The Bastard

by John Jakes

  “We must get him out. He mustn’t bloody the place, because someone will surely come to ask about him. I’ll take him through the back. Dispose of the body. You—” He spoke with difficulty; he was still trembling “—you go to the street and untie his horse. Get it going—away from here.”

  “When—when Daisy announced him,” Anne said in a faint voice, “I could hardly keep my hands still, they were shaking so badly—”

  Philip held up one of his own. “Like mine.”

  “Yes. I knew who he was. But he was in such a fury he didn’t notice immediately. How did he get here, Philip? How did he know—?”

  “The boy from the Dragon gave us away. Probably took a higher price for telling Lumden’s officers he planned to desert. Did you admit anything to Amberly?”

  “Nothing. I denied having seen George all day. I denied any knowledge of his desertion. But your brother kept staring at me—he frightened me terribly. I think he knew I was lying. I could tell the first moment he walked in that he was all you’d said, and more.”

  “Well, we’re done with him.” The implication of those words still rocked him to the center of his being. “The horse, Anne. But quietly. So none of the neighbors are roused—”

  Philip slid Roger’s sword back in its scabbard, began to haul the still form by the collar. He dragged the body through the black hallway, seeing. Anne limned briefly against the radiance of lamps alight in the house opposite. Then the front door shut.

  By the time he reached the kitchen, he thought he heard horseshoes ring on cobblestones. He winced at the loudness.

  Daisy rushed to the kitchen door when she heard him coming, looked at the closed eyes, saw the widening stain at the belly of the uniform and ground her knuckles against her mouth. She started those small, incoherent sounds again. Philip realized she might easily become hysterical.

  His eyes locked with hers. “Daisy.”

  “Wh—what?”

  “Make no sound or we’re undone. I need George’s help. I need his help to carry the body so we don’t leave blood.”

  He let go of Roger Amberly’s collar. There was a sickening thump when the powdered head struck the floor. Philip drew the bayonet out from under the arm of his surtout, walked by the round-eyed girl, laid the bayonet on the kitchen table.

  “Daisy, fetch Lumden. And find me rags to wipe this thing clean. Then burn the ra—damn you, girl, do what I say!”

  Still dazed, she stumbled out into the darkness. She returned in a few moments with the astonished sergeant.

  Staring down at his commanding officer, Lumden seemed pleased—but only for a few seconds. His gray eyes misted with shock. And perhaps pity.

  Still struggling against a feeling of numbness, unreality, Philip cleared his throat, said:

  “We’ll take him through the alleys. Several blocks—as far as we can go without being detected. Then we’ll come back here, clean this place and get out.”

  “We?”

  “I’m going with you. That’s the only way you’ll ever escape Boston now.”

  “Kent, it’s not your affair. I mean—I’m the one wanting to desert—”

  “But you can’t get across the Neck by yourself. And Amberly must have told someone on his staff what he planned to do. Take his boots, man. Hurry!”

  Philip bent, gripped the limp shoulders. He tried to keep his eyes away from the slack lips, the waxy eyelids, the bloodstain that had now spread beneath Roger’s jacket to redden his white trousers at the groin and down the inside of his right leg. With a heave, the two men lifted the body, struggled it off the porch and carried it around the barn. After a survey of the crooked alley behind the property, they turned to the right.

  They crossed a deserted street, running with their burden. They plunged into another alley. In about two minutes they carried the officer some three squares from Launder Street.

  As they were about to dart across one more dark thoroughfare, Philip dropped the body suddenly. Hoofs rang out a couple of blocks away. Wheels creaked. A coach—coming at a good clip.

  “We’ll leave him here,” Philip whispered, shoving the limp form against the wall of a building near the alley mouth. He positioned the body so the head faced the brick wall. The approaching coach thundered—

  There was no longer the remotest sense of satisfaction in any of this, only a desperate urgency. He and Lumden backed to the wall, stood elbow to elbow to hide Roger as best they could. Philip prayed the darkness was sufficient concealment—

  The two-horse berlin rumbled by, hoofs and iron-shod wheels raising sparks.

