Old Glory

by Christopher Nicole

  He kissed her fears away. ‘I came by ship. But we must make haste. There is wild talk about fighting at sea as well, about a frigate being on its way …’

  ‘Oh, think nothing of the frigate.’ She escorted him into the hall, her arm still around his waist. ‘Father knows all the captains well; we entertain them to dinner often enough. Now you are here, you are safe, Harry. I am so very happy.’

  He checked, in the entrance to the living room. ‘But we are not going to stay here, dear Liz.’

  She frowned at him. ‘But … are we not going to be married?’

  ‘Of course. But I doubt it is practical here, at the moment. Certain it is that I cannot remain here for the three weeks necessary to publish the banns. We must get south, to Norfolk. Or at least Philadelphia, which is solid for the Congress. I must find Paul Jones, and discover his plans, and …’

  Her frown deepened. ‘But if you leave here now, and sail south, Harry, they will consider you a republican.’

  ‘Well, as to that, I suppose I am a republican. And so must you be, as my wife.’

  ‘A republican? A traitor to the King? To England? Now you know that cannot be, Harry. Nor can I believe it is what you really want. What is a man without a country? A renegade.’

  ‘England was never my country, Liz. I am an Irishman. And now I am an American. But we have no time to argue about the matter now. That can be kept for our honeymoon. Run upstairs and throw some clothes into a carryall. I intend to be out of this harbour again in an hour. Where is your father? We must say our goodbyes to him, although I tell you this: he is welcome to accompany us if he chooses. We will go south, and I will find a place of safety for you to remain until this matter is settled. I know the very place: the plantation belonging to the widow Jones, outside Richmond, in Virginia. She will welcome you with open arms.’

  She freed herself and stood away from him. ‘Leave New York? Take Papa? To Richmond? Virginia? The widow Jones? Harry, you are talking the most utter nonsense. My home is here.’

  ‘You promised to follow me to the end of the earth,’ he reminded her, beginning to grow angry.

  ‘And you assured me that would be no farther than Norfolk,’ she snapped, also clearly on the point of losing her temper.

  ‘All right. That is where we are going, at least in the first instance.’

  ‘If it is in the hands of republican rebels, then it might as well be Brest or Nantes,’ she declared. ‘I would never see Father again: you know he would never dream of accompanying us. And it would be the most foolhardy thing to do. Cannot you understand, Harry? If you flee to the south you will be a proscribed traitor. They will hunt you down, this time, and they will hunt down all those who take arms against the King. There will be no place on earth that you will safe. You will be committing suicide. Please, Harry, show some sense.’

  ‘Liz, I am sworn to fight by the side of Paul Jones, and for the Commonwealth of Virginia. My duty calls me back to Richmond, now, to see what they decide. If they decide against rebellion, then our fears are at an end. If they do not …’

  ‘You will become a traitor,’ she said bitterly. ‘I will act as an American patriot.’

  ‘Harry, you cannot!’ she shouted. ‘I cannot.’

  They stared at each other, and were disturbed by the rumble of a cannon shot.

  ‘My God,’ he said. ‘That ship must have been the frigate after all. Listen to me, Liz, there is no more time for argument. I must get to my ship. Pack your things and hurry.’

  ‘No, Harry,’ she said.

  ‘You will not come with me?’

  ‘No. No,’ she added more vehemently. ‘You are asking me to foreswear my King, my father, everything I have been brought up to hold dear. No, Harry.’

  He hesitated, and turned away. It had only been a transient dream, anyway.

  ‘Harry …’ she reached for his arm. ‘I beg of you, Harry, stay here with me.’

  ‘And abandon my men, my ship, my friends? Abandon honour? I had supposed you thought me a man. Good day to you, Miss Bartlett. It was ill met, last month. May God grant you peace with your beliefs.’ He hurried from the house, leaving her staring after him.

  *

  He reached the waterfront in a few strides, gazed at the harbour. The frigate, for the new arrival was most certainly a warship, was still outside the Narrows, and had apparently fired upon another ship attempting to leave the port; the merchantman had lost a mast and was now anchored to stop herself from drifting on to the rocks, while a boarding party had gone on board: Harry could see the boat plying between the two vessels. If he was safely going to take the Carolina Wind to sea, he had only a few minutes to do so, while the warship was preoccupied. Although he would have welcomed a fight, if only to keep himself from thinking about the catastrophe which had overtaken his life. But Tobias, good fellow, had also sized up the situation, and although the brig still rode to her anchor, the sails had been shaken out ready for setting the moment the captain rejoined her.

