"for Mischief done"

To purchase, go to:  www.andresblanton.com 

Third installment in a four-part serialization of:

“for Mischief done” by Jan Schenk Grosskopf

Installment one: http://thelymes.patch.com/blog_posts/for-mischief-done

Installment two:  http://thelymes.patch.com/blog_posts/for-mischief-done-part-two

Continued:

The foreman nodded. “Yes. The attacks on Mary Fish and Eunice
Bolles are too much alike. We need to know if Charles Sharper
was in the vicinity of Quaker Hill today.”

Chapter Four

Late Evening, The Red Lion Inn, July 21, 1786

Molly tossed her wet cleaning rag on top of the tray of dirty dishes,
and went down the back stairs to the kitchen.

“Are they all gone, then, ma’am?”

“Yes. Lizzy, gather up the silver and pewter, and bring it down to
me. Bess, call in James to bring the trays downstairs for you. Mind
now, take care with my good linen. When you’ve all finished, feed
James - and yourselves. No use letting my good roasts dry out.”

Early Morning, The Red Lion Inn, September 6, 1781

Molly was only thirteen years old when Benedict Arnold sailed a British fleet into the Thames River and caught New London sleeping. nemy ships hadn’t been spotted in Long Island Sound since England sent its fleet south over a year before. Just as soon s the last British sail disappeared over the horizon, New London’s privateers slithered back into the cold waters and went
the prowl. Month after month, the Americans wreaked havoc on English shipping without fear of reprisal. His Majesty’s land and
sea forces were too busy at Yorktown to worry about New London,
or so the Americans believed. By the time the town realized its
danger that September morning, the British ships were in the
harbor.

General Arnold, a native of Norwich up the river, dispatched two
divisions ashore. One landed in north New London and moved
south toward the Parade, where defiant townspeople had once
burned tea rather than pay tax on it. The British marched along
the river bank, lighting their own bonfire along the waterfront. Small
detachments of soldiers probed the town for hidden caches
of prize goods and torched privateers’ houses, pointed out to
them by helpful local spies.

While the British advanced toward the heart of town, New London
scrambled. Messengers raced through the countryside to raise
the militia; sailors rushed to the harbor and desperately tried to
get their ships up the river to Norwich, where the British ships could
not follow. Women and children - and more than a few able-bodied
men - scurried about, throwing together bundles of valuables
and food.

As frightened people hurried past the Red Lion to escape the advancing
British, Molly ran to the small sick room next to the kitchen
and dropped to her knees by the bed.

“Father, wake up, wake up!” Molly urged, gently shaking Captain oit’s
arm, then shaking a bit harder. “Oh, please, wake up! he
British have landed!”

Seeing that Captain Coit had fallen into a coma, Molly sat back
on her heels. She gripped her father’s dry hand with her sweaty
ones, occasionally letting go to wipe a wet palm on her apron
or brush away tears of mingled grief and fear.

A commotion in front of the Red Lion drew Molly to the wndow.
She cautiously pushed the curtain aside and jerked back at
the sight of enemy soldiers swarming through the gate, glowing torches
in their hands. After a second of befuddled horror, she realized
that the soldiers intended to burn the Red Lion.

Without thinking, Molly ran out into the front hall, pushed open
the front door, and sailed out into the confusion. She dodged
through the British troops, stepping over muskets and knapsacks,
stopping to pull on the soldiers’ arms and plead with them
to spare the inn. Although several looked vaguely apologetic, most
of them shook her off without a glance; except one. When his
soldier felt her hand, he turned and shoved Molly roughly to the
ground, swearing angrily in a pure New London accent. She sprawled
in the dirt, mouth opened in surprise, staring up at the familiar
face. This man was a New Londoner, born and bred! His sister
ran a small tavern just up Court Street; his brother-in-law fought
with the American Army.

