Wide is the Water Read online

  ‘I know. But any minute now it will be over. Just you pray they don’t come before.’

  ‘But then you’ll be a standing target!’

  ‘Can’t have it both ways. If they see me, if they know me, we’ve a chance. I’ve been about a long time.’

  ‘You’re a good man, Bill Barnes. I do thank you.’

  ‘I couldn’t do anything else, could I? Ah,’ he said, ‘here they come, and here’s the blessed moon.’ He opened the front door and moved swiftly across the porch and down the steps, the rifle held lightly in his right hand. Jed and Mercy followed him quietly and took up their positions to the right and left of the steps, Jed with his rifle ready, Mercy quietly putting some bullets into her pocket, just in case.

  As Barnes moved forward into full moonlight, the first dark figures emerged from the bushes. They must have left their sledges up on the road, Mercy thought, and wondered why. But of course, a horse could easily break a leg in an unexpected snowdrift, once it was off the hard-packed road. It meant that they were coming in ones and twos, as they had left their sledges. Now they had seen Barnes, standing immobile in the moonlight, waiting for them. They stopped, silent, hesitating, and Mercy was relieved that he would not need to fire that dangerous shot in the air.

  ‘Good evening, neighbours,’ he said. ‘Bill Barnes of Cohuit here. What can I do for you?’

  They paused for a moment, surprised, muttering among themselves. Then one figure moved forward. ‘You can get out of our way, Bill Barnes, and let us deal with this parcel of witches. We’ve no quarrel with you.’

  ‘Witches?’ Barnes’s tone was an admirable blend of scorn and surprise. ‘What century do you think you’re living in, John Tanner? Yes, of course I know you.’ This in reply to a strangled exclamation from the figure confronting him. ‘If you want to do your dirty business in secret, you need a new voice. I stand here as a witness that you are leader in anything that should happen tonight.’ As he spoke, more and more figures had crowded into view behind John Tanner. He raised his voice. ‘Friends, what do you think you are doing? There’s no one here but a dying woman, two girls and a boy. Haven’t we enemies enough without this kind of madness?’

  ‘A witch and a Jonah,’ came a voice from somewhere in the crowd.

  ‘Some people call your Jonah a heroine,’ said Barnes, surprising Mercy. ‘Don’t you know how she fooled the British down in Savannah?’

  ‘Savannah!’ came the answer. ‘What do we care for them southerners? Give us the witch and the Jonah, Bill Barnes, and you and the boy can get out of here.’

  ‘I’m staying right here with Mrs. Purchis and Mrs. Paston,’ said Barnes as the crowd moved a little nearer. ‘One step more, and I fire.’

  There was a long moment of indecision. John Tanner had been obviously disconcerted at being named, and seemed to have abandoned his position as leader., Mercy was actually beginning to hope that the worst was over when there was a little stir, a kind of whirlpool among the crowd, and then a missile, savagely hurled, hit Barnes on the side of his head, and he collapsed, silently, into the snow.

  ‘Brutes!’ Mercy was down the steps in an instant, bending over Barnes, picking up the rifle, standing to face them as they came a slow step forward through the inhibiting snow. ‘I am Mercy Purchis.’ Her voice rang out clear across the snow, and she blessed Mr. Garrick for his teaching, all those years ago in London. ‘Wife of a privateer captain. Cousin of Mrs. Paston, whose son was killed at Lexington. I ask you the same thing Mr. Barnes did: What are you doing here? And what madness is this to attack your friend Bill Barnes?’ Did she dare bend to see how badly he was hurt, whether he was suffocating in the snow? No, she knew she must not. She stood there, quiet, facing them, waiting, aware of Jed behind her on the porch, rifle at the ready, breathing hard.

  ‘We’ve come to see you out of town. You and the witch inside there.’ The man Barnes had called John Tanner had resumed the lead now that Barnes was out of it, unable to bear witness against him. He took a step forward towards Mercy, and the silent crowd moved behind him. Straining her eyes, she could see weapons in their hands, but no glint of metal in the moonlight. So – sticks, not guns? Very likely, to attack three women and a boy.

