| |
“I ONLY REGRET THAT I have but one life to lose for my country.” . . . Nathan Hale, before being hung by the British for spying, September 22, 1776.
Before Betsy could fix upon a manner in which to expose François Dubeau for the double spy he was, the headline splashed across the front page of the Pennsylvania Packet the following morning brought her to her knees.
“British Take Manhattan Island!”
Her heart thudded in her ears as she read the terrifying words printed in bold letters on the page: “So terrible and incessant a roar of guns few in the army have ever heard before! With more than eighty cannon pounding point-blank at the rebel troops, the barrage continued well above an hour. From his command post on the crest of Harlem Heights five miles to the north, His Excellency General George Washington heard the roar of the cannon and saw the smoke rising in the distance. Washington flung himself onto his mount and galloped at a race to the south. Reining up near a cornfield about a mile inland from Kips Bay, he observed disorder all about him, men running for their lives in all directions, leaving behind muskets, cartridge boxes, canteens and knapsacks. Drawing his own sword, Washington began to shout orders, but all was chaos. Amidst the smoke and flying sod and sand, the rebel soldiers had little opportunity to fire back. Men were cut down and buried where they fell. What is left of the Patriot army is now on the run. Late last evening as many as nine thousand additional redcoats swarmed onto Manhattan Island.”
Betsy’s heart lodged in her throat as she attempted to digest the horrible news.
In another notice, Patriot General Nathanael Greene was quoted as saying the rebel army’s ‘cowardly flight in the face of the enemy was shameful, scandalous, and disgraceful. It was a miserable, disorderly retreat.’ The final sentence in the long column of gray print caused Betsy’s heart to stand still. “General Henry Knox and the bulk of his regiment are still unaccounted for.”
Stunned, Betsy flung aside the newspaper. To convince Sarah that her husband was still safe would likely now be an impossible task. This latest British attack had taken things from bad to worse. The world she and her family and friends had known all their lives was being ripped from beneath them. To Betsy it felt as if her very breath was being squeezed from her lungs. The British would now surely take Philadelphia and every Patriot amongst them hung as a traitor to the crown. What chance did any of them have for escape? Where could one run that the British would not follow with bayonets pointed at their backs, or muskets aimed at their hearts?
Any moment, Betsy expected an overset Sarah to rap at her door. When her sister failed to come, Betsy saw nothing for it but to rush to her side. Either Sarah had not yet heard the awful news, or she’d heard it and was far too distraught to walk the few short blocks to Betsy’s home to seek solace.
“Uncle Abel told me,” Sarah muttered in a tight voice after she answered Betsy’s knock at the door and Betsy explained her reason for coming. “He didn’t want me to be alone when I read the account of the battle and the . . . horrible aftermath.”
“I’m so sorry, Sarah.” Betsy gathered her weeping sister into her arms. Leading her to the kitchen, the older girl dropped onto a chair while Betsy put on the teakettle, then, joined her sister at the table.
“Joseph often hears a good bit of news on the wharf,” Betsy offered. “Perhaps later today I’ll learn more regarding this latest battle from him.”
“I’ll never see my husband alive again.” Sarah’s head dropped to her arms folded before her on the table. “William is already dead.”
“Sarah, please; you mustn’t give up hope. We feared that Rachel was dead, and yet she came home to us safe. God will look after William and also bring him home. Please, do not let your faith waver.”
In an attempt to console her grieving sister, Betsy remained with Sarah all day and even agreed to stay the night.
The following morning when Betsy returned home, she found a note from Joseph slid beneath the door. In it, he said he and his men were setting sail for an undisclosed port and that he’d come to see her the minute he returned to Philadelphia. Once again, Betsy’s heart sank. She had craved Joseph’s reassurance, had desperately needed his strength. Instead, just as Sarah was awaiting her husband to come home, she must now also wait, and worry, for Joseph’s safe return.
Betsy did have an inkling where Joseph was off to. He’d told her the last time they were together that he’d learned of a stash of British muskets, cannon and gunpowder secreted in a fort a hundred miles or so south of Philadelphia and that the fort was not only well hidden, it was virtually unguarded. Quite possibly it was unguarded, Betsy thought, because every single British soldier on the continent had been deployed to slaughter the rebel troops on Manhattan Island.
Scanning the newspapers later that day, Betsy read in miscellaneous war news, or as she termed it, belated war news, that Congress had issued a resolution against the burning of New York City, reasoning that when it was retaken by the Patriots, it would be of more use to them if the city were left standing. Of course, whether or not to burn New York City was now a moot point as the Patriots had already been driven from it. The Pennsylvania Packet also reported that the peace talks with General Howe had indeed taken place on September 11 on Staten Island, but that when the delegates from the Continental Congress learned that whatever terms they agreed upon would also have to be sanctioned by the king in London, the committee dispersed with no definitive agreement reached. Yet one more bit of war news being reported a day after the fair, Betsy muttered irritably. Quite obvious now was that peace for the Patriots, and independence for all Americans, would be a long time coming. If it came at all.
