Annapolis, page 6
“I’m proud to know you.” Big Tom introduced himself to the lieutenant that night in the Tun Tavern. “Now, then, the thirteen stripes make sense, but why the Union Jack in the canton?”
“The United Colonies will rule themselves as part of the empire, but we’ll squash Mother England into a corner, where she belongs.”
“Well said.” Big Tom gave the lieutenant’s back a slap. “Allow me to buy you an ale, to toast the Grand Union, Lieutenant—”
“Jones. John Paul Jones, of the Alfred.”
“I’m Big Tom Stafford, master of the Hannah S., also known as Master of the Chesapeake.” He liked Rebecca’s name for him, even if she meant it as a joke.
Jones was a smart-looking Scot with a thick burr in his speech and a thicker one under his hat, once he learned that Big Tom was a privateer. “Ye can be master of nothin’ when ye’re runnin’ from the Royal Navy.”
“I run from nothin’ I can stand up to,” said Big Tom, as quick to take offense as he was to pat a back. “Not ships… not lieutenants.”
The anger flashed in Jones’s eyes, but he touched his mug to Tom’s, as if anger had no value at the moment. “I dinna mean to insult the Master of the Chesapeake. The navy can use men like ye, sailin’ under a new flag of freedom.”
“My flag be right in here.” Big Tom tapped his chest and felt the letter he still carried, the letter burning a hole in his conscience. “But you might tell me, sir, does my old friend Nicholas Biddle sail under your flag?”
“He’s captain of the Andrew Doria, that black-hulled brig anchored upstream. A fine man who believes as I do.”
“How’s that?”
“Give us fast ships, for we intend to go in harm’s way.” Jones took another drink. “Yer Hannah S., she looks like she’d be a racehorse.”
“She is. So are her sisters.”
“Best get her downriver afore it freezes. But dinna worry”—Jones drained his mug—“Congress orders that when our squadron’s ready, we’re to take action in the Chesapeake and chase off Lord Dunmore’s fleet. The navy’ll protect yer home while ye take yer prizes and run from trouble. Good night, sir.”
That remark stung so badly that Big Tom spent the rest of the night numbing himself with ale. After he had drunk all that he could and was oblivious to bitter wind and blowing snow, he walked along the waterfront to Biddle’s ship. Lights were still burning in the stern gallery. It would be a simple thing to go aboard and sign on.…
Then he remembered the prize money in his pocket—crisp new Continental currency, an investment in the cause, as good as honor and better than specie. Besides, a privateer could do as he pleased, when he pleased, and consort with any woman he pleased, even one as loyal to the king as Rebecca Parrish.
“YOU’D LIKE ME to sew what?”
“A flag.” Big Tom shifted in his chair, which sat in the Parrishes’ parlor, in the space where Duncan the Elder’s coffin had sat a year earlier.
Rebecca dug through the package of red and white fabric he had given her and found, at the center of the pile, the small Union Jack that he intended for the canton. She held it up and said, “You have a flag.”
“Sew my new flag, and this is yours.” He pulled another package from under the chair and gave it to her. “You said you would like some damask for draperies.”
Slowly, so as to convey no excitement, Rebecca opened the package. “And you were listening… for a change.”
Big Tom looked around the parlor—chairs covered in rose-colored fabric with wings so high that he feared he would fly away if he sat in one; a seraph of yellow with plum-colored stripes, on which Rebecca perched gracefully in a plum-colored dress; and on the wall behind her, a portrait of her father by Charles Willson Peale, the Annapolis saddlemaker who had gone to London to learn portraiture and now spent his time painting the troublemakers in Philadelphia.
“You’ve already gussied up these downstairs rooms.” He lifted the fabric from her hands. It was a forest green, as she had requested. “Where will you use this?”
“In my bedchamber.”
He held the fabric out at arm’s length. “I’d love to see how it hangs there.”
“Could you be any more transparent?”
“Could you be any more impenetrable?”
“Is that why you keep coming back? For the challenge?”
