It was easy. The scene was so loud and chaotic that a tiny twelve-year old boy was not missed at all. He ducked between two prisoners and did not lift his head up again until the firing stopped. Then he stepped back out and pretended to be short of breath along with all the other soldiers around him. The ruse worked to perfection, but left him feeling hollow inside. Especially when the British forces left the fortification and marched past their fallen brothers littered across the open field.
Paul came close to admitting the failing to his mentor on several occasions, but could not find the nerve. The man did not just participate in that charge, he led it with saber held high at the vanguard of attack; he could not make that admission to him.
“I have diner ready,” Paul announced on his way into the tent.
“Good, I’ll be along shortly,” came a distracted reply from Captain Hamilton. He was on his knees reaching for something under the cot with his back to the entrance.
Paul was about to turn around and leave, but stopped when he saw the captain stuffing articles of clothing and tins of food and hardtack into a backpack. “What are you doing? Is that something I can do for you?”
“I’m packing. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
“I know. We’re heading back to New York City, but we only have a few more days marching to go. There’s no need to pack extra for that.”
“The army is going to New York, you and I are going someplace far away from there,” the captain announced.
“What do you mean?”
Captain Hamilton paused in his packing to look up at Paul with determined eyes. “We’re leaving. Tonight, while they sleep so we’ll only have a couple of guards to avoid.”
“You mean,” Paul reflexively said in a loud voice before dropping his volume to a whisper, “desertion? You’re deserting the army?”
“We are deserting the army.”
“What…what…why?”
“Because when we get to New York, I’m a dead man,” his mentor declared.
“Nonsense. You led the charge and negotiated the truce with that French commander to save this army. Washington knows that and will look past you firing that first shot,” Paul insisted.
“The Lieutenant Colonel refused to sign any document that admitted fault on his part because it would be an affront to his honor,” the captain said on the way to his feet with filled backpack in hand. “The French commander would not let us go without an admission of fault. Neither man would budge an inch.”
“You must have come up with something since the Lieutenant Colonel signed the truce agreement,” Paul suggested.
“Yes, I lied to him,” the captain said and allowed the reality of his statement to linger in the tent for several loaded seconds before continuing. “I told him there was no admission, but the entire document is a damning admission of guilt. When another translator in New York clarifies that fact for Washington, I’m a dead man. Now since I have no real desire to be dead just yet, we’re leaving. Tonight.”
“Why, why would you deceive the Lieutenant Colonel like that,” Paul insisted.
“For the benefit of every man in this camp,” his mentor snapped. “Washington would have fought the French in a hopeless battle to the last man in order to preserve his honor. He was not thinking about the good of his men, only his own vanity. I couldn’t let that happen. You’re welcome by the way, considering you would have died along with the rest of us in that instance.”
“No, no I won’t leave. I like it in the army. For the first time in my life I have food, friends, and purpose. I’m staying,” Paul fired back with resolve. “Washington is an honorable man. He’ll see that you receive fair treatment when he discovers the truth.”
“Oh, wise the hell up, boy. His honor will demand my execution.”
Paul knew he was grasping at straws, but he was enraged at the captain for trying to turn his life upside down. He was determined not to leave. “If you truly think you were right to mislead him, then you need to see your actions through to the end. Doing otherwise makes you a…”
“A coward?” his mentor finished with an amused grin shining down on Paul. “I led a charge against the enemy where there was at best a one in three chance I would come back alive. Facing those odds, you chose to tuck tail and run behind the nearest prisoner to hide and avoid making that charge. Now when I face a one hundred percent chance of execution, you suddenly think me a coward for leaving? That’s called prudence, boy.”
There was no measure to the level of shame those words brought to Paul’s heart. His mentor knew of his cowardice. That realization caused the dam keeping his childish emotions in check to break loose and unleashed a river of tears down his cheeks. “I couldn’t, I just couldn’t step into the open field to get shot at like that. All I could think about was me lying on the ground with a gaping hole and my guts oozing out. I’ve never felt such terror, ever.”
His mentor paced toward Paul and brought him in for a reassuring hug. “Forgive me. Sometimes I forget that you are only twelve. You haven’t seen or experienced the world like I have. That is why you need to trust me on this.”
“In Washington’s mind, you are linked to me,” the captain instructed as he broke away from the embrace. “When I leave, and I am leaving, they will think you helped me. Washington will try you as a conspirator and will either jail or hang you. Do you want that?”
“No,” Paul managed to say between sniffles.
“Then we leave tonight.”
“Where will we go? I don’t want to live on the streets again, stealing barely enough food to stay alive. I could have stayed in London to do that.”
“Boston,” his mentor answered without hesitation. “It’s a long way from the Lieutenant Colonel in New York. Plus, it’s the busiest trade port in the Americas and I know a few things about taxes and import/export law to make a decent living.”
