The New Land

by The New Land (retail) (epub)

  Franklin thought for a moment. “You know, my father was a sergeant, back in Hesse, where he came from in Germany. The Romans had a lot of trouble with the Germans. I like to think those were our ancestors giving them a bad time.”

  “I thought you said he was at Louisbourg.”

  “He was. He was a ranger captain there.”

  “He’d be proud of how you fought.”

  “No. He didn’t want me to come.”

  “I see.” Bellamy scratched the side of his face. “So he’s loyal to the crown. That must be hard for both of you.”

  Franklin shook his head. “No, it’s not that. He says he came to America to get away from kings and nobles, so his sons would never be soldiers.” He paused. “We argued.”

  The captain sat forward. “It’s a righteous cause, Franklin. It’s our liberty at stake. Your father may have come here to get away from the kings, but here we are with King George breathing down our necks. We have to fight.”

  “That’s what I said, though not so well as you say it.”

  “Has anything changed your mind about that?”

  Franklin shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe I’ve changed. I’ve fought. I’ve shot men, probably killed them, and then I couldn’t keep doing it. No one needs a soldier like that, one who can’t do what needs to be done.”

  “The men you serve with, they’ve taken your measure. They don’t agree with you.”

  “They don’t know, Captain. This man I was fighting with, the one I told you about. I was trying to use the bayonet on him, but it wouldn’t break through his belt. I had all my weight on it. I think back on it now, and it’s so clear to me. I see his face. I feel his breath. I’m pushing down and pushing down. He can’t move, but I can’t kill him. And now I know it was my fault. I hadn’t kept the blade sharp. I never sharpened it, not once. It’s old, hasn’t been used in twenty years. My father told me to keep it sharp.” He looked up at Bellamy. “You see, he told me. But still, I’m not sorry. I didn’t want to kill him. What kind of soldier does that make me?”

  Bellamy held his gaze. “I don’t know, son. Battle’s the hardest thing you and I will do.”

  “I keep thinking maybe there’s another way I can help our cause. That I should find another way.”

  The captain looked uncomfortable again. “I have something for you.” Franklin looked at the man’s serious face. “I wrote to my family and mentioned you were wounded.” He pulled a folded paper from the inside band of his hat. “It’s from Jane. I didn’t suggest she write to you.” He handed it over. “You see the seal. I didn’t open it.”

  Nor did Franklin. He thanked the captain and set it aside. “Well,” Bellamy said, shifting in his chair. “Have you heard about our new general?”

  “One above General Ward?”

  “Yes, sent by Congress. The whole continent is watching us. The new man almost rode me down just now. He’s a big fellow, from Virginia, rides a white horse and takes his slave with him everywhere, almost like his shadow. His name’s Washington.”

  “Does he know what he’s about?”

  “They say no one can understand him, the way he speaks, so I’m not sure. Evidently he fought the French—not up here, down in Virginia—so he must know something.” Bellamy raised his hat to his head. “I’ll be off,” he said.

  Franklin made himself wait at least a minute. His pulse was racing when he broke the seal on the paper and unfolded it. He cast his eye quickly over it. The note was only a few lines. Then he started again and read each word carefully. It contained nothing that Captain Bellamy couldn’t have read. Jane sent her wishes for his speedy recovery. She was sorry to hear of Marcus’s death. She related the progress of the Bellamy garden. The berries had been sweet, but the corn needed rain. She signed it “your friend.”

  Franklin read the letter several more times that evening, then placed it in his knapsack. Jane’s words were ordinary ones. Her sentiments were unexceptional for a young woman. But she wrote.

  CHAPTER TEN

  †

  Only three miles past the Charles River, Franklin’s spirits became lighter, much lighter than the dreary day. Flat, grey clouds clotted the sky without offering much hope of rain. A sharp September breeze promised colder days to come, though only a few leaves showed autumn colors. Wagons filled with harvest goods clambered south toward the army that Franklin had left behind.

