The words, thus delivered, pierced the wind of outrage. MacTavish laughed and spat a moment later.
‘Tha’ bumfy rides roughshod over all o’us, as usual. He and I have a history, ye may have been able to tell. We’ve been neighbours five years and I was with him to Quebec in seventy-five. Aye, and carried him back most of the way when that British ball broke his leg. Had to harken to his dreadful whinin’ and moanin’ and carryin’ on. I dinna think he’s ever pardoned me for being a witness to his blubbin’. But he’s a brave lunatic for all tha’ and as changeable as the wind. So be canny round him, ken.’
‘You understand why I told him I was a lord?’
‘To secure better treatment?’ Jack nodded. ‘Aye, y’ere no dunce, Jack Absolute. For nothin’ will fetch ye into that callant’s esteem like a title. I dinna know why he doesnae fight for t’other side, he worships the English nobility so much.’
The Sergeant had led a roan mare to where they stood. Just before he mounted, Jack made to give the shillelagh back to Angus. But the Scotsman just shook his head.
‘Ye may be needing it mair than me.’ Then with a wink, he added, ‘I do so hope to meet you again, my lord.’
‘So do I, MacTavish. And thank you. I owe you.’
‘Och, the owin’s mutual. Awa’!’ Angus slapped a huge hand on the horse’s haunch and the animal gave a leap forward then settled into a slow canter. It was small yet biddable, though Jack doubted it would provide much pace. Not enough to outrun the Sergeant astride his own spirited and far bigger gelding. It brought him up beside Arnold though, soon enough.
‘Ah, Lord John.’ The General, like Jack, was attempting to speak in an accent and tone different from the one he’d used in addressing MacTavish. ‘These scoundrels who abandoned you for dead in the wood? Savages?’
Jack had already heard the American declaim one prejudice, against the Scots. He presumed on another.
‘Worse in my estimation, General. Germans.’
The reaction was all Jack could have hoped for. Arnold shuddered and rolled his eyes. ‘Worse, indeed! If you have their names and their route, I would be delighted to set a watch for the scum.’
Jack considered. It was tempting to let Arnold and his forces loose on Von Schlaben. But instantly he decided against it – for two reasons. The first that there was much more to be learned from his enemy should Jack have the fortune to catch up with him. And the second was for the same reason the Count had not told St Leger about the punch. Vengeance was indeed a personal affair.
‘I wish I knew either, General. And I am inexpressively grateful for the kind thought. But they were unknown to me, deserters from our army.’
‘Deserters and Germans. They will get their punishment then, I am certain. But now, my lord, as is customary, I take it I have your word as a nobleman that you will not try to escape? This prevents the encumbrance of too close a watch upon you.’
Jack smiled. ‘As a nobleman, sir, I give you my most earnest pledge.’
The General nodded. ‘And perchance I will not have the pleasure of your company for long. We can seek to exchange you, of course, but there may not be time even for that. We ride to the crisis of this campaign, sir. Burgoyne is hedged in. Our forces are gathering around him. The endgame is upon us.’
‘And may I ask where this hedge is being woven, General Arnold?’
Once more the man smiled. It was not a pleasant sight, its distastefulness having little to do with the crooked and discoloured condition of the teeth. ‘No harm in telling you, my lord. You will have heard it in the camp by nightfall anyway – for how these Militiamen will gossip. Burgoyne will be brought to bay near a settlement called Stillwater, just to the south of Saratoga. Now, first we must check that these tales of MacTavish’s are quite true – never trust a Caledonian, sir, is a motto one lives by in these parts – and then we must make with all haste for Saratoga.’
Affecting a need to lengthen his reins, Jack let the blue coat surge ahead, while the Sergeant slowed beside him. He had no desire to return to Fort Stanwix but it would be less than a day’s ride away. By his calculations, Saratoga would then be around ten days’ march, assuming Arnold travelled at the pace of his infantry. There would be no point in slipping away before then, still somewhat weakened as he was, on a slow horse through hostile country. Not when he was being escorted where he wanted to go, to Burgoyne.
