Shadrach Barnett was pacing. Six paces to the southwest, six paces to the northeast, six paces to the southwest, back and forth. His room on the third floor of the tavern was small, but it was the only private room to be had. The rest of his men were crammed into various communal bed chambers, the fortunate ones, anyway, the ones who had arrived first. The others slept in the tavern room where they bedded down on the floor or passed out at the tables.
Barnett had no complaints about his room. Small as it was, it was dry, and being on the upper floor it was fairly warm. It was vastly better than the miserable hut that he occupied up in the Pine Barrens. It was there that he and his men mostly lived, hiding out, keeping watch for opportunity, and for any authorities who might come looking for them, though as the war dragged on they were finding fewer and fewer of each.
They had come from all over the area, the sundry refuse of the villages and the poor, hard-scramble farms of southern New Jersey. Barnett himself had farmed a few acres some miles north of there, supplementing his not quite subsistence living with a bit of petty larceny here and there.
He tried to keep clear of the war at first, and politics in general, in part because he had bigger worries, and in part because he did not care. But, of course, the war had found him. Loyalists sacked his farm and took what little he had. Pathetic, really. Even he himself would not have bothered to steal the worldly goods that he had possessed.
With few options left to him, he joined the Continental Army and spent an unpleasant year marching back and forth across the state until he was caught liberating a few chickens from a farm near camp. For that, he received a dozen stripes. He could still feel the rough scars left in the wake of the cat o’ nine tails where they brushed against the fabric of his shirt. He was drummed out of the service and left with nothing but a burning hatred for all of them, Loyalist and Patriot alike. He drifted into the Pine Barrens where, through cunning and unflinching brutality, he became a leader of sorts. The Prince of Thieves.
But he was not thinking about the Pine Barrens now, or his men, or the tavern, as he kept up his pacing, from one corner of the room to the other. He was thinking about the ship. Falmouth. That was her name, or so he understood. He was thinking about what might be stored away in her depths. Food. Rum. Weapons. Specie. He was thinking about Captain Isaac Biddlecomb.
“Ah! Damn his eyes!” Barnett paused in his pacing and cursed, and since he happened to be next to the washstand, he picked up the basin and flung it across the room. He watched it hit the wall and shatter, but it was not as satisfying as he had hoped it would be.
“Damn that bastard,” he said, softer, letting his fury settle. His eyes rested on the dull patch of light on the floor. The sky outside was thick with cloud, but there was enough late morning light coming in through the window to illuminate that section of boards.
Barnett had spent a good part of the past few days alone in his room, drinking, pacing, throwing things. He was not a patient man, but he did not like to put that impatience on display. He did not want anyone to think he was anything less than calm and in command; in command, both of his men and of his own temper. He did not care to have company when he was in a rage, and worse, when he was not certain of what he should do next.
“Falmouth…” he said out loud. He was fixated on the ship, obsessed. He knew it and knew there was nothing for it.
His interest at first had been purely mercenary, figuring the ship might be housing something of considerable value. He still thought that, but there was more to it now. Now he wanted the ship simply because he did not have it. He wanted it because others were keeping it from him. He wanted it because getting his hands on the ship meant getting his hands on Isaac Biddlecomb, and getting his hands on Biddlecomb was the only way he was going to release the pressure inside.
For a moment more Barnett looked at the shards of basin scattered on the floor, then he walked over to the window, leaned on the window sill, and looked out at the frozen ground spreading out beyond the tavern yard. He could see a few buildings from there, homes mostly, and a smith’s shop. Trails of smoke were coiling up from their chimneys. Beyond that the countryside was bleak and lifeless, with patches of bare trees reaching up to the leaden sky and brown fields of dirt and dried stalks. He could not see the wharf or the ship from his window.
It had been many days now since he was down to the waterfront. He had been waiting patiently for the right moment to return, but his patience was like a rope under great strain, slipping bit by bit from his grip. But still he waited, waited for all the pieces to be set in place.
Men had been streaming in from the countryside, dozens of men. When Shadrach Barnett sent word, men responded. He had far more men under his command than that bastard Biddlecomb had, and they were tough men, and used to fighting. But they were not so used to taking orders, or obeying without question, and that was the problem.
A frontal attack on the ship meant charging down the long wharf and fighting their way up the ship’s side in the face of men with muskets hunkered down behind the rails. There was no question that Barnett and his men would win in the end—they had the numbers to guarantee it—but there was also no question that many of them would die in the effort, and none would be willing to pay that price.
