Morgan leaned back in his chair and winced from the pain in his lower back. “It looks like all of us are soiled virgins, Benjamin. What will you do?”
Franklin smiled impishly. “John Hancock once offered to lead the army. Perhaps he can be talked into it again.”
There were brays of laughter. “Johnny Hancock doesn’t even know which end of a musket to use,” Morgan said and then turned serious. “Benjamin, you didn’t bring us here to ridicule us or to choose any one of us. You’re too damned smart for that. You already have a man, don’t you?”
“General Glover,” Franklin smiled impishly and said, “Would you be so kind as to bring in your good friend and traveling companion?”
Glover stepped away and into another room. He returned in a moment with a thin man with long white hair and a full white beard. He wore a suit of dark blue cloth, which was vaguely military. Tallmadge recognized him as the man who had arrived at the tail of Glover’s column. Then the light dawned.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
The white-bearded man smiled. “Don’t blaspheme. I am not Jesus, Tallmadge. The beard has fooled better men than you.”
“Enough,” said Glover, grinning. “Since not everyone recognizes you, introduce yourself to the others, sir. Give them your name.”
“John Stark.”
* * *
Further discussions regarding leadership of the army were anticlimactic. Franklin asked Stark if he would command the Continental forces at Fort Washington and he agreed that he would. Franklin then asked the other assembled generals whether they supported Stark’s ascension to command. They did. For a moment if appeared that Schuyler would protest, but he did not. Some later thought he hesitated, but they may have been wrong. But who could have begrudged Schuyler a moment’s pause at what might have been?
John Stark was in his mid-fifties and, thanks to the beard and the hard life he’d recently led, looked older. Still, he was in far better health than Morgan.
Stark explained that he had escaped the British sweep by the simple accident of being out fishing when the British had descended on his home.
“When I returned home I found my house burned to the ground and my wife beaten to death. Why did they have to kill Molly?” he said, the anger surging. “I can only surmise that they thought she knew where I’d gone, but she didn’t. All she knew was that I’d gone fishing, but had no idea exactly where and there were a score of places to choose from. So in their blind anger, they killed her.”
Stark blinked away the sudden moistness in his eyes. “I figured they’d be back looking for me and, a few days later, they were, but this time I was waiting. There were just a three of them so I killed two of them right off. I shot one with my musket and killed the second with my knife. The third one ran. I know who he is and maybe someday I’ll catch up to him as well. Then I took some supplies and, after saying goodbye at my wife’s grave, headed into the woods.”
“Which is where I found him,” Glover said quietly. “Eating berries and nuts and looking like shit. I thought, is this what the man who saved our left flank at Bunker’s Hill and destroyed the British advance on Bennington deserved to become? I convinced him to come with us.”
“It was not my choice. He dragged me along,” said Stark with a trace of a smile.
Glover’s meeting him was not quite accidental. Glover had known of Stark’s escape and had gone to find him en route to Fort Washington with his regiment of Marblehead men.
“So what are your plans now that you command us?” asked Franklin.
Stark glowered and there was a sudden fire in his eyes. “To destroy the British. When they move on us I want to make every step a living hell for them. I want them to pay in blood for Molly and everyone else they’ve killed or abused.”
“That’s not quite a civilized approach to war,” said Franklin.
“War is always barbaric,” Stark retorted. “And anyone who attempts to put rules to it is a fool, and anyone who thinks that any war can be civilized is worse than a fool. War is the killing of people by other people. It is mean, miserable, and destructive. It blows human flesh to pieces and leaves the survivors screaming for mercy, and their widows and children to starve.”
“Is it safe to say you will fight such an uncivilized war?” asked a mildly surprised Schuyler.
“I will use any and all means at my disposal to kill them,” Stark said. “We will poison their wells and their food, and knife them in their sleep.” He turned to Franklin. “And for you, most revered doctor, I wish you to use your most inventive mind to conjure up diabolic devices to assist me.”
Franklin looked shocked. He had never before been asked to do any such thing. Even his invention of the weapon that bore his name was more of a lark than a serious endeavor. And the production of muskets and pikes was nothing at all unique. He wanted to prove his concept of using interchangeable parts, not necessarily destroy people. “I will do it,” he finally said.
“I have one question,” said Glover in an attempt to lighten the mood. “John Stark, how the hell much longer are you going to keep that ugly damned beard?”
“Until the last Redcoat is gone.”
* * *
Erich von Blumberg was a colonel in the army of Hess. He arrived at Detroit accompanied by a hundred or so Hessian soldiers. They’d come by boat, jammed in one of the barges, which made their journey somewhat more comfortable than marching along the coast.
Von Blumberg was in his early forties, stout, and wore his gaudily colored uniform and numerous medals as if he’d been born to them, which he had. Military service to the rulers of Hess ran deep in his family. His command of the English language was excellent and he was angry.
“What you are telling me, my dear General Burgoyne, is that you have managed to round up only four deserters?”
“If indeed they are deserters,” Fitzroy answered for his general. “We began with twenty and, after careful investigation concluded that only these four could possibly have been in your army.”
The Hessian stood and stared directly into Fitzroy’s face. “Why? Who gave you such wisdom?”
Fitzroy decided he would like to slap the pompous twit. “Common sense, Colonel. Several of the twenty were very young boys and others were very old men. A few were crippled and at least one was a babbling idiot. How many such ancients, infants, cripples, and idiots do you have in the armies of Hess and the other German states?”
“None,” von Blumberg said grudgingly as he ignored the jibe.
“You’ve interviewed the four,” Burgoyne said to von Blumberg. “What do you make of them?”
“I want them hanged.”
“But what proof do you have that they were ever in the army of Hess or any other principality?” asked Fitzroy.
“They are Germans and they are the right age.”
“But Colonel,” Fitzroy continued, “Germans have lived here for decades, generations. I interviewed them too, and they all claimed to be born here. How can you be certain they are your deserters? And wouldn’t they be beyond stupid to live near a British army encampment if they were deserters?”
Von Blumberg glared at him. “And perhaps they are stupid, Major. I talked with them and I am convinced there is a strong likelihood that they are deserters.”
“But likelihood is not proof,” Fitzroy insisted. “Would you hang men who might just be innocent?”
Von Blumberg merely sniffed. “Innocence and guilt are totally irrelevant. They must hang as an example to others that the armies of the German states are not to be trifled with. We had a contract with Lord North to provide soldiers and there have been so many desertions that they have cost us money as well as credibility.”
“But you’re not positive of their guilt, are you?” Fitzroy repeated, thinking that the Hessians had been sent to the colonies as cannon fodder, little more than brutally drilled puppets. Who wouldn’t desert under the circumstances? North America was a huge continent in which a man could disappear.