Historical Fiction
Date Published: 10-25-2024
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
As the drumbeat of the American Revolution grows ever closer, Scotsman-turned-American-patriot Duncan McCallum must navigate treacherous cultural and political waters if he’s to secure a fighting chance for the fledgling nation in this gripping installment of the acclaimed Bone Rattler series.
Chapter 1
Late February
1770 Marblehead, Massachusetts Colony
“Dear Lord no, not the grinders!”
yelled the elegantly dressed man at Duncan McCallum’s side. “Veer away, for the
love of God, or all is lost!” Duncan could not recall if he had ever heard his
companion so frantic, but the blood was rising among all the spectators of the
race, and John Hancock’s desperate cries could be forgiven. It was his
cherished personal yacht that was about to lose its keel to the notorious bed
of submerged rocks and sandbars at the edge of Marblehead Harbor. “Too close, I
say! Too close!”
Duncan, not sharing Hancock’s
anxiety, watched through his pocket tele- scope as the women on board scurried
on the deck and in the rigging, tightening one line, loosening another, while
Sarah Ramsey kept her steady hand on the wheel of the sloop. Sailing had become
a passion for Sarah ever since the day Hancock had taken them for an afternoon
cruise months earlier. Duncan had commanded Hancock’s commercial ships on short
runs to Bermuda and Newfoundland, and as their friendship blossomed the Boston
merchant had generously offered the yacht with its crewmen for Duncan and Sarah
to use on their own rare days of leisure. Knowing his fiancée’s questing ways,
Duncan had not been surprised when she had asked if she might take the helm on
their first such day, then asked him to name for her the sails and each element
of the rigging. “A fair return,” she had quipped, reminding him of how she had
once taught him the Iroquois words of her youth. Since that day she had become
an adept sailor, and on the last harbor cruise with Hancock she had astounded
Boston’s merchant prince by taking the yacht’s helm to thread a course through
the outer islands.
No one, however, had expected Sarah
to speak up days later at a dinner at Hancock’s regal Beacon Hill home to
challenge the commander of the local revenue cutter to a competition. Duncan
had often revisited that conversation, trying to navigate its many subcurrents.
Sarah had no love for the British navy, especially the patrol vessels that
enforced Britain’s onerous trade laws. Until that point she had adroitly guided
the discussion among Hancock’s guests, avoiding the traps that seemed
inevitable in Boston when the dinner company included both officers of the
occupation troops and leaders of the Sons of Liberty.
Duncan did not recollect how, but the
discussion had veered from the weather to the advantages of American-built
ships in being able to sail closer to the wind than those from British
shipyards. When the officers, at first surprised, then amused, that a woman
could hold her own in such a conversation, had good-naturedly defended their
shipwrights, Sarah had offered to prove her point.
“We must have a competition!” she
ebulliently declared. “A match between boats of similar burden. Say the navy’s
fast revenue cutter and one of the sloops crafted in Marblehead, ending of
course in Marblehead Harbor.” The officers and Hancock had laughed but then
leaned forward as she persisted. Sarah had turned to the youngest officer, who
was well known and largely reviled in Marblehead. “Why, come to think of it,
Lieutenant Oakes, isn’t that vessel under your command? Named for some archaic
god, I recollect.” She knew perfectly well the name of the boat.
The lieutenant’s cool smile was close
to a sneer. “I indeed have the honor to command the king’s revenue cutter
Neptune. Bristol-built, and she can outsail any vessel she meets. But surely no
captain of a comparable vessel would meet me, Miss Ramsey, since my nimble
Neptune has already overtaken so many of them as they sought to evade the
king’s customs duties.”
Duncan had suspected that Sarah had
some hidden motive in openly taunting the arrogant Oakes, and her next words
had removed all doubt. “Why, doesn’t Mr. Hancock have just such a Marblehead
boat? Suppose we Americans give you an advantage. I will take the helm of the
Hancock yacht myself and crew her with the doddering females of Marblehead.
Shall we say Sunday, a week?” She fixed Hancock with a pointed gaze, and then
the merchant’s face lit with understanding. Sarah wasn’t taunting the navy; she
was trying to calm troubled waters. The tension be- tween the occupation troops
and civilians was near the breaking point, and they desperately needed to find
common ground, if only for an afternoon’s distraction.
