Washington's Faeries
[The Friday Flash] A revolutionary war militia receives aid from unusual allies.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the siege of Fort Morris, but I was really there. Twelve years of age and a proud soldier of the Georgia Militia. The paintings and reenactments make our bold recapture of the fort appear ordained by providence. Yet, during those frigid November days of the Revolutionary War, our victory seemed far from assured.
It was during one such cold morning that I set out from our camp to check the traps and fishing nets. Empty, per usual.
In a proper siege, those inside the fort were supposed to go hungry. But our supply lines were cut. Not a single one of us possessed an ounce of hunting acumen, and the gunfire had probably scared all the game from the local woodland, anyway. So, our British occupiers grew fat off the fort’s stockpiles while we survived on hope—and even that was running out.
Until I saw the lights in the fog.
They bobbed through the tree line. Perhaps two miles away. With so many lanterns, it must have been a large contingent. A dozen soldiers, at least!
My bare feet skidded across the dew-soaked grass as I rushed back to camp. “Reinforcements! Reinforcements! The Continental Army is here!”
“Continental Army.” Colonel Danford spat in the soft peat of yester night’s campfire. “They took their leisure getting here.”
Malcolm crossed his arms. “If we’d let in the regiment that passed three months ago, we’d have never lost the fort.”
Colonel Danford grumbled as the two men regarded one another. Only Malcolm had the gumption to question the colonel. Our commander’s verbal lashings didn’t compare to the real ones they gave in Antigua. We had neither the ability nor inclination to verify his papers with the colony. Fugitive or free, he could hit a hare with a howitzer.
With a wave, the colonel dismissed his lieutenant’s insubordination. “There were three Acadians in that regiment. If I’d let them in, we’d all be speaking French by now.”
I was not too sure of that. Jorge had served for three years, and no one else spoke Spanish—which was a right shame, since he was our only scout.
Colonel Danford waved at me. “Grab your drums, boy. Let’s see what they have for us.”
When they put me on the militia’s front lines, I’d hoped they’d give me a musket. I’d fancied myself a crack shot. But Colonel Danford was adamant that any proper military regiment needed a drummer, a claim that seemed more ludicrous as our number of fighting men dwindled.
The best post for an Indian boy, he’d told me, which really bristled my britches. Not on account of his distaste for Indians. It just seemed a waste that they made me attend that school if I still wouldn’t be one of them when I came out.
We rallied what remained of our besieging militia. The morning’s heavy fog admirably concealed our sorry numbers. But with my drums at least we sounded like a full regiment.
My brow furrowed as we returned to the site where I spotted them. Their lanterns were already upon us! Even the Continental Army couldn’t march that fast.
As the lights neared, we discovered they weren’t lanterns at all. They were floating balls of light like flickering will o’ wisps over the swamp. But inside their glow hovered the silhouettes of tiny women with moth wings.
Colonel Danford scowled. “Faeries.”
“Careful, sir,” one of our soldiers shouted. “I’ve heard tales of them. They’ll turn us into rosebushes if we’re not careful.”
“We’re more disciplined than our kin back home.” A faerie floated ahead of the rest. Though small in stature, her face resembled a woman grown. “Captain Saoirse of the Southern Department. We understand you called for reinforcements?”
“We called for soldiers,” Colonel Danford said. “Not faeries.”
“I assure you we are both.” Another faerie approached, carrying a parchment twice her size. “Our commission, for your inspection.”
“Give it to the boy. He knows his letters.”
I puffed my chest as I took the letter, struggling to restrain my curiosity. Real faeries. Fair folk from the Old World. I had so many questions. Like, did George Washington really fight giants in Quebec? Was Benjamin Franklin really a wizard?
“It’s true,” I said as I read the commission. “Says they’re under the commission of General Washington himself.”
“Well, we aren’t interested in his help.” Colonel Danford thumbed his nose. “And it’s not because you’re fair folk. It’s because you’re Irish. Always figured there was something queer about that Washington fellow. Probably wears those powdered wigs to hide his red hair.”
