The Turning of Anne Merrick (60 page)

“The bastard cut her.” The sailor leaned down and rasped in Jack’s ear. “I fear it’s festered bad…”

“Blankenship…” Anne winced, brushing Jack’s hand away. “His mind’s twisted with the thirst for revenge. He’ll come for us. He’ll never give up…”

“No…” Jack took Anne firmly by the hand. “We’re together now. He won’t ever harm you again—I swear it.”

Anne relaxed and looked up at the sailor. “I told you, True. Land or sea…”

“That’s right,” Jack said. “Any monster, land or sea.”

“You have a plan, Jack?” Trueworthy asked. “How do you mean to get her away?”

Jack turned and scanned the huddle of figures crowded around the aft corner of the tween deck, and he announced, “I’m going to fire this ship.”

It was dead quiet for the longest time, until someone with a thick brogue said, “This fella’s a madman.”

Jack centered the foxfire and proceeded to empty the gunnysack and his pockets. “I’ve fuel, bomb, and quick match. I’m going to douse
this end of the ship in oil and set the fuse alight. We’ll all storm the deck after the explosion, my fellows, and make a great splash.”

“We’ll all be roasted to death, you eidgit,” the brogue growled. “There’s a padlock on tha’ hatch.”

Jack grinned and tugged the pry bar up from his weskit. “I need a strong man at the fore to spring open the hatch.”

“Good lad! I’ll take tha’ duty.” The Scotsman snatched the bar from Jack’s hand.

“What about the guards and their muskets?” someone asked.

Anne’s sailor said, “If the ship’s afire, everyone will be jumping the rail—Hessians included.”

“I won’t lie. There’s no guarantee,” Jack added. “Some will perish. Some will be captured—but I think many stand a chance to break free.”

“What about the goners?” a voice queried. “We can’t just leave them to roast.”

“No, we can’t,” Jack said. “Strong men will partner up with our weaker brothers. Get them to the beach, at least. Those lending a hand to the infirm are the first up the stairs.”

“I don’t know about the rest of you fellas,” Trueworthy said. “But I’d ruther drown or die in flames than end up starved, wallowin’ in my own piss and shit like them goners. I say we do it. I say we fire the ship.”

“Aye. We’ve made ourselves sheep, and the wolves have been making a meal of us here,” the Scotsman declared. “I’m for taking my chances. I’m for firing the ship.”

Grunts of assent swept through the tween.

Trueworthy called out, “Any opposed? Speak up now…”

Jack sat holding his breath and Anne’s hand. But for the shuffling of feet, and a random cough here and there, no one said a word. He stood up.

“We’re agreed. This hell will end in smoke.” He slapped Anne’s sailor on the back. “Hold the light, friend, while I set the bomb?”

“Trueworthy Jones.” The sailor offered a hand. “Rebel, mariner, and privateer.”

“
Jack Hampton.” Jack clasped his new friend in a firm handshake. “American, scout, and spy—pleased to make your acquaintance.”

After wedging the iron ball between beam and rafter, Jack uncorked the grenade and tucked one end of the six-foot match cord down into the powder. “This bomb’ll blow the horns from the devil,” he said.

“What happens, Jack, once you and Annie pull free?”

“I’ve a friend waiting with a boat… You can come with us… There’s room.”

Trueworthy shook his head. “My family’s here on Long Island. I’m going home to my wife. Where’ll you go?”

“Somewhere far away from this war,” Jack said. “South, I think.”

True nodded. “It’s a nice warm winter down south.”

Jack handed True his tinderbox. “There’s a candle in there with the flint and steel. Kindle a light for us while I help Annie into her new duds.”

Anne donned the disguise Stitch had provided in the gunny—a sailor’s frock shirt, baggy trousers, and a snug yarn cap. “Can you get your hair up into it?” Jack asked, trying and failing to tuck the heavy strands under the little cap.

“It’s too long,” Anne said. “Do you have a knife?”

Jack nodded, digging his folding blade from his pocket.

Anne pulled her waist-length hair into a thick tail at the back of her neck. “Cut it off…” Jack groaned a little as he chopped it off just beneath her fist.

“It will grow back,” she said, pulling on the cap. “It’s better this way.”

The dark deck was writhing with prisoners gathering belongings, struggling with the infirm, and shifting to crowd around the one staircase leading to the upper deck. Jack helped Anne over to the stairs, and the crowd parted to allow her a prime position holding on to the handrail. Trueworthy handed Jack the stump of candle he’d lit.

“Pass the word—get ready.” Jack held the candle aloft and rasped, “I’m going to light the fuse—are you set with the pry bar, Scotsman?”

Crouched at the top of the stairs, the brogue called, “Aye!”

“There’s
six feet of quick match between flame and powder. Once the bomb blows, I want everyone to raise a ruckus—you can bellow like a bull with its pizzle caught in the garden gate, but we’ll be orderly up the stairs. Agreed?”

There was a laugh and a muttered assent. Jack kissed Anne on the top of her woolly head. “Wait for me here. I’ll be right back.”

Jack splashed the oil on the decking just beneath the bomb. Taking in a deep breath, he touched the candle flame to the end of the fuse, ran back to the stairs, and wrapped his arm around Annie’s waist. “Stick to me like a tick, you hear?”

Anne nodded.

The fuse fizzled and popped, and everyone watched the sparkling bright light climb up the length of the match cord and disappear for a blink of an eye, before exploding in a blinding, thunderous explosion and crack of splintered wood. The Scotsman pried open the grate, and, shouting like madmen, the prisoners moved up the stairs.

