The Heart of Liberty

by Thomas Fleming

  “Gifford,” shouted a voice which he instantly recognized as Anthony Skinner’s. “Tell your son to come out with his hands up or we’ll come in and get him and show him no quarter.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s under arrest for breaking his parole and persuading others to break the King’s peace here in New Jersey.”

  Jonathan Gifford was sure that Kemble, who was sleeping in exile at the tavern, would be awakened by this uproar and have no difficulty getting out the back door and across the brook into the woods. To make sure, Captain Gifford delayed the loyalists for several minutes on the porch by insisting that Anthony Skinner could not enter his house. He allowed Joshua Bellows and a half-dozen other men to search the residence. They found no trace of Kemble but they had better luck the next night. They surprised Nathaniel Fitzmorris in his bed and dragged him off to New York, where he was held without trial in the Sugar House, the worst of that city’s several prisons. Two nights later they tried to seize Daniel Slocum but he was ready for them. Guns blazed from every window of his house. With Kemble’s help Slocum had gathered a company of militia to defend the place. At daybreak they sallied front and back doors and drove Skinner’s outnumbered partisans into undignified flight.

  But not even Colonel Slocum could keep sixty men on duty indefinitely to preserve his high-ranking skin. For the next few weeks he and Kemble and other militia officers led a fugitive life, seldom sleeping at home and returning to their farms to work by day with guns never far from their hands. About a half-dozen others besides Fitzmorris were captured in spite of these precautions. The loyalists did the same thing elsewhere in the state. Soon there were between fifty and one hundred New Jersey leaders in the Sugar House. Ex-prisoners of war captured in the 1776 fighting around New York and recently exchanged carried back shocking stories of beatings and starvation.

  In our part of the state, Colonel Slocum was among the first of the independence men to give the loyalists a taste of their own medicine. On the last night of April he ordered Kemble to organize twenty-five men with horses. Slocum joined them on the road with about ten of his own numerous clan. They rode swiftly into the heart of loyalist territory around Kemble Manor, until they were within a half mile of the Bellows farmhouse. Leaving their horses, they advanced on foot and surrounded the house. At a signal from Slocum, they smashed in the doors and windows with axes and burst into the house, catching Joshua Bellows, his son George and his two brothers asleep in their beds.

  They were dragged downstairs to the kitchen in their nightshirts. “Joshua Bellows,” Slocum said, “you are hereby arrested by order of the honorable Provincial Congress of the State of New Jersey for the crimes of treason and kidnapping. You are to be transported to a prison in Morris County where I assure you that you will be treated as your British lords and masters are treating Nat Fitzmorris and other patriot captives in New York.”

  “Oh no, please – ” cried a woman’s voice from a bedroom off the kitchen.

  “My wife is ill, it may be her death,” Joshua Bellows said.

  “You should have thought of that before you kidnapped men like Fitzmorris, with no regard for his wife and two babies,” Slocum said,

  “I’ll go in his place,” George Bellows said.

  It struck Kemble and many of the men as a fair exchange. The son was close to Fitzmorris’ age. But Slocum had other plans for him.

  “No, you shall not go,” he said. “But you shall not go scot-free either, you bastard. Where is my son Peter?”

  “Here, Father,” said a voice in the back. Peter Slocum stepped forward, his right sleeve flapping over his missing hand. It was the first time Kemble realized the boy was with them.

  “Was he one?” Slocum asked, pointing to George Bellows.

  “He was. I remember the size of that belly.” The boy rubbed the stump of his missing hand. “Aye, he was one of them, all right.”

  “Hand me an ax,” Slocum said.

  “No, Jesus God, no,” Bellows screamed. He tried to break through the crowd and was flung back to the open space before the hearth.

  “Take my hand, take both of them,” his father Joshua said. “He’s learned the weaver’s trade this past year. His wife’s a Quaker. He’s quit the war. He hasn’t ridden out with us once since Christmas, I swear it.”

  “Shut up,” Slocum said.

  “Spare him, please, in the name of the God of mercy,” cried a woman’s voice from the hall which led to the front of the house. It was Bellows’ wife. Kemble turned to see a small frantic woman struggling through the crowd. She was about seven months pregnant.

