“This fort is located at the confluence of Willis Creek and the north branch of the Potomac River. It is also a supply depot that occupies a strategic point to defend the Maryland frontier. We have all stood on these parapets and watched the smoke rising in the distance from the farms and homes that the Iroquois were burning. Our primary job is to stop that when it is happening and prevent it from happening again.”
“I understand, sir. What will my job be with the Rangers?” asked Alex.
“Well, Alex, we are short a cook right now. Your first job will be to serve as one of the cooks for the company,” replied Ellison.
“Thank you, sir. I’ll do my best,” said Alex.
Of course, Alex was taken aback and extremely disappointed that he was given the cook’s job, but it was a better job than the one he had before he joined the Rangers, which was no job at all. So he decided that he could live with it. He was careful not to let his disappointment show.
* * * *
Kings Pinnacle Part 3
Robert and Hugh
“Wake up lads; rise and shine! There’s an American colonial ship in the harbor that needs loading,” shouted the short, red-bearded jailer into Robert and Hugh’s cell.
“Can it nae find a way t’ load itself?” asked Hugh who turned over in his cot, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
Robert got up from his cot and looked out the barred window in the rear of the cell, which provided a view to the Larne harbor. Sure enough, there was a ship sitting at the dock that had not been there yesterday.
The time that Robert and Hugh had spent in the Larne gaol seemed to drag by slowly. As near as they could tell, they had been in the gaol for a little over six months, and it was now the late fall of 1773. Every now and then, they were taken out of their cell to perform some kind of manual labor, which served to break up the monotony of their incarceration. But overall, the days had blended into each other until Robert and Hugh lost track of exactly how many days they had been in the gaol.
“Ha! Let’s go lads,” said the turnkey, putting his key into the rusty lock.
He unlocked the jail cell door and ushered Robert and Hugh out of the gaol into the early, frosty morning cold and onto Larne road. Hugh blew on his hands and wrapped his scarf more tightly around his neck as soon as he stepped out into the morning air.
“I didn’t see any ships in the harbor yesterday,” said Hugh, who eyed the turnkey with suspicion because Hugh thought he looked like a leprechaun.
“Ha! It came in during the night,” replied the turnkey.
“It’s the Dartmouth, fresh out of London with a cargo of Bohea tea already on board and bound for the colonies in America. She’s here to top off her cargo with a load of Irish whiskey,” continued the turnkey.
“Och, whiskey and tea! That sounds like a bad combination to me. Whiskey, I can load, if they’ll let me sample a wee bit of it,” said the grinning Hugh.
“Ha! There’ll be no time for sampling, lad. Captain Hall’s anxious to sail on the morning tide, just as soon as we can get him loaded,” said the jailer.
The turnkey marched them from the gaol down to the dock and into a warehouse where the whiskey was stored. One after another, the brothers lifted the fifty pound wooden cases filled with Irish whiskey on their shoulders. They carried the cases out of the warehouse, down the dock, and up the gangplank of the Dartmouth.
The ship’s first mate then led them down the ladder into the hold. They stacked and stowed the cases while the ship’s bosun worked on balancing the cargo. The Bohea tea chests were much larger; each one weighed about four hundred pounds. The bosun showed Robert and Hugh where and how he wanted the whiskey cases tied down beside the tea chests in the hold.
The bosun was called away to handle some last minute maintenance with the ship’s rigging, so he left the two men on their own to complete the job, after he had watched them stow the first few whiskey cases.
The turnkey sat down on a barrel at the bottom of the gangplank, talking with several of the sailors, while watching Robert and Hugh walk back and forth between the ship and the warehouse carrying the whiskey cases.
After a few round trips from the warehouse to the ship, Robert and Hugh stopped in the hold to rest and catch their breath.
“Hugh, let’s pry the lid off and scoop some of the tea out of a couple of these tea chests. We’ll put the tea we scoop out in a couple of these old sacks that I found in the back of the hold,” said Robert.
