Soldier, Spy

Withdrawn

September–October, 1776

11–15 September 1776

On the morning of September 11th, Timothy Grady stood off to the side of the front entrance of the Billop Manor, the Staten Island estate mansion of Colonel Christopher Billop, at attention with the other servants there to support their various masters, as the delegations of the two sides of a peace conference that could stop the budding rebellion against Britain in the New World in its tracks arrived. The British delegation, led by British Admiral Lord Richard Howe had arrived first. That’s why Timothy already was here, as HMS Yarmouth Captain Owen Sheffeld’s personal man servant—his personal man servant in more ways than just dressing the captain and polishing his boots. Also part of the British delegation was HMS Asia Captain George Vandeput. Those two sixty-gun warships still provided the backbone of the British threat in the New York area.

Timothy’s attention increased as the American contingent arrived—in two waves. First came the politicians, the Continental Congress members John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Rutledge. These were followed some twenty minutes later by the colonial militia representative, Major Brady Lathrop. The American force’s commander, General George Washington, had been deemed too indispensable to risk sending to a meeting on the British-occupied soil. The rebels didn’t have the depth of military leaders that the British did. Washington also had taken seriously Timothy’s report that the British didn’t expect anything to come of the conference and weren’t prepared to accept anything but the colonies’ unconditional surrender. The Continental Congress remained hopeful, however, so here their delegates were.

The young man’s heart began to beat harder when he saw that Douglas Bester was seconded to Lathrop. The two—the soldier and the spy—immediately were aware of each other, but both were as careful as they could be not to draw attention to the electricity that was arcing between them. The short time it took for Bester to dismount and follow Lathrop up the front steps of Billop Manor and into the mansion was the last contact the two of them had that day.

The conference proved to be short and just shy of explosive content. The Continental Congress delegates insisted on delivering the recently pinned Declaration of Independence and that the British recognize its existence. In response, General Howe declared, as Timothy had told General Washington was the case, that he had no brief from London or King George III to accept anything from the colonists but a surrender and a pledge of obedience to the king. The preliminary ceremonies took three hours; the central nonmeeting of minds and departure of the American delegates took less than fifteen minutes.

That night, in one of the several bedrooms in Billop Manor, Captain Sheffeld’s foreplay while atop Timothy took less than fifteen minutes. The resulting fuck lasted nearly three hours. The foreplay, involving a whip, was more painful to Timothy than the fuck was.

In the greater world, the possibility of peace between Britain and her rebelling colonies was brushed aside and on September 15th, 1776, George Washington having already pulled his troops out of lower Manhattan, the Asia and Yarmouth landed 12,000 soldiers near the stripped battery at the tip of the island and occupied the lower city. The colonial militia held a line across the island at the Harlem River.

The captains of the two British warships came ashore with the occupation troops, and Thomas Hadley was at the front entrance of his Stone Street town mansion to welcome both the captain and his manservant, Timothy Grady, as guests in his house.

As soon as Hadley and Timothy could manage to be alone, Hadley slipped a folded map to Timothy.

“As you are able and as it will be naturally found in a way to be believed, you are to convey this map to someone in high authority among the British,” Hadley whispered. “Yes, you may look at it and see what it is,” he said, as Timothy made to unfold the map.

“It appears to be a military map of Manhattan. Are you sure I should give this to the British?”

“Yes, Lathrop is sure he wants you to. The British cannot be considered content to remain here in lower Manhattan. As they wished to do in Boston and were unable to do, they’ll want to move from here into the mainland and spread out as soon as possible.”

“But this appears to show where colonialist defenses are weak,” Timothy said.

“That it does,” answered Hadley. “Lathrop wants this place of apparent weakness to be where the British try to maneuver around our lines in Harlem and land. What you are being asked to do is to somehow insert it into their hands in such a way that they believe in its authenticity.”

“I will do my best,” Timothy answered, understanding now the purpose and importance of the map. “The captain says that we withdraw to Howe’s headquarters on Long Island tomorrow. That is where I will have to find a way.”

“And as quick as you can,” Hadley said, pushing Timothy through a door into the servants’ wing and pasting a smile on his face, having heard the approaching footsteps of his esteemed British guest, Owen Sheffeld.

