“Your fuckin’ towhead shines brighter than a spermaceti candle.”
Before dousing the ship lights, Joe and Titus each made certain to light the end on a yard-length of match cord, the long, slow-burning fuses being the only fire allowed on board. Leaving Bass and his boys on the schooner with handshakes and shouts of “Good Luck!” and “Fare Well!” Jack and Titus hopped over the side to man the oars on the sloop.
Anchors lifted and with oars slapping in time to the ching-ching of the crickets’ chirp, the sloop towed the schooner straight out, about fifty yards before drawing in oars and disconnecting. Jack and Titus sat on the back bench, the rudder between them. Turning south, the fireships coasted silent on the current carrying them toward the British squadron.
Jack shifted forward to sit on the very edge of his seat, gripping tight the tiller. The rough, dry oak, weathered by countless seasons, bit into his palm, giving traction to a hand slippery with lard and sweat. It seemed a bit of a farce—steering the rudder on a night so dark he couldn’t even make out the prow of his own boat—but the tiller in his hand at least fostered the illusion of being in control.
Floating through the pitch-black with only the smidge of light cast by the glowing tip of the match cord Titus cupped in his hand caused an eerie unease to tickle up Jack’s backbone. He leaned toward his friend and whispered, “Darker than the depths of a papist priest’s arsehole . . .”
Titus had to bite on his fist to keep from laughing out loud, and after a moment, he whispered back, “I’ll just have to take your word on that . . .”
Jack stifled his snicker, and shot Titus an elbow to his ribs.
Deprivation of sight excited all other senses, and Jack became acutely aware of every sound—the breeze filling the canvas, rigging thumping against the mast, the ancient ship’s tired creaks and groans echoing through the hollow hull as water pushed them along. Jack scrubbed his bare feet on the decking, pining for solid ground, and it occurred to him then that he was not one for boats. Regretting his decision to limit his consumption of rum punch to just one cupful, a song came to mind, and he began to sing softly under his breath.
“What do you do with a drunken sailor, earlye in the morning?
“Way hey and . . .”
“Shhhsh!” Titus gave him a shove to the shoulder.
It was hard to gauge how far they had traveled. Jack began to worry that they had somehow sailed past the British ships, when the canvas belled with new wind, and lightning flashed behind the clouds, illuminating, for the briefest instance, the mass of naval vessels, dead ahead.
“D’ you see that?” he rasped.
Titus answered by slipping the sloop’s anchor over the side to slow their approach. A moment later they heard the reciprocating plop ahead and to their right—Joe Bass dropping anchor on his schooner.
Jack stared ahead at the patch of black where he thought he’d seen the British ships riding at anchor. A single chime rang out from one of the frigates, followed by a voice calling, “All’s well!”
“To your left,” Titus said, so soft in his ear Jack had a hard time hearing it over his heart hammering in his chest. He gave the rudder a pull and Titus put an oar into the water. Slowly, quietly, they skimmed toward the call.
A loud thump and bump followed by the scraping squeal of wood and iron raised a series of shouts. The area to their right was suddenly hissing and alight with flames leaping up the sails of the schooner in a grapple with the squadron’s bomb ketch.
The conflagration cast a brilliant light on the entire scene—and their sloop was no more than ten yards away from the Phoenix. The alarm was raised and Phoenix beat to quarters.
Titus swung the anchor aboard, yelling, “Take an oar!”
They rowed like mad to put distance between themselves and the inferno overwhelming the bomb ketch, maneuvering the sloop into Phoenix’s shadow.
Titus shouted, “Fasten the lines!”
They scrambled with grappling hooks to secure their fireship to the frigate. The Rose unleashed a sharp cannonade, and the Phoenix, a flurry of musket fire. One iron ball crashed into their hull. Another cut the mast in two.
Ducking and dodging as small shot whizzed by, thunking into wood, dinging off iron fittings and buzzing into the water, they tangled hooks into the rigging along the prow of the Phoenix, and pulled the sloop tight to the frigate.
“Fire!” Jack shouted, and Titus touched the glowing end of the match cord to the gray stream of gunpowder.
