The Iron Chain

by Jim DeFelice

  "Stop trying to change the subject," said Jan's wife. "Pay us with the money in your shoe, smelly as it may be."

  "Surely you do not expect me to part with notes that were given to me by my dear, departed grandfather."

  "Your grandfather passed on before they were printing bills on paper," said Missy. "Besides, he took every guilder he had to the grave."

  With a vigorous complaint, van Clynne reached down and amid much huffing and puffing pulled his leg across his lap. He stopped suddenly and asked if there was no longer such a thing as modesty abroad in the country.

  "Pay up or we shall teach you about modesty," warned Missy, who in the end condescended to turn her back while van Clynne took off his shoe and worked a trick screw on the heel. The continental note—his last emergency money, he swore — was more than enough to compensate for his meal.

  The Tory rangers, meanwhile, were making steady progress toward the river. Sergeant Lewis rode at their head, next to a private deputized as ensign and carrying their trifling green pennant on a long halberd. A British chronicler might well find pleasure in describing the image of their green coats passing in thunderous parade down the road, their bear-fur bonnets proclaiming doughty resolve and righteousness before man and king.

  We, of course, shall have none of it, turning our attention instead to Jake. Decked out in a fresh new ranger coat — a bit short in the sleeves, but otherwise serviceable — and armed with a musketoon and light sword, he rode at the rear, urging the last stragglers onward. The troop moved off the main road near Pine's Bridge to follow an obscure Indian path in the forest.

  Jake realized their route had been chosen to lessen the odds of a chance meeting with American patrols. He also suspected that Busch himself had set it out for the sergeant, as he was much more familiar with the area than Lewis.

  Would he follow it then if he arrived at Stoneman's after his troop had left?

  Surely an easy question to answer, and Jake looked for some method of precluding that possibility. Now that Busch was out of the way, he wanted him to stay there; the British forces would be formidable enough without the captain to help them. With luck, Old Put had already captured him and was preparing a nice surprise at the chain, thanks to Rose's warning — but Jake knew better than to count on luck.

  Could he count on the caltrops he'd taken from the barn's arsenal, however? Multi-spiked iron snowdrops or nails, caltrops are often used by cavalry units to slow pursuit. Properly deployed, they put an iron bramble in the path of mounted troops, whose horses must step smartly if they are not to be stung and lamed.

  Jake did not have enough to blanket the path. Instead, he scattered them clandestinely, dropping them randomly when the other rangers were not watching. He hoped that a traveler in a hurry — as Busch would be — wouldn't notice the iron prickles until it was too late.

  "What the hell are you doing, Smith!"

  Stunned, Jake looked up into the face of the sergeant, who had stopped at the intersection of an old Indian path and waited for his men to pass him.

  "I was just dropping these in case we were followed," Jake explained, tossing his last handful.

  "Stop wasting time. No one is following us. Now, down this path and look smart — I don't like stragglers."

  "Yes, sir," said Jake, kicking his horse.

  Lewis was wrong, and in fact the group was being hotly pursued

  —

  by Captain Busch. The Tory urged his horse onward, succeeding in getting it to gallop — only to be deposited in a heap when the stallion stung its foot on one of Jake's caltrops not a quarter of a mile from the place where Lewis was bawling out his rear guard.

  Cursing, Busch gathered his wits as he dusted the dirt from his clothes. He examined the horse and found the poor animal sufficiently injured that it could no longer be ridden.

  Had the circumstances been different, he might have shown the poor animal more compassion. Indeed, he was a great lover of horses, and realizing that the animal's wounds would soon heal, he did not shoot him. But neither did he take the horse with him as he struck out through the woods toward a small inn where he believed he could secure — or steal, if necessary — another.

  The tavern was owned by a Dutchman known to be sympathetic to the rebels, though his wife seemed a better judge of character. Not that it would matter much if they tried to stop him — Busch made sure both pistols were loaded as he ran the half mile to the house.

