Читать книгу Philip Nolan - Chuck Pfarrer - Страница 12
ОглавлениеNOLAN COULD NOT SLEEP, AND SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT THE WOUND in his chest burst open. Kosinski was summoned and administered a blue pill and a vile-tasting draught. When that failed to calm the patient, a healthy bleed and a strong dose of laudanum appeared to address the pain. But these remedies made the other, less physical, complaints very much worse. Through the night Nolan remained agitated and restless. Near dawn Nolan succumbed to a short scrap of sleep, but woke, instantly lucid, as the sun came up.
“You are not a theatrical man,” Kosinski said. “And I, too, try to avoid melodrama. You are not well enough, my friend, to endure any further emotional shocks. If you do not rest, you will come upon a dangerous, perhaps even lethal, pneumonia. I recommend to you a stout breakfast—perhaps burgoo, bacon, toast, and even a moderate dram of coffee—to stimulate the humors and give you energy for what may prove a trying day.”
“I have had a bellyful of nonsense.” Nolan winced. “I need this to be over.” He sat up in bed and was bound tightly in clean bandage. Kosinski carefully placed Nolan’s left arm into a sling and he was carried like a parcel from the hotel to the armory. The short trip was made in the early morning, for reasons of safety and public order. As word of Burr’s acquittal filtered through the city, it had produced a spectrum of opinion. The prosecution had been singularly important to the party of President Jefferson, and the verdict of “not proven” had dismayed the Washington City establishment greatly. Unexpectedly, some of Richmond’s bluebloods took a discreet pleasure in Thomas Jefferson’s setback. Although the president was one of their own, Jefferson was not held in universally positive regard. Landowners found the president a reliable supporter of their “peculiar institution” of slavery (Monticello was, for all its glamor, a working plantation), but Richmond’s elite considered Jefferson’s enthusiasm for democracy a bit overdone. Not that planters or money men would have done Nolan any violence; it was President Jefferson’s partisans on the more incandescent end of the spectrum—the laborers, mechanics, and shopkeepers—who were appalled that Burr had slipped the noose. To these citizens, Burr’s plan to split off the western territory was an unforgivable sin; they saw the lands beyond the Mississippi as their patrimony and the legacy of the Republic. Their fury was aggravated by testimony that Burr had conducted a secret correspondence with Lord Merry, the British ambassador at Washington, begging for the Royal Navy to help him subdue New Orleans. This scrap of evidence burned like a spark; repeated in public houses, amplified by alarm and indignation, by the morning of the court-martial a rumor circulated that even now Burr was planning to lead a British squadron into the Chesapeake to bombard Norfolk.
By the time Nolan was carried into the armory, two or three hundred persons had gathered around the building, and a company of dragoons stood guard. The crowd outside hovered and grumbled, but inside the armory the deliberate course of the proceedings anesthetized all but the most passionate.
The three chairs of the court were arrayed behind a heavy, book-covered table. Behind them, draped in bunting, was a portrait of General Washington. In front of the judges’ bench were two desks and chairs for the defense and prosecution, right and left; immediately behind them were a pair of sawhorses, also draped in flags. These patriotic barriers separated the gallery from the court proper. Some fifty citizens and officers had been admitted as spectators; they had divided themselves as does a crowd at a wedding, sorted on this occasion not by relation but by sympathy for prosecution or defense. There were noticeably fewer civilians on the left side of the room, and there was not a single officer seated behind the desk at which Nolan and Fitzgerald waited. All of the long morning was spent in preamble, and the early afternoon in grinding formality. Nolan slumped in his chair, alternately bored, harried, and agitated.
His hopes had risen when old Colonel Morgan, who presided, said that the charges of misappropriation and mutinous utterance had been dropped. Nolan’s heart sank just as quickly when Morgan pronounced that the court would consider the circumstances surrounding the death of Colonel Bell and render judgment on a charge of willful desertion.
A few minutes after one, Alden and Lorina entered through a door in the left-hand wall near the barrier. They found chairs two rows behind the defense table, and as they sat Lorina looked at Nolan. He was in physical pain, and a scowl lined his mouth; she had never seen him so dejected and resentful. For the rest of the morning Nolan sat with his back turned, frowning at the judges.
