CHAPTER XXII
MES ADIEUX
For my acquaintances in and outside of the army, and for my friends andrelatives, this narrative has been written; and if in these pages Ihave seemed to present myself, my thoughts, and behaviour as matters ofundue importance, it is not done so purposely or willingly, but becauseI knew no better method of making from my daily journal the story ofthe times and of the events witnessed by me, and of which I was a smalland modest part.
It is very true that no two people, even when standing shoulder toshoulder, ever see the same episode in the same manner, or draw similarconclusions concerning any event so witnessed. Yet, except fromhearsay, how is an individual to describe his times except in the lightof personal experience and of the emotions of the moment so derived?
In active events, self looms large, even in the crisis of supremeself-sacrifice. In the passive part, which even the most active amongus play for the greater portion of our lives, self is merged in thedetached and impersonal interest which we take in what passes beforeour eyes. Yet must we describe these things only as they are designedand coloured by our proper eyes, and therefore, with no greater hope ofaccuracy than to approximate to the general and composite truth.
Of any intentional injustice to our enemies, their country, and theirred allies, I do not hesitate to acquit myself; yet, because I haverelated the history of this campaign as seen through the eyes of asoldier of the United States, so I would not deny that these same anddaily episodes, as seen by a British soldier, might wear forms andcolours very different, and yet be as near to the truth as anyobservations of my own.
Therefore, without diffidence or hesitation--because I have explainedmyself--and prejudiced by an unalterable belief in the cause which Ihave had the honour and happiness to serve, it is proper that I bringmy narrative of these three months to a conclusion.
With these same three months the days of my youth also ended. Nostripling could pass through those scenes and emerge still immature.The test was too terrible; the tragedy too profound; the very settingof the tremendous scene--all its monstrous and giganticaccessories--left an impression ineradicable upon the soul. Adolescencematured to manhood in those days of iron; youthful ignorance becamestern experience, sobering with its enduring leaven the serious yearsto come.
I remember every separate event after the tragedy of Chenundana, wherethey found me dazed with grief and privation, digging with my brokenhunting knife a grave for my dead companions.
The horror of their taking off passed from my shocked brain as theexigencies of the perilous moments increased, demanding of me constantand untiring effort, and piling upon my shoulders responsibilities thatleft no room for morbid brooding or even for the momentary inaction ofgrief.
From Tioga, Colonel Shreve sent forward to us a wagon train ofprovisions, even wines and delicacies for our sick and wounded; buteven with this slight aid our men remained on half rations; and for allour voluntary sacrifice we could not hope now to reach Niagara anddeliver the final blow to that squirming den of serpents.
True, Amochol was dead; but Walter Butler lived. And there was now nohope of reaching him. Bag and baggage, horse, foot, and Indians, he hadgone clear out of sight and sound into a vast and trackless wildernesswhich we might not hope to penetrate because, even on half rations, wehad now scarcely enough flour left to take us back to the frontiers ofcivilization.
Of our artillery we had only a light piece or two left, and the cohorn;of cattle we had scarcely any; of wagons and horses very few, havingkilled and eaten the more worn-out animals at Horseheads. Only theregimental wagons contained any flour; half our officers were withoutmounts; ammunition was failing us; and between us and our frontiers laythe ashes of the Dark Empire and hundreds of miles of a wilderness sodreary and so difficult that we often wondered whether it was possiblefor human endurance to undergo the endless marches of a safe return.
But our task was ended; and when we set our faces toward home, everyman in our ragged, muddy, brier-torn columns knew in his heart that thepower of the Iroquois Empire was broken forever. Senecas, Cayugas,Onondagas, might still threaten and even strike like crippled snakes;but the Long House lay in ashes, and the heart of every Indian in itwas burnt out.
Swinging out our wings east and west as we set our homeward course,burning and destroying all that we had hitherto spared, purposely or byaccident, we started south; and from the fifteenth of September untilthe thirtieth the only living human being we encountered was the agedsquaw we had left at Catharines.
Never had I seen such a desolation of utter destruction, for amid theendless ocean of trees every oasis was a blackened waste, every townbut a heap of sodden ashes, every garden a mass of decay, rotting underthe autumn sun.
On the 30th of September, we marched into Tioga Fort, Colonel Shreve'scannon thundering their welcome, and Colonel Proctor's artillery bandplaying a most stirring air. But Lord! What a ragged, half-starved armyit was! Though we cared nothing for that, so glad were we to see ourflag flying and the batteaux lying in the river. And the music of theartillery filled me with solemn thoughts, for I thought of Lois and ofLana; and of Boyd, where he lay in his solitary grave under the frostystars.
