The Kingdom on the Waves Read online

  Through the night we marched with the wounded on carts beside us, crying.

  The next day’s dawn found us entering into Norfolk. It was the Sabbath, and the church bells rang.

  Women on their way to service stopped and watched us in a line; they wore red cloaks, and their necks and faces muffled, so that all that shewed beneath the head-cloths were the eyes, which followed our ragged train.

  The faceless congregants watched without speaking. We meandered past them, but a few of the regulars raising their hats.

  Farm girls and fathers on horses watched us pass in wonderment; until, a cart come up wherein complained some of the wounded loudly —“Water, ladies, we beg of ye, water!”— several of the girls, moved to pity, darted back to a well and scurried down the line with a bucket, quenching this thirst and receiving the blessing of the fallen. I know not whether these angels of mercy were Loyalist or rebel; I know that they were moved to the quick, however, by the sight of the dying, and took a small pity, for which I felt gratitude myself, the act restoring memory of compassion.

  We passed through the outskirts of Norfolk, and the people of that town surveyed our bedraggled carnage with a gray, defeated mien. With Great-Bridge fallen, nothing stood between their town and the rapacity of the enemy. The citizens watched keenly where we wended; for we did not return to our warehouse barracks; but we were mustered upon the docks, where boats and transports were in a readiness.

  We fully anticipated that at any moment we should be detached and sent to the earthworks to begin the long wait for the rebels; we were in constant expectation of orders to take to the dirt ramparts and stand to arms, there to defend the safety of the loyal denizens of Norfolk, the honor of our King, and the dignity of our new-granted freedoms.

  It was therefore with confusion that we observed companies boarding transports. They were rowed out to ships. It took us some minutes to realize that we would not be guarding our redoubts. We were retreating not simply from Great-Bridge, but from Norfolk itself.

  We were astounded. That we should be asked to abandon not merely our southern approaches, but the town, having spent the better part of two weeks fortifying it; having cracked our hands and wearied our bones digging, hauling, raising embankments, affixing stakes, and settling gabions — this directive was greeted with outrage. We were not unforward nor imprecise in our criticism of our officers, muttering that cowering timidity was but poor cover for past incompetence.

  Pomp spake angrily of the circumstances; and Slant, once he saw that others would speak with the voice of censure, joined his voice to Pomp’s. Will spake to none; but stared, hollow-eyed, at the ground.

  We were, over the course of some two hours, herded onto boats and rowed out to ships that sat at anchor in the river. My company was posted aboard the Crepuscule sloop-of-war.

  The populace of the town little relished this evacuation. They attended in great crowds and watched, and we were sensible of their distress; for they had all sworn loyalty to Dunmore and to the King, and now they found themselves abandoned.

  One man I saw tore off the red kerchief sewn to his breast, emblem of Loyalty, and cast it on the ground, turning from us in disgust. Women wept; children stared in wonder. It was no secret that the rebels despised the town of Norfolk for its pandering to Dunmore and his troops. There was every expectation that they would, at best, hang those who had colluded and performed their duty to the Crown; and that at worst, they would ignite the whole of the port and burn it to the ground.

  Thus it was that later that afternoon, we saw the Loyalists begin their own evacuation of the city in preparation for its occupation by the rogue militia. The grander Tories came to the quays with great trunks and with cages for their birds; many had ships from which their fortunes were derived, which schooners or brigantines now would try their fortunes in even hotter waters.

  Once aboard the Crepuscule, we were sent below to the ship’s one lower deck, a dark and windowless place. We crouched there, awaiting orders, expecting still to man fortifications, but no order came. After a time, Corporal Craigie informed us we would be spending the night upon the ship, and that we might settle upon the few straw mattresses provided to us, and draw lots as to who should enjoy the hammocks.

  Nor did we return to shore the next day, but took our exercise upon the deck of the ship, beneath the watchful eye of the sailors.