  -Chapter Thirty-one-

  Wherein, Squire van Clynne falls in with a group of patriots inoculated with the love of Freedom, among other things.

  Refreshed from breakfast, Squire van Clynne set out with new vigor, though his pace was even slower than before. The chafing of his posterior against the horse's back was so severe that he would have gladly reopened his heel for the purchase of a saddle, if only one were to be had. The country here, rolling hills and forest, had not been adequately developed, in van Clynne's opinion. It was given over entirely to apple farms, and even these appeared to have been abandoned for a considerable length of time. Thus the conveniences of modern life — like saddle shops—were not at hand.

  Nonetheless, he made steady progress, prodded by the knowledge that General Putnam was empowered to issue a certificate that would compensate not only his financial losses but his efforts to the Cause as well. Indeed, an even greater plan took shape in the Dutchman's mind as he rode. He would ask — nay, he would demand — that the general appoint him to the lead of a squadron of men, bold soldiers whom he would take against these Tory scoundrels, foiling their attack on the Great Hudson River Chain and, not incidentally, recovering his salt.

  And very possibly, his coins as well. His exploits would be proclaimed throughout the continent — he knew newspaper owners in every city of consequence — and General Washington would volunteer to restore his estate. The Congress would demand it, for the population would have his name on its lips: "Claus van Clynne, the man who saved the nation. The man who saved the Great Hudson River Chain."

  The Great Hudson River Iron Chain — that had a better ring to it. An iron-willed Dutchman who saved Freedom. Why, he could hear the minstrels celebrating his victory already.

  Actually, now that he listened more closely, the music sounded remarkably like "Yankee Doodle." Van Clynne turned his head in the direction of the song and spotted a small wooden house not far off the road. A makeshift banner fluttered on a slender twig stuck near the doorway; van Clynne concluded that the red dots on yellow background were a company marker, designed to give the unit pride as well as identity. The owners were all inside, obviously celebrating a recent victory over the British — for the song, once sung in derision of the American army, had been turned around and appropriated as the boldest curse possible against the British regulars. The young voices sang with such joy and emotion that the roof was shaking, and van Clynne suspected that though the sun had only just risen, the men had gone through their daily quotient of rum.

  Providence had sent him his soldiers!

  Why not enlist them now, foil this damnable plot against the chain, and present himself to Putnam as a hero instead of one more worthy citizen who had been robbed?

  Any reader who thinks van Clynne would have paused to answer such a question, rhetorically or otherwise, does not recognize the true nature of the Dutchman. In a thrice, he had crossed the small stream separating him from the house and hitched his horse outside. Without bothering to knock, he walked straight inside and immediately fell in on the chorus of "Yankee Doodle."

  There were a dozen young Connecticut continental privates crammed into the room, all in spirits jolly enough to ignore his frequent sour notes. They passed him a cup of cider and continued their song, venturing into a verse the good Dutchman had scarce heard before:

  Heigh for old Cape Cod

  Heigh ho Nannatasket

  Do not let those Boston wags

  Feel your oyster basket.

  The ribald play on words — the interest
ed reader should ponder the image contained in the last line — had a curious effect on the Dutchman, whose recent pursuit of love had made him curiously chaste. He turned red and momentarily lost his voice. Nonetheless, he soon fell back in tune as the men swung into a rousing version of "Free America," Dr. Joseph Warren's ingenious revision of "The British Grenadiers."

  The accompaniment was provided by a pasty-faced man of twenty or twenty-one, who worked his fiddle with such fervor that his face blotched with red dots and smears of exertion. Every man kept beat with his shoe, and one or two blew tin whistles instead of singing.

  Van Clynne was moved by the evident patriotism and spirit of this group; Fate could not have provided him with a better troop to win his fortune back.

  "Gentlemen, gentlemen," said van Clynne, moving to the center of the room as the song ended. "Please, listen to me a moment. Who is the commanding officer here?"

  "There's the colonel, sir, John Chandler," said one able young man, a great strapping lad barely out of his teens, if that. "He's up at headquarters, though."

