Jack Absolute (8 page)

It was Alexander Lindsay, Earl of Balcarras who had spoken. Tall, so pale his skin appeared untroubled by his prodigious consumption,
seemingly effete, with an accent bred at Harrow and Oxford, Jack had discovered that the man entrusted with Burgoyne’s Light
Infantry had a core of metal. ‘Sandy’ was also a fine fast bowler and had taken Jack’s wicket in the annual Westminster versus
Harrow Old Boys cricket match seven years before. Despite that, Jack liked him.

‘It was indeed. Though my young friend here is somewhat more agile than myself.’

Pellew said, ‘Tosh, Jack,’ but his argument was interrupted by a voice Jack had already learned to loathe. Its tone was whining,
high-pitched, eerily at variance with a corpulent body.

‘Cornwall, eh?’ said Philip Skene. Turning to Burgoyne, rudely leaning right across the vole-like Mrs Skene, he shouted, ‘General,
did you read Johnson’s latest satire on the Rebels and the legitimacy of their revolt? He wrote that the Cornish have as great,
nay, a greater claim to self-government than these …
Americans.’

The tone the fat Loyalist gave the last word made Jack colour, and he saw Louisa’s smile vanish. Her family might be Loyalist
too, colonists who supported the Crown against the Revolution. But she was an American as well and proud to be so. Whereas
Skene was one of those men who became more English the longer he lived away, the more he profited from the New World he plundered.
He owned vast tracts of the Hudson Valley, the very land the British army must march through to wage their campaign. He had
boasted of
the thousands of Loyalists there who would rise up at his command, to Burgoyne’s aid.

Jack looked at Skene, at the roll of fat that spilled over his too-tight collar, the heat in the porcine eyes. He also had
the taste shared by many Americans of wearing a wig, long deemed unfashionable in England. Skene’s was old and wispy, two
powdered rolls lodged above the ears. It had worn away in places to reveal patches of flaring pink skin. Rich
and
miserly, Jack noted, a not uncommon combination. He suddenly remembered a story he’d heard of the man – that when his mother
died he’d kept her corpse on a table because so long as she remained ‘above ground’ he could collect her pension.

Jack was there to observe, not comment, let alone debate. But the man irked, not least because he represented all that the
Rebels were right to oppose. Feeling the latest bumper to an old allegiance inspire him, Jack spoke.

‘What Johnson failed to address, Colonel Skene, was that my countrymen of Cornwall can make their grievances known in Parliament
through their elected MPs. The Colonists cannot.’

‘“No taxation without representation!”’ Skene brayed. ‘The Rebel cry! I hardly expected to hear that treason repeated at the
General’s table. But then I ask you, Captain, do children in Cornwall have the vote? Hmm? Do women? Eh? Do the illiterate
miners in their holes? Eh? Eh? For that is what these Americans are, sir. Dependants. Nothing more!’ He jeered, ‘The Declaration
of
Dependence
, that’s what they came up with. That’s what must be crushed, this … Children’s Crusade! Do you not agree, sir?’

Jack glanced around the table. The Germans looked bemused; Pellew was already bored and rooting for more Bishop; Louisa’s
face was composed, but her eyes glowed still at Skene’s gibe at all Americans; Burgoyne’s face held a slight smile, knowing
Jack’s beliefs, relishing his predicament.

He returned his gaze to the flushed face before him. ‘I do not, sir. I believe each American wants only what their brothers
in England already have: the freedom to decide their own destiny. And they want it unrestrained by a political process in
which they have no voice.’

‘You speak like a follower of John Wilkes, man. Are you, then, a … uh, Democrat?’ Balcarras gave the last word an especially
Harrovian shudder.

‘I am … not sure what I am, my Lord.’

‘You sound like a damn Rebel, that’s what. Is this the sort of officer you will rely on, Burgoyne?’ Skene once more shouted
up the table.

The smile on the General’s face broadened. ‘Oh yes, I know I can rely on Captain Absolute. I have had a number of proofs of
his loyalty over the years.’

‘Even when he proclaims damned traitor sentiments?’ Skene’s heated face had coloured even more dangerously.

‘Especially then. When he stops proclaiming them, I may begin to watch my back.’

Thwarted, Skene muttered, ‘Well, you appear like a damned traitor to me.’

