The Loyalist
"Hey, Gabe," a cheerful voice said. "Writin' another letter to the missus?"
"Yes," Gabriel Martin said, smiling in spite of the interruption. He looked up at the pale face of Chris Reilly, the Irish-born volunteer they had in the militia unit commanded by Colonel Benjamin Martin, Gabriel's father. Chris was twenty, like Gabriel, a highly popular member of the militia thanks to his superb work as a scout and dispatch messenger, his steadfast commitment to the Patriot cause, his infectious laugh and wonderful sense of humor.
Chris had volunteered alongside Gabriel in 1776, and served two years alongside him in the Continental Army. When Benjamin Martin had transferred his son from Colonel Harry Burwell's command in the regulars to his own militia regiment, Chris had come long as if that went without saying.
Chris' smile widened when Gabriel looked up at him, and he leaned down to look at the letter. "Oh, that's a mighty fine letter, that is," he said in his distinctive accent. "I'd be writin' one meself, if me Mam or me brothers could read."
"I guess you'll just have to tell them all about what the war was like when you finally go home."
"Yah, I guess so," Chris laughed, running a hand through his red hair. "I tell you, it'd be fine with me if this red hair made them redcoats not wanna shot at me so much. I think there's a bullet out there and it's lookin' for me."
"Taking off your 'Shoot Me' sign when we head out next might help," Gabriel commented.
Chris exploded with laughter, leaning on his Brown Bess musket for support. It was the better part of a minute before he could speak again. Wiping tears from his eyes, he said, "That's good advice, that is. I'll think about it."
"You do that, Chris."
Motioning to the musket, Chris said, "I've got to clean this, else she'll be a bigger danger to me than the redcoats next time we're in a fight."
With that, Chris headed off, musket in one hand, for a tree at the edge of the woods. Gabriel stared after him for a moment, then shook his head and returned to his letter.
XX
Some twenty minutes later, Gabriel was waving the ink dry and getting ready to fold the letter up when a shadow fell over the tree-stump he had been using for a writing desk. Gabriel looked up to see the solemn face of his father and that of Major Jean Villeneueve, a French Army officer sent over to advise and assist Colonel Martin's militia force. Both men looked grim, and Gabriel felt a tremor of fear. What had gone wrong? The Continental Army was still in the fight, no question about it. Every day that General Washington and the Continental Congress evaded capture and carried on the fight was a good day.
But there was always the chance that disaster could strike. At any second, Washington could fall in battle or be taken prisoner. The next newsletters could reveal that Congress had been captured, or a key supply cache burned or confiscated. The Continental Army was perilously close to defeat, no matter how well things went on a given day. That was just the nature of things when you were taking on the might of the British Empire with nothing but a few muskets and a cause worth fighting for.
"Yes, Father?" Gabriel asked, making sure he appeared calm as he stood up.
"The Major and I must speak with you immediately, Gabriel," Benjamin Martin said.
"What is it?"
"I warn you," the Major said, "it is news you will not like to hear."
"I'd better hear it, then," Gabriel said. "I'll have to find out whatever it is, sooner or later."
"Your friend," the French officer said. "Christopher Reilly. How well do you know him?"
"Chris?" Gabriel laughed, feeling relief. Whatever this was, it couldn't possibly be so bad if it concerned Chris. "I've known him all my life. He's a good friend. Worked for Father on the plantation before the war."
"You know some of what he has done, some of who he is. Do you really believe you know him?"
"Well, I-" Gabriel shrugged. "Father, what is this about?"
"Chris is a spy for the British," Benjamin said without preamble. "So far as the Major and I have been able to determine, he has told the British everything we have told him, everything he's heard since he's been in our camp."
"Father, that- this isn't possible!" Gabriel protested. "Chris, he's been with us since the start! He volunteered when I did!"
"What better way for a spy to ingratiate himself to those he pretends are his fellows than to join them, march with them, and take risks with them? What better way to win the enemy's confidence and learn his secrets than to appear as if you can truly be trusted?" Major Villeneueve asked rhetorically.
"Sirs, there- there has to be proof, we cannot accuse Chris of this without proof…"
"There have been incidents, Gabriel. Chris goes out in a dispatch run, and a supply cache is found, one of our spies is hanged. Sometimes messages go missing. Chris seemed like a blessing sent by God Himself when he started as a dispatch runner. His messages always get where they need to go; he can make his way across the land like no one else we've ever seen. But he's had better luck than he has any right to. An area can be completely occupied by British forces, and he still gets in and out with not so much as a scratch."
