Chapter 1
Deep inside the bowels of the Suffolk, a once proud merchant frigate, Will Drake thought he felt the rotting hulk of the prison vessel move. He paused in fear. The ship was a derelict. She had no masts, merely grotesque stubs that looked like broken teeth showing where they once had been. She was anchored at the end of a dock, parallel to the shore, and was thought to be thoroughly wedged in the mud and thus immune to wind and storm. She couldn’t move. She barely shifted and quivered with the tide, although the ship sometimes creaked and moaned as if it was alive and ashamed of its current life. The Suffolk and two others rotted silently off the city of New York in the Hudson River.
Will gathered his strength and moved to a higher deck in the hull of the large ship. He’d thought that the Suffolk had likely sailed to China and India, which explained the double rows of gun ports to protect her from pirates. Now it was going to be his coffin. He looked at his gaunt and terrified fellow prisoners and some of them shared his concern as to the ship’s unexpected and frightening movement. Most of the other men consisted of little more than a layer of skin over a skeleton, and were too far sunk in despair and sickness to notice or care. Whatever happened, they would be dead in a very short while.
The Suffolk had been Will’s prison for almost a year and a half, although she and her sister ships had been convict ships for many years before.
Will had been taken prisoner by the British when Clinton’s army had burst out of New York following the catastrophic American defeat at Yorktown and the subsequent collapse of the Revolution. It was just plain bad luck that a Redcoat patrol had found him and even worse luck that he had been identified by a man who knew him and told his captors that he was an officer.
It was then that he realized the rules of war had changed. Hitherto, officers had been kept in reasonably pleasant circumstances until either paroled or exchanged, while the enlisted men lived lives of privation and squalor. This was because the British feared retaliation against their own officers. Now, with the rebellion crushed, there was no need for niceties and Will quickly understood that the victors wanted the rebellion’s leaders permanently out of the picture. Most of the newly captured enlisted men had been flogged, branded, and released, while the men currently entombed in the hulks were officers and quietly forgotten. Cornwallis now commanded in New York and he was considered to be a hard man, but Will wondered if he was this cruel? After the agonies of branding and flogging, the British kept lower-ranking officers like Drake in floating hells like the Suffolk. Senior ones had been shipped away, either to England for trial or prisons in the tropics.
Will had managed to survive, but it hadn’t been pleasant or easy. By the time he’d been caught, many of the hundreds jammed into the filthy hold of the Suffolk had been weakened or would soon be dead. He’d quickly realized that being Christian or noble simply meant dying sooner rather than later. He’d swallowed his pride and his scruples and done what was necessary to continue living as long as he had. He’d taken food and the rags that passed for clothing from the obviously unconscious and dying and the recently dead, doing so before anybody else could get to them; thus keeping a semblance of his strength. He’d fought for positions in the ship that were relatively dry, or weren’t suffocatingly hot in summer, or freezing in winter. There was no comfort to be had in the stinking bowels of the prison ship at any time.
All the time he’d done this, Will had begged God for forgiveness and cursed the British for putting him in this horrible position.
Fortunately, the British guards on the Suffolk were lazy and incompetent swine who spent most of their time drinking the cheap gin or rum they’d bought by selling provisions meant for the prisoners. The guards had no idea how many men were down below since the prisoners, with Will’s connivance, had stopped sending corpses up to be taken away as that would only mean a reduction in their already inadequate food ration. Instead, the prisoners kept the rotting corpses in the lower holds until the bones could be slipped out through the barred gun ports at night. Thus, as the numbers of prisoners declined, the amount of food each of the survivors received actually increased, despite the pilfering from the guards. The additional stench from the rotting bodies was scarcely noticed.
They rarely lacked for drinking water, even though it was frequently foul. They were north of the city of New York and high enough up the Hudson River so that only the strongest of incoming tides or storms would make the water undrinkable. It was often brackish, but rarely so salty that it couldn’t be drunk. Other hulks lay off Brooklyn, in the East River, where the water was tidal, brackish and generally undrinkable. Will and the others on the Suffolk were actually the lucky ones.
