Jack Absolute (12 page)

All these dark thoughts swirled through Jack’s head as he approached the Commander’s tent. Standing near its entrance, sucking
hard on a pipe, was St Leger’s adjutant, Captain Ancrum.

‘A word with the Colonel, Ancrum?’

His fellow officer winced, then tamped out his tobacco on his boot heel. ‘I’ll try, Absolute. You’ll, uh, wait here, yes?’

He twitched the flap, went in. Why Jack had to wait outside had been made very clear to him at his most recent meeting with
St Leger. Men chose different methods to ward off the near-constant biting of insects. Some stayed near fires, despite the
already ferocious summer heat. Others, like Ancrum, buttoned their uniforms tight and smoked continuously, thus keeping their
faces relatively unbitten at least. Jack and Até had chosen to revert to Native ways. On their first day in camp at Oswego
they had tracked and killed a bear. They had not eaten of it, for a rutting bear’s flesh is bitter. But its grease covered
them now, the most effective ward against bites; no creature would choose to come near them – either winged or two-legged.
It sometimes amused Jack to think how his friends at Boodles Club or the Turk’s Head Tavern would react if he came, thus fragrant,
into their company. Much as St Leger had reacted, probably, when Jack had entered his tent for the first and only time.

‘Egad! You reek, sir. Out.
Out
!’

So now Jack awaited him outside, Até squatting behind him. The tent flaps parted again, the Colonel emerged, and Jack reflected
on yet one more option for keeping away the insects.

Pickling. Barry St Leger, despite the early hour, and the necessities of command, was inordinately and utterly drunk.

‘Absholute!’ The Colonel stepped very carefully out of his tent, his eyes seeking a point on Jack’s right shoulder. He was
a tall man, forty years old, though the effects of his drinking made him seem closer to sixty. He halted about six paces away,
swayed, steadied. ‘Close enough, I think, what?’ he declaimed, glancing back with a smirk at Captain Ancrum, who had relit
his pipe in the tent’s entrance. He smiled weakly, then shook his head slightly as he caught Jack’s eye. Though he was obviously
being warned off, Jack felt he had to try.

‘I was wondering, sir, if just this once …’ He gestured to the privacy of the tent.

‘Certainly not. Took me three days to clear the stench at Oswego. Well, man, something to report?’

Jack sighed. If it had to be in public, then so be it. ‘Yes, Colonel. I was wondering about the guns.’

‘Guns?’ St Leger’s face took on a parody of concentration. ‘I am aware of many aspects of your … remarkable career. Dragoon.
Sepoy. Tree fighter.’ The last was delivered with an unmistakable sneer. ‘Never knew you for a gunner though.’

‘I am not, sir. I was merely observing that we seem to be expending a lot of powder to little effect. We are underpowered,
sir, in that branch of the service.’

St Leger swayed, spluttered. ‘False information. Your damn savages, Absholute. Told us the damn fort was virtually a ruin.
Otherwise, would have brought bloody bigger guns. Never trust a bloody Native, what?’

Behind him, Até stirred and muttered under his breath. Other tribesmen drew closer. Many found the Colonel’s love of his ‘milk’
amusing.

To speak more quietly, Jack took a step forward, but the Colonel took an equal one back, stumbling slightly as he settled.

‘Then I was wondering, sir, since we cannot hope to penetrate the walls—’

‘Not being a gunner, Absholute, you wouldn’t know the effect shot has on an enemy. It demoralizes him, sir. And it impresses
the savage.’ St Leger waved a limp wrist at the gathering Natives.

Jack knew the cannonade was making the reverse impression, but he could see no words of his would halt the paltry bombardment.
Yet he could at least attempt to remove part of the unimpressed audience.

‘Another point then, sir. If I may return to the suggestion I made yesterday?’

‘Eh?’ St Leger looked as if yesterday had been the year before.

‘A reconnaissance in strength, sir. Take the Mohawks, at least, up their valley to see what the enemy is about.’

‘Set them loose on the population, you mean. Let them indulge in every type of barbarity.’ Phlegm was flying from the Colonel’s
mouth and he was swaying alarmingly with drink and passion. Ancrum took a cautionary step towards him, arms outstretched.
‘When we know that thousands of Loyalists in that valley are ready to rise up and meet with us, you wish to set these bloody
heathens upon them, to ravish, butcher … scalp?’ He was virtually screaming now. ‘No, by all that’s holy. God and England
would never forgive me.’ He looked to the heavens, sighed deeply. ‘And God and England would be right!’