"We send him out with a letter mentioning the colour blue," Major Villenueve said, "and a pair of ears we have on Cornwallis' staff hears the General talking about the Colonists and the color blue soon after. I have planted false messages in several of my recent letters, and each item has turned up on the other side. Cornwallis either has exceptionally good hearing, or he has a man doing the listening and the reading for him."
"Chris is a good man," Gabriel protested, still in a state of disbelief. "He can't possibly be a traitor. I know him, he'd never do that to us."
"Colonel Tavington knew exactly where the plantation was," Benjamin Martin said. "He knew exactly who I was, who you were. His men found your dispatch letters immediately when they searched the house. They already knew where they were. That was his biggest mistake, Gabriel. Chris has evaded notice for a long time, but he's started getting careless. The Army has suspected there might be an informer in this unit for most of the past year, but, until now, we didn't know who it was. And then there's Thomas, Gabriel. I've thought about him a lot."
"Chris had nothing to do with Thomas's death!" Gabriel insisted.
"Tavington chose to murder a child himself," Benjamin said. "But Chris led Tavington to us and gave him that chance. How do you think the British knew where to look for your dispatches? No one but you, him, and myself saw them, or knew where they were hidden. Only one of those three even left the plantation in the last few days before the British arrived."
Gabriel felt the world tilt before him, like everything was being turned upside down. "Father, this- I can't- I can't believe this. Chris is my friend. He's been with us since the start. I can't believe it. I can't."
"Your friendship with that boy has made you trust him and like him," the Major said. "It is understandable. But he has used it against you. He has used it against you and many lives have been lost because of it. Men and women and children have died, homes have been burned. Plans have been compromised and supply caches found."
"Cornwallis has been getting unusually lucky as of late, has he not?" Benjamin asked.
"I said just that the other day," Gabriel said faintly. "He seems to know where we're going before we get there."
"This is not a thing we would even speak of if we were not certain," Major Villeneueve said. "This is war, a war we can easily lose. My country, and yours. Your friend is Judas, and he is steadily leading us all to the slaughter."
Gabriel sat back down, staring at the ground in silence. For some time, he neither moved nor spoke. There was nothing he could think of to say.
"Father," Gabriel asked, "are you certain of this?"
"I am, Gabriel."
"What will we do about it?"
"We will confront him with the fact that we know what he has done," the Major said. "He will be given one hour to write final letters and say his prayers. Then he will be shot."
Gabriel sat there, elbows on his knees, unable to speak or even think. He had trusted Chris with his life. For two years, he had trusted him… all for nothing. Worse than nothing, because the enemy had learned of Continental Army troop movements, communications, supplies and logistics… how much damage had Chris done to the cause he had claimed to serve for two years? Would it ever be known how much he had done?
"When the British came to the plantation," Gabriel said slowly, "I believed what we all believed. Someone had told them we were there, that I was your son, that I was a messenger… I never believed it was Chris. I would never have believed it was Chris."
"Stay here," the Major advised. "We have to do this, and you should not have to see it."
"No," Gabriel said, standing up again. "This is my fault as much as anyone's. I will go with you."
"Very well."
XX
Chris Reilly was sitting at the base of a tree, his Brown Bess across his knees, when Gabriel, Benjamin, and a detail of militiamen, all armed, strode purposefully over to him. The red-haired youth looked up, and his blue eyes briefly flashed with alarm.
But then he smiled disarmingly, and said in his distinctive Irish brogue, "This can't be all for me, lads. What's the occasion, then?"
Gabriel sighed, wishing he could still laugh at Chris' jokes. He'd been able to, once. Just a few minutes ago. It seemed like a whole other life.
When none of the men before him responded, Chris' smile faded. "It is about me. Isn't it?"
"You have been passing information to the British," Major Villeneueve pronounced. "You are a spy. Spies are to be shot."
Chris' face went pale. "How'd you go gettin' a funny idea like that?" he asked. "I'm as Patriot as any man here, an' I been here longer than some of 'em, I'd add."
"You are a spy," the Major said again.
"I'm not- I'm no spy!" Chris protested, his voice gaining strength. With fire in his eyes, he added, "I've lived here since Mam brung me 'cross from Cork! Maybe I talk funny, it don't mean I'm not loyal!"
"You've been loyal," Benjamin Martin agreed. "Very loyal, Chris. But to the wrong people."