By reflex, we turned to Malcolm for a counterpoint. But for once, our voice of dissent rang in concurrence. “Yeah. And I hear his dentures are made from slave teeth.”
Now, you might shake your head at our donkey stubbornness, rejecting aid when we so sorely needed it. But our states were not so united in those days. While we all had different definitions of freedom and different notions of who deserved it, each one of us would have starved in our pride before we bent the knee to another King George.
Our colony’s history—perhaps our country’s history—might have followed a different course had our scout, Jorge, not found us when he did.
“El Lagarto!” he shouted through the fog. “El Legarto!”
“Who is El Legarto?” Colonel Danford asked.
Malcolm shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me, but I hope he brought food.”
We followed Jorge down to St. Catherine’s Sound. A galleon was pulling into the fort, waving the British flag. A magnificent beast slumbered on deck, sprawled across the entire ship, bow to stern. Its scales resembled mulberry clusters, and smoke spewed from its crocodilian snout as it snored.
“Cripes,” Colonel Danford cried. “It’s a dragon!”
“They brought one across the Atlantic alive,” Malcolm added.
“Now, do you understand why we came?” Captain Saoirse asked. “We’re not fighting thirteen separate wars, we’re fighting one. The British can decimate the entire Southern Department with a dragon roosting in that fort. Foreign or fair, you need our help.”
“And I reckon you’ve got some tricksy plan for how to kill that thing?”
“We do,” the faerie replied with a grin. “But we’ll need to borrow your drummer boy.”
The faeries plan would require all that remained of our dwindling supplies. If the British weren’t fooled and the dragon wasn’t slain by the afternoon, we’d all suffer a far worse fate than the starvation we’d been circling toward.
I crept toward the fort, while the faeries hid within my knapsack. Enemy soldiers often let me pass unmolested, mistaking me for one of the Creek Indians who had taken up cause with the British.
Captain Saoirse peeked her head out from the folds of my bag as we waited for the others to assume their positions. “It seems your Colonel takes issue with our kind.”
“He takes issue with all kinds, ma’am,” I replied.
“And which military, exactly, issued his rank?”
“Well, he’s never left the colony, ma’am. So, I figure he must have issued it to himself.”
“Why fight for a man who disrespects you, barely feeds you, and keeps you under no authority beyond his own?” she asked. “The Continental Army could always use more brave soldiers.”
“Well, I suppose we’ve all got our own reasons for joining the militia. But at the end of this war, it’s not Philadelphia we’re going home to. It’s here. The colonel may be slow to trust, but he treats you like family once you’ve paid your dues.”
Captain Saoirse tapped her chin pensively. “Curious.”
Perhaps I’d oversold the colonel’s redeeming qualities in my zeal to defend our regiment. Truthfully, some of us paid more dues than others. But a prickly commander was a better bedfellow than a slave or school master. Maybe better than Galvez, although we never figured out why Jorge left Pensacola.
We all knew that the powdered wigs in Philadelphia didn’t always live up to their beautiful words. At least with Colonel Danford, we knew where we stood. And, if anything, the man was damn frightening at the head of a bayonet charge.
“Time to move,” Captain Saoirse whispered. “Ladies, get into position.”
The faeries flew out of my bag and spread across the foggy fields to mimic the formation of a full regiment.
“Your job is the most important,” she said to me. “Keep playing those drums, no matter what happens.”
I swallowed and rolled my sticks along the goatskin canvas. On we marched, closer and closer to the fort. I played my drums.
No sane regiment would have assaulted the fort with a dragon inside, so the British probably figured we didn’t know about it. People are most reckless when they think they’ve caught you by surprise. And before long, the enemy sent their new beast of war into the fray.
Perhaps their confidence wasn’t so misplaced. The war drums of its flapping wings swiftly drowned my own. Its growl thundered like a loaded gunnery deck’s broadside. A reptilian eye narrowed as it flew overhead, searching for an army but finding only a single boy.
Still, I played my drums.
