Work Text:
November 1776
“They’re raising a Union Flag over Fort Washington!” James cries in horror, watching smoke rise into the sky on the other side of the Hudson River.
“What’s going to happen to the followers at Forest Hill? To Sarah?” He asks, wondering how on Earth he’ll explain her death or capture to Moses, Henri, and Dr. Franklin. God, he’ll have to write her mother, somehow find the words to explain. To apologize.
A sensible man, he knows, would be concerned about the lobsterbacks rapidly closing in on his own position. As a journalist, he knows, he should be scribbling down notes. His pen is only in his pocket but it may as well be on his desk back in the print shop in Philadelphia for all the mind he pays it. As a patriot, he should be concerned with the cause, with the soldiers and ammunitions lost to the British, with yet another retreat on the books of the Continental Army. At the moment he is none of these things.
But neither, apparently, are the dozens of soldiers scrambling down the Palisades to the Hudson’s half-frozen banks with him, all calling out for their sisters, children, and wives, hoping the wind will carry their calls to the small specks that are the rowboats pushing off from the opposite shore that suddenly feels so very distant. The sight of it, however sobering, is also a strangely comforting display of the fact that he is not alone in his illogical rush to the banks. After a few moments, they realize that they will receive no audible response, not just yet at least, and a hush falls over the crowd.
Frigid water seeps into his shoes, (he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get frostbite), but he doesn’t notice. Pulling his coat tight around him, he begins drafting a letter in his head.
Dear Lady Phillips,
My name is James Hiller. I’m Doctor Ben
Franklin’s apprentice at the Pennsylvania Gazette. Sarah may have mentioned me in a letter, likely unfavorably considering how often we quarreled. If I’m lucky she described me as a friend, just as I readily describe her.
It is my sad duty to inform you that Sarah was killed during the Battle of Fort Washington in November 1776. She was sent to an encampment with dozens of other women and children at a place called Forest Hill. General Washington himself assured us she would be safe there, in fact he ordered she be there. I would have preferred if she had stayed with me, and it is my greatest regret that I did not insist upon that being the reality.
For one terrible moment, James thinks about punching General Washington, the highest military officer in America, in the face. He just might do it, consequences be damned, if she’s truly dead.
God, he wishes more than anything he had argued for her staying with him, foolishly imagining that he could have protected her. But he’s too much of a coward. Too much of a coward to actually enlist. Too much of a coward to fire a musket or count the dead and wounded.
A weary soldier with his gaze fixed on the horizon appears next to James, and James recognizes the man as Private John Lawson, a soldier James had interviewed just last night.
“I’m waiting on my wife, Anne.” He says quietly to James, or maybe he’s talking to himself or God or maybe even to the river. James hears him all the same.
“I’m sure she’ll be alright.” James says, not because it’s true— he has no way of knowing whether this man’s wife is alright, only God knows— but because that’s what he’s supposed to say, that’s what the soldier who doesn’t look much older than him likely wants to hear.
“Yeah.” Lawson murmurs, this time more obviously reassuring himself, “What about you? Who are you waiting for?”
“Her name’s Sarah. She’s my…”
I wish you to know that whatever our disagreements were about politics or manners or whatever subject we turned into a bone to fight over, your daughter was a great friend to me since her arrival in America.
It occurs to him that though he’s only freshly sixteen, his countenance is eerily similar to the older soldiers around him. All of them fidget silently in the cold November air, sharing in the dread of the news that is both an eternity away and arriving far too soon. All of them are despondent at the fact that the fates of those they love is out of their hands entirely.
Those they love. Love.
Oh.
Oh.
He’s in love with Sarah.
Had the thought crossed his mind a year ago or perhaps even a month ago, he would’ve denied it completely. He’d find something to fight with her over, something that would push her away and into the arms of gallant Continental Army soldiers with unusual names and annoying chivalry that makes her blush in a way he’s never quite managed. (It’s something of a comfort to him that he doesn’t just indiscriminately dislike brave soldiers serving the cause. He can recognize now that his teeth were set on edge by the young man from Connecticut because he was jealous of him and his ability to charm Sarah. Udeny actually is stationed at the fort James is currently under, and James thinks rather smugly that he is waiting in the cold Hudson shores while Udeny is not). It all seems rather obvious now.
However, now, with Sarah’s fate in limbo, after weeks on the road, spending long nights comforting each other in the wake of Nathan’s hanging with hushes words and swigs of whiskey, he doesn’t fight it.
He’s in love with Sarah.
It’s not just a thought, but a conclusion. A realization. A statement of fact just as true as any he’d put in an article for print. Not that he would print this. Perhaps he’d put it in that letter he’s drafting.
Please know, I held your daughter in exceptionally high esteem—
Never have I met someone so passionate, clever, determined, brave—
Perhaps not. God, it sounds like he’s writing a love letter, not a letter of condolences. And it’s being written to the wrong woman. These are all things he needs to say to Sarah if she’s still alive, not to her mother in a futile attempt at softening the loss of her only child. Sentiments of admiration for a dead woman from a stranger probably isn’t any consolation at all.
Another man would likely look at the current situation— realizing you’re in love with a girl who may or may not be dead— and resolve that if the person they’re so utterly besotted with turns out to be alive that they will take the first opportunity to make their feelings known. But James has learned these last few years that his rashness can have disastrous consequences, and what’s on the line now is not only his heart, but a quietly comfortable, if not slightly prickly, friendship and professional partnership.
The devastation he feels when he can’t spot her among the arriving survivors and the utter elation he feels when he does find her, shaken but determined both serve to reinforce the plain and simple fact.
He’s in love with Sarah.
Like the investigative reporter he is, he will hold onto this information and gather more facts pertaining to it. Does she return his affections for one thing?
For now, he’s content to welcome her back to relative safety, to read her notes that are, as always, in perfect cursive and work with her late into the the night on drafts of their stories. For now it’s enough to watch candlelight catch in her hair, listen as the whiskey from the flask a soldier gave to him as a birthday present that Moses doesn’t know about slurs her speech just enough. There’s other stories to write for now. And that awful letter he’d been drafting is forgotten by morning.
In time perhaps, and if fate is kind, they will write theirs together.