The Once and Future Spy (27 page)

Captain John Montresor, the engineering officer who had arrived in such haste earlier, was leaning over the General’s shoulder,
translating the Latin into the King’s English. “ ‘Litterae tuae maxime prosunt. Cum flumiuem experti erint, qui e Duobus Fratribus
supererunt, numguam litus propter te praeteribunt.’ That could be taken to mean, ‘Your report was extremely valuable. When
they take to the river, those who … survive, yes, survive is right … those who survive the Two Brothers will never get past
the landing beach, thanks to you.’ “ Montresor straightened. “Does the expression ‘Two Brothers’ mean anything to the General?”
he inquired.

Howe looked up at Nate, standing in the middle of the room. The General reached out and caressed the ivory grip of a pistol
that served as a paperweight on his desk. “Perhaps we should put the question to the spy,” he suggested.

Nate said, “I have been chained like a dog in the toolshed for hours. Can I have a glass of water?”

Captain Montresor, a tall man with an open, honest face, went to the sideboard, filled a glass from a pitcher and offered
it to the prisoner. Nate grabbed the glass in both hands, drank off the water in one swallow, dabbed at his lips with the
sleeve of his shirt.

“About Two Brothers,” Howe said. “Can you tell us what it refers to?”

Nate shook his head. Cunningham grabbed Nate’s wrist and started to twist it behind his back. Howe waved him off with an impatient
finger. “That will not be necessary, Provost Marshal. Two Brothers is the name of two small islands in the East River immediately
beyond Hell Gate. Forewarned by this spy, Washington has obviously fortified the islands, as well as the landing beaches at
Frog’s Neck. It is good fortune the spy fell into our hands, along with these documents.” Howe addressed Nate directly. “In
the end you have not done your cause a service. My amphibious operation would have speeded the resolution of this foolish
war. Less blood would have flowed on both sides. Reconciliation would have been easier. Now things will drag on. But the
denouement
is inevitable. Enlistments will expire. Your militiamen will return to their homes. That so-called Congress of yours will
never raise a second army. The rebellion will peter out. The Colonies will return to the royal fold.”

Nate shook free from Cunningham’s grip and stepped forward. “The real rebellion is in our hearts-it is the loss of affection
and respect for your king and your country. Nothing can alter that.”

Howe sniffed the air delicately. “Your own Ben Franklin has said, ‘Passion governs, and she never governs wisely.’ You prove
his point. However, the passions of the several millions of your countrymen will eventually be cooled by military and economic
realities. As for me,” he continued, addressing Montresor and two staff officers, “I am committed to Marshal Saxe’s dictum
that the best commander is the one who achieves his ends by maneuver rather than engagement. Since Washington is forewarned
about this maneuver, we will bestir ourselves and invent another.”

“What of the landing barges in the New Town Creek?” asked one of the staff officers.

“Give the order for them to return to their respective ships,” Howe said. “And bring the assembled troops across the river
to reinforce our army facing the Haarlem Heights.”

From behind Nate Cunningham growled, “What is the General’s pleasure with the prisoner? Will it be the inglorious tree, as
befits a spy?”

Nate brought a hand up to the hair mole on his neck.

Howe scraped back his seat and came around the desk to take a closer look at Nate. “What is your name?”

“Nathan Hale.”

“Your rank?”

“Captain.”

“What is it you do in civil life?”

“I hold a diploma from Yale Academy for the instruction of Latin, the classics and penmanship.”

“You are sensible you risked being hanged when you put aside your uniform?”

For answer Nate shot back, “Was the General sensible he risked being shot when he led his Grenadiers against the rail fence
at Breed’s Hill?”

“He should be flogged for insolence before being hanged,” declared one of the staff officers.

“My question,” Howe said, “is in effect well answered. I respect courage, the more so when it is exhibited for a lost cause.
I am inclined to charity, Captain Hale.” He spoke past Nate to Provost Marshal Cunningham. “Incarcerate him in a prison ship
for the duration of hostilities.” Howe started toward his seat, then turned back. “I neglected to ask what unit you served
in. I am a keen student of the colonial order of battle.”

