Sarah Bishop (6 page)

He took my chin in his hand. I drew away, but he caught my arm.

"You set the fire," he said, "did you not? Tell the truth or it will go hard with you."

He wore gold rings with colored stones. The lace on his shirt front gave off a sweet odor. His hands looked pudgy but they were strong. My arm hurt where he grasped it.

"Tell the truth."

I shook my head. "No," I said. "No."

Captain Cunningham went back and sat down at his desk. Quills were sticking up from a glass filled with shot, like quills on a porcupine. He picked one out, scribbled something down, and handed the paper to an orderly.

"I am sending you back to Lambert Prison," he said. "You will be held there until you appear for trial tomorrow. Between whiles I advise you to think seriously of the consequences if I find that you have lied to me. And may I remind you that I have three witnesses, three women, who will testify that they saw you running about with a knife in your hand."

The three, I was certain, were three of the women who had been hauled away with me in the wagon.

"I also have as a witness the landlady of the Talliho Inn. She is prepared to testify that she saw you running down the stairs just before the fire started up in the building next door."

I said nothing. I was silent out of the fear that had seized upon me.

I
WAS TAKEN
back to Lambert Prison by an orderly with a pistol in his belt. He handed me over to Lieutenant Stone and gave him the note Captain Cunningham had hastily scribbled down.

After the lieutenant had read the note he pointed to a bench and asked me to sit down. He seemed nervous. His pipe had gone out and he lit it.

"I made a mistake," he said. "I thought your brother was a prisoner of mine. I have found out that he is not. I am very sorry that I made the mistake. You may understand how this is possible, with hundreds of new prisoners coming in and going out every week."

His voice sounded friendly. I felt hopeful as I sat there on the hard bench. But hopeful about what, I couldn't have said.

"You are under arrest by Captain Cunningham's orders," the lieutenant said. "But you are now in my custody." He reached in his desk and took out the money I had given him to buy food for my brother and handed it to me. "Before I forget."

I felt mean, thinking, as I had, that he had tried to cheat me. "Thank you," I said and tried to smile.

"It is strictly against rules," the lieutenant said, "but I am going to break the rules and send you over to Wallabout Bay to see your brother."

He called two orderlies, one of them a tall Hessian with a blackened face and a heavy musket fixed with a two-edged bayonet. The British orderly, who introduced himself as Sergeant McCall, was armed.

The sky hung heavy with gray clouds, but the fire seemed to be smoldering out. At the river we got out of the cart and into a boat with two men at the oars.

Wallabout Bay was a shallow notch in the Brooklyn shore, and here seven floating prisons were anchored. Once they had been ships, roaming the far oceans, I learned from Sergeant McCall, who liked to talk. Now they were listing hulks, with their masts cut down to blackened stumps.

One of the oarsmen said that this was the fourth time that day he had rowed across the river.

Sergeant McCall, who had not stopped talking, said, "Be advised, my friend, that what you refer to as a river is not a river at all. It is an estuary, an extension of the sea. A body of water subject to the vagrant will of the tides that wander back and forth, first northward then southward, from the vicinity of Staten Island to the heights of Haarlem and beyond, four times each day, summer and winter, the year round. Or so I am told and on good authority."

He smacked his lips as he spoke each word, as if he
found them tasty. The oarsmen quit rowing to listen. The boat drifted for a while. I felt like shouting at them.

We passed six of the hulks before we came within reach of the
Scorpion.
The last of an angry-looking sun shone on its gray, unfriendly decks. There was a fresh breeze blowing in from the sea, but the hulk's horrible stench as we came abreast of her turned my stomach over.

"It will take a little time to make arrangements," an officer in a red coat called down. "We're badly crowded. We have twice the number we should handle. The ship's in disorder. Come aboard but ask the girl to wait until we find her brother and get things straightened out."

Sergeant McCall and the two oarsmen clambered up the ladder. The Hessian, who had been sitting while we crossed the river, stood up. He looked down upon me from his great height and said a few words in German, which I didn't understand. Then he said in English, "Pretty." I acted as if I still didn't understand him.

