The Flight of Sarah Battle

by Alix Nathan

  ‘I’m an American now, Tom.’

  Tom consoles himself by writing occasional columns for others. Pamphlets are his favourite form, however. Big enough to contain a whole argument and spiky details, small enough not to daunt the reader as a book might. Written to be read aloud. Print follows quickly upon writing. But writing for Democratic Republicans in the Indian Queen cannot be the same as writing for navvies building roads and canals, or newly freed slaves with no education.

  ‘I do believe you’re becoming evangelical, Tom,’ Robert says. ‘All this wandering about among the people. You’re a political Wesleyan.’

  ‘People need to know, they need to have hope. And if they can’t read then I can tell them myself.’

  ‘Och, think who they are, with their disgusting, drunken ways.’

  ‘The mutable rank-scented meinie, you mean.’

  ‘Quote all you like, but don’t forget we have epidemics here, man. Disease. I warn you. It’s not wise to mingle with all and sundry.’

  ‘Those measles which we disdain should tetter us! If you’d lived in London, Robert, you’d understand. We worked in the dark, sad owls hooting at night, flitting like bats. Here optimism is king. We can achieve everything the good men hoped for in France without shedding a drop of blood.’

  First he must go down to the waterfront. Of course many of the sailors are foreign, unable to speak, let alone read English. But there are dock workers and builders, the shipyard men, fishermen, tavern owners, the women who live off the sailors. He’ll soon sell pamphlets or at least get a hearing. He has a winning way. People see his honesty, enjoy his humour, trust him never to walk off before they’ve had their own say.

  Sarah and he eat supper at which, Robert being out, they almost persuade Martha to join them.

  ‘Mr Wilson not like it. He like the forms. You know he always say that, Sarah, Mrs Cranch.’

  Tom now knows of Martha’s relationship to Robert but has yet to confront him about the hypocrisy, the absurdity of continuing to treat his mistress, the mother of his child, as his servant. Of course men have done that for centuries. But surely now, here, where reason prevails, he should treat her with greater equality, even if the law forbade bigamy. It will mean Tom finally admitting to his and Sarah’s ‘marriage’. He’s not at all sure the men’s friendship will stand the revelation, though, who knows, it might just benefit from mutual admission.

  ‘Martha, I’ll talk to Robert.’

  ‘He not want to hear it, Mr Cranch.’

  ‘He should divorce his wife and marry you. There’s a law in Pennsylvania that would enable him to do so. For his wife deserted him, did she not? We’ve heard about this law recently.’ He winks at Sarah who frowns.

  ‘I tell Sarah he not want to marry me.’

  ‘Some men here are quite open about their mistresses, Martha. Governor Mifflin, for instance. And Rev. John Hay travels about the city with his mistress and child.’

  ‘They’re important men,’ Sarah says, ‘perhaps they can do as they like. It’s more difficult for a lesser man to brazen it out.’

  ‘Well, I’ll talk to him all the same. Really I shall.’

  Now they are preparing for bed. Their blissful bower, their shadie lodge. He’d shown her the lines in Paradise Lost. Living with him, he’d warned her much earlier, meant living with Milton.

  ‘It’s time for us to break up with Robert, Sarah. To set up on our own. There are too many differences between us, we disagree too much. What does he care about? Sometimes I think he just wants to make money. He’s blinkered in his attitude, creeping along.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you heed his warnings?’

  ‘Nothing would ever change if we all stayed at home! I must circulate more pamphlets. But I also want to publish a newspaper, and sell cheap reprints to pay unknown writers.’

  ‘He’ll see us as rivals, Tom.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Our publishing will be more radical than his and we shan’t take that many clients from him.’

  ‘He’ll resent any loss at all.’

  ‘Well, I hope not. I’d rather not quarrel with him. Yet I’d also need the money back that I gave him, to buy premises.’

  ‘Will you tell him soon? Shouldn’t we wait until the election is over?’

  ‘No. It must be soon; I’ll take the first opportunity. Meanwhile, come with me to see the new ship. They’re building a frigate called Philadelphia in Southwark, near the Old Swedes Church, which, by the way, is where the minister refuses to marry black and white couples, though fortunately it’s not Robert’s church. I gave out dozens of pamphlets to sailors on my way to the shipyard, so I heard about it. Goodness, they’re a motley crowd, sailors! Men from everywhere. It’s some distance along the river. We can ride some of it if you don’t feel strong enough to walk, my dearest.

