The silver bullet ps-1

by Jim DeFelice

  Aboard Howe’s flagship, van Clynne and the general had conceded that, as a rule, the hops added to British beer left something to be desired. Wilder breeds would bring more exotic flavors, van Clynne maintained, and the general could find little to argue with there. In fact, the general was starting to show signs that he would find little to argue with anywhere today. His normally reticent tongue had been loosened by the large meal and the equally plentiful drink, and he had begun to find his guest, at first invited solely for the purpose of offering him some company on an otherwise dull morning before his staff meeting, stimulating and interesting. Though Dutch, this van Clynne displayed a pleasing etiquette that complimented his wide-ranging knowledge. He seemed well-acquainted with even the most minute piece of history connected with the province, Dutch especially. He also appreciated the vast difficulties the general had with the administration of his task.

  The colonists were a strange bunch, both men agreed. Here the general and his brother Lord Richard had shown great leniency, all the patience of overindulgent fathers, and yet their many entreaties had been scorned. “I show mercy in the Jerseys,” said Howe, “and I am repaid with Trenton! Imagine, attacking on Christmas Day!”

  “ Scandalous!” agreed his guest.

  Howe had rarely seen such a facile grasp of the facts and situation, nor felt such sympathy with a man he had just met. In short, van Clynne was just the sort he wished to have on his staff as a civilian assistant, and the general was getting around to asking if he would consider such a position, when he realized, somewhat to his chagrin, that he had yet to receive the message van Clynne had come to deliver.

  Well, Sir William, Yes, it is time to get down to business indeed,” said van Clynne, who in fact felt that another hour of talk and he would have this entire Revolution wrapped with a bow. “I have spent this past several days in hurried flight from Montreal, ordered to meet you by General Burgoyne himself.”

  At the mention of the rival general, Howe’s entire mood changed. “Gentleman Johnny,” he spat, using the name as a sailor might a curse. “He’s nothing but a playwright.”

  “ And a bad one at that.”

  “ It is a sad reflection on our state that such a man had been promoted to a position of power,” admitted Howe. “I myself only took the post as a commander in America because I saw it as my solemn duty. Like many others, I hesitated to fight such a war against our brothers. You know that I have always had the greatest sympathy for the Americans.”

  “ Who could blame you?”

  “ But our hesitation allows men like Burgoyne to march through. Gentleman Johnny, indeed.”

  “ He wears ridiculous hats,” said van Clynne, laying on the worst insult he could think of.

  Jake found himself in the street, holding the stolen silver bullet in one hand and the bloody knife he had used to kill Herstraw in the other. The soldiers in the building began yelling and loading their guns; Jake took advantage of the short respite to run like hell.

  As usual in Revolutionary campaigns, the British were slow to pursue. They had mustered all of their men for a frontal assault, and took their time regrouping. Daltoons tossed Jake a pistol and then ducked down an alley to the right; Jake decided they would do better by splitting up, and ran straight ahead. Along the way, he dropped the redcoat jacket and other parts of the uniform, hoping to look like a civilian; he also wiped the blood-soaked knife and slipped it inside his boot, not wanting it to incriminate him if he managed to pass into the crowd on the street.

  Unfortunately, there was no crowd to pass into. The soldiers made their appearance a block behind him and began their chase in earnest. They had their bayonets fixed and gleaning, and ran with the abandon of lions chasing the Christians in ancient Rome. Still, Jake might have escaped except for the untimely arrival of a group of cavalry from the west.

  New York City being a garrison town, one British unit or another was always within rock-throwing distance. This troop, in fact, was within half that mark — as they began to comply with their fellows’ cries for assistance, Jake scooped a stone from the pavement and let it fly directly in the face of the lead man. It hit not him but his horse, which was the next best thing. The animal reeled, alarming and confusing its mates: Jake had just enough time to dive into a building on his right.

