Jack Absolute Read online

  The smile left the eyes but not the lips. ‘I think it might be beyond your comprehension, Captain.’

  ‘Oh, I know I am but a simple soldier, Count. But you could speak slowly and try me.’

  Von Schlaben looked around. The trees were very dark but above them the high summer sky still glowed in evening light.

  ‘Very well. Since we are alone here. You may have more imagination than I credited you for. You may even …’ He brought a hand up before him, thumb and middle finger pinched together, and described a small circle before his heart.

  Jack knew the response even if he did not hold with the Masonic creed. He delineated his own circle in the air, filled it with a hint of a ‘rosy’ cross.

  ‘Well.’ For the first time Jack saw something other than amusement or calculation in the German’s eyes. ‘If I had known that, we might have spared ourselves some unpleasantness.’ He sighed. ‘You talk of duty to a King. My duty is to something beyond kings. Beyond countries. My duty … is to humanity itself.’

  ‘A higher cause, then.’

  Von Schlaben took a step closer now, his voice lowered. ‘The highest. “To make of the human race, without any distinction of nation, condition or profession, one good and happy family.”’

  ‘Interesting words. Your own?’

  ‘My sentiments. The words themselves were written by a friend. A colleague. A leader.’

  ‘His name?’

  The German stepped closer. ‘There’s no harm in you knowing it. Very soon the greatest in every land will praise it. The name is Adam Weishaupt.’

  ‘Ah, the Bavarian professor.’

  For the first time, Jack had taken the German by surprise. ‘You know of him?’

  ‘The founder of the Illuminati. Even a simple soldier hears tales.’ Jack stepped in. They were now just a pace apart, and he lowered his voice to match the other’s. ‘And so, this American Revolution …’

  ‘A necessary beginning. So long as the right people end up in charge. People who are sympathetic.’

  ‘Illuminated?’

  The smile came back. ‘Why, Captain Absolute, you are not such a simple soldier, after all. This is the duty beyond all duties, the supreme loyalty. Men of all nations, of all ranks of society from kings to innkeepers are beginning to understand this. And there is a special place for men with skills such as yours. An “elevated” place I might say. It would be an honour to lead you into that brightness. For our Leader says to all, “Let there be light and there shall be light.”’

  Jack thought for a moment. In the distance he heard the drums begin, summoning the warriors of his adopted people to war, summoning him. One of Até’s quotes nearly came then, hovering in his head, just beyond recall. He looked up to the treetops, into the evening sky; then he had it. Not Hamlet, for once. Othello.

  ‘Speaking of which, do you know this one? “Put out the light and then put out the light.”’ As Jack said it, he closed the gap between them. They were standing toe to toe.

  Von Schlaben’s eyes widened. ‘Captain Absolute. You are not offering me violence? Are you not an English gentleman?’

  ‘I am,’ said Jack. ‘When in England.’

  He placed one foot on one of the Count’s. Then he hit him, sweeping the uppercut from waist to chin. Fear, fanaticism and questions, all put out, along with that light in Von Schlaben’s eyes.

  He didn’t know exactly why he did it. The memory of an unwanted hand on Louisa’s arm? The part the German had played at Drury Lane and Hounslow Heath? Not wanting such a snake at his back in the conflict that lay ahead?

  He wasn’t sure exactly why he did it. He just knew how good it felt.

  He took his foot off the German’s, who fell back, hitting the ground hard and lay still.

  Bending, Jack rolled him over, raised an eyelid. It was hard to gauge how long the man would be out. A few hours, with luck. Long enough to prevent him interfering again in what lay ahead, perhaps.

  Dragging the Count under a pine, Jack heard Burgoyne’s voice forbidding him a dagger in an alley.

  ‘Oh well,’ he said aloud, wiping pine needles from his shirt, ‘he never said anything about a punch on a path.’

  As Jack made for the Mohawk camp, under the sound of war drums he heard the faintest of rattles. He wondered if the snake might return, find the unconscious German …

  He shuddered. He had been bitten once himself. It was an agony that haunted him still. Much as he disliked Von Schlaben, he would not wish that fate even on him.