Several of the officers had been
aghast, but when Hancock had vigorously exclaimed “Brava! Brava!” and raised
his glass to Sarah, they had joined in his gleeful toast, their vigor growing
when he proposed to host one of his famous teas at the race’s end.
Captain Lawford, commodore of the
navy’s inshore fleet, likewise embraced Sarah’s apparent intentions. “Why, that
would be capital!” he exclaimed. “What say you, Oakes? I’ve no doubt we can
arrange to have your cutter in those waters for a Sunday frolic with our
American friends. What better way to celebrate the approach of spring!”
Sarah had shot a victorious glance at
Duncan before raising her own glass. The women, he knew, would be from what she
called her Nightingale Club, all from Marblehead sailing families. They would
have cut their teeth on backstays, and all were secretly dedicated to Sarah’s
increasingly bold efforts in support of the nonimportation cause, aimed at
cutting off trade with Britain.
“But sir,” Oakes had protested,
“we’ve had fresh intelligence that somewhere in the bay the traitor is at last
going to—”
“Lieutenant! Have a care!” Lawford
interrupted, then put on a more genteel expression. “Of course we shall defend
the honor of His Majesty’s navy.” The commander of the inshore fleet raised his
glass. “And fear not, Lieutenant. Surely you know the navy relies on the Heart
of Oakes, eh?” he added, laughing at his word- play with the familiar maritime
fighting song.
Now, as Sarah guided Hancock’s boat
through the maze of rocky shoals and sandbars, Duncan began to worry not about
her motive but whether her rash decision was going to destroy Hancock’s elegant
vessel.
“Thank God!” Hancock shouted with
glee a moment later. “She’s cleared it!” Oakes’s Neptune was close behind, the
lieutenant having decided to preempt Sarah’s advantage by following her into
the narrow passage between rocks and shore for the final sprint to the end of
the harbor.
“It is not over, sir!” Lawford
crowed. “My man has decided that two can play at this game! I shall soon have
your guinea in my pocket, John!”
“Damnation, Duncan,” Hancock quietly
muttered. “He’s right. Look at how the cutter’s sails fill with the breeze.
That foolhardy Oakes has laid on extra canvas.” “But the Neptune’s keel—”
Duncan began. He had no need to finish his sentence as groans shot through the
group of gathered officers. The sound of shuddering masts echoed across the
harbor. The yard of the added topsail Oakes had hoisted snapped, tumbling to
the deck in a tangle of lines. The cutter had cleared the rocks only to have
one of the sandbars seize her keel. She lost all headway, and the furious
shouts of her commander could be heard above the chaos. For a moment Duncan
thought she would move no more until the tide came in; then, long seconds later
she inched forward. But as she finally cleared the bar, the signal gun at the
finish line fired. A cheer broke farther down the harbor, where townspeople had
gathered in dinghies and on the town wharf. Sarah was victorious. With a
gleeful laugh Hancock extended his palm toward the captain. Lawford
good-naturedly dropped a heavy coin into it and looked over the assembly of
officers. “Our redcoat has missed all the fun,” he added, referring to
Lieutenant Hicks, head of the small army contingent temporarily stationed in
Marblehead. “I fear I owe him as well, for the scoundrel had the nerve to wager
against the navy.”
Lawford grinned as Hancock hurried
down the dock to congratulate the crew of his mooring sloop. “The Boston papers
will love this story. I will get no end of ribbing, I am sure. Oh my,” the
commodore added as the winning crew assembled on the dock. Two of the women had
stripped to their petticoats during the competition and the others, including
Sarah, wore sailor’s breeches. All had been saturated by the bow spray.
Sarah was shaking the water from her
auburn curls as Duncan reached her. “I’m soaked!” she protested as he spread
his arms to embrace her, then laughed as he ignored her warning.
“You laid a trap for Oakes,” he
whispered as he held her close. “You knew he would scrape.”
“I seem to recall the very first
advice I received from my sailing master,” she said with an impish smile, “was
to always know the lay of my keel. Can I help it if the lieutenant doesn’t know
the cut of his own boat?” Then “That’s good of John,” she added after a moment.