  “Put his arm on the table there,” said Slocum.

  No one moved. Most of the men Kemble had brought with him were losing their stomach for this brand of retaliation. But a half-dozen burly Slocums shouldered their way past Kemble’s volunteers, flung Bellows into a chair, and pinned his arm to the table.

  Colonel Slocum turned to Kemble. “Stapleton,” he said, “your sister was the cause of my boy losing his hand. It seems to me you should strike the blow that evens the score.”

  Kemble looked down at the squirming pulsing piece of flesh on the table. He heard the Quaker wife whimpering and praying a few feet away from him. Necessary echoed in his. mind like a great tolling bell. For a moment he recoiled from it. Then he looked into Slocum’s face and vowed he would match the dark animal strength he saw there.

  He touched the blade of the ax to George Bellows’ arm just behind his wrist, raised it high, and brought it down with all his strength. The room rang with Bellows’ scream.

  Through a haze of nausea, Kemble saw Slocum’s contorted face, heard his mouth shouting:: “WHAT WE HAVE DONE, IS NOTHING BUT WHAT THE LORD JEHOVAH TEACHES US, AN EYE FOR AN EYE A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH A HAND FOR A HAND.”

  “Oh Jesus Jesus Jesus,” sobbed Joshua Bellows. “Staunch the blood before he - ”

  They cauterized the wound with a hot iron from the fireplace. By this time Bellows was barely conscious and felt no pain. But as they trudged back to their horses they could hear at a quarter of a mile his wife’s wails. Mounting, Kemble saw that Slocum had tied Joshua Bellows’ hands with a long rope and planned to make him follow his horse on foot.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to let him get up behind someone?” he said. “We’ve got six or seven miles to go and it’s only an hour until dawn.”

  “He won’t stop us,” Slocum said. “He will rum right along behind us or lose half the skin off his ass.”

  “He’s an old man. A run like that could kill him.”

  “Then we’ll have one less Tory bastard to worry about.”

  “Let him ride behind me.”

  “He’ll run on this rope like the dog he is.”

  “No he won’t. We came out to capture this man to force the British to give Nat Fitzmorris better treatment. It will do us no good to kill him.”

  “You are high and mighty tonight, Mr. Stapleton. Did you talk to General Putnam this way?”

  “I didn’t have to talk to General Putnam this way.”.

  “Here,” Slocum said, and threw Kemble the rope. “Be a milk and water man.”

  They rode back to Slocum’s farm at Colt’s Neck, where Kemble made sure that Joshua Bellows was given a horse for the rest of his journey to Morristown, site of the safest jail in New Jersey thanks to the presence of Washington’s army. They watched him ride away, escorted by a half dozen of Kemble’s men. The rest went home. Colonel Slocum invited Kemble into the house to have breakfast.

  As he sat down, Kemble realized he was alone with the Slocum tribe. The Colonel’s three oldest sons sat opposite him. Sam Slocum and his two sons sat beside him. Another half-dozen cousins filled the benches on both sides of the long table. Mrs. Slocum spooned some unpleasant looking mush into earthenware bowls and poured water on it.

  “Our cows be all in the woods,” she said, “too far to carry their milk out.”

  The Slocums began talking with savage
glee about cutting off George Bellows’ hand. Suddenly Kemble saw that quivering arm on the table again, heard the sound of the ax. Nausea overwhelmed him. He shoved his bowl of gruel aside. The Slocums stared at him. Most of them were scraping their bowls clean.

  “Well, well, well,” said Colonel Slocum, looks like the young Squire don’t like our plain fare. It don’t measure up to Liberty Tavern. Just like Daniel Slocum don’t measure up to his famous father, Captain Gifford of the King’s Own Regiment. But he ain’t got the guts to stand up to the Tories - and his son ain’t got the guts to give them what they deserve. You saw him tonight, didn’t you, boys? Like to threw up when he swung that ax. Face as pale as a virgin’s on the first night. Then he turns around and tells Daniel Slocum what to do. Gives him orders, as if he’s the Colonel.”

