‘Kill the bastards!’
A man fell away from the rear of the log, clutching at his neck. Jack shoved two men aside to take his place, just as the door’s planks began to sunder. Three more thuds and it gave and the men at the front of the log died when it did, felled by a volley from within. The rest began to thrust through the gap, some dying, many making it in.
He was maybe the twentieth man inside and it was as if he’d been whipped fast to hell. Fire was already encasing the rear wall in crimson flowers of flame, smoke spiralling up in columns. Screaming men were everywhere engaged, bayonets plunging, guns exploding, tomahawks scything down, jerked from bodies to strike again. The floor was already slick with blood-soaked straw and men would fall and rise only to fall again.
It was hard to discern anything in that human abattoir. Jack, using his musket like a quarterstaff, parried blows from men who believed him to be an enemy while he sought for a friend. And there, in the darkest corner, where the most bodies lay, he found him.
It took five strides of slip and slide, strike and block, to get to him. By that time Até had felled the largest man before him and was engaged with four more, a tomahawk in one hand, Ironwood club in the other. But the dead before him testified how long he had been fighting. His arms were clearly growing weaker; a bayonet grazed his hip, two men with sabres were cutting down …
Jack stepped in, chucked his musket, taking one opponent full in the chest. Crossing his arms, he pulled the bayonet from his belt with his left hand, his sword from its sheath with his right, needing both weapons to counter the two that came, one for him, one for his brother. Parrying the sabre of a Militia officer, who had overstretched on his lunge, Jack pulled his own sabre back and hit the man, fist to face. He went down but Jack barely noted it, for he felt the bayonet in his left hand twitch as the sword he’d blocked with it withdrew to strike again. The man he’d punched falling away freed his sabre and he span out, ripping it straight across the white-clad chest, this man screaming, staggering backwards. The last one before Até, seeing the odds, turned, ran. The smoke was thickening around them and, for just a moment, Jack and Até were quite alone within it.
‘Daganoweda!’ Até’s dark face split in a huge smile. ‘I thought you were dead!’
‘Very nearly. Very often. And that,’ he said, gesturing with his bayonet to the bodies before them, ‘pays you for Oris-kany.’
Até’s smile disappeared. ‘What … these? Only four of them? I could …’ But the rest of his protestation went unheard, lost in two distinct sounds – the screaming of the remaining defenders, offering, almost as one, their surrender; and the burning rear wall of the cabin suddenly dissolving in a cascade of flame a foot from Jack and Até’s backs.
All there, on either side, bent away from the sudden gust of heat, the surge of spark. Then Jack saw clear sky beyond the fire.
He yelled at Até over the roar. ‘Surrender or …?’ He gestured.
‘Or!’ Até shouted back and, on the word, dropped his powder horn and ran into the inferno. Jack dropped his, sheathed his sword and, a pace behind, leaped too, felt the fire snatch at him, sear his skin, crisp and dissolve some hair. Then the two of them were slipping down a slope to the rear of the cabin, rolling to dampen the flames, slapping themselves, each other.
‘Up there!’ Jack pointed, and the two of them ran towards Breymann’s Redoubt. Bullets came, from behind and before – the Germans were trying to shoot them as well. But when Jack yelled, ‘Officer of the Crown!’ someone up there held the muskets back long enough for them to scramble through a door hastily opened, hastily closed.
At first, they were most concerned with extinguishing the flames that seared and burned them still. No sooner was one damped out than another made itself known in sudden pain. Até’s brown skin had gained a feverish hue and he seemed to have mislaid one of his eyebrows. From the rawness he himself was feeling, Jack thought he must have fared no better. And Até, when he pointed at Jack’s clothes, confirmed this.
‘A king of shreds and patches,’ he roared.
Jack looked around. If he thought they’d escaped from hell he was wrong; they had merely descended to another level. The green-jacketed Jaeger, the huge, blue-coated German Grenadiers, each were engaged in a fierce and increasingly unequal contest. The walls reached only just above the men’s conical, metal-plated hats, and the Americans were hurling themselves over at many points. If one was shot, three more would take his place. The earth floor of the redoubt was breaking up into a series of savage individual contests.