Duncan pulled away to watch as
Hancock distributed coins to each of her crew members. The jubilant merchant
then led them toward the long brick build- ing that was his Marblehead
warehouse. At the far end, men stood at trestle tables, serving ale, fresh loaves,
and boiled mussels to the townspeople who had gathered for the finish of the
race. In the yard paved with crushed oyster shell at the near end of the
building were other tables, draped with linens, where more robust offerings of
lobster, oysters, pies, cakes, and wine awaited Hancock’s invited guests.
“Where is that scrub Hicks?” Lawford
asked one of his subordinates as he heaped oysters onto his plate. “Not like
him to miss a taste of the famous Hancock larder.” The aide leaned into the
commodore’s ear with an apparent explanation. “Oh that,” Lawford said with a
wince. “Damn the deserters,” he groused. “They should swing just for keeping a
zealous officer from our frolic.”
Duncan caught the anxious glance
Sarah aimed at the ridge that jutted into the harbor entrance. She had been so
insistent on the place and time of her little competition that he could not
shake the suspicion that she had other reasons in mind. But if she had intended
to distract all the officers in the town to divert them from one of her
smuggling operations, her plan had not been entirely successful. She turned to
the captain. “I must beg your leave,” she announced to Lawford. “Allow us a few
moments in the sloop’s privacy before we catch our death,” she said, indicating
her wet clothing. The sun had begun its descent, and what had been a
providentially mild day was cooling.
“Of course, my dear,” Lawford
replied. “But make haste, for we can hardly celebrate these heroics without our
heroine.”
Hancock’s guests energetically
attacked the stacks of food. Only Hancock and Duncan noticed that Sarah paused
at the foot of the wharf to speak with one of her crew, sending the woman up
the street at a run. Hancock’s gaze shifted to the town’s two magistrates
sitting farther down the table, and then he cast a worried glance at Duncan,
who shrugged. Sarah did not share all her secrets with Duncan and fewer still
with Hancock, who engaged in the delicate balancing act of maintaining close
relations with the government despite being a leader in the Sons of Liberty.
The secret that most troubled
Hancock, Duncan knew, was not one of Sarah’s but that of the dead infantry
officer they had found floating off Marblehead ten days earlier, killed by a
stab wound in the back. He and Duncan knew the presence of so many high-ranking
officers from Castle William, the island headquarters of the military, was
unprecedented. They, too, he suspected, had come for more than the sailing
match. There had been no official reaction to or even notice of the officer’s
murder, which made Duncan all the more uneasy. If they had kept the killing
secret, so too might they conceal their retribution.
Hancock collected himself and turned
to the table. “Gentlemen,” he announced as he reached into a case of wine and
extracted a dusty bottle, “I give you the claret of sixty-four, I daresay the
first case to arrive on American shores. Best of the decade, I’ve been told.”
“Have you the duty slip?” the port
commissioner asked playfully. Hancock, who had had a ship seized by the
government for failure to pay duties less than two years earlier, winced but
then pushed a smile onto his face.
The guests enthusiastically gathered
around the case as Hancock filled and distributed glasses, not looking up until
Sarah reappeared, wearing a hunter green dress that set off her auburn hair.
That at least two of the officers reacted coolly toward her did not surprise
Duncan, though he could not tell if it was because she had bested the navy’s
cutter or simply because they resented a woman who presumed to command a
sailing vessel. But the others at the table cheerfully joined in when Captain
Lawford raised his glass for a toast to “Miss Ramsey and the distaff navy of
Marblehead!”
They ate with a camaraderie unusual
for such an assembly of officials and citizens, and although the good humor of
Lawford and his officers was sometimes forced, Duncan concluded it was because
of Oakes’s defeat. Halfway through the meal, however, Hancock came up behind
Duncan and gripped his arm, directing his gaze to Lawford. The commodore had
gone silent and was staring at one of the larger fishing boats anchored across
the harbor. The boat was painted a distinctive mustard with green trim, her net
raised to dry along her backstays.
Hancock bent low to top off Duncan’s
glass. “Good God!” he whispered. “He recognizes it!”
