IV

A deep peace and a great stillness, and a wind to wash clear the skies and show the stars. There is a great silence over the face of the world, and it is Christmas Eve.

We have been here days—or weeks. We lose count of days until the word goes round that Christmas is a day away and there will be extra rations of rum. The word goes round that there will be chickens, that Captain Allen McLane and his foragers captured a British convoy train with a thousand chickens. But nobody believes and nobody is very much excited about Christmas. Another lean day. There are enough officers to take care of a thousand chickens.

It’s night now, and I have sentry duty. It has snowed three times since we got here. There is six inches of loose, sandy snow on the ground. When you walk, it swirls up and seeps into crevices in your foot-coverings. As long as anybody can remember, there has never been such a winter as this.

I walk one hundred and twenty paces and back—for two hours. I walk slowly, dragging my musket. At the edge of the forest, where the beat ends, I have a clear view of the frozen Schuylkill, of the King of Prussia Road and of the road to Philadelphia, blue rolling hills that sweep away until they are lost in a mystery of night. A fancy of lights on the horizon—perhaps Philadelphia. Philadelphia is only eighteen miles away.

I wait there for Max Brone. He’s a German boy, a weed of a back-country lout from the hills around Harrisburg, who has the beat with me this night. He speaks only a few words of English, and his face is twisted with pain and homesickness and cold. He’s better than no one at all. The silence can drive you mad.

I reach the limit of my beat and stop. The moment I stop moving, the cold eats in. It seems that we are here at the edge of the world—with no barrier between us and the cold of outer space. I wear two coats, my own and Kenton Brenner’s. But both are worn thin. The snow has crusted around my feet, and they are balls of ice. My hands are wrapped in a piece of blanket; with them and with my elbows I hold my musket. But no keeping out the cold; I try to kick the ice off my feet.

As I wait there, I see Brone toiling up the slope. He is bent over, almost crawling on all fours. He doesn’t see me until he is quite near, and then he starts back.

“All’s well,” I say.

He straightens up and sighs. His breath comes out in a cloud of frozen moisture. He leans his musket against himself and beats his hands against his sides.

“I vas feard,” he says. “Gott—it’s lonely.”

We stand together for a while, silent, only moving in little jerks to keep the cold off. A wolf howls. His howl begins with a quiver, strengthens and climbs into the night. A dog’s bark answers. I feel little shivers crawl up and down my spine, and Brone’s face drawn taut.

“I’d like to get a shot at that one,” I say. “I’d make me a nice cap and a pair of mittens out of his wool.”

Brone answers: “I tink—ven I valk alone, dey’re vaiting.”

There were no wolves here when the army first came. Farming country that has been farmed for years doesn’t have wolves. Eighteen miles away, there was a city of twenty thousand people.

“There are more every day,” I say.

“At home, tonight, dere vud be a fire. A roasting pig. Ve drink all night—and dance.”

We stare at each other, and I nod. I look at him and try to see him, a thin, short boy with a frost-bitten face, a sparse yellow beard and wide-set unintelligent eyes. No imagination and no hope. I say to myself, why? I say to myself, what have you ever dreamed to follow a terrible nightmare of revolution?

He’s the same blood as the Hessians. We don’t hate the Hessians. But the Pennsylvania Germans do; they bear hate for the Hessians as I have never known men to bear hate. I’ve seen them torture dying Hessians, kick at them, prod them with bayonets, and taunt them in German.

I turn round and walk back. No words of parting. I glance over my shoulder and see him toiling and sliding down the slope. I see him as a picture of myself, and I try to forget the picture, closing my eyes and stumbling forward.

At the other end of my beat, I stop and stand for a while, leaning heavily on my musket and gradually dozing as I stand. I am falling asleep. A delicious sense of parting with the world creeps through me. Bit by bit, all sense of cold vanishes. Through half-closed eyes I can just make out the half-buried dugouts of Scott’s brigades. This night merges with other Christmas Eves, and I hear my father’s slow, monotonous voice reading the story of a Man. With that, the whir of my mother’s wheel. The lulling hum of the wheel puts me to sleep. Outside is the great flat forest of the Lake country, the mysterious kingdom of the Six Nations where we have made our home. All that is mystery and dread, but foot-thick log walls close it out.