Passion expended, he did slip then. Ancrum’s arms supported him, guided him back towards the tent. At its entrance, St Leger
turned again. ‘I will not split my forces. We shall deal with Stanwix and only then will we begin our march to Albany. But
you, Captain, since the sound of cannon so displeases you, may return to your watch in the woods.’

The Colonel disappeared inside. Jack stared after him. Até rose at his side.

‘“As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.”’

‘Hamlet
, I suppose.’

Até smiled. ‘Proverbs. Chapter Twenty-Six, Verse Eleven. You are the greatest heathen here.’

Jack laughed, feeling the tension within him ease. He had done his best. And now, at least, he had received some kind of order.

‘And you had Christianity crammed down your throat
at that charity school of yours. It was the main advantage of a Westminster education. We were all bloody heathens there.’

It was an old debate between them. Até grunted. ‘Well, Daganoweda. Shall we continue the argument at the camp?’

‘Aye.’ They had set up an observation post an hour’s march down the valley. There they could fend for themselves, clear of
the tensions of the siege.

As they were moving away, Jack felt a tug on his elbow. ‘A word, Captain Absolute, if I may?’

The Mohawk who now stood beside Jack was as tall and as old as he. Like many of his people, centuries of contact with the
Whites had sharpened the flatter Native features. Even with the copper of his skin, he would have passed nearly unnoticed
among the darker denizens of Cornwall. This was emphasized by his European style of dress, his shirt, breeches, and waistcoat.
An officer’s gorget swung at his neck, and beneath it dangled a medal. Presented, Jack now recalled, by King George himself
when this man, Joseph Brant, had visited London the previous year. It was said that he had refused to bow to the sovereign
because he was an ally, not a subject. His English, as befitted one educated at the same school as Até, was excellent, although
his accent differed. Society had befriended him on his English tour. Romney had painted his portrait, he had moved among the
court and now sought to emulate their tones in his speech.

The man turned to Até. ‘James,’ he said, drawing out the word as if he were at tea on Piccadilly.

‘Joseph.’ Até, colouring slightly, nodded. Though they had been part of the same force travelling down from Lake Ontario,
Até had been thus far able to avoid his old schoolfellow, for Brant was the one man in the army who would call Até by his
baptismal name. They were of the same tribe of the Iroquois, the same clan of the Wolf. But Jack knew Até felt,
like many others, that Brant was trying to become a white man … and despised him for it.

Jack had no such concerns. Brant may have affected all things English but he was still a tough Mohawk warrior, the well-dinted
tomahawk at his waist testifying to that. And he was tireless in his devotion to the King’s cause. Jack also knew that Brant
commanded a good following among his tribe, warriors, who, like himself, were not content with the neutrality the Council
was trying to impose.

Brant turned to Jack. ‘I heard what you were saying to our drinking leader. You are right, and he is wrong.’

‘Can you and the other sachems not get him to agree?’

‘When we cannot agree among ourselves?’ Brant swept his arm around the dispersing tribesmen. ‘Your Colonel said to the Senecas
at Oswego, “Come and watch us smash the Rebels. You do not even have to fight. And we will give you equal shares of gifts,
of rum.” Equal! To the Mohawk who raises his war club for King George! And since the Senecas are without honour they accepted
this spectator’s role. As if they were in a box at Drury Lane. But at least the Seneca are Iroquois.’ He pointed at another
group. ‘All these others … Shawnee, Delaware, Missausauga Algonquin with their filthy tongue – how can we get them to unite
under the Union Jack?’

Though this tirade had been pronounced in almost Oxfordian tones, Brant now turned and hawked very loudly in the direction
of the Senecas, some of whom muttered and fingered their tomahawks. Jack took Brant by the elbow, led him slightly apart.

‘I know how you feel, Taiyendanaygeh.’ Jack had reverted to Iroquois, feeling Ancrum’s gaze upon him, newly emerged from the
Colonel’s tent. ‘But these divisions will only make the Rebel enemy glad. Is there nothing we can do to unite us?’

‘Fight.’ It was Até who spoke. ‘Throw them into battle. They will all want glory if the bullets begin to storm.’