“If that’s true, then why did we bother joining the army to march all the way out here and get shot at then?” Paul asked, but received no answer. Instead, Hamilton handed him the loaded backpack and pushed him out the tent door to desert the army.
Chapter 17: Set to Simmer (1768)
Valnor approached THE meeting hall with a heightened sense of trepidation. The last time he approached a Freemason’s lodge gathering it did not end well for him, but what choice did he have. The war he wanted between France and England came and went, and left nothing good in its wake. For two years, violence raged in the Americas with the French and Indian War before spilling over to the global stage for seven more years of conflict.
The war eventually involved every great European power, and spanned five continents to affect Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India and the Philippines. England more or less faced the rest of the world alone and achieved the unthinkable by coming out victorious in the end, particularly in the Americas.
The avalanche of new settlers and military assets England sent to the new continent overwhelmed the French and their native allies. Valnor’s plan for the New World fell flat on its face, and he had come to terms with that fact. It was time to draw on Hastelloy’s example and enact a new plan, one grounded in the reality that England owned the New World and its subjects were not going anywhere. Ironically, that brought Valnor back to the Freemasons.
He took a large degree of comfort in the fact that this place was half a world away from the lodge he ran in Edinburgh. Not only that, these members were of a different breed than the ones who orchestrated his murder back in Scotland.
These American colonists were tradesmen, farmers and teachers with perhaps a few lawyers sprinkled in. They were not wealthy aristocrats, nor politicians running the most powerful empires on earth from the ranks of the 34th degree inner circle back in Europe. They were thousands of miles away from that seat of power. These men were simply here for the beer and wine while commiserating with their fellow man about those with real power taxing them into oblivion.
The American Masons technically o
wed allegiance back to the grand lodges in Europe. In practice, however, the club’s public idealism was fostering a separate agenda in the colonies. These humble members embraced a sense of belonging and a need for community improvement. Their god given right to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a place where all men were treated as equals was not just a saying to them. It was an ideal, one for which they were willing to fight.
The British social class system of royalty and nobility telling the commoners what to do had no place in their vision. At the moment, it was just talk in alcohol-fueled meetings held behind closed doors, but Valnor had designs on changing all that.
He expected to remain relatively inconspicuous, but on his way to the bar to order a beer, a somewhat familiar face took notice of him. The man seated at a circular table put down his playing cards, got to his feet, and asked of Valnor with an extended hand of greeting, “Captain Hamilton, is that you?”
The searching look on his face prompted the man to elaborate further. “It’s Thompson, sir. I served under your command as part of Lt. Colonel Washington’s company.”
“Thompson,” Valnor repeated without recognition before it suddenly clicked - the dog. “You brought your hunting dog with you, right? That rambunctious Weimaraner sure came in handy rounding up some game when rations ran low.”
“Or when we just couldn’t stand the sight of those mealy crackers any longer,” Thompson added with a chuckle.
“How is that old hound doing these days?” Valnor asked as he clasped the man’s hand.
A pained look grew across Thompson’s face as he shook his head. “That was ten years ago, sir. He’s been gone for a while now. Shame too. He was the best hunter I ever trained.”
“That is a shame.”
“Would you care to join our friendly game?” Thompson offered with a hand pointing to an empty chair. “Five card draw poker,” he added as if it sweetened the proposition somehow.
“I’d love to,” Valnor answered, and proceeded to pull out the chair and take his seat. “Assuming the stakes aren’t too high. My purse doesn’t exactly runneth over with coin these days.”
“You are in good company then,” another player replied. “Tough to keep any coin these days with King George always cutting new holes at the bottom of the purse with his taxes.”
“Aye, but what choice do we have?” another asked as he slapped the deck of cards he was shuffling onto the table pointing with an index finger to an embossed stamp pressed into the lower left corner of every card. “Look, even these cards have the blasted revenue stamp on them.”
“Ah yes, the Stamp Act,” Valnor confirmed with a sneer. “Every piece of printed material in the colonies needs to display an official stamp of approval. I run a law practice. Every legal document must have it, which has doubled my cost of doing business. I was able to get around it for a while by using the colonial paper money we printed, but now everything has to be paid in pounds.”
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but what little I do get to keep gets devoured by the soldier I am forced to quarter in my home,” Thompson added. “The fat bastard is eating me out of house and home, and for what? He eats all day, drinks all night, and visits prostitutes the rest of the time. He does, at best, an hour a week of actual soldiering.”
“The one I had to take in, per the Quartering Act, is not so hard on my cupboard, but there is something not quite right about him,” Valnor said with real concern in his voice. “The way he looks at Paul on occasion makes me not want to leave the house when he’s around.”
“Paul, is that the little drummer boy you took under your wing while we served?” Thompson asked. “He’s got to be what, twenty-one by now?”
“Twenty-two,” Valnor amended. “Yes, the very same young man. He’s like the son I never had.”
