The Turning of Anne Merrick

by Christine Blevins

  “Among the Redcoats but two days, and the girls have already reaped results—have a look…” Jack showed the missive to Titus. “A very long recipe.”

  Curious, Neddy came to peer over Jack’s shoulder. “A recipe?”

  “Mm-hmm… a recipe.” Jack smiled, running a knowing fingertip between the wide-spaced lines of neatly penned instructions describing exactly how to prepare and bake a peach cobbler.

  Neddy fell stern. “Your woman oughtn’t wear the stripes to pass a recipe, Jack.”

  “Don’t fret so, Neddy,” Titus said with a grin. “I guarantee there’s more writ on that slip of paper than what meets the eye.”

  “Secret writing…” Jack explained. “… Made to appear by the heat of a flame. I’ll show you once we—”

  “Stah!” Isaac cocked his head like a deer being stalked, motionless but for the feathers fluttering at his topknot. “Listen!”

  After a moment’s concentration, they could all discern the sound first detected by Isaac’s sharp ears—a thudding canter of ironshod hooves on wood.

  “Dragoons!” Titus jumped to his feet.

  Jack stuffed both message and bottle into his pouch, and swung his rifle down from his shoulder. With weapons cocked, Neddy and Isaac took the point. Jack and Titus fell in behind, and the foursome melted back into the trees.

  Part One

  SARATOGA

  With Loyalty, Liberty let us entwine,

  Our blood shall for both, flow as free as our wine.

  Let us set an example, what all men should be,

  And a toast give the world,

  Here’s to those who dare to be free.

  Hearts of oak we are still;

  For we’re sons of those men

  Who always are ready—

  Steady, boys, steady—

  To fight for their freedom again and again.

  HEARTS OF OAK, AUTHOR UNKNOWN

  ONE

  Those who expect to reap the blessings of Freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

  THOMAS PAINE, The American Crisis

  ON CAMPAIGN WITH THE BRITISH ARMY

  “I wonder what has gone awry—” Anne Merrick collected her skirts, planted a mud-caked shoe on one barrow wheel, and hoisted herself up by a foot and a half. “Perhaps a wagon has thrown a wheel…”

  “I dinna think so…” Sally Tucker drew the brim of her straw hatforward to shade her eyes, noting the sun pulsing in its zenith. “A cart with a bad wheel is easily pushed to the side. This column has not budged in some time.”

  Anne stepped up to improve her view, scaling the cargo piled high in their barrow.

  Sally encouraged the precarious perch by taking hold of her mistress’s apron strings. “Steady now, Annie…”

  After establishing a foothold on the surface provided by their bundled tent, Anne fished a spyglass from her pocket, snapped it to full open, and scanned along the congested roadway all the way to the bend. Other than the lazy swish of bovine and equine tails chasing swarms of black flies, and the here-and-there tendrils of tobacco smoke twisting up from the wagoneers’ clay pipes, Anne could detect no commotion. The forward movement of British might on the march had once again been brought to a complete standstill.

  “What d’ye see?” Sally asked.

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  The man driving the cart ahead twisted around in his seat and shouted, “Don’t put yourself to such a bother, missus. I’d wager pounds to pence those damned rebels have bedeviled our progress with mischief of some sort. Before you know it, the drummer boys will come along, beating the call to make camp.”

  “You’re most probably correct, Mr. Noonan.” Anne hopped down from the cart. “Did you hear that, Sal? More rebel mischief, no doubt.”

  Soon enough, a pair of drummers wearing bearskin caps andgreen wool coats marched toward them along the shoulder of the road. Confirming Mr. Noonan’s prediction, they beat the call to halt on roped drums marked with the Crown’s insignia and the number twenty-four—the advance guard—the 24th Regiment of Foot.

  “Hoy, lads!” Sally shouted. “What news?”

  “Rebels!” one boy shouted, without missing a beat. “Dammed up the stream and flooded the road.”

  “No little thing, either,” the other boy added, marching by. “A terrible mess—a right carfuffle up there.”

  The drum call touched off a frenzy of activity, and the ordered file became a noisy, confused jumble as teamsters whistled, whipped, and wrestled their beasts to claim a campsite alongside the road General Burgoyne’s artificers had engineered through the wilderness. Anne and Sally joined the confusion, pushing and pulling their overladen barrow off the rutted road, coursing a path through the pasty muck churned up by hoof and wheel, aiming for a place upwind of where the teamsters were gathering their fly-plagued oxen into herds.

