2

June 26th, 1737

Bairn rounded the stern of the square-rigged ship. What a beauty she was! The Charming Nancy was a typical merchant vessel of her day: square-rigged and beak-bowed, with high, castle-like superstructures fore and aft that protected her cargo and crew in the worst weather. Maybe she wasn’t the prettiest ship sailing the seas. No doubt she wasn’t the youngest, and that did spike concern for Bairn. Even the sturdiest sail ship lasted only twenty years and the Charming Nancy was inching close to that age. She was worn and creaky, leaky as a sieve, and beating against the wind would be a painfully inefficient endeavor, but to him, serving as ship’s carpenter, she was magnificent.

“Bairn!” A familiar voice boomed from the bow of the ship.

Bairn shielded his eyes from the sun to see the ship’s new commanding officer, Captain Charles Stedman, scowling down at him from the fo’c’sle deck. The captain tried very hard to look the part of a cultured, confident sea captain, like his much-esteemed older brother John, but never seemed to quite manage it. He was short and slender, with bushy side-whiskers, dressed elegantly with a whiskey-colored velvet vest, a tricornered black hat, and a white silk tie. “Make haste! Supervise the hold and see to it that no one is slacking!” The captain pointed to a stack of cargo that had been on the same spot on the deck since this morning.

Bairn felt heat rise up his neck, but he smiled amicably enough and tipped his hat in a feigned sign of respect. “Aye, Captain!” He had been supervising the loading of the hold—that’s why he was standing at the hatch next to that very stack of cargo. But he knew the captain liked to sound off to deckhands to show he was in charge.

Bairn’s gaze shifted to the first mate by the captain’s side, Mr. Pocock. He shared officers’ quarters with the first mate, an Englishman who was long past the prime of his life, with saggy, tired blue eyes, sun-leathered skin, and a belly that hung over the waistband of his black breeches. Mr. Pocock had little to say unless you made the regrettable error of asking him about his gout. On that topic, he had plenty to say.

A light cross-course breeze blew in from the channel, pushing away the thin, acrid smell of tar and pitch from the docks that hung in the humid air. Bairn scrutinized the cargo that the stevedores were loading into the hold—the lowest part of the ship that stored most of the passengers’ household goods, tools, and supplies, as well as the ship’s supply of food, cordage, canvas, gunpowder. The capstan, a type of winch fitted with holes in which long bars were inserted, was used to hoist the cargo and other heavy loads down into the hold. By pushing on the bars, stevedores hauled in a rope wound around the capstan, moving the load up or down.

Earlier this morning, Bairn walked through the lower deck of the Charming Nancy. If he closed his eyes in the dark space and breathed deeply, he thought he could still smell the faint scent of wines and woolens of their recent cargo in the moist air, masking the stench of the bilge below.

Ships were ballasted with a noxious mix of sand and gravel that rattled and swished about the bilge for years, growing increasingly more foul as it absorbed the waste of life on board. The only place where the air was completely free of the smell of the bilge was the windward forecastle deck, the fo’c’sle deck, and this small space was sacred to the captain.

Bairn pitied the crew for their quarters in the fo’c’sle, below deck. Even more, he pitied the passengers who would be living in the lower deck. The stink of the bilge that pervaded the ship was strongest there. The Charming Nancy had spent most of her life going back and forth across the Atlantic with goods from England to trade in the colonies and vice versa, cargos that didn’t care about stink. No longer.

The Rotterdam shippers had discovered that there was more money to be made shuttling Germans to the colonies of Georgia, Virginia, and New York. And now their attention had riveted to the surest of all markets, Pennsylvania.

Over the last few weeks, as the Charming Nancy was anchored in Rotterdam, Bairn’s days were spent making repairs and adjustments to the old ship. He corrected the fitting of the bowsprit so rainwater no longer leaked into the seamen’s living quarters. That should set him in good standing with the crew and make up for the more onerous task Captain Stedman had asked of him: the building of double bedsteads in the lower deck to allow for increased capacity of passengers in the ship. The poor souls would be fitted in like sardines in a tin.

“I got me a bad feeling about this trip. A real bad feeling.”

Bairn spun around to face Decker. His eyes narrowed in perplexity as he studied the irritating seaman. Decker bullied the crew, caused malice and rancor, but he was a skilled craftsman and the captain had recently promoted him to carpenter’s apprentice—against Bairn’s objection. “Decker, you need to stop worryin’ others with yer odd dreams. You sound fey. You’ve got the crew nervous as a scalded cat.”

