Back Bay by William Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

be early June, then.” Miller poured the Irish whiskey. “You know how I can tell?”
    “How?” Fallon downed the shot.
    “You order a boilermaker the first week of every other month. I can set my watch to it. These things’ll kill you.”
    “Occasionally I need some lubrication.” Fallon gulped the beer and left. After six beers and a shot, he was beginning to feel numb. He would know he’d had enough when he stopped thinking about the Pratts, “the Eagle,” and “DL.”

CHAPTER THREE
    August 1814
    D exter Lovell found the First Lady in the northeast bedroom. Although the door was open, he knocked softly.
    “Come in, Dexter.” Dolley Madison stood by an open window and studied the horizon through a spyglass.
    “The dinner is ready, ma’am, and I’ve set out iced ale and Madeira, should you want a dram to ward off the heat.” He was a rangy figure with high cheekbones and gray hair that he tied, in the Revolutionary style, at the collar. Although he wore a white livery and knee breeches, he looked more like a seaman than a servant, and he spoke with a Cockney accent.
    “I’ll await the President, Dexter. We may be stifling, but it’s a good deal hotter wherever he is at the moment.”
    The sound of artillery fire rolled across Washington like distant thunder. Mrs. Madison shuddered and turned again to the window. In four days, thought Lovell, she had grown old. A large woman in her mid-forties, she wore a shapeless cotton dress that emphasized her bulk, and the lines in her face had deepened with worry.
    “We’re losing, aren’t we, ma’am?”
    She handed him the glass. “See for yourself.”
    Six miles away, in a hamlet called Bladensburg, two thousand British regulars were routing an American force three times their size. From the windows of the President’s Mansion, Lovell saw the smoke and dust that hung above the battle like heat haze, and he heard the faint sounds of rifle fire carried on the breeze.
    On the other side of Washington, across the mud and swamps and impassable thickets that separated the President’s Mansion from the rest of the city, he saw the American Militia straggling back from Bladensburg. Their return had incited a panic. The citizens of Washington had packed what they could carry onto wagons and carts, and they were pouring by the hundreds upPennsylvania Avenue, past the Mansion, and off into the safety of the Virginia countryside.
    “They look like the Jews fleeing Egypt,” said Lovell.
    “The Jews wanted to leave.”
    A rider galloped up the drive. It was Jim Smith, President Madison’s freedman, waving wildly and hollering to Mrs. Madison.
    “Men bringing good news don’t ride like that, ma’am,” said Lovell.
    “We’ve lost! The President says clear out! Clear out!” Smith bellowed.
    “I’ll have that Madeira now, Dexter, then I think we should start packing.” Dolley Madison left Lovell by the window and went downstairs.
    Lovell stared at the caravan streaming past and at the turbulent sky above Bladensburg. His moment had arrived.
    He took an envelope from Mrs. Madison’s desk. It carried the words “By Presidential Courier” on the front and Madison’s signature on the flap. The President had signed several envelopes and left them with his wife, so that she might communicate efficiently while he was with the troops.
    Lovell addressed the letter to Horace Taylor Pratt, his old friend in Boston.
    To HTP,
    The British are taking the city. Our chance is here. The Eagle will arrive at the mouth of the Easterly Channell, Gravelly Point, on the night tide, ten to fifteen days hence. Make arrangements.
    He signed his initials in flowing script and folded the letter, sealing it with a drop of hot wax and the President’s stamp.
    Downstairs, Dolley Madison was directing the evacuation. Her sister and brother-in-law loaded a wagon with china, silverware, and books. Mrs. Madison and Charles Carrol, a family friend, stripped the Oval Room of its red velvet