Sophia's War (14 page)

LIKE A SUCKLING PUP
, our boat nudged the looming ship, which towered over me and seemed beyond reach. Next moment a rope ladder
clump
ed down. That I had to climb unnerved me. The thought must have been on my face because my soldier said, “There's no other way, miss. Yes or no?”

“Yes, please.”

He grabbed the ladder, held it taut. With our boat pitching and yawing beneath my feet, basket heavy in the crook of my arm, I took hold of the ladder with two hands. Though it was icy cold and slippery, I began to climb.

I went but haltingly. With the ladder swaying constantly and my arms aching, I was sure I must fall. More than once I had to pause and close my eyes, but managed to cling on. When I neared the ladder's top, coarse hands reached down and yanked me roughly the final way. In moments I stood upon the deck, legs wobbly, head dizzy, heart pounding.

Standing there, trying to regain my breath and balance, I was engulfed by the fetid stench of decay. I lifted
my eyes and gazed about. All was in disorder, as if the ship's tools, rope, sail, spars, deadeyes, and lanyards had begun to disintegrate. Midst it all, as if similarly undone, were men like those I had seen in the sugarhouse. They lay or sat about in semifrozen stupor, their emaciated, dirty bodies protected with naught but rags. To a man, they appeared deceased and haggard, nearer the shores of death than life.

British soldiers, slovenly in appearance, were standing guard, some with muskets in hand, others with clubs. These ghastly looking men gazed upon me like birds of prey and I a passing morsel.

“What do you want here?” came a harsh voice.

I looked around. Though his jacket proclaimed him an officer, the man was as rantum-scantum as the others.

“I'm asking what do you want here?” came the question again, louder.

“I . . . brought food for my brother.” I held up my pathetic basket.

“What's his name?”

“William. William Calderwood.”

“You can try and find him.” As he spoke, he held out his hand, as if expecting me to give him the basket for permission to look.

I held back.

“If you want to look, you'll need to give that over,” he demanded.

I gave it to him.

Then he said, “Money?”

I gave him what I had.

He seemed to calculate the amount. “More?”

“None,” I said.

That he kept the basket shocked me, but I did not say anything. A soldier was beckoning.

He led me to an opening on the deck. Off to one side was a wooden grate. Steps—with a kind of side rail—led down into what appeared to be a bottomless pit. I turned to the soldier for instruction.

“If he's anywhere, it's down there.”

“Is there no light?”

“What you see.”

I was so frightened I could do nothing.

“Step lively,” said the solider. “It's getting on to night.”

I forced myself to grip the handrail and began to descend into a black hole, from dark to darker, where night itself must sleep.

Halfway down I stopped and stared about. Gradually my eyes grew accustomed to the foul and rotten gloom. What I saw were men sprawled everywhere, entangled like rotting eels. All were in the most desolate conditions of neglect.

This was the sugarhouse,
twice
as horrible. This was not mere disregard and ignorance. This, by multiple degrees, was murder.

I was too frightened to go any farther.

“William,” I called out. “William Calderwood!”

No answer.

“William!” I shouted. “William Calderwood!”

No reply. Someone coughed. Groaned. Bodies shifted.
The stench was overwhelming. I thought I heard the sound of retching. Then, from somewhere, I knew not where, a thin voice called, “Who asks?”

“His sister.”

“William Calderwood,” came the voice, “died two days ago.”

28

THOUGH IT WAS
pitch night when I was rowed back to shore, it was nothing like the darkness in my heart. I do not know if there were sufficient words in Father's dictionary to give reality to what I saw on the
Good Intent
. Enough to say that if you ever doubted the existence of Hell, I can tell you—it is real. That day I saw it. And as preachers remind us of Hell to shape our destiny, know that the Hell
I
saw shaped mine.

So I trust you will completely accept it when I reveal that in my grief I vowed I would avenge William's awful death. Moreover, I believed that John André had the power to save my brother. But he refused.

By mid-January of 1777, all the rivers around New York were frozen solid. Just as, I believed, was my heart.

Ah! But was that so? You, Dear Reader, must decide.

29

THE DEATH OF
William proved a terrible blow to my parents and to me. To lose one's only son, heir, and dearest brother to such cruelty is beyond measure. Our suffering was immense. It grew even worse when we could not learn if he had been buried decently—if at all. As it has been said: “To lose a loved one is but part of living life, whereas to have a loved one vanish is a living death.”

For a long while my parents remained sunk in plightful melancholy, aging rapidly before my eyes. Yes, over time they resumed a
kind
of being, though much subdued in spirit and strength. Father worked for a number of printers in the city and engaged in some legal copy work. He did it all at home, for one lasting effect of William's death was that my parents almost never walked out. It was I who received and delivered Father's work to various employers and did the marketing for Mother.

But unlike my parents, I would not be defeated. With reports of prisoner deaths in British prisons multiplying, as did the denials, my hatred of the occupying
British Army grew accordingly. Because of William's and Captain Hale's deaths (and all the others'), I wanted to become the soldier my brother had been. My intent was that I would somehow become a warrior in the great battle not yet won.

But it was only three years after William's death—in 1780—a leap year, when I reached the age of fifteen, that I finally had my chance. What I did had vast consequences, which I shall now set forth before you.

30

FIRST, HOWEVER, YOU
must know some of the events that followed William's death.

Beyond all else, the war went on. New York City stayed under control of the British Army and remained their headquarters. The first commander in chief was Lord General Howe. From May 1778 forward, it was Sir Henry Clinton.

Because New York was the principal British stronghold in America, the population grew, increased by ever more troops, English, Scot, and German. Tories arrived from all regions of the country. So did freedom-seeking slaves. The city's population, it was claimed, came to exceed thirty thousand.

Many British officers brought wives and children from England to build a regular military establishment. As a result, a lively social life ensued. There was theater, horse races (in Brooklyn), concerts, foxhunts, balls, banquets, and Monday-afternoon games of cricket. All this despite constant fear that General Washington's army was about to attack.