  ‘One step more and we fire.’ As Mercy swung the rifle up, she tried desperately to decide whether to fire over or into the crowd. They were so close … Either way might mean disaster. And besides, to risk killing a man. Horrible. But so was what they meant to do. ‘There’s a sick girl in there,’ she said as they still hesitated. ‘And her mother, Mark Paston’s mother, dying. As for me, I’ve done my share of fighting for the Revolution. Don’t think I won’t fire to kill if you make me.’ She had made up her mind and meant this as advice to Jed, too. If they still came on, there would be no time for firing over their heads. ‘Friends, go home,’ she said. ‘Forget this madness ever happened.’ With a quick breath of relief she felt Barnes stirring at her feet. ‘We’ll look after Bill Barnes.’

  A mistake? Perhaps. It might have reminded John Tanner of the extent to which he had already compromised himself. He gave a scornful laugh. ‘Parcel of women and a boy.’ He flourished the stick he carried. ‘Shoot at us; you’ll miss, and we’ll be …’ – an expressive pause – ‘harder on you. Otherwise, we’ll just see you on your way, nice and easy, and no hard feelings.’

  ‘On a rail?’ Mercy had seen that some of the men at the back of the crowd were heavily loaded, no doubt with the pieces of fence on which she and Ruth were to be ridden out of town. She held the rifle very steady. She would aim for Tanner’s shoulder and hoped Jed had had the wits to pick a different target.

  ‘Lucky not to be burned! Come on, boys. Let’s get the witch and the Jonah! Tarring and feathering’s too good for them!’

  As he stepped forward, their two shots rang out almost in unison, and he paused, staggered, and then collapsed slowly into the snow. And behind him another man, who had been a little ahead of the rest, fell too. Reaching into her pocket for a bullet, Mercy blessed Jed for his quick, wise decision.

  For a moment the crowd was hushed, uncertain, shocked by the fall of its leaders. She took advantage of it. ‘Friends,’ she said, ‘you see now that we mean business. Go home, I tell you, take your wounded with you.’ Pray God the two men were not dead. She heard the click as Jed reloaded. ‘My friend is ready to fire again,’ she told the now wavering crowd. ‘One more of you will suffer if you come on.’ As she talked, she had been working swiftly to reload, by touch alone, as Hart had taught her, long ago, in Savannah. ‘Two,’ she said as the bullet fell into place and she raised the rifle. ‘And this time, I warn you, we shoot to kill.’ And as she said it, she saw with sharp relief that John Tanner was beginning to flounder about in the snow. ‘Mr. Tanner needs help.’ She made her voice carry above the murmuring of the crowd. ‘Take him, my deluded friends, and go in peace.’

  The reminder that she knew Tanner’s name did it. She watched breathlessly as the crowd changed, became purposeful once more, gathered round the two dark figures on the snow, loaded them onto the pieces of fence that had been brought for a more sinister purpose, and began to shuffle away into the bushes. Only, as they went, one dark figure stepped forward, shook a fist, shouted, ‘We’ll be back.’

  As he in turn vanished into the bushes, Mercy bent anxiously over Bill Barnes lifted his head, and began desperately brushing snow from his nostrils. He was breathing, and she thanked God for it.

  ‘How is he, ma’am?’ Jed was beside her, bending, listening as anxiously as she did.

  ‘Alive, thank God. Help me get him indoors, Jed. That was good shooting of yours.’

  ‘And yours.’ He lifted Barnes’s shoulders, Mercy took his feet, and they managed to struggle up the steps and into the house. Pausing there, wondering where to put him, Mercy felt him stiffen, come alive under her hands.

  ‘He’s coming round.’ Jed had felt it too, and between them they managed to steady Barnes on his feet and hold him there, swaying.

/>   ‘Knocked me out,’ he said. ‘The dirty bastards. John Tanner …’ and then a string of oaths that surprised even Mercy, hardened by life on the Georgia. ‘What happened?’ he asked at last. ‘Ma’am, did they hurt you?’

  ‘No, but I’m afraid Jed and I wounded two of them. Come into the kitchen, Bill, and let me look at what they did to you. Light the candles, Jed,’ she said as they eased Barnes into a chair near the fire. ‘And put some water on to heat. Ah.’ She had pulled the knitted cap off Barnes’s head and felt the wound, a great swelling on the side of his face, just on the hairline. ‘You’ve the luck of an angel, Bill,’ she said. ‘Two inches only, and it would have been the temple, and you’d be dead.’

