“Mostly dug ditches and carried rocks. The soldiers, they worked alongside us, and they drilled to get ready. When the battle finally started, the men fired their guns so fast the barrels grew hot. The cannon smoke was thick as fog. I saw the most horrid sights, Country, not fit for the eyes of any person.”
He swallowed hard. “I wound up next to a militia boy from Connecticut. He’d just learned to shave and was a poor hand at it, razor cuts all over his chin. Said he was worried his pa was mad at him on account of he didn’t make it home for the apple harvest like he promised.”
He fell silent for a moment, then continued. “So this boy, he had two muskets, one his own, the other from a fella who died on Long Island. When the Hessians came at us, the boy would shoot one gun, whilst I reloaded the other. We continued thus, loading and shooting, loading and shooting half the day.
“The British moved their small cannons up the hill and took aim, but I loaded. He shot.” He paused to wipe his eyes on his sleeve. “As I handed him his gun, a cannonball ripped his head from his body.”
We sat without a word. The ashes within me swirled and filled up my throat again. Around us men muttered low and coughed.
Curzon let his tears run. “After that, I shot the guns for myself. Took the bullet in my leg, but kept firing. An hour or so later, Colonel Magaw surrendered the fort. We laid down our weapons and walked out. The British called for our officers to walk forward, and we feared they’d be shot.”
“Were they?” I asked.
“Not hardly.” He sat up a little straighter. “Officers get special treatment on account of they’re considered gentlemen. They have parole to walk around the city. They live in boardinghouses and eat regular.”
The man who faced the wall muttered a string of curses that echoed against the stones. He said every kind of bad word imaginable about officers, gentlemen, the war, the British, and the Congress, and he cursed himself for leaving his wife and farm in Maryland.
Curzon’s tears dried, leaving a thin trail of salt down his cheeks. “You should go home now.”
Before I could ask one of a hundred questions, the key turned in the lock and the guard appeared. He stuck out my bucket. “Inspection complete,” he said, wiping a smear of butter off the side of his face.
I stood, walked to the door, and looked in the bucket. Half of the food was gone.
“May I stay a while longer?” I asked.
“Sing out when you need me,” the guard said with an unsettling wink.
As soon as the door was relocked, a man with powder burns on his face snatched the bucket from my hands. “I’ll take that,” he snarled.
I held tight to the handle and shouted, “Give it back!”
The man grabbed my arm, his fingers like the claws of a panther.
“Enough!” shouted a powerful voice.
The cell fell silent as a tomb.
The short man dressed in black limped over to us from his post by the window. “Release that bucket, Private Dibdin,” he ordered.
The thief did as he was asked but crossed his arms over his chest and stood his ground. “She brought food for the black boy, Sergeant,” he complained. “T’aint right for the slave to eat while we starve.”
The tiny sergeant stood motionless. Somewhere water was dripping. “No one here will starve long as I have breath.” He turned to me. “Excuse the poor manners, miss, but we’ve not eaten for three days. Hungry men are sometimes rude.”
“I understand,” I said.
“Would you be willing to share what you’ve brought?” he asked. “We would all be most grateful.”
I looked the sergeant in the eye. He wasn’t much taller than me. “There’s not enough to feed everyone.”
“I know that, miss. But we’re all equal hungry.”
“Don’t fuss, Country,” Curzon asked. “We fought together, we’ll eat together.”
Outside a heavy cart rolled down Broadway, the driver calling to his horses. There was an argument from the cell on the other side of the wall and a thump from the one above.
I handed the bucket to Curzon.
The nasty man dug his claws into my shoulder. “The sergeant goes first.”
I waited for him to release me, fighting the urge to bite his wrist down to the bone. Once he let go, I gave the bucket to the sergeant. He looked inside and pulled out a piece of pie crust the length of my finger. He handed the bucket to Curzon, who removed a long parsnip peel.