* * * *

21–22 September 1776

As unobtrusively as he could, Samuel Fraunces motioned Thomas Hadley to continue on to one of the back rooms of the tavern on Manhattan’s Broad Street when Hadley entered the bar area. The atmosphere inside the tavern was downright poisonous. The occupying British Redcoats had taken over all of the central tables, but the colonists had not completely given up the room and sullenly sat around in muttering groups, their heads together and their faces taking a range of venomous aspects, at the fringes of the room and in the shadows.

To a man, they’d turned baleful eyes on Hadley when he entered the tavern. The prominent Tory merchant hadn’t dared leave his Stone Street mansion since the British had taken over lower Manhattan a week earlier. Tensions were high. The colonialist citizens who had abandoned the lower city were seething and building up to something. The British had put guards on Hadley’s mansion and on those of other prominent Tories in the city, of which there were many—New York wasn’t anything close to being supportive of the rebels, but the Tories tended to remain indoors for their own protection. Who knew how long the mere semblance of protection would hold, however?

The irony was that Hadley couldn’t go back to his estate on Staten Island and safety as other besieged Tories had done in withdrawing to British-held Staten or Long Island because the colonial forces under George Washington needed him here, as one of their own spies, keeping his eyes and ears open for any intelligence that could be useful to the rebel cause. Hadley could hardly broadcast his true role in the city. But Samuel Fraunces knew what it was. And Hadley took the risk of coming out of his house on the evening of September 21st, as he needed to get a message through to Washington’s chief spy, Major Brady Lathrop, encamped in Harlem.

Hadley caught Fraunces’ signaling and walked straight through the bar room to Fraunces’ private room at the back of the tavern.

“What are you doing out? It’s not a bit safe fer yer on the streets of the city,” Fraunces hissed when he was able to break away from the bar for long enough, after Hadley had passed through, to unobtrusively make his own way back to his room.

“Lathrop has to know that I managed to get the map he gave me to our contact in British headquarters. The map that—”

“Hush. I need not know that. I’m not all that safe here either. Who knows how much longer I can serve ale to the vermin Redcoats before I crack and they decide to pull me apart? It’s enough to know that something Lathrop wanted you to do is on its way. Do you have aught else to pass on from the vermin?”

“Not really. I’m confined to the house. I’ve taken to inviting the sentries in for food and drink and that has loosened tongues, but they don’t seem to know at the soldier level what Howe has planned next or when any better than you or I do. I’ll make my way back to Stone Street now.”

“Not before bellying up to the bar and having a mug of ale, I wouldn’t advise,” Fraunces said. “There’s only one reason to come into this tavern—at least that’s what we want others to think—so you need at least to bend an elbow before leaving. You should be safe enough belly up to the bar.”

Safe enough was relative, though. Hadley had a weakness and it wasn’t for ale, which he could hold well enough. It was for the likes of the young, blond man who pulled away from a muttering group of colonists sitting around a table in a smoky corner of the room and sidled up to Hadley.

“You look a man who could use company,” the young man said. “And I’m a man with less than the means of my next pint.”

“Do I know you?” Hadley said, turning to look at the young man and taking an immediate interest. He was a handsome blond, with a well-formed, slim build. His lips were full, sensuous, and pouting, and his eyelashes long and fluttering. He was clean and his hands uncalloused, indicating that he undoubtedly was indentured to some more refined city trade than a manual one.

“Not yet. Not nearly as well and fully you could know me,” the young man said. The look in his eye made Hadley suck in breath. “My name be Paul, though, and I know of you. Evan Talbot be a friend of mine.”

Evan Talbot, a local poke boy, had been somewhat more than just a friend to Thomas Hadley. He had filled a need of Hadley’s on more than one occasion. But he had fled the city now. Hadley’s need hadn’t fled the city, however.

“I would gladly stand you an ale, but . . .” Hadley said, not completing the sentence.

“But what?” Paul said, briefly touching Hadley’s arm with his fingers, sending a chill of anticipation up Hadley’s spine.

“But I think the ale at my home is much more drinkable than this. Would you like to taste it?”

“I would love to taste your . . . ale,” Paul answered, with a smile.

