The Messenger

by Siri Mitchell

  Was that . . . “Jeremiah?” I lowered my arm, but still I could not see for the light.

  “Major’s orders.”

  “Aye. But who’s to know if you did or didn’t follow them? No one here will tell.”

  Jeremiah’s protests went unanswered, and I could hear him enter the room as the door was drawn shut and the key turned in the lock. “Hannah?”

  “Jeremiah?” I could see, but dimly. He was standing over by the door.

  As I went to him, he suddenly keeled over and retched. Straightened. “Sorry, I—” He bent and retched again. “How did they—how did anyone survive this?” He wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve.

  “It’s why I had to keep coming.”

  He looked around in that squalid room, gaze probing the dark recesses. “I didn’t know. If I’d known what it was like down here, I would never have asked you to come.”

  As he put his arm around me, I felt tears spill from my eyes. There were so many tears to be shed for the injustice of all that had happened. But there was one thing still to be thankful for. “Had I never come, I would have never known thee.”

  As we stood together in the middle of the room, Jeremiah’s gaze traveled once more the length and breadth of it. “If I’d been able to join the honest fight, then I might have been one of them. One of those sad, pitiful wretches. I might have perished here alongside them.”

  I put an arm about his waist.

  He looked down at me.

  “They weren’t to be pitied. They wouldn’t have wanted it.” Of that, I was certain. “There were many opportunities to leave. They freed any who would swear allegiance to the king. Those who stayed did so because they wanted to.”

  “No.” Jeremiah was shaking his head. “They didn’t stay because they wanted to. No one would have wanted to stay here. They stayed because their hearts were honest. It was the only thing they could do.”

  “Thee must know that they needed us. Brave as they were, they needed people like us, Jeremiah. There’s no shame in what we did.”

  We weren’t alone for long. Once again, there came the sound of footsteps, a flare of light, and the squeal of the door. And with them a flurry of profanity.

  Jeremiah gripped my hand in his.

  “How could anyone survive in this wretched place?” It was Major Lindley. He was accompanied by another soldier, and they were both holding handkerchiefs to their noses. I knew from experience that it wasn’t helping the slightest bit.

  “I came down here because there’s not enough time left. There won’t be a trial.”

  My heart stopped beating for the space of a moment.

  “You told me everything I need to know, Jones, but I still don’t understand why.” He was no longer talking to Jeremiah. He had addressed himself to me. “Why would you pretend an interest in someone like him?”

  “Someone like . . . ?”

  “You’re a Quaker.”

  “I was.” But I’d found what happened when a person valued politics over God and a cause above a person. I’d always known that to Robert everything was personal. I just hadn’t realized that’s the way it was meant to be.

  “You want to know how you were discovered?”

  I’d assumed that they’d tortured one of the sick men who’d been left behind.

  “None of the prisoners would tell us anything. Not one. Did you know that? Not until we started finding the bodies. Until we told them we wanted to notify families.” He stopped for a moment and took in a deep breath through his nose. His face folded as he leaned over and retched into the straw, which caused his sergeant to do the same. He coughed and then dabbed at his lips with the handkerchief. “In any case, it was your own family that gave you away, Miss Sunderland.”

  My family? But who . . . ?

  “We found your brother.”

  Robert.

  “He’d been buried in the straw. And he’d been dead for quite some time.”

  Jeremiah’s face had gone white and then flushed red. “But—”

  I shook my head at him, though I said nothing to the major.

  “He’d been dead long enough that you ought to have stopped visiting. And yet they tell me you came every week, even after you should have known.” He smiled. “And they say dead men don’t talk!” He turned his gaze to Jeremiah. “I never figured you for a traitor. Had our roles been reversed, I would have joined your army in an instant. I would have fought beside you, not against you. But . . . I forget.” He gestured toward Jeremiah’s missing arm. “You’re useless.”

  “Not useless. I was once. Once, I was just like you. But not anymore.”

