The Kingdom on the Waves Read online

  Tune I did; and found that, indeed, the instrument was none of the most euphonious. I played my fifths and my scales, which, lapping gently upon the bulwarks of the ships we passed, drew sailors to the rails as we rowed on.

  The Dunmore is a grand ship, not the largest, but renovated for display of its wealth and puissance; and it looked prodigiously fine in the evening, the gilding still catching the last light, the decks lined with Ethiopians of His Lordship’s Company in livery, standing by cressets, facing out implacably at the shore — more impassive in their features than the tritons and dolphins which disported themselves in silver foam upon stern and stem.

  We boarded, and found there a whole company of guests awaiting Lord Dunmore’s favor. Dr. Trefusis commended me to one of my fellow-soldiers of the Royal Ethiopians, which fellow informed me that I should perform in a small closet adjoining His Lordship’s chamber, there being insufficient space for a musician within the room itself when others dined.

  Accordingly, I waited among members of His Lordship’s Company, all severe of mien and proud of bearing, while preparations were made for the supper; Dr. Trefusis, as we waited, turning upon me gazes proud, or comforting, or comical by turns.

  At last, I was conveyed into the closet where I should play, the door being left open but a small space so that the guests could hear the music. I struck up a pretty minuet and watched through my sliver of the doorway as they all entered, my preceptor among them, and sat around the table. His Lordship himself I did not see, he being concealed behind the door; but I could hear his casual and commanding accents. Though the gentleman is a Scot, there was none of the Caledonian in his speech, but instead the easy air of Whitehall, Saint James’s Palace, and Vauxhall.

  They supped; I played; they spake; I barely hearkened to what they said, so involved were my wits in recalling sonatas enough and dances, so that there should not be a silence from the closet in the midst of their revelry. Over-awed as I was to be in the presence — or almost so — of those officers and advisors upon whom the fate of this Colony doth depend, my apprehensions of failure were great; thus anxious, I could not gain any sense of what their discussion compassed, no understanding of their words — and their communications seemed so intricate, they spake as if they were not men, but rather gods, gathered over some ambrosial collation, discoursing thus:

  “Gentlemen, if the parties were to proceed upon the second action with the expedition with which they have undertaken the first, notwithstanding the difficulties therein, should we not find that object achieved which cannot but redound to the greater glory of such actants as might disculpate us in even the ungrateful eye of the enemy, rather than submitting us to the excoriations of the same?”

  Opined another: “The first bespeaks readiness, gentlemen; the second, foolhardiness. While the former exhibits all the virtues of valor, the latter suggests a profligacy of force; and it should be a terrible issue should waste follow sacrifice.”

  “Sirs, while I would liefer commend the nobility of restraint, here must I endorse rather the vigor of lively opposition, lest, peradventure, we find that inaction is in itself the occasion of profligacy.”

  I could understand not a word of it.

  ’Twas like a dialogue spake in a tongue of pure light and clear air. I remarked favorably its buoyancy, which stirred the heart at the thought that such excellently spoken men determined our fate. I rejoice still in the comfort of its incomprehensibility.

  Lord Dunmore did not speak at first, simply listening to his guests before unfolding his own schemes and views. When he did speak, it was in the voice of judgment, saying merely, “Quite,” or “Indeed,” or “Aye,” or “There’s reasonableness, gentlemen.” Dr. Trefusis, I could tell, quickened them all with his ardor in promoting the excellence of the Royal Ethiopians, our willingness to fight, our profound interest in our success in this contest.

  Then they closed the closet door to exact more privacy, now that the servants were retired; and I became so involved with the labyrinthine concerns of Tartini that I no longer could listen even to the faint words spoken. The next hour passed in delight at music, familiar conversation again with the dearest and most speaking of instruments; playing melodies that brought before me, in all the tincture of poignancy, our spirits before the battle; the approach toward the enemy across the causeway; the rout; the volleys; aghast, my inaction upon the bridge; the bodies in the mire; the march back across the miles to Norfolk; the stench of our hold in the Crepuscule; the loss of John, frolicsome John, transported to the Sugar Isles, than which no fate could be less sweet, more bitter, more disgustful.

