I Survived the American Revolution, 1776

by Lauren Tarshis

  He’d made a giant mistake, he realized, fighting back tears.

  He had to go back to Storch’s — to Eliza and Theo.

  He stood up and started to make his way through the woods.

  Storch would be calmer now, Nate told himself. And whatever Storch might to do to him, he’d have to take it. Because what choice did he have?

  He didn’t have a single coin in his pocket or a scrap of food to eat. He was just a boy, alone in the world.

  But then as Nate walked along, he thought about another boy who had once been by himself.

  The pirate Slash O’Shea.

  Nate slowed down as he remembered the stories Papa had told him about when Slash was a kid.

  He’d been born in London, England. His parents had died before he was five years old. He wasn’t called Slash yet — back then he was called Jonathan. With his parents gone, he wound up in a filthy orphanage, more like a prison than a home for helpless kids. The food was barely fit for pigs. The beatings were brutal. Finally young Jonathan couldn’t take it. When he was ten years old, he ran away.

  He must have been terrified, Nate thought. Like Nate was now.

  But there was no way he’d go back to that wretched orphanage.

  Jonathan got himself a job on a ship, as a cabin boy. He’d sailed away. And he never looked back.

  Nate pictured a boy standing on the deck of a big sailing ship.

  The boy’s face became clearer … until it became Nate’s own face.

  Nate blinked. Something inside him shimmered. Suddenly the night didn’t seem so dark.

  If young Slash could go to sea, why couldn’t he?

  Sure, Nate was too young — Papa wouldn’t hire cabin boys who were younger than fourteen.

  But Nate was bigger and taller than most eleven-year-olds. And Papa had taught him to work harder than sailors twice his age.

  Nate quickened his step as he made his plan.

  New York City was about fifty miles south of here. He’d go to Norwalk Harbor. There were always boats heading down to New York City, loaded up with vegetables or oysters or hogs to sell. Nate would hide out on one of those boats. If the winds and currents were strong, he would be in New York City by the afternoon. The city had one of the busiest harbors in the colonies, with merchant ships heading to the Caribbean and Europe and all corners of the world. There had to be at least one captain willing to give Nate a chance.

  Nate could practically feel Papa’s hand on his back, pushing him along. He saw Theo in his mind, with his bright and hopeful eyes.

  And remembered the last word Eliza had said to him.

  “Go.”

  He made it to the harbor several hours later. The docks were already crowded with sailors and fishermen preparing for the day.

  And for once Nate lucked out. At the end of the dock was the sailing ship Valerie. It made weekly runs to New York City, Nate knew. And its deck was already loaded up with baskets and crates heaped with corn and potatoes and cherries. The sails were up. The ship was about to leave!

  There were only three men working on the small ship. They were too busy working to notice when he slipped on board. He scurried across the deck and hid himself between two big baskets of corn.

  A few minutes later sailors pushed the boat away from the dock.

  And with a whoosh of wind, Nate was on his way.

  Nate stayed very still in his hiding place. His empty stomach churned with worry. Panicked thoughts spun around his brain. Would he ever see Theo and Eliza again? What if Eliza had to do all of Nate’s work now? How would she watch over Theo?

  The rocking of the ship calmed him some. He listened to the familiar sounds — the swoosh, crack of the sails, the creak, creak of the wood, the twang of the sailors’ voices. Bright pictures filled up his mind, memories of visiting New York City with Papa. Some of their voyages had started from there. And Papa always left a day or two for them to explore before they set sail.

  New York City wasn’t as big as Philadelphia, but it had twenty-five thousand people — twenty-five thousand! That was more people than Boston or Charleston. New York was dirty and smelly like every city Nate had ever visited. Garbage rotted in the alleys. Piles of horse dung steamed in the streets.

  But Papa always said New York was the prettiest city in the colonies, and Nate agreed. The wide streets were lined with tall elm trees. Gardens were bursting with sweet-smelling flowers that almost covered up the garbage stink.

