He was happy for these comforts of home, as he dined with his wife and child and the uncle and aunt who had reared him as their own. In his mind, however, he was already preparing himself to live without them.
He did not wish for bloodshed, but he could barely wait for the next day, when he would leave with the army. His impatience was only partly due to confidence; the other part was the fact that one night while practicing with his sword he looked at the metal and saw there a picture of himself, which enveloped both sides of the blade. He stood with the weapon in a position of conquering, and all around him men fought in battle. He was larger than the rest and cut through a great many of his enemy.
He startled when he first saw this, having never noticed such an engraving on the sword before, but he knew, when he did, that this was perhaps his own great purpose and duty to fulfill. That he did not fail in his responsibility was a thing as meaningful to him as Stonehouses itself.
His life made sense to him then, as he mounted his favorite horse the next morning and flew to join the battle, and the morning sun lit up and reflected off of Stonehouses as he sped away.
IV. lamentations
one
He is strong as any man in the thirteen states and his arms have grown thick as oak boughs from wielding his sword to hold them. To see him you would think he was born to martial life and never did know the country fields or hearth of family. It is these he misses most, however, on his long war campaign, which has stretched far beyond what he or anyone else ever imagined when he first left home.
He knows now how seldom victory comes swiftly; that it is always hard-won and bloody. As he waits for the battle to be joined again at Saratoga, the farmland reminds him of his home, which was called Stonehouses, and he wants nothing more than to return to his family and take up his plow again. He will be moored permanent to his land then — instead of in brief respites such as he enjoyed winters during these three years of fighting — and no more leave it for any reason. Yet deep within himself, he knows there is also another possibility: that movement is in his blood now, and nothing can suppress what it has taught, and even homecoming will not alleviate it. It is the privation of having been apart from everything dear to him with no certainty of returning. Some knowledge, he thinks, is never lost, nor the cost of acquiring it forgotten. It has made his brow heavy and wise seeming, but it is sadness he feels when he stretches out for the night.
It is something other in the morning — a hotness — as he anticipates the next battle.
In the early months, when the colonists first faced the Great War Machine, they tried to match it gear for gear. However, they quickly found their enemy was all levers of warmongering and cogs of empire-making, and they were mowed down incessantly beneath it — or else humiliated by what they did not know. It was only when they learned to separate and attack individually that the spirit flowing between them had room to reveal itself, like a massive inevitable net, and they had any chance of winning.
As they sat around camp in early autumn, with the cooking fires aroar between them, the men took stock of their supplies and cleaned their equipment after the long days of silence, during which time the pastures of Saratoga had not known blood but only waiting. Lunch that noon was a thin soup provided by the farmer who hosted them on his land, augmented by a few wild hares some of the men had snared that morning. He sat under the cool October sun to share in the meager repast before the time when fighting would start up again. John Corbin, a freemason out of Burlington, who had fought so gallantly at Long Island and Brooklyn Heights, sat on his left. Herman Van Vecten, who had spent his twenty-fifth birthday in that camp and looked at least a decade older, was at his right. Carl Schuyler, who was commended for bravery at Trenton by their commander in chief, sat in front of him, slopping soup. There was also one called Ajax, a slave out of Maryland who had proved his worth at Brandywine. His other companions were a freedman called Mace, who took rather too much glee in the doings of battle, and a man called Polonius from Delaware, who had been promised his freedom for fighting and had surely won that already, snatching it from death again and again during the spring campaign just passed. The slave Julius, whom Caleum knew from youth, had also been enlisted by his master in the third year of the war, after he found out what the bounty was. For the fight he gave, though, one could not have paid enough, and the others soon forgot his status.
Among them all none ranked higher in the esteem of his compatriots than Caleum Merian himself, whose exploits were known through New England and the southern sphere alike. Even among those tempered and hardened soldiers, he was most skilled in killing.
As they ate their meal, a sentry came into camp and had words with the general in charge. When he left, the officers could all be seen gathering hastily in the center of camp for a war college. After a brief conference they sent out instructions among the men, who all knew by then that a fight was in the offing. They were ordered to ready themselves and form battle lines, as the British and Hessians were advancing toward their left flank in ambush even as they ate.
A panic spread through the newest recruits, who were fresh plucked from the farms of the country and still knew only what they had heard about the might and invincibility of England’s army.
Caleum and his fellows finished their own meal as if nothing unusual were afoot, took up packs and muskets, and assumed their positions in the column that was forming out in the open meadow. They were the center of the formation and its pillar, as they were the most seasoned and would be hardest to break.
When the bugle sounded they marched out toward the enemy line obdurate as Spartans, prepared either to die or seize victory from those fields of death.
At three o’clock that afternoon, they finally met the enemy across a distance of some fifty yards.
As the mountains rose and stretched in the distance like a great stone spine, the British and the Hessians raised their muskets at the patriots, taking slow and careful aim. A volley of thunder rang out then, deafening all around, as the report from fifteen hundred guns sounded a testimony of certain slaughter.
The unseasoned Americans scattered in every which direction when the volley sounded, as mounted officers tried to whip them back into formation. When the gun smoke cleared, only Caleum and his men were still standing in their original formation, with none yet wounded — and no one yet dead.
They raised the muskets on their side then, for the first countercharge of the morning, keeping their nerve and aim steady amidst the chaos. Each fired in unison, releasing their own noise to answer the enemy’s — a report of Continental will. The sulfur rose like steam as the British and Hessians fell from the lead that rained upon them.
What happened next, no one was prepared for, as it had happened so seldom before in history. The British line broke.
As the patriots rushed forth, it scattered here and yon without the collective discipline or thought that struck awe and terror in all who had gone against it, and the Continental Army began cutting them down in a frenzy as they fled. The farm boys, who had not seen battle before, grew over bold in this melee and rushed forth ahead of the rest of the line, looking for glory. They almost knew it, too, but were soon turned back on their heels, as the Englishmen regained the advantage and formed their line again.
The redcoats next gave chase with their bayonets drawn, having not time to reload their muskets as the Americans flew before them. The newer troops melted away again, like so much wax before a match, so the British met Caleum and his men instead, at the center of the American column. They too were without ready muskets, except Carl Schyuler, who could reload faster than any other man in their army. He fired on the advancing line, and one of the Hessian mercenaries fell onto a spot that was still green with grass.