This is the serialization of the novel. All earlier chapters are on the blog. If you want to read without the entire novel without waiting for me to post, it is available at most on-line bookstores. Unlike many novels, there are chapters for writers about how the author made decisions, solved problems and did the research.
Chapter 43
Boston, Massachusetts
December 1774
THE NIGHT BEFORE General Gage was to leave for Salem, he told James he wanted to convince Samuel Adams to become his spy. James was ordered to sit in the corner of the General’s office, say nothing, take no notes but observe the two men talking. Afterward, the General wanted a full written report.
James had done this before. He wondered what people talking to the General thought about a soldier sitting in a chair mimicking a statue.
James had become proficient in melting into walls. His excellent memory meant he remembered the major points after a meeting. He knew from writing other reports that the sooner he wrote it, the more complete it would be. If he waited three or four days, there would be holes in it. He also knew if he reread the report five or six days later, some detail he could add might work its way back into his head. He hated asking the General if he could write an addendum. The General always said yes, but with a look of disappointment.
General Gage was slated to go to Salem in the morning, he told James to stay in the Governor’s Mansion, to write the report as well as make sure Mrs. Gage was safe. The General did not want her wandering around Boston alone where some rebel might attack her.
They heard a knock. The maid Beth showed Adams into the General’s study.
James thought Adams was a bit chunky. Although he had heard the rebel was in his mid-thirties, his full head of hair was graying. Strands had escaped the leather tie holding his hair in place. He was well-dressed as his status as Clerk of the House of Representatives dictated. James knew he was also a delegate to the Continental Congress made up of delegates from other colonies. They had held their first meeting in Philadelphia last fall.
At the Green Dragon, James had heard people mumbling that if there hadn’t been a blockade of Boston Harbor, the Congress would never have happened. And if there hadn’t been the Boston Tea Party, the harbor blockade wouldn’t have happened. James was always amazed how one event melded into another. It made him think of a runaway hoop rolling down a hill so fast it was next to impossible to catch it.
Allegedly, the Congress wanted to improve relationships with King George and his representatives but at the same time they wanted the King to understand their point of view. The letter hey had sent to the King had had no response although it was still too early to expect much. Their letter had probably just reached the King, and he would not have had time to think of an answer if he were to bother giving an answer to rebels.
The General had been outraged that the delegates tried to contact the King directly. He had not been able to discover everything that went on in that meeting, and if there was one thing the General hated, it was having partial information. James understood this, because to make a good decision, one needed all the facts or at least most of them. Thus, James had been asked to find out all he could about Adams. It wasn’t hard: so much was known. He was born into a Puritan family, attended Boston Latin before Harvard and seemed much more suited to politics than business.
What James didn’t say in his earlier report on Adams was that the man was stubborn. Everyone he spoke to mentioned his stubbornness. Because the General was one of the most stubborn man he ever met, he figured this meeting might be a battle of equals in personality despite a difference in rank. He also knew that Adams did not care about rank. He cared only about results, or so people reported.
“Thank you for coming,” the General said. “We’ve a lot to talk about.”
Adams shucked his coat and put it over the arm of one of the upholstered chairs. He seated himself upright in one chair when the General suggested another. A coffee table was between the two men.
They made small talk about their families. Adams had two surviving children from his first marriage, none from his second. “I hope your family is settling in well, General?”
“My wife is from New Jersey. She is as comfortable here as she was in London.”
Adams leaned back. “Why did you ask me here, General?”
He gets straight to the point, James thought.
“I don’t suppose you know where the missing cannons are?”
“Missing cannons?”
“Stolen. We’ve also lost gun powder and . . .”
Adams crossed his legs. “I would say then, your security needs to be increased, General. I would also suggest that it is not in the best interest of the citizens of Boston and nearby towns to be under threat from the soldiers.”
James watched the General’s grimace, the one he made when trying to control his temper. “If we knew how to remove troublemakers, we could serve all the population better.”
