The Scent of Death (28 page)

Mr Wintour placed his own hand on top on his son’s. ‘You always have that, my dear.’

When Townley and Noak had gone, Mr Wintour sent Josiah for the last of the madeira he had laid down to celebrate the restoration of the King’s authority in his American dominions.

It was another warm night and the three of us sat in the belvedere at the end of the garden. The door and the windows were open to catch the least breath of air.

The Judge’s hand trembled when he raised his glass to drink His Majesty’s health. Next we drank to the success of our expedition. Afterwards Mr Wintour rose unsteadily and said goodnight. He picked his way down the path to the garden door of the house.

‘He is grown so old,’ the Captain said in an undertone. ‘I wish you had seen him as he was before – he has aged ten or twenty years since this damnable war began.’

Both of us were melancholy that evening, though we strove not to show it. By now I was cursing the folly that had led me to volunteer for this excursion.

Wintour proposed a game of piquet. In one corner of the belvedere was a wicker basket containing a jumble of games. Rather than summon a servant, he drew it out himself and upended it. The contents spread over the floor – counters, boards, cards, spillikins and even a few battered toys, the relics of a distant childhood. He pawed through them.

‘I passed a negro burial ground yesterday,’ I said in as casual a voice as I could manage. ‘I had not realized they generally took a surname as well. How do they get a surname if they are slaves? Do they take their owners’?’

‘Sometimes, yes.’

‘So your house slaves have surnames?’

‘Damn it, why is there not a complete pack?’ He took up the handbell and rang it vigorously to summon a servant. ‘Yes – surnames: I suppose some of them do.’

‘Does Miriam?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ He looked up. ‘Why so curious?’

I shrugged. ‘No reason. There’s still so much I don’t know about this country.’

‘At least you acknowledge it. There are many Englishmen who don’t. I believe they have little interest in us at all. Let me give you an example. Have you ever looked up the entry for New York in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
?’

‘No.’

‘Then you may save yourself the trouble, sir. There isn’t one. That tells us more than a thousand words, does it not?’ He rose to his feet. ‘Where’s the servant? Pray excuse me – I’ll rouse them up.’

He went down the steps and took the path to the house. I removed Mr Pickett’s ivory die from my pocket and shook it in my hand.

An even number means we shall have a happy return; an odd number means we shall not.

I rolled the die on to the wine table. I tossed it harder than intended. It chinked against the rim of my glass and ricocheted over the edge.

Swearing under my breath, I took the candle and looked for the die. It had tumbled among the heap of games and toys. But I saw it almost at once. It had wedged itself between two spillikins. One of its edges was touching the floor. None of its faces was uppermost.

Neither odd nor even.

I stretched out my hand to pick it up. My fingers nudged the spillikins and they rolled apart. Then the miracle occurred.

One die became two dice.

I blinked. For an instant I thought that I had taken more madeira than was wise, that I was seeing double. But I was not drunk. Nor was I dizzy, despite the bending down. I picked up both dice and held them close to the candle’s flame. The same size – both ivory, with delicate dots, both faded from age and use. They might have been twins.

Nothing strange about it, I told myself – one die is much the same as another after all; this was no more than a chance resemblance.

I heard footsteps. I dropped the dice in my pocket. Wintour walked down the path brandishing a pack of cards in triumph. Behind him came Josiah, almost at a run, bringing another bottle.

‘There!’ he said, entering the belvedere and dropping the cards on the table. ‘And I remembered pencil and paper as well.’ He glanced at Josiah. ‘Open the wine and tidy away this mess.’ He threw himself into his chair. ‘It’s Barville, by the way.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

He laughed at my confusion. ‘Had you forgotten already? You were asking about slaves’ surnames. Josiah says Miriam’s is Barville.’

Three weeks later to the day our party clattered across King’s Bridge and entered the Debatable Ground. Governor Franklin had arranged for us to ride with a party of irregulars. I never knew Franklin’s precise connection with them, though clearly they provided him with intelligence in return for his assistance with our military authorities; his reputation and connections lent a tincture of legitimacy to their operations.

