Proceed, Sergeant Lamb Page 9

  Harlowe asked: ‘But what of the Commander-in-Chief’s bounty? Surely you will be coming to New York to draw the bounty?’

  ‘No, Sir,’ he replied. ‘What I already have received, and what you have undertaken to pay in addition, will be sufficient to my needs, I expect.’

  We soldiers consulted together and subsequently told him: ‘If we come safe through, it will be due chiefly to your skill and vigilance. We believe that we have arrived where you say, and are prepared to proceed by ourselves. Here are the twenty dollars, which we promised to you and van Wart together, and here are three more guineas as a thank-offering. For if we get through, very well—our freedom is worth ten times that sum; but if we are caught and hanged it is better that you and your family should benefit than our captors. Go off now and all good luck go with you and yours, Friend Sniffen.’

  Nevertheless he came a little further, from a sense of gratitude, and showed us the head of the Musholu Brook, where he clasped our hands in affectionate farewell and told us that we were now safe. This was no-man’s-land and lay under the fire of the British batteries at Fort Charles, which commanded King’s Bridge. We never saw our excellent guide again, but I trust that he got safe home.

  We next came to a small hut beside a cabbage-patch, where a sudden doubt seized Harlowe but that our guide had betrayed us into the American lines. He was of opinion that we should instantly confirm the truth of Mr. Sniffen’s story by questioning the people of the house. I myself had the fullest confidence in Sniffen. Since therefore he had assured us that we were now in neuter ground, with nothing to fear, I did not oppose Harlowe’s resolution. He went up and boldly rapped at the door. The inhabitants, an old negro and his wife, were much terrified by our approach. Their fears increased when we ordered them to light a candle and kindle the fire in order to dry our drenched clothing. The old negro, falling on his knees, implored us not to insist on this service, for if the least light were seen at that hour, the whole habitation would soon be tumbled about our ears by shells from Fort Charles.

  Then we knew for sure that all was well; and were not irked to remain in the dark and cold for the few hours that remained of this seventh night of our journey: we knew that to approach the bridge in the dark would be highly dangerous.

  The rain ceased, the skies cleared, and soon a slow red dawn began to spread across the hills to our leftward. A rosy light glinted upon the waters of Harlem Creek which separates Manhattan Island, upon which New York stands, from the township of Westchester. With joyful hearts we went forward to the bridge.

  ‘Halt, who goes there?’ came in ringing accents from the out-sentry.

  Such a moment must be imagined, it cannot be described. ‘A sergeant and two men of The Ninth. We have made good our escape,’ I answered.

  ‘Advance and be recognized,’ was the order, and, to the scandal of the sergeant of the Guard who had been summoned, the out-sentry grounded his firelock, tossed his hat in the air and rushed forward to hug us in delight. It was Mad Johnny Maguire!

  ‘Och Gerry and Smutchy, my darlings,’ he yelled, ‘is it really yourselves now? And Gentleman Harlowe too!’ (Here he gave us an arch look.) ‘Oh, on my soul, what sad company you are keeping these days, Gerry, my jewel!’

  I was almost as much astonished as Mad Johnny Maguire himself by this encounter. ‘Yes, indeed it is ourselves, Johnny—deserting backwards again, the three of us!’

  Smutchy said: ‘Give that Tower musket into my hand, dear Johnny. Let me feel its weight. I have been a sick man these thirteen months without my old musket, Johnny—a sick man and a slave.’

  The Guard through whom we passed were Royal Welch Fusiliers, and showed a very soldier-like appearance, or all but poor Johnny himself. He was now, very properly I own, ordered to be confined, on account of his unsentry-like behaviour towards us. For private feelings should not relax discipline.