"Sir, I-"
"When Colonel Tavington sent men to burn my plantation and kill my son," Benjamin Martin said quietly, "you were there with us. But you were out a few days before, delivering messages. The redcoats knew just where to look for Gabriel's dispatches. It took them no time at all. You're the only one besides myself and Gabriel who saw them."
"What's that-"
"It's not just that. I used you as my dispatch runner for the past month, Chris, and for the past month the British have been getting very good at intercepting other messengers, finding our supply caches, and shooting our own friends behind their lines. And come to think of it, you've had extremely good luck in all the time you've been a dispatch runner. Nobody has ever had the kind of luck you have, Chris, not one man in the Continental Army."
"I bet this Frog's been tellin' lies about me!" Chris shouted indignantly. "I knowed he's got it in for me, 'cause I'm Irish! Go on, Froggie, tell 'em! Go on!"
"The last three weeks, every message I sent out," Major Villeneueve said, "I marked with a false message. In three letters, I wrote that my country intends to land men in the Colonies in the summer, then the fall, then late summer next year. A regiment, then three more, then one more." The Major paused. "Would you like to know what a friend of mine in British headquarters said General Cornwallis learned, not so long ago, about the French plans to send soldiers to the Colonies?"
Chris stared, mouth agape, his expression shifting between shock and anger.
"You've been clever, Chris, and lucky," Benjamin said. "For a long time now. But it's over. You've been Judas for too long. Now it ends."
"I ain't never heard such a fantasy in all my life!" Chris shouted, standing up, leaving his musket on the ground. "Judas! Two years a volunteer and you call me Judas! You know somethin'? I didn't sign up and risk a hangin' so I could be insulted, like- like this! I didn't!"
He turned and kicked the musket lying on the ground at his feet.
"You can keep this bloody thing!" Chris yelled. "I'm goin' home an' helpin' Mam with the chores, like I shoulda done two years ago!"
The red-haired youth made as if to storm off, but militiamen blocked him wherever he turned. He shouted some more, going over to Irish, but finally Gabriel could stand it no longer.
"For God's sake, Chris, just tell us the truth! Stop lying and stop wasting our time!"
Chris stopped shouting. He turned and looked at Gabriel.
"You been hearin' these stories 'bout me, Gabe?" he asked softly.
"I have, Chris. More than I could stand."
"I never done what they're sayin', Gabe. You gotta know that."
"I know what you did, Chris."
Chris held Gabriel's gaze for a few seconds, his expression uncertain. Then something in his eyes changed. He dropped his gaze to the ground. His shoulders slumped, and he hung his head.
"Why'd you do it, Chris?" Gabriel asked.
"What difference does it make?" Chris asked hopelessly.
"I've known you all my life and I want to know why you betrayed us."
"It doesn't matter, Gabe," Chris said. "It doesn't matter now. I'm not sayin' nothin'. I'm dead either way."
No one contradicted him.
"We will give you ink and parchment," Major Villeneueve said. "You have one hour."
XX
The hour that followed was the longest of Gabriel Martin's life.
After Chris was led away to go write his letters, Gabriel picked up the Brown Bess musket that had been left behind, made sure it was unloaded, and brought it back to the camp. He tried sitting down for a while, but quickly found he was too restless for that. So he got up and paced by the tree at the top of the hill. Back and forth, back and forth. Gabriel couldn't seem to keep still.
There was a tree just like this one, near the now-burned Martin plantation, where Chris and Gabriel had played for many hours, on many days, as children. They'd become the best of friends and, like all best friends at that age, they had been confident no one and nothing could ever come between them. The bonds they'd formed then were sundered forever now.
It was unspeakable. Chris had marched with these men, lived and fought with them, for two years. He'd known hunger, cold, and the grim knowledge that a hanging awaited in the event of capture, just like the rest of them. He'd risked death countless times, for a British bullet was just as capable of killing a secret informer as it was a true Patriot. Bullets and cannonballs made no distinction.
Yet he'd been pretending all along. He'd been one of them the whole time. Judas had indeed lived on past the days of Jesus, and his name was Chris Reilly.
Finally, as the sun started turning amber as it sank below the other side of the hill, the group of men returned, Chris at their center. He kept his eyes low and refused to make eye contact with anyone.
"Give me your letters, Chris," Gabriel heard himself say. Stiffly, mechanically.
"Ain't written any," Chris muttered.
"What?"
"I said I ain't written any."
Gabriel sighed. "You had that whole hour, Chris."