‘Look there!’ Jack pointed. The main gates were being subjected to the same battering technique that had stoved in the cabin’s doors. A tall and extravagantly moustached officer – it had to be Breymann himself – was mustering two ranks of men before it. Até snatched up a discarded musket; Jack pulled out his pistols, which miraculously had neither exploded in the flames nor been lost in the tumbling. Together they ran towards the rallying men.
They did not make it. With a noise like a drawn-out scream, the gates crumpled in. The German volley was ragged, ineffectual; Rebels poured through the breach and in their midst was a man on a horse, screaming like a goblin, sword swirling above his head, urging his men on. Jack recognized him instantly.
‘Arnold!’ he cried, raising both pistols to fire. But a Grenadier beat him to it, shot the horse, which staggered, reared, both Jack’s bullets passing through the point where the American General’s head had just been. Then the stallion fell and Jack was close enough to hear the snap, the shriek of pain, as the full weight landed on Arnold’s leg.
Up to now, Jack had been more concerned with preserving his own life and that of his friend. Now, with the man who’d ordered Simon Fraser shot lying before him, the blood rage descended. Throwing his pistols aside, snatching out his sword, he advanced on his enemy, seeing only him and this chance for vengeance. As he came, he shouted, ‘Benedict Arnold! Murderer!’
The General, despite his agony, despite the cacophony of chaos that surrounded him, somehow heard Jack’s shout and looked up.
‘Lord John!’ he cried, surprise paramount. Then his pain-wracked visage twisted into fury. ‘Oath-breaker,’ he screamed.
Arnold groped to his saddle, drawing forth a pistol. Jack advanced, senses centred on the man ahead. Até was two paces behind him; one pace too far to prevent one of Arnold’s officers raising his rifle, firing. Something struck Jack, gouging fire across his temple. White light took him and he was down.
Yet this time there was no relieving dark to receive him. He watched the men before him – fighting, falling, dying – yet they were doing it quite slowly and in a world without sound. He watched Arnold’s mouth, edged in white foam, forming curses directed straight at him, until he was pulled from under his horse and his head rolled back in a faint. He felt arms slide under his own shoulders, hands gripped across his chest, noted that the hands were streaked with soot, reddened with burns. He was being dragged backwards then, his sword slipping free though his fingers stretched for it, his heels carving twin trails in the earth. Once, the hands left him and he was aware of swift movements behind, and a soldier, a Rebel, falling to his side, lifeless eyes staring wide at him. Then he was gripped again, dragged again until his back rested against wood. Still in that slow silence, he watched more Americans come screaming into the stockade, watched the Germans finally break, watched Breymann cut down several deserters with his sabre, until one of his own men shot him then used his body to climb the wall.
The grip was on him again, he was being lifted, balanced on the rough planks’ tops, tipped over. He reached out and felt something snap in the wrist that would stop his fall, though, strangely, this came with no pain. Then the hands were under him and manoeuvring him over a shoulder.
He had only two more distinct thoughts as he was run across the stubble of Freeman’s Farm. The first was that Até had once more stolen the lead in the saving of lives. The other arose from a sight, made more beauti
ful by the silence of that world. Clinging to a grass stalk was a butterfly, a monarch, its huge wings, red and black-veined, tipped in ovals of white, spread wide. Like Jack, it too hung upside down and as they passed, he saw it thrust its furred head into a tiny mauve flower.
– FIFTEEN –
The City of Brotherly Love
At the beginning, there was little to differentiate between day and night, the two made one by the rain that fell ceaselessly, not in drops, but in slabs of water from a sky that simply changed from dark to slightly darker. His fever provided another unity to time’s passing, holding him in a deeper darkness, tides of consciousness that paid no attention to the hour of the clock, or what was being done to his body. He woke to find his hand and wrist set in splints and bandage, and having no memory of it being done. Woke again staring at a horse’s mane, someone’s arms around him while that person argued with men who wanted him removed from his mount and laid in the thick mud beside the road where other wounded moaned. That had not happened, for when he next awoke it was to Até forcing some sort of broth down his throat. When conscious, he had no connection with what was going on around him, except the sight of it; yet that was clear, and every object he regarded was haloed in light. When he slept, which was nearly all the time, the darkness was total, admitting no sound, no image of dream, only a simultaneous sensation of heat and terrible cold.
