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The Hessians. Nearly 200 years earlier, they must have followed the same path I was walking, I thought as I walked down Broad Street. The afternoon was warm but not muggy, and leaves still shaded the sidewalks. The sycamore leaves were starting to turn brown at the edges, and some had fallen as nature’s first sign of fall. It was a good day for a walk.
I glanced over my shoulder at the courthouse clock, now keeping perfect time, and smiled as I thought of the afternoon Doolan and I had climbed to the tower, the day that led to this hike to the old battlefield. I passed the Paul’s Hotel, long ago a stage coach stop for travelers passing through what had been a busy colonial village. Few people in town knew that after the Revolution, the inn became known for a time as "Hessians Defeated at Red Bank" as a local salute to the colonial victory. Across the street was the Friends Meeting House, which was an active place of worship during the Revolution. Local tradition had it that this building, now hidden among the trees, has long been haunted.
I crossed the bridge over Woodbury Creek, which long ago was a main thoroughfare to the city, and on to North Broad, where the hospital, gas station, drug store, Chevrolet dealer and other businesses showed a more modern face to the busy street. An exception was the old graveyard just past the Chevy dealer, untouched for years and largely forgotten. I was still feeling fresh and full of energy, glad I remembered to wear my sneakers in the morning and leave my books in my locker when school let out. I had also brought along the page from the notebook I had deciphered, but exactly why, I wasn’t sure.
A light wind picked up as I made the left turn to Hessian Avenue, the road that would take my to Red Bank Battlefield. The street, shaded and lined with houses on small lots, divided neighborhoods that I imagined to be nothing but fields and swampy woods when the men for whom the street got its name marched this way. The sun straight ahead was on its downward path and shadows started to lengthen as the afternoon wore on, but there was still plenty of sunlight left. I thought of the soldiers who had been this way and, perhaps, had the same thought.
Soon I arrived at the junction with Crown Point Road. As traffic from Philadelphia and Camden streamed by, I pulled out the paper on which I had penciled the deciphered the tale from the tattered page Doolan had given me: "One night both met ..." I swallowed hard as I felt a chill, "on Crown Point Road." I waited for an opening in the traffic and sprinted across the highway.
My stride began to slow as I walked into National Park, a little borough of modest houses that had always been looked at as a poor cousin to the more prosperous Woodbury. The main street broadened to a wide avenue with only a scattering of small shops and bars on the sides. The street ended with the gate to Red Bank Battlefield, the site of Fort Mercer. A small sign hanging on the fence said "Open 9 a.m. to Sunset." On the left was the park’s signature display of long timbers, once rigged with spikes to rip holes in the hulls of enemy ships.
There were few visitors in the park, perhaps because everyone was home eating dinner, which was probably where I should have been. Before walking through the gate, I walked back to a little store and bought a Pepsi and Tasty-Kakes before retracing my steps back to the park. Walking in, I passed the old, brick Whitall Mansion, marked by rusting cannon balls still embedded in its side. I climbed on one of the cannons pointing over the bluff above the Delaware River, set my Pepsi between my legs and pulled the piece of paper from my pocket.
"So for years these two unfortunates wandered through meadow, woods and floated over streams, all over the old battleground at Fort Mercer, with an occasional glance through the windows of the Whitall Mansion ." Ghosts peering into Whitall Mansion? I read on.
"Among these Hessians were two whose heads had been blown off. When they were interred the head of the one was buried with the body of the other, and the head of the other was buried with the head of one. This caused considerable consternation. None of these poor Hessians could sleep in their place of long rest."
Two Hessians, I thought. Two. Two o’clock. The two lights. As my heart pounded, I said the German word aloud: "Swei." My Pepsi slipped from between my legs and the bottle crashed onto the concrete pad below the cannon. I began to understand why I was here. But what do I do? I sat for a long time, just gazing at the river making its way south as the setting sun cast a golden shimmer across the water. I watched the as they cars made their way across the Passyunk Avenue Bridge across the river, and the sprawling Navy yard along the far shore to the north. I watched as plane after plane made their descents and landed at the Philadelphia airport. Electric signs off in the distance blinked on, and headlights on the cars across the river started cast tiny dots of light. Lights at the shipyard started to show. Nature joined in and above me, the first stars started to appear. It was twilight, but the moon was rising and beginning to cast its own glow on the old battlefield, creating an eerie ripple of shadows across the battlefield trenches where we had run and played tag as young kids.
