Liberty: 1784

Chapter 5

Benjamin Franklin stood in the open second-floor window and held his arms wide. He was stark naked and he enjoyed the gentle caress of the early morning the breeze on his pale, flabby body. It was likely one of the last days he’d be able to do this. In a brief while, it would be too bloody cold. In fact, it was chilly this morning, but he would not be deterred.

Franklin sighed at the thought. This would be his second winter at Fort Washington and he wondered how he’d survived this long without the comforts of civilization. He’d lived in London, Paris, and Philadelphia, but never a frontier outpost like Fort Washington or the surrounding villages collectively known as Liberty. He loved good food and wine and there was little of the former and less of the latter. He liked art and theater and there was none of either. Nor did many of the buildings have proper floors. Instead, the floors were dirt.

Franklin loved beautiful women, and some might be attractive, but there were damned few in Liberty who were up to his standards. That and so many of them bathed so rarely that they even smelled worse than the French women he’d flirted with at the court of Louis XVI. At least they’d had the decency to cover their personal stench with perfume, although that sometimes became suffocating.

Still, Franklin understood how fortunate he’d been. When the American Revolution collapsed, he’d been in Paris. A fearful King Louis decided to placate a victorious and vengeful England by turning him over to them to be tried for treason. His execution, like Washington’s, would be all but guaranteed. But Franklin’s friends had smuggled him out of the country and, after a tortuous voyage, followed by hiding in numerous American houses, and several close brushes with the British, he’d found himself in Liberty.

“Mr. Franklin, will you please get dressed,” demanded a female voice.

“Mistress Benton, will you deny an old man one of his few remaining pleasures? Or are you shocked by the sight of a magnificent naked man?”

Sarah grinned at him. “First, sir, I would never deny you your pleasures, but the people in the street below are getting a marvelous view of your distinguished presence, which might just terrify those who’ve never seen such a treasure. Second, I have indeed seen a naked man or two in my life, and, while you are truly magnificent, please note that I am not struck dumb or otherwise shocked.”

Franklin laughed and reluctantly wrapped a robe around him without admitting that he was indeed cold. Sarah Benton had been his secretary for only a few days, and had quickly become his confidante. The fact that she was more than lovely further brightened his days and was making life in the frontier quite tolerable. She was a delectable exception to the general rule that women in the Fort Washington-Liberty area were plain at best. Just as important, she smelled clean.

“You’ve seen a naked man? I’m shocked,” he said wickedly. “I was under the impression that you’d never been married, at least not by clergy.”

“Since when are a marriage ceremony and a clergyman required for love and marriage? There are places in this vast land where the presence of clergy is nonexistent; therefore, young lovers do what young lovers must and consider themselves married in the eyes of man and God. And that is what my poor dead husband Tom and I did.”

“What happened to him?”

“He went off and got himself killed at Brandywine. A friend told me he was hit by a cannonball and died instantly. Part of me says that’s a polite fiction, but I am thankful for the information. So many families heard nothing after their men went off to war. They spend their time waiting. Many will never find out whether their missing husband or son is dead or alive.”

“I am saddened for you. Still, there is a place where people love freely and where there is no clergy? How absolutely wonderful; I think I shall go and live there when I grow older.”

Sarah’s responsibilities to Franklin were simple. She saw to it that he ate properly, dressed, and prepared himself to represent his beloved Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress that met in a large crude hall less than a hundred yards away.

“And what will Congress do today?” she asked.

Franklin snorted derisively. “Dither. You’ve seen them at what they call work. Instead, they dither.”

Sarah had indeed seen Congress at what they called work. At first, she’d been fascinated to see men like John Hancock and others try to make a nation. Then she’d realized they had no idea what to do. With the British gathering themselves to come at them, talk of nation building seemed like an exercise in irrelevancy.

“We must make a constitution for this poor nation,” Franklin said. “If we do that, then we are proclaiming to the world that we are a proper nation with a true entity. Right now, we are nothing more than a bunch of defeated revolutionaries who are on the verge of extinction.”

“A constitution will change all that? Wasn’t the Declaration of Independence enough?”

“No, not at all. The Declaration was magnificent, even though I didn’t write it, but it was only a beginning. But a constitution will show that we have a purpose and laws along with a set of ideals. Thus, even if we should fail, history will recognize that we were far more than a pack of brigands who deserved to be destroyed by England. No, Sarah, even in our deaths we would then say to the world that men deserve to be free.”

