by Becky Akers
He sprinkled sand across Enoch’s letter and pulled a third sheet to him. This would be the most difficult, for in it he must confess his failure. He tickled his nose with the quill and cast about for words. “To Col. Knowlton, Continental Army, At or Near Haarlem Heights,” he headed it. “Sir: Words cannot express my anguish at having failed in my mission. If I could have reached you and Gen. Washington to deliver the information I obtained these last days, I should willingly yield my life. Our Cause is Liberty’s, noble and righteous, and I pray Heaven—”
“Well, Mr. Hale, sir, if you please.” Cunningham’s mockery assailed them from before the tent.
He signed his name and got to his feet. “Captain, can I trouble you to see that these are delivered?”
Montresor held out his hand, but Cunningham, barreling into the tent, saw the letters and grabbed them. “And what do we got here, you damned rebel?”
Nathan started forward but subsided at a word from Montresor. Cunningham unfolded the top page and grimaced, his lips moving as he labored to decipher it.
Montresor cleared his throat. “Marshal, these letters are personal—”
“What’s this mean? ‘Reti-recki-reticude’?” Cunningham’s dirty finger stabbed at the paper as he thrust it before Montresor.
The captain rolled his eyes and begged Nathan’s pardon before looking over the lines. “‘Rectitude,’ Marshal. Means righteousness, moral virtue, that sort of thing.”
Montresor scrupulously glanced away as Cunningham continued to puzzle out the meaning. His face purpled, whether from the effort or rage Nathan couldn’t tell.
Finished, he lifted his porcine eyes to his prisoner. “God damn you.” Dropping the other two pages to the floor, he ripped Alice’s letter once across, and again. “You think this is gonna get through the lines so the damn rebels’ll know how fancy-fine and brave you was,” his fat fingers struggled to tear the scraps, so concentrated had the pile grown, “you’re a bigger fool than I thought. Now get outside. Colonel,” he hollered through the tent’s flap, “get one of your boys to truss this traitor.”
The stench of smoke stung the air as a steady breeze blew north from the city. Besides the men of the artillery companies, a handful of people stood about, though the spectacle of a hanging usually drew crowds. Most folks were either in church this Sunday or defending their homes against stray sparks and looters. Any Loyalists not so occupied had collected on the riverbank, waiting for the ships to fire in honor of King George’s coronation day. Only a few civilians and Guy Daggett, hat low over his face, stood among the Redcoats.
The rebels had long ago melted the church bells for ammunition, so none tolled eleven. Still, precisely on the hour by Guy’s watch, the guards marched their prisoner, arms bound behind but head high, to the tree where a noose dangled. Cunningham bumbled along with the escort, scowling and steadily muttering, and Guy supposed he was cursing Nathan Hale and all Yankees. Hale had turned his face from the marshal, ignoring him and his abuse.
The column halted beneath the maple, perhaps twenty feet from Guy. The guards did not even present arms but leaned on their muskets lackadaisically, sure that the pinioned spy with his wind-blown, honey hair posed no threat. Cunningham strutted forward, belly straining his soiled waistcoat, and barked an order. A dark-skinned man, wearing rope coiled about his neck, moved the ladder from the tree’s trunk to its limb. Cunningham shoved Hale forward, so that he would have sprawled but for his consummate grace. Indomitably, proudly, Hale marched to the ladder and scaled it without faltering though his hands were tied behind him.
“Richmond, get the noose around him,” Cunningham said.
His servant scrambled up the ladder and tugged the rope over Hale’s head, leaving a scratch down his nose. The knot came below his right ear and just above the birthmark on his neck, emphasizing it. Guy could see that one eye was bruised. Clearly, Hale’s last night under Provost Marshal Cunningham had not been a pleasant one.
The drummer began a muffled roll.
Guy watched as Hale bore this serenely, true to form. He did not seem like a man about to die and betrayed none of the terror that would have marked most in this position, that would have left them begging for mercy. Instead, resolution shone on his face. The mysterious quality that had lifted him above other men all his life was at work now. Yet knowing his worst enemy would witness his ignominy was sure to vanquish that heroism. Guy, skulking behind a couple of soldiers, stepped into the open.