  Nate loved the sidewalk puppet shows and jugglers who spun torches on the street corners. Papa would tip his cap at the ladies swishing by in their bright dresses.

  Best of all was the food — suppers of juicy rabbit stew and gooey boiled puddings and buttery dumplings that slid down Nate’s throat. One restaurant was so fancy they actually gave Nate and Papa each a fork. A fork! Even most rich people like Storch ate with a knife and their fingers. But Nate and Papa figured out that strange new tool pretty quick.

  Nate’s mind flashed with memories of Papa as the Valerie sailed down the twisting coastline of Connecticut and New York. He shut up his grumbling stomach by sneaking a few ears of corn.

  The sun was high in the sky when they came to Manhattan — the island of New York. Most of the long and skinny island was wild land: rolling green hills and forests and marshes with a just a few orchards and farms. It looked so quiet and peaceful. It was hard for Nate to imagine that busy New York City was just a few miles down, on the island’s southern tip.

  But slowly the city came into view. Nate spotted crooked rooftops, the wharves jutting into the river, and too many church steeples to count.

  The Valerie sailed toward the bottom of the island and turned into one of the wharves. Nate didn’t bother waiting until the Valerie was completely stopped. The moment it was close to the dock, he sprang up. With a few steps and a leap he was off the boat. One of the Valerie’s sailors swore in surprise as Nate streaked past him. But Nate was gone before anyone could stop him.

  He ran down the dock, zigzagging around baskets and barrels and coils of ropes. There were only a few dockworkers milling around, and no big merchant ships. That was a little strange; last time there were too many ships to count. The docks had been packed with sailors from all over the world, lugging crates and barrels and shouting out in languages he’d never heard before.

  But Nate wasn’t worried. He’d probably come into a different wharf this time. It shouldn’t be hard to find where the merchant ships were docked.

  A thrill rushed through him as he left the waterfront, his boots clicking against the city’s familiar cobblestone streets.

  He’d made it!

  But as he plunged into the city, his excitement drained away.

  Why were some of the streets deserted?

  Why were some of the streets blocked off by big dirt walls?

  He saw no puppet shows, no ladies in swishing dresses, no fancy coaches clattering through the streets. Most of the stores were boarded up.

  On one block the only people around were men — soldiers, Nate realized. He could tell they were American soldiers by their plain clothes. British soldiers were famous for their brass-buttoned red coats — that’s where the name “Redcoat” came from. They wore spiffy leather hats, bright white shirts, and belts with brass buckles.

  American soldiers had no uniforms. Most of them wore cheap felt three-cornered hats and frontier shirts that tied at the collar. “Those rebel soldiers look like scarecrows,” Storch had said. Looking around, Nate thought Storch wasn’t far off. Most of the men wore dusty trousers and work shirts. Their weapons were beat-up muskets or rifles.

  The deeper into the city Nate walked, the more soldiers he saw. Most were hard at work. At the end of the street, dozens of men were building another big dirt wall. Farther down Nate saw three men pulling a cart carrying a huge cannon.

  What was happening here?

  The hairs on the back of Nate’s neck prickled up. Nate suddenly remembered what Storch and Marston had bee
n talking about yesterday as they ate their goose. Nate hadn’t been paying close attention. But now Storch’s words came back to him, as though he were right next to Nate, barking in his ear.

  “The king sent hundreds of ships.”

  “The big battle is coming any day.”

  “Washington and his army of traitors will soon be crushed.”

  Nate figured Storch and Marston had been talking about Boston. As far as he knew, that’s where most of the fighting had been.

  But now Nate realized they must have been talking about New York City.

  No wonder the docks had been mostly empty.

  No wonder the streets were deserted.

  There had to be thousands of soldiers here.

  Most of the people living here must have left.

  And that’s when Nate fully understood what he’d done.

  He’d escaped from Storch.

  And he’d landed smack in the middle of the war.