After what seemed like a long time, a young man came to the rail. He leaned down toward me. It was Chad's friend, David Whitlock, but I didn't recognize him until he spoke. His cheeks were pale and sunken to the bone. A hand as he hung it over the rail looked like a bundle of dry sticks. He had lost his eight-sided glasses. He squinted as if I were miles away. I could barely hear his voice.

"It is terrible here on the
Scorpion,
" he said. "They
will us to die. We sleep without blankets on bare boards. The hulk rots with disease. They feed us flour that crawls with worms."

"I have money for food," I shouted up at him.

"It will do no good," he answered. "They want us to die. They carry away a dozen dead every day. They bury them in the sea."

David coughed. He started to speak and stopped and then he spoke again. "They want us to die, Sarah. Chad is dead. He died this morning."

I had not known these words were the cruel words I had feared to hear. I heard them now as if I had heard them before. I felt little, only lost, lost and alone.

I
SAT QUIETLY
in the bow of the longboat. It was night now. Lights began to show among the hulks scattered along the shore. A farmer was milking a cow in a field less than a furlong from where I sat, so close I could hear milk splashing in the pail. His lantern cast a trailing light across the dark water.

I heard Sergeant McCall tell someone that Chad Bishop
had been carried away. To where? Where? To be thrown into the sea, David Whitlock had said.

I screamed with all the breath I had in my body. I screamed again. Then I felt quiet all over, as if I were dead. But I was not dead; I felt my heart beating. I heard the lapping of the waves against the boat. I saw the shore and the light from the farmer's lantern shining on the water.

The Hessian had put his musket down and was still standing in the stern of the boat, singing to himself.

I took off my shoes and tied the laces together. I kilted my dress and put the shoes in its folds. The oarsmen were starting down the ladder. The first one stopped to shout something, then the other laughed. The rope ladder creaked as the men came down. I saw Sergeant McCall standing at the rail and David Whitlock standing beside him.

Silently, I let myself over the side and struck out along the path east by the farmer's lantern. The water was so cold it took my breath. I had never swum in all my life, and I didn't swim now, but driven by fear I managed to stay afloat.

I had gone no more than a dozen yards when my feet touched bottom. I began to walk forward on a mat of thick grass. I kept the lantern in sight. Behind me I heard the oarsmen shouting. Then it was quiet and Sergeant McCall's clear voice called out, "Come back. We'll find you. You can't hide. Come back, you fool."

I took my shoes out, but I didn't take the time to put them on. I ran along the shore, away from the farmer's light. I heard the Hessian's musket go off, then the whine of a bullet near my head. I didn't stop. I ran until my stockings were torn and my feet were cut and bleeding; then I sat down and put on my shoes.

Far off in the east I saw a small cluster of lights that I took to be a village. I found myself on a path trending in that direction, and I followed it. The moon came up, which helped me to move faster.

I reached the village about an hour later. None of the houses showed lights, so I found no one who could tell me where I was. At the last house on the street a dog ran out of the bushes and barked. A man, holding a musket, opened the front door and asked me where I was going at midnight. He came close and peered at me.

"It's no hour for a girl ;o be out," he said. "Where you bound, all sopping wet?"

"The Lion and Lamb tavern," I told him.

"It's a far piece from here. You'd best spend the night. Come in; we'll put you up."

"I'll be going," I said. "Just tell me the way, please."

The man showed me a path that ran off to the southeast and took me a half mile along the way. When he turned back, he wished me a safe journey and said for me not to be afraid.

"The countryside's calm," he said. "But I wish you'd stay the night."

I thanked him kindly and went on, with the moon at my back, casting a faint moon shadow in front. Toward morning, as the first light showed in the east, I reached the Lion and the Lamb.

I went quietly around to the back of the tavern, not rousing the dog, and made myself a bed among the trees in the hickory grove. It was nearly noon, with a hot sun shining, when I woke. Mrs. Pennywell was staring down at me and asking questions.

M
RS.
P
ENNYWELL BUILT
a fire and heated water for me in the big iron tub. I washed away the soot and mud and smoke of the journey.

