Janice Meredith Part 49

x.x.xIII ANOTHER CHRISTMAS PARTY

At the same hour that the Hessians were parading through the village streets a horseman was speeding along the river road on the opposite side of the Delaware. As he came opposite the town, the blare of the hautboys sounded faintly across the water, and he checked his horse to listen for a moment, and then spurred on.

"Ay, p.r.i.c.k up your ears," he muttered to his steed. "Your friends are holding high carnival, and I wonder not that you long to be with them, 'stead of carrying vain messages in a lost cause. But for this d.a.m.ned floe of ice you 'd have had your wish this very night."

A hundred rods brought the rider within sight of the cross-road at Yardley's Ferry, just as a second horseman issued from it. The first hastily unbuckled and threw back his holster flap, even while he pressed his horse to come up with the new arrival; while the latter, hearing the sound of hoofs, halted and twisted about in his saddle.

"Well met, Brereton," he called when the s.p.a.ce between had lessened. "I am seeking his Excellency, who, I was told at Newtown, was to be found at Mackonkey's Ferry. Canst give me a guidance?"

"You could find your way, Wilkinson, by following the track of Mercer's brigade. For the last three miles I could have kept the route, even if I knew not the road, by the b.l.o.o.d.y footprints.

Look at the stains on the snow."

"Poor fellows!" responded Wilkinson, feelingly.

"Seven miles they've marched to-day, with scarce a sound boot to a company, and now they'll be marched back with not so much as a sight of the enemy."

"You think the attack impossible?"

"Impossible!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Brereton. "Look at the rush of ice, man. 'T would be absolute madness to attempt a crossing.

The plan was for Cadwallader's brigade to attack Burlington at the same time we made our attempt, but I bring word from there that the river is impa.s.sable and the plan abandoned. His Excellency cannot fight both the British and such weather."

"I thought the game up when my general refused the command and set out for Philadelphia," remarked Wilkinson.

"Gates is too good a politician and too little of a fighter to like forlorn hopes," sneered Brereton. "He leaves Washington to bear the risk, and, Lee being out of the way, sets off at once to make favour with Congress, hoping, I have little doubt, that another discomfiture or miscarriage will serve to put him in the saddle. If we are finally conquered, 't will not be by defeat in the field, but by the dirty politics with which this nation is riddled, and which makes a man general because he comes from the right State, and knows how to wire-pull and intrigue.

Faugh!"

A half-hour served to bring them to their destination, a rude wooden pier, employed to conduct teams to the ferry-boat.

Now, however, the ice was drifted and wedged in layers and hummocks some feet beyond its end, and outside this rushed the river, black and silent, save for the dull crunch of the ice-floes as they ground against one another in their race down the stream. On the end of the dock stood a solitary figure watching a number of men, who, with pick and axe, were cutting away the lodged ice that blocked the pier, while already a motley variety of boats being filled with men could be seen at each point of the sh.o.r.e where the ground ice made embarkation possible. Along the banks groups of soldiers were cl.u.s.tered about fires of fence-rails wherever timber or wall offered the slightest shelter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Thou art my soldier."]

Dismounting, the two aides walked to the dock and delivered their letters to the commander. Taking the papers, Washington gave a final exhortation to the sappers and miners: "Look alive there, men. Every minute now is worth an hour to-morrow,"

and, followed by Brereton, walked to the ferry-house that he might find light with which to read the despatches. By the aid of the besmoked hall lantern, he glanced hastily through the two letters. "General Gates leaves to us all the honour to be gained to-night. Colonel Cadwallader declares it impossible to get his guns across," he told his aide, without a trace of emotion in his voice, as he refolded the despatches and handed them to him. Then his eye flashed with a sudden exultation as he continued: "It seems there are some in our own force, as well as the enemy, who need a lesson in winter campaigning."

"Then your Excellency intends to attempt a crossing?"

deprecated Brereton.

"We shall attack Trenton before daybreak, Brereton; and as we are like to have a cold and wet march, stay you within doors and warm yourself after your ride. You are not needed, and there is a good fire in the kitchen."

Brereton, with a disapproving shake of his head, stepped from the hallway into the kitchen. Only one man was in the room, and he, seated at the table, was occupied in rolling cartridges.

"Ho, parson, this is new work for you," greeted Brereton, giving him a hearty slap on the shoulder. "You are putting your sulphur and brimstone in concrete form."

"Ay," a.s.sented McClave, "and, as befits my calling, properly combining them with religion."

"How so?" demanded Brereton, taking his position before the fire.

"You see, man," explained the presbyter, "it occurred to me that, on so wet a night, 't would be almost impossible for the troops to keep their cartridges dry, since scarce a one in ten has a proper cartouch-box; so I set to making some new ones, and, having no paper, I'm e'en using the leaves of my own copy of Watts' Hymns."