  As soon as the coach had passed, Philip grabbed Lumden’s arm. He shoved the slow-moving man back in the direction of Ware’s house.

  Rushing along, he tried to organize his tumultuous thoughts. In only a few ticks of time, the present had crumbled—and the future as well. He knew exactly what must be done. There remained the dangerous task of implementing the decision. He cursed Roger Amberly silently as he and Lumden ran along the barn wall and up the porch. Anne and Daisy waited in the kitchen, both of them still pale.

  Philip kicked the door shut. On the table lay the bayonet, freshly wiped, free of blood. In the hearth a scrap of rag sent up a curl of smoke.

  Well, that was a start toward salvaging the disaster of the past half-hour.

  ii

  “I’ll go to your father’s farm,” he announced to Daisy. He was sitting at the table. His head had started to ache horribly.

  Her chestnut hair all a-tangle around her shoulders, Anne seemed about to offer an argument. Philip prevented it:

  “It’s the only way Lumden can leave Boston—and he must leave tonight. Where’s the rum, Daisy?”

  The red-haired cook hurried into the pantry and brought back the demiflagon set aside earlier to implement the escape. Philip took the jug, placed it on the table, holding it with both hands to mask the trembling of his fingers.

  “Do you think your father will take us in?” he asked Daisy.

  Wide-eyed, she nodded.

  “How do we find the farm? It’s out past Concord, you said—”

  “Once you reach the village, you cross North Bridge. Keep on along the road going west. You’ll pass a large farmhouse. It belongs to Colonel Barrett. About a half-mile beyond, there’s another, not quite so big. That’s my father’s.”

  “All right.” He glanced up. Anne was watching him. She looked exhausted, and far less assured than he had ever seen her.

  “Anne, it will be difficult for you here, so try to prepare yourself. Another officer—perhaps several—will surely come from Lumden’s regiment. Maybe as early as tomorrow. You did loose the horse—?”

  “And saw him gone out of sight.”

  “We’ll just have to trust our luck—which so far tonight has been very poor indeed. If none of your neighbors grew overly curious when they heard Amberly’s horse arrive—and if none of them looked out their windows to see a British officer walk up to your door—there will be nothing to link him to this house. Except his intention to come here. Which he surely didn’t keep to himself back at headquarters. So your story is this: He never arrived. Once we’re gone, make sure there’s no evidence of it. Check the parlor for blood. For traces of his hair powder—out in the hall too, where I dropped him. Tell your father what happened. Be Certain he’s ready to deny, as you’ll deny—and you, Daisy—any knowledge of the sergeant’s plans to desert.”

  “All right,” Anne said.

  “You never heard him speak of it, understand? Never.”

  “Yes.”

  “He kept to himself except at meals. If he intended to leave his regiment, the secret was his and nobody else’s. Now—” Thinking of what he was about to tell them, Philip’s eyes grew ugly with frustration. Was there no end to the running? To the destruction of even the smallest hope for a future?

  With effort, he mastered the self-pity, went on with what he’d started to say:

  “In a day or two, when the danger’s pa
st, you must tell two people that I’ve gone. But only two. You needn’t explain why. Just say I was in trouble and had to escape.”

  “Who must I tell?” Anne asked.

  “Ben Edes and Henry Knox. Let them know I’ll return to Boston when I can. Ask Edes to give you my sword and my mother’s casket.”

  “And your bottle of tea?” Anne’s effort at a smile failed.

  “If you wish. I’d feel safer with those things stored here. Edes’ shop may go up in flames one day soon—or be closed on order of General Gage.”

  Again the silent motion of her head agreed to his request. Philip laid his palms on the table, pushed up, feeling incredibly tired but a little less shaky than he had in those first moments when he realized he’d struck down his mortal enemy—and taken not a fraction of the pleasure from it that he had anticipated for so long. In fact, Roger’s death had only added a further complication to an already peril-fraught situation.

