Jack used an oar to pole the boat through the shallow water, running it aground on the riverbank in a crunch of wood to gravel. Jumping over the side, he secured a line to a jutting stone.
As the figures moved from the shadows, Titus leveled his pistols, clacking back the hammers, and Jack zinged his knife from his boot.
Two large, broad men in loose oilcloth jackets and patched-over canvas trousers stepped into the dwindling twilight. The shorter of the two missed several teeth in his grin, and sported a brown-and-white-striped quail feather in his wooly knit cap. Tucking a stout oaken cudgel back into his belt, he approached with arms outstretched. “Titus! M’ heart’s broken, you black bastard! It’s me—Dodd!”
A permanent squint in the taller man’s left eye put a surly twist to his square face. He slung the short-barreled blunderbuss in his hands to his shoulder, and called in a familiar rasp, sounding as if his throat’d been scoured with lye, “Sheath that stinger, Hampton! Dontcha recognize your ol’ friend Tully?”
Jack and Titus relaxed, put by their weapons, and greeted the smugglers with smiles, handshakes and pats on the back. Tully was a Liberty Boy, bred from the days of the Stamp Act, and Jack recognized Dodd as one of the men who huddled near the dartboard at the Cup and Quill, often trounced by Titus.
“Can’t be too careful doing business these days, eh?” Jack gave Tully’s blunderbuss a tap.
Tully laughed. “When we come out light on details, we’re heavy with ammunition.”
“Aye, that—especially with the bloodybacks as close as a wet cunt to a whore’s arse.” Feather bobbing, Dodd nodded to the pettiauger. “Best get to it. What’ve ye brought us, lads?”
Titus whisked back the tarpaulin covering their cargo. “Thirty barrels of beef, and twenty of wheaten flour, ten barrels of pickled cabbage.”
“Meat and flour? I dunno . . .” Dodd scrubbed his bristly chin. “Cabbage? I s’pose we can take it all off your hands . . . me and Tully being friends to the cause and all . . .”
“Quit shitting through your teeth, Dodd,” Titus warned.
Jack bristled. “We know full well meat and flour are going for eight times the price in the city. You’d best make a fair reckoning here, Dodd . . . for the cause and all.”
Aggrieved, Dodd put a hand to his heart, a practiced, pained expression furrowing his forehead. “Jack . . . Titus . . .”
“Ah, now . . .” Tully stepped in. “Doddsy just can’t help himself, Jack—drawn to the swindle like a pig to mud, he is. O’ course we’ll make a fair trade. Our stock for yours.” Tully waved them over to the flatboat piled high with goods draped in old sailcloth. They gathered around as Tully pulled the cover away.
“We picked and chose our goods with the cause in mind,” Dodd offered, in appeasement.
Tully recited the inventory. “Forty-five casks of black powder, nine dozen rose blankets, ten cases of port wine and”—prying up the lid on a wooden crate, he displayed row upon row of flints knapped to size for musket or rifle, packed in sawdust—“a thousand Brandon black gunflints.”
“A very good trade, Tully.” Titus plucked a handful of flints from the case and deposited them into his pocket.
“We don’t have room enough for the wine, but we’ll take the rest.” Jacked unfurled one of the big woolen blankets. “Good quality this—thieved from British military stores?”
“Ah, now, Jack, thieved is a bit harsh.” Tully grinned, his squinty eye squashed to a crease. “Diverted is the more accurate term.”
Dodd chuckled. “Aye, mate—that’s what we are—die-verters.”
Tully drew his wooden-handled lading hook from his belt. “Let’s get to work, lads.”
They propped a pair of long, thick planks against the prow, forming a ramp of sorts leading to dry land. Plying their stevedore hooks with practiced expertise, Tully and Dodd hefted the heavy barrels of beef and flour onto the ramp. Jack and Titus rolled the barrels down into a neat stack on the beach.
Once the craft was emptied of its cargo, they rolled the gunpowder casks up the plank ramp for Tully and Dodd to arrange with a mind for weight and balance.
Jack dumped two bales of blankets inside the boat. “So, Tully, how are you faring under Redcoat rule?”
“Plenty of work for the likes of us at least.” Tully swiveled a cask into position. “British shipping backed up at every pier—coming in faster than we can unload ’em . . .”
