The Trial and Execution of the Traitor George Washington

by Charles Rosenberg

  They went into the inn through a back entrance. In the dim light—no lanterns were lit—Black immediately spotted Rufus sitting and looking at something on the run-down table.

  “Mary, this is Rufus,” Black said.

  “I already know him,” Mary said.

  Rufus looked up at the three of them. “Mary, if you and Bear could leave us alone for a few minutes?”

  Mary nodded, and they left the room.

  Rufus turned and fixed Black with a cold stare. “Where is Dr. Stevens?”

  “Dead, or at least I assume he is.”

  “What happened?”

  Black told the story again and ended by saying, “I have seen many injuries, and I doubt any man could survive such a wound, even with the best surgeon to tend to him.”

  Rufus grunted. “He was a good man. And this war is such a gruesome thing, setting one good man against another. Six or seven years ago the man who killed him would have been drinking to his health or seeking him out to doctor his sick child.”

  “Why did you send Mary and Bear out of the room?” Black asked.

  “They know certain things but not other things.”

  “Do I know all the things I need to know, Rufus?”

  “You will, soon enough. We are only a few miles from Totowa.”

  “Thus, this is the night?” Black said.

  “Yes, and a good one it is because the word is out that they will very soon move the headquarters elsewhere.”

  “I am more than agreeable to go tonight. This is the end of the fourth day since I was landed on the beach. If we delay and come upon anything unexpected, I may lack time to get back to the beach by the eighth night. They are not coming back for me after that.”

  A look of surprise passed across Rufus’s face. “I did not know that.”

  “Dr. Stevens knew.”

  “You must have told him after I left the barn,” Rufus said. “Why did they put that condition on your mission? It is foolish.”

  “I do not know. Although I have my suspicions.”

  “What are they?”

  “They are not anxious for me to succeed. They may instead want Washington to die in the attempt. And perhaps us along with him.”

  Rufus said nothing for a while. Finally, he spoke. “This has been too long and carefully planned on this side of the Atlantic, guided by London, for that to be true. Or so I think. But this night is in any case a good night for another reason. Washington has reduced the personal guard immediately around him from twelve to eight, in order to grant more leaves, both to the guard and to others.”

  “Why?”

  “We have a man in Washington’s retinue. He reports to us that Washington’s spies in New York have told him that Clinton has given up on capturing him.”

  “Why would Washington believe that?”

  “Because General Clinton has known for almost two weeks exactly where Washington is but has made no move to come after him.”

  “Do you have confidence, then, in your own man? That this story is not bait for a trap?”

  Rufus shrugged. “He has not led us astray before.”

  “When precisely does your man say Washington is moving his headquarters?”

  “In a day or two. They will begin packing up tomorrow.”

  “All right. Tell me the plan.”

  Rufus walked towards a fireplace, the bottom of which was covered with a fine layer of white ash. He grabbed a stick that was leaning to the side and began to draw in the ash, much as Dr. Stevens had drawn in the dirt of the barn.

  “This,” he said, drawing a small square, “is the headquarters building. It’s a two-story house, known locally as Dey house, lent to the General by the wealthy merchant John Hackett. Washington’s bedroom is on the bottom floor, in the southwest corner.” He drew an X in the proper place.

  “What time will we strike?” Black asked.

  “At 1:00 a.m.”

  “Is that not too early? Washington may still be awake when we arrive.”

  “True, but more important is that the guard shift changes at 2:00 a.m. By 1:00 the guards on duty will be tired.”

  “What of the guards who are not on duty?”

  “They sleep on a platform in the rafters above the second floor. Our man says it is hard to hear from there what is happening far below.”

  “Won’t they be stirring, Rufus, in preparation for their shift?”

  “According to what he has told us, the guards seize every minute of sleep that belongs to them.”

  “Where are Washington’s senior officers?”

  “Our man says Hamilton and the rest of them are down in the valley with the army, and that the less senior officers sleep in a different house.”

  “You rely a lot on this one man,” Black said.

  “I have little choice.”

  “All right. Do go on.”

  Rufus took the stick and placed eight dots around the house. “There are eight pickets in all. Usually three behind and five in front. They are supposed to patrol, but our man says that late at night, they do not. They just stand their station.”

  “Why only three behind?”

  “The short of it is that the commander of the guard believes that if the British punch through the American lines and reach the house, they will have to come from the front.”

  “Why not from the back?”

  “The British would come in at least company strength—a minimum of fifty men—and the terrain behind is too rough for that.”

  “Won’t we need to pass through that same terrain?”

  “No. Because we pass easily for Patriots, we can take the trail that goes through the low part of the valley for a good part of the way and then, before we reach the bottom of the valley, go up and then down a very large hill and flank the house from the rear. I have reconnoitred the trail twice, both times pretending to gather firewood.”

  “Do you have a plan to overcome the guards?”

