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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78480 ***
+
+                       A BATTLE PIECE
+
+                      By Ernest Haycox
+
+              Author of “With Grape and Bayonet,”
+                    “A Cup of Sugar,” etc.
+
+
+It was late on the night of August 26, 1776. The sun had set blood red
+beyond the Jersey palisades, touching, as it dipped, the British ships
+in New York harbor. The nine thousand Continentals camped on Brooklyn
+Heights, with their backs to the East River and their gun muzzles
+pointed toward the rugged hills which masked Flatbush, wondered where
+Howe kept himself and wished for the actual presence of Washington.
+
+“Old Uncle Putnam!” grumbled the spruce Marylanders. “Galloping around
+here in his shirt sleeves and a dirty leather jacket. A ---- New England
+farmer. A very fine appearing gentleman, indeed. Why doesn’t Washington
+put a military man in command of the Long Island troops?”
+
+In this impatient mood they scanned the line of hill and timber before
+them. Through that dark mass were scattered their outposts and beyond
+it somewhere Howe moved his twenty thousand troops--of which number a
+great many were veterans of the continent--and waited for a chance to
+fling them against the rebellious Americans in the first open and
+pitched battle of the revolution.
+
+“Why won’t he come and fight it now?” fretted the Marylanders. “Why
+won’t Washington force him? Why don’t we fight?”
+
+High-strung men, these sons of planters and Baltimore shopkeepers; proud
+but green troops who did not yet know what iron discipline or patient
+waiting meant.
+
+“Howe’s afraid,” said the New Englanders posted in the distant timbered
+defiles. “He’s remembering Bunker Hill and he wants to take his time.
+But why don’t they bring up reinforcements? We can’t hold these passes
+against the whole British army. Where is Washington?”
+
+If they thought the commander-in-chief slept and forgot them they were
+mistaken. Washington stood in New York town and stared across the black
+tide of the East River; watching anxiously, knowing that the odds were
+heavy against the untenable position over there; knowing, too, that his
+general had not fully comprehended the spirit of his orders.
+
+His last injunction to Putnam had been, “Keep an eye on the Jamaica
+road. I fear your main trouble will be from that quarter.” He had
+personally supervised the placing of the troops on Long Island. He
+himself had seen to the disposition of trenches on the Heights and
+had even gone so far as to pace off a distance of ten yards in front
+of these trenches. “Do not waste powder. If attacked, wait until the
+enemy is within this space before firing.” He, too, had placed the
+outposts in the two defiles of the broken hills; one on the
+southwestern end and one in the center. By these two passes only
+could Howe penetrate the jungle of brush, marsh and sharp inclines.
+But there was another road to the northeast which skirted the range
+entirely--the Jamaica highway. And Washington had repeated again,
+“Keep a sharp lookout along that road.”
+
+Old Israel Putnam, a doughty, courageous veteran of the French and
+Indian campaigns, gaily agreed and rode away as if he were on a holiday.
+To fight was his business and if he found the enemy he would engage.
+Meanwhile, like a jolly old uncle he circulated among his soldiers quite
+as if he were at a town meeting.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sergeant Abner Cotton led his detail back through the dark, answered the
+challenge of the sentry and trudged toward the general’s tent. There was
+no formality about speaking with Putnam. One private supposedly stood
+guard at the door but Putnam, hearing the sergeant’s voice, boomed out--
+
+“Ne’mind that horseplay! Come in, sonny, come in!” Sergeant Cotton
+entered, saluted and stood straight.
+
+“What’s the story, sonny?”
+
+“I went as far as ordered, sir, and saw nothing. Another patrol passed
+me on the Jamaica road but the sergeant in charge said he’d found
+nothing suspicious either.”
+
+“All right, sonny. Guess you’ve done your night’s work. Meanwhile your
+company’s moved out to the hills, so you just fall in with the nearest
+outfit--that will prob’ly be the Maryland boys.”
+
+Cotton saluted and started to leave; Putnam held him with a gesture and
+looked at the young man’s face as if he were reading a book. There could
+be no mistaking the nativity of Abner Cotton. Yankee awkwardness and
+Yankee conscience were stamped plainly on his features. His nut-brown
+cheeks were almost cadaverous and a kind of parsimony of flesh was
+evident from head to foot; he was, in fact, bony and march-worn. When he
+moved, it needed no second glance to place him as one who had worked
+hard all his life and in consequence had learned to husband his efforts.