The prosecution put forward its arguments, and as Fitzgerald had predicted, they did their best to portray Nolan as a conspirator as vile as Burr himself. Some of it was bombastic stuff. The prosecutor, Major Teague, eventually realized that he was spinning a grand tale around a central character who was, after all, only a lieutenant of artillery. He quickly reverted to fact and summed his case: Nolan was assigned to Fort Massac and had been arrested seven hundred miles away on the Sabine River. Nolan had neither permission to travel nor lawful military business there: eo ipso, he was a deserter.
Fitzgerald had intended to call Major Giloughly, Nolan’s commander at Fort Massac, to testify that Nolan had verbal permission to leave his post. These hopes collapsed when it was announced from the bench that Giloughly himself had pled guilty to conspiracy at Nacogdoches in the Mississippi Territory.
Nolan was furious; in a choked, bitter voice he blurted out: “Then I shall be happy to wait upon the major’s arrival. I was given leave, and he can confirm it!”
The gavel banged and Colonel Morgan glowered. “Mister Fitzgerald, does the defendant wish to take the stand?”
Wendell stood, pressing his hand down on Nolan’s shoulder. “No, sir, he does not.” As he returned to his seat, Fitzgerald hissed to Nolan, “Hold your tongue, Philip.”
Had Nolan taken an oath to testify he would have opened himself to Major Teague’s cross-examination. It would not take much dexterity to lead Nolan to admit the damning fact that he had volunteered to carry a ciphered letter for Burr. Close questioning would also confirm that Nolan had publicly stated that he was proud to have joined the expedition. None of these facts would accrue to his favor; nor could Fitzgerald trust his friend to remain even-tempered under questioning. It was certain that nothing further in the way of outbursts would be tolerated.
Fitzgerald arranged some papers on his desk and stood. “If it pleases the court, a written deposition has been prepared regarding the circumstances of Lieutenant Nolan’s interview with Colonel Bell.” Fitzgerald walked forward and placed the document in front of Colonel Morgan. “With your permission, the affidavit is submitted in lieu of testimony.”
“Any objections, Major Teague?”
The major glanced at Fitzgerald and shook his head. Teague, long ago as a corporal, had served as a color bearer at Camden and survived honorably. He was no admirer of Colonel Bell. “We have no objections, sir,” he said.
The gavel banged again, the provost marshal intoned, “All rise,” and the court adjourned to consider the evidence.
As they sat at the table Fitzgerald drummed his fingers. “You are not doing yourself any favors, Philip.”
“I expect none.”
“It doesn’t help to be petulant. You are not a child.”
No man is quick to think himself a pawn or an expendable thing; it is even harder for a common person to understand the schemes of men who intend to make history. Nolan had no appreciation of politics, and understood even less the manners of great men. His own relations had been governed by scrupulous, even credulous, honesty, but he understood now that he had been used, and that he stood on the brink of being made a scapegoat for it. Burr’s acquittal and Wilkinson’s perjury had made Nolan sure that his own charges would be dismissed. Even as the case against Burr collapsed, the prosecution remained dogged; failing to convict the prime movers, Jefferson’s adherents were determined to make an example of whomever they could. At first, Nolan could not comprehend that futures were to be made by bringing the president as many convictions as possible. Could that be true?
Until this moment, patriotism had brought into Nolan’s life a sense of belonging and confidence. Now, as that devotion crumbled, he saw how precariously he had trusted and how unrequited was his loyalty. Had Nolan possessed some other anchor besides love of country, some other faith or belief in a greater purpose, he might not have been so resentful. But he did not believe in anything greater than his duty, and since his days as a cadet he had believed that the obligation he felt for his nation had somehow been reciprocated. Nolan adored his country as Burr never had; Nolan’s love had been unquestioning, and now it was turning into an equally irrational and unreasoning disgust. Believing he had been wronged, Nolan recoiled with heartbroken anguish.
Nolan stared at the flags gathered behind the bench; the colors had once been living things to him, totems of duty and even glory. Now it was as though the meaning had been wrung from them—water from a dishrag. It was excruciating and humiliating for him to sit before the emblems of his country and be made to feel that he was alien to them and somehow unworthy of their mercy. The tremendous consequence of this emotion blossomed in him like a poisonous flower.