“It’s not just my dreams. I saw Queenie under a tub this mornin’. ’Tis an omen. You know what ’at means.”

To Decker, it was a portent of magnitudinous proportions: death was imminent. To Bairn, it meant the ship’s black cat, Queenie, never the brightest of felines to start with, had gotten herself trapped under a tub.

Something shiny caught his eye. Decker was wearing polished black shoes with silver buckles. Bairn tilted his head. “New shoes?”

Decker clicked his heels together. “Aye. Bought ’em off a shoemaker in Rotterdam. Seein’ as how I’m an officer now, I thought I should look the part.”

Bairn rolled his eyes. “Yer naught but an apprentice, Decker.”

“The shoemaker said the buckles would ward off bad luck.”

“Why do you nae just admit you do nae want to haul bodies across the sea and stop scarin’ the deckhands. Half the crew went jobbin’ with other ships once you started spoutin’ off with yer crazy dreams and superstitious nonsense.”

“I don’t deny I’d rather tote silent cargo than tend to complainin’ Germans, but ’at’s only part of the reason. You know as well as I do that havin’ women on board is bad luck. And the captain’s tryin’ to jam more bodies down here than the ship can hold.”

Decker was a provoking fellow, always firing at people with hammer and tongs, but on this particular topic of overcrowding, Bairn couldn’t fault him. He was helpless to do anything about it, though. “Yer a free agent, Decker. You can always sign on another ship.” He knew Decker would never leave the Charming Nancy. The lure of the promotion was too appealing.

Decker’s gaze shifted across the harbor to the tall ships that lined the docks. “Problem is, I dunno any captain out there who isn’t doin’ the exact same thing.”

“Well, then, until you make up yer mind, see that you finish the double bedsteads.”

Decker shot him a dark frown and stomped away.

Bairn inflated his cheeks and blew the air out in a gusty sigh. Decker’s foreboding nettled him. While he felt a great loyalty to Captain Stedman, the overcrowding of the ships was a valid worry—not only would it strain the timbers and seams of the Charming Nancy, but the additional provisions needed to keep the passengers fed would add critical weight to the ship. The St. Andrew, the ship under Captain John Stedman’s command, had already left Rotterdam with far more passengers than was safe. Bed shelves were stacked two and three deep. A man’s nose would brush the bottom of the next fellow’s bunk.

Opportunity drove the overcrowding, both for the passengers and the captain. Whether a man traveled in the Great Cabin or the lower deck, each had an ambition to get to the New World, where milk and honey flowed and all men could become rich.

The number of German immigrants arriving in Philadelphia had grown sevenfold in the last two years. The journey was a perilous one and many didn’t survive—though that didn’t stop the shipping agents and the captains from collecting their passage. Dead or alive upon arrival, each body owed its fare.

Bairn knew food and fresh water for such an enormous quantity of people would be jeopardized due to space constraints. And what would they do if they experienced delays? He’d heard macabre tales of passengers starving to death. If a ship took much more than eight weeks to cross the ocean, no doubt they would run out of provisions.

Weeks ago, when Captain Stedman had ordered the refitting of the lower deck, Bairn had cautiously objected. You had to tread carefully when you questioned the captain. His word, and mostly his ego, ruled the ship. As expected, Bairn’s protest was quickly shot down. “I’ll do the fashin’ for me ship, lad,” the captain said.

Lad. Boy. Bairn. A Scottish word for “child.” That was the captain’s way of reminding him of his place.

Everything in life boiled down to money, that truth Bairn had observed in his two-and-twenty years on earth, the last eleven of which were spent at sea. And he couldn’t deny that it was the very thing that drove him, as well. There was nothing more important to Bairn than making money.

And yet, at least for him, something else hung in the balance with the Charming Nancy. Captain Stedman had strongly hinted that after this voyage he might expect a promotion to first mate, the top boatswain. A few years as first mate, then he would be ready to captain his own ship. Better still, he would have funds saved to become an investor like his benefactors, the Stedman brothers. Captain Charles often boasted that he was an investor of eleven ships. Captain John never boasted, which indicated to Bairn that he was an investor in far more.

