Victory at Yorktown: A Novel Read online

  A drumroll could be heard, growing louder, approaching from the encampment.

  “I think it is about time, now,” John said, standing up after Jenkins wiped the last of the lather from his face, letting Jenkins help him into his scarlet coat, his uniform jacket, Jenkins brushing it off with a whisk broom, the man obviously having polished the gold buttons to a mirrorlike sheen. He lifted the neck cloth and cravat from the chair where he had placed the uniform. Peter coughed politely, caught Jenkins’s eye, and shook his head. Jenkins stood as if stricken and then folded them up, looked around desperately, and then just tucked them into his pocket.

  The drumroll was now just outside their window, and shifted from a march beat to the slow steady beat of a funeral march. A moment later there was a knock at the door.

  John, already facing the door, took a deep breath.

  “You may enter.”

  Four guards were standing in the corridor, led by a young captain who saluted.

  “Sir, it is time.”

  Just behind them was a minister, who stepped forward, looked at Peter, Allen, and Jenkins without comment, and the three left the room to wait out in the corridor.

  Several minutes later the door opened and John stepped out, still forcing a smile.

  “Gentlemen, I am at your disposal,” he said, voice cool, even, and not breaking.

  Flanked by the four guards, the captain in front, the minister behind, they started for the door, and John held up his hand.

  “A momentary indulgence, gentlemen,” he said, coming to a stop and looking back at Allen, beckoning him to his side.

  He reached into his breast pocket and drew out several sheets of folded paper.

  “My friend, would you be so kind as to see that these are delivered. One to my parents, the other to a young lady,” he paused, and smiled. “Well, her name is atop the note.”

  He looked back at Peter.

  “If your duty requires you to examine them you have my permission.”

  Peter shook his head.

  “You are a man of honor, sir. I know the correspondence is private. I will not examine them.”

  “Thank you, Major. They are just simple sentiments of farewell.”

  Allen took them with shaking hand.

  “Good-bye, my friend,” John said, and grasping Allen’s hand he leaned over to embrace him.

  For Allen, it was the hardest moment of his life, struggling not to lose control. When he had laid his beloved young brother into the ground on that cold freezing day along the Delaware, that had been different, but at this moment, he did not want to let John see him weep, and perhaps unnerve him, nor would he let any of these Rebels see him lose control. They were about to see how two British officers would face what was to come.

  The captain opened the door. The guards stepped out, with John and the minister following, then followed in turn by Allen, Peter, and Jenkins. All awaiting him stood silent, a thousand or more men forming three sides of a square around the gallows, the officers of the court-martial the fourth side. John did slow at the sight of the gallows, as if even at this final moment hoping against hope that he would be granted the honor of a firing squad rather than a too often squalid death at the end of a rope.

  Two young officers now stepped to either side of him, each putting a supporting arm around his elbows, ready if need be to help brace him up if he faltered or, as had happened in more than one case Allen had witnessed, the victim began to struggle or try to turn away.

  “Why this emotion, sir?” one of the two asked, as John, having slowed, gazed at the gallows.

  Peter wondered if there was mockery or insult in the young officer’s voice, and he wanted to step forward and strike the man down.

  John simply smiled and looked straight into his eyes.

  “I am reconciled to my death, sir, but I detest the mode,” and he stepped boldly forward almost as if dragging along his two escorts. None could fail to notice, and as he passed his judges nearly all saluted him. It was obvious several had tears in their eyes.

  A high two-wheel cart had been backed up under the gallows, and Peter thanked God for that. Rather than be hoisted up to die by strangulation, chances were the fall would break his neck and end it quickly.

  Reaching the back of the cart, John broke free of the embrace of his two escorts and deftly mounted the back of the wagon unassisted and stood rigid. The executioner, an elderly sergeant, drew out a handkerchief, and, with trembling hands, wrapped it around Andre’s eyes.

  He then took the rope but fumbled, leaving the opening of it too small to get it over John’s head.

