The Man Who Could Be King: A Novel by Miller John Ripin

Author:Miller, John Ripin [Miller, John Ripin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781477820209
Publisher: Little A
Published: 2017-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

DAY SIX—SATURDAY

The Showdown

This sun, perhaps, this morning sun’s the last

That e’er shall rise on Roman Liberty.

—Sempronius, Cato, Act I, Scene 2

I’ll animate the soldiers’ drooping courage,

With love of freedom, and contempt of life.

I’ll thunder in their ears their country’s cause,

And try to raise up all that’s Roman in them.

—Portius, Cato, Act I, Scene 2

The General spent the early morning in his bedroom attended by his aide, Will Lee, as was his custom. To say the General was fastidious would be an understatement. His deep-blue coat was always freshly brushed. His faded-yellow buff waistcoat and breeches always perfectly matched. His shirt was always of the finest linen. The yellow buttons on the lapels and the buckles on his breeches were all as highly polished as his boots. His graying, reddish-brown hair was combed smoothly back in a small queue. Except for the three silver stars on his epaulettes, you would not know his rank. The General’s appearance was elegant but simple. As I have said, he refused to wear the medals that had been given him, declaring to me that this would be immodest. For the same reason he abandoned the blue sash he had initially worn across his breast. The French officers, who loved ribbons and medals, found this peculiar. And this, as I said earlier, from the man who had introduced the wearing of medals by his own enlisted men.

Will Lee was almost as well dressed as the General, who ordered his aide’s clothes from either the General’s indentured tailor at Mount Vernon or, where possible, the same Philadelphia tailor favored by the General. Will may have been the General’s slave as well as aide, but we joked in headquarters that he looked more smartly dressed than many of the generals in the army.

Thus, resplendently dressed as always, the General convened our usual staff meeting on Saturday morning without any reference to the climactic meeting approaching later that morning. David Humphreys, Benjamin Walker, and I sat at the big rough-hewn table in that central room, our office, of seven doors and one window. The General faced us. The meeting opened with discussion of what could only be described as a smelly situation. Most of the recently arrived beef at the Contractors’ Issuing Store was so spoiled as to be inedible. Perhaps the weight of the coming meeting was affecting the General as he eschewed his usual diatribes about corrupt contractors taking advantage of our troops. He merely directed, and Walker transcribed, a message to the quartermaster to cut off all dealings with the offending supplier and threaten that gentleman (if he could be called such) with unspecified retribution if the deception was not rectified.

There followed a discussion of a proper response to the French ambassador, who had written the General a lengthy letter about the difficulty of negotiating a final treaty with Great Britain despite agreement on conditional terms. The ambassador held out hope for a resolution soon but also acknowledged that the war might continue for another year.

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