– CHAPTER 32 –
The Belt
Dr. Pell arranged for a shallop to take Balty, Huncks, and Thankful to Oyster Bay, where they would rendezvous with Captain Underhill.
Underhill, Pell told them, had recently married a Quaker woman. She would see that Thankful got settled among the Quakers of Vlissingen—Flushing, as the English called it. Stuyvesant had tried to ban the Quakers there from holding meetings. They sent a petition—now known as the Flushing Remonstrance—to Stuyvesant’s superiors at the Dutch West India Company. Amsterdam overruled Stuyvesant, much consternating him.
Pell was greatly amused at the rumor that Underhill himself had converted to Quakerism.
“The hero of Fort Mystick and Pound Ridge—a Quaker!” he chortled. “New England’ll do queer things to a man, and that’s no lie.”
He warned them it was far from certain Underhill would lend his support to Nicholls’s seizure of New Netherland. The old warrior was sixty-seven now. The “Cincinnatus of Long Island” had laid down his musket and taken up the plow (Tobacco). Age, farming, and Quakerism mellow a warrior.
On the other hand, Pell said, Underhill loathed the Dutch and “Old Petrus”—Stuyvesant—in particular. Underhill knew him well, having lived in New Netherland for years. Underhill had been sheriff of Flushing. But in 1653, he broke with Stuyvesant over his autocratic ways, denouncing him as a “tyrant.” That earned him a spell in Stuyvesant’s jail. A year later, at the end of the Anglo-Dutch War, Underhill moved away to the edge of New Netherland, to put distance between himself and his nemesis.
Like most New England eminentoes, Underhill was born in England, in Warwickshire. His grandfather Thomas was Keeper of the Wardrobe for Queen Elizabeth’s favorite, Robert Dudley, First Earl of Leicester. Dudley was imprisoned in the Tower of London over the plot to install Lady Jane Grey on the throne. He was eventually released, unlike his less fortunate brother Guildford, Lady Jane’s husband. A half century later, the Underhill family got itself mucked up in another plot, this one the Earl of Essex’s attempt to dethrone Queen Elizabeth. The Underhills fled to the Netherlands.
The future Captain Underhill was then four. He grew up among the Dutch, married a Dutch girl, had a Dutch son, then emigrated to New England aboard Arabella, flagship of John Winthrop, founder of the “city upon a hill,” the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Underhill became a soldier and Indian fighter in the Bay Colony militia, rising to rank of captain. The Bay Colony elders dispatched him to Salem to arrest Roger Williams for promulgating his heretical view that the English should pay Indians for land rather than seize it. So began his disenchantment with Puritan theocracy.
Two years later, he got himself banished from the Bay Colony for anticonformism, along with his friend Anne Hutchinson. He became a soldier for hire, privateer, sheriff, and general dissenter. Along the way, he forged a bond with Winthrop the Younger, Governor of the Connecticut Colony, providing him with intelligence on Dutch schemes to foment Indian trouble in English territories.
Following the massacre of Anne Hutchinson and her family on what was now Dr. Pell’s land, Underhill played a role in the ensuing Indian war. Receiving a report that a large number of Siwanoy and Wappinger were encamped at Pound Ridge, Underhill marched his men from Stamford through a bitter winter night. They surprised the Indians and encircled their palisaded village and put it to the torch. Those who tried to flee were shot down. The Indians resigned themselves to the fire, man, woman, and child dying in silence. Veterans of Pound Ridge, whose butcher bill of seven hundred was eerily identical to that at Fort Mystick, were haunted to the end of their lives by the memory of that terrible silence, the only sound the crackle of flames and hiss of melting snow.
Now, in the winter of his life, Underhill distrusted and deplored all authority, Dutch and Puritan. Planting himself in Oyster Bay on the Long Island put water between him and Stuyvesant, and between him and the Puritans. He was moated, finally at peace.
Dr. Pell said the best hope of getting Underhill to join the fight would be simultaneously to play on his loathing of the Dutch and Puritans: losing New Netherland would stick it to the Dutch, while Puritan New Englanders would shudder at the brazen action by the new English king they despised. What might he do to them? If Charles II would seize New Netherlands, what would he do to his own functioning colonists? Dr. Pell chortled. That would that put a chill into their already cold spines!
