But there was no choice; Lieutenant Hanson had been sent to fetch an artist, and couldn’t well come back without her. Shoulders hunched around his ears, he turned his mule’s head toward White Bluff Road.
“Tell me about General Pulaski,” Brianna suggested, coming up beside him. “It was only this morning that he was killed?”
“Oh. Er … no, ma’am. That is to say,” Hanson said, obviously striving for exactness, “he did die this morning, on the ship. But he—”
“What ship?” she asked, startled.
“The Wasp, I think it’s called.” Hanson cast a quick look over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “The general was shot up two days ago, runnin’ his cavalry in betwixt two batteries, but—”
“He led a cavalry charge … into cannon?” Evidently Lieutenant Hanson hadn’t lowered his voice quite enough, for the question came from William, riding close behind. He sounded incredulous and slightly amused, and Bree turned round and glared at him.
He ignored the glare, but urged his horse up toward Hanson’s mule. The lieutenant was carrying his flag of truce, and at this, moved it instinctively, pointing it at William in the manner of a jousting lance.
“I meant no insult to the general,” William said mildly, raising one hand in negligent defense. “It sounds a most dashing and courageous maneuver.”
“It was,” Hanson replied shortly. He raised his flag a little and turned his back on William, leaving brother and sister riding side by side, John Cinnamon bringing up the rear. Bree gave William a narrow-eyed look that strongly suggested he should keep his mouth shut. He eyed her for a moment, then looked away with a patently bland countenance.
She wanted to laugh almost as much as she wanted to poke him with something sharp, but lacking her own flag of truce, she settled for an audible snort.
“À vos souhaits,” Mr. Cinnamon said politely behind her.
“Merci,” she said, with equal politeness. William snorted.
“À tes amours,” Mr. Cinnamon said, sounding amused. Nothing more was said until they arrived a few minutes later at the edge of the city. A detachment of Scottish Highlanders was guarding the end of the street, even though the street itself was guarded by a couple of large redoubts dug by the British, visible on the side toward the river. The sight of the kilted soldiers, and the sound of their voices speaking Gaelic to one another, gave her a peculiar twisting sensation inside. A camp kettle was boiling over a tiny fire, and the scent of coffee and toasted bread made her mouth water. It was a long time since breakfast, and in the haste of leaving, they’d left behind Henrike’s packet of food.
She must have been gazing hungrily at a few men eating by the fire, for William nudged his horse nearer and murmured, “I’ll see you’re fed as soon as we reach the camp.”
She glanced at him and nodded thanks. There was nothing amused or offhand in his manner now. He sat relaxed in his saddle, reins loose in his hand as Lieutenant Hanson talked to the Scottish officer in command, but his eyes never left the soldiers.
They passed through the checkpoint in silence. She could feel the eyes of the soldiers on her skin, and the hair prickled on her scalp. The enemy …
The American siege lines lay no more than a quarter mile away, the camp perhaps a half mile beyond, but Lieutenant Hanson led them immediately inland, in order to circle the American redoubts and the French artillery, dragged overland from the ships. The guns were silent—thank God—but she could see them plainly, dark shapes beginning to emerge from the morning’s fog, still thick here near the river.
“You were telling me about General Pulaski,” she said, pushing up beside the lieutenant. She didn’t want to look at the cannon and think of Jem and Mandy in the city—or the holes and burnt roofs she’d seen in the houses of Savannah nearest the river. “He was on a ship, you said?”
The lieutenant had relaxed a little, once out of Savannah, and was pleased to tell her of the dreadful but gallant death of Casimir Pulaski.
“Yes, ma’am. ’Twas the Wasp, as I said. When the general went down, his men got him back directly, of course, but ’twas plain he was bad hurt. Dr. Lynah—he’s the camp surgeon, ma’am—took the grapeshot out of him, but then General Pulaski said as how he wanted to go aboard ship. I don’t know why—”
“Because the French aren’t going to hang about much longer,” William interrupted. “It’s hurricane season; D’Estaing will be nervous. I imagine Pulaski knew that, too, and didn’t want to risk being left behind, wounded, if—when, I mean—the Americans abandon the siege.”
Hanson turned in his saddle, pale with rage.
“And what would you know of such matters, you—you dandy prat?”
William looked at him as he might regard a humming mosquito, but answered politely enough.
“I have eyes, sir,” he said. “And if I understand aright, General Pulaski is—was—the Commander of Horse for the entire American army. Is that right?”
“It is,” Hanson replied, between gritted teeth. “So what?”
Even Bree could tell that this was purely rhetorical, and William merely lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
“I want to hear about the general’s cavalry charge,” John Cinnamon said, interested. “I’m sure he must have had a good reason,” he added tactfully, “but why did he do that?”
“Yes, I’d like to hear that, too,” Bree put in hastily.
Lieutenant Hanson glared at William and John Cinnamon, but after a muttered remark in which she caught only the words “… fine pair of backgammon players …” He stiffened his shoulders and fell back a little, so that Brianna could ride up alongside him on the narrow road. The countryside here was flat and open, but the earth was sandy and thickly grown with a sort of coarse, rough-edged grass that caught at the horses’ feet.
She could see that the road, though, had been heavily used of late. Hoofprints, footprints, horse droppings, wagon wheels … the road was churned and muddy, the verges trodden down by marching troops, moving fast. A sudden shiver went up her back as the wind changed and she caught the scent of the army. A feral smell of sweat and flesh, metal and grease, tinged with the stink of lye soap, manure, half-burnt food, and gunpowder.
Mr. Hanson had relaxed a little, seeing that he had his audience’s full attention, and was explaining that the Americans and their French allies had planned and executed an assault on the British forces at the Spring Hill redoubt—“You can see that from here, ma’am,” pointing toward the sea. As part of that assault, General Pulaski’s cavalry was to follow the initial infantry attack, “so as to cause confusion, d’you see, amongst the enemy.”
The cavalry charge had evidently accomplished that modest goal, but the overall attack had failed, and Pulaski himself had been cut down when caught in the crossfire between two British batteries.
“A great pity,” William said, with no sense of sarcasm whatever. Lieutenant Hanson glanced at him, but accepted the remark with a brief nod.
“It was. I heard that the Wasp’s captain meant to bury the general at sea—but one of his friends who’d gone aboard with him said, no, they mustn’t, and came ashore with his body just after dawn this morning, in a longboat.”