The bucket made its way around the room at a snail’s pace as each man studied the contents and chose a small portion of discarded potato or bread or gristle. When it was returned to me I was confuddled.
“There’s still food in here,” I said.
“These are fine men,” the sergeant said with pride. “Each took his portion without stealing from the next. Mind if we send it round again?”
“No, sir.”
As the bucket went down the line again, the sergeant motioned for me to stand with him close to the wall.
“I wonder if I might ask a favor.”
“What kind of favor?” I asked.
“We need to pass messages on to our captain. He’ll be able to get word out of the city. Some of the other womenfolk who bring food to the prisoners are helping in this manner.”
“I can’t spy for you.”
“No, no, not a spy. Simply a message carrier. You come by here, I drop a word or two in your ear, and you pass it along.”
“It will put me in danger.”
“It’s a way for you to continue our fight for freedom.”
The bucket was moving more quickly the second time around.
“I cannot, sir.” I was not fool enough to let the Patriots hurt me again.
The key sounded in the lock as the bucket returned to my hands, wiped empty this time. The guard entered. Curzon struggle to his feet and handed me my cloak. “Here.”
“No,” I said. “You keep it.”
“As soon as I fell asleep, it would be … borrowed, little sister. Bring it the next time you come.”
I wrapped the warm cloak around my shoulders and was struck with a sudden notion. I pulled the newspaper out from my cap and quickly removed the pages lining my shoes. “Can you use this?”
“Hurry up,” said the guard.
Curzon smiled. “Just what I need for a bed,” he said. “Go on home now.”
I nodded, grateful to be leaving and heavy with guilt. “You’ll be here when I return?”
“Don’t plan on leaving anytime soon,” he said.
Chapter XXXVI
Tuesday, December 3–Friday, December 13, 1776
… OUR PRIVATE SOLDIERS IN YOUR HANDS,
ARE TREATED IN A MANNER SHOCKING TO HUMANITY,
AND THAT MANY OF THEM MUST HAVE PERISHED THRO’
HUNGER, HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR THE CHARITABLE
CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE INHABITANTS.
–GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON COMPLAINING
TO BRITISH GENERAL WILLIAM HOWE
Lady Seymour was struck by a fever whilst visiting up in Greenwich. She had to be carried to her chamber, her skin the color of an old beeswax candle. Doctor Dastuge came to bleed her so that her bodily humors would go back into balance.
When the bleeding was over, Madam saw the doctor to the door. I was dusting the grandfather clock in the front hall.
“Good sir,” Madam said in a low voice. “I wonder … I believe our aunt would recover faster at our estate in Charleston. She could sit in the sun for hours and breathe the healthful air. Don’t you agree?”
The doctor’s bushy eyebrows flew up in alarm. “South Carolina is hundreds of miles from here—over bad roads. Lady Seymour would be dead by Philadelphia.”
Which was likely Madam’s intention, I thought.
The doctor pulled on his gloves and picked up his bag. “I doubt she’ll be well enough to travel until spring. I will call again tomorrow.” He tipped his hat. “Good day, Madam.”
Lady Seymour’s bell
rang upstairs as the door closed behind him. Madam squeezed her lips together so tight I thought she had bit them off.
“Girl,” she spat. “Go see what she wants.”
By supper it had been decided that I would tend Lady Seymour whilst she was bedridden. The master used his connections in the British high command to secure extra firewood for the house, declaring that his aunt’s bedchamber be kept as warm as the month of June. The heat of the room helped to bake out the fever in Lady Seymour’s blood and ease her cough. ’Twas warm enough that I could go about in stocking feet which was a comfort for my shoes had taken to pinching my toes something wicked.
