City of Dreams (99 page)

Over on Manhattan the rebels left their sopping gear spread on the cobbles to dry. Washington gave orders that every man who still had a musket was to put it back in working order or face a court-martial. Few complied. Why bother? There were damn few musket balls left. Damn few muskets, come to that. Many of the survivors had dropped their weapons when they turned and ran.

“There’s a lot of ’em would be deserters if there was anywhere to go,” someone said to Morgan Turner.

“Then thank heaven we’re on an island.”

Morgan didn’t mention that thousands of the militiamen had left anyway. They’d simply commandeered rowboats or canoes and set out for home. Once they were beyond the American lines they had little to fear. The British left them alone as long as they were headed away from New York.

As for General Howe over on the long island, he knew there was no hurry. He took nearly a month readying his pursuit. On the morning of September 15, he ordered his brother, Admiral “Black Dick” Howe, to shell the upper half of Manhattan. Five warships anchored in the East River poured a continuous barrage onto the American positions. Meanwhile, under the covering fire, dozens of longboats ferried British troops over from Brooklyn.

Four thousand British soldiers were set ashore at Kip’s Bay, nearly halfway up the east coast of Manhattan, far above the populated city. The first to be landed were a contingent of Scots pipers, who began to play the moment they arrived and didn’t stop for the better part of two hours. The Kip family was intensely loyal to the crown. It wasn’t long since they’d seen the backs of the rebels they had been forced to quarter in their deep country retreat. Now, thank God, here were the victorious redcoats.

“Refreshments, gentlemen? Please, it’s an honor.”

Howe and Cornwallis and Clinton, along with a number of their senior officers, sipped sherry and ate sweet biscuits while the endless line of fighting men disembarked on the small beach between the surrounding cliffs, the bagpipes played, and Black Dick’s ships belched dragon fire.

Finally the army moved again, a slow, steady westward march that would cut the island in two. No need to hurry; the enemy had been all but beaten. Reports were that the rebels were running in every direction, throwing down their arms as they went. One advance party reported that General Washington himself had failed in an attempt to rally them in a nearby cornfield, and that fearing his capture his officers had rushed him north to the rebel fort.

“Captain Turner? Is that you, sir?” Aaron Burr slid into the muddy trench beneath the dripping trees.

“It’s me. What news?”

“They’re finished at the bloody Kips’s and moving again, sir. Towards Hudson’s River.”

“Logical.”

“They mean to trap us down south in the city, don’t they, sir?”

“What’s left of us down there, yes. About thirty-five hundred troops are still in the city, aren’t they?”

“Yes, sir, I believe so.”

“I believe the very same, Major. So trapping them like hares in a burrow sounds like a sensible plan to me.” Morgan was retying his neckerchief as he spoke, trying to find a dry bit to place next to his skin. A futile exercise. “If you were General Howe, wouldn’t that be your plan?”

“Yes, sir. It would.”

“Agreed. Mine as well. Holy bloody Savior, what did we do to deserve all this bloody rain?”

Burr pulled his own jacket tighter in an attempt to gain some warmth. “It might slow the English down some, sir.”

“Yes, it might. But not enough. Now, my young friend, listen very carefully.” Morgan hesitated. Burr was smart and loyal. Most important, he was available. “I want you to get down to the city as fast as you can. Faster. Rally the troops and lead them north to Harlem Heights.”

“Up the west side of the island, sir?”

“Exactly. Up the road to the village of Greenwich. Tell the men they’re to join General Washington in the north at the fort. Tell them it’s about speed, not fighting. If they stay where they are they’ll all be slaughtered, or worse, made prisoners on those stinking, God-cursed ships.” Morgan jerked his head to indicate the frigates anchored in New York harbor.

The men the British took alive in Brooklyn, that’s where they were. Stuffed into the holds of a couple of prison ships like live wares from Guinea, but of much less value. Living on quarter rations, the story went. Ships from hell, and every man, woman, and child in New York knew as much.

“I’ll tell them, Captain Turner.”

“Good. That should be enough to move their sodden arses.”

“Captain Turner, sir … what will you be doing meanwhile?”

Morgan stood up and clambered out of the scant protection offered by the ditch. “I, Major Burr, am going to purchase you and the others some time. Before Howe can cut you off he has to pass Murray’s farm. I know Mistress Murray well. A charming lady. I’m sure she can be persuaded to offer some of our famous New York hospitality to the glorious British victors.”

“Leave,” Cuf told Roisin. “You can hear it, can’t you?” The sound of the bombardment was audible even as far as the Fiddle and Clogs over west of Trinity Church. “You’ve got to take Clare and get out.”

Roisin busied herself with flipping the last of the johnnycakes frying on an iron griddle suspended over the fire. Wasn’t that exactly what a man would say? Pick up and go. Never mind that her life was here. She was to take her daughter and leave, while Cuf was off to do what men did in wartime. Kill as many of the enemy as he could manage before they killed him. Might be he wouldn’t even have time to eat these johnnycakes she was making to send with him. “And where would you have us go?”

“Anywhere that’s not New York. The ferry across the Hudson to New Jersey is still running. I’m told it will be for another few hours. Get on it.”

“New Jersey.” She’d never been in New Jersey, and she wasn’t going now, though the very floorboards beneath her feet were quivering. Cuf said the shells were landing up the island a ways, not on the city. Holy Virgin, what would it sound like if they were shelling the Broad Way? “What would you have us do when we get to New Jersey?”