“And how do you define troublemaker, General?”
“Perhaps people who dress as Indians to throw tea in the harbor rather than pay tax.”
The General was ninety-five percent sure that Adams had been one of those Indians. He’d complained about it enough times to James or in James’ hearing to others.
“In general, General, there are many colonists who do not understand why taxes are imposed on us at all. We have no say. The money goes back to the home country.”
“The money is used for your protection. It pays for the soldiers.”
“Soldiers we do not want here.”
James noted that Adams lowered his voice to the point that the General had to lean forward to hear Adams speak.
“That is no excuse. We’re here to protect English people, English property.”
“We are no longer in danger from Indians. But we are in danger from our own countrymen.”
“Maybe not real Indians. I wonder how you would look with war paint, Mr. Adams?”
James thought that statement might be bad strategy if he wanted to get Adams on his side. Rumors, reliable ones, had Mr. Adams as one of those temporary red men. It was hard imagining the immaculately dressed Adams with feathers, buckskin and war paint.
Adams laughed. “General, are you referring to the attack on the Beaver? What a waste of good tea that was.”
“We can agree on the waste. I also was referring to a shipment that was on the Fortune last February. More of those light-skinned Indians.”
Adams set back in his chair. “I heard that it was a measly thirty-five boxes.”
“Still, soldiers are needed to protect against Indians whatever the shade of red.”
“It seems to me, General, the only Indians that attack these days are those that don’t like taxes imposed by London.”
“Before we can change those taxes or lift the embargo on the harbor, we must have the troublemakers removed.”
“There’s an interesting word, troublemaker, General. I believe the colonists would call them heroes, although Indian heroes are an interesting concept, don’t you think?”
There was a long silence. James suspected that the General wasn’t sure where to go. His intention had been to offer Adams a large sum of money for names.
“Not everyone in Boston would agree with you. They want the unrest to come to end. They are loyal English citizens.”
“As we all do, General. Fewer soldiers, taxes decided locally and spent locally, perhaps on our own militia, would probably do that.”
A chicken-and-egg argument, James thought. He was getting stiff, sitting in the uncomfortable chair, barely moving not to call attention to himself.
The General stood up and walked to the window and looked out for a minute or two before turning. “Mr. Adams, I was hoping you would consider helping us. It could benefit you in any way you see fit.”
Adams stood and picked up his coat. “I believe, General, we are too far apart on how to solve disagreements between colonists and the Crown until the Crown can give us some of the things I spoke about earlier. But I thank you for your time.”
He walked to the door. “I can show myself out.” He shut the study room door behind him. They heard footsteps and then the outer door open and shut.
The General checked the short corridor to the outside. He slammed the door to the study shut so hard that three figurines in the bookcase quivered. It was followed by a string of obscenities that James had never heard the General use.
Mrs. Gage rushed in. “What’s happening?”
Immediately the swearing stopped. “I failed at getting Adams on our side.”
“From what I’ve heard about Mr. Adams, he’s so dedicated to his cause, even if he gave you information, could he be trusted?” She put her hand on her husband’s arm, something James had seen her do whenever the General seemed to be getting upset, although that was usually when the children were getting too boisterous for the General’s liking.
The General took several deep breaths. The red in his face returned to his normal color. “I’m going to Salem tomorrow, Dear. What are your plans?”
“I need to do some errands. I want to visit some of the officers’ wives while the children’s French tutor is here in the afternoon.”
The General turned to James. “I want you to stay and accompany my wife at all times. Then put on your civilian clothes and continue to try and find what the hell, excuse me Mrs. Gage, anything that might help us.”
The General went to the table where there stood a bottle and several glasses and poured a glass of port to offer to James, who shook his head.
His stomach was queasy. “I need to . . .” He wanted to go back to the barracks to his narrow army bed. If it weren’t the most comfortable sleeping place, it was easy to disassemble in case it needed to be moved to another location.
