The Turning of Anne Merrick

by Christine Blevins

  “To the Provost as promised,” Blankenship said. “To set the bait.”

  The company was dismissed when they reached the city limits. Blankenship turned his horse into the yard behind the Provost Prison, and helped Anne dismount. Pointing to the prison gallows, he asked, “Fond memories?”

  The gallows was much weathered since the night Jack earned his hanged man’s scar. Turning on her heel, the sounds of cart wheels on Broad Way and peddlers hawking their wares on the streets came familiar to her ear. A half mile down the thoroughfare was the Trinity churchyard, and the grave of her only child. She stared out at the green of the Commons, and she looked up to the familiar steeples of St. Paul’s and the Presbyterian Church, feeling like a cat in a strange garret. Anne’d walked these streets for ten years, and now it was all tainted with the bad smell of British occupation.

  Hand pressed to the small of her back as if he were leading her out to the dance floor, Edward escorted Anne up the stairs, their footfalls resonating in the desolate hallway leading to the quarters of New York’s Provost Marshall.

  Hundreds of prisoners were confined in the Provost Prison, among them Britain’s most notorious rebels. A damp, malignant odor like the smell of rotten cabbage seeped into the brick and mortar of the building, permeating the stark order of William Cunningham’s office.

  Centered before two windows barred with iron, the Provost Marshall was seated behind a big desk, scribbling away in a ledger with a quill pen. To allay the evil stink, a thick bayberry candle burned in a dish beside an elegant silver tray equipped with crystal decanter filled with amber spirits, and a pair of stemmed glasses.

  The only other furniture in the room were two ladder-back chairs in the corner occupied by Cunningham’s minions, who were all too familiar to Anne’s eye. Sergeant O’Keefe was fatter than ever, stuffed into his regimental red coat. Near strangled by the black leather neck stock, his veiny, carbuncled nose seemed on the verge of explosion.

  Anne was surprised to see Richmond, Cunningham’s mouth-breathing mulatto slave and hangman. The night Jack was near hanged, Richmond was felled by a shot from Tully’s pistol. The hangman was even more menacing with the thick-matted snakes of hair he once sported shorn off, and his pate shaved clean and greased. Anne noted he still took to wearing a knotted noose slung over his thick neck.

  Tall and lank as a starved weasel, dressed like a Puritan preacher, William Cunningham, New York’s Provost Marshall, came out from behind his desk to greet them.

  “Captain Blankenship! What a pleasure…”

  By misappropriation of funds, outright theft, and sheer inhumanity, William Cunningham had lined his pockets with silver and gold by allowing hundreds of American prisoners of war in his charge to die of starvation and horrific mistreatment unsanctioned by any convention.

  Overshadowed by a beak of a nose, the Provost’s gaunt face was riddled with pockmarks and suffered under the round weight of a cauliflower wig. Cunningham leaned in and peered at Anne. “What have we here, Captain?”

  “I’m delivering on my promise.” Blankenship set his heavy dragoon’s helmet on the desk, and pulled Anne front and center. “Dressed in whore’s clothes, this is one of the gang of rogues who plucked Jack Hampton from your gallows the night I was near murdered.”

  Anne snapped her head up.

  “You promised to bring me Jack Hampton…” Cunningham lifted the stopper from the crystal decanter sitting on his desk and poured two glasses. “There were three treacherous whores that night. One was left for dead in the churchyard; the other two—” He shrugged his sharp shoulders. Coming around the desk, sipping his whiskey, Cunningham leaned forward to study Anne’s features in profile. “Hard to tell now—almost a year ago… and we were deep in our cups that night. She could be one of them, I suppose…”

  “Don’t be fooled. She was there. She’s a chameleonlike serpent, capable of changing her hue to the nearest object.” Blankenship took up his glass and tossed down his drink.

  Cunningham poured two more drinks. “But for the gash on her face, she’s sweet and tasty to the eye. I’ll gladly take a piece of that…”

  Blankenship tore off his mask with a guttural growl, and whipped out his sword, catching it just under the tip of Cunningham’s hooked nose. “Touch her, and I’ll carve you a smile to rival my own.”

  “You said she was a whore…” Writhing and wincing like a frog on a skewer, Cunningham croaked, “Apologies, sir. I was confused.

