9 My Guide

I remember no night in which I saw more misery. The sharpshooters never slept, and the dark seemed to profit them as much as the day. They enveloped the British camp like a swarm of unseen bees, all the more deadly because no man knew where they hovered nor whence nor when the sting would come. Men brave in the day are less brave at night, and every British officer I saw looked worn, and fearful of the future. I confess that I began to grow anxious on my own account, for in this darkness my old Continentals could not serve as a warning that I was no proper target. I have always preserved a high regard for the health and welfare of Richard Shelby, Esq., and I withdrew him farther into the camp. There I saw many wounded and more sick, and but scant means for their treatment. Moreover, the list of both was increasing, and even as I wandered about, the fresh-wounded were taken past me, sometimes crying out in their pain.

There were many who took no part in the fighting—Tories who had come to the British camp with their wives and little children, and the wives of the English and Hessian officers who had come down from Canada with them, expecting a march of glory and triumph to New York. For these I felt most sorrow, as it is very cruel that women and children should have to look upon war. More than once I heard the lamentations of women and the frightened weeping of little children. Sometimes the flaring torches showed me their scared faces. These non-combatants, in truth, were beyond the range of the fire, but the wounded men were always before them.

It was but natural that amid so much tumult and suspense I should remain forgotten. My uniform, dingy in the brightest sun, was scarce noticeable in the half-lit dusk, and I wandered about the camp almost at will. The night was not old before I noticed the bustle of great preparations. Officers hurried about as if time of a sudden had doubled its value. Soldiers very anxiously examined their muskets and bayonets; cannon were wheeled into more compact batteries; more ammunition was gathered at convenient points. On all faces I saw expectation.

I thought at first that some night skirmish was intended, but the bustle and the hurrying extended too much for that. I set about more thorough explorations, and it was easy enough to gather that Burgoyne intended to risk all in a pitched battle on the morrow. These were the preparations for it.

Curiosity had taken away from me, for the moment, the desire to go back to my own people, but now it returned with double force. It was not likely that my warning of the coming battle could be of much value, for our forces were vigilant; but I had the natural desire of youth to be with our own army, and not with that of the enemy, at the coming of such a great event.

But the chance for my return looked very doubtful. Both armies were too busy to pay heed to a flag of truce even if it could be seen in the night.

I wandered about looking for some means of escape to our own lines, and in seeking to reach the other side of the camp passed once more through the space in which the women and children lay. I saw a little one-roomed house, abandoned long since by its owners. The uncertain light from the window fought with the shadows outside.

I stepped to the window, which was open, and looked in. They had turned the place into a hospital. A doctor with sharp instruments in his hand was at work. A woman with strong white arms, bare almost to the shoulder, was helping him. She turned away presently, her help not needed just then, and saw my face at the window.

“Dick,” she said in a tone low, but not too low to express surprise, “why haven’t you returned to the army?”

“Because I can’t, Kate,” I said. “My flag of truce is forgotten, and the bullets are flying too fast through the dark for me to make a dash for it.”

“There should be a way.”

“Maybe, but I haven’t found it.”

“Albert ought to help you.”

“There are many things Albert ought to do which he doesn’t do,” I said.

“Don’t think too badly of him.”

“I think I’ll try to escape through the far side of the camp,” I said, nodding my head in the way I meant to go.

“We owe you much, Dick, for what you have done for us,” she said, “and we wish you safety on that account, and more so on your own account.”

She put her hand out of the window and I squeezed it a little.

Perhaps that was Chudleigh’s exclusive right.

But she did not complain, and Chudleigh knew nothing about it.

The British camp was surrounded, but on the side to which I was now coming the fire of the sharpshooters was more intermittent. It was the strongest part of the British lines, but I trusted that on such account the way for my escape would be more open there. At night, with so much confusion about, it would not be easy to guard every foot. of ground. I walked very slowly until I came almost to the outskirts of the camp; then I stopped to consider.

In the part of the camp where I stood it was very dark. Some torches were burning in a half-hearted fashion forty or fifty feet away, but their own light only made the dusk around me the deeper. I was endeavoring to select the exact point at which I would seek to pass the lines, when some one touched me with light hand upon the shoulder.

I turned my head and saw Albert Van Auken, clad in the same cloak he wore the night he tried to counterfeit his sister. I was about to walk away, for I still felt much anger toward him, when he touched me again with light hand, and said in such a low voice that I could scarce hear:

“I am going to pay you back, at least in part, Dick. I will help you to escape. Come!”

Well, I was glad that he felt shame at last for the way in which he had acted. It had taken him a long time to learn that he owed me anything. But much of my wrath against him departed. It was too dark for me to see the expression of shame which I knew must be imprinted upon his face, but on his account I was not sorry that I could not see it.

He led the way, stepping very lightly, to-ward a row of baggage wagons which seemed to have been drawn up as a sort of fortification. It looked like a solid line, and I wondered if he would attempt to crawl under them, but when we came nearer I saw an open space of half a yard or so between two of them. Albert slipped through this crack without a word, and I followed. On the other side he stopped for a few moments in the shadow of the wagons, and I, of course, imitated him.

I could see sentinels to the right and to the left of us, walking about as if on beats. On the hills, not so very far from us, the camp-fires of the American army were burning.

I perceived that it was a time for silence, and I waited for Albert to be leader, as perhaps knowing the ground better than I. A moment came presently when all the sentinels were somewhat distant from us. He stepped forward with most marvelous lightness, and in a few breaths we were beyond the line of the sentinels. I thought there was little further danger, and I was much rejoiced, both because of my escape and because it was Albert who had done such a great service for me.