  “Strike me blind!” exclaimed His Lordship. “Who is the article playing for us upon the fiddle?”

  “Ah! That, Your Lordship — that is a soldier in your Ethiopian Regiment,” said Dr. Trefusis loudly, rising from his chair. “Private Octavian Nothing. I spake of him yesterday. I am eager to present him to Your Lordship, if Your Lordship would be so indulgent.”

  “He is a prodigious sad fellow.”

  “I believe he laments our late loss.”

  “Very correct, too. Excellent, excellent.”

  The door was thrown open. In the presence of such nobility, I lowered the fiddle and bow, and fixed my eyes upon the ground. I heard Lord Dunmore rise; saw the approach of his shoes.

  “Your name, soldier?” said he; and I told him, my gaze upon his buckles. I bowed and thanked him for the favor of his notice.

  He declared genially, “You’re a fine fellow, ain’t you?”

  Dr. Trefusis expatiated at somewhat galling length upon my achievements; which accolades Lord Dunmore received with kind pleasure, saying, “Faith, excellent! Excellent! You are brave boys, all of you.”

  Said he to me — and this I shall recall until my final hour — said he to me: “We shall make you proud to serve us, soldier.”

  I thanked him reverently — but he continued, “We are already proud that, at all adventure, you chose to enlist at our sides.”

  “Amen,” exclaimed Dr. Trefusis, his voice flowing over with joy.

  I again thanked His Lordship’s buckles for the honor of their notice and more, remarked that it was very like his beneficence to think upon the sacrifices made, the hazards run, by my brethren to escape to this our Regiment; and vowed that we should acquit ourselves so valiantly that he should never have cause to regret issuing his Proclamation drawing us forth from shackle and shanty.

  At this, the company all clapped, and His Lordship returned to his seat; my heart swelling with adoration; swelling, at the same time, at the transports of sadness at what had already been lost; and at the promise of hope for new battlefields and victories as yet unwon.

  Later, we were rowed back through the night, which was become greatly frigid. Dr. Trefusis reported, delighted, that he had convinced His Lordship to grant a letter allowing my lessons to continue. I, however, wished to hear more of what Lord Dunmore had said of the present tumults. Dr. Trefusis put his finger to his lips, and would not speak before the sailors who rowed us.

  When we gained the Crepuscule, he climbed out as well, and said he would come below with me for a short space, that we might discourse more fully on what he had gleaned at His Lordship’s table. Trefusis displaying Lord Dunmore’s letter, he was admitted, and we passed into the lower deck, where my companions awaited me, rowdy until we appeared; silenced in a moment by the sight of a white man among them.

  Pomp, at last, asked me what I had seen upon the Dunmore frigate, and I recounted the facts of the case; that I had played for His Lordship’s table, but that, being in a separate chamber and anxious of address, I had neither seen his face nor heard his schemes. I told them of his word to us — that he should make us proud to serve, which announcement made all more easy in their minds. This being said, I asked Dr. Trefusis what he had observed during the dinner.

  He reported that Lord Dunmore expresses none but the most sanguine expectations of our future success, though he admits that th
e setbacks of the late battle were great. The rebels’ criminal ardor shall cool, says he, when they see how great the number is of those loyal to the Crown; and His Lordship has dispatched an agent to the northwest to rouse up the Indians in the King’s cause, having treated with the Shawnee last year. Dunmore expects that at any time, he shall receive additional troops from Florida or from Boston, and the summoned Indian and Canadian forces shall march down from their territories and sunder the Colonies in half, depriving the infernal rebel associations of their communication.

  So spake His Lordship — grandly — but, said Trefusis, “I have other views of the man.” With a smile of satisfaction at his own sagacity, he continued: “Here is what one must know about Lord Dunmore. Whenever the man unrolls these hopes and schemes, he clutches and chafes his own wrist without cease. D’you see? His opinion must be entirely discounted. One cannot repose the slightest trust in a man who holds his own wrist, boys. It suggests that he wishes someone else would hold it for him. It suggests he feels there is not enough in the world to steady him, and must needs hold on to himself alone for balance. Ye gods, I would liefer listen to a thumb-sucker.”