‘No traitor, sir. Just a true born Englishman who breathes liberty as he breathes air and would not deny that same air to
others.’ He paused but only for breath. ‘It is just fourteen years since all Englishmen, on both continents, put an end to
the threat of France and their tyranny in these lands. We could not have done it without the men we now call traitors. Together
we can keep ourselves free of that tyranny. Together we can have what every man desires – the liberty to pursue his own course,
unhindered by the restraint of obligation. Many of our American brethren feel, with some cause, that they are unequal partners
in that enterprise. So let’s beat them, but not humiliate them. Let’s beat them, then welcome them back as brothers
– good play is fair play – and, together, we can conquer the world.’

It was a failing of his, this venting of passion. He could no more contain it than he could catch the wind in cupped hands.
The hot Bishop, the hot room, the hot eyes of Louisa were all goads. But he’d have probably spoken the same way alone in the
Arctic.

Skene seemed as if he were about to choke. He pulled at his collar, grabbed a glass, and drained it, set it down with a determination
that spoke to a renewal of the fight. But it was a woman’s voice that prevented him.

‘I’ve always maintained,’ Louisa said calmly, ‘that Jack is an “absolute-skein” of contradiction.’

It was a little joke, the kind of pun they all revelled in. The company exhaled their laugh as one, saving Skene and his timid
spouse. The tension punctured, Jack looked to Louisa, joined in the laugh. He had broken cover, revealed his position. Now
perhaps he could sink back and resume his watch. He had to report to the General, after all.

The General was not going to give him the chance. ‘Since Captain Absolute has raised the subject of a fight – and given us
some indication of the contrary opinions we are likely to encounter – perhaps the time has come to reveal to you all, esteemed
allies and officers, how I intend to carry that fight to my opponents. How I intend to pin them to the floor of the wrestling
ring and make them plead for terms. You there!’ At his raised voice, servants came into the cabin, at his gesture, the remnants
of food were cleared swiftly, leaving only glasses and decanters of port and cognac. Most of the men reached within pouches
for tobacco. As the hubbub swirled around him, Burgoyne stood calmly filling his pipe, his eyes unfocused, as if he were staring
through the wood of the table and on through a continent.

Louisa and Mrs Skene rose to leave, but the General waved
them down. ‘I have a feeling you will both be sharing the hazards of this campaign,’ he said. ‘You should share the knowledge
of it too.’

When the last of the servants withdrew, when all glasses were charged, Burgoyne picked up a lamp, held it so that his face
was lit from below.

‘St John’s, north of Lake Champlain,’ he said, placing the flickering glass on the table before him. ‘The advance guard of
my army gathers there, organized by my dear General Phillips, whose skill with artillery you will all acknowledge.’ There
was a muttering around the table, glasses raised. ‘We march to join him with our main forces: our German allies under dear
Baron von Riedesel here,’ the General, with his interpreter whispering in his ear, inclined his head, ‘the British regiments
of the line, each carrying banners that denote a hundred triumphs. The Canadian and Native contingents will rally to us there
and along the way. I vouchsafe I will command a force of some ten thousand men and have them mustered by the first of June.’

More murmurs, more draughts taken. Ten thousand men was surely a force no Colonial general could oppose!

‘A wee question, sir, if I mae?’ A Scottish voice ventured from Jack’s side of the table. It was General Simon Fraser who
spoke. He sat to Burgoyne’s right, the perfect place for the man Burgoyne called ‘his rock’. Old for his years, he had been
promoted on sheer ability; for his family were said to be Jacobite rebels to a man and could spend no money, exert no influence,
to speed him through the ranks. His skills on campaign were legendary, his loyalty to the Crown, and especially to Burgoyne,
unwavering.

At his Commander’s nod, he continued. ‘The Americans make much of their ability to fight an irregular war, to harry us from
forest and mountain, to obstruct our route to our objectives. Do we no hae muckle plans to counter tha’?’

Jack recognized a planted question when he saw one. If strategy had not been discussed, there had been many conversations
on tactics during the voyage. The answer was aimed at others, at the Loyalist Skene and the Germans.

‘I’m so glad you raised that point, Simon.’ Burgoyne’s theatrical skills were not limited to writing. ‘It gives me great pleasure
to inform you, and the company, that I have decided your own command will be of our Advance Corps. The grenadier and light
companies from each regiment will be formed under you, brigaded with your own, inestimable, 24
^th
Foot. Also a select corps of marksmen will be drawn from the best shots of all ranks. Together with the Canadians and our
savages – oh, excuse me, Captain Absolute … our “Native Allies” – we will have an irregular force, capable of taking on and
countering anything the American Woodsman can muster.’