  Before Rufus could answer, the door opened and five men, led by Mary, entered. Each wore darkened clothes and had blackened their faces and the backs of their hands with soot. All were tall, but lithe. They nodded at Black.

  “These men will overcome the guards,” Rufus said. “I thought it best they see you and you them so you will not kill each other. The password, if you are challenged, is Liberty.”

  “The noise these men make as they shoot the guards will rouse everyone in the house,” Black said.

  Almost as one, the men pulled long knives from their belts and held them aloft.

  “If God is with us, no guns will be needed,” Rufus said.

  “Will these men have no guns at all, then?”

  “They will have pistols but hope not to use them.”

  “And as for me?”

  “We have both a knife and a pistol for you. I will give them to you after these men leave.”

  “I see. You said when we were in the barn that there would be fifteen men in all, including five sharpshooters.”

  “They will also be there. Mainly to cover our retreat. We have told them not to use their guns unless it can’t be helped.”

  “How will you coordinate the time of the attack?”

  Rufus pulled out a pocket watch. It was gold, about two inches wide. He held it up.

  “I have this watch, and the leader of these men has one, too.”

  The largest of the men raised his hand. “I am Horst,” he said and used his other hand to pull out an identical watch. He held it up for all to see.

  “In England I have only seen those in the hands of the rich,” Black said.

  “Here, too. But we have been planning this for many months, and we have put together what we need.”

  “Can you make them tell the same time?”

  “Yes, we m
atched the time on the two watches before you arrived,” Rufus said. “They gain or lose minutes easily over a day’s time, but they should stay together for the next few hours.”

  “When will they strike?” Black asked.

  “At 12:45. God willing, we will arrive at 1:00 and find they have eliminated the pickets behind the house.”

  “And what of the guards in front?” Black asked.

  “They are a hundred yards to the front. If all goes well, they won’t even know we were there.”

  Black waited a moment, then said, “And the guards at the doors and inside?”

  “We will deal with them when we get there. These five gentlemen will be with us.”

  “Rufus, I now have some things to discuss with you in private,” Black said. He looked over at Mary and the five men. “I do not mean to offend.”

  Rufus turned to them and said, “We will see you at the house. Godspeed.” They left wordlessly.

  Rufus got up and began to pace the room. “What do you want to know, Colonel?”

  “Bear didn’t return with Mary. Where is he?”

  “He has left to scout the Totowa house. He’ll be used as needed. Why do you ask?”

  “I think he’s a danger to my mission. Our mission.”

  “Why?”

  “He wants to kill Washington. My orders are to take him prisoner.”

  “Bear will follow orders.”

  “Whose orders? He is not subject to some military command.”

  “My orders. I have known him since he was a small boy. He talks big, but he does as he’s told.”

  “I hope you are right.”

  “What else?”

  “You have known from the beginning that to do this in the way the Prime Minister desires—to have it be an official act of the King bringing a traitor to justice—I need a British officer’s uniform. Do you have it?”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “Of course not. As you know, if I’m caught in this American uniform, I’ll be hanged as a spy. If I’m wearing a British uniform, I have a right under the laws of war to attempt sabotage behind enemy lines. I must be treated as a prisoner of war.”

  Rufus laughed. “Colonel, if you’re caught trying to harm His Excellency, as they all call him, you will likely be killed on the spot. British uniform or no British uniform. Law or no law.”

  “Still...” Black said.

  Rufus interrupted him. “I have planned for this. Come with me.”

  He led Black to a back room, where the red coat of a British officer’s uniform was laid out.

  Black walked over to it. “Where did you get it?”

  “Yesterday, from a dead redcoat. By luck a dead colonel, whom I judged to have been about your size.”

  “How did he die? There are no marks on it.”

  “We don’t know.”

  Black had the sense he was lying but decided not to press it. “What about my old American uniform?”

  “We might need it in the escape. Let’s keep it. Go change into the new one. When the sun sets we’ll get on towards Totowa. While we wait, we can talk about the plans we have to get His Excellency back to the beach once we have him in hand. I will also work on preparing the ruse we discussed.”

  When Black returned to the room some time later, resplendent in his borrowed red jacket, Rufus looked him over and said, “You look every inch the British officer.”

  Black smiled. “That’s because I am one. And how goes the ruse?”

  Rufus held up a scroll of parchment. “I’ve finished it and hope it will work.”

  “Let us pray it will work,” Black said. “Or this will all have been for naught.”

  “It’s time to go now,” Rufus said.

  They gathered what they needed—which included a pistol and knife for each of them—and set off into the night. Rufus led the way.

  11

  They had walked for hours along rough trails bordered by deep woods, when, suddenly, Black heard voices. Rufus grabbed his arm and jerked him into the trees. He held his breath as a patrol of soldiers wearing the blue-tipped feathers walked by—strolled really—talking amongst themselves and heading in the direction from which he and Rufus had just come.

