by James McGee
“So what do we do now? What can we do?”
“From in here? Not a damned thing.”
Hawkwood fell silent.
“There’s that look again,” Lawrence said. “What’s on your mind?”
“I was thinking about our tribunal.”
“Ah. What about it?”
“If Quade was serious and there is one and they insist on doing it by the book, they’ll have to call witnesses. Except there aren’t any. Not here, anyway. They’re all back in Greenbush.”
Lawrence’s head came up. “You mean they’ll have to summon them here, or …”
“Take us back to Albany. Either way, it may give us some time.”
Lawrence looked sceptical. “From what we saw, I’d say they’re pretty advanced with their plans. Even if we were granted more time, we could be too late. And I repeat my question; what could we do, anyway?”
“Damned if I know. It would depend on the situation.”
“You realize they could just take us out and shoot us,” Lawrence said morosely. “It’d save ’em the cost of a rope. And I’ve a feeling Quade would enjoy seeing us strung up.”
Hawkwood smiled. “I told you: we’re not dead, yet.”
His cellmate did not look like a man convinced. But then, slowly, his lips formed a broad, beaming smile. “Y’know, Captain, you’re right. We’re not bloody dead, are we? By God, we’re not!” His eyes landed on Hawkwood’s right boot. “It’s also just occurred to me that I didn’t see them confiscate that blade you keep hidden.”
Hawkwood turned his head. “Funny you should say that.”
Lawrence brightened. “Ha! I’ll be damned. So, we’ve one weapon to hand, at least.”
“We do.”
“At least if it gets rough we can take some of the buggers with us.”
“Absolutely.”
Lawrence chuckled. “Good man. Onwards and upwards, then. Or as the Bard might have put it: Once more unto the breach, dear friend!”
“Always,” Hawkwood said.
Not long after noon, they heard the heavy tramp of boots in the corridor.
Lawrence looked up. “Something tells me that’s for us.” He sat and swung his feet to the floor. “Then again, best to be prepared. It might be a rescue.”
If it’s Jago standing there, Hawkwood thought, then there really is a God.
The footsteps stopped. A key scraped in the lock and the door swung open. There was no Jago; only a brace of unsmiling, armed troopers who appeared on the threshold. Two more waited behind. The escort was back.
“On your feet.”
They stood and at a signal from the guard they held out their arms. The manacles were refastened.
“Where are we going?” Hawkwood asked.
“You’re being transferred.”
“To Albany?”
“You’ll find out. Fall in. Try anything, we shoot you dead.”
Word of their crimes had obviously spread. As a result of their arrival at the courthouse, no doubt, which had attracted noticeably more interest than their march from the ferry landing, most significantly among the small knot of military personnel gathered inside the court’s main entrance.
Though there had been a moment when Quade must have wished their appearance had been rather less conspicuous.
As he’d made the way across the lobby towards the sergeant-clerk on duty, footsteps echoing, Quade had ignored the stares of curiosity. That, of course, had piqued the onlookers’ curiosity even more, as he’d known it would. The clerk’s head, however, had remained obstinately bowed. Only when Quade announced himself had the sergeant deigned to look up; clearly unimpressed, he informed the major that he was in the wrong building – prisoner processing was next door.
A tense stand-off had followed during which Quade tried to stare the sergeant down, demanding that General Dearborn be informed that Major Harlan Quade of the 13th Infantry was reporting for special duties as ordered and that he’d come bearing gifts. The major had then handed the sergeant the ‘wanted’ notice, with an instruction to deliver it to the general.
The sergeant – whose eyes had widened briefly as they took in the escort and prisoners – had taken the proffered notice. But instead of scurrying off, he had told Quade that the general was indisposed. And no, Colonel Pike wasn’t available either. He was supervising the construction work down at the river encampment.
To his credit, Quade had recognized that another outburst would get him nowhere. Instead he placed his hand on his sword hilt in a significant manner. That had been enough to stir the sergeant to state hurriedly that Colonel Simonds, 6th Infantry, might, after all, be available and would the major care to wait?
The sergeant had disappeared at a trot, returning with the news that Colonel Simonds would indeed grant an audience. However the colonel had given strict orders that both prisoners and their escort must remain behind, detained under lock and key at the colonel’s pleasure.
That had been the last time Hawkwood and Lawrence had seen the major. No doubt he was busy promoting himself as man of the hour, acquainting anyone who would listen with a list of Hawkwood and Lawrence’s offences and an account of how he’d brought the two dangerous fugitives to justice.
At least this time we don’t have to walk, thought Hawkwood as they emerged from the gaol’s side entrance to find a canvas-covered wagon waiting.
“You’d think the bugger would have come to wave us off,” Lawrence murmured as he and Hawkwood were ordered to climb aboard. The escort followed.
As the wagon pulled away, Hawkwood looked back.
Another time, Quade, he thought.
“Well, they’re not taking us back to the ferry,” Lawrence observed quietly.
They’d only been on the road a matter of minutes, but the unfamiliarity of the streets told Hawkwood the major was right. They were not retracing their route. Instead, they were veering west, away from the lake.
