Rabble in Arms, page 44
“I don’t know,” Verrieul said uneasily. “They’re difficult to deal with, sometimes. Those that captured us have taken a liking to Doc. They want to carry him home with them—and us, too.”
“By Grapes,” Doc protested, “they better leave me be! I can’t stand much from those pole-cats! How was it you said they called themselves? Sox and Pox?”
“Sacs and Foxes,” Verrieul said.
Doc grunted. “I guess there’s no doubt they’re Sacs: Wind-Sacs!” He raised his voice to a mincing mealiness. “Just a lot of Foxes with the hydrophoby! Just a pack of thoughtless, boyish Wind-Sacs!”
Verrieul appealed to me. “I tell you frankly, I do not like the way Doc speaks to these Indians! It is true that my experience with Hurons and Abenakis has so far been pleasant, but I know nothing about Sacs and Foxes, and I prefer to be elsewhere if Doc intends to continue to speak unpleasantly to them. That’s not how Indians like to be addressed. What is more, the Sacs and Foxes live so far to the westward that if we are obliged to go with them, well be old men before we get back—if, indeed, we ever get back!”
I wondered whether fatigue and hunger had unhinged my mind. Not only did Verrieul’s words sound fantastic: not only did the incessant yowling of Indians seem maniacal; but I thought I heard, somewhere near at hand, a woman’s voice: a voice familiar to me. This, I knew, was impossible.
Lanaudiere came back with a slab of venison between two half loaves of bread, and under his arm a bottle of rum. His manner was paternal. “This is the best we have, and I know there is no need to apologize for it—not to gentlemen who have led such precarious lives for so many days!”
The venison was thick and dark red; as soft as cheese; and when we had eaten every last scrap of it and the bread, washing it down with rum and water, I felt almost rested. My muscles still shook with weariness, but my agony of uncertainty over Nathaniel was at last ended—or so I fancied.
He was safe, I said to myself. Nathaniel was safe. There had been no woman’s voice. My wits had been rambling. And then, as though my tongue formed the words independent of my wishes, I found myself saying to Lanaudiere: “I thought I heard a lady’s voice while you were gone. It couldn’t be your niece I heard, surely?”
Lanaudiere smiled. “My dear friend! All your questions will, of course, be answered in due time; but first I hope you will consent to satisfy my own curiosity. We are in the dark, you see.”
I knew, then, that I had heard a woman’s voice, and that it had been the voice of Marie de Sabrevois. Otherwise he would have given me a fair answer. Marie de Sabrevois was with Lanaudiere, among these advance scouts of the British, up to some deviltry or other. It was to her that Lanaudiere had just carried Nathaniel, and my thought was: “God help my brother now!”
“We heard the ships’ guns,” Lanaudiere said, “but we have no definite news yet. I take it your fleet was destroyed?”
I tried to think fast. Lanaudiere had imposed on us: had somehow used us when he landed in America, though I was not certain how he had done it. His niece—if she was his niece—was a spy. A hellcat, Cap Huff had called her. If they could use me again, they would do so, and I had no intention of being used again.
“Destroyed?” I asked. “Why, no! One of our galleys was a little crippled, and we had to run her ashore.”
“One of your galleys!” Lanaudiere cried. “You mean to say we sank only one of your galleys?”
“I don’t believe there was more than one,” I said. “To tell you the truth, after I saw a number of our vessels safely on their way to Crown Point, I paid no more attention to them. There was a good deal to attend to on our own galley.”
Lanaudiere stared up at the roof of the tent and smiled faintly.
“Of course,” I said hastily, “we didn’t much care what happened, since we’d accomplished our object.”
“Indeed!” Lanaudiere said. “And what was that, if it’s not asking too much?”
“I thought everybody knew,” I said. “We only wanted to delay you so your army couldn’t cross the lake this year. That being done, we have no further use for the fleet.”
Doc Means yawned. “There’s been some discussion about auctioning off what’s left of it, on account of not needing it after the 12th. Let’s see: yesterday was the 12th, wasn’t it?”