Fraser, not an actor, was doing his best to feign surprise. Balcarras, designated to serve as the Scotsman’s second in this
brigade, proposed a toast of congratulations. Bumpers were downed.

Then Burgoyne took Louisa’s glass and placed it a foot in front of the decanter of ‘St John’s’.

‘Lake Champlain,’ he announced. ‘Feel free to sip of the lake’s waters, my dear.’ Over the laughter, he continued. ‘Let the
Rebel cut trees in our path on the water. If they muster a fleet, we will destroy it, as we did last October. We will move
most of our army and our supplies by barge. By the middle of June we will be here, at the lake’s end.’

He moved down the table, placed another decanter, stood regarding it for a long moment, pipe in mouth. Then he gently exhaled,
expertly ensnaring the vessel’s spout in a ring of smoke, which hovered and dissipated on his next words.

‘Fort Ticonderoga, gentlemen. The key to a continent.’

Von Riedesel waved his interpreter away, muttering, ‘Das
Schloss,’ and leaned in, as did every man at the table. Ticonderoga needed no translation, the name a legend from the French
wars. The fortress squatted over the southern route, a bulwark to invasion north or south.

‘I have … ideas for how we will deal with it. And deal with it we will, before we move on, sweeping aside any army they dare
send against us. We will move both along and parallel to the Hudson River, which is the second key, the most proper part of
the whole continent for vigorous operations. Along it, we will transport our grain, our baggage and powder, even our wine.’
He smiled and took a sip. ‘I sense that, after Ticonderoga, they will try to stop us here,’ a glass placed, ‘at Fort Ann,
near the home of our dear friend, Colonel Skene,’ the Loyalist acknowledged the attention with a small rotation of his fat
wrist, ‘or here, near Fort Edward, or even here, at Saratoga.’ The General looked up, meeting the gaze of every man there,
one after the other. ‘But rest assured, gentlemen, wherever they choose to stand and fight, they will be beaten, and beaten
soundly.’ He glanced at Jack. ‘Fairly, of course, dear Captain. We will seek to instruct, to correct, not to humiliate. But
we will beat them nonetheless. And then we will seize the prize.’

Since the attention was on him anyway, and recognizing a cue when he saw one, Jack ventured, ‘Which is, sir? Can you now tell
us the final goal of all these endeavours?’

A knock prevented Burgoyne’s immediate reply. A servant entered, one of the Baron’s; he spoke softly in the German’s ear,
who then passed the message on to his interpreter.

‘A cousin of the General seeks permission to join us. His ship has just arrived.’

Burgoyne looked less than pleased, the playwright in him upset at the interruption to the flow of dialogue and the suspense
he’d created. Nevertheless, he nodded and the servant withdrew.

‘Now, what matter were we discussing? Ah yes, something minor like crushing a revolution, wasn’t it?’ Having seized back attention
with a laugh, Burgoyne gestured to Jack. ‘Would you be so good, Captain Absolute? That decanter of port, about a dagger’s
length below Saratoga.’

Jack placed the decanter as instructed, kept his fingers on it as he spoke. ‘And this is, General?’

He already knew, as did most of the men there. But no one would deny Burgoyne his moment. He returned slowly to the head of
the table, laid his pipe carefully down, placed his palms on to the wood, leaned forward so that lamplight played on his face.

‘Albany. The heart of the country. When General Howe and I rendezvous there, New England will be split in two. Washington’s
armies will scatter or starve. We will have won back the Colonies for the Crown.’

There was a short silence, only just long enough for the words to be absorbed. Not quite long enough for anyone to huzzah,
or declare a toast, because another knock came and the door opened. Jack, his back to it, his hand still on the port decanter
that was Albany, did not turn at first. Instead he looked at Kapitan von Spartzehn, rising to his General’s right.

‘Gentlemen, ladies. May I have the honour to present the Baron’s cousin – Adolphus Maximillian Gerhardt, the Count von Schlaben.’

Jack’s hand slipped. The decanter fell forward. Somehow it didn’t break, but its neck, pointed at Burgoyne, coursed red liquid
up the line of glasses and vessels that delineated the Northern Campaign. Like a river of blood it flowed to the table top,
straight between the General’s hands, and began to drip there, fat drop after drop, on to the floor. For the moment, it was
the only sound in the room.