As they reached the gate the rain stopped. Sunlight slanted through a broken cloud canopy. Edward cursed under his breath—suddenly it was a brilliant morning. Steam rose from the ground.
They pulled up to the sentry box. A young redcoat came out to challenge them. “Your name, sir?”
“Edward Bell. On parole from the Second Militia Battalion.”
“Where are you going?”
“My family owns a small property on the Cooper River. We were advised that partisans burned us out. I am traveling up there to assess the damage.”
“Your nigger too?”
“Yes.”
The soldier rudely gigged Joanna’s arm with the barrel of his musket. “And who’s this?”
“My sister.”
“Not much of a family resemblance. She’s pretty.” Edward tried to smile; he wanted to break the soldier’s jaw.
“What are you carrying in the cart?”
“Two drinking bottles and some food.”
The strutting soldier pushed Poorly off his seat, then took an excessive amount of time opening and shaking each canteen. He turned the sacks inside out, found the smaller ones, and emptied the corn and peas on the ground. A vein in Poorly’s forehead jumped under his shiny skin. Edward cautioned him with a look.
Finally, almost regretfully, the soldier said, “Pass on.”
The cart rolled through the gate, over the drained ditch, and through the torn-up ground of the siege lines. Joanna drove with her right hand and held Edward’s hand with her left. She was visibly relieved. His heart still hammered like an Indian drum.
After two miles they said good-bye with decorous handshakes. Her eyes spoke a good deal more intimately. He slung the sacks over his shoulder and watched her turn back along the rough road to Charleston. As they started trudging, Poorly said, “Where we find this colonel of yours?”
“God knows. They say he moves fast as lightning. We’ll ask people and hope they aren’t on the wrong side.”
“Now, George—that is your name, George?”
“Yessir, George my name all right.” The trembling black man could barely speak, which wasn’t surprising, since Edward was pressing the muzzle of a pistol under his chin. They stood in the hot shade at the side of a small barn.
“Where’s your master, George?”
“Squire Wando be in Charleston, hobnobbing with them lordships an’ generals.”
“What we want, George, are two good horses, and saddlery.”
“Then we want you to forget you ever saw us,” Poorly said with a visage so threatening, Edward almost laughed.
“You don’t do that, George, this child will be back to haunt you.”
George showed the pinkish palms of his hands. “Ain’t saying nothing, ever.”
“Any firearms on the property?” Edward asked. “Your master must allow you to protect yourself when he’s away.”
“Got an ol’ fowler. Pretty bad rusted up.”
“My friend here will have that, and some shot, and thank you.” Since Henry Wando was a Tory, Edward had no qualms about stealing from him. The old slave was another matter. “Tell Wando that thieves struck in the middle of the night, while you slept. Or, I can tie you up.”
“No, no, sir, Squire Wando trus’ me. I be all right.”
With the deception agreed upon George helped them select two of the Chickasaw horses from Wando’s pastures. “Mighty fine animals,” he assured them. “Raised up on the limestone water round Eutaw Springs. You ought take this one, sir”—he rubbed the flank of a sorrel mare—“her name’s Brown Eyes. Sweet tempered as an angel, but she run like the devil.”
They rode away from Wando’s farm on two strong mounts. Edward hoped he wasn’t demeaning Joanna by letting the mare’s soulful eyes remind him of hers. He found himself lonely for Willing’s daughter, and for the first time he harbored a fear that something might happen to prevent him from seeing her again.
They passed the night at the ruins of Malvern and in the morning set out to the northeast, through a divided and devastated land.
The countryside swarmed with British regulars and loyalist militia, as well as irregulars who respected no authority but their own. It was impossible to know whether a cabin or plantation was patriot or Tory, and thus better to avoid them all. They stole food where they could and when they couldn’t, they let their bellies growl.
They crossed low sand hills and broad savannahs, skirted marshes and swamps where black gum and cypress grew from the water. Rain fell every day, in one of the wettest Septembers that Edward could recall. Near the Santee they saw a wagon train guarded by redcoats moving on the supply road from Charleston to Camden.