  The farewells that morning had been grinding, especially with the Talbots. Ben was kind. He insisted that Franklin was making the right choice. “You’ve pulled your weight,” he said, “and no one can say you didn’t. Others have left and new ones come in. Leave the fighting to washed-up old bachelors like Chris and me.”

  It was true that others went home after the battle, but Ben’s words tied Franklin’s tongue in knots. Franklin had depended on the brothers. They saved him. But he was leaving them to fight his war.

  For once, Christopher filled the silence. “Anyway, soldiering turns out to be a lot like farming. You dig holes and build walls.”

  They had laughed. Franklin tried to tell them what they meant to him, but Ben cut him off. “You don’t have to say anything, son. We’ve been the best of friends.”

  Leaving Captain Bellamy was no easier. In his dingy, frayed uniform, he looked up from the tree stump where he sat reading, a leg crossed over the other knee.

  “Sir,” Franklin said, saluting as smartly as he ever had.

  “If you’re saluting, this is serious.” Bellamy pulled a folded sheet from the back of his book and handed it over. “This is a formal notice of discharge from the Essex County militia, if anyone should give you difficulty. Apparently some towns are getting particular about their soldiers turning up back home.”

  “Thank you, sir. It’s been an honor to serve in your company.” Franklin waited a beat. “Sir, I also should say that I hope to stop in Lynn on my way home, and to see your daughter.”

  “Ah.” Bellamy closed his book and took off his spectacles. “Is she expecting you?”

  “I did send her a letter, yes, sir. I want you to know, sir. My intentions are serious.”

  “She’s not like other girls, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you warn her about . . .?” He pointed to his head. The hair around Franklin’s wound was still patchy, with parts of the scar exposed.

  “I’ll keep my hat on, sir.”

  Bellamy stood. “Perhaps you would carry a letter, and some small things for my family. Can you wait?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Returning minutes later, the captain handed over a leather pouch. Franklin stuffed it in his knapsack, then shouldered the load and his rifle. He began to salute again, but Bellamy held out his hand.

  Franklin started to tell him how much he admired his leadership, but Bellamy shook his head. “Godspeed,” he said.

  A rough voice broke into Franklin’s reverie. “Watch where you’re going, will you?”

  Franklin stepped away. “Sorry,” he said, “my mind was elsewhere.”

  The man, whose lank black hair reached to his shoulders, smiled and nodded. “With that rifle on your shoulder, looks like you’re headed the wrong way. The fighting’s back there.” The man jerked his thumb behind them.

  “I’ve been there since May,” Franklin said. “Discharged.”

  The man shook his head. “Only lasted a few weeks myself. Didn’t get on with being told what to do. Nor for the digging. Moles is what they need, not men.”

  “Well, it wasn’t all digging.”

  The man grabbed Franklin’s arm with a dirty hand. They stopped. “You were there, at Bunker Hill?” Franklin nodded. “What was it like?”

  After a moment, Franklin said, “Bad.”

  “Huh.” The two men began to walk again. “Another fellow said that sort of thing.”

  They fell into step together, though Franklin labored to match the man’s stride. His wind wasn’t back yet. He was sorry when the man, Ned Rogers of Saugus, l
eft the road. A gull followed him for a short way, but soon veered off in search of better company.

  Lynn didn’t smell so bad after the army camps. He walked first to the town pier. A northbound coaster was leaving in two days, provided the British didn’t turn up. The captain was willing to stop at Waldoborough. Franklin arranged to be on it.

  Jane was in front of the Bellamy house when he came along the road. The sight made him smile. Even better was her bright look when she saw him.

  * * * * * *

  Next day, after morning chores, Jane and Mrs. Bellamy packed a lunch for them. Franklin sat against the kitchen wall, luxuriating in the food smells, the room’s regularity, how ordinary it was.

  Her brothers tagged along when Jane and Franklin started, staying near as the couple turned off to climb Osprey Hill. Jane told them for the fourth time there would be no food for them at the top of the hill. They finally believed her. Grumbling, they turned back.

