Halestorm

by Becky Akers

  Guy haggled with Parker until dark, when the major extended the hospitality of his sloop. “Better stay here instead of going ashore or on board the Asia. Either place, ’tis too damned hot and crowded, and the mosquitoes eat a man alive on shore. I tried to tell the crew that, but they’re damned stubborn, and they been at sea too long to spend a night without a woman. Only the ones on duty stayed aboard, and the rest went hunting a honey. Poor fellas, I bet they’ll fry.”

  “Either tonight or in the afterlife,” Guy said dryly.

  Parker slapped his knee again. “Might as well sleep here tonight, and sign the papers in the morning. I’ll requisition your advance then, too.”

  Guy agreed, glad to escape the expense of an ordinary. Parker opened another bottle of wine, from which Guy permitted himself two sips before they strung hammocks between the mast and the captain’s cabin. The wine and the waves’ gentle rocking sent them into a dreamless sleep.

  Nathan crouched with his detachment on the strip of land near the Asia. Conditions were perfect, with clouds obscuring the sliver of moon so that the enemy had not spotted them sneaking across the river, though there was light enough for navigation. The water lay peaceful and inky. Only a snore disturbed the quiet, and Nathan nudged Corporal Spink, who subsided. They would wait another hour before boarding the sloop. Meanwhile, they seemed safe from detection. Though guards patrolled the Asia, crying “All’s well” and exchanging sign and countersign, the Redcoats had posted no pickets ashore. They relied on the Asia’s guns to check pesky rebels.

  Finally, he whispered over his shoulder, “Let’s go.” Easing upright in the copse, they pulled their canoes from the reeds.

  They paddled toward the sloop without discovery save by a mallard that rose with a startled quack into the sky. Nathan froze, fearful lest the noise alarm the flock that had settled upriver earlier. But the ducks slept, and the canoes pushed forward.

  They sliced through the water until the anchor line passed overhead. Nathan grabbed the rope and shinnied to the deck. The next man started after him.

  He stepped lightly to the hatchway and lowered its door without a squeak. There was no bolt to secure it, merely an iron ring sunk in the wood. He glanced around for a barrel or a pole. Only some rope lay near. He wove it through the ring and tied it to the mast. Satisfied the door would hold, he straightened.

  For the first time, he saw the hammocks swinging with the ship’s motion as a shout came from below.

  One shadowy figure flailed in his hammock before falling to the deck with a thud. “Who’s there?” A raider threw himself across the deck and pitched the man overboard.

  The other sleeper rushed Nathan and dealt a blow to his neck that set him reeling. The two toppled to the deck, first one and then the other gaining the upper hand, and Nathan thought, I know him. The man’s familiarity teased at him, but he put the puzzle from him as his world shrank to punches and groans.

  He finally straddled his opponent, immobilizing him. Someone handed Nathan a rope, and he realized the detachment was aboard. “No sails, gentlemen. There’s no time. Find the long oars and push us off.”

  He secured his prisoner as they fanned out and felt for the oars. The uproar from below continued. At first, it had been one muffled cry and presented no threat. But then a second and third voice joined the first.

  “Captain, they’re bound to hear that,” Hempstead said as he rushed past with an oar.

  From above rang the challenge they dreaded. “What the bloody hell’s going on down there? Identify yourself! Give the countersign!”

  “Great Britain,” Nathan shouted, having heard “London” and “Great Britain” tossed back and forth all night. His men dipped their oars as a row of ghostly faces leaned over the Asia’s side.

  “Blimey, they’re stealing the sloop.”

  “To arms! To arms!”

  “Damn rebels, man can’t even get a couple of hours’ sleep with them around.”

  The sloop listed. Nathan leaped to the tiller. He righted the boat as the others, five to a side, pulled on their oars.

  They found the current and shot forward, the horizon behind them glimmering with dawn’s rosiness. An officer shouted orders to the gunners aboard the Asia while muskets popped and the water dimpled around them. They were passing out of range for small arms, though cannon could still rake them.

