Forty-Two
After dark the rain became harder. It guttered the torches outside the guardhouses, and flooded the cellars on Front Street. The wind snatched at windows and doors, wildly swung the hanging signs above shop doorways, and flecked the river with hissing white-caps. An Irish sentry crossed himself and said the Shee were riding the night winds and that no good would come of it. Somewhere to the west, a sudden bolt of lightning stabbed bright to the ground and its blue-white brilliance revealed men gathering in the lee of a warehouse close to Painter’s Wharf.
Two companies of Light Infantry had been ordered to the city’s quays. Their musket barrels were stopped with cork, and their guns’ locks were wrapped with rag as some protection against the driving rain. A naval officer, cloaked and shivering, crouched by the quayside and watched the black river for the promised longboats.
Lord Robert Massedene ran up the wharf. He was in dancing shoes, evidence that he had been snatched to this duty from a warm parlour, and his white silk stockings were soaked through to his cold skin. His cloak was sopping wet and his wig was streaked with the cheap dye that leaked from his cocked hat. “Captain Vane! Captain Vane!”
Vane, sheltering from the storm in a warehouse doorway, stepped forward. “Here!”
Massedene swerved into the doorway where, in a rage, he snatched off his hat and wig and threw them on to the ground. “What the hell’s happening?”
“It’s raining.” Vane said with calculated rudeness.
“You know what I mean! What have you done to Mrs Crowl?”
The sentries’ fires flickered on the quay. The rain hissed in the flames, but pitch-soaked wood kept the watch fires alight to cast a dull glow into the doorway. Vane could see the anger on Massedene’s face and, at this moment, he despised it. His lordship represented all that was most feeble about the British effort to crush a rebellion, and Vane could not hide the scorn in his voice. “I’ve done nothing to Mrs Crowl.”
“She says …”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt she’s said a great deal to you. Like every true Yankee, she screams for British help when something inconveniences her.”
“You ransacked her house – ” Massedene began, but again Vane interrupted him.
“I searched her house for a murderer and a deserter. Is there some new regulation that says rebel houses must be spared in such a contingency?”
“It was your servant who ran,” Massedene said threateningly, as though it was a reflection on Vane that his servant should prove disloyal.
“Not my servant,” Vane said airily, “but Sir William’s. Or didn’t you know that Sir William wanted him as a stable-boy?”
“He ran across the river,” Massedene protested. “You know that! There was no call to search Martha’s house!”
“A man was seen to cross the river.” Vane’s voice was cold, “But there’s no proof it was Gilpin. I merely searched where I thought he might have taken refuge. Moreover I made the search on the authority of Sir Henry Clinton.”
“Sir Henry should have sought Sir William’s approval,” Massedene argued weakly, and knew it.
“Sir William commands here by the courtesy of Sir Henry,” Vane spoke the brutal truth.
“And did Sir Henry order you to destroy her house?” Lord Robert Massedene’s voice rose in petulance, attracting the glances of the uneasy Redcoats who waited in the rain for the promised longboats. “My God, Vane! Her house looks as if it has been plundered by savages! Floorboards ripped up, panelling torn away, the child terrified!”
“I was told to make haste,” Vane said. “There was no time for the delicacy with which you wish to conduct this war.”
Massedene leaned wearily against the archway. The rain bounced on the glistening cobbles and hissed in the weak fires. “You’re a bastard, Vane.”
“For doing my duty?” Vane’s anger suddenly erupted. “Gilpin killed a good man tonight! He did it because he’s been seduced by some rebel woman to turn against his King. We can’t love our enemy, Massedene! If we do they’ll weaken us one by one, but not me! Not me, by God!”
“You’re confusing vengeance with victory,” Massedene said feebly.
Vane laughed at the accusation. “My lord, our attack on the forts was betrayed. It was done, I believe, by Mrs Crowl who communicates with a farm across there.” Vane pointed through the seething rain to the blackness which hid the river’s far bank. “Traitors, my lord, traitors. You think I should let them be? You’d lose the colonies out of a delicacy for women’s feelings?”
Lord Robert Massedene shook his head as though he found the argument irrelevant. “You pulled Mrs Crowl’s house into destruction! You’ll keep the colonies by such barbarism?”
