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| L'Indépendence |
Chapter 3: Monmouth
The sun burned incredibly hot at the 28th of June, 1778. New messages from Europe had arrived. The alliance between France and America had been signed and shortly after that French troops arrived at the eastern coast, cutting unstoppably on their way through the lines of British soldiers. That meant a danger for the British at the coast, they were afraid of the strength of the French fleet.
It became known that admiral Lord Richard Howe, who had been nearly beaten once at Germantown, had been removed from commanding the British forces since the 8 of May the same year and that now a certain general William Henry Clinton was in command.
The redeployment suited the Americans, nevertheless, it testified the fact that disagreement and discrepancies ruled in the guidance of the British troops. In contrast to the Americans who had ascribed their leading of the war almost exclusively to George Washington.
And thus it came that Washington dissolved a huge number of troop storage to smash the way to New York with the strength of roughly 13500 soldiers. The last reports had proved that the new commander Clinton with approximately 10000 soldiers wanted to reach the east coast, because he thought that there he would be under the protection of British fleet. Washington took up the pursuit of Clinton and his followers with his men.
And it was this calling which also André and Jacques followed. Approximately at midday they arrived at the place Monmouth Courthouse and instinctively it was clear to both men that the next battle had to be fought here.
Sweat pearls ran down his face. The heavy uniform stuck to his limbs and his skin, however, André walked further; followed by taciturn Jacques.
The battlefield had been already chosen and the Americans as well as the opponents had already formed attack lines to face the inevitable at the green willows’ area, which seemed to be endless.
André and Jacques saw from some distance how muskets had moved and how without hesitation the first line of soldiers was shot down. Then followed the second line; unimpressed they stepped over the dead bodies of their comrades and fired once again.
It was the prelude to a fight of man against man who would still run by far bloodier.
However, before André and Jacques would risk their lives once more, they had been commanded once again to explore the surrounding position.
In hope to put out a weak spot of the Britons, they had gone away from the battlefield and had bumped again to an adjoining wood in whose shady trees they believed to be unobserved for the first.
No words were exchanged; their swords lay firmly in their hands to face unexpected attacks.
Suddenly André stopped in a straight tree line. Jacques had noted it and looked questioningly over his shoulder.
Behind the high tree tops a level bright country house similar to farmer showed up. Surrounded by the nicest flowerbeds it seemed to be indifferent to the war which raved only few meters away from it. The sun embellished the appearance of the whole property and made it shine in a light sparkle. A short moment André dedicated him to the peace and started to dream; about a life far away from the battle, in a house like this, together with a woman... With her and nobody, nobody else...No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t forget her, to erase her from his memory.
However, thus fast as his dream had come, so fast it had also vanished again when he saw unexpectedly four British coming from around the corner of the house.
Jacques also had recognized the enemies and together they searched a safe place for themselves behind the trees to stay undiscovered and to observe what these four rascals were intended to do.
Three of them pulled up people at their hairs behind themselves.
André recognized that it concerned a man and a woman. The third British seemed to pull their daughter after himself. Her blond hair was unmistakable in the sunlight and shined as bright as those of her mother. The little one was thin) and elegant and hypothetically was not even twelve years old.
She squealed under pains when one pulled her together with her parents before the white input stair of her house. The Britons stepped the man from the back in the legs which forced him on the knees and now sat crouching before the men on the ground. André anticipated what would happen next.
And he knew that he would be too late.
Already at the next moment one of the soldiers had moved the gun and had executed the father of a family by a bullet in the head.
The next shout of the woman and her daughter was more desperate as anything André had ever heard or felt himself in his life.
These women had just become witnesses of one of the worst murder which could be committed against a person.
It was barbarically to kill a family which was fight- and defenseless.
But the war knew only victims and did not make a distinction between them.
André still felt a fury rising up within himself which he had never perceived before in his life. However, it was more than this.
From his look there spoke unbelievable hatred and revenge.
However, the torture was not finished yet.
André saw how the woman and the girl were grabbed by their hands and were pulled by three Britons to the house; the fourth paused in front of the entrance and seemed to look around.
Immediately, André took the musket which had stayed in his belt up to this moment and wanted to come out of the protecting shade to shut on straight way to the house; however, Jacques seized him in the arm and held him back.
"You cannot do that! What if even more of them are here in this area?" Jacques hissed urgently and wanted to hold him from possible stupidities.
André endangered with his intentions the planned espionage around the battlefield.
Energetically André broke loose from him "You know what they will do to both if nobody intervenes! Do you think I will let this happen?!"
"The red crossbreeds are in the majority, André!"
"Do you believe, this is important for me?!" and suddenly there was this look again with him which stated that it was quite no matter to him to live or to die and without losing precious time, André ran like from senses in the direction of the farmer's house.
Amazedly Jacques looked at him "Always I must save your arse, André" he still murmured, before he also attacked. He knew that André did the right thing with his action and by now he was embarrassed that he hesitated even a moment and not immediately have intervened to save the foreign woman and the girl.
Wasn’t it him who had been married once?
How could he doubt André’s decision even for a moment? His dead wife would probably never have expected this from him. Heavy reproaches against himself accompanied his way to the house.
Jacques hadn’t immediately noticed that the first British guarding the front of the property had been already knocked down by André. The Briton hadn’t kept an eye on the surroundings only for a moment when he had felt the wooden clutch of André’s musket in his nape. He fell unconscious to the ground.
Jacques had already caught up with André and both went up the white stairs to the entrance of the house.
Without having clarified the internal position, André had firmly hit the door. The moment of surprise was successful, because immediately he could also catch a red crossbreed, which had stood behind the door, and twisted his neck. He could hear the noise of crashing whirls and Jacques knew that André had broken the Briton’s neck. Also this man fell lifelessly on the ground and then finally Jacques also recognized the seriousness of the situation.