“Follow me at a pace,” Hadley whispered. “I will be at the mouth of Stone Street and will show you to the house from there.”

I know well where your house is, Paul thought, but he didn’t say as much.

There was no problem getting Paul past the British sentries guarding Hadley’s mansion. They had no instructions to try to stop anyone Hadley himself was inviting in. There was even less of a problem when Paul leaned over and unfastened Hadley’s shirt while kissing him while they were sitting in Hadley’s kitchen drinking ale. And there was no problem at all when Paul asked what the rooms were for upstairs in Hadley’s townhouse—and if he could be given a tour.

Hadley bade Paul to undress beside his bed as Hadley went to the water closet briefly, and Paul spent those precious moments alone slipping something below the mattress.

Let it not be said that Paul didn’t give Hadley a good ride. The merchant lay on his back in the center of the bed, while Paul used scarves to tie the salivating man’s wrists to the slats of the headboard over his head. Then he gave Hadley’s cock the taste they had alluded to before, in the tavern, and marveled—as all who went with Hadley did—on the thickness of his staff. Hadley closed his eyes to savor the ecstasy as the young man straddled his hips and rode his cock vigorously. Paul let him have his ejaculation. At the same moment, though, he pulled the knife out from underneath the mattress and plunged it into Hadley’s heart.

His compatriots came in to an upper story window from the lower roof of the house next door, and the sentries suspected nothing as the house was ransacked for valuables and the rebel band left the way they had come, taking Paul with them. Before Paul left, though, he set fire to the draperies in all of the upstairs bedrooms. This is what caught the notice of the British sentries—but entirely too late to prevent fire from raging through the mansion. It certainly was too late to do anything for Thomas Hadley.

As it turned out, September had been a dry month in New York, and the fire had been set up enough that getting the fire brigade to it was too late to save the houses and businesses on Stone Street—and, ultimately nearly all of the lower city.

Lower Manhattan was virtually destroyed by fire on the night of September 21st. The rebels, of course, blamed the British and were, in turn, blamed by the British. It did cause some of the occupying British troops to pull back to the Asia and Yarmouth, and, ultimately, to Long Island. But the rebels didn’t regain lower Manhattan. Lower Manhattan was a smoking ruin. General Howe, commander of the British, deep in preparations for further invasion onto the mainland, had already come in previous days in the other direction, from Long Island to Manhattan, establishing his headquarters at Beekman House on a rural farm not far from the battle line on the Harlem heights.

Howe had been transported across the harbor in HMS Yarmouth, and Timothy had been keen on the possibility of salting away the false map he had been entrusted with, but he was not able to come anywhere close to Howe and his retinue and couldn’t think up a convenient way for anyone in the general’s staff to obtain the map in a believable way. He had suggested to Hadley that he was prepared to reveal himself in some way for the map to be found on him, but Hadley had forbidden him to do that.

“Spies are summarily hanged when they are found, Timothy,” Hadley had said.

“That would make the authenticity of the map seem plausible then, would it not?” Timothy had answered. “And the stakes are too high not to accept the sacrifice of one or two men.”

“Nay, not you, Timothy. You are too well placed in the bosom of the enemy. Major Lathrop made clear to me that you are not to take a great risk in this.”

The look in Hadley’s eye and the shake in his voice made Timothy think that the man’s interest went farther than Timothy’s value as a spy.

* * * *

Captain Sheffeld came into the captain’s cabin, with its tall bank of windows at the stern of Yarmouth, as it hovered off the tip of Manhattan. He had already directed Timothy to be prepared for him, and the young man was stripped and sitting on the large bed pushed into the alcove at the stern of the ship.

The captain walked across the commodious cabin, unlacing his shirt first and then the codpiece of his britches. Although Timothy was naked, the captain would not fully undress. He enjoyed the sensation of taking the young man while still mostly clothed himself. Even at night, in the bed they shared, Timothy was naked and the captain was in a full-length nightshirt, enjoying the sensation of Timothy brushing the tail of the nightshirt up to the captain’s nipples and kissing the older man’s flat belly before tonguing down into his bush and taking possession of the captain’s cock with his mouth. Only in intercourse following Timothy sponging off the captain’s body in the copper bathtub were both men generally in the altogether.