“And what about women?” Sarah asked.

Franklin winked, “Only the pretty ones.”

* * *

Winifred Haskill jumped as she heard a sound from outside the cabin. Winifred was always jumping because she was always scared. She was thirteen and hated the fact that her parents had dragged her and the others in their deeply religious community out into a forest filled with wild creatures just so they could be nearer to a God who didn’t seem to like them at all.

Why did she feel that God didn’t like them? Was it because they lived in self-inflicted poverty in a land of wealth? Or was it because their neighbors in Philadelphia had mocked and laughed at them because of their extreme faith which required continuous bible reading, fasting, and hymn singing at all hours of the night and day-practices which had greatly annoyed their neighbors? Perhaps it was everything, she reluctantly concluded. Finally, even the tolerant Quakers had asked them to leave Philadelphia if they would not keep silent.

But why did her father have to locate them in the middle of a dense forest hundreds of miles away from home and who knew how far from other people?

Of course she was scared. The surrounding forest was filled with wild animals, and even wilder red savages who wanted to do unspeakable things to her, things she’d only heard about and didn’t quite understand. Winifred did not try to fool herself. She was just thirteen and skinny as a twig and had stringy brown hair and a bad complexion, but, still, she was a female and was afraid.

In the year they’d been in the forest, they’d at least managed to build cabins and a barn as well as clearing out a field for planting. The cabin was made of rough logs chinked with mud, and did a miserable job of keeping out the weather. Wind, rain, heat, and cold air all took their turns entering through the cracks they didn’t quite know how to fill properly. Even the shack they’d called home back in Philadelphia had been a better place.

And now they had to become farmers in order to survive since hunting could never provide enough food. It was backbreaking work, especially clearing out the stumps of chopped down trees, but she’d gotten used to that. Her mother often said it was God’s Will that they work so hard and were all so thin. Winifred thought they were thin because there still wasn’t much food and that God had very little to do with it. She kept those thoughts to herself lest she be whipped for them as she had in the past for being impertinent.

She heard a sound and jumped fearfully. She jumped again when she heard the sound of yelling. What was happening? Nobody yelled in their community except her father when he was angry. Muskets were fired and there was screaming. Then Winifred began to scream. And scream.

* * *

Burned Man Braxton’s following had shrunk from a high of eighty to around thirty. A half dozen had been killed in raids, and another handful wounded, but they were not the main cause for the shrinkage of his band. A number had departed in disgust and shame at what they were being called on to do.

“I came to fight,” said one as he led ten of his companions away from the camp, “not slaughter helpless women and children.”

Braxton wanted to kill the man, but it would have started a brawl that, while he could win, would mean the deaths of some of those men devoted to him. The hell with what he considered deserters. However reduced, he had a company that was loyal to him and thought nothing of performing the most depraved acts to punish the rebel scum who deserved everything they got. He was more than pleased that Harris and Fenton, two of his deputies from Pendleton, had elected to stay with him. They’d always liked the way he operated.

The defections meant that pretending to be Indians was over with. That little secret was out. Tarleton professed not to care. Just keep killing, he’d instructed them.

Braxton and his men were about fifty miles south and west of Detroit, which, according to Tarleton, meant they were in rebel country. They should, therefore, assume the worst about anyone they met. That pleased Braxton. Anybody they met was going to get their worst.

Harris had been scouting and had reported finding a small settlement a couple of miles to their front. Three houses, a couple of barns, and a stable all indicated an extended group of probably a dozen people. He guessed that at least half would be male and able to fight. He also assumed that they were used to life in the wild and would be as ready as they could be for an attack. Well, Braxton thought, he would be even readier.

Braxton always chose midday for his attacks. At first that surprised his men, but then they understood his logic. Dawn was the traditional time for a surprise assault, which meant dawn was the time when people in hostile territory were watching most intently for danger. By midday, they should feel relatively secure and be going about their chores comforted by the fact that they could at least see clearly, which sometimes led to overconfidence.

Dead of night was out too. Braxton had learned from hard experience how difficult it was to coordinate a group of men and move them silently in the dark. At one settlement they’d made so much noise finding each other that the settlers had been prepared. It hadn’t done the settlers much good, although they’d killed two of Braxton’s men and wounded a third before they’d been overwhelmed. So much for his men being skilled woodsmen and able to move silently as a cat as some of them had bragged. Braxton couldn’t either, but at least he understood his limitations.