  "In this cottage, who is in charge?"

  "Well, there's no one in charge exactly, sir. We're all equals, being free men of Connecticut."

  Van Clynne nodded his approval; these were men inoculated with the spirit of Democracy from the very cradle.

  "Excellent, excellent. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?" asked van Clynne with great flourish, determined to commit every detail of this entire episode to memory, so as to provide a careful account for future chroniclers.

  "Private Martin, at your service," said the young man, who promptly stuck out his hand and shook van Clynne's.

  "My name is Claus van Clynne, gentlemen. I am a special agent assigned in the service of His Excellency General Washington." It was not a great exaggeration, surely, if one follows the logic that Jake Gibbs was Washington's man, and van Clynne his coequal assistant. “As well as a roving member of the Committees of Correspondence, Safety, and Ale Tasting." Ever mindful of his audience, the Dutchman was well aware that these young men would respond most fully to the last. "My rank as a hereditary commissioner of the New Netherlands authority as vested under the Treaty of Amsterdam is the equivalent of captain-general, triple-cluster."

  The privates were somewhat stupefied by the speech-making, and while looking for any excuse for action — they had been confined here for some time — did not know precisely what to make of their visitor.

  "Begging your pardon, sir," said Martin, seeing he had been designated their spokesman. "With all respect and honor, we've heard of lieutenant generals and major generals and even general generals, but never captain-generals. Where exactly does that fit in?"

  "Captain-general, triple-cluster," van Clynne corrected. "Unclustered, it would correlate precisely between my brother generals, the lieutenant and major. But the clusters are indeed multipliers, as I'm sure you recall from your school days. If we turn to the table of threes ..."

  The reader by now is familiar with the sort of logic and tactics of persuasion the Dutchman habitually calls on, and thus will not be presented with the bulk of his argument as to why the (admittedly) hereditary rank was in (more than) full force at the moment. It should be noted that he was careful at all times to use such words as "equivalent" and "correlate," so that he could not technically be charged with impersonating an American officer, though in spirit he was certainly leading these poor young men to think he was as authorized to direct them as Old Put himself.

  The soldiers, naturally, began very doubtful, but a twenty-minute lecture from Claus van Clynne on nearly any subject will weaken the strongest will. And it must be remembered that his speech, if based on premises that were somewhat false, was aimed at an end wholly true — the defeat of the British.

  "I won't bore you with my other titles and authorities, gentlemen," said van Clynne, after he had indeed bored them at length. "Suffice to say that we have a mission of vital importance ahead of us. Take your weapons and follow me!"

  "Begging your pardon, sir, but follow you where?" asked Martin, who alone among the group had tried to work out the logic of the speech.

  "There's no time to lay out the entire mission, son," said van Clynne. "We've no time to lose."

  The Dutchman, intending to lead by example, stepped to the door and opened it without waiting for the others. He was surprised to see a bored soldier facing him at thirty or so paces, on the other side of the creek, musket with bayonet fixed in his arms. The man motioned with annoyance that he ought to close the door.

  Van Clynne took the action any army commander does when faced with something he does not immediately comprehend — he ignored it, and stepped through the doorway.

  "Let's go, men. The Tories won't spend their morning waiting, I warrant."

  "Get back inside," said the guard. The man was a Massachusetts private, and as such, not given to much chatter.

  "Who do you think you are addressing?" demanded van Clynne. "This troop is now under my direction."

  "I don't give a bent penny for whose direction they are," responded the guard. "Get inside and close the door. You're infecting the air."

  Van Clynne turned back to his men, determined to lead them onward despite the obviously addle-brained soldier outside the door. "Let's go, boys! The man outside has attended to one too many cannons, since he forgets what side he's on. Try not to harm him."

  None of the soldiers moved.

  "Come, then, you're not cowards are ye!" thundered the Dutchman, his voice elevating. He knew instinctually that these small trials must be overcome manfully, or the bigger ones will be lost before they are met.

