“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.”
“Why would his friend not want him to be buried at sea?” she asked, careful not to imply any criticism with the question.
“His men,” William said, before Lieutenant Hanson could answer. He spoke with a sober certainty. “He’s their commander. They’ll need to bid him farewell. Properly.”
The lieutenant had risen slightly in his stirrups, ready to be indignant at the interruption, but hearing this, subsided and gave Brianna a brief bow.
“Just so, ma’am,” he said.
PAST THE ARTILLERY, they wound their way through an acre of so of mud-spattered tents and soldiers, the air around them a strange combination of sea tang, the acrid ghost of gunpowder, and a breath of autumn rot from the harvested fields beyond. Brianna took a deep, inquisitive breath and let it out hastily. Latrine trenches.