  – EIGHT –

  The Ravine

  Beneath the canopy of leaf, the air was thick with insects and the promise of rain. Heads throbbed from the pressure, the yearning for relief. In the hour since dawn, thunder was heard again and again in the distance but would not come near. Jack felt it like a bearskin robe pressing down, him a fever victim, too weak to throw it aside. From the valley floor, traces of marsh gas broke the spongy surface, tendrils drifting upwards bearing mould spores, the scent of corruption. Above, the clouds loured, so low they seemed tethered to the crowns of beech and elm by strings of smoke.

  He shifted, the parched brush crackling below him, cursing again that he had not brought more water. The contents of his canteen had been part consumed on the two-hour march to this position at Oriskany, the rest long since divided with the Mohawks on either side of him. Though he did not know them personally, they were of his clan, the Wolf. They would have shared their last drop as he had shared his.

  He squinted across the narrow ravine, to the equal point on the other side. The gloom made discerning difficult and, anyway, Até could conceal himself in a cornfield with a single stalk. But Jack thought that perhaps there was a glint there, where spectacles reflected the faintest of light. Até did not need water so long as he had a book.

  Those behind Jack, up the slope, were not so hard to spot, although he was sure they’d be invisible from the ravine’s floor. The Seneca were sat there in rows, hands folded in their laps where they clutched club and tomahawk. They had assumed the role offered of spectator; yet they were still armed, dressed, and painted for battle – for they, as well as any other Iroquois, knew that neutrality needed two sides to respect it.

  The Wolf to Jack’s right, Otetian, touched his arm lightly, flicked fingers towards the east. Jack strained, heard nothing … then it came. Faint but sharp, the ascending notes of a fife. Under it, he was soon able to discern other sounds. A single drum. The murmuring of voices. The Rebels were coming.

  They had decided to use only hand signals for fear that bird calls would be recognized as something else. He waved his hand above his head, made a fist, splayed the fingers three times. He saw slight shifts in the ground opposite, a flash of glass as spectacles were put away. All around him, men reached for priming powder, pouring a little into the pan. Frizzle covers were removed, the metal plates were lowered. As ordered, the muskets were then laid down again. It had been made clear that they were to wait till the very last of the enemy column had entered the ravine before anyone fired. The only way to guarantee that, among four hundred excited warriors, was to remove the weapons from their hands.

  The air, so thick before, had turned electric, hair rising on heads. It was that mix of fear and blood hunger, a compound Jack recognized of old, swelled by the approach of thunder. Jack knew that, for most of the young men there, this would be their first real fight, one they had yearned for, trained for all their lives. The siege of Fort Stanwix was an alien, European-style battle. This was ambush, the Native way of war, how their fathers had fought – man against man, with musket, club, and tomahawk.

  The music drew nearer, the voices suddenly distinguishable. The Rebels had obviously reached that stage in their march where the more jaunty of the songs had been sung and sung again. Someone had struck up a ballad and the vanguard were singing it lustily.

  Me oh my, I loved him so,

  Broke my heart to see him go,

  And only time can heal my woe,

/>   Johnnie has gone for a soldier.

  Jack was sure he was not the only one looking down into the valley soon to be filled with death, who joined in the next verse under his breath. The same songs, he’d found, belonged to both sides in any war.

  I’ll sell my clock, I’ll sell my reel,

  Likewise I’ll sell my spinning wheel;

  To buy my love a sword of steel,

  Johnnie has gone for a soldier.

  As the chorus swelled again, something luminous entered the ravine, its brightness startling in that grey world. It was a horse, huge, magnificently white. Astride it sat quite an old man, upright and strong-looking, in the uniform of a general. The high-spirited stallion skittered sideways down a stretch of soft path, as if it sensed what lay ahead. The General effortlessly brought him back into control with a flick of rein, a hand reaching out to caress, to calm.

