The Tory Widow

by Christine Blevins

  “Well . . .” Jack scratched his beard. “These past two days, I’ve served as a scout in the King’s Army . . .” and he proceeded to tell his story as a concise series of facts and events as they pertained to the British advance, including Titus’s escape from the line. The colonel lathered his face, and hurried to scrape his whiskers during the telling, interrupting twice for clarification, and nicking his chin once.

  “I had a feeling the bloodybacks had their eye on the Jamaica Road.” Miles freed a frock shirt from the tangle on his bed. The colonel poked his head out the tent and shouted, “Drummer—beat the long roll—muster the battalions.”

  After pulling the shirt over his head, he tugged on a pair of boots, rifled a hand across the desktop and snatched up a ring of keys. “Come with me.”

  In contrast to the aligned rows and precise order of the British camp at Flatlands, American tents were scarce and strewn through the woods like dice tumbled from a cup. Jack followed the colonel on an erratic path weaving through trees, tents and between soldiers, who slept curled with blanket and gun under the open sky, just waking to the call to arms.

  Miles pulled to a halt in front of such a slouched figure propped against a sapling. Leaning in, he gave the man’s shoulder a shake. “On your feet.”

  A heavy chain rattled a rusty tune. The man grasped the tree trunk and rose slow. Legs shackled, he stumbled forward into the mottled dawnlight filtering down through the canopy.

  “Titus!” Jack lurched and caught his friend around the waist. “Unfetter him at once!” he demanded, helping his friend to lower back to a sit.

  Miles already worked the padlock on the shackles. “A pair of farmers brought him to us bleeding and unconscious . . . They said he was a Tory spy.”

  “Knocked me out cold afore I could convince ’em otherwise.” Wincing with a halfhearted smile, Titus fingered the gash on his head, his speech and appearance distorted by considerable swelling on the left side of his face. “Did the Redcoats get through?”

  Jack hoisted Titus back up to his feet. “I’m afraid they did. Can you walk? We need to get back behind the works at Brooklyn.”

  “I can walk.” Titus pulled away from Jack and looked around. “I guess them two took my gun and my pack?”

  “They must have kept the gun. I have your pack.” Miles fell in leading Jack and Titus back to his tent. The thud of artillery sounded from the west—followed by a series of six more reports. With a glance over his shoulder, Miles said, “Hessians on the Flatbush Road.”

  The guns continued to thud dully in the distance, and three more drummers joined in beating the troops to assemble. The rhythmic rat-a-tat cast a spell in the ghosted morning light, and the waking riflemen were drawn to the camp center like hungry boys to the dinner bell, to be herded by shouting, sword-wielding officers into order.

  The colonel ducked into his tent and came out wearing a tricorn decorated with a white ostrich feather and carrying a sword in scabbard. He dropped Titus’s pack at Jack ’s feet. “So, Hampton, will you be joining our effort?”

  “What effort?”

  “I’m mustering my battalions to march south to those guns.”

  Jack blinked, and he gave his tired brain a shake, certain he must have misheard. “You’re what?”

  “Do you not hear those guns? We have standing orders to engage when the enemy begins its advance at the Bedford Pass.”

  “Orders be damned! There are ten thousand Redcoats and Hessians on your front and another ten thousand on your rear—sound the warning to fall back to the works at Brooklyn, before you are trapped between the two!”

  Miles buckled on his sword belt. “Pennsylvanians are not cowards and will not run from a fight. We are marching south to engage the enemy, as ordered.”

  Jack’s brows met in a fierce scowl. He reached out and grabbed Miles by the shirtfront, pulling the shorter man up onto his toes, knocking his fine plumage into the duff at his feet.

  “You best heed my advice, Colonel, or your courageous Pennsylvanians will be slaughtered in a useless endeavor.” Jack pushed the colonel back and slipped the strap of Titus’s pack over his shoulder. “Let’s go, Titus—away from this madness.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Arms, as the last resource, decide the contest;

  the appeal was the choice of the king, and the

  continent hath accepted the challenge.