Hugh knew better than to ask any questions. He kept his mouth shut and followed Robert’s orders, since Robert obviously had hatched a plan. They pried the lids off two of the tea chests and set the empty sacks near them. Each time the brothers carried cases of whiskey down into the hold, one of them spent a few minutes scooping tea out of two of the tea chests into the sacks while the other one stowed the whiskey cases and tied them down. After two hours of hauling and stowing cases of Irish whiskey, the loading task was complete and two of the tea chests were about half empty. Lying off to one side of the tea chests were two sacks of tea that weighed about two hundred pounds each.
“Hugh, help me carry these sacks of tea up to the main deck and put them by the rail on the side away from the dock,” said Robert.
It was a heavy lift and it took them two trips to haul the two sacks up the ladder to the main deck. There were no sailors nearby on the deck at the time, so the two men completed the task without being seen. Standing next to the rail, Robert lifted one of the sacks to his shoulders and Hugh lifted up the other one. At almost the same time, Robert and Hugh threw the sacks of tea over the rail and into the water. The force of the sacks hitting the water made two loud splashes that sounded like two men had dived from the ship into the cold water.
As soon as the brothers had thrown the sacks of tea into the water, they ran toward the hold ladder as quickly as they could. Just before they descended the ladder, Robert yelled, “Man overboard!” They scrambled down the ladder and into the hold, where they climbed into the two half empty tea chests. They lay down on the remaining tea and pulled the chests’ lids over them. With their lids firmly in place, the tea chests they were hiding in looked just like any of the other tea chests that were stowed in the hold.
At the sound of the two splashes and the “Man overboard!” yell, sailors from all over the ship ran to the rail and looked into the water to see if they could spot the men they thought had jumped overboard. The sailors and the turnkey lounging at the bottom of the gangplank ran up it onto the ship and over to the seaward rail to try to look for the men in the water. But they could see nothing in the water except the circular waves surrounding the splashes. The waves bounced off the ship’s hull and were rapidly advancing out to sea.
“Who went overboard?” asked the jailer.
“I don’t know,” said Captain Hall, who had walked up to join the crowd of men at the ship’s rail.
“Ha! Has anyone checked to see if my two prisoners are in the hold?” asked the turnkey.
“I’ll have a look down there,” said the bosun as he turned to climb down the ladder into the hold.
“We’ll all take a look with you,” said Captain Hall as he followed the bosun toward the hold ladder.
The entire group descended the ladder and searched the hold. After the prisoners could not be found in the hold, the captain instructed the sailors to search the rest of the decks and all the cabins of the ship. There was no sign of Robert and Hugh anywhere on or off the ship, so the group reassembled on the main deck.
“They must have jumped over the rail and swum under water either away from the ship or under it. Since no one saw them swimming at sea, they must have gone under the ship. They are most likely hiding under the pier,” said Captain Hall.
“Ha! They’ll have to come up sometime or freeze to death in the water. I’ll collect them shortly,” said the jailer.
“Well, the whiskey is all accounted for and your prisoners are not on my ship. I’m not going to miss the morning ti
de,” said Captain Hall.
“Ha! Good luck to you Captain, and smooth sailing,” said the turnkey as he walked down the gangplank with a smile on his face. He began searching under the pier for Robert and Hugh.
“Cast off the hawsers and prepare to edge away,” commanded Captain Hall as the sailors began the process of readying the ship to leave the dock. After a few minutes, the gangplank was pulled in, and the Dartmouth began to slip its mooring and slowly move away from the dock as the outgoing tide pulled it toward the ocean.
* * * *
Samuel
Samuel Ruskin was out of options and feeling quite low about his life in America. His two best friends were dead, and he had spent most of his money and lost his investment in the rifles he had purchased in England. He had worn out his welcome with the few other friends he had in Philadelphia. He had stayed drunk for several weeks and after a few months of wandering aimlessly around the city, he decided that it was time for him to sober up do something for himself. The problem was he didn’t have a clue what to do.