The wound in his chest was suddenly an agony and with every breath Nolan could feel the bandage growing wet under his shirt. His fists clenched, his heart throbbed, and the room swam before his eyes. Exhausted and in great pain, Nolan’s thoughts became the empty shadows of his feelings, roiling and black. No outward sign did he show; he did not shed tears or curse, but it was there, in an armory made into a place of judgment, that Philip Nolan failed as a man. Pouting at the defendant’s table, awaiting verdict, Nolan’s virtues were eclipsed by bitterness and self-pity.
A lieutenant of dragoons entered the court and bid all to rise. Fitzgerald helped Nolan to his feet and the judges entered. As they took their places, news that the verdict was at hand passed through the town. Shadows loomed into the courtroom as people took places to gawk through the long windows.
Fitzgerald whispered, “Please friend, if you are asked to speak, contain yourself.”
Nolan’s tongue rattled in his dry mouth. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Do the best you can, Philip.”
Fitzgerald noticed that Nolan was trembling rigidly as he stood. At the bench Colonel Morgan arranged papers in front of him. Nolan could hear voices from the street outside; in one of the close windows, a man held a little boy on his shoulders so he could see.
Colonel Morgan said, “The court has reached an opinion regarding the death of Colonel Randolph Creel Bell of the First Virginia Regiment of Light Infantry.”
Nolan’s face twitched.
“Regarding the death of Colonel Bell, the court finds the defendant no es factum.”
There was a murmur among the gallery. As it subsided, Fitzgerald said quietly, “It’s less than an acquittal—but they hold you not responsible.”
From beyond the windows there were whistles and jeers. Colonel Morgan pretended not to hear, but the catcalls made Nolan clench his jaw.
“Philip Clinton Nolan, this court has considered the evidence and the circumstances surrounding your absence from Fort Massac. The court finds you guilty of the crime of willful desertion from your appointed place of duty.”
Fitzgerald turned at once toward Nolan but could not will him into silence.
“If I am a deserter, then why did I go to the Sabine?” Nolan barked. “Why did I travel in this uniform, and why did I report to the general officer commanding the Louisiana Territory?”
Someone hissed, “Treason!” Another bawled, “Hang him!”
Nolan shouted over them, “Did I skulk like His Excellency Colonel Burr?” Nolan’s fist plucked at the lapel of his uniform. “Or was my crime to remain in a clown’s costume while I rode?”
The crowd began to howl. In the gallery, Alden took Lorina’s hand. Colonel Morgan thundered the gavel onto the bench. “Order! Or I shall clear the courtroom!”
“Will you have no witnesses?” Nolan growled. “Caesar has walked free! And I am left to pay his reckoning!”
“Silence! Mister Fitzgerald, still that man or I will have him gagged!”
Nolan collapsed into his chair, sallow and panting. Trembling with fury, he went numb without and hollow within.
Colonel Morgan’s voice came sternly from the bench. “Lieutenant Nolan, you are convicted under the laws of your country and the service which you have had the honor to serve. Is there anything you wish to say in to this court to show that you have been faithful to the United States of America?”
Nolan choked out the most fateful words of his life: “The United States? Goddamn the United States, sir! I wish that I might never hear the name of the United States again as long as I live!”
The walls echoed his words, and not a soul drew breath.
Lorina sat in stunned, rigid anguish. From the bench, Colonel Morgan fixed Nolan with a baleful glare. Fitzgerald put his hand on Nolan’s shoulder and squeezed. The gesture was intended both to quiet his friend and to conduct away the thunderbolt he was certain would be hurled down from on high.
Morgan at last said quietly: “The prisoner will remain in the courtroom while this court determines sentence.” The judges retreated behind the flags, and everyone stood—all except Nolan.
When the judges closed the door to their chambers, Fitzgerald collapsed into his chair. “You are done now, friend,” he said quietly.
Nolan muttered, “I was done before I ever came here.” He pretended not to notice the crowd outside, but their words were ugly and threatening. “They could not have Burr, so they will catch whomever they can. Damn them for a pack of vexatious political bitches.”