Harris returned again and reported that the settlers had one man out in a field and a second man in the woods, probably hunting for squirrels and rabbits. Both were armed. The man in the field was out of sight of the main buildings.

Braxton smiled. With one man hunting, a distant musket shot would not alarm the rebel settlers.

Harris and three men were sent to deal with the farmer in the field, while Fenton and another three stalked the hunter. Fenton reported back within a couple of minutes. The hunter had been so engrossed in stalking a rabbit that they’d crept up behind him and stunned him with a thrown tomahawk and then Fenton hacked him to death with it.

Half an hour later, Harris and his men returned. A fresh and bloody scalp hung from Harris’ belt. “At first we couldn’t get close to him, but then he laid down his rifle and went and squatted in a hollow to take a shit,” Harris laughed. “We rushed him so fast he never had a chance to even pull up his pants.”

Even Braxton found that amusing. He had his men fan out in an arc and move towards the settlement. There was a point in the woods where they could get to about a hundred yards from a barn and one of the buildings. When they were settled and still in the shade of the trees, he paused and looked. Nothing. A child was playing in some dirt and a woman was hanging wash.

Braxton pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew one short burst. Immediately, his men began running towards the houses. They made very little sound and nobody had noticed the whistle which they might have taken for a bird call. Nobody saw them until they were halfway there, and they were in the compound before anybody could respond. The woman hanging wash went down from a rifle butt, and the child gained her voice and ran screaming.

Men and women tumbled from the houses and were cut down by Braxton’s men. Perfect, he thought. He signaled and others of his band entered the barns and the houses. A couple of shots were fired, followed by screams and very soon all was silence.

“Bring me the survivors,” Braxton ordered. Two men, four women, and a pair of small children were all that remained. His men knew what to do. The woman who’d been hit with the musket butt looked stunned and there was blood on her head. The men and the children were taken to a barn where they would be bound and gagged and then have their throats cut without the women knowing it.

He glared at the women. One he noticed was rather young, fourteen at the most. More likely twelve, he thought.

“You want to ever see your menfolk again? Then you do as you’re told, you hear?”

One of the women, the oldest at maybe forty, nodded. “Why are you doing this to us?”

“Because you’re rebels, that’s why.”

“Not true,” she said. “We ain’t nobody’s people. We just want to worship our God in peace. That’s why we came here. We don’t want no part of no war. We are peaceable people of God.”

“No peace here, woman,” Braxton said, “and no God either. Now you’re gonna do as you’re told if you want your men to be alive when we leave here. Strip.”

The women gasped and stared at each other. Braxton snarled. “Either you do it or my men will rip them rags off you right now.”

“Obey him,” the older woman said and made to comply. Within a few moments, the four were naked, including the injured one who had to be helped out of her clothing. The younger one was sobbing and trying to cover herself with her hands. She had small, bud-like breasts and just a wisp of hair between her thighs. Braxton thought she was maybe twelve, and not fourteen as he’d first guessed. It excited him. He liked them young.

Braxton took the young one by her wrist and dragged her into the house and into a bedroom. He heard his men starting to have their way with the older women who began to howl in terror and pain.

He threw the girl on the bed and she punched at him, hitting his still raw face. The sudden pain was intense and nearly stopped him, but he overcame it and struck her hard until she whimpered and lay still. She screamed the first time he took her, but not the second or third. She didn’t scream again until he turned her over to his men. Not all of them took her. A few complained that she was too skinny or still a kid. He thought she was likely dead when she and the other women were piled on top of the bodies of the men and children in the barn, which was then burned. He didn’t care.

As they took off with their plunder, Braxton was satisfied. He’d wiped out another nest of rebels at a cost of two men slightly wounded. He hoped Tarleton would be pleased. Tarleton frightened him.

* * *

Will and Sarah walked arm in arm through the muddy streets of Fort Washington. There was a chill in the air, and a light snow had fallen early that morning. Nothing had stuck, but it was an unsubtle reminder that winter was almost upon them. Sarah wondered if would be appropriate or just too shocking to wear men’s trousers when the weather worsened. She had arrived with little in the way of feminine clothes and there wasn’t much available in a town that was basically a military post. She would have to ask Abigail Adams. Franklin, she was certain, wouldn’t care at all. She knew he would smile like a cherub and say she could work naked if she so liked.