On the third of October, the army was in marching order once more;Colonel Shreve blew up the Tioga military works; the invalids, womenand children, and some of the regiments went by batteaux; but wemarched for Wyoming, passing through it on the tenth, and arriving atEaston on the fifteenth.
And I remember that, starved as we were, dusty, bloody with briers, andhalf naked, regiment after regiment halted, sent back for their wagons,combed out and tied their hair, and used the last precious cupfulls offlour to powder their polls, so that their heads, at least might make amilitary appearance as they marched through the stone-built town ofEaston.
And so, with sprigs of green to cock their hats, well floured hair, andscarce a pair of breeches to a company, our rascals footed it proudlyinto Easton town, fifes squealing, drums rattling, and all the churchbells and the artillery of the place clanging and booming out a welcometo the sorriest-clad army that ever entered a town since Falstaffhesitated to lead his naked rogues through Coventry.
Here the thanksgiving service was held; and Lord, how we did eatafterward! But for the rest or repose which any among us might havebeen innocent enough to suppose the army had earned, none was metedout. Nenny! For instead, marching orders awaited us, and sufficientclothing to cool our blushes; and off we marched to join HisExcellency's army in the Highlands; for what with the new Spanishalliance and the arrival of the French fleet, matters were now stewingand trouble a-brewing for Sir Henry. They told us that His Excellencyrequired pepper for the dose, therefore had he sent for us to mix usinto the red-hot draught that Sir Henry and my Lord Cornwallis mustpresently prepare to swallow.
I had not had a letter or any word from Lois at Fort Tioga. At Eastonthere was a letter which, she wrote, might not reach me; but in it shesaid that they had taken lodgings in Albany near to the house of LanaHelmer; that Mr. Hake had been more than kind; that she and her dearmother awaited news of our army with tenderest anxiety, but that up tothe moment of writing no news was to be had, not even any rumours.
Her letter told me little more, save that her mother and Mr. Hake hadconferred concerning the estate of her late father; and that Mr. Hakewas making preparations to substantiate her mother's claim to the smallproperty of the family in France--a house, a tiny hamlet, and somevineyards, called by the family name of Contrecoeur, which meant hermother was her father's wedded wife.
"Also," she wrote, "my mother has told me that there are in the housesome books and pictures and pretty joyeaux which were beloved by myfather, and which he gave to her when she came to Contrecoeur, a bride.Also that her dot was still untouched, which, with her legal interestin my father's property, would suffice to properly endow me, and stillleave sufficient to maintain her.
"So you see, Euan, that the half naked little gypsy of Poundridge campcomes not entirely
shameless to her husband after all. Oh, my ownsoldier, hasten--hasten! Every day I hear drums in Albany streets andrun out to see; every evening I sit with my mother on the stoop andwatch the river redden in the sunset. Over the sandy plains of pinescomes blowing the wind of the Western wilderness. I feel its breath onmy cheek, faintly frosty, and wonder if the same wind had also touchedyour dear face ere it blew east to me."
Often I read this letter on the march to the Hudson; ever wondering atthe history of this sweet mistress of my affections, marvelling at itsmystery, its wonders, and eternally amazed at this young girl'scourage, her loyalty and chaste devotion.
I remember one day when we were halted at a cavalry camp, not far fromthe Hudson, conversing with three soldiers--Van Campen, Perry, and PaulSanborn, they being the three men who first discovered poor Boyd'sbody; and then noticed me a-digging in the earth with bleeding fingersand a broken blade.
And they knew the history of Lois, and how she had dressed her inrifle-dress, and how she had come to French Catharines. And they toldme that in the cavalry camp there was talk of a young English girl, notyet sixteen, who had clipped her hair, tied it in a queue, powdered it,donned jack-boots, belt, and helmet, and come across the seas enlistedin a regiment of British Horse, with the vague idea of seeking herlover who had gone to America with his regiment.
Further, they told me that, until taken by our men in a skirmish, herown comrades had not suspected her sex; that she was a slim, boyish,pretty thing; that His Excellency had caused inquiry to be made; andthat it had been discovered that her lover was serving in Sir John'sregiment of Royal Greens.
This was a true story, it seemed; and that very morning His Excellencyhad sent her North to Haldimand with a flag, offering her everycourtesy and civility and recommendation within his power.
Which pretty history left me very thoughtful, revealing as it did to methat my own heart's mistress was not the solitary and bright exceptionin a sex which, like other men, I had deemed inferior in every virileand mental virtue, and only spiritually superior to my own. And Iremembered the proud position of social and political equality enjoyedby the women of the Long House; and vaguely thought it was possiblethat in this matter the Iroquois Confederacy was even more advanced incivilization than the white nations, who regarded its inhabitants asdebased and brutal savages.