  A ball thudded into the river off their stern. “Look out!” one of the Marbleheaders cried.

  A second cannon roared.

  Nathan glanced over his shoulder, gasped, clutched the tiller convulsively. A ball hung overhead, bigger and blacker than he had ever supposed they could be. He stared for an eternity. Then the sloop hurtled forward, the ball splashed into the water, and his heart not only resumed beating but made up for lost time by pounding until his knees were weak.

  “Whew!” Hempstead laughed exultantly. “Thought they got us for sure that time! Guess we’re kinda like that bird you mentioned t’other day, Captain, that one that flies up out of its own ashes when it dies. What’s it called again?”

  “Phoenix.” Nathan watched the shot rain around them. But the Asia now lay at too oblique an angle to damage them.

  The rising sun lit their way into the wharves along New York’s eastern side. Troops lined the quay and cheered as the sloop, with a Continental captain at its helm, bumped the dock. They scarcely waited for the vessel to be made fast before they swarmed aboard, ripping into the barrels, feasting on biscuits and molasses, hams and salt cod. Officers arrived to restore order and issue commands for delivering the supplies to the commissary. General Putnam appeared, glowing with pride that a Connecticut man had pulled this off. Beside him strode General Washington, morning’s light turning his hair golden. Soldiers parted before them until they stood in front of Nathan.

  His Excellency said, “Well done, Captain Hale. I see we’ll feast the next few weeks, thanks to you.”

  “Sir, it’s really due to Glover’s men. But for their rowing, we’d have made an easy target.”

  Putnam clapped Nathan on the shoulder. “You’re a pretty one for nerve, son. Puts me in mind of myself at your age. Was you scared?”

  “Naught to fear, sir, with such happiness after.” He laughed as he gestured toward the troops. They were trundling barrels off the sloop, joking, capering, mouths full of bread and meat, hands clutching more.

  Washington was as close to grinning as anyone had seen him. “Please, Captain, join us for breakfast.”

  “With pleasure, sir. But there’s some prisoners below deck and one here, General, that I—” He turned to indicate the man tied to the mast and started as the morning’s light showed him Guy Daggett, one eye swollen shut and nose bloodied.

  “What is it, Captain?”

  “I—I know this man, sir.”

  Washington stepped toward the mast. Nathan reluctantly followed.

  Guy glared with his good eye. There came Hale, the fair-haired favorite, with Washington smiling after him for all his vaunted reserve, as if Nathan were the son he never had, brave and resourceful. It was up to Guy to show Hale in his true light, and he let his contempt tremble in his voice. “Well, Captain, apparently your honor doesn’t keep you from attacking honest men while they sleep.”

  Hale had the grace to flush as Guy addressed Washington. “Sir, I demand my freedom. I’m a civilian. I haven’t fought against any of your army, except I defended myself when I thought I was being robbed.”

  “You speak with the accent of London,” Washington said, his own drawl so pronounced Guy strained to decipher it.

  “Yes, sir, I was raised in London, but I came home to Connecticut three years ago.”

  Washington turned to Hale, as if he were Guy’s keeper. “This true?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The gray eyes swung back to Guy, who felt his bravado shrinking. “What were you doing aboard the enemy’s sloop?”

  “I was, ah, engaged, um, seeing an old, ah, friend. We—we had some busi—
ah, some personal business. Really, General, I don’t see why my affairs should concern you.”

  Again, Washington turned to Hale. “Captain, will you vouch for this man?”

  Guy relaxed, sure of his release. He had noticed a weakness in men of honor: they scrupled to use their power. Hale, the most honorable man of all, shared this flaw in spades. He could ruin Guy now, but he would not because he was too magnanimous. Something within him scorned to finish a beaten enemy, though the enemy return to vanquish him. Guy waited complacently for his next words.

  But Hale hesitated before looking up to meet Washington’s gaze. He had no need to speak.

