The Messenger Read online

  “You’re just going to abandon your position?”

  “Too dangerous.”

  Too dangerous for a man who stayed hidden inside his tailor’s shop for most of every day?

  He let the shears rip into the fabric, pulling the material through the blades.

  “At least tell me who your contact is.”

  “You are.”

  “I mean the other one. The one you pass my information to.”

  The tailor’s apprentice walked into the workshop, arms filled with colorful lengths of fabric. He dumped them onto a table and brushed off his hands on his apron.

  The tailor sent a look of consternation my direction before addressing the boy. “I need you to run down to the wharf and see if our ship has come in. I’m anxious to receive those trims I ordered.”

  The boy nodded and ducked out of the shop, leaving the door to bang shut behind him.

  “It’s a country girl. Comes into the city to sell eggs. That’s one of the problems.”

  “Eggs?”

  “When is the last time you saw eggs at the market?”

  When was the last time there’d been milk or butter? The cost of food for my tavern had increased steeply since the occupation. If I hadn’t developed contacts among the occupiers themselves, I doubted I would have been able to obtain flour of any quality. Or cheese or meat either. Effectively, Philadelphia no longer had a market. It had mercenaries who crept in through the lines before dawn and sold their wares for a fortune.

  “I don’t have the nerve anymore to skulk about the market waiting for her. You know what they do to you if they catch you?”

  I’d heard.

  “What she sells me are quail’s eggs. That’s where the general hides his messages. Do you know how much a quail egg cost before this infernal mess? And I haven’t been given any money for my expenses in months.” He folded the material he had just cut and swept the scraps into a basket. “Though I am partial to a good quail’s egg.”

  If truth be told, he was partial to a good many things that cost an extravagant amount of money. Being the best-dressed man in town couldn’t come cheaply, even if one had the ability to make the clothes oneself. But he was going to let good intelligence go undelivered for want of egg money?

  Had I had another hand I might have used it to strangle him. As it was, all I could do was clench the hand I had and shove it straight to the bottom of my coat pocket. Useless and ineffectual. That’s what I’d become. “I’ll give you the money.” The one thing the redcoats knew how to do was drink. And they were willing to pay handsomely for the vice. I figured they owed me. It hadn’t bothered me a bit to change the name of my tavern from Patriot’s Arms to King’s Arms to lure them to my business.

  “Even if I had the money . . . it’s not that. It’s what they want. What he wants. General Washington.”

  I raised a brow.

  He shook his head.

  “If you’re going to abandon all this, the least you can do is tell me what the general wants. I might be able to do it.” In any case, from time to time I heard useful information. It would be a shame not to have the means to pass it along.

  “There’s no one could do this.” He shut up the blades of his shears, placed them into the basket, and clapped the lid down on top. Poking at the bottom of the basket, he pulled a scrap of parchment from a hole. Handed it to me. “He wants to get this message into the jail.”

  A message into the jail? That’s what the general wanted? No wonder the tailor had decided to quit the cause. He was right. There was no one who could do that.

  I returned to the tavern in low spirits. Though I hadn’t actually ever spied for General Washington, I had been able to provide helpful information now and then, helping the cause in my own way. But now, all that was finished. My support for the war effort had just been reduced to squeezing shillings from the soldiers who frequented my tavern. It might add to my fortune, but it wasn’t nearly so satisfying. I drew the door open and walked into the smoke-shrouded public room.

  “Jeremiah Jones!”

  I blinked. As I tried to block that too-familiar voice from my ears, the years fell away. I was transported back to Devil’s Hole. I’d been a colonial in Gage’s Light Infantry then. We’d been dispatched to rescue an ambushed wagon train that had been bound for the fort near the falls. But the Indians had surprised us, attacking from the high ground, under cover of the brush. Everything had happened so quickly.

  “Jeremiah Jones!” John Lindley had yelled across the road at me. Lieutenants both, we were sworn to protect the men we led. But he was pointing his musket behind him, appearing as if . . . as if he wanted to retreat?