I knew the park was closing and that I had to move on or be asked to get out. I climbed off the cannon and, seeing no one around, made my way down the embankment that sloped steeply to a wide bank of dried, crusting mud. I walked to the north, maybe 10 minutes, asking myself what I should do and whether I should leave. The lights were now all on across the river, forming a streak of dots between the black sky and dark river. I stopped to watch a northbound tanker pass, and jumped when the ship sounded two deep, moaning blasts of its whistle. I turned away and started to run when I saw a shadow coming toward me, freezing me in place.
"I’m going," I said, thinking it was a park guard. He said nothing and stepped closer to me.
I could see he was about my height, and as he drew closer the moon, now high in the sky, cast dim light on his face.
"Doolan! Doolan, thank God it’s you. That’s you isn’t it?"
"Let’s walk," he said. It was Doolan’s voice.
"Right. Let’s get out of here," I said.
My feet crunched the dry mud under my sneaks as I headed toward the embankment. Anxious to get away, my walk picked up to a fast gait. Doolan fell behind and I told him to hurry. He didn’t answer. I turned around to tell him again but he just stood in place.
"Doolan?"
I looked in his face. I could see his nose, mouth, the hair on his head -- but his eyes, there was no contact. I lost my breath as lights from the passing ship shone out of the darkness of his eye sockets, moving slowly as the ship passed. I turned away and started walking fast, but Doolan called out.
"Wait." It was an order, not a plea. I turned around again and looked. He was two steps behind me. Lights from the shipyard now beamed weakly from his eye sockets.
"This way," he said.
My heart thumped. Doolan turned and walked toward the embankment, but away from the trail I was going to take to the top. I don’t know why, but I followed him.
"Where are we going?" I asked. He didn’t answer, but kept moving. He started up the steep slope, moving more quickly than I could, but I caught up with him, maybe a third of the way up the embankment, when he stopped.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"Dig, here," he said.
Doolan? Are you OK? With what? I don’t have a shovel or ... "
"DIG!"
His voice seemed deeper than a human’s did, and the word echoed off the embankment. I fell to my knees and started scratching the hard, clay earth from the hillside, pulling clumps and rocks with my fingers and tossing them down the slope. The glow of the moon cast a shadow on a jagged branch near the gouge I had made with my hands, and I thrust the pointed end into the dirt again and again to loosen the soil. All the while, Doolan’s faint shadow loomed, motionless, over me.
I jabbed, scooped, dug and pushed away dirt until I had made a hole two feet or so into the ground. Finally the shadow moved to my side and Doolan’s silhouette appeared at my side.
"There, right there," he said, pointing down. "Push the stick in, right there!"
I jabbed the stick into the ground and began prying what looked like a rounded rock. I jabbed
around it to loosened the ground and pried again. It popped loose and bobbled to the bottom of the hole. But when I saw two dark eye sockets staring back at me, I knew at once it wasn’t a rock. It was a human skull. The sight knocked the breath out of me and I couldn’t stand."Now, over here," Doolan said as he moved to the right. "Dig here." He pointed down.
The same process followed, with few words spoken. As I dug and poked and scratched away soil, I turned once to Doolan’s dark outline and said, "Is that you, is it really you? Where have you been, Doolan?"
His answer seemed to be a riddle. "I’ve been here before."
My stick found another hard object and I braced myself this time for what I would find. Much like the last time, I loosened the clay around the skull and pried it out of the ground. I looked up, and could see a smile on Doolan’s face. He turned quickly and said it was time to go, through the main gate.
"What do I do with these?" I asked.
"Bring ‘em. Let’s go."
"What if someone sees us? Me carrying two skulls, they’ll think I’m a grave robber. They’ll put me in jail or something. I’m getting out of here," I said defiantly. I picked up by digging stick and threw it toward the river in exasperation.
Doolan laughed, and said, "No one will see you."
We just stood for a moment. All of the strange things I had seen were now adding up, the two skulls of Hessian soldiers, long separated from their own bones, their ghosts waiting to meet, and I was to make it happen. But one question remained.
"We’re going to Crown Point Road, aren’t we?" I said. Doolan nodded yes.
"Why?"
"Let’s go now," was all he said. He turned and shambled up the hill. I collected the skulls, putting one in the crook of each elbow and followed. We were soon at the top of the embankment, past the cannon and Whitall Mansion. I sprinted past Doolan toward the closed park gate, anxious to get out and get this whole night over with. I half-believed it was a weird dream or nightmare and, as I dropped each skull over the wire fence into soft weeds on the other side, prayed I would soon wake up.
