Chapter 31
GEORGE WILENSON was still a good mile from Williamsburg, riding south, when he began to sense that something was wrong.
He had spent the day, a satisfying day, inspecting the family’s small plantation on the York River near Queen’s Lake. He had found the plantation in good order, with the young plants put in during the last rain and the mill fully repaired and running. It was good to get away from the tense atmosphere at the Wilkenson plantation. To feel like the master of his lands and his people. It was good to get away from his father.
He pulled his horse to a stop, cocked his ear to the south. He could hear bells ringing, clearly, if faintly, a mile or so away. The bells in the city.
He frowned and looked in the direction of the sound. Along the horizon, just above the tree line, he could see a long smudge of smoke, tinted pale red as the sun moved toward the west. Something was burning, something big. Perhaps all of Williams-burg was aflame. But no, the smoke looked farther away than that, farther south. Perhaps the bells were ringing to call people to help extinguish the blaze.
He put his spurs to his horse’s flank and continued on. The smoky haze was in the general direction of the Wilkenson plantation, and that caused him some vague worry, but not a great deal. The chance that it was his own home that was on fire was slight, and there were enough people on the plantation that they should be able to deal with any such disaster before it got out of control.
It was twenty minutes later that he saw the first of the terrified citizens streaming north out of the city.
At first it was just a few men who passed him on horseback, riding rather swiftly, and he did not immediately make the connection between them and the ringing bells and the smoke. And while it was odd that they did not stop and exchange a word with him, or even acknowledge his existence, and that there were more riders on the road than one generally saw, still George did not see any cause for concern.
It was when he saw the people following in their wake, common people with wagons piled with possessions, pulled by their pathetic animals, that he realized something was very wrong indeed. Something more than just a plantation on fire. Williamsburg was being abandoned.
“I say…” Wilkenson reined his chestnut around and fell in beside a farmer who was leading an old plow horse north along the road. The horse in turn was pulling a dray piled with the farmer’s family and a few possessions. From the look of his worldly goods George could not imagine why he had gone to the effort to save them.
“What is this about? Where is everyone going?”
“Anywhere. Away. The devil’s in Williamsburg. Tidewater’s under attack. Burning all the plantations along the James.”
“What? Who? Who is burning the plantations?”
“Don’t know. I heard a rumor it’s the Dutch again, but it don’t really matter, does it?”
To a certain extent the man was right, though George had an idea that it was not the Dutch. In fact, he had a good idea of who it really was, and that idea gave him a sour feeling in his stomach. He had heard it from the master of the
He wheeled his horse around again and continued south, riding hard, pounding past the ever-growing stream of people fleeing the capital city.
He came at last to the great pile of earth and material that would soon be the governor’s palace and continued on into the heart of Williamsburg. It was absolute chaos, from what he could see, with horses and wagons crowding the street and people rushing out of their houses with armfuls of possessions, piling them on whatever vehicle they had and then hurrying in for more.
He could hear loud, angry shouting, screaming, children crying, the thud of dozens of horses rushing in every direction and the drunken cursing of those of the lower sort who were finding their refuge in a bottle.
He pulled to a stop beside the jailhouse. Sheriff Witsen was rounding up those men who would stand with him. Five, thus far.
“Sheriff, Sheriff!” Wilkenson leapt down from his horse and hurried over to him. “Sheriff, what the devil is going on?”
“It’s them goddamned pirates, damn their black souls. Good Lord,” Witsen turned to one of his volunteers, “that gun is from the last age, it will blow you to hell should you fire it. Go to the armory and fetch another.”
Witsen turned back to George Wilkenson. “They come ashore around noon, just north of Hog Island. Went for the Finch place first. I reckon it was the first one they seen. Most of the family got away, slaves too, but when they were done having their fun they burned it. Moved on to the Nelson plantation and done for that, too. Last I heard, which was about half an hour ago, they was at the Page plantation.”
The two men were silent for a moment as the noise and the confusion swirled around them. There was no need to say what both were thinking. The Page house was just up the road from the Wilkensons’.
“What of the militia?” Wilkenson asked.
“Called them out, but most of them are too worried about getting their own families safe to turn out. I have a man trying to round them up, but I ain’t too hopeful.”
The pirates were descending on his home, and there was no defense that the colony could offer. George felt as if he were standing there on the green completely naked.
And then another thought occurred to him and he felt himself flush with anger. “But where is the guardship? Where is the great Marlowe and his little precious band? This would seem to be his purview.”
“The guardship went down this morning, and they fought it out, him and the pirate, for an hour or so. Don’t know what happened, but the guardship is anchored up by Jamestown now. Just sitting there.”
“Well, why doesn’t someone order them to go and fight these brigands?”
“I suggested the same to the governor. Governor said Marlowe’s beyond taking orders from anyone.”
“Indeed. Well, we should have expected this. Marlowe is as much a pirate as any of those bastards. No doubt he will be sacking the countryside himself by week’s end.”
“I’ve no doubt, if there’s anything left to sack. But see here, your father has requisitioned a deal of supplies from the militia-powder, shot, small arms. Guess he thought this might happen. I reckon he’s set up for some kind of defense. Once we get some men together here we’ll get down to your plantation, and maybe we can hold them off there, or drive ’em back into the river.”
“I hope you are right,” Wilkenson said as he swung himself up into his saddle. “I shall go to our plantation directly and see what can be done.”
It was like riding into battle, trotting down the familiar rolling road from Williamsburg to the Wilkenson plantation. The sun was just below the trees in the west and the southern sky was blotted out by a great cloud of smoke, rising in columns from several locations and tinted red and pink and yellow.
The farthest dark column was the Finch plantation. Wilkenson could tell by the location of the smoke. The next was
the Nelsons’. A third he was not so certain of; it might have been the grist mill that was on that road. It did not look as if the Page house was burning, and that most likely meant the pirates had not made it to the Wilkenson plantation. Not yet.
The logic of that did little to relieve the absolute panic that George felt as he hurried toward his home. He was terrified to think of the danger that his family might be facing, with the marauders closing in on them. He was even more terrified of the danger that he himself was in, though he would not acknowledge that.
The acrid smell of the fires became more pronounced as George covered the last half mile to the Wilkenson plantation. He charged down the long road that led to the house, hunched over the neck of his horse, cowering from what, he did not know.
The road was dark, lost in the long shadows of the trees that lined the way. He nearly missed seeing a group of the Wilkensons’ slaves, field hands, standing beside a big oak one hundred feet from the house. They each held a cloth with a few things tied in a bundle. They looked very frightened.
He pulled his horse to a stop. “What are you doing here?”
An old man stepped forward. “We afraid to stay in them slave quarters, on account of them pirates, but Master Wilkenson, he say we got to stay on the plantation.”
George Wilkenson regarded the pathetic people huddled beneath the tree. He wondered what he should do