+The illusion was further sustained by a thin-lipped mouth that appeared
+to be keeping in attempted speech. All in all, it made the man seem a
+little grim, a trifle dour, a shade hard-bitten; as if living had been
+none too easy and as if there were nothing much to laugh about in a
+toilsome world. But the eyes told another story. They were veritable
+mirrors of the man’s conscience.
+
+“Sonny,” said Putnam, worrying a quill pen in his chubby fist, “your
+face does look f’miliar. What’s name?”
+
+“Cotton, sir.”
+
+The general’s face lighted with a rare, beaming smile.
+
+“Thought so. Know your Paw. Carried a fowling piece with him in Canada
+years ago. Good heart, good mind--Cotton’s, I mean.”
+
+He nodded.
+
+Sergeant Cotton retreated to his detail, dismissed them and made his way
+slowly to the foremost fires which danced fitfully and brilliantly
+behind the rough earthworks. One particular blaze seemed less crowded
+than the others and he advanced to it. Within ten yards a remark floated
+out to him:
+
+“There’s a ---- Yankee now, in a regular Yankee suit of clothes. Good
+----, don’t they know how to dress?”
+
+His head was bent a little in reflection and so none could see the
+slight change of features. He passed the remark by as if he had been
+oblivious to it and advanced to the heat. The Marylanders regarded
+him in a speculative, disapproving silence. One gave way a little to
+admit him; he sat down and looked into the flames, offering nothing
+by way of greeting. He was more or less familiar with these proud,
+high-spirited Southerners, their fine manners and their well-kept
+buff-and-blue uniforms; he knew them to be prejudiced against
+anything savoring of New England. He knew they looked upon him as
+almost an alien. Perhaps if he could speak well he might mingle with
+these men, make them see that although he came from another province
+he was as they were. Clothes made no difference. They had ruffles on
+their shirts and their buttons were bright and their gaiters clean.
+He had no ruffles at all and no gaiters covered his homespun socks
+and cowhide shoes.
+
+But they were all fighting for the same end. Moreover that fight had
+begun--and he felt a mild touch of pride in the fact--on Yankee soil.
+It was New England who first had shown her stiff backbone and given
+the other colonies the tempo of American humor. But, though he thought
+it, he could not say it. The words were landlocked; he had spent too
+many years at sober communion to change style now. So he kept his eyes
+lowered, listening to the idle talk around him.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Sure’s my name is Alex Carroll, if we don’t fight soon I’ll walk home.
+I came to tote a gun, not a shovel. Let the ---- Yankees dig ditches.
+They do it so well.”
+
+A silence pervaded the circle. Sergeant Cotton would not take notice
+of them and presently the talk flowed again. Then he spent a brief
+glance around him. Handsome, flushed faces. All full of plain
+courage, all sighing for glory. But of other and more sober virtues,
+he told himself, perhaps he knew more. The same drawling voice broke
+in:
+
+“Putnam! A fine general to command a Southern brigade. Man likes to
+feel at home under his commanding officer. For me, I need a Southern
+gentleman to give me orders. Sure’s my name’s Alex Carroll, I’ll not
+abide the word of a New Englander.”
+
+Sergeant Cotton’s fine eyes were lighted with trouble. He seemed
+struggling with his conscience, as perhaps he had been doing all his
+life. At last his mild voice, waiting for a lull in the talk, broke
+in, hesitant but free from embarrassment.
+
+“Guess you’ll find some New Englanders that know about war.”
+
+The circle turned upon him, voicing their hereditary antagonism. Carroll
+swooped down with a single, malicious--
+
+“Who?”
+
+Sergeant Cotton ventured to put up his own general’s name.
+
+“Putnam knows enough to win battles.”
+
+A howl of scorn overwhelmed him. The Marylanders rent “Uncle Putnam” in
+a dozen shreds.
+
+“He looks like a village blacksmith, not a soldier,” added Carroll.
+
+“Clothes, now,” ventured the sergeant, “do they make a fighting man?”
+
+“There are certain elements of military discipline and appearance that
+go with general officers,” stiffly admonished Carroll. “If they have not
+dignity and command, how can they inspire their subordinates?”