Hale’s glance rolled over him and continued to the horizon. Then his eyes snapped back and widened, as though hunting someone. Ah, yes, thought Guy, not understanding that he searched for Alice, now his mask will crack, now the fear will come.
Incredibly, though, a smile flicked his lips, and Hale nodded to him. At least, Guy thought it was a nod. The noose constricted him too much to be sure. Guy was so chagrined at this nobility that he shouted “No! No!” without realizing it.
Two soldiers looked at him, and one shook his head. “’Tis affecting, isn’t it? Never seen a man meet his death so brave. And he’s young, hardly older than my son at home in Bristol.”
Cunningham whipped an order from his pocket. “All right, rebel, get ready to die. ‘September 22 in the year of our Lord 1776. By order of His Gracious Majesty, King George III, Nathan Hale is condemned to hang by the neck until dead for high treason against king and country. God save the King.’” He read badly, stumbling over the words and trying three times to get “condemned” right. Finished, he stuffed the paper into his pocket and pulled out a flask.
Several officers came to attention and saluted, the two or three women among them sobbing. Cunningham glared. “Shut your damn mouths, the lot of you. You’ll be joining him down there in hell soon enough. Well, Yankee Doodle, let’s have your last words, but be quick about it.”
They clustered close to hear. Many had gone as children to hangings at Tyburn and knew how softly the voice stammers as death approaches. No one wanted to miss a syllable, for the most entertaining things came out of a man’s mouth when he was about to face his Maker.
Cunningham uncorked his flask and lifted it to his lips. The drummer gave a brief, final roll. A flock of wild geese rose from the river behind them, honking, darkening the sky. Hale’s eyes swept the horizon to rest on the river, water, eyes, and sky all the same infinite blue.
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
The sentence fell, unhurried, calm, into the morning. Guy’s jaw dropped. Though the sun shone in a clear sky, he could swear it had only now burst forth from black clouds to sanctify the tree, the ladder, the boy balanced on it.
Damn him, he’d be immortal if that got out. Though, glancing about, Guy doubted it would. No editor from the New-York Journal stood among the witnesses; no one was even making notes. Still, with such a comment, he would die as few men did, purposefully, fearlessly, his integrity inviolate to the end. Guy’s heart clutched painfully as the irony taunted him. By engineering Hale’s shameful death, Guy had bought him undying honor.
Such glory was too subtle for Cunningham, and the marshal choked, rum splashing down his chin. “That it? That all you got to say for yourself, you damned rebel?”
An officer near Guy growled and stepped toward Cunningham. Hale made no answer except to close his eyes. His lips moved in prayer.
Still perched on the ladder behind him, Richmond reached forward and pulled the white cap over his face. He scrambled backwards down the rungs, then jerked the ladder away.
A breathless silence held the crowd.
Long after the struggle ended, long after the bystanders scattered and the ships were firing salutes, Guy stood considering the corpse. He had thought to feel triumphant, but a strange anxiety gnawed him, a certainty that Hale was not dead. He had been so vital, so vigorous: it was impossible that mere rope had put an end to him. Surely he would wriggle his hands and effortlessly, magically, as he had done everything, untie his own bonds. Surely he wou
ld lift the linen from his face, slip the noose, and spring to the ground, buoyant and alive, the half-smile Guy so envied on his lips, a witticism about hanging ready to ease the moment.
But the body hung motionless in September’s heat, and Guy shivered.
How was it that a man could speak so courageously with a noose around his neck? And what did that say about the rest of them? They were lesser people, for they could not do what he did. Guy never could, not with Billy Cunningham leering and Yorkers trying to save their homes, unconcerned that he was dying for their liberty, whatever that was. He would be crying and begging and shaking as if palsied, thinking of the pretty girls he would never make love to, the good food he would never eat, the laughter in Alice’s eyes....
