“Oh, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! Like the dew that cometh down upon the mountains of Zion: for there Jehovah commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.”
February 5th, 1776
Cries this morning in the darkness — a hideous heaving of bodies — something burst within a man — and he writhed in mortal throes — screams and shouts around him.
Within two minutes, he was without consciousness; and though some ministered to him, attempting to breathe life back within his encrusted lips, all assays were vain; and within three minutes, he had paid his debt to nature, and was gone.
Captain Mackay came below and inquired as to the source of the disruption; and finding it, demanded that the body be hurled off the ship in the dead of night, that we might obscure the sickly nature of our fleet from the enemy.
At this, there were great protests; but the Captain was firm; and some wrapped the body in a blanket and went above to drop it in the river.
Olakunde informs me that my people name smallpox Sonponna; and that this most fearsome god hath his own votaries; but that none call him by his name, rather naming him by indirection, as “Hot Ground,” “Cold Ground,” or “Sweetly, Softly”; hoping by refusing to call upon him that he might pass them by and spare them his attentions. Thus also do they place gifts of palm wine in gourds outside the houses and by the sides of the sick and the vulnerable, that he might be entertained and, sated, process onwards without prejudice to those who lie fearing his nailed caress.
My mother had a stoup of wine lain at her side in her last hours — I recall it now, though I did not understand it then. When she was dying, wracked with her irruptions, in the slave quarters of that house in Canaan, this libation sat by her, untouched. I knelt by it when I went to wait with her.
Thus did she lie, without speaking of this rite to me, even some four thousand miles from her home. At the last, she hoped that the gods of her childhood could be charmed as we all were, and delight in company with her, and then, as briskly as we all had, move on without touching her, without knowledge of her, and leave her unharmed.
February 6th, 1776
At four this morning, all at once, at a signal, the rebels — stationed in yards and by windmills, in tanneries and shops across the ruined town of Norfolk — in one moment — set fire to all of the buildings remaining in the district and fled.
There were alarums. We were awakened and scrambled to the ladders. We were not admitted to the upper decks. Across the river, the bugles cried up warning.
We clamored for news and were scolded; heard firing from shore; smelled smoke.
After fifteen minutes, those of us who do not suffer the sickness were admitted up on the quarterdeck with our muskets. We saw the flames; and what gnawed most at our vitals was the message delivered us by that captured rebel: that all of this desolation, this looting and despoiling — all shall be blamed upon Lord Dunmore and us his troops.
It shall not stand as a record of the rebels’ inhumanity; it shall not raise indignation in the breast of the righteous; none shall commend us for our efforts; but instead, it shall be noised abroad that these crimes were ours; and we shall be reviled for what our enemies have done.
Nothing is gained.
So we watched that final conflagration on this cold morn. Firing began from the shore, and we were once again ordered below.
I have not seen the sun today. I am not on watch, nor is there any duty which should take me above.
They tell me that the rebels stream out of their encampments by the ruins. They abandon the site forever and leave that useless bauble to their foe.
We are left, our fleet, the last vestige of royal power in this benighted Colony, guarding a town that is ash entire, under siege from none, delectable to none, strategic for none; and we sit at anchor, uncertain.
I can scarcely breathe for anger.
I am at the end of this book; there are no further leaves to write upon, but the stubs of that quire I tore out to instruct my friends in writing. Thus this record must pause until such time as I come into paper; at which future date I hope also that I shall have more matter to record.
So do I leave us upon this ship anchored by a smoldering, desolate town, where we have been drifting for more than a month, sickly with the smallpox, which only spreads its infamous depredations. I leave us with the country roused against us, and our liberator and commander reviled. And yet, we shall succeed because we must — we have no choice in the matter — to fight or to submit to the greatest indignities and outrages.