  He ran for the dockside and the waiting gig, checked at a shout, turned, and saw O’Hare running towards him, brandishing his blunderbuss; behind him were four redcoats. ‘That’s him,’ O’Hare was shouting. ‘The big fellow. He’s wanted for every crime under the sun.’

  Harry stared at them in consternation, then at the passersby, who were accumulating in two groups, one on either side of the advancing men so as to be out of the line of any shots that might be fired. Clearly very few of the New Yorkers had actually made up their minds as yet as to which side they would support — and the presence of the frigate would be a powerful influence towards Toryism.

  But Lizzie Bartlett had already made up her mind, Harry thought bitterly. And Black Jack O’Hare. Now he was really angry.

  ‘You’re under arrest,’ O’Hare shouted. ‘Unbuckle that sword belt.’

  Angry as he was, Harry still thought with his customary speed and decision. He could not reach the gig, which had already cast off and was waiting for him a few feet from the dock, without being shot in the back. Therefore he could not reach it at all until he had settled with these men — and all the while his ship was in danger. ‘Make the ship,’ he bellowed at the coxswain, settling his hands on his belt buckle as if he were in the process of obeying O’Hare’s command. ‘Tell Mr Tobias to put to sea. Haste now.’

  ‘Drop it,’ O’Hare snarled, levelling his shotgun, and in his excitement advancing to within a few feet of his intended victim. The redcoats were close behind.

  ‘Have at you,’ Harry bellowed, red blood pumping through his arteries, all the hatred he had thought buried beneath his success and Elizabeth’s love suddenly coming back to the surface of his personality. O’Hare gazed at him in astonishment, and pulled the trigger. But pull was what he did, thus tilting the muzzle skywards; Harry felt no more than the blast. Then he was upon the big Irishman, picking him from the ground as if he had been a feather, and hurling him into the arms of the four redcoats, sending all five of them tumbling to the ground.

  Harry used his momentary respite to look back at the harbour. The gig was well out from the shore now, and could in fact still easily be reached by a strong swimmer like himself, but the frigate had left a prize crew to deal with the anchored merchantman, and was now entering the Narrows. All her gunports hung open, and her yellow varnished sides were dotted with the muzzles of protruding cannon. And Tobias, gallant, careless fellow, was in the act of hauling down the British flag and replacing it with the ensign of Virginia. It was an act which had apparently caught the eye of the frigate captain, either that or he had entered the port determined to make an example of someone, and the Carolina Wind happened to be the nearest. Even as Harry watched, his heart seeming to rise into his throat, the starboard side of the warship rippled with smoke and flame. He could almost hear the crackle of the Carolina Wind’s planking as it was torn loose, the huge snaps of the masts as they went by the board, the screams of the men, seconds before the reverberations of the guns reached him.
He felt sick. In one moment his proud ship had been reduced to a flaming wreck, already slowly settling by the stern. And his faithful men had been destroyed or were about to be made captive.

  ‘Save yourselves,’ he shouted at the crew of the gig, and turned back to face his enemies. The redcoats were scrambling to their feet, like everyone else somewhat bemused by the terrifying violence of the broadside they had just witnessed. Before they could gather their wits Harry was upon them with his sword drawn. He still knew nothing of duelling, or indeed of swordsmanship at all, yet he scattered them like a row of ninepins, his blade sweeping left and then right, sending one man screaming to the ground with a fearful slash across the cheek, and another tumbling the other way with a half severed arm. But it was O’Hare he sought, O’Hare on whom he now centred all his rage. O’Hare had already reached his feet and was running for the safety of his inn. He reached the door, but then Harry was upon him, seizing his shoulder with his left hand while he swung his bloodstained blade with the other. O’Hare shrieked and fell to his knees while blood spurted from the terrible blow which had cut clear through beside his neck into his breastbone; he was dead before he hit the ground. Harry dragged the blade clear, looked left and right at the terrified people, cast one last despairing glance at the burning and sinking Carolina Wind and the frigate now anchored and swinging to allow her guns to point at the town, while already boats were being lowered to put her marines ashore for the support of the soldiers, then he turned and ran for the forest which still clung to the southern end of Manhattan Island.