Wouldn’t life be sweet to hold that kind of wealth one day? Bairn had it all worked out: With a bit of luck and fair winds, he would be commanding a ship like the Charming Nancy with her hold filled with freshly sawn timber, saltpeter, iron, sugar, hempen yarn, and more—stamped and bound for England. Come spring, he would fill the ship with Germans from Rotterdam and return to Port Philadelphia. His ambition lured him onward and the cycle would begin again.

Bairn had a passionate, bone-deep desire to become wealthy. Nay, extraordinarily wealthy. And with the influx of German immigrants pouring out of Rotterdam to the New World, he was riding the top of a wave.

He saw Decker’s black cat sashay over to him and curl around his boot leg, tail swishing, so he bent down to scoop her up. “Omen, me eye,” he told her. “Yer naught but a curious cat.”

June 27th, 1737

This Rotterdam was a poor place, and Anna longed to go home.

Weeks and weeks had passed since she had left Ixheim. Her heart still ached and her eyes filled with tears when she least expected it. In their haste to depart, there wasn’t time to properly grieve Johann Bauer’s unexpected passing. In Christian’s eyes, it was a clear sign of more cruelty to come—aimed at the Bauer family—and confirmed that departure could not and should not be delayed.

Johann was buried the morning after his death, and the families left, in a somber mood, to meet the boat on the Rhine by high noon. Dorothea, his mother, was still in shock, barely spoke, hardly ate. She was just going through the motions of living. She stayed close to Anna, but her mind was elsewhere. Felix hadn’t smiled or laughed since that pivotal afternoon in the rose garden.

The Amish group had traveled down the Rhine from Heilbronn to Rotterdam by ship, docking at each custom house so agents could board and examine their goods for taxation. Valuable time was lost—the entire month of May and part of June.

Maria Müller, Christian’s wife, was outraged by the endless delays. “Twenty-six custom houses down the Rhine,” she said at every meal, as if they all hadn’t been there. “Twenty-six! What should have taken one week took six. Nothing but thievery, those tax collectors.” Maria sniffed. “Highway robbery.”

Christian tried to ward off his wife’s tirade. “Remember, dear, we were helpless to do anything about it.”

He knew, as they all did, that this initial complaint was Maria’s prelude that led straight into the next grievance. “And as soon as we do arrive in Rotterdam, they shoo us off to stay . . . here!” She lifted a palm in the air and waved it in a circle, then heaved a loud sigh of disgust. “In squalor and filth.”

Maria could be taxing, but she said things that everyone else was thinking. It was a disgusting place, Anna heartily agreed. An overcrowded makeshift tent city. Government officials of Rotterdam had sent them off to a holding area in the vicinity of the ruins of St. Elbrecht’s chapel below Kralingen because emigrants weren’t permitted to remain in the city.

“And they said we might bring disease.” Maria rambled on. “Dirt and filth. Hmmph. As if we would bring anything but cleanliness and godliness.”

And patience.

They were waiting until passage to America could be arranged between a Neulander—a recruiter—and a shipping agent. More precious time slipping through their hands. Worse, their funds were slipping away too.

Last night brought good news. The Neulander found them in the tent city to tell them he had been able to secure their passage on the vessel Charming Nancy. His name was Georg Schultz and he certainly didn’t look the part of a man of influence. He was the fattest man Anna had ever seen, doughy and white as a dumpling, a three-hundred-pound dumpling. He was almost perfectly round. Just over five feet tall, with an oddly shaped head that seemed too small for his body and a gray beard elegantly trimmed to a point. But as soon as he spoke of the bounty of land that waited for them in America, Anna realized why Georg Schultz had a reputation for a surprisingly compelling gift of persuasion. “Land as far as the eye can see,” he said, describing the scene as if it were right in front of them. “Rich, dark soil, babbling brooks with fresh clean water, virgin timber that tickles the sky, waiting for you to claim it and tame it.”

Anna served as interpreter for Georg Schultz, who spoke a crisp and polished high German, and refused to lower himself to speak the peasant farmers’ dialects, like that of her people. In between translations, she stirred a large kettle of stew. Georg sidled over to the kettle and took a whiff of the stew. He stood uncomfortably close to Anna, giving her a slow once-over. Her eyes narrowed and she moved a few steps away.