  CHAPTER VI

  I asked permission from the sergeant of the Guard to converse with Mad Johnny Maguire before he was confined; which was granted. Maguire then related how he came to be in New York. He had gone to join his brother Cornelius, who was farming near Norwalk, in the southern part of Connecticut, which lies across the Sound from Long Island. Reaching this place without adventure, he had been instructed by Cornelius in the care of the cattle, trees, crops and poultry. When Cornelius was satisfied that Mad Johnny could be trusted, with the help of the family, to manage the three hundred acres of his property, he eyed his ducking-gun where it hung on the nail and announced that he was about to rejoin General Washington on the East Highlands. Johnny thereupon refused to remain in the house if Corny went off soldiering, pointing out very rightly that this would amount to treason: freeing a soldier for service against the King was a crime equal to thus serving himself. So they came to loggerheads, in the literal sense of the phrase. Each seized up one of the heavy iron loggerheads, which they used red-hot in this part of the country for scorching their flip (a nasty mixture of ale, rum and molasses, but good against the cold), and began whacking at each other with intent to maim or kill. Johnny stretched his brother out the whole length of the kitchen with a blow on the crown, and then took to his heels and ran for New York; which was about two days’ march away.

  ‘Had you no guide, Johnny?’ I asked.

  ‘The Devil a one,’ he said.

  ‘Did you travel by night?’ I asked.

  ‘What would I be doing, travelling by night? The sun’s good enough for me,’ he said.

  ‘Then how in the world did you come safe through?’ I asked in bewilderment. ‘Weren’t you wearing scarlet?’

  He winked at me and said very simply: ‘Well, there was only one of me, you know, and I had the Irish way of speaking, so they thought me a deserter—why, faith, so I was—and naturally inclined to disaffection. It seems that there’s a Doctor Ben Franklin, who has been addressing very persuasive letters of late to the Old Country, saying that rebellion is the whole duty and salvation of the Irishman. I walked towards New York along the Eastchester road, and whenever I saw a man approaching, I sat me down by the roadside and nursed my foot as if I were kibed, and let him come up. Then I would eagerly ask him, how far was it to the place I had just left; and I’d tell him that I was Johnny Maguire, a deserter from the army of New York, who was running off, with a sore heel, to join my brother Cornelius Maguire at Norwalk. I would limp a few paces with him, and then sit down again and nurse my foot. When he had passed out of sight, I would start up again and continue my journey.’

  ‘That must have been an inconvenient method of travel when there were many people on the road,’ I observed.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed solemnly. ‘On some days I gained two miles and lost three. But I got along better as the rain cleared the roads of travellers. Well, the nearer I came, the greater joy I feigned of having broken the chains of British slavery and run out into the free air of patriot America. Many a good meal that sentiment won me, and more drink than I could well hold, for with all their great cleverness they are very easily deceived. But I codded them with too much success, by Jesus God! One kind fellow invited me to ride in his fine yellow carriage and would not take “no”. He fetched me half-way back to Norwalk and it was with difficulty that I gave him the slip. Well, in the end I came within three miles of this place, and now whenever I met anyone I made as if desperate of escape from my pursuers, and my heel troubled me more and more. At last a pretended friend betrayed me, in hope of a reward: he peached on me to a British sentinel who came and fetched me safely in! So now there’s deserting backwards for you—cap that tale, Sergeant Gerry Lamb!’

  We were now entertained at the guard-house to British victuals and British ale. The men were exceedingly hearty and the officers most obliging. When this repast was finished, though I would fain have slept all day, we were conducted forward to New York City, a distance of about fifteen miles, in order to report to General Headquarters. We were the first party to have escaped from the Convention Army since September.
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  The sergeant who accompanied us, by name Collins, a native of London, was to prove a good friend of mine. Unlike most of the other non-commissioned officers in this regiment he was very talkative; however, most of his discourse was both informative and amusing. He told me: ‘You’ll be up before Major André, the Deputy-Adjutant-General—now there’s the best brain and the kindest heart in the whole British Army. General Clinton thinks the world of him. Naturally, some of the officers consider him a thought too Frenchified—he is romantical, they say, and over-interested in millinery and the theatrical stage. Indeed, he designed all the costumes to be worn at our stage-plays at the Theatre in Philadelphia, took leading parts, wrote the prologues, painted the scenery, and all. The great Mischianza, General Howe’s farewell celebration—now that was a prodigious fine show, and Major André, he invented and produced it all. Knights of the Burning Mountain, Knights of the Blended Rose, a regatta, a tournament, queens of beauty, maids of honour, ornamental fireworks—by God, there was a beautiful, sweet phantasy, a written romance come true before our awed gaze! It made a mock of the desolations of war that spread about us—and breathed defiance at the French King, who had just declared against us.’