  Nate charged back to the waterfront.

  His best hope was to catch the Valerie back to Connecticut. He’d figure out what to do when he got there. If he couldn’t sneak onto the Valerie like last time, he’d beg the captain to take him. He’d offer to scrub the decks, carry out the dead rats — anything!

  But Nate was too late.

  He reached the dock just as the Valerie was sailing away.

  He tore down the dock, yelling.

  “Stop! Wait! Come back!”

  But the sailors couldn’t hear him. And even if they could, Nate knew the captain wouldn’t turn the ship around for some nobody kid.

  Now what would Nate do?

  He stared out into the harbor, as though the answer might be floating in the water. And that’s when he spotted them: two enormous sailing ships. They were coming from the south and seemed to be heading right for the city.

  Nate’s heart lifted up: Maybe he’d find a job after all!

  But as the ships came closer, he realized they were not regular sailing ships like Papa’s. They were bigger. They rose proudly out of the water, each with twelve sparkling white sails gleaming in the sun.

  As they turned slightly, Nate saw that both ships had small square openings along the sides. And poking out of each square was the black muzzle of a cannon. They were like gigantic black serpents, peering out from their caves.

  Flags of England flapped from the ships’ masts.

  They were British warships!

  Nate stared with a mix of fear and fascination, like the time he found a scorpion in his hammock. All his life he’d been hearing stories about the British navy. It was the mightiest on Earth, with hundreds of warships prowling the seas.

  The greatest British warship of them all were called men-of-war — floating cities that could hold a thousand men and almost a hundred big cannons. Each cannon could blast a twenty-four-pound ball that would streak through the air faster than a person could blink.

  There was no weapon on Earth as powerful as a big cannon.

  Nate knew it took five men to load and fire each one. One ball could punch through a stone fortress wall. It could rip through a line of soldiers. It could turn a house to rubble. It could blow a hole in an enemy warship, dooming it to an underwater grave.

  But the crew of a big warship didn’t just fire off one cannonball at a time. They fired dozens of cannons at once, unleashing a crushing wave of metal balls. A man-of-war could destroy a city within hours.

  Nate’s blood turned cold as he watched the two warships stream around the southern tip of the city.

  A crowd of American soldiers had joined Nate on the dock.

  They shouted out curses and shook their fists.

  And then a thundering explosion shook the ground.

  Kaboom!

  The explosion rattled Nate’s bones — and almost sent him leaping into the water in fear.

  But then he realized that the blast hadn’t come from either of the British ships.

  Across the river, in Brooklyn, big puffs of gray smoke rose up from a hilltop. When the curtain of smoke cleared, Nate could see ten cannons lined up in a row.

  Kaboom!

  Kaboom!

  Kaboom!

  They blasted away at the British ships.

  And then came blasts from somewhere closer — on this side of the river. The Americans must have put cannons all around the city.

  Soldiers were crowding the docks now. Two men stood behind Nate. They screamed out insults to the British ships.

  “Putting on a little show for us, you devils?” one jeered.

  “We’ll blast you up to the moon!”

  The American cannons thundered and boomed. The air was filled with the sharp metal stink of gunpowder smoke.

  Soldiers whooped and cheered after every blast.

  Kaboom!

  “Huzzah!”

  Kaboom!

  “Huzzah!”

  None of the American cannonballs hit the ships; each splashed down harmlessly in the river.

  But the soldiers didn’t seem to care.

  They roared and taunted.

  “Sink those cowards!”

  But then Nate noticed that the bigger of the British warships had slowed down.

  A tongue of flame flicked out of one of its cannons.

  Kaboom!

  An odd sizzling sound filled the sky overhead.

  Someone screamed. And then,

  Crash!

  A cannonball came down, smashing a house just a few yards from where Nate stood. The ground shook. Shards of wood rained down. A man shouted out.

  “Run!”

