold.’

  We went into the kitchen, which had a brick floor and was tolerably well furnished with papered walls, pewter platters on the shelves, and furniture in the heavy Dutch style. A tremendous ducking gun was suspended above the chimney shelf and a tall brass-faced clock ticked in a corner. I also observed a stuffed Bengalese parrot in a glass case.

  ‘Put this about your legs, Sir,’ said Richard Harlowe, taking from his haversack a new English blanket, one of those that had been issued to us just before we began our march, ‘and you will feel warmer.’

  ‘This is good wool,’ he said, admiring it. ‘We have but two thin blankets left to us: the rest were taken from us for the use of the militia, though I am a captain myself.’

  ‘It is yours, and another as good besides, if you can conduct us safely to New York,’ Smutchy assured him.

  ‘It is mighty good wool,’ he said again. ‘But I should require a deal of money from you, if I were to consent. It is a dangerous piece of work, very dangerous, that you propose.’

  ‘Take us to the British outposts,’ I said, ‘and you shall have all the hard money in our possession, which amounts in gold and silver to twenty dollars, besides the two blankets as advance payment. Moreover, the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Henry Clinton, will give you a further reward, a bounty of three guineas a man. That will cock you up for a whole winter, Captain Webber.’

  But Mrs. Webber, who was gaunt and grey-haired, was by now standing in the doorway of the parlour where we were discoursing, and overheard what I had said. ‘William,’ she cried fiercely, ‘you shall not go. As your devoted wife and the mother of your three fine boys, I will not permit you to go—no, though I have to offer you violence to prevent it.’

  ‘Why, wife,’ he said, attempting to conciliate her, ‘times are hard, you know, and I confess the fee they offer is very advantageous, if I could be sure of that bounty. It would buy you a new dress and stockings and shoes for all the boys, besides the sheep of which we spoke to-day.’

  She burst into tears, whether real or feigned I cannot pretend to judge. ‘What!’ said she, dramatically: ‘Do you mean to break my heart, by running into the jaws of death? Would you deprive me of a husband, like my poor sister-in-law Eder, and orphan our boys? You know well that there are several camps and garrisons on the East Highlands between this and New York. You would not be able to go ten miles before you would be taken, and then you would be hung up like a dog.’

  Her rude reasonings operated with all the power of simple nature upon Captain Webber. He changed his mind in a moment.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said he, ‘as I told you before, this is a very dangerous piece of work. All that my wife has said is true. Our people have very strong outposts all along the river as far as King’s Bridge; and if I were taken in the act of bringing you into the British lines, I could obtain no mercy. Yet, unless I went with you to your journey’s end, I should miss the bounty.’

  All our arguments after this could not prevail with him, though we promised to add twelve dollars to the English blankets as an advance payment. However, he at last, for a single silver dollar, agreed to conduct us to another friend, a poor man known simply as Old Joe, who lived two miles further on our journey and who might probably go with us. Captain Webber assured us that he only consented to help us thus far from his not wishing to disoblige Mrs. Eder.

  We set off at about one o’clock in the morning and arrived after an hour at the poor man’s hut, which was situated on the top of a high mountain. A light was burning, and we found Old Joe and a young woman, a niece, attending his wife who was ill of a swamp-fever. The light was supplied by a green wax-candle, made from the berries of the tallow shrub, which burned with an agreeable odour. True tallow candles were seldom seen in the Northern States during the war, since all the fat cattle were taken for the supply of the armies. W
e explained our circumstances and I informed Old Joe, who seemed in a condition of great anxiety on account of his wife, that I had some medical knowledge. I recommended for his wife a decoction of the bark of a sort of willow which the Indians used against the disorder, and he appeared greatly relieved to have a physician in the house. For a dollar he agreed to bring us six miles further on our journey to a German settler whom there was every probability we might obtain for a guide, for this German had lost nearly all his sheep in the late floods and was in great want of money. We set off immediately and after making our way for near six hours, through a trackless desert, full of swamps, we found ourselves at the fringe of a wood, and at fifty yards’ distance, an American barracks. Soldiers in buff and blue were carrying buckets of water and bundles of forage across a parade ground under the direction of a sergeant, whose back was fortunately turned to us. We shrank into the trees and Old Joe, being much terrified, fled from us with the greatest precipitation.

  Harlowe ran after and caught him by the collar, asking him what he meant by this desertion of us. He confessed that he had missed his path and only now knew our whereabouts. We were in the midst of our enemies. The place was called Red Mills, close to Lake Mahopac and about six miles from Goolden’s Bridge over the Croton River. As a last act of attention, Old Joe told us of a footpath which led to this bridge beyond the American camp. He advised us to cast a compass about the camp through the woods until we hit it. This path would pass by the hut of friends, who lay under an obligation to him; he described the hut but omitted to name the inhabitants. We thanked him and took his advice. The track appeared before long and we continued cautiously in the woods that fringed it, until we came to the hut about noon.