  Our travel-worn appearance excited compassion among the soldiers whom we met on the road, and two or three times we were called aside into a tavern and persuaded to tell our adventures. We passed under the strong works of Fort Washington and through McGowans Pass, a place close to the village of Harlem, so strong that a few companies posted there might well keep an army at bay. About noon we arrived in New York itself, which lay at the extremity of this island, and was even then a considerable city of ten thousand native inhabitants, though by the half below its present magnitude and importance. It was greatly overcrowded by the influx of the military and of very large numbers of Loyalists from all parts of the country, who more than repaired the loss of so many families ‘on the other side of the question’. This congestion was made worse by the loss of eleven hundred houses—more than one-fourth of the city—burned by the Americans when they evacuated the city. The ruins of these houses lay to the east of Broadway (the fine street, seventy feet in width, that passed along a ridge in the centre of the city) and to the south of Wall Street, the abode of the well-to-do. Hovels of planking and old sail-cloth had been put up around the chimneys and walls that still stood, and the poor, tattered wretches who inhabited these dens gave the city a very squalid air. They were in part the usual refuse of humanity that is littered about the gates of any garrison town the world over, but in part also the most pitiable victims of this fratricidal war—landed proprietors and their families, descended from the first settlers, whom mob-law and rapine had driven from their estates and reduced to beggary. Of the houses that remained, some were built with good effect in the English style, very strong and neat and several storeys high; but the most were sharp-roofed, sloping Dutch buildings, with the gable ends projecting towards the street. The Dutch spirit, I was to find, still governed the city: the custom of the Dutch, who practically-engrossed the markets and shops, was to give little and ask much, to conceal gains and to live for themselves alone. Dutchmen could be recognized by their comical custom of smoking ‘cigars’, leaves of tobacco rolled in the form of a tube six inches long, the smoke of which was drunk without the aid of any instrument. They were now, Sergeant Collins informed me, making enormous gains by the renting of apartments and the sale of provisions. The prices that he mentioned were four or five times greater than those that had ruled in Dublin when I was stationed there.

  Other sights that surprised me on this first visit to the city were a long procession of negro slaves carrying bales of merchandise on their heads—near one-fourth of the inhabitants of New York were negroes or mulattoes—and three mistresses of officers, each in an elegant conveyance and wearing a coat of military cut with the regimental facings of her protector. The main streets were paved and clean and lined with trees. There were some very good shops in the streets about Broadway, a few of them as luxurious as any in Dame Street or Parliament Street in my native city, which may be justly pronounced two of the first trading streets in Europe. The contrast between these affluent surroundings and the frightful country from which I had escaped that very morning struck me very forcibly.

  Before one of these shops, where were sold enamelled snuff-boxes and comfit cases, a handsome young fop in a sky-blue silk coat and flowered waistcoat stood in a negligent attitude, sucking the top of his malacca cane; which, when he pensively removed it from his mouth, proved to be of clouded amber. He also wore a Spanish military cloak, of Canary yellow silk with a pure white lining, and a sword with crystal pommel and Toledo scabbard. He so closely resembled a wax-figure or the paragon of a fashion plate that I had the fancy to make him talk, in order to see what language would break out of those cupid’s lips. I asked him the time.

  He stared at me in a vacant way; but when I repeated my question in a louder but still civil tone, he thought it wiser to answer me, as being supported by three other soldiers. Leisurely taking a jewelled gold watch from his right-hand fob-pocket, he regarded it for a few moments and then pronounced: ‘Honest red-coat, I will tell you: it wants but three minutes of noon.’ He so vividly recalled the motley fool in Shakespeare’s Arden that I dared to quote:

  ‘Thus we may see, quoth he, how the world wags.’