Will had lost many pounds from his once sturdy frame, and the fact that his teeth were loosening meant that scurvy was on its way. If nothing happened to save him soon, he would die a painful and lingering death and join so many of his comrades in either the river or a shallow grave. It did not appear that the victorious king and his Parliament had any intention of freeing the prisoners they’d swept up during and after the war. Will wondered if anyone even remembered that the prisoners existed. Will had heard that as many as ten thousand American soldiers had died in the hulks. He feared that someday someone would strip his own cadaver naked and drop it into the filthy bilge. The thought of his bones sliding into the river sickened him even further. He wanted to weep in despair, but decided not to waste the energy. Stay alive. Survive. There was always a chance of life until the moment of death.
Along with physical imprisonment, there was the maddening lack of knowledge of events in the outside world. He could look longingly out the gun ports at rural life in New Jersey. Farms like the one he once owned were being worked and life was going on very pleasantly for people who were either Tories or who had made peace with their conquerors. Will wondered if they even gave a thought to the wretches in the Suffolk.
Every now and then a new prisoner would arrive, and be pumped for information. The British were strong everywhere, they said, but there were rumors of rebel colonies out in the west. In particular, there was one that was apparently called “Liberty.” It made sense, Will thought. The vastness of the continent would attract many people who would trade space to get away from the claws of Mother England.
Once upon a time, he’d had a family and a profession, but his parents were dead of smallpox, and a brother had been killed at Brandywine. He had cousins, but they were Tories. He was thankful that he didn’t have a wife and children outside somewhere waiting and wondering if he was dead or alive. Widows and children faced a life almost as miserable as his. They could starve, or, including children, be forced into prostitution. Or they could die of the pox or a hundred other diseases that afflicted the weak. No, he was thankful he was alone. Of course, he thought ruefully, that meant he would die unlamented and unmissed if he didn’t get off this damned ship.
At least he could move about in the innards of the Suffolk. At first, he and all the others had been chained to the hull, but the chains had pulled away from the rotting wood, and splinters had been used to pick the locks and free the men. The guards made no effort to rechain them. Whatever happened in the dangerous world below decks was none of their business. Live and let live was the guard’s motto, or was it live and let the rebel bastards die?
He felt it again. The ship was moving, trembling, groaning. What the hell was happening? The others were talking nervously. The ship shuddered, this time strongly, and a couple of the men who were standing fell down.
Will dropped to his knees as the ship slowly began to tilt towards the river. A loud sound like a screaming animal was heard as rotten wood gave way. On deck he heard the guards yelling and running around in confusion. It dawned on him—the Suffolk was falling apart and capsizing.
The list grew worse and the ship shook violently as the sounds grew louder. Prisoners began to scream as they recognized their peril. Suddenly, the ship fractured herself and Will glimpsed the blessed glare of sunlight before torrents of green water rushed in through the hole. As others ran from the gaping hole in her hull, Will moved toward it. He had an idea. It was desperate, but what did he have to lose besides his life?
When the inward rush of water slowed, Will took a deep breath and dived underwater and through the hole. He brushed against the wooden side of the hole and felt pain as his skin was scraped, but nothing stopped him. His lungs ached from the exertion and his own weakness, but he forced himself to stay underwater and not to surface where he could be seen. In agony and with his vision turning red, he pushed himself away from the slimy hull of the dying ship.
He could hold his breath no more. He rose to the surface, gasped and gulped welcome fresh air. He quickly looked around. There was pandemonium on board the sinking Suffolk and on the shore beside her. The hulk had broken in half, spewing prisoners and dropping guards into the river. Gunfire crackled as guards shot at prisoners floating in the water. The two halves of the Suffolk were on their sides and breaking up into smaller chunks.
A good-sized piece of her deck floated by and Will grabbed at it. He held onto it and sank below it. There was a pocket of air and he sucked it. He could feel the current taking him downstream and away from the shore. He was free of the prison ship, but for how long? He willed himself to make no movement, no splashes, nothing that would attract attention. He wanted to be a part of the slowly moving planking.
He drifted. The sounds seemed to fade away. He realized that he was naked. The rags he’d once called clothing had fallen apart in the river. He was cold and it dawned on him that he would freeze to death before he drowned. He was already having difficulty feeling his legs and his grip on the planking was weakening.
His makeshift raft bumped against something and he looked out from under. He’d collided with a small and decrepit wooden dock and was well within the city of New York. There was no one on the dock. Will decided he had to take his chances and get out of the water. With the last of his strength, he ripped off a piece of sodden and rotting wood to use as a knife. He would use it on himself before going back to another prison ship.