Fitzgerald sat with his hands folded and Nolan took up a pen from the desk. He dipped it and wrote five words on a sheet of paper, folded it, and struggled to his feet. Thinking Nolan might bolt, one of the dragoons stepped forward, a wall of crimson and white. Nolan leaned past him and thrust the paper into Lorina’s hand. She looked at him, her eyes brimming. Her expression would be fixed in Nolan’s memory forever; a mask of shock, pity, and anguish. She took the paper but did not unfold it, and Nolan sat and turned his back to her.
Fifteen minutes passed, each second dragging on like an eternity, until from the front of the room the provost again said, “All rise.”
Nolan remained sprawled in his chair.
“Get up.” Fitzgerald said. “I will not help you tie your own noose.”
Nolan swayed to his feet. The judges had seemed all day to be ancient, somber, and grave; now they appeared to be made of iron. All had served in the Revolutionary War, and each had risked his fortune, as well as his neck, for the very thing Nolan had so wildly damned. The three old colonels projected attachment and shared outrage, sentiments so powerful they pulsed into the room.
Colonel Morgan’s voice could be heard by all. “Prisoner. Hear the sentence of this court. Subject to the approval of the commander in chief, you shall never hear of the United States again.”
Nolan laughed, but no one else did. Lorina lifted her hand to her mouth and stifled a sob.
“Provost Marshal. You will see that the prisoner is taken by armed boat to Norfolk and remanded to the naval commander there. See that no one speaks of the United States while he is in your custody. You will receive written orders before you depart.”
Colonel Morgan’s stern eyes fixed Nolan. “Mister Nolan, may God have mercy on your soul.” He banged the gavel, and the crowd outside exploded in a roar of curses and threats.
The judges retired slowly from the bench, and the haranguing of the crowd became louder. Outrage had accumulated and condensed since the acquittal of Aaron Burr—and now it found vent. Weeks of frustration and apprehension rolled forward as though a sluice had been opened. The mob had been denied Burr, but now they had a convicted accomplice.
Stones sailed through the windows, raining glass and wood shards onto the tables. First one man and then another came across the broken windowsills into the courtroom; a dozen more quickly tumbled after, and the doors in the rear of the chamber burst open. The crowd heaved through the barriers on the prosecutor’s side. There was a shout; the table was turned over and papers were flung into the air. A pair of guards snatched Nolan up and carried him bodily toward the door. There were cries again of “traitor,” and a brick smashed through a transom window.
Nolan saw Fitzgerald push toward Alden and Lorina; his big arms swept them together, his wife in tears and Lorina’s face wrenched with misery. Struggling free of the guard, Nolan reached out. Her fingers closed around his hand, but her expression was a mask of desolation. Her eyes did not meet his; she seemed to be looking past him.
A corporal shoved Nolan back, but when he did not let go of Lorina’s hand a rifle butt flashed up—a glimmer of wood and brass. A peal of darkness crackled between his ears, and Nolan found himself on the floor next to a broken chair. He struggled to his hands and knees, and the rioters surged over him. Shards of glass on the floor laid open his hands, and he was kicked a dozen times before the soldiers lowered their bayonets and the mob tumbled back, scrambling away from the jutting steel.
The blow to his head made him almost deaf. Time slowed and yawned open. Nolan could hear nothing but the grunts of the troopers who lifted him and the crack of broken glass under their boots. The room was filled with slanting shafts of darkness. Nolan caught a last glimpse of Lorina holding tight to Wendell as he hurried her away. He called to her, but she did not turn. Nolan had become a ghost.
The soldiers formed a ring around him, and beyond them was a jostling murk of hateful faces. The officer commanding the guards used the flat of his sword to hack a path to the door. Nolan was dragged toward it; his head lolled, and blood spattered the floor in thick, black drops. Darkness poured into his ears and eyes. He could not draw breath, and neither his arms nor his legs would do their duty. Nolan felt himself falling into a stupefying void, a whirlpool of grief so vast and wild that it drowned the world.