  “Phew!” Sally’s freckled face scrinched in disgust. “The smell of this camp rivals that o’ the tanning pits on Queen Street, na?”

  Anne drew out the lavender-infused hankie she kept tucked at her shoulder, and pressed it to her nose. “I say we find a spot on higher ground today—out of the mud and among the trees where the air is wholesome and cool.”

  “Oooooh…” Sally cast a wary city-girl eye up at the dark grove of hardwoods. “I dinna think tha’s a wise course. All manner of heathens, beasts, and wee deevilocks are creepin’ about in those woods. Best we just cluster in here amongst th’ wagoneers and camp women.”

  “Deevilocks! Pish!” Anne mocked Sally’s brogue. She grabbed the barrow handle and steered toward the trees. “Do you want to know what we’ll find in those woods? Shade and fresh air, that’s what… and if it storms again, those big trees will help to shelter us from the wind and rain.”

  “Och, but yer a willful woman.” Sally ran to catch up to her mistress and help push their barrow up the slope.

  Once beyond the tree line, they found many others of the same mind, validating Anne’s logic. A sutler had set up a grogshop in the shade, and a company of German artillerymen were pitching their tents nearby on forested sites carpeted with fern.

  Though Anne and Sally were simply attired in muslinet shifts, front-laced bodices, and summer-weight skirts, wrangling their heavy barrow up the slope proved hot work on a sultry day. Once they chose a level site beneath the canopy of broad-leaved trees, straw hats were swept back to dangle by ribbons and skirt hems were tucked into waistbands at each hip. Soon garters were loosened, and stockings were rolled into circular sausages and jammed into kicked-off shoes.

  After sweeping a spot beneath a sugar maple clear of deadfall and stones, they unfurled their tent, drawing out the four corners, and orienting the door flaps to face the road. Anne pulled a strapped bundle of short poles from the barrow.

  “This is much better than that first campsite we chose at the very base of a slope, don’t you think, Sal?”

  “What a pair of featherheads we were!” Sally said with a giggle. “An ill-wrought wobbledy mess, that tent was… on a rainy night, no less. That tempest was as fierce as a West India hurricane.”

  “I thought for certain we’d be whisked away.” Anne laughed, recalling their unfortunate maiden campsite. Once the storm had let up, they claimed one of the camp kitchen fires and, soggy and sleep-deprived, commenced to baking. With a dozen bannocks and a crock of berry jam, Sally was able to entice a trio of Scots grenadiers into schooling them in the art of pitching a proper tent.

  The short poles were joined with tin sleeves to form three long poles. Anne dove under the canvas, slipping the ridgepole into the canvas channel sewn into the ridge of their wedge tent. The two poles equipped with iron pins at the ends were used to prop the ridgepole at fore and aft. Once raised, Sally circumnavigated the tent and used the blunt end of her hatchet to pound iron stakes through peg loops interspersed around the base, pulling the canvas taut and pinning it to the ground. When finished, she stepped back with hatchet resting on shoulder and one h
and on her hip, admiring the trim lines of their shelter.

  “Perfect, na?”

  “Not quite…” Anne poked her head out through the door flaps and pointed to the neighboring German soldiers, who were busy digging the narrow trenches around their tent meant to catch and divert rainfall.

  “Fegs!” Sally’s shoulders slumped. “I thought we might forgo th’ trenching today. After all, there’s nary a cloud in the sky…”

  “It has rained practically every night. A little work now will save us from having a torrent running through our tent later.”

  While Sally trudged off to borrow digging tools, Anne dragged their cots from the barrow. The ingenious oak frames scissored open to support a narrow canvas sling that was surprisingly comfortable. She recalled that, back in Peekskill, when they were outfitting themselves to infiltrate the British encampment as peddlers, Jack disapproved of the purchase.

  “Field beds are awful cumbersome cargo, Annie.”

  “A waste of funds,” her brother, David, insisted. “True peddlers make do with a piece of oilcloth for ground cover and straw-filled mats for beds.”