“Marblehead has the colony’s largest
fishing fleet,” Duncan murmured. “It should come as no surprise that the boat
would be here. It just triggered an un- pleasant memory.”
“Unpleasant?” Hancock rejoined. “A
nightmare!”
Duncan saw now that the color had
drained from Lawford’s face. He wasn’t seeing a fishing boat; he was seeing a
ghost. Only the week before, that vessel had arrived at Castle William with the
waterlogged, bloodless body of a British officer hanging in that very net.
Ten days earlier Hancock had invited
Duncan and John Glover, one of the town’s leading shipowners and an able
mariner, to join him on his coastal packet boat to help inspect the decrepit
channel markers leading into the harbors of Lynn, Marblehead, and Salem. The
governor was not shy about asking Hancock, as a prominent member of the
legislature, to perform such duties, knowing his appetite for asserting
authority and his willingness to personally pay for improvements to public
property. It had been mere coincidence that they had spied the desperate waving
of the crew of the mustard-colored boat. They had eased the packet close and
accepted the line tossed to bring the boats alongside each other.
The fishermen’s net had been pulled
to the opposite side of the boat. At first Duncan saw only the densely packed
herring, but then a crew member shook the net and the silver flickers began to
alternate with snatches of scarlet. The mate in command of the boat called for
the crew to pull the net higher, and the body surfaced, shedding the crabs and
eels that had been nibbling at its flesh.
They had laid the pale soldier out on
the deck. He had been dead only a few hours, his flesh largely intact, not yet
found by the larger predators of the bay. No one spoke, no one moved, aghast
not simply at the gruesome death but also at who, or rather what, the man was.
Judging by his once elegant uniform, he was a captain in the Twenty-Ninth
Regiment of Foot, one of the hated regiments occupying Boston.
“Toss him back in, I say,” the mate
suggested. “No one the wiser. Marblehead don’t need it.”
Hancock stared at the dead man,
clearly confused, and then his eyes went round. “Captain Mallory! Dear God, he
has dined at my own table! A most genteel officer! He and his fiancée were
expected at the governor’s ball and never made an appearance.” Duncan took a
deep breath and knelt beside the corpse. The officer had been a handsome, fit
man in his forties and had been wearing his dress uni- form as if planning to
attend an official function. Duncan quickly examined the limbs, then unbuttoned
the tunic. Finding nothing suspicious, and fervently hoping he could declare
the death a drowning accident, he straightened, then shook his head, knowing he
had not completed the task. He bent and pressed down on the dead man’s abdomen.
Only air escaped from his lungs. “Help me turn him over,” he asked with
foreboding.
No one stepped forward until finally
Glover bent and lifted the man’s feet. The compact, muscular mariner helped
Duncan twist the man onto his stomach, then muttered a low curse. The back of
the officer’s waistcoat had a slit in it, just to the left of his spine and
over his heart. The blood had not been entirely washed away.
“Murder?” Hancock gasped. “My God, a
senior officer murdered? No, Dun- can, we can’t . . .” His voice trailed off.
Glover wore a grim but more collected
expression. “If he was out of Marble- head we’ll feel the wrath of the
governor. He already lends an ear to those who say our town has become a den of
murderers and thieves since last year. This will be their excuse to square
accounts with us.”
“Marblehead don’t need it,” the mate
repeated. Now Hancock understood his words.
The people of Marblehead hated the
customs duties and other trade restrictions imposed by London but reserved a
special loathing for the navy’s press gangs, which often detained their vessels
at sea to seize men for involuntary service on their warships. The year before,
a Marblehead man had been charged with harpooning the officer leading a gang
that had cornered him on his own ship with drawn weapons. Although the court
had ultimately ruled the killing justified as self-defense, rancor over the
incident still simmered on both sides. Since then, when a naval vessel sailed
close to a Marblehead boat, crew members usually taunted it with raised
harpoons.
“No,” Duncan said as he contemplated
the body. “The senior officer in Marblehead is a lieutenant. And he was going
to the ball in Boston. The tide will have brought him from the inner harbor.”