Will’s chances of escaping were negligible. He was a naked, weak, and cold rebel in a Tory city. He was gaunt and his long hair and beard made him look frightening. His wooden knife was a puny weapon that probably wouldn’t break a man’s skin, much less kill him. He laughed bitterly as he thought about using it to commit suicide. He climbed on to the dock and rested on his hands and knees. He vomited water on the dock. He was doomed. A kitten could take him prisoner.
“What you gonna do with that little bitty thing, rebel?”
Will turned towards the sound. He was so disoriented that a man with a wagon full of hay had gotten within a few feet of him. Almost idly, his mind in a daze, he noted that the driver was a Negro.
“You from that ship that sunk up there, ain’t you?” The Negro laughed. “Them English is going crazy tryin’ to catch everybody.” He gestured to the pile of hay. “You want them to catch you?”
“No,” Will managed to say through shaking and blue lips. He was too tired to even try to cover his nakedness.
“Didn’t think so. My name is Homer and I ain’t Greek. Now get your skinny ass up there in the wagon and cover up under the hay. And don’t make no noise, either.”
Will did as he was told.
* * *
A few hours later, Will was in paradise, busy scrubbing himself with soap made from ash and dirt after being drenched with buckets of sun-warmed river water. Not even his prolonged swim in the Hudson River had removed more than a year’s worth of filth. Nor had it done anything to his long and matted beard and hair, which Homer first cut off and then shaved. When they were done, Will was raw all over, but he was clean.
Homer pointed to a welt on Will’s left buttock. “What the devil’s that?”
Will laughed wryly. “The bastard British branded me. That’s supposed to be an ‘R’ for rebel, but I screamed and squealed and twisted so much that ugly blob is what resulted.”
Homer nodded. “I thought that’s what it was. Somehow I thought that only black people got branded and then only slaves, although I guess you were a slave of the British. Either way it’s a vile way to treat a man.”
Will sat down on a rickety chair and wrapped himself in a blanket. He was freezing and, as his condition improved, he didn’t want to be naked in front of his new companion. He was also completely spent.
“Now what?” he asked.
Homer stood and stretched. He was a big man and Will guessed his age at forty or so. “You rest up for a bit, and then we’ll figure that out after we get some food in you. If I tried to feed you now, it’d be a waste of food. You’d probably puke it up again thanks to the seawater you drank.”
Once again Will did as he was told.
* * *
Sarah Benton and her cousin Faith hugged each other and waited for the dawn. They were in the small western Massachusetts town of Pendleton’s one prison cell as guests of Charles Braxton, the sheriff. They were to be punished by spending a day in the stocks for speaking ill of the king. The population of Pendleton was only a couple of hundred, but many of them were Tories and most would be there to watch the two women’s discomfort and humiliation.
Sarah Benton was twenty-six and ten years older than Faith. She felt guilty for her cousin. It was Sarah’s sharp tongue that had said that the king was responsible for the war and the death of Tom, the fine man who she considered to be her husband. Faith just happened to be standing by when she made the comment, but that meant nothing to Sheriff Charles Braxton. His authority included the ability to punish minor offences, and a day in the stocks for Sarah’s impertinence was what she and Faith would suffer.
Sarah was certain she could handle it, but she less was less so regarding her cousin. Plump little Faith looked terrified. Why, Sarah wondered? It couldn’t be all that bad, could it?
She’d known little about Pendleton. She and Tom had lived somewhat closer to Boston, but after his death in the war, and with Boston being a virtual British garrison, she’d decided to move west to her cousins. A woman alone, especially the widow of a rebel, was not safe with so many angry and vengeful British soldiers roaming around. The British and Tories were in a vengeful mood.
Of course, it now seemed that sleepy little Pendleton, with a population of about two hundred living in clean, well-appointed homes, wasn’t all that safe either. Sheriff Braxton was a virtual dictator appointed by the British in Boston to control this area and he did so with a hard and often cruel hand.
“Come on out for your day in the sun,” exclaimed Sheriff Braxton with a sarcastic laugh. Deputies came in and separated the two women. A sobbing and unprotesting Faith was led down a hallway to another room. Sarah was led by the arm to Braxton’s office where she was pushed against a wall. She heard voices through it, but nothing to cause her concern.