  This admirably handy edifice was owned by one Madame Terese Lucia DeCose. Madame was a French dressmaker who had arrived ten years before from the banks of the Seine, armed only with a long needle and some sharp ideas of fashion. Like many immigrants, she saw America as a ripe opportunity for advancement and a fresh start. With only occasional backsliding into her old profession — in Paris, Madame DeCose was what was known as a courtesan — she had achieved her American dream. Her shop was patronized by a small but moneyed group of New York women, a handful of whom happened to be there this afternoon to listen to Madame discourse on the latest trends in brocades.

  Jake saluted them most politely as he dashed through the front room with its displays. Faced with a choice at the end of the hall, he went left into a room that happened to have a window opening onto an alley. It also had a patron in a very advanced stage of undress, as she was getting ready for a fitting of new stays and gown.

  Under normal circumstances, Jake would have found some way to console her exposed embarrassment at being found naked. The face that she was only nineteen, of extremely graceful shape and with very fair — and natural — blond hair would have made it a most difficult chore, but Jake would have born this penance somehow, managing a cheerful, brave face.

  But these were not normal circumstances, and Jake had to leave this delicate task to the British, following hard behind. The woman’s screams had the effect of not only directing the soldiers to Jake’s escape route, but hurrying them along. He was barely out the window when they burst through the door. One of the men fired a gun, and its bullet whizzed past them as he fled up the alley.

  An alley closed off on one end by the approaching cavalry, and on the other by a brick wall.

  The wall belonged to an older building, which had suffered much from the elements; with a leap, Jake found a good enough handhold to boost himself to a second floor ledge, and from there to the roof. This was nearly fatal; he slipped on the tiling and nearly tumbled back to the ground. Momentum, fortunately, had given him just enough impetus to move in a diagonal across the roof, and Jake managed to fall against a chimney and propel himself in a ricochet straight onto a gable of an adjoining building.

  The crash rattled his teeth and not a few of his bones, but his unexpected course — and the damsel in distress — had thrown off the pursuit. Jake now had a small space to escape in. Without waiting to catch his breath he scrambled up the roof and over the side, sliding toward the corner, where, he hoped to find a rain spout that would provide a handhold to climb down. His luck was with him and he began to rapidly descend — only to run out of spout considerably short of the ground. He had to jump nearly twenty feet.

  At first it was not obvious that the sharp pain in his knee was anything other than a temporary complaint. Jake hobbled a few steps toward the road, more concerned about the sounds of redcoats rallying than the grinding of his leg bones together. In fact, when he met a wagon at the end of the alley, he didn’t even brother pausing before levering himself over it.

  He did more than pause on the other side, however — he collapsed in a heap as his leg gave way. It was only with the greatest exertion of energy — and a few close musket balls — that Jake managed to stand and pull himself aboard a horse tied to a nearby post. He yanked the leather stays loose and the animal obliged his deepest wishes by fleeing up the street.

  — Chapter Thirty-two Wherein, Jake’s injuries are discovered to be acute, and van Clynne concludes his negotiations.

  N ew Yorkers are a funny lot. They have no greater or lesser esteem for the rule of law than citizens elsewhere; they are not, as one writer (undoubtedly a Tory) has charged, “a sorry class of criminals intent
on knifing as many of their fellows as they meet before bedtime.” But they are a particularly focused people, and when on a mission connected with business, can be quite single-minded about achieving it. Thus, they tend to ignore things that, in retrospect, strike outsiders as impossible to ignore.

  The shouts of the redcoats chasing Jake, for instance. No vast flood of citizens came to the soldier’s assistance, no vigilante Tories sprung up to seize Jake’s horse and hand him over to the authorities. The soldiers were naturally disappointed. But this was the entire experience of the British in the New World. They felt that all they would have to do was show up, shout a bit, and the Revolutionaries would be nabbed before they could turn the corner down William Street.

  Such was the gist of Howe’s complaints that very moment aboard ship in the harbor. He was quite unaware of what was going on in the city, of course, but he would not have been too terribly surprised.

