America and I sat at embroidery. Gwyneth sat with Benjamin and Dorothy Ann and told them the stories that I had told her so long ago. After two hours, we put the little ones to bed and I bade good night to the young ladies and went to my room. When Cullah came to bed I was near asleep. The sound of the door latch was all it took to make me sit up. “What news? Is Virtue conscripted also?”
He sat on the end of the bed and pulled off his boots and shirt. I touched his back. He sighed. “Ah, Resolute. Yes, he is. But this is not what I expected.” He doffed his trousers, raised the blanket, and rolled into the bed. Lying on his back, he took my hand and said, “I cannot fight the French.”
“The French?”
“Over in the Ohio Country, they put in charge some green fellow with no more sense than a goose who got himself pinned between French missionaries and bloodthirsty Indians. They drove him and his lobster-backs across the river back to the colonies and made a shame of the lad and the few soldiers that lived. His name was George Washington. Hell of a bad way for a man’s name to be remembered, is it not? Now Parliament has sent a pack of new generals and fifteen hundred more soldiers across the sea. They want to take Québec, Montréal, all the way north into the far Canadas. They intend to drive all the Frogs from these shores along with driving all the Indians from the land between British provinces on the coast and the French territory far to the west. It is rich with furs and gold, they say, farmable land, plenty of rivers to run trade goods to the ocean as far to the south as the southern oceans. Lands I never heard of before: in the north is Nova Scotee, colder than a Viking could stand; in the south, a port called New Orlean, where Dodsil said all the people are descended from golden Indians as tall as giants. The army will destroy them all, Dodsil says.”
I asked, “A land so vast. Can there not be something done just to portion it out? Can it not be shared? Why should there be war?”
“He says the French are bribing the Indians not to trade with the English. That they are taking up all the port cities and closing trade and soon there will be no more goods sold to English. A cup of molasses has doubled in price.”
“I will do without it,” I said, though I rued the words even as I spake them. Living without treacle would be harder than living without salt. “How long will it take to take the land from the Indians and French?”
“Blast everything, Resolute. I cannot fight the French.”
“The English and the French have always been enemies.”
“As have the English and the Scots. How can I raise arms against men who fought and died beside my people? I cannot forget Culloden.”
I stayed silent for a long time. At last I said, “Could you not refuse to go?”
“And be hung for it.”
I sighed, flopping my hands upon the coverlets. “Our son thinks he will become a hero. I would rather he became a Quaker.”
“I will not wear a red coat. I will take my plaids and my pipes. I will fight with the Scottish regiments against the Indian tribes. I still do not know if I can slay a Frenchman.”
“Are there Scottish regiments?”
“Aye.”
“And will you take Brendan with you, then?”
“I will take him if he will go.”
“Just tell him and he will go. You are his father.”
“No more. A boy that goes to war is no more a boy. He must decide.”
I thought of August, and how he changed in just a few short weeks from a happy boy to a tormented boy, then grew to be a man with a deadly gleam in his eye.
Next morning, when Cullah told Brendan what he’d told me and laid before him the plaids I had woven, Brendan’s face wore his dismay. When Cullah wrapped the plaid around him, though, his expression changed. He said, “Will you keep this coat for me, Mother? If the Scottish regiment doesn’t get much fighting I will come back for it.”
May 21, 1755