Braxton glared at her. “A day in the stocks is not pleasant, Sarah Benton.”
“I think I will survive. Would it help if I apologized for my wicked tongue?” She did not offer to pay a fine. She had no money, and the sheriff knew it.
“No. What’s said cannot be unsaid, any more than water can be put back in a bucket after its spilled. You must be punished.”
“I see.”
“But your punishment can be changed. You’re an attractive woman, Mistress Benton.” He reached out and touched her light brown hair. Sarah gasped in surprise. “And a pleasant figure, too. Nice and firm and trim, not soft and plumpish like your cousin.” His hand slipped into her dress to her breast and squeezed, while his other hand groped between her legs.
“Stop that,” she said weakly. His hands hurt her. Braxton was a very large and strong man and she could not break his grip as he continued to paw at her. He could overpower her with ease if he wished to. His pelvis was against her and she could feel his erection straining against her.
The sheriff laughed. “Don’t protest your virtue, Mistress Benton. You claim you’re a widow, but you’re a whore since your so-called husband was a rebel. It also means you are no silly little virgin. But don’t worry; it’ll be nothing like what you’re worrying about. I won’t rape you. Last thing I need is some bitch like you going to the parson saying I’d forced her to spread her legs for me, or worse, winding up with a little bastard running around town and looking like me.” He laughed again. “Christ, my wife would kill me slowly if that happened.”
“What then do you want?” she asked.
He took her hand and put it on his erection. “You take this in your mouth and do what comes naturally.”
She pulled her hand away. “I won’t.”
“Your cousin is doing it right now.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He spun her around and clamped his hand over her mouth. He opened a sliding window separating the two rooms and pushed Sarah to it. Faith Benton was naked to the waist and kneeling between the knees of one of the deputies. His pants were at his ankles. He was grinning hugely and groping Faith’s full young breasts as her head pumped up and down over his groin. Faith’s eyes were closed as if she was hoping this was all a nightmare.
“Your cousin will milk all three of my deputies and then be sent on her way. All you have to do is service just one person, me, and then you can go home as well.”
Sarah wanted to cry and throw up. Pendleton wasn’t a refuge. Instead, it was a newer form of hell. “Never,” she said in a voice that was almost a whimper.
Braxton laughed, “Your choice.”
Within moments, Sarah was locked in the stocks. Her legs and arms were spread out in front of her and her bottom was on a rail. Discomfort quickly turned to pain. Worse, the sun was rising and she was already sweaty and thirsty. But at least she had her pride, but she was beginning to wonder the price of her pride. Out of the corner of her eye, she’d seen Faith running down the road to her uncle’s home. Faith hadn’t turned to look at her.
Minutes became hours and her position became agonizing. Braxton came by and smiled down at her. “Too bad it’s too late to change your mind.”
“I would never change my mind,” she said with difficulty. Her tongue was dry.
Braxton laughed and walked away. He turned back to her. “Next time you might not think that way, and, trust me, there will be a next time. Even if you don’t say something slanderous, I can always find a half dozen people in this happy little town who’ll say you did. You’ll either do what I wish or you’ll spend many days in my stocks.”
Sarah felt a wave of growing despair. When she got out of the stocks—if she got out of them—she would have to find another place to live and do so quickly. Some place far, far away from a monster like Braxton. She looked up as two young boys laughed and ran up to her. They pulled her skirt up above her thighs and roared with glee as her bare legs were exposed. One of them knelt between her legs and looked while the second pinched her breast until someone hollered and chased them away. She thought the voice sounded like her aunt. Other citizens of Pendleton amused themselves by pelting her with rotten vegetables.
A woman stopped beside her and leaned over. “Here, take this.” It was a pitcher of water and the woman held it to her mouth. Sarah thanked her and gulped eagerly. The woman stepped away and began to laugh. It was Sheriff Braxton’s wife and she began to cackle loudly.
A moment later, Sarah’s stomach churned and cramped. She would have doubled in agony, but the stocks held her firm and she couldn’t move. Another cramp and her bowels released, sending a torrent of brown filth gushing through her dress and onto the ground. The half dozen people still gathered around the stocks howled in laughter.
The sheriff’s wife grabbed Sarah’s hair, pulled her head back, and glared at her. “You refused my husband, didn’t you?” she hoarsely whispered. “That means he’s gonna be angry and take it out on me. I’ve got to suffer because of you, you arrogant bitch. So now you get to suffer.”