  Around our sloop-of-war lay a great confusion of ships, a floating town. There had been great numbers of them previous to our retreat, but now, with the threat of rebel incursion even greater, others had made for the port, that they might be protected by the guns of Lord Dunmore’s Navy. Countless crowds of them were at anchor, from the smallest fishing pinks and hoys to the great three-masters sitting at rest.

  The wealthiest among the Loyalists had fled already to their ships. Now upon the docks gathered the Loyalists of the middling sort — leather-aprons; shopkeepers who knew that no quarter would be offered them did they stay, no mercy from the rebel Sons of Liberty, once their sympathies were known; smiths, chandlers, and butchers — all begging passage, any passage, for them and their family. They brought chests with what they could save of the instruments of their trade. Their wives sighed; and sometimes great arguments broke out upon the docks between men vying for passage, or between man and wife, the air full of remonstrances regarding which especial chair might be saved, or whether the gilt mirror would survive embarkation. A child cried for cats left behind in the barn.

  They were taken off onto small snows and brigs, if that they could afford; and others, finding no route of escape upon the water, fled the town by land, praying for mercy.

  Then, the day following that, came the most desperate to the docks — many who had fled to Norfolk from the raving countryside, leaving behind all they had, and now had to flee again without benefit of coin or goods to barter. They pled with the few who still loaded sideboards and escritoires into tenders.

  We stood listless upon the deck of our sloop-of-war, with no employment but to observe the rout.

  I could not countenance that we would abandon the town. ’Twas strongly fortified — stocked with Loyalists — our Governor’s last refuge upon the land. We wished to defend; we demanded confrontation; we felt all the transports of issueless rage, thinking of the rebels and their cries of self-congratulation.

  Even now, I cannot abide this retreat. My hands are empty, and I sit enwombed in a ship.

  Yesterday, the fourteenth of December, the rebels passed through our unmanned fortifications and entered the town of Norfolk unopposed. We still floated in the harbor.

  They occupied the town; and we, yards from the shore, heard tales of skirmish and indignity. As the enemy marched through the occupied streets, a few desperate Loyalists fired upon them from gables, then slid down roofs on their bellies, and fled.

  Last night, when the rebels reached the quays in their march of invasion, we heard musket- or rifle-shots fired at our fleet, and hoped to acquit ourselves in a contest with these bold scoundrels. We seized upon our weapons and awaited commands.

  ’Twas no attack, however. Merely a frolic by a few rebel sots. A cocksure, drunken game. We received no orders for reprisal.

  Today, the docks were empty of commerce, the wide squares untenanted. We saw snipers take posts in warehouses with feline swagger. Once, a line of picket-guards came down to the dock, made a mock obeisance, and shouted, “All hail Lord Dunmore, King of the Negroes!” then fell about, laughing.

  It was not an unfair epithet, though meant unkindly. With the flight of the Loyalists onto ships, royal power in this execrable Colony is restricted into still more minute compass. Williamsburg fell months ago, and with it the Palace and the House of Burgesses; then Norfolk County; then the approaches to Norfolk; and now Norfolk itself is not ours. Only the waters are ours; and how may one build on something so mutable?

  Governmental authority no longer hath any purchase on land; chaos and the mob of slave-drivers rule all; and we are
left, a tiny kingdom on the waves.

  December 16th, 1775

  Very cold this day. My company still confined to the Crepuscule sloop-of-war.

  At noon, we were ordered to march out upon the quarterdeck to witness the execution of a traitor.

  Our number being arrayed above-decks, and observing other companies of our Regiment similarly awaiting this deplorable demonstration, we were bade to remain silent for a space of minutes, until Peter was brought forth bound and blindfolded.

  We could not hear what Captain Mackay read of him; the damp wind interfered with the oration. We could hear Peter beg as they fitted the rope to him, and I shall not soon forget the first cry as he was hauled up on the foresail yard. We were instructed to watch him while he kicked.

  It was cold on the deck where we stood. Some minutes later, his corpse was lowered, trussed, and thrown into the river. This being done, we were permitted to once more go below.

