TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

RONDO - STAVE LXIII

S T A V E

LXIII

Eyes open and close. The day shifting – afternoon, dusk, evening. Soul rising, he floats. She takes his hand and pulls him back. Tongues his seared fingers. On his cheek a blown breath, her face hovering. Her tears, cold drops to wash him – Voices.

A raindrop splashed his cheek, hot from human bits. Geordie opened his eyes. A cottony sky all gray. Another drop. A cluster, till the clouds opened up. A wet chill reviving him. A hiss in its white noise . . . Whispers. Weeping. Máthair. He propped on his elbow best he could. A twisted lump next to him. He closed his eyes to clear his vision. It hurt to look. An arm jutted across the chest, hand frozen in a gesture, a blue-coat MaryLand soldier. Was Geordie, himself, dead?

He touched his cheek. Pulled a shard with its bloody tip. And there, on the ground – red shapes, blue shapes, moving like worms forced up by storms. ‘Cross his face, a cut like a second mouth, burning. Rain invigorating the dried blood. He rolled and next to him, a mate with the jaw and cheek gone. He shut his eyes hard – another dream, but it was there . . . and it breathed. He took its hand, still warm and it squeezed.

Storms through the night and moans lessened - men expired. Then the smell of rotting meat. Geordie and Tim, glorious after battle, holding hands . . .  

A nudge on his foot. Another stronger, parting his legs. Then a  nip on his shin. Geordie kicked and a grunt. It turned on Tim. Geordie groped for a rock and coming across a bayonet, with all his strength, he stabbed the pig chewing on Tim. It squealed and dashed.

Dawn – intermittent drizzle with spurts of hard rain. Geordie, his hand still with Tim, but the fingers cold. He’d held that hand dancing on the weather deck of the Royal George so long ago . . . Up my boys, dance for the King. The Doodles’ll run a damn sight faster. How can you catch him with wobbly knees? Up there Willcock. Up there Moddy. Mr. Burrows, Mr. Burrows, you fading on me? You going to make Vaughn drag you about the deck like a sack of meal? How about I take a chunk out your arse with my teeth? . . .   

He shivered, his throat raw and thick, and forced himself up with a musket to steady him. All about, the dying where they fell. He tugged on Tim’s hand, now meat. The corpse on the picket line, the acceptable casualty to win the War. He went through Tim’s pockets. Took his soldier’s knife and kissed his hand. Fuk thu, a leughadair ghaoil airson breineachadh sam bith a tha agad.

On the Salisbury Road wagons came out of the treeline; the Quartermaster corps come to collect the wounded and dead. Them too like carrion.

Geordie tried to call, but his voice gone. He started to wave, but stopped and looked at the treeline, imagining how 2nd Battalion must’ve looked crossing the field, their rage to grip the enemy – so too the Grenadiers. And now, broken like so many bits for battlefield scholars to detect – what happened here, they’ll wonder. Where did Stuart fall?  Had the Grenadiers mixed in? Were there ever Guardsmen named MacEachran and Crotty? Had the British even won? Will the Whigs come out of the woods and finish them?  MacLeod’s artillery was gone. Had it intentionally fired into their own men?

Against a dead horse Elliot sat with his scalp peeled back and sticky with blood. He watched Geordie mumbling. A flicker of recognition between them and Geordie stumbled over to sit next to him. They leaned on each other to draw warmth.

Women and Negroes walked the field, rifling through dead men’s clothing and robbing wounded Americans too weak to resist. Others tended wounds and wrapped them in blankets ‘til the wagons came.

One old Molly, rags in her belt, rags in her hand, hefted a water bucket, going from man to man. Coming to Elliot and Geordie, she held a cup to their lips then dabbed their faces.

“Look at you two now,” she said with a backwoods drawl. “Lucky fellows ain’t you – not as bad as you look.”

She swabbed Geordie’s swollen cheek and cleaned out the sabre cut across his forehead and nose.

