Chapter 24

Chapter 24

The next day comes and closes, three days pass, and my guards get excited that the British just might be working something out. They all cheer for my release and Arnold’s hopeful demise. On October 2nd, a strange silence settles among the guards. The red sunrise shines through my little window and onto their sullen faces.

I break the air. “So today is the day?”

One guard begins sobbing.

I demand at once, “Leave me until you can show yourself more manly.”

I eat a large and rich breakfast of eggs, apple-buttered bread, and honeyed-ham sent by Billy, from Washington’s very table. I shave and dress with great care in the selected fine uniform of a British staff officer. I pick up the little portrait of Honora and speak out loud to it, “A promise is a promise.”

I kiss it and tuck it into my waistcoat pocket where it has lived all this time, beside my last poem. I lay my hat on the table, sit down, and turn to the guards, “I am ready at any moment, gentlemen, to wait on you.”

I’m surprised to see Smith arrive, and without words, he hands me a small note from Peggy that he intercepted.

Farewell, I need not say how affectionately.

The simple sentiment almost gets me to cry, but I push back the hot, eager tears to see Smith holding out his arm for me to take for the walk out. I smile and walk out, hearing the fantastic music and seeing the large detachment of troops outside the prison. I expected people to pelt me with rubbish and curses but, instead, I see somber faces and looks of respect, making it all the harder to keep my composure. I turn to Smith as we stride down the path in the sunlight.

“One more thing, was Obadiah—”

Smith smiles. “Your man through and through. I had to pin the missing messages on someone and I couldn’t have him coming along, with his espionage experience.”

He holds his hands up, and I can’t do anything but laugh. The strangeness of it all. How funny things seem when nothing matters anymore. I pull Smith into a skipping run, pretending to wave and cheer like I’m on parade. Both of us laughing harder than we have ever laughed before, causing tears to come out of our squinted eyes.

The death march is struck up. Smith catches my eyes yet we continue to stride in gay step.

He shakes his head in disbelief. “You do know we’re not going to the ballroom, André? Just making sure you have not gone willy-nilly.”

“Oh, I assure you, I have.” I turn to Smith and, in a happy voice, say, “I am very much surprised to find your troops under such good discipline, and your music is excellent!”

We approach the hill, and I gasp when I see the masses of people swarming down below. I had no idea what a sensation it has all been until seeing the numbers that came out to see me die. I stride down among them, and they all part quietly to let me through—me, smiling all the way. Smith walks me to the cobbled-stone clearing under low trees, and he gives me back the necklace Peggy had given me for protection. His eyes well up. “I shouldn’t have taken it from you. This all might not have happened.”

I take it from him gently. “It may still be of some help to me now. Good luck to you, Smith. No hard feelings.”

He tries to answer, but his voice catches. Smith clears his throat quickly, but no words come out. His last attempt produces the word, “I’m—” before he chokes up once again. He has to turn away and leave the scene.

I know what he was trying to say.

I step up the stairs and onto the platform like a dancer taking the stage and bow to each of the officers on horseback. I wait for them to dismount and raise their guns before me. I see one of them stare above my head. My blood freezes when I look up at the unusually high noose. I lose my balance and involuntarily step back.

“Must I die in this manner?” I call out as if someone would be able to answer me, but I’m answered as all the faces turn uncomfortably down and away.

“I am reconciled to my fate, but not to the mode.”

I hold my head up straight as the executioner, with a leather bag tied around his head with eye holes cut out, comes up from the opposite side. Many of the peasants surprise me by booing him as he backs his small cart up under the rope. It’s such a strange thing to know that your death is but moments away—when you feel the healthiest of your whole life. I take a deep breath in, trying to absorb the last moments I will be alive, the last moments my lungs can take in air.

October 2nd.

The day I will die.

How I never wished to be more alive than right now. I feel so ungrateful for every day I spent not feeling this joy simply for life.

The military drums stop, and I wonder if the execution has been halted. However, the fifes begin a song that I know from the third note—Pachelbel’s Canon.

I smile and look around for Smith, who I’m sure has set this last gift up for me, but can find him nowhere.

It’s then that the cart stops backing up toward me, and I decide to quickly and bravely step onto the tailboard. This makes the crowd stir nervously, and many women hide their faces. I put my knee up and lift myself onto the cart. Some women begin crying, and I say to those gentle hearts, “It will be but a momentary pang.”

This makes the crowd murmur in uneasy ways.

A colonel stands up on the platform and reads my death sentence, then asks, “Major André, if you have anything to say, you can speak, for you have but short time to live.”

I simply place my hands on my narrow hips. “I have nothing more to say, gentlemen, but this: you all bear me witness that I meet my fate as a brave man.”

A wailing carries out over the crowd, oddly, giving me strength.

Someone claps, slow and loud, and I search the crowd to see where it’s coming from. I spy Smith’s shining face in the center of the crowd, and he begins to whistle rowdily. The clapping spreads and speeds up and a chill runs over every part of my body, ending in my eyes, threatening me with tears.

Thankfully, the gruesome, greasy executioner hoists his massive body up on the cart, distracting me from showing the emotion that has welled up within me. He comes so close to me I can smell the hops on the foul breath, seeping out from the leather-mouth hole, and he whispers, making darts of spittle hit my cheek,

“When the epic strain was sung
The poet by the neck was hung
And to his cost he finds too late
The dung-born tribe decides his fate.”

“Ah, so you read the King’s paper I see. How fitting.”

I snatch the noose before his dirty hands can and, denying the knave the pleasure, I put it around mine own neck. I pull my handkerchief out of my pocket and tie it around my eyes. Allowing my hands to futilely straighten my collar, I fumble up to the knot and pull it tight on the right side of my neck. My face burns, as the blood quickens in my veins and the rope, although not restraining, by its mere presence makes it hard to swallow.

The colonel calls out, “His hands must be tied!”

I let out an exasperated sigh, yank my blindfold down and pull out a second handkerchief. I hand it to the executioner, then bring the cloth back up over my eyes. I can smell Rosey’s glorious scent where she had just rested on it months ago. Both elbows are roughly grabbed and tied tight together. I hear the executioner scale the gallows post to secure the rope and jump down again like a savage. The crowd begins to surge, and the shouts for my mercy increases coming to a crescendo in a dizzying frenzy over their clapping. I attempt to stay as still as I can, afraid my knees will buckle, and I try to imagine something that can still my thoughts.

All I hear is the music—the bittersweet melody reminding me of England; my mother’s smile; Honora laughing in the meadow; Clinton cooing to Rosey; the look on Peggy’s face as she heard the music erupt from my little snuffbox; the love that Smith had in his eyes as he danced with Peggy at Mesquinza.

I try to disappear into the music, float away with the notes, and detach my spirit from my body before harm befalls—

The crack of the whip stings my ears, causing me to jump slightly, and the cart leaves without me. Suddenly I’m falling—falling through thick space…and then feel nothing.