In the middle of the room stood the big dining table of the family. The mother had been pushed onto it, her dress was torn and on the top of her, with trousers down, was the Briton who pressed her on the table surface.
However, he had noticed the intruders and wanted now to reach his gun, but André had already sprung on him and pulled him away from the whimpering woman. With his boots he kicked him in the abdomen that the Briton squealed with pain. André looked at him as if he were an insect. Jacques could anticipate too well what was just within him. And he was right, such people who do terrible things to women and children, deserved nothing better than the same pain.
Jacques bent down to the enemy and hit him with the fist in the face. Then the life had also escaped from him and he didn't twitch anymore.
Jacques wanted to help the woman down of the table and say her reassuring words, but André stretched his hand and showed him to pause. "There were three in the house" he whispered to Jacques and looked around.
In the rear corner he recognized the little blond girl who crouched with drawn knees on the ground and looked at him with frightened expression.
Her whole body trembled just like her mother’s who had not moved but had sunk apathetically just on the ground. Then André noticed how the blue eyes of the girl pointed over and over again aside, always only for a short moment.
André understood her facial expression.
She had just indicated him where the last Briton was.
And at the side of the room stood a big cupboard made of ebony. The Briton had hidden behind it. André could recognize a part of his boots.
Without warning Jacques, André had moved his gun and fired.
The cupboard had been pierced by the bullet. Just like the chest of the man who fell now dead on the ground.
André didn’t know why the Briton hadn’t tried to kill them both.
Either he had feared for his own skin, or he and Jacques were such wrong positions in the room that the enemy hadn’t had the opportunity to shoot.
Why did fate want him to stay alive?
He had killed four British all at once and he still lived. Why the torture, why the torment? When he came to America, he had believed that he wouldn’t survive even one week, but now?
Did destiny play cruel little games with him?
He turned to the woman who seemed to realize slowly what had happened.
Three dead men were in her house. Blood ran through the floorboards.
Quickly she jumped up and ran to her daughter to close her into her arms. Then she looked scared at André and Jacques like at those British before. It seemed that she didn't feel safe, even in the presence of her rescuers.
André looked one moment thoughtful at her, then he said, in a flat voice "You should bring yourselves in a safe place. It’s possible that others like them will come" and without waiting for any reactions, André turned himself away and left the house as fast as he had entered it.
When he had reached the group of trees, he noticed that Jacques had caught up with him again. Without turning to him André said "We should return to the battlefield, I think, we will be needed there ..."
André walked like paralyzed without even noticing the surroundings. Jacques did not detain him, because he remembered the reason why he and André had moved into the war. No obligations, no sacrifices, this they had sworn to themselves. Never one would stop the other, when he should head directly into death.
Jacques recognized that André had made a decision. And he would follow him into the battlefield.
They had nothing more that made their life still worth living. Their hope had been destroyed. Their fight mind nearly went out. However, they would still fight this one battle namely with all their heart which they still felt in their cold chest. They didn’t know any more how much time has passed when they had reached the big pasture where the fight raved among Americans and Britons.
The earth seemed to burn under the hot rays of the sun. Soot and billows of smoke mixed to a smoke cloud of musty air which made the breathing heavy. Enemies and allies were hardly to be separated from each other in the opaque veil.
André shouted when he rammed the saber into the breast of a Briton.
He felt emptiness and unbelievable hatred in himself. Desperation overcame him and he rushed in the midst of the enemies, man against man.
Jacques was only indistinctly beside him, however, he fought bravely also. Suddenly a tunnel, which let in some light, formed in front of André. Jacques was only vaguely to be seen beside him, but he also fought bravely.
On the hill before him, where the smoke had not devoured too much sunshine yet, he recognized a soldier who brought one of the cannons to be fired. Also his look was despaired and filled with fear. When André saw how the stranger reloaded the cannon, his helmet fell to ground and the blond wavy hair was spread out over his shoulders.
And all at once André became conscious: It wasn’t a man, but a woman!
A woman who served the cannons and thus forced the opponents not to penetrate further. He knew such heroism only from her. From Oscar.
And presently her picture stepped again in his thoughts, only caused by the stranger who was there on the hill and fought more courageously than some other soldier...
He could not say what moved him at that moment to turn again to the enemies and to proceed once more in the battle.
At this moment André couldn’t anticipate it but it had been the feeling of hope what had emerged up again in him, what he would deny, nevertheless, long time still before himself.
He had only Oscar in his thought.
He fought for her. Was it possible that not everything was lost yet?
During this hot day in June when the battle was hit around Monmouth André had seen Mary Hays McCauly on the hill. Her man had broken down during the fight by the heat, so that one of the cannons had fallen out which, nevertheless, could not be renounced.
Actually, Mary had supplied the soldiers only with food up to this day, but to know that one of the defense of the troops was unused, made her catch a serious decision. After bringing her man into safety she returned to the cannons and was responsible from now on that this didn't fall out.
With her 34 years she had accomplished an action before which some other person would have fled. Inexorably she had positioned herself into the way of the enemies and had, at last, encouraged André with her appearance to catch again hope and never see a battle as lost. From this day Mary was called simply Molly Pitcher.
The fight for Monmouth had continued till the evening hours. In the end, the Britons escaped under the cover of darkness from the Americans and fled after Sandy Hook, New Jersey, from where the survivors were brought to New York City by the British fleet.
The surviving soldiers around George Washington took up the pursuit.
Jacques and André were also unscathed after this battle.
However, the feeling of hope climbed increasingly up in André. However, hope for what? He wasn’t able to say it...
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