As he sat in his favorite tavern drinking ale, he felt as if the world was coming down around him. He had no prospects and was thinking about returning to England when two British soldiers walked into the tavern wearing their uniforms. He knew that they were off-duty infantrymen since they weren’t carrying their rifles.
“You two redcoats drink up quick and then get the hell out of here fast,” said the barman to the two infantrymen.
“Hold on there barkeeper; these two lads are friends of mine. Come on over here and sit a spell,” said Samuel as he ordered a couple of pints of ale for the two soldiers.
Samuel had acted on a spur of the moment impulse. He didn’t exactly know why, but he smelled a profit and wanted to explore it before it passed him by. He didn’t personally know the two soldiers but he was interested in learning why they were not welcome in the tavern.
“Why’s the barkeeper so anxious for you two lads to get out of here?” asked Samuel, turning to the soldier who held the rank of sergeant.
“Well, the British Army is not too popular among the colonists right now. General Gage has been moving British troops from their frontier stations back to the big cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. There are so many of us now in the cities that there are not enough barracks to hold all of us. We have been forcibly quartered in private residences, much to the dislike of the residence owners. Food and other supplies have become scarce. The colonists still hate us for the Boston Massacre that happened a few years ago. They’ve started calling us redcoats and lobster backs,” said the sergeant.
“How do you get food and other supplies?” asked Samuel.
“There’s supposed to be an agent or a factor for the British Army quartermaster that buys food and supplies from the local colonists and sells them to the British Army to keep us supplied. But right now, we don’t have one.”
“How is this agent hired?”
“I don’t rightly know. I suspect that it would be handled out of General Gage’s headquarters in New York.”
Samuel thought about the possibilities that this situation presented and concluded that he might be able to make a profit from it if he handled it correctly. It would require a balancing act on his part. He would have to develop friendly relations with the colonists who had goods to sell. And he would have to hide from them the fact that he was buying the materials and food for the British Army.
He figured he might just think of a way to do that.
“Drink up lads, I’ll buy you another round,” said the smiling Samuel, who had just come up with another plan to make his fortune in America.
* * * *
Robert and Hugh
“You two can come out now,” said Captain Hall as he stood in the hold with his hands on his hips facing the tea chests.
The captain obviously knew that Robert and Hugh were hiding in the hold, so after a moment’s hesitation, Robert was the first one to push the lid off the tea chest he was lying in and step out of it.
“You can come out now, Hugh,” said Robert, and Hugh quickly followed suit.
“Well, well, what do we have here? It looks like I’ve caught a couple of stowaways,” said Captain Hall to the two men standing beside the tea chests that they had been lying in.
“Weel now Captain, we was just taking a wee nap when ye suddenly lit out with us on board. We had nae time to get off the boat before she sailed,” said Hugh with a grin.
“Sounds like yer spinning me a yarn, lad. Right now we are about fifty miles out to sea on our way to Boston. We don’t plan on going back to Larne, so you two are safe from the authorities in Ireland. I don’t know why you were in the Larne jail, but I was short two sailors on this trip. You two have provided me with an easy way to fill out my crew out to full strength. Do either of you have any sailing experience?” asked Captain Hall.
“How much does it pay?” asked Hugh with another grin.
“You two lads are not going to have to worry about pay for a long time,” said the captain with a smile.
“Why is that?” asked Hugh.
“Well, it looks like you two lads just threw half the contents of two of my one hundred fourteen chests of Bohea tea overboard back at the docks in Larne. When a tea chest is full, each one holds four hundred pounds weight of tea. In the colonies, Bohea tea sells for two shillings per pound. You two threw eight hundred shillings or forty pounds cash money worth of tea into the ocean. How are you two going to repay forty pounds cash to the Boston consignee of the East India Company for the tea you threw overboard?”
