Origins: Revolution (Crew Chronicles Book 2)

by Mark Henrikson

  The dissenting opinion did not land well on the men until Thompson suggested, “How about the Sons of Liberty?”

  “I love it,” John Hancock beamed along with everyone else as yet another case of wine got loaded onto the last carriage. “I don’t think we even need to take a vote. The Sons of Liberty it is from now until eternity.”

  Chapter 20: There is a Price to Pay

  “Captain, I am commanding you to sail this ship into the middle of Boston Harbor and drop anchor. What part of that order is unclear to you?” General Henry Clinton snapped at the young naval officer questioning his judgment.

  “This is a ship of war with fifty cannons at the ready. Don’t you think positioning such a weapon in the center of Boston, one of our own cities, is a bit excessive? Provocative even?” the captain challenged.

  “That is precisely the point. Smugglers operating out of Boston are getting more brazen by the day. First, it was a few cases hidden aboard ships to avoid paying taxes. Then entire cargo holds were emptied in the middle of the night before the assessment of import duties. Now they are taking customs officials captive and doing it in broad daylight. It has to end, and fifty cannons anchored in the bay is just the thing to do it,” General Clinton instructed.

  “Every ship going in and coming out of the harbor will be stopped, searched, and catalogued to assure accurate taxation,” General Clinton ordered.

  “I’m not sure that is even possible,” the ship’s captain protested with a soft chuckle of disbelief mixed in to accentuate the preposterous idea. “This is one ship, and there are dozens of ships coming and going from Boston Harbor every hour. Commerce will grind to a halt not only for the city, but for the entire province of Massachusetts.”

  “Yes, and the smugglers will learn that it is better to conduct business while paying their taxes than doing no business at all,” General Clinton concluded.

  “What about the honest businessmen of Boston? You will be punishing them all for the bad behavior of a few.”

  “That will be useful for us as well. They will pressure the smugglers to behave, or even turn them in if we’re lucky.”

  “Fine,” the ship’s captain relented with a heavy sigh, “but I am obeying this order under protest and I will note it as such in my log.”

  “That is your right. Now give the order.”

  “Helmsman, take us in and drop anchor at the mouth of the harbor.”

  “Yes, Captain,” the teenaged helmsman responded, and set about his task. A few minutes later, the warship Romney was underway and prowling toward its provocative location.

  General Clinton leaned forward onto the railing and watched with satisfaction as the commerce center of Boston drew near. Their approach did not go unnoticed. He saw three vessels in the harbor unfurl their sails in a rush to leave before the Romney could stop them. It was a surefire bet that those ships were not in compliance with the law.

  “They are making a run for it, General. We can only stop one of them. Which should we go after?” the ship’s captain asked.

  “Your orders are to stop all of them,” General Clinton snapped.

  “I cannot split my ship into three vessels, we have to pick one.”

  “You have cannons don’t you? Fire a shot across their bows and make them stop,” General Clinton barked, and went on before the timid captain could offer a counter. “You are the thousand pound gorilla in these waters, Captain. Act like it and take command of the situation!”

  “These are British registered vessels with British subjects aboard,” the captain protested. “There are no legal grounds to fire upon them.”

  “They are outlaws that the governor has given me authority to apprehend. That is all the legal justification you need.”

  The captain looked ready to challenge further, but thought better about his actions. Instead, he stepped past his commanding officer to yell down orders to his crew. “Load the forward cannons, and send signals for those three ships to halt for inspection.”

  Predictably, none of the three ships paid the order relayed to them via lamp signals any mind and continued on their mad dash for freedom.

  “Target the lead ship and fire a shot across its bow. Fire!”

  A blast from the forward deck sent a ten-pound ball of lead screaming toward the first ship attempting to escape. The projectile crossed a mere twenty feet in front of the ship. It smacked into the water just past the target and sent a geyser of seawater into the air to drench the boat’s occupants.

  If the ships pilot somehow missed the signals coming from the Romney’s lamps, he got the message delivered via cannon loud and clear. Within seconds of the shot striking the adjacent water, General Clinton watched the sails once raised in a hurry drop to the deck with even greater haste.

  The second vessel followed suit and lowered its sails, correctly divining that the aggressive message was also meant for them. The third ship was a different matter. The captain of that boat seemed intent on pressing his luck to see if the warning shot was just a bluff. Firing near a friendly ship was a far cry from firing on a friendly ship.

  The captain of the Romney turned around to look at General Clinton with his eyes asking the question ‘Are we actually going to do this?’ An affirmative nod gave him leave to issue the order. “Load a bolo round and target the main mast of that ship.”

  General Clinton watched the forward cannon crew pull out two smaller cannon balls connected together by a five-foot long chain. They loaded it into their weapon and a moment later sent it spinning on its way. The projectile whirled across the three-hundred yard distance in the blink of an eye and sliced through the target’s main mast near the base. Splinters flew, and moments later three levels of square-rigged sails came fluttering to the deck along with a heavy crash from the demolished mast and yardarms.

  “Well, that’s over,” the captain said under his breath.