  ‘The ship’s half built. It’s for the infant American navy to protect merchant ships now that the French are hostile. Great poles of scaffolding like trees. A huge sloping gangway, ever more timbers to raise the height of the hull. Axing, sawing, hammering and the great bow like a mighty whale beached above the river.’

  ‘How wonderful! Let’s go at the end of the week.’

  ‘I feel a strange attraction to it. As, though the ship were an emblem for our life here, that we’re building so strongly, so stoutly.’

  When they are in bed, she says surely Wollstonecraft is wrong that a man and woman should no longer love each other with passion when they have children. ‘She even says a neglected wife is the best mother, Tom.’

  ‘She can’t be right about everything, Sarah; she’s not a goddess! She’s certainly wrong about that. We’ll prove it.’

  *

  At the end of the week they postpone their visit to the Philadelphia because Tom has a headache.

  ‘Pain makes me impatient. I’d be vile company; let’s go on Monday.’

  But by Monday he’s running a fever, shivering, aching all over and goes to bed. Sarah bathes his forehead, encourages him to take Martha’s broth, works through the proofs of his latest pamphlet with him.

  Robert comes and stands at the foot of the bed, observing Tom’s restless doze. He takes Sarah out of the room.

  ‘Send for a doctor immediately, Sarah. I shall go and stay with Groff in Chester.’

  ‘Robert, why?’

  ‘I’ve seen it before. You should consider leaving yourself. It’s what everybody with the means did in ‘93.’

  Tom calls out from within the room.

  Robert says: ‘Goodbye, Sarah. Tom may be an innocent, but this was folly. I told him not to get too close. Och, does he think he needs to be a martyr for the cause of democracy? Worse than folly!

  ‘Here’s my address. Say goodbye to him for me.’ She hears him run down the stairs.

  Tom is delirious, seems unaware of her, focusses on some invisible threat in the corner of the room.

  ‘Get away, get away from me!’ He struggles to sit up, back against the wall, his hands held out before him. ‘Go! Go!’ Clutches at and fights the air.

  ‘Tom, it’s all right. Nothing’s there. It’s all right. You’re safe. I’m here.’ She strokes his hand and his arms collapse onto the bedclothes. She takes a hand and holds it.

  ‘Tom, I’m here. Nothing will hurt you.’

  Shudders shake his body and again he rears up, thrashing his limbs so that she can hardly avoid being struck.

  ‘Away! Hideous! Great wings. Great body rising from the burning lake. Away from me! Away!’ He cowers, borne down by the huge, unseen weight, trembling with terror. Powerless. Not the man she knows.

  Martha knocks and comes in.

  ‘What I bring him, Sarah? More water, more broth?’

  ‘Both please, Martha, though I doubt I’ll get him to take any nourishment. He’s keeps seeing horrors in the room.’

  ‘He so tired, poor man; he sleep soon. You want me stay a while?’

  ‘Thank you, but no, I must be with him.’

  ‘Mr Wils
on, he left. He think it yellow fever.’

  ‘Will you leave, too, Martha?’

  ‘No. I stay with you. Mr Cranch he maybe get better. Not all people die.’

  Martha is right. Tom sleeps, though fitfully, and Sarah half rests at those times, lying next to him on the bed, ready to hold the bowl for him should he vomit again, to soothe him when he wakes. She bathes his head, fiery with fever, makes him sip water when she can. It is a long night, longer than when the men danced on the roof of Newgate aflame. She dulls her mind, considers nothing except the immediate.

  In the morning Tom shakes her gently.

  ‘Awake my fairest, my espous’d… Awake, the morning shines.’

  She looks up into his face, unshaven, newly gaunt, its dear smile.

  ‘Tom!’

  ‘I’m well again. The fever’s gone, I’m not aching and I feel extremely hungry. Let’s have breakfast. I could eat a whole pan of eggs and ham.’

  He’s unsteady going down stairs but much strengthened by food and strong tea.

  ‘And I was about to ask Martha to fetch a doctor! Robert has deserted us, you know. Gone to Chester in a fright.’