  Allen watched, wanting to scream out to just get it done right.

  John apparently whispered something to the sergeant, and then actually took the rope himself and drew it over his own head and slipped it down around his neck, reaching up to tighten it.

  This gesture sent a gasp through the assembled ranks.

  “Merciful God,” someone cried from the ranks. There was the clatter of a musket falling, a young soldier having collapsed in a faint.

  The officer directly in charge now stepped up to the base of the cart, drew out a sheet of paper, and read the findings of the court-martial with its sentence, ending with “May God have mercy on your soul, sir. Do you have any final words.”

  John, still with that enigmatic smile, actually reached up and raised a corner of his blindfold, looking out at those assembled, and Allen knew with aching heart that there was a momentary glance to him as his gaze swept across the gathering.

  “This shall be but a momentary pang. Just tell all that I died bravely, as befitting one of His Majesty’s officers.”

  With his own hand he drew the handkerchief back down. He put his hands behind his back and the executioner bound them tight. John nodded to the executioner and whispered something to him.

  The sergeant, shaking with emotion, stepped off the back of the wagon, walked around to the side of it, picking up a heavy strap of leather, and looked to the officer in command of the execution, who stood with arm raised.

  “Major Andre, today you shall sup in paradise,” someone from the ranks cried as the officer let his arm drop.

  The sergeant raised the leather strap and slashed it across the back of the horse hitched to the cart. The beast whined with pain and fear and leaped forward.

  Major John Andre tumbled from the back of the wagon and Allen was torn to the soul, but also relieved when there was an audible crack, the sound of John’s neck breaking.

  He swung slowly back and forth, legs twitching spasmodically for a moment, and then was still.

  Several more in the ranks collapsed, others turning their heads away. There was a bit of ragged cheer from others, met by officers shouting for silence in the ranks.

  Allen turned and looked back at General Greene, who, still mounted, was only a few feet away.

  “And was this justice, sir?” Allen snapped bitterly.

  Greene looked down at him sad eyed.

  “This, young major, is war.”

  * * *

  The last shovelfuls of earth were heaped atop John’s grave, which had been dug and waiting within feet of the gallows. They had afforded him a simple coffin. Jenkins, again sobbing, had affixed John’s cravat and neck cloth around the bruised and torn neck and carefully set his wig and hat on him along with his decorations before the lid was hammered shut.

  The assembly had long since marched away, this final detail attended to by the sergeant who had been the executioner. The last shovelful was smoothed out over the grave, and the six enlisted men working on the task stepped back, not sure what to do next. The sergeant ordered them to return to camp.

  The sergeant looked at Allen, who had stood at the foot of the grave, flanked by Jenkins and Sergeant O’Toole, who apparently during the night had found some Rebels willing to share a bottle of what smelled like whiskey.

  The sergeant in charge of the detail looked at Allen, came to attention, and saluted. “Sir,
I’ve never seen a man go as bravely to his death as he did.”

  Allen could not reply, just merely nodding his thanks, and the sergeant turned and walked away. The day had a definite chill to the air, the early morning sun now obscured by clouds rolling in from the east, a certain sign of a cold rain to come. Allen looked over to where Peter waited, again flanked by his cavalry escorts, each of them leading a horse. Allen came to attention, saluting the grave.

  “Farewell my friend, I pray I shall meet my death with but a fraction of the bravery you have shown. If there is a heaven, I shall look for you there.”

  He mounted and the small cavalcade rode south, finally reaching the barricaded road where Peter reined in. Allen looked over at him. “Would you mind riding with us to within my own picket lines. Your militia most likely is just waiting for my return, and I’d prefer a better death than to be murdered for a horse and the buttons on my uniform.”

  Peter nodded in agreement, ordered one of his escorts to take the flag of truce from O’Toole, and they rode on, passing the place where Allen had, indeed, nearly been killed less than eighteen hours before. There was a faint rustling in the woods, a muffled curse echoing, but no one was visible. They rode on for another mile and, coming about a bend in the road, Allen could see an advanced picket guard of half a dozen mounted dragoons of his army, the army of the king. He reined in, and Peter did the same.