Robert didn’t say anything and for once Hugh didn’t either.
“Sailor’s pay on the Dartmouth is one penny a day. On that pay, you should be able to save about one pound per year, if you are frugal. It’ll take you two about twenty years of sailing each to work off your debt,” said Captain Hall with a smile.
Hugh looked at Robert and shrugged. Robert said nothing.
* * * *
Samuel
Samuel Ruskin booked passage on a small trader’s vessel that was leaving Philadelphia harbor on its route to New York. When he arrived in New York harbor, he disembarked and contacted some of his acquaintances from England. He was trying to gain an introduction to the quartermaster that worked for General Gage, the British Army commander. It didn’t take long for him to make the proper connections, and soon he had an appointment with the quartermaster himself, Colonel Barton. Samuel arrived at the quartermaster’s office at the appointed time and was ushered into the office to speak with the quartermaster.
“My name is Samuel Ruskin, Colonel Barton,” said Samuel shaking hands with the colonel.
“Please have a seat Mr. Ruskin,” said Colonel Barton. “How may I be of service to you?”
“I think that I may be of service to you, Colonel,” replied Samuel. “I understand that you are having difficulty supplying your troops in Philadelphia.”
“That’s true. It is almost impossible to hire an agent in Philadelphia or any of the other major cities here in the colonies for that matter. It’s also impossible keep one in the job very long. Our factors soon become disgruntled as their relationship with the colonists deteriorates to the point where they can’t effectively do their job. The colonists seem to resent the presence of the British Army even though we are here only to protect them. General Gage has returned to England for a short while, and I have to make decisions for the good of the army without higher approvals while he is gone.”
“I understand your difficulty, and yet the job must still be done if the British Army is going to be fed and survive in the colonies,” said Samuel.
“Do you have a suggestion that would help solve the problem in Philadelphia?” asked the quartermaster.
“Yes I do. I propose that you hire me as your agent in Philadelphia, but do not tell anyone in your command that I am in your employ. I will represent myself in Philadelphia as a merchant who buys food and other goods for exp
ort and trade. I will lease warehouse space at the docks to store the food and goods that I purchase. But rather than shipping them for export or trade, I will move the goods and food under cover of darkness or by other means to the British Army depot in Philadelphia. The colonists will be none the wiser. They will be supplying goods and food to the British Army and not be aware of it.”
“I don’t know if your plan will work or not, but at this point, I am more than willing to try anything.”
“To further the ruse, I intent to enlist in the Pennsylvania volunteer militia so that I can establish more friendly relations with the colonists and make the contacts I will need to buy the goods that your army requires,” continued Samuel.
“Your plan might work.”
“It will depend on our maintaining the secrecy of our arrangement. In addition, I might be able to pass along some information from time to time that may be of interest to the British Army regarding the civilian and military situations in the Philadelphia militia and elsewhere.”
The quartermaster leaned forward in his chair and folded his hands in front of him, with his elbows resting on his desk, to consider Samuel’s proposal. After a few moments of thought, he made his decision.
“I am willing to give your plan a trial run to see if it will work. After six months I should know if our relationship will work or if I want to modify it or scrap it entirely.”
“That sounds fair to me. I will need a cash advance in order to procure warehouse space and set myself up in Philadelphia as a merchant.”
“That can be arranged,” said the quartermaster.
The two men then leaned over the quartermaster’s desk together to work out the details of their arrangement.
* * * *
Robert and Hugh
The Dartmouth was a trim eighty foot brig built in New Bedford Village, Massachusetts in 1767. She was originally designed to be a whaling vessel. Her maiden voyage consisted of carrying a cargo of whale oil to London. Nantucket was her home port, but she had been chartered by the Boston consignee of the East India Company. Her charter was to haul a cargo of tea owned by Davison, Newman and Co. of London, and some other goods, from Great Britain to Boston with a stop in Larne to pick up a load of Irish whiskey.
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