Judas Flowering (42 page)

“Enough. And after all that, you entertain the British!”

“Oh, Hart, will you not try to understand? They're no worse than the rebels. I could tell you things they've done … our people. But there's no time. What I'm trying to tell you is that people here in Savannah have seen one sack, and that's enough. For God's sake, tell General Lincoln and his French admiral to take themselves somewhere else.”

“Do you really mean that?”

She brushed a hand across her eyes. “No. Not really. It's loathsome, this life we're leading. You called me strumpet. It's what I feel. But at least we're alive here, surviving.”

“Dancing with Francis Mayfield and Saul Gordon! Entertaining those beefy Hessian officers. When did you learn German, Mercy Phillips?”

“Father taught me.” For the second time he had the impression that she was about to say more, but checked herself. “We've talked too long already. It's late. I must get back. What is your second errand?”

“There's someone I want to meet. Someone I'm surprised you have not chosen to mention. You say that everyone here in Savannah has given up hope, lost their spirit. What about the secret pamphleteer who is making the British so angry? I saw a couple of his broadsheets down—” He stopped. “Where I was staying. If you had seen them you'd know there's one true patriot here in Savannah, but I can see it's
useless to ask a collaborator like you to put me in touch with him.”

“Quite useless. You don't choose to tell me where you have been staying, and you are quite right. Do you think, even if I did know the pamphleteer's name, I would tell it you! But it's the best-kept secret in Savannah. Of course I've seen his pamphlets. Everyone has. They grow on the trees, like Judas blossom. We tear them up, we exclaim against him, we read them first.”

“So. My errand need not be quite in vain. He's not a coward; he will urge people to fight on the right side when the time comes.”

“And so warn the British that it's coming? The whole point of an attack, if there is one, must be surprise, as it was when the British came. And you want broadsheets up and down the streets announcing it? Tell your friends, if it comes, it must come fast! And if it does come, I've no doubt the Reb Pamphleteer—that's what they call him—will come out strong for the patriots. But first you must mount your attack, Hart Purchis. And for God's sake, speak to no one, no one, no one as you have to me. You're mad to have trusted me. If you get back safe, tell your general and your French admiral to send a more cautious emissary next time.”

“Because I trust you!”

“These are not the times for trust. I don't know how you got into town, but if I were you, I'd find my own way out. There's a generous British bounty for the capture of people like you. It makes Judases of us all.”

“So you admit it was convenient for you to have me out of the way when the British came!”

“Oh, Hart! Have you learned nothing? Do you understand nothing? Yes, William!” She moved quickly to the cabin door in answer to a low knocking.

“Mr Miles is asking for you, Miss Mercy. He's ready to lock up.” He looked quickly from one to the other, relieved to find them both alive.

“I must go. William, see Mr Hart safe away. By river, I'd think, if you've men you can trust.”

“They keep a close watch, Miss Mercy,” said William, and at the same time, “I need no help,” said Hart.

“Good.” Mercy crossed the room to make a quick check of her appearance in the cracked glass that had once served
Amy, then turned to Hart. “Every inch the strumpet,” she said. “Good-bye, Hart.”

Next day Jackson was waiting at the second rendezvous, sitting slouched in the shade of his empty cart. Hart paused for a moment, Mercy's warning vivid in his mind, etched deep by his own anger at her jibes. What else could he have done but trust her? And yet, if now, or as they left Savannah, a British posse should appear to arrest him, who would be to blame? Mercy, or Jackson, who had now seen him and was waving a lazy arm in greeting?

“Trust no one” she had said. It was good counsel; all part of the general horror. William's Amy and little Delilah. Jem, who had died fighting the British at Charleston. Mercy dressed up like the whore of Babylon. Mercy and Francis. Mercy and Saul Gordon. And the stranger, Mr Miles. What did he and she do after they had locked the house?

“Let's get going,” he said.

“Bad, eh?” Jackson got up, stretched mightily, and began to untether his skinny horse. “Any luck at all?”

