The Turning of Anne Merrick

by Christine Blevins

  “Dead horses…” Jack said.

  The small convoy approached a long man-made tangle of tree limbs and branches pinioned to the ground in front of a long trench. The abatis stretched out from either side of the road, and there were more cabins laid out in neat avenues beyond the obstacles, a few yet incomplete. At the farthest end of the Gulph Road, a two-story stone house stood with its back to the junction of a small creek and the Schuylkill River.

  “The General’s headquarters, Annie!” Sally shouted and clapped her mittened hands. “We’ll find David there.”

  They pulled to a halt near the house, drawing onlookers from the nearby cabins. Jack hopped down and helped Anne from her seat. The crowd of curious men gathered around the wagons, most of them in the same sad and ragged condition as the man they’d seen crossing the road. The door of the stone house swung open and a smiling David came running out. Pulling on a heavy overcoat, he waved and shouted, “Sally!”

  Before Titus could bring his team to a full stop, Sally squeaked, scrambled down from the wagon seat, and ran into his arms. David swooped her up as if she were no more than a child and swung her around before setting her on her feet to kiss her soundly.

  “I missed ye so!” Sally cried.

  “Not anywhere near as much as I’ve missed you!” David pulled her close, but after only a moment’s embrace, he twisted around to sneeze three times into his sleeve.

  “Ochone! Look at ye—yiv grown thin as a noodle! Snifflin’ and sneezing…” She stripped off the woolly muffler she wore.

  “A bit of catarrh, is all,” he said.

  “Once we’re settled in I’ll make you a nice soup.” Winding the muffler around David’s ears and throat, Sally brushed away the snow collecting on his chestnut hair. “See to yer buttons—an’ where’s yer hat gone to?”

  “I suppose I left it inside.” David smiled, dutifully buttoning up his coat.

  Whisking a hankie from the depths of her sleeve, Sally ordered, “Blow!”

  David made use of the handkerchief as directed, then turned to give Anne a hug and shake hands with Jack and Titus. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you made it through with the goods in tow. Manna from heaven, you are.” With clear delight he walked around the wagon beds inspecting the cargo, running his hand over the sacks of cornmeal and beans—knocking knuckles to the barrels of salt pork.

  “We brought what we could lay hands on, but I see now we should have brought more. No one told us you were suffering such privation,” Jack said, waving his hand to the gathering crowd.

  “No one knows—and that is how the General would like to keep it. The British might be tempted from the comfort of their winter quarters if they knew our weak and downtrodden state.”

  “They know, David,” Titus said. “We were almost waylaid on the road by a company of dragoons.”

  “Waylaid!”

  “Dinna fash.” Sally looped her arm through David’s to dispel the worry in his eye. “Fire from yer pickets gave them pause, thanks be, and we managed t’ ride in unmolested.”

  “Sergeant Caufield…” David called a soldier over. “See to these animals and place a guard on these stores. Spread the word—a severe flogging will be dealt to anyone suspected of thievery.”

  How her brother was able to recognize rank or identity was a mystery to Anne. The sergeant who stepped forward at David’s command was one of the many desperate onlookers wearing a patchwork of rags nowhere near resembling any kind of uniform.

  “What’s going on with this army?” Jack asked. “A soldier we spoke to on the road said he lives on naught but fire cake.”

  “He told true. The British passed this way before us, and stripped the landscape clean. Forced to supply two armies, the locals are suffering. Our foragers wander far and wide for victuals, straw for our beds, clothing and shoes, fodder for horses—and they have little success dealing with suppliers who prefer British silver to Continental dollars.” David glanced at the crowd, and lowered his voice. “Though the hills and hollows provide good defense, this is probably not the best choice of sites, but the General wanted to stay close to Philadelphia.”

  Anne said, “But surely Congress can…”

  “Pfffft!” David snorted. “Congress! Run off to Yorktown with tails tucked when Howe took Philadelphia, and our Department of Commissary is now a shambles and of little use.” He closed his eyes and took a breath, struggling to control his temper. “When the bunglers do manage to obtain needed supplies, they can’t deliver. They claim lack of wagons and draft animals. When they do manage to cobble together a wagon train, it is either hampered by weather or captured by British raiders. As of this morning we were down to the last twenty-five barrels of flour.” David put his arm around Sally. “I’m so sorry… It’s not the best of circumstances you’ve come to.”

