"Rogers!" Biddlecomb shouted. "Bring those horses over here! We'll carry the dead men on them!"
The two men, Biddlecomb and Stanton, stood twelve hours later in the darkened upper room of the Blue Goose Tavern surveying High Street below. The lights from the tavern windows on the lower floor illuminated the street sufficiently for the men to see the British patrols as they passed.
"Listen, William," said Biddlecomb. The two men were silent, separating in their minds the different sounds of the night. Boots beat against the cobblestones in a regular cadence, more than a few pair of boots.
"It's another patrol." said Stanton as the two men took a step back from the window, receding into the dark. The cadence grew louder, and into the circle of light stepped a uniformed midshipman, and behind him a file of eight marines. Their breath made little clouds that reflected the tavern lights as they stopped just below the window, the tired marines leaning on their muskets. They had been searching the town and the surrounding countryside for the past ten hours and, despite offers of generous rewards to informers, had found not one man that they could be certain had participated in the morning's fight.
The midshipman below peered into the tavern, then glanced nervously up and down the dark street. He hesitated, as if wrestling with indecision, then beckoned to the file of marines and stepped out of sight into the tavern below. Biddlecomb heard the raucous sounds from the floor below taper off, then die.
"They're searching the tavern again," Biddlecomb observed.
"They didn't find us there the last three times, I don't know why they think they'll find us now," said Stanton.
Three minutes later the midshipman reappeared on the street, followed by the marines. In the tavern the noise swelled again as the last of the soldiers stepped out into the night. The midshipman led the way down the street and the marines fell in behind him, and one by one they left the circle of light and were gone.
"Do you know Ezra Rumstick?" asked Stanton.
Biddlecomb was surprised by the question. Rumstick was a seaman, a great jolly bear of a man and an old friend of his.
"Why, yes, I do," said Biddlecomb. "But how do you know him? I don't imagine that you two move in the same circles of society."
"I didn't meet him at the Governor's Ball, this is true. But we have friends in common, and business. Anyway, I think it would be best of you left Rhode Island for a while."
"I agree. If there are no berths open for a master or a mate, I suppose I'll have to sail before the mast.
"I am afraid so. Which leads us to Rumstick. If any man can get you a seaman's berth, he can. He's in Providence now. We'll get you to Providence, and Rumstick will find you a ship."
"It might not be so simple to get to Providence. I would be surprised if the roads aren't being patrolled.
"Have no fear for that, I've arranged everything." Stanton looked out the window once again, searching up and down the street as far as he could see. "I suspect Rogers will be here any minute to tell us the way's clear.
Biddlecomb joined Stanton at the window just as another figure lost in a long, hooded cloak stepped into the tavern lights and disappeared inside.
"That wasn't Rogers, was it?" Biddlecomb asked, and before Stanton could answer they heard the sound of shoes on the rough wooden steps outside their small room. The door swung open, and in the dim light from the tavern below, Biddlecomb could make out the proprietor, and behind him Virginia Stanton, peering out from under the hood of the cape.
"Virginia! Good God, where's Rogers?" Stanton asked.
"He's at home, Father," Virginia said, her arms emerging from under the cape, a pistol held in each of her small hands. "I couldn't allow him to come. He would have been stopped the moment he set foot in town and certainly would have been arrested when they found these on him." She handed the weapons to the two men.
"It's hardly safe for a young woman, walking around in the middle of the night," Stanton protested.
"No one is safe today," Virginia said, "but I had a better chance than Rogers. The way is clear to the wharf. I've spoken with Captain Higgens and he says there's less than half an hour till flood."
"Humph," Stanton said, sounding resigned to, if less than pleased with, his daughter's behavior. In the dim light Stanton and Biddlecomb checked the prime in their pistols. "Well, we best be off," Stanton said, leading the way down the stairs.
The two men, with Virginia between them, walked down High Street towards the water, careful not to step loudly or draw attention to themselves, listening above their own faint footfalls for the sound of the marines' boots. They kept to the storefronts, in the shadows, peering around each corner before they turned. In this manner they made their way down to the stone quay where the merchant ships groaned against the docks and the water could be heard lapping against their hulls.
They moved past the silent ships, keeping to the shadows, and arrived at last at a trim sloop, the Nancy, the Stanton's packet that plied Narragansett Bay. The dock lines were singled up and the sails ungasketed and hanging in the gear.
Stanton paused at the gangway and looked furtively around before climbing over the side and dropping to the deck below. Biddlecomb followed, and as his feet struck the planking, a harsh, low challenge broke the stillness.
"Who goes there?" The voice was a whisper but carried menace nonetheless.
"Stanton," the older man hissed.
Boots sounded on the deck and a man emerged from the shadows, a cutlass in his hand. It was Captain Higgens, master of the Nancy. Biddlecomb recognized him in the pale light.
"Glad to see you, sir. We almost missed the tide," said Higgens, sliding the cutlass into the scabbard hanging from a leather shoulder strap. "And Captain Biddlecomb! Welcome aboard!"
"The British were more thorough than I had expected," said Stanton. "Have the patrols been by here?"
"They came by once. They krpt to the street and didn't stop. We should have no problems getting under way."
"Good. Then I shall not keep you," said Stanton. Higgens turned and issued a series of orders in the same harsh whisper, and four men emerged from the shadows and prepared the small ship to sail.
Stanton turned to Biddlecomb and put his hands on the young man's shoulders.
"A few month, Isaac. A few month and then you'll come back and have command of the finest merchant ship in Rhode Island."
"The finest in America," said Biddlecomb.
Stanton smiled and squeezed Biddlecomb's arms. "Godspeed, Isaac." With a nod to Captain Higgens, Stanton jumped back onto the dock and was gone. Biddlecomb watched his figure moving silently down the quay, watched Virginia step out of the shadows and join him. Virginia. He wanted to say good-bye, wanted to say something, but he dared not call out.
Chapter 5.
Boston
WINTER BRINGS WITH it a clarity of light to the cities of New England, and Boston and neighboring Charlestown on that day were not exceptions. The wide harbor that the cities share, churned into a pea green during the busy summer days, was deep blue and as unmarred by wave as the sky was by cloud. The cities seemed vivid after the humid summer, and the brick warehouses and the tangle of masts and yards on the ships tied to the wharves stood out in sharp relief.
Boston Harbor was quiet in the opening days of 1775, quieter than it has been for half a century, and the only vessels moving in the harbor were those of the Royal Navy on the North American Station. Eight months earlier a Parliament incensed by the rebellious act of a Boston mob had enacted the Boston Port Bill, which stopped, without exception, all waterborne commerce in Boston Harbor. Since then Parliament and the king had waited for the crippled city to pay for the tea that had been dumped in the harbor, waited for the other maritime centers of America to vie for Boston's lost commerce, like a wolf pack devouring a fallen leader. But neither had happened yet, nor did it seem likely that it would.