* * *
Balty stood on the Fairfield wharf, forlornly regarding the shallop. It resembled a bobbing coffin. The prospect of another sea voyage—and this across a body of water called the Devil’s Belt—made his innards wormy. Thankful, ever attentive, tried to jolly him. What could be more invigorating than a brisk sail on a moonlit night?
He was having none of it. Brisk their journey would certainly be, for the wind was increasing to a howl. The shallop’s halyards and stays slapped against the mast. The wind was northwesterly, which—apparently—would make for a good “reach” southwest across the Belt to Oyster Bay, a “mere” (as Thankful cheerily put it) thirty miles. God willing, she said, they should fetch their destination at first light, “with a pretty dawn at our backs.” Balty was having none of that, either. An invocation of “God willing” invariably prefigured disaster. Thankful told him to hush and bundled him into the boat.
Dr. and Mrs. Pell were there to see them off. Pell gave Huncks a letter for Underhill sealed with his signet, whose emblem was a pelican. He hadn’t seen Underhill since Fort Mystick, over a quarter century ago. Bygones should be bygones. There were bigger matters at stake than holding an ancient grudge. That said, Pell warned, Underhill was a stubborn old bastard.
“You’ll have no trouble finding him,” he said as the shallop’s skipper cast off lines. “His is the largest estate on the Long Island. Named Kenilworth. Or Killingworth. Worth killing for! Ha!”
As the boat pulled away from the dock, sails snapping full with wind, the doctor shouted, “It’s a clever man who weds a rich widow!”
Mrs. Pell boxed her husband’s ear. Then, arm in arm, they waved as the boat sailed into the gusty night.
The skipper was an incessant talker who delighted in regaling his passengers with lurid accounts of terrible wrecks along the Belt. Another favorite theme was harrowing accounts of painted savages paddling long wooden war boats called canows carved from tree trunks.
“You’re not wanting to see one of them coming up on yer arse, let me tell you. Oh, no!”
Woozy, Balty nestled his head on Thankful’s lap and murmured, “Offer him money to stop talking.”
Huncks enjoyed the old salt’s palaver and stoked the conversation with his own memories of the diabolical Belt. The two prattled happily away, exchanging stories of skirmishes with Indians along the shore and of people being eaten by large fishes with triangular fins that cut the surface like axes. Balty groaned and nuzzled on Thankful’s lap. She giggled and cupped her hands over his ears to spare him the more gruesome snatches.
The wind increased. The shallop bucked, waves slapping against the sides and slurping over the gunwales. Thankful recited from memory the Gospel story of Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee as his disciples huddled, whimpering, in the lees.
Irritated at being compared to timorous Judean fishermen, Balty moaned, “Why don’t you ask Jesus to calm this bloody sea?”
Thankful shook her head. “I thought thee fearful. But now I see thou are brave.”
“Brave? How?”
“To blaspheme on such a sea as this. No timid soul would tempt our Lord so to sink his vessel.”
Balty groaned and closed his eyes, and burrowed deeper into Thankful’s lap. It was the loveliest pillow he’d ever had. He opened his eyes and looked up. She was looking down at him a certain way. She bent closer. Their lips came together. For a moment the wind ceased to roar in Balty’s ears and his stomach calmed. Indeed, the boat itself seemed to hover, still, above the menacing waves. Then came a tremendous bang and shudder as
a cataract of seawater roared over the side, drenching them to the skin. They sputtered and coughed. Huncks and Thankful and the skipper roared. Without understanding why, Balty found himself laughing.
Huncks rummaged in a bag and produced a bottle of Barbadoes rum and passed it around.
The skipper pointed to a low, white spit of sand on the Long Island shore.
“Eaton’s Neck. Good harbor in a nor’easter. Belonged to Eaton, him who founded New Haven, with the minister, Davenport. Bought it from the local savages, Matinnecocks.” He took another long pull on the rum bottle. “He sold it to his son-in-law, Jones, under-governor of New Haven. Then Jones, he sold it to Cap’n Seeley. That is, Cap’n Seeley thinks he owns it.” He laughed. “The Matinnecocks sell the same land to different folks. Keeps the courts busy!”