  ‘What nonsense! We’d best write and haul him back. He can’t just leave the business like that. I’ll put on clean clothes and go to the shop. And the proofs need to go back to the printer.’

  ‘They do. But, surely you should rest first? I’ll return the proofs.’

  ‘I feel perfectly well, my love. Come with me, though, won’t you?’

  *

  They write to Robert but his reply says that he’ll only return when Tom is certified well by a doctor. He’s told the bookbinder to delay delivery of the latest Guide for a week. If Sarah can open the shop occasionally that would be good, but he expects they can absorb loss of revenue for a short while.

  Because the shop has been shut for a couple of days there are not many customers. They draw up lists of titles to exchange with the other major booksellers and publishers. Replace books on their right shelves. Tom sits down to draft a new pamphlet, but can’t put his mind to it.

  ‘When I was a boy I was mad for reading, Sarah. My mother taught me, as she taught us all before we went to school and sometimes I read to her when she was nursing a younger child: Hooke’s Roman History, Hume’s England, pieces from The Spectator, The Rambler. There were plenty of books in the house of course, though strangely enough Father thought meditation better than reading. Too much reading oppresses the mind, he said. Perhaps that’s why he wasn’t much good as a bookseller! But I always read in bed. Took a flat candle with me. My favourite was Robinson Crusoe. Now it’s Paradise Lost as you know. I was sure I’d sell books in my own shop one day; was determined to do better than my father.’

  They are in Robert’s office. One end of the huge desk is Tom’s. Sarah enjoys surveying the shelves of earthenware ink bottles that Robert still sells. She loves to listen to Tom talk even though it’s strange to be idle in this place.

  ‘You have your memories of Newton, my dearest. I never had one best friend, but a group of us boys would get together for the purposes of, well, experiment. Once, it must have been November as it is now which is why I think of it I suppose, we collected between us several crackers and squibs and a neat pile of gunpowder.

  ‘We crept down to the kitchen. My father was at home that night and was in earnest conversation with his Quaker friends two floors above; my mother will havde been reading or dozing. We achieved a few pleasing bangs without discovery. But then came the gunpowder which, we were annoyed to find, was too damp to light. So I tipped it into a frying pan and held it over the fire to dry out.

  ‘You can imagine what happened: an explosion that knocked us all down, blew out the candles and sent the adults running down the stairs to drag out the bodies. But not one of us was hurt!’

  ‘You always acted on impulse, even in your boyhood.’

  ‘Yes. But my impulses are usually right!’

  She smiles. ‘Yes, you changed my life.’

  ‘And my own. Sarah, let us go back. I think I might rest a while.’

  The fever returns that night. Sarah cools his forehead continuously, fearing delirium again and when he groans at fierce pain in his abdomen she calls down to Martha to fetch the doctor.

  Hears with dread his horse on the dark street, his hearty knock, his approaching footsteps.

  ‘Dr Kammerer, Mrs Cranch. Your husband?’

  ‘Yes. He was well for three days,’ she says as if to prove he’s not ill.

  When Kammerer sits on the side of the bed Tom opens his eyes. ‘Heinrich Kammerer, Mr Cranch.’ He touches Tom’s head, holds his limp wrist, peers closely at his face.

  ‘Do you work near the waterfront, Mr Cranch?’

  ‘No. Chestnut Street.’

  ‘But, Tom, you went to the docks and yards ten days ago. He was handing out the pamphlets he had written, doctor.’

  ‘The waterfronts are not a good place. Not good for disease. Or rather, too good for disease. Dr Rush would have us bleed and purge the fever, but I am not happy with this treatment.

  ‘Cool him as much as you can, Mrs Cranch, make him drink water as often as you can. Mr Cranch, I will call again in twenty-fours hours’ time.’

  He takes Sarah aside. ‘The skin is yellow.’

  ‘In candlelight all skin looks yellow.’

  ‘Mrs Cranch, his skin is yellow. The whites of his eyes are yellow. You will need a bowl for vomit, many cloths and towels. You may send your woman sooner if necessary.’

  *

  ‘Where has he gone, Sarah? Where? Tell me! I mean Death. He was here just now, I know he was.’

  ‘Tom, that was the doctor. Dr Kammerer. He has told me to keep you cool and make you drink.’

