Chapter 3
OSWEGO, NEW YORK-MAY, 1777
There were supposed to be 18 of them at the meeting, but only ten men had arrived by the time Elizabeth bolted the door and set the heavy timber cross piece into place. Robin nodded at her and she pulled the drapes into place over the windows.
"Does anyone know where the rest of us are?" Robin asked of the men gathered around the table.
"Peterson lost his leg to a surgeon last week."
"Franklin Adams was shot four times, then hung still bleeding, as a spy by General Millard."
"A hundred and sixty seven scalps were delivered to General Herkimer on Monday last. John Mallory's was one of them."
A gaunt, small pox-scarred older man looked up. "Wilson and Merriam were seized by St. Leger's men this morning."
There were murmurs of unease around the table at this news. Finally a muscular German by the name of Axel stood and spoke, "This is a dangerous place to be, Robin Burton. We've no evidence at all that what you've been telling us is the truth. For all we know, you may be a St. Leger spy trying to trap us." He read the expression in Robin's eyes and stiffened as he saw Timmy Arnold pull a pistol and point it at him. Quickly he added, "Well, what I mean to say is perhaps this General Burgoyne changed his mind about attacking through Canada and has gone elsewhere."
Robin shook his head. "No, you're wrong." He turned to a youth dressed in frontiersmen clothes who was sitting at the end of the table near the fireplace. "Billy, give them your report."
"Burgoyne arrived on May sixth. He has 7,213 men; three brigades of British regulars and three brigades of Hessians."
Robin nodded, then turned to another man, this one dressed as a prosperous merchant. "John? May we have your report?"
"Our Colonel St. Leger is planning a cross-country expedition beginning next month. He boasts a lot when he drinks. Says he will join up with Burgoyne in mid-July."
The big German sat down and mopped his brow. "So it's all true."
"It's true," Robin said, solemnly. "Originally there were thirty of us to stop this invasion; now there are only ten."
"What can ten men do?" someone muttered dejectedly.
Robin glanced over his group. Axel, in spite of his remarks, was one of the best men he had, next to Billy who could move almost at will through Indian country. In spite of his grousing, Axel could be counted on to fight when the time came. He looked at Stanton, whose wife and six children had been killed by British-led Indians earlier in the year. Stanton was only in his mid-thirties, but he looked burned out, defeated, and sixty years old. Timmy Arnold was as devoted as a hunting dog to him, but the lad had a hot temper and had to be watched constantly.
It wasn't much of an army, he thought. But we have to use what we have, accept whatever help is offered. Quickly then, he began issuing orders. "Billy, I want you to carry a message to General Gates at Ticonderoga. I've written it all out, together with a rough map of what Burgoyne plans to do on his sweep down from Lake Champlain. There's a second message here to General Washington. Give it to General Gates or General Schuyler and tell them that Washington must see it. Perhaps he'll be able to ambush Howe's forces as they come up the Hudson. The rest of us ... we're only nine with Billy leaving, but we must stop St. Leger some way. If we can keep him from joining Burgoyne's forces, the entire invasion will come to a halt at the first snows."
He looked around the table. "So this is what we must do. St. Leger and Burgoyne both are counting on the help of the Indians. If that help isn't forthcoming, of if the Indians desert, both men will be in difficulties. So, somehow or the other, we've got to drive a wedge between the Indians and the British."
Even as the young leader spoke, however, he realized the enormity of the task in front of them. The British had been using the Indians since the beginning of the war to terrorize the settlers. They were almost animal-like in their ferocity, but there were many instances of them deserting the British regulars or the Hessians for one reason or the other ... and they were a superstitious lot. The best place for some sort of confrontation obviously lay at least a week's march to the east, where-if they deserted St. Leger would not be able to replace them. There was even a logical place for this to happen; Billy had scouted an abandoned fort in the Mohawk Valley called Fort Stanwix. It was -rimmed on the south by a hill, actually a large mound, that most of the Indians held in awe. Some Indians claimed the gods lived there, others felt it was the abode of devils. In neither instance would they go anywhere near it during darkness, and they avoided trespassing on the ground during the day.
Ever since Billy had told him about the surrounding terrain at Fort Stanwix, Robin had instinctively felt that some use might be made of the place and he had made his plans accordingly.
He turned back to the men. "It's becoming too dangerous for us to meet like this any longer. I'll personally contact you, using Elizabeth or Timmy. St. Leger plans to move out toward the east within three weeks. We must be ready to move in ten days. Here's a list of special equipment and materials I'll need...." He passed a list to each of the men.
