The Heart of Liberty

by Thomas Fleming

  “I have confidence in Kate’s affections,” Rawdon said.

  “So do I,” Caroline said.

  Jonathan Gifford wanted to join this affirmation. But he remembered too clearly Kate’s anguished confession to him after she saw Anthony at the dance in New Brunswick. He could only muster half an affirmation. “I agree with Mrs. Skinner. But even if the worst is true, I cannot conceive that Kate would ever betray you. You would be in no danger from her, Mr. Rawdon.”

  “I still think I should go. This is not your quarrel, Mr. Rawdon,” Kemble said.

  “It is now.”

  “All right,” Jonathan Gifford said. “Let’s begin.”

  After a day of discussion, Kemble decided to convert Rawdon into an Irish surgeon from a privateer in Little Egg Harbor. He conferred with Dr. Davie on the kind of medicine he should practice. Dr. Davie advised him to be an activist, in the style of the standard physician of the day. “Bleed them, purge them, lad. Fill them full of calomel, cream of tartar, opium.”

  “I can’t do that,” Rawdon said. “They may be outlaws, but my conscience won’t permit me to poison them.”

  “Then take along a half-dozen bottles of pills made from flour and paste but give them the largest possible Greek or Latin names. The average man is so terrified of dying he will swallow anything if you pronounce its name like a professor.”

  As an added resource, the old doctor gave Rawdon a talisman against enemies. Cast of the purest tin, in the day and hour of Jupiter, it was an engraving of an arm bearing a Sword within a mystic triangle. Among its special powers was an ability to give the wearer power to speak with “the most remarkable confidence.”

  Rawdon had no difficulty mastering a satisfactory brogue. To alter his appearance Kemble dyed his dark hair red, gave him a red mustache, and added a most convincing scar on his cheek, made from a combination of wax and glue that could only be removed with the aid of a chemical liquid.

  While a few intimates at Liberty Tavern watched these interesting preparations, the rest of the state was fascinated by a much larger expedition. Washington suddenly appeared in New Jersey, marching south - with a French army part of his column. People rushed from all points of the compass to see the glittering parade of white-and-gold-uniformed Gauls marching beneath their silken fleur-de-lis. For a year they had been sitting in Newport, doing nothing. Now, went the army rumor machine, their commander, General Rochambeau, had persuaded Washington to march south to battle the British army that had invaded Virginia. No one in the American army had any faith in the expedition. They suspected it was another in the series of pointless exercises into which the French had persuaded us since they entered the war. At Liberty Tavern we were absorbed by our smaller, more poignant drama and paid little attention to history in the making as it marched past us.

  A few days after the last Frenchmen crossed the Raritan at New Brunswick, Thomas Rawdon, now known as Dr. Thaddeus Murphy, trudged south into the pine country swinging his satchel. He stopped at a one-room groggery called the Trap Inn, not far from Imlaystown, and asked the proprietor where he could find “the brave Colonel Skinner.” He had just come off a privateer which had cruised for six months without taking a single prize, because the captain was a coward. Colonel Skinner, from what he heard of him, was a different sort of man.

  The proprietor, an ugly little man with a wen on his forehead, advised him to stay overnight. About four a.m., Rawdon was awakened by a lantern shining in his face.

  “So you want to join Skinner, eh,” growled a voice in the darkness behind the light.

  “Why not? The Americans won’t have me, and the British are a bunch of lazy dogs.”

  “We could use a doctor.”

  Rawdon emerged from the shed in which he had been sleeping to find himself confronting two men in hunting shirts and moccasins. They were both short, with flat monotonous voices and dirty morose faces. They carried new British muskets and had pistols strapped to their waists. They wanted to depart immediately. Rawdon insisted on breakfast. The escorts agreed, if Rawdon paid for it.

  The proprietor rushed to serve them. He was obviously terrified of his new guests. “Do you have much money?” he whispered to Rawdon as he paid for breakfast.

  “Only a few dollars.”

  “Don’t let them see it. They’ll kill a man for a shilling. They killed two men a half mile from here and buried them in the woods last week. My dog found the bodies. Shot through the back of the head.”

