* * *
Will Drake watched sternly as the delegation of four men came forth and stood before him. Their spokesman was a large, dour, and bearded man about forty. His name was Ephram. “Have you considered our request?” he asked without preamble, although he did glance nervously at the detachment of fully armed soldiers behind Will.
“We have, and we don’t quite understand it.” Will said. “Why in God’s name do you want to go back to the British now?”
“It’s simple, Major Drake, we all have families and we wish them to live out their lives rather than have them snuffed out in the next few days. We made a mistake in coming here. We honestly thought that the British wouldn’t come this far to chase us and that we would be allowed to live out our lives in peace. We sincerely felt that the great distance between us and what the British call civilization would be our salvation. That and our faith in the Lord.”
“And there are about fifty of you?” Will asked, although he already knew their numbers. “And you no longer wish to fight for your freedom?”
Ephram shrugged. “Yes to the numbers of us who wish to leave, and yes we would be willing to fight for our freedom if the fight would be a fair one, and where we would have a chance of winning. But you can see the vast array before us. We would have no chance at all and it would result in a massacre followed by the enslavement of the survivors.”
Will shook his head in disbelief. “Yet you think you stand a better chance by just walking up to the Redcoats and announcing that you’re so very sorry you rebelled, and that you would be good and loyal subjects of King George if you would only forgive us for our trespasses.”
Ephram flushed angrily. “Please do not blaspheme by misusing the Lord’s Prayer, Major. We are protecting our families.”
“You are what Tom Paine wrote about, aren’t you. You are the ‘summer soldiers and sunshine patriots,’ aren’t you? You stay with us when the times are easy, but run like rabbits when difficulties arise.”
“I would not refer to being slaughtered as simple difficulties, Major, nor do I think of us as rabbits. We are honest godly people who have made what is to us a highly moral decision. Yet, if that’s what you think of us, then yes. Now, may we leave?”
Will pretended to ponder. In truth, the matter had already been decided by General Stark and communicated through General Tallmadge.
“No.”
Ephram looked flustered and the other three men showed obvious dismay. “Will you please tell us why not?”
“How many reasons do you want? First, you know details of our defenses and would doubtless tell everything to curry favor with your new masters.”
To Will’s surprise, Ephram actually smiled before he replied. “Of course, and, second, we might also unleash a trickle that would soon become a flood of people like us if the British did indeed welcome us back to their bosom, now wouldn’t we? It might eliminate the necessity of a war or a battle in the first place.”
Will matched his smile. “There is that. I won’t lie to you. But the answer remains the same. And, in order to ensure your cooperation, you and your people will be kept under guard until the fighting starts. At that time you can make a final decision as the guards will probably then be needed elsewhere. When you are no longer under guard, you can run straight to hell for all I’ll care.”
“You will be damned for the innocent lives your rejection of mercy will cost,” Ephram said with a sigh of resignation.
“Just as you will be damned for being a fool, a turncoat, and a traitor. You will be compared to Benedict Arnold.”
Will signaled for the detachment of soldiers to take up positions around the men and take control of them and the others. He turned and walked away. A few paces on, Sarah stepped from behind the corner of a building. She took his arm and they walked away.
“Will, are you afraid that there are others like them?”
He squeezed her hand. “No one knows, and that’s the problem. Deep down, many must be wondering if there is an alternative to fighting the battle that is coming. Tell me, dear Sarah, would you have us flee if there was a place we could go?”
She rested her head on his arm. “I have indeed thought of it and, you’re right, doubtless every person here has pondered it. But no, sweet Will, I would not flee, at least not without you.”
* * *
John Hancock poured a cup of what passed for coffee and handed it to General Stark. “I confess that I was at first dismayed when you sent a low-ranking officer to deal with the British envoy, but I somewhat understand it.”
Stark nodded. “It was a formality and a preliminary one, at that. They sent a junior officer, so we respond in kind.”
“But you say it was a preliminary meeting?”
“Indeed. I do not think that Burgoyne actually wishes to fight this battle. He is under orders to return his army for other purposes after crushing us, and now he is realizing that we may be more difficult to destroy then he and London envisioned. Indeed, he now must confront the possibility of a Pyrrhic victory in which his victorious army would wind up being in no shape to help Cornwallis or Lord North or anyone.”
“So there will be other meetings. But for what purpose?”
Stark yawned. He hadn’t had more than a few hours of sleep in the last several days. He really didn’t want to waste time talking to Hancock, but the man was the president of the Congress and had to be humored.
“He wants his army rested and ready, and he wants us intimidated. Those people who wished to leave us and others like them are his goal. If he can convince people to flee, then his task becomes all that much easier. In effect, he inflicts casualties without blood and fighting.”
“Especially if they reveal our secrets,” Hancock said.
Stark laughed. “With all the spying and counterspying that’s going on, I rather doubt that either side has many secrets.” Except, he thought to himself, the devices that Doctor Franklin was conjuring up. Even Hancock was not privy to all of these.
“No, Mr. Hancock, I rather think Burgoyne will realize that he has two choices. Attack us here where we are the strongest, or try to turn our flank by marching around that bloody swamp that your people are keeping so well filled with water. And based on what we have learned, I do not think that he will be granted the time to do that.”
“How do you know this, General? More spying and counterspying?”
Stark finished his tea. “Something like that, Mr. Hancock, something like that.”
* * *
Colonel Arent De Peyster was disgusted, tired, and drunk as a lord. The backwater fort at Detroit that he’d commanded for so long was even worse and more decrepit then it had ever been. The arrival of Burgoyne’s army and its subsequent and unlamented departure, along with the fire, had utterly ruined what had been an uninspiring posting in the first place. The wooden stockade that surrounded most of the town had been destroyed by the fire, as had a majority of the buildings, and very little in the way of rebuilding had begun.
Thus, the Swiss-born and middle-aged major was forced to drink either in a miserable and filthy tent that passed as a tavern, or alone in another tent that was his quarters. This night, he’d chosen to be alone in his quarters.
De Peyster had helped defend Fort Pitt during the uprising led by Pontiac nearly two decades earlier. He was now an over-the-hill major and would never be promoted again. He also felt abandoned by Burgoyne and the rest of England. Once, during the American Revolution, the garrison numbered nearly four hundred men. Now it was fewer than a hundred and De Peyster was of the opinion that maybe only half could find their boots without help.
The fort itself, the citadel, had been built a few years earlier by a Captain Lernoult, who promptly named it after himself. De Peyster chuckled drunkenly and thought he would rename it Fort De Peyster just to see what, if anything, London would do. Nothing, he concluded, and had another drink.