Twice, Willis had rapped on the outside of the barrel to warn of approach, twice he signalled the false alarm. Each time, Jack had clutched the wooden paddle tightly to his chest, thinking ahead to the movements he had to make when he emerged, the only movements that would save him … and perhaps Burgoyne and the King’s army too. But after the second thwarted hope, he did think he could survive much longer.
Another single tap came – a warning one: that meant footsteps on the stair. Then another three – the lock was being turned. Jack found he was suddenly starved of air, that the straw was no longer sufficing. He felt his bowels clench and gripped the paddle’s handle harder, trying to stave off the panic. Then there came a single tap – someone had entered the room. He awaited the next signal, desperate, his air nearly gone – a tap for each man there and a flurry for him to move, if, as they hoped, the man with the blunderbuss would rush in at the sight of his absence and be in range.
Two taps. Two men.
A flurry.
Forcing himself as deep into the liquid as he could sink, Jack placed one hand in the centre of the barrel lid and grasping the paddle firmly in the other, he used his legs as a released spring and surged upwards.
Froth obscured half his sight. But a large shape was before him and he struck at it, sweeping the paddle down from on high. There was a cry, an explosion, the room stinking of gunpowder in an instant. Wiping his vision clear, Jack placed his hands on the barrel’s side and propelled himself up and out.
The man who’d held the blunderbuss was crouched on the floor over his expended weapon, clutching at the collar bone that Jack had obviously snapped. The gun had discharged, scattering its shot. Some had caught Willis, thrown him back against the wall, a bloody rent where his throat had been. The other man in the room was emerging from his shock at the suddenness of the ambush and reaching for a sword at his side.
He had to be the interrogator, a stout officer in a green greatcoat, the bulk of it making the removal of his sword awkward. He had spectacles on his nose and a black tricorn hat on his head and it was the centre of this that Jack aimed for, bringing the wooden stave down hard. It crushed the hat and the man collapsed with a cry.
There was no time to pause. Willis was dead, at least spared the Bridport Dagger he dreaded, no noose for him. But the other men stirred at his feet, and moans would soon be turning to screams, so Jack ran from the cellar and took the stairs before him two at a time.
A door gave on to a corridor. There were three others leading off it and, as Jack hesitated, one opened and a soldier walked out, pipe and pint mug in hand, trailing smoke and the noise of an inn in full conviviality. They regarded each other but a moment, until the man yelped, dropped his smoke and beer, and ran back inside, yelling. Jack sprinted the opposite way.
The door he burst through led to a large kitchen. A maid, bent over a range, stood up and screamed. He had a momentary glimpse of himself through her eyes – a naked man covered in yellow froth, spattered with another man’s blood, clutching a paddle. As she shrieked again, as shouts filled the corridor, he ran past her to wrench open the back door.
Cool air wrapped around him, as he fell down two steps into a walled kitchen garden. A gate stood open at the back of it and he was through it in four strides, just as the room behind him filled with voices.
He was looking at a fenced paddock. To his left, three stalls were occupied by three horses. He took a step towards them, already uncertain if he could get one backed out and mounted in time, wondering if he should just run. Then, from his right, came a familiar snicker. He turned … and there was Doughty before him. The big bay wore a nosebag; he swished his tail and carried on eating.
The shouting came from the garden now. Any moment and they would be upon him. So he ran at the horse, who skittered slightly at his approach.
‘Easy, lad,’ Jack said, bending to jerk the loose hobble from the animal’s fetlocks. As the first soldier came yelling through the door, Jack hurled the paddle at the man, then threw himself on to the animal’s back. If Doughty was upset at the interruption of his meal he didn’t show it. Instead, when Jack leaned down and shouted, ‘Go!’ he immediately began to move. A pistol cracked behind them, as Jack pressed his thighs into the horse’s flanks and urged him towards the fence. Doughty cleared it easily, nosebag and all, though he nearly dislodged Jack on landing, his body still slick with half-fermented beer. Clinging desperately to the mane, Jack righted himself just as another pistol fired, this bullet passing between his chest and Doughty’s head.