He looked up at the merchant. “Meaning they will think the Boston radicals are
behind it.” Duncan glanced at Glover, and the men gathered around the body with
new worry. He knew Glover was fiercely committed to the Sons of Liberty but did
not know the political leanings of the others.
Glover instantly understood.
“Committed patriots to the man here,” he said of the fishing crew.
“As are my lads,” Hancock murmured.
Duncan surveyed the men standing
around him, then gazed at the steeples of Boston, just visible across the bay.
“He goes back in the water,” he said, “back in the net. And the boat goes to
Castle William.”
“Like hell!” the mate growled. “I’m
not offering myself up to some mob of angry lobsterbacks!”
“I’ll go,” Glover said and turned to
the mate. “Duncan’s got the measure of it. I’ll tell them it’s my boat, that as
soon as we snagged the poor soldier we knew we had to take him to his comrades
at the Castle. We never touched him, never raised him out of the water. They’ll
identify him and know that he was from Boston. As a top officer he will have
been missed by now. We’ll just be doing our duty to the king, ye see,” he said
to the crew, who answered with mocking grins.
Duncan saw that Hancock was not
convinced. “Otherwise, John, they’ll be turning Boston inside out to find him.
The magistrates will give the army leave to search the house of every radical.
Especially the leaders of the Sons,” he added. “They wouldn’t dare!” Hancock
exclaimed. “There’s such things as bonds of
honor!”
“In Boston?” Duncan rejoined. “Where
there’s an angry soldier for every four citizens, half of whom are equally on
edge? I daresay we are beyond bonds and honor. Massachusetts is an uncharted
land these days. And there are those on both sides who would be happy to
transform it into a bloody battlefield. We can’t give them an excuse for doing
so. You never saw the body, know only that Mallory missed the ball.”
Hancock grimaced, then slowly nodded.
Duncan turned to Glover. “Fix this as
the position of the discovery, mark your chart, note the time. The navy well
understands the flow of the tides here, knows that if he had been killed on the
north shore he would have been swept far out to sea. Meanwhile,” he added to
the crew, “bring in the herring. And this is a fishing boat. She’s too tidy.
Cut up some fish and scatter the remains. Let some seagulls follow you in to
soil the Castle’s wharf. Do what you can to make her stink so the Castle won’t
want you to linger.”
The crew looked to their mate for
direction. After several heartbeats he nodded, then kicked over a basket of
fish. “Stink it up, boys.”
As the crew worked to fill the
oversized baskets on deck with their catch,Duncan more fully examined the dead
officer, finding no other signs of injury but also no sign of a purse or
personal effects. Glover and the mate then restored the dead man’s tunic,
placed him back into the now-empty net, and lowered him into the sea. As the
boats drifted apart, Hancock stood at Duncan’s side. “Once again, Duncan, we
may need you to protect us.”
Duncan gave no voice to the question
on his tongue. Was Hancock referring to Duncan’s skills as a physician or as,
in words Hancock sometimes whispered, the “master of secrets” for the Sons of
Liberty?
While Sarah’s freshly attired crew
mingled with the officers, Hancock lived up to his repute as a generous and
attentive host. Duncan suspected his other guests would ascribe his nervousness
to his compulsion to keep every cup filled and every empty platter quickly
replenished. The merchant prince had warned all in advance that given the
exceptional weather the tea was to be alfresco, in North Shore picnic style,
meaning he had brought only one servant and, at Sarah’s urging, had attired the
man in simple brown waistcoat and breeches instead of his usual brocaded
livery.
The company was turning its attention
to the stack of cakes and pastries at the end of the table when the gaze of the
port’s senior customs official fixed on the point of rock Sarah had been
watching.
“The infernal savage is lighting up
again,” the commissioner muttered.
Heads turned toward the solitary
figure who tended a smoky fire on the tongue of land that jutted into the mouth
of the harbor. They were not close enough for Duncan to make out details, but
he recognized the man’s slow, methodical dance and shoulder-length gray hair.
“Every few days we must suffer the
aged fool, sir,” the customs man explained to Lawford. “One of those pathetic
old natives, no doubt reliving some memory conjured from his barbaric youth.”
Duncan noticed the smile that
flickered on Sarah’s face. The figure was their close friend Conawago, and the
fire, Duncan knew, was a signal.