Alice. She at least was left him, lying in the rooms north of the city where he and Captain Hurley had lodged her. With a mocking nod at Nathan Hale, swinging on his rope, Guy headed for the East Post Road.
EPILOGUE
She was a mousy girl, below Guy’s usual standards. But a storm was blowing in from Hudson’s River, and he was anxious to get out of the rain. For a while, until he stumbled across her shivering in a doorway, he was tempted to abandon his search. But he had to have a woman: he could not face this night alone. It was one year ago today that Nathan Hale hanged.
She named a price, too high, but he agreed, and they went to his room. Afterwards, while lightning rent the sky, they fell to talking—always a mistake, as he had learned from his encounters with New York’s whores. She was from Connecticut, too, she told him, after he remarked on his uncle there. He shrugged, for many of the doxies he hired told him that, thinking to wheedle a little extra from him.
“I am,” she said. “I was born in New London. My father was a chandler, until he took sick and died. But we had a fine life there. I was raised better than this,” she whispered, for fear of offending. When he said nothing, she continued. “Even went to school for a while. We had a schoolmaster once, most wonderful man I ever knew.”
The storm cried down the chimney as his hackles rose.
“He was so handsome and nice.” She sighed as yearningly as Eurydice for Orpheus. “He talked as sweet to the plain girls as he done to the pretty ones. He was so—so—oh, I don’t know—inspiring.”
“Was he, now? Then how come you’re picking up men in doorways?”
She sulked and would not answer, until he begged her pardon and kissed and teased her. Then it was the usual tale of a widow too heartbroken to care when her daughter stepped behind the woodpile with the boys. “Ma died within a year of my father anyway. But I’ll never forget Master Hale. I cried for hours when I heard he’s dead. One time he told us a story about this bird, had some kinda fancy name. It come back to life when it died, and I kinda thought...well, that’s silly, I guess. I used to hope maybe someday, you know, him being in the army and all, we’d—”
“Don’t be a fool. The honorable Captain Hale would never buy your services.”
He paid her and pushed her from his room, though the rain was pounding in torrents and she offered to spend the night for free. He leaned against the door, breathing hard. It was odd, for though he had handed Hale over to the government, and was glad to do so, Guy would never forget him, either. He had wanted Hale dead. The fool stole Alice and spoiled things at every turn. But he haunted Guy still, usurped his thoughts by day and invaded his dreams at night, until Guy feared he would never be free of him. And yet a light vanished from the world the day Hale died that had never come back....
Guy poured a glass of whiskey. He had become unbearably sentimental where that damned spy was concerned. He raised the liquor with a shaking hand and bolted it, the best available but horribly raw because of the war. He sloshed another few fingers’ worth into the glass from the cracked decanter.
The rebellion still limped along, though by all logic the Continentals should have disbanded months ago. Like Hale, their Cause refused to die, and though victory rarely salved their defeats, they were intact, albeit ragged and starving. But the most recent battle a few days ago in the wilderness up north, at a place called Saratoga, might have finally finished them. First reports had the rebels beat beyond the ability of even an American newswriter to explain away....
Guy pushed himself to his feet and stumbled to the only window in his lodgings, overlooking an alley. Quarters were scarce in New York, with occupying Redcoats jammed in every cranny. Few of the buildings that burned last year had been rebuilt, for the owners knew the troops would appropriate them. He should be grateful he still had this room on Queen Street, however cramped and stifling. He leaned his head against the pane. Army, he thought soddenly. Howe’s Gen’ral of Army, oughter write him again.
He had sent fourteen letters to Howe since last September, reminding him delicately at first but then with increasing urgency of his role in capturing Nathan Hale. He asked little: a mention of his help to the king; perhaps an estate on Long Island, confiscated from some rebel, as his reward. Howe’s staff answered politely at first, then brusquely. Now they ignored him.
