Jack Absolute (15 page)

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 had 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.

Jack lost the struggle with gravity. He fell, landing heavily on the big Captain, who cried out some strange profanity and
fainted away. Jack rolled off him, ending up on his knees.

‘Took your time,’ he grunted, looking up at Até.

‘Been busy,’ the Mohawk replied. Jack wasn’t sure, as his vision was a little blurry, but it looked like there were at least
three more scalps dangling from his friend’s hide belt.

He felt another surge of pain in his back and groaned.

‘Wounded?’ There was at least some concern on Até’s face.

‘No.’ Jack pulled up his shirt, looked at the red mark spreading there. ‘Just struck.’

‘You are getting old and slow. Four would have been no problem for you once.’

‘Well …’ Jack muttered, rubbing at his back and looking about. The main struggle seemed to be further on down the valley.
And it appeared that most of the resistance was now being led by the Oneidas. Jack saw Brant charge a tall warrior, striped
from crown to toe in yellow paint. War club met war club and the two men locked and spun into the mêlée.

‘I think your old schoolfellow can handle this. We should see how the main ambush goes. I am not so assured of the courage
of our Loyalist friends.’

‘Then let us join them.’ A hand was offered and Jack used it to pull himself up, restraining another groan.

Até smiled. ‘And remember, Daganoweda. That is now seven to six.’ He ran ahead.

Jack watched his friend’s back moving away, then cursed silently as he began to follow. He never could remember how many times
each had saved the other’s life. There was always dispute about some of the actions anyway, whether intervention was actually
needed. Até was especially disputatious
about such points. Jack knew he could have no argument about what had just happened, but hoped he would get a chance to even
the score before the battle’s end. Otherwise the gloating around their next camp fire would be intolerable.

As he took his first painful step back down the valley, he felt the first raindrop. It ran down his face, soon joined in its
trail by dozens more. A relief to some, but bad timing for the ambushers. Like everyone else on the battlefield not directly
engaged in action, Jack tucked his powder horn and cartridge pouch under his shirt.

By the time Jack and Até had returned to the main site of the ambush, the rain was falling in walls of water. The approaching
thunder, lost till then in the roar of musketry, now crashed overhead, following sharp stabs of lightning. Here and there,
these illuminated for the briefest of moments a struggle between combatants too entwined to notice the deluge. A club would
fall, or a blade find flesh, and a body would slide away. Only then would the victor look up, startled, to wipe raindrops
and sweat from blurred eyes, then stagger off to his own lines.

Most had already withdrawn. Everywhere was the carnage of the sudden attack. Bodies in groups, some still moving, hands reaching
in supplication to their comrades safe behind a tree stump or in any slight dip. Steam rose from all, joining the miasma of
marsh and men’s exuded fear.

While the rain fell – twenty minutes, perhaps a little more – that was all the movement on the field. Then, as suddenly as
it had come, it ceased. The ‘thunderbirds’, as the myth of the Iroquois named them, moved away to the east, lightning striking
the slopes further down the valley. The drops shrank in size and a last line of them rode through the ravine, like a curtain
being drawn across a stage. The Second Act of the drama was about to begin.

It took only a moment. The ends of paper cartridges, kept scrupulously dry, were bitten off, contents tipped into barrels,
powder poured into pans.

‘For the King!’ a bass American voice shouted down.

‘For shit!’ came the reply from the valley floor. ‘I see you, John Chisholm. Got a nice crop of beet planted on your land,
you traitorous arse.’

‘You’re the fucking traitor, James Dingham,’ the Loyalist’s deep voice sounded again, ‘and a thief. And
I’ll
plant
you
where you can see those beets grow, real close to.’

Laughter rose, from both sides, from both came the distinct click of hammers being cocked. ‘Ah-ah-ah-ah-Ah!’ was the cry from
hundreds of Iroquois mouths. On the final ascending note, musketry exploded again down the length of the valley.

Jack lay beside Até and the two men became automatons – biting, pouring, ramming, cocking, firing. Gunsmoke pooled in the
ravine bottom, though a slight wind had arisen that pulled and tore at the cloud. Through the shreds, grey figures moved,
brief targets for their fusils, though the effect of any shot was hard to tell. The two men kept loading and firing anyway.

A bullet bit into the tree trunk Jack sheltered behind. It came from the side and, squinting, Jack perceived that some of
the Rebels had forced their way up the slope and seized a hillock of land. In their midst lay the old general, last seen falling
off a white stallion. He lay propped against a tree, obviously wounded, though the wound did not seem to affect his ability
to fire off his musket while coolly puffing on a long pipe.

Jack suddenly noticed something else. The hillock was up the slope, close to the ranks of hitherto silent, spectating Seneca.
Even as he watched, he saw some Militiamen pushing further up the hillside, and that the chiefs were having difficulty restraining
the younger warriors. And watching, Jack knew
what was to come. The Seneca were like any other Iroquois nation, glorying in war, in the acts of courage required.

He did not see the moment that provoked it, hothead brave or encroaching Rebel, but suddenly the Seneca lines rose as one
and charged down the slopes.

‘Até!’ Jack gestured to the attack.

The Mohawk looked, grunted. ‘So, the Great Hill People have found their courage. About time.’ Then he turned his gun barrel
again to the valley floor.

Jack watched the charge. A ragged volley halted the first of them, but the others came on, crying out their war whoop. When
they got close enough, the warriors almost offered their painted chests as targets. As soon as the musket was discharged though,
and if the brave remained unhurt, he would charge the soldier now frantically trying to reload. A hatchet would fall – once,
twice – and a red hand would be raised in triumph, something bloody clutched in it.

Someone on the American side had noted the weakness. Perhaps it was the general still prone and puffing tobacco beneath his
tree. Jack could see orders being shouted out. Men formed into pairs and when one fired and bent to reload, the other stepped
forward to discharge his weapon at the charging Seneca.

The tactic wreaked havoc. Painted bodies soon lay scattered on the ground before the slight rise occupied by the Rebels. The
Senecas kept coming. They had some success. But Jack knew this was not the Native way to fight. It was becoming a pitch battle
and that was the last thing the King’s ragtag army needed.

‘Where are the rest of the fucking Loyalists?’ Jack shouted at Até. Only two companies of Johnson’s regiment and some of Butler’s
men were engaged. The majority, under Major Watts, as they had been throughout the campaign, were tardy.

‘My gun is too hot and I tire of this.’ Até waved down the slope where targets had become hard to find. ‘Shall we go look
for help?’

At a nod, the two men ran in a crouch up the slope. Bullets slapped and winged around them but they made the line of trees
where some of the Seneca chiefs still sat, watching and muttering. Running behind them, they soon came to a little path that
paralleled the valley below. Jack found that his sore back eased with movement. They began to run faster.

They did not have far to go. Below them, where the valley widened out, the movement of a body of soldiers could be discerned.
Instantly, Jack and Até cut down the slope towards them, vaulting the low scrub and young trees in their way. They emerged
in front of a column of green-coated men. A portly officer was at their head.