‘Yah!’ Jack yelled, digging in his heels. A field of barley lay beyond the paddock fence and, riding down one row, Jack gained the shelter of the forest that bordered it. The canopy swallowed them and trees soon smothered the sounds of screaming, the shouted commands. Only the raucous cry of a bugle pursued them under the dusk-lit leaves. And soon even that was gone.
– FOURTEEN –
Saratoga – 7 October 1777
Jack had at least that much to be grateful for – the morning mists, which had concealed his departure with Louisa over two weeks before, covered Jack again as he limped down the trail he could only pray led to the British camp. He reckoned it was near noon, though only instinct told him so, time having no relevance in that spectral world. Sounds were muffled as if he listened to them through sheepskin; shapes that seemed human at ten paces turned to saplings at three. He knew that others also wandered these woods; indeed, the last few miles had been full of half-heard voices, phantasms moving in the distance, challenges called out, ignored, passed by. He had no weapon to reach for if he met an enemy, no way of identifying a friend; he would pass his father in this fog and not know him. Yet some sense still led him along the path he could barely see, towards the faintest crackling sound he wasn’t sure he heard.
And if I was seen, what would they make of me then? Some Native Shade, wandered from the Village of the Dead? A scarecrow hopped off his warding pole, tired of chasing crows, desirous of chasing men instead …
Jack shivered, stopped, stared into the greyness. He had definitely been alone in the woods too long. The forest was disorientating, even to one, like himself, who had spent so much time in it.
Especially at this season, with the mists rising from ground that smells of mould, of putrefaction, of a world turning in, consuming itself. The fire in every second tree, every maple, spreading flame to the ground, to die there and rot … what would Até say? ‘And Hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world …’
He’d lost count of the times he’d heard Louisa laugh. Each time he heard the chitter of a squirrel scrambling away, or a bird taking flight, he’d turn, almost call. Then he’d battle down his disappointment, returning to his fear for her, for himself.
He was shoved in the back. Gasping, he turned. Then smiled. ‘Quite right, Doughty, old thing. Pull myself together, eh?’
He scratched the horse between its eyes. He didn’t need to peer through any mists to see how thin the animal was. The blanket he’d managed to steal hung over flanks where ribs thrust through. And his own? He scratched at them now through the tattered blouse a pitying old Tuscarora woman had given him, the third day of his escape, along with a long-dead husband’s second-best breech cloth, donated for his modesty. That was also the last time he had eaten – five, six days before? – anything other than walnuts or burdock roots. His legs beneath the cloth were marked and torn by their passage along the trails that led back to Saratoga.
He bent to the earth, ignoring his feet – when had they become that colour? – and tried to rediscover the deer track he’d lost in his musings. When he did, he clicked his tongue at Doughty, and they started forward again; he’d long given up needing to lead him. They were moving again towards that strange crackling. And as they hit a slope and began to climb, suddenly he could see five paces ahead, then ten. There was breeze in his face, the mists fraying in it, dissolving. And the crackling that had been puzzling before was suddenly much louder and now came as
clear as his vision.
‘Muskets, and lots of them,’ he said, gripping the thick mane, swinging himself up. ‘Pray God we are not too late.’
‘Zounds! Absolute? What the devil’s become of you?’
Lieutenant-Colonel Carleton, Burgoyne’s adjutant, stood in the centre of the commander’s tent, aghast at the apparition before him. To his left, Burgoyne’s full-length mirror showed Jack to himself. He had to own he was not looking his best. The old squaw’s blouse was barely clinging to his tattooed chest, the holed breech cloth scarcely preserving his modesty. Given a beard that was now over two weeks old and untrained, and skin that had barely a square inch unscratched or unbitten … Jack could see why his superior officer might be somewhat appalled.
But he could not concern himself now with fashion. ‘The General, sir. I must speak to him at once.’
Carleton came forward, carrying a camp chair. He set it down and Jack, after a moment’s hesitation, slumped into it. ‘You have returned from Clinton? What message does he send?’
‘You’ll pardon me, sir; for the General’s ears only. Where is he?’
‘Where do you think?’ Carleton gestured to the west. ‘There!’