  By eating slowly and talking constantly Rawdon managed to delay his departure until dawn. With daylight he was able to note the landmarks along their route - creeks, swamps, an occasional fisherman’s cabin. While he used his eyes, he regaled his morose companions with tales of sea fights and romantic conquests. His guides began to think he was a very entertaining fellow and once or twice actually laughed at his stories. Then they plunged into the seemingly trackless depths of the pine forest. Rawdon was bewildered. “How in God’s name do you find your way?”

  “We have marked the trees.”

  The older of his two escorts pointed to a slash three or four feet above ordinary eye level on a nearby pine. A similar mark became visible every hundred yards. From the moment they entered the forest, Rawdon began counting his strides. He was over three thousand and the sun was high in the noon sky when they reached Anthony Skinner’s fort. The stockade was about ten feet high and about a hundred and fifty feet long, with a formidable double gate in the center. The other walls were about the same height and length, forming a rough square. On one side was a crude barracks for the garrison. On the other side was a storehouse crammed with food, ammunition, and loot. Behind it in the rear corner was a two-room building, Colonel Skinner’s house. There were guards posted on the firing platforms at the four corners of the fort. The front gates were the only entrance. It would not be an easy place to storm.

  Anthony Skinner met him at the door of his house. He looked weary and harassed. His green coat was smudged. His shirt, even his hands and face were dirty.

  “Ship Surgeon Thaddeus Murphy at your service,” said Rawdon with a mock salute. He gave him his privateering history and dilated on his eagerness to serve a man with the courage to defy both sides.

  Skinner nodded glumly. “What news do you have of the war?”

  “Cornwallis has Virginia beneath his heel by now. With them flattened ‘tis the end of the Congress men in the Carolinas.”

  “What news of Europe?”

  “There’s talk of peace. The French are out of money and out of patience. The Spaniards tremble for Cuba. If the English take it this time, they won’t give it back.”

  “Good,” said Skinner. “You have come to the right place. I admire a man who does not blush to seek his fortune openly. We need a doctor. We have had a fever among us for a month now, laying first one and then, another low. I have a sick woman here this very moment.”.

  “Ah,” said Rawdon. “I see the Colonel has brought to the wilderness all the pleasures of civilization.”

  With a growl Skinner grabbed him by the lapel of his coat. “Watch what you say. She’s no dockside slut like the rest of the females about this place. They’re the scourings of Little Egg’s whore houses. She’s a lady and if you treat her with anything less than the respect she deserves I will beat you black and blue - as I’ve already done to one or two of the rabble in this army.”

  “Sure, you have nothing to worry about. I grew up in Dublin and know a lady when I see one,” Surgeon Murphy-Rawdon hastily assured him.

  “It’s the heat and the bad air from the swamp just south of us. It guards our flank but it breeds misery among us.”

  “A choice of difficulties, like everything else in this damned war.”

  Skinner nodded. “Let me tell you one more thing, Doctor. Once joined, there is no departing this place. Those two who brought you here know these woods like you know your anatomy. They will hunt you down and shoot you for a traitor.”

  “Sure, a man like me
doesn’t come aboard with thoughts of jumping ship. Let me see your young lady.”

  Skinner led him into the back room of his cabin. Rawdon paused in the doorway, his blood almost ceasing to move in his veins. Now was the moment when he would find out whether Kemble’s suspicions of the worst or Caroline Skinner’s - and his own - confidence in Kate were justified. Rawdon was too clever to miss the uneasy half doubt in. Jonathan Gifford’s voice when he talked about Kate and Anthony Skinner. She had loved him once with a totally reckless commitment. It was not easy for anyone to turn her back on such a memory. What if the Captain was even wrong about his certainty that Kate would not betray him? What if she simply recognized him and cried out? That basic male distrust of women almost made Rawdon panic as Skinner introduced him.

  Kate was sitting in a straight-backed chair, gazing leadenly out the crude window into the dusty parade ground of the fort. She was still wearing the riding habit she had worn the day she disappeared. It was streaked with dirt and ripped in several places. Her forehead glistened with a feverish sheen. She was sick. But worse than the sickness was the unhappiness that transformed her lovely face into something almost ugly. Her mouth drooped, there were ghastly circles beneath her eyes. Her hair straggled damply across her forehead and down her sallow cheeks.