“Aye. The docks are fair groaning with trade goods and military stores—more tea and sugar than anyone knows what to do with—”
“Good opportunities for you boys, eh?” Titus winked.
“Getting rough, the diverting business,” Dodd said. “Ye can’t fart on the docks these days but for having Cunningham’s nose hard up your arse.”
“Tory bugger,” Tully added.
Titus heaved a crate of flints into the boat, and shoved it under the cross thwart near the tiller. “Who’s Cunningham?”
“The provost marshall . . .” Dodd said. “And a nasty piece of work, he is, too.”
“Mean and nasty,” Tully added.
Dodd hefted a cask of powder into position and fit it snug between two others. “Y’know Molly? Over at Mother Babcock’s? Well, she told me the bastard wields a one-inch prick . . .”
“Must be some truth to it,” Tully affirmed. “I heard Suzy say the bastard’s shot pouch was longer than the barrel of his gun.”
Titus dropped the last of the blankets into the boat. “Make any man mean—havin’ a little bitty prick . . .”
“I don’t know about that . . .” Jack threw his arm around Titus. “After all, you’re a nice enough fellow . . .”
Dodd and Tully laughed, and Titus pushed his friend off, shaking a finger in his face. “Not a joking matter, Jack . . .”
“Ah, lads, all jests aside, this provost will hang you as soon as look at you. Hates rebels with a fury, and his gallows is doing a brisk business by it.” Tully leaned against the gunwale, finagling his lading hook down the back of his collar, giving himself a good scratch. “You know this fella Cunningham, Jack—from a tar and feather couple years back—the spitting snake of a Tory who wouldn’t damn the King even after we beat the living shite from him—”
“No! That bollocks is the provost?”
“One and the same.” Tully buried his hook into a bale of blankets and tossed it toward the bow. “The city’s much changed.”
Once all the cargo was transferred, packed tight and secured, Jack and Titus sat down on a flat rock by the water’s edge and shared a supper of smoked fish, biscuit and cheese with the smugglers before getting under way.
“Doddsy—why don’t you go and fetch a couple of them bottles, and we can have a sip of port after our meal like the fancy folk do.” As soon as Dodd was out of earshot, Tully grabbed Jack by the arm, his raspy voice low and slow in his ear. “Stitch says there’s a delivery waiting at the orchard—over three and up six.”
Jack nodded just as Dodd returned with two bottles and a tin of “diverted” almond comfits. The men waited out the last scraps of twilight, watching the stars pop onto a night sky clear of clouds, passing bottles and sweetmeats and catching up on the news.
Dodd piped up. “D’ye hear, Titus? The Redcoats captured Sam Fraunces in New Jersey, and put him back in his tavern to cook and pull pints for ’em.”
“Better than rotting in a prison hulk, I guess,” Titus said.
“Here’s to our poor brothers behind bars . . .” Tully took a deep slug from the bottle.
“Say, Tully, is the Cup and Quill still in business?” Jack asked.
“A-yup . . . reopened as the Royal Coffeehouse . . .”
“And crawlin’ with bloodybacks it is,” Dodd added. “As much as I miss Sally’s scones, I don’t go near the place.”
“A-yup,” Tully agreed. “The widow’s turned Tory again.”
“Naw.” Titus shook his head. “Mrs. Anne’s only getting by in hard times.”
“B
elieve it, lads. A Tory-come-lately she is.” Dodd munched on a handful of almonds. “I’ve seen her strolling along Broad Way in her fancy dresses, face rouged, hanging on to her handsome dragoon’s arm, batting her eyelashes, all a-giggle.”
“Fancy dresses?” Jack repeated.
“All a-giggle?” Titus snorted.
“Aye.” Dodd shagged his head up and down. “Ye wouldn’t know her.”
Tully passed the port along. “The world’s turned upside down, it is.”
Jack upended the bottle, gulping every last drop. Quiet for a few moments, tossing the empty bottle from one palm to the other, he jumped up a sudden, and hurled it against the rocks. The explosion of shattered glass echoed up and down the river, sending a great flock of snowy egrets and night herons croaking and flapping up into the sky.
Tully gave Jack a shove. “Are you bloody mad?”
“D’ye mean t’ bring the bleedin’ fleet down upon our heads?” Dodd hissed.