As he rode, he considered further. His first mission for his General had ended in failure. Fort Stanwix had not fallen, the third force had not struck along the Mohawk, Natives and Loyalists had not rallied in their thousands to the Union Standard. It was not his fault but it was frustrating. Yet time spent with one of the Rebel’s foremost generals would be time well spent. There was much to be learned in Arnold’s camp concerning men, morale, the logistics of campaign. Food and drink for a man used to listening and observing. And perhaps Arnold would get careless and leave some invisible ink or a code-crib lying around. Or even more importantly, confirmation that Von Schlaben was indeed Diomedes, the spy at the centre of the King’s army.
With the campaign reaching its climax, Jack had no need to risk his life, for the moment, to hurry to his General. Burgoyne was the master of that phase in chess and in war. He could serve his Commander better where he was.
Easing into the gentle canter that seemed to be the roan’s natural gait, Jack eased also into the skin of Lord John Absolute. That man had given his word not to escape. That man would not. But at the sound of the guns, Captain Jack Absolute must. And would.
– ELEVEN –
Saratoga – 19 September 1777
Jack Absolute lay concealed in the decaying trunk of a fallen cedar, musing on death.
Strange how my mind runs so on that subject lately, he thought. Not, he hastened to point out to himself, in a philosophical ‘Prince of Denmark’ way. No, indeed, Até would not discover him in the mood to receive one of his infernal theoretical diatribes about the Dane. On the contrary, Jack’s mind focused only on the mundane and myriad ways death had tried to take him in the last six months; they could certainly be counted on his fingers – if he even had that much room in his cramped quarters to extend them.
In March, in London, a man named Banastre Tarleton had sought to impale him on a small sword and, frustrated in this, had tried to finish the job with a sabre. Another sword, a claymore, swung by an unintelligible Scotsman, had attempted to remove his head while the Highlander’s confederates sought to stick him with bayonets and bludgeon him with gun butts. He had been extensively shot at by Rebels in the forests of Oriskany where, later, one Abenaki had hurled a war club at him, another had attempted to extrude his brains with a tomahawk, and a third had cudgelled him. A German Count had dropped a rattlesnake on him, which had bitten him twice. To top it all, he half-believed that same Scotsman, Angus MacTavish, had made a second attempt on his life by feeding him oats and cow’s blood, a combination from which his guts had yet to recover and which had rendered his afternoon’s stay in the cedar tree additionally uncomfortable.
Though maybe their stirrings now were more to do with what lay ahead than behind. For in the next hour, he had an equal chance of being shot by his own side or the enemy, depending on who spotted him first, the British pickets or the Rebel.
Jack sighed. He was sure he had left a few out. The temptation was to stay in the log, perhaps for the duration of the war. But he couldn’t do that for two main reasons and one minor: he was hungry; he had learned the war was going badly for the Royal Army so he had to resume his position at Burgoyne’s right hand; and some creature had slipped inside his trouser cuff and was engaged in biting its way up his leg.
He had to lessen the odds against him if he were to survive the next sixty minutes. He felt proud that he had already taken a deal more care by hiding in this tree while a battle was fought in the valley below him. He had been in enough such fights to know that men on either side would shoot precipitously and not query his allegiances till later, espec
ially dressed as he was, as neither friend nor foe but in the gaudy civilian suit Arnold had lent him.
Benedict Arnold. Two and half weeks he’d spent in that braggart’s company, from Stanwix to Saratoga, encouraging him to talk, though in truth the man needed little prodding. Jack had made himself the perfect audience – reticent himself but ‘noble’. He had learned much of how the Rebel army worked, and too much of Arnold’s several loves and even more numerous hates – for, it seemed, he was the only capable general the Colonists possessed and grievously overlooked for the highest commands. He had not gained enough knowledge about American spy rings, however. A boaster he may have been but Arnold was not so foolish as to parade his deepest secrets before an English officer. So when Arnold had told him as much as Jack felt he ever would and when he had brought Jack to within running distance of the British lines, Jack had made his escape.