“Not at all,” Duncan quickly
countered. “He is performing a blessing for the harbor and the town. The fishing
fleet leaves soon for the Grand Banks on its first sailing of the year, what
they call First Fare. He asks the favors of his gods for the First Fare
mariners.”
“His gods?” one of the younger
officers snorted. “Surely they are all deaf and dumb by now!”
As the words brought a round of
guffaws, Duncan shot a worried glance at Sarah, who stared down into her plate
without expression and, he suspected, was biting her tongue.
The commodore stifled the laughter
with a raised hand. “You can recognize this as a tribal blessing?” Lawford
observed with a lift of inquiry in his voice, then contemplated Duncan a
moment. “Ah, I forgot. You and Miss Ramsey have a settlement adjoining the
native lands, in the New York wilderness. That must breed certain”—the captain
searched for a polite word—“certain awareness.”
“The Iroquois,” Sarah replied in a
careful voice, “have generously accepted us as neighbors, yes. And you may be
surprised, Captain, at how many natives live in this very town. Responsible
citizens, mostly employed on the sailing vessels. Valued seaman, every one.”
“I have several on my own ships,”
Hancock confirmed. “Fearless fellows. Always the first to scramble up the
shrouds in a storm. I’m surprised the navy hasn’t—” Hancock caught himself,
glancing awkwardly at the naval officers who sat across from him, many of whom
would have commanded impressment parties. “Surprised they haven’t fully
recognized the skills of such men,” he awkwardly amended.
One of the officers, well known for
commanding bullying impressment squads, responded with a bitter expression.
“Our coppery friends may hate what the Americans have done to their people,” he
haughtily observed, “but put them in earshot of one of my press gangs and they
become the most loyal of colonial residents, damn their eyes.”
Impressment had become such a source
of friction that the navy had agreed not to seize any man who could prove an
established Massachusetts residence. That proof could be hard to come by for
the native mariners, many of whom lived wandering lives, but Marbleheaders were
quick to support the natives, if just to spite the navy.
Out of the corner of his eye Duncan
caught movement on the hill above the warehouses. A man was walking at a fast,
determined pace toward the harbor. Sarah, too, took notice, studying him for a
moment, then glancing uneasily at Conawago, who raised and lowered his arms
through the thick, fragrant smoke of the burning juniper.
“One of your tidesmen, I believe,”
Hancock observed to the customs commissioner as the port inspector approached
their table. Sarah cast a nervous glance at the approaching tidesman. She had
made a point of inviting all the local customs officers to the tea, but
apparently at least one had declined. The commissioner rose and turned to
receive a whispered report. Hancock offered the man a glass of claret, which he
gulped down before departing. It was, Duncan knew, the mer- chant’s ploy to pry
loose the news delivered by the man. “I daresay one of yours, Mr. Hancock,” was
all the tidesman offered before leaving.
The commissioner, however, was all
too happy to share the report. “Brig from the West Indies has dropped anchor,”
he announced to the table. “Sugar and mo- lasses. In the outer harbor beyond
the Neck. A bit odd given that we have ample berthing closer to shore.”
Hancock did a creditable job of
hiding his surprise, but Duncan could see he had not expected the ship, at
least not at Marblehead. His larger ships all ended their ocean voyages at
Hancock Wharf in Boston. “Her captain is a God-fearing man who no doubt does
not wish to disturb the Sabbath,” the merchant offered.
“But is he a king-fearing man?” the
customs commissioner shot back with a thin, needling smile. “We shall see at
first light tomorrow.” He would reap a rich bounty if he could prove another
Hancock ship was engaged in smuggling.
Sarah, sensing the tension between
the two men, lifted her glass. “Our noble competition arrives!” she announced,
indicating the sullen file of sailors who had finally cleared the wreckage from
the cutter’s deck and were now approaching their table. The face of Lieutenant
Oakes reflected the ignominy of his defeat, but then he spotted Sarah and her
crew and halted. He collected himself, straightening his uniform and ordering
his men into a less ragged line. They advanced at a jaunty pace and upon reaching
Sarah, the young lieutenant removed his hat and bowed to her.