The agony grew even more intense. Sarah passed in and out of consciousness. She thought she heard her uncle’s voice and then Sheriff Braxton’s.
“You have to set her free.”
“It’s not sunset yet.”
Braxton eyed her uncle carefully. Even though Braxton was strong and an experienced fighter, Sarah’s uncle Wilford was a blacksmith and had a reputation of his own for settling issues.
“That’s blood on the ground below her. She’s bleeding from her insides. She may be seriously hurt by that concoction your witch of a wife gave her. If she dies, I will accuse the two of you of murder and I will have more than enough witnesses to satisfy a court, even a British one. For God’s sake, Sheriff, you’ve proved your point.”
There was silence and she felt hands fumbling at her wrists and ankles. Sarah fell free of the stocks. Hands eased her to a lying position on the ground. She cried out as her muscles protested and her stomach spasmed again. She was lifted up and placed on something firm, wooden. She felt motion as her uncle’s wagon took her away.
* * *
Will held the bowl of broth in his hand and savored the warmth and the exquisite odor. It was chicken. He loved it. It was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted. He held it to his lips and drew in a swallow. It was his third bowl of the day and he felt his strength returning with each sip.
It had been a week since his escape. Homer, the middle-aged colored man who had rescued him had fed him a steady diet of broth and vegetables with an occasional piece of fruit. Not only was Will’s strength returning, but his teeth were no longer loose and aching. He felt he could walk for miles although he knew that was a fantasy. It would be a long time before he could hike anywhere. He relished his freedom even though he was a fugitive in hiding and had even less space in Homer’s basement than when he’d been in the hold of the Suffolk. He concluded that freedom was a state of mind, of the spirit, and had nothing to do with wealth or the size of a dwelling. Homer lived in little more than a hovel and seemed to be quite content. For the moment, so too was Will.
They were in the basement of a building that had burned during the great fire that had ravaged much of New York when the British took it over in the early years of the war. If he looked out through a crack in the building’s foundation, he could see the charred remains of old Trinity Church, which helped him place himself. He’d been to New York on a number of occasions both before and during the war. Before the war, it had been on business or pleasure, but during the war it was to gather intelligence from the occupying British.
Even though he was an officer in the Continental Army, his real skill was as a spy.
Homer usually disappeared during the day and occasionally at night. Once he returned with a collection of clothing that more or less fit Will. It included several pairs of boots that Will tried on before finding a pair that were comfortable.
“What do you do for a living?” Will asked.
“I fix things. I’m very handy. I don’t take work from carpenters and such so they leave me alone, except sometimes when I help them with carrying and lifting. But if some old lady needs a leaking roof fixed, or somebody needs a stable cleaned, or something like that, I fix it.”
Will fingered his shirt. It was a little large, but maybe he’d gain weight and grow into it. “Do they pay you in clothing?”
Homer shrugged. “Sometimes they don’t pay me at all. Sometimes they think they can just fuck the nigger because the British aren’t going to make them pay up.”
Will grinned. “So you take what’s owed you?”
“Yes.”
“So that makes you a thief, doesn’t it?”
Homer grinned back. “Not in my book. Besides, you want me to return them clothes and maybe turn you in just as naked as they day I found you?”
Will returned to his broth. “So why didn’t you? Turn me in, that is. After all, didn’t the British abolish slavery? I would’ve thought you would be a supporter of theirs.”
“I was never a slave, so they didn’t do nothing to free me. They couldn’t give me something I already had. All they can do is take it away—and that concerns me. See, I was born of free blacks, who were also born free. Nobody in my family was ever a slave, at least not that I know of. I even served in the British Army along with a lot of other colored men because we thought the British would be better for us then you rebel people. Of course, the British lied. Now they’re trying to forget every promise they made to colored folk, and they’re even letting slave catchers from the south look for so-called escaped slaves. The British are gonna keep peace with the southern planters by ignoring the existence of slavery. The slave catchers ain’t too particular who they catch. I ain’t gonna be caught.” He smiled grimly as he patted the hilts of the large knives he had in his belt and his boot. “I’ve defended myself before and will do it again. In my world, killing to keep your freedom ain’t a crime.”