Trust no one. “No,” said Hart. “Oh yes. I'm lucky to be here and alive to meet you.”

“Sure thing,” said Jackson. “Let's go.” And then, leisurely climbing into the rough driver's seat of the wagon, “No news of the Reb Pamphleteer then? I'd sure like to shake him by the hand. Powerful fine pieces he writes. I found one in the wagon when I got back from Tondee's. I'll show it you when we get home.”

Suspicion, worse than an illness, crawled through Hart's blood all the way back to his friend's isolated farmhouse. Could Mercy have had him followed? Easily. Would she have? How could he tell? He understood nothing. “A generous British bounty,” she had said, “for the capture of people like you.” But she had offered him William's help, and William he knew he could trust. So, why this uneasy shiver
in his bones as they emerged at last into the clearing round Jackson's farm? Everything was as usual, peaceful in the light of the setting sun. No. Everything was too quiet. The watchdog barked, it was true, cattle lowed but where were the children who should have rushed out to greet their father?

“Peaceful,” he said.

“Sure is. I reckon Mina must have taken the kids over to see her ma. The less they know, the better.”

“Yes.” It made perfect sense and did nothing for the creeping anxiety in Hart's bones. Why had he not thought how much more valuable a capture he would be on returning from Savannah than before he went there? Trust no one. “I'm bushed.” He yawned hugely as they dismounted from the wagon. “Long, useless trip.”

“Tough. I'll rustle us up some grub and you can sleep it off. Pity you can't get away tonight.” It was half a question.

“Yes.” Thank God he had not said anything about his rendezvous with his men. “I'm sorry to put you at risk a moment longer than need be.”

“I'm only sorry it's done so little good.” Once again it might be a question.

Hart shrugged. “Luck of the draw. It was an idea—worth trying—no good. I'm starved. Fine welcome I got! Not a bite to eat. Nowhere to sleep. Like me to stable the horse while you find us that food?”

“Thanks!”

Was it his imagination or did the other man pause for a moment, doubtfully, on the house's shabby threshold? Suspicion breeds suspicion. Hart stopped unharnessing the tired horse and straightened up. “Anything to drink in the house? I'm dry as dust. All that waiting around!” he grumbled. “And no good come of it. Rum would be best.”

“And rum you shall have.” If Jackson had been wondering about the wisdom of leaving Hart outside alone, this made up his mind for him. “I didn't reckon you for a drinking man.”

“I'm not, when things go right.” Hart jerked the horse's bridle impatiently and led it away towards the tumble-down stable as the other man went indoors. How long did he have before he was missed. Ten minutes? Fifteen at the outside. Just the same, he tethered and fed the horse, noting with relief as he did so that the light was fading fast. When he emerged cautiously from the stable, leaving the door open
to suggest he was still inside, it was into the long, dark shadow of the house, and he kept carefully within it as he edged his way out of view of the front windows. Pausing at the corner to look back, he saw a light flicker behind one of them. His friend had lit a candle. With luck, he would then pour himself a drink of the promised rum.

Memory of Mercy's naked shoulders above the clinging bronze satin tormented Hart as he made his cautious way down the path to the shore. It had seemed, at the time, an excess of caution to arrange his rendezvous with his men several creeks north of the farmhouse's own landing stage. Now, he was glad of it, and glad, too, that he had told them to come every night, just in case.

But it was going to be an awkward enough walk in the clouded light of a half moon. The tide had just turned, and he would be able to save valuable time by cutting across the shallows of the intervening creeks. If their channels had changed since he used to come wildfowling here as a boy, he would just have to swim for it and hope for the best. Absurd if this was all quite unnecessary, if he had let Mercy fill him with groundless suspicion. By running away like this, he would merely have made an enemy of a friend, lost one supporter for the patriot cause.

“Hey!” Jackson's voice came soft yet urgent through the darkness. “Where the hell have you got to, Hart Purchis? Rum's out, grub's up, what's keeping you?”