  THOMAS PAINE, Common Sense

  Thursday, August 29, 1776

  Twilight at the Works on the Brooklyn Heights

  LIEUTENANT David Peabody recited the order to the commander in charge. “Fresh troops are arriving and General Washington proposes to make a change in situation. Be prepared to parade your regiment to the head of your encampment at seven o’clock, with all arms, accoutrements and knapsacks.”

  Except for the five regiments manning the extreme front trenches with a constant watch, the order to prepare was being sent to every regiment on the lines. David passed by a huddle of sodden, desultory soldiers eating—for lack of dry firewood—a dreadful supper of hard biscuit and raw salt pork. It had been difficult for these exhausted men to keep their spirits up, their powder dry, and their muskets in working order without any or shelter from the rain. The troops were worn down, and David prayed Washington’s new orders did not foretell a night attack on the British, as most of his fellow officers predicted.

  Swinging up onto his stallion, David rode to the front line, to survey the scant mile and a half separating the British encampment and the American works. The scene was serene for the moment. As daylight faded, the squeal of cannonshot along with the sporadic pop and buzz of exchanged musketfire gave way to the thud of pick and scrape of shovel. In only two days, working through the night, the diligent British sappers had advanced their zigzag trenches to less than six hundred yards away. David peered through his spyglass.

  By this time tomorrow, the Redcoats will have us in musket range . . . hordes of Hessians with their merciless bayonets storming the works . . .

  He pocketed his glass, gave his horse a nudge and a tug to the left, and they trudged back to the stable. Leaving Black Bill watered, fed and curried, he headed toward camp with his saddle on his shoulder, slogging through an ankle-deep morass of mud and puddles.

  At least it’s stopped raining . . .

  He looked to his tent, and for the first time in three days a smile crossed his face. A good-sized campfire was blazing away, and one of his tentmates, Duncan MacBryde, sat on a campstool with bare feet stretched to the flames, his empty boots draped with wet socks set close to the fire, steaming.

  “Saint MacBryde, you’ve wrought a miracle! Where did you come upon dry wood in this muddy hellhole?”

  “Och . . .” Duncan’s blue eyes bore a devilish gleam. “I only made do . . .”

  David went inside to dump his gear, and immediately noted the canvas roof and walls were a bit cockeyed and saggy. Every tent pole had been replaced with hewn birch trunks still in the bark.

  The bastard ’s a genius!

  David hurried to join Duncan, to dry out a bit and scribble a quick letter home. He shed his damp wool coat and soggy hat, and dug pen, ink and journal from his pack. Sitting down at the campfire, he stripped off soaking wet boots and socks and extended his feet. “Fie on foot rot!”

  “Aye, the bane of every soldier!” Duncan tossed a chunk of firewood onto the pyre.

  A merry swarm of sparks soared up into the twilight, and David leaned inward, the wood hissing and popping, his damp skin and linen awash in the wonderful, dry heat. Setting his inkpot to one side, he opened his journal on his lap, thumbed to the first blank page and began to write:

  Thursday Evening , Aug. 29th

  My Dear Sally, it has been too many days since last I wrote, and now I must tell you the enemy has dealt us a severe flogging here on Long Island. The Redcoats and Hessians surrounded a large portion of our Army guarding the passes, and many are dead and captured before they could get behind the saf
ety of our intrenchment. Some say more than a thousand of our men are worse for the actions of the enemy—and among those thousand are two generals and many good officers. The British Army sits in full array on the plateau directly in front of us and we watch and wait for them to storm our works—as they must.

  Oh, Sal! Our cause is so Just, and I cannot fathom how we did not succeed—how we have come to such Dire Straits. I am extraordinary wet with the steady torrent poured down upon us these past two days, wherein it was often difficult to tell thunder and lightning from the clap and flash of cannon. For all the misery the rain has inflicted, it has kept the Redcoats from our lines, and its strong wind keeps the Navy from entering the river at our backs. We are caught in a dangerous position. Share this news with Anne. I strongly urge you both to leave the city for Peekskill at once. I think on you often with a very Fond Heart, and I live to be together with you once again.

