The Turning of Anne Merrick (56 page)

“
Und
ze brooch.” The Hessian smiled, holding out his hand.

“I’ll be making a report of this to the Provost,” O’Keefe said, slapping the brooch into his palm.

As if O’Keefe were nothing more than an annoying fly, the Hessian waved him off the quarterdeck. “You are dismissed, Sergeant.”

O’Keefe went running down the stairs. He stopped at the gangway ladder, and thrust his arm up in a two-fingered salute. “Take that, German twats!”

One of the guards leaned over the rail and shouted,
“Irish
arschficker!”

Anne took the brooch from the Captain, and dropped it into her pocket. “Thank you, Captain. Please keep the coin for your trouble. I don’t have the words to explain how much this brooch means to me.”

“Nein.”
The Hessian officer swept the coins from his desk and held them out to her. “I’m afraid you vill need more zan I, madam.”

The guards escorted her down to the main deck. Night was falling and a blue-jacketed soldier made the rounds lighting the ship’s lamps. Anne could see the lantern swinging on the little dory Richmond rowed around the bend back to the ferry landing.

The prisoners had all been herded below, and the guard who’d cursed at O’Keefe became grim-faced, and pointed to the hatchway with an apologetic shrug.
“Los, madam.”

Clutching her pocket in her hand, Anne looked down into the hatchway at the steep stairway disappearing into utter black darkness. A foul-smelling updraft pushed her back a step.

“Los… los…”
the guard urged.

Taking in a deep breath, Anne took four steps down before finding the handrail. The noxious effluvia of sick stomachs, loose bowels, and unwashed flesh grew more pungent at every step, and she slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from retching. Stomach roiling with nausea, legs going limp, Anne sank down to sit on the stair tread. She glanced up at the guard still standing over the hatchway, and said, “I can’t…”

The guard said,
“Das ist gut, madam, das ist gut,”
dropping the hinged metal grate over the opening and locking it in place.

The grate cast a faint checkerboard shadow on her new world. Anne leaned her head against the handrail and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead.
Feverish.

To the right and left of the stairway, the lower deck was bereft of any light. Anne could hear the moans, groans, snores, and coughs of a multitude, but all she could see was the faint movement of shadows shifting and writhing.

Skinny gray shadows crept up from this all-enveloping darkness, joining her on the stairway. Thinking they were coming to take her
down into the dark pit, she whispered, “I’m sorry. This is as far as I can go…”

“’Pon my word, missus,” a dull voice responded. “You’ve found the spot what serves as heaven aboard the
Whitby
.”

Heaven…
The stench was overpowering, and Anne raised her nose to the grate to harvest a breath of fresh air, trying hard not to think about what generated the awful smell.
Worse than the sewers of New York…
Reminded of volunteering at the hospital in King’s College, she dug into her pocket for her handkerchief, and brought it to her nose.
Lavender.
Folding the linen into a triangle, she tied it over her face, like a highwayman’s mask.
That’s better.

Anne pulled out her brooch, and swiped her thumb across the crystal. “Jemmy,” she whispered. Making a silent vow to never speak ill or unkindly of Hessians ever again, she pinned the brooch to the inside of her stays.

The Hessian said I’ll need my silver…
Anne ripped a few of the stitches holding up the hem of her wool skirt, and one by one slipped the eight coins inside the wool casing.

Next, she drew out the bit of broken cast iron.
No one would steal this.
Closing her fist around it, she let the rough edge of the ragged metal bite into her palm.
Jack wore his around his neck…
Anne slipped the ribbon string from her pocket, and tied it onto the token, making a half-crown necklet to hang over her heart.

Heart…
She delved into her pocket for the last valuable needing safeguarding. She set the wooden heart on the first stair tread, centering it in a faint square of light beaming in through the grating. She traced her fingertip over the smooth curved wood, and the words Jack had etched into it.

Love Never Fails.

It seemed forever ago she and Jack lay entwined together on a bed of sweet balsam, staring up at the same stars. Anne yawned, and heaved a smiling sigh, remembering how she’d first scoffed at the bed Jack manufactured for their woodland tryst.

What I would give for a sweet balsam bed right now…

Anne tucked the wooden heart between her breasts and tried to
make the best bed she could of the stairs. Legs curling to the side, hip propped on the fourth stair, head cradled on arms braced on the first stair, she peered up through the grate and could see the swath of stars Jack called the Milky Way.
So many stars, they appear as a mist to our eyes…
She could almost feel his warm breath in her ear, whispering,
I’ll rescue you from any monster—land or sea…

Keeping her eyes focused on a tiny patch of sky, trying very hard not to blink, it didn’t seem to take long for the heavens to oblige and send a shooting star streaking through the sky.

“Rescue me, Jack.” The moment the wish escaped her lips, she imagined the whisper slipping through an opening in the grate, flying through the night sky, across earth and water to land dancing in his ear.

Plying through water as black and smooth as a good Irish stout—oarlocks and oars muffled with rags—Jack maneuvered between the British war and merchant ships moored at Peck’s Slip on the East River.

Heeding Titus’s good advice, Jack came to New York by the roundabout way of King’s Bridge, taking the back roads to the village of Haarlem. There, he traded his gelding and the purse for a weather-beaten skiff and worn fisherman’s gear. Riding the outgoing tide by the dark of the moon, Jack had reached the city in no time.