Will was not surprised by Homer’s statement that he had served the king. The British had raised several detachments of militia consisting of black soldiers, but with white officers, of course.
“So why did I save you? Because what they was doing to you prisoners was as wrong as slavery is to black people. I saw how they jammed you all into them big boats and I saw how they carried dead people out. That was wrong, evil. They call themselves Christians, but they aren’t if they do that to other people.”
“So you’re a Christian?”
Homer shook his head. “Didn’t say that. I am what I want to be and I ain’t seen nothing in Christianity that makes me want to be one.”
Will put down the now empty bowl. His hunger was satisfied for a while. Perhaps soon he could try some meat. His body had begun craving it. “All right. What do we do now?”
“They’ve stopped looking for escaped prisoners. Good news is they’ve taken them all off the other boats and put them in warehouses. I’ve heard that General Cornwallis is furious that so much of the money intended for the prisoners has been stolen. At least warehouses don’t sink. Still the prisoners are starving, just not as badly. But they don’t know who’s missing because they don’t know who was on the Suffolk in the first place.”
Will exulted. They weren’t looking for him. Hell, they didn’t even know what he looked like, much less what is name was. “I want to get out of New York.”
Homer laughed. “Can’t say as I blame you. I do have an idea. When you’re stronger and things are really quiet, we will rent a horse and wagon like I’d done when I picked you up, and take it north across the Harlem River. You need a pass to get out of this town, but that’s no problem. After that there’s no British patrols, at least none that will pay any attention to a white man and his slave. You will pretend to be my master and I will be the lowly slave riding in the back of the wagon. No one will suspect a thing.”
Will thought the plan had the virtue of simplicity. But he had been caught by a random patrol. The letter “R,” for rebel, had been branded on his buttocks, and if caught and stripped, he’d be hanged. And so would Homer who was willing to risk his life to help him.
And who was to say that the same wouldn’t occur even across the Harlem River after the two of them had parted and he was alone.
“Homer, just suppose I do get caught. They would realize that someone helped me. They would force me to tell them everything and lead them to you.”
“Do you know where you are right now?”
“Enough to lead someone back here if I was forced to.”
“Then don’t worry about it because I won’t be here. There’s no reason for me to stay here. I’ll move.”
“But I know your name.”
Homer laughed hugely. “Do you?”
* * *
Owen Wells liked climbing the rigging of a great sailing ship, and the HMS Victory was the greatest of them all. Only a few years old, the massive ship of the line still seemed shiny and new. She’d entered the fleet in 1778 and taken part in the two battles of the Ushant where Owen’s skills as a sniper had gained him recognition. The Victory carried upwards of a hundred great guns and was the pride of the Royal Navy. She displaced about 3,500 tons and had a crew of almost nine hundred men. She had patrolled off Boston during the revolution and had acquitted herself well fighting the French, although some thought it a shame that she had missed the climactic battle off Virginia that had ended the revolution. Owen didn’t care. People had a nasty habit of dying during battles. He’d already lost a number of mates.
Owen didn’t have to be climbing the rigging at this time of the evening. He was off duty and could have been playing cards, reading, or cleaning his kit. He was a Royal Marine, not a seaman, but he was good at climbing and it gave him a chance to be away from the other marines and sailors who frequently ridiculed him. They called him ape, or monkey, because of his physique. He was short, squat, and dark haired. His arms were disproportionately long and heavily muscled, which enabled him to swing through the rigging with consummate ease.
This strength meant he’d won most of the fights with people who’d initially tormented him. If he got them in his massive arms, it was all over. He would wrap his arms around their chests and squeeze until they either gave up or passed out. He hadn’t yet killed a man with his strength, but he’d come close and that would be bad. It was one thing to kill an enemy, which he’d done, but entirely another to kill a fellow British crewman.
Along with being very strong, Owen was also a deadly shot with his musket. His place in combat was in the rigging, firing down on an enemy deck after clearing the enemy’s rigging of their own riflemen. Lately, that had meant the French, and he’d killed several of them.
Owen was only twenty years old, but had been a Royal Marine for seven years. He’d enlisted after lying about his age and after finding that the local sheriff and squire were after him. His crime was poaching on the squire’s grounds and eating the squire’s damned rabbits, which was how he’d learned to shoot and track. He’d only shot the squire’s rabbits because he was suddenly an orphan and was hungry. For killing rabbits they’d had him flogged before turning him over to the pressmen from the navy.