  Rumor reports that he was offered freedom by his master, Major Marshall, to lie regarding the weakness of the rebel force and to misrepresent their preparations to Lord Dunmore; though others speculate that he simply could not count. We know not what wrong he might have admitted to the Court-Martial that must have tried him. We know merely what disasters his mendacity occasioned. I believe he sold us.

  As his body was lowered, the rebels on the quays who smoked and watched applauded.

  There is little to occupy us upon the Crepuscule, now that we have witnessed the death. It appears we may be confined to this ship for some time; and more particularly, to its lower deck. These quarters are not commodious: I count forty-two of us in this straitened space, three of which number are women; and we are kept fore by the ship’s numerous crew, who crowd aft and jealously guard their hammocks.

  Since our evacuation of the town onto the ships and transports of this fleet, there has been little employment for us; and having nought to engage us, we spend much time sleeping. No one, it seems, relishes wakefulness.

  When we are permitted to walk the decks of our ship, either for exercise or in the commission of our watch duties, even these tedious rounds are a welcome shift from the lower deck, which is dark and noisome. We stand gratefully beneath the rigging and line the rails.

  On the decks of other ships, black men wander as we do, without aim; and they seem not another company, but our own; as were there but one ship, one fraternity of specters which is reflected in the frigid, misty air.

  We see also white Loyalists of Norfolk upon their pleasure-boats now laden with clocks, bedsteads, and inlaid secretaries. They are as doleful as are our sable number, or perhaps more so, for they have lost their homes just a few days previously, whereas we became accustomed to losing ours years before.

  Slant and Pomp are often my companions; each of us finds the company of the others not uncongenial. We have, indeed, little held in common to speak of, but Slant was reared and raised by the River James, and tells us of its ways; Pomp and he trade tales of livestock; and, I disclosing my past service, they have asked me to tell them of the rebel camp outside Boston, and my actions there. We stare at the ceiling, and Pomp sings songs beneath his breath he learned while herding.

  The rebels become bolder, and now patrol the docks of Norfolk by day without apology or shame. They will not suffer any food nor other articles to be purchased from the wharves, and our fleet does not abandon the port entire; and so we float here, and they parade there; and both sides regard the other, well in range of volley or lob.

  Our meals are but choruses of complaint. Directly we boarded the ships, the quartermaster dictated we should be switched to salt rations. We eat our few ounces of poor, scalding pork with little gust.

  At night, we are slung together for warmth. We all lie in the belly of the Crepuscule and gaze into the darkness, awaiting sleep impatiently. Among us scratches and lumbers Vishnoo, the shipboard tortoise kept so that he might dispose of the roaches that hang on the beams and scuttle into the straw of our mattresses. Though his kind be proverbial for sloth and torpescence, ’tis he who remains awake the last of us; and I imagine his black eyes still glittering alone in the dark, his ancient visage surveying these curled mammals with their tricky hands and shocks of pelt; wondering that such soft things, once they fall, will ever rise again.

  December 17th, 1775

  Today, another feast of distasteful intelligence. We are stricken with it.

  We received notice of the lists of prisoners seized by the enemy at the Great-Bridge; that John, of our number, has been taken alive; and that he and thirty others are to be exported and sold at the foreign ports in the West Indies, the Sugar Isles.

  They are sold for profit; the rebels inform us that the sale shall reimburse owners and fund commissions and weaponry for the rebel army, that the criminals might more efficiently defeat us.

  We may be sure, however, that this exportation is transacted not simply for the emoluments of sale, but for the instruction of awful example. They wish to show us where we all shall be conducted: those island colonies we weep to hear named, where precise calculations of plantation œconomy suggest it is far less expense to work slaves to death and buy new, imported from Africa’s shores, than to care for those already there.

  At the same time, we receive word that as the rebels swept through Great-Bridge, Gosport, Kemp’s Landing, and last, Norfolk, they have taken prisoner all who still wear the red kerchief of Loyalty upon their breast, or any reputed to be favorable to the King’s cause — such individuals as, having pledged their fealty to Lord Dunmore, now find themselves, poor wretches, deserted by our retreat.

