He could not seem to keep his hair in its queue.
And his hands smelled of blood.
Still.
Even through the ink staining them in his task-which for some reason was far messier than any letter he'd ever before attempted-messier, even, than a handful of treatises he'd written at Yale whilst several sheets to the wind after late-night sessions of philosophy and drink.
To regain his composure (rather than dash the inkwell into the canvas tent's easily-stainable wall) he attempted to transpose the next few sentences: first, into Greek, the next one in Latin, the third? Hebrew. But it did not matter.
In any language, what he was trying to communicate was unacceptable. As much to him as to this unknown 'Mrs. Sackett', to whom he had decided to write (though he knew Washington would write as well), though without having clarified if she were the mother or wife of his coworker.
It was queer to imagine what a woman that would have wed Sackett might be like. The man had been strange. Stranger at every turn. And yet, ever more so he had felt of a friend.
And in his peculiar way as much of a mentor, a guide into this unknown world of espionage, as any New Haven professor had ever been to him.
How he had depended upon him, this civilian appointed (or had he even been officially appointed?) to Intelligence for Washington.
'Don't go,' he could recall crying out as he held his hand, so inexpertly, about Mr. Sackett's be-ribboned throat. 'Don't go.'
There was so much left to learn. And even in the loss of Sackett, mounting proof that anyone, at a moment's notice, could find they were in over their heads in this rotten headgame of subterfuge and turncoats.
And yet, the ink on his hands did not dilute the scent of blood still about them.
He had not struggled so to pen a letter since his platoon had been ambushed by Rogers, and in his recuperation he had sat, his shoulder patched and padded-and paining him, and wrote letters to the families of each of the men who had died while under his command.
It was not lost on him, his survival from that ambush. Not one of those men's names would ever be forgotten by his memory. And he did not doubt the loss of them (for which he bore the responsibility, mole or not) had spurred an especial interest within him in spycraft. The rooting out of traitors among them. The use of traitors against the enemy.
He stood and sought out Billy Lee among the camp. He would know whether this Mrs. Sackett were mother or bride.
Bride, then, and grown sons and other children to boot. Mr. Sackett had been a discreet man, to be sure. On more than one occasion he had admitted to not trusting even himself. And Ben was still uncertain whether those words were jest-or no.
Should it have made him feel anything? Knowing Sackett for a father to children? Husband to a wife? With sons close in age to himself?
How could he have thought knowing such would make the task he had set here for himself one iota simpler?
Caleb was gone: off leading Ben's own men in Washington's plan to misdirect the British army from their French contact taking that damning seal of King George's back to Europe.
It was better, perhaps. Caleb had had to see him after Rogers' ambush. Had played witness to his shock and anger at that time. But this: sorrow-for that's what it was. Sorrow was perhaps not the best companion for his gregarious whaling friend.
And it was of a certain a sorrow and panic that had burst through him in those last moments with Sackett-where even though his mind told him there was no hope for salvation in such an instant, he still screamed for a surgeon. Still bellowed to be brought something of hope to hold on to.
Another man lost. His platoon, Nathan, Samuel. Sackett.
He could not kid himself that he held Washington to blame in the matter. And so there was also this death of another kind: the final blow to his-(he was not ignorant-he knew)-too-starry-eyed reverence for the commander.
It was too much.
And the burden of it upon his shoulders too heavy.
He wished his father had been staying nearby so he could go and speak with him. To look into Nathaniel Tallmadge's face and know that even if he did not have the answers, something about him could make you feel as though he did. As though he could be your strength in such a situation.
His father would invoke, and rightly so, the Lord. And yet, Ben could not deny to himself that holy words, words of supplication to heaven had deserted him as (or perhaps long before) he had found Sackett bleeding-out on the ground within his tent. Where had he lost that aspect of himself along the way? Was there any likelihood he might find his way back to it?
He looked back to the letter, in his discomfiture having taken his ink-stained fingers to the hair that would not stay in place, and stained it dark as well. What to say to Sackett's loved ones? Did they know the nature of the work he did here? It seemed unlikely. Should he offer an anecdote, highlighting one of his eccentricities that might touch upon tender memories of him?
He could bring himself to do neither. In the end, it mattered little whether the letter were to wife or mother. Ben offered his condolences and his sympathy that he had to find himself the author of such a letter. He told them Sackett was a fine man, an important asset to the Continental Army. He stated that he had worked closely with him and that they shared a personal relationship. 'There is no other man alongside whom I stood to learn so much, and whose untimely loss could sadden me, nor could deprive the world of his talents, more.'
He mentioned nothing of the horrifying mode of his passing. Only that he was gone, that they would see him no more. He was to be buried-had already been buried-here at the Valley Forge camp. His tent and mostly-inscrutable belongings sitting in a sort of limbo, as no one knew what to make of most of them-much less what to do with them.
There will never be another like him, not that I'll find in my lifetime, he thought.
And then, to indulge himself more than anything else, in postscript he wrote several symbols of a primitive code Sackett had shown him in their first days of acquaintanceship-just in case anyone among his family might also have been the beneficiary of such a lesson.
Decrypted it said simply, 'he died doing that which he loved, in service to the country he loved. And the world is a poorer place for his loss.'
His sorrow did not abate with the last stroke of his feather pen. He did not expect it to. But just as he had with Samuel, as he had done even here, in confronting the commander within the quarter hour of Sackett's passing, he had it encircled again.
He did not know what might swell it to burst from that pen next.
But he was not so naive as to think it would stay quietly caged forever.
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