Lanaudiere stared from one to the other of us with the same faint smile.
“Look here, sir,” I said. “I was captain of the Congress galley. I’ve had about five hours’ sleep in three days, and I need more. I’m a prisoner of war. What are your intentions concerning us?”
“My intentions?” Lanaudiere asked. “My intentions are to send you back to Isle aux Noix under guard until such time as you’re exchanged. Why do you ask?”
“For one thing,” I said, “I know your Indians want to get their fingers on us; and for another thing, our little experience with you last spring has—well—”
I stopped, knowing we were in too delicate a position to be strictly truthful. Lanaudiere helped me out. “You mean you have no confidence in me?”
I nodded.
“My dear sir!” Lanaudiere said. “You must remember several things. I helped you reach America safely with your specie, which you might otherwise have had difficulty in doing. What was more, we were then not actually at war—”
“Do you mean this is the first time you have fought against us?” I asked. “Weren’t you in Quebec last winter, with your niece?”
It was more in the manner of the reticent, self-effacing Mr. Leonard we had first known that he passed over my question. “Surely you’ve heard the old adage to the effect that there are times when all is fair.”
My brain seemed all fog and sawdust. Lanaudiere’s words, the yowling of the Indians, had blank spots in them as waves of sleep washed over me. I could hardly speak for yawning, let alone think.
“My brother—” I said. “You’ll send a letter—they’ll exchange for us—we helped General Arnold—very worried about my brother—”
Lanaudiere took his bearskin from the corner. There was a bed of spruce tips beneath it. “You are troubled by lack of sleep,” he said soothingly. “In the morning these worries will seem like nothing! You shall have my own tent, the three of you, for tonight.”
It was possible, I sleepily realized, that I had misjudged him. He had deceived us and spied on us; but now he was doing his best to be both kind and good.
I tried, in a heavy way, to thank him; but he wouldn’t listen. “There are other tents where I can sleep. Here, it’s merely a matter of posting extra guards.” He absent-mindedly repeated the words “extra guards,” and went out, his bearskin over his shoulder.
With one accord Verrieul, Doc Means and I staggered to the bed of spruce tips. Since I cannot remember how it felt, I think my senses must have left me before my body reached it.
… It was probably not one thing but many that woke me at dawn the next morning—habit, perhaps; or uneasiness about Nathaniel, or hunger, or the stillness of the place, even. In my dreams I had been conscious of the incessant squalling of the Indians; but now I heard nothing but the metallic scream of a jay.
I went to the tent flap and looked out. Two swarthy sentries in buckskin eyed me morosely. The lake, through the trees, was a milky blue in the early morning light; and on it, close to the point, lay a flotilla of canoes, drifting—waiting, evidently, for a leader. They were full of Indians, and so far as I could see, there were no Indians left on the point, though two fires still smoked on the shore.
From the rear of the tent the view was even less encouraging—three other tents with no signs of life, and two more sentries, French Canadians—sullen-looking, pigtailed men. Of Lanaudiere there was no trace.
I woke Verrieul and Doc, and at Verrieul’s polite request, the sentries led us to the lake-shore and glowered at us while we shaved and scrubbed the grime of battle from ourselves as well as we could, considering that we had no soap. We had, in fact, next to nothing, barring the bundles to which Doc had clung through thick and thin. We had no blankets, no hats, no money. Frayed twigs, dipped in salt or ashes or gunpowder, whichever was handiest, served to clean our teeth. Except for the ragged clothes we stood in, and the razors, long knives, spoons and horn cups we carried in our pockets, we were as destitute as mendicants.
I was framing the words I intended to say to Lanaudiere, when Doc moaned. He had discovered Sponge-belly on the bank above us; and since Sponge-belly was joined immediately by his six companions of the day before, I suspected that they had kept watch on us through the night.
They came as close to us as they could; and although their faces were still smeared with black paint, there was no mistaking their expressions. They were benevolent, no doubt of that; and Sponge-belly’s smirk, as he gazed at Doc, was almost silly in its affability.