They swung west to avoid Georgetown, known to have a heavy concentration of enemy troops. Turning northeast again, they took the torn-up Post Road that connected Savannah and Boston. Many homeless families camped along it. Few had anything but what they wore and carried.
The land along the Black River, settled mostly by Scotch-Irish Whigs, was a known patriot stronghold. They took a chance and stopped at a small plantation. The master, an Irishman, fed them a meal and surprised them with news of another commander in the field, Col. Thomas Sumter, whose name Edward knew. “Redcoats call him a gamecock ’cause he fights like one.”
“Do you know Colonel Francis Marion?” Edward asked.
“Of Pond Bluff on the Santee. I know him by reputation.”
“They say he’s in the field. We want to find him.”
“Heard he was way north. He moves fast.”
At a puncheon causeway crossing Black Mingo Creek they came on a family of three with a broken axle on their wagon. The bearded father forlornly pointed at a buxom girl sitting on the edge of the causeway talking to herself. She was, Edward guessed, no more than fourteen. He thought of Hamlet’s Ophelia.
“Mind’s gone,” the father said.
Edward took off his old tricorne and wiped his sweaty forehead. “What happened?”
“Partisans. Before they burned our place, the captain ate supper while six of his sons of bitches took Marietta into the pines. I could hear her scream but I couldn’t help her, I was trussed like a hog.” At the mention of it his wife cried. The girl hummed and chattered. A suspicion stirred.
“Did the captain identify himself?”
“Oh, yes, he bragged on his name. William Lark.”
Edward swung up on Brown Eyes. The mare turned her head to acknowledge his presence; they got along splendidly. The father took hold of the bridle.
“Kill some of the bastards, sir. As many as you can.”
“That’s our intention,” Edward said.
Soon after, they veered west again to avoid a column of horses. From a canebrake where they hid under a peach-colored sunset sky, Edward saw the riders clearly. They wore green coats. He wondered if Venables was with them.
Riding toward Lynches River and the Pee Dee beyond, they discovered a horrific burned area ten miles wide. It stretched on and on toward the northern horizon. At a crossroads a man picked through ashes and blackened timbers. He told them he was pastor of the destroyed Presbyterian chapel. “They said it was a sedition shop.”
“Who did this?”
The pastor’s haggard face showed un-Christian bitterness. “Major James Wemyss, under orders from Cornwallis. They had the most specific instructions, which they were pleased to recite repeatedly. ‘Disarm in the most rigid manner all persons who cannot be depended upon, and punish them with total demolition of their property.’ From here up to Cheraw everything’s gone. They broke looms people depend on for a livelihood. They burned gristmills and smithies. They shot milk cows and bayoneted sheep.”
Edward could offer no solace. “Do you have information about Marion? Where he is?”
“We’ve heard North Carolina. White Marsh, the southern reaches of the Waccamaw.”
Edward thanked him. “May God bless you,” the pastor said. “For the moment He has abandoned us.” They left him sta
nding in the black rubble.
They crossed the border into Bladen County and approached White Marsh late one afternoon, through a forest so densely grown with pines and oaks, only chinks of sun showed between the trunks. Mosquitoes whined around their ears. The only other sounds were the slow tread of the horses on matted leaves and pine straw, and the whistling and cawing of unseen birds.
“Never heard so many in one place,” Poorly said, frowning. “Don’t seem quite right.”
They passed under the low limb of an immense live oak. Edward heard the familiar click of a musket cocking. A man hidden in the tree above them said, “Hold your places or breathe your last, boys. Your choice.”
15
Marion
Edward raised his hands. Poorly did the same. The man in the tree sounded like a Carolinian, so Edward said, “We’re searching for Colonel Marion.”
The man in the tree whistled, a perfect imitation of a Carolina wren. A second man, wearing a hunting shirt, jumped down from a water oak to Edward’s right. Brown Eyes shied, then reared as the lookout advanced with his musket. “You found him.”
“We’re Charleston men. We want to volunteer.”