For moment they stood transfixed, watching the powder burst into a smoky, sizzling serpent, setting the pitched straw and oily canvas alight as it snaked along the deck—the flames leaping up to catch fire to the tarred hull and rigging of the Phoenix.
Shouting, “Jump!” Titus grabbed Jack by the arm. Jack snatched up their gunnysack and they dove into the river.
GOING to breakfast, Anne paused at the top of the stairs. Sally was standing at the open front door, talking with Walter Quakenbos. Vexed by the sight of her neighbor, Anne took a step back, not wanting to be drawn into a conversation with the baker. The old fool. He could plainly see Jack and Titus were worse for the drink, and yet he gave them money and a horse.
Sally made her farewells and rebolted the door.
“What did he want?” Anne called.
Sally startled. “Och . . . I didna see ye standin’ there . . .” Without answering, Sally headed for the back door.
Anne skipped down the stairs and followed Sally into the kitchenhouse.
A steaming pot of coffee hung from a trammel chain over the fire. Sally sat on the hearthstone. Using a long pair of tongs, she arranged embers from the fire into a compact pile. “I’m making pancakes,” she said, centering a three-legged griddle over the coals.
The little kitchen was a bright and cheerful place. The sharply pitched ceiling was engineered with thick planks and supported by an exposed structure of sturdy rafters and beams long since aged to a smoky, dark patina. Running just beneath the sills of three diamond-paned windows, a long work surface stretched the length of the whitewashed wall, and a multigenerational accumulation of pottery, brassware and ironware was stored in cupboards below.
The opposite wall was taken up by the large brick fireplace. The raised hearthstone Sally rested on extended into the room a generous two feet. A massive pair of black andirons sat within an arched opening framed with a border of blue-and-white glazed tiles—each tile depicting a different scene featuring windmills, fishing boats and happy peasants wearing wide-brimmed hats, harvesting crops. Anne would often huddle together with Jemmy and Sally in the cozy kitchen on cold winter days with cups of sweet black tea, and buttery shortbread, concocting funny stories to go with each tile.
Anne clattered through a cupboard, fished out a wooden noggin and poured herself some coffee. “So tell me, what did ol’ Quakenbos have to say at the break of day?”
Sally plopped a dollop of lard the size of a quail egg to sizzle on the hot iron. “Nothing of consequence. He’d been by the Bear Market yesterday and seen a man selling chicory root there. Knowing we’ve been stretching our coffee berries, he thought to let me know.”
“Chicory root?” Anne said, with a squint to one eye.
“Aye, chicory at the market . . .” Sally repeated, her voice a bit trembly as she ladled batter onto the griddle. “The market, the chicory . . . and the gelding’s return . . .”
“What?”
Sally tossed the ladle into the bowl and looked up from her task, eyes brimming. “The gelding! The baker’s bloody gelding! He’s wandered home with nae rider. I didna want to add to your worry . . .”
“Oh.” Anne sank down to sit next to Sally, too stunned to admonish her for cursing like a longshoreman. “A riderless horse—that does not bode well, does it?”
“No, it doesna.”
A sudden loud and heavy pounding roused them both to their feet.
Anne brightened. “That’s Jack now!”
Sally pushed the gri
ddle off the coals, and they ran to the front of the shop. Fumbling with the bolts, Anne opened the door to find her brother banging on the oak frame with the pommel of his sword.
“David!” The women fell on him in relief with hugs and kisses.
“It’s been weeks and weeks,” Sally sobbed into his jacket sleeve.
“Weeks and weeks,” David mocked with an added dose of melodrama. “Weeks and weeks . . . suffering so terribly . . .”
Sally looked up at him. “Ye suffered?”
“Of course I did.” David laughed. “There’s not a decent scone or bannock to be had on the whole of Long Island.”
“Ye gomerel! So it’s my scones ye missed?” Sally took a step back, swiping tears away with the back of her hand.
“Ah . . . you’re my favorite redhead,” David cajoled, pulling Sally back into his arms. “And you know very well how I’ve missed you. Why, I fell asleep every night dreaming on your smile.”