“What are you going to do now,” Sarah asked Will. She knew from his already familiar actions, that something was up.

“I guess you can keep a secret,” he said with a grin. “Not that there’s any British around you’d blab to, but I’m going east. We’re going to keep people on watch at Detroit and Pitt and it’s my turn to go to Detroit. I’ll check things out for a while, be replaced, and return.”

“What do you expect to find?”

“A British army that’s growing bigger and stronger each day.”

She shuddered and not from the cold. “Then they will come for us and finally destroy us, won’t they?”

“Not if I can help it,” he said and quickly realized how foolish it sounded. How could he, one man, stop a British army? Thankfully, Sarah seemed not to have noticed it.

Sarah changed the subject. “Mr. Franklin is a great man.”

“So I’ve heard. However, isn’t he getting just a wee bit old?”

She laughed. The great man was maddeningly and intentionally imprecise as to his age. It was presumed that he was at least in his middle seventies and possibly older.

“In some ways, he is old. He tires easily and it frustrates him because there’s so much that he wants to do and feels needs to be done. In other ways, he’s a child filled with wonder at the world around him, and, in still other ways, he is a genius. Have you heard his latest?”

“No.”

“Well, after spending all his days trying to get the fools in Congress to institutionalize a form of government, he has devised a new way of making guns.”

“He what?”

“Indeed,” she said with some pride. She had become deeply fond of the old man. “It occurred to him that guns are made by gunsmiths, but that we have very few of them here at Fort Washington. Therefore, he said we had to make them without gunsmiths.”

“Sounds logical,” Will said. She was leaning against him and he could feel the pressure of her breast against his arm. Perhaps if he kept her talking they could walk forever.

“And logical it is, Will. He decided that we-I mean, the army-should only make simple weapons and that we should make them by making a large number of barrels, then make stocks and then triggers. If they were made simply enough, they should all fit together and we could make a large number of weapons very quickly.”

Will found the concept intriguing and said so. “But what sort of weapons are they?”

“He’s toyed with several types. But right now he’s working on one that almost looks like an old blunderbuss. They have broad barrels into which powder is poured, and then followed by whatever is going to be fired-lead bullets, glass, stones. He thinks the effect will be devastating at short range. Franklin’s going to have them demonstrated later.”

“I would like to see that,” Will said, and made a mental note to find out more from Tallmadge.

* * *

Major James Fitzroy was surprised and delighted when Hannah Doorn informed him that she and a woman servant were coming with him to Detroit, or at least with the army. He was unused to women making pronouncements concerning his life, but he accepted without hesitation. He was genuinely fond of her, and her presence would more than brighten up what promised to be a dismal winter in a miserable location-Fort Detroit. His planned trip to find Tarleton had been cancelled when information was received that Tarleton had gone to Detroit, instead of staying at Pitt.

Hannah also reminded him that she had business interests in Detroit, which would more than pay for any inconvenience he might feel about having to support a poor woman. She was, thank you, more than able to support herself. He’d long since concluded that Hannah Doorn was a very clever woman. She’d gotten around those laws that restricted ownership of property by women by using a cousin as a front for a small percentage. Or she simply ignored them. He’d concluded that much of the property she owned was still in her late husband’s name and no one cared.

“Damned if it isn’t strange,” he’d told Danforth over brandies, “but the Dutchie women seem to be at least as smart about business as the men are. Must be the air here in the colonies.”

Danforth pretended to shudder. “Thank God it’s different in England where women know their place, which is either in bed with their legs spread or in the kitchen with their legs together.”

Fitzroy was more than surprised to find that Hannah was in a partnership with a Jewish merchant who had a store in Detroit.

“After all,” he’d told her, “don’t they delight in cheating Christians?”

“I’ve known Abraham Goldman and his family since I was a little girl and he had a similar arrangement with both my father and my husband. I don’t think he would cheat me. Each year, I receive an amount of money as my share of the venture we own jointly.”

“I see,” Major Fitzroy had said, not certain he saw anything at all.

“And they don’t eat Christian babies either,” she’d laughed, and he happily admitted he really didn’t think they ever did.

They traveled by wagon from Albany north and then west to Oswego, a decrepit and nearly abandoned site on Lake Ontario that was being rejuvenated by the British for the coming campaign. Burgoyne commented without apparent bitterness, that the direction they were taking took him away from the site of his defeats in 1777, at Saratoga. It was, he informed all, a part of his life that should remain closed except for the obvious lessons to be drawn from it.