+
+Cotton was imperturbable. He seemed to be searching himself to find
+the proper words, to gain these men over by the use of a mild
+reasonableness.
+
+“He was good enough at Bunker Hill,” he reminded them. “Right smart
+amount of New Englanders there. Guess they did a little fighting.
+Seemed so to me.”
+
+That silenced most, but not Alex Carroll the impatient, the scornful.
+
+“Good ----! Must we be forever hearing about Bunker Hill? They talk as
+if it was the only battle under heaven. Why did you break and run when
+you had the British twice beaten and disorganized?”
+
+Sergeant Cotton’s eyes were half closed; he seemed to be reviewing
+the memorable struggle in which he had played a part at the immortal
+redoubt.
+
+“Powder and shot. Can’t fight without ammunition or parry a bayonet with
+a gun butt.”
+
+“So? Maryland men, had they been there, would have died to the last
+private before quitting that hill!”
+
+The resounding sentence met with the circle’s manifest approval. Alex
+Carroll raised his head, flushed by the sounding oratorical blast.
+
+Sergeant Cotton’s ancestry permitted him a dry, wintry smile. It
+skittered over his face and vanished.
+
+“Guess you’ll most all have a chance to do that before this war’s over,”
+said he and drew within his shell.
+
+He had done an undue amount of talking and he had not succeeded. He
+could not find the words that would touch them; he could not penetrate
+that fraternity of spirits and he felt a little lonely, a little
+disappointed. Brotherhood was a very real thing to Cotton; he believed
+in it with a stronger faith than he believed in anything else, saving
+only everlasting salvation. He would have made a great many sacrifices
+to show these Southerners that he, as a New Englander, was a man of
+their own stamp and standing, possessing their own optimisms and
+follies. He wanted to vindicate his people; he wanted sorely to do his
+mite to ease a little of that antagonism and prejudice which existed
+so heartily in America. And he wanted, in his wistful way, to join
+that cheerful camaraderie. But he was a mute instrument; regretfully
+he thought of precious pen and ink. He wanted to inscribe in his
+neglected diary--he had not written in it for five days--that which he
+could not put in speech.
+
+Alex was again speaking.
+
+“As for me, I will never believe New Englanders make good fighters. They
+lack spirit. ----, they’ve no dash! They go at a battle as if it were a
+job in ditch digging. It stands to reason that a people so accustomed to
+spade and ax lack the flame that goes with good soldiers. My name’s not
+Alex Carroll if I ever let one give me orders.”
+
+The fire veered and spent a momentary gleam upon Sergeant Cotton and
+upon the narrow red flannel tabard pinned to his shoulder which
+indicated his rank. Once more had Carroll arrived at a challenge and
+once more did the circle wait. Sergeant Cotton’s sturdy democracy,
+of the same part and parcel as old General Putnam’s, spoke forth.
+
+“Guess I’ll never ask a man to do anything I’d be afraid or unwilling
+to do,” said he with just a shade more than the usual vigor. “But if
+he doesn’t do it then I shall name him a coward.”
+
+The camp fires along the Heights flickered and died. Most of the men
+were rolled in their blankets and sleeping under the open sky. A few
+of the more suspicious or forehanded kept the blanket rolled and
+ready, themselves stretched by the flames, dozing lightly. Sergeant
+Cotton sat cross-legged and communed with himself, now staring at the
+orange point of the seeking blaze, now watching the star-scattered
+heavens. His eyes, so perfectly mirroring the inner man, were a
+little sad. He had tried very hard to join this circle of men. In his
+own quiet fashion he admired their dash and their gallantry. His own
+manner was so different.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Howe, the ever-cautious, at last satisfied himself of the enemy’s
+position and under cover of the night set in motion the ranks and
+columns of the twenty thousand. There were only three routes of
+advance upon the American position; he dispatched Grant and a brigade
+of Highlanders to push through the southwestern gap; De Heister and
+the Hessians moved directly onward to the central pass; while he,
+himself, with the main body, pressed onward over the Jamaica road.
+Thus did the British army advance upon the dark woods in three
+separate columns. It was half a night’s journey and the trampling
+feet sent clouds of summer’s dust rolling over farmer’s hedges and
+rosebushes while accouterments clinked and bayonets gleamed. But Long
+Island was Tory and no word or suspicion of their progress was
+heralded until, in the early morning, Grant’s Highlanders met the
+American pickets at the southwestern pass and set up a skirmishing,
+tentative fire.