He laughed. “When I want a challenge, I’ll join the Continental Navy.”
Angrily she snatched the fabric from his hands and threw it at him. “There’s to your Continental Navy. And to your smuggled fabric.”
Big Tom pulled the fabric off his head. “I keep coming back because of the kisses you’ve given. And the way you insult me. No man would ever dare.”
At that, she seemed to soften. Then she took him by the sleeve and led him up the staircase. But she did not take him to her bedchamber, as he hoped. Rather, she stopped at a room empty of everything but two trunks.
“This is what you’ve done to us,” she said, the bitterness in her voice echoing through the room. “We helped build this colony, yet we’re ready to flee at an instant. Some of the Loyalists have left already. More will go, us among them.”
“Where?”
“My brother Duncan to London, I back to the plantation and my brother Samuel.”
“Parrish Manor is but a short ride from Stafford Hall. May I visit you there?”
“If you promise me something.”
“What?”
“That you’ll not allow the Committee of Safety to confiscate our home after we leave, because of our political beliefs.”
“That’s—”
“Promise!” she said fiercely.
“I promise to do my best.”
“You’ll have to do more than your best.”
He saw something in her eyes—a frankness, a willingness to barter—that emboldened him. “Is there a way that we can seal this promise?”
“Do you love me?”
“Love” was a word Big Tom seldom used. “I…”
“I didn’t think so. I don’t love you, either. But if you promise—”
“Yes.”
“All right, then.” She kicked shut the door and told Big Tom to sit on a trunk. He considered the bedchamber, but thought his suggestion might break the mood, such as it was. So he did as he was told.
Then she stood before him and hiked her dress up to her hips. She gathered up the underskirt, revealing a pair of strong legs swathed in black cotton hose, white thighs spilling over the garters, and a triangle of hair at the place where her thighs met.
Big Tom could not believe it was happening, or that this was the way she would have wanted it. He looked into her eyes, as if to ask, but her gaze was fixed upon the wall beyond him.
“Come on, then,” she said. “Unbutton your breeches.”
He obeyed again, but he did not tell her what he told other women—that the name Big Tom had many meanings. It was a lie, after all, and he was not sure it would matter to her anyway.
“Moisten your fingers,” she said, “then yourself. I’ve heard it goes better if—”
Instead, he tenderly touched her. But she made no sound of pleasure. And the sound she made when he fitted her onto his lap—her legs astraddle him, her gaze still on the wall—was like the grunt a woman makes when she lifts a heavy load.
He whispered, “This posture is considered quite… unusual.”
“I saw a painting of it in a foul book. It’s sufficient. Now do your business.”
So he cupped his hands around her bottom and rocked his hips, lifting her body up and down, faster and faster until he had… done his business.
“Now,” she said before he slipped out of her, “the promise is sealed.”
And suddenly he yearned for a clean horizon and an open sea.
vi
Hard-Hearted Times
The Continental Navy at Philadelphia did not fail in its attempt to drive Lord Dunmore from the Chesapeake. It did not even try. Instead, the commander chose to raid British supply depots in the Bahamas. So much for protecting American shores. So much for obeying the wishes of Congress.
Six months later, the nine-pounders of the Annapolis shore battery, hidden behind the earthworks called Fort Severn, were trained nervously on His Majesty’s Ship Fowey, and Maryland’s Governor Eden was leaving under a flag of truce.
In the foyer of his fine house, Governor’s Councillor Duncan Parrish stood before a looking glass, put on his peruke, and prepared to leave with the governor.
Rebecca looked into the reflection of her brother’s sad eyes and said, “I feel as if all the faces that have gazed into this glass over the years are gazing back. Perhaps we should take it with us.”
“Our baggage train will take it to Parrish Manor.”
“God’s pity we can’t take the whole house.”
“Just take your harp to Parrish Manor and stay there quietly.”
“And you wear your monk’s cowl in London.” She put on her sunbonnet. “If the rebels learn you’re raising funds for Loyalist brigades—”
“I’ll work, but quietly.”