From his high perch, he could see the Victory’s captain far below on the quarterdeck. He’d never been on the quarterdeck. That was officer’s territory, and that struck him as strange. After all, it was just wood planking. The captain was accompanied by Admiral Sir William Cornwallis and General Sir John Burgoyne. Sir William, he’d heard, was the younger brother of Charles Cornwallis, the governor general of the colonies. As if it mattered to him. He toyed with the idea of spitting down and seeing if he could hit either of his mighty lordships on the head. He decided that was not a wise idea as he’d be flogged until his bones showed through, although the thought of hitting someone so important with a gob of spittle made him smile.
The Victory was the flagship of an enormous British fleet heading towards the American colonies. Even though it was a dark night, he could see the shapes of a score or more merchant vessels and a half dozen escorting warships, including other massive ships of the line like the Victory and a number of smaller, swifter frigates. He’d heard that the French navy wasn’t much of a threat anymore, but it didn’t pay to take chances.
Owen had made a decision. On reaching the New World, he would desert. The country was vast and, even though the British ruled the land, he was confident he could disappear in it. He had some money saved up from winning shooting matches, and, as a marine, he would likely be sent ashore to guard the sailors while picking up stores as he’d done before. His job would be to see the sailors didn’t desert, and no one would be watching for him to run. He’d acquired a reputation for being trustworthy and it was time to use that to his advantage.
Somehow, he’d get civilian clothes and maybe a musket for protection from the red savages, or even the outlaws who, he’d heard, roamed the land outside the cities. He couldn’t keep his smaller, naval version of the Tower musket as that would be too obviously property of the king. He thought seriously about joining the outlaw rebels to the west of the colonies, but discarded it. The army in the convoy was being sent to destroy them, which meant they would be destroyed. He’d never seen rebel soldiers, but he had seen the British and a rebel mob would never stand against them.
At least that was the plan. He shuddered at what could happen to him if it all went wrong. He’d be lucky if they shot him or hanged him. More likely he’d be flogged to death. He shuddered again. He’d been flogged once while in the navy, fifty lashes. He’d screamed after twenty and his back still bore the scars on top of the ones given back in England. He’d been hit with a short knotted rope called a starter a thousand times, but that didn’t count. Everybody got hit like that. He’d worked hard at being a good marine and there was talk he might be promoted. Sure, he laughed, in a hundred years. Thanks to his squat physique, he didn’t wear a dress uniform because none would fit him, which meant he could never command in the ranks. What he did wear was a large man’s uniform that draped all over him.
Burgoyne and William Cornwallis appeared to be arguing. He wondered about what. He could hear the sounds of their voices but couldn’t make out the words or meaning. He thought of the damage he could do to the British cause with his musket if he had it and shot down at them. He was Welsh, not British, and he’d been taught to respect and fear the British, but never to love them.
He wondered what he’d be when he was free.
* * *
“Get your lazy ass up,” Homer said jovially. “We be leaving now.”
It was the middle of the night, and Will had been dozing on a pile of rags. “What’s happened?”
“There’s a whole goddam fleet coming in and it’s gonna be bringing more Redcoats than can be counted. They’ll be crawling all over the place and all of a sudden I don’t think this is a good place for us to be.”
Will dressed quickly. He had nothing else to carry with him. At least it wouldn’t look all that much like they were running away, he thought ruefully. He realized there was another problem involving British security.
“We don’t have passes.”
“Yes, you do.” Homer rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. It identified the bearer as Thomas Wolfington, a merchant from Providence, Rhode Island. His date of birth said he was in his late thirties and the document carried all the appropriate stamps and seals. “Like I said, you white people need the pass. Nigger slaves don’t need one. Lucky us.”
Will examined the paper. “Where’d you get this?”
“Off of Thomas Wolfington of Providence, Rhode Island, where else? He was drunk as a lord and fell down in the gutter.”
“Won’t he miss this when he wakes up?”
“He won’t wake up, leastwise not on this earth. I dumped his sorry ass in the river. He’s probably halfway out to join that British fleet right now.”
Will grimaced. Homer had killed a man on his behalf. So what if the man was probably a Tory, it was murder, not battle. But then, did he want to run the risk of being picked up in a city that was full of Tories and soon to be inundated with British soldiers? As with all he had done to survive on the prison hulk, he would beg forgiveness later. Now it was long past time to go, and if Mr. Thomas Wolfington truly was dead, then he was a casualty of a brutal and ongoing war.