“’Tis far better to have raced you
and lost, Miss Ramsey,” the lieutenant declared, “than to have never raced you
at all.”
“Hear, hear! Well done!” Lawford
exclaimed. “A noble sentiment!”
The cutter’s men did not entirely
share their skipper’s graciousness, for Dun- can heard one mutter something
about “the vixen leading us into a trap,” but the tension melted as Sarah’s
crew approached the sailors, holding mugs of ale. Fifty paces down the
waterfront, where the townspeople were gathered, someone started playing a
fiddle.
Duncan grinned as the women stepped
into the open yard and began dancing a jig to the distant tune, pulling the
chagrined sailors out of their line to join them. He felt Sarah tug at his arm
and turned, thinking she was inviting him to dance, then followed her gaze
toward a man stumbling down one of the side streets, running at a gasping,
uneven pace in the direction of their table. His face was so pale, his long
hair so disheveled, that Duncan did not recognize him at first. The man
staggered to Hancock’s chair, bracing himself on its back as he struggled to
catch his breath.
It was Simon Pollard, a retired
schoolteacher who watched over Hancock’s operations in the port. His mouth
opened and shut, but only a stuttering groan came out. Hancock hastily poured
his deputy a glass of water. Pollard’s hand shook so badly that half the
glass’s contents were lost before reaching his mouth.
“The belfry, sir! It’s . . . it’s . .
.” Pollard glanced at the military men who lined the table and lowered his
voice. “That lieutenant who runs the army patrols, he . . . Oh dear God . . .”
His voice trailed away, and his head slumped. One more word escaped his lips,
in a frantic whisper. “Crucifixion!”
Hancock leapt to his feet. Duncan was
out of his chair an instant later and followed Hancock toward the long building
that was fronted by the belfry, the name given to the tall structure at the end
of the long rope walk Hancock had built to supply his merchant fleet. The
tower’s latticework of timbers was used to suspend shrouds and special rigging
in their finishing stages. Duncan last visited the belfry just three days
earlier. He had watched in admiration as workers scrambled over the
scaffolding, twisting and knotting fibers into a heavy backstay for a ship that
was being refitted in the harbor.
As they reached the building’s door,
Hancock halted Duncan. “There is trickery afoot, Duncan! They somehow know we
were with that dead officer, I swear it! Did you not see the knowing gazes, the
slippery glances? And now they surprise me with one of my own ships! They
weren’t here for the race; they were here to beat down the leaders of the Sons
of Liberty! It’s a plot to seize another of my ships! I’ll be ruined!”
“Steady on, John,” Duncan cautioned.
“Something is afoot, but it’s still unfolding. Don’t indulge them by
overreacting.” Duncan looked over Hancock’s shoulder. Lawford was bent over
Pollard, and as Duncan watched, the captain spun about and hurried up the hill,
followed by several of his officers. He took a deep breath and put a hand on
the door, which was ajar. “Let us see what new trouble Lieutenant Hicks has
brewed for us.” He stepped inside and froze. The timber scaffolding had not
been used for its usual maritime magic this day.
“Blessed Jesus!” Hancock gasped as he
entered the chamber, then retreated a step, stricken by the sight before them.
Moments later Lawford and his companions arrived. One of the young officers
made a croaking sound and doubled over, staggering to a corner as he retched
onto the stone flags.
Duncan had taken Pollard’s muttered
Crucifixion! to be just the expletive of a pious man, but now he saw the
terrible truth.
Ropes had been tied to Hicks’s
wrists, then strung through the pulley blocks fastened eight feet high on the
side walls and fed through the overhead center block used to raise heavy
rigging. The lieutenant had been hoisted six feet into the air, his arms
stretched tight toward the opposite walls so that he was splayed against the
scaffold. His face was drained of blood, his open eyes unseeing. His mouth and
nostrils were sewn shut.
About the Author
ELIOT PATTISON is the author of the Inspector Shan series, which includes The Skull Mantra, winner of an Edgar Award and finalist for the Gold Dagger. Pattison’s Bone Rattler series follows Scotsman Duncan McCallum on the road to revolution as he fights to protect the cause of freedom. Pattison resides in rural Pennsylvania.
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