Faircloth, Biddlecomb’s toy soldier, could order his marines to make a forlorn assault such as that, and they would do it, because all thinking had been drilled out of them. But Barnett knew he did not have that luxury. His men, the pine robbers, as they were called, were not puppets, and there was only so much authority one could wield over folks such as them.
So…hostages. Word reached Barnett that part of Biddlecomb’s crew had gone off to the Pine Barrens in search of trees for masts, and once he heard that, the plan was obvious. He sent Wilcox, the only man he trusted, and him just barely, and two dozen others off to hunt the woodsmen down and make them prisoners. He gave careful instructions: as many of Biddlecomb’s crew as possible must be taken alive.
Hostages. That was what was needed here. Trade the ship for the prisoners. Or, if Biddlecomb was not willing to do that, set a gallows up on the dock and hang the bastards, one by one, until the whores’ sons on Falmouth had to come out and fight, just to stop it.
And if they didn’t, if they just let the prisoners die, then at least there were a dozen fewer men defending the ship.
That was the plan and it was a good one and Barnett had been waiting for Wilcox and his men to return with the prisoners in tow. He had been waiting for days, which he knew was not an unreasonable amount of time. Neither he nor Wilcox had any idea of where that big bastard Rumstick and the others had gone. Might be another few days before he even got word. All he could do was wait.
He stood upright, so quick and so involuntarily that he felt as if he had been jerked back by a rope around his neck. But it was not a rope. It was his own resolve, come on him like a blast of grapeshot. He was done waiting.
“Damn the lot of them,” he said as he turned and grabbed his coat from the hook on the wall and shrugged it on. And he knew when he said the lot of them that he meant exactly that: the lot of them. Wilcox and his men, and the hostages, and Biddlecomb’s men, and even his own men, damn all of them, he was ready to take action and he would make them all dance to the tune he called.
He slung his sword over his shoulder and hooked his sea-service pistol on his belt and left the room with long strides, not bothering to close the door behind him. There was nothing in there that he really cared about, and one way or another he did not think he would be coming back.
He took the narrow steps fast, his boots loud on the worn wooden treads. On the first floor, he strode down the narrow hall and into the surprisingly large tavern room. Some of his men were already starting in with the day’s drinking, some were having their breakfast, some were still asleep on the floor. Barnett might have chaffed at the waiting, but these men were enjoying it, and getting much too comfortable in the process. But their days of ease were done.
“The lot of you, up and to arms!” he shouted. “Move it now, shake a leg!” He looked into the dumb, surprised faces of the men, mouths hanging open as they stared blankly up from their plates and tankards, and he wanted to plant a fist into each one of them.
Finally one of them spoke. “What?” he said. “Are we to…”
That was as far as he got. Barnett half turned and looked at the man, and the look on Barnett’s face was enough to stop him in midsentence, enough to inspire him to shut his mouth, leap to his feet and grab his musket and cartridge box in silent obedience, and the others in the tavern room did likewise.
Good… Barnett thought. The men were getting lazy and fat, but not so dull that they forgot the price they would pay for disobeying him, or even being too slow to obey.
“Get above stairs,” Barnett called to a knot of men by the hallway door. “Roust out anyone still abed, or whatever they’re doing. Whoring, whatever. Get them down here, now.” He turned to another man. “Fetch the stable boy and tell him to bring the horses around the front.”
The men by the hallway turned and raced for the stairs. Barnett crossed the tavern room and stepped through the big front door and out into the yard with its small raised bed garden, which looked as sorry and dead as everything else out of doors. He walked down the path and through the gate with the carved wooden pineapples on top.
Never seen a pineapple, Barnett mused. Wonder if they’re good.
As bleak as the countryside was, the air was bracing, sharp and fresh, a great change from the smoky, fetid air of the tavern. He breathed deep and felt the haze in his mind get swept away.
“That son of a bitch,” he said out loud. He understood, suddenly, what had sent him to that low place where he had been those last few days. It was that son of a bitch Biddlecomb and his little stunt, walking right into the tavern as free as you please. Barnett realized he had been knocked back on his heels by that bold move.
He had been surprised at the moment, to be sure, looking up and seeing Biddlecomb and Faircloth come marching into the tavern. But he had recovered his wits, mocked them with three cheers. He thought that had settled it for him, restored his balance. But he could see now it hadn’t. Biddlecomb’s effrontery had shaken him deep.
