The familiar voice spoke again. ‘You! Come forward and be quick about it, see.’
It was the ‘see’ that placed it for him, as well as the slight burr on the ‘r’ of ‘forward’.
‘Well, Ted,’ he said, as he stumbled into the red ranks. ‘That’s a fine way to greet a fellow Cornishman.’
Midshipman Edward Pellew stood just behind his company of Marines and gaped. ‘Zooks! Jack! Jack Absolute! You’re alive.’
‘Only just, my lad. And I nearly fell at the last fence.’ Ripping the shattered epaulette from the coat, he added, ‘Thanks to you.’
Pellew had swiftly regained his sang-froid. ‘Could only improve your attire, Jack. You seem to have acquired a lamentable taste in clothing. Never took you for a macaroni.’
Jack grinned. ‘I’m glad to see you.’
He thrust out his hand. Pellew gripped it and squeezed heartily. ‘And I you. You’ve missed some brisk work this day, Jack. Welcome to Freeman’s Farm.’ Something dark came into the younger man’s eyes as he glanced out across the field. Then the eyes cleared and focused again on him. ‘But no doubt you’ve been about some hot action yourself.’
‘Hot enough, Ted, aye. And now I must speak to General Burgoyne.’
‘I’ll take you to him forthwith.’ Pellew unclasped Jack’s hand, which he’d still been pumping vigorously. ‘Wilson, you have the command.’ As they moved off and the drill to reload began behind them, he contined, ‘He’ll be pleased to see you. And surprised. We all believed you was dead.’
Jack thought back. A few minutes ago he’d been lying in a log, musing on death, counting the number of times he’d faced it within just the last six months. He had exhausted his fingers in the tally. That run down the valley had moved him well onto his toes and he had a horrible suspicion that in what lay immediately ahead he would rapidly exhaust those too.
The camp was an appalling sight. Those who had limped or crawled or by some fortune been recovered from the field lay around before hastily erected tents in which the surgeons, their silhouettes monstrously distorted by the lamps within, operated continuously, while outside them amputated limbs grew into flesh volcanoes, with lava flows of congealing blood. In their shadows, men waited their turn, weeping, groaning, or just staring, mouthing silent prayers.
‘And there’s more left on the field, Jack, more than made it back. We try to get to them but the Rebels shoot if we stir. We must wait till full dark and then bring in those few who have survived.’
Jack heard the emotion in Pellew’s voice and was careful not to look at his compatriot. He’d forgotten how young the lad was, barely eighteen. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a hand reach up, saw a tear flicked away.
‘It was hard, the hardest day ever I saw in my life. I’ve been in the odd skirmish and scrap in this campaign but a battle …’ Pellew paused and wrestled with his voice. ‘We held the field, just, but each regiment in the brunt has barely seventy left, officers and men, and the gunners near wiped out. The Yankees kept coming and coming. Who thought they had that kind of courage? I think we was only saved by the Germans marching in from the left. And the rumour is that the General thinks to attack again in the morning. How can we do that, Jack, how—’
His voice was rising both in tone and volume, and Jack made to stumble, reaching out to steady himself on Pellew’s forearm. Halting them both, he said, ‘Burgoyne will only do what is right, Ted. For England. For honour. He will not sacrifice his men needlessly. He loves them too much for that.’
The words, calmly spoken, had their effect. The younger Cornishman breathed deeply and, at last, nodded. ‘I know he will, Jack. I apologize.’
Jack squeezed and released his grip. ‘No need,’ he said. They resumed their walk over the rise and dip of the ground, and soon were passing down a wide central avenue made up of rows of tents, the campfires of the regiments before them. Men clustered around, content to squat and stare, while women moved among the cook pots. Even the swiftest glance told Jack that the rations were spare. No one seemed able to talk, a hush held the whole encampment. At the end of the rows, Jack could make out a structure through the gloom.
‘Sword’s House,’ said Pellew. ‘The General’s HQ.’
He was perhaps fifty yards from the door when he heard a cry from a tent to his right. It would have been clear in a playhouse during the overture. In the stillness of the camp, it was piercing.