  Straw-filled mats indeed! Anne took great pleasure dressing each cot with a goose-down pillow and a striped blanket, so glad she had turned a deaf ear to their admonishments. Though the portable beds were unwieldy to transport, a dry berth suspended above the hard, wet ground made camping tolerable.

  Accustomed to city life and thick brick walls, Anne had a difficult time finding sleep as it was, with naught but a thin sheath of canvas betwixt her and all manner of nocturnal creatures throwing up a din to raise the dead on most nights. She could not imagine having to lie down among the creeping crawlers—the mere thought of it drew her shoulders into a cringe.

  Sally returned with a pair of square-bladed spades on lend from the Germans. After carving a drainage channel around the perimeter of the tent, the women took a moment to admire their handiwork.

  “Abroad a little more than a fortnight,” Anne said, “and we’ve become quite expert in settling our camp.”

  “Och, aye,” Sally agreed. “A sight better than most British army men, and as good as them pernicky kraut eaters.”

  “I expect David and Jack should be proud of us.”

  Sally sighed, her features suddenly soft. “O, but I’ve a fist-sized hole in my heart for my David. I miss him so…”

  “I know…” Anne leaned a shoulder to rest against the maple. “I’m missing Jack as well, but we must…”

  An odd buzz caused them both to startle. Taking a step back from the tree, Anne eyed the upper branches for a beehive or a hornet nest, when her gaze was pulled downward by an ominous slither across the top of her bare foot.

  Inches from where she stood, a large snake drew into a tight coil—the stacked buttons on the end of his tail buzzing in fury as it settledinto a crook where the tree root curved up to the trunk. Gray, and marked with chevrons of darker gray, the rattler’s coloration blended perfectly with the bark of the sugar maple. So well disguised, in fact, if not for the rattle, Anne would have had a difficult time spotting thereptile. With unblinking, riveting eyes and its black ribbon tongue whipping in and out from between a nasty pair of fangs, the snake raised its head in challenge—poised to spring.

  Anne’s eyes flashed up to meet Sally’s, and in complete unison they let out a pitched shriek loud enough to raise the very demons from hell. Sally swung her spade in a scything motion, catching the upright viper, and sending it into a writhing sprawl. Anne ran up and brought her spade down in an arcing swipe, like that of an executioner, severing the snake’s head in one thumping blow.

  Panting, with hearts a-race, they stood over the twitching snake parts with fists clenched to their weapons, ready to strike again as if the snake were capable of reuniting head to body. When the viper’s death throes subsided, Anne relaxed her stance, and stepped in, about to give the motionless reptile a wary poke with her spade, when someone shouted.

  “STOP!”

  Anne turned to see their screams had drawn a small crowd of Hessians, Redcoats, and sutlers from the neighboring campsites.

  “Take care, madam!” A British officer stepped forward, holding out a warning hand. “That rattler is yet a dangerous thing. Leave this to my friend Ohaweio—he is adept at handling these situations.” The officer was accompanied by a befeathered Indian wearing a matching red coat with green facings over his bare chest and leather leggings.

  Sucking in a breath, Anne nodded, and handed her spade to the Indian. Sally dropped her shovel to scurry over and clutch Anne by the arm.

  The Indian carefully scooped up the beheaded snake. Ohaweio held the rattler up for all to see; it was almost five feet long and as thick as Anne’s forearm. Draped over the spade, the decapitated snake began to squirm and dance. The tail once again rattled a warning, and the bleeding end—so recently occupied by a head—jerked about, to and fro, as if to strike. Of a sudden, Ohaweio tossed the snake carcass to the side, scattering a group of German soldiers with more than a few girlish cries of dismay.

  The Indian considered the reaction with a wry smile before squatting down beside the severed head. He said something in his native tongue, and Anne was taken aback by the English officer’s nodding understanding, and his ability to translate.

  “Ohaweio praises your kill, ladies, but warns, if you continue to hunt rattlers, you must understand that venomous snakes are at their most dangerous just after the kill.”

  “Continue t’ hunt rattlers?” Sally sputtered. “Are you mad?”

  “Not mad”—the officer smiled—“only sensible to the notion that your first rattlesnake encounter will most likely not be your last in this wilderness. Ohaweio advises caution when dealing with these creatures, alive or dead.”