“I’ll do whatever is needed to end this rebellion.” Vane glanced angrily towards the river, willing the longboats to come. It was long past midnight, and he was finding it hard to curb his impatience. It had taken hours to roust the navy to their duty, and the Bluejackets had insisted that the expedition wait until the darkest hours were past before they would risk their men on the turbulent water. And every passing moment, Vane knew, could be taking Sam Gilpin closer to the Fisher house.
“You found nothing at Mrs Crowl’s,” Massedene said accusingly, as though it proved that Vane’s actions this night were as futile as they were barbarous.
“I’ll find the proof,” Vane said. “By God I will!”
Lord Robert Massedene feared Vane was right, and he feared for Martha. If her guilt could be proved, then all her goods would be forfeit. Her furniture, clothes, jewellery, and house would be auctioned and she would be sent, penniless, into the country. Sir Henry Clinton, like any new commander, was eager to demonstrate his energy, and Vane had cleverly harnessed that desire to take his personal revenge. If Vane found proof this night, then neither Massedene’s affection nor Sir William’s kindness could protect Martha from ignominy.
“I’m crossing the river with you,” Massedene said.
“By God, you’re not!”
“By God, you have no right to stop me!” Massedene found a sudden spark of anger to shout Vane down. “You’ll not fabricate evidence this night, Captain Vane! I have Sir William’s orders to make certain of that!”
Vane’s face was pale with anger. “You accuse me of dishonesty?”
Lord Robert knew that Vane was seeking a duel, but he did not care. “I accuse you, Captain Vane, of having the soul of a tradesman. You don’t care for honour! Do you truly believe that by breaking two or three skulls you can make America loyal? America’s lost, Vane! It was lost at Saratoga!”
“Then it must be regained,” Vane said. “Not by your pusillanimity, but by soldiers.”
A shout from the quayside announced the arrival of the longboats. Oars creaked and gunwales bumped against the wharf’s steps. Vane, forgetting Massedene, ran forward to hasten the embarkation. The rain slanted red in the firelight which showed that the boats, prepared for the Meschianza, were ludicrously disguised as swans and sea-serpents, but, however ludicrous, the four boats could take soldiers across a wind-torn river to find Captain Vane’s evidence.
Lord Massedene picked up his hat and ruined wig, then followed the soldiers down into the rocking craft. The eastern horizon was already edged with grey. Lightning flickered and a clap of thunder rolled its vast sound across the clouded sky beneath which, at long last, Captain Vane had been unleashed.
Sam Gilpin was soaked and chilled to the bone. He blundered through undergrowth and brambles that scratched his already-bloodied face and sometimes caught his broken finger and made him crouch in agony to let the pain ebb. His uniform snagged on twigs and thorns. The red coat was festooned with loops; loops to fix the crossbelts and loops to fasten to breeches, loops to make a man immaculate on parade, but in this night the loops clutched at every bush. Sam ripped the crossbelts away and tore the loops off, but kept the coat for what small protection it offered against the weather.
He had turned off the river path into the
deep woods to avoid the small settlements on the New Jersey bank. He did not know whether the villagers were Loyalists or Patriots, only that every man could be his enemy, and so Sam forced his way through the woodland. Once, crouching because of the pain in his finger, he thought he heard the sloughing of vast footsteps behind him. He swivelled in terror. He heard the rain and the wind, the creak of huge boughs, then he was certain that a monstrous beast, green as the trees, dragged its huge limbs in pursuit of him. He forgot the pain and fled northwards, fleeing the Green Man that had come to haunt him in America.
He fled northwards, but he knew it could all be for nothing. Perhaps Caroline was already taken. Perhaps another sergeant, as hard as Scammell, questioned her in some stone cell. Or perhaps Captain Vane waited at the farmhouse in the knowledge that Sam would run there. Perhaps tomorrow Sam would be stripped to the waist and tied to the triangle, and the whips would be dragged through fingers to loosen the gobbets of Sam’s bloody flesh from their lashes.
He stumbled on, always keeping the reflective sheen of the city’s small lights to his left. Sam was putting his faith in the delays he knew must attend any man seeking permission to cross that river. He had been an officer’s servant long enough to know that Captain Vane could not instantly command boats and men, but the night was passing, and every moment put more fear into Sam’s already terrified soul.