Very early in the morning, they rented a wagon and a horse. They promised the stable owner they’d have them back in a day or two and headed north to the Harlem River. As planned, Will drove while Homer sat behind him, the picture of docility.
There was excitement in the air. The overwhelmingly Tory city of New York was expectantly awaiting the arrival of the fleet. There were those who said they could see a forest of sails from the church steeples, which made the need for their departure even more imperative.
Will and Homer rode north against a tide of people heading for the waterfront to take in the scene. The stolen pass got them through the city’s defenses without a second glance by the guards who were far more interested in the fleet’s arrival. Once outside of the city, Manhattan Island was scarcely occupied. An occasional farmhouse broke the monotony as they rode north, but there were few of those and a number of them had been destroyed. Charred ruins near the road showed that hard times and years of warfare had fallen upon the people who had attempted to live there. The fertile land was strangely barren. The trees had been cut down for firewood, and only high weeds grew where once there had been forests.
A number of miles farther on along the trail called the Post Road, Will gazed wistfully at the Harlem Heights where the rebel army had handed the Redcoats a bloody nose following the overwhelming British victory at Long Island. The British had thought the Americans were finished, but they’d been wrong. Will prayed they were wrong again and that there really was a place called Liberty. But the feeling of depression returned when they passed by the site of Fort Washington, where more than two thousand Americans had been captured by the British.
When they finally reached the Harlem River, more than a dozen miles north of the city, it was getting dark and only a couple of very bored British soldiers examined Will’s pass. A dozen others and an ensign commanding them lounged around a dilapidated farmhouse a hundred or so yards away. One scrawny white man and a colored servant were not a threat to their safety. The soldiers were even friendly, and Will allowed himself a moment’s fleeting sympathy for them. This wasn’t their war either. The soldiers said that they were annoyed at the arrival of the fleet and the thousands of reinforcements General Burgoyne had brought with him. The soldiers and sailors would be additional competition for the city’s whores.
Will grinned in mock sympathy. “Don’t worry. I understand most of the women in New York are whores already, so there’ll be plenty to go around.” It was almost the truth. Someone had calculated that one in five women in New York were prostitutes, while others had jokingly said it was the other way around.
The soldiers laughed appreciatively and let the two men pass onto Dykeman’s Bridge that took them across the river. When they were several miles farther away, Will and Homer paused. It was night and the moon gave only a little light.
“This is where we part,” Homer said.
Will nodded. He was on his way to Connecticut to see if a piece of property owned by his family still existed. He wasn’t certain what he’d do when he got there. It was just a small dairy farm, but it was a link to his past and had been in his family for generations. If asked by anyone along the way, he would continue to be the late and unlamented Thomas Wolfington.
“Not going back to New York?” Will teased. “What about returning the horse and wagon?”
Homer grunted. “Fuck the guy who rented them to me and fuck New York. Nothin’ there but Redcoats wanting me to shine their boots or kiss their asses. And like you said, all the women are whores even though all the money in the world won’t get them to fuck a black man. No, I’m on my way to Boston.”
“Homer, there are even more Redcoats there. It’s almost a prison.”
“I ain’t that stupid, Will. I’m just going near Boston. The British are only in the city, not the surrounding area. I understand that the people up there are a lot nicer to colored people than elsewhere in the colonies. Who knows, I might even get laid. And you? Where will you go after you’ve satisfied your curiosity about that farm?”
Will had given that a lot of thought. He wondered if he’d be able to escape his past and live peacefully as a civilian farmer. Then he wondered if he even wanted to be a farmer. He’d studied for the law, but soldiering was almost all he knew. And he was damned certain he didn’t want to be a farmer under an English yoke.
“You’re going to wind up at Liberty, aren’t you?” Homer chuckled.
“If there is such a place. Maybe it’s mystical, like Camelot, and doesn’t even exist?”
“I have no idea what this Camelot is, Will, but if it doesn’t exist, then why are the British going to send an army against it? Naw, Will, there’s something out in the west and I don’t know if it’s called Liberty, or Fort Washington, or Jerusalem, or what in hell. But odds are, that’s where you’ll wind up.”