Thad leaned forward. “Can Washington be readied, do you think?”
Tallmadge snorted. “With Secretary Jones stymieing our efforts at every turn and General Winder being always undermined by him? I have my doubts, though we will pray Winder overcomes political resistance. But if by chance the British succeed, if Washington falls, we must have our next step planned out.”
Thad nodded even as his pulse kicked up. The plan they had already discussed as a possibility. “Lure them to Baltimore.”
“Which will be ready for them.” Smith folded his arms as he made the pronouncement, his steel-gray hair and firm jaw daring anyone to argue. “The mayor backs my plan entirely, and I am ready to enact it at a moment’s notice. We will rally every man, slave and free, and put him to work. We will fortify, we will dig trenches, we will drill. Every day, round the clock, the masters beside their servants.”
“And we will not let them know we are doing it.” Tallmadge picked up a piece of paper and handed it to Thad. “These are the messages you are to plant, Mr. Culper.”
He read them quickly, though they but provided details to what they had already decided. An article for the paper to falsely report that Baltimore was dreadfully unprepared. And other, slier messages to send by word of mouth reporting the Potomac force as weak and in trouble.
“I have a few messengers in mind, and I am well acquainted with the editor at the Patriot. But sirs, they have their intelligencers too. The generals and admirals were talking of them in Bermuda. We must tread carefully.” With the thought that every step they took could make it to the ears of Cockburn, Cochrane, Ross.
And then over the sea to Gates.
“I know. Trust me, I know.” Tallmadge stood and paced to the window, his hands clasped behind his back. “But our best defense against their scouts is what you already do for us—know everyone, watch everyone. And somehow convince the populace that they are our last, best line of defense.”
Thad agreed, and he and Arnaud took their leave a few minutes later. But once they were outside the city again, surrounded by naught but chirping birds and open land, his friend looked over at him and asked the question weighing on Thad’s mind too.
“How, exactly, are we to convince the populace of this?”
The question that had been plaguing them since this blasted war broke out. How to move a languid people? How to unify a nation divided on so many issues? How to overcome a generation’s worth of lassitude when two years of war had not accomplished it already?
Only one way came to mind. “Remember Hampton.”
Arnaud sighed. “But we cannot wish, cannot plan for another such violent, cruel attack. We cannot hope that Washington will be the next Hampton.”
“No. But we can be ready with the battle cry if our first defenses fail.” He urged Electra to go a little faster, eager to be home. To let all these matters simmer in the back of his mind and focus the fore of it on his evening with Gwyneth. “That is our best hope, Alain. That though their goal may be to crush our spirits, they have never understood them well enough to do so. The harder they hit us, the more we awake to fight. The stronger they press, the more we lash back.”
Arnaud grinned. “Vive l’esprit américain.”
Long live the American spirit indeed. And may the British never comprehend it.
They rode in companionable silence for a while and then spoke of lighter things. Of Jack’s exploits during Thad’s absence, of Emmy’s return from Henry’s sister’s. Of the latest letter from Amelia, in which she shared that her husband had joined up with Hagerstown’s First Maryland Cavalry regiment, which they expected to be called to Washington’s defense.
There it was again, that shadow of the war.
By the time they parted ways at the corner of Thad’s street, his mind screamed for respite. Something to still the swirl of British army red and naval blue behind his eyes, the images of ships and flocks of soldiers.
He led Electra round to the carriage house and stabled, brushed, and fed her. Then he headed inside, half expecting to find Gwyneth in the garden finishing her painting despite the afternoon slant to the sun.
Mother was instead the first one he saw, and from the look in her eyes, she had been waiting for him. She greeted him with a finger on her lips and a motion for him to follow. Too curious to disobey even had he been so inclined, he tiptoed behind her up the stairs and into his parents’ chamber.
“What is it?” he asked in a whisper when she shut the door behind them.
She smiled and turned to her vanity. “I want to give you something. For Gwyneth, when the time is right.”