Читать книгу The Incredible William Bowles - Joseph J. Millard - Страница 8

Chapter 5

The weeks sped by with Will busier than he had ever been before in his life. He ran errands, waited on customers, folded endless packets of powders, pounded up bushels of roots and herbs with mortar and pestle. He washed and filled bottles, measured ingredients for Pryne. As his skill and knowledge grew, he was permitted to mix simple remedies and blend salves. Before winter set in, he made several excursions to the country to collect roots, leaves, bark, and berries to be compounded into medicines.

Will’s bed in the back room was comfortable and always warm, since Pryne kept the Franklin stove burning all night to keep his stock of medicines from freezing. In the meantime, Will was learning a great deal indirectly about his employer and benefactor.

A great many of Pryne’s best customers were highly placed patriots. Several were officers in one or another of the Pennsylvania militia regiments. Clearly, none of them had the faintest idea of the apothecary’s private sentiments. If the subject of politics was brought up, he was always so vague and noncommittal that no one could suspect him of bias toward either cause.

But seldom a night passed that Will was not awakened in the small hours by the creaking of the front stairs as mysterious callers crept up and down from Pryne’s quarters. Often he counted as many as twelve visitors who remained until the crack of dawn, talking in barely audible murmurs. There was no doubt in his mind that Samuel Pryne was a key figure in an underground loyalist activity of some kind.

The thought made his spine tingle with excitement. He longed to have some part in whatever was going on, but he was reluctant to broach the subject and Pryne studiously avoided any mention of his nocturnal callers. Clearly he had no intention of involving Will in an enterprise which, he had hinted, was so hazardous that exposure could mean the gallows.

Occasionally, Pryne picked up scraps of news from Frederick County. The Liberty Boys were still waging their campaign of terror against loyalists, but from all accounts Will’s father had not been a victim. It was a sickening shock, however, to hear that of the seven neighbors arrested for high treason, two had been hanged and the others shipped off to prison.

Will had longed to write a letter to his parents, letting them know he was well and safe. Pryne flatly forbade it. “The risk is too great, Will. Strangers or anyone contacting one of the known loyalists is bound to be stopped and searched. In the wrong hands, such a letter could bring endless trouble to all concerned.”

Meanwhile, the onslaught of winter was so remarkably delayed that the war had time to flare up into a new phase. It was one that disheartened the patriots as greatly as it cheered the Tories, or loyalists, as they preferred to be called.

In late November the forces of the British General, Sir William Howe, suddenly crossed the Hudson River from New York. Gobbling up the American forts and magazines, they swept down through New Jersey, driving Washington’s disintegrating army before them. At Newark, two thousand of his militia troops walked out and went home because their ninety-day enlistment term was up. Their cowardly departure left Washington with barely three thousand poorly trained and ill-equipped men between Howe’s victorious forces and Philadelphia.

In the city a mounting panic swept the ranks of the patriots. This was heightened by the swelling tide of sick and wounded Continentals coming in to jam the Pennsylvania Hospital and die like flies.

By December 8 Washington had been pushed back across the Delaware River and the British were occupying Trenton, only thirty-two miles from the capital. The news turned the panic into hysteria. Day and night the streets echoed to the rumble of carts and wagons as terrified patriots loaded up their families and possessions and fled to the south or west.

From the shop window Will watched the exodus with unconcealed delight, gleefully identifying some of the most rabid persecutors of loyalists among the fugitives. When the Continental Congress abruptly adjourned and fled to Baltimore, he could barely contain himself. His eyes danced with joy.

“It’s all over now,” he told Pryne exultantly. “By the week’s end our troops will occupy the capital here and the madness will be at an end. The rebels will come crawling in, as meek as kittens, all vowing they never had a disloyal thought in their lives.”

To his amazement, Pryne refused to share his optimism. “It will be time enough to hoist your victory flag when the enemy has finally surrendered, Will, and that may not be for a long and bloody time. Until you see George Washington carted up High Street without his sword, this rebellion is far from ended.”

“How can you say that?” Will cried. “Washington has met nothing but defeat after defeat. That rabble he calls an army is deserting him in droves. Just look out the window. There go the brave rebels, fleeing like rabbits, with their congress leading the race. Look what happened when General Howe issued his proclamation, offering a full pardon to every rebel who’d come in and sign the oath of allegiance to King George. The brave patriots are pouring into Trenton by the thousands to take his mercy. It is said even some of Washington’s men have slipped in to sign.”

“All true, Will,” Pryne said, “and all pointless. Never underestimate General Washington. Howe did it repeatedly and it has cost him dearly. And don’t confuse a reverse in the field with a defeat, boy. Washington will never be defeated as long as he continues to slip his army out of Howe’s grasp and come back to fight again the next day. As to those desertions you put such store by, they’ve helped him by trimming the deadwood away. He is left with a hard core of fanatically loyal men. Give him one victory and you’ll see a new and stronger army grow up around that core overnight.”

“He can’t go on fighting with his capital in our hands and his supporters in hiding.”

“Don’t confuse terms, Will. Howe can’t occupy the rebel capital. He can only occupy the place where the capital was, and that’s an empty victory at best. The capital is where the congress meets, and on the twentieth that will be Baltimore. And supporters in hiding can still be supporters, and a force to reckon with.”

Will had to concede the logic of Pryne’s arguments, but he remained stubbornly unconvinced. His spirits continued to be high, buoyed by the prospect of an early end to the rebellion. His optimism was shared by hundreds of loyalists who came out of hiding to strut and crow and openly flaunt copies of the notorious loyalist newspaper, Rivington’s Gazette.

Christmas was spent quietly in chatting with Pryne or in reading one of his books. Will was in the back room the following afternoon, compounding a prescription, when he heard a great tumult of yelling and banging of guns in the street. He ran out to see High Street filled with men, women, and children, whooping, cheering, and capering, oblivious to the bitter cold and a freezing rain that was turning to snow.

“What happened?” Will bawled. “What’s the excitement?”

“Victory!” a dozen voices howled back. “Ain’t ye heard? General Washington slipped across the Delaware in the storm and took the Hessians by surprise. We killed or captured nigh to five hundred and sent the rest flying. Only four of ours was wounded and not a one killed.”

Will turned and stumbled blindly back into the shop. Samuel Pryne, who had heard the news from the doorway, looked at his drawn face and refrained from saying, “I told you so.”

The next few days more than verified Pryne’s predictions. The victory brought new spirit to the patriots, and volunteers flocked to Washington’s side. In swift succession he occupied Trenton, eluded Cornwallis with eight thousand British regulars, scattered another crack force, and captured Princeton. In that brief, bloody fight, the British lost three hundred men killed, wounded, or captured to the Americans’ forty. Howe fell back sullenly on New York, and the winter burst in full fury, to end military operations until spring.

“Now,” Pryne said, “we can tighten our belts and settle down for a long and bitter war.”

“It looks that way,” Will admitted glumly.