  The assembled, who knew not Dr. Trefusis’s prankish humor, little knew what to make of this curious discourse. I saw their eyes bespeaking confusion at this raillery, sorrow to hear our liberator mocked thus, and anxiety at what His Lordship’s uncertainty might mean.

  My tutor explained that, seeing the fretting at the wrist, he had begun a more delicate questioning, listening not simply to His Lordship’s bright hopes, complaints of past misfortunes, and brash gasconades, but to His Lordship’s doubts; and these are the fruits of that auditory: His Lordship has received no word from the Ministry in England for some six months, and clearly feels terror that he is alone, floating with his tiny fleet in a sea of rebellion. There is no sign from the King, no help to be had from the Secretary of State, no indication that anyone in Whitehall knows that government in the Colony of Virginia is fled the capital, that the House of Burgesses is shut up and the courts at an end. His Lordship awaits reinforcements; but he does not know if they shall come, nor whether anyone even knows that he requires them.

  The faces of the men in my mess — of Slant, Will, and the others — grew alarmed or slackened at this insight into our commander.

  Thus Dr. Trefusis’s visit. We discussed our plan of study: I continue with the Locke seized from Mr. Jonathan Gitney’s library; for Latin and for pleasure, the Æneid again; for Greek, Apollonius of Rhodes’s tale of the Argo’s voyage to find the Golden Fleece. Dr. Trefusis says it behooves me to remind myself of the heroics of men who seek the impossible in ships.

  I had set down the quill — though I have no occupation but to write — and I take it up again. I must add to my account that my nerves were agitated within me at Dr. Trefusis’s discourse, and (it shames me to say) I felt myself not entirely well dispositioned towards him, who is the kindest and most generous of men. When we went above-decks for me to conduct Dr. Trefusis back to his shallop, he paused and said that I seemed out of my humor; to which I replied that the battle weighed heavily upon me. He entreated me again to tell him of the events, now no mirth in his demeanor.

  It was then that I told him of the battle — so much as I could — and of my fit upon the bridge that left me without motion; I confessed my cowardice in freezing thus, unable to stir my limbs. He hastened to mollify me.

  “’Twas not cowardice,” said he, “but overwhelming compassion.”

  “It served no purpose,” said I. “No one was saved.”

  He smiled kindly. He said, “Socrates served as a soldier in the Athenian host. At Potidæa, he became so engaged in a question of ethics that he remained standing in his armor, unmoving, insensate, for a full day and night altogether.”

  “I do not care, sir,” I said. I told him: “I do not care a whit.”

  The old man’s face fell; he was in some confusion, before he regained his pride, and with a hint of a gentleman’s hauteur said, “Octavian, I was merely attempting to soothe —”

  “Did you need speak of Dunmore’s doubts? Did you need tell us he was foolish and uncertain?”

  “I was attempting, Octavian, to reveal the truth of —”

  “You spake thus, sir, to vent wit, so that you might regale us with the acuity of your observation. The comedy of the wrist.”

  If he had been previously startled, he was now stunned, even frightened in his demeanor. And still, ruthless fool, I continued: “Sir, you may jest at the foibles of His Lordship — because you are —” (I could not say it) “— because you are as you are, sir — but for us, this expedition — sir, this expedition — it is our sole hope. If it fail, we die. We are transported to the Sugar Isles. We are hanged. I beg you: do not jest with our fates.”

  At this, his heart melted, and he wept a tear and embraced me, begging my pardon and calling me the most excellent of beings, the most tender of grandchildren. He said he was abject, and told me his stomach was taken sick with the very thought of his vanity, and praised and thanked me profusely for my candor. I could not retain any anger against this gentle soul, my longtime benefactor, at this display, and I begged his pardon for my harshness; and thus, reconciled, we parted, both more secure in the other’s affection.

  It is near midnight. I think on those who are chained. John clipped to a Loyalist and forced to march.

  The ancient tyrant Mezentius of Etruria, punishing his enemies, bound each living prisoner to a corpse and left them thus, shackled face to face, until the corruption of the dead involved the living. Saint Augustine hath writ that this is the very type and emblem of us mortal beings: the shining soul that must drag around the corpse of the body and its vile decadencies.