“C’mon—help us shove off,” Jack growled and marched off to the boat, taking his seat at the front of the pettiauger. Titus climbed into his seat by the tiller. The smugglers put their shoulders to the prow and sent the boat off into a river spangled with the light of countless stars.
Throwing every muscle in his body into propelling the boat forward, Jack dug the oars into the water to the beat of his heart pounding in his head, the cast-iron token hanging by a thong around his neck thumping to his chest with every motion forward and back. He thought he could feel steam rise from the top of his head.
Face painted.
Fancy dresses.
Handsome dragoon.
“Dodd is an idiot,” Titus said.
Jack dropped the oars onto his lap, twirled around and snapped, “What about Tully?”
“You left her there for eight months.” Titus shrugged. “Mrs. Anne is doing what she must to survive, but she’s no Tory.”
Jack heaved a sigh. “You’re probably right—as usual.” He turned back to his oars. Still with the current, their pettiauger cruised south at a fast clip, hugging the coast. “Take the turn just beyond this bend, Titus . . .”
Titus pulled in his oars, and steered the boat up a wide marshy creek bordered by tall sedge grass, maneuvering the boat to travel up the center of the shallow waterway.
Jack pulled to a stop at the first sound of the pettiauger scraping along the muddy streambed, and he tugged off his boots and stockings. “I’ll be right back.” Hopping over the side, he sloshed through knee-high water, and scrambled up the soft riverbank.
Running across the spongy ground, Jack cut across the marsh to the apple orchard, crawling in long, even rows up and over the crest of a low, rolling hill. He followed the third row over from the right, counting six trees up, and fell to his knees.
A soft breeze rustled through the tree leaves, and a cowbell clunked in the distance. Jack reached into a natural cleft at the base of the tree trunk and pulled out a small leather-wrapped bundle. Tucking it under his arm, he jogged back to the creek. Holding it above his head as he sloshed through the water, he put the delivery into Titus’s hands, turned the boat around to face the river and pulled himself back into it. Titus unwrapped the package.
“Why do you bother? I suspect it’s the same as always.” Jack pulled an oar from the lock, and used it to push off the creek bottom.
“Yep.” Titus affirmed. Within the leather wrapping he uncovered a ream of foolscap paper, wrapped in brown paper, bundled with a length of inch-wide grosgrain ribbon tied in a pert bow. As per usual, Titus pulled the bow loose and flipped through every page. “Nothing. The same as always. An awful lot of risk and bother—if you ask me—for us to pick up and deliver a stack of blank paper.”
Jack continued to pole the craft into deeper water. “No one’s asking you.”
Titus retied the ribbon, rewrapped the ream in its leather cover, stuffed the bundle into his gunnysack and took up the tiller.
The pettiauger accomplished the wide turn north up the East River. Titus hoisted their sail, and they skimmed along on the wind. Jack straddled the cross-thwart and laid back on it, taking a moment to catch a breath and watch the constellations roll by. Groping inside his shirtfront, he found the favor Anne had given him, and draped the lace-edged linen over his face. The vestiges of lavender combined with the sweat from her soft breasts to send Jack to a place where he lay in the dark curled against Anne’s back, his nose buried in her hair . . .
. . . Her handsome dragoon. Jack jerked to a sit. Crumpling the hanky into a tight wad in his fist, he pounded the side of his leg. That’s what Dodd had said. Her handsome dragoon.
“I’ve been thinking, Titus—after we deliver this cargo, I’m going into the city to fetch Anne . . .”
“I don’t know, Jack,” Titus pondered. “You heard what Tully and Dodd had to say about the provost—I think it’s still too dangerous for you to go there . . .”
“No, Titus . . .” Jack stuffed the crumpled handkerchief back inside his shirt. “It’s too dangerous to leave her there.”
ENCAPSULATED within a small sphere of candlelight illuminating his desktop, William Cunningham hunched over in shirtsleeves, sharp shoulders pinched up to his ears, scratching his pen across a sheet of foolscap with a precise hand.
The thick bayberry candle sputtered, and the annoying flicker bounced in the corner of his eye. The provost marshall set his quill down and poked with a ragged fingernail to raise the slumping wick foundering in a pool of melted wax. Burning bayberry helped to mitigate the malignant odor endemic to the Provost Prison, but it made for poor light—not as bright or lasting as a whale oil lamp for doing book work after dark.