  The way of battle wasn’t backward, it was forward!

  I don’t know who got off the first shot, but suddenly the air was filled with the pop of musket fire. The drift of smoke began to obscure my vision. Beside me, I heard the terrible thud of bullet penetrating flesh. One of my men crumpled onto my feet.

  “Jeremiah—retreat!”

  The haze had enveloped my platoon. We were fighting in a world where there was no sight. There was only sound. The whine of bullets, the groans of the wounded. And there were smells. The peculiarly pungent smell of terror. And the musty scent of fear.

  I kicked at the dead weight of the fallen soldier and freed my feet. Turned, cupped a hand to my mouth, and shouted a cry. But no one answered. No one rallied to my call. It was as if the entire world had fallen away. And without the advantage of sight, I no longer knew which way was back and which was forward.

  In that swirl of smoke and nightmare, a bullet found my elbow. The pain was so fierce that I lost hold of my musket. So piercing I fell to the ground.

  When the shooting stopped and the smoke had dissipated, I found myself face-to-face with a dead man, staring into a pair of eternally startled blue eyes. Trying to scramble to my feet, I put out my arm. Biting back a scream, I fell to my knees as a web of darkness threatened to envelop me. When my vision cleared, I beheld a scene of carnage. The whole of my platoon had fallen around me. Good men all.

  Stumbling, I made my way through the forest back to the fort. At least that’s where I hoped I was headed. But nothing in that forlorn and desolate place looked right. Despite the warmth of the day, my arm was cold. I put out my other to cradle it and encountered a tattered, sodden mess of a coat sleeve.

  Somehow I managed to lurch to a tree stump before I collapsed.

  Eventually they found me, two privates looking for survivors. They rolled me onto a blanket and then dragged me through the wood. Endless tree branches waved above my head.

  Daggers of pain.

  Teeth gritted against the agony.

  Fingernails digging hollows into the flesh of my palm.

  Less trees, more sunlight, followed by blue sky, clouds . . . and finally the smells of the fort. First woodsmoke and then the latrines. Even worse, the surgery. The sounds of the army echoed around me. The grunts of men at work. The clatter of tin and pewter ware. And the rasp of the surgeon’s saw. They dragged me toward that sound, toward those terrible smells. Paused in front of an open tent.

  “Bring the lieutenant in.”

  I felt the warmth of relief wash over me. If the surgeon could get the bullet out and bind me up, then I could collapse in my tent. Sweat out the pain for a while in privacy.

  The blanket began to move once more.

  “No! Not that one.”

  They stopped.

  “That one’s come up from the colonial militia. Take this other one: he’s one of the British regulars.”

  My head banged against the ground as the privates dropped the corners of the blanket, pitching me onto my wounded arm before I passed out. When I came to, I was lying in front of the hospital tent, with bloody rags piled beside me. As I lay there, an opossum slunk out from the forest’s edge, tugged a severed hand from the pile, and returned to the brush with it, fingers waving from its mouth.

  I used my good arm to push myself to sit
ting.

  Behind me, someone cursed. Boots scuffed against the ground. I heard them venture around me. A face peered down. “We got another here, boys!” Strong hands beneath my armpits lifted me to standing. The world turned gray for a moment as I gained my feet. Those same hands supported me while I lurched toward the tent.

  “Another for the surgery!” The soldier who had helped me pushed me down onto a stool.

  The surgeon came over, wiping his hands on his blood-smeared apron. He peered at my arm, poked at my elbow.

  I swore as the world faded to white.

  He pulled a knife from his belt and slit the sleeve of my coat, releasing a sudden and alarmingly putrid stench. “Take him to the table.”

  I knocked away the soldier’s hands and walked over to the table myself. As I sat there trying to recover my wits, they poured me a mug of rum. I couldn’t seem to get my hand to take it up. And even when I used my other hand to bring it to my mouth, most of it dribbled down my chin onto my chest. As they pushed me down and tied me to the board, I saw the surgeon take up a crescent-shaped saw.