  “Don’t fret, brother.” Jack gave David a slap on the back. “We’re all happy to be here.”

  Titus added, “I know Miss Sally’d rather be in the middle pits of hell at your side than in the comfort of heaven on her lonesome.”

  “Titus tells true…” Sally clung to David’s arm. “God’s eye on it.”

  “Jack! Jaaack! Jaaaaackkk!” Two screaming boys came tearing through the crowd. The smaller of the two leapt onto Jack’s back, clinging like a monkey. The taller boy threw his arms around Jack in a dancing, exuberant embrace, causing the collection of three to wobble and totter off-balance, all of them falling into a deep snowdrift.

  Jack sat up and grabbed the taller boy by the shoulders. “Is that you, Brian?” The boy grinned wide and shagged his head up and down. Jack turned to the smaller boy. “And Jim!”

  “See? I told you he wasn’t hung!” Jim swept a handful of snow into Brian’s face. “Jack’s alive and there’s his woman,” he said, pointing to Anne. “She’s the one what sent him the soft gingerbread with the magic writing message, and she saved him from the bastard Cunningham’s gallows.”

  Jack threw his arms around both boys and drew them into a bear hug. “I can’t believe you’re both alive!”

  “We did like you tolt us,” Brian said. “Joined the damned Redcoat army—the Twenty-third Foot.”

  “Signed up as drummer boys in the Royal Fusiliers,” Jim said. “As soon as the recruiting sergeant stood us to our pint, we collected our shilling, a new set of duds, and snuck right off.”

  The boys jumped up and, in fine imitation of a British regular, offered a salute to show off their blue coats with red facings and cuffs.

  Laughing, they pulled Jack up to his feet, and he made the introductions, slapping each boy on the back. “Brian Eliot and Jim Griffin—brothers-in-arms and old veterans of the Long Island campaign. This here is Mrs. Anne Merrick, her brother, Captain David Peabody, and our good friends Sally Tucker and Titus Gilmore.”

  Old veterans… Anne thought with a wince. Painfully thin, the crack in the taller boy’s voice left her gauging he was no more than fifteen years old, and the smaller boy couldn’t be older than twelve.

  Jack went on. “These boys were my mates when I was imprisoned in Cortlandt’s sugar house.”

  “They called it a sugar house, all right,” Brian said. “’Tweren’t sweet at all, for a fact.”

  “’Twas a shit hole,” Jim added.

  Brian gave him a shove. “Mind your goddamn tongue in front of the ladies.”

  Though their British uniforms were in tolerably good condition, there was not a button on either coat. Beneath the open coats, the gangly boys wore oversized undershirts made of thin muslinet. Hatless and shoeless, they’d drawn their long hair back in a queue to cover their ears, and their bare feet and calves were shod and stockinged with long, narrow strips cut from a blanket.

  Anne suppressed a shiver, and resisted a strong urge to bundle the boys into the folds of her cloak. “Did the British not issue you any shoes or stockings?”

  Both boys grew glum, and Jim said, “We had sturdy shoes and warm woolen socks…”

 
“Good linen shirts, as well…” Brian said. “But they was wrested away.”

  Jack bristled. “Wrested away? By who?”

  The boys shrugged, their mouths set in grim lines. Brian drawled, “More of them than of us, that’s for dang sure.”

  “They’re lucky to be left with coats and breeches,” David said. “This man’s army is in dire, desperate straits.”

  Titus said, “I’ve got a hide of sole leather in my bundle. We can make them moccasins and gaiters right off.”

  “And what’s become of your buttons, lads?” Sally asked.

  Brian scrunched his gaunt face. “Didn’t care for those—all bedizened with crowns and such.”

  “Cut ’em off,” Jim said. “To rid our nice coats of the royal taint.”

  “We made us a new set—see?” Brian dug a handful of new buttons out from his pocket—each perfect circle smoothed and drilled through with two tiny holes. An ornate “USA” was incised onto the face of each. “Carved from a cow bone,” he said. “I made a paste with rust scraped from a cannonball to get the letters darkish-like.”

  “They’re lovely buttons!” Sally exclaimed.