+
+It was three o’clock when a messenger from the outpost made the three
+miles back to Putnam’s tent on Brooklyn Heights. He dropped off his
+horse with a weary gesture that was meant to be, but was not, a
+salute.
+
+“Captain Ord begs to report, sir, that the enemy has advanced and opened
+fire. Very heavy force, and it sounds like it might be a general attack.
+Our line has retreated to heavier timber.”
+
+Sergeant Abner Cotton, still sitting cross-legged by the fire, saw them
+waiting for further sounds. He heard snatches of talk among the staff
+officers--
+
+“Howe may be over there--sounds like attack in force, all right--but the
+left flank?”
+
+Putnam was impatient; he made a pretense of listening for warning in
+another quarter. Washington had warned him of the exposed Jamaica
+road. But there was action ensuing in the southwest, and where powder
+burned the stanch old warrior was reluctant not to join the issue.
+Nothing indicated that the enemy was anywhere save in the southwest.
+On that basis he made his decision.
+
+“General Stirling, take the Delaware and Maryland battalions and support
+the pass to the southwest.”
+
+Abner Cotton rose and inspected his gun. Presently the drums rolled and
+the cry went down the line.
+
+“Marylanders, roll out, roll out! We’re going to march! Roll out, roll
+out!”
+
+The sergeant leaned on his weapon and waited for formation. Uncle Putnam
+was pacing back and forth like an impatient mastiff. He saw his scout
+and came up.
+
+“Now take care of yourself, sonny.”
+
+The sergeant saluted gravely, fell in, and marched through the darkness.
+
+The firing that came out of the southwest seemed to advance on
+successive waves, rising and falling, running in ragged volleys and
+in sharp, explosive detonations. The column fell over the hill and
+groped along an uncertain road. Up at the head of the line a cry was
+picked up and carried on.
+
+“Watch out for horsemen! Make way to the right!”
+
+They grudgingly relinquished the road for the uncertainties of marsh
+land. Three riders came by at a gallop. Questions were flung after
+them and a shouted, unintelligible answer was returned.
+
+Sergeant Abner Cotton stumbled in the file-closers as they descended
+the hill and crossed the lone bridge over Gowanus creek. The column
+swung sharply to the southwest with the Delawares under Colonel Haslet
+in the lead and the Marylanders following. To a man they were
+jubilant. They sang, they swore, they laughed hilariously. After all
+the weary weeks of waiting they were going into battle. Moreover, they
+were going into battle under a Southern general and a man who boasted
+being a Scottish lord. Fit commander for proud troops. If they did not
+distinguish themselves this coming day, then let Maryland never again
+claim them as sons. Somebody crooned a melody and in a moment the line
+broke into song.
+
+“Stop that singing, men. Want to draw the whole British army down on us?
+Close up--close up! We’ve got a long ways to go.”
+
+The singing subsided amid muttered rebellion.
+
+“Sure’s my name’s Alex Carroll, I’ll not vote for Ben Marshall as
+captain next company election. He’s too strict to suit me.”
+
+“Well, old horse, we’re going to fight for a change. How’s that suit
+your liver? Bet you wish Polly Mellis could see you now.”
+
+“That’s what we came for, wasn’t it? Let the New Englanders dig
+ditches.”
+
+“Hurrah for Baltimore, boys! Guess the old town’ll hear something soon
+enough.”
+
+“Well, anyway, the general had sense enough to pick out fighting troops
+to take care of the heavy work. Wonder if we’re goin’ to have the honor
+of whipping the whole British army on Long Island?”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sergeant Cotton was silent. In all the extravagant, boisterous speech
+he caught the twang of nervousness, the note of anxiety. They spoke a
+little too loud and their laughter was pitched in an abnormally treble
+key. He contrasted these fellows with his comrades who had stood behind
+the redoubt at Bunker Hill and watched the flashing, close-ordered line
+of British bayonets advance up the incline. They had not jested to hide
+their nervousness. They had not been ashamed of that nervousness, even
+though they were starting a great war and knowing that if they failed
+they were all doomed to hang, as traitors to the English king. They had
+been deadly sober when face to face with death. And they had fought as
+well as men can fight.