Rebecca looked at the sunlight pouring through the Palladian window. “I am loath to leave this house… loath to lose it.”
“The seat of a rebel government is no place for a Loyalist.”
“All right, then.” She took out her snuffbox and tucked a pinch of tobacco into her cheek. “Let us go, heads high. We’ll return when His Majesty ends this thing.”
Black Jed and Sara were waiting at the Annapolis dock when the Parrishes came down Green Street, their two trunks and harp borne by slaves behind them.
“So it’s come to this,” said Black Jed.
“Is there anything we can do for you?” Sara rocked baby Charlton.
Rebecca angled her parasol so that it blocked the June sun from the child’s eyes. “Keep your brother’s promise.”
“To what?” Black Jed knew that his brother had made many promises.
“Protect our Annapolis home from confiscation.”
“An ambitious promise,” said Black Jed.
“A solemn promise.” Rebecca lowered her voice. “Big Tom would seal our love and guarantee that we would marry.”
“Marry?” Black Jed did not think “marry” was a word his brother knew. “This is… uh… wonderful news. I’ll remind him of his promise when he returns.”
“If he returns,” she said.
“For one in love, you seem hard-hearted about your beloved,” said Sara.
Rebecca spit a stream of tobacco. “These are hard-hearted times.”
Just then the British captain called through his speaking trumpet that the governor was ready and his council should join him or be left behind.
Duncan put a hand on Black Jed’s arm. “Our father saved your father’s life. Promise that you’ll do what you can to save our house.”
“I promise,” said Black Jed solemnly.
Then came a flurry of kisses and embraces, some sincere, some not, but one thing was certain, as Sara said later: “Big Tom has promised to marry no one.”
“That does not release me from a promise of my own,” answered Black Jed.
vii
Harm’s Way
Few who ventured onto the Chesapeake a year later could have had any hope that the Parrishes would be exiled much longer.
From north to south, the full hundred-twenty-mile length of the bay, there were sails—the mightiest armada ever gathered in America, two hundred and fifty towers of Royal Navy canvas, gliding north as serene as summer clouds.
Black Jed sailed his skipjack out past Greenbury Point to see the awesome sight. His crew consisted of his son, now almost three, and his father, visiting from the Patuxent and growing heavier by the month.
“… fiveteen… sixteen…” While little Charlton showed his counting skills, Jedediah said how grateful he was that the British had no interest in Annapolis or the Patuxent plantations.
“Jefferson’s Declaration denounced the king,” answered Black Jed. “‘He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns.’ So the British hold a mailed fist for Washington, a velvet glove for Annapolis. They know that men like me are lost to them. And they’ll never lose the Parrishes. It’s the uncommitted, like you—”
“I’ve committed both sons… one we’ve heard from just once in a year.”
“Big Tom’s doin’ fine, bringin’ prizes into open ports.”
Just then little Charlton stopped his counting and shouted that something was coming toward them—a sea monster! “And there, another! And, Papa, there’s another one! They’re all over, Papa!”
Black Jed turned to larboard and ran slowly toward the monsters, for that was what they looked like—dozens of gray and brown bloated masses, each with four legs sticking straight out, a long neck…
“What are they, Papa?” The boy did not have the dark brow or steady gaze of his father. In looks, he favored his mother. No one yet knew if he had inherited their mutual hardheadedness. “What are they?”
“British defeat.”
“They’re dead horses,” said Jedediah.
“That proves the British don’t know how to fight us. They seize land, extract oaths of loyalty, and as soon as they leave, the land reverts to rebellion. Do they chase Washington? Split New England from the rest of the colonies? Or sail up the Chesapeake and march on Philadelphia?”
“You see all that in dead horses?”
“They’ve been on those ships for six weeks, while their generals dither and their horses die. If we can hang on until the British people tire of dead horses—”
“That horse ain’t got no eyes!” cried Charlton. “What happened to his eyes?”
“Gulls, most likely.”