The silence that followed was broken by the uneasy barking of the watchdog as his master presumably investigated the stable and found only the horse. “Hart!” he called again. “What are you playing at? Come on in—fire's lit, grog's hot. Don't play games with me, boy!” Now, surely, there was more than anxiety in his voice? Carefully masked, anger and fear were beginning to show.

Hart steadily put another hundred yards between himself and the farm, climbing a little as he crossed the arm of the creek. As he paused at the top to get his bearings from the dull gleam of more water ahead, a single shot from the direction of the farm sent birds scattering and squawking from their nests.

“Hart Purchis!” The voice was furious now. “Come back this instant or you're in bad trouble.”

Trouble enough. Hart began to push his way quickly through the undergrowth towards the first creek. As a threat
to him the shot was useless, but as a warning to an approaching posse? The tide was running out fast, but the first creek was still dangerously deep and he thought for a moment he might have to swim for it and wondered whether he would be able to breast that swift current one-handed. But he just managed to keep his footing and was climbing over the second spit of land when he heard a horse neigh somewhere to the west, where the track ran to Savannah. There was a posse, sure enough, and by the sound of them they were pushing forward hard along the soft, delaying sand of the track. If their officer should think to send a detachment out to search the shoreline, he was bound to be caught. But, surely, they would go first to find out the reason for the shot at the farm? And, equally, all logic would suggest that an escape would be made to the south. That was precisely why he was coming north.

And hurrying. The second creek, considerably shallower than the first, was a warning that his boat, if it came, would have to stay well out in the mouth of the appointed creek. If it came? He knew it would come. In a world that was indeed turned upside down he felt, now, that there were only two sure focusses of trust, William and his own ship's crew. Horrible to think that it might be Mercy who had sent those soldiers after him, so quietly through the darkness.

Horrible, and surely, not likely? Mercy knew nothing about the farmhouse and his doubtful friend there. Mercy could have had nothing to do with the significant firing of that gun. If she had not told him to trust no one, he would not be here now, plunging into the last intervening creek, but back at the farmhouse, drugged with rum, easy prey to the approaching soldiers.

Drugged. Mercy had drugged him. He was grinding his teeth again, but the shock of cold water caught at his breath and stopped him. He would not think of her. He could not bear to think of her. But how could he help it? Now he saw her in Francis' arms. Francis' hands, white like her own, were peeling back the bronze satin from a fruit worth the plucking. His foot slipped on a slimy stone and he went down under water, helpless for a moment, taking one salt, unexpected swallow before he staggered to his feet again and struggled on to the shore.

Between this creek and the next was swamp, and he had no time for thought, as he fought and jumped his way from
tussock to tussock, praying that his old skill had not failed him. At least no one would follow him through this nightmarish, shivering quag, where simply to hesitate for a moment might mean a slow, horrible sucking to death. He was shaking with more than exhaustion when he pushed his way at last through tangling scrub to a view of the rendezvous creek, and, dauntingly far out, his boat, a darker shadow on the gleam of the water.

The agreed signals exchanged, he began the slow wade down the creek, slipping and staggering with fatigue, incredibly relieved when two of his men came to meet him and almost carried him the rest of the way. Dumped unceremoniously inboard, he could only lie there gasping and listen to the smooth splash of the oars as the boat moved steadily out to sea.

“You ran it fine,” said one of his men. “Listen!”

The sound of horses, ridden hard, harness jingling, coming down the track to the head of the creek. A confusion of voices. Hart raised his head with an effort. “I could see you,” he said. “Will they be able to see us?”

“Not a chance. Tne moon's gone in. And if they did, they wouldn't catch us.”

“Good.” Someone threw a jacket over him, where he lay, and he slid off into something between sleep and unconsciousness.

He slept for two days and was wakened with stirring news. Admiral d'Estaing had actually arrived off Tybee, fresh from his victory over the British in the West Indies. His fleet with its twenty-two ships of the line and attendant frigates and cutters, far outnumbered the British naval defences, and the element of surprise had been complete. He had captured several British vessels at the mouth of the Savannah River and taken the fort at Tybee, thus compelling the British to retire on Savannah.