Molly had seen this Tory before. He had been on his knees in
this very spot, surrounded by a small, hectoring mob, his face flickering
in and out of the shadows cast by the flaming torches held
aloft in the hands of angry neighbors. Although a few people attempted
to reason with the mob, shouts for a tarring and feathering drowned
out cooler voices. Someone broke from the faceless crowd,
disappeared into the darkness, and came running back with
a small barrel and a pillow. Hands reached out and took them.
Two men tightened their grip on the prisoner, pressing his knees
into the hard ground. A third knocked the bung out of the barrel
and upended it over the helpless, frightened man. He cursed and
twisted as the sticky tar slowly ran down over his head, into his
eyes and over his bare shoulders and torso. A knife blade flashed
in the firelight, and feathers exploded into the air. Someone shook
the pillow over the man’s head. Stray feathers floated lightly
in the fire-lit night breeze as the crowd ran a fence rail between the
Tory’s knees and forced him to straddle the splintery wood.
Four men lifted the rail to their shoulders and began to trot down
Main Street toward the Parade, purposefully bouncing the rail,
their victim desperately clinging with both hands, eyes squeezed
shut, face grotesque with dripping tar. The jeering throng
surged behind.

“Stay home, lass,” father had said, putting a restraining arm on Molly’s
shoulder. “Nothing I could do to stop it, but I’ll not have you
going along with them.”

“But, Father, he’s a Tory . . .”

“Yes, and I’d shoot him in a battle, a fair fight. I won’t be part of
this, and neither will you be.”

Now, the man stood in the front yard of the Red Lion, dressed
in Tory colors, a torch in his hand.

Spying more flashes of Tory uniforms swirling around her Molly
abandoned any notion of appealing to the soldiers for mercy. Jumping
to her feet, she looked wildly about, searching for the officer
in charge, praying that he wouldn’t be an American. She finally
spied a man in red uniform on horseback. Breath ragged, Molly
dashed through the teeming soldiers and grabbed one of the
officer’s stirrups before anyone noticed her. The startled horse threw
up his head, and backed abruptly. Caught off guard, the British
officer reined in, shouting at Molly to let go and get away.

Instead, she tightened her grip as the horse whickered and danced,
almost pulling her off of her feet. When the officer regained control of his mount, Molly looked up, fingers gripping the stirrup for dear life. Praying that he wouldn’t
slash her face with his whip, she pleaded with the officer to
have mercy on the Red Lion. Without bothering to look down, the
British officer coldly informed Molly that he had specific orders to
destroy all Patriot lairs. Frantically, Molly explained that if he
didn’t call off his men, he would be responsible for burning a sick
old man in his bed.

The officer looked down at Molly’s anxious young face. He hesitated
briefly, then remarked that everyone knew Americans were
notorious liars. Molly shook her head, swearing that she was not
lying, begging him to go see her father. Turning angrily in his saddle,
the officer curtly ordered a soldier inside to look for a sick man.
A few minutes later, the soldier ran out to report that he found
an old man asleep in a small back room, looking too ill to leave
his bed. The officer glanced down at Molly again and then twisted
around to look down at the harbor.

“I’ll spare your inn, along with the Widow’s Row behind you, but
it will likely catch when the area around here goes up with the rest,”
he said, pointing toward the north. “I suggest you get your father
out of the inn.”

Molly turned to the north and gasped. Everything along the riverbank
- houses, sheds, fishing boats, rope walks, wharves, warehouses,
ships - was on fire. Roiling clouds of black smoke billowed
into the sky about a mile away; nearer by, the smoke had not
risen as high - yet.

Molly looked toward the Parade and river bank.
The public buildings, houses, sheds, and crammed warehouses in that congested
area would ignite in a flash and burn for hours. The picture of her father lying helplessly in his bed flashed through Molly’s mind. She realized that for the first time in her life, she was completely alone. Although it galled her, Molly had the presence of mind to thank the officer before hurrying to her father’s bedside.