And now, another man seeks my death, Jack thought, trying in vain to thrust his hand down the narrow log and scratch his leg. For a peaceable fellow, I seem to make an inordinate number of enemies.
Fortunately, the General had been so concerned about the forthcoming combat he’d barely had time to yell, ‘Return or die, you dog!’ as Jack sprinted for the cover of the trees, balls snapping branches above his head as he entered them. Once in the forest, Jack knew the odds were on his side against any but the most thorough search. He had reverted to his Mohawk nature and men had passed within feet of his concealment.
Jack sighed, though taking care that the sigh produced no sound. All he had to do now was cross a battlefield full of the Rebel dead and wounded and the parties that sought to bury or save them; then repeat the trick through the British soldiers embarked on the same tasks, and further unnerved by constant American sniping. All? And the only true odds-lessening plan he had come up with was to await the inevitable thunderstorm when men would be forced to ward their powder. Much less chance of being shot, then. But presumably there would be the usual array of bladed weaponry ready to be thrust, thrown, or swung at him.
Jack sighed again, not as silently, then felt two things – the bite of the creature, which had now reached his upper thigh, and the log drumming with the first drops of rain.
With a mixture of relief and terror, Jack crawled from his lair. He took time only to reach in and dig out his assailant – a grotesquely large centipede – then began to move, as cautiously as he could, down the night-darkening slope of the valley. Lying in the log he had overheard various conversations. Knew that the fighting had been especially heavy, and that each side, as usual, was claiming victory.
The rain consisted of thick and constant drops, stinging the eyes and making the features of the terrain, ill-lit enough by the twilight, still harder to discern. By the way the land sloped, Jack guessed there was a stream somewhere nearby; he soon hit upon it and, keeping it on his right side, moved parallel to it down the valley.
Streams drew soldiers. Many of the Rebel army were clustered now on its banks, seeking sparse shelter under the overhanging branches of maples, their foliage just beginning the turn to the red of autumn. Jack sought not to meet anyone’s gaze but, glancing up briefly, he saw men recovering from what, for many, would have been their first full battle. Most eyes were filmed over, staring ahead. Some wept. Others had a euphoric gleam, as if they had suddenly discovered joy in every sensation. They looked to the fat raindrops, or pawed at the dripping leaves, hugged themselves in pleasure, talked incessantly.
It was in the fourth group he passed that Jack, in the quickest of perusals, encountered something else – a challenge. He looked away swiftly, too late.
‘You there. Yeh, you, in the dandy duds. Where you goin’?’
Jack cursed, yet again, Benedict Arnold’s taste in clothes. That particular Yankee could indeed stick a feather in his cap and be called a Macaroni! The frilled shirt and elaborately gold-stitched jacket were hardly battle attire.
‘You’ll pardon me. I bear a message to Colonel Morgan.’
He had not bothered to disguise his accent. There were probably more Englishmen in the numerically superior Rebel army than in the Royal. But the tall man who now stepped into his path and placed a hand against Jack’s chest had the broad vowels and drawling speech of an American frontiersman. A tasselled buck-skin jacket confirmed the impression.
‘And who might this message be from?’
Jack had attempted to slide past, but the hand that had stopped now grasped his lapel. ‘General Learned,’ he muttered, reluctantly.
‘’sat a fact!’ The American whistled. ‘Interestin’ Learned should be sending messages. Considerin’ the Colonel be havin’ a meetin’ with him right now.’
The man’s companions, buck-skinned as he, stirred beneath their tree. Jack felt the grip tighten at his chest, more gaudy material grasped. The man was taller than Jack by a head and wider too.
Wonder if he’s done any wrestling? Jack thought briefly, before dropping his left hand on the wrist before him. The man might well have had an advantage in height and strength but his wrist, when twisted the wrong way and with sufficient pressure, would break as any other. As Jack jerked sharply, the man gave a cry and bent away to save himself further injury. Whipping him to the side, Jack stepped past and ran.