Nate elevated his chin with pride. “I served with Colonel Webb’s Nineteenth Connecticut Volunteers until I was given a captaincy
in Knowlton’s Rangers.”

General Howe’s face froze. The two staff officers avoided looking at each other. A cruel smile crept onto Cunningham’s lips.
Speaking barely louder than a whisper, Howe asked, “Do I understand you to be referring to Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton?”

“The same,” Nate acknowledged. A pulse started pounding in his ear again.

General Howe could be heard breathing loudly through his nostrils. With each breath his face became redder, his eyes more
inflamed. “Knowlton is an assassin, a criminal!” he burst out. “The marksmen he commanded at the rail fence were under orders
to pick off my officers. Aiming at officers is against all the established rules of warfare. Every single member of my staff
was killed or wounded. The ensign, Hendricks by name, carrying my wine flask was shot through the eye. And you dare to mention
Knowlton to me as if he was a civilized officer! His militiamen crammed rusty nails, pieces of glass into their muskets. The
wounds they inflicted were terrible. Terrible! I shall not forget until the day I die the carts loaded with wounded making
their way back down Breed’s damned hill. The surgeons sawed off limbs as if they were cutting kindling for the winter.”

Howe strode around the desk and sat down abruptly in the settle. “I am inclined to charity,” he said, “when charity is merited.”
He addressed Cunningham directly. ‘The spy is to be hanged by the neck until dead, and left hanging three days as an example
to others who would follow his lead. Said sentence to be executed no later than tomorrow morning. Dismissed.”

So here it is at last (Henry James’s dying words), the Distinguished Thing (another nervous clearing of a dry throat; the
author still squirms at executions that take place in the imagination):

F
OR NATE IT WASN’T A MATTER OF
sleeping or not sleeping; the word no longer had any meaning, any relevance. It was a question of sorting through a maze
of emotions, of dealing with the overlapping waves of panic that surged against his heart, interrupting its beat, threatening
at any instant to choke off what little breath he had. Execution by hanging, as an imminent event, didn’t frighten him as
much as the idea that he would forever cease to exist. He believed in an Almighty Creator but not in an afterlife; the concept
seemed too convenient to be true. What was left was a yawning void into which he would leap with dignity if only he could
remain master of his body, of his brain. He worked through a tangle of thoughts to his mother and father, his brothers and
sisters; he imagined their horror, their shame, at the news that he had been hanged as a spy. He thought too about Molly;
he imagined her face contorted in grief. He thought about his mission; he would go to the inglorious tree more peacefully
if he could know that the cause he served, in which he deeply believed, had profited from his death. But for it to profit
he would have to get word back to General Washington.

That would be his last preoccupation, one that would keep the overlapping waves of panic at bay …

At midnight Nate called for the duty officer and asked for a taper and writing materials, which were duly brought by a tall
fusilier with a waxed mustache. The fusilier unlocked the prisoner’s wrist
manacles so he could pen the traditional last letters. Nate addressed the first one to his brother Enoch, carefully burying
the code sentences from Addison’s
Cato
that he and A. Hamilton had agreed upon in the heart of the letter-the sentences that would indicate to General Washington
that the British were not going to try and trap him in Manhattan; that he would have time to organize an orderly retreat into
Westchester. The second letter, with the coded sentences again embedded in its heart, was addressed to his father, and ended:

At dawn the fusiliers led Nate out behind the toolshed to attend to his toilet. A low morning mist covered the ground like
a cushion of snow. It reminded Nate that he would never experience winter again, never throw snowballs at his sisters in the
fields behind the house in Coventry, never warm his hands before a flaming hearth. He waded through the ankle-deep mist to
the rain barrel and splashed water onto his face. The bath had a calming effect on him. Provost Marshal Cunningham turned
up soon after. “Who is it gave orders for the condemned spy to be allowed to write letters?” he ranted when one of the fusiliers
handed him the two envelopes.

“It is customary-” the fusilier with the waxed mustache started to explain.