The General swished the port in his mouth. “We are Englishmen who must do whatever the King wants us to do.”
“Adams believes in his cause more than he believes in anything you could do for him,” James said.
“And he’s wrong.”
As James walked to the barracks he shivered in the wind. He thought about the rebels. The King giving no consideration to their needs bothered him. In Ely, when taxes were raised on flour, it had been a problem. It meant the price of bread had to be raised. Their customers complained and had to raise prices on their goods. It seemed to James a never-ending circle. He had no idea how to change it, but refusing to pay the taxes didn’t seem right either. Was there no way to make the King and parliament understand?
He just wanted to sleep. Inside the room where thirty of his regiment slept, he noticed fifteen empty beds. Maybe there was some kind of mission he hadn’t heard about.
He
felt so cold and debated taking an extra blanket from the empty cots. He could return it when the soldier returned from
wherever.
Chapter 44
Argelès-sur-Mer France
May
BEFORE I PROCEED, I’m reviewing the first forty-two chapters of the first draft.
What makes a first draft? Maybe that is not the correct term. Some people would say the first draft is the first words written down.
To me the first draft is the writing until the entire story is told. Each day, I’ll go over and tweak what is done before. Sometimes I’ll go back a couple of days. This not only tightens the writing, it primes the writing pump.
What its called isn’t as important as having the writing as polished as possible.
When the first draft is done, I’ll rewrite, rearrange chapters, paragraphs, and sentences, edit and polish. Then I hand it to my husband or my first reader for his editing.
Some of my reviewing is solving a continuity problem. Is Clark spelled with or without an e? Does James have one or two sisters? Those sorts of things. Is a six-foot man in chapter two, five-foot-four in chapter ten? That’s my punishment for not being the type of writer that plans everything in advance.
I discovered I needed to tweak the timeline for Daphne’s story. I have her researching when Florence’s work is already advanced. I will need to correct that.
Also, I need work on chapter numbering. The anatomy chapters, like this one, weren’t originally numbered but scattered among the numbered ones. In all my novels, I find the chapter numbers out of order at some point. Thank goodness for the Find button so I can read down the chapter list and see where I’ve messed up.
One thinks of writer’s creativity, but neatness counts: spacing, margins, etc. No matter how careful one is, how many readers and editors there are, always, always, always some little mistakes show up after publishing. At least these days they can be corrected on e-books, but not on the print copies.
I had already decided that these two women will interest James: Mollie Clark and Sally Brewster. Both will play “walk on” parts as my “reader” at Glamorgan University described characters that appear, play a tiny role and then disappear. Love the British/Welsh university term “reader” rather than mentor, professor or thesis advisor.
I keep checking dates. I verified the second Boston Tea Party was in 1774 not 1775. I hadn’t known there were two Boston Tea Parties and I’m a Bostonian. I’ve even been on a replica of The Beaver, a board by board copy of the first tea party ship more than once, and I still didn’t know about the second one.
This is polishing, not wasted writing time. By polishing I mean strengthening my verbs. “ing” verbs can be weaker. I eliminate some adverbs. I change show to tell. Paragraphs have been deleted. Other paragraphs have been cut and pasted elsewhere.
The writing is still rougher than I like, but the story is progressing.
Global changes caught me out again. I wanted to change Mary’s name to Bess to match the name of the Brown Bess rifle. I did a find-replace. The word infirmary was changed to infirBess. It happened before in my novel Family Value when I changed Lou to Gino. Everyone knows about the southern state of Ginoisiana and a woman might want to buy a pretty bginose and skirt.
I wonder if the artwork within the text will make the work less serious. I also wonder about how having the whole anatomy thingie changes the work. The novel has become three different ones in one.
Again I wish I were one of those writers that have everything planned out in advance, but I’m not. Writing a book, for me, is a bit like reading one. I’m never sure how it ends until I finish, although what happened to James has been predetermined by history.
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