‘Jack Absolute. My … oh my … Jack!’
He turned – in time only to open his arms to the blur that hurled itself into them.
‘They told me … he told me … you were dead. Beyond all hope and prayer, dead!’
Though somewhat winded by the assault, Jack managed to breathe and speak. ‘As you can see – and feel – Miss Reardon, I am not.’
Louisa gripped her hands up and down his arms as if to verify the solidity of flesh while her eyes searched and sought and still seemed unable to comprehend. Jack delighted in the touch, revelling again in those eyes. He had tried on many occasions, during many an uncomfortable night, to conjure their exact shade of green. He’d had it close; yet memory could never recall all their detail, their swirls and swoops. His grin spread – in London, aboard ship, she had always balanced coquettishness with an infuriating coolness. She was always in command. He suspected this would return once her surprise was past and she became aware of all the eyes upon her – not least those of the elderly man standing in the entrance of the tent from which she’d just burst.
He was sad though that awareness came just as he was bending to kiss her. The touch of those lips had been as tormenting a memory as her eyes and he was all for reacquainting himself. He had been through enough, deserved a reward, and damn the audience! But Louisa had almost recovered. She stood back to look him up and down, and said, with a degree of tartness, ‘Well, sir, and you have given your friends much aggravation, no mistake.’
Jack laughed and he was not the only one. ‘I regret any upset caused, miss. It was entirely beyond my control, I assure you.’
‘Well, you can make amends and shortly.’ Jack marvelled. From full passion to coolness in moments. Only the reddish flush of her skin hinted of other emotions.
‘Will you take a glass with us, sir, and tell us your tale?’ She was gesturing to the tent entrance, where the elderly man still stood. ‘I do not believe you have met my father?’
Jack inclined his head. ‘Captain Jack Absolute, sir, at your service.’
The older man bowed stiffly. ‘Colonel Thaddeus Reardon, sir. At yours. I have heard much about you. And I have spent much time consoling my daughter at the loss of such a … friend.’ The weight on the word was slight and not harshly meant. ‘I am rejoiced to see that, like Lazarus, Christ has raised you up. Would you indeed join us for some Madeira? I believe it is my last bottle and I can’t think of a better occasion.’ He stepped wide and gestured into the tent.
‘I thank you, sir, but I believe I must first make my report to General Burgoyne. May I return later?’
‘You may.’ The Colonel looked at his daughter, who was still staring at Jack, coolness and delight still raging in colours on her face. A smile came. ‘Nay, I believe you must.’
‘I vow it,’ he said, making her a generous bow, then fell into step again with Pellew, the dignity of his exit somewhat compromised by the loss of the one boot and the hop that resulted. He didn’t really care; for as he hopped, he grinned. He’d had doubts, during their separation, that her regard for him may only have been the product of five weeks’ close company at sea. But her reception of him, her brief exposure, had reassured and delighted him. They made for the house ahead.
‘If it is of any interest, Jack, she wept from the moment the German delivered the news till just now, I should think,’ said Pellew.
Delight was displaced. ‘Von Schlaben?’
‘Aye. Said you’d been bit by a snake at Fort Stanwix and died horribly. Must say, it always sounded strange, a woodsman like yourself.’
br />
The sentry already had the door swinging open. ‘Is he still here, Ted?’ Jack said. But any reply was cut off by a familiar voice from within the room.
‘Captain Absolute. Well, well. I always believed reports of your demise were egregiously premature. Come in. Come in. You have arrived in the nick, as usual, sirrah. We have need of your specialist mind.’
Pellew squeezed his arm, whispered, ‘There’s a pillow for you with the Marines, Jack.’
Jack nodded and entered the room.
General Burgoyne stood facing the door, leaning on a table. He was dressed in his waistcoat, his jacket having been placed on a coat stand just behind him, its tails splayed so that the three bullet holes were clearly visible. Jack noted that someone had placed a lamp directly behind the coat, making the rents stand out like stars in a red evening sky. Burgoyne himself, undoubtedly, his sense of theatre never deserting him. The message was clear: They shoot at me in vain. I am invulnerable and so will triumph.