Cunningham cut him off with a sneer. “Nothing is customary save I make it so.” So saying he tore the letters into halves and
into halves again and threw the scraps onto a heap of garbage waiting to be burned.

The overlapping waves of panic surged against Nate’s heart. “Let me at least have the comfort of a minister,” he said.

“There will be no letters and no minister,” Cunningham told Nate. He barked at the fusiliers, “We will hang him and be done
with it.”

An army supply wagon drawn by two horses was brought around and Nate, chained hand and foot and guarded by a dozen fusiliers,
set off for the Royal Artillery Park opposite the Dove Tavern, about
a mile farther along the Post Road. Cunningham, accompanying them on horseback, rode ahead when the Artillery Park came into
view to see whether his instructions had been carried out regarding the preparations for a hanging. He was furious when he
discovered the artillerymen had only just begun constructing the gibbet. When the supply wagon drew up Cunningham started
to issue orders for the condemned man to be chained to a wagon wheel while they waited. At that moment Captain Montresor emerged
from the chief engineer’s marquee nearby. He took in what was happening, walked up to Cunningham and offered the spy the protection
of his tent. Several artillery officers who had strolled over to take a look at the condemned man were watching. Feeling it
would have been awkward to refuse, Cunningham reluctantly consented.

Montresor helped Nate down from the wagon and led him into his tent. He pulled over a camp chair and gestured for him to sit
on it. “Can I offer you a brandy?” Montresor asked.

Nate, bewildered by the officer’s hospitality, nodded. Montresor poured a stiff brandy and handed Nate the tumbler. With his
wrists chained, Nate took it in both hands and tilting his head, downed it in one gulp. Relishing the burning sensation in
his throat, he handed the tumbler back to Montresor. “I am beholden to your consideration,” he said.

A professional soldier who had a secret sympathy for the Colonialists’ cause, Montresor was greatly impressed by the dignity
and grace of the young man awaiting execution. “How old are you?” he inquired of Nate.

“I am twenty-one.”

Montresor, who was almost twice Nate’s age, shook his head in pity. “You have not yet tasted of life,” he remarked.

Nate managed a crooked smile. “I have tasted liberty, which is more to be valued than life.”

From outside the tent came the sounds of the carpenters sawing, hammering. Nate glanced at the open tent flap with a distant
look in his eyes. Montresor asked if he wanted another glass of brandy. Nate didn’t respond. Montresor walked over to the
flap and looked out. The carpenters were raising the gibbet into place. He turned back to Nate. “I would ease your pain if
I could,” he said softly.

Nate said, “There is something-”

Montresor approached the camp chair. “If it is within the realm of possibility I would most willingly do it.”

Nate told how Cunningham had destroyed the letters he had written to his father and his brother. “I am devastated by the dishonor
I will bring on my parents when it is discovered their son was hanged as a spy. If I speak a patriot’s speech before they-before
my execution, will you convey my words to my countrymen so that it can be said I died a patriot’s death?”

“I give you my word as a gentleman,” Montresor vowed. “I am due to cross the lines this very evening under a flag of truce
to negotiate an exchange of prisoners. I will recount your last words then.”

Nate felt a pang of conscience at the way he was using the Englishman. But he comforted himself it was in a noble cause. And
every truth had many sides. He was showing the Englishman one side, telling him a truth. He said to Montresor, “I thank you
with all my heart for this service.”

“I will do it gladly,” Montresor assured him. “Go meet your fate with peace of mind on this score at least.”

From somewhere outside an order was bellowed. Scores of soldiers could be heard falling in on parade. A kettledrum struck
up an ominous rhythm. Cunningham appeared at the tent flap. “You have run out of time just as I was running out of patience,”
he informed the condemned man.

Nate pushed himself up from the chair. He looked Montresor in the eye for a moment. “I thank you again for the hospitality
of your tent. I would take it as a favor if you would bear witness to my execution.”

“I will,” Montresor agreed in a subdued voice. “God rest your soul.”

Nate almost smiled. “I think there is a good chance He will. I count on it.”