  “She’s mine.” Blankenship whipped his sword in Anne’s direction, and her flinch provoked a menacing smile. “Can you not see she bears my mark?”

  “Of course, sir.” Cunningham nodded. “I understand now.”

  Anne shifted her gaze from one man to the other, caught like a sparrow between a hawk and a buzzard—one ready to eat her alive, the other waiting to pick at her bones.

  “Beware, Mr. Cunningham, the woman is an arch deceptress. There is no correspondence between her fair face and her foul heart.” Blankenship swung his sword to tap its tip to the skin sewn shut where an eye should be. “She and her rebel lover have cost me dearly.”

  “Then we are kindred spirits, sir. The rogue has caused me a few scars as well.” The Provost lifted his wig slightly to display a bumpy white scar curling over his ear. Cunningham scooted out of sword’s reach, backing around to sit behind the relative safety of his desk. “I hope Jack Hampton rises to the bait as you say he will. He’s a crafty fellow to have escaped my gallows.”

  “Every man has his tendo Achilles, and this woman is Hampton’s.” Blankenship sheathed his sword, and took up his glass. “Before Jack Hampton dances on your noose, he will watch me fuck this whore just before I slit her throat.” He tossed back the shot of whiskey. “You, sir, are charged with keeping our bait contained while I pursue the quarry.” Dropping a bag of coin on the table, he said, “Fifty guineas for the service, Cunningham.”

  “I’ll see to it personally, Captain.”

  “Farewell, my pretty little bird.” Blankenship grasped Anne rough by the chin and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Try not to beat and flutter against the wires of your cage—I don’t want your feathers too damaged.” Pulling the kerchief back to mask his scars, he fit helmet to head and left.

  Waiting until the boot falls faded down the hall, Cunningham flopped into his chair and blew out a whistle. “Mad as a hatter, isn’t he?”

  Anne’s nod was vigorous. “The madman abducted me from my home in Philadelphia. I swear to you, I do not know this Jack Hampton.” She held her hands in supplication, no need to pretend the tears streaming from her eyes. “Please, sir. I am an innocent. I beg you, free me from this monster!”

  “And turn his wrathful eye on me? I don’t think so.” Cunningham gave the heavy leather purse a shake, the silver singing, shink, shink, shink. “There is method in his madness, and I will abide by the madman’s judgment.”

  “I have money!” Anne said. “I’ve friends who will pay in gold for my release…”

  “O’Keefe. Richmond…” Cunningham called his hirelings forward.

  “I swear to you, sir,” Anne pleaded, “you are making a grave mistake. I can pay in gold… more than he… a hundred guineas!”

  “Better gag her,” Cunningham advised. Dipping his pen in the inkwell, he scribbled across a page. “Here is an order for her imprisonment.”

  “NO!” Anne shouted. “Please…”

  O’Keefe came from behind to hold her by the arms, and for all that she pursed her lips and flailed her head about, Richmond managed to stuff a greasy rag in her mouth. Anne tugged free and swung around, first smashing her bound fists into O’Keefe’s jaw. Landing a solid knee to the fat Irishman’s bollocks, she sent the Sergeant into a moaning squat.

  Anne spit out the vile gag, and glared at Cunningham. Richmond flung his noose over her head—pulling the knot tight—jerking her down to her knees.

  “You fucking witlings—g’won, now—take the bitch away!” Cunningham reache
d for the whiskey. “And have her properly shackled.”

  O’Keefe straightened up, his face as red as a beet. “Where ought we take her?”

  “To the Whitby.” Cunningham dropped the sack of guineas into a desk drawer. “No one can get to her there.”

  * * *

  The East River was calm and gray as the dusk sky, and the little dory moved slow against the current as they rounded a highland on the Brooklyn shore. With hands manacled behind her, Anne shifted in her seat facing aft, unable to find any position to allay the piercing pains at the small of her back, watching the last vestiges of New York City disappear from her view.

  “Unhh.” Anne’s breath puffed out in a bitter grunt. With every dip and tug of Richmond’s oars, she felt little bits of hope peeling away, lost to the wind, like the chips of faded paint from the dory’s hull.

  “There she is—” At the back of the boat O’Keefe pointed and added with a sneer, “Your new cage, little bird.”