I have, strung about my neck (as it were), lockets with the faces of the dead: a rifleman crushed upon a staircase, a wound through his cheek; black men lying upon the grass; the startled look of a Loyalist I struck; and as, some nights, I view these miniatures aghast, I want some comfortable voice to tell me, “My son, my darling son, you have done what needs be done. This is no crime, but rather valor”; and I should believe that voice.
As I close this volume, I am overtaken with an ache that the most charming and accomplished of mothers shall never read my words, and shall never know of our deeds and the actions upon which Pro Bono and Dr. Trefusis and I are embarked.
In my extreme youth one night, she laid her hand upon my head and read me a Psalm on slavery, a lamentation for the yoke which the people of Babylon had laid upon the shoulders of the children of Israel, and I recall her fingers spread wide upon my bare scalp; and I recall that it was as if she directed my gaze — though she could not speak aloud of enslavement, she set my eyes upon a path; and now I have followed it; and it is a circumstance unspeakable that she shall never sit in the garden while Bono and I run to her and embrace her and babble our tales of heroism; that she shall not see me grow to manhood in this conflict, and shall not know that her son was one of the number of a thousand or howsoever we shall swell who won English freedoms for all.
O spirit; lay your hand upon my brow again.
Speak comfortably to thy son,
OCTAVIAN NOTHING
The Crepuscule, off Norfolk
February 6th, 1776
[A letter from John Wittol, Patriot, to his wife]
Gosport, Virginia
May 19
Dear Beetsie
I pray you is Well. The Lord has blessed me with health thus so far tho there is many in the camp taken strongly with a flux. The corn shuld be laid down in the Lower medow now, I reckon it is, Toms a good boy, you tell him That. Im greeved over the Chimny, it cant wait for mending. It will fall in. Mr Sawston down Mantapike owe us some good labour, you Send Tom down to Mantapike and he shoud say Im calling in the dett, & its time Sawston mend the chimny.
Here the drums of war is beeting. I told you Lord Dun. burnd the Town of Norfolk and the colim of smoke gone up for days. if that ain’t enow we hear he has hachd the most diabolical of Schemes wch is he give all his Negros the Smallpox, then he going to Reliss them on land and hopes to spredd the sickness through the Country in a great Plage. God will damn him for this Act. Surly it is meet and right he is surrunded by Negros in his little pirat fleet because there is no blacker devil than Lord Dunmor his self, there is no blacker soul no deed so dark. if more Negros knowed what this awful Scowndrel done then they wuld not run to him as they do, and so I bid you tell it out.
Rejoyce your heart now tho Beetsie, we got our cannons and we got our fireboats and Ld Dunmores Negros just sit there in there ships and there camp and we are ABOUT TO MAKE FINE WORK OF THEM. You will hear of a grate fight and you will know tis
yr loving hulsband,
J. Wittol
May 24th, 1776
I begin with a departure: This day our fleet set off for Chesapeake Bay.
For months, I have not writ, having no paper upon which to write and no matter to record; our days passing in the tedium of routine, the languor of inactivity, and the terrors of disease. We have encamped upon the shore; abandoned our encampments; and now we have set off, at last, from th
e ruins of Norfolk.
Thus I begin my record once more, in hopes of more felicitous issue.
Paper hath been more than scarce; it is an article impossible to come by. The paper I now write upon was purchased for me by the most generous of friends, Pomp, Slant, and Olakunde, in return for my lessons in reading and writing. It is a fine bundle of black-edged mourning-paper, purchased of a serving-man upon one of the pleasure ships. It belonged, I am told, to a gentleman whose wife died of the smallpox three weeks ago; he himself succumbed but four days past, joining his spouse before ever he could write of her death to kinsman or friend; and his servant dispensed with all of his property in a phrenzy before we sailed, this envelope of mourning-paper among the rest.
I trust the black border on the page will not prove prophetic.