My father’s voice: “Allen—” And my mother, gently: “You wouldn’t sleep while the Words are being read, Allen?”

I come to myself with a terrible, heart-stabbing fear that I am freezing. I try to move and I lack all power of movement. The fear runs through me and exhausts itself. I give way, and the delicious apathy creeps over me.

Then a hand, stabbing from the far outside, beats down my shoulders. I give way and crumple forward in the snow, bruising my face on the hammer head of my musket. The snow in my face brings me awake. I roll over and Edward helps me to my feet. He’s big and strong, and it’s a relief to feel his wide hands under my arm.

“I was sleeping,” I say.

Edward spits on his sleeve, and we watch fascinated as the bit of water freezes.

Edward shakes his head. “A cold wild night—get in to the fire.” He shivers and shakes himself, like a huge, tired dog. “Get in to the fire,” he repeats.

I nod and stumble away. He stops me and gives me my musket. Mechanically gripping it, I make my way toward the dugouts. Tears come easily; I feel them on my lids, freezing.

The Pennsylvania brigades are quartered on the hilltop facing the road to Philadelphia. A first line of defence; the attack will come from the direction of Philadelphia. We built the dugouts the second and third days at the encampment, half in the earth and half of logs, log fireplaces lined with mud. Ten or twelve men are crowded into each dugout. The doors face the forest, and the forest offers some shelter from a west wind. But the storm winds blow from the east and bite through the spaces between the logs.

I came in and stood with my back against the door. I let go my musket, and it crashed against the dirt floor. The water began to run from my feet in little puddles.

Ely was sitting on the edge of his bunk, watching me. Jacob picked up the musket, wiped it carefully, and put it in its rack. Ely poured me a drink of rum.

“The last, Allen.”

I gulped it eagerly. It burnt my throat and warmed me inside. I started for the fire, but Jacob pushed me back.

“You’re frozen, Allen.”

I dropped to the floor, stretched out my legs before me. Slowly, feeling came back, darting pains in my hands and feet. Ely bent down and peeled the outer layer of bandages from my feet.

Charley Green lay in his bunk with his woman. Charley was no man for fighting; he was the sort of man who is only half of himself without a woman. God knows what took him away from his Boston printer’s shop to this hellhole where we were. When I think of Charley, I think of a small, fat man with children round him, of a small, fat wife. But the fat had gone. His skin hung in loose folds. Now he lay in his bunk with his woman, and they must have been asleep, because they didn’t move when I came in. Kenton sat on the edge of his bunk, his woman curled behind him. She was a Pennsylvania woman, thin, with light hair and pale blue eyes, speaking a Dutch dialect. She was free with her attentions; it’s hard for a woman to be anything else in a dugout with ten men. Vandeer stood in one corner, older than ever, hardly speaking and never smiling, dreaming of a little log parish-house, where the Sabbaths came regularly with six calm days in between. Henry slept. Brone was still on sentry beat. The last was a Polish Jew, a thin, strange man from Philadelphia, tall, hollow-chested, his brown eyes deep sunk in his head. He had been in America only a year, and he spoke no English. But she spoke Dutch, which most of us could understand. He sat next to the fire now, his head bent, his lips moving slowly.

“Praying,” Kenton said. “He has no understanding of what night this is.” Kenton had never seen a Jew before, and I think he was afraid. “A heathen,” Kenton said.

“Edward spat on his sleeve,” I said. “It froze before you could count three.”

“I call to mind a gypsy at Brandywine—before the battle. He said a winter to freeze the marrow from the land.”

Ely had bared my feet. Now, as he knelt over me, his long, grey-streaked beard brushed my hands. He worked my feet slowly. I had to turn my head away, but Ely worked them as if they were his own.

“Feeling, Allen?”

I nodded.

Jacob stood over us, watching with a professional eye. The dugout was hot and close, but draughty, full of body-smell, thick heat and stray curls of cold air. The chimney drew badly, and the log roof was shielded with a layer of blue smoke. The rank odour of bad rum pierced through everything else.