  “Trouble is, we ain’t found us no needle to sew ’em on with as yet,” Jim explained.

  “We’ve both needle and thread. Once we settle into our lodgings, come pay a call, and Sally and I will see to it those buttons get sewed on.”

  “And there’s the problem… la… la…” David paused to sneeze, and blow his nose. “Lodgings. We’re awful short on beds around here, and the women’s huts are packed full. Let’s bring your gear into headquarters where you can warm up while I sort it all out.”

  “If it helps any, Cap’n, Jack and his nigra friend can bunk with us.” Jim took Jack by the hand. “Our hut’s warm and tight as bark on hickory.”

  Brian nodded. “We chinked in every crack and laid in a good supply of firewood. You’ll be as snug as a bug in a rug in our hut.”

  “There’re empty beds in your hut?” David seemed surprised.

  Jim wagged his head up and down. “Only me and Brian in there now. Some died, and the others were taken away to hospital.”

  “Died?” Titus folded his arms across his chest, his eyes narrowed. “Camp fever?”

  “Naw… The doctor fella said they was sick with the pleurisy,” Brian said. “Don’t fret none. We swept out the old straw and burned the herbs Pink give us to clean the air.”

  “Who’s Pink?” Anne asked.

  “She tends to her master in the brigade next to ours,” Brian said.

  “A slave woman?”

  Jim nodded. “Pink knows all about ailments and remedies and such.”

  “Our company weren’t all fever-ridden, anyhow,” Brian was quick to assure. “Our sergeant, for one, caught a ball at Brandywine, and the wound never did stop festerin’…”

  “And Jed Scovill’s feet got frostbit so bad they blistered up and turned black,” Jim said. “They took him away to hospital this morning.”

  “No matter. A hut is better than a tent on any day.” David seemed relieved. “My officer’s hut houses two, and my cabinmate is out on an extended forage. I’ll move in with Jack and the boys, and the girls can share my cabin.”

  All agreed to the sense of the arrangements. Jack and Titus separated the personal gear from the cargo. Anne and Sally found their trunks, and David ordered a pair of soldiers to carry the baggage to his cabin.

  Anne bid farewell to Jack with a kiss on the cheek, and watched as he and Titus trotted off with the boys. “And here I was fretting about how I would while away an entire winter in camp.”

  “Aye, there’s work aplenty.” Sally eyed David blowing his nose. “Remedies t’ brew, soups to cook, bread to bake…”

  “Shirts to be sewed, caps and stockings to be knit.” Anne folded her arms. “I think this man’s army could use a few more women.”

  TWELVE

  Vigor and determination will do any thing and every thing.

  THOMAS PAINE, The American Crisis

  GATHERING WATER AT FIRST LIGHT

  Dawn’s glow edged above the eastern horizon, hugging the snow-covered hilltops in soft halos of copper and purple. Bundled into her Hessian coat, and wrapped in warm mufflers, Anne tramped off to collect the morning’s water, a pair of tin pails in hand.

  She was not the first to blaze a path through the new-fallen snow. Lost in an overlarge coat with caped shoulders, a sentry paced in front of Washington’s headquarters. Musket on shoulder, head ensconced in a big badger-fur cap, he shuffled to and fro in a pair of tall jackboots. Anne waved to him with her clatter of tin pails and called, “Halloo!” before skittering down the incline to the creek.

  The bitter-cold morning was filled with the soft clacking beaks and throaty rattle of wintering crows roosting in the chestnuts at creekside. Nestled together with their glossy black feathers reflecting soft daylight, it looked as if someone had decorated the snow-covered branches with lumps of shiny coal.

  Crows. Anne set her pails down, and eyed the trees with dismay, unreasonable fear balling up in the pit of her stomach.

  Carrion feeders—such ugly things. From their guttural caw to their greasy black feathers—always hovering, searching, waiting on death—Anne bore a strong dislike for the creatures.

  A picture of her mother, young and smiling, popped into Anne’s mind, crisp and clear. If she were here, she would laugh and say, “Let’s count the crows, children, and tell our fortunes!” Anne suddenly began to recite aloud the old nursery rhyme her mother would chant whenever a crow was spied.

