The Forge -- Chapter One

“FIRST YOU bring me cold beef, now you spill half a tankard on my uniform. One more misstep, sir, and, loyalist or not, I’ll have your hide!” The two other redcoated officers seated at the table snickered, their rosy faces aglow in the light of two tallow candles.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the innkeeper, a young man with bright, riveting eyes and sandy hair. He found a rag in his stained apron and mopped up the beer on the floor. “I’m not in the habit of serving soldiers.”

“Come now, you haven’t served a one of these ruffians we’ve been pummeling for months?” the officer said, before he poked a piece of food in his mouth. “Hmm. Might I say, hot or cold, this is the first bite of Christian beef I’ve tasted in a long while, and I’m glad for it.”

The young innkeeper returned to the kitchen, leaving the door slightly ajar as the officers conversed, louder with each drink. 

“Anything yet, Cliff?” a man who stood with him by the door whispered. Another leaned forward with both hands on the butcher block table behind them. Cliff held up his hand for silence.

“How can he be so cocksure?” one of the officers was saying. “Even twenty miles away from the fleet is too many, in the event he’s wrong.”

“I would stake my reputation on his judgment,” another said, “what with his accomplishments in Spain and Portugal. Brilliant soldier.”

“But what can we accomplish here? A moral victory perhaps, atonement for York indeed. If he’s wrong, your opinion notwithstanding, we could be marching straight into Hell’s fury with weak defenses. No, gentlemen, our true aim should be to the north. There’s the real fight. We’ll have them by the throat — or parts below, if you catch my meaning.”

“Baltimore can wait,” said the first. “That time will come soon enough. And we’ll defeat them handily when it does. Meanwhile, we’ve flummoxed them right good, haven’t we? They’ve no bloody idea where we’ll strike next.” He paused, put down his fork and glanced over his shoulder. “Mr. Tenney? Mr. Tenney, sir?”

“Yes, sir?” Cliff said, coming out of the kitchen.

“Another plate of this beef, if you please, and more beer, gentlemen? Yes, more of this weak-kneed swill of yours. However,” the officer said, clasping hold of Cliff’s apron with bony fingers as he started away, “might I say,” he said, peering into his face, “yes, you do seem a bit young to run an establishment such as this. When we were informed a Mr. Tenney, sympathetic to our cause, would serve us, I assumed a gentleman much older.”

“He’s my uncle. He’s taken ill.”

“Taken ill has he? Well then, I trust you share his politics as well as his name?”

“I do.”

“Then I have no reason to suspect — that is, to suggest you may have ulterior interests in our brief visit to this forgettable town?”

“None whatsoever, sir. I too carry grievances against this country.”

“Do you now? I’ve always thought patriotism uppermost in a young man’s mind. Go now, then, fetch us another round first.”

“It’s Washington,” Cliff said under his breath when he returned to the kitchen. “Follow different paths, in case any of us are caught. Meet up at the graveyard gate in one hour as planned. And watch for that guard outside!” He filled three new tankards from a keg and carried them out to the officers. 

As he served them, this time with a steadier hand, the front door yawned open and a portly woman entered. She eyed the officers, and frowned at Cliff.

“May I help you, ma’am?” he said.

“May you help me? I’m Felicity Tenney. Who the devil are you? And where is Bushrod?”

“Your husband? Why, he —.” A pitious groan came from somewhere in the next room.

“My husband? He’s my brother! What have you done with him?”

The officers, waking from their stupor, rose half stumbling from their chairs as the ersatz innkeeper bolted for the open door, where the woman stood blocking his exit. She growled and threw her arms around him, but he slipped under them and lunged over the threshold, just as the first officer swung his saber at him, slashing his leg from knee to ankle. He screamed and scrambled away into the night. 

A rifle blast shattered the air and one of his comrades dropped dead in the woods behind the tavern, shot by the alert guard outside. Handicapped by his injury, puddles of blood left trailing behind him, Cliff made it only halfway to the rendezvous point before sinking to the ground, barely able to hold up his head. A squad of soldiers called for by their inebriated superiors soon caught up to him.

“There you are,” the first officer said, when Cliff, his face now blanched with loss of blood and dread, was brought before him. “And who pray tell are you, if not our young Mr. Tenney? Bit your tongue, eh? No matter, when our admiral is through with you, we’ll know all we need know. We reserve special treatment for spies. Take him straight away to the ship,” he ordered a guard, “see that he says nothing to anyone til he’s aboard. And tie off that wound for Christ’s sake or we’ll not have a word out of him either way!” 

(copyright 2024 R. M. Grabowski, all rights reserved)