+
+The column passed into the woods. The gravel crunched under their feet.
+Accoutrements clacked and swished. They had worn off a little of their
+vigor and for a half hour, and then another half hour, slogged along,
+nearly silent.
+
+“Close up, men! Close up!”
+
+“You’d think, by ----, we were on the drill ground,” muttered Alex
+Carroll. “Ain’t that fool got anything better to think of than ‘close
+up?’”
+
+The sound of firing grew stronger in the cool air. A rooster crowed for
+the morning and a light flared in a farmhouse window, winking through
+the trees. A draught of wind struck Sergeant Cotton. The night shadows
+were dissolving into the first false dawn. He saw the tree-tops against
+the sky and found them parting to admit the road as it slashed through
+the hills. Suddenly the firing bore down on them from ahead. The column
+came to a halt while one of the lonely pickets who had borne the brunt
+of the first attack filtered through the brush.
+
+The Marylanders were uneasy.
+
+“What’re we stopping for? This ain’t no place to leave a column. Might
+be ambushed.”
+
+The picket laughed.
+
+“Glad to see you boys come. They ain’t in the woods. They’re out on the
+far side of a meadow, poppin’ away like it was target practice. Ain’t
+moved ten feet forward all night. Noise and bluster, but no real attack.
+Wait ’till morning comes and then you’ll see fighting.”
+
+“That isn’t far off,” said a Marylander. “I’m right curious to see how
+this gun shoots.”
+
+“Guess you’ll find that out, too,” prophesied the picket. “You Southern
+boys been wantin’ to fight. Sure get a belly full of it before sundown.
+Mark my word.”
+
+A Maryland corporal was thinking of grand tactics.
+
+“This may be a feint to draw us away from the main point of attack.
+Sounds queer to me they don’t push forward.”
+
+“Why, you don’t figure we’re bein’ led away from the hot work?”
+
+“Either that,” replied the corporal darkly, “or else they mean to crush
+us from the side.”
+
+“Shut up, Cæsar, and keep your commentaries for the barracks room.”
+
+The column dissolved and fell wearily against the banks of the defile.
+Horsemen galloped to and fro and at each such excursion Alex Carroll
+and his compatriots grew more and more fretful. They didn’t mind hot
+work, they opined, but it was ---- uncomfortable, this feeling around
+in the dark like a troop of gray ghosts playing tag.
+
+“Where’s the general? Hope he didn’t go back to the Heights and leave
+us.”
+
+“Say! He wouldn’t do that! He’s taking a little reconnaissance of the
+ground.”
+
+“Boys, it’s going to be a dreadful hot day. I can smell it in the air.”
+
+It promised as much. Sergeant Cotton, serenely watching the light
+arrive, felt the breeze turn warmer on his cheeks. The stars grew
+dimmer. It left him with a small regret until he saw newer beauties
+in the August woods.
+
+The column cocked its ear. There was a roar and a plunk, followed by a
+spray of earth and leaves nearby. Within the minute a second and closer
+geyser baptized the foremost Marylanders. Grant had opened his cannons
+as a prelude to the dawn.
+
+“Fall in! fall in! Hurry up, men, we’ve got to get out of here!”
+
+“I should think so,” muttered Alex Carroll. “If I’m going to get shot
+I’d at least want to see the enemy.”
+
+“Close up!”
+
+Sergeant Cotton felt like a veteran. He echoed the command down the
+column.
+
+“Close up!”
+
+The reaction from Carroll was immediate.
+
+“You ---- New Englander, keep your orders for your own kind. Don’t ever
+attempt to shout me around.”
+
+“Tain’t no time to be quarreling. Do as you’re told and keep your eyes
+to the front.”
+
+They debouched swiftly from the defile and found themselves deploying
+on a sloping meadow. The Delaware men were already stretched in close
+lines on the ground and Maryland followed suit. Stirling and his men
+marched up and down the front, encouraging them by example. A compact,
+ruddy fellow was Stirling, fond of pleasure; a stubborn, capable
+fighter who had yet not quite emancipated himself from the drill book.
+Grant’s Highlanders, across the meadow, were under the cover of trees.
+Stirling counseled his soldiers and kept them in formation on the open
+ground.