  “You didn’t used to be so provincial. But I suppose, breeding will show. And there’s none of it—none that I’ve noticed—anywhere to be had in this godforsaken colony.”

  “God does not forsake, John. ’Tis man who does the discarding. And the discounting. There is that of God in all of us.” Jeremiah’s use of the familiar phrase resounded in my ears.

  “I’ve had enough of you and your army and—and God!” He turned from us to his soldier. “I ought to have them shot.” He faced us once more. “I would have you shot, only there’s no time. And I’ll not have my reputation tainted by an unauthorized execution.”

  As they left and locked the door behind them, my heart regained its proper beat. I looked up at Jeremiah. “He didn’t mean those things. Thee must know that. He only said them because he was hurt.”

  “I didn’t care, not nearly as much as I once might have. Now . . . why didn’t you tell me about Robert?”

  Tears threatened again. “What would it have changed?”

  “I would have wanted to know.”

  “Thee mightn’t have let me come here if thee had known.”

  He tipped my chin up, forcing me to look at him. “I wouldn’t have. But still . . . I would have wanted to know.”

  “Why? What good would it have done?”

  “I could have told you how sorry I was.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came out. My chin began to tremble, and I felt the corners of my lips being wrenched downward as if by an unseen hand. “I didn’t—I couldn’t—he died digging the tunnel. It collapsed on him. They didn’t tell me, not at first. But I knew.” He opened his arm to me and I came to him. He drew my head to his chest and placed a kiss atop my head.

  I clung to him as great, ugly, wrenching sobs tore from my soul. “I couldn’t just leave the rest of them to die.”

  “You didn’t. Seven officers escaped. And forty-nine other men.”

  “That many?”

  “Aye. Thanks to you. And to Robert.”

  “He wasn’t the only one who died in the digging.”

  “But fifty-six men went free.”

  “Why does it always have to be that way? Why do good men always have to sacrifice themselves for others?”

  “Because they believe that the rest of us are worth it.”

  We moved toward a wall, the one where William Addison had always been, and sat down in the straw side by side. We stayed there for a long while. The window’s dim light faded and finally there was nothing left to see. And nothing left to hear, save the snores of the men in the cells next to ours and the scurrying of rats.

  In that place of hopelessness and despair a surprising thought came to me. “Major Lindley did thee a favor: He left us here. There should be no doubt as to thy loyalties now, when the patriots come.”

  Jeremiah shifted beside me. “I had not thought of it in quite that way.”

  We were silent again for a great long while.

  It was Jeremiah who finally spoke. “Does your family know you’re here?”

  “I don’t know. They arrested me at Pennington House.” I wondered if anyone had sent a message to my family. “I’m sure they won’t want me now.”

  “If I had known at the first how much my proposal would cost you . . .”

  “Do not apologize, Jeremiah, or I shall rebuke thee as thee have often acc
used me of doing in the past.” I heard both a promise and a threat in my tone, but there was a quaver there as well.

  “I was not going to. I was only going to ask . . . ?” He lifted his arm, what was left of it, in invitation.

  It was the only place I had ever felt safe and I fled to it.

  “I have only one arm to offer you.”

  “And I have only one heart to give thee.”

  The bolt in the door at the end of the hall shrieked. Footsteps sounded against the packed earth and a ring of keys jangled. A door somewhere along the hall was unlocked. “Come out! Come out of there. Let’s go. Come out.”

  There were protests and moans, but soon we heard the sounds of many footsteps in the hall. And then another door was opened. “Come out! Let’s go. Rouse yourselves. You’re leaving.”

  Jeremiah and I looked at each other. Perhaps there was some hope still.

  “Come out. Let’s go.” The call was repeated and the footsteps came closer.

  Finally someone in one of the other cells thought to ask what was happening.

  “It’s the prison ships for you. General’s orders.”

  Suddenly those shouts and the clanking of the keys sounded more like a summons to death than an invitation to freedom.