“Well, we’ll set that whore’s son straight,” Barnett said.
The tavern door opened again and his men began to spill out into the yard. They looked hastily dressed, hastily armed, half-drunk or hung over. But that was fine. They had not tarried, but rather turned out in their sorry state because they were afraid of him. As they should be.
“Listen here, you miserable pukes,” Barnett called so all could hear. “We’re going to march down to that wharf and we’re going to give those bastards on that ship one last chance to give it up. And if they don’t want to come off the ship now, then by God they don’t ever come off. We’ll set up camp right there, right at the end of the wharf. No one comes or goes. No food, no water, no poxed militia comes or goes from that ship. And we’ll see how long they care to put up with that.”
He watched the men exchange glances. Some of them, the less stupid ones, understood what he was saying: they would be giving up the comforts of the tavern for bivouacking on the hard ground by the water’s edge. He waited for someone to object, but no one did.
A moment later the stable boy and the innkeeper came around the side of the building leading the four horses that the pine robbers had to their name. Barnett took one and three of the other lead men took the others. Wilcox would have had one, had he been there, but he was not. He was, Barnett hoped, at that moment marching Rumstick and his band back along the road from the Pine Barrens to Great Egg Harbor.
Wonder if we should set up the gallows first? Barnett thought as he climbed up into the saddle, but then decided against it.
Let ol’ Biddlecomb decide about surrendering the ship before I play that card.
He reached around and grabbed the reins and nudged the horse with his heels. The hooves made a soft thudding sound on the hard ground as the animal gathered way. The three other mounted men walked their horses alongside him, and behind him, he heard the shuffle and clatter and mutterings of a good three dozen men falling in behind.
They moved down the frozen road, through the cluster of buildings that made up Great Egg Harbor and on toward the waterfront. The local folk at work stopped to watch them parade past, and some frowned and shook their heads as they watched. No one said anything. No one would dare. Barnett’s company was by far the most powerful force within fifty miles.
He swiveled around in his saddle and looked behind him. The column stretched back for fifty yards, and though there was nothing uniform about the men, still they were walking in something like a straight line with muskets resting on shoulders, troops on the march. Barnett had seen units of the Continental Army that looked worse than his men.
Colonel Barnett…he mused. That had been pretty much a joke when he thought of it, but now he was starting to like the idea. He liked riding at the head of a column of soldiers.
Once we take this ship, that’ll set us up, he thought. I’ll keep this lot together, maybe hire us out. Whig, Tory, it don’t matter. Whoever has hard money, that’s the side we fight on.
Barnett’s mind wandered off into that happy land as he rode, and he became so lost in those thoughts that his arrival at the end of the wharf took him by surprise. He held up a hand to stop the column, then slid off the horse and onto the ground.
He looked down the length of the dock at the frigate tied there. A thin column of smoke was rising up from the forward end, from an oven, he guessed. Breakfast would be done but maybe they were keeping it stoked up to provide some warmth below.
How much wood you got onboard? Barnett thought. How much food and water? Not so much, I reckon.
He turned around and strode back to the men gathered on the road. He walked down the line, pointing to those who looked the least disreputable, the least like the bedraggled, sorry outcasts that they all in fact were.
“You lot, come with me,” he ordered. “And try to look like proper soldiers, much as you can.” Then, seeing the hesitancy on the men’s faces added, “Oh, don’t you worry, you sorry bastards. Ain’t no one going to shoot you. Except me, that is, if you make a hash of this.”
He headed down the wharf and the picked men fell in behind him. They would not make the same martial impression as Faircloth’s marines, but they would do. Barnett kept his eyes on the ship and he could see the activity now, men hurrying fore and aft, no doubt turning out under arms. The arrival of the Army of the Pine Barrens had not gone unnoticed, nor was it a threat that could be ignored or dismissed.
He stopped fifty feet from the ship, crossed his arms, and looked up at the quarterdeck rail. The ship was not particularly high-sided, but empty as it was it was riding high, and the wharf was low to the water, so Barnett could not see the deck from where he stood. Nor could he see anyone on the deck, not Biddlecomb or anyone else. The men he had seen scrambling before were now hidden from sight.
He considered calling out but decided immediately against it. He could see the game that Biddlecomb was playing here, and he could play it too, by his own rules. He would wait.