They dropped anchor in Oyster Bay at first light. As Thankful had also predicted, the dawn at their backs was pretty.
– CHAPTER 33 –
The Cincinnatus of Long Island
They found Killingworth without difficulty: a fine, bustling manse on a hundred acres of good farmland looking out over Oyster Bay and the diabolical Belt. After an introductory volley of thees and thous, Mrs. Underhill whisked her fellow Quaker Thankful off to get dry clothes, leaving the men in the forecourt.
Captain Underhill, the “Cincinnatus of Long Island,” was dressed for farming, but even in this attire and old age he cut an imposing, even dashing figure. He was tall, with lively eyes, neatly trimmed mustache, and small triangle of beard under the lip. His posture was military: erect and commanding. Balty could imagine him standing at the head of a troop, sword drawn, ordering cannonades amid explosions of smoke.
At the moment, however, Captain Underhill was staring with distaste at the unsealed letter from Pell, as if Huncks had just handed him a turd.
“Pell sent you?”
Balty, exhilarated at no longer being in a boat, chirruped enthusiastically, “If I may, Captain, I am sent by his most gracious majesty, Charles, King of England, Ireland, and . . . and . . .” Balty’s wave-pummeled brain went blank on whatever it was his most gracious majesty was also king of.
Underhill and Huncks stared. Finally it came to Balty: “Scotland. Allow me to present my . . .”
Balty rummaged in his satchel for his commission. He couldn’t find it. He began tossing various items to the ground.
“Bear with me. I have it . . . here . . . somewhere . . .”
In frustration, he turned the satchel upside down, emptying its contents at the Captain’s feet.
“Ah—here.”
Balty retrieved his damp commission, unrolled it, cleared his throat, and began to read from it aloud, in the stentorian tone of the Lord Chamberlain announcing the opening of Parliament.
By now the Cincinnatus of Long Island had concluded that he was in the company of either a lunatic or an imbecile and anyway had no interest in his visitor’s credentials. He conversed with Huncks. The two began to stroll toward the house, leaving Balty unaware, declaiming his commission to geese and piglets. Looking up from the scroll and finding that his audience was avian and porcine, Balty refurled his commission and scurried after them.
Captain Underhill knew the reputation of Hiram Huncks, late colonel in the Connecticut Colony militia, boon companion to his own great friend Winthrop. He and Huncks spoke in the language of soldiers. Huncks discreetly persuaded Cincinnatus that Mr. de St. Michel was not the flibbertigibbet he seemed, but, like the fool of the proverb, was adept at the art of concealing his skill behind a mask of imbecility. Captain Underhill accepted Huncks’s representation, and the three proceeded into his study, where the Captain poured glasses of Madeira, a furtive pleasure in the Quaker Underhill household.
“In my youth, I hid from Queen Elizabeth,” he said. “In old age, I hide from Wife Elizabeth. To your health, gentlemen. You are welcome at Killingworth.”
Underhill’s conversion to his wife’s Quakerism had apparently not yet extended to abstinence from beverages improved by fermentation. Nor, he said, did he incline at his age to reform his pronouns, pausing in every midsentence to substitute thou and thee and thine for you and yours.
“Even if,” he said, “this was how our Lord spake whilst he was on earth.”
He poured a second round and told his visitors that despite the inconveniences and its absurd-sounding name, “this Quaker business” was rather agreeable.
“Harmless, anyway, which is a damn sight more than can be said for the other religions. Who wants to sit in a frigid worship house while some ass prattles on about the fires of Hell, or Deuteronomy, or the multiplication of the bloody loaves and fishes?” (The Captain’s vocabulary bespoke his years in the barracks.) “If a Quaker wants to commune with the Almighty or whoever the hell’s up there, he just plops his arse down wherever he is and closes his eyes and communes. And if the Almighty ain’t in the mood for communing, you get a fine snooze. Tell me if that ain’t an improvement on Sunday worship.”
This called for a third glass of Madeira. Huncks steered the conversation to his subject—gingerly, since it was one to give pause to even the most laissez-faire practitioner of Quakerism. Namely, war.
He presented the situation crisply and concisely, as if briefing a senior officer: Colonel Nicholls’s squadron of four ships would be entering New Netherland’s waters any day now, under the guise of paying a courtesy visit. Its actual purpose was to seize New Amsterdam and New Netherland in the name of the King.