  The next time I woke, I was in my tent. I could tell by the stains on the ceiling and by the way straw prickled at the back of my neck. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. I tried to lick my lips, but my tongue felt ten sizes too big.

  John Lindley’s face loomed above me.

  I blinked.

  He smiled. “Want some water?”

  I nodded.

  He lifted a canteen to my lips. Most of it ran down the back of my neck. But with subsequent drinks my tongue seemed to shrink, and increasing amounts of water made it down my throat.

  John lifted an arm that had been wrapped in gauze. “They patched me up as well.” He leaned closer. “I have to admit, I probably kept the surgeon longer than I should have . . . it hurts like the devil to have an arrow plow a furrow in your arm. Hurts more than one might think.”

  Arm.

  There was something about an arm. Something it seemed like I ought to remember.

  “But look at it now!” He flexed his arm through the gauze. “And nothing to show for it but a scar.”

  A memory tickled at the edges of my mind. “Were you the first one into surgery?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Were you the first one?”

  He attempted to shrug. Winced. “I was there before you, in any case. One of those beetle-headed privates dumped you over by the refuse pile. They didn’t realize you were even alive for a day or two. You’d passed out like a drunkard. That’s why they couldn’t save your arm. It was too far gone.”

  Couldn’t . . . ? I turned my head and lifted my wounded arm, but . . . it was no longer there. I blinked. I could feel it. I could have sworn I could feel my fingers flex. And I knew I wasn’t imagining the pain shooting from my elbow, but there was nothing there.

  It took three days and two bottles of whiskey for me to understand what had happened. Eighty-one men had been caught up in the ambushes by the Indians. Indians who had been shooting arrows. Only eight men had survived. But even then I didn’t accept it. I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe I had been shot by my own army. And I wouldn’t accept that a man who had been grazed by an arrow had been rushed into surgery before a man with a bullet-shattered arm. For the sole reason that he was a British regular and the other man a colonial.

  Never before had I so desperately wanted to murder someone.

  “Jeremiah Jones! It is you, isn’t it?”

  When I turned at the greeting, I half expected to find myself back at the fort. But I was still at the King’s Arms and my arm was still gone, though my forehead had gone slick with sudden sweat.

  I nodded to return his greeting. “John Lindley.”

  “Jonesy!” He smiled as if he was delighted to have found me. “If I’d known you were in the city, I might have looked you up before now.” He extended his own hand and moved to clasp my arm, but his grip only closed on an empty sleeve. To his credit, a flush colored his cheeks. “Well. How about this! Can’t hardly believe it took a rebellion to bring us back together.”

  How about this. How about a man’s sworn enemy walking into his tavern and greeting him like a long-lost friend.

  John clapped a hand on the shoulder of the man he was with. “This is that colonial I was telling you about the other day. The one that survived Devil’s Hole with me.”

  “Ah! The one that might have been worth a commission.” He glanced pointedly at my useless arm. “Some bad luck there, eh?”

  Some prejudice disguised as bad luck. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “You buying?” John lifted a brow as if he couldn’t believe his luck.

  “I’m selling. I own this tavern.” Only its size and its spirited crowd distinguished it from the other hundreds of King’s Arms that kept the colonies supplied with spirits. It was drawing Tories and soldiers like flies. And that was my goal. To make them pay for everything they’d taken from me.

  “Then you fell out of the army and onto a golden egg. I’m glad for you!” He slapped me on the back as if we could pick right up where we’d left off.

  As if he wasn’t my enemy.

  3

  Hannah

  It was as awkward a tea as I had ever been party to. The mahogany furniture in the front parlor had been bought from the city’s finest craftsmen, but the simple lines of the tea table and glass-paned secretary, even the dark blue upholstered French chairs, seemed to quail at the colonel’s bright finery. His gleaming boots, glimmering gilded gorget, and scarlet-colored coat did not belong here in our quiet, dignified, simple world. The colonel, Father, Mother, and I sat, speaking not a word to each other. Indeed, my knees were shaking beneath my skirts, and I had long before abandoned my cup to its saucer due to the trembling of my fingers. It was unthinkable that a Friend like my father who had denounced both sides in this rebellion, who had firmly chosen not to support either cause, would be forced to quarter a soldier. It was an outrage!