  Van Clynne was quite aware that he had stretched out his visit considerably longer than necessary, and notwithstanding the difficulty of his return across the water, was now anxious to leave. But his mention of Canada had provoked the general into telling the sad tale of his brother George’s death at Ticonderoga during the French and Indian War. He seemed almost on the verge of becoming weepy. This was no way for a general of Howe’s station to act; the entire scene was becoming unseemly.

  “ Buck up, man, buck up,” said van Clynne. Much to his surprise, and the general’s, he slapped Howe across the face.

  This brought Howe to his senses, not necessarily as wise thing to do.

  “ I could have you tied to the anchor and dragged across the harbor for that.”

  “ I was only trying to say, Sir William, that you are forgetting your assets.”

  “ I’m not forgetting anything, you fool. I command the entire British Army! What do you command?”

  “ Myself, occasionally.” Brave words, though van Clynne was trembling inside. Nonetheless, he had learned long ago in business negotiations that, once you have someone’s attention, you must proceed quickly or risk failure. “This bullet contains a message from General Burgoyne. I was instructed to deliver it personally to you, General. Here it is, and now I will be on my way.”

  “ You will stay a moment,” said the general in a voice that did not invite disobedience. How called to one of his guards to supply a pocketknife; the silver bullet was soon opened and its message unfolded.

  “ What does he mean, telling me not to come north? Who does he think he is, giving me an order? Not needed, indeed. We’ll see about that.”

  As long as he was on the horse, Jake’s leg only hurt. Pain was not exactly a stranger to the patriot, and he was as bothered by it as most of us are annoyed by a mosquito bite.

  The great crowd of traffic he rode into had the advantage of slowing the British, but it also slowed him, and when Jake and his horse approached the end of Spring Street, he saw that his way was blocked off by a set of wagons. Unable to urge the strange horse through, Jake decided he would do better on foot. He theorized that he would be able to slip into the crowd unnoticed, and thence find a place to hide. But airy theory came to earth with a sharp rip from ankle to knee as soon as he hit the ground — his leg was more damaged than he thought.

  Jake’s blood ran from his head, and as he stumbled forward through the crowd what little balance he had was lost. He bashed into the side of a farmer’s small wagon, ricocheted into two or three people, then landed in the dirt. With a great exertion of will and muscle, he flailed forward, crawling and groping, but got no farther than a sturgeon might if plucked from the nearby river.

  He was still crawling when he came head first into a large leather boot. Grasping on the leg to boost himself up, he felt himself lifted by a pair of hands from behind. Too late he realized that the hands were attached to a body clad in red.

  Howe stormed back and forth across the deck, his florid face swollen to twice its former size, or so it seemed. The star he wore on his coat as a sign of rank and duty glowed hot with wrath; at every moment it threatened to launch itself into space.

  If it did, and if it could be guided, surely it would seek out Howe’s rival general many miles north in Canada. The message van Clynne had carried was so tactlessly worded that Howe’s interpretation of it as an insolent order was quite understandable. Under ordinary circumstances, the merest mention of the name “Burgoyne” invited displeasure. Howe, with some justification, felt that Gentleman Johnny had spent much time in Boston lolling at headquarters and claiming credit while he himself was out risking his neck at the head of the troops. There was also a political element to this jealousy. Both men had been parliamentarians, but Burgoyne was generally conceded the flashier figure; Howe, if he had gone into the Commons for anything but to help his military standing, would never have gotten further than a splinter-stuck back bencher.

  Years of insults reared up as his temper was released. The masts shook with it; the deck began to wobble. The Norse god Thor, had he achieved half this effect with his thunderbolts, would have been well proud of himself.

  Van Clynne stood calmly through it. He had experienced much worse trying to cut half a crown off the price of a load of beaver pelts.

  “ I have been planning a Philadelphia campaign,” said Howe when he caught enough control of himself to form his thoughts into complete sentences. “I had been planning to seize all of the colonial capitals and then negotiate in a civilized manner. But this — he aims to make me look the coward. Don’t bother coming north to Albany! He’s saying that he will beat the rebels single-handedly. The arse.”