I climbed to the top of the fence, swung my rear over and shinnied down. Doolan was already on the other side, waiting for me.
Now hoping I could run myself awake, I placed the skulls in each arm and ran like a football halfback down Hessian Avenue until, a few blocks from the street lights and stores, my breath gave out. I put the skulls down and bent over to catch my breath. I glanced down the street, and to my amazement nothing was there -- no stores, no houses or streetlights, no paved avenue and no gate to Fort Mercer. Only trees, shadowing a moonlit trail where the street had been. I blinked twice and the scene was still the same. I turned my head and looked the other way, and there were still houses, street lights, lawns, cars parked by the side of the road -- everything as it looked a few hours earlier. Suddenly, Doolan’s shadow was over me.
"Time to move on, let’s go," he said. There were still no eyes, but the yellow haze of the streetlights ahead glowed from the place of his eyes. I picked up the skulls and began walking.
A few blocks farther I looked back, and again, everything behind me had turned to woods, divided by a narrow dirt trail leading to the fort. Yet ahead, there were still houses, cars, pavement. I wanted to call out, not so much for help but to see if anybody else could enter this strange dream, if it was a dream. When I dream, I can fly, find bags of gold, find myself in unknown places and see the dead. But if chased by wild dogs, my legs won’t run. This night, I could run and I knew where I was. Could somebody tell me, not where I am, but when I am? I called out, "Hello! Is anyone here? Anyone?"
Doolan, now at my side, turned his head toward me and smiled weakly. I heard a house door slam in the distance and saw a silhouette appear on the side of the street. The shoulders were bent -- and there appeared to be no head. I remembered the old man who had come to my house with the Hessian buttons, the man who told me to go to Crown Point Road. I walked faster, faster, clutching the skulls in my arms, then burst into a full run in hopes to getting past the headless man.
Headlights streaking by ahead of me told me I had made it to Crown Point Road.
"Now what? Is this it?" I asked Doolan, who was a step or two behind me. I glanced back and the street we had just walked down was now darkened, without a house or light.
"Turn right, we’re almost there," said Doolan, adding with a smirk, "Why the hurry? Does the time matter to you that much tonight?"
I turned and, now nearing exhaustion, walked with the skulls in my arms along the shoulder of the highway. Ahead , lights shone from a scrap yard, a motel and diner that lined the road. I looked back and Doolan was still shadowing me. Farther back was the black silhouette of the bent-head man, who was keeping pace with the two of us. I kept walking, a minute, three, four, five minutes, wondering when all of this would end. I looked back, and the scrap yard, motel and diner had vanished. In their place was woods, broken only by swamp that reached up toward the dirt path which only a few minutes before had been highway. Cars coming toward me disappeared into nothing as they passed by me. But the headless silhouette remained.
A short way ahead was Crown Point Road’s intersection with Delaware Street, which -- like Hessian Avenue -- had long ago been a thoroughfare to Woodbury. I took a deep breath and, despite my exhaustion, ran, skulls in my arms.
Doolan stayed right with me and the headless man was now right behind Doolan. As I reached the junction I realized I could run no more. Panting and aching, my head throbbing and heart pounding, I fell to my knees, dropping the skulls as I went down. Within seconds, Doolan and the headless soon stood over me, each slowly extending his arms and opening his fingers. Without thought, I picked up the skulls and rose to my feet, then placed a skull in each one’s waiting palms. Slowly, I pulled my hands away. Nothing happened, and each just stood there.
I reached to the skulls again, taking each away and exchanging them. Doolan smiled, and the man with the bent neck turned so his eyes made contact with mine, and winked twice.
At that moment, each turned to a steamy vapor, and five seconds later, evaporated.
I had never felt such relief, and looked up as I took a deep breath. Lights caught my eye and I looked up Crown Point Road. I heard the sound of an engine and saw two bright lights coming toward me. I froze on the spot. I heard no squealing brakes and felt nothing but a breeze as the tow truck passed through me. Looking the other way, I saw the two red tail lights of the truck. It was headed up Crown Point Road. The motel was back, so was the diner.
I called out, "Doolan!" But I don’t think anyone heard me. My exhaustion had faded and it felt like I didn’t need to take even a breath. I decided to go home and took my first steps, up Delaware Avenue. Funny, it didn’t feel as if my feet touched the ground.