  To demonstrate this, the Indian poked the lifeless snake head with a stout twig, and the viper instantly reanimated, hissing and tasting the air with its forked tongue. To everyone’s amazement, further agitation with the twig caused the severed snake head to lurch with jaws snapping, burying its fangs into the twig. Anne, Sally, and the crowd scuttled back a step, uttering a harmonic, “Ooooooh!”

  Ohaweio began digging a narrow but deep hole, still lecturing, and the officer continued to translate. “My friend says this type of rattler delivers a particularly deadly venom with its bite, but it is generally shy of humankind, and rarely attacks. Ohaweio suggests next time, best use cautious reason and leave the creature be—the snake will most likely wriggle away without causing any harm.”

  “Reason!” Anne let out a laugh. “I can assure you, sir, in this instance we acted on instinct and sheer terror. Sally and I are by habit city dwellers, and quite stupid to living in the wild.”

  Ohaweio swept the snake head into the hole with the spade and covered it with more than a foot of tamped-down earth. The Indian pointed and laughed when, for good measure, Sally went over and hopped up and down on the spot.

  “There is no doubt you and your friend have saved us from adeadly situation.” Swiping a sweat-drenched strand of chestnut hair from herbrow, Anne noted the knotted silver braid adorning the officer’s shoulder, the sash at his waist, and the ornate hanger sword at his side. “Please convey our sincerest thanks to Mr. Ohaweio, Captain… ?”

  The officer bowed with a sweep of his feathered hat. “Captain Geoffrey Pepperell, of His Majesty’s Twenty-fourth Regiment of Foot.”

  “How do you do, Captain Pepperell?” Anne dipped a shallow curtsy. “Mrs. Anne Merrick, the camp’s purveyor of writing materials, and my servant, Miss Sally Tucker.”

  Pepperell acknowledged them each with a nod. “I must say I am most impressed, Mrs. Merrick—a purveyor and an accomplished snake killer—Mr. Merrick is one lucky fellow.”

  “Hmmph!” Sally puffed. “Dead as a doornail, tha’s what ol’ Merrick is.”

  “A widow?” The corners of Pepperell’s mouth twitched up for the briefest instant before correcting to a more compassionate frown with brows knit in proper
concern.

  Anne put her skirt to rights, working her hems free from her waistband, and she exchanged a look with Sally. Tall and lean, with skin tanned as tawny as his Iroquois companion, this Redcoat captain was the highest-ranking officer they had yet to engage in prolonged conversation, and a member of Brigadier General Simon Fraser’s Advance Guard to boot. “Widowed five years now…” she said, drawing her hat onto her head. “Hence the need to peddle my own wares, and kill my own snakes.”

  “A trying time for you, no doubt.” The Captain slipped his hat under his arm and struck a casual pose, when the Indian stepped forward. Spewing a long string of unintelligible syllables, Ohaweio brandished the decapitated snake torso in his fist, sending Anne and Sally skittering back in a yelp.

  “Fear not, ladies,” the Captain assured with a laugh. “Ohaweio simply wonders if you intend to eat your snake.”

  Sally’s blue eyes went agog. “Eat it? Feich!”

  Pepperell flashed a charming grin. “Snake meat is quite a delicacy, considered by many a welcome change from salt meat.”

  Sally puckered her face and shivered. “I’d sooner eat my weight in cow patties than nibble on the meanest morsel of tha’ poisonous viper…”

  “Captain Pepperell.” Anne stepped forward. “Please tell Mr. Ohaweio he is more than welcome to the snake. I would like to offer you something in thanks as well… perhaps a cup of tea? We’ve a fine bohea on hand, and Sally could have a pot brewed in no time.”

  “I wish, Mrs. Merrick, I could join you, but as I was en route to a meet with my command when diverted by your distress, I really must be on my way.” Geoffrey Pepperell fit his hat on his head. “Perhaps I might be allowed to impose upon your tea supply another time?”

  “I assure you, sir”—Anne smiled—“it will by no means be an imposition.”

  “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Merrick.” The Captain waved a gallant salute. “Till we meet again.”

  The women stood side by side watching Pepperell and Ohaweio weave a path through the trees. “It’s a wonder how he babbles on in that outlandish heathen tongue, na?” Sally noted. “A spruce fellow, though—cuts a fine figure wi’ a fancy feather in his cap and all…”