  Nate took off, joining the stampede of terrified soldiers rushing away from the docks. He ended up alone in an alley, huddling in the doorway of a stone building. He knew trying to hide was useless. No building would protect him from the force of a cannonball. But he couldn’t just stand out in the street. He squeezed himself tighter into the doorway and tried not to think about the gruesome stories Papa’s men used to tell, about men who’d had their heads blown off by cannonballs.

  What a fool Nate was! He’d never make it out here on his own!

  He wasn’t tough like Slash O’Shea.

  When Slash was just fourteen, the merchant ship he worked on was destroyed in a storm. Only a few men survived, including Slash. And what did he do next? He joined the British navy. England was in the middle of a huge war with France and Spain. Slash was stationed on a man-of-war, on the cannon deck. He was a powder monkey, which meant it was his job to rush heavy bags of explosive gunpowder to the men loading the cannons.

  Powder monkeys had to be small and fast like real monkeys — and as brave as lions. Because cannons didn’t just kill the enemy. Sudden sparks, too much gunpowder … any small mistake could cause an accidental explosion. It was one of those fiery accidents that left Slash without his right hand. After that, the navy didn’t want him anymore.

  But Slash didn’t curl up like a little shrimp.

  No! He went on to be the greatest pirate ever!

  Thinking about Slash calmed Nate down a bit, and put that strong, shimmering feeling inside his chest again.

  Nate closed his eyes and pictured Papa’s face. He tried to imagine Eliza’s hand gripping his.

  When Nate finally opened his eyes, the explosions had faded. The smoke had mostly cleared. Those British warships must have sailed away. Nate unpeeled himself from the stone wall. Now he just wanted to get out of this battlefield. And if he couldn’t escape on a boat, he’d just have to walk.

  The whiff of gunpowder still prickled Nate’s nose. But the danger seemed to have passed. The soldiers on the streets were back to work with their shovels and axes. Nate walked north, hoping to find the road out of the city. He passed a big lawn that had been turned into a huge army camp. Every inch of grass was covered with tents — row after crooked row of the grimiest, droopiest tents Nate had ever seen.

  Nate wove through a crowd of soldiers building an enormous wall out of dirt and rocks.

&n
bsp; A man’s voice shouted out from somewhere behind him.

  “Nate!”

  Nate ignored it. There had to be dozens of Nathaniels in this city.

  But then the voice shouted out again.

  “Nathaniel Fox!”

  Nate’s heart stopped.

  His mind spun until he understood who it had to be: one of Storch’s men!

  His wretched uncle had a whole crew of muscled bullies he hired to collect money from people who owed him. And now one of those men had tracked Nate down. He was going to drag him back to Storch for more beatings.

  Nate took off in a panic.

  He sprinted across the street.

  He had just made it when a strong hand grabbed hold of the back of his shirt.

  Nate wriggled and squirmed until he wrenched himself free. He whirled around and raised his fists, ready to fight.

  He lifted his chin and stared dead-on into the face of the man chasing him.

  And then Nate’s mouth fell open in shock.

  It was a young soldier with a goofy, gap-toothed smile.

  A mop of bright red curls spilled out from under a crumpled green triangle hat.

  Before Nate could say anything, the man grabbed Nate into a crushing, joyful hug.

  It was his old friend from Papa’s crew: Paul Dobbins.

  Paul let go of Nate and stepped back. His smile had fallen away. Now his expression was almost angry, like Nate had hurt him somehow.

  “I sent you at least ten letters!” Paul said. “I rode in a wagon for two days to get to your uncle’s house. And when I got there, he told me you wouldn’t see me. He slammed the door right in my face!”

  Nate stood there in shock.

  Storch was a lying, evil rat! He’d made Nate believe that his only old friend in the world had forgotten about him!

  Tears burned Nate’s eyes.

  “I didn’t know,” he said, barely choking out the words.

  Paul looked surprised at first. But his eyes drifted down to Nate’s neck, which still hurt from Storch’s strangling attack.