We rose before the dawn. There was little sleep had by us.

Our course was clear, without Serjeant Clippinger declared it: We could not seek out the fallen; did we wish to remain at liberty, we must find our way to Gwynn’s Island; and did we wish to return to the Island, we must seize upon a boat. No other mode of conveyance was practicable, the whole of Gloucester County, across the channel from the isle, being invested with rebellion. They gathered there thickly to oppose our Regiment, and ’twould be mere folly to attempt to pass through them. A route by water was our only expedient.

I suggested that we had, in our flight, run west; and had then stumbled to the north as we fled through the swamp and its tributaries. We could not hazard making our way back along the shore, eastward, toward the mouth of the Rappahannock by foot, for we should have to return through the farm where we had met with the ambush. Clippinger, confounded by the geography, had begun to curse and batter trees. Bono, Olakunde, and I determined we should progress left, to the southwest, that we might meet with the shore of the Rappahannock upriver from where we had disembarked, upon which banks we hoped to come upon some craft which should serve our purposes. The Serjeant received our recommendations without comment.

We began our march.

We soon perceived, however, that we could not long continue in our present state. The first instance of a road, we stepped forth and had no sooner set to walking upon it than we heard distantly a team of horses approaching. “There is times,” muttered Bono tartly, “when you wish your shirt don’t say, ‘Liberty to Slaves’ in great letters on your chest.”

Upon this head, nothing could be clearer. We retreated into the woods.

We could progress no further as we were without drawing the eye of suspicion. Serjeant Clippinger was in great confusion as to how we should proceed, remonstrating (when any suggestion was offered) that we had brung him to this pass, and we should keep silent while he thought. Reluctantly I admit that I can give no superlative portrait of his powers of command, and lament that for the verity of this record, I must, on the contrary, record instances wherein Serjeant Clippinger did not show himself as ready and honorable an officer as his superiors might wish.

Nonetheless, he was our commanding officer. We awaited his orders, a force greatly reduced and impatient for activity. Delay yielded only his intelligence that Death, death, we might as well skip across the moon as walk through town without a challenge.

To this, I proposed that we take up a ruse suggested by our fellows in the Regiment when they had fled to His Lordship’s service: that we should array ourselves as if we were escaped slaves being led to justice; in which deception we should be infinitely aided by the presence of a white man. I expatiated upon the virtues of this measure: We should be able to walk with impunity through town and past plantation without exciting suspicion, and so make our way south, back to the banks of the Rappahannock, where we might secure a vessel to make good our return to Gwynn’s Island.

This plan was not thought entirely without merit by our number, and we spake of how best to effect it.

Bono, Olakunde, and I removed our shirts immediately — garments thrown off so with such celerity, when once donned with such pride. Stripped now, half-naked, we did not look conspicuous, being no more indecent than many of the slaves who labored in the fields around us. Our breeches were our own, and varied, and did we walk without shoes, we could pass as a miserable coffle being led back to captivity or to some new scene of degradation.

The habilement which posed the greatest challenge to us was Serjeant Clippinger’s, for his uniform was distinctly that of an officer of the King’s Army with some scant Regimental trim fastened upon the facings to mark him as attached to the Royal Ethiopians. In no wise could he proceed out of the woodland dressed thus.

We cast about through the woods, noting the disposition of houses around us. One had a great array of slaves; and at length, we decided to approach one, claiming that we had newly run away, and request he bring us clothing. Serjeant Clippinger hung back, for the presence of a white man would do nothing but alarm a slave queried in such a manner.

The slaves were engaged in the tobacco fields, weeding. Bono and I crawled along a row and put ourselves in the way of one man who stooped there, suckering plants.

“Brother,” whispered Bono, “look’ee, brother . . .”

The man regarded us with a look of anger. “An’ you run now,” said he, “I don’t shout for the overseer.”

Bono begged, and the man raised his head and put his hand to his mouth, awaiting some move to holler.

We left precipitously, and he, glaring, turned back to his work.

We were sick with fear. We hid for more hours in the wood, our bites swelling.

Later, we sought out a house where a man lived, it seemed, alone.

He was a farmer of small means in a modest house. We could not risk alarms, and he resisted, screaming murder; we threw him down when he attempted to close the door to us, and Bono held his bayonet ready to prick the man’s eye and warned, “If you cry out again, sir, we shall kill you. — We shall kill you. — You cry out, and I swear I will stab you through the eye and into your brains. You listen.”

“We’d be fools not to kill him anyhow,” said the Serjeant. “If he raises the hue and cry, we’s dead as a dog in ditch-water.”

The man begged our mercy.

“No need to kill him,” said Bono. “We’ll tie him and hide him.”

We having fetched breeches and a plain shirt, I tore another shirt into strips and bound the man’s hands.

“No one will find me,” he pleaded. “Don’t. Ain’t nobody comes here.”

“A gag,” said Bono.

We gagged the man and hauled him into his loft, where we left him lying, entombed by heat, eyes expressive of the greatest terror.

But my conscience would not allow me to leave him thus. A day or two, and he might be dead.

Against the impatient expostulations of the Serjeant, we brought the man down from the attic and dowsed him with water, that he might not suffer so greatly from the heat. We left him beneath his bed, bound tightly to its legs.

How awful it is to contemplate the accidents that determine one’s fate. But for breeches and a plain shirt, this man’s life should not have been at hazard.

I see him still, begging, “No one will find me.”

We did what we did, and I shall not linger on it.

While Clippinger changed into new breeches and shirt in the little house, we went outside to search for rope; and finding a length, Bono tied Olakunde and me together.

Thus arrayed, we set out again: two captives, a master, and his man.