  ‘I’m glad I’m not. But what happened?’

  She told him quickly, wringing out a cloth in cold water as she talked, and pressing it againt the swelling.

  ‘You shot one each,’ he said at last, impressed.

  ‘I’m afraid so. The two leaders. Tanner and someone else. That was quick thinking of yours, Jed. What did you aim for?’

  ‘The shoulder.’

  ‘So did I. I do hope they both survive.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Barnes grimly. ‘I wish I knew who it was said they’d be back. Oh, my good lord, what now?’ Ruth’s terrible scream had momentarily silenced them all.

  ‘I hoped they’d slept through it.’ Mercy hurried, candle in hand, into the other room and saw Ruth lying across the cot. ‘Mother! Mother!’ She raised distracted eyes to Mercy. ‘She won’t answer.’

  ‘She’s dead,’ said Mercy after a quick look. ‘She’s at peace, Ruth. Nothing will hurt her anymore. She’s with the cherubim and seraphim, casting down their golden crowns …’ How did it go on? She could not remember. ‘And I’m here to take care of you, Ruth.’ She took the girl’s cold hand. ‘We’re sisters, remember. Your mother made us sisters.’

  ‘Sister Mercy?’ Ruth stopped crying and looked up at her.

  ‘Yes.’ Mercy reached a hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘And now you must come and sit by the fire and have something hot to drink.’

  ‘Well, that settles it,’ said Bill Barnes half an hour later. ‘We leave here in the morning, and I can’t say I’m not relieved. You’ll have to go back south now, ma’am,’ he said to Mercy. ‘You do see that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t know how I’m going to manage, and that’s the truth. Two of us … all that way.’

  ‘Three,’ said Jed.

  III

  The two captains faced each other on the bloodstained deck of the British frigate. ‘No, no, keep your sword,’ said the Englishman. ‘You made a gallant fight of it. But what madness made you take us on? You could have given us the slip, easy enough, when we first sighted you.’

  ‘Yes.’ Hart Purchis had to agree. It had been madness indeed. But how could he explain that his disaffected crew had not summoned him on deck when the strange sail was first sighted; that when he had finally been told, it would have looked like sheer cowardice to have run for it?

  ‘Heroic madness,’ said the English captain. ‘Your men fought like tigers.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hart again. It was the only good thing about this disastrous day. If his selfish decision to stand and fight rather than risk the taint of cowardice had meant the destruction of the Georgia and the deaths of half her crew, it seemed to have given back their pride to the survivors after the long disappointment of their unsuccessful winter’s cruise.

  Shocked silent, thought the English captain, and no wonder. ‘Come down to my cabin, and let me give you a glass of wine,’ he said. ‘Your wounded will be seen to along with mine, I promise you, Captain—’ He paused.

  ‘Purchis,’ said Hart.

  ‘But that’s my name! Where are you from, Captain Purchas?’

  ‘Savannah.’ Hart noticed that the English captain had mispronounced his name, but he still seemed incapable of answering with more than a single word.

  ‘Hence the Georgia, gallant little ship. But before that? In England?’

  ‘Sussex.’ Belowdecks now, Hart looked round the English captain’s luxurious cabin, which seemed to have been hardly touched by the little Georgia’s gunfire. Already pig-tailed British sailors were busy restoring it to order.

  ‘Leave it for now,’ said the English captain. ‘And send me my man with wine.’ He threw his cocked hat on a chair and took off his heavy uniform jacket, making Hart more acutely aware than ever of his own shabby, almost civilian appearance.

  ‘My letters of marque.’ He handed over the papers as another sailor bustled in with a tray and glasses.

  ‘That’s good.’ The Englishman looked them over quickly. ‘I’d hate to have to hang a cousin as a pirate. Dated from Charleston, I see, not Savannah.’

  ‘Yes. I commissioned the Georgia there after the fall of Savannah.’

  ‘Quite so. A glass of claret, Captain Purchas?’

  ‘Purchis,’ said Hart. ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘With an i?’ He poured the wine. ‘Then you’re from the other branch of the family. They used to have a big house at Winchelsea. That’s in Sussex. I remember now, something my father told me. One of them went to the colonies with General Oglethorpe. Your father?’