  I am sure that many of the gentlemen Loyalists imagined themselves in this way as they toiled upon the road to Williamsburg, paired disgracefully with Negroes: the civilized mind chained to the brute brawn of the flesh; the quick, living spirit tripping at the drag of those already headed for a distant Hell.

  But is it not also thus: the living man, black and desperate to run, cursed by his connection to the white, devouring ghost?

  December 19th, 1775

  Again, I take up the pen, with nought else to occupy my hands. Word from a midshipman: ’Tis said that yesterday, there was a skirmish on the river when two warships attempted to seize upon fresh water at a distillery; they left unprotected a snow, which could not follow on so fast, and it was taken by the enemy.

  This morning, Serjeant Clippinger grew drunk upon rum and became loud, complaining of his command over Negroes, and that he was cursed to be thrown onto a hulk where every private stank like a pit and not a man could speak decent English, but he was like to hear a babble of Guinea tongues and the fiddle-faddle of murderous Coromantees; and that even his own Corporal (by which he meant Corporal Craigie) spake a blithering stew of English and Scots, and that never should he receive preferment, trapped in this damned Regiment rather than in one of those founded and numbered by our sovereign; and that he should have stayed a poor Spitalfields prentice toiling at the loom; and there ain’t no hope; no hope at all, boys, so we might as well drown and go to the Devil; and more to this effect. The Company’s captain, hearing of his stupor, sent for him to be removed and slapped; but by that time, he had around his form recumbent a ring of men — Will, Slant, and me among them — and we had all heard his vile opinions. We know now the quality of our command.

  This, then, from our own ranks.

  And from the enemy: When we were above-decks taking our recreation in the afternoon, one of the rebels called from the shore, “Boy! You, boy! Do you have a fine Negro soldier name of Major-General Quash on board? Major-General Quash Andrews? You acquainted with the Major-General? Could you tell him I need my laundry done snip-snap? He left it soaking.”

  A great laugh went up among the rebels.

  “Tell him come home, and I need the shit be cleaned out my breeches.”

  We st
ood silently and did not meet the eyes of the enemy; nor each other’s eyes.

  We await some confrontation.

  ’Twas after dinner that Pomp came to tell me my presence was required upon the upper deck. Upon ascending, I was confronted by the most welcome of spectacles: Dr. Trefusis and Bono both having just come aboard, conferring with Serjeant Clippinger. As I approached, I saw that my dear philosophe spake in terms of remonstration to the Serjeant, which officer protested their presence on the ship. Trefusis, however, had procured a letter from Lord Dunmore which approved my lessons in philosophy and language should continue; and a letter of commission that transferred Bono to my company. The latter is a great cause for rejoicing, though perhaps of little surprise: The white officers generally account our sable troops as number without face or footprint, and approach questions of our regulation with indifference and irritable neglect.

  So soon as Serjeant Clippinger was dispatched, and retreated with a scowl little calculated to welcome, Dr. Trefusis and Bono made merry in quiet tones at our reunion. Dr. Trefusis had sought out Bono in the morning and sent him a letter to inquire whether a transfer should be an agreeable and desirable circumstance for my friend; and had encountered nought but approbation for the scheme.

  I was rejoiced at this prospect, for, in truth, I have now together in one place all of those who remain most dear to me; though this I cannot say out loud, for fear Bono should note the absence of one inestimable being from that roster of tenderness.

  We betook ourselves below and sate ourselves with great satisfaction. The pleasantries being accomplished, Bono asked of news. Dr. Trefusis replied that there was no news but starvation — so many of the Loyalist citizens upon their ships having prepared inadequately for a stay offshore. Bono then inquired how Dr. Trefusis himself was accommodated; to which the philosopher replied that though he was ill fed, he wished we could reside with him in his space upon the Betsey brig, which delightful little chamber had been vacated for him so soon he made mention of his hearty jests with Frederick the Great. Following this, Dr. Trefusis pressed Bono to hear of his adventures, and of what had transpired since last we had seen him — the doctor having last seen him bundled off to Salem for shipment a full year before.