  “Kate,” said Skinner. “We’re in luck. A doctor has joined our little band. He thinks he has something in his kit to restore your health and spirits.”

  “There is only one thing that will restore my health and spirits, Anthony. Let me go home.”

  “Pay no attention to what she says, Doctor. Her mind is a little queer from the fever.”

  “Thaddeus Murphy at your service, miss,” said Rawdon with an elaborate bow as Kate turned to look at him. “Educated in Dublin, with a turn or two in the lecture halls of Edinburgh. If you will be good enough to let me examine the patient, Colonel Skinner.”

  Skinner retired to the front room. Kate stared at this apparition with its red hair and mustache and disfigured cheek. In her numbed mind she knew who it was, but could not believe it.

  “My dear young woman. if you’ll be good enough to lie down on the bed.”

  “Thomas - is it - is it - ”

  He clapped his hand over her mouth. “Let me take your pulse, my dear. Oh my. Much above normal.”

  In the next room Skinner called, “I’m going out to inspect our sentries, Doctor. I will be back in a half-hour.”

  “He will kill you,” Kate said, as Skinner clumped out.

  “He’s never seen me before.”

  “There are others here who might know you. People who often came to the tavern.”

  “Kemble says the alteration of a single feature - such as this scar I am wearing - is enough to confuse the average man. People are not observant.”

  “Ordinarily. I’m not so sure about this place. They know they are hunted men.”

  “They did - kidnap you?”

  For a moment anger made Kate’s eyes even brighter than her fever. “Did you ever doubt it?”

  “No. Not until I walked into this room. But I think it was panic more than doubt. Are you strong enough to come with me if we try a run from this place?”

  Kate shook her head. “I have had this fever for a week. I’ve eaten nothing but a little bread and milk.”

  Rawdon gave Kate some of Dr. Davie’s worthless pills and urged her to make an elaborate pretense of taking them every hour.

  “Let us see signs of health if you can manage them. It will do marvelous things for my reputation.”

  Kate managed the pretense. The next day she pronounced herself strong enough to take a stroll around the fort on Dr. Murphy-Rawdon’s arm. The not quite pseudo-doctor meanwhile briskly plied the garrison’s sick with his make-believe pills, giving each a thunderous name. Within a day, a dozen of his patients pronounced themselves much better and abandoned their beds. It was a marvelous example of the mind’s power over the body. Of course they all had relapses within a day or two. But a medical charlatan, which was what Rawdon was acting under duress, never lets that worry him. He usually makes arrangements to depart before the relapses occur.

  This was precisely what Dr. Murphy-Rawdon was doing, while making a close study of the garrison’s routine. He noted that the guards posted at the four corners of the stockade were lazy and unconvinced of the importance of their duty. After midnight, they frequently abandoned their posts or slumped in a corner to snore the night away. Anthony Skinner made impromptu inspections and berated them angrily when he caught them. But he was obviously afraid to impose the kind of punishment that such conduct would have merited in the regular army - the lash or even the firing squad.

  The motley garrison was in a surly, semirebellious mood. They had come ashore with Skinner believing his bellicose optimism in an early end to the war and a breakup of the rebel confederation. The summer was dwindling away with the war showing no signs of a swift end. The wary, grudging support they had received from their fellow New Jerseyans did little to nurture the hope that they could organize an army strong enough to defeat the Whigs. More and more of them began to see their best hope in plundering Whigs and loyalists indiscriminately for all they were worth and decamping to the West Indies with their booty.

  Dr. Murphy-Rawdon asked for and received a musket, roundly declaring he wanted to earn his share of any loot or glory these fearless fighters might win in the future. The next morning at dawn when the fort’s gates were opened, he vanished into the woods, ostensibly heading for the camp privy on the edge of the swamp. As soon as the trees and underbrush concealed him, he shifted direction and hurried to the foot of a tall pine which he had marked with a slash. At its foot beneath the carpet of pine needles he had buried his musket and cartridge box. Loading the gun, he set off at a slow trot through the forest, using the compass Jonathan Gifford had given him for a guide. As he ran, he went over Jonathan Gifford’s instructions in his mind. They were drawn from Captain Gifford’s Indian-fighting ranger days in Canada.