The houses began to thin out. A narrow bridge appeared, signalling another river crossing. Still the Saranac, though they were obviously further upstream. Across the bridge, open country beckoned; scattered farmhouses, meadows, empty ploughed fields, bordered by a thick band of trees into which the road disappeared.
“Where the devil are they taking us?” Lawrence muttered. “Can’t say as I like the look of this.”
You realize they could just take us out and shoot us.
A statement spoken partly in jest. Now, though, as they entered the woods, the words didn’t seem quite so amusing. Hawkwood studied the guards’ faces for a clue. There was nothing in the troopers’ expressions to suggest that their charges were under any immediate threat, but that didn’t render the situation less worrying. Hawkwood thought about the knife in his boot. Hard to draw it and fight with manacled hands. Not impossible, though, if push came to shove.
By Hawkwood’s reckoning they had travelled about three miles from the town when Lawrence sniffed suddenly and frowned.
“You smell that?”
“Hard not to,” Hawkwood agreed.
Twisting in their seats, they looked over the wagon driver’s shoulder.
A gap appeared in the trees ahead. As the wagon emerged from the woods, Lawrence let out a gasp.
Hawkwood had lost count of the number of bivouacs he’d had to endure during his two decades of soldiering. Irrespective of the country or the terrain, they all had one thing in common: the stench, of unwashed bodies, cooking-fire smoke and shit. Mostly shit, because there were never enough latrines. The rag-bag collection of tents and crude shelters that was spread out before them was no exception.
Just as well it was winter, Hawkwood thought. Had it been the height of summer, God knows what the stench would have been like.
“Dear God,” Lawrence muttered in awe. “What an utter bloody shambles.”
It was an acute observation. With drifts of woodsmoke rising from the sea of tents and makeshift accommodations, the scene looked more like a squalid gypsy encampment th
an a military one. This was no Greenbush.
The camp must have covered tens of acres, most of them hacked out of the forest to judge from the huge number of tree stumps that had been left to poke up between the tents and the campfires and the various roosts that the troops had built for themselves from whatever materials there had been to hand, from cut-down spruce branches to uprooted bushes and strips of birch bark.
To make matters worse, the site wasn’t even flat. The bulk of the accommodations ranged across the side of a steep hill. Thick stands of pine occupied the high ground while the lower reaches ended in bluffs at the foot of which could be seen the river, flowing between gaps in the trees. Despite there being two prime ingredients – timber and water – within easy reach, it wasn’t the first place Hawkwood would have chosen to set up a camp.
And it was still expanding. At the edges of the wood, trees were being felled and branches lopped and stripped to provide material for small wooden cabins, two rows of which had already been raised along the crest of the hill.
It was hard to estimate the number of souls in situ, despite the amount of canvas on view, as there seemed just as many men making use of bivouacs as there were in tents, while some of the shelters at the bottom of the hill looked to be made from little more than pitched blankets. There had to be a couple of thousand troops at least.
Hawkwood recalled the conversation they’d had with Renner. Transfixed by the scene before them, it wasn’t hard to see why the people of Plattsburg – who probably numbered less than a thousand – didn’t want their town to be overrun by this many military personnel, especially if there was sickness in the ranks.
“If they don’t get the rest of those cabins up soon,” Lawrence observed quietly, “there’s a lot of poor buggers who won’t see Christmas.”
Hawkwood wondered about camp discipline, for he could see that not everyone was engaged in the building work. Pockets of cold and hungry-looking men were huddled around the fires. From the air of despondency that hung over the place, and from the looks on faces, a high percentage of the occupants appeared to have already given up the fight.
The wagon cranked its way up the slope, heading towards an area of levelled ground upon which several tents had been pitched in the lee of two large, sentry-guarded huts and a quartet of spindly wooden poles from which fluttered a limp Stars and Stripes and a trio of equally despondent regimental pennants.
The wagon halted. A uniformed officer stepped forward.
Quade.
“Seems I spoke too soon,” Lawrence muttered as he and Hawkwood obeyed the order to climb down.
Beckoning the escort, Quade led the way to one of the huts. Officers’ accommodation, Hawkwood guessed. It didn’t matter if you were building a garrison or a temporary camp, officers’ quarters always took priority.
“Wait here.”
Ignoring the sentries’ lacklustre salutes, Quade entered the hut and disappeared. Two seconds later, he was back.
“Bring them.”
Inside the hut, four men were gathered around a table strewn with documents. They looked up as Quade re-entered.
“The prisoners, Colonel,” Quade announced.
Two of the men at the table were in uniform. As the escorts took up position behind Hawkwood and Lawrence, guarding the door, one of the uniformed men stepped forward.
Young, early to mid-thirties, Hawkwood decided, for there was no grey in his hair, which was full and wavy save for some thinning around the temples, giving him a high forehead and lending an elongated look to his features. Lantern light played across pale skin, a pair of dark eyes, a sharp nose and slightly prominent lips which, had they belonged to a woman, might have been described as petulant.
He stared at the prisoners. After what seemed like a full ten seconds of silent appraisal, he announced, in a hard and clipped tone, “My name is Zebulon Pike. I hear you killed two of my men.”