  We hear also of the punishment accorded them: The enemy has chained each white Loyalist to a black man taken in flight to Lord Dunmore and our Regiment. They are marched, thus paired, black and white rattling together, to Williamsburg for judgment. In the estimation of our enemy, there is no greater indignity, no sharper shame, for a white gentleman than to be thus twinned. We hear that some spake against it and said it was too great an outrage, but the rebels have replied in their broadsheets and papers that it is punishment condign that the damned Tory dogs shall be shackled to the black cattle they consorted with.

  They marched one coffle of these paired prisoners across the docks of Norfolk, that the Loyalists on board their ships could see what fate awaited them. There was no jeering then by the rebels, no laughter, but only eyes that surveyed us and warned.

  At noon, some hours following the announcement of John’s sad fate, Will fell to beating a fellow soldier over whom should receive an extra ladle of bone and broth.

  Only a few blows fell before we took his arms and dragged him back. His rage cooled quickly, and the transports of ire gave way to the listlessness of despair. He pushed us away, but did not heave himself up and quit the place, there being no space for him thither to flee, that he might seek the solitude of his thoughts; for we all were crammed in that small quarter.

  He has laid himself transversely upon the deck where we sit, and stares inert. So we crouch in silence, and we each of us entertain the same vision: the fields bleached with sun and hacked cane; the scalding steam of the boiling-houses drifting through the brake; the eternal rows of men scything in gangs; and pushed out among them, the boy, hand useless, armed only with his turkey call.

  Dear God; dear God; what Thy creations do.

  December 18th, 1775

  This evening, a surprising turn: An ensign sought me out, groping along through the gloom of the ship, pressing between the tight crush of soldiers, and informed me that I was to go above, from thence to be conveyed to the fleet’s flagship, the Dunmore.

  This perplexing intelligence was greeted by Pomp and Slant with looks expressive of wonder; and no less did I view it with astonishment, having no call to appear upon that meritorious ship, and no quality nor rank to distinguish me. I left my brethren rapt in conversation regarding what this mark of special notice might signify.

  When I emerged above-decks, I discovered the
cause of this unusual request: Dr. Trefusis awaited me in a boat which should deliver us to the Dunmore, where, he called up to me jollily, I should have the honor of acquitting myself upon the violin before His Lordship. “Come, come, i’faith!” cried he.

  I was, at first, too startled to know of my sensations, staring down upon him, almost uncomprehending. He entreated I should climb down to his shallop and gawp later. I protested I had no violin; but, said he, ’twas no matter; one should be provided. With this faint assurance, I descended to the boat and we set off between the great prows of the fleet.

  Dr. Trefusis informs me he hath found refuge aboard a Tory’s ship, and making inquiries, determined the location of my company. As he is considered by these people a philosopher of note and a friend of kings, ’twas no arduous task to gain an audience with His Lordship the Governor; and having done so, he offered my services as violinist for this evening, in hopes that I should thus distinguish myself.

  He was greatly solicitous of my welfare following the battle, and asked me many sharp questions regarding it; which queries it was not in my power at first to answer. I longed to recount to Dr. Trefusis what had transpired — but could not. Our hearts are too heavy with our defeat; we scarce can speak of it to each other upon the ship; and so, being unable to speak of that awful scene of massacre and flame, I informed him only of the pleasant news, that our dearest hope was realized, and Bono found, though now named William Williams. Dr. Trefusis rejoiced in the intelligence, and has determined to find our dear friend, that he might speak with him again.

  “I still shall hear of this battle,” said he, pointing a finger at me, “but for the nonce, tune yourself.” With this, he lifted a violin in its case and passed it to me, he regretting deeply that “you shall find, I fear, ’tis no Cremona fiddle”; but ’twas the only instrument that might be flushed out in such short order from amongst the effects of Norfolk’s Loyalists.