The Traitor's Stain (wattys 2019)

Chapter Eleven: Long Island Sound

Ophelia found Anna out behind her home, right where the Strong's property overlooked Long Island Sound. She was hanging her laundry on the clothesline, where the breeze made the various garments billow out, making it seem as if the clothes were reaching out towrads the Sound. Ophelia's heart was thumping against her chest like a sledgehammer against a condemned wall, the letter she'd written hanging heavily in her apron pocket. The subject was simple enough - she'd written an inquiry to Major Tallmadge regarding her husband to disguise what she'd written in white stain - but she was still afraid of... them. The tons of redcoats that walked around Setauket. It almost seemed as if the size of the force in town had doubled since she realized that the royal army was on the move.

But, it wasn't going to be her problem for much longer. She just had to get the letter to Anna, and she and Caleb would handle the rest. She would be safe from the information she had if she could just get that letter off of her person.

Right?

Just as Ophelia was half way between the Strong house and the clothesline, Anna looked over her shoulder at her.

She frowned. "Is everything alright? You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"I heard that you might know how to get a letter to Ben," Ophelia blurted out.

Anna's cheeks began to turn red. "I... erm..."

"It's about my husband," Ophelia clarified. "I haven't heard anything about him, and I thought that he might know something. And... might be more willing to tell me than His Majesty's army."

Anna relaxed a little. According to the look on her face, they'd finally reached a bit of an understanding. "Of course: I'll do my best."

Ophelia tried to smile as she handed Anna the letter. She'd hoped that some of the weight she'd been carrying since she realized that the army was on the move would lift from her shoulders once the letter had passed from her hands, but it didn't: it remained like the weight of the world on the shoulders of Atlas. "Thank you."

Anna tucked the letter into her own pocket and hung up a black petticoat. "Now, what are the odds that Brewster isn't out whaling, right now?

***

Caleb took a deep breath of fresh air once the Turtle had surfaced and the hatch had been lifted. God, it was nice to feel that breeze. They'd only been down there for a few minutes, but even in that time, the air in the submersible had grown stale, heavy with moisture. It was nothing short of a miracle that Jacob's system actually worked with air filtration (as far as they could tell, anyway) but did it have to make the air so thick?

Frankly, though, that wasn't the only reason he was so relieved to be out of there: he didn't think he'd be able to stand so much as another second down there with Alexander.

Alexander took a big gasp of air when he surfaced, as if he hadn't been able to breathe for a half an hour. The man had been insufferable down there: complained from the moment the hatch closed to that moment. But, he had a way of doing it. The way he complained, he made it sound like he was some sort of long-suffering martyr.

Which, of course, he wasn't: he was just an ass with an overwhelming sense of himself.

"Never again," Alexander wheezed as Ben helped him back onto the dingy. "I... am never... going into... that infernal thing... ever again..."

And you didn't even have to sit right beneath someone else's arse, Caleb thought to himself as he pulled himself out, looking out over the Sound.

"You'll go back down there and learn to love it until we find someone else to pilot it with Mr. Brewster, Major," Washington said without so much as a hint of sympathy.