  “ Begging your pardon, sir,” said van Clynne gently, “and while I agree with your opinion of the general, is it no he who is the coward here?”

  “ How’s that?”

  “ Well, the note does not say he is attack Albany. On the contrary, it says nothing to that effect at all.”

  “ And how do you know?”

  “ You’ve read it three times to me, Sir William, and I would have to be either a dunce or deaf not to know it by heart now. ‘You’re not needed; don’t bother coming north. Yours, General Burgoyne.’”

  “ Is it not the most insubordinate piece of piss you’ve ever heard?”

  “ It is indeed, but if I may be so bold, that is all it says.”

  Van Clynne paused, firmly in control. How many contracts had he dissected with similar rhetorical skills? How many agreements with the Indians had he navigated? To him, this message, with only ten words including the signature, was a trifle. “The general does not say he is coming south, does not say he intends to attack at all. More likely, given his reputation, he means to stay in Canada. He will fill his time with delays and ballroom dances. Remember how late in the year he and Carleton attacked last year.”

  “ Carleton is a good man. He is a bulldog as a general.”

  “ Yes, but he has been sacked by Lord Germain and is returning to Britain. Without Carleton as his prod, how far will Burgoyne get this year? Ticonderoga? He will dawdle away his early advantages and then, at the first sign of snow, pull back.”

  Howe, himself no fan of the continent’s winters, began mulling this.

  “ If here were intending to attack,” continued van Clynne, “he would surely have said”

  “ Not if he were worried that the message would fall into rebel hands.”

  “ Impossible!” declared van Clynne, his voice rising. “He knew I was the messenger. Besides, the patriot lines are like a sieve.”

  “ Patriot?”

  “ Excuse me, General; I go among them so much on my missions I fall to using their own terms. I meant to say, the dastardly scum cowards.”

  “ And when he doesn’t attack, he’ll blame his shortcomings on me — saying that I was the reason he failed.”

  “ But you have his note,” said van Clynne, closing the transaction. “And, of course, you shall have my testimony.”

  “ Yes, yes. You’re a good man, van Cloud.”

/>   This was one time the Dutchman was content to have his name misunderstood. He gave the general a saluted, stepped back to bow, and turned to leave.

  “ Stay awhile and we shall talk,” said Howe. “I may have a position for your in my civilian cabinet.”

  “ I can’t, sir, truly. I’m flattered, but I have pressing business north. I am under Burgoyne’s command, after all.”

  “ I had forgotten, given the way you speak of him.”

  “ Well, we have no choice as to who we serve when duty calls,” said van Clynne, echoing the argument Howe had earlier made on why he reluctantly took the commission to fight in America.

  Howe was just about to say he might be able to do something about a transfer when he was interrupted by the arrival of a lieutenant of the city guard. The breathless man rushed upon the deck and ran to the general so quickly the marines nearby jumped up in defense.

  “ A rebel horde has broken into the city!” the man exclaimed. “All of New York is in revolt!”

  “ Damn. You see the troubles I have,” Howe told van Clynne. The general took three long strides to the side of the ship. In that small space, his physical bearing underwent a mighty transition; van Clynne recognized at once how he had come to command the army. His belly — smaller than the Dutchman’s, but by any other measure large — tucked up and in, his chest bolted forward, his chin jutted like an advance scout clearing the woods. Ajax had not looked so regal.

  “ My boat, quickly, and send for two companies of marines,” he shouted. “We will land directly in the harbor and rally the defenses.”

  Howe turned to van Clynne. “You’re best off staying here, until we have this matter under control. For your own safety.”

  “ But I — “

  “ It’s an order. The wrong rebel might see you in my company and endanger your future missions.”

  It took van Clynne only one look into the huge swells lapping at the hull to convince him there was no sense arguing. He could stay aboard until the riot quieted — and the waves slowed.