“Now!” Captain Saoirse shouted.
The faeries took flight, dragging with them the fishing nets we’d laid on the ground. As they swarmed the dragon, they wrapped it around its wings.
Artillery fire shrieked from the tree line, where Malcolm waited with his howitzer. His shot was true, as always. The cannonball struck the dragon’s snout, knocking its lower jaw clean off.
A gout of flame spewed from the wound, setting fire to the lantern kerosene we’d used to soak the fishing nets. The blaze spread swiftly, singing off the soft tissue in the folds of the dragon’s wings. By the time the dragon broke free, and the ropes crumbled to cinders, it was already plummeting to the ground.
The gates of Fort Morris flew open, and the British poured out to recover their valuable asset. But they found Colonel Danford and the rest of our militia posted outside first, who treated them to one of his famous bayonet charges. Before long, they were jumping off the fort walls into the water. The fort was recaptured, and the dragon was slain.
And I played my drums.
“Let’s seal the gate and shore our defenses before they get a mind to come back,” Captain Saoirse said.
“Wait on that,” Colonel Danford. “We’re going to the food stores.”
He didn’t need to say it twice. Flocking to the pantries, our celebration was cut decidedly short.
“Empty?” I asked in disbelief.
“Those rat bastards cleaned it out,” Colonel Danford shouted.
We joined him atop the fort wall and watched, crestfallen, as the rations floated away. Ten barrels of hardtack and fishing supplies joined the British down St. Catherine’s Sound. A cruel rejoinder for Boston Harbor.
“We’re goners,” Malcolm muttered. “In a fortnight, they’ll march right back in over our starved corpses.”
Jorge’s face lighted as he squinted and sniffed the air. “Ah! Barbacoa!”
“Bar what?” Colonel Danford asked, but our scout had already scaled down the wall into the fog.
We didn’t find him again until sunset—after we’d done our diligence and battened down the fort’s defenses, of course. He’d gone to the dragon’s corpse and dug a fire pit. Shanks of glistening meat hung off wooden poles.
“Barbacoa,” he said, extending a skewer toward us.
“Is dragon…edible?” Malcolm asked.
“It’s supposed to be rather stringy,” Captain Saoirse replied.
That was good enough for me. I grabbed the skewer. The meat almost dissolved on my tongue, already eager for a second bite before I swallowed my first. It tasted like eating catfish and deer at the same time.
“It’s tender!” I shouted, mouth still full.
“Si, barbacoa,” Jorge said. “Cocinado a fuego lento.”
“Reckon we can jerky the rest with the spices we found in the captain’s quarters,” Malcom said.
“Let me see one of those,” Colonel Danford said as he took a skewer. His lips smacked as the rest of the militia awaited his verdict. “Well, not bad for Spaniard food.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, mister native-son-of-the-colonies,” Captain Saoirse said, crossing her arms. “Where exactly are you from?”
A hush fell over our troop. For all the scrutiny he’d given our origins, we’d never thought to ask about his own.
Colonel Danford puffed his chest and straightened his collar. “Why, my family came here from London.”
The camp erupted in raucous laughter.
“What’s so funny about that?” he asked, scratching his head.
As Jorge distributed his slow cooked dragon meat to the merry soldiers, Captain Saoirse and her faeries took flight. They lit the night sky in prismatic flashes, signaling to the Continental Army that the fort had been won.
We reveled for the rest of the evening, unaware of the long work that lay ahead of us. We didn’t always live up to the lofty ideals we’d championed on that chilly November day. I lived to watch the British return and burn out new capitol. Watched my people ripped from their homes to walk down a long and bloody trail.
Yet even when our country failed us, we celebrated its birth. When the faeries faded from the world, we lit fireworks in the sky to honor their memory. And while dragon meat never became a staple of America’s kitchens, we still mark our nation’s independence with barbacoa—or barbecue as we later shortened it.
All of us may not have found freedom at the end of that war, but, by God, all of us fought for it. So, the next time you get a notion about who belongs in this country, remember who was there from the beginning.