"I didn't know what to write," Chris said. "And Mam can't read. I always had to be there to- to read letters to her, anytime somebody wrote to her… I prayed, Gabe. I prayed that whole hour and asked God if He understood what I done. I asked Him to look after my Mam, an' my brothers. He ain't answered. I guess He don't like spies, either."
Gabriel looked at the major, who shrugged, and his father, who gave him a look that said, Nothing I can do.
The situation was clear, no doubt about that. Traitors had to be executed. There was no way around it. And Chris Reilly had been an exceptionally effective traitor. He had done tremendous harm in his two years with the Continental Army. There had to be retribution for that. It didn't make any difference if the traitor was your oldest friend. As a matter of fact, that made it far, far worse.
"You do not have to be a part of this," Major Villeneueve said, more sympathetically than before.
"Go, Gabe," Chris said suddenly. "Just- go. Listen to him."
"I'm not leaving, Chris," Gabriel said. "You should've known it would end like this." Gabriel hefted his musket and motioned to the firing squad, leading them up the hill. Two men stayed close by Chris, one on either side, in case he tried to run, but he made no attempts at escape. The bleak look on his face made it clear the red-haired young man knew it was over. He was the very picture of abject misery, of total defeat.
Once they got up to the top, the men positioned Chris out in the open. One man started to put a cloth around his head as a blindfold, but Chris shook his head angrily and wouldn't hold still. He spoke quietly, but it was clear he was refusing the blindfold. Finally, the militiaman gave up and joined the firing detail.
"Gabe," Chris called out, "I was just doin' my duty to the Crown. It weren't nothin' personal."
"Calling it your duty doesn't make it right, Chris."
"I know." Chris paused. "I'm sorry, Gabe. I wish we could've parted as friends." Chris halted again. He tried to speak once, twice. "Will- will you at least tell my Mam, an' my brothers where I'm buried?"
"The church we used to go to, the one close to your house. You remember it?"
"Yes."
"There."
"Thank you."
"It is better than you deserve," Major Villeneuve pronounced, looking disapprovingly at Gabriel. "In my country, we would leave you in a field so the crows could pick at your bones. Or hang you from the tallest tree we could find, so everyone would know the fate of a traitor. I believe I know of one not far from here that would be quite suitable."
What little colour there was in Chris' face left it.
"We'll do as Gabriel said, Chris," Benjamin Martin said. "I agree it's more than you deserve but it'll be done. You have my word."
Chris swallowed hard and nodded tersely, then drew himself up to the position of attention.
Gabriel's breath caught in his throat. He knew he had to give the order, but instead, he called out, "Why? In the name of God, Chris, why?"
"I gave you my answer, Gabe."
"Men!" Gabriel shouted. "Ready!"
"Hold! Hold it, I say! What is this? What is happening?"
Gabriel turned, and saw a stern-faced Reverend Oliver striding up the hill towards the group. He had been away the past few days, tending to the spiritual needs of some families in the area, an extra duty Oliver insisted upon performing whenever he could. He had evidently just returned, and looked both shocked and displeased.
"This is a closed matter, Reverend," Benjamin Martin said firmly.
"I'll say it certainly looks that way," Oliver agreed. "What- why, that's Chris Reilly! He's served with us since… what has this man done? Why is he to be shot? Why, no one has been a truer friend than Chris Reilly to each and every one of us!"
"Chris Reilly is a traitor. He betrayed us, Reverend," Gabriel said. "He is a spy for the British. He has told them everything he's ever known about us and our cause."
"He has been spying on us for two years," Benjamin said. "Speak to him if you must, Reverend, but he is going to pay for what he's done. He has to."
Reverend Oliver was speechless for almost a minute. He looked at Chris, at Gabriel, the militiamen on the firing squad. "I never thought I'd have to see the day when we had to shoot such an old and dear friend," Oliver said, and he sounded truly heartbroken. He looked at Chris. "Is it true? Is it?"
Chris nodded.
"Have you said your prayers?"
Chris nodded again.
"Well, then… Gabriel, for goodness' sake, lower the weapons! Put them down!"
Gabriel called out the command, and Reverend Oliver went to Chris Reilly. He spoke quietly with Chris for a few moments. Then the two of them lowered their heads, and Reverend Oliver began to recite the Lord's Prayer. When he was through, Reverend Oliver embraced Chris. Then he turned and walked to stand beside Benjamin Martin and Major Villenueve.
"Go ahead, lads," he called out to the men of the firing squad, his voice strong and steady. "Go on and shoot me."