‘My brother is right,’ Jack said. ‘This siege, these toothless cannon, this is not the tribes’ way of war. But we are going
out now to our camp. We will have first news of any enemy who march to relieve the Fort, as I think they will do. If I send
back to the camp, will you come?’

Brant smiled for the first time. ‘I will. And you are right. They may lack the honour of the Mohawk. But even these others
will fight.’

Jack squeezed Brant’s elbow. ‘Then let us go. And may we send word soon.’

‘Amen,’ said Brant.

They went to the Quartermaster’s tent where they had left their own weapons. Stripping off the shirt, breeches, and boots
he felt obliged to wear when in conversation with fellow officers, Jack was soon dressed – or undressed – like Até; a hide
apron around his waist, reaching to mid-thigh, moccasins on his feet. Até was painted in red stripes right up to the scalp
lock, the single bunched tail of hair that ran from his crown down his back. Jack had decided that the tattoos he’d acquired
as a young man were sufficient painting and that his hair had better remain uncut since he had his dual role to think of.
A shaved British officer would not be invited to sit down, even at Burgoyne’s table. But he gathered the thick hair back,
tied it with rawhide. It reached down his spine nearly as far as Até’s.

Cross straps held three pistols apiece. They dropped their powder horns over their shoulders, the pouches that contained ball
and grain to eat on the trail. There would be plenty of water and game in the woods. Finally, they picked up their fusils.
Point 65 calibre, they had been taken from the French years before, much lighter than the Land Pattern Firelock issued to
British soldiers, far better constructed and
with shortened barrels. Among the trees, one needed accuracy and speed rather than distance, and a shorter barrel was easier
to wield.

‘Ready?’ Até was grinning at him from the tent entrance.

‘Oh yes,’ said Jack. ‘Let’s see if we can start some trouble.’

Within the silence of the trees, the wolf howl pierced like musket shot. Roosting pigeons exploded from branches, careless
of the canopy, wings hammering the leaves aside in panicked flight. A squirrel, which Jack had been studying with the idle
curiosity of the slightly hungry, disappeared into the higher reaches of a black walnut with a flick of its tail.

Jack looked to Até and his friend peered back at him through his spectacles. He had acquired a new pair in London, delighted
with an improvement that had occurred in their time in India; these were called ‘bi-focals’ and had a reading lens occupying
the lower half of the glass. The contrast between these and the shaved head and war paint had given Jack much amusement, though
Até had not seen the humour. A copy of
Clarissa
by Samuel Richardson lay on his tattooed chest. He did not usually read novels, preferring philosophy or Shakespeare, but
Burgoyne had thrust it at him on the voyage over and he felt obliged to the General to finish it. After two days in the forest,
he was nearly done.

They waited for the chorus that should follow the single cry. But it was not long before the one voice cried once more, from
a little nearer, a longer ululation ending in a series of sharp yelps.

There was something strange in it. Jack tipped his head. ‘Lone wolf?’

Até was folding his spectacles, putting them and the book to the rear of their birch bark, half-moon lean-to. ‘Yes,’ he said,
reaching for his gun, ‘but not an animal one.’

Jack had heard it too. Someone was moving through the woods towards them. Their shelter was set back from the main path, hidden
by a thicket of young birch. Priming their fusils with a sprinkle of powder in the pan – they were already loaded – they moved
swiftly down to the trail. Jack’s raised eyebrows drew the slightest of nods from Até, who swung himself into the lower branches
of a beech. Jack lay just off the path, squinting along the barrel down the path that led to the Rebel lands.

It was not a long wait. Within moments, they heard the sound of feet slapping the earth. Or rather one foot, then a dragging
sound accompanied by a harsh exhalation. And there were other sounds beyond these. Straining, Jack could make out at least
three other footfalls, maybe more, coming fast. Faster certainly than the one they obviously pursued.

The first man to appear looked as though he had run for miles. He was dressed, much as Jack and Até themselves, in breech
cloth, moccasins, and little else. But the black and gold paint that striped him from crown of head to knees was smeared and,
Jack instantly saw, run through with red. This was not done in the formal patterns of the paint. This was blood. It spread
across the body in a spider’s web, streaming from beneath the hand the man ineffectually clutched to his side. And Jack saw
that the leg, the one that dragged, had another wound, also pulsing red.