The first sentry scrambled out of the live oak tree. He was fat, and as grubby and ill clad as his younger counterpart. Edward quieted Brown Eyes with stroking and whispering. The heavy man circled around them warily.
“You better be telling the truth, boys. If you ain’t, North Carolina will be your resting place. Samuel, fetch the horses.”
The sentries led them to an encampment on the edge of reedy wetlands. Edward guessed the camp held sixty or seventy men. Most wore homespun. They sat or lay in leantos thatched with palmetto fronds. Details were hard to make out because of fading daylight and thick smoke from smudge fires. The smoke didn’t help much; a deerfly bit Edward’s cheek.
They found Francis Marion by his campfire, munching a roasted sweet potato. The little officer looked as severe as ever. He wore a short red coat, clean and brushed. His infantry sword hung from a tree branch. He listened to the report of the sentries and dismissed them. To Edward he said, “We’ve met before.”
“At Captain McQueen’s in Charleston, sir. My name’s Edward Bell.”
“I remember.” Marion wasn’t unfriendly, though he didn’t accept Edward’s outstretched hand. “We discussed the issue of drinking.”
“Yes, sir. We’ve been hunting for you since we left Charleston almost three weeks ago.”
“If you’d come this way tomorrow, you’d have missed us. We’re moving on. Have you eaten?”
Poorly said, “Not much in the last few days, Colonel.”
“I can offer these.” With a knife he speared two sweet potatoes from a pan. He dropped them on a slab of bark. “Let them cool. Tell me why you want to join us.”
Edward gave a brief but impassioned account of the loss of his mother, and his father’s imprisonment. He described Major Venables’s threat against Tom Bell. “More of Tarleton’s quarter,” Marion said with a chilly smile. “So you broke your parole. If you’re caught, you can be hanged, though in this command we’re all gallows birds.”
“It’s a risk I gladly accept. My colored man as well.”
“All right, but ours isn’t an easy service.” He paced in front of the fire, limping as badly as Edward did. A consequence of his jump from McQueen’s window? “We’re poorly equipped. We have sufficient ammunition only when we steal it. You won’t be paid. The only liquid in your canteen will be water cut with vinegar. The Roman legions marched and conquered the world drinking nothing else.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Find a bit of rag or white cloth. Make cockades for your hats. Then we won’t shoot the wrong men. I enforce strict discipline though not excessive protocol. Our strategy is simple. We fight and run. We ambush when we can. We do not needlessly kill wounded enemies, and if possible, we always leave what Scipio Africanus called a golden bridge of retreat for our enemies. Better that they live to tell of their defeat than die silent. And, the less brutality to our countrymen, the sooner wounds will heal when we win the war. Any questions?”
Edward and Poorly said no.
“Major Horry.” Marion’s summons brought a lanky officer with the look of a beleaguered schoolmaster. Horry took them to a lean-to and introduced them to a four-man mess. He drew Edward aside. “One of our best men died of malaria last week. His musket was immediately taken, but I have his saber. Do you want it?”
“Yes, sir, and thank you.”
“Tend and tether your horses and spread your blankets. Get some rest. You can have the sword in the morning. We break camp at noon.”
They moved south from White Marsh, a double file of unkempt farmers, youths, ex-militia, ex-Continentals, and even a few grandpas. Their weapons were equally ill assorted. One old man showed off a sword made from a plantation wood saw. At first Edward felt uncomfortable wearing a dead man’s saber, but he soon got over it.
At dusk they camped on the Waccamaw near Kingston. Next day they left the sandy road they’d been following. Two local men guided them through the Little Pee Dee Swamp, a place of greenish light and black water with the knees of ancient cypresses rising from it. The guides knew narrow and treacherous pathways. Green herons watched from branches hung with Spanish moss, as though expecting the swamp to swallow the interlopers. Some said the water harbored deadly snakes, but they saw none.