Finally, the movement ended, the army settling into a rough camp. Words penetrated, voices passing the tent he’d ended up in, telling that they were near Saratoga itself; for the battles, as was the custom, had been named for the nearest larger town, though fought ten miles to its south. People came, tarried, left, and it was these visits that gradually pulled his mind back to the world, helped him fix his place in it again. Até was nearly always there and when he wasn’t he would soon return with food, sometimes with a grimace and thin gruel, other times with a grin and fresh-roasted squirrel or even venison. The Earl of Balcarras came one morning and sat for an hour while Jack listened to his tale, following the slow progress of the single tear trickling down that pale face as he described the burial of Simon Fraser on the battlefield the night of his death, just before the retreat began. He told of the roar of Rebel cannon that first were aimed at them, earth flying up into the faces of the mourning officers and men. And how, when the Americans realized it was not a gathering to assault but to bury, they switched to a Minute Gun, its salute punctuating the sad, proud eulogy delivered by the chaplain.
Two days later, with the balance now swinging to wakefulness in Jack’s hours, it was Midshipman Edward Pellew who came and made Jack laugh for the first time in an age with his fury at what was being planned for him.
‘’Tis not the fact of surrender, Jack,’ the young man declared, his Cornish accent growing ever stronger with his passion, ‘but ’tis my part in it, see. I command the Marines, so am the senior naval officer present. I told them all in Council – “Fair do’s,” I says, “I can see the Army has no choice. But the Royal Navy never surrenders.” I mean, Jack, if they’re lettin’ the Loyalists slip away, and your savage is the only Native who hasn’t absconded, why not let me take my twenty lads and break out? But the General wouldn’t hear of it, for some reason.’
Balcarras had been the first to mention the negotiations. Até had confirmed it with a few disapproving grunts. It seemed inconceivable, a British army yielding to a Colonial one. It had never happened before. Yet it was Jack’s third visitor who confirmed the inevitability.
He was up from his cot for the first time, attempting a few foal-like steps across the tent, when a voice halted his progress.
‘And that’s the first gladdening sight to meet these eyes in many a day. Are you then recovered, Captain Absolute?’
Jack turned, nearly lost his balance, held himself on his stick.
‘General … I am better, yes. The ball skinned, but did not enter, my much abused head.’
Burgoyne stood clutching an edge of canvas. Jack was shocked – for the normally ruddy face was almost white, its only shade deriving from the great patches of darkness under each bloodshot eye. His thick, snowy hair did not have its usual abundance but looked thin, plastered down. It was only in the exquisite cut of the uniform that Burgoyne was himself. It had to have been altered to suit a loss of weight and the thought made Jack smile. ‘Gentleman Johnny’ would sooner go on campaign without a company of Grenadiers than without his tailor.
‘Sir, come in, please. Would you care to sit?’
Burgoyne entered but shook his head. ‘I fear, dear Jack, that if I do I shall not rise again. But you must, please.’
He gestured and Jack sank gratefully down. ‘I have little to offer you, sir.’ His gaze moved around the canvas. ‘Unless …’ He reached forward and pulled down a bundle of fibrous strands from the tent pole. ‘Dried meat?’
Burgoyne took one of the strips and chewed. ‘Venison, eh? By God, Absolute, you eat better than any in the army. That will be your Até, I suppose?’ Jack nodded. ‘Where is he? I would like to talk with the fellow.’ He sighed. ‘My last loyal savage.’
‘Out procuring more of this, I should think.’ Jack took a strip, gnawed at the gamey meat. ‘So I’ll give him your good wishes. And I’m sure he’d wish you to take this. A guest’s gift.’ At the man’s hesitation, he continued, ‘There’ll be plenty more for us, General, never fear. And you know the hospitality of an Iroquois.’