Cunningham scrubbed the stubbly hair on the back of his head, took a long drink from the bottle of rum and eyed the sum total at the bottom of the second column on the page. He was required to submit a weekly report to General Howe, an accounting of the prisoners under his charge, and he was always prompt in delivering it first thing Friday mornings.
Rations and supplies for the prisoners were allocated based on Cunningham’s “meticulous” figures. He traced a finger along the list of prisons under his purview. Most of the rebel soldiers captured on Long Island and in the taking of Manhattan were held in makeshift prisons—three sugarhouses, four dissenter churches and King’s College. The only facilities designed and built as jails—New Bridewell and the Provost Prison, where he kept his quarters—housed officers, some enlisted men, common criminals and anyone suspected of treason. He had recently shifted several hundred landmen to the three prison hulks moored on Wallabout Bay, originally intended for the incarceration of smugglers and seamen from captured privateers.
“Waterborne rebel scum,” he muttered, sucking another gulp from his bottle.
Under the second column headed Living, the provost claimed a total of 3,896 prisoners. The column headed Arrivals totaled eighty-six. He studied the empty column headed Mortality for a moment, fingering the bumpy scar curving from the nape of his neck to just above his left temple.
He always kept a very accurate count of new arrivals—but there was no wringing of hands over the death count. The provost picked up his quill and filled in the blank spaces with a series of arbitrary numbers off the top of his head, totaling twenty-two.
Cunningham smirked, leaning back in his chair. Twenty-two dead—plausible, but not alarming—that was the kind of paper and ink mortality number he aimed for. Lacing fingers, he stretched his long arms over his head, eliciting a satisfying crackle from his knuckles. He had no idea how many prisoners had died over the course of the week, and neither did he care.
The standard allotment provided by the Crown for the keeping of prisoners was calculated at two pounds each of hardtack and pork per prisoner, per week. He scribbled some figures on a scrap of rough paper and smiled. Taking into account the bribes necessary in order to accommodate the sale, plus the ever-inflating market prices, he and Loring, the commissary, stood to share at minimum a tidy two-hu
ndred-pound profit by selling off half of the next week’s rations. He was very pleased.
Cunningham drew the watch from the pocket on his weskit and checked the hour—half past eleven. “Sergeant O’Keefe!” he shouted. “O’Keefe! Get in here now, you fuckin’ miserable bog trotter!”
His deputy came bumbling from quarters across the hall, in shirttails and stockinged feet. The barrel-chested Irishman misjudged the doorway, and though his protruding belly absorbed the brunt of the collision, he still managed to give his forehead a good knock against the jamb.
“It’s the likes of you what give us Irish a black name—drunken sot!”
“Not drunk . . .” Michael O’Keefe wavered on his feet, greasy hair swaying in limp hanks about his face. He belched. “Just fell asleep is all.”
“Drunken lying bastard—look at you—standing there with a face the color of the devil’s nutbag . . .” Cunningham stood and leaned over his desk, the nostrils on his sharp nose flaring in disgust. “Feh! You’re wearing sick all over your shirt . . .”
The deputy smeared a thumb over the suspicious substance, and shrugged.
The provost shook his head and fell back into his chair. “I want you to go and fetch a few necks to stretch, from”—he referred to his list—“Van Cortlandt’s Sugar House.”
“What time is it?” O’Keefe ground the heel of his palm into his eye. “Ye know we get complaints from the neighbor women when we scragg ’em this late.”
“Never mind the time . . .” Cunningham’s Adam’s apple jerked up and down the shaft of his neck, as if he had swallowed a thing yet alive. “I am of a mind to see some rebels dangle and dance.”
“Aye . . . awright . . .” O’Keefe raked his hair back. “Where’s Richmond?”
Cunningham pushed the candledish to the far left edge of the desk, sending light to shine on Richmond sitting in a chair. Staring with watery eyes, mouth slightly agape, his hands lay loose, palms up in his lap. The half-caste slave was dressed in baggy tow trousers and shirt, his waist-length hair twisted by neglect into a dozen snakelike locks, almost as thick as the hangman’s rope he liked to wear draped over his shoulder.
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