"That, I would."
"Then get your kit bag, and we'll put out."
Uncle Jake Tate proved a most engaging companion on om- voyage into the Bay of Fundy. He had the kind of memory that had made Kerry the fascinating consort and mentor that he was to me— far-ranging, ready, positive, and sharp as things seen by lightning. Opposed to that pleasure, the business we were on begloomed my spirits and haunted my dreams, and of all the towns in Canada I wished least to visit, it was Saint John, called Parr Town in my infant days, and settled by Tories who had quit my native land in order to keep their king. But the haters left alive were growing old now, perhaps they were a little mellowed and had not passed the hatred to their sons.
I did not go ashore and instead tried to sweeten my imagination, not with an ounce of civet—the unforgettable proposal of an aged, mad king—but by fishing for chicken halibut in the harbor. Meanwhile Jake moved spryly, getting track of Sam Lincoln the first afternoon, finding him the next morning, and bringing him to see me in the cool of the evening. Sam had begun life as a trapper and hunter, given most of it to trawling, and now earned his bread making dories as fine as Yarmouth's. A man cannot train his hands without schooling his mind. I could not want a better witness than this tough-grained, lean, quiet-voiced Canuck, the survivor of sixty-five winters, none of them mild.
In reply to my questions, he repeated to me what he had told Jake Tate, but my hearing it first-hand made a deal of difference. I, too, saw the Stars and Stripes flying in triumph over the foremost of the two ships, then, all of a sudden, the vessel bathed in fire.
'What day was this, Mr. Lincoln?"
"The day after Christmas, 1781."
"Are you sure?"
"Just as sure as I'm sitting here. Pa and me hadn't much of a Christmas dinner, and I'd thought to get some heath hen with my fowling piece. Twas why I climbed the hill."
"Did you ever hear that the Saratoga and Our Eliza fought on Christmas Day?"
"Yes, sir, I did."
"Could you escape the conclusion that they were the same ships?"
"They answered the description, and I couldn't doubt it."
"How did you reconcile that to the report of Our Eliza's victory heralded through the empire?"
"I couldn't reconcile it, but I was a poor trapper in the back woods, and if I said anything, who'd listen to me, and wouldn't I be going against the king? I reckoned them lords of the government had seen fit to hide the truth to cheer the people up after Cornwallis's surrender."
"Have you since imagined what might have been happening when Our Eliza started to run down to pick up survivors, then came broadside to the wind?"
"I knew there was no hand on her wheel, but I let it go at that."
"Thank you for your information. I'd like to pay you a hundred dollars and assure you it will make no trouble for you or Mr. Tate. This was a private inquiry concerned with sentiment."
My two informants accepted their fees, looked at me with sweat-beaded faces, and went their ways. I thought to fish awhile in the morning before I turned back, but it would take a deal of sunlit water to burn the shadows of these long-ago events out of my eyes.
Present your sword to your conqueror, little nobleman. You have fought a good fight—only two of your white officers are left alive—the crude Yankee skipper has never seen so great an aristocrat—he is greatly impressed by your courtly manner—he will not want to be outdone in courtesy. Surrender him your sword, and he will give it back. You need never wear it again except in ceremony. You can carry a little stick.
He will parole you because he doesn't know what is in your heart. He will parole also your two officers, for Cornwallis has surrendered, and the war is almost over anyway, and he doesn't know they are two Loyalists from Maryland who had fought their own countrymen. Your lascars will be confined to quarters; he will not be so rude as to put them in irons. The prize crew that he puts aboard your limping Eliza, outsailed and outfought and bound for the bottom if the fight had gone on, have orders to treat you with the greatest deference and to deal kindly with your crew of dark-skinned mercenaries. That a great aristocrat would break parole was unthinkable, let alone lie awake all night, planning, plotting, hating. . . .
Little lord, great lord, the stars fight on your side! On the morrow the Saratoga blows up in an empty sea, out of sight of land except for what you deem an uninhabited island. When the prize crew aboard your beloved Eliza start to run down to pick up survivors, you see your chance. Their guard over your lascars was too trusting to be strict. They are half out of their minds over the sudden loss of their mother ship. And one command in that wintry rattling voice of yours brings your long-haired heathen swarming up the hatch with such weapons as they can seize. You are a born commander, pretty little fellow, or you would not captain a sloop of war at twenty-four. You lost your command for a little while—you lost your ship to a Yankee hooker manned by chaw-bacons fighting their king—but now you're again on her quarter-deck, calling orders in that terrifying voice.
The Yankee lubbers, taken by unbelieving surprise, fight desperately. For a little while the ship lurches with the wind—as Sam Lincoln perceived from his lookout, there's no hand on the tiller. But the rebel swine are outnumbered and soon overwhelmed. Order is restored. Dark hands are on the wheel. The ship's bow swings into the wind, and she can now resume her eastward sail, but not to a Yankee port in captivity and disgrace. She can make for Halifax with her flag flying.
The trouble is, a few, a mere handful of the prize crew are still alive. Some are wounded, some surrendered to overwhelming numbers. What's to be done with them, pretty little lord?
Why, that's an easy riddle, sink me if it ain't. These aren't prisoners of war, but mutineers to start with, traitors to the king. Hang 'em to the yardarm, every rebel bastard, then weigh 'em by the heels and heave 'em overside. Don't waste good canvas and hemp keeping out conger eels and sea lice. And may God deal the same with all their like!
And thereby only some dark-skinned Indians, who can't speak a word of English, will ever know the truth. But you know it, Captain Tarlton, and also your two officers. They changed into Barbary pirates. What did you change into?
CHAPTER 25
Runaway's Return
When I took ship for Plymouth, England, out of New York, and watched the shores of my native land draw away distant and dim, I did not know when, if ever, I would lay eyes on them again.
From Plymouth I made up the North Road by stagecoach, lay the night at Callenden, and on the following day went by chaise to Tavistock. It was a pretty town, my adopted natal place, lying at the edge of Dartmoor in the valley of the Tavy; and what remained of the Abbey of Saint Mary and Saint Ruman, now used as a public library, was an impressive sight. It had been founded by Orgar, Earl of Devon, no doubt Holgar's namesake in the tenth century. On my telling the parish clerk that I wished to pursue a genealogical inquiry, he let me consult the records.
By no great search I found the short and simple annals of the Blackburn family. Bruce Blackburn and wife Arme, emigrants from Wiltshire, were listed as tenants to George Russell, Esq., whom I took to be kin of John Russell, the great Duke of Bedford, the largest landowner in this part of England. Holgar was their oldest child, and when I read the date of his birth, the short hairs rose on my neck. It was on Monday, December 25, 1781, the very day that proud Our Eliza struck her flag to the upstart Saratoga.