  “Fine then, they will see us through, you can go back now.” The first light drops of rain were beginning to fall, chilled, the cold seeping into him.

  “Allen?” Peter looked at the man who had been his childhood friend. “Allen, I am, indeed, sorry. He was an honorable man.”

  “Yet your bastards hung him anyhow,” he snarled, his anger surfacing at last. “For God’s sake could you not have shown him the dignity of a firing squad? He was an honorable soldier.”

  “I will not argue that with you now,” Peter replied.

  “But I will not forget.”

  Allen hesitated, as if struggling with a comment, and then it spilled out.

  “At least keep your promise to look-in on Miss Elizabeth if you can. Tell her I love her and always will.”

  At this moment, Peter’s own feelings regarding that were buried. Peter nodded an assertion and extended his hand. Allen glared at Major Peter Wellsley of the Continental army.

  “Thank you Peter for doing that. But as for us, for you and me? War changes all things,” he snapped, turning away, and spurring his mount back to the safety of his own lines.

  It was a contemplative ride back for Peter, barely noticing the salutes as he passed through the picket lines, then whispering a dismissal to the escorts who had kept watch over him and Allen. Their lieutenant saluted and drew closer.

  “Tragedy, nothing but damn tragedy, all of it. I wish I could have voiced condolences to your friend.”

  “My friend?” Peter asked.

  “Yes, that British officer. It was obvious to all of us. Heard you and he knew each other before the war.”

  Peter looked at him blankly. Then just rode on. He passed where the gallows had already been knocked down, the grave freshly piled and even smoothed over, a guard placed on it so it would not in any way be defiled. He rode on, at last turning the bend in the road that led to Washington’s headquarters, where he felt he should make a brief personal report on his conversations with Allen over the last day.

  “Major Wellsley?”

  He was startled out of his thoughts by the sight of Nathanial Greene riding toward him, a cold mist swirling about them. Peter reined in. Nathanial Greene brought his mount around and motioned that the two of them turn aside from the headquarters road and continue to ride up to the heights of West Point. They rode on in silence for several minutes until finally it was Greene who spoke.

  “Hard day for you, young man,” he said softly.

  Peter simply looked over at Greene. Here was the man who had emerged as Washington’s most trusted officer and comrade in the wake of these last few tumultuous weeks. It was a rank and honor well deserved. A Quaker by birth and upbringing, he had nevertheless picked up the sword even before the Revolution, enlisting as a private in a Rhode Island militia company; within months he was a general.

  Gallant, audacious, he had led one of the assault columns at Trenton and had even urged a midday pressing on to Princeton after their triumph, which Washington had to rein in. He had stood by his general’s side at Brandywine, was credited by Washington with saving the army from starvation when he took over as quartermaster general at Valley Forge, but had repeatedly begged to be return to field command. He managed to slip another battle in at Springfield, New Jersey, in which he handily turned back a British and Hessian raiding column while still serving as quartermaster general, supposedly foraging for supplies in that much contested state when the British attacked. Peter had been at that battle, taken impromptu command of a militia unit on the flank along what the locals called the “Mill Burn,” and Greene had personally cited him in dispatches for his rallying of the troops and coolness under fire.

  “I want you to know, Major, I would have preferred a different outcome to this morning.”

  “Sir?”

  “It is obvious to me and others that there is some sort of personal connection between you, and the British representative and friend of Major Andre. If only Andre had been wearing some semblance of uniform, we could have found reason to hold him prisoner and then when all this madness is over exchange him. It grieved the entire court to condemn a man obviously of such courage. The fact that you were friends with someone close to Andre speaks of your character as well.”

  “Sir?” and he wondered if there was a note of reproach in what Greene had just said.

  Greene extended a hand in a gesture of reconciliation.

  “No insult,” and he hesitated, “may I call you Peter?”