  "We're not cowards, no sir," said Martin. "But — "

  "But nothing, man! Let's go!"

  "We're confined to barracks, sir," ventured another of the soldiers. "What crime have you committed?" asked van Clynne. "Come now, confess; I'll arrange a pardon straight away."

  "No crime, surely, sir," answered the man. "We've been inoculated for the small pox, and are under quarantine."

  -Chapter Thirty-two-

  Wherein, Claus van Clynne moves the poxed soldiers Co their duty and his glory.

  How sturdy is the human spirit, how unflappable in the face of pending ruin and destruction. Present it with the proper motivation, and no enemy will loom too large, no problem will seem insurmountable.

  Granted, the difficulties faced by Claus van Clynne at the moment were legion. There was the infectious pox — which having stepped foot in the room he was powerless to escape. There were the damnable British, and the heinous Tories. There was Dr. Keen, deprived of his leeches and his assistant, but in possession of his considerable wits and the squire's innumerable coins. There was the plot to destroy the chain, which van Clynne must foil if his beloved Cause was to survive. Then there was the mission to Schuyler, which while annoying would nonetheless help him toward his ultimate goal of retrieving his lost patrimony.

  But what are these against the strength of a Dutchman's will? How do they measure against his wisdom, or his tongue?

  "Gentlemen," van Clynne began, addressing the Connecticut soldiers, "hear me well. For what I am about to tell you, I swear upon the Bible, is the truth without exaggeration. You may think — "

  Here he was interrupted by a member of the company, who announced that he had a Bible, and the Dutchman was welcome to use it.

  Van Clynne swore twice — the first time under his breath — before continuing. "My friends, as you know, there is a huge iron chain stretched across the Hudson not ten miles from here, a barrier that protects all of northern New York, and thereby all of interior New England, from the British Navy and her marines, not to mention whatever troops her ships could ferry northward. As we stand here, confined to our barracks for an ailment no more serious than a sniffle — "

  "Excuse me, sir," said Martin, stepping up to the Dutchman. "But the small pox is not a trifling disease. Many of our friends have died from it."

  "A trifling dis
ease that is no more than a hiccup to stout young men as yourselves — "

  "But, sir, the doctors say that we must be confined to barracks for two weeks at least. Just three days ago most of us were abed, and some of us are running fevers and — "

  "Enough!" thundered the Dutchman, and in his voice was an echo of that great and noble warrior-cum-governor, Peter Stuyvesant, bad leg and all. His round red cheeks grew rounder and more red, his beard twitched with emotion, even his brow furrowed as he exhorted the men not to let a scratch on their shoulders keep them from their duty. They could stop these heathen Tory pigs, but they must act quickly; they must move now. They must gather their weapons and march from the barracks to meet the enemy with all haste and speed.

  "Let the pox be our secret weapon!" thundered van Clynne to a rapt audience. "Let us infect the bastards, as Freedom has infected us! Let the fever of Liberty singe their skins and boil their souls!"

  Even so great an orator as Patrick Henry might have been pleased at van Clynne's wondrous performance, if not his exact metaphors or grammar. If his success was due largely to the soldiers' innate love of Freedom and their overwhelming boredom at having been locked up for nearly two weeks, certainly the result could not be argued with — van Clynne managed to rally the entire company to him, and proceeded out the door to confront the poor Massachusetts man assigned as guard. Now as far as the Massachusetts regiment keeping watch over the inoculated soldiers was concerned, there always had been some question as to whether they were protecting the sick men from attack, or keeping them from running away. Indeed, General Putnam — who was actually opposed to the inoculations but in this matter found himself overruled by the commander-in-chief—believed his most formidable enemy to be desertion, not disease or the redcoats. All manner of men were constantly leaving his army, most to go home, though a number to rejoin and claim extra enlistment bonuses and a few, it must be admitted, to join the enemy. Thus the Massachusetts man who now found himself confronted by two dozen troops, unarmed but certainly infectious, can be forgiven if he thought he was confronting a mutiny.