Flames crackled and crawled, licking at the tween deck ceiling, and smoke billowed out the gaping hole blown through the bulkhead. Jack pulled Anne up the stairs, her bare feet just skimming the treads. They tumbled out onto the confusion of the ship’s deck. Everyone was making for the bow end, away from the fire. Hessian guards on duty spun in confusion, and more ran out of their quarters under the quarterdeck. Jack saw one soldier toss his weapon, strip his jacket, and fly over the rail.

Shouting,
“Alarm! Feuer! Alle mann von bord! Alle mann von bord!”
Jack dragged Annie toward the stern, to the accommodation ladder—the egress reserved for officers’ use. He scooped her up into his arms and carried her down the stairway that sloped down to a landing three feet above the waterline.

One after another, men were leaping from the gangways like lemmings into the sea, the dark water dotted with bobbing heads swimming to shore. There was another explosion, and a ball of fire burst up through the upper quarterdeck, brightening the sky.

The fire roaring inside the hulk muffled the screams and shouts of
the men leaping from the decks, and flames shot out from the barred window openings, and licked up the tarred planking on the hull.

“We’re almost free…” Jack shouted, setting Anne back on her feet. She wavered and sagged against his chest, the heat of her fever penetrating the thin linen shirt she wore.

Jack stood and watched the commotion on the beach as the first of the survivors staggered out of the water. The scene was confused with shouts and shadows of horsemen riding to and fro with torches and lanterns bobbing about.

“Horses?” He scanned the dark coastline and whispered, “Come on, Tully… where
are
you?”

A bright pinpoint of light flashed three times in the trees to the left of the bay in answer to his question. Jack caught his breath and watched the spot, wanting to make certain his eyes weren’t playing tricks when the signal flashed anew.

“There it is, darling girl! Good ol’ Tully’s waiting for us.” Jack lifted Anne once again into his arms. Saying, “Here we go!” he stepped off the platform.

The weight of Anne’s almost-unconscious form, and the heavy Hessian jacket, dragged them all the way down. Jack gave a mighty kick off the sandy bottom, and they rushed back up to break the surface. Jack pulled in a deep breath, and Anne floundered, coughing and sputtering.

The bay seemed calm in the dark, but the outrushing tide grabbed at their legs, pulling them both toward the chaos on the mill end of the beach, away from the calm regularity of Tully’s blinking light.

Clutching Anne as best he could, it was impossible to make any headway swimming against the strong tide. The cold water had revived her some, and Anne kicked and flayed about, gasping, coughing, and choking all at once, taking in mouthfuls of salty water.

“Goddamn it!” Jack growled and just gave in to the current. He was able to keep Anne’s head above water as they floated away from Tully’s signal, to join the vast multitude bobbing toward the closest shore. Chest heaving, Jack helped Anne struggle up onto the beach.
Her cap was gone. His shoes were lost. He looked over his shoulder to see the tiny light blinking three times.

The scene on the beach reminded Jack of a time when a pack of weasels gained access to the hen yard on his family farm. Screaming chaos. The handful of armed dragoons and Hessians shouting, threatening, trying to gain control over the panicked and confused jumble of survivors—some barely alive, most struggling to catch a breath, very few getting their legs moving to break free and make a mad dash for the trees.

“Oh noooo!” Anne moaned. “He’s coming for us.”

Jack turned to see a mounted soldier wheel his horse and canter toward them, pointing with his saber. The dragoon shouted, “You, there!” The officer was wearing the death’s-head helmet of the 17th, and his face was half-masked with a black scarf.

“It is him.” Jack grabbed Anne and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of meal, and headed in, straight toward the worst confusion, but Blankenship moved his mount forward, blocking their path.

“You, there!
Soldat! Halt!
” Blankenship shouted, and Jack had no other recourse but to obey, as any good Hessian would.

“Have you seen the woman?” he asked, leaning down, staring with his one eye. “
Eine frau?
Have you seen her?”

Anne whimpered, and Jack looked the monster in the eye and saluted.
“Nein, Herr Hauptmann. Feuer. Alle mann von bord.”

Blankenship sat there, looming in the saddle, firelight flickering gold on the polished steel of his blade. Suddenly, he wheeled to the flash and bang of a musket shot, spurring his horse to give chase to a band of hearty souls making a break for the woodland.

Jack moved fast. Once he skirted around the mound of drowned bodies being gathered by a few lethargic and soggy Hessians, he ran as fast as he could with Anne bouncing on his shoulder, down a rocky shore, to where he thought he’d seen the blinking light.

“Tully!” Jack called as loud as he dared.
“Tully, where are you?”

TWENTY-TWO

I dwell not upon the vapours of imagination; I bring reason to your ears; and in language, as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes.

T
HOMAS
P
AINE
,
The American Crisis

T
HE
D
AWNING

Wallabout Bay was bright with the light cast from the ball of flame that was once the
Whitby.
Bellowing huge gray clouds of smoke, the orange and yellow light flickered on a score of bodies bobbing facedown in the shallows.

Hessians and dragoons with bayonets attached prodded the exhausted survivors into ranks, few of them able to stand on two feet. Torch in hand, Blankenship maneuvered his stallion up and down the rows of wet, shivering prisoners, examining each and every one.

Mustache drooping, in shirtsleeves and bare feet, the Hessian Captain called, “I’m sorry, Captain, but ze voman is not among ze survivors…”

Blankenship dismounted, his voice a low growl. “She was in your keeping, sir…” From his pocket he jerked the document the Provost had signed, poked it under the Hessian’s nose, and screamed, “YOUR KEEPING!”

The Hessian took a step back. “This voman vas very ill, sir. I do not think she could have survived. Burned—she is—perhaps drowned.”