  He heard one say, “Why are we doing this? If the redcoats come, they will come overland in formation from the east, like they always do.”

  “Yah,” someone else said.

  He was grateful that, before they left The Tankard, he had donned an overcoat Rufus had given him to protect against the cold. He knew it was irrational, but Black feared that otherwise the red of his coat would have been visible, even through the trees.

  They waited there for at least ten minutes, until they were sure the patrol had moved on.

  “Let’s go,” Rufus said. “We need to hurry because it smells and feels as if there will soon be rain. We must shortly cross a river, using a ford, rather than the nearby bridge. The ford will be easy to use now because the water is likely low, but a hard rain will make it much more difficult.”

  Black looked up, but couldn’t see the sky. “If the smells of rain are the same here as in England, it does indeed seem as if rain is on the way.”

  Rufus seemed to know the intricate way from trail to trail, including the location of the ford, which turned out to have not much water in it. After a while, he used a flint to light a candle inside a small, triangular lantern he’d been carrying. He leaned towards Black and said, in a voice so low Black had to strain to hear, “We have to take even rougher side paths now and hope no one sees this light. I don’t think we’re likely to run into any more patrols back here. The guard will assume redcoats will stick to the main trails.”

  Their progress was slow because the lantern gave little light. The path had been so little used that branches overhung it in many places, and rains had exposed rocks under foot. After a while, the trail began to climb, which slowed their progress even more.

  Eventually, the trail sloped downward at a sharp angle and then crossed on the level through thick woods. After not too long, Rufus took out his pocket watch and consulted it by the light of the lantern. He leaned close and whispered in Black’s ear, “It’s 12:30. Around the next bend, we will be able to see the house.” He reached into the lantern and snuffed out the candle with his fingers.

  They reached the edge of the trees and saw, at a distance of several hundred yards across cleared land, a barely made-out two-story stone house with a mansard roof. A single light shone in one of the windows.

  Rufus sat down on the ground and gestured that Black should do the same. “We will wait till 1:00,” he said.

  The night was utterly still. Black’s thoughts flew to the bloody work that Rufus’s men were carrying out, at least if all was going according to plan. Had they been using guns, he would have heard the shots. The sound of a knife slitting someone’s throat wouldn’t carry. He was a hardened soldier, and yet he felt for the young men who were to die that night.

  Finally, as the cold of the night seemed to be settling into his bones, Rufus leaned towards him and said, “To the house now. The task is either done or it’s not. If not, we’ll be caught no matter what we do, so there’s little point in sneaking up.”

  They rose and walked openly towards the house. When they reached it, the back door was hanging open. A dead soldier lay to one side, the blood from his throat staining the white plume on his helmet. Not far away, another soldier was sprawled on his back, close by a wall of the house, an arrow buried deep in his chest. Black assumed he had tumbled from the steep roof. Black dropped his overcoat, removed the pistol Rufus had given him from the small sack in which he had been carrying it, charged it with powder, loaded in the ball and walked boldly in, followed by Rufus.

  Black found himself in a wood-planked entry hall, at the end of which was the front door to th
e house. In a corner to the left of the door stood a large grandfather clock. The door was guarded by a man with a long gun. The man seemed to know who Rufus and Black were since he didn’t challenge them.

  “Where is the family that lives here?” Black said. “Have you locked them away or did you kill them, too?”

  “Neither,” the man said. “We have luck tonight because all of the family are at a funeral in another town and won’t return until tomorrow.” Then, with a nod of his head, he motioned them through an open doorway in the left-hand wall. Rufus started to go through, but Black put out his hand and blocked his way. Whatever risk there might be on the other side, Black would take first.

  He walked through the door and saw a tall, stately man standing calmly beside an elegant rosewood writing desk, which was pushed against the wall. He was wearing silver-framed reading glasses. Rufus’s five hired killers—which was how Black had come to think of them—stood post around the room. Three had pistols at the ready, and one of those had a bow slung over his shoulder and a quiver of arrows on his back. The other two held long guns. One said, “We told him if he makes a sound we’ll kill him.” To Black’s surprise and distress, Bear was also in the room.

  He had not expected to be awed by Washington, and yet he was. The man had an aura of command about him that somehow exceeded his size, which was not small in any case. Black judged him as at more than six feet tall, with broad shoulders. There was something about his presence that fit how the London papers had described him: a man raising up a new nation.

  Washington pushed the glasses down on his nose, fixed him with an icy stare and said, “Are you sent by General Clinton, Colonel?”

  “I am sent by your king, with a warrant for your arrest on a charge of high treason.”

  “He is not my king. If you have a warrant, where is it?”

  “In a safe place, to which we will be taking you. I will serve it on you there.”

  “In New York?”

  “We are taking you where we are taking you.”

  “You will not make it through our lines.”