As she recovered, the Lady took to reading all of the newspapers printed in the city. Whenever she dropped off to sleep, I would steal as many sentences as I could. Thusly I followed the progress of the war, what was left of it. The flame of independence was sputtering and expected to burn out any day. The rebels had run out of ammunition, soldiers, and money. Mayor Matthews, him who plotted to kill General Washington, escaped from the rebel prison and returned to New York in triumph. The American Congress, frightened by the marching British, fled Philadelphia and ran to Baltimore. Newport, in my home state of Rhode Island, fell to the British too.
When I read that last bit of news I was stunned. I had not spared a thought for Rhode Island for months.
’Twas several days before I could again sneak up to the Bridewell, toting sausages, crusts, and cheese rinds. The guard stole a few of the sausages and gave me only a few moments to conversate. It mattered not. Curzon was not feeling up to much talk. I sat on the stone floor and checked the hole in his leg. It was hot but free of yellow pus.
Conditions in the prison had eased some. Folk in town had donated enough blankets that there was one to be shared between every two or three men. The British promised each prisoner would receive two pounds of pork and hardtack biscuit every week. They did not announce that the pork was often spoiled, nor that the men had to eat it raw for there was no fire to cook it over.
For my next visit I saved my own helping of mince pie. I filled the bucket with potato scraps and mutton fat, and put the pie on top. The guard took the pie, as I had hoped.
“I loves a good mince pie,” he said as he unlocked the door to the prison, pie crumbs spilling from his mouth. Frozen bodies were stacked in the hall waiting to be buried in the pits. The clothes had been taken from the bodies to keep the living soldiers warmer. I kept my eyes on the ground out of modesty.
Curzon was still not in the mood for conversating, not even a little bit. I thought he looked feverish but when I went to feel his forehead, he pushed my hand away. The men snickered at that. I took my empty bucket and left.
Snow fell all that night.
Lady Seymour prepared an errand list for me the next afternoon. She had spent the morning gazing into the fire and had not taken any food. I made bold and suggested that she eat a biscuit with honey, for her own good.
“You need strength to get through the winter,” I added.
She set down her pen, picked up her teacup, and sipped the hot cinnamon water. “I thought it pleased you when I left so much on my plate.”
“Ma’am?”
“The more I leave behind, the more there is for you to take to the prison.” She studied me so close I thought she could see my thoughts. “That is where you’ve been taking the table scraps, isn’t it?”
My head bobbed once, like a puppet’s.
“Am I to assume you know someone confined there?”
I found my voice. “Yes, ma’am.”
She sipped again and looked at me over the rim of her teacup. “It is honorable to help a friend in need.”
“How did you know?” I blurted out.
She folded the sheet of paper on the table. “These are the items I would like you to fetch for me. Purchase the ink and newspaper at Rivington’s, but not the books. He overcharges. Go to that shop near the baker on Hanover Square. Elihu said they haven’t closed.”
I bobbed once and took the paper. “Please, ma’am,” I tried again. “How did you know?”
Her gaze returned to the logs in the hearth. “Take care how you go, Isabel. Many people think it is a fine and Christian thing to help the prisoners. I do not think my niece is one of them.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I whispered.
It started to snow whilst I was in Rivington’s. The wind blew the snow direct into my face as I crossed the square, and I was grateful to step into the shelter of the stationer’s store for ’twas warm and dry inside, near peaceful, if such a word can be used to describe a shop.
A jelly-bellied officer with thick spectacles was purchasing a tall stack of books from the man behind the counter. They were deep in their talk and appeared not to notice me. I took a slow turn around the shop, admiring the shelves heavy with books, business forms, proclamations from Parliament and General Howe, slates, thick paper, quills, and sealing wax.
The books called to me. My fingers itched to touch them. It had been months since I dug into the story of Robinson Crusoe.
I glanced toward the counter. The men were arguing friendly-like about a fellow named Hume. They both had their faces planted in the same pamphlet. When I trod on a squeaky board, they did not even look up.
