The Scent of Death

Twenty minutes later, we were at last permitted to disembark. We were brought in at Beekman’s Slip upriver from the Brooklyn ferry to keep us at a distance from the still-smouldering fire.

The quayside was thronged with soldiers, seamen, officials and porters. It had grown even hotter, with a close, airless warmth. I threaded my way between boxes, barrels and ropes. Men barged into me. Once I tripped and nearly fell. After five weeks aboard a ship, dry land had become alien, even hostile.

Despite my official standing, I was obliged to wait my turn to show my papers and explain my business to three separate individuals. Meanwhile the baggage was brought ashore. A line of glistening negros carried it to the customs shed. The few passengers from the Earl of Sandwich joined the queue outside where new arrivals sweltered in the sun.

The south-westerly breeze had dispersed most of the smoke. Beyond the shed the buildings of the shabby little city stretched away to the west, sloping gently up towards the soot-stained tower of a ruined church. Mr Noak had told me that this was Trinity Church, damaged in the first fire two years earlier just after the rebels had evacuated New York, when so many houses and public buildings had been destroyed. He wondered why no one had troubled to repair it.

There was a stir at the guard-post by the entrance to the slip. A moment later a portly gentleman strode towards the customs house with the sergeant of the guard on one side and a harbour official on the other. The latter indicated me with a wave of his hand, and the gentleman surged forward, sweeping off his hat. He was a tall, finely dressed man with an upright carriage and florid face.

‘Mr Savill?’ he said, waving a crisp lawn handkerchief like a signal flag. ‘Your servant, sir. I’m Charles Townley, and so very much at your service. A thousand pardons – you should not have to stand about in this heat. I should have been here to greet you two hours ago but my clerk is ill and, to make matters ten times worse, this damned fire has thrown everything awry.’

Mr Townley’s arrival had an instant effect on my fortunes. A customs official hurried over with two negros carrying my boxes and valises. There was no need, the official said, for the formality of searching them and, at Mr Townley’s suggestion, he would have them instantly conveyed to Judge Wintour’s house. My pass was countersigned and I was free to go.

As I left, I bowed to Mr Noak, waiting silently in the queue, and said something civilly non-committal about our no doubt meeting again.

‘Who was that?’ Townley asked as we passed the barrier manned by two sweating sentries.

‘A shipboard acquaintance,’ I said. ‘No one in particular.’

‘You will not mind if we walk, I hope? We have not far to go and it will be quicker on a day like this.’

For the first few hundred yards, the solid ground felt unyielding and inhospitable beneath my feet. Nor was the city itself more welcoming – it was a veritable anthill, packed with hurrying, wild-eyed people, many of them carrying their belongings on their backs, and with wagons and carriages rumbling over the stones. The streets were paved and tree-lined but narrow. I felt the buildings were closing in on me and yet, after the confined ship, there was also an unsettling sense of limitless space. The air smelled strongly of burning.

‘It’s busy enough on any other day,’ Townley observed. ‘But the fire has made everything ten times worse. The world and his wife are abroad. If they haven’t lost their homes then they wish to gawp at those who have.’

‘Is the damage considerable, sir?’

‘Bad enough. Fifty or sixty houses are gone – perhaps more. It began in the middle of the night over there to your left, near Cruger’s Wharf and Dock Street. We have fire engines, of course, but our men were overwhelmed by the speed of it, and there were difficulties with the pumps.’

‘Has there been loss of life?’

‘No, we have been spared that, I believe. Through the mercy of God.’

‘The Captain told us that the fire may have been laid deliberately.’

Townley nodded. ‘It’s a strong possibility, in my opinion. The rebels care nothing for their fellow Americans. They endanger the lives of the innocent without a second thought. I believe the Commandant is to post a reward of a hundred and twenty guineas for information about the incendiaries.’

He took me first to Headquarters, a short step away, for all newcomers to the city were obliged to register with the authorities.

‘You should meet Major Marryot as soon as possible,’ Townley said. ‘I had hoped to make you known to him now, but his clerk says he has been called away. You will see a good deal of him, I’m sure, in the course of your duties. He deals with both the Provost Marshal and the city’s Superintendent of Police, as well as with the Deputy Adjutant General.’

‘In that case, sir, would you be good enough to direct me to Judge Wintour’s? I should pay my respects to my host.’

‘Ah.’ Townley tapped his nose, which reminded me of an axehead bent a few degrees out of true. ‘I am before you there, sir. I called on the Judge this morning with the news of your arrival. He asked me to convey his compliments to you, of course, and he begs you will do him the favour of calling on him after dinner, when they will have everything in readiness for you. But you must permit me to turn the delay to my own advantage. It would give me immense pleasure if you would dine with me.’

