Catch the Wind: My Journey with Caroline

Ahead of me, through a gap in the cattails, tall grass thrashes back and forth, like something is fighting its way through it. A loud splash follows, then a high, panicked cry. For one second I feel relieved, thinking it’s probably just a young British soldier.

But a young soldier would still be carrying a weapon, and the fear comes rushing back. If he catches us out here, will I even have a chance to reach for my compass and get home? But I decide none of that matters. Caroline isn’t facing capture alone while I hide here. Not going to happen.

When the reeds finally part, I can hardly believe what I’m seeing wade through them. It’s not a soldier at all. A girl our age stands there instead, mud smeared up her faded green dress, a white cap on her head.

Staring at us in shock, she freezes in place. Caroline demands to know who she is, and the girl fires the same question straight back before stumbling backward and nearly losing her footing in the mud.

Something about watching her struggle keeps me from feeling scared. I remind her we asked first.

In a low voice, she finally gives her name: Martha. She helps her mother wash laundry for the soldiers at the fort. Her eyes well with tears as she describes hanging sheets on the line when she saw our men. She thought perhaps she could hide here.

My own voice comes out small when I answer. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that women and girls might be living inside the fort, too. So now what?

Caroline asks Martha what she’d planned to do once the soldiers were captured. Martha says she’s hoping her mother will be spared so she can return back to her. Her mother, a poor widow, had warned her that if the Americans ever attacked, she should hide and hang a red shirt from a tree branch, a signal that would send a passing fisherman to carry her to safety.

Caroline turns on the seat so Martha can’t read her expression, and whispers that since Martha and her mother have been working inside the British fort, they might know something about the enemy our men need to hear. She suggests, for a moment, that we pull Martha aboard and hold her captive until Captain Miller returns.

I’m not sure about this plan. Martha is only a girl, after all. A girl no different, really, from Caroline or me.

I lean toward Caroline and point out that our men could just as easily get whatever they need from Martha’s mother, or from the captured soldiers themselves. Caroline, torn, reminds me we don’t even know yet whether the raid succeeded.

When I turn back to look at her, Martha still stands in the water up to her waist. It occurs to me that maybe she could just tell us herself how the raid is going.

I ask Martha exactly what she saw back at the fort. She wipes away a tear, leaving a muddy streak on her cheek, and describes our men bursting through the gate, catching the four soldiers on duty completely off guard. One man grabbed the sentry, and that’s when Martha ran. She knows nothing beyond that.

Caroline’s eyes meet mine. Martha waits in the water, shivering, for whatever we decide. The weight of that decision presses down on both of us.