Dr. Pell would render support with his militia. Winthrop was standing by with his. Would the Cincinnatus of Long Island join in the fight?
Huncks laid it on thick as clotted cream: Would the legendary Captain John Underhill, hero of Fort Mystick and Pound Ridge, the most renowned fighter in New England, lend his name, his prestige—and his devoted followers—to King Charles’s great endeavor?
Underhill began to chuckle.
Odd response, Balty thought. Weren’t soldiers—even old ones—always champing at the bit to grab their muskets and strap on the armor?
“Once more onto the beach, eh?” Underhill said, pouring another round.
“Beg pardon?” Balty said.
“Don’t you know your Shakespeare?”
“Ah. Isn’t it ‘Once more unto the breach’?”
Underhill shook his head. “I see you do not know your Shakespeare, sir. Henry the Fifth, on the eve of Agincourt. The English outnumbered by the French ten to one. Twenty to one. Then victory, snatched from the jaws of defeat! By English longbowmen. There was a battle. There was a fight!”
The old man’s eyes were aglow with martial fever.
Underhill continued in a melancholy tone, “Different kind of fighting here. Skulkers, the savages. Can’t blame the beggars, really, lacking guns and armor. Tell you one thing—their bows are no match for English longbows cut from yew. Still, effective enough. Always popping out from behind a tree or rock. Ssssupp . . . Ssssup . . . Ssssup . . .”
Balty, having himself experienced the sound of arrows, was tempted to remark that Quiripi arrows made more of a swish sound. Wisely, he didn’t.
Underhill turned to Huncks. “Familiar with my pamphlet on Fort Mystick, Colonel?”
Huncks recited from memory: “ ‘We had sufficient light from the Word of God for our proceedings.’ ”
Underhill smiled, pleased by this recital of his claim of divine justification for slaughtering seven hundred Pequots.
“Would you like to have a copy?” the old man asked.
“I should be honored, Captain.”
Underhill rose, a bit wobbily, went to a shelf, and pulled one out. Its cover proclaimed:
NEVVES FROM
AMERICA;
OR,
A NEW AND EXPERIMENTALL DISCOVERIE OF
NEW ENGLAND;
CONTAINING,
A TRVE RELATION OF THEIR
War-like proceedings theƒe two yeares laƒt
paƒt, with a Figure of the Indian Fort,
/>
or Palizado.
By Captaine IOHN UNDERHILL, a Commander
in the Warres there.
“It was well received, you know,” Underhill said. “Very well. Numerous printings. All sold out.”
Underhill sat at his desk, dipped his quill, and scribbled an inscription for Huncks, who seized on the moment to remark that it would lend Colonel Nicholls’s assault on New Netherland great luster to have the support of the Hero of Fort Mystick.
Underhill grunted.
“Tempting, having a go at Old Petrus. Pompous old ass. Still, formidable. No lack of grit there. I wonder, will his people fight for him? They don’t like him. Nobody does. Could go either way. Tell you this—Stuyvesant’ll never surrender. Even if it means defending the damned place by himself. If his men do stand with him, it’ll be a fight to the end. A bitter end. He’ll bring it all down around him.”
“Are you with us, Captain?” Huncks pressed.
“Certainly not.” Underhill poured another round.
“Why?”
“What do you think of this Madeira?”
“It’s very good. Excellent.”
“Winthrop sent me a few casks, from Hartford. Damned thoughtful.”
“A token of his esteem.”
“So,” Underhill said, “Pell has signed on for this, eh? No surprise. He wants that tract of land he bought from Wampage under an English flag. Never search for noble motives where Pell is concerned.”
“Is that why you won’t join?” Huncks asked.
“Not at all. How is Winthrop? Haven’t seen him in over a year.”
“He’s well.”
Underhill smiled wryly. “Do you think me a coward, Colonel? An old, soft man?”
“Certainly not, sir.”
“My Quakerism may strike you as lacking in rigor. But I assure you, my wife’s is very strict. I’ve stomach enough for war with Holland. Not for one with her. Speaking of my beloved, let’s have one more glass before we join the ladies.”
The Judge Hunter Page 17