+
+“Don’t break, boys. Keep elbow to elbow, fire slow and look for your
+man. Never mind shelter. Let the other fellow do that. We’re fighting
+continental style now and not Indian bushwhacking.”
+
+The cannonading continued in full force, a full-throated monotony of
+booming that battered away at the ear drums for an hour and more as the
+sun rose behind a bank of heat clouds. The musket balls came through the
+air with a peculiar sighing sound--_wheeee--wheeee_. Marylanders cursed
+the noise and inevitably ducked their heads.
+
+“Sounds like a cussed bee bothering around,” explained Alex Carroll.
+“You ain’t exactly afraid of a bee, but nevertheless you’re careful.”
+
+“Ah,” murmured the man to his right. Carroll turned curiously and found
+a blank, dead face staring at him.
+
+Sergeant Cotton, kneeling in the grass, saw a line of skirmishers pop
+out of the woods, zigzag a hundred feet and drop. The Marylanders opened
+a more vigorous fire. The powder stung Sergeant Cotton’s nostrils.
+
+“Aim low,” he counseled. “You’re shooting too high. Make the bullets
+plough the ground. That’s the thing to get the nerves.”
+
+Alex Carroll turned stubbornly.
+
+“Guess I can fight without help.”
+
+“Looks like we’ll need all the help we can get,” replied the sergeant.
+“Especially the Lord’s.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The advanced line of Highlanders were finding better marks. The puffs
+of powder ballooned up from their line. Another wave of skirmishers
+moved out stolidly, reached the hundred-yard mark and faded in the
+grass, whereupon the first set rose and trudged to the protection of
+a rail fence. Stirling brandished his sword.
+
+“See, they don’t dodge and scurry. Show ’em we’re of the same metal.
+Don’t waste the powder. Wait until they come in full force.”
+
+Into the mêlée, which was as yet only a minor engagement, arrived the
+witness of another struggle in progress northward. The rolling report of
+musketry reverberated over the meadows and the oak copses, punctuated by
+the steady assault and reply of cannons. A murmur of wonder ran along
+the line of Marylanders, marked by uneasiness.
+
+“Who’s that? Somebody trying to flank us? Good ----, let’s get up and
+have this over with.”
+
+“Cæsar, your prognostication seems dead right.”
+
+“But what is it?” muttered another, screwing his flint tighter in the
+socket. “Are we to be clamped between a vise, or is the real battle to
+be up there?”
+
+_Wheeeeee!--Wheeeee!----_
+
+“---- that bee!” broke out Alex Carroll. “Does a man never get over the
+eternal habit of ducking.”
+
+“It doesn’t take long,” advised Sergeant Cotton comfortingly. “Comes a
+time when you can hear a tune in that noise.”
+
+“A devilish tune.”
+
+The echoing reports northward burst into unprecedented fury. The sky
+seemed rent by the belching of the heavy guns. The sun broke through
+the heat clouds in a blood-red aura. It seemed to be a signal; or
+more likely the noise of the not far distant engagement was the
+signal. At any rate, a fresh line of skirmishers broke out of the
+woods and found their position. Then, behind them, advancing in
+splendid order, bayonets flashing, drums rolling, bagpipes skirling,
+came the main body of Grant’s Highlanders with their kilts riffling
+against their knees. Stirling’s men dug in their heels and prepared
+for heavy work. A continuous rattle of musketry ran down the line.
+
+Sergeant Cotton felt the heat of the oppressive day. The sweat rolled
+over his nut-brown face and the chaff of the meadow grass crept down
+his neck. It was desperate work in the meadow and he wondered that men
+could keep their heads amid such a clamor. He wistfully thought of the
+bracing air and serenity of his own native State and lined up his
+sights on an advancing kilt. There were gaps in the Maryland ranks.
+Alex Carroll fought, a dead man on either side. Sergeant Cotton edged
+up to his erstwhile antagonist and the two blazed away alternately,
+each announcing the man he meant to take.
+
+“----, I’m thirsty!” croaked Carroll. “Did you ever see such heat?”
+
+“The work has only started.”
+
+Carroll swore.
+
+“You’re a cool one. ---- if I don’t think maybe I like you.”
+
+“The fight northward has died down,” said Sergeant Cotton meditatively.