  The general motioned to an aide standing behind him. “See that this man’s detained until we look into his dealings with the enemy.”

  Guy crumpled. “Sir, this man bears a grudge against me. He’ll say anything to see me wronged.”

  “Take care, sir.” Washington brandished his dignity as if it were a bayonet. “Captain Hale can’t vouch for you, but I will for him. He’s an honorable man, wouldn’t accuse anyone falsely. You discredit your own character, and not his, with such claims.”

  Guy hushed, though his eyes continued to shoot venom at Nathan’s back as he and Washington disembarked from the sloop.

  CHAPTER 12

  Guy spent the last week of May and most of June in the storeroom of a Loyalist’s wig-shop now doing duty as a Continental guard-house. As prisons go, his was tolerable, despite the odor of dead fish and garbage from the East River a street or two away. They locked and barred his door, naturally, but seldom wasted a sentinel on him. The room was adequately if not comfortably furnished, with a rope bedstead and cracked chamber-pot. He ate as well—or as badly—as the troops, and because he sat or paced his quarters (three strides from side to side and four up and down), he had less appetite than men who had labored on fortifications all day. The soldiers who brought his meals tended to be gentle boys, fresh from the farm. They took everything at face-value and agreed with Guy that he should be freed. He requested and received books and pen and ink, so time did not weigh on him.

  But his business was ruined. He had hoped to become rich by selling gunpowder to the government, and now he was back where he started, with his first shipment undelivered after the quartermaster’s insistence on dependability. His suppliers on Long Island would likely evaporate, too, because he had not paid for the last delivery of charcoal before his imprisonment.

  And all because of Nathan Hale. Guy gnashed his teeth until his jaw spasmed. Hale, who had spoiled everything all along, had gone too far this time. As the days passed with no word of his release, Guy vowed to repay every humiliation.

  Finally, he was freed—paroled, they called it, though he reminded them he had not borne arms against them—for no discernible reason. No officer announced that they had cleared him of whatever charges they’d invented; no one apologized. The dolt who had brought his breakfast that morning unbolted the door, swung it wide, and bade him Godspeed.

  Once outside, he understood. Warships thronged New York’s harbor, masts rising like a defoliated forest and sails billowing numerous as the clouds above. His Majesty’s army had arrived! Guy hid his joy, mindful of the Continentals crowding the street. These rebels, cocky after driving the troops from Boston, would receive their comeuppance. Howe had licked his wounds in Halifax for three long months, but now he was ready for battle. Guy feasted his eyes on the thousands of armed Redcoats lining the decks, the cannon bristling from every porthole. All those guns required powder, and he whistled as he headed toward the bay. He must hunt the quartermaster and renew negotiations, though he postpone his revenge on Hale.

  Over the next days, the fleet doubled and then quintupled with new arrivals. Nearly 250 ships jostled for berths at Staten Island’s wharves. The militia and Continentals across the bay on York Island worked furiously as ants on their fortifications, knowing His Majesty’s forces outnumbered them two to one. And while most of them had slaughtered cattle, sheep, and pigs at home on the farm, few had marched against Regulars, much less killed a man or seen what cannonballs and bayonets did to human flesh.

  One hot afternoon in July, as Nathan wrote receipts for his company’s pay, Billy Hull burst into his quarters. “Did you hear? The Congress declared independence!”

  Nathan stared with open mouth, then laid aside his quill.

  Hull grinned. “They’ve published a statement about it, several statements, actually, on how government ought to protect our liberty and when it doesn’t, ’tis our duty to throw it off. They say a committee in Congress wrote it, though no one knows for sure. ’Tis unsigned, to protect the authors.”

  “You get a copy of it?”

  “No, but an express from Philadelphia brought some that’re going to be read out at six this afternoon.”