  “I thought you - ”

  “You haven’t got a right to think, young Squire, when you’re out under my command. You haven’t got a right to shit unless I say so. Let me tell you this. If you ever do that to me again, I swear to God I’ll shoot you down on the spot, and stand trial before my military equals in this state and tell them why. Don’t think because your name is Stapleton you can tell a Slocum what to do. By the time this war is over, the Slocums are going to be worth a lot more than the Stapletons. Right, boys? Look at these lads. They never went to no college, but they’ll own more land than you ever will, comes the day when we’re a free country. Now get the hell out of here and think about what I just told you over ham and kidney pie at your daddy’s tavern.”

  Kemble rode home in a state of double shock. He was sickened by the memory of George Bellows’ scream, his wife’s pleading prayers. He was stunned by the ferocity of Slocum’s attack on him. How could Daniel Slocum be part of the Revolution, the fiercest local supporter of the Cause - and at the same time a man who aroused a deep instinctive revulsion in him? In the American future as Kemble envisioned it, there were no Slocums. America, once it threw off the corruptions of British influence, would become a nation of virtuous farmers, like Cincinnatus and Cato and Scipio Africanus, those heroes of the Roman Republic. But if Colonel Slocum resembled anyone, it was Attila the Hun.

  The problem was education, Kemble decided. The Slocums lacked the education to see the America he envisioned. He would have to fight the war and simultaneously educate them. Just how he was going to do this remained obscure. He was able to avoid thinking about it because the war was like a wild horse on which we were all being hurtled into the future.

  THE REPORT OF George Bellows’ mutilation deepened Kate’s disgust with the war. She retreated even further into melancholy isolation. It was good for neither her temperament nor her health. Jonathan Gifford urged her to ride out each morning for an hour’s exercise, to visit Caroline or my sister Sally. To please him Kate agreed to try it. Color began returning to her cheeks. Now and then she got a friendly greeting from travelers on the road. Most of them were loyalists or friends of loyalists. But it did her good to discover that not everyone in New Jersey considered her a pariah.

  As Kate was returning to Liberty Tavern on the third or fourth of these outings, she saw a red-coated British officer standing alone beside the road about a quarter of a mile ahead of her. This was odd in itself. Where was his horse? As she neared him she recognized Thomas Rawdon. He had a peculiar expression on his face.

  “Miss Stapleton,” be said, in a strained voice, raising his right hand while his left remained pressed to his side. “This almost makes it worthwhile - ”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was coming down to see you. I’m afraid some brave fellow has shot me. My horse ran away. Could you - find me a doctor?”

  “There’s one at the tavern.”

  Kate sprang from her saddle and urged him to mount. She would ride behind him. “I’ve thought of you every day,” he said. “Every day since - ”

  He put one foot in the stirrup and tried to hoist himself into the saddle. He was too weak. Kate tried to help him. As she put her hands around his waist she felt an ominous wet warmth. She withdrew her hand.. It was covered with blood. “Oh, my God,” she said

  “I’m afraid it’s a rather nasty wound. I need a boost - ”

  Using all her strength, Kate managed to get him into the saddle. She mounted behind him. Fortunately, she was riding Thunder, Jonathan Gifford’s big gelding, and he took them down the road without protest at a strong gallop.

  “This is a rather mad reversal of the chivalrous ideal, isn’t it?” Rawdon said. “Instead of knight rescuing fair maiden, fair maiden rescues knight.”

  He crumpled in Kate’s arms and would have toppled into the road unconscious if she had not held him erect. They reached Liberty Tavern in this condition. Kate called for help and Sam, Barney, and Jonathan Gifford were in the yard within seconds, carrying Lieutenant Rawdon into the tavern. Kate’s sleeves, her gloves, were smeared with his blood. She heard her father calling for Dr. Davie. She seized Rawdon’s hand and squeezed it fiercely. “You mustn’t die,” she said. “You mustn’t die.”

  “I’ll do my best - to obey that order,” he whispered.

  Dr. Davie joined them and swiftly cut away Rawdon’s blood-soaked waistcoat and shirt. They shuddered at the gaping wound in his side.

  “Buck and ball,” Jonathan Gifford muttered.