Instantly, the men under the tree began to shout, ‘Stop him!’ Jack was still close enough to hear the distinct sound of guns cocking, despite the rain. Judging that these men knew what they were about, Jack counted to three then threw his feet out before him and slid along the ground. The deluge took care of four of the guns for he heard the distinct ‘puff’ of wet powder. The fifth fired and a ball flew over his head at the place where his hips would have been. He rolled up in a moment and was running near flat out in another.
Near flat out. The path was slick with rain and the first fallen leaves of autumn, while twisted tree roots reached across it to snag his toes. He had half his vision fixed on his footfalls, half on the group of Rebel Regulars crouched on the ground ahead, rising at the hallooing and the single rifle shot.
A blue uniform was almost in his road. ‘Quickly!’ Jack yelled as he came level, slapping the soldier on the back. ‘A British spy! There! Do you see him? There!’
The man turned as Jack ran by him. He could hear the distinct tones of the frontiersman he’d felled urging pursuit. Jack fancied himself in any footrace but not if he had to slow up every ten paces. Other groups were visible ahead. Reluctantly, he dodged off the path and began to forge through the low scrub between the trees.
They still had him in view. Another rifle surpassed the rain and a bullet thunked into a maple beside him. Twice, he nearly fell, just keeping his feet, slithering and stumbling to steady himself against a tree, running on. Then the rain slackened noticeably and, as suddenly, ceased. It made his task a little easier; at least he could see somewhat more clearly through the dusklight. But it made him a clearer target too; and the powder would stay dry.
The steepness of the slope was diminishing, the trees thinning. He felt he was reaching the valley’s floor, an impression confirmed in a moment by a sudden increase in the numbers of Rebels standing before him, for the valley bottom would be the front line. He could see they were at the edge of the woods, that a clearing lay beyond. He even glimpsed a structure within it and remembered one of the voices he’d overheard while lying in the log – the battle that day had mainly been fought around a farmhouse. Was this it?
There was no way around the men before him. He had to go through them. Behind him, he could hear that the pursuit was closing. He ran straight.
‘Look! To your fronts, boys. A British spy.’
He could not really expect it to work a second time. It didn’t. The man he’d chosen to run at stood square.
‘You’ll just be holdin’ it there, me lad,’ he said, his Irish brogue thick.
But Jack had the advantage of the slight slope, his momentum, and his desperation.
Beyond the man, the trees stopped, there was a f
ield, open ground. It had to be the space between the opposing armies. So he dipped his shoulder and took the Irishman in the chest, knocking him aside. A flailing hand grasped at him as he went by and he almost fell, while one of the boots that Arnold had lent him with the clothes, which were a size too big, slipped off easily.
He was through, in the open, and felt both hope and a hurtling fear. It was a hundred yards at the least to the shelter of the building he now saw was a barn. The clearing was, in fact, a field that must, until recently, have held corn. Stalks snagged at his ankles as he sprinted. But it was the first body that saved him, as he misjudged his jump, catching it with a toe, and plunging, as a ragged volley crackled out behind. He slid along the churned ground face first, his progress halted sharply when his forehead encountered something soft. Spitting mud, he looked up to see he had slid into another corpse. A swift glance from side to side showed that the field was filled with them. Terrible slaughter had been done there that day.
‘We got him, boys! He’s down. Let’s grab the bastard.’ The voice of that first frontiersman, still dogged in his pursuit, came from behind. It spurred Jack to rise, to stumble on. Suddenly, he was as tired as he could ever remember being, but he forced himself forward.
The next shot came from in front of him, and passed through the embroidered epaulette of Arnold’s coat.
‘Hold!’ Jack cried. ‘I’m English, damn ye.’
‘Steady! Hold fire! On my word!’ There was something familiar to the sound, beyond that of regimental command. He altered direction and sprinted towards the voice.
It spoke again. ‘You there! Down!’
Jack had no doubt he was being addressed. He flung himself flat, simultaneous with the next words. ‘Company, present your firelocks.’ A moment’s pause. ‘Fire!’
Unlike the ragged volley from the woods behind him, this had the sharp crack of well-trained infantry and the results were immediate: cries of pain and shock behind him, and that same frontiersman, screaming, ‘Back! Back!’