  Behind the horse, the fifer and single drummer kept up their music. Behind them, an ensign carried the Militia’s standard at the head of the main body of men. These straggled, but because the path dictated it rather than from a lack of discipline. They came in twos and threes, sang as they came, and looked more than capable of using the muskets and swords slung around their bodies. Interspersed among them were groups of Natives, war-painted, scalp-locked, breech-clothed like most of the men watching. Oneidas. Another of the Six Nations of the Iroquois.

  As the ranks marched past him, Jack sighed. In moments he would be trying to kill these men whose song he’d joined, just as they would be trying to kill him. Neither side now had a choice. But they fought for a cause with which he did not entirely disagree. And eighteen years before, he had fought beside them, Native and White, under the Union Standard, each helping the other to defeat the French and win a continent for the Crown.

  Samuel, the messenger whose wounds had nearly killed him after the message was delivered and might still, had told of maybe six hundred men marching to the relief of Fort Stanwix. Jack reckoned perhaps half that number had passed his position when what he and Joseph feared would happen, did. The pressure from the thunderous heavens and the sight of the enemy before their guns proved too much.

  ‘AH-ah-ah-ah-AH!’ It was the rise and fall of the Iroquois war whoop, a single voice, young sounding. It clung in the air like mist to a tree, and then it was lost in a storm of voices, which panicked the men on the valley floor, crying out as they scrabbled for weapons. Then all human sound was engulfed by the crack of musketry that rolled down the length of the ravine like a wave running down a shoreline.

  Jack aimed at an Oneida warrior, fired, smoke immediately obscuring the view of his aim’s success. He turned, paper cartridge already to hand, bit the end off, poured the powder into the barrel, a little saved for the pan, ball and wadding crammed into the muzzle, his ramrod grabbed from beside him, thrust down. A glance to the left showed him a rearing white horse, an old man falling. Turning back, he searched through the smoke for another target.

  Though they’d had the advantage of surprise, their unanswered first volley was now being countered with steady fire. A bullet snapped the bark of the elm before him, some splinters sharding into his face. He closed his eyes, wiped the debris away, opened them again. Otetian to his right, cried out, fell back, blood running down his shoulder. And suddenly there was Joseph Brant sprinting between the trees to fall beside Jack.

  ‘There!’ He was pointing back down the valley in the direction the Americans had come. The head of the column, thrust into the trap, had no choice but to fight or die. Those who had been warned by the premature attack had an another option. Even as Jack looked, he could see the rearguard hesitate, falter, break. He heard a cry of, ‘Run, boys, run, or we shall all be killed.’ He saw most there discharge their shot wildly in the air, turn, and flee.

  ‘We have them pinned here,’ Jack shouted above the gunfire, gesturing to the ravine, ‘so—’

  ‘So we should rout these cowards!’ Joseph nodded, a fierce grin coming to his face. Then he was up and waving his musket above his head, careless of the shots he drew, pointing it down the valley to the American backs. His own men, Mohawk and that handful of white Loyalists who followed only him, were all around. They rose in an instant and set off behind their leader, chasing the fleeing Rebels.

  Jack rose too, shouted, ‘Até!’ across the valley, although he did not really hope to be heard. However, his friend was as experienced in this sort of combat as Brant. He too would have seen the advantage to be gained from attacking those who fled. And he had gathered family about him who would support him.

  Jack, running just behind the main body of Brant’s men, saw some of the enemy crawling into bushes, trying to hide, then being dragged out and struck down with club and tomahawk. He saw knives falling swiftly, rise nearly as fast, bloodied patches of hair and skin shaken aloft in triumph. However much he considered himself one with the Iroquois, he had never been able to share this part of their warfare. And despite what Von Schlaben had discovered to the contrary, he had an English gentleman’s restraint that prevented him striking at backs. Fortunately, there were some among the enemy who were trying to rally. So he sought these as targets for his new sword, unblooded as yet, for he had bought it on his second-to-last day in London from his old sword-maker, Bibb of Newport Street, who had sent it ahead to Portsmouth. It was a heavy cavalry sabre, the type Tarleton had wanted to duel with. Jack had demurred then, remembering the savage cuts the beautifully balanced weapon could inflict – in the right hands.