* * *
A FORTNIGHT LATER, with Joseph still away, Betsy decided one morning before going to the market to pay a call on the widow Ashburn. Perhaps she had received word from her nephew and would know if Joseph had completed his mission, and whether or not he and his men were safe.
“Joseph rarely writes to me when he’s away,” the older woman told Betsy. The two were seated in Aunt Ashburn’s cool parlor. No fire blazed in the hearth even though the late September days were quite cool. “He stays far too busy on board ship to write and, of course, to get a missive to anyone from hundreds of miles out to sea is nigh on impossible. I confess that when my boy set out this time, I did not have a good feeling about the voyage. There is far too much unrest in the world today. The stories one reads in the newspapers are quite distressing.”
“Indeed.” Betsy nodded. “I read only this morning that above five hundred buildings in New York City did burn to the ground a few days ago. British General Howe is blaming the blaze on those of our troops who were unable to escape the city following the last awful battle. Perhaps it means my sister Sarah’s husband, William, who we think was trapped in Manhattan, is not dead after all. At least, that bit of news provided us with a glimmer of hope.”
“We are living in terrible times.” Aunt Ashburn sighed. “I pray daily that my Joseph will return home unharmed.” Morning light filtering through the cloudy windowpanes of the Ashburn parlor illuminated the wrinkles crisscrossing the older woman’s face. Her furrowed brow revealed the deep concern she felt for her beloved nephew.
“I suppose when Joseph leaves the city not even he has any notion when he might return,” Betsy murmured sadly. She drew her shawl closer about her shoulders in a futile attempt to ward off the chilly air eddying about the room.
Aunt Ashburn nodded. “Since Joseph never knows what he’ll encounter on the high seas, to predict his return is nigh on impossible. Even without the threat of war or hostile ships lurking about, any number of unforeseen things can happen at sea. Anything from a mild storm to a deadly hurricane could befall him. And with the sea now full of British ships . . .” her voice trailed off. When moisture pooled in the gray-haired woman’s eyes, she withdrew a damp handkerchief to dab at them.
“Joseph will come home safely to us.” Betsy reached to squeeze the older woman’s cool fingertips. “He’s an accomplished seaman and quite a clever fellow, you know.”
Aunt Ashburn smiled wanly. “My Joseph is a clever boy, isn’t he?”
Betsy attempted to push down her own worries for Joseph’s safety. “I am on my way to market, Aunt Ashburn. Are you in need of anything?”
“I could ask the same of you, my dear. Only a few days ago my housekeeper was lamenting the fact that food and provisions have become quite scarce of late. About all one can be certain of finding at market these days is spoiled meat and stale bread.”
“Oh, my.” Betsy grimaced. “I did notice last week there seemed to be a marked shortage of fresh meat and virtually no vegetables at all.”
Aunt Ashburn struggled to her feet. “Come, dear, I will share what I have on hand with you.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” Betsy protested.
“I insist. With only me and my housekeeper hereabouts, there are times when our food spoils long before we have a chance to prepare it, let alone eat it.”
Because Aunt Ashburn would not take no for an answer, Betsy returned home from her visit carrying a sack of flour under one arm. A wedge of mutton and several quarts of fruit and vegetables, which the older woman’s housekeeper had preserved for winter, were tucked in her basket.
The next time Sarah came to see Betsy, she, too, remarked on how there now seemed less and less foodstuffs available at the market. “And the price for what is there has become quite dear.”
“I had expected the money I earned from sewing Miss Oslen’s wedding gown to see me through winter,” Betsy said. “But after paying this month’s rent, I wonder that I shall have enough left to see me through another month, let alone another quarter.”
“I do not believe William would have gone off to join the fighting if he had foreseen the difficulties those of us left behind would face.”
Although she hadn’t yet heard from William, or his commanding officer, Betsy noted her sister was putting on a brave face and carrying on as if William would come marching home any day now. Betsy wasn’t certain what had caused the marked change in Sarah’s outlook, but she put it down to her steadfast faith in God. Betsy appealed to the good Lord every day to bring both William and Joseph safely home.
One day in early October, Betsy read in the newspaper the sad account of an eager young schoolmaster from New Jersey named Nathan Hale who had bravely volunteered to spy for General Washington. Unfortunately, in only a few days time, the young man had been apprehended by the British and promptly hanged for his crime. Although she felt quite sorry for the patriotic fellow, clearly Nathan Hale was not as devious, or as cunning, a spy as François Dubeau. Otherwise she might be reading an account of his demise.
Setting aside the newspaper, Betsy realized she’d become so caught up in following the distressing war news, and Sarah’s plight, and her own fear for Joseph, that she’d taken no further steps to curb François’s deadly mission in New York. The only good she could see in his departure was that with François gone from Philadelphia and Paul Trumbell dead, she no longer had a pressing need to worry over Rachel’s safety. Plus she had accomplished what she’d originally set out to do, uncover who was responsible for the explosion that took John’s life and learn the identity of Toby Grimes’s killer . . . although she still had no concrete evidence that Paul Trumbell had actually killed Toby, or why the boy had been slain. Still, to halt François Dubeau before his dastardly deeds further damaged the Patriot Cause was of paramount importance. And it had also fallen to her to accomplish that feat.