NOLAN WAS KEPT OVERNIGHT IN A CELLAR UNDER THE STATE PENITENTIARY. A gruff barber-surgeon pricked a dozen stitches into his scalp, bound the wounds on his hands, but declined to change the bandages stuck to his chest. The dragoons gathered Nolan’s things from the St. Charles. His saddle, sword, and scabbard were returned to the court, and he was ordered to take the epaulets and buttons from his uniform. His remaining possessions were picked through by the guards. His fob, dividers, and drafting tools went to the quickest; the other troopers cut cards for his leather belts, spoons, shoe buckles, and compass. The few things not taken were tied into a strip of woolen blanket.
At dawn, fife and drum played the Rogue’s March; Nolan was taken up from the cellar and made to walk at the cart’s end toward the river. Manacled hand and foot, carrying his possessions in the scrap of blanket, Nolan could barely stagger. The pain in his chest made it impossible to catch his breath, and blood dripped though his shirt and ran in rivulets down his wrists and hands.
He fell three times on the twelve-block journey to the river. Twice he was prodded to his feet by a soldier’s bayonet. The third time, a black man came out of the whistling, shouting mob and helped him to his feet. The slave carried Nolan’s blanket over his shoulder and led him the last desperate steps to the quay. Nolan kept his head high but dared not look into the crowd; he dreaded seeing Wendell and feared that his heart would break if he caught sight of Lorina or Alden.
Jeered at from shore, Nolan went aboard an armed galley and was rowed down the James River toward Norfolk. Below Richmond, the river became still and the clouds grew increasingly dark. Thunder rumbled in a lowering sky, and during the long, black night Nolan was kept on deck. By the time the sun rose livid above the Elizabeth River, Nolan had been soaked to the skin. As the galley came into Hampton Roads, all of the officers stood watch and Nolan saw the reason for their keen attention to duty.
Norfolk spread to the south, a low, commercial place pricked here and there by steeples. There were dozens of merchant ships in the confluence of the James and Elizabeth Rivers, all of them looking shabby. Conspicuous among them were a whale ship hard aground near Willoughby Spit and a China ship careened by Ragged Island, both forlorn and empty, victims of a British blockade. The officers aboard the galley pointed their telescopes, and as Batten Bay passed to starboard, Nolan could see the three tall masts of the frigate USS Chesapeake. That once proud ship listed to port, her yards gone by the slings and several of her port lids beaten in. Tops and yards strangely out of plumb, the frigate looked like a toy cast aside in some gigantic tantrum. That impression was made sinister by the ochre tailings of blood—human blood that even now daubed her sides.
Just weeks ago, Chesapeake had been preparing to escort a convoy of merchants to the Mediterranean. Not yet out of soundings, just off Cape Henry, Chesapeake was set upon by HMS Leopard. The British frigate ranged alongside, demanding that Chesapeake heave to and submit to a search. The American ship refused; words were shouted back and forth, and the British fired first. In the initial broadside, three of Chesapeake’s crewmen were blown to bits and a score wounded; and most appallingly, Captain Barron had struck his colors. He then allowed the British to board his ship and take into custody four of his sailors who the victors claimed were the king’s subjects.
USS Chesapeake limped back into Hampton Roads, little more than a floating wreck. The incident came very near to sparking a war; it succeeded in blackening the prestige of the American Navy. Emboldened by the timidity of Chesapeake, the British advanced a squadron into the mouth of the bay, moving up from Lynnhaven Inlet and anchoring finally just off the Hampton roadstead. A pathetic line of American gunboats was all that lay between three British ships of the line and the city of Norfolk. Day after day the British stopped and searched arriving ships, removing men they claimed were British citizens. No American vessel dared put to sea. Norfolk was, for all intents and purposes, under blockade. Valuable cargos piled up in warehouses, fortunes were extinguished, and merchantmen swung in endless circles, tide after tide.
Nolan was put aboard a United States schooner fitting out to run the British blockade. The captain received him with cold civility, and while the ship took aboard powder and stores, Nolan was largely ignored. After his long night in the rain, Nolan came down with fever, and as Kosinski had predicted, he eventually was taken by a dangerous pneumonia. Without much sympathy, the surgeon’s mate bled him and made Nolan swallow a strong, stinking brew of sulfur and fenugreek.