  George Lumden, who now looked reasonably alert and had been listening attentively, spoke up:

  “Shall I get the musket from the barn, Philip?”

  “No, leave it where it is,” he answered, reluctantly handing over the bayonet. “And put this with it. The weapons and your equipment will help confirm Anne’s story. Anne, be sure to show the musket to anyone from his regiment—”

  “I will.”

  “If it’s not confiscated you can arrange to give it to Knox for the Grenadier Company.”

  Philip still wanted the musket himself. But he had already ruled out taking it along. Possessing a Brown Bess would virtually guarantee their failure to pass the guard lines at Roxbury Neck.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He glanced from Daisy to Anne, including them both in his final remarks:

  “We’ll rely on you to send us word of conditions here. To notify us somehow if and when it’s safe to come back. George—” He bobbed his head at the red-haired country girl. “—say your goodbyes! But don’t be too long about it. The quicker we head for the Neck, the surer we can be of getting across.”

  His words belied his doubt about the ease of the escape. They had no official papers of passage. Sometimes the troops let farmers through without them, sometimes not. They stood an excellent chance of being turned back.

  But he said nothing. Things were bad enough already.

  iii

  Under the star-glowing fanlight of the front hall, Philip stole a few moments to take Anne in his arms, stroke her hair, whisper his own farewells. With his mouth pressing the warmth of her cheek, and her hands tight at the back of his surtout, he experienced a strange, almost melancholy emotion—

  A conviction that not even in their most intimate moments had he ever felt so deeply about her—so concerned, so caring.

  Was that love?

  Well, whatever the name of the emotion, it brought an unashamed tear to the corner of his eye as they clung to each other in the darkness.

  On their way to the front of the house, Anne had shut the parlor doors, as if the act could somehow obliterate what had taken place. But he knew it was not so easy as simply closing a door.

  “Anne, I ask you to forgive me.”

  “For what?”

  “For placing you and your father in danger. Danger that may last for days—weeks—perhaps months. I struck Roger without thinking—”

  “Because he struck at you!”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t change—”

  The pressure of her fingers against his lips stilled the rest. Her hand was cold, proof she was still very much frightened. But her voice remained calm:

  “We’ll see it through. The only flaw in everything you suggested is the possibility that someone did see Amberly arrive. I’ll coach Daisy to meet that eventuality. She can be prepared to say she received him at the door and reported George gone.”

  “That’s risky. When you’re questioned, you may not know whether some of your Tory neighbors have already spoken with the investigators.”

  “It’s a risk we’ll have to face—and a situation we’ll have to handle as it happens. We’ll manage.” Again she tried to smile. “Papa’s a lawyer, you know. Artful dissembling’s not entirely unknown in that profession. Perhaps the men who come won’t be clever about their investigation. If we can pick up some hint of whether they’ve already visited other houses, we can fashion the response accordingly. Either say Amberly did stop, and went on when Daisy reported George gone—or use your story. Amberly never got here at all. Don’t worry—women know how to improvise. Constantly fending off men, we have to learn that skill early!”

  Her light tone failed to fit the moment. But he knew she was trying to reassure him, a reversal of the scene in the kitchen. He leaned forward to kiss her lips, hesitated as she added quietly:

  “In a way, Philip, this night could mark an important turning. I know how the memory of that man ate at you. Now that page of the past is closed. You can go ahead—”

  “To being a fugitive?” he said bitterly. “By God, that’s not what I planned when I landed on Long Wharf!”

  “What did you plan? To grow rich in the printing trade, as you’ve mentioned? Then go back to England and show them what a fine Tory gentleman you’d become? So you could see that woman again—?”

  Her voice had risen. Abruptly, she stopped, averted her head.

  “I’m sorry. I admit I’ve a jealous hatred of her. And a wish that you’ll finally discover yourself to be what I think you are.”