He had even wasted two days at headquarters last fall, begging an audience with the general, before Howe roused himself to chase Washington’s riffraff from York Island. He made it no further than an aide named Edward, who stared down his nose as Guy explained his business. “So you’re the one’s been writing. Well, I’ll mention it to Sir William that you were here.”
“And that ’twas my good work got you Nathan Hale.”
“Yes, well...” The aide’s nose had gone an inch higher, his voice a few tones lower. “You know, I despise the rebels, hate them as much as the next man. But there was something about that one—” He glanced at Guy, remembered himself, and flushed. Still, Guy’s outrage had not kept him from adding, so softly Guy might have imagined it, “Angel unawares.”
Neither visit nor letters had helped. Came a report in the newspaper six months ago that the Hale family’s only Tory, a cousin from New Hampshire, had recognized the traitor and handed him over to Howe. Guy knew that for what it was: Howe’s attempt to cheat him. It was true that Samuel Hale was in New York then—in fact, he was serving on Howe’s staff and might even have been at headquarters that night—but Guy saw how easy it was to toss a few pounds at the newspaper’s editor and Sam Hale rather than pay him his due. He stared sourly into the alley.
Oughter write again. Squeaky wheel and all that. Need estate for Alice....
But whatever wealth Guy acquired, Alice Ripley would never be his. He quailed when he remembered their last meeting, and specters of it scourged him when visions of her stepbrother didn’t.
Guy had gone from the hanging to the rooms where he left her. He entered softly, hoping to avoid talk of Nathan, determined to have her at last, one way or another. She lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, hair spilling in blackest despair across the pillow. He seated himself beside her, smoothed the tendrils from her forehead. “Ally,” he said and found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol, held unwaveringly in her small hand.
“Liar. Murderer.” Her voice was as clear and strong as Nathan’s, and she enunciated every word. “May God damn you to hell forever.”
He misunderstood, thinking she had found out about Elijah Ripley. Then his guilt gave way to shock at her profanity, at the naked hatred in her voice. Her eyes mesmerized him. They were those of an inhuman being, one who has glimpsed unfathomable evil.
He jumped off the bed, sure as her brother’s honor that she would shoot him. She followed him with the gun and pierced him with those eyes until he moaned, breaking her trance.
She turned the pistol on herself then, murmured “Nathan,” and squeezed the trigger. But the mechanism did not engage. Most likely, she had not tamped the powder firmly enough.
She examined the weapon as if she had never seen it before, and he stepped toward her. He fairly leaped from his skin at the sound that ripped from her. It was less than a scream, more than a groan, and in it was all anguish. She heaved the
pistol at him. It caught him on the temple, knocking him senseless.
When he came to, she was gone.
He understood from Enoch Hale, come to collect his brother’s effects the next month, that if he spoke to Alice again, if he set foot in Coventry, Enoch or one of the other Hale boys would kill him. Strong words from a man of the cloth, let alone a Hale. Nathan’s eyes had burned in Enoch’s face, invincible, immortal. It was then Guy’s nightmares had begun.
He swallowed half his glass and staggered to his bed, falling across it, whiskey staining the pillows.
“’Tis our duty, not just our right, to throw off tyranny.”
Guy started as the cry rang through his room. How he hated that voice! Strong, firm, indomitable: it never betrayed fear or uncertainty. He sat up and squinted into a night grown too quiet now that the rain and thunder had done. Who let Hale in here? Where was he?
There was laughter, now, the joyous music that had always made everybody else laugh, too, that had turned old folks young and let ugly girls forget their curse, as it recalled them to the rapture of being. And then the voice, full of wonderment, said, “’Twas naught to fear, really, and with such happiness after....”
No, wait, that couldn’t be Hale. He was dead, wasn’t he? Guy lunged to his feet and yanked open his door so that the light from the hall penetrated his room. Only then was he convinced that the voice and the laughter were in his head, that Nathan Hale still lay three or four miles to the north, in his unmarked grave, failed and forgotten.
Author’s Note
Legends so surround the dashing Captain Nathan Hale that it’s often difficult to distinguish them from fact.