“In Penn’s Woods,” Georg said, “one might travel about a whole year without spending a penny. It’s customary when one comes with his horse to a house, the traveler is asked if he wishes to have something to eat. If one wishes to stay overnight to the morrow, he and his horse are harbored free of charge.” He moved closer to Anna. “He is invited to take his seat at the table and take his luck at the pot.”

The breath of that man! It could peel the varnish off a table. Anna set the wooden spoon in the kettle and stepped back yet again from Georg. “I think perhaps you are hinting for an invitation to a meal.”

“A tongue as tart as a green apple, I see.” Georg burst out with a laugh. “I’d be delighted.” His eyes swept down her figure and returned to rest at her chest.

She spun on her heel to turn her back on him. Him and his roving eyes.

Georg moved around their temporary dwelling and frowned at the sight of the bulky household goods, the chimney backs and scythes, shovels and iron pots and frying pans, crosscut saws, axes and hatches. “So much, so much. This will cost you a fortune to transport.” He pointed to Christian. “I have a suggestion that will save you money. And time.” He clapped his pudgy hands. “Time and money!” He wheeled around to find Anna. “Girl! Come translate.”

Anna explained what Georg had in mind and Christian’s eyes lit up at the thought of saving money.

“I will trade your used goods for new ones of the same kind,” Georg said. “I can get the same items in lots of dozens, tightly packed so it won’t look like you have as much. You won’t run the risk of the captain refusing your passage.” He peered at Christian, who was looking to Anna to explain. “They can do that, you know. Refuse your passage. The captain’s word is law.” Georg folded his large arms over his chest. “And that would mean you must wait for another ship. Soon it will be late in the season.” He glanced around the tent. “It would be a pity to lose a chance to sail with Captain Stedman.”

That name meant something to Christian. His eyes went wide. “We are sailing under John Stedman?”

“Well, close,” Georg said, wagging his big chins. “Captain Charles Stedman. John Stedman’s brother.” John Stedman had a reputation among the Palatinate Mennonites as a blue-water captain, and word had trickled to the tiny Amish church of Ixheim. Captain Stedman had safely transported hundreds of German Mennonites from the Rhine Valley to the colonies. Christian excused himself and drew into a knot with a group of men, standing shoulder to shoulder, to confer.

Anna watched Georg Schultz observe them and wondered if he looked at the men of her church and assumed they were all alike, long beards jerking, big felt hats flapping in the wind. From where she stood, they certainly looked alike, sounded alike, acted alike. But Anna could see how different they really were: Josef Gerber, a bulky, gentle man with a toddler in each arm, both towheaded, with straight-edge bangs above their nearly white eyebrows. Flat-faced Simon Miller, his hair and beard black as a crow. Lean and lanky Isaac Mast. Next to him was his gangly, sixteen-year-old son Peter, a fuzz of whiskers circling his chin to celebrate his recent wedding to Lizzie. And then there was Christian, their leader, bald and bespectacled with a long beard on his chin that was as tangled as a bird’s nest. The men’s heads bent together to hear Christian, shorter than all of them, and quieter too, but when he spoke, others always listened.

Yes, the men were different in many ways, but underneath they were much the same, in all the things that mattered most: faith and family and tradition.

Just then, as if they’d been given some invisible signal, there was a great nodding of heads and dipping of beards. Christian strode over to Georg Schultz to give him permission to trade off most of their household goods. Pleased, Georg Schultz promised him new goods would be waiting at the docks tomorrow to be loaded into the hold of the Charming Nancy.

Anna hoped Georg Schultz’s word could be trusted, as they were entirely dependent on the Neulander. She thought back to warnings Jacob Bauer had written about Neulanders: they received a handsome commission on each passenger they brought to the ship, as well as free passage, so they were not always a reliable source of information.

That night, as Anna lay on her pallet, she could hear the familiar voices of Christian and a few other men as they sat by the fire, talking over the day, in good spirits now that the journey was finally getting under way. Dorothea slept peacefully beside her. Even Felix seemed cheerful tonight. Anna felt the opposite—a rush of loneliness and longing.

As she looked up at the stars, sparkly diamonds on black velvet, she tried to come up with a plan to get back home.

June 28th, 1737

Felix Bauer thought he might explode from nervous excitement. Tomorrow they would be climbing aboard a boat—a ship!—and sailing to the other side of the world.