Burgoyne also found Hannah Doorn quite attractive and made tentative efforts to influence her and take her from Fitzroy. When she would have none of it, Burgoyne simply shrugged, laughed it off, and went looking for another conquest. To his dismay, there weren’t any other women in the caravan available to be seduced.

From Oswego, they traveled by ship as close as they could to the falls at Niagara, where they paused, rested, and gazed with amazement on the magnificent natural wonders. Burgoyne said that he’d heard of them from travelers, but assumed the descriptions were exaggerations resulting from too much to drink. “Not any longer,” Burgoyne said. “There is nothing like them in all the world. I feel honored and privileged to be here and to have seen them.”

It was a sentiment held by Fitzroy, Hannah, and almost everyone in their traveling party of several hundred. “You’d have to be insane to not see the hand of God in those falls,” Hannah said, and Fitzroy could not contradict her. He was overwhelmed by the vision and the sound of the roaring water.

They continued by land to Lake Erie and then were jammed into a couple of small and filthy merchant ships to take them to Detroit. An eight-gun sloop, the Viper, escorted them. It was encouraging to realize that the Royal Navy had control of the lakes, and not the rebels. It was also incredible to Fitzroy and the others that lakes as immense as Ontario and Erie existed. Could it really be that other so-called great lakes were even greater? Even Burgoyne expressed astonishment.

On first sighting Detroit, Fitzroy was mightily depressed. A wooden stockade enclosed a number of muddy acres filled with ramshackle wooden buildings running inland from the equally muddy banks of the Detroit River. The military outpost was a little ways inland and attached to the town. It was called Fort Lernoult. Although small, the fort at least looked like someone with military experience had planned it. He’d been informed that it had eleven foot high earthen walls and contained several cannon.

A shipyard of sorts lined the riverbank where lumber was piled high and the barges that Burgoyne had ordered were under construction. News of the barges had been a surprise to Fitzroy and Danforth although, to Fitzroy’s chagrin, Hannah had known all about them from her Jewish merchant friend who was selling them supplies. Regardless, the activity on the waterfront looked like chaos.

“One spark and the whole thing would go up like an obscene parody of Nero’s Rome,” Fitzroy muttered as he took in the piles of wood, the shavings, and the dust.

His low opinion of Detroit did not rise as their ship moved against a crude dock that extended into the river and threatened to fall down as they were tied up to it. At least they would not have to wade the final few feet, or climb down into small boats, although he presumed that other, lesser mortals in the other ships would do exactly that. It was always good to be associated with the commanding officer since rank had its privileges.

Several score buildings had sprung up outside the stockade, and Hannah and her servant made for one of the larger ones while Fitzroy tried to figure out where Burgoyne was going to put his headquarters. He took in the hundreds of white tents that dotted the landscape and disrupted the lives of the farmers whose strip farms ran inland from the surprisingly wide Detroit River.

Danforth had pompously informed him that the river was technically a strait and not a river since it only ran thirty-odd miles and connected two lakes, St. Clair and Erie and, no, Lake St. Clair was named for a Papist saint, and not after the rebel general. Fitzroy told Danforth he was a bloody bore and that he’d rather have a drink than a lecture.

The tents housed the British contingent that now consisted of more than four thousand soldiers. Come spring, there would be many more. Pity the poor rebels, he thought.

* * *

Hannah entered the store owned by Abraham Goldman and looked at the items for sale. They included clothing, camping goods, pots, pans, stoves, and even some toys, although she wondered just how many children there were at the depressing outpost. Finally, she wandered over to a different section and looked at the neatly arranged stacks of cloth and blankets. She fingered several of them and nodded approval.

“Mistress Van Doorn?” inquired a small, wiry man of indeterminate age, although Hannah already knew he was in his sixties.

She smiled warmly. “Mr. Goldman, it is just plain Doorn and you know it quite well. There is no ‘Van’ in front of my name.”

Goldman chuckled. “And why shouldn’t you promote yourself? Everyone here is trying to better themselves, and what better place to begin than your name? Let them think you’re even more important than you are.”

To her surprise, Hannah thought it was a good idea. Beginning immediately, her name would be Hannah Van Doorn. She smiled sweetly. “Did you find quarters for me?”