Chris stared right at the men as they raised their muskets. In contrast to his behavior earlier, where he had looked only at the ground, Chris met the eyes of each man steadily and did not flinch or look away. He stood mute, waiting.
"Ready!" Gabriel called out. "Take aim!"
A few seconds passed as Gabriel's mind went blank. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. He looked at Chris Reilly. Gabriel had known him since they were both children. They had been friends, good friends. The best of friends. Memories flashed before Gabriel's mind. Chris dragging a sack of spare potatoes over to the Martin plantation at five years old, because he'd heard the Martins were out of them. Mrs. Reilly's famous baked potatoes, famous for miles around. Chris always insisting that the job, whatever it was, be done right, and his stubborn loyalty.
The first time Chris and Gabriel had met, the first that Gabriel could remember anyway. Chris had thrown a potato as a joke, Gabriel had responded with his fists. Mrs. Reilly had pulled them apart and promptly put Chris over her knee for both being rude and for being wasteful, and Gabriel had then interfered with the punishment and gotten Chris off easy. Not a simple thing, given how stern Mrs. Reilly was about discipline.
Going out exploring the woods, and later, going out to hunt in those woods. Chris had always known his way around the countryside. He knew every tree, every hill, every river and stream. Those skills had made him a valuable servant of the Patriot cause… and an even more valuable servant of the Crown.
He was with us when it seemed no one else would stay, Gabriel thought. He was at my side even when it seemed things couldn't get worse. He was my friend.
Chris simply waited, staring the firing squad down. He did not look at Gabriel.
"FIRE!"
The muskets roared, and Chris jerked as the bullets tore into him. He dropped to the ground as if the strings holding him up had been cut and lay still.
Gabriel had no memory later of how long he stood there at the top of that hill, of who carried Chris' body away, or how he got back to the camp after dark.
A/N: 4-12-2018. Actual date of upload: 9-14-2018.
My author's notes can be lengthy, and this is no exception. This is some background and explanation on how I wrote the story, and why. If you're interested, read on. Or don't, if you're not. Either way, please share your thoughts in a review.
I got the idea for this story some 6 months ago, maybe more, but it took until a few days ago to sit down and create a Word document for it. This story did not start out the way it was completed. Originally, I thought of the scene at the plantation, the one in which Thomas Martin is shot and killed by Colonel William Tavington, and imagined a Loyalist friend of Gabriel's turning up with the British infantry there.
Then I just sat down, out of nowhere more or less, and started writing this instead. I always liked the tragic story of the character of Chris Reilly in the 2006 film The Wind That Shakes The Barley,how he joins the Irish Republican Army, but then is forced into becoming a spy for the British. I got the idea of trying to imagine how Chris Reilly might have behaved if he'd lived in South Carolina around 1776 instead, and I changed some things. Chris willingly joined the Continental Army in this story, but he also willingly turned spy for the British. He deliberately used his position as a messenger and scout to tell the British about Patriot plans, movements, the names of soldiers and the like.
The story almost constructed itself in my mind, and I just wrote it out on the Word document. This is a hard event for everyone involved. The Martins, especially Gabriel, have known Chris Reilly since he was a child. Chris has been with the Patriot cause for 2 years, and is familiar to all the men in the unit. But he betrayed them and in wartime, spies and traitors are dealt with harshly, even old friends.
I worked carefully to fit this story within the plot of The Patriot. It is set two years after the start of the American Revolutionary War, after the burning of the Martin plantation and the death of Thomas Martin at the hands of Colonel William Tavington and the British Army, but before the burning of the church and the death of Gabriel Martin.
My original inspiration for this story was that while Adam Baldwin did a fine job of portraying Captain James Wilkins- our sole look at the Loyalist side of the American Revolutionary War in this movie- I felt it was not as compelling as an informer within the militia could have been. Chris Reilly was not just a colonist who chose the Loyalist side. He joined the Patriots first, then turned informer, and proved very good at what he did. His motives, the reasons he had for doing what he did, his cleverness as a spy- these things all interested me, and I felt, add a lot of depth to the story. Wilkins is the one who informs the British about Benjamin Martin and such in the movie, but what if it had been someone in the militia, someone that Martin trusted, someone his eldest son had known for years?
Perhaps the militia are too kind in promising to bring Chris Reilly's body back, but they are not especially far away at the time, and, it is the sole concession Gabriel chooses to make, recognition of the lifelong friendship he and Chris had.
It so happens that this is my 100th story. Definitely a milestone worth noting after posting work on this site for 6 years.