  “They’re not going to take us.” Jeremiah had pushed to his feet and was holding his hand out to me.

  Another door was opened. More prisoners were called out into the hall.

  “You’re going to stand in the corner over there”—he gestured to the one farthest from the window—“and I’m going to stand in front of you. If they try to make us leave, just be still. No matter what happens, don’t move. They won’t notice you in the shadow.”

  “Thee can’t—what are thee saying?”

  “They’re not taking you.”

  “But—” Fear grabbed at my stomach. I clutched his hand. “They can’t take thee.”

  “They can. They probably will. But they won’t have you.”

  “I don’t want to stay if thee are not here.” Panic began to claw at my throat.

  “Listen to me!”

  I stilled.

  He cupped his hand to my face. “You’re the only one of us worth saving.”

  “That isn’t true! I want to come with thee. I would rather perish by thy side than live without thee. ” He would not free me from the corner, so I threw my arms about him and wept into his unyielding back. We waited there in the darkness as the footsteps drew near.

  But they never came for us.

  We had been forgotten.

  A jail abandoned by men was worse than one filled with them. Without the sounds of those souls in misery, we could hear people passing on the street outside. We heard the rumble of carts and the clop of horses’ hooves. We heard rats, many more than we had been hearing. And there was a constant dripping somewhere in the dark.

  My head was beginning to feel as if it were trying to float away from my shoulders, and my throat was so dry that I could no longer swallow. I began to shiver and I wandered in and out of sleep.

  Eventually, Jeremiah roused me. “Listen.”

  There were footsteps again. And then—thank God!—the shriek of the door at the end of the hall. “Is anyone there?” A voice called out into our darkness.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but Jeremiah stopped me. “If we tell them we’re here, they might throw us onto the ships with the others.”

  “Anyone there?”

  The footsteps were joined by another pair. They scuffed slowly toward us, pausing along the way. We heard doors being pushed open.

  “We never treated their men so poorly!” The voice was heavy with judgment.

  “General Washington agreed to an exchange!” And that voice sounded of outrage. “How are we going to tell him there’s no one left to trade?”

  General Washington. They sounded as if they were going to talk to him . . . as if they actually knew him.

  “The blackguards. I hope they rot in hell!”

  Beside me, Jeremiah shouted out. “We’re here! Two of us were left behind.”

  “Who—? Where are you?”

  “Here!” He got up, strode to the door, and began to beat against it. “In the last cell.”

  “How could anyone survive down here? Just a minute. We need to find a taper. We’ll have you out in no time.”

  I joined Jeremiah at the door, holding on to his hand, and together we waited for the light we knew would soon come.

  A Note From the Author

  I’ve always been fascinated by the Revolutionary War. I can date that interest to a particular time and place: the gift shop at Valley Forge in 1976. That’s when my parents bought me a copy of Patriots in Petticoats. It’s a book filled with stories of female revolutionary spies. I will always be thankful to Patricia Edwards Cline for writing a book that taught an eight-year-old that girls can participate in history too.

  Historians believe that when the Revolutionary War started, one-third of the colonists supported the patriots, one-third remained loyal to the crown, and one-third had made no decision either way. The British army was the mightiest army on earth. In funds, soldiers, and equipment, they vastly outnumbered the colonists. The war was Britain’s to lose and they did an admirable job of it. Many of those who had cheered when the British army marched into Philadelphia cheered even louder as it left.

  The condition of the patriot army at Valley Forge the winter of 1777/78 was truly pitiful. It was a miracle the colonists ever won the war at all. The patriot army starved at Valley Forge because the quartermasters charged with supplying the troops were not given the resources with which to do it. The Continental Congress refused to believe that things were as dire as General Washington claimed. And even when they were persuaded things needed to change, they were only willing to offer worthless continental paper money in payment. Pennsylvania’s colonial government might have helped, but they didn’t feel the need to canvas the countryside for supplies. Their philosophy decreed their fellow countrymen would offer supplies freely from the goodness of their hearts, even as the British army was paying for its supplies in gold. It wasn’t the weather that killed so many soldiers that winter. They starved to death from greed, ineptitude, political inertia, and lofty philosophies.