“The army has taken everything that even resembled quality housing,” he said sadly. “First Tarleton’s officers and now Burgoyne’s will require something warm and dry for the winter. The enlisted soldiers and officers of lower rank than generals are expected to live in tents or huts.”

Hannah could not keep the dismay from her voice. “Then what will I do?” The idea of her sharing a tent with Major Fitzroy and Danforth appalled her.

“Don’t worry,” Goldman said with a laugh. “I’ve converted a portion of one of the warehouses into a bedroom with a kitchen and a study. There is even a fireplace and I will see that you are supplied with wood. I think you and your major will be quite satisfied.”

Hannah blushed. How on earth had he found out about Major Fitzroy? She fingered a cloth and pretended to examine it. “I’m sure I will be satisfied. Tell me, do you think red and white will sell well this year?”

Goldman stiffened perceptibly and hesitated. “Perhaps not as well as blue and white,” he said and asked softly, “You?”

Hannah Van Doorn smiled demurely, “And why not?”

* * *

The building assigned to Benjamin Franklin for the development of a new way of making guns was set up for display this afternoon, not work. He called it “Merlin’s Cave” in a fit of whimsical honor to the legendary magician companion of the equally legendary King Arthur. On a series of tables were piles of the components needed to build a gun. Franklin beamed at everyone. He was in his glory.

“Kindly note, gentlemen, that what I have here are the parts of a gun that some people are beginning to call a ‘Franklin’ in my honor.”

“It also bears your shape,” said General Schuyler with a smile that brought chuckles from the others. A completed gun lay on the table. It was short and squat.

Franklin ignored the gibe from his good friend. He would take verbal vengeance over supper and relish it. “A group of people here are charged with making each component, while another group is responsible for assembling the, ah, marvelously and accurately named Franklin.”

“What are the components, Mr. Franklin?” asked General Tallmadge. Will stood beside him.

“First, gentlemen, we have the wooden rifle stock, then the trigger and flint, and, finally, the barrel. The only really difficult part to make is the trigger. The wooden stock is made on a foot-powered lathe, and the barrel is made by a blacksmith, such as Mr. Benton here. Regardless of the degree of difficulty, groups of workers specialize in making only their own particular part of the gun. Then, others, and often women like the sublimely attractive and young Miss Faith, assemble the components.”

“Why women?” inquired Schuyler.

“Many women are quite skillful at knitting and sewing. Therefore, it seemed logical that their nimble fingers would be able to fashion a weapon out of small and diverse parts. With women performing some tasks, it also frees up men to perform others. With your permission, General Schuyler, would you pick one part out of each pile and hand it to that young lady who, in deference to your advanced age, is pretending to gaze worshipfully at you?”

Schuyler flushed. Franklin had gotten him back. He grinned and took a part at random from each pile. Faith took them solemnly, laid them on a table in the order she wanted, and then proceeded to put them together. It took only a couple of minutes before the unique-looking weapon was completed.

“Impressive,” said Schuyler, “but will it work?”

Franklin took the stubby gun from Faith and held it aloft. “I will test it and fire it.”

“You will not!” exclaimed Schuyler. “If an accident happens, we cannot afford to lose you.”

“You’re right,” said Tallmadge. “Someone less important should fire it. Will Drake, you do it.”

Will grinned at Tallmadge and took the weapon, while the others laughed at his expense. He examined it carefully and saw no obvious flaws. Franklin suggested they go outdoors, where a wall of dirt-filled sacks had been constructed about fifty feet away. Someone had stuck some men’s clothing to it as a target. Will loaded the weapon with a packet of powder and one large lead bullet, cocked the hammer and aimed. The thing was heavy and dragged down the barrel.

He fired and the recoil pushed him a step backwards. A huge flock of pigeons erupted in fright from Tallmadge’s headquarters, flew around in circles and finally settled back down. Will noted that Tallmadge was a bit concerned about the birds. He hoped he’d hit something near the target and not one of the pigeons. Then he wondered just what all those pigeons were doing in the loft of Tallmadge’s office?

They walked through the dissipating smoke. A sandbag just to the left of the target showed a huge hole. Franklin peered at it and winked at Will. “It would appear that the sandbag is dead, but the enemy soldier is just fine, thank you.”

“With practice, sir, I am confident I can do much better.”

“I’m sure you can,” Schuyler agreed. “But I do wonder just what the primary purpose of your weapon will be? It doesn’t have the range of a rifle, or even a musket, so how shall it be used?”