+“That’s the British trying to get through the Port Road, I guess. One
+side or the other’s winded.”
+
+Stirling stood as plain as any target and shouted encouragement. Not a
+hundred yards away the Highlanders wavered and took refuge behind
+another rail fence while reorganizing their ranks. The American fire was
+effective and continuous. Their own marksmanship was only indifferent.
+But they knew no backward road and in a short space were again crawling
+over the fence and forming in solid line. Sergeant Cotton marveled at
+their ability to face fire without flinching.
+
+A courier galloped out of the woods and dismounted by the general.
+
+“You are being surrounded, sir! There’s a force cutting your
+communication with the Heights. The bridge across Gowanus creek has
+been burned.”
+
+Stirling’s ruddy cheeks went crimson and he dipped the point of his
+sword to the ground, watching the Highlanders press onward.
+
+“The hounds are upon the fox, eh? Evidently we are being hunted by more
+than one pack.”
+
+He clapped his hand to his chest.
+
+“I conceive it my duty to give the enemy as much trouble as I can. We
+will drop back down the road. Colonel Haslet, bring your battalion off
+first.”
+
+The Delaware battalion gave ground slowly, keeping up a vigorous fire
+as they climbed the meadow to the defile. The Marylanders were still
+more reluctant to go and covered the Highlanders until Haslet had his
+men through the pass. Then they backed away. Sergeant Cotton and Alex
+Carroll were side by side as the broken companies poured through the
+gap and down the wooded coast road. It was for a short while something
+worse than confusion, with captains crying and raising their swords
+and young lieutenants rallying the ranks until the original outfits
+were assembled.
+
+“Now where?”
+
+“General’s taking us back to the Heights. What’s the hurry? I believe we
+could whip those Highlanders.”
+
+“Powerful lot of soldiers there, my boy. ----, but I’m dry!”
+
+“Where’s he taking us, anyway? ---- if I care about running from those
+Scotch skirts.”
+
+“Better to run and fight another day. Anything but digging ditches.
+There’s my mind on that subject.”
+
+“Boys, the general’s stopping. Maybe we’re going back.”
+
+“Oh ----!”
+
+The column halted. Stirling rode by the Marylanders and looked them over
+with the eye of a man bent on particular knowledge.
+
+“Not much worse for the wear,” said he. “Just a little winded and the
+blood up. Colonel Haslet, I think we’ll cheat Mister Howe of part of
+his bag. Take your men and retreat across the marshes, southward of
+this road. The bridge is burned and I understand a force is coming up
+to engage with me. You will avoid them and swim your battalion over
+Gowanus creek. I shall stay here and cover you.”
+
+Haslet saluted and went off at the head of his battalion, dodging
+rapidly through the timber, along a mere cowpath. The news flew down
+the Maryland ranks.
+
+“We’re elected, huh?”
+
+“Rear guard action,” quoted the corporal dubbed Cæsar. “Boys, old
+Baltimore will do some weeping tonight.”
+
+“To make a Roman holiday. No, not that. But, Lord, I love you, it does
+look mighty slick pickin’s.”
+
+The five Maryland companies were stinging with the forced retreat and
+somberly contemplating the future. The Highlanders were coming up from
+the meadow. They could hear the rumble of the advance just over the
+brow of the hill. Somewhere below, toward the Heights, a new foe lay
+athwart their path. The last of the Delaware column disappeared through
+the maples, going at the double. Stirling raised his sword, his ruddy
+face lighted with excitement. Maryland retreated along their route of a
+previous night. They had not gone a quarter mile before they flushed
+the advance guard of this new British column.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The woods rang with fresh volleys. Sergeant Cotton came up alongside
+of Alex Carroll and took his station by a maple. A storm of lead was
+pouring into their position as the fresh regiment closed up, anxious
+to decide the issue. Over the hill swarmed the Highlanders, eager to
+resume the combat. Front and rear Maryland was taken.
+
+The deployed line had become circular and the proud continental style
+of fighting was lost in the urgent necessity of protecting two sides.
+Americans fought best as individuals, obeying their own wisdom as to
+tactics and taking their protection wherever they could find it.
+Stirling stood in the center of the narrowing circle.
+
+“Take your time, boys. Shoot straight and don’t be afraid of cold
+steel.”