"A good thought," said Brereton; "and if you will give them to me I will see to it that they be kept dry and ready for use.

Not that they will need much care; there is small danger that Watts will ever be anything but dry."

"Tut, tut, man," reproved the clergyman. "Dry or not dry, he has done G.o.d's work in the past, and, with the aid of Heaven, he'll do it again to-night."

The rumble of artillery at this point warned the aide that the embarkation was actually beginning, and, hastily catching up the cartridges already made, he unb.u.t.toned the flannel shirt he wore and stuffed them in. Throwing his cloak about him, he hurried out.

The ice had finally been removed, and a hay barge dragged up to the pier. Without delay two 12-pounders were rolled upon it, with their complement of men and horses; and, leaving further superintendence of the embarkation to Greene and Knox, Washington and his staff took their places between the guns. Two row galleys having been made fast to the front, the men in them bent to their oars, and the barge moved slowly from the sh.o.r.e, its start being the signal to all the other craft to put off.

The instant the shelter of the land was lost, the struggle with the elements began. The wind, blowing savagely from the northeast, swept upon them, and, churning the river into foam, drove the bitterly cold spray against man and beast. Ma.s.ses of ice, impelled by the current and blast, were only kept from colliding with the boat by the artillerymen, who, with the rammers and sponges of the guns, thrust them back, while the bowsmen in the tractive boats had much ado to keep a s.p.a.ce clear for the oars to swing. To make the stress the greater, before a fifty yards had been compa.s.sed the air was filled with snow, sweeping now one way and now another, quite shutting out all sight of the sh.o.r.es, and making the rushing current of the black, sullen river the sole means by which direction could be judged.

"d.a.m.n this weather!" swore Brereton, as an especially biting sweep of wind and water made him crouch the lower behind his shivering horse.

"Nothing short of that would serve to put warmth into it,"

a.s.serted Colonel Webb. "You 're not like to obtain your wish, Jack, though your cursing may put you where you'll long for a touch of it."

"Thou canst not fright me with threat of h.e.l.l-fire d.a.m.nation on such a night as this, Sam," retorted Brereton.

"Gentlemen," interposed Washington, drily, "let me call your attention to the General Order of last August, relative to profane language."

"Can your Excellency suggest any more moderate terms to apply to such a night?" asked Brereton, with a laugh.

"Be thankful you've something between you and the river, my boy. Twenty-four years ago this very week I was returning from a mission to the Ohio, and to cross a river we made a raft of logs. The ice surged against us so forcibly that I set out my pole to prevent our being swept down the stream; but the rapidity of the current threw the raft with so much violence against the pole that it jerked me out into ten feet of water, and I was like to have drowned. This wind and sleet seem warm when I remember that; and had Gates and Cadwallader been there, the storm and ice of to-night would not have seemed to them such obstacles. 'T was my first public service," he added after a slight pause. "Who knows that to-night may not be my last?"

"'T is ever a possibility," spoke up Webb, "since your Excellency is so reckless in exposing yourself to the enemy's fire."

Washington shrugged his shoulders. "I am in more danger from the rear than from the enemy," he said equably.

"Ay," agreed Jack, "but we fight both to-night. Give us victory at Trenton, and we need not spend thought on Baltimore."

"Congress is too frightened itself--" began Baylor, but a touch on his arm from the commander-in-chief checked the indiscreet speech.

Departure had been taken from the Pennsylvania sh.o.r.e before ten; but ice, wind, and current made the crossing so laborious and slow that a landing of the first detachment was not effected till nearly twelve. Then the boats were sent back for their second load, the advance meanwhile huddling together wherever there was the slightest shelter from the blast and the hail that was now cutting mercilessly. Not till three o'clock did the second division land, and another hour was lost in the formation of the column. At last, however, the order to march could be given, and the twenty-four hundred weary, besoaked, and wellnigh frozen men set off through the blinding storm on the nine-mile march to Trenton.

At Yardley's Ferry the force divided, Sullivan's division keeping to the river turnpike, intending to enter Trenton from the south, while the main division took the cross-road, so as to come out to the north of the town, the plan being to place the enemy thus betwixt two fires.

Owing to the delay in crossing the river, it was daylight when the outskirts of the town were reached, but the falling snow veiled the advance, and here the column was halted temporarily to permit of a reconnoissance. While the troops stood at ease an aide from Sullivan's detachment reported that it had arrived on the other side of the village, and was ready for the attack, save that their cartridges were too damp to use.

"Very well, sir," ordered Washington. "Return and tell General Sullivan he must rely on the bayonet."

"Your Excellency," said Colonel Hand, stepping up, "my regiment is in the same plight, and our rifles carry no bayonets."

"We kin club both them and the Hessians all the same,"

spoke up a voice from the ranks.

"Here are some dry cartridges," broke in Brereton.

"Let your men draw their charges and reload, Colonel Hand,"