  In 1778, Philadelphia was the fourth largest city in the British Empire. They were only a ship’s journey behind in news, fashions, and letters from London. Like many in the colonies, Philadelphians considered themselves upstanding British citizens. Which makes what happened at the Walnut Street Jail even more incomprehensible.

  Although there was a flurry of visits to the jail’s prisoners when the occupation first began in October, those visits quickly tapered off as food became increasingly difficult and expensive to come by. In fact, the historical record only indicates that one person visited regularly, outside of General Washington’s appointed advocate. She was a black woman. Historians are divided on whether she was enslaved or free.

  From what is known of General Howe, he never would have condoned the cruel treatment by the jailers. He and General Washington corresponded all winter long about how best to care for prisoners on both sides of the lines. One of the difficulties lay in the era’s convention that the welfare of the prisoners was the fiscal and physical responsibility of their own army. If supplies weren’t allowed to pass the lines, then the prisoners didn’t get anything to eat. In fact, there was a three-week period early in the occupation during which prisoners received nothing at all.

  Captain Cunningham was all too real. Reports of atrocities followed the man wherever he went. Unfortunately, in times of war, such atrocities were easily overlooked. But we can see his descendants at work today whenever we allow ourselves to treat others as second-class citizens. Intolerance, xenophobia, and prejudice provide the training that make things like the Walnut Street Jail, the enslavement of millions of Africans, the Holocaust, and the Rwanda and Darfur massacres possible.

  If the prisoners did not die o
f their wounds or through slow starvation, diseases like putrid fever (typhus), dysentery, and smallpox killed them by the hundreds. By April 1777 (nine months before this story starts), nearly two thousand soldiers had already been buried in potter’s field in Southeast Square, most of them prisoners from the city’s jails and hospitals.

  There were at least two escapes from the Walnut Street Jail. The first took place in December. After that, General Howe allowed no communication with the prisoners. The second escape was the one undertaken by the prisoners in this novel. Fifty-six men escaped that night in May. And when their absence was discovered, the bodies of five men who had died digging the tunnel were found buried beneath the straw of their cell.

  Undoubtedly there had to have been coordination between the patriot camp and the prisoners inside the jail. Could it have been the work of a Quaker spy? Perhaps. At least one other Quaker spy operated during the occupation of Philadelphia. Lydia Darragh’s story makes for fascinating reading, though her concern was for an enlisted son rather than a brother. And she seems to only have operated during a period of weeks rather than months.

  Hannah Sunderland and Jeremiah Jones are figments of my imagination, but someone very much like them must have helped in the escape. It was timed, just as I wrote, to coincide with the festivities of the Meschianza. As officers feted General Howe, Captain McLane created a diversion at the lines, which allowed the prisoners to escape.

  Earlier that spring, a prisoner exchange had been discussed with the British, but the Continental Congress was more interested in one-upmanship than in saving soldiers’ lives. They appointed men to the congressional committee with explicit instructions to avoid an exchange by any means possible. After haggling over details, rules for the exchange were finally agreed upon by both sides. Unfortunately, General Howe’s replacement suffered from impatience and sent the patriot prisoners off in prison ships before the exchange could be transacted.

  People of common sense in every era since the Revolutionary War have always wondered what possessed a handful of British majors to plan such a spectacularly lavish party for a general who had failed to quench the rebellion. I like to think they were encouraged in their folly, though I have no proof of it. There is a legend that Peggy Shippen (Benedict Arnold’s wife-to-be) was kept from attending the Meschianza by her father. He’d been persuaded by a group of Quakers that the Turkish costumes supplied for the event were immodest. Always known for her histrionics, her sulk that day must have been magnificent.