  “Aye,” said Dr. Davie. “We’ll worry about that some other tine. It’s the bleeding we must stop. Get me some hot tallow.” Rawdon nodded. “I see you know your business.”

  “Oh?”

  “I spent two years at Edinburgh.”

  “What are you doing killing men instead of curing them?”

  “That’s a long story.”

  Jonathan Gifford returned with a flagon of tallow melted in the kitchen oven. Without even a word of caution, Dr. Davie poured the hot wax into the wound. Thomas Rawdon cried out in agony and clung to Kate’s band.

  Swiftly, Dr. Davie wrapped clean cloths around the suffering man’s waist and ordered him carried upstairs to a fresh bed.

  “What are his chances, Doctor?” Jonathan Gifford asked.

  “I will tell you better after we probe for the ball. In the meantime, he must have clean bandages every day and all the liquids he can drink. Someone must turn him in the bed every hour or two to stimulate the circulation and prevent putrefaction.”

  “I will do it,” Kate said.

  The fact that Rawdon was coming to see hers his lack of rancor at the man who shot him from ambush, the courage with which he bore his pain aroused all Kate’s loathing of war and its mindless violence. Lieutenant Rawdon became her battlefield on which she vowed to triumph against the stupidity of random death.

  She enlisted Molly McGovern and Bertha to assist her. But they had responsibilities in the kitchen and elsewhere in the tavern. They had abandoned them to nurse Kemble. But they could not turn nurse for every wounded man off the road. It was on Kate that two thirds of the responsibility fell. She accepted it without a murmur. Jonathan Gifford watched with awe and admiration as she rose night after night to spend from midnight till dawn beside the suffering man’s bed. She who was so squeamish she could not bear to watch even a chicken being butchered cleaned his pus-oozing wound every day and accepted without comment the other indelicacies of nursing a helpless man.

  An infection sent Lieutenant Rawdon’s temperature soaring. For days he was delirious, and unaware of his surroundings. Then he surfaced like a drowning man and discussed his own case with amazing objectivity. He predicted each step of his ordeal, from the development of a dangerous abscess to a cruel struggle with a sinuous ulcer. He discussed the best treatment with Dr. Davie and they jointly agreed that the scalpel was preferable to the caustic powders such as the red precipitate which doctors spread so recklessly on ulcers. The surgery was painful. Rawdon ordered Kate to strap him to the bed. While Dr. Davie worked, Rawdon talked calmly to his nurse.

  “I sometimes think God, if he exists, is determined to make me look ridiculous. I quit medi
cine because I thought it was all nonsense. Now I am depending on this good man’s skill to save my worthless life.”

  “Why is it all nonsense?” Kate asked.

  “We don’t know enough. We are lucky to help three patients out of ten. I think half the treatments - especially those damn drugs - kill more than they cure.”

  “There’s many a man in practice who’s drawn the same conclusion, laddie,” Dr. Davie said. “Fifty years ago, when I began, we couldn’t help one out of ten. We’re learning, but it’s a slow business.”

  Cutting away the ulcerated flesh, Dr. Davie “found still more extraneous matter, bits of cloth and buckshot, which he had to extract from the wound. “Whiskey,” Rawdon muttered to Kate. The pain by now was exquisite. She gave him two gills from a flagon on the night table. He gulped it down and struggled for self-control.

  “Do you know the point of this or anything else?” he murmured.

  “Be still,” she said, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth. By now it was May and the temperature in the sickroom was in the eighties most of the time.

  “Are you going to suture it, Doctor?” Rawdon asked.

  “I am inclined to leave it open, with a tent.” Dr. Davie said. “There may yet be more discharges.”

  “Suture it and get it over with, one way or the other,” Rawdon said.

  Dr. Davie decided that he had gotten most of the extraneous matter out and closed the wound. Rawdon drank off the rest of the whiskey in the flagon and sank into an exhausted sleep. Dr. Davie looked down on him and shook his head. “A strange one. He knows not whether to live or die.”

  For the next week, the fever returned and Rawdon was delirious again. He recited whole paragraphs from Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, as if he thought he really was that doomed young man. At other times he babbled scraps of poetry to Kate. One day he transfixed her with mad glaring eyes and all but shouted:

  “I prithee let my heart alone