“Grandpa, I bet you the next horse ain’t got no eyes, either.”
“How much?” Jedediah chuckled.
“One… one…” The little boy took a penny from his pocket. “One money.”
Black Jed chuckled, too. “Pa, what are you teachin’ my son?”
“To gamble. A gentlemanly wager is a sign of good breedin’.” Jedediah gestured to the ships. “Look at the wager you and your brother have made.”
HAD BIG TOM lost his bet?
Black Jed asked himself this question each day as he took his dutiful walk from the Fine Folly to the home of the Parrishes, which now quartered troops mustering from Annapolis. The house was a mess inside—walls defaced, moldings stripped for firewood, bedrolls spread everywhere, even in the grand foyer where Rebecca had once played her harp. But there had been no confiscation, and if the Continental dollar remained healthy, there would be none.
As a patriot with a mind for finance, Black Jed had been named paymaster for Maryland troops. Large sums of currency were put into his care, which he put to work for himself, in the finest paymaster’s tradition. He purchased cargoes of salt smuggled into Maryland in Stafford vessels, sold the salt to the Continental army, took payment in Continental money. And his fortune grew.
But where was Big Tom?
At Christmas, a letter arrived at the Fine Folly to answer that question. Black Jed brought it to the upstairs sitting room, where his father was playing cards with little Charlton. “The news we’ve waited ten months for, Pa.”
“Dead?”
“In the navy. He lost the Hannah S.,” said Black Jed. “They were outrunning a blockade ship off Charleston when a squall struck. Hannah pitchpoled. Took everyone but Big Tom and Jake Mifflin with her.”
“Jesus wept,” said the old man.
“They’re in Charleston”—Black Jed read from the letter—“‘where Nicholas Biddle overhauls the frigate Randolph. My deliverance seems a sign from God, or maybe Pa, for Pa’s right when he says honor means standing where the Lord puts you. I was put here to sign on with Biddle. The son for the soil can go privateerin’ for himself. From here on, I wear a blue uniform and go in harm’s way.’”
“In harm’s way?” said Jedediah. “What does he mean?”
“That he’ll be challengin’ all those white sails.”
Charlton told his grandfather to play a card. Jedediah threw down a king.
viii
Standing Where the Lord Puts You
The Randolph, named for the first president of the Continental Congress, was one of thirteen frigates built or bought for the Continental Navy. And no less a shipbuilder than Big Tom Stafford was impressed by her. She was a hundred thirty-seven feet in length, armed with twenty-six twelve-pounders, and big enough for two hundred fifty officers and men.
Most sailors preferred privateering to serving in the Continental Navy. Privateers never picked on anything their own size, and the prize money was better. But Continental commanders were not averse to taking prizes, and Biddle was one of the best at it. His Randolph had made ninety thousand pounds on her last cruise. She was known as a lucky ship, and men scrambled to serve on her.
Big Tom dined with Biddle the night before the Randolph sailed, and he toasted, “To harm’s way, Nicholas.”
“To harm’s way, Tom.” Biddle’s eyes were smart, his features well cut, but the fullness of his face softened his expression, conveying a mix of certainty and good humor, a fine combination in a twenty-eight-year-old commander.
“I run from nothin’,” said Big Tom. “I owe it to you and the men I lost.”
“You owe it to yourself,” said Biddle, “and to our new navy.”
ON FEBRUARY 12, 1778, the Randolph came down Rebellion Road in consort with four small vessels of the North Carolina state navy, under orders to break the British blockade and open the port of Charleston. But when they reached the Atlantic, the British were already gone. So Biddle turned toward the West Indies to search for prizes of his own.
A month later, the Randolph and her small squadron were sailing north, some sixty leagues off Barbados, when a sail was sighted to windward, bearing down. She showed no colors. But cruising warships seldom showed colors before an action, often luring unsuspecting vessels into cannon range first.
“She’s still hull-down.” Biddle studied the sails through his glass. “Either a merchantman looking for protection or a British frigate looking for a fight.”