  “It appears I have damned little choice about what I am. Things seem to have a way of getting out of hand these days—”

  “The world’s always been that way, Philip. There’s something else happening now. Not chance alone destroying the future, but men.”

  Maybe she was right, he thought, holding her close again. Maybe that was the essential nature of the struggle Adams and Edes and the rest were waging: to free themselves from the capricious dictates of people who would dominate and destroy their lives in a test of wills, a test of an old, creaking system—

  Ah, but what the hell good did such idealism—a noble cause—do at a time like this?

  The gentle heat of Anne’s warming cheek helped soothe away some of his turmoil. She whispered with her lips against his face:

  “I’ll send word to the farm as quickly as I can. Meanwhile, remember this. I love you.” She kissed him with a desperate fierceness.

  A noise at the rear of the hallway separated them. It was Daisy and Lumden, the latter lugging the demiflagon of rum.

  “I think we’d best go the back way,” Philip said.

  Feeling alone and not a little afraid, he walked toward the barn with the nervous sergeant at his elbow. The dampness of the January night penetrated even the warm surtout. He turned briefly for a final look at the kitchen’s cheery light—and saw Daisy and Anne watching together. Anne’s hand lifted in a small gesture of farewell.

  He straightened his shoulders and followed Lumden in the darkness. Somewhere the cadence of a regimental drum beating the night’s tap-to echoed along the lonely streets.

  Their route led them through South Boston, within a block of the Liberty Tree. On its great soughing branches a single, forlorn paper lantern burned. Shining about as brightly as the hopes of Mr. Edes and friends for peacefully winning their battle, Philip thought in a moment of deep pessimism.

  Even as he watched, a gust of wind blew the lantern out.

  iv

  On Orange Street, Philip called a halt in the shadow of a ramshackle building. In the distance, beyond the double arch of the town gate, torches winked at the guard post on the Neck.

  “Now, George,” he announced with a smile that had no substance, “the anointing. And don’t forget—not one single, coherent word. You may stumble. You may mutter. But don’t let them hear you speak. I’ll do the talking.”

  Tossing away the demiflagon’s cork, he poured rum down Lumden’s collar, sprinkled some into his hair, then handed him the jug.

&n
bsp; “Don’t drink. Just take in a good mouthful and hold it a minute, so you’ll reek inside as well as out.”

  The sergeant dutifully tilted the jug, filled his mouth and shut his lips till his cheeks bulged. At last he spat the rum into the gutter. A scraggly dog that had come slinking around the corner caught some of the spray, reacted with a yapping bark. Philip picked up a stone and flung it.

  The dog ran off a short distance. But it continued to bark, the noise unnaturally loud in the stillness of the night. Down at the guard post, Philip thought he saw figures moving, aroused by the racket. He swore softly as he slipped his arm beneath Lumden’s.

  “Lean on me, George. Try to act drunk. Hum a little if you want—but not some Goddamn regimental song!”

  They approached the gate and passed through. The moment they did, the wind struck them, whipping across the narrow stretch of land. Philip shivered. Lumden’s teeth chattered.

  The muddy road out of Boston was rutted from wagon tires, bore countless prints of men and animals. The figures at the barrier ahead took on more definition. Two—no, three British soldiers, one inside the jerrybuilt booth, the others waiting at the horizontal pole.

  Philip and the sergeant walked slowly, erratically along the strip of land that connected Boston to the countryside beyond. Ahead, a few lamps in Roxbury burned yellow in the vast darkness. The Charles River lapped on one hand, the harbor on the other, redolent with the tang of the salt sea.

  Philip could smell the rum, though. But could Lumden carry off the deception? For that matter, could he?

  He had almost, but not entirely, lost the traces of his foreign speech. And if the sergeant accidentally spoke one word, the soldiers would know instantly that he was no Massachusetts man.

  As they neared the barrier, Philip said in a loud, complaining voice, “Come on, stand up straight!”

  He paused long enough to lob another rock at the dog, still pursuing, still barking. The stone hit the animal’s hindquarters, sent him running with a yelp.