Victory at Yorktown: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

Washington to guide us.”
    Allen shook his head. “Washington may turn into another Cromwell, another Caesar.”
    “Damn, how dare you,” Peter said. “Remember, he gave you your freedom to go back and wear that damn uniform, otherwise you’d be sitting this one out in some prison camp out on the frontier with your Hessian friends.”
    Peter paused for a moment.
    “Remember Garth Williamson, Vincent van Hoek?”
    “Yes. Hell, they used to go exploring with us as kids,” said Allen.
    “They’re dead.”
    “What?”
    “Oh, I thought you might have heard since they died within sight of you. They were taken prisoner at Brandywine then locked up in your damn prison ships in New York. We’ve all heard about those ships. How the bodies are just dumped out a gun port when the tide is going out. Tell me, when the wind is blowing from the east, can you smell the death at your headquarters?”
    Allen bristled at that, but knew there was no defense. More than a few had made appeals to Clinton to abandon the charnel houses of the prison ships, to establish a proper camp on dry land, but he refused, saying it was all that bloody Rebels against the Crown deserved. Word was that nearly four out of five men confined there died within a matter of months, and yes, their bodies were unceremoniously dumped into the river when the tide was running out.
    “It’s this war, this damn war that is doing this to us,” Allen finally offered, “but you and I, Peter. I thought there was no hatred between us.”
    “Live what I’ve lived through for four years while you and your comrades sit fat and happy in the city and maybe you’d understand better. At Morristown last winter, I watched comrades who had served from the beginning, dying by the hundreds from starvation and the cold. Hard to believe, but most of us say it was worse than Valley Forge. Meanwhile you and your Clinton were most likely sitting rosy faced by warm fireplaces, stuffed to bursting, and but a few hundred yards away your prisoners were huddled together without even a blanket and dying in their own filth.”
    “I did not do this,” Allen replied.
    “But the side you fight for did,” Peter snapped.
    “There have been atrocities on both sides. We could argue this all day. That is what war does to all of us. There’ve been reports of our men nailed to trees and scalped.”
    Peter, whose eyes had formed cool narrow slits, widened them slightly and he turned away.
    “Not with my command.”
    “Those four back there were only seconds away from performing the ritual on my sergeant and me. You can’t deny it.”
    Peter sighed and nodded.
    Again, long moments of silence. The road ahead curved up and to the left, following the bank of the Hudson, its surface shimmering with the red and gold reflection of autumn trees lining its banks. A company of troops was marching toward them and they edged to the side of the road. The passing infantry wore relatively new uniforms, hats adorned with sprigs of pine or hemlock, muskets polished to a sheen. No rabble, this. They were regulars, lean and hawk faced, even if some had seen only seventeen summers. Though they maintained marching discipline, nearly everyone looked up at him with a cold eye, muttering comments about “damn lobsterbacks.” These were not the type of men he recalled facing when this war had started. These men looked as tough and seasoned as any British or Hessian regular, even tougher now, in fact, because Peter was right: For two years his army had languished in near luxury in New York City, compared to this army encamped in the rain, mud, heat, and freezing cold of Morristown and now on the banks of the Hudson.
    The company marched on and they resumed their ride, Peter urging his mount up to a gentle canter, Allen following suit.
    “Peter?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you remember Miss Elizabeth Risher?”
    Just saying her name caused Peter’s throat to tighten.
    Peter was silent for a moment remembering her