Burgoyne returned his attention to something on the table. Around him were gathered his war council, including many men Jack knew. Alexander ‘Sandy’ Lindsay, Earl of Balcarras, looking thinner and more frail than ever, started forward at the sight of Jack, then restrained his obvious joy and contented himself with a smile. General Fraser bobbed his head and winked. Baron von Riedesel and his interpreter gave curt Germanic nods and then continued their scrutiny over Burgoyne’s shoulder. There were some there that Jack knew vaguely, such as the Artilleryman General Phillips; others, especially the Loyalist commanders, that he didn’t. In the corner of the room, looking ill at ease, perhaps because he was the only one sitting, was a man in muddy civilian clothes. He was also the only one there who regarded Jack with something like interest. The rest took their cue from the General’s insouciance and gave the prodigal but a cursory stare.
Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Carleton, Burgoyne’s adjutant, whose hair seemed to have turned near white from the time Jack last saw him, came and placed a glass of sherry in his hand, murmuring, ‘Welcome,’ then took him by the elbow and led him up to the table. Jack looked down. Spread out there was a handwritten letter, with various odd-shaped cardboard cards and bits of slashed cloth scattered around it. Another officer, Captain Money, was rather desperately pressing one after another of these cards and cloths over the childishly scrawled words.
‘Explain the problem to him, Captain Money,’ Burgoyne said. His voice was strained and low when it was usually light and easy. ‘In fact, Captain Absolute will be too quick for you, so why not explain it to us all. In simple terms.’
It was obvious that the unfortunate Money had committed some serious offence. Burgoyne was rarely anything other than polite with subordinates, even when aroused. That made his anger here all the more unnerving. It certainly unnerved the Captain, who stuttered slightly as he spoke, ‘The p-p-problem is simple, Captain Absolute. Its solution, sadly, not so. We have lost the mask needed to decode this letter.’
‘You have lost it, Money!’
‘With … with … with respect, sir, it was hidden safe in your tent, and then it was—’
‘Yes, yes. We’ve heard your excuses. On!’
Money chewed on his lower lip. He was explaining the obvious to people who mostly knew it. But Burgoyne was punishing him, making him recite his catechism. ‘As you know, masks are an easy and effective means of encoding. The s-s-sender and the recipient have an identical piece of card or cloth, cut in a certain shape. It is placed over a piece of paper and the desired message is written to conform to the shape. It is then removed and the rest of the page filled in with innocent news. Trade, family illness, and the like. The message is delivered and the recipient places his card or cloth and—’
‘Yes, all right, Money, that’s enough,’ Burgoyne snapped at the unfortunate officer then turned to Jack. ‘D’ye see the problem? This letter arrived today from General Clinton in New York, borne by our gallant Sergeant Willis.’ He nodded to the muddied man in the corner who tried to rise and was gestured down. ‘He must return at dawn with an answer – but an answer to what?’ The General angrily waved away Money’s attempt to fit another of the silk shapes – something like a bolt of lightning – over the letter. ‘Contained within this ill-spelled rubbish is the news we have been denied for eight weeks: has General Howe finished his campaign in Pennsylvania and is at last advancing to our rendezvous at Albany? Or, at the very least, is Clinton about to attack the Highland forts on the Hudson and then march to our aid? Either will force our American friends to divide the army here ranged against us. They outnumber me at least four to one. If that drops to two, by God, those are English odds and I’ll take ’em on and thrash ’em, and obey my command to push through to Albany. The campaign, indeed America, will have been won, despite all our adversities.’ He ground the heel of his hand into his forehead and massaged it. ‘But as you have heard, the mask that would fit over this letter, that would render its meaning clear, that would tell us if help comes or no … is missing. Lost. Lost!’
Jack kept his dismay hidden. It was far more likely that the mask was not lost but stolen, no doubt by a spy at the heart of the British army. Von Schlaben? Could he have returned in time from Fort Stanwix to do it? Unlikely. And Burgoyne would never have left the Count alone in his tent. Could it be one of the Loyalist Commanders? One of the Germans? Surely not one of the red-coated offiers? That was, however, a concern for later. What mattered now was that the mask was missing, its disappearance near a disaster.