“I trust you will forgive me, Albert, for some of the hard words I spoke to you,” I said. “Remember that I spoke in anger and without full knowledge of you.”

He put his fingers upon his lips as a sign for me to be silent, and continued straight ahead toward the American army. I followed. Some shots were fired, but we were in a sort of depression, and I had full confidence they were not intended for us, but were drawn by the lights in the British camp. Yet I believed that Albert had gone far enough. He had shown me the way, and no more was needed. I did not wish him to expose himself to our bullets.

“Go back, Albert,” I said. “I know the way now, and I do not wish you to become our prisoner.”

He would not pause until we had gone a rod farther. Then he pointed toward our camp-fires ahead, and turned about as if he would go back.

“Albert,” I said, “let us forget what I said when in anger, and part friends.”

I seized his hand in my grasp, though he sought to evade me. The hand was small and warm, and then I knew that the deception Albert had practiced upon me a night or so before had enabled Albert’s sister to do the same.

“Kate!” I exclaimed. “Why have you done this?”

“For you,” said she, snatching her hand from mine and fleeing so swiftly toward the British camp that I could not stop her.

In truth I did not follow her, but mused for a moment on the great change a slouch hat, a long cloak, and a pair of cavalry boots can make in one’s appearance on a dark night.

As I stood in the dark and she was going toward the light, I could watch her figure. I saw her pass between the wagons again and knew that she was safe. Then I addressed myself to my own task.

I stood in a depression of the ground, and on the hills, some hundreds of yards before me, our camp-fires glimmered. The firing on this side was so infrequent that it was often several minutes between shots. All the bullets, whether British or American, passed high over my head, for which I was truly glad.

I made very good progress toward our lines, until I heard ahead of me a slight noise as of some one moving about. I presumed that it was one of our sharpshooters, and was about to call gently, telling him who I was. I was right in my presumption, but not quick enough with my hail, for his rifle was fired so close to me that the blaze of the exploding powder seemed to leap at me. That the bullet in truth was aimed at me there was no doubt, for I felt its passage so near my face that it made me turn quite cold and shiver.

“Hold! I am a friend!” I shouted.

“Shoot the damned British spy! Don’t let him get away!” cried the sharpshooter.

Two or three other sharpshooters, taking him at his word, fired at my figure faintly seen in the darkness. None hit me, but I was seized with a sudden and great feeling of discomfort. Seeing that it was not a time for explanations, I turned and ran back in the other direction. One more shot was fired at me as I ran, and I was truly thankful that I was a swift runner and a poor target.

In a few moments I was beyond the line of their fire, and, rejoicing over my escape from present dangers, was meditating how to escape from those of the future, when a shot was fired from a new point of the compass, and some one cried out:

“Shoot him, the Yankee spy! the damned rebel! Don’t let him escape!”

And in good truth those to whom he spoke this violent command obeyed with most alarming promptness, for several muskets were discharged instantly and the bullets flew about me.

I turned back with surprising quickness and fled toward the American camp, more shots pursuing me, but fortune again saving me from their sting. I could hear the Englishmen repeating their cries to each other not to let the rebel spy escape. Then I bethought me it was time to stop, or in a moment or two I would hear the Americans shouting to each other not to let the infernal British spy escape. I recognized the very doubtful nature of my position. It seemed as if both the British and American armies, horse and foot, had quit their legitimate business of fighting each other and had gone to hunting me, a humble subaltern, who asked nothing of either just then but personal safety. Was I to dance back and forth between them forever?

Some lightning thoughts passed through my mind, but none offered a solution of my problem. Chance was kinder. I stumbled on a stone, and flat I fell in a little gully. There I concluded to stay for the while. I pressed very close against the earth and listened to a rapid discharge of rifles and muskets. Then I perceived that I had revenge upon them both, for in their mutual chase of me the British and American skirmishers had come much closer together, and were now engaged in their proper vocation of shooting at each other instead of at me.

I, the unhappy cause of it all, lay quite still, and showered thanks upon that kindly little gully for getting in my way and receiving my falling body at such an opportune moment. The bullets were flying very fast over my head, but unless some fool shot at the earth instead of at a man I was safe. The thought that there might be some such fool made me shiver. Had I possessed the power, I would have burrowed my way through the earth to the other side, which they say is China.

It was the battle of Blenheim, at least, that seemed to be waged at the back of my head, for my nose was pressed into the earth and my imagination lent much aid to facts. I seemed to cower there for hours, and then one side began to retreat. It was the British, the Americans, I suppose, being in stronger force and also more skillful at this kind of warfare. The diminishing fire swept back toward the British lines and then died out like a languid blaze.

I heard the tramp of feet, and a heavy man with a large foot stepped squarely upon my back.

“Hello!” said the owner. “Here’s one, at least, that we’ve brought down!”

“English, or Hessian?” asked another.

“Can’t tell,” said the first. “He’s lying on his face, and, besides, he’s half buried in a gully. We’ll let him stay here; I guess this gully will do for his grave.”

“No, it won’t, Whitestone!” said I, sitting up. “When the right time comes for me to be buried I want a grave deeper than this.”

“Good Lord! is it you, Mr. Shelby?” exclaimed Whitestone, in surprise and genuine gladness.

“Yes, it is I,” I replied, “and in pretty sound condition too, when you consider the fact that all the British and American soldiers in the province of New York have been firing point-blank at me for the last two hours.”

Then I described my tribulations, and Whitestone, saying I should deem myself lucky to have fared so well, went with me to our camp.

►   ▲