“The foot’s a small part of a man,” Jacob said.

Kenton’s woman sat up and said: “A stinking filthy pair of feet—ye’re no more men than pigs!”

“You shut up,” Jacob told her. “You Goddamn slut, shut up!”

“Kenton—Kenton, hear his foul tongue?”

Kenton shrugged and smiled foolishly. Kenton was a peaceful, easy-going man.

Charley Green woke up, leaned out of his bunk and looked on, mildly curious. His woman shouted:

“A fine lot of men—to curse a poor woman!”

“It ain’t none of your matter,” Charley said.

“I’m sicka seeing that slut,” Jacob muttered.

“Hear him, Kenton!”

“I’ll not have you speaking of that, Jacob,” Kenton protested, mildly.

Jacob turned round, his fists tight clenched. I watched them, too drunk with warmth to move. Ely went on kneading my feet, as if he had not heard. The Jew kept his eyes on the ground.

“I speak as I please,” Jacob said.

Kenton stood up. Vandeer pushed them apart. “Ye’re no men, but beasts,” Vandeer muttered. “There’s no love or fear of God left in you.”

Jacob went to the fire, opposite the Jew, and crouched down. Kenton relaxed on the bed, and when the woman tried to caress him, he pushed her aside. Ely bound up my feet.

“A cold night. I pity Edward,” Ely said simply.

Vandeer stood in the middle of the dugout, his arms raised, his mouth half-open, the skin creased loosely in folds about his eyes. Then, abruptly, he dropped his arms and went to his bunk.

Jacob poured some thin corn broth from a pot next to the fire and offered it to me. I drank it slowly, enjoying the warmth of it.

“It’s a hard thing to get the cold out of yer bones,” Ely said.

The Jew looked up and said, in Dutch: “The cold of Siberia bites deeper—”

“Siberia?”

Green understood no Dutch, but he caught the word. “A frozen land in Asia.”

“You were there?” I asked the Jew. “What great journey took you such distances?”

He groped for words, for space that was the length of the world. “Two thousand of us went there—the Czar’s prisoners.”

“From what land?”

“Poland.”

“I knew a Polish man,” Jacob said. “He died on Brooklyn Heights.”

“You escaped?” Ely asked curiously.

“I escaped—” He opened his coat and shirt, showed us a cross burnt into his breast. “They branded the Jews—said we made the revolution. But I escaped.”

I closed my eyes; I tried to see a journey across a world. When I glanced up, the Jew’s head was bent over, his lips moving slowly.

“Why were you fighting?” Ely said in English.

The Jew didn’t answer. Kenton said: “Tell us, Ely, why are we fighting? I swear, by God, we’ll be an army of corpses before this winter’s out. I keep saying to myself why—why? I didn’t have no call against the British. I never seen a British man before the war that did me a mite of harm. We had two hundred acres clear, and we would have cleared a thousand two years come. We never paid no taxes. All right, I did it. I was a damn-fool kid. I told my paw there was a sight of Boston men making an army to war on the British. I told him I was going, and he laughed in my face. He said he knew Boston men and he’d seen the British fight. He gave two months before they’d hang Adams and Hancock.”

“Why’d ye go?” Jacob demanded.

Kenton put his face in his hands.

Jacob said, bitterly: “By God—there’s no army to be made outa swine like you.”

“Easy, easy, Jacob,” Ely whispered.

“On a night like this—Christ was born,” Vandeer said tonelessly. “In the name of liberty you’re ridden with whores and scum. Ye’re a stubborn, hard-necked people, and God’s hand is on you.”

“To hell with your preaching!” Charley cried.

Kenton’s woman screamed: “Shut yer dirty mouth! You ain’t no men—ye’re a pack of filthy, rotten beggars!”

Jacob rose, took two long strides to the door, and plucked his musket from its rack. He faced Kenton’s bunk and said:

“Another word outa her and I’ll kill her, Kenton! No damned whore can make mock of me!”