  *

  ‘Captain Harry McGann,’ announced the major domo, somewhat distastefully.

  ‘Harry!’ Paul Jones leapt from his seat and hurried to the door, where Harry waited. ‘My God, man, I had thought you dead. Harry? Can it truly be you?’

  He stared at the huge, tattered, blood and mudstained figure.

  ‘It is I, John. If you can bear to look upon me.’

  Certainly Paul wore a considerable look of strain himself. But he smiled readily enough. ‘Look upon you? God, man, you are the finest sight I have ever seen.’

  ‘I have lost the Carolina Wind,’ Harry said. Jones frowned. ‘To action?’

  ‘If you can call it that. I was ashore, when a frigate entered New York harbour and blew her into bits. I made my way here, overland.’

  ‘And Miss Bartlett?’

  ‘Is, as you ever reminded me, a Tory.’ Another searching glance, then Jones embraced him. ‘You are at least safe here in Philadelphia. And with a cause to defend, and avenge. As I do. Come in man. You’ve not met these gentlemen.’ He led Harry forward to greet the men who had been seated about the table, and were now on their feet to gaze at the new arrival. ‘Gentlemen, I’d have you meet Fighting Harry McGann. If you are ever in a tight spot, you’ll not need a better man to have at your side. Harry, shake hands with Nicholas Biddle. He’s already serving in the Pennsylvania Navy. John Barry, meet Harry McGann. He’s an Irishman, just like yourself. Mr Hopkins, this is the man of whom I spoke just now, in such sad terms.’Tis a treat to see him alive.’

  The man called Hopkins was tall and thin and lugubrious. ‘Mr McGann,’ he said carefully. ‘Welcome to Philadelphia. I suspect you walked all the way from New York, by the look of you.’

  ‘I am afraid that is the very truth,’ Harry acknowledged.

  ‘I would have you meet my brother, Ezek.’

  Harry shook hands with the younger Hopkins. He knew of both brothers, of course. John and Ezek Hopkins owned and operated the largest fleet of trading vessels in the Colonies, and Ezek Hopkins had captained a privateer against the French in the last war; he was generally regarded as a man of vast experience and ability.

  ‘And my nephew, John Junior,’ John Hopkins said.

  Harry acknowledged the young man, hardly more than a boy.

  ‘And now, Captain McGann, I am sure you wish to have a bath and find yourself a change of clothing,’ John Hopkins said.

  ‘Why, yes, sir, if that is convenient.’

  ‘In a few minutes,’ Paul Jones said. ‘And I will accompany you, Harry. But I am certain Captain McGann will be interested in our business, Hopkins.’

  John Hopkins sat down, flanked by his brother and his nephew. ‘There is little left to conclude, to be sure. As you have discovered the hard way, Captain McGann, these colonies are at this moment in a state of rebellion against the government of Great Britain. Such a course of action cannot be undertaken lightly. We either succeed in our purpose, or we all hang.’

  ‘Success in our purpose,’ snorted Nicholas Biddle, a man, Harry estimated, hardly older than himself. ‘Against the greatest navy in the world, the most successful army in the world?’

  ‘You think so because you have served with that navy,’ John Paul said, eyes flashing. ‘Well, so has Harry McGann. And I am certain he bears it no such respect. We can, we will, achieve our objectives. We do not have to sail across the Atlantic and beat the British on their home ground. They have to come to us, and re-establish their mastery, or let victory go by default. Gentlemen, there is long three thousand miles between Sandy Hook and Plymouth. That is a tenuous lifeline and our best defence. Sever it, and we will float away into space, like a balloon released from its spring.’

  ‘And what then, sir?’ inquired John Barry.

  ‘Why, then, sir … then we deal with the world as a nation. An independent nation.’