Each time a boat came alongside with supplies or men, Nolan expected letters. None came, nor would they ever come. Confined to his hammock, unable to lift his head, he stared through the gun ports at the beaches and wharves, looking for the familiar shape of Fitzgerald on horseback or Lorina or Alden in a carriage. He would never see them.
Working double tides, the schooner completed her stores and then took on powder and shot. As all was made ready for sea, a last boat pulled off from Norfolk, bringing the diplomatic pouch and a set of papers confirming Nolan’s incarceration.
The original copies have long been lost, and the cover letter, too—perhaps the souvenir of some captain’s clerk. But copies there were, one for the ship’s log and another for the captain’s confidential file. Written out in fair copperplate, a duplicate in a leather envelope would accompany Nolan from ship to ship for the rest of his life. Oddly, Philip Nolan would never actually read the instructions handed down about him, though he would figure them out soon enough. They read, in their entirety:
The Office of the Secretary of the Navy at the City of Washington
To the Master Commandant of the United States Armed Schooner Revenge
Sir—
You will receive the person of one Philip Clinton Nolan, late a lieutenant in the United States Army. You will take the prisoner aboard your ship and prevent his escape. During his confinement he is to be exposed to no violence of any kind, but under no circumstances is he ever to hear of his country or see any information regarding it.
Your instructions are to remain a confidential matter, and the officers and men on board your vessel will take any arrangements acceptable to themselves regarding his society.
Under no circumstances is he ever to hear of his country or to see any information regarding it; and you will especially caution all the officers under your command to take care that in the various indulgences which may be granted, this rule, in which his punishment is involved, shall not be broken.
Before the end of your cruise you will receive orders, which will turn said prisoner into another outbound ship. It is the intention of the government that said prisoner shall never again hear of, or return to, the country that he disowned.
Respectfully,
R. Southard
for the Sec’y of the Navy
Under the signature was a notation in purple ink. It read: “Approved, dispatched, Tho. Jefferson.”
From that moment on, no member of the crew said a word to Nolan, and a silent Marine stood guard over him, watch upon watch. On a moonless night, USS Revenge weighed anchor and made her way past the ships in the outer roads. Nolan crawled up the companion ladder and found a place to sit in the forepeak. Revenge showed no lights and ghosted first past Old Point Comfort and Thimble Shoals, then south by east into the mouth of the bay.
With muttered commands, Revenge cleared for action, and the smell of slow match wafted fore and aft. Nolan pulled himself to his feet and gripped the larboard rail next to one of the short, deadly carronades. The crew was tense, determined, all of them infuriated that an American ship should have to skulk out of her own home port like a smuggler. But there was little choice; from Lynnhaven Inlet a British squadron was anchored in a wide crescent: a trio of 74-gun ships of the line—Bellona, Triumph, and Bellisle—and between them the frigate Melamphus and the store ship Cichester, all of them spoiling for a fight.
As Revenge turned by Desert Cove, her gunners kept a grim vigil. Patrolling among the British ships were guard boats with dark lanterns and muffled oars. Every man aboard Revenge knew what would happen should the schooner be seen—the glare of signal rockets and then a merciless series of broadsides delivered point-blank.
But a rainsquall did them a kindness. The schooner slipped though the outer anchorage and close through the Cape Henry Shoals. A thin sliver of moon rose above the trees near Little Creek and was quickly swallowed by cloud. Revenge glided through the shoal waters, dark and silent. In the bow, Nolan listened to the leadsman whisper, “By the mark, three, and a half three,” like an incantation.
The rain fell steadily as they coasted near the mouth of Lynnhaven Inlet, and then past HMS Leopard herself. The frigate towered in the darkness, masts and rigging obscured by blowing cloud, and her bright gun ports open, throwing rectangles of light into the drizzle. From somewhere within, a fiddle tittered away and men could be heard laughing and singing. Aboard Revenge, all hands strained their eyes against the darkness, but the British did not watch as keenly, and the schooner made her way out undetected.
One by one the lights of Norfolk town sank into the black horizon, then the top lights of the British ships. In the blackness, Revenge tacked east-northeast, and finally, long past midnight, the lighthouse on Cape Henry winked out and disappeared like a guttered candle.
This was the last Philip Nolan would ever see of home.