  “No, Captain, that is only the beginning,” General Clinton corrected. “I want you to send inspection crews backed by armed marines to tear those three ships apart until you locate what they are hiding, and I guarantee you they are hiding something.”

  “And what will you be doing?”

  “I am going ashore to instruct the harbor master on the new requirements the Romney will enforce from this moment forward.”

  “You had better take a detachment of marines with you as well, sir. I’d wager that our Bostonian brethren over there will not look upon that little show we put on in too kind a light,” the captain suggested.

  “Quite right,” General Clinton agreed. “Give me eight of your best men.”

  **********

  It took almost no effort on Valnor’s part to round up an angry mob to greet a contingent of British soldiers rowing a landing skiff into the Boston docks. It took all of three seconds for him to convince the newly dubbed Sons of Liberty to join in. Two cannon blasts and the destruction of a trade ship’s main mast did all the convincing for him. The incident had the masses madder than a donkey being branded, and they were ready to kick.

  Valnor stood among the angry throng as the harbormaster greeted eight soldiers and their commanding officer, all dressed in red coats and black triangular hats. The guards all looked alike and were of no consequence to him. However, when their commander stepped up to the dock and raised his head to reveal his face from under his hat, things changed. The stakes involved for Valnor took an immeasurable leap forward in that moment. Henry Clinton was still here in the colonies.

  Valnor assumed with the conclusion of the French and Indian war, the high-ranking European Freemason with blood ties to the inner circle of 34th degree members would return to England to claim his victory and reap his rewards. He had it on good authority that Henry was the one who persuaded the king to mass populate the colonies in preparation for a war with the French. Henry was either very forward thinking, or just plain lucky. Either way, his strategy worked to perfection in the American Colonies. He may have been able to see that war brewing, b
ut Valnor knew he would never see revolution coming. Who in their right mind would, and that is what made it such a great plan.

  Valnor had not seen Henry since his enlistment. That encounter came and went in a flash. He would have loved nothing better than to punch the man in his nose back then. Perhaps now Valnor would get his chance. He strived to keep personal vendettas out of his strategies, but on occasion, the stars and planets aligned just right that he could accomplish both at the same time.

  “What is the meaning of this?” several members of the crowd demanded from the landing party.

  “You attacked a defenseless ship!” others accused.

  “Are we under siege?”

  “Go home you bastard, no one wants you here!” Valnor added to spice things up a bit.

  General Clinton pulled the harbormaster in close for a private word, but Valnor was not about to let that conversation happen without incident. He picked up a loose stone from the ground and hurled it at the back of the harbormaster’s head. His aim was true and the blow sent the man falling into Henry’s arms. The two managed to stay upright, but the example was set and the mob followed it with great enthusiasm.

  The next projectile was a rotten tomato that glanced off General Clinton’s hat and delivered an affront to his honor that he would not endure. He shouted an order to his men. “Form a line. Push this crowd back, by force if necessary.”

  The soldiers stepped in front of their commanding officer and stood shoulder to shoulder with muskets held diagonal across their chests with the muzzles still pointing skyward. They then waded into the swelling crowd.

  For the most part, the people of Boston stepped aside. A few tried standing their ground, but saw their boldness rewarded with the butt of a musket plowed into their stomach. After a few men doubled over in agony, the mob took the hint. These soldiers were not playing around, so they gave them a wider berth.

  That made walking easier, but also gave the crowd more room to throw objects. Dirt, rocks, rotten fruit, and decaying fish guts all stained the soldier’s bright red attire, but none of it provoked much of a reaction. These were professional soldiers, and they acted the part.

  The British contingent backed the rabble up to the city’s first street amid a hailstorm of debris and a continuous barrage of insults growing more personal by the second. It still was not enough Valnor realized as the mob backed up onto King Street and drew near the harbormaster’s office. In order for the plan he and John Hancock cooked up to work, they needed an incident, and a few bruised mob members would not be enough. There had to be blood.

  Valnor let several rows of the crowd step in front of him. When he judged enough protesters were between him and the soldiers, he pulled out a pistol from his coat pocket. He pointed it harmlessly into the air, and pulled the trigger to unleash an echoing blast that resonated throughout the pier like a loud crack of thunder.

  In the blink of an eye the soldiers, fearing they were under fire, leveled their muskets at the crowd. The mob reacted to this by rushing at the firing line to confiscate the deadly weapons before they could fire, but they failed. One musket sounded without order, and the rest let loose their terrible roar soon after.

  All hell broke loose as the horror of the scene sent the crowd in all directions. When the smoke cleared, Valnor saw three men on the ground with half their heads missing while several others writhed in pain on the ground from the wounds they sustained.

  Valnor ran for safety along with the fleeing mob. He met up with the Sons of Liberty a few streets away.

  “Jesus, nobody was supposed to get killed,” Thompson managed to say amid random fits of shaking from fear and the letdown of his adrenaline rush. “They fired into an unarmed crowd.”

  “Aye, it was supposed to be a brawl, not a massacre,” John Hancock added with a concerned look toward Valnor. “This has gotten way out of hand.”