A ship’s bell chimed nine, and the tide was just beginning to rise. Jack drew in his oars to coast under the pier and tie his skiff up to a barnacle-crusted piling. He hurried to pull on soft sealskin boots, tucking the loose trousers into the cuffed tops. Stuffing two pistols and a knife into the sash tied around his waist, Jack donned a dark fisherman’s jacket and slouchy knit cap. He hoisted himself onto the pier, sending a pack of wharf rats scurrying to the dark end.

The streets seemed much livelier in the occupied city than the year before, when British martial law was first declared. Jack hurried down Water Street, collar turned up, cap pulled down to eyes, hands stuffed into pockets. It was Friday night, and the dockside taverns and trulls
were doing a brisk business. Jack ducked into a deep doorway to avoid confrontation with a jovial group of drunken Redcoats coming out of the Three Cups, and found he shared the dark corner with a couple in amorous congress.

Before reaching Queen Street, he turned to cut through an alleyway and, counting from the left, pulled himself up over the garden gate of the fifth gabled house, landing in a soft thump.

The blossoms were blooming on the tailor’s peach trees, and Jack hove in a noseful of the pleasant perfume that served to calm his racing heart. Skirting around the privy, past the kitchen house, he headed straight to a pair of shutters keeking yellow light around the edges. He rapped three double taps in quick succession, and waited.

Jack could hear shuffling and muttering, but no one came to unlatch the shutters. He knocked the signal once again, this time whispering, “C’mon, Stitch—it’s me—Jack—”

The shutters swung open accompanied with the clack of flintlock weapons. Stocky Hercules Mulligan stood in a brilliant burst of lamplight, a pistol in each hand. Jack spun to see Tully coming up from behind, armed with a mean-looking stevedore hook, ready to do some damage.

Jack swiped off his hat, and threw up his arms. “For chrissakes, Stitch—I used the fucking signal, didn’t I?”

“I’ll be
bumswizzled
!” Hercules Mulligan lowered his weapons, and leaned out the window, a huge smile cracking his ruddy face. “If it isn’t Jack Hampton himself!”

“You used the old signal—” Squinty-eyed Tully hung his hook onto his belt, and in a voice graveled by years of smoke and rough drink, the old smuggler said, “I near gutted your arse, you stupid bastard.” Swinging a leg over the windowsill, Tully asked, “Where’s Titus?”

“He’s back in Pennsylvania, scouting for Washington.” Jack followed Tully in through the window, and latched the shutters closed. “He’s got a woman now.”

“Rascal, you!” The tailor pulled Jack into a bear hug, then held him at arm’s length. “You could use a shave, boyo…”

Jack worried the whiskers on his chin. “I’ve been on the move.”

“There’s a
lean, hard look about you, lad.” Hercules pointed to the scar on Jack’s cheek. “Very menacing, that one. I’d head the other way, if I saw you coming at me.”

Jack smiled and hooked a finger on the scarf at his neck, pulling it aside to show the hangman’s scar. “You haven’t seen this one yet…”

“A badge of honor, that scar. You bear it, but we all had a hand in earning it.” Mulligan went to the cupboard where he kept his liquor, and poured out three glasses of whiskey.

“I’ve earned a few more badges since then,” Jack said, plopping down into the desk chair.

“If we’re showin’ scars,” Tully said, taking up a glass of whiskey, “I’ve got a dandy on me hairy old arse…”

Jack laughed, and the tailor proposed, “A toast—” Raising his glass, he said, “The dew may kiss the morning grass. The clock may kiss the hours past. A lad may kiss a maiden lass. And you, my friends, may… drink hearty!”

They tossed back their whiskey, and had a good laugh. Jack heaved a sigh, and raked his fingers through his hair. “It’s good to see you both…”

Hercules Mulligan, tailor turned spy, refilled the glasses. “As glad as I am to see you, Jack, it’s not the safest place for you here—minching about New York. Our Provost has a long memory, especially for a gallows thief like you. What are you about?”

Jack tried to smile. “Thought we’d share one drink afore begging a favor.”

“Ah, now…” Hercules pulled up a chair. “There’s no begging amongst true friends.”

Tully straddled his chair. “Out with it…”

“They’ve taken Anne”—Jack’s voice cracked—“and I need your help getting her back.”

TWENTY

Heaven knows how to set a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as
Freedom
should not be highly rated.

T
HOMAS
P
AINE
,
The American Crisis

D
ARK AS
N
IGHT

“Raus!”

The abrupt shout was followed by a jangle of keys, the shriek of rusty hinges, and a reverberant clang as the iron grate was swung open. Head cradled on arms, Anne yawned, tugging at the handkerchief tied over her nose. Pulling the linen past her chin, she greeted both the daylight and the guard leaning over the hatchway with bleary-eyed blinking. Entranced by the fuzzy balls of gold wool quavering at each point of the guard’s tricorn, her sleepy brain worked to connect the morning’s sights and sounds.
Hessian. Keys. Locks. Prison… prisoner.

The Hessian leaned in and gave her a poke with the business end of his musket.
“Raus!
”

Sitting up, very stiff, Anne wiped sand from her eyes, noting, with a bit of a chuckle, that she’d found a better night’s sleep on the stinking stairway of a rotting prison hulk than in the arms of Edward Blankenship. She reached back to knuckle-rub a cramping pain at the base of her spine, and noticed the gray congregation of emaciated, bedraggled
men gathered at the bottom of the steps, all waiting patiently while she so blithely stretched and preened.

“Oh, dear!” Anne grasped the rail and pulled up to a stand, her empty pocket fluttering down the steps. A tangle of skeletal arms reached forward to snatch it up.