The Trial and Execution of the Traitor George Washington

by Charles Rosenberg

  “Of course.” Ingram handed it to him, and he put it to his eye and aimed it at the horizon. He saw only water—not that he had really expected to see land—but he had somehow felt the need to confirm that the shore could not yet be seen.

  He handed it back. “I think, Captain, to avoid the sea getting any rougher, I will go tonight. How close in can you get me?”

  “This is a small, fast ship with a shallow draught, but even so, with the uncertainty of the bottom charts, we dare not come too close to shore. We will use a longboat to take you in.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “We will want to put the boat in the water at least two miles out. If things go well, it should take less than an hour to row you in.”

  “Or more if things don’t go well?”

  “Yes, or less, as I just said, especially if we dare get closer. Although the closer in we get, the greater the chance that someone on the beach or on a high hill will see us, even at night in very weak moonlight. Not to mention the noise the chains of the capstan make as we weigh anchor.”

  “How far out would you have to anchor so as to not be seen at all?”

  “With the height of our mast, about twelve miles. And there’s one more thing.”

  “Which is?”

  “In a sea like today’s the trip in a small boat will not be easy on your stomach. You’ll be deathly ill with seasickness by the time you reach shore, even though we are lucky to have men good with small boats in our crew.”

  Black didn’t know what Ingram meant, so he did what he often did when what was said didn’t make good sense to him. He just asked directly. “I don’t understand. Aren’t all sailors good with such boats?”

  “Most sailors hate small boats. They think climbing into one is the step right before drowning. But a fair dozen of our men were impressed into His Majesty’s Navy from whalers, and they’re used to small boats, where they get up close to harpoon the whales.”

  “That sounds very good for me, then, even in a rough sea.”

  “Only in the sense that they won’t likely swamp or capsize the boat and probably won’t be sick themselves.” He paused. “But you will be. Very. Unless a calm day should come along.”

  Black was silent, weighing what Ingram was saying.

  “In case I’m not being clear,” Ingram said. “I advise you go tonight, Colonel, because bad as it may be, the sea could become even worse tomorrow and the following days.”

  Black thought about it for a few more seconds. “All right. Tonight it is.”

  As Ingram was about to leave, Black said, “I have one more question, Captain.”

  “What is it?”

  “I understand your orders are to send a boat to pick me up for each of eight nights.”

  “Correct.”

  “I worry about this because I don’t know how long this mission will take or what problems I will encounter along the way.”

  “And?”

  “If I am not here by the eighth night, are you willing to come back for a ninth night? In case I am delayed.”

  Ingram sighed. “I fear not. My orders are quite strict on this point. I would be court-martialled for violating them.” He looked at Black and grimaced. “I don’t want to be shot.”

  Black knew that Ingram was referring to the fact that, only a little over twenty years earlier, the navy had infamously executed Admiral John Byng on the quarterdeck of his own flagship for failing to relieve a besieged British garrison.

  Black raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes, a look he knew tended to endear him to people. “I would not wish to see you shot, Captain.”

  Ingram laughed, if perhaps a bit uneasily, and changed the subject back to the weather. “So you will for sure go tonight, Colonel, despite the rough sea?”

  “Yes, Captain. Taking extraordinary risks in the service of my country is what my life as a soldier has turned out to be about. The risk of getting even more seasick than I have already been is small compared to what is to come.”

  3

  Black was rowed ashore just after midnight amidst boiling seas and pelting rain, which had begun in the evening. The slicker they gave him to wear over his peacoat kept him more or less dry, but hardly warm.

  It took almost two hours for six sailors to get him in. On the way, the small boat pitched and rolled, and he vomited constantly, then got the dry heaves when his stomach finally had nothing left to bring up. When they reached shore, the sailors grabbed him under the arms, swung him out of the boat and stood him up in the surf. He watched them row away until, within seconds, they disappeared into the rain.

  As he turned to stumble away from the water’s edge, a breaker caught him from behind and knocked him down. His face was pitched into the ground, and he could taste wet sand in his mouth. It made his stomach heave yet again.

  Suddenly, he felt arms pulling him up and heard a voice say, “Passerby! Who might you be?”

  It was the code words he had been told to expect. He coughed, spit the sand out of his mouth and got out the required pass phrase: “A Patriot indeed!”

  Then came the confirming answer from the voice. “Be welcome amongst us!”

  The voice, he could now see, came from a barely made-out tall, thin man of middle years. He was wearing a rolled-up knit cap that dripped water and a full-length dark wool coat. He wore no slicker, but the coat seemed somehow to shed the rain.

  “I am Rufus,” the man said. “We should go quickly. People walk upon this beach at night, even at this hour in this weather.” Rufus took him by the elbow and led him a few dozen feet to a muddy trail that seemed to hug the beach. There were two horses waiting, tethered to a tree. As they approached, the horses gave a shake, trying to throw off the rain.

  “Do you ride?” Rufus asked.