Their leader was a man of about thirty named Piercefield. When we met him beforehand at Mr Franklin’s, he had told us that the rebels had turned him out of an estate near Morristown. His mother had starved to death. His younger brother had died in prison. Some of the men he led were no more than schoolboys; others were greybeards; but all of them had claimed similar losses to their leader’s and all of them burned with a desire for vengeance or perhaps profit.

‘They’re a wild, ill-disciplined crew,’ Wintour said before he introduced me to them. ‘But they know what they are about and, unless we meet a considerable force of enemy militia, we should be able to go where we please.’

He and I had each brought a servant. The Captain had his father’s footman, Abraham, a sturdy young man who could ride and handle a gun. His loyalty, Wintour said, was beyond question.

My servant was Corporal Grantford, who had offered to accompany me as soon as he heard of the projected expedition. Indeed, I think he would never have forgiven me if I had not agreed to take him. His wound might incapacitate him on a parade ground or in a line of battle, but it would make little odds to us now. He was not only an experienced soldier but he knew at least something of the terrain through which we must pass.

Once King’s Bridge, Harlem Creek and the guns of Fort Charles lay behind us, the mood of our companions became sombre. Until now, on the fifteen-mile ride from New York to King’s Bridge, they had behaved almost as a party of holiday-makers and insisted that we stop at every wayside tavern.

As we rode north, the country soon became less densely settled than on Manhattan island. It seemed wild and neglected to my untutored eyes. We saw few of its inhabitants, and those we saw gave us a wide berth.

The highway was in poor repair. The forest encroached
on the
road. My companions glanced from left to right, trying in vain to penetrate those green depths. After the racket of the city, it was strange and uncomfortable to hear only the sound of our horses’ hooves and the jingle of harness. Occasionally an invisible bird would burst into song but then the deadening silence would shut its mouth.

Piercefield pulled up on the verge and waited until we came to him. He was a short, stout man who sprayed spittle at you when he talked.

‘Nothing hereabouts for us, gentlemen,’ he said in his unnervingly high-pitched voice. ‘The country’s picked clean for miles around. But give us a day or two and we’ll find something worth having.’

‘How much further today?’ Wintour asked him.

‘Ten or twelve miles. There’s a farm I know west of White Plains.’ He grinned at us. ‘Used to belong to a good Tory but they forced him to flee and turned his wife and children out of doors. There’s one of the Upper Party there now.’

That’s what they called them in the Debatable Ground – the Loyalists formed the Lower Party, the rebel Americans were the Upper.

We soon left the high road. Sometimes we rode along lanes, sometimes across country. We passed within sight of several farms and other isolated homesteads. By the time we reached our destination, it was early evening. Piercefield led us to a clearing in a nearby wood, sheltered with rocks on three sides. He and his men left our party here with instructions not to light a fire until their return.

Nearly four hours passed. The heat and the insects oppressed us terribly. Once we heard shots. We sent Abraham to the edge of the wood to investigate. He brought back the news that there was a fire two or three miles away on the other side of the low hill.

It was dark by the time that Piercefield and his men returned. They said they had met with less profit and more resistance at the farm than expected. They lit a fire. We ate an unsatisfactory supper of biscuit and salted meat. Wintour, Grantford, Abraham and I settled down to sleep at some distance from the main party.

During that first night I slept badly on the hard ground, finding myself constantly scratching. My limbs ached from the unaccustomed exercise. I dropped in and out of a light doze.

At some point I returned to full consciousness. My bladder was bursting. I turned my head and saw that the fire was still burning and that several men were sitting around it, drinking and talking in low voices.

I rose up quietly and made my way slowly into the bushes to relieve myself. There was a moon, though its light was partly obscured by shreds of clouds and by the branches of trees. I stumbled over an object on the ground and almost fell.

I heard a moan at my feet. I bent down. Something pale and insubstantial moved in the gloom, reminding me quite inconsequentially of the merman I had seen in the grey-green waters of New York harbour on my first morning.