In these last days, the rebel hath gathered in greater numbers on the shores, emboldened, threatening some insolent move; and so we turn our backs on the Elizabeth River and now Hampton Roads; we leave behind us the melancholy ruins of Norfolk, that scene of desolation: a black labyrinth of cellar-holes and chimney-stacks, rebel pickets smoking in the sockets of meeting-houses.
There has been a word abroad that the rebels have seized upon cannons and dragged them into position at the mouth of the Elizabeth River, which circumstance would have trapped us there had we not quit the place. For the last week, we have seen murderous detachments parading on the shores. Great numbers of militia met together in full sight of our encampments and fleet, that they might spy upon us and confer.
Thus, we seek a new harbor, and a new encampment.
The final departure, two days ago, was a scene of stupendous activity — fully a hundred ships in motion. Though we who are held below could catch but glimpses of the active fleet when called above, even these brief prospects of activity thrilled the blood: warships and their tenders coming about; the schooners of wealth and ton, their masters arrayed in greatcoats on their decks, their ladies in silk flying-gowns witnessing the rise and snap of canvas; the herring buss in which some have been confined in utmost wretchedness for a space of months — tradesmen and journeymen and their prentices — rejoicing at the vast progress of sail.
I delight in our motion, though it be flight. We have been for months constrained in scenes of prodigious sickness and desolation; we cannot but feel gratitude that we exchange these sad prospects for new views. The refreshment of alteration is welcome after the staleness of inactivity. Flight is change, and change is pleasurable when fortunes are low.
Our Company are confined below for the voyage, and we can gain no certain intelligence of our destination. Lord Dunmore and his advisors must have seized upon a new place suitable to our purposes — hovered (as I envision them) over a map, debating our Fate, descrying new stratagems; and I pray that their deliberations were touched by a happier notion than those which have guided us for these five months past, which seem to my imperfect understanding merely a galling trial of hesitation and thwarted opportunity.
The motion of the ship is mysterious. We know not what river, what bay, what shore awaits us, and we little care, so it is a place where we may rally and fight.
Neither we nor the ship’s crew have received any rations this day, there being some late dispute with the victualers. Hunger is general. Slant chanced upon the sailing master’s mate cradling Vishnoo in his arms and rocking him, singing, “I’ll eat you, my sweet, from calipash to calipee”; to which the other sailors replied with coarse laughter and cheers, as the tortoise’s bewizened head cocked from one side to the other to compensate for the swing.
Slant is greatly distressed by this terrible lullaby; and protested to Olakunde, Pomp, and me, “Maybe he live for one hundred years. They can’t go eat him. Another thing can’t die. Not one more thing.”
Said Pomp, “Vishnoo’s the one body on this ship don’t deserve to get in a soup.”
May 26th, 1776
This morning, allowed above for some minutes’ exercise, I saw the great fleet in motion, which is a sight to leaven all the spirits: our floating town spread leagues before us and leagues behind, a vast collection of pleasure barques and bilanders, ketches and hoys.
The fleet passes vast plantations laid upon the banks in unspeakable gentility. We see master and slave alike, confounded at the celerity and ineluctability of our approach, calling warnings — messengers sent on horseback, riding no faster than our progress, posting along ridges, bent close upon their steeds. Boys running from the dairy, the smokehouse, hollering.
“Where we going?” asked Pomp.
Slant pointed at the sun, at the shadows. “North,” he said.
Pro Bono came to our side, having inquired of a sailor, and told us, “Up the Chesapeake. Past Mobjack Bay.”
I know not why, but at this intelligence, we all smiled; I suppose, because there is so much of motion in it.
Thus, this morning’s view.
Just an hour ago, the Crepuscule was fired upon from the woods; a bell was sounded, and we were rallied to stand to our arms upon the deck. Below, we could not even hear the crack of the enemy’s rifles.
We went above; we formed; we fired a single volley with our muskets. Our ball could not reach the minute figures who annoyed us; nor could their rifles reach us; and so both their aggression and our defiance were but shows of force.