  Every mile, stop, get your breath, and listen. If they are running hard after you, you can hear them a half mile away in the forest. Run hard then until you find a small stream or a hillock on the trail. This is the place for your ambush. Wait until they are close enough. Take dead aim and shoot to kill.

  For the first three pauses he heard nothing. He found running at the same steady trot not nearly as tiring as he feared it might become. At the fourth pause be again beard nothing. No. Wait. His civilized ears tried to make sense out of the faint sound of bushes crackling, feet thudding on the pine-carpeted earth. They were coming. He ran hard for the next mile. His breath was a knife in his chest when he found a small swift-running brook beside a stand of cedar trees. The cedars stained the water a dark red-rust color, making it impossible to see the bottom. He crossed it cautiously, sinking to his armpits in the middle. On the other side he crouched behind a cedar and primed his musket. Ten minutes later they became visible through the pines, blurred figures running steadily. They were the same two scouts who had brought him to the fort. As they paused at the stream’s edge he studied their empty mercenary faces. One of them pointed to his footprints on the bank and said, “We’re catchin’ him. Them’s fresh.”

  “It’s gonna be an easy five guineas,” the other one said.

  They stepped into the creek, their guns held above their heads. Rawdon waited until they were halfway across. For a moment he wondered if he could kill a man at such point-blank range. Then be remembered they were hunting him down like an animal for five guineas. He shot the first man in the chest. He gasped and tried to bring his gun to his shoulder. It slipped from his hands and he vanished beneath the coppery water.

  The other man blasted a panicky shot at Rawdon. He kept his head down and calmly reloaded his gun. The surviving pursuer, his gun empty, tried to retreat. Rawdon shot him in the back as he was scrambling up the creek’s opposite bank. He, too, vanished beneath the cedar-stained water.

  At midn
ight on the same day, Rawdon stumbled into Liberty Tavern almost too exhausted to talk. Within the hour, with the help of some alcoholic restoratives, he had told Jonathan Gifford and Kemble everything he had seen and heard in Anthony Skinner’s fort.

  “We must not waste a day,” Jonathan Gifford said.

  Caroline Skinner bad already sounded out the work force at Kemble Manor and found twenty were ready to volunteer. Offering five pounds hard money for a bounty, and wages of a dollar a day, Kemble had no difficulty signing up another thirty in the next twenty-four hours. They were all anti-Slocum, pro-Gifford men like Samson Tucker, who was among the first to accept the offer. They gave out the story that they were going to work as hired hands at Kemble Manor and mustered there at dawn, two days after Rawdon’s return.

  We thought that we would march for the pines within the hour. But Jonathan Gifford had no such intention. “In the first place,” he told Rawdon and Kemble, “Skinner will be on his guard, on the chance that Dr. Murphy was a spy. We will give him a week to relax. In the second place, I have no intention of fighting him with untrained men.”

  He looked at our motley band. We were sprawled around Kemble Manor’s lawns. Some of us were straggling into the orchards and the park. “Form ranks!” Captain Gifford bellowed in a voice that none of us had heard before. We obeyed with uncommon alacrity. In the same drillmaster’s tones, he told us that we would begin training immediately. No one would be permitted to leave the manor for any reason. Training would last five days. We would rest a day, then march.

  Within the hour we were hard at work. Captain Gifford gave us his own unique combination of infantry and ranger training. We did no close-order drill or manual of arms. He taught us how to fight in the forest in groups of two and three with one man always reserving his fire. He trained us in responding to signals from a whistle which told us to fight in a square, a circle, parallel lines, an arc.

  Above all he concentrated on attacking with the bayonet. Hour after hour in the hot sun we lay on our faces in the manor house park, leaped to our feet and raced forward screaming like madmen to plunge deadly shafts of steel into the straw-filled vitals of a scarecrow. At the end of two hours we ached from head to foot and our throats were raw. Now everyone understood why Jonathan Gifford had paid an incredible five pounds bounty to each volunteer. We were earning it. He knew what he was asking us to do - and he also knew that men who slept in feather beds, got up each morning to have breakfast served to them by loving mothers and sisters would never do it. In five brutal days he was shocking us into becoming the kind of soldiers he needed - men who would attack with ferocity and skill.