  The Whitby was moored in Wallabout Bay, centered in a shallow channel between the rising shoreline and an oozing mudflat, secured with a heavy anchor chain the thickness of a man’s arm stretching out at fore and aft. No longer seaworthy, cannon, colors, sails, masts—anything that ever once made the warship proud or beautiful—had been stripped away. The gunports were fastened over with rusted iron bars, and here and there Anne could spy what seemed to be faces lurking, observing their approach.

  As they drew closer to the dark hulk, Anne could make out figures lining the rails on the gangways, and many more moving around on the deck. With a shake of her head she said, “I didn’t know it would be so crowded…”

  “Don’t worry, darlin’; there’s plenty room for you. Death daily makes a place for fresh comers.” O’Keefe pointed to a gondola pulled up alongside the Whitby, and bodies wrapped in wool blankets being passed down from the ship’s deck and stacked four high, like so many meal bags at the miller. At the other end of the hulk, stevedores on a single-masted shallop were off-loading eight heavy hogsheads of freshwater with the aid of a derrick.

  O’Keefe shouted, “Ahoy!” as they pulled up to the gangway ladder mounted to the larboard side of the hulk. Richmond wrestled with a heavy key ring to unlock Anne’s shackles, and he held on to the ladder to steady the rowboat, waving her up. It was slow going, as she struggled to negotiate skirts while climbing the rungs. Following behind, O’Keefe gripped her bottom with a squeeze, saying, “Up-a-daisy, darlin’!”

  Anne turned and glared down at him. “I’ll be certain to tell Captain Blankenship of your liberties, Sergeant.”

  O’Keefe snatched his hand back, grumbling, “No call to make threats… Only tryin’ to give you a boost…”

  They ascended the gangway at the top of the ladder, and the crowd of ragged, emaciated prisoners parted to make a path as a pair of Hessian guards came to escort Anne and O’Keefe. She tucked the loose tendrils back behind her ears, and kept her eyes downcast as they passed through the murmuring crowd up the stairs to the quarterdeck.

  Sergeant O’Keefe completed the transaction, relinquishing the authorization signed by Cunningham and the prisoner to the duty officer in charge. The hard-looking Hessian with stiff-waxed mustachios sat on a stool at a small desk, dipped his pen in the inkwell, and enrolled her name on the roster: Anne Merrick, widow, rebel, spy.

  With a “Pardon, madam… but we must…” the Duty Officer ordered one of the guards to search her body for weapons. A blush came upon her, and Anne held out her arms and squeezed her eyes shut, enduring the humiliation as best she could.

  O’Keefe leaned back against the railing and smirked, watching the guard rub his hands over Anne’s breasts, hips, and down her legs. “Doesn’t he have the best duty aboard this tub?” he sneered. “Relax and enjoy it, little bird.”

  The guard snapped to attention. Pointing to Anne’s right hip, he said, “Es ist etwas da…”

  “My pocket,” Anne explained. “Only a few silly things… a woman’s necessaries.”

  The Duty Officer held out his hand. “Your pocket, please, madam.”

  Anne untied the ribbon around her waist and pulled the pouch up through the waistband of her skirt. The officer emptied it out onto his desk and sorted through the items—coin purse, hankie, half-crown token, wooden heart, and mourning brooch. He counted the eight shillings in her coin purse. The Hessian lingered on the brooch, studying the single blond curl lying beneath a convex crystal. The brooch was a quality-piece with a fine gold case, encircled with a frame of seed pearls. He asked, “From your husband, madam?”

  “No. My son.”

  The Hessian nodded, swept everything into the pocket, and handed it back. Before Anne could utter a thanks, O’Keefe snatched the pocket from her hand.

  “I’ll have a go at that…” He first reached in for the coin purse, emptying the eight shillings into his pocket. When he pulled out the brooch, Anne lunged out to grab the Irishman by the arm.

  “You thieving bastard!”

  The Hessian officer was on his feet in a thrice with sidearm drawn and cocked, shouting, “Halt!”

  Anne backed away, palms up, chest heaving, tears streaming down her face. The Hessian stepped toward them with eyes narrowed, and jammed his pistol into O’Keefe’s fat gut. “Return ze pocket, Sergeant.”

  O’Keefe tossed the pocket onto the floor and Anne scooped it up.

  “Und ze rest…” the Hessian said. “Vat you stole.”