“And you, my fine fellow,” she said to Elliot tamping down the flap of his scalp. “Hold still now. Jest gonna clean it off.” Elliot flinched. “This don’t hurt you, does it?” Her voice younger than her looks. She wiped the wound clean and then noticed a lead ball seated in the back of his head. She touched his shoulder. “You’re alive, ain’t ya?” And waved to the Quartermaster’s Corps. “They’ll take you to Hospital.”

“Whose Hospital?” Geordie croaked.

“The King’s.”

“Who won?”

“We hold the field.”

“What day is it?”

“Saturday.”

“What time is it?”

She shrugged and looked at the clouded morning sky. “6:00 maybe.”

“And we won.”

“Yes.”

Makeshift hospitals were set up on the two ends of the battlefield, the British wounded at the farm where they began the attack. Feet. Piles of them. Some at the ankle. Some at the knee. What a man takes for granted every day – What pains him when he’s cold. The way the toes curl – The Right and the Left with their own personality. And the arms – the way the fingers gesture in repose. Bloody business saving a man, saving only part – like killing. And there, the Negroes collecting them like wood to burn. The soldiers watched with disarming order, though some moan and scream, but not until the knife, and even then with a bravery. The same when taking the field. Five surgeons worked steadily, while surgeon’s mates prepared the men with laudanum. Those that could, sat on benches wet with water and fluids. Officers and private men mingled together.

Howard on a litter with General O’Hara. He recognized Geordie, though how he could with a face like a swollen melon.  “A far distance from New York, Mr. MacEachran and how you’ve survived. I should think you’ll get back there and see your pretty wife. Something to live for.”

Geordie said nothing, Elliot, next to him.

O’Hara, his chest and thigh bandaged, stared. “That’s him,” he said to Howard. “That’s the man. Couldn’t forget that look . . . What’s your name, private?”

“Elliot, sir.”

“Elliot,” O’Hara repeated. “I shall remember. Thank you for this day of service.”

The surgeon’s mates took the generals to a corner behind a tacked up blanket.

Geordie and Elliot given cups of rye, and Geordie in a drunk, a glorious drunk, became all weepy. “You’re altogether lucky, private,” Dr. Rush said, stitching his sabre wound. A poultice for his cheek. “You should heal, though an ague might set in.” As for Elliot, they sowed down his crown and peeled the scalp on the back of his skull to pluck the ball. Such a dimple – a place to poke his thumb.

Cornwallis retreated back to Bell’s Mill to collect the Sick and Baggage. The Army, what was left of it, pitched camp. Cornwallis sequestered Mrs. Bell’s house, informing her he’d annihilated the Rebel army. “Did you now?” she replied. “And your own as well, I see.” Without a due, Cornwallis opened the back door of the shotgun house so he could see the road. Mrs. Bell, an ardent Whig, shut it. It was cold. Cornwallis opened it. She shut it again. Agitated, Cornwallis flung the door open. “And keep it open,” he said. “Whatever for,” Mrs. Bell inquired. “General Greene might be coming down the road,” he admitted. “Why, sir, you said you had annihilated his army and he could do you no harm.” Cornwallis took a breath. “Well, madam, to tell you the truth, I never saw such fighting since God made me, and can’t afford another victory.”

In camp, in the Artillery Park, Geordie leaned against a captured gun and caressed it covetously. The Highlanders, standing guard, didn’t stop him. Rain dripped over the wood and leather stoppers. Tears. Under the eaves of the nearby porch, a wind chime’s voice like breaking crystals. To Geordie’s eyes, it danced in slow motion. Cornwallis, too, watched it from the open door. It waved in the rain and wind, the tubes dancing. How gentle. Something . . . good. From this pain something good. What’s it saying? To Cornwallis – Retreat to the sea. March to Wilmington, proclaim victory and re-supply. And hope to God Greene is as beat up as me. To Geordie – Do not weep. He did.