+
+Sergeant Cotton thought of the peaceful Connecticut home. Alex Carroll
+loaded and fired with a kind of religious intensity.
+
+“---- the bees!” he shouted. “I’ll duck my head no more.”
+
+Sergeant Cotton nodded.
+
+“Now you’re baptized.”
+
+Some one next to him, reeling like a drunk and streaming in blood, waved
+his weapon and cried----
+
+“Oh, Cæsar, what a prophet you are!”
+
+His falling body knocked Sergeant Cotton aside.
+
+Stirling had seen one lone avenue of retreat and was waving his sword
+again.
+
+“Come, boys! Up the hill for better cover.”
+
+Maryland turned to follow him, took a few grudging steps and then
+halted. From one despairing throat came a cry--
+
+“Good ----, look there, will you!”
+
+Sergeant Cotton had no need to look. He was already turned toward
+the little vista of oak trees to which Stirling had pointed as being
+better cover. But there was a sudden threshing of underbrush and the
+filling of open spaces with men’s bodies. A higher, harsher shout
+rang out in the glade and a third British column, flung in irregular
+lines, joined the first two to form a triangle of steel and lead.
+
+Alex Carroll was sobbing in anger.
+
+“Oh, why can’t we have more powder?”
+
+Sergeant Cotton had long ago made his peace; he had nothing now to say.
+As long as the ammunition lasted he continued to load, aim and fire
+with the same sober precision. The ring closed in; the firing spat in
+men’s faces and trembled on the tortured ear drums. Ricocheting bullets
+whined and the little glade spilled over with struggling and desperate
+men; interlocked combatants swayed back and forth, bumped over other
+combatants and drew off to thrust with bayonet or club with gun butt. A
+haze of burnt powder sifted like twilight through the tree trunks and
+voices, once normal and human, screeched like mad.
+
+There were five companies of Marylanders in buff-and-blue. Those five
+companies were wiped out, man by man. Stirling still kept his place in
+the center, his sword always raised and his voice shouting the final
+encouragement.
+
+It was a maelstrom of combat. Sergeant Cotton loaded for the last
+time, shot a Highlander and instantly was engaged with a bayonet. The
+calm deserted him and some ancient fire utterly betrayed his lifetime
+training. He raised his voice to a cry of defiance.
+
+“Come on, you beef-eaters!”
+
+He knocked the bayonet aside and struck his opponent down. Behind him
+was a war-whoop. Alex Carroll cried encouragement.
+
+“Good boy! You can fight! Go to ’er, New England, I’m right beside you!”
+
+The glade roared like a heavy surf. Sergeant Cotton’s nostrils were
+stinging and his feet stumbled over bodies and slipped in fresh blood.
+He had no more powder and his arms ached from the toil of struggle. He
+knew nothing of the rest of his company. It appeared they were
+swallowed up in the inextricable mass of dead and living British. He
+did not care; a wine-like glow pervaded his body and he fought on with
+one fact singing in his head. The Marylander had admitted him to
+friendship. It was an accolade. They saw that New Englanders could
+fight. He was vindicating his nativity.
+
+He slashed and struck and jabbed and parried until his eyes
+distinguished only a blur. Something struck him sharply in the chest
+and it felt as if a great wall were falling atop him. Successively
+he was hit in the head and in the ribs. From a great distance he
+heard Alex Carroll giving one tremendous heart-breaking shout. After
+that all the bullets in creation did not matter. He could no longer
+be hurt by them.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The roar of battle ebbed and the hot day drew to a close. The Delaware
+men looked down from a safe position on the Heights.
+
+Howe collected his columns and, like a wary fighter, recoiled from too
+close proximity with Putnam’s intrenchments. Washington came across the
+East River and began a series of moves that led to his masterly retreat.
+The great captain, never emotional, uttered one phrase that rang like a
+trumpet throughout the land:
+
+“Great God, what fine men I have lost this day!”
+
+That was the epitaph of the Marylanders, whose buff-and-blue checkered
+the little glade. At one particular angle of this forest theater two men
+lay across each other. One of them, Sergeant Abner Cotton, was smiling a
+dry, wintry smile. The other, Alex Carroll, rested face downward with a
+broken musket in his hand. They were now fellow members of a great
+company.
+
+
+[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the September 23, 1926
+issue of Adventure magazine.]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78480 ***