I washed away everything but the memories and my fear. I could still see the round face of Captain Cunningham leaning over me with his pale eyes and his false smile. I could hear David Whitlock croaking out the grievous words about my brother, Chad. I could still hear the sound of the musket shot as I stumbled along the shore in the dark night.

Mrs. Pennywell seemed uneasy. She kept untying and tying her apron strings. Suddenly she said, "You shouldn't
have run. The King's men aren't like the rebels. Not like Birdsall and his gang."

"There's no difference."

"You're not guilty. They'll have a trial and set you free. Then you won't need to worry."

I said nothing. Everything seemed unreal. The kitchen, the crows cawing in the hickory grove, even Mrs. Pennywell herself, talking, fussing over me, were shadowy things. They were happening to someone else. Demented people, I thought, must feel this way.

I feared Captain Cunningham. Yet fear was only a small part of everything. It was anger that I felt most. Anger at the war that had caused Chad's death and my father's. Anger at the rebels and the King's men alike. And at all the needless killings.

Mr. Pennywell came out. He disagreed with his wife. "What if they have the trial and find Sarah guilty?" he asked her. "What then?"

She didn't answer.

"Best that we hide her," Mr. Pennywell said. "We have a safe place in the cellar. It's hidden many a King's man before."

"Maybe they won't come looking," his wife said.

I felt that she wished me away. I didn't blame her. "I'll be leaving," I said. This seemed to make her feel better. "I can go now."

"Nothing of the kind," Mr. Pennywell said. "They'd catch you on the road before you went a mile. If they'rehunting you, that is." He told his wife to go up and get my things and bring them down. "What do the men look like?"

"One is a tall Hessian with a blackened face," I said. "The other is short and thin."

"What's he wearing?"

It was hard for me to think. "A green coat," I said, "and white trousers and green gaiters. He has a pistol that has two shiny barrels. There were three men with him. I guess they'll all be on foot, because the cart and horse are in New York."

"Not likely," Mr. Pennywell said. "You know there's a British camp near Wallabout Bay. They'll find horses to ride. Did you tell the sergeant or anyone that you live here at the Lion and Lamb?"

"I don't remember. I must have, but I forget."

"You stay in the kitchen and I'll keep an eye out. They may not come, but if they do I'll ring the ship's bell. I'll show you where to hide."

"I should leave," I said. I wanted to. But he took my arm and led me down a staircase that went from the kitchen into a cellar stored with barrels of rum. One of the barrels was empty and had a doorlike bottom that slid aside. That is, half of it did. Below this opening was a small room lined with rock.

"There's water and food," Mr. Pennywell said. "Enough to last three people for a week. We hid Judge Stillwell down there for twenty days one time. He looked
like a potato sprout when he came up, but he was alive."

He put my clothes and the Bible in the empty barrel, the things his wife had brought, and gave me a blanket.

"In case," he said, "you have to stay all night."

They came near dusk through a light rain. We heard them ride into the courtyard, two men on dapper horses. Mr. Pennywell did not need to ring the ship's bell, because I saw them when they rode up the rise and recognized the Hessian and McCall in his green uniform and blond hair flying.

I went down the stairs, taking along a candle. I climbed into the barrel and slid back the trap door and waited there while the men entered the tavern. They made a lot of noise, stamping mud from their feet. I heard them talking to Mr. Pennywell but I couldn't hear what they were saying.

They talked a long time, perhaps half an hour; then it was very quiet. I heard steps in the taproom, which was above my head, and, a few moments later, the sound of boots striding across the kitchen floor.

I let myself through the trap door, closed it, and lit the candle. It was cold, so I put the blanket around me and waited.

Shortly a door opened and I heard steps on the cellar stairs. Sergeant McCall asked someone to bring a lantern. There was a sudden streak of light above me and the sound of quiet voices. One of the men put his boot to the
empty barrel and after a moment I heard the kitchen door open and close.

The ship's clock in the taproom struck the hour of nine. I could not tell whether the men were eating supper or not. The clock struck ten. Soon afterward Mrs. Pennywell came down to tell me that Sergeant McCall had decided to stay the night.