  “Now is not the time for half-measures,” Valnor jumped in to bolster their faltering confidence. “The die has been cast, and the deed is done. Things did not go as planned, but if we stop now then those men lying dead in the street will have died for nothing. We must follow through.”

  “Those soldiers are going to hang for this,” Thompson declared and drew a chorus of agreement from his fellow conspirators, all except Valnor and John Hancock that is. Those two exchanged a knowing glance before Valnor received an approving nod to inform the rest of the greater plan in play.

  “Certainly someday, but not now if our friend John Adams does his job defending those soldiers,” Valnor countered.

  “Defend them?” Thompson snapped with the flames of hell itself lighting his angry glare toward Valnor. “Why would one of us defend those bastards?”

  “In order to provoke that same anger in your eyes from the rest of the colonies,” John Hancock answered. “A bloody incident would carry our cause a few steps forward, a grave injustice will catapult it all the way to our desired end.”

  “Which is what?” Thompson asked. “This is not about taxation and representation anymore.”

  “It’s about independence and freedom,” Valnor answered without a moment’s hesitation. “Put those two together and you have liberty. We are the Sons of Liberty, and that is exactly what we will get.”

  “No matter the cost?” Thompson asked.

  “Freedom doesn’t come free of cost,” Valnor answered.

  Chapter 21: Justice or Propaganda

  “madam, here is some information about the case,” Valnor said as he handed the well-dressed passerby a single sheet of printed paper. Across the road, and on all four street corners surrounding the courthouse, other Sons of Liberty members were busy doing the same to anyone passing within arm’s reach. They were getting the word out while the British governor did everything in his power to suppress information about the ‘Boston Massacre’ as the Sons of Liberty had dubbed it for the enhanced shock factor.

  In this era, there was no mass media. Incidents of indescribable horror could happen and no one would know anything about it because investigative reporting was not yet a profession. Governments, quite simply, had the power to make incidents like these vanish without a trace. Valnor was not about to let that happen.

  The propaganda value of The Incident on King Street, as the British government preferred to call it, was solid gold. Three members of the unarmed crowd died on the spot, and two more succumbed to their wounds lying in hospital beds. Valnor felt regret for his direct involvement in the death of those five men, but he assuaged his guilty conscience the same way his commanding officer always did in such circumstances, by telling himself that it was for a greater good.

  Still, he knew visions of that day would haunt him for lifetimes to come. All that blood, noise, and chaos were his doing. How could something like that not strike Valnor at his very core? The captain had done much worse many times over, yet it never seemed to phase his steely resolve to complete the mission. Did that make Valnor a better man than Captain Hastelloy or worse?

  The governor made a show of arresting the eight soldiers involved in a thinly veiled attempt to defuse things, and it worked. Three weeks later, shouts for justice from the enraged masses were all but silent, and the legal proceedings took place behind closed doors in the courthouse: out of sight, out of mind. The people needed it back in their sights, and Valnor knew that a picture was worth a thousand words. Distributing photographs of the incident was not an option, but an artist’s rendering was a close second.

  “Here you go madam,” Valnor said to yet another woman walking past him.

  She took the page, gave it one look, and exclaimed with a gasp, “Oh my word. What is this?”

  Her’s was a typical response to the graphic rendering created by young Paul as an engraving on a printing plate. Valnor had to admit, the youth had a gift for artistry. His work captured the moment perfectly. The addition of red, blue, and yellow coloring to the typical black and gray print made the page particularly eye catching.

  The sing
le page featured on the right side a group of uniformed soldiers in red coats firing into a crowd of civilians on the left under orders from an officer standing behind them. Three members of the crowd lay bleeding on the ground while two additional casualties were being lifted and carried away by the terrorized crowd. In the background stood a row of houses, the First Church, and behind the British troops ran another row of buildings including the Royal Custom House, with a sign over it reading ‘Butcher’s Hall.’ The image was graphic and breathtaking, as evidenced by the woman’s response.

  “Is this what happened near the docks?” the woman asked.

  Perhaps a bit sensationalized, Valnor thought to himself before giving the woman a solemn nod. “Yes it is, and the trial for the soldiers involved is taking place right now inside the courthouse.”

  “Well, I certainly hope they get what’s coming to them.”

  “British soldiers in a British courtroom? Do you really think that’s a likely outcome?” Valnor asked with great skepticism.

  “Of course it is,” a man holding the flyer in his hand exclaimed as he walked past Valnor and the woman’s conversation. “Ours is a nation of law and order. Justice will be served.”

  Valnor cocked his head to the side and affixed a puzzled look at the man. “If that is the case, then why was the officer not arrested along with the men under his command for the crime?”

  “The way I hear it, there was no order given. The soldiers just started shooting out of fear from the mob,” the man challenged.

  “An unarmed crowd,” Valnor amended before adding to his argument. “I served in the military for several years. One thing you learned was that an officer is always, always responsible for the conduct of the men under his command, no matter what. Except in this case, apparently.”