He wished his mother and Anna were more excited about this sea journey. His mother, well, he wasn’t sure she knew or even cared where she was since they had left Ixheim. And Anna tried to act like they were off on a jaunt to a neighbor’s house, nothing more. But Felix saw through her. She was no Catrina Müller, putting on performances. Anna had only one or two faces, maybe three, nothing hidden, nothing exaggerated. She never once said how exciting the trip would be. She just said that going was something whose time had come. That it had to be done.

Maria Müller, Catrina’s mother, had no hesitation about sharing her opinion. She didn’t want to leave Ixheim and didn’t mind if everybody knew her feelings. It struck Felix as funny when Maria would start out saying, “I’ve kept quiet long enough” and then out would come another list of worries about the journey ahead. She liked to repeat horror stories she’d heard from some of the Mennonites who were waiting in the tent city, like they were, to book passage on a ship. Esther Wenger, a Mennonite, told Maria about a ship that ran completely out of food. “They left Rotterdam with one hundred fifty on board,” Maria told Christian, “and they arrived with only fifty persons alive.” Felix lurked nearby, fascinated by the gruesome tale. “In the end, they had to eat rats. Rats!”

Christian’s spectacles flashed her a warning, but by suppertime, everybody knew everything. The notion of running out of food was a particularly frightful one, stirring up the mothers, so Christian decided that as a safety measure, they would take additional provisions on the ship. “We will not go hungry,” he reassured the anxious mothers. That afternoon, he and Josef Gerber set out to buy smoked meat, cheese, butter, peas, barley, and zwieback from the stores in Rotterdam that catered to ship passengers. Felix tagged along to carry the purchases, happy to have an excuse to get away from Catrina, who was always pestering him about one thing or another.

Christian Müller, Felix observed, had an impressive way of ignoring his wife. He would tilt his head and nod as if he was listening carefully to Maria’s woes, then turn his attention to something else entirely. Felix would like to try to manage the horrible Catrina as skillfully, especially since he would be stuck with her for the next few months. Just this morning, he had stopped peeling potatoes for one moment—hardly one minute—because he had spotted a long line of ants and wondered where they were headed.

Catrina noticed. “Felix needs help,” she said in a loud voice.

“I do not!” Felix said, but what he was thinking was, A pox on her! He picked up his peeling knife, sat down again with the stupid potatoes, crossed his eyes at Catrina, and she promptly told her mother.

Catrina was born with an eyeball that was kind of lazy. Instead of looking where it should be looking, it floated off to the side. She’d tried exercises, looking this way, then that, up and down, down and up. Anna’s grandmother gave her a patch to wear on her good eye to make the lazy one work, but nothing helped. Felix had perfected a way to get even with Catrina: whenever she talked to him, he would act flustered, as if he didn’t know which eye to look at, which made her all the madder.

Catrina Müller was the only blight on this trip.

No. There was one more. His worry about his mother. She was quiet and sad and would eat hardly at all. And she was always tired. She would sleep the day away if Anna let her. When she was awake, there was fear in her eyes, fear of the far-off. Felix did what he could to cheer his mother up, but nothing seemed to help. Anna said that being reunited with his father was the only thing that would help his mother. But that was still a long time away.

Tonight, Felix stayed up practically all night long picturing what lay ahead. First, he considered the other side of the world: America. It was hard to have an idea of what it would be like—in his mind, the world he knew in Ixheim kept fanning out around him. So he would shift his imagination to the world nearly at hand—the sea journey. He saw himself high in the crow’s nest on the ship, shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand, searching, searching, searching for the first sign of land. He spotted pirates and whales, and the captain praised his keen eyesight. He shimmied down the long poles, just like the other sailors did, and climbed the ropes like a monkey. Even better, he saw himself behind the big wheel in a ferocious storm, saving the ship from running aground.

All winter, Johann had read stories of sailing on the high seas, spinning tales and igniting his imagination of what the journey to the New World would be like. Whenever he thought of Johann, dozens of times a day, his stomach hurt. When he had something he wanted to tell Johann and had to remind himself that his brother wasn’t here anymore, his head hurt. When he thought of all that Johann was missing, his heart hurt.

One thing hadn’t changed. Felix would see his father at the end of this adventure. He imagined his father—a big, tall man with a long salt-and-pepper beard—waiting on the dock for their ship to sail in. Felix would spot him first, naturally, and gallop down the gangplank into his arms, stretched out wide for his son to run into them. Everything would be all right again.

Almost everything.