  ‘You go too fast, Captain Jones,’ John Hopkins said. ‘I am sure none of us has any desire to float away like a balloon, as you so quaintly put it. We seek only to be dealt with fairly by the British. But you are right in saying that we must be prepared to show them that we can defend ourselves. Now, Congress has appointed a certain Colonel Washington to command the Continental Army now being mustered … a planter from Virginia with some experience of fighting against the French and Indians ten years ago and more.’ His tone was disparaging. ‘I believe he had the honour to surrender one of his commands, if that is honour.’

  ‘I know Colonel Washington,’ Paul Jones said. ‘His plantation is not so very far from my own. He is an able man, sir. That he was once forced to surrender the fortress of Pittsburgh to an overwhelming force can be no dishonour to him.’

  ‘No doubt,’ Hopkins agreed, easily enough. ‘However, his task is to defeat the British soldiers on land, if he can. Ours is the far more onerous duty of preventing them from landing at all. That means defeating the Royal Navy, gentlemen. And in this regard I am happy to inform you that I have a letter here from the Congress agreeing that my brother Ezek should be appointed Commodore of all vessels to sail under the Continental flag.’

  ‘Agreeing, sir?’ John Paul demanded. ‘Agreeing to whose proposal?’

  ‘Why, Captain Jones, agreeing to my own proposal. I have, as you know, been appointed Commissioner for the Continental Navy, with the power to recommend appointments to Congress. I could think of no finer officer, no more experienced officer, than my own brother, to command our meagre resources. I trust you gentlemen are in agreement with me?’

  He looked from face to face. Paul Jones looked as if he might wish to disagree, but Barry and Biddle were clearly not disposed to argue, so he said nothing, contented himself with waggling his eyebrows at Harry.

  ‘It but remains,’ Hopkins went on, ‘to decide upon an initial plan of campaign to place before Congress. It goes without saying that my brother and I place our entire fleet of Hopkins vessels, five well found ships, at the disposal of the Colonies.’

  ‘As I do place my three,’ Paul Jones said. ‘With respect, Captain Jones,’ Ezek Hopkins remarked. ‘But do you any longer possess three vessels? Your own Captain McGann has just admitted losing the Carolina Wind. You yourself tell us another was taken by the British when they seized control of Norfolk …’

  ‘What?’ Harry cried. ‘The British have Norfolk?’

  ‘Aye,’ Jones said bitterly. ‘They took us by surprise. I only escaped by a hairsbreadth.’


  ‘But … Mrs Jones? The plantation?’

  ‘I have no idea. The country is overrun with redcoats. That is a matter which must await our victory. You are right, Hopkins. I have only the one vessel left, the Alfred out there in the harbour. But I promise you, I will fight her as if she were three.’

  Harry stared at him in admiration. He had clearly just lost his entire fortune, but thought only of ultimate victory.

  ‘Quite,’ John Hopkins said. ‘One ship. Oh, for the use of which we are most grateful, believe me, Captain Jones.’

  ‘The Pennsylvania Navy commands the brig Andrew Doria,9 Biddle said. ‘Which is of course at your disposition.’

  ‘I will willingly command anything,’ Barry said.

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ Hopkins acknowledged. ‘And there are others, eager to serve.’

  ‘Including Harry McGann,’ Paul Jones said.

  ‘Including, to be sure, Harry McGann,’ John Hopkins agreed. ‘Unfortunately, I am not sure there will be commands for all those who seek them. We must not send ill-equipped ships to sea, gentlemen, to fight the Navy. My first task must be to estimate how many ships are actually available, and how many can be fitted out to sustain a battle. Oh, we shall have a squadron, fear not. Small ships, to be sure, not capable of engaging a full frigate, but capable of playing havoc with any coastal shipping that flies the British flag. But to put to sea until evey ship is fully manned and equipped would be a disaster. I am sure you agree with me, gentlemen?’

  He looked from face to face, but no one argued that point. He was well on his way to dominating the assembly, Harry realised.

  ‘Next, we must decide on a possible objective.’

  ‘Chesapeake Bay,’ Paul Jones said.

  Hopkins raised his eyebrows.

  ‘It makes sense,’ Paul insisted. ‘There is a sizeable British squadron operating in Chesapeake Bay. I have seen them at work. But they are only small ships, no better than those we command. A swift attack upon them, a determined action, and we may gain a signal victory, before the British even know what we are about.’