Ely sprang in front of him, pushing the musket to one side. Vandeer said, shrilly:

“If you need to shed blood for the black hate in you—kill me, Jacob!”

Kenton’s woman was sobbing hysterically. Ely took Jacob’s musket. In Ely’s hands, Jacob was like a baby, mouth trembling. All the terror of the past week had come to a head in him—and finally burst. Ely led him to his bunk.

“We’re a long time together, Jacob,” Ely said softly.

Now there is silence—as if we had used ourselves up for the time. Only the sobbing of Kenton’s woman, and Kenton makes no effort to quiet her. He sits with his head in his hands. The Jew is motionless by the fire.

We hear the wind outside. A wolf howls—mournfully. I look from face to face, bearded faces with long, uncut hair, men who have lost all pride or consideration for their bodies, men in rags, huddled together for warmth. The women are not women any more. I tell myself that; I have to; otherwise I’ll go insane. I tell myself that there are beautiful, clean women somewhere, beautiful, clean men. I think of a woman’s body the way I used to dream of a woman’s body, white and perfect——

Kenton’s woman sobs: “We come along with you—you go to hell, but we come along with you.”

Nobody answers. We listen for something, the way men listen when the silence is deep and lasting. We hear steps outside in the snow—to the door.

“It’s the German lad,” Ely says. “Why won’t he come in?”

We wait, and then I get up and fling open the door. A rush of snow, and then a figure stumbles into the room.

“Who the hell are you?” Jacob demands.

I force the door shut. She lifts her head, and we see a woman, wrapped in a blanket, barefooted, her feet blue and broken open from the cold.

“Jesus Christ,” Green whispers.

She lets fall the blanket; she’s half-naked, wearing only an old pair of men’s breeches under the blanket. Blue with cold, thin, her breasts the small breasts of a girl, her face sunken, long black hair, curious thin features that might have been lovely once. I stare at her the way we are all staring. Henry Lane wakes and stumbles out of his bunk. He moves toward her, a haggard, bearded, sleep-ridden figure, and she shrinks back against me. I’ pick up the blanket and cover her shoulders. She gropes toward the fire and crouches next to it.

“Who are you, lass?” Ely asks her.

“Leave me alone,” she says. “God’s sake—leave me alone.”

Kenton’s woman says: “I’ll tell ye who. She’s a fair whore of a Virginian brigade. Her name’s Bess Kinley.”

“Leave me alone—”

Jacob gets up. He goes to her directly and takes hold of her blanket. “Get out,” he says hoarsely.

Vandeer joins him. “Get out—there’s enough of rotten women in here. You’ll make blood flow between us and the Virginians. Get out.”

“Leave her alone,” I tell them. I force myself in front of Jacob.

“Boy—get away. The woman’s no good!”

“She’ll stay,” I tell Jacob. “Her feet are bleeding. Let her stay and warm by the fire.”

Jacob grips my shoulder, raises his hand to strike. Ely’s sharp voice stops him. He stands there, watching the girl.

“They’re drunk,” she says. “They’d kill me. Look at this.” She opens the blanket.

Kenton cries: “They’re drunk—drunk. That swine Quiller swore there was no rum, but the Virginian brigades are drunk!” Quiller is the commissary.

“Lead her out,” Vandeer says tonelessly.

Green’s woman says: “You stay there, honey. Let them try to put me out! A man wouldn’t put out a dog on a night like this!”

The door opens, and a man stoops through. He wears the long grey hunting shirt of a Virginian. He’s bareheaded, panting. There are others behind him. Some of them carry their long rifles. They hold the door open and the cold eats into the room.

“Close the door,” Ely tells him.

“I’ll have her—she’s our woman.”

“She’s a Virginian woman!” someone behind him yells.

“Close the door.”

“You can go to hell!” I say. “You can get to hell out of here!”

He starts across the room, and I fling myself on him, bearing him back. His fist crashes into my face, and then I hear Jacob’s roar as he beats the Virginian through the low door. Ely follows with Kenton and Vandeer. I get up and stumble after them, Lane and Green with me. I catch one glimpse of the Jew, sitting by the fire like a figure out of time.