  “Yes, of course.” He had on the tip of his tongue to remind him that he was an officer in the British Army, so it was a given that he could ride. As the words were forming on his lips, he thought the better of it. The less the Americans, Loyalists or not, knew about him the better, at least for now.

  “What is your name?” the man asked.

  “Simon Smith.”

  Rufus smiled a crooked smile and revealed a broken front tooth. “I need your real name.”

  “Why?”

  “We have been told the real name of the person whom we are to meet on this beach. If you don’t know the correct name, we will assume you have replaced the real man, and we will kill you.”

  “I could have intercepted that person and learned his real name before taking his place. You wouldn’t be able to tell.”

  “So true. Now tell me your name.”

  “Jeremiah Black.”

  Rufus stared at him for a few seconds, as if trying to figure out if he had spoken the right name. A chill went through Black. Had there been some mix-up? Was that not the name they expected?

  “And what is your rank, sir?”

  “I’m a colonel in the King’s Guard.” He smiled to himself as he said it. So much for keeping his military connections secret.

  Finally, Rufus said, “Welcome, Colonel Black. We have been expecting you, although you have picked a godforsaken night to arrive.”

  Just then Black heard a muffled sound and the sharp, high-pitched bark of a dog. Once, then twice. Rufus put his hand on his shoulder, pushed him down and slapped the other hand over his mouth. He put his mouth to Black’s ear. “Make no sound.”

  A voice at some distance, hard to make out, said, “It’s nothing, old fellow. No one else would be fool enough to walk here in this weather.”

  Black waited, crouched down and tense, his knees beginning to ache. The dog barked again. Could the animal smell them, even in the rain?

  Perhaps five minutes passed before they heard the man move off down the beach. And then the bark, twice more,
clearly now much further away. He imagined the dog, wanting to go back and find what he smelled—them. But the master, thank God, was in control and no doubt wanting to get out of the rain.

  Rufus pulled him back up, leaned close and said, “Let’s go.”

  “Do you think that was truly just a man and his dog?”

  “I know not. I do know we need to leave here. Let’s mount and ride.”

  One of the waiting horses was large, the other hardly bigger than a pony. “Take the smaller one,” Rufus said. He mounted the larger of the two and headed down a narrow trail that branched off the road. Black mounted and followed.

  Rufus had taken Black’s statement that he could ride at face value. Despite the dark night and the wet, muddy soil, Rufus rode quickly. It reminded Black of the night rides on the moors that he had taken as a very young officer, all in preparation for deployment to America to fight in the war with the French—a war that had ended not long before he was to have shipped out to help fight it.

  The task of following Rufus was made slightly easier by a light that came from a tiny lantern that hung to the side of one of the saddlebags. It was easy enough to follow but small enough—perhaps—not to give them away. He gave it only momentary thought, with his attention mainly taken up by the task of riding a strange, too small horse on an unfamiliar trail in the dark.

  After about fifteen minutes, they came to a clearing, and he could see the ghostly outline of a barn on the other side. When they were halfway across, Rufus brought his horse to a sudden stop, then reached down, grabbed the lantern, raised it above his head, held it there a few seconds and then dropped it down again as far as his arm could reach. He next raised it up again, and then repeated the actions on the other side.

  For a few seconds, nothing happened, and Black had the sinking feeling that perhaps things were already going awry, as they had on his last overseas mission. Finally, an answering light appeared high on the side of the barn, blinked three times and went dark. Then it blinked three times again. Rufus seemed satisfied and moved his horse ahead, slowly this time. Black followed.

  When they got up to the barn, they rode through an already open door. He wrinkled his nose at the smell. It was not the odour of manure that he had expected, but a powerful blast of mould. The barn had clearly been abandoned some time ago. Now, he thought, I’m going to find out if Rufus is really a Loyalist sent to fetch me, or if he is an enemy who intercepted the real messenger and beat the code words and my name out of him.

  He heard the door close behind him with a bang. It was suddenly pitch-black.

  4

  “Good morning to you, Colonel Black,” a voice said. “Welcome to His Majesty’s Colony of New Jersey.”

  Rufus, still astride his horse, opened a door on the side of the lantern and held it up high so that it gave off slightly more light. It illuminated a solitary figure standing in front of them. He was middle-aged, short but solid, with a large mop of hair. Even in the dim light, Black could see that the man’s hair was almost flame red.

  “Good morning to you, sir,” Black responded. “May I have the honour of knowing your name?”

  “Those who have planned this say that the less we all know about each other the better, despite the fact that I must of necessity know your name. But that all seems so unchivalrous, don’t you agree?”

  The man said it with a kind of infectious mirth, and Black could not help but like him even without knowing him. He didn’t know whether he agreed with the sentiment or not, but, caught up in the man’s charm, found himself saying, “It would be so, yes.” Then he said, “And, again, your name is?”

  “Dr. Horatio Stevens.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Dr. Stevens. I apologize, but while I was told that I would meet a person of that name, I have also been instructed, upon first setting eyes on you, to ask for proof that you are who you say you are.”

  “Certainly,” Dr. Stevens said. He rolled up his left shirtsleeve to above the elbow and presented his upper arm for inspection.