Appeased by her beau’s pretty poetry, Sally settled into his embrace.
Anne was reminded of the poignant letters she’d written home to wives and sweethearts as she watched the couple’s happy reunion. Being loved and needed and missed went a long way in tempering a man’s inherent reckless spirit.
Truly, the distress she’d suffered since Jack had rode off was a revelation to her. When he had ignored her reasoned entreaties and went on his merry way, she’d said good riddance, and now she so regretted the angry words uttered in bidding Jack farewell. She underestimated how much she had come to care for Jack Hampton, and the thought of him injured or dead was an awful ache tied tight about her heart that could not be loosed. If Jack returns . . . Anne gave her head a vigorous shake. When Jack returned, she would somehow let him know how much she cared.
Anne shooed Sally and her brother inside to swing the door shut and lock the bolts. “Quite the spectacle, you two—and on the Sabbath to boot . . .”
They gathered together in the kitchenhouse, and while Sally mixed up a batch of currant scones, David enjoyed several cups of coffee and recounted his most recent exploits training troops stationed on Brooklyn Heights.
“How long can you stay this time?” Sally asked him.
“Two days at most—I’m here with Colonel Livingston for a staff meeting at headquarters.”
“Do you think, David,” Anne questioned, “that there still might be a chance for peace?”
David shook his head. “Surely you are sensible that we have rebelled against our King and declared ourselves a sovereign state? Britain will not stand idly by and allow her richest colonies leave her dominion without a fight. War is inevitable, Annie, and I wish you would give up your fanciful hopes for peace, and go stay with Father in Peekskill . . .”
Once again, there began a brash knocking at the front of the shop. Sally shot Anne a hopeful glance as she ran to undo the latches. The front door slammed open and a powder-wigged, lace-cuffed and cravated Walter Quakenbos barreled past Sally, brandishing his walking stick in his fist, shouting like a madman. “Damn if they didn’t do it!”
“What on God’s green earth!” Anne and David ran out to meet Quakenbos under the peach tree.
“Forgive me, Widow Merrick.” The baker sat down at the table, breathing heavy. “I hurried across town to bring you the good news . . .” Whisking off his wig, he used it to fan his red face, raising a powdery cloud. “They did it—they broke the blockade.”
“Who broke the blockade?” David’s question went unanswered.
Anne asked, “How do you know this?”
“I saw it!” Quakenbos took a gulp from the glass of cider Sally pressed into his hand. “I saw the ships—the Rose and a well-scorched Phoenix, heading out into the bay to rejoin the fleet.”
Anne sat down next to Quakenbos. The sudden image of a well-scorched Jack Hampton floating facedown in the Hudson caused her knees to go to jelly. “Did you see them . . . speak with them . . . Jack and Titus?”
“Hampton?” David scowled. “And Titus? What’s Hampton to do with Titus? What’s this all about, Anne?”
Before she could form a response, a lumpy canvas bag came sailing over the garden wall, hitting Walter Quakenbos square on his shaven pate. The peach tree began to tremble, and peaches rained down in a thumpety-thump as Jack and Titus used a low-slung limb to pull up and straddle the wall.
“Lord in heaven!” Anne jumped to her feet.
Sally clapped and squealed.
“The Heroes of the Hudson!” Quakenbos shouted.
“Just what are you raggedy thieves up to?” David demanded.
Jack smoothed a hand over his hair gone wild for lack of ribbon or string. “And a good morning to you, Captain!”
“Sorry, Mrs. Anne.” Concern rippled Titus’s forehead like a washboard. “Being Sunday, we figured the front door would be bolted . . .”
“Pay my brother no mind, Titus.” Anne encouraged them down with a wave. “We’ve been worried sick for you both.”
The pair hit the ground on bare feet, filthy and hatless in muddy shirttails and knee breeches. Sally pointed in alarm to the sleeve covering Titus’s left arm, saturated with blood.
Jack said, “Titus caught a ball . . .”
“Looks worse than it is,” Titus assured. “Lodged in the meat, not the bone.”
“I dug the slug out and he’s fit as a fiddle now, aren’t you, Titus?”
