Brave Enemies - A Novel Of The American Revolution by Robert Morgan

Author:Robert Morgan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9781565127128
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2007-10-16T04:00:00+00:00

JOHN TRETHMAN

I DIDN’T KNOW IF I would ever see Josie again, and I had no way of sending her a letter, no way of knowing where she was or if she was still alive. But my heart and my faith told me she was.

I thought of writing to her lines that in the event of my death might reach her. Perhaps one of my flock might find her and give her my words. But I had no pen and paper for such a message.

When I left Josie tied to the tree in front of the burning cabin, I thought my heart would stop, for everything I cared for most was there in the burning forest. I hated that we had quarreled just before we were separated, and I knew it was my fault. I looked into the gulf of emptiness that surrounds us on every side where there is no faith or love. I saw the abyss open around me and above me.

Lord, what is your will? I prayed as they led my horse into the wilderness behind the lanterns and mounted redcoats. And I thought in my heart the Lord was letting the devil try me, as he tried Job, in the spirit of cruelty. And I vowed to myself I would survive, like Job, and return from the wilderness to my congregations and my wife. In the cold Christmas darkness I swore and prayed, and I shuddered.

We stopped at a camp before daylight, and they brought me bound to an officer in a tent. It was not Tarleton but Lieutenant Withnail, the tall man with a saber scar on his cheek I had met before.

“So we meet again,” the lieutenant said.

“Not by choice,” I answered.

“You have aught to tell us, parson,” he said. “You know perfectly well what I mean.”

“I am a minister and psalmodist,” I said.

“You help recruit militias west of the Catawba,” he said.

“I do no such thing,” I said.

He slapped me hard across the face and my nose began to bleed. I had nothing to wipe the blood with but my hands.

I will not describe the long hours of my interrogation. He threatened me with hanging and with shooting. He threatened to cut off my fingers one by one, and to cut out my tongue. He had two soldiers hold me and a third whip me with a stick.

“I am just a humble parson,” I said.

The lieutenant was so angry his face streamed sweat and he paced back and forth in the tent. “I will find the seed of this rebellion and I will cut it out,” he said.

But in the end he found I had nothing of use to tell him. He found I was nothing but a simple preacher and psalmodist, useless to him. I hoped he would release me to return to Josie.

“Can you read Latin?” the lieutenant said. He handed me a little book of Ovid and I read and translated a few lines of the Amores.

“Because you have right of clergy I will not hang you,” Lieutenant Withnail said.

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