  With the most Tender and Great Affection, I am, dearest Sally, Truly Yours—David Peabody

  David reread the lines he’d written, tapping the ink from his quill, wiping the tip with the hem of his shirt.

  A severe flogging . . . He winced at his choice of words. By all accounts the soldiers had at first fought bravely, protecting their positions against superior numbers and arms—but once the British flanking forces swept down on their rear, the Patriot army disintegrated in a scattered, disorderly retreat.

  He watched from the works as Patriot soldiers ran for their lives pursued by merciless Hessian and Scots grenadiers who showed no quarter with bayonets fixed. In flight, hundreds crossing the plain were surrounded and trapped by mounted dragoons. David heard many were mired in the bogs, crossing the marshlands under a hail of fire, only to be drowned or captured.

  As the vanquished soldiers tumbled behind the safety of the fortifications at Brooklyn, they braced to repulse a massive assault. But Howe did not press his advantage. To everyone’s amazement, he pulled his troops back, and began a formal siege.

  Lucky for us . . . In total disarray, panic-stricken and outnumbered, David doubted they would have survived. Careful in tearing the page loose from the book, he waved the letter about to dry the ink, folded the sheet in thirds, sealed it shut with a paste wafer and addressed it:

  To: Miss Sally Tucker at the sign of the Cup and Quill, New York City

  Leaving his boots to dry, David ran barefoot to the boat landing, hoping it was not too late to get his letter aboard the last ferry to the city.

  Not only was the ferryboat still at the dock, the harbor was oddly crowded with all manner of boats—flatboats, sloops, whale boats, pettiaugers, dories, sailboats—with General Washington himself surveying the assembled vessels astride his sorrel, Nelson.

  David spotted Mr. Gourley, one of the regular boatmen, leaning against the pilings smoking a long stem pipe, and he greeted the man with a handshake.

  “I’m happy to find you’re still here . . .” he said, handing over the letter and a coin for the man’s trouble. “If you could deliver this, I’d appreciate it.”

  The ferryman slipped both letter and coin into the pocket of his oilcloth jacket. “We’re waiting to evacuate the sick and wounded to the city.”

  “That’s an awful lot of boats . . .”

  Gourley puffed and shrugged.

  David pointed to men in tarred trousers, wrapping the iron oar-locks on every ship with rags and strips of old canvas. “Are they muffling the oars?”

  “A-yup . . .” The ferryman squinted at the darkening sky and worried the graying stubble on his chin. “You know, this nor’easter’s been keeping navy shipping from the river. There are warships anchored in the Narrows waiting for the wind to shift.” Gourley chewed on the stem of his pipe. “King’s Army advancing on the front, King’s Navy advancing on the rear. Think on it lad, if you were Washington, what would you do?”

  Walking back to his tent, he pondered Gourley’s question and the unusual activity at the landing. The vast collection of boats with muffled oars, coupled with the order to parade pointed to a design—to a plan—

  Escape the island?

  A crazy notion, that—nighttime retreat over water—improbable as it seemed, the idea put some steam in his step, and he sprinted the rest of the way to the tent.

  “We have new orders from General MacDougall.” Duncan MacBryde tossed their gear into a pile. “We’re to strike the tent and report mounted at the ferry landing.”

  At the landing, MacDougall set David, Duncan and six other officers to the task of assembling the sick and wounded, along with two militia regiments for evacuation to the city. There were to be no drum calls or shouting of any sort. Orders were passed from officer to officer, and whispered from man to man. Though the sky had darkened to a cloud-shrouded black, lights were not allowed. Each and every clandestine action further cemented the theory David shared in a whisper with Duncan: Washington meant to move the entire nine-thousand-man army over the mile of rapid-running East River separating Brooklyn and New York under cover of night.

  As they rode alongside the militia regiments parading to the landing, Duncan pointed to an artilleryman who was rendering a cannon mired in the mud useless by driving a spike into the touch hole. “There does seem to be some skullduggery afoot. You might not be as daft as I first thought.”