“I see it as a second weapon,” Franklin said. “I visualize a soldier carrying it on his back and, when his musket is emptied, he takes it and fires at very close range at the advancing enemy who will think the soldier is helpless. I believe it would be quite shocking to an enemy, assuming he survives.”

“That might work,” said Tallmadge, “but I doubt it, sir. The heat of battle is confusing enough without having to change weapons.

“Can it take a bayonet, Mr. Franklin?” asked Schuyler.

“I don’t think so,” Franklin said, “although a short bayonet might be contrived for it.”

“Then a second weapon it must be,” Schuyler said, “Or something for cavalry to use if we ever get some horses. Tell me, how many of these can you make, and why not utilize your assembly method for some other type of weapon?”

If Franklin was disappointed at the less than enthusiastic reception his weapon had just received, he didn’t show it. “When we get going, an initial goal will be ten of these a day. We can improve upwards as we continue to learn. Within a couple of months, I hope to be building a hundred a day. However, if you are not interested in that many of my Franklins, I am certain I can adapt my methods to other killing devices.”

Schuyler nodded solemnly. “Such as muskets?”

“Indeed.”

“And rifles?”

“The problem of cutting the grooves in the barrel is enormous.”

Schuyler smiled. “Then work on it, will you?”

* * *

Owen Wells went looking for Faith Benton. He wanted to get her alone so he could talk to her, but that was proving unlikely as she was either working making Franklin’s guns, or with her cousin Sarah, or with her father. He wanted to tell her that she was the loveliest thing he had ever seen. Owen had never been in love before, so he had no idea how to proceed. He alternated between periods of deep despondency and great elation. It was like he had been reborn. If only Faith might return his affections.

Sometimes he thought his position as her suitor was hopeless. She was beautiful, and he was nothing more than a stumpy caricature of a man with bulging shoulders and overlong and heavily muscled arms. Perhaps she would laugh at him. She had seemed friendly enough when they traveled from the battle on the Ohio to Fort Washington, but that was back then and he had helped save her life, and this was now and she was safe and secure. Worse, she was surrounded by young men who not only outranked him but looked normal. He didn’t care. He had to know.

Finally, he was in luck. She came out of the women’s quarters and just stood there, breathing deeply of a crisp afternoon, a shawl wrapped loosely around her shoulders. She was so beautiful.

“Good morning, Miss Faith,” he said and walked slowly up to her. She turned and smiled at him in recognition.

“I believe its afternoon, Mister Wells.”

He flushed. What a wonderful way to start a conversation with the woman he dreamed about. He’d just shown her that he couldn’t tell time. “I’ve been so busy it’s easy to get confused.”

“I know that feeling.”

“I just wanted to speak to you, to let you know that I’ll be leaving.”

Was that dismay he saw on her face? “Where are you going?”

“I’ll be leading a patrol out to the east, in search of Redcoats and their friends.”

“You’ll be leading it? But I thought you were only a corporal?”

“I was, but Major Drake suggested that I should be a lieutenant because of my experience in the Royal Marines and General Tallmadge agreed. So now I am an officer,” although, he didn’t add, one of the most junior ones in the entire American army.

She grinned. “And a gentleman?”

“Oh, I hope so,” he said and spoke more boldly than he felt. “And I was wondering if you might like to go for a walk with a gentleman? Or perhaps just sit and talk?”

Faith was touched. The short, squat young man was only slightly taller than she and only a couple of years older, but she knew his story and that he had been aged beyond those years by events far beyond his control.

For that matter, so had she. Her experiences at the hands of Sheriff Braxton’s deputies were something she could not put out of her mind, even though she tried to make light of them when talking with Sarah. Wells had to be aware that something awful had occurred to her back east, but that didn’t seem to bother him. Perhaps equally awful things had happened to him on board a British warship? And why not, she thought. He would have been a boy among older, stronger men. She’d heard terrible stories about what happened to boys surrounded by predatory older men.

Faith tightened her shawl around her shoulders. He looked so frightened at being with her and that she might say no thank you to a walk. Perhaps she should say “boo” and see if he’d fall over or just run. No, she decided. He was just too nice a young man.

“A walk would be nice, but not too long a one. I wouldn’t want you catching a chill before your first patrol.”

“Good idea.”

She smiled warmly. “Perhaps after, we can sit by a fire and talk.”