  A huge captain of Militia, well over six and a half foot tall, stood cursing and striking at his own men as they ran by him. ‘Sneck-draws! D’ye foryet the bairn McRea?’ he cried, his Scots accent so thick Jack only understood the name, one unfamiliar to him, though not, apparently, to some of the fleers. A few paused, then a few more, looked longingly at their comrades’ retreating backs, turned to their Captain. They were rallying.

  Have to put a stop to that, thought Jack, and discharged his musket to the man’s left, where an ensign was desperately waving his company standard. He went down with a cry and Jack, slinging the musket strap over his shoulder, drawing his sword, charged at the Captain. A huge claymore, weapon of the Highlands, rose in defence.

  Jack was running, his opponent stationary, so Jack used his speed as if he were making the leaping attack of a fleche in a fencing salle, bringing his sword down in a sharp cut to the head. The Scot parried it nearly square, staggering back, and Jack slid his blade down his opponent’s, cutting at his side. Again the man parried, a desperate shove to the side, too far, taking him off balance. But before Jack could take advantage of the slip, he felt, rather than saw, the bayonet thrust at his back. Spinning away, he sliced down, knocking the bayonet aside. The man who thrust it screamed, drew the musket back to strike again. Jack stepped inside the point, wrist cocked, then sharply ripped his sabre across the man’s throat. The Militiaman dropped his gun, fell back, blood pumping between his hands.

  A glint was falling fast towards him from the sky. The Captain had recovered his balance and was striking down. Jack just managed to parry the first blow, feeling the shock run through his wrist as the weapons clashed. The last thing he needed was his new sabre to be broken so he deflected the frenzy that followed, letting each cut slide down his blade. The man was strong, taller than Jack, bringing the sword down from his great height so Jack had to dart and weave to avoid the blows. Seven fell as Jack moved him around, keeping the huge body between him and his rallying men. He saw the Scot was tiring so he took the eighth blow on the guard, reaching up his left hand to join his right. With the strength of two arms, he flicked hard in a tight circle and, to keep hold of his sword, the Captain had to lean far out to the left. Two-handed still, Jack stepped through, slashing across the man’s chest. The heavy blade split the Scotsman’s coat like silk, and a button flew off, hitting Jack in the nose. Then he felt, through his edge, the solidity of flesh parting. The giant screamed, tumbled back.

  The move h
ad taken him past. Suddenly he was standing in the midst of those who had rallied. Though many were facing outwards, frantically loading and firing at the screaming Mohawks who circled them, four had turned inwards at their Captain’s fall. Two with swords, two with bayonets.

  He could not hesitate. Safety, for the moment, lay within those points rather than without. Spinning, he moved into the space between the muskets, snapping an elbow into the face of one man who reeled back. Another, though, swung the butt, the wooden edge driving into Jack’s side, just above the kidneys.

  The pain was extraordinary. Jack slipped down to a knee, knowing he mustn’t go over, and the slip saved him, as one of the swordsmen thrust over-excitedly to the place Jack had been, the blade passing over his head and making the other swordsman stagger back to avoid it. Jack reached up to the wrist, twisted it, forced the sword out of the grasp, though the strength it took shot agony through his bruised back. The man immediately reached down and a dagger was in his hands in a moment.

  Shit, Jack thought distinctly, forcing himself up, throwing his blade out before him. One man was down, but three still held weapons and were advancing on him. And his back was aflame.

  He parried, struck, tried to keep his weapon circling. Suddenly, hands gripped his legs and he swayed.

  ‘Rabble the callant,’ bellowed the Captain, his huge hands wrapping around Jack’s ankles. The men seemed to understand their leader if Jack could not, for as he tottered, his sword waving before his face, fighting for balance, he saw the bayonet point driving toward his belly …

  The tomahawk took the man with the bayonet in the side of the head. One moment he was there, the next gone. The dagger had been reversed in the other soldier’s hands, raised high for a downstrike. A blur of arms reached up, checked the weapon, brought it hard down into the man’s own body. This left the last swordsman, who, confronted by a huge Mohawk even now reaching to jerk his tomahawk from a body, decided his rallying time was over. He dropped his sword and fled.