  Jane had to slow her pace to match Franklin’s on the hillside path. The crown was bald, affording views on all sides under a clearing sky, but Franklin looked only at the bay. The altitude made the waves look small as they churned shoreward in thin white lines. Dozens of birds crossed the sky without apparent effort.

  “Where are the osprey?” he asked.

  Jane smiled. “I’ve never seen any up here. One of our local mysteries.”

  When Franklin sat on a rock, Jane asked to inspect his scar. He took off his hat. “It must have been awful,” she said.

  “It was worse for those who had to look at it, like your father and the Talbots. I can’t see it, which is fine with me.”

  “You could use a mirror.”

  He shook his head. “I guess I’m afraid my brains really are leaking out, or already have.”

  Jane started pulling food from the bag—a large cheese, a loaf of bread with butter in a pot, apples, pears, and a jug of beer.

  “Quite the feast,” he said, then pointed behind her to Lynn. “The town’s so settled. People have lived here so long. I saw a gravestone at the churchyard that was from fifty years ago. It gives the place a different feel. Waldoborough’s still rough. The people who settled it still live there.”

  “My mother’s people,” she said, “have been here a lot longer than fifty years.”

  He broke off a piece of bread. “All right. That was stupid of me. I don’t know much about the Penobscots.”

  “I don’t either,” she said. “Nor does my mother. All her family, her people. They’re all gone.”

  “They were killed?”

  “Or got sick, or ran away to the north. Which probably was a good idea.”

  “That must be hard for her.”

  “I think it left a hole.” She leaned back to look at him. “Why did you leave my father’s company?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think I’m much of a soldier.”

  “Father said some wanted you to be sergeant. Then your letter came saying you would stop here on your way home.” She looked over. “What happened?”

  “I’m still thinking on it.” She waited. “See, there’s this friend of my father’s back home, a great big man, lost an arm fighting the French. Wonderful storyteller. He fought alongside my father. And he rides my father—he rides everyone, but my father too. He calls my father a natural killer. And I could tell my father hates being called that, so I didn’t like it either. But now I’ve been in battle, I maybe know what he means.” He stopped and reached for the words. He’d been working on them.

  “My father’s a hard man. Not mean, not like that. That’s not what I’m saying, or even what his friend is saying. But hard. If he thinks something’s necessary, there’s nothing he won’t do.”

  “You admire him.”

  “Yes, I do. When I was young, he always made me feel safe, even in Waldoborough.” It was easier not to look at her. “I’m not so hard. I know that now. Even if something’s necessary, I’m afraid I may not do it.”

  “You mean killing?”

  He nodded. “Killing, yes. Making men bleed, smashing their bones, making them suffer like I’ve suffered with this wound. Making orphans and widows. What I can’t get straight is that I know the redcoats are here to do all of that to us, so that means it really is necessary. I know that. And I did it. During that fight, I shot men. I probably killed them. But now that I’ve done it, I doubt myself. In a fight, doubt’s a poison. It could get you killed, get your friends killed.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if I can do it again. But that’s not the whole thing. I don’t want to do it again.”

  He looked over at her. Her eyes seemed dark. “Do you understand?”

  She was quiet longer than he wanted. “Do you still believe in the cause?” He nodded. “And you left my father and your friends to fight for it for you?”

  Franklin colored. He stood and took a step away. He spoke to the bay again. “When I was mending, lying still most of a day, I worked out this plan. That I would go home and build boats for the fight against the British. I would use my skills for our cause. But the way you say it…” He shook his head. “It sounds empty. An excuse.”

  “What did the other men say?”

  “They told me to go.” He sat down.

  “That should matter more than what I think.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  She was quiet for a minute more, then took his hand. “I don’t have to make your decision, to fight or not, but I worry for my father.” She pulled her lips tight. “I know you didn’t have to come to the fight. You fought—father says you fought well—and you were hurt. Of course that should be enough.”

  He heard it. It was in the “should be.” That meant it wasn’t, not for her, but he wasn’t just going to give up, not yet. He’d rather fail than not try. He took her hand, then kissed it. “You’re easy to talk to, Jane. I told your father I had serious intentions.”

  “Franklin,” she said. “How could you say that? You barely know me.”