  An outrage we had no choice but to endure.

  We Sunderlands knew the price exacted for our peculiar convictions. In a time of war, there was very little tolerance for peace. My grandfather had paid for his Quaker beliefs with his very life, protesting the treatment of the colony’s Indians to those who now called themselves patriots. He’d been clubbed to death while British soldiers stood by and watched. And just this past September my own father had been dragged from the house by rebel soldiers while crowds looked on. Friends would be forever watched and never safe. It did not matter who helmed the government or who controlled the land. I feared the rebels just as much as the Loyalists.

  As we sat there in discomfited silence, I heard the front door open and saw a flash of blue in the front hall as someone offered a cloak up to the maid. My friend, Betsy Evans, appeared in the doorway. She started forward, but as her gaze came to rest upon the colonel, she stopped.

  Mother rose and drew her into the room with a hand to her elbow. “Thee must take tea with us.”

  She had already slipped from Mother’s grip and was backing toward the hall. “No. I cannot stay. I had only come to pass a message.”

  “A message!” Father came to his feet, urging Betsy to come in and sit. “Do tell. Has there been word from our Friends exiled to Virginia?” The plight of those Friends seemed to weigh heavy on his heart. I suspected it had to do with his originally being numbered among them back in September. Since our paper manufactory had closed for want of materials, he spent his days advocating on their behalf to anyone who would listen.

  Betsy shook her head. “Perhaps . . .” She closed her mouth with a frown and then opened it to speak again. “I’m to see John James and Isaac Jackson this afternoon. Perhaps they will have had some word from Virginia.” Be that as it may, I knew my friend. I knew there was more to her visit than she was saying. But she declined both a cup of tea and a chair. “I’ll stop by later. After I’ve been to see the others.”

  Mother caught her
by the hand. “If thee have something to say, please, say it.”

  She eyed the colonel once more. Then she enclosed Mother’s hand with her other. “It’s Robert. He was taken in a skirmish and—”

  “He wasn’t—?”

  “No! Thee are not to fear. He’s alive. That’s what I’ve come to say. He’s been put into jail. The new one on Walnut Street.”

  “Jail?” Mother was swaying now. Betsy moved to take one of her arms while I took the other; we helped her back to her chair.

  “And who is Robert?” The colonel was looking with a keen eye at me and at Betsy.

  “My son.” Father’s voice made it clear that he rather wished it weren’t so.

  “Your son? There are more of you?”

  Father’s frown and a dismissive wave of his hand told all that need be known of Robert Sunderland, father’s firstborn son and my twin. Robert had been born and raised a Friend, and then he’d turned his back on his faith and joined in the rebellion.

  “So. This Robert is both your son and a rebel. My. That is interesting. I thought you people were supposed to be above that sort of thing.”

  The tops of Father’s cheeks had gone red. “Each man must make his own choice.”

  “Could his choice be your choice too? Do you wish to see His Majesty’s rule abolished?”

  “We wish nothing more or less than a peaceable end to this conflict.”

  “Don’t we all!” The colonel laughed and raised his teacup in Father’s direction. “Well said: a peaceable end. That’s exactly what we’ll have, even if I have to shoot every rebel in the colonies myself.”

  When Betsy slipped from the room, I followed her. I stood beside her, silent, while the maid placed the cloak about her shoulders and opened the door. As Betsy stepped out onto the front stoop, I went with her.

  “Oh, Hannah!” Betsy buried her head in my shoulder and wept. Robert’s own Betsy—the girl he had meant to marry until this conflict had taken him from his faith and from his home. “He’s lost to us. General Howe isn’t allowing visitors to the jail. And even if he were . . .”