But it wasn’t a merman. It hadn’t been a merman in the water and it wasn’t a merman now.

The moon slipped out of the shadows. I saw a man lying spreadeagled on his back. His arms and legs had been lashed to saplings. I saw the twitching whites of his eyes. The lower part of his face was obscured by a rag or cloth. He moaned again. I guessed that the cloth had been used to secure a gag.

There were footsteps behind me. I turned sharply.

Piercefield giggled. ‘’Tis the fortunes of war, sir,’ he said. ‘In the Debatable Ground we must take our profit where we can.’

‘Who is he?’

‘A damned Whig and a snivelling Presbyterian as well. He has a farm on the other side of the ridge. I know he has gold hidden.’ Piercefield nudged the man on the ground with his boot and added hastily: ‘As well as useful intelligence on the enemy’s movements hereabouts. He will tell us all, by and by.’

The following morning I took Grantford into my confidence as we rode along and asked him what he thought of our travelling companions. He turned his head away from me and spat out a mouthful of tobacco juice.

‘Is that your answer?’ I said.

He lowered his voice. ‘No better than brigands, your honour. I heard them talking last night. You know that farm?’

‘The one they attacked?’

‘They trapped a couple of labourers in a barn and set fire to it.’

‘They killed them?’

Grantford nodded. ‘They believed so. Don’t even know who the farm belongs to.’

‘Mr Piercefield said it used to be a Tory’s but there’s a Whig there now.’

‘That’s all gammon, sir. They don’t know who the man was. They don’t much care, neither.’

‘And the man they held prisoner last night?’

‘He was dead this morning. If I was your honour I’d—’

‘You’re not me,’ I said.

We dined on the road in a tavern that no longer had a sign, to avoid the taxes. To judge by the size of it, it must have been a prosperous establishment before the war. The landlord scurried back and forth white-faced, bringing us whatever he could. There were women and children about the place – a sewing basket with a shawl over it stood in the corner of the parlour and a doll lay under a chair – but we saw nothing of them. Piercefield did not offer payment and the landlord did not ask for it.

Afterwards I rode with Wintour. He had drunk too much brandy the previous evening and had been morose all day.

‘I don’t trust these men,’ I murmured. ‘I think we should separate from them.’

‘What? Why?’

‘They are thieves and rogues.’ I told him what I had observed and what Grantford had said.

‘My head aches.’ He looked at me and rubbed his red-rimmed eyes. ‘I don’t deny they’re a little rough and ready, sir, but we’re safer with them than without them.’

‘I disagree. Could you find our way to Mount George without them?’

‘Of course I could,’ he said. ‘I know this country as well as my own chamber.’

‘We would travel faster by ourselves. And more safely. These men will cheat us if they can.’

‘They wouldn’t dare. When we got back to New York, we’d—’

‘That is my point,’ I said. ‘If we stay with Piercefield, I’m not at all convinced we shall get back to New York.’

I believe that Piercefield was almost relieved to see us go. We hampered him, I think. Since we did not ask him to return the money we had given him for escorting us, he lost nothing by our departure.

The four of us travelled on towards Mount George. We had a difficult journey, crossing thick woods and craggy hills. I was surprised how wild and desolate the country was. Despite the fact that we were so close to New York, there was often little sign of inhabitants, whether European, Negro or Indian.

We were obliged to walk as much as ride for we avoided even the smallest road if we could. Once we were shot at as we skirted a farm somewhere north of White Plains. Twice we were forced to make extensive detours to avoid detachments of rebel militia. For the first time in my life I understood what it was to be hunted. In the Debatable Ground, I learned to feel what a fox or a deer must feel with a pack of hounds on its heels.

Wintour led us without hesitation through what often seemed to me to be a trackless waste. Our expedition had invigorated him. Despite the danger and the discomfort, he was in the best of spirits.

‘How I loathe and abominate a city!’ he said to me one afternoon. ‘Give me the country any day. A man should have fresh air in his lungs.’