  ‘Yes. But I never knew him. He was killed in the French and Indian War.’ Hart was relaxing a little now, sipping his wine, in a kind of limbo between the desperate hours of battle and the unknown, unpromising future. Somewhere above them, on deck, a man screamed, then was silent.

  ‘They’re still getting the wounded belowdecks,’ said Captain Purchas. ‘I’ve a good surgeon. He’ll do his best for them. Both yours and mine.’

  ‘And then?’ Hart took another sip of wine and made himself begin to look forward.

  ‘It’s a devil of a war, this, and none of my seeking,’ the Englishman answered obliquely. ‘My party, the Whigs, have been against it from the start. Criminal folly. Fighting our own kin over some stupid taxes that should never have been levied. As if we hadn’t enough natural enemies. Well, look at us now, with the French and Spanish joined against us, and the Dutch looking uncommon unfriendly. But that’s not to say I’m not fighting you Americans with everything I’ve got. That’s my job, and I’m doing it.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ said Hart. ‘I saw. But the men. My men. What will you do with them?’

  ‘I shall do my best to persuade them to change their coats and enlist with me, I’ve not seen England for years. I’m shorthanded, of course. I could use some good men like yours. I hope I can persuade them. Otherwise, it will mean a long spell of prison for them. I’m on my way home, you see. With despatches.’ He had purposely delayed the announcement until his prisoner had drunk half his wine and began to look a little more relaxed.

  ‘To England?’ Hart kept his voice steady with an effort. Idiotic to have assumed that Captain Purchas was operating from New York, where an exchange would be comparatively easy to arrange, at least for himself. As for the men, if they had not put up such a good fight, he would almost have wondered whether at least some of them had not hoped for capture and a chance to change sides. What other explanation could there be for that failure to rouse him at first sight of the enemy?

  ‘Yes. With all possible speed. I’d not have chased you if you’d run for it. Good news for me, bad for you and your men, I’m afraid, but I hope I can manage better for you, Cousin. My family may be Whigs, in opposition, but we’ve friends in high places just the same. No need for you to languish in gaol, I think. But time enough to think of that when we are there. In the meantime, is there any one you would like to write to in case we should speak a ship bound for New York before we leave American waters?’

  Thank you. Yes. My mother. My wife.’

  ‘You’re never married!’ He had been thinking this newfound cousin of his young to be a captain, despite the hint of white in his untidy fair hair.

  ‘Last autumn.’ It was March now, nearly three months since that swift, sad partin
g from Mercy and no possible chance of hearing from her. But she would be safe with the Pastons. Of course she would. If he had left her at Philadelphia, as she had asked, everything would have been different; none of this would have happened. No use thinking of that now. But he must remember it when he felt himself tempted to blame her for his crew’s disaffection. ‘My wife’s staying with relatives of ours near Boston,’ he said. ‘I’d very much like to get word to her and to my mother in Savannah.’

  ‘Write to them both, of course.’ Captain Purchas poured more wine. ‘But I’m afraid your wife is more likely to learn the news from the public prints. Your mother in Savannah is another matter since we hold the town. I know Sir James Wright, the British Governor of Georgia, slightly. If we do speak a ship, I’ll enclose your letter to your mother under cover to him.’

  ‘He’s an old friend of ours,’ said Hart.

  ‘There you are. I told you it was a ridiculous war. I devoutly hope we’ll get home to find that negotiations for peace are under way. In the meantime, Cousin Purchis, you must consider yourself my guest while you are on board the Sparrow. Have I your word that you’ll not try to escape or meddle with the men?’

  Hart paused for a moment, looking round the luxurious cabin, remembering the sheer size of the Sparrow. Thought of escape was idiotic, and as for his crew … ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Sensible.’ Purchas breathed a sigh of relief and shouted an order to the marine on duty outside the cabin door. ‘You’ll be glad to get to your cabin. Paper and pen will be brought to you directly. If we sight a ship at all, it’s most likely to be in the next day or so.’

  ‘Thank you. You’ll let me have a copy of the list of survivors?’

  ‘Of course. And you’ll want to visit your sick. But later, if you please, when the surgeon has had time to go the rounds.’ He held out his hand. ‘I hope you will be as happy as is possible on board the Sparrow, Cousin.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He could not quite bring himself to call this friendly stranger cousin.