He was terrified for Caroline, he was flinching from the great thunder, and he feared the Green Man that prowled about him in the darkness. He feared his future. He could save Caroline, but he could not have her love, and Sam knew he struggled towards a strange life in a foreign wilderness. He was a fugitive. At home his name would be posted as a criminal, while here, if the British won this war, he would have to flee far from their justice. Yet love drove him through the wet darkness. Nothing else mattered; neither King, nor country, nor regiment, nor home; only love.
He climbed on to a shallow ridge of sandy ground where there were fewer brambles and on which he could travel faster. He ran, stumbling and panting, tasting the blood that trickled on to his broken lips. He feared now that he would not be able to find Caroline’s house; he had only ever seen it from the city’s wharves when Caroline had pointed over the water. In the winter, when the ice had thickened on the Delaware, Sam had stared forlornly towards Cooper’s Point, and he knew where the wooden house stood in relation to the river’s bend, but he had no certainty that he could find the house in this rain-soaked darkness. He imagined failure, he imagined Vane striking Caroline’s face to force a confession, and he sobbed with the pain of his bruised body and because he feared he would be too late.
He came to the ridge’s end and he saw the sky’s first pale greyness in the east. The rain still sheeted down and Sam, to his surprise, found himself regretting that all Captain Andre’s hopes for the Meschianza would be spoilt. Sam laughed at such a stupid regret, then knew that if Captain John Andre had been his officer, and not Vane, then this would never have happened. God damn Vane, Sam thought, then, in the dazzle of a fork of lightning that slammed towards the river, he saw the boats closing on the New Jersey shore.
He ran. Thunder cracked over his head, loud as a cannon’s hammering, but Sam did not hear it. He forgot the rain, he forgot his fears, and he ran instead towards the place where, in the stark brilliance of the sudden lightning, he had seen the wooden house. He ran as if his whole life depended on this one moment. He ran for Caroline.
He stumbled across pastureland, cannoned into a fence, but forced himself onwards. There was enough light in the east to silhouette the soldiers who climbed from the river’s bank. There was still time, Sam knew, but only a sliver of time.
“Caroline!” He shouted her name as he ran. “Caroline!”
A dog barked in the house, then more thunder drowned the noise as Sam climbed a last fence and staggered over a patch of wet grass. He hammered on the farmhouse door, beating his bloodied fist against the wood and provoking the dog into a paroxysm of noise.
More thunder smashed the heavens above him and a streak of lightning, smelling of burning, seared into the orchard. Sam had an impression of soldiers beyond the orchard, soldiers who were already too close, and he drove his fists against the locked door. “Caroline! Caroline!”
Sam knew the soldiers would be frightened because the metal on their muskets might attract the lightning. They would be running for the house, seeking any shelter now that the storm was directly overhead. Sam beat his fists on the wooden door, sobbing with the frustration, suddenly convinced that Caroline was gone, or that this was the wrong house and he would be captured here and flogged to death. Yet he would not leave the locked door, for there was still a slim chance that Caroline was inside and ignorant that the Redcoats had come from the river to find her. “Caroline! Caroline!”
Sam shouted her name in despair, then suddenly the door was snatched open and the dog strained at its leash to snap at Sam’s face. An old man, a blunderbuss in one hand, the dog’s leash in his other, demanded an explanation.
“Soldiers!” Sam cut the man short. “Soldiers! Get out! Get out!”
Light flickered in the room as an old woman opened the stovedoor and blew the embers into flame. The dog still lunged at Sam, but the old man hauled it back. “Soldiers?”
“They’re here!” Sam gestured towards the orchard where the Redcoats advanced.
The old woman lit a spill from the stove’s flames and, in its bright light, Sam saw Caroline who, standing at the foot of a wooden staircase, stared at the bloody apparition in the doorway. “They’re coming to get you,” Sam said. “Run!”
“Sam?” Caroline, swathed in a great woollen robe, stared in disbelief at the Redcoat. “Sam?”
“They’re here! Get out! Get out!”
