Soldier, Spy Ch. 03

"If there is a morrow," Hale answered. "But I say again that you should not take the chance."

"I must go," Timothy said, giving Hale one last reassuring look and receiving a weak smile in return. Then he left the greenhouse in a hurry, ran back to the tent where he'd gotten the water—and where he'd seen bottles of wine—and exchanged the bucket for two bottles of wine.

As luck would have it, when he returned to the front of the house, the officer who had sent him off was standing at a table, unfolding and fanning out pieces of paper.

"Sir, I came with Captain Sheffeld of the Yarmouth. He has brought these bottles of wine for General Howe. He forgot to take them in with him. May I take—?"

"Give them to me," the office said impatiently. "I'll take them in."

Luck held. The officer took the bottles into the house, giving Timothy time to jump up on the porch, ascertain that the sheets of paper were the sketches and notes that had been seized from Nathan Hale's clothing, and take one of the sketches away, substituting the map showing a weak spot in the rebel's defense of the upper Manhattan coast on the East River side for the sketch he took away. He was back off the porch and attending to the horses again before the officer came back out of the building.

Timothy didn't expect his luck to hold that Sheffeld would have confirmed that the bottles of wine were from him, but, miraculously, he did. Sheffeld later thanked Timothy for thinking that such a gift would impress Howe. The ship's captain thought that it had.

When Captain Sheffeld came out of the house and the officer returned around the side of the house with Nathan Hale and his guard in tow, other soldiers were taking over charge of the horses and were gesturing for the captain and Timothy to follow them to guest quarters.

Timothy and Nathan had one last opportunity to share a look. Nathan's face was white as a sheet, but he smiled weakly in Timothy's direction. Timothy gave him the most reassuring look he could muster.

In the shed that had been redone as guest quarters, Sheffeld reclaimed Timothy's ass, lost in the interrupted fuck on board the ship, and Timothy gave everything the man demanded. Sheffeld had even remembered to bring his riding crop into the tent with him.

Sheffeld warmed up Timothy's ass and thighs well, but Timothy had to work at writhing and moaning at the strikes. His mind was elsewhere. He was trying to devise a plan to rescue Hale in a way that wouldn't get both of them killed and, he hoped, wouldn't expose himself. He fully understood that, with Hale captured, there was one less colonialist spy working behind enemy lines.

Although Timothy's luck had held solid the previous night, Nathan Hale's had not. Over breakfast, at the query from Captain Sheffeld, the two learned that Hale had already been hung as a rebel spy earlier that morning.

"Gutsy young man," the soldier who informed them said. "He didn't try any lies. When General Howe started to interrogate him, he boldly provided his name and rank in the Continental Army and declared he had nothing else to say. He did say as how he was proud to lay down his life for his cause there at the end, with the rope around his neck. Took it like a man, he did."

Timothy held a tin mug to his mouth with two hands, containing the trembling so none could see how badly this news affected him. He had known that the work he was doing was highly risky, but he only now was aware of how total the demands were on him. He only wished he could go as bravely as Hale had if—and when—his time came. He could only hope that the planting of the fake map that he had managed was half worth the loss of Hale—that the plan worked.

There were those who later would have declared that it was worth the sacrifice if they'd known he'd planted the map. To his knowledge that, like so much else that spies accomplished in the Revolutionary War, never came to light. Nearly three weeks later, on October 12th, the British, under Howe's command, attempted to encircle the American forces in upper Manhattan. Key to the operation was a landing above the battle line in Harlem on the shores of the East River side of Manhattan. Their problem was that the map that assured them of the best landing location was faulty. They actually landed on a marshy island that wasn't connected to the mainland at all. And when the landing troops got to the land side of the island, they were met by volleys of gunfire from across a strait of muddy water and they had to retreat.

There was no real victory for the Continental Army to celebrate, though. Deciding that his position in upper Manhattan was untenable, General George Washington commenced a retreat of his forces farther into the mainland. The British landed troops in Westchester County and pursued them. On October 28th, the two forces clashed at the Battle of White Plains, where Washington had dug in to take a stand. He had failed to take the high ground at White Plains, though, and was routed from there. Some of the British troops followed him into New Jersey and then Pennsylvania, but Howe didn't dedicate a large enough force to this to decisively defeat the rebels.

Howe himself returned to Manhattan to see what could be salvaged from the lower Manhattan fire. Sheffeld returned to the HMS Yarmouth, floating off the tip of Manhattan, taking Timothy with him. Timothy learned that something had gone wrong with the attempted encircling movement in upper Manhattan on October 12th, but none of the soldiers involved were willing to give him details of the embarrassment of their failed intelligence on a good landing location.