I accepted. Townley took my arm. We walked down Broadway to avoid the remains of the fire to the south. In this part of town, the buildings on either side of the road were mostly in a ruinous condition, casualties of the earlier fire in ’76. Further eastwards however, the street became pleasant and tree-lined, though a man had to watch where he walked, for it was very dirty.

‘I believe Mr Rampton was acquainted with the Wintours when he himself was in America?’ Townley said after a moment’s silence.

‘Yes, sir. Mr Rampton served for a time as Attorney-General of Georgia and he greatly valued the Judge’s advice on legal matters.’

Townley guided us round the corner into Wall Street. ‘I am afraid the Wintours are much altered since Mr Rampton knew them.’ His grip tightened momentarily on my arm. ‘And for the worse.’

Chapter Four

Mr Townley had arranged for a room to be set aside at the Merchants Coffee House. The place was on the corner with a fine view of the masts and rigging of ships in the harbour, which lay at the far end of Wall Street. It was a genteel establishment with a balcony running along the tall windows of the principal assembly rooms upstairs.

‘They know me pretty well here,’ Townley said as we went inside. ‘I think I can promise you a tolerable dinner.’

Ceiling fans turned slowly in the big room on the ground floor. It was packed with gentlemen, many of whom seemed acquainted with Mr Townley and anxious to exchange bows with him. But Townley refused to be diverted. He led me through the throng, past a row of booths whose privacy was guarded with green-baize curtains, and up the stairs. On the landing, a negro footman in livery was waiting to show us into a small parlour where a table was laid for three.

‘I had hoped that Major Marryot would join us,’ Townley explained. ‘No matter. We can talk more confidentially without him.’

There was a tap on the door and the servants brought in the dinner. While we ate, Mr Townley asked me for news from London. He was eager to hear what people were thinking and doing, and the more I told him, the more pleased he was.

‘You must pardon my appetite for information,’ he said. ‘We are starved for it. It’s bad enough in peacetime when the mails are better. But nowadays we fasten like leeches on every newcomer and suck him dry as fast as we can.’

When the cloth had been withdrawn, Townley pushed back his chair, crossed his legs and passed me the bottle. ‘And now we can be comfortable, sir. What are they saying about the war in the American Department? I know Lord George has no secrets from Mr Rampton, and Mr Rampton can have no secrets from you.’ His left eyelid drooped in a wink and he nudged my arm.

I inclined my head but said nothing.

‘There’s much to be said for keeping these things in the family,’ Townley went on. ‘It is a question of loyalty, quite aside from anything else. Whom can one trust but one’s own kin and their connections?’

‘Indeed,’ I said, though I rather doubted Mr Rampton trusted anybody at all.

‘And – apart from the domestic felicity that no doubt lies in store for you on your return to England – this must mean you are quite the coming man in the Department.’

Our conversation turned to the war. Earlier this year, the entry of France on the rebel side had come as a heavy blow. No longer could we take our control of the American seaboard for granted; and there was the constant threat that the French would compel us to divert our resources to the West Indies or even further afield.

‘Sir Henry Clinton keeps his own counsel,’ Townley said. ‘Between ourselves, sir, there are many Loyalists in this city who cannot understand the General’s inactivity.’

‘But you do not doubt our ability to win, sir?’

‘Of course not. Congress will lose this war in the end: it lacks the gold it needs to buy weapons and pay its men and feed its people. None of us can do without money, eh? It’s a bitter pill for those damned Whigs to swallow – their soldiers want guineas, for all they carry the King’s head on them. The dollar is a laughing stock, barely worth the paper it is printed on. If we Tories but hold our nerve, sir, and prosecute the war with determination, we cannot help but win.’

Townley hammered the table in his enthusiasm and proposed that we drink His Majesty’s health again. Afterwards, he turned the conversation to Major Marryot.

‘It is providential that he could not be here with us,’ he said. ‘A word in your private ear before you meet may not come amiss. You may find him – how shall I put it? – a little brusque. He may not be disposed to make your task less burdensome, even if it lies within his power.’

‘Why, sir? I have no quarrel with the Major.’

My host fanned himself with his handkerchief, now stained with wine. ‘You know what soldiers are. Marryot instinctively distrusts any man who doesn’t wear a red coat. He was wounded at White Plains, you know, and as a result is quite lame in the left leg, which has not improved a temper already inclined towards the choleric. Add to this the usual prejudices of a true-born Englishman …’

‘Forgive me, sir,’ I said, ‘but I do not understand how this would influence his behaviour towards me.’

Townley dabbed with his handkerchief at the moisture on his forehead, which ran in gleaming rivulets through the powder that had fallen from his wig. ‘He does not have much time for the American Department,’ he said. ‘Particularly when it bestirs itself to protect in some small way the interests of the Loyalists.’ He paused, and then added, ‘His father was killed at Minden. He served in the Twenty-third.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Yes, I see.’