Axel snorted loudly. "A hundredweight of phosphorus? Two hundredweights of sulphur?" He glanced at Robin. "What are you trying to do, cure the entire British army of the pox?" He guffawed loudly, then became serious and scratched his mutton chop whiskers. "The sulphur is no problem. But the phosphorus?"
"Do what you can," Robin said. "I'll need it packaged so we can carry it on horseback."
John Dexter, the prosperous merchant read his list with beaded eyebrows, then shook his head and read it again. "Are you daft, Robin? A thousand macaw feathers? Feathers? Macaw feathers? Where would I ever get anything like that? And a long black wig?"
"Do what you can, John," he said, repeating his earlier instructions to Axel.
Both Oswego merchants looked at each other with puzzled expressions on their faces, then shrugged and nodded. If that was what this young man needed to stop an invasion, they'd gladly do their best. But phosphorus? Macaw feathers? Sulphur?
The entire group left about thirty minutes later, slipping one by one out in the darkness. Billy was the last to go. Robin handed him the message for General Washington and Gates.
"God speed," Robin said. "Be careful."
"I'll go rapidly," the youth said. "And then I'll try to rejoin you at Fort Stanwix in a month."
Finally, Elizabeth and Robin were alone. They sat wearily before the fireplace, Elizabeth anxiously watching the shadows play across his face. She reached out and touched his hand. "Are you sorry you came, Robin?" she asked softly.
"No. Are you?"
"Only when the mosquitoes bite," she grinned, then sobered. "It's not going the way you thought it would, is it?"
Robin shook his head. "I had hoped for more help. Lots of help. Heroes and patriots. The band playing. Flashy uniforms and flowers and cheering people...."
Elizabeth sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, darling. The Tories are too firmly entrenched here. They'll remain that way as long as the British quarter their troops here."
Robin rubbed his temples. "You know, when I first thought about America and the war here, I never realized what the reality of the situation was. In the Navy, we fight, fall back, fight again. And though it's not at all moral or intelligent, there's still the trappings of civilization in our battles. But here...." He shook his head again. "Did you hear that report about the Mohawks sending a hundred and sixty seven scalps to General Herkimer."
"Yes."
"And poor old Stanton. They split his wife's belly, brought out the unborn child and dashed its head against the fence railing."
Elizabeth put her hands to her ears. "No, Robin. No more."
"I hate war," he said.
"But we're in one. And people get killed in wars. If you actually do stop St. Leger, you'll have to kill a great many people, or at least be responsible for their deaths."
"No...." His answer was said so softly that Elizabeth had to ask him again.
"I said no. I'll stop him. I'll stop him without a shot being fired."
She stared at him perplexed for a moment, then smiled and scooted closer to him on the couch. She ran her hand up his leg and almost immediately felt his virile penis stir and began throbbing as it grew into hardness. "I believe you, dear husband. I believe you actually can do it. You can do anything."
"Why don't we go to bed?" he asked, running his own hand up under her skirt to discover she was wearing nothing beneath it. His fingers played in her silken pussy hair. "Now that is a battlefield I really enjoy."
"Fool," she said, then giggled as he nuzzled his nose into the fleshy cleavage between her proudly uplifted breasts. "You are a sweet, loveable fool, my husband."
Afterwards, with her supposedly sleeping beside him, her long blonde hair scattered like a golden veil across the pillow, Robin was pensive. He stared down at her and recited quietly:
Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheathed their light;
And, canopied in darkness, sweetly lay, I'll they might open to adorn the day....
Elizabeth's full, sensuous lips curled up in a smile, but her eyes remained closed. "Shakespeare," she said. "The Rape of Lucrece! But Sextus wasn't nearly the rapist you are."
"Thank you. That is a compliment, I presume."
"The very finest in the land." She opened her eyes then and gazed up at his face. A moment later she raised her hand and stroked his lips. "You really are troubled, aren't you, darling?"
Robin blinked, then nodded. "I'm thinking of something Montaigne wrote two hundred years ago about revolutionaries. He said, 'Those who give the first shock to a state are the first to be overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another's net.' That's us, isn't it? Beating the water, plowing the sea."
"We can go back to England, if you want. I would be happy at Marleyhead if you were with me."
He shook his head again. "No. This land is my home now."
"Then surely you must realize that we may be beating the water for another's net, but that other person or persons will be our children and our children's children. History doesn't remember people for what they say, only for what they do." She pulled him down beside her and scolded, "Now go to sleep."
Five minutes later he was snoring softly beside her, but this time it was she who could not go to sleep. Something he had said had touched her deeply, and it was only then that she realized Robin didn't expect to live through his encounter with St. Leger and his blood-thirsty Indians....