  “Skullduggery is paramount to the success of such a maneuver,” David said. “If the British discern a retreat, they’ll spill over our works like a swarm of bees—a seventeen-inch steel stinger affixed to the barrels of every musket.”

  Duncan leaned in his saddle, muttering. “Wise to keep the secret from our own lads as well. So miserably trounced, they are—they’d likely trample each other in gaining a seat aboard one of those boats if they knew a retreat was in order.”

  The reprieve from wet weather was short-lived. The same north-east wind keeping the British ships from entering the river carried in another gusty rainstorm. Up on Black Bill, David stuffed his tricorn into his saddlebag so as not to sacrifice his hat to the bluster.

  By nine o’clock the storm clouds blew over, but the fierce wind did not abate. The boatmen and General MacDougall deliberated. High winds combined with the ebb tide to make the river too rough to cross. Troops ready to embark were ordered to stand down and wait out the wind in silence.

  Just when it seemed MacDougall would call a halt to the entire endeavor, Mother Nature took pity on their predicament. The wind died as rapidly as it had sprung up, and the churning river became as calm and smooth as satin.

  The first detachments were loaded onto the boats, and mounted officers were dispatched to the lines to organize the next regiments for embarkation. Though no one made mention of the word retreat, there was a definite sense of the night’s true purpose, and all worked in furious accord to see it carried through.

  When a regiment was led from the lines to the ferry landing, the remaining troops extended to the left or right, filling the void, maintaining the illusion for any Redcoat who might be paying close attention. Artillery and wagons filled with baggage were pulled to the waterfront on well-greased wheels, and loaded onto flatboats. Horses and cattle were coaxed aboard. Barrels of the much-despised hard biscuit and salt pork were rolled onto sailboats to such a capacity the gunwales rode but three or four inches above the waterline. Nothing of value was being left behind for the enemy.

  And so it proceeded through the night. For more than six hours, with as much order and organization as could be scrubbed up when working in the quiet dark, the boats were loaded, and the hardy mariners rowed with little pause, silently shuttling back and forth across the East River.

  In the midst of such industry, David began the night’s work happily thinking he would reach Sally before his letter did. But as the hours wore on, and the sky began to brighten on the eastern horizon, he gauged the number of soldiers yet waiting to withdraw. Trepidation began a slow creep up his backbone. “We’re quick running out of nighttime . . .”

  “Aye.” Duncan nodded.
“Now that the wind’s shifted, the English warships will fetch up into the river along with the daylight.”

  As the sun inched above the horizon, the same realization dawned on every waiting soldier. Mass desperation welled up like a monstrous wave, washing over the troops assembled at the landing with a tidal force. Strict order dissolved into chaos, and the next empty boat to pull up to the dock was swamped in a mad rush of frantic men climbing over one another to gain passage.

  All the officers on duty jumped in trying to staunch the riot with little effect. General Washington himself drove through the pandemonium, shouting, “Put an end to this mayhem at once, or I will sink this boat to hell!”

  The rioters calmed in the face of their Commander in Chief ’s imposing presence. Washington’s harsh invective served to quell the panic, and the officers were able to reorder the lines so the exodus to the city resumed a hectic but methodical pace.

  David and Duncan rode out to the front line to fetch the last remaining regiments. “There’re hundreds still on duty. We’ll never be able to get them all across.”

  “When day breaks in earnest, the Redcoats will see our line has more holes than a nunnery—they will not tarry in storming our works,” Duncan predicted, checking through the cartridge box belted at his waist. “I have four dry cartridges. How many have you?”

  “Three, last I checked.”

  In the time it took to ride from the landing to the front line, fortune smiled once again on the Patriot cause. A heavy fog came down over the island, clinging to the earth like tufts of sheep’s wool to a briar—a fog so dense, David could not see his fellow officer riding a horse no more than five yards ahead.

  The fog represented new hope for the soldiers who bore the burden of holding the front line through the long night. David held a true admiration for these brave men who stood their posts as regiment after regiment left the lines, and he was happy to whisper, “Bid a fond farewell to these trenches, Colonel; it’s time to parade your men to the landing.”