  “Stole!” O’Keefe sputtered. “She’s a bleedin’ rebel spy!”

  The two guards had swung their muskets from shoulders and clacked back the hammers.

  O’Keefe fumbled in his pocket, and snapped eight shillings onto the officer’s desk. “One, two, three, four…”

  “Und ze brooch.” The Hessian smiled, holding out his hand.

  “I’ll be making a report of this to the Provost,” O’Keefe said, slapping the brooch into his palm.

  As if O’Keefe were nothing more than an annoying fly, the Hessian waved him off the quarterdeck. “You are dismissed, Sergeant.”

  O’Keefe went running down the stairs. He stopped at the gangway ladder, and thrust his arm up in a two-fingered salute. “Take that, German twats!”

  One of the guards leaned over the rail and shouted, “Irish arschficker!”

  Anne took the brooch from the Captain, and dropped it into her pocket. “Thank you, Captain. Please keep the coin for your trouble. I don’t have the words to explain how much this brooch means to me.”

  “Nein.” The Hessian officer swept the coins from his desk and held them out to her. “I’m afraid you vill need more zan I, madam.”

  The guards escorted her down to the main deck. Night was falling and a blue-jacketed soldier made the rounds lighting the ship’s lamps. Anne could see the lantern swinging on the little dory Richmond rowed around the bend back to the ferry landing.

  The prisoners had all been herded below, and the guard who’d cursed at O’Keefe became grim-faced, and pointed to the hatchway with an apologetic shrug. “Los, madam.”

  Clutching her pocket in her hand, Anne looked down into the hatchway at the steep stairway disappearing into utter black darkness. A foul-smelling updraft pushed her back a step.

  “Los… los…” the guard urged.

  Taking in a deep breath, Anne took four steps down before finding the handrail. The noxious effluvia of sick stomachs, loose bowels, and unwashed flesh grew more pungent at every step, and she slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from retching. Stomach roiling with nausea, legs going limp, Anne sank down to sit on the stair tread. She glanced up at the guard still standing over the hatchway, and said, “I can’t…”

  The guard said, “Das ist gut, madam, das ist gut,” dropping the hinged metal grate over the opening and locking it in place.

  The grate cast a faint checkerboard shadow on her new world. Anne leaned her head against the handrail and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. Feverish.

  To the righ
t and left of the stairway, the lower deck was bereft of any light. Anne could hear the moans, groans, snores, and coughs of a multitude, but all she could see was the faint movement of shadows shifting and writhing.

  Skinny gray shadows crept up from this all-enveloping darkness, joining her on the stairway. Thinking they were coming to take her down into the dark pit, she whispered, “I’m sorry. This is as far as I can go…”

  “’Pon my word, missus,” a dull voice responded. “You’ve found the spot what serves as heaven aboard the Whitby.”

  Heaven… The stench was overpowering, and Anne raised her nose to the grate to harvest a breath of fresh air, trying hard not to think about what generated the awful smell. Worse than the sewers of New York… Reminded of volunteering at the hospital in King’s College, she dug into her pocket for her handkerchief, and brought it to her nose. Lavender. Folding the linen into a triangle, she tied it over her face, like a highwayman’s mask. That’s better.

  Anne pulled out her brooch, and swiped her thumb across the crystal. “Jemmy,” she whispered. Making a silent vow to never speak ill or unkindly of Hessians ever again, she pinned the brooch to the inside of her stays.

  The Hessian said I’ll need my silver… Anne ripped a few of the stitches holding up the hem of her wool skirt, and one by one slipped the eight coins inside the wool casing.

  Next, she drew out the bit of broken cast iron. No one would steal this. Closing her fist around it, she let the rough edge of the ragged metal bite into her palm. Jack wore his around his neck… Anne slipped the ribbon string from her pocket, and tied it onto the token, making a half-crown necklet to hang over her heart.

  Heart… She delved into her pocket for the last valuable needing safeguarding. She set the wooden heart on the first stair tread, centering it in a faint square of light beaming in through the grating. She traced her fingertip over the smooth curved wood, and the words Jack had etched into it.

  Love Never Fails.

  It seemed forever ago she and Jack lay entwined together on a bed of sweet balsam, staring up at the same stars. Anne yawned, and heaved a smiling sigh, remembering how she’d first scoffed at the bed Jack manufactured for their woodland tryst.