“Shoes!” the baker quacked, peering inside the sack.
“Wet shoes,” Jack said.
“Giving us blisters,” Titus added.
“Sit down . . . sit down.” Anne’s face ached for the smile she sported. Restraining the urge to kiss him welcome, she took Jack by the hand. “Come sit.”
Jack and Titus sat to share the bench across from Quakenbos and David. Anne brought a pitcher of cider and Sally set a pot of jam and a plateful of fresh-baked scones on the table. Quakenbos filled everyone’s tankard, and called for a toast. “To the Heroes of the Hudson!”
“No heroes here . . .” Titus said, helping himself to a scone. “Just tired and hungry is all we are.”
David groaned. “Will someone please tell me what this is all about?”
Anne began the tale, with interjections from Sally and the baker. Titus picked up the story, telling of their adventure from the point when they’d set off on horseback.
“We gave it our best effort,” Jack finished. “The bomb ketch Joe Bass mistook for the Rose burned to the waterline, but the Phoenix managed to disengage from our fiery sloop. In the time it took us to swim to the riverbank, they’d doused the flames, and we struck out on the long road home.” Jack popped the last bite from his third scone into his mouth. “All in all, just as you predicted, Annie, a right dismal failure.”
Anne sat beside him. “Then you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“The Phoenix and the Rose have rejoined the fleet, man,” Quakenbos said. “The blockade is broken.”
Goggle-eyed, Titus choked out, “What?!”
Jack pulled stunned Titus into a headlock and knuckle-scrubbed his close-cropped hair. Titus jerked free, and the pair shoved and punched each other in elation. “Can you believe it? We broke the blockade!”
“The two of you have struck terror into the very heart of the Royal Navy.” David stood and raised his tankard. “Cheers to the Heroes of the Hudson!”
While everyone joined in the toast, and without glancing her way, Jack reached a bold hand under the table to give Anne’s knee a squeeze. Rather than brush him away, she slipped her hand over his.
“You know, Hampton . . .” Resting one boot on the bench, David leaned forward, his face so suddenly serious, Anne was certain her brother was aware of the brazen goings-on beneath the table. “This fireboat escapade is the perfect example of the type of stratagem I’ve been trying to persuade my colonel to . . .” Without completing his thought, David performed an abrupt about-face. He marched into the kitchen, and returned wearing his tricorn, buckling on swo
rd and scabbard.
“You two are coming with me.”
JACK shifted his weight to his right foot, distracted by the big blister chafed into his left heel by wet shoe leather. He sped through the fifth telling of the fireship escapade, anxious to be out the door and out of his shoes.
“. . . after Titus touched fuse to powder, we stayed aboard to assure a good blaze—Titus snatched me by the arm, I snatched up our gear, and it was into the river with us. In the time it took for us to swim ashore, the Phoenix managed to cut loose from our sloop. From the riverbank, we could see them douse the fire, and so we took to the road.”
In soggy shoes and dirty shirts Jack and Titus stood alongside David Peabody, his commanding officer and an aide-de-camp. They faced a large table draped with a crisp linen sheet and scattered with papers, maps, instruments and writing materials. The cavernous office on the second floor of the City Hall building featured a tall pair of arched windows in the Palladian style, and the room’s spartan furnishings were arranged to offer the Commander in Chief a fine view down Wall Street to Trinity Church and the Hudson beyond. General Washington sat in a spindle-back chair behind the table, considering Jack ’s recounting without a word, availing himself of the view with impassive blue-gray eyes.
Bent over a small writing desk in the corner, a stocky black man in a stark white wig marked diligently in a ledger, leaving Jack to wonder on what he was writing. But for the quill scratchings, everyone waited in silence for the general to react. At last, leaning back in his chair, large hands resting light on the armrests, he asked, “Your occupation, Mr. Hampton?”
“Printer, sir.” Jack straightened his shoulders to stand a bit taller, hands clasped behind his back. “Journeymen—both of us.”
The answer raised an eyebrow. Washington nodded to Titus. “This man is your slave?”
The Tory Widow Page 13