Empty show it might have been, and yet not without anxiety for others in our van, for our fleet is possessed of no firm discipline — ships falling well behind, detained in eddies — and the eye of the passenger, deluded by the convolutions of the coast, can never be sure of distance — and still the crack! crack! of rifle fire echoed without cease — the air was alive with it — and pilots could be certain of nothing.
The Crepuscule quickly outpaced the guns of impotent rage and continued reaching north.
So we have traveled on, the cries of the sailors above us, Vishnoo trundling between our knees.
Come nightfall, we have found ourselves anchored near an island at the mouth of the Piankatank River; and there we come at last to rest.
Later — Night
We hear that Lord Dunmore has purposed to inoculate such of our Regiment as have not yet suffered the smallpox — a welcome measure, though come late — and that he sought this isle as a place of refuge where this delicate operation may be carried out without disturbance or annoy.
This plague hath ravaged us; three or four die of it each day. Slant continues his vigilant practices against its depredations; but other contagions have settled upon us in its wake. Were our ranks not swelled every day by men crawling through the reeds, families arrived in boats, and victorious runaways bleeding in their shirts, we had been decimated.
Of late, sensible of disease and impending battle, Dr. Trefusis hath convinced Bono to aid him in the concoction of final words. This gravediggers’ game they pursue whenever they meet, protesting that a body can never be too forward in such preparations; the one recommending the Style Sentimental-Heroical (Weep not for me), the other the Masculine-Stoical (I weep not for myself); Miss Nsia scolding them both for their fatal wit.
Miss Nsia and Dr. Trefusis are not with us now, being confined to their own ship; I while the slow hours with my own friends, delighted that, after years of solitude, I may call others by that agreeable name. When we are together in company — Slant, Pomp, Olakunde, my own self, even unspeaking Will — we no longer seem broken, as we did; we no longer seem children, but comrades. They did not laugh when I spoke today of the Argive host and the fall of Rome. Slant added that he hath known a cat named Agamemnon. Olakunde told us of my mother’s gods; he told us of Eshu, the very spirit of time, deception, and change, an ancient boy who standeth at a crossroads, to which sly potentate Olakunde prays for victory over obdurate fate. And Pomp, hearing of change, mentioned his experiments in the fluctuation of swamp-water in ditches, which he hath conducted in his idleness, but which speculations would do honor to one of our academicans. Olakunde and I quizzed him on the predation
s of the alligator. And together, we make a fine company.
I envision the future day when this campaign is finished, and we grown older and commenced men of means — with wives of our own, and children, and farms, perhaps, laid about with barns. Olakunde shall be the Ovid of far Oyo, writing the tales of Africk metamorphoses; and Pomp recording his ghost stories for a winter night. I shall write sonatas en trio; and Slant perhaps shall be proprietor of his own plantation.
Grant us, Lord, a Thanksgiving feast together in that distant day; and we shall tell our children — Eat goose? There was a time when we ate tallow candles with a stomach and thought slush and horse-junk well-tasting. And we shall unfold our old shirts, which tatters shall be darkened with the smoke of Norfolk, and tell them tales of vanquished rebels and Dunmore until the spirit-hours, when they must be lifted and taken to their beds.
Pork-junk again for supper. We hope for better rations soon.
Touching upon our movements, I should relate other news, as painful as it is interesting. While we idled the months away, exerting our efforts to watch over a city of embers and stones, Boston is fallen to the rebels. My dear town is fallen; the city upon a hill. This I must record.
Report relates that the slave-driver General and his rebel army fortified Dorchester Heights, across the harbor from Boston, in but one March night; and once thus positioned, they commenced shelling the town. His Excellency General Howe arranged for an assault upon the Heights in boats and transports, which was to be a victory as costly as that upon Bunker Hill; but the wind came up so strong they could not sail, and the cause was lost. The rebels remained entrenched and victorious.
The Kingdom on the Waves Page 27