  One for sadness, two for mirth;

  Three for marriage, four for birth;

  Five for laughing, six for crying:

  Seven for sickness, eight for dying;

  Nine for silver, ten for gold;

  Eleven a secret that will never be told.

  David hated the game, and though Anne never would admit it, the rhyme frightened her as well. No matter the mention of mirth or silver or gold, she always dreaded counting crows—dreaded having a secret so awful, that it could never be told.

  But there were way more than eleven crows roosting in these trees. Anne tossed off her mittens and scooped up some snow. Packing a ball with bare hands, the warmth of her skin made for a good, hard missile. She hurled the snowball into the branches, and watched with satisfaction and relief as the noisy mob lifted up into the sky, flying away like a black veil caught on a breeze.

  The spring-fed creek was frozen over, but for a thin ribbon of water running deep and fast down its center. Anne ventured carefully out to the ice-crusted edge to pull up two pails of ice-cold water.

  The trek back to the cabin was a slow, serious affair, requiring concentration to maintain footing up the slippery incline, and keep from sloshing too much water from the pails. Anne reached the crest of the creek bank at the changing of the guard, and witnessed the slender young sentry handing off the communal overcoat, boots, and hat to the new man coming on duty. Wrapping up in an old blanket, the relieved soldier took off in stocking feet, kicking up a cyclone of snow as he galloped across the valley to his hut.

  Shrugging into the overcoat, the new sentry set the fur cap aright, and snatched up his musket. “Halt!” he ordered. “Who goes there?”

  Anne pulled to a stop, and called, “It’s Mrs. Merrick—a woman belonging to this army.”

  The sentry leveled his weapon. “Advance to be recognized.”

  Anne marched up to the sentry and set her heavy pails down. The new guard was a grizzled veteran—his cheeks bristled with steel gray stubble, and his keen blue eyes were hooded with brows so wild and bushy, they melded seamlessly into the badger fur of his cap. He took a step forward and leaned in. With a low, gruff whisper he said, “Sparta.”

  The parole word! Anne racked her brain for the day’s countersign, a place-name, usually beginning with the same letter as the parole. She quizzled her forehead and guessed, “Springfield?”

  “Na,” the
sentry said with a shake of his head.

  Anne could not recall the password her brother had told them only the night before. Her toes were going numb, and she shifted from foot to foot, fiddling with her wet mittens, the thumbs already beginning to stiffen with the cold. “Why don’t you just let me pass, soldier? It’s too cold for this nonsense.”

  The sentry clacked back the hammer on his musket. “Protectin’ our camp from enemy spies is no nonsense.”

  “I assure you, I’m no spy,” Anne said, pointing to her pails. “You can see I went down to fetch water.”

  “A clever ruse, mebbe, used by a clever spy.”

  “Heavens!” Anne threw up her arms. “If I were truly a clever spy, I’d know the bloody countersign, wouldn’t I?”

  The sentry stood firm, and offered the challenge once again. “Spaar-ta.”

  “I’m the least likely spy,” Anne said.

  “It’s the least likely who make the best of spies,” he said, and repeated the parole word. “Sparta.”

  Anne could not argue with his logic. “Give me a moment. These daily countersigns are all so alike, they are a jumble in my brain.” Eyes squinched tight, she repeated, “Spaarta aaaannnd…” Her eyes popped open, and she blurted, “Spain!”

  “Aye. ’Tis Spain.” The sentry shouldered his weapon. “Ye can advance.”

  Anne gathered up her water and headed toward the first row of eight officers’ huts strung out in a straight row not too far from the stone house headquarters. She set the pails down to yank on the latchstring to lift the bar on the inside. Putting her shoulder into it, she pushed the heavy plank door open. Hung not quite square to the floor, the swing of the door rode in a perfect semicircle carved into the dirt floor. Anne grabbed her pails and hurried into the dark cabin, kicking the door shut.

  “Tha’ wind is sharp as the devil’s teeth!” Sally shivered on a small stool near the hearth, fanning the coals to flame and feeding the fire slim pieces of kindling.

  Anne deposited her pails and went to lay wet mittens on the hearthstones. She hung her muffler and coat on one of the many pegs driven into the wall. “It is so cold, the stream is almost completely frozen over,” she said, stomping her boots and shaking loose the snow caked to the hems of her skirts.