Conceived in Liberty Read Online Free PDF Page B

Vandeer’s lower lip trembled. Vandeer was a little man with children of his own. Maybe he was thinking of them now.
    â€œEasy, Allen, easy,” Jacob said.
    Kenton was still holding the boots in his hand. “I’m not needing shoes, Allen,” he whispered.
    I cried: “I know what you’re thinking—me next! Moss and then me.”
    â€œWe’ll eat soon, Allen.”
    â€œMoss wanted to go home. There’s no one of you got nerve enough to desert and go home! Jesus Christ, there’s nothing left inside of me.”
    Ely came up. They walked away when Ely came. Only Kenton stood there, still holding the boots in his hand. He said, dully:
    â€œWe rolled the dice for Moss’ shoes.”
    Ely didn’t answer. He had a piece of fatback in his hands.
    â€œYou brought food,” Jacob nodded. “Ye’re a wonderous quick man, Ely.” He walked back slowly and put himself between Ely and Kenton. “Ye’re not angered about the shoes, Ely?”
    â€œThere will be hell and murder at the commissariat. There’s no food to feed ten thousand men. He asked me for papers, and I wheedled the fatback outa him. I said for a regiment. I thought he’d have a little corn. There were Boston and Pennsylvania men there with loaded guns.”
    â€œI don’t hold with Pennsylvania men,” Jacob said. “But I hate the guts of those damned Virginians, lording it over the food.”
    â€œThey’re a quiet, strange race.”
    I rose and walked away. Inside, I was heaving, and my throat burnt. Beyond the heat of the fire, the cold bit in, through my thin clothes. I resented Ely’s way, avoiding mention of me or the shoes. When I turned round, they were grouped over a kettle, cutting up the fatback. Jacob poured the last of his cornmeal into it. The brigades were beginning to move, swarming round the forest and over the brink of the hill.
    I went back to the fire. Ely put his arm through mine.
    We ate quickly and in silence. We took our muskets and wiped them carefully. That was habit; we didn’t love the muskets. We walked along with the brigades, Massachusetts and Vermont’ men, Pennsylvanians, tall, light-haired Jersey Dutch. The talk was all of the spot we were camped in, of its virtues for defence. There were hills all round the Valley Forge. It was a natural fort.
    I heard a man say: “If they attack on the Philadelphia road, it’s another Breed’s Hill.” Apparently he didn’t remember that at Bunker Hill we were fresh and new to war. There had been no other victories since then.
    We moved in no order. Occasionally you heard an officer’s voice, but for the most part the brigades stumbled along as they pleased. A great hatred had grown for the officers, and they were afraid. All aspect of an organized army had disappeared. We had not been paid in weeks; we had not been fed. I think we were kept together only by the fear of the cold spaces that lay between where we were and our homes. It was said that the British ringed us in with their patrols.
    We moved around the forest, over the hill northward, and down onto a great open meadowland that stretched to the Schuylkill. Afterwards this became known as the Grand Parade. The brigades streamed over it, slowly forming into a rough kind of order—the Pennsylvania Line, north, the New Jersey Line, the New York Line, the Virginian Riflemen.
    Round the field there was a scattering of people who lived in the neighbourhood, mostly Quaker boys, hooting and screaming at the soldiers. The Massachusetts and Pennsylvania brigades still had drummers, and gradually their roll increased, until we were moving to a steady beat of drums. There were old habits hard to break.
    The eight of us stood at one end of the Pennsylvania line, near the New York brigades. We leaned on our muskets, speaking little. And the wave of sound all up and down the brigades seemed to be dying away. We could