  Black peered at it and saw that it was what he had been told to expect: a roughly inked tattoo of Patrick Henry’s famous words, “Give me liberty or give me death,” wrapped around the man’s arm in a double band.

  “That seems, Dr. Stevens, an odd sentiment for a Loyalist.”

  “It is a sentiment I still believe in deeply, Colonel. But while this Revolution was once about liberty, and garnered my support, it no longer is. It has become instead a Revolution for merchants, bankers and planters. Not to mention France. We who love liberty will in the long run be better off staying with our king.”

  Black didn’t know quite how to reply to that, so he just grunted. But what he remembered was what had been drummed into his head during the special training he had received prior to an earlier confidential mission: a man who has betrayed someone once will easily do it again if it profits him.

  Dr. Horatio Stevens fit the bill. Likeable as he was, he had first betrayed his King and was now betraying his Revolution. Black wondered how Lord North had picked Stevens for the American end of the operation. But that was a foolish thought. Lord North had no doubt picked someone who picked someone who picked Dr. Stevens. In any case, Stevens would bear watching.

  It was time to get on with it. “Dr. Stevens, do you have a plan? I was told you would have a plan with details far beyond what has already been told to me.”

  “Yes, Colonel, I have a new plan. Since the original plans were made, the target has unexpectedly moved. Dismount and I will tell you about it.”

  He hesitated. It might well be safer to stay mounted, but then again, if they wanted to do him harm, it would make little difference. The barn door was closed, and he had little idea where he was. He steeled himself, dismounted and walked slowly over to Stevens.

  5

  “Dr. Stevens, before we get to the plan, would you cease to call me colonel for now?” Black said. “I think you must know the reason.”

  “Yes, you are out of uniform. If you are caught while wearing your real one, you could argue that you should be treated as a prisoner of war. Without one...”

  “I will be hanged as a spy if it becomes known that I am a soldier.”

  “Do you have papers that show that you are something other than a soldier?”

  “Yes.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a set of papers wrapped in oilskin. He unbundled them and handed them to Stevens. To Black’s amazement, they were still dry.

  Stevens read quickly through them. “These say that you have been apprenticed to an inventor in Charleston.”

  “Yes, and I will tell anyone who asks that because of the war and the marauding of rebel ships, I was landed in New York instead of Charleston and became lost while making my way south.”

  “What kind of inventor?”

  “He is a man skilled at machinery who is trying, I will say, to invent a machine to separate cotton fibres from the seeds.”

  “Have you ever even seen any machine that does that?”

  “No. That is no doubt why the man can be said to want to invent it. The patent would make him wealthy. But I have always been a good mechanic, and in my youth I worked in my father’s blacksmith shop and tinkered with things. I could be of use to such a man, and I can make that story stick if pressed.”

  “Your youth? Good God, how old are you now?”

  “Thirty-three.”

  “From my perspective, at an age much closer to fifty than to forty, you are still young. But be that as it may, if you are caught in the midst of this operation, Mr. Black, that cotton story will do you little good.”

  Stevens turned to Rufus, who had remained on his horse, and said, “Please give me the lantern.”

  Rufus handed Stevens the lantern, whereupon Stevens took the papers Black had given him, used the flame to light them on fire and dropped
them on the ground. The papers burned and curled to ash. With his boot, Stevens ground the blackened remains into the dirt.

  “There, the ridiculous cotton machine story is no more, and I will give you shortly something to replace it.”

  He turned once again to Rufus and said, “Rufus, you may leave us now. I will be quite safe with Mr. Black. It’s best you get ahead of us, as we talked about.”

  Rufus nodded, turned his mount around and headed out.

  After he had left, Black said, “Dr. Stevens, I am not so much wet as bone cold. Are we able to risk a fire?”

  “No. But I have brought more appropriate clothes for you and they will be warmer.” He pulled a shirt, pants and a jacket out of his saddlebags. “Put these on and you will be not only warmer, but less suspicious looking.”

  Black took them, examined them and said, “This is an American uniform, showing the rank of corporal.”

  “Yes, of the 1st Pennsylvania and using your real name. With it you can travel openly during the first part of the operation. The papers I will give you say you were on leave to visit your dying mother.”

  “This takes away any claim that I am a civilian.”

  “That claim was ridiculous on its face, and would not save you.”

  “Before we get to our final goal, I will need the uniform of a British officer. Have you been told that?”

  “Yes, it was in the plan from the start, and we are working on it. For the moment, though, please put these on.”

  Once he had reclothed himself in what he had been handed—a dark green military-style coat with buff lapels, waistcoat and knee breeches—Black asked, “Do you have a gun for me?”

  “No. You will have no need of a gun right now. I will get you one later. If you are asked, just say that you left your gun with your regiment.”

  Not having a gun made Black uncomfortable. He was an expert marksman and had always felt most at ease, when in the field, with a musket or pistol in his hands. But it was the Loyalists who had planned all of this, so he had no choice but to accept it for the moment.