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, toward 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.