“To be truthful, there were some under your command who thought there might be something not quite right in your relationship with Paul,” Thompson said and quickly added with his arms raised in a disarming gesture, “certainly not me of course.”
“Of course not,” Valnor added with a stern glare.
The frosty moment lingered between them until one of the players asked, “If you’re so concerned, what are you doing here tonight?”
“The soldier is on duty this evening, and I wanted to see if others shared my opinion about the taxation levels and the invasion of our private homes by the king and his many acts of parliament that oppress us.”
“Well, what did you expect?” a man sitting at the table next to them asked over his shoulder. “The war with the French and Indians wasn’t free. They sent tens of thousands of troops over here to protect us. That protection comes with a price, and for us living under that protection it is our duty to pay our share.”
“And you really believe that line of bull they’re trying to sell us,” Valnor challenged, which provoked the man to turn all the way around and face him in his seat. “Those extra troops allowed the army to invade the French territories and annex their lands all the way west to the Mississippi River, territory lines now made permanent by the Treaty of Paris. Those troops weren’t here to protect us, they were sent to acquire more territory for King George.”
“That may be, but those new territories give men like us an opportunity,” the loyalist countered. “I plan to make a fortune in those new territories.”
“You had best practice getting on your knees to service the governor’s manhood then,” Valnor snapped with an elevated voice that drew notice from most of the room. “Only close friends, political allies, or men rich enough to bribe the administrators will have opportunity in the new territories. The rest of us will get stuck working for those men who pay us paltry wages that the king then plucks from our pockets with his taxes.”
“I don’t know about most of you,” Valnor exclaimed on the way to his feet to address the entire room, “but I didn’t risk my life in a filth riddled ship crossing the Atlantic to wind up working for the same bastards I did back in England. I came here for opportunity, but I can’t do a thing with the King’s hand in my pocket and his soldiers in my home.”
“Aye!” came as an almost unanimous shout from those in the room.
“What can we do though?” a particularly vocal man standing near the bar asked.
“Protest,” Valnor answered. “Make our voices of discontent be heard throughout the colonies. Make them loud enough that the king takes notice of them all the way back in London. Don’t just sit, drink, and gripe to no avail behind these walls and closed doors.”
“Aye! We should protest,” the room exclaimed once more, but the man at the bar quickly settled the room down again to ask. “Who are you? I’m Grand Master of this hall, and I have never seen you before. For all I know, you’re a spy attempting to sniff out rebellious elements among our membership.”
“It’s true. I am a first time visitor, but I firmly believe what I say. These lodges throughout the colonies are the closest thing we have to an organized governing body free from the king and his puppets. If a protest movement is to begin, it needs to start here among this membership.”
“Aye,” and “he speaks the truth of it,” were the prevailing shouts from the room before the Grand Master got control once more.
“You raise an interesting point and propose an interesting course of action, but it is for our voting members to deliberate and decide. I must ask you to leave while we see to the formal ceremonies of the evening.”
“Of course,” Valnor acknowledged with a slight bow of his head. “I’ll leave you to your deliberations then, and look forward to earning membership to take part in such matters of import. Until then.”
Chapter 18: Timing is Everything
Paul put down the law book he was reading to rub his eyes. Not only was the subject matter of import tariffs duller than watching paint dry, the lantern over his shoulder cast a dim, orange light across the pages that strained his eyes. He preferred to do his studying during the day out in
the open sunlight, but things had been extremely busy at his caretaker’s law office lately. The only times he had to study were stolen moments in the evening.
He looked longingly toward the corner where a set of metal working tools sat next to an unfinished engraving. It was only a hobby for him, but he felt a real sense of satisfaction working with his hands. There was creative license with it, a freeing artistry that stood in stark contrast to the rigidity of practicing law. There was a temptation for him to work as an apprentice to become a silversmith, but that would throw years of legal study out the window.
He looked back at the book and heard a voice in the back of his mind say, ‘there was no real need to study these boring texts’. If Paul wanted to open a law practice, all he had to do was find a clerk, any clerk in any court in the colony of Massachusetts. If that individual gave him a stamp of good confidence as to his moral character, then he could put up a shingle and open a storefront of his own.
That, of course, was not the point his caretaker constantly argued. Opening a storefront is easy; gaining a client base is hard and takes knowledge of the law. Business men talk, and if just one of them sees there is no real skill or understanding of the law, then that practice will be dead in the water.
It was a valid point, but that did not make these dull, eye-straining evenings any easier to bear. His caretaker and their quartered soldier were both out for the night, so at least the tiny house was quiet. This gave Paul time to study and also think. He was twenty-two and lived in a new world full of opportunity. Yet he was working himself half to death trying to earn a living under the old ways: find a mentor, work for pittance as an apprentice, and then step out on his own after a decade or more when the mentor deemed him worthy. Even if he followed his passion into silversmithing, it would be the same story.
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