  A few hours later, Nathan stood with his company and regiment in steamy heat to form a square around General Putnam. Riflemen from Pennsylvania strutted nearby, proud that their own Philadelphia had produced such a document, though few of them had seen the city and even fewer could read. Drums rolled, and the world seemed to hush to the last cicada as Putnam cleared his throat.

  “‘In Congress, July 4th, 1776. A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States in General Congress Assembled.’”

  Nathan had hardly recovered from hearing the colonies promoted to states before the phrases soared over him, misting his eyes with their beauty.

  When, in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the political Bands which have connected them with another...they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

  We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...

  ...for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

  When Putnam finished, awe held them. Nathan stared at the ground, fighting for composure. Sergeant Hempstead behind him lost that battle, and he heard a smothered sob. Someone started a cheer.

  They wound up at the Province Arms, celebrating with bowls of punch. The tavern was a favorite among Continental officers because its taproom, painted with scenes of the jungle, seemed an oasis from the war. Palm trees sprouted on each side of the hearth, while tigers and monkeys and brilliantly plumed birds chased each other around the walls. The Sons of Liberty had adopted the Province Arms as their headquarters, and though other ordinaries might yet display a woodcut of the king, this one’s mantel held only a plaque declaring, “My liquor’s good, my measure just, but, honest Sirs, I will not trust.”

  He and Hull sipped their punch silently until Hull said, “That committee sure can write. Guess they’ve made our rebellion a war. What’d you think of it, Secundus?”

  But he did not trust himself to speak.

  The Declaration brought hope to them, as Common Sense had six months before, and soldiers who had quailed at the thicket of masts in the bay grew confident. Their spirit hardly wavered, even when William Howe’s brother, Lord Richard, Admiral Howe, sailed through the Narrows three days later with 11,000 reinforcements on 150 ships.

  A fortnight later, following drills and work on the entrenchments, Nathan repaired once again with Billy Hull to the Province Arms. He could tell from Hull’s whistle as they found a table that he had some gossip to share. “Seems the Howe brothers think they’re ambassadors for peace even though they’re armed for war. Lord Richard hardly set foot on Staten Island before he’s dashing off a letter to His Excellency wanting to negotiate. But he doesn’t know how to addr
ess him. What do you call a man when your king won’t recognize his rank?”

  Nathan tried for gravity even as his eyes sparkled. “’Tis a dilemma. He can’t call him ‘General’ without admitting that we’re an army with a legitimate cause.”

  “Just so.” Billy lit his pipe and nodded. “Well, he scratches his head a while, and swats at these mosquitoes, which, you got to admit, Secundus, are a pestilence from hell, and tells his secretary to send it to George Washington, Esq. ‘Because,’ he says, ‘surely no one’s going to object to that.’”

  “I take it His Excellency objected.”

  “’Course he did. He can’t accept a letter that ignores his rank.”

  “’Tis canny of him,” Nathan folded his hands behind his head. “Long as the government says we’re Englishmen in rebellion, not a separate country and army, they’re within the limits of warfare to hang any of us they capture.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them—” Billy jumped to his feet, smiles wreathing his face. “Colonel Knowlton!”

  Nathan started to rise, twisting to see the officer who had come up behind him, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. “That’s all right, son. Don’t trouble yourself. Hull, how are you?” A man in his late thirties, with dark hair swept straight back and darker eyes, bowed to them. “Can I join you?”

  “By all means, sir.”

  Knowlton seated himself, and Hull made introductions. “Hale, the Colonel here’s one of the heroes of Bunker’s Hill, way he held the flank on the left against the Redcoats. He’s a Connecticut man, of course—”

  “Of course.” Nathan smiled.

  “From Ashford, aren’t you, Colonel?”

  Knowlton nodded. “And proud of it after seeing these rude Yorkers. I watched four of them this morning, healthy young men, standing around while a mother tried to pick her way through the mud with an armful of packages and two little girls. Not a one of them offered her any help.” He studied Nathan. “Your name’s Hale? Any relation to the Samuel and Joseph in my command?”