Hell and shit, Hawkwood thought.
“You have anything to say?” Pike asked.
Another extended period of silence ensued.
“It would seem not,” Lawrence said.
Hawkwood saw the second uniformed officer’s eyes narrow.
A nerve flickered along Pike’s left temple. “You’re Lawrence,” he said slowly.
“I am he.”
Pike nodded thoughtfully. His head swivelled. “Which makes you Hooper.”
Hawkwood did not reply. What was the man expecting him to do – fall to his knees and beg forgiveness? That wasn’t going to happen. Hell would freeze over first.
He looked past Pike’s shoulder at the rough log walls seamed with mud and at the earthen floor. There was nothing remotely comfortable about the cabin’s interior. A part-drawn curtain separated the main floor space from a sleeping area to the rear in which the corner of a metal bedstead and a large wooden chest could just be seen. Other than that, few concessions had been made with regards to either privacy or the rank of the occupant. A cast-iron stove stood against one wall, while the rest of the furniture, like the hut itself, was sparse and functional, consisting of a table, four plain chairs and a small campaign desk. Various uniform items and a sword hung from a row of hooks on the wall beside the door.
Hawkwood switched his gaze to the three men standing by the table. The second uniformed officer was a far more imposing figure than Pike – tall, well over six feet in height, with a stout, well-proportioned build and an upright posture which, even if he had not been in uniform, would nevertheless have marked him out as a military man. The dark hair, swept back from a stern face gave a hard, gritty edge to his features. He, too, wore the uniform of a colonel.
Of the remaining pair, one was a white man; the other was an Indian. Both were clad in loose-fitting, knee-length blue calico smocks and brown leggings. The white man also wore an open-fronted buckskin coat; the Indian had a russet-coloured cloak folded over his right shoulder. While they were dressed in a similar fashion, the main difference between them lay in their colouring and their facial hair. The white man’s hair was straggly and flecked with silver, accentuating his grizzled features. His chin was hidden behind a short beard. The Indian’s head was shaved, save for a thick tuft of hair atop his skull from which hung a single grey feather. A silver ring decorated his left nostril and matched the rings in each ear and the circular gorget around his neck. Most noticeable were his facial tattoos which took the form of two patterned lines. They ran, like rows of stitching, from his left brow to the base of his right jaw. One skirted the inside of his right eye, the other the outside, giving the unsettling impression that the flesh of his face had been separated into three parts and sewn back together by an unsteady hand.
Hawkwood’s eyes flicked to the Indian’s medallion. It was embossed with a design, hard to see in the lantern light, but with enough definition to make it recognizable as the crude outline of a bear.
His scrutiny of the room’s occupants complete, Hawkwood returned his gaze to Pike.
The colonel was a lot younger than Quade’s remarks back in Albany had implied, which only made it all the more strange that he would want to re-introduce pole-arms to frontline combat. He must have been in his cradle during the Revolution. Had he any first-hand experience of war?
“What can we do for you, Colonel?”
Pike blinked. Another moment of hesitation passed, at which point understanding seemed to dawn. “Ah, yes, I see. Major Quade did warn me of your propensity for impertinence.”
“It’s a curse,” Lawrence said drily. “But then the major does tend to have that effect.”
“Best be quick, Colonel,” Hawkwood said. “There’s none of us getting any younger.”
Pike’s chin rose. His expression hovered between confusion at being addressed so dismissively and doubt over how to frame a commanding reply.
Finding his voice, he said, “You were brought here because I wanted to meet you face to face; to see for myself what sort of men you were.”
A thin sheen of sweat s
hone along the colonel’s hairline. Hawkwood hadn’t noticed it at first and wondered why that should be. The stove’s door was propped open to allow heat from the burning logs to circulate, but it wasn’t oppressively warm in the hut, or at least it didn’t seem so to him.
“You flatter, us, Colonel.”
“Then you misread my intention. It means only that I can have you shot with a clear conscience.”
“Shot?” Lawrence said. “What the devil happened to the tribunal?”
Removing a handkerchief from his jacket, Pike dabbed his lips, swallowing with distaste as he did so. “There will be no tribunal.”
“Colonel Simonds ordered us detained,” Hawkwood said, wondering if it was his imagination or whether there was a wheeziness in Pike’s voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“Colonel Simonds does not command here. I do.”
Hawkwood saw the eyes of the other colonel flicker.
Lawrence turned to Quade. “You bastard.”
Quade smirked.
An expression that said it all.
Perhaps it had been the sergeant’s attitude at the courthouse or the lack of adulation he’d received, but something had persuaded Quade that his best chance of seeing Hawkwood punished was to take the initiative himself. Perhaps it had been Colonel Simonds who’d pointed out that if military justice was to be dispensed in strict accordance with Army regulations, then Quade might have to wait to see it enacted. And it was liable to be a very long wait, given that a tribunal would be a long way down the army’s list of priorities, below sorting out accommodation for the troops and several rungs below the plan for an invasion – if that’s what the activities along the lakeshore were in aid of.