  Peter, a bit surprised, nodded.

  “I recalled you well from the Battle of Springfield and your rallying of our flank. I spoke of you this morning with General Washington after reporting back to him after the execution.”

  They rode on together to the crest of a rise that overlooked the plains of West Point, far below them the serpentine turning of the Hudson River, the hills and mountaintops ablaze with autumn’s glory, and the mist like rain enhancing the glow of the autumn leaves.

  “Lord this is a beautiful country. I wonder what it must of looked like before we came here, what it might look like a hundred years hence. So peaceful now, hard to believe there is a war going on.”

  Greene took off his hat and wiped his brow even though a cool breeze greeted them atop the heights.

  “I’ve been given my own command again,” Greene said, not looking at Peter, gaze fixed on the valley.

  “Congratulations, sir,” Peter replied, not sure if Greene was musing to himself or actually speaking to him.

  “With all that has transpired these last few weeks this has neither been the time nor place to make it public, but it will be announced shortly.”

  Greene dismounted, letting his horse’s bridle fall so that it could crop on the high autumn grass, Peter doing the same, feeling that Greene wanted him to follow.

  “Gates has made a botched affair of things yet again,” he announced coldly, still gazing at the river. “Even as we hold and block up here, that old man has allowed Georgia and the Carolinas to fall under British control. Good God in heaven, at Saratoga if it had not been for…”

  His voice trailed off. Peter did not need to fill in the rest of that sentence. The name that could no longer be mentioned in any way and given credit for that incredible victory. It was Benedict Arnold who had saved the day at Saratoga, it was Gates who aggrandized unto himself the glory, galloping south to parade before Congress, while Arnold, immobilized by the wound to his leg suffered in his gallant charge, was pushed aside. Though no one would say it now, this was the start of his slide into the madness of what he had just done.

  “Then
Congress gives him the Southern command and in short order we lose Charleston, Savannah, the fight at Camden, Georgia all but subdued, the Carolinas torn apart by bitter civil war as Loyalists and Patriots fight with utter savagery against each other, while Cornwallis runs riot over our few remaining forces. That is my new command, Peter. I leave for the Carolinas within the week to take command of the wreckage that is left and try to forge a new army.”

  His words were now the one faint bright moment of this otherwise heartbreaking day.

  He whispered congratulations but could say no more, and then wondered why Greene had sought him out to share this news. There was a long pause and then Greene looked back at him.

  “I had a long talk with General Washington this morning, laying out plans and as mentioned, your name came up.”

  “Why so, sir?”

  “I want you to come with me.”

  “Sir?”

  Now he was, indeed, confused. His focus of effort and dedication these last several years had been the ever-constant war in New Jersey, of raid and counter-raid, planting of information and misinformation, the ferreting out of spies in a dark and ugly manner at times, and placing spies in turn into the British lines.

  He wanted to raise this point but Greene interrupted him.

  “Since our victory at Springfield, the enemy has pretty well conceded Jersey as their ground to raid upon, holing up in Elizabethtown with a quick line of retreat to Staten Island if we should push them hard enough. Winter is setting in, Jersey is secure. Clinton is too timid to try yet another winter overland campaign against Philadelphia. Jersey is secure, your work for the moment nothing more than that of a watchman.”

  He wanted to reply that after all that had transpired, perhaps a winter of relative peace would be a blessing. On the journey South there would even be time to see Elizabeth. “The general and I have decided that we would like a personal liaison we both can count on, especially with such a distance between us. It might entail but one journey, perhaps several, but we want someone savvy enough to know the grounds of New Jersey to pass safely, who both of us trust to personally carry dispatches to be handled by no other. Old Gates will try to derail my efforts and might even stoop to intercepting sensitive communications and twisting it to his own use. He will not give up easy. Cornwallis as we both know from the campaigns of 1776–77 is a wily foe, but by God I think I have his number and know how to beat him. When that time comes, I want you with me, to observe and be able to report back accurately, without distortion, to General Washington back here in New York.