Jack did not need to turn his head. The sound of musketry had grown to a distant but distinct roar, like surf pounding on a Cornish beach; cannon added a staccato bass note to the song. Bugles brayed. Very faintly now, Jack could even hear voices. Shouts and screams.
‘An American attack?’
‘Ours. Though it’s only meant to be a reconnaissance in force to test the Rebel left. And a chance for us to reap some grain that’s growing there. But by the sounds of it we have stirred up the viper in his den.’
Jack winced at the reference, then sighed. ‘I must go to him.’
He tried to rise. Carleton’s hand on his shoulder held him effortlessly down. ‘Not looking like that, me lad. You’ll get yourself shot, arrested or, at the very least, laughed at. Can’t have a staff officer looking so disgraceful. Where’s your uniform?’
Jack passed a hand across his eyes. ‘Um, I … I believe the General was holding it for me.’
‘Really?’ Carleton crossed to the armoire that stood beside the mirror, threw open its door. A dozen beautifully tailored coats hung there from a rail. ‘What regiment are you?’
‘Regiment?’ He was, of course, a captain in the Queen’s Light Dragoons. But since that regiment was not serving in this campaign, and it was entirely proper for an officer to hold dual commissions in horse and foot, Burgoyne had had him appointed to … to …
‘The 24th Foot, sir?’
‘Excellent! Simon Fraser’s own and down there now in the thick of it.’ Carleton delved among the clothes. ‘Yes, here it is.’
He pulled the red coat from its hanger, laid it out on the table. A shirt came from a drawer, which also disgorged a bearskin hat, a stock, belt, pair of breeches, stockings, waistcoat, sash, steel gorget …
‘Sir, I feel time is pressing—’
‘Time can pause, sirrah!’ Carleton glared at him. ‘We may be beaten this day – but we will not be under-dressed!’ He turned back to the armoire. ‘I know you have a reputation of being something of an eccentric planet, Absolute but … ah!’ He emerged from further rooting. ‘These must be yours. Yes, J.A. God alone knows how you get the General to cart this stuff around for you.’ He plonked two shining shoes on the table, with the black gaiters that would be buttoned to the knee. ‘Braithwaite,’ he yelled at the tent flap. Burgoyne’s batman appeared before the cry had faded from the canvas walls. ‘Fetch me some hot water, soap, and a razor. And some food.’
The servant barely glanced at the prone Absolute before nodding and retiring.
The Colonel reached into a knapsack, producing a dusty bottle. ‘Been saving this. Armanac! The very thing.’ He swiftly poured two glasses and thrust one across at Jack. ‘For King and Country, eh?’ As Jack tried to stand for the toast, he waved him back down, and drained his glass. ‘Yes, that’s the stuff. Now, man, do you have a horse?’
‘My horse is outside, sir. But he’s exhausted.’
Carleton threw back the tent flap, allowing Braithwaite to bustle in under his arm and march to the table, setting stew and biscuit there before Jack. Jack did not hold back, just tipped the bowl, swallowing straight down the thin soup and bits of what he presumed to be meat that floated in it. The biscuit disappeared in three bites.
Carleton was staring out. ‘But that’s … that’s … Doughty! Best horse on the campaign. Lost fifty guineas to the Earl of Balcarras at Ticonderoga jumping against my Nimrod. He’s down there too, of course, young Sandy.’ He turned back. ‘Looks fine to me. Carry you across three counties, what? See he’s saddled, Braithwaite. I’ll do that.’
He crossed to the table, took the brush from the servant, dipped it in the steaming water, stropped it vigorously across the cake of soap.
‘Now, my good man,’ he said, smiling down, ‘all off or leave you your sideburns?’
It was remarkable what a shave, a clean uniform, a bowl of hot food and a tot or two of fine liquor could do for a fellow. Barely thirty minutes after Jack had entered the Commander’s tent in the guise of a scarecrow, he re-emerged as a smart, if somewhat skinny, officer, though all they’d been able to do with his tangled, thick hair was bind it in a bow. Yet Braithwaite had found time not only to feed and saddle Doughty, he had given him a quick groom as well. The horse snickered as Jack approached and danced sideways across the grass.