  “I don’t know how I know it, but I do. I knew it when we met, when you were flirting with Marcus.”

  “Oh, poor Marcus.”

  “Yes, poor Marcus, but back then all I could think was why wasn’t I handsome and charming like him.”

  “I was wrong about which boy I should be talking with.”

  Franklin took her other hand. “Jane, if you can imagine putting up with me, with this scar and with my short career as a soldier, we could have a good life together. There’s so much I want to do, to do with you. I want to build boats, lots of boats, even ships, big ships that sail the ocean. Maybe we could go off on one of them and see the whole world.”

  “Oh, Franklin. Really, Franklin.” She let go of his hands and stepped away.

  He followed. “You can’t be entirely surprised, not after I said I was coming.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Of course I can be surprised. Don’t tell me what I can be or can’t be.”

  He held his hands out. “All right, all right. Here we are. I’ve said what I said. What do you say?”

  “Can’t you build boats here in Lynn?”

  Franklin looked puzzled. “No one builds boats here.”

  “They do in Salem, and in Boston.”

  “The British are in Boston.”

  “They won’t be there forever.”

  “Jane,” he took her hands again. “Waldoborough’s my home. I wish you could see it. The coast there. It’s wilder than here. It’s powerful. The ocean and the bay. The forest. And the air—it’s clean and fresh, not full of tannery smells. It’s beautiful, and there’s so much for us there. My sisters would love you, and my father and his wife.”

  “How many half-breeds live in Waldoborough?”

  His mouth fell open. No words came for a moment. “I, I don’t know. I can’t think of any, not right off. I never thought about it. But that doesn’t mean anything. You’ll be my wife.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t leave my family. My brothers and I, we know what we a
ll live with. We live with it together. We rely on each other, more than most families do. I couldn’t leave them.”

  “Jane, what can I say to change your mind?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Won’t you come look at Waldoborough, at Broad Bay? Come meet my family. Won’t you give us a chance?”

  She shook her head and started gathering the remains of their meal.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  †

  A light snow fell as Franklin crouched at his end of the long oak strake. He’d shaped it to serve as the sloop’s portside garboard. Ethan Tucker grunted as they lifted and began sidestepping toward the frame that Franklin had based on the ships at Alec McDonnell’s shipyard. With the Royal Navy still patrolling the coast, traders had to become smugglers. They needed fast ships like this 35-footer. Franklin meant to build the fastest ones.

  “Christ,” Ethan muttered as they sidestepped gingerly, facing each other.

  “Gently, gently,” Franklin said, his muscles quivering. He nodded. With a final heave, they brought the strake up to shoulder level, across and down, nestling it next to the keel. Both men gasped when the frame took the strake’s weight. They nudged the strake back and forth until it lay flush up to the keel. Franklin walked the length of the frame, running his hand along the junction. The fit was snug.

  “What about rigging up that hoist you were talking about?” Ethan asked, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Why would I do that when I’ve got a mighty shipwright like you?” Franklin blew on his cupped hands, then flexed the fingers. Alec said that Waldoborough shipbuilders grew accustomed to the cold, but never came to like it.

  Ethan snorted. He was half a head shorter than Franklin, who was no giant himself. He waved at the pine mast that lay under ice-crusted canvas. “You’ll need a hoist by the time we get to that monster.” Good mast timber was getting hard to find, so Franklin had bought this one from a yard that was failing. He dreamt of seeing it lean under a full weight of sail and wind, powering a sleek hull through the water.

  They turned to one of the other strakes. It was mounted on sawhorses, waiting to be adzed to the right dimensions, molded, then tapered at each end. Franklin’s yard, on a scrap of land that Alec rented to him, was on the west side of the bay end of Waldoborough. He had storage space and room to build two boats, so long as they weren’t too large. He lived right there in the one-room cottage that his father and brother Walther helped him build, with a shed on the landward side for his tan mule, Oatmeal. Because he had no dock, deliveries came to the McDonnell yard. In return, Alec kept some of his equipment on Franklin’s lot.