They had added shirts to their garb of the day before; and although the shirts had once been of different colors—some striped and some checked—they were so daubed front and back with grease, food remnants and traces of paint of every hue that they looked about alike.
When Doc, still groaning, went for his clothes, all seven red men pushed along beside him, grinning, nodding their crested heads, and bringing up guttural retching noises, clearly intended to indicate friendliness and admiration.
Doc’s aversion to these attentions was such that he stuffed his bundles into his smock, gathered up all his clothes, and set off naked for the tent, walking with that wavering, staggering shamble of his. His seven red friends hurried along beside him, regarding him with delight. With them went one of the sentries.
As we hurried into our own poor garments, Verrieul shook his head. “I’ disturbed because they stay here, instead of setting off to the southward with the canoe fleet. When an Indian wants something, he is the most persistent of mortals, and I think it would be well if you saw your friend, Lanaudiere, and asked him to hide Doc from them, before they quarrel over him.”
I, too, wanted to get to Lanaudiere promptly: not only to ensure Doc’s safety, but to learn what had happened to Nathaniel; so I urged Verrieul to ask a sentry where we could find Lanaudiere.
He spoke to one of the French Canadians, who ignored him. He tried again and again, but those sullen, swarthy-faced guards of ours never opened their mouths. Their eyes were blank, like those of a dead cod.
“You can see,” Verrieul said uneasily, “they’ve been ordered not to speak to us.”
My own uneasiness returned a hundredfold. How many times Mr. Leonard, during our short acquaintance, must have deceived us and lied to us! Hand in glove, he had been, with Marie de Sabrevois.
“We’ll go to the tent,” I told Verrieul, pretending a confidence I was far from feeling. “I’ve got to find out about Marie and Ellen Phipps. There must be some way of getting word to Lanaudiere.”
At the tent, Doc was safely under cover. He had tied the flap, and his Indian friends were crowded around the entrance, peeping through the openings.
The voice of Marie de Sabrevois, the night before, had reminded me poignantly of Ellen; and today, for some strange reason, I found the thought of her almost an obsession. The sound of the wind in the leaves, the whispering of the waves of the lake, were surprisingly reminiscent of her voice. The gray of the beech trees was exactly like the gray of the convent dress in which I had first beheld her. I had a singular feeling that she might be near me: twice I looked over my shoulder, I knew not why.
I imagined that I saw a fold of her gray dress protruding from behind one of those gray beech trees. It wasn’t, of course: it was only a shadow on the trunk: a ridge on the bark. I knew it couldn’t possibly be a dress: yet I couldn’t take my eyes from the tree that had played such a trick upon me.
As I watched it, the gray shadow swayed a little. I ran forward, half choked by the pounding of my heart.
To my inexpressible joy it was Ellen! She was waiting behind the tree, her head bent above knitting needles that flashed in and out of gray wool.
We just looked at each other. There was an intent, strained look in her eyes, such as I have seen in the eyes of dumb persons.
One of the sentries, pulling at my arm, gabbled French. Ellen quickly moved between the sentry and me. “Go slowly to the tent,” she told Verrieul. “Then one of these men will have to go with you. The two who remain can’t stop me from talking, and won’t be able to decide what to do.”
She widened her eyes at me, a way of hers that never failed to make my heart skip a beat. “It is disobedient, this that I do, but it was necessary that I should speak with you.”
She was silent again, and again we just looked at each other. Truth to tell, I could not stare enough; for although her brown curls, her brown eyes, her pointed chin had remained in my brain as though etched within it, the image was a pale thing beside the warm and glowing reality.
One of our guards jabbered furiously. Verrieul had gone; and with him, as Ellen had predicted, had gone the third sentry.
Ellen turned on the jabberer. She stamped her foot: stamped it twice, ordering him to be silent. He quailed visibly before her indignation.
She turned her back on the sentries and spoke rapidly to me. “Last night, when Monsieur Lanaudiere brought your brother to my aunt’s tent, I knew you were here. I wished then to see you, knowing your feelings for your brother; but Monsieur Lanaudiere forbade.”
“He’s your aunt’s uncle?”
