June 3rd, 1776
This day, in the evening, we held our funeral games.
There was, it seemed, more reason for merriment than the deception of malignant spirits: This day the women were rowed ashore from their ships, and have taken up residence with us. Anxious to be reunited with our friends, I accompanied Pro Bono to the shore, and was treated to a fine sight: the fleet at anchor there, one hundred or two hundred ships, lit red with the sun as it flickered upon the water, as the women were rowed toward us, waving and calling out across the shallows.
Dr. Trefusis accompanied them ashore, and ’twas my pleasure to escort him through the rough terrain of flat stump and loam we have made of the forest, down to the peninsula and to our tent. He was merry to see us, but his gaiety ceased when he saw our situation. He sat by our fly, casting looks across the channel, up toward the hillside where the hundred cook-fires of the enemy light up the night.
Come darkness, we took fire-brands and crossed the isle to the far shore, away from the scornful gaze of rebel and Redcoat alike. There we built our bonfire, and Olakunde and the other musicians began to make their music for the dance.
’Twas a strange scene, for most were delighted at their reunion with spouse, friend, and child; and others, the grieving, were asked to impersonate mirth to bewitch malign gods.
We dug pits by the shore and the lapping water, which place was held proper for tainted burials such as these. The corpses of the dead were laid upon the sand, and around them, those who knew the rites began their dances and grinned in simulated mirth. The families of the dead, the friends, were instructed to show no sign of grief, none of the lineaments of sorrow.
Those who wished merely to drink and embrace were prodigiously discomfited by these uncanny shows, and moped, and glowered, and some moved off a space so as to give the mourners room sufficient for their ghastly levee.
And so there were two fêtes tonight, in neighboring groves: in one, mirth; in the other, mirth personated; in one, the transports of delight; in the other, the delights of despond; in one, the celebration of arrival; in the other, the rites of departure.
For a while, I observed the funeral games. The mourners leaped in the light of the fire and sang. All laughed, as if in jest, but the laughter was without joy; none wept, but the eyes were deranged with sorrow.
Will, silent Will, stood by my side and stared upon the graves, as if he wished himself therein.
Looking upon that scene — the full moon above, the flames below, the dancing bodies of the mourners, and behind them, the vast expanse of Chesapeake Bay — there could not be a scene conducing to greater sublimity. We stood there at the edge of land — seeing, beyond the graves, the bay, the distant, invisible sea, dark and yet illumined, profound and yet quiescent — our thoughts turning naturally to that final deep from which none return.
Beside us, men shaved each other’s heads in grief.
When I had taken my fill of this strange draught, I made my way through the pines to the other convocation. I urged Will to come with me, believing it did his wounded soul no favor to watch more exertions for the dead. At this second scene of revelry, we found Slant and Pomp sitting silent upon the ground. They both inspected their own hands. I sat by them.
There was much talking and laughing, and a pleasant music played by an old man upon a hoe with finger-rings of lead. Charles and Pro Bono and their ilk sat about the fire and smoked their pipes, speaking of strategy, Miss Nsia among them; while near us, soldiers played a game, measuring out seeds in divots in the dirt, as others around them squatted and offered advice for leaps and tags, chewing upon sticks, drinking flip.
Olakunde, his drumming complete for the evening, came to our side. Slant seemed uneasy, and craved diversion; I presumed his melancholy air was occasioned by the inoculation to come and the grisly rites just past. So we sought to enliven our own gloomy wits as we ever do through conversation.
Watching the sparks and the fireflies, we told tales of flight: Olakunde told us of dead souls flying to freedom; and Pomp told us of live men rising from the fields, light as thistledown upon the wind, hands outstretched, yanking children from the tobacco weeds, lifting them, hauling them up onto shoulders lighter than air, great hordes of them disappearing across the seas. And I told them of Dædalus and his son, slaves imprisoned upon Crete by the walls of the Labyrinth that their own labors had built — father and son fleeing bondage on waxen wings.
In the midst of these tales, Slant wandered away from our number; and I was about to inquire after his sudden departure when Bono, Charles, and Private Harrison came to my side and demanded of me: “Draw the Colonies.”
As I sketched on the dirt, Bono said, “See, we’re bunged out of Boston. We have New-York still. General Howe sent a force down to tame the Carolinas. And what I say is, they’re fools to fuss with the Carolinas. Faith, Prince O., that ain’t where Maryland goes. You got it spang into Pennsylvania. See, what I’m saying is that whatever species of idiot is commanding this effort should focus his self on Virginia. They take back Virginia with us —”
“Food for New-York then,” said Charles. “Pork, ham.”
“Corn,” said Private Harrison. “Plenty of corn.”
“Wheat and such,” agreed Bono. “Instead of they’re supplied by Halifax or Cork.”
I opined, “I believe Halifax is closer to New-York than is Virginia. If you’ll excuse me, Slant seems melancholy, and I should —”
“No one excuses you,” said Bono, who despises correction. “Apply yourself to Delaware. It looks globby. It ain’t that globby in life. Listen, if General Howe stops sending troops down to the damn Carolinas, and sends them here instead, we will conquer Virginia again, and gentlemen, Virginia is the Pope’s nose of colonies. I tell you this: I do love my old Boston-Town, with its fine six shades of black breech, excellent dead fish in the alleys, and a nation of hymnody all Sunday long, but Virginia is the — what’s a gem? — ruby. Virginia is the ruby among governments — first in fashion — where the real genteel come to whip horseflesh and spit. We secure Virginia, and all the rest will drop.”
“General Washington,” said Charles, “he hear we take Virginia, he come back down, defend his house, his land, his all these thing.”
Slant was back, but there was vomit upon his shirt. His hands were sticky with it and his eyes expressive of guilt.
“You reckon we can draw Chesapeake Bay and the Kingdom of Accomac?” Bono asked me, squatting beside me. “Together?”
Seeing Slant was in some distress, I rose and I replied that I was gratified they had applied to me, but begged them continue without the imperfections of my cartography. Slant protested that I should stay, bidding Pomp and I good night. I inquired if all was well; he replied he had vomited, and believed he had a fever.
Pomp and I led him back to our tent. At the mere suggestion we could take him to the quarantine camp, he demurred in the most plangent tones, saying, “This ain’t the smallpox. I ha —, ha —, han’t had the — . . . smallpox. You don’t take me there. You don’t take me — they all has the smallpox there. This ain’t no smallpox.”
Pomp and I watch by him while he sleeps.