  At this sally, he was good enough to laugh. ‘Touché,’ he lisped and continued:

  ‘And so, from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,

  And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,

  And thereby hangs a tale.’

  I was for thanking him and proceeding on my way, having satisfied my curiosity and wit; but he called me back. ‘Not so fast, my sun-burned Jaques,’ he said. ‘We have so far consulted only one chronological oracle. Stand by me while we approach the other.’ From the fob on the left-hand side of his pearly white breeches he drew out another costly time-piece, and then the first again, attempting evidently to strike a mean between them in calculation. However, before he could arrive at any answer, the noon gun was fired from the Battery commanding the entrance of the North and East Rivers, and the noon chimes rang out from several sacred edifices.

  ‘It is now noon,’ he then said confidently.

  ‘I am greatly your debtor, Sir,’ I replied with a slight bow, which he was gentleman enough to return, saying, very truly: ‘No, Sir, I protest—it was nothing.’

  So we continued towards the fine brick edifice at the very end of Broadway which, by the guard of honour posted at the gate and the Royal Standard surmounting it, we could see was the General Headquarters. But Richard Harlowe hung back and signalled to us to wait a short spell while he also addressed our friend the fop. We did not hear what was said, but the two spoke earnestly together for half a minute; whereupon Harlowe rejoined us.

  Smutchy jested: ‘Why, Gentleman Harlowe, was that pretty pet your young brother? And did he agree to buy your discharge?’

  Harlowe shot a keen look at him and then replied in some confusion: ‘No, he is only an Irish cousin.’ We all laughed very heartily, though not yet sure where the joke lay.

  At Headquarters we were instantly admitted by the Officer of the Guard who told us: ‘The Deputy-Adjutant-General, Major André, has heard of your escape and is desirous of seeing you immediately.’

  We were presented to Major André, who welcomed us all together, complimenting us upon our escape. He then asked me: ‘Are you not Sergeant Lamb, who was in charge of this expedition?’

  When I said that I was that person, the Major invited me into the parlour, first giving orders to his clerk to take my comrades and the escort to the buttery for entertainment. He then poured out a glass of Madeira for me with his own hand.

  ‘Proceed, Sergeant Lamb!’ he said simply.

  I smiled: ‘Where am I to begin, your Honour? You know it is a dangerous thing to ask an Irishman for his story.’

  He broke into a very musical laughter. ‘Well,
you can tell me first, if you wish, how came you to join the Army.’

  I replied: ‘I think that it was because I was tired of being a clerk in the counting-house and longed for glory.’

  He clapped me on the shoulder and cried: ‘Why now, that was the very same reason that brought me into the service. But—I was lucky in a rich father who could purchase me a commission. What is your age?’

  I told him: ‘Twenty-three.’

  ‘Well, it is more credit to be a sergeant at twenty-three than a colonel at twenty,’ he observed very frankly. ‘For, Heaven be blessed, it is rarely that purse or privilege have a say in the appointment of our non-commissioned officers—the mainstay of the Line.’

  I have never before or since been spoken to by an officer in so easy and familiar a style, or by one to whom my heart immediately warmed with such spontaneous affection. His face, though of dark complexion, was mild, open and animated. He had a long and beautiful head of hair which, agreeably to the fashion of the day, was wound with a black ribband and hung down his back; the lace at his throat and cuffs was of Mechlin, exquisitely laundered; and the facings of his well-cut scarlet coat were of a rich green. In short, he was the handsomest man that ever I saw. Nor was there anything of the coxcomb in his manner, and when he came to business and asked me for particulars of my captivity and flight, I knew at once that Sergeant Collins had not erred in rating his intelligence so highly. It was characteristic of the Major, by the way, that he never referred to our American enemy by such terms as ‘the Rebels’ or ‘the Yankees’ or ‘the Mohairs’, but always very politely as ‘the Colonists’.