  ‘No, no. I recognised him. He was Death.’

  His face is burning. ‘He will come back. He’ll drag me into the deluge, the fiery deluge. Torture without end! He’s coming back. Coming to drag me. Rising up from the flames!’

  He’s too weak to struggle against his imagined enemy and falls back.

  But then he stirs and groans. ‘Sarah. Oh Sarah I haven’t done it! My promise to Martha. To confront Robert.’

  ‘Dear Tom. It doesn’t matter. It’s not important. Rest now.’

  ‘It is! Robert must…’ For a moment a flash of that anger he’d shown when Leopard made his first appearance burst over his face. ‘I promised! And now I cannot do it.’

  She wants to tell him that in time he will. But she mustn’t lie.

  ‘Sarah, you talk to Robert. Promise me!’

  Her promise is a farewell.

  She holds a cup to his lips and then he retches into the basin. He’s vomited all before: there’s nothing now but blood, black clots of blood. She bends to place the basin on the floor.

  ‘Sarah, you’ve gone! Where are you? Where have you gone?’

  ‘Here, I’m here. I haven’t gone. I shan’t leave you. I’ll never leave you.’

  ‘Best of women, best of wives, best of friends.’

  She can’t speak. Takes his hands in both hers and kisses them.

  ‘Is darkness flaking yet?’

  ‘Flaking?’

  ‘Flaking darkness: dawn.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Have I told you that I love you?’

  ‘Yes. You have, often.’

  ‘Heav’ns last best gift, I love you dearly!’

  ‘Oh, I love you so dearly, too.’

  ‘My ever new delight!’ But here he vomits again and from his eyes comes blood like a mockery of tears.

  She wipes them and the blood that gushes from his nose and mouth. He struggles as if to speak but only blood comes. She wants to plead with him to stay, not to go, please to stay, never to go, never, but knows it would make him suffer more.

  She sponges his head with water, strokes his hand as he groans with pain.

  He opens his blood-bleared eyes and looks at her with desperate longing. She can’t smile, can’t,
turns to wipe away her tears from his sight and suddenly he cries out greatly and has gone.

  *

  ‘Sleep. Only sleep.’ She closes his eyelids. ‘Only sleep, my darling.’

  She washes blood from his face. Slips down from the bed onto her knees, holding his hand still, pressing her head onto it until his knuckles hurt her but it’s nothing for the howling in her head destroys all outer feeling. It was as if she bleeds, now, only there’s no outward sign of wound, just tearing, pulling apart, bleeding within.

  She loses consciousness and waking, sees what she already knows but sees as if afresh and sobs until all moisture has dried up and her brittle, cracked body might break if only it would break.

  Again she wipes the blood caked in his black hair, from his face, climbs up next to him, his body still warm – he’d been so hot – kneels and touches his cheek, his shoulders, arms, as though she might remind him to wake, might see those eyes again, bright, deep, stroke his head as she remembers wanting suddenly to do one day in the coffee house, kisses his mouth before it should get cold. Keep him cool the doctor said! Is he cool enough now to live? I’m wrong, he lives! Her fingers touch his lips to feel the breath that isn’t there.

  She lies down, her arm across his chest, her face in his hair still damp, smelling of sweat, death.

  How can she have slept? Yet she finds milk, a plate of bread and cheese nearby, which she can’t eat. Nor can she call to Martha.

  Dead. He is dead. Again it strikes anew like an outrageous fiction: only turn the page and know it is untrue.

  Gone. He has gone. He has left me. I can never speak to him again, hear him, see him move, smile, feel his touch. Never. Never. Why has he done this? Why has he gone? Why did he not think of me?

  She digs her nails into her face, tears at her clothes, the grimy gown she’d not changed for days. She knows what it is to heap ashes on one’s head.

  ‘Sarah, you must eat.’ Martha stands by the door.

  ‘I don’t want it. It will not bring him back.’ She bursts into tears. ‘I’m sorry, Martha. Please let me be.’

  Why did he ever go to the shipyards? Just to speak to sailors, to give out pamphlets. He might have lived! He needn’t have done it. He should have remained here. Why didn’t she make him stay here? If he hadn’t gone he would never have become ill. Would have been here now.