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 ki
lling 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.
Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence Page 3