Mounting, Jack cried, ‘To the guns!’ and Doughty snorted, reared, and cantered off. Jack had no real need to control him; the horse knew the sounds of battle as well as he. There was a soft path that led from the tent in the forest clearing and emerged soon into the open, joining a larger one there. Immediately they were passing companies of both Redcoats and blue-clad Germans, all staring nervously down the valley towards the great bank of gunsmoke that was obscuring everything there, from which only the driven waves of regimental volleys, the sharp explosions of individual rifles, the heavy bark of cannon, the shriek of bugles, and, more faintly, of men could be observed. Carleton had told him that, to make up a fully fit force, detachments had been taken from each of the regiments and formed into impromptu units. So it was these men’s comrades that were struggling in that smoky hell, their colours that flew over that field.
Jack galloped past Freeman’s Farm, which he had run through two weeks before to gain the British lines. Just beyond it, on a slight rise, stood a new, well-fortified structure made up of earth and thick tree trunks – Balcarras’s Redoubt, Carleton had named it. And beside it, as the Colonel had predicted, telescope pointing down a path that cut through the wood ahead, was General Burgoyne.
Jack reined in just behind him, dismounted, and handed his reins to a groom who already held those of the staff horses. Captain Money shook his hand quickly then turned to his commanding officer.
‘General?’
‘Can’t see a damn thing. Smoke and trees as ever. Does Fraser hold the Barber Wheatfield or no?’ Burgoyne lowered his scope, but still squinted ahead. ‘Yes, Money?’ he called over his shoulder.
‘New arrival, sir.’
Burgoyne looked back and instantly smiled. ‘Why, Jack Absolute! A little late, eh? Nearly missed your entrance.’
‘A few problems, sir. Unavoidable, I am afraid.’
‘Oh, I am sure.’
A burst of shouting caused all to turn to see a man dashing towards them from the forest to their left, along the front of the redoubt. He tripped and fell, then stood immediately to attention before them. He wore the markings of a grenadier, the button of the 62nd, the crimson sash of a sergeant. That he was away from his company indicated that something was very wrong.
‘Beggin’ your leave, sir,’ he said, his Welsh accent thick, ‘but Major Ackland fears he cannot hold the wood. We are pressed hard, sir.’
‘Major Ackland would not send such a message if it were not true,’ Burgoyne said, ??
?and if his Grenadiers fail, our right flank will fold. Go back, man, and tell him he has my permission to withdraw to the redoubt.’
The sergeant saluted, turned and ran. ‘Francis?’ Burgoyne called, and an exquisitely tailored young officer stepped forward. ‘Be so good as to convey to Generals Fraser and Riedesel that they should retire on us in good order, at their earliest convenience.’
‘Sir!’ A salute was snapped up, returned, and the man mounted and was away.
‘Now, Captain Absolute,’ Burgoyne turned back to him, ‘what news do you bring me? Does General Clinton march to us or no?’
Jack glanced at the staff officers, who stared back at him, their expressions intent. ‘Perhaps, sir, I should convey the news in private.’
He saw Burgoyne’s urbanity waver a little at that – for he had to realize that private news would be bad. But his voice was still light when he said, ‘They must all know soon enough and base their actions on your report. For if you and I were killed …’ He waved his hand. ‘So – does Clinton come?’
Jack knew that the news, bad as it was, must be conveyed without honeying. ‘He moves, sir, upon the Highland forts,’ he continued over the gasps of relief, ‘but with just three thousand men.’
Even Burgoyne’s composure cracked at that. ‘Three? Three thousand, you say? By God, that may be enough to take the forts but not to hold them and march to us here.’ He looked around at the exhausted, grim faces before him; all eyes avoided his now. So he looked up for a moment into the clouds as if to seek there for a better omen, then sighed, looked back. ‘Well, gentlemen, it appears we have been left to our own resources.’ Snapping his telescope up, he turned back to the field. The noise, that had seemed to slacken for the duration of Jack’s report, returned now five-fold. ‘“I have set my life upon a cast and I will stand the hazard of the die,”’ Burgoyne declaimed above it. ‘What’s that? Henry the Fifth? Agincourt?’