Sproat nodded slowly, a grin splitting his homely cheeks. “I’ll be ready.”
16
TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS
We were already riding toward White Plains when the sky stretched and turned back her dark coverlet. Sproat had chosen a handful of trusted men, including the scout who had brought him the information. I recognized a few of them from Tarrytown but knew none of their names. Kosciuszko had remained at Peekskill, but Grippy had come along, lured by the talk of caverns and treasure, but by early afternoon, he was looking at the hovering clouds. The temperature had dropped again, and our spring thaw seemed to have changed her mind.
“You think it could snow?” Agrippa worried. “I hate being cold, I hate being cold on horseback even worse, and I hate riding said horse in the cold when I’m heading into enemy territory.”
“If it’s what we’ve been told, you’ll be heading back to the Point with your own ham,” General Paterson promised. “Mrs. Allen can prepare it for you, and you can eat every single bite all by yourself.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
“I’m a man of my word,” the general said.
Grippy nodded and grinned. “That you are, so there better be ham. One for Bonny too. We need to fatten him up.”
Our ride was uneventful, and we moved quickly under the roiling clouds, constantly on the lookout and skirting picket points and known hotbeds. The scout, a man named Williby, seemed to know where he was going, and when he suggested we stop and let him and Sproat go ahead to ascertain whether the depot was being watched or guarded, we agreed and dismounted at a creek that cut through the trees, letting our horses rest and drink while we waited. Sproat and Williby were not gone long, and Sproat was excited.
“I don’t know if it’s the storm coming in, but there’s nobody watching it. The opening’s not much more than a depression in a rocky rise, and it’s easy to miss. But it’s just like he said. I only had a quick look, but the barrels have the Continental mark. There’s at least a hundred barrels of beans and salted meat, flour and lard, butter, molasses, all of it.”
Sproat ordered five men to remain with the horses and another five to watch the door, and the rest of us went inside. Williby was waiting for us, a lantern lit, his rucksack already bulging. Sproat said nothing, and I assumed the man had been promised his own ham . . . or whatever he wanted.
The cave looked small from the outside, the opening barely tall enough for me to enter upright and only as wide as my outstretched arms. General Paterson and Colonel Sproat had to stoop, but within ten feet, the cavern opened up into much more, and just as promised, the bounty was significant.
“How did they get all this in here without anyone knowing?” Grippy marveled. “And how are we going to get it out?”
“They created a diversion,” Paterson said. “That’s what the strike in Tarrytown was all about. While some attacked, the rest were busy hijacking the supply line when it passed through. They just unloaded the barrels—”
“And burned the wagons,” Williby finished. “There’s a gulch just over the rise. The whole thing was lit up last summer. I found the hubs and the hitches. But that’s all. They torched ’em good.”
“How far are we from the river?” the general asked.
“Four miles, at the most,” Williby answered.
“How’s the terrain?”
“Easy. A man could walk it in an hour if he’s moving fast.”
“What are you thinking, General?” Sproat interjected. “Those barrels are too heavy to carry.”
“We’ll come down the North River with handcarts. On barges.”
“Thirty men could empty this in less than an hour,” Sproat said. “An hour here. An hour to load it all up, maybe two hours getting back to the river with the heavy carts. That leaves plenty of time to load the barges once we’re there.”
The general nodded. “We’ll get here in the middle of the night, load up and get out, and time the return to the shift in the tide.”
“Just like we do in Kingston,” I said.
“Just like we do in Kingston,” the general agreed.
“It could work,” Sproat said, and Grippy was beaming.
“Can I have my ham now?” he asked.
We didn’t want to sleep near the depot, but the wind howled and the night was cold. Williby led us about a mile north to the barn of a “friendly,” and we hunkered down inside and ate a feast of pickled eggs and bottled peaches from the cavern. Sproat passed around a bottle of pilfered wine, but I barely wetted my lips before handing it to the general. I desperately needed to empty my bladder and would have to wait until everyone was asleep. The men had only to step outside. I would have to go a little farther.