The General spoke again. ‘So all we know is that “Mr Rhodes has had a delivery of fine cloth”. Perhaps he can patch my coat, eh?’ There was nervous laughter. He glanced up at Jack, who noticed, now he stood near, the closest he’d ever seen to desperation in those grey eyes. ‘Can you cut this Gordian knot, Captain?’
He didn’t have much hope. But he had to try. So Jack read the letter. As Burgoyne had said, the spelling – and grammar – was poor, a further ward against unintended readers:
Dear Coz.
Have you lately seen that cur Will Piper? He owe me
5 pounds and so his vyle attempt to avoid me is contimtible.
I mean therefore to push ahead with your order, for because
I rieciev’d on Hudson’s looms a delivary of fine cloth. Shall
make cotes then go fort’sell ’em. Give kind’st to my financee,
Marge. I see her in two or three weeks but it will seem no more
nor less than three thousand.
Yr. Affectionate Coz.
T. Rhodes
Jack took a hefty swig of the sherry then set the glass down next to its decanter. He had never seen the mask the General referred to, and obviously no one could distinguish it from the several they carried for other correspondents. These – among them the lightning bolt, a Jewish star, a cross of Lorraine – had been laid out beside the page and Money had obviously tried them all. He had also made various random shapes from cards, the ones he’d been desperately trying when Jack came in, as well as some fair copies of the letter.
Jack lifted one now, slid it back and forth across the ink, looking for a pattern of words that would spring out, a sentence of military import among the detail of goods and gossip. He was aware of the men’s attention upon him, the pressure of their expectation, their desperate hope. If Jack had had hardships on the campaign, so had they. The bodies lying in the stubble of Freeman’s Farm were testimony to that, as eloquent as the holes in Burgoyne’s coat.
He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, and placed another piece of card, stubbier, square. He’d been good at this sort of game, once. He moved it up and down, saw nothing. Licking his lips, without removing his scrutiny from the paper, he reached out to the glass at his side … and misjudged the distance completely, knocking the decanter, which tipped, splashing some liquid out, but did not fall.
‘Absolute, have a care, that’s the last of the Santa Vittoria,’ Burgoyne exclaimed.
‘Sorry, sir.’ Jack re
ached out, his hand grasping the fine lead crystal vessel. A trickle of the golden liquid ran across the table, reminding him suddenly of that last supper on board the Ariadne, the river of port running between the glasses that signified this campaign, the blood-like flow of it, as Von Schlaben entered the room. His fingers ran over the decanter. It had a short, narrow neck, expanding, in an almost feminine way at the ‘bosom’, narrowing at waist, before spreading wide to the ‘hips’ of the flat base. Running his fingers down its curves stirred something in his mind.
The sherry was, of course, from the land where Burgoyne and he had first fought together in 1762. That Spanish campaign had made the General’s reputation as strategist and commenced Jack’s as lunatic when he was at the forefront in the storming of the citadel at Valencia de Alcantara. And he had seen his first masks in that country, for the Spanish were very attached to that method of encoding. When they’d captured the enemy staff in the surprise assault, several masks had been found on them. Burgoyne, already noting his young officer’s intelligence as well as his courage, had ordered Jack to make a study of these devices. The first thing he realized was that most were derived from their Spanish enemies’ greatest love – their native wines.
He traced the contours of the decanter again, then said, ‘Has anyone here a reasonably clean handkerchief? And have you a pair of scissors, Captain Money?’
Several handkerchiefs were produced, in various degrees of cleanliness. Jack chose three of the least noxious and, with the scissors he was given, cut shapes from each to a different size but in the quite feminine lines of the crystal vessel before him. He then moved the smallest one up and down, read nothing. The second also produced no legible result. He was about to give up on the third when suddenly he saw something. It was in the sixth line, the misplaced apostrophe, the oddity of the words in the sixth line, ‘fort’sell ’em’. Especially odd as they were beneath the word ‘Hudson’s’. He angled the mask to forty-five degrees … and smiled.