After several miles they jogged into the sunlight, assuming the worst was behind them. Instead, they came to the broad and sunlit Little Pee Dee, swollen and flowing fast because of the rains. Edward and Poorly had crossed the river on a bridge while traveling north. Here there was no bridge, or even a discernible ford; nothing but a deserted boat landing fallen into ruin on the far shore. The officers ordered weapons tied to saddles to keep them dry.
While the column waited, Marion walked into the water leading his horse. The current caught them. Marion clung to the pommel as the water reached his waist, then his chest. Edward’s mouth went dry. For a moment it seemed as though Marion and his horse would be washed downstream, perhaps drowned, but the animal swam strongly, and the colonel hung on. Both emerged dripping on the far bank. Men whistled and cheered.
The first two riders in the column stepped into the stream beside their horses. Poorly looked at Edward. “You all right?”
“I didn’t come this far to drown.” He expressed more confidence than he felt.
When it was their turn, he walked Brown Eyes into the river. Immediately he felt the strength of the rushing current. When the water reached his waist, panic set in. He swallowed and gasped, hanging on to the saddle as Marion had.
He sank deeper. A broken branch sailed under Brown Eyes and tangled his legs. He began to thrash. He almost let go. Brown Eyes snorted and struggled. His mind seemed to blank out as he held fast, trusting the mare. After a seemingly interminable time, he felt mud under his feet.
He staggered up the bank and clung to the old boat landing a moment. He patted the wet mare and praised her. She whinnied and shook herself, showering him. He laughed, a crazy cackle of relief. His heart slowed.
Poorly had no difficulty; he was a powerful, apparently fearless swimmer, much like his horse. When all the column had made the crossing, Major Horry rode up beside Edward. “You looked green out there. Were you in trouble?”
“No, sir,” Edward lied. “It’s just that I never learned to swim.”
He didn’t understand the major’s tight smile until Horry said, “Neither did the colonel.”
They pressed steadily southward. Their crossing of the Pee Dee was accomplished more easily, on flatboats manned by sympathetic locals. At twilight on the fourth day of the march, a party of a dozen scouts met them at Lynches River. Marion and his aides trotted out to confer with them. Edward’s belly was empty. He stank of dirt and sweat. He could do little more than slump in the saddle and close his eyes as a red evening haze deepened around them.
Briskly, Mar
ion rode back and addressed his weary company. “Surprising news. Most of you will remember Colonel John Coming Ball who, along with Colonel Wigfall, forced our retreat into North Carolina.” The names produced an angry reaction. “They had a thousand men to our sixty. Now I’m informed that Ball is camped at the Red House Tavern on Black Mingo Creek, guarding the Post Road with no more than fifty men. It is my inclination to catch them napping, but you have ridden more than thirty miles today. I want your sense of the issue.”
No one spoke immediately. Then a man with long white hair in braids nudged his swaybacked horse from the ranks. “Colonel, sir, this here’s my home county. The redcoats drove me out. I say we take ’em.”
A ragged cry seconded the idea. Edward joined in. Pleased, Marion doffed his black leather cap to salute them; the silver faceplate, Liberty or Death, flashed in the sullen red of the sundown.
“Rest fifteen minutes. Then we ride the final twelve miles. See to your powder and ball.”
The company dispersed. Edward slung a leg over Brown Eyes and slid to the ground, excitement easing his weariness. Poorly scraped Wando’s rusty fowling piece with his fingernail. “Be some blood let tonight.”
Edward pulled his blunderbuss pistols from the saddle holsters. “About time,” he said.
16
Blooded
Loose puncheons on the causeway rattled and banged as Marion’s men galloped across. On the bank of Black Mingo Creek the colonel signaled a halt. Under the white stars a sentinel’s gun exploded in the stillness. Marion spoke softly to the circle of horsemen.
“They know we’re here. The tavern stands on the Post Road, just there, to the west. Behind it lies a field, where I expect Coming Ball is bivouacked. Major Horry, dismount twenty men as infantry and take the right flank, around the building. Captain Waites, dismount another twenty and charge the tavern on my order. Remaining cavalry to the left flank. Questions?”