Jack Absolute (14 page)

‘Captain Absolute. My, such deadly forest creatures both fore and aft. What is a poor townsman to do?’

‘I am flattered you consider me deadly,’ Jack left the slightest of pauses before adding, ‘Diomedes.’

If he hoped the name would provoke a reaction he was disappointed.

‘My first name is Adolphus, not … whatever it was you just said. Though I hardly think we know each other well enough to be
on such terms.’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Jack had stopped about four paces
away. ‘I think one should always be on easy terms with a man who has tried to have one killed.’

‘I?’ There was no real denial in the tone. His gaze swung back to the snake, which had begun to move. Certain of its precedence
on the path, it uncoiled and, with a final warning rattle, slithered off into the brush.

Von Schlaben shook his head. ‘A nasty way to die, I am told.’

‘Very. You should try it.’

The German’s pallid eyes moved back to Jack. In a voice devoid of inflection, he said, ‘You wish something from me, Captain
Absolute?’

Jack took a moment to look the dark green uniform of the Jaeger officer up and down. ‘Do you qualify for this role?’

‘We all play many roles, Captain. I have seen some military service, yes.’ He gestured with his chin to Jack’s encampment
garb of green wool shirt and buckskin leggings. ‘Do you qualify for yours?’

There was a moment’s appraising silence between them. Jack broke it. ‘I know why you set that young lunatic on me in London.
You would try to prevent me in the duty I perform now – rousing the Natives to fight for the King.’

‘I would?’ Again, it was barely a question.

‘I am curious. What do you consider your duty?’

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.

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.