Captain Coit slept so deeply, he did not know that British soldiers were in his
yard. Molly went to the window, and watched the enemy soldiers form
up to march toward the Parade. While she studied their
receding backs, her shocked mind a dull blank, a British soldier came
around from the back of the house, her tin drinking dipper
held to his lips. Seeing his comrades marching away without him,
the soldier slung the dipper to the ground and ran to catch
up. The sun glinted off the bright dipper, rocking to and fro in
the dusty road.

Chapter Five 

Late Morning, The Red Lion Inn, September 6, 1781

Molly dashed out of the sick room and ran through the inn, shouting
for the two maidservants to gather buckets, tubs - anything that
would hold water - and for the stableman and boy to drag
the ladder out of the barn. As they leaned the ladder against the
front of the inn, curls of smoke began to rise above the Parade.

In what seemed like minutes, billows of black, choking smoke
belched skyward and flames began to shoot up through the thick,
dark clouds, broadcasting glowing cinders into the air.

Molly froze, her fingers curled around the side of the wooden ladder,
watching the sea wind carry the smoke and cinders toward the
Red Lion. Tearing her gaze away, Molly resolutely turned her back
to the Parade and pushed the ladder firmly into place. The stableman
squeezed by her and shinnied up the ladder, the stable boy behind him. Molly climbed the first few rungs to pass a full bucket
of water upwards, and went back down for another while he
boy toted the sloshing bucket up to the stableman.

Hour after hour, the three women hefted endless gallons of water.
One of the maids carried pans of water from the well in back
to pour on the dry grass along the road in front of the inn.  Molly and the other woman staggered from the well to the ladder, hauling
sloshing iron-bound, wooden buckets. Almost as soon as the
women and boy handed the water up to the stableman, he poured
it on the roof, dropped the empty container to the ground, and
reached his hand down for the next. The small group worked methodically,
dousing the roof section by section, stopping only to move
the ladder as necessary. After they worked their way around the
house, they began the whole process over again - and then a third
time.

While Molly and her servants fought to save the Red Lion, terrified
women and children ran frantically up Main Street, heading for
the safety of the countryside. The vastly outnumbered militia ranged
through town, skirmishing with the enemy. Stephen Hempstead
and twenty-three men managed to get to Fort Trumbull, a
three-walled structure facing the river, swivel the cannons, and
fire on the advancing British. Seeing they could never hope to hold
the small fort, the Americans quickly spiked the cannons, jumped
into three boats, and pulled for Groton across the river. As
they threaded through the enemy fleet, the British seized one boatload
of Americans, but the rest made it to Fort Griswold in time
for the battle there.

A huge explosion of gunpowder rocked the ground under Molly’s
feet. The stores and houses on lower Bank Street, just blocks
from the Red Lion, burst into flame and rained down intermittent cinder
showers on the few dwellings standing between the
Parade and the Red Lion. Wisps of smoke began to rise from their
roofs. Gazing across the large vacant lot that stood between the
Red Lion and the smoldering houses, Molly burst into frustrated tears;
she could have saved the inn if only the wind hadn’t been
against her. Wiping her cheeks with the back of one hand, he
threw down her bucket and went into the inn to collect family valuables
and figure out how to move her father.

Not five minutes later, the excited stableman ran inside and practically
dragged her by the arm out into the yard. He gestured toward
the smoking downtown.

“Look!” he shouted. “The winds have shifted!”

Molly’s eyes followed the stableman’s pointing finger. The fires
down at the Parade and harbor burned a bit lower, and the wind
was pushing the smoke and cinders from the smaller fires across
the street out toward the water. Most encouraging of all for the
Red Lion, the devouring fire on Bank Street had begun to race
southward along the shore, away from the Red Lion, where it would
drown in the cove.

Molly snatched up her bucket. As they worked, the sound of cannon
and musket fire traveled over the river from Fort Griswold on
Groton Heights. Even though all of them had relatives and friends
at the fort, no one dared to stop and watch the battle unfolding between
shifting clouds of gun and cannon smoke. One of the
maids, whose brothers and sweetheart were in the fight, sobbed
as she stumbled back and forth between the well and the ladder.

To purchase, go to:  www.andresblanton.com