In three months I had seen an Empire crash to the ground; already inthe prophetic and visionary eyes of our ragged soldiery, a mightierempire was beginning to crumble under the blasts from the blackenedmuzzles of our muskets. Soon kings would live only in the tales ofyesterday, and the unending thunder of artillery would die away, andthe clouds would break above the smoky field, revealing as our very ownall we had battled for so long--the right to live our lives in freedom,self-respect, and happiness.
And I wondered whether generations not yet born would pay to us thenoble tribute which the sons of the Long House so often and reverentlyoffered to the dead who had made for them their League of Peace--alas!now shattered for all time.
And in my ears the deep responses seemed to sound, solemnly and low, asthe uncorrupted priesthood chanted at Thendara:
"Continue to listen, Thou who wert ruler, Ayonhwahtha! Continue to listen, Thou who wert ruler, Shatekariwate!
This was the roll of you, You who have laboured, You who completed The Great League!
Continue to listen, Thou who wert ruler, Sharenhaowane! Continue to listen, Thou who wert ruler--"
And the line of their noble hymn, the "Karenna": "I come again to greetand thank the women!"
Lord! A great and noble civilization died when the first cancerouscontact of the lesser scratched its living Eastern Gate.
* "Hiya-thondek! Kahiaton. Kadi-kadon."
[* "Listen! It is written. Therefore, I speak."]
My commission as lieutenant in the 6th company of Morgan's Riflesafforded me only mixed emotions, but became pleasurable when Iunderstood that staff duty as interpreter and chief of Indian guidespermitted me to attach to my person not only Mayaro, the MohicanSagamore, but also my Oneidas, Grey-Feather and Tahoontowhee.
Mounted service the two Oneidas abhorred, preferring to trot along oneither side of me; but the Sagamore, being a Siwanois, was a horseman,and truly he presented a superb figure as the handsome General and hisstaff led the New York brigade into the city of Albany, our batteredold drums thundering, our fifes awaking the echoes in the old Dutchcity, and our pretty faded colors floating in the primrose light ofearly evening.
Right and left I glanced as we rode up the hilly street; and suddenlysaw Lois! And so craned my head and twisted my neck and fidgeted thatthe General, who was sometimes humorous, and who was perfectlyacquainted with my history, said to me that I had his permission toride standing on my head if I liked, but for the sake of militarydecency he preferred that I dismount at once and make my mannersotherwise to my affianced wife.
Which I lost no time in doing, not noticing that my Indians werefollowing me, and drew bridle at the side-path and dismounted.
But where, in the purple evening light, Lois had been standing on herstoop, now there was nobody, though the front door was open wide. So Iran across the street between the passing ranks of Gansevoort'sinfantry, sprang up the steps, and entered the dusky house. Through thetwilight of the polished hallway she came forward, caught me around theneck with a low cry, clung to me closer as I kissed her, holding to mein silence.
Outside, the racketting drums of a passing regiment filled the housewith crashing echoes. When the noise had died away again, and the drumsof the next regiment were still distant, she loosened her arms,whispering my name, and framing my face with her slim hands.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of three tall andshadowy figures hovering in the doorway. Lois saw them, too, andstretched out one hand. One after another my three Indians came to her,bent their stately crests in silence, took her small hand, and laid iton their hearts.
"Shall I bid them to dine with us tomorrow?" she whispered.
"Bid them."
So she asked them a trifle shyly, and they thanked her gravely, turnedone by one to take a silent leave of me, then went noiselessly out intothe early dusk.
"Euan, my dear mother is awaiting you in our best room."
"I will instantly pay my duties and----"
"Lana is there also."
"Does she know?"
"Yes. God help her and the young thing she has taken to her heart. Thenews came by courier a week ago."
"How he died? Does she know?"
"Oh, Euan! Yes, we all know now!... I have scarce slept since I heard,thinking of you.... When you have paid your respects to my mother andto Lana, come quietly away with me again. Lana has been weeping--whatwith the distant music of the approaching regiments, and the memory ofhim who will come no more----"
"I understand."
She lifted her face to mine, laying her hands upon my shoulders.
"Dost thou truly love me, Lois?" I asked.
* "Sat-kah-tos," she murmured.
[* "Thou seest."]
* "Se-non-wes?" I insisted.
[* "Dost thou love?"]
* "Ke-non-wes, O Loskiel." Her arms tightened around my neck, "Ai-hai!Ae-saya-tyen-endon! Ae-sah-hah-i-yen-en-hon----"
[* "I love thee, O Loskiel... Ah, thou mightest have been destroyed! Ifthou hadst perished by the wayside----"]
"Hush, dearest--dearest maid. 'Twixt God and Tharon, nothing can harmus now."
And I heard the faint murmur of her lips on mine:
"Etho, ke-non-wes. Nothing can harm us now."
THE END
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