When he reached the foot of the bed, the captain turned Timothy around and manipulated the young man’s knees up onto the mattress. Sheffeld had brought a hand whip with him and used it to redden Timothy’s buttocks before the main event. Timothy exclaimed in pain a few times to aid Sheffeld in stiffening his cock. When the ship’s captain dropped the whip on the floor at the foot of the bed, Timothy arched his back, moved his cheek beside Sheffeld’s, placed his hand behind the captain’s neck, and pulled Sheffeld’s face around. They kissed, ever deeper, as Sheffeld rubbed his cock up and down, across Timothy’s hole, and between his cheeks to harden up further until Sheffeld was hard enough and Timothy panting enough for the older man to penetrate the channel with his cock. He moved deeper inside Timothy and their kiss became hotter.

Palming Timothy’s belly, Sheffeld began pulling and released to move the young man’s passage on the shaft. Going into high gear, the captain pushed Timothy to the position of the dog with a fist to the small of the young man’s back. He grabbed Timothy’s hips in his hands and starting plowing him hard.

It was then that Timothy looked up and through the bank of windows in the stern of the ship and saw the flames rising above lower Manhattan.

“Shit,” he exclaimed. “The city’s on fire.”

“Fuck,” Sheffeld growled, and that marked the end of the night’s festivities.

The two, along with all other men who could be spared were dropping into small boats and moving to the city, most of them to help put out the fire, which was now spread across the island from the Hudson to the East River. Sheffeld didn’t stay there, though. He commandeered two horses, and almost as soon as they landed, he and Timothy were galloping up the spine of the island to Beekman House to report on the fire to General Howe and his staff.

The two of them reined in their horses at the entrance to the house just as several soldiers were dragging up a small man in civilian clothes. A look of shock went between Timothy and the man as the two realized they’d seen each other before—on August 24th, in Harlem, when the two passed each other at the entrance to George Washington’s tent when both were reporting in on spy missions. The man, who had been roughed up and obviously was being held as a prisoner, was Nathan Hale. The more inexperienced of the two, Timothy nearly exclaimed, but he caught the warning look from Hale and closed his expression down.

“Me first,” Captain Sheffeld asserted himself. “The city is on fire. General Howe must receive report on that.”

“Yes, sir,” a British officer answered. Then he instructed the soldiers to take Hale around to the greenhouse to be held there until he could be interrogated by Howe.

“You there,” the officer bellowed to Timothy. “The men will need to have water. Fetch some for them. It was a difficult hunt.”

“A hunt, sir?” Timothy asked, wanting to draw out just how bad the situation was.

“Aye, caught this man sketching the fortifications by York Island. We found more drawings and notes on his body. We’ve caught ourselves a rebel spy. Now hop to it on the water.”

Timothy took off, looking for water to deliver to the guards and, he hoped, to give him an excuse to get close to Hale. Although he had no idea where to get the water, he had no intention of staying around until the officer thought to wonder who he was and what he was doing here holding the reins on two panting horses.

“Would it be aright to give the prisoner a sip too?” Timothy asked when he approached the greenhouse with a bucket of water and a ladle. The guards mulled that but eventually thought they could see no harm in that. The greenhouse was all glass. They could see everything that happened inside, and one of them reasoned that the prisoner shouldn’t be too parched to speak when he was being interrogated.

“I reckon he’ll swing with water in him just as good as with none,” the most decisive of the soldiers said as Timothy took that as permission and scooted in. “Might even give the body a bit more weight on the drop,” the guard was adding as Timothy left them.

“We must find a way—” Timothy started to whisper as Hale gave him a grateful look and lowered his head to the ladle. His hands were tied behind his back.

“No use. They caught me with notes and sketches on me. I’ve been moving around in the guise of a Dutch schoolteacher. But I couldn’t name a school. It’s all over for me. You must not reveal yourself.”

“Sketches? On paper? And maps, as well?” Timothy asked, his mind working hard.

“Aye. All of the that. The officer in charge has them.”

“I must see them then,” Timothy said. “By the morrow I’ll come up with some idea to pull you free.”

“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.