Outside, there is a mad tangle of figures. I direct all my hate and resentment into the fight. Voices break the night’s quiet, and the Pennsylvania men pour from their dugouts. Muskets are clubbed—knives.

The cry goes up: “Virginians!”

There aren’t many of the Virginians—a dozen perhaps. They’re beaten back. They’re overwhelmed by numbers. We stand panting—warm even in the cold.

“Drunk,” a Pennsylvania man says.

“We’re rationed on rum—and those damned Virginians drink.”

We go back to the dugout, grumbling, but feeling that the fight has kept us from madness. We crowd in, close the door; body heat and heat of the fire. The Jew stares at us, as if we were things beyond his understanding.

“Ye’re Pennsylvania men?” the girl says. “You’ll let me stay tonight?”

“We’re no Pennsylvania men,” Jacob says.

“What’s your name?” I ask her.

“Bess Kinley.”

“Sit by the fire and warm yourself” I tell her. “No man will drive you from the fire.”

I look at her, and something passes between us. I feel bigger than before, different.

“She’ll stay,” I tell them.

“She’ll stay tonight,” Ely agrees.

I sit close to her. She doesn’t speak. I look at her face, and for once try to read the mystery of a woman who follows the army.

Finally I say, sullenly: “Why don’t you get out of the camp? Why don’t you get out of here?”

“Where would I go?” she asks me.

Kenton’s woman sobs softly; silence takes hold of us. Occasionally, someone puts a piece of wood on the fire.

“I’m hungry,” she says.

We give her some gruel, and she holds the wooden cup with both hands, drinking it slowly. Nobody speaks. Henry Lane is sleeping again. Green and Kenton crawl into their beds. Already they have lost interest.

Edward comes in, blue with cold, shaking off the snow. He stands and looks at the girl.

“She’s Allen’s woman,” Jacob says. Thus our morality. Thus our years of prayer on the hard floors of hard wooden churches. She was mine without marriage, without the word of any man of God. Because I took her, she is mine.

The girl turns and looks at me, her dark eyes biting into mine. I say nothing. Ely tells Edward what has happened.

“They’re hard, bitter men, the Virginians,” Edward says. “The girl’s a slut. Did she expect them to nurse her?”

“Shut up!” I cry.

“I’m not holding for the Virginians, Allen.”

“Where’s Brone?” Ely asks Edward. “He should have been back already.”

“I didn’t see him,” Edward says. “I thought he was back.”

“I forgot,” I mutter. “The boy was sick with cold. I forgot and I had no thought for him.”

Ely stands up and puts on his coat.

“Ye’re a fool to go out,” Jacob says.

I crawl into my coat. I’m sick with weariness, but I know about Brone. Deep in my heart, I know.

I followed Ely out. Jacob came behind me. None of us spoke. We walked across the hillside, away from the dugouts, and then down toward the Gulph Road. It was easy to find the path Brone had beaten in the snow, and follow it. When we came near the end, two low shapes shot away across the snow.

“I should have brought my gun,” I said miserably. “You should have known to bring a gun, Ely.”

We came to Brone. Jacob knelt down. “Wolves,” he said. “Wolves,” he repeated bitterly, his voice rising, “and the lad was too weak—too weak.”

“He was telling me tonight——”

“He didn’t know,” Ely said. “He was asleep.” We knelt around him, our breath making a cloud, as if from candles. I had to look. Ely tried to hold me away, but I had to look.

“We’ll bring him back,” Ely said.

“The women——”

“We’ll bring him back to the fire,” Ely said, and he looked at Jacob and me in a way that made us nod and bend to Brone.

We come into the dugout and put the boy down.

“By the fire,” Ely says grimly. “Lay him by the fire.”

The Jew stands up, his face full of the pain of the world. He bends his head, touches his head simply with his hand.

The girl is crying, as with pain.

We gather around Brone. Vandeer kneels down. He says:

“God—forgive us. Forgive us tonight.” He kneels down, and he prays. He prays with words that we haven’t heard for a long time. He prays, simply, gently, compassionately.