“No. He’s one of the commanders of the Indians—he and Monsieur Langlade and Monsieur Campbell. He was General Carleton’s aide in Quebec last winter; but when his father-in-law, Monsieur de St. Luc, was captured by General Montgomery and put in prison, Monsieur Lanaudiere was so angry that he took his father-in-law’s place as a leader of Indians.”
“I met him in England,” I said. “I must tell you this. He was with your aunt. She called him her uncle.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Now I must tell you something, too. You were right about my aunt. She is what you said she was.”
When I would have spoken, she stopped me. “Wait! I must tell you how kind she is. In spite of everything, she is kind. I wish you to realize her great kindness, so that you will understand why it is that I have loved her so much.”
“She used you,” I said. “You loved and trusted her, and she took advantage of you. She used you to send messages to Albany. She used you to stab innocent people in the back.”
“I know,” she said. “I wish you to believe that I do not like to be underhanded. What is more, I do not wish to remain longer among people who fight against you and your country. I must tell you how I arrived at that thought. I imagined myself a mother, whose son was marching out with Indians and Germans so to make poor people obey rulers and laws they did not wish to obey. I saw at once that it would be impossible for me to feel pride in what he was doing. Because of that, I shall get away from here whenever I can. I shall go into the colonies—into your colonies.”
“Get away? Are you—”
“What you must understand,” she interrupted, “is that what I did—the taking of letters to Albany, and speaking to my aunt of what I had seen—was done because she was so sweet, always: how could I think she would do what she has done?”
“It’s not necessary for you to explain—”
“Yes, it’s necessary. I can’t be at peace until I hear you admit that I was obliged to trust in her goodness because of her kindness.” Almost wildly, I thought, she persisted. “And she is good! She is good!”
“Ellen,” I said, “what did you mean when you said you’d get away from here whenever you could? You meant your aunt won’t allow you to leave, didn’t you?”
“Listen,” she said earnestly, “I must tell you this: I had a horror last night, when I learned from Monsieur Lanaudiere that you were here—I had a horror you’d be sent away with the Indians: that they’d be permitted to take you.”
“What made you think that, Ellen?”
She shook her head. “I fear for you, always. I imagine the worst. If I hear of a battle, I think always that you’ll be killed: not that you may come out of it unhurt, or only a little wounded.” She put her hand on my arm. “Was it a very terrible bad battle that you’ve been in on the lake?”
“Where would you go in the colonies?” I asked. “You haven’t any relatives, have you?”
“No, I have no relatives. The first time you spoke with me, you told me about your sister Jane.” She shot a quick glance at me and then added hurriedly, “I could make myself useful, and I’m said to have an even disposition. Would your mother find a place for me in your house, do you think?”
I looked around at the sentries. They stood stolidly at my very shoulder. I wanted to kill them—to do anything that would let me be alone with Ellen.
I fumbled for words. “Why,” I said, “my mother—my sisters—they’d be—I mean, they couldn’t—we’d love you—everyone—”
She nodded tranquilly; so I knew she understood; but the knowledge made no easier the choking fullness of my heart.
“Now,” she said, “I’ve saved my best news for the last. When I had a horror for you, I went to Marie at once. As soon as I had told her what was in my mind, she made me a promise. She promised immediately, without a moment’s hesitation, that you would have the best of treatment—you and your brother also. It will be necessary, perhaps, to allow the Indians to take away some prisoners, she said; but not you. They shall not take you or your brother. That shows you how kind she is; how good. She knows you dislike her; and if she wished, she could do you great harm. She has great influence, my aunt has. General Burgoyne sees her often and asks her advice. He thinks highly of her—highly.”
“No doubt he does,” I said. “She seems to have ways of making gentlemen feel indebted to her—Mr. Lanaudiere for one, and my brother for another.”
“Now you’re bitter,” she said. “I ask that you won’t feel bitter—that you’ll forget her political views and think only of her nobility and kindness. You see, she’s too generous to revenge herself on you because you have suspected where her sympathies he; and you have her to thank for your safety.”