‘Well, one would not wish to be rude.’ Burgoyne took the proffered bundle of jerky and tucked it rather swiftly into a capacious pocket at the back of his coat. ‘Now, sir, I have something of import to discuss with you. Perhaps I will share that seat, if I may?’
Jack shifted and Burgoyne sat heavily down. There was a time when their combined weights would have tested the camp bed’s construction. No more, thought Jack, somewhat ruefully.
‘So,’ began Burgoyne briskly, ‘you know about the result of the negotiations, do you?’
‘I have heard … something. Is it capitulation, then?’
‘It is not!’ Burgoyne tapped Jack’s knee with one finger. ‘I may have lost the campaign but I have undoubtedly won the peace. It is a “convention”. We are to be known as the “Convention Army”, and will march by way of Boston to a British fleet and thence home. We will not be allowed to fight in this war again, none of us, but … it will at least free His Majesty to send replacement forces here.’
‘It seems … generous of the Rebel, to say the least.’
‘I bamboozled him, Jack,’ Burgoyne declared proudly. ‘Told Gates that we’d hurl ourselves upon him with bayonets fixed and die rather than submit to humiliation. And he still fears that Clinton will come, even if I am now certain that he will not. So he signed the Convention with alacrity. We march out on the morrow with full honours of war.’
For all the bravado in the speech, Burgoyne would not look at him. Jack struggled to choke down both his anger and the thoughts he would express. Whatever sweetening euphemisms were used, it was still surrender. Whatever the terms, the Yankee had triumphed. He thought of Simon Fraser then, his sacrifice, and of all the hundreds, thousands, who had marched down from Canada, never to march back. And he felt something he’d never experienced before as a Redcoat – shame.
His throat was full yet he managed to speak. ‘So we are prisoners, sir, at least for a while?’
‘We are in their hands, yes. All of us.’ The older man paused, at last looked up. ‘All, that is, save three.’ He let the words sink in, continued. ‘That is what I would talk to you about. One of my conditions was that I was allowed to inform my superiors of the … debacle that has been so much their fault. So three dispatch bearers are guaranteed safe passage. One to Boston and thence by swiftest frigate to Lord Germain in London. One to General Clinton in New York. And one to Sir William Howe, our Commander in North America, who has had some successes against Washington and taken Philadelphia.’ Burgoyne’s voice could not help but edge with bitterness as he spoke those
words. ‘I want you to be that messenger and ride to Philadelphia.’
Jack’s heartbeat quickened. To not be part of this surrender, to be free to carry on the fight! Yet a soldier’s honesty made him caution.
‘I thank you for the honour and the trust, General. But,’ he gestured to himself, ‘I am not in the rudest of health. My progress may be slower than you would like. Does General Howe not need this news urgently?’
Burgoyne said, softly, ‘I am sure he will know it within a week if not in days. The Rebel will trumpet his triumph swiftly, both here and in the courts of Europe. Especially in Paris. The French have been aiding the rebellion since its beginning and not very secretly. Who knows what those curs will do now.’ He sighed. ‘No, it is not truly as a news bearer that you are needed there, Jack. It is for … something else.’
The vigour with which he’d proclaimed his skills in negotiation had left him. He leaned forward now to rest arms on knees, rubbing his hands first against each other then reaching one up to his brow. His eyes seemed to darken still more as they stared forward.
‘There are several reasons I could give why I lost this campaign. Some, no doubt, my fault; others, certainly the greater number, clearly not. But one remains prominent in my mind: I have been consistently undermined from within. Somewhere out there, in that rabble of Germans and Loyalists, there is still, as we have discussed, a traitor, a spy. He has stolen my decoding mask, spread dissension between my allies, consistently betrayed my secrets to my foes. I do not speak of Von Schlaben – as we said, he was not in the camp when our mask went missing – though I am sure he was involved. The Count may well be this other, this Cato. But the one he controls, this …’
‘Diomedes?’
‘Just so. Diomedes. Whoever he is, he will move on to plague General Howe, attempting to ruin him as he has helped to ruin me.’