The old man, who must have been Caroline’s grandfather, turned. “The keep bag, Anna! Use the back door! Go!” The old woman snatched at a bag which hung beside a door on the far side of the room. In the bag, Sam knew, the family would keep its valuables that could be plucked to safety if fire or danger threatened. “Go, Anna!” Caleb Fisher shouted it, then hefted the ancient gun in his right hand. “I’ll teach them to wake Christian souls in the night. I’ll – ”
“Go!” Sam pushed the old man past the kitchen table and towards the other door. “Go! Leave me the gun. Now go!” Sam took the ancient gun from the old man. “Caroline! Go!”
But Caroline, instead of fleeing, had slipped round the kitchen table to drag at a heavy dresser which stood beside the front door. “There’s a letter I need!” She spoke with a hissing determination as she pulled at the huge wooden dresser. Her grandparents were already gone. “Help me! It’s hidden here.”
“Damn the letter! Go!” Sam pulled her away from the dresser and thrust her towards the table. He could hear the soldiers outside, then he saw the terror flood on to Caroline’s face and he ran to protect her as a huge voice filled the small room.
“Don’t move!”
Sam whirled round. A sergeant, huge in a dripping greatcoat, filled the front doorway. Other men pushed in behind the sergeant. They had bayonets bright on their guns. The rain, Sam knew, could have turned the black powder in the musket pans into porridge, but Sam could not be sure. He watched the men tear the rags from their flintlocks and he pushed Caroline behind him so that, should a musket fire, she would be protected. Caroline pulled Sam towards the back door, edging him round the big kitchen table.
“Stay there, lad!” the sergeant cautioned.
Sam backed away. He pointed the blunderbuss towards the Redcoats, watching the soldiers’ eyes, and when he was clear of the obstructing table he pushed Caroline towards the back door. “Run!”
“I think not.”
Captain Christopher Vane suddenly stood in the back door. He had a drawn sword in his hand that he whipped left and right, as if to free it of water, and the steel made a hissing noise in the air. “Well done, Sergeant. Very well done.” Vane had lost his hat in the darkness and the rain ha
d plastered his fair hair to his narrow skull. He looked dangerous and tough. He also looked pleased. “Put the gun down, Sam.”
Sam did not obey. He stared in shock at Vane, while the officer looked in awed fascination at the bloody marks on Sam’s face; wounds that told of the desperate struggle in the church. Vane knew Sam was cornered and desperate, but he feigned an insouciance he did not truly feel. “Put the gun down, Private!”
Sam raised the blunderbuss and aimed it at Vane’s mocking face. The sergeant, who had started to edge round the big table, checked. There was silence in the room. Two more men appeared in the doorway behind Vane and looked appalled at the great weapon which threatened the staff officer.
Captain Vane glanced at Caroline, then looked back to Sam. “You’re a deserter, Sam, and a murderer, but I can find reasons for all you’ve done. Truly I can!” Vane spoke with the glib reasonableness that Sam knew so well. “Scammell persecuted you,” Vane suggested, “and you were frightened. So you ran. I can explain all that, Sam, all of it! But if you pull that trigger, Sam Gilpin, then all the kindness in the world can’t help you. You’ll be a rebel, boy. You’ll be an enemy. You’ll be nothing.”
“Get out of my way,” Sam said.
“Don’t be foolish. You think I give way to peasants?” Vane laughed, then threw a scornful look at Caroline. “Are you doing it for her, Sam? Has she convinced you to become a rebel?”
“Move!” Blood trickled down Sam’s chin to drip on to his red coat.
“She’s trapped you here, Sam.” Vane said. “So put the gun down.” He paused, then snapped the words again. “Put the gun down, Private Gilpin!”
All Sam’s old instincts were to obey. He was a Redcoat. He had been trained to obedience. But those chains of obedience had been broken by Vane and Sam, staring at the sleek face across the bell-mouthed weapon, did not move.
Vane seemed to sneer at Sam’s defiance, then he looked past Sam at the sergeant. “Take him, Sergeant. And his whore.” Vane spat the last word, then sensed that he had made a mistake. He saw the sergeant open his mouth in warning, then Vane looked back to Sam just as the gun’s trigger was pulled.