“Same thing you do here.” Cuf finished pulling on his boots and stamped about to make sure they still fit properly. He’d come home last night with them soaking wet and caked with mud. Roisin had cleaned them and dried them by the fire. Then she lay beside him, and he’d waited until he was sure Clare was sleeping, and taken her the way he always did, in silence, with her lying still and soft and pliant beneath him. Never was a time Roisin didn’t spread her legs for him if he wanted her. And never a time when he knew what she was thinking or feeling while he had her.

He didn’t know what she was thinking now, only what she had to do. “Take your simples.” Cuf nodded in the direction of the shelves. “And you and Clare get over to New Jersey. With your skill and a stake, they’ll make you welcome.” He pulled a small pouch from inside his shirt and handed it to her. “You two will be safe. And I’ll be able to do my soldiering and not worry.”

The pouch was full of coins, and they weighed too much to be pennies. It had been years since the Fiddle and Clogs was prosperous enough to yield such profit. “Where did you get this?”

“It doesn’t matter. I didn’t steal it, and it’s meant for you and Clare. That’s all you have to know.”

“You got it from Morgan Turner.” Roisin wanted the words back the moment she spoke them. She’d spent the ten years since Morgan returned avoiding any discussion of him. Now this terrible war had addled her brain. She couldn’t still her tongue. “Morgan Turner gave you this money, didn’t he?”

“That’s not your affair.” He had hated taking the money, even from Morgan. Most of all from Morgan. But he wouldn’t let his pride stand in the way of Roisin’s safety or Clare’s. If anything happened to them, nothing he was fighting for, nothing the rebels might accomplish, would be worth a thing to him.

“All you have to do is what I’m telling you. Get your things together and get out of here.” He grabbed her canvas satchel from a peg on the wall and tossed it to her. “Swear to me you’ll go, Roisin. I can’t wait any longer if I’m to be where I’m supposed to be while I can still get there. Swear you’ll go.”

She didn’t look at him. “Very well, I swear.” Cuf wasn’t a Catholic. He knew nothing of the ways of the True Church, much less the Women of Connemara. He didn’t know it wouldn’t count if she didn’t swear by the Holy Virgin or her precious Son.

Howe rode at the head of his troops, looking from side to side. The city was crisscrossed with rebel fortifications, trees cut down to barricade the streets, earthworks thrown up everywhere. All were deserted now. The city was an empty, silent shell. The view changed when they reached the southern end of the Broad Way. Not much sign of war there. Simply fine houses and stately trees, their leaves on the turn now, glowing in the late-afternoon sun that had dried the ravages of the week of rain.

Bloody stupid rebels. Much of New York must have looked like this before they brutalized it with their futile defenses. Why start a fight they couldn’t win? Why not negotiate their way out of whatever complaints they had? Because so many of them were fanatics, prepared to fight to the last man.

He raised an arm to signal the pipers to stop playing. There was something eerie about the music echoing in the empty streets. He needed to hear whatever the calm and the silence were hiding. They were almost at the fort now. If a last-ditch battle was planned, that’s where it would be.

“See that house there?” It was General Clinton, come up beside him, pointing with his baton at a grand Broad Way mansion facing the Bowling Green and hard by the official governor’s residence. Clinton didn’t seem worried about a surprise assault from the fort.

Howe looked to his right. “I see it.”

“The biggest whoremistress in the city lives there. Made a fortune out of her husband’s bordellos, and moved in beside us before anyone knew what she planned.”

Of course. Clinton had grown up in the New York governor’s residence. His father had been the royal governor well into the early fifties. No governor in the place now. Eighty-eight-year-old Cadwallader Colden had fled to the long island before Washington and his troops took over the city. Word was he was dying. “A whoremistress, eh?” Howe said with a grin. “Knew her well, did you?”

“Some of her employees, certainly. But there’s more to the tale. They call her Squaw DaSilva because she’s said to be part savage. Always wears a veil and widow’s weeds. Her husband was a gunrunner captured by the Huron. Indians cut off his cock and ate it, then sent him back to her. Still alive, mind you. They say she kept him locked up in the attic after that.”

They were a few yards past the house now. Howe had to turn to squint over his shoulder at the top-story windows winking in the westering sun. “Good Christ, is he still there?”

“The cockless husband? No, I hear he died some years ago. Set fire to her son’s ship and went down with it. Son goes by the name of Turner, by the way. Morgan Turner. Time was when he captained one of the most successful privateers afloat. Supposed to be a rebel now.”

“Sounds like a bloody astounding tale. I’d like to know more of it.”

“Over a brandy some night,” Clinton promised.

They were nearly there now, and every door on the Broad Way yet closed. “Good Christ,” Howe muttered. “Hail, the conquering heroes.” He glanced up. The ensign flying from the pole beside the fort was the rebel standard. Howe turned to bellow a command at his subaltern, but the words froze in his mouth. The door to the whoremistress’s house had opened.

A woman stepped into the street. Her voice rang out with the clear tones of a striking bell. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. Welcome to New York.”

Christ knew she wasn’t young, but there was something arresting about her even now. That blue-black hair perhaps, pulled back from her face and secured with jeweled clips that sparkled in the afternoon light. But no veil.

“I am Mistress DaSilva, gentlemen. Squaw DaSilva, as the town would have it. And this”—she pulled a girl from the shadows of the house into the sunlit street—“is Amarantha. Lovely, isn’t she?”