A minute passed by, and then another. Barnett felt his anger rising, despite his determination to play it cool. And just as he was thinking that he would have to act, the call out, or march back down the wharf or fire a musket ball into the side of the ship, a head appeared over the rail. Not Biddlecomb or Faircloth, but one of the other officers. Barnett recognized him—a little portly, round eyeglasses, not particularly awe-inspiring—but he had never met the man.
“May I help you?” the officer asked.
“No, I reckon not,” Barnett said.
The man nodded. There was another moment of silence, and then the man said, “May I enquire as to your purpose in visiting us?”
“You can,” Barnett said. “But I reckon it’s your captain I should talk to.”
There was another moment of silence, as if the officer was weighing whether or not this was worth disturbing the captain for, and then he said, “Very well. Pray, wait a moment.”
He disappeared from sight. Barnett rested his hands on his sword hilt and the butt of his pistol and waited. He wondered if Biddlecomb was down below, or if he was standing just on the far side of the deck, out of sight. Barnett decided it was the latter, that they were just making a show of having to go and fetch Biddlecomb, pretending that the bastard could hardly be bothered.
Faircloth and his marines, he suspected, and the rest of the crew were under arms and also skulking on the other side of the deck, or down in the waist. They could pretend that the presence of Barnett’s men did not warrant any concern, but everyone there knew that it was not true.
Play make-believe all you like, Biddlecomb, Barnett thought. I know you’re scared of me.
A moment later Biddlecomb himself appeared at the quarterdeck rail. He was in uniform now, a blue coat and red waistcoat under his boat cloak, a hat, considerably less battered than Barnett’s, perched on his head.
“Ah, Colonel Barnett,” he said. “Just back from headquarters, I imagine. Are you bringing me the latest orders from General Washington?”
“I am,” Barnett said. He had not actually thought through what he would say, he was just acting on his gut, and so he gave his gut free rein. “General says you should let me and my men come onboard, have a look around. He says, it’d be the healthiest thing for you and your men.”
“Does he, now?” Biddlecomb asked. “Well…I think not.”
“You think not?”
“That’s what I said.”
Barnett nodded. He ran his eyes over the ship. Nothing had changed since the last time he had been there, as far as he could see. She might be sitting a hair lower in the water for all the rocks they had been humping onboard, but that was about it. And even that he could not tell for certain.
“Don’t look like you’re getting too much done,” Barnett observed. “You ain’t much closer to sailing off.”
“It can be hard for a fellow like you to tell,” Biddlecomb said. “You know, a fellow that knows nothing about such things.”
“Still, I reckon it’d be a fine thing to get some masts in her, huh?” Barnett said. “Say, if you was to send some men up to the Pine Barrens to cut you some spruce. That sound like a good idea?”
That, at last, provoked a reaction. It was subtle, and Biddlecomb checked himself quickly, but Barnett saw it. The words had struck home, the threat had landed.
Barnett would say no more. In truth, he had said more on the subject than he intended to. He knew all about the dangers of counting chickens before they hatched, or flaunting hostages before they were actually in your possession. But he could not resist taking that verbal swing at Biddlecomb’s smug face, and he had the pleasure of seeing it land. And the further pleasure of seeing Biddlecomb struggle for a response, and fail to find one.
“Any event,” Barnett said, “you probably don’t need my advice about masts and such. So here’s what I come to tell you. I’m concerned, you see, about the safety of this fine ship, here. There’s lots of bad folk around these parts. Banditti and such. So what I’m going to do, I’m going to post my men at the head of the wharf there. Got about fifty or so, and more coming in. We’ll see to it no one comes near your ship. Understand? Like the way the great Washington himself had them British stuck up in Boston. No one come in or out. That way you’ll be good and safe. You understand?”
“Yes,” Biddlecomb said. “Yes, I certainly do understand. I just hope you understand how this might not work out so well for you.”
Barnett nodded. “Oh, I think I understand how this will work out for me,” he said. “But if there comes a time when you want to discuss the situation, like if, say, you and your men were out of food, well, you know where I can be found.”
He turned then without another word and walked back up the wharf, his men falling in behind him. He was pleased. Pleased that he had the discipline to shut up just at the right moment, just when he had landed that last jab. Pleased that he had thought to come now and box Biddlecomb in before the poxed bastard found some means to get away. Pleased that the frigate would soon be his, and there was not much in heaven, earth, or hell that Captain Isaac bloody Biddlecomb could do to stop him.