I reached up to a bookshelf and flipped my way through the books standing at attention. The titles were near as long as books themselves: Treatise on the Propagation of Sheep, the Manufacture of Wool, and the Cultivation and Manufacture of Flax, by John Wily, or Cato Major, Or His Discourse of Old-Age: With Explanatory Notes, by M. T. Cicero, or Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, by Phillis Wheatley, and countless tracts containing sermons and advice.
My fingers backed up.
Momma told me about Miss Wheatley. She was kidnapped in Africa, sold in Boston, and wrote fancy poetry that smart people liked. She had visited London in England. She had been an enslaved girl but was a free woman.
I took the slim book off the shelf and opened the cover. I had never read a poem. What if I lacked the skill? What if I were caught?
Might as well throw myself in the river.
Bang!
The closing door startled me so I near dropped the volume. I quickly set it back on the shelf and approached the counter.
“Can I help you?” asked the young man who stood behind it.
“Yes, please, sir.” I handed him the list. “From the Lady Seymour.”
“I hear she’s been poorly,” he said as he looked over the list.
“Yessir, but she is strong enough to sit by the fire now and has a powerful urge to read.”
He nodded. “She’s a good customer. I am glad she’s on the mend.”
He quickly assembled everything on the list—The Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, History of the Roman Republic, Volume One, and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker—and pulled out a large sheet of paper to wrap them in.
As he worked the scissors, he paused. “You knew that boy, didn’t you?”
“Pardon me?”
He continued cutting. “Bellingham’s boy, red hat. Quick talker.” He creased the paper with his finger. “He brought you here once, in May. Pointed to you out the window. Convinced me to hand over two fresh-baked rolls. Told me you were like to die from hunger if I didn’t help.”
He smiled at the memory.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I didn’t mean to take your food.”
He pulled off a length of twine. “You didn’t. One of the advantages of courting the baker’s daughter is all the bread a man can eat.”
He had not yet commented on my looking at the books. I feared he might try and trip me up, get me to say something I ought not, but saw no other choice than to be polite. “I hope your lady is well, sir,” I said.
He concentrated on tying a bow. “So do I. She fled with her father to a village in Pennsylvania. Place called Hatboro. They make hats there. Clever, don’t you think?”
He tried to smile, but his eyes we
re downcast and melancholy.
“Perhaps ’tis safer there,” I said.
“Aye,” he said, finishing the bow, “with plenty of young men eager to protect her. But that’s a tale for another day.”
He kept the package in his hands, lost in thought.
“Master Lockton will settle his aunt’s account at the end of the week,” I said.
“Oh, aye.” He gave me the package and waited as I settled it in my basket. “I hear tell you’re one of them who feeds the lads in the Bridewell.”
A sizzling log in the hearth popped suddenly and I jumped. “Not me, sir. Begging pardon, but someone is mistaken.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “That there mark on your face makes you hard to forget, lass.”
The heat from the hearth filled the room and made it hard to breathe. My eyes darted to the windows and I fought the urge to run. It felt like all of New York was watching me.
He leaned forward, put his elbows on the counter, and lowered his voice tho’ we were the only people in the shop. “You tell them boys in the jail to hang on. There’s plenty of us out here trying to help.”
“Sir?”
He removed a slim volume from under the counter. “This is for you. Don’t let your mistress see it.”
“I cannot read, sir,” I lied.
He snorted once as he quickly wrapped the book. “Of course you can’t.” He pushed the package to my side of the counter. “All who love liberty should commit the words to heart.”
“I can’t take it,” I started. “I cannot pay—”
“I only have a few left and those I should burn,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Read it. Pass it on. And keep feeding the lads.”
I bobbed once and hid the parcel in my pocket under my apron. As soon as I could stand close enough to a fire, I’d get rid of it. The last thing I needed was more trouble on account of independence.
“Yes, sir,” I said, hurrying for the door. “Thank you, sir.”
He raised his finger to his lips in a last warning. “Shhhhhh!”
Chapter XXXVII
Saturday, December 14–Monday, December 23, 1776