[Timekeepers 01.0] A Revolutionary Tale

by J. Y. Harris

  “Yup. A couple other churches, too. Old St. Mary’s, for one. Old St. Joe’s, for another.” She laughed. “Which aren’t ‘old’ in this time period, at all.”

  “Yeah,” Brad said thoughtfully, “it would be kind of cool to see the city now. Too bad we don’t have a pass to—”

  He put up his hand warningly, and then brought his finger to his lips.

  Kristen listened. “Footsteps!” she whispered. “They’re back already?” She put her hands on the ground beside her, bracing herself to get up.

  Brad, seated next to her, put his hand out in front of her.

  “No! Listen. The steps are coming from the other direction.”

  He was right. As usual, she thought grudgingly. He’d been right a lot today.

  Now they could hear voices as well, male voices. Instinctively Brad and Kristen flattened their backs as close as possible to the trunk of the tree, and Kristen quickly drew her knees up and covered her tennis shoes with the skirt of her dress.

  Soon the voices became audible.

  “… traded duty with Reggie Dawkins. ’Course, when I agreed to it, I had no idea I’d be tramping around the cursed countryside. Blast Reggie, anyway.”

  “Don’t blame him,” came another voice, which, like the first, had a distinct British accent; not a cockney dialect, but more refined. “I’d rather not be here either. I was invited to take tea with Miss Lucy Westcott, and I’d much rather be sitting in her comfortable parlor eating tea cakes than jaunting around this god-forsaken forest with you.”

  The footsteps stopped, and as best Kristen could guess, the two men—and she assumed it was only these two—were about fifteen yards away.

  She held her breath.

  “Well, then,” the first man asked, “what in bloody blazes are we doing ‘ere?”

  “Followin’ orders, that’s what.”

  Brad turned his head to look at the two men, trying to see between the leaves of the shrub that hid them.

  “What orders?” the other man asked. “What are we supposed t’be doin’, anyway?”

  “General Howe’s getting’ a mite anxious and testy about this attack. He thinks someone might be tryin’ to tip off Washington and the colonials.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, if he knew that, he’d put a stop to it, now, wouldn’t he?”

  “So what are we out here t’do, then? If they want to stop someone from leaving Philadelphia and tip off the Yanks, they’d just keep an eye out on all the roads leaving the city. We’re out here in the middle of nowhere. If we see someone, they’ve already gotten out of the city.”

  “Precisely. Anyone wantin’ to get back in is to be stopped and questioned. To find out where they’ve been, an’ all that.”

  “I’nt that a little back’ards? If they’ve already been out, and they were carrying word to them Yanks, then they already done it, now, hadn’t they?”

  “Yeah, but at least we’d know where the leak’s coming from and who’s spilling’ the beans, so to speak. And you can bet General Howe would know how to deal with ’em.”

  “Well, there ain’t nobody out here so far, and I ain’t too keen on going any farther. You heard what those dimwitted Yank deserters said earlier, didn’t you? There’s some sort of wild animals out in these woods.”

  “Ah, it was probably just a house cat howling for a friend. But you’re right, I’m not lookin’ to go further either if I don’t have to. It’s comin’ on dark now, as it is. Let’s go back and catch up with Charlie and Tom. They probably ain’t seen anything, either, but at least we can all say we patrolled the road, and then spend the rest of our watch nearer to town.”

  There were footsteps on the rough dirt road, and Brad and Kristen were silent until the sounds had faded completely. Only then did Brad dare to lean out from where they’d been sitting at the base of the tree and look through the shrubbery.

  “I think they’re gone,” he said quietly. He got to his feet and helped his sister up. Motioning for Kristen to stay put, he stepped silently around the shrub to the road.

  “Clear,” he said.

  Kristen too stepped around the bushes, carrying both their packs.

  “Well, that sucks,” she said. “Howe suspects there might be a leak. I wouldn’t want to be Rebecca’s mom if he finds out who it is.”

  “I know, but truthfully, I’d be surprised if she was the only one who’s giving intel to the Americans from within Philadelphia; I’m sure there’s a whole network of patriots doing what they can to thwart the British. But the takeaway here, the part that we need to be concerned with, is that Howe’s monitoring the roads to see not only who tries to get out of the city, but who tries to get back in.”

  “So? Your friend Mary the Messenger has a magic pass, remember?” Kristen paused to brush the dirt and leaves from her dress. “It’s a Golden Ticket back to Wonka-ville. Or, in this case, Philadelphia.”

  Brad took her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “You’re not getting it. Yes, Rebecca has a pass to be outside the city. But General Howe thinks there might be a mole at CTU.”

  Kristen smirked. “There’s always a mole at CTU.”

  “—so he’s certainly watching who leaves Philadelphia.” Brad paused for a second, but Kristen still looked blank.

  Sighing, he continued. “And if the mole leaves the city, to deliver a certain message about a certain attack, then eventually….”

  Click. The light bulb came on, and Kristen’s eyes widened. “Then eventually the mole will have to go back to the city.”

  “Bingo. And guess who, at this very moment, should be heading back toward the city.”

  “Holy crap, Batman. What are we gonna do?”

  “First thing we’re gonna do is—warn her.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  With a last glance back down the road where the British soldiers had gone, Brad and Kristen started out in the opposite direction. They were silent, each lost in thought. Her earlier reference to CTU hadn’t been an accident; this whole day so far had been like a colonial version of the TV show 24. Spies, turncoats, danger, plans that never quite worked out the way they were supposed to without some unexpected wrinkle. Luckily, in this case, it was pretty clear who the major players were: the colonials, or Americans, led by General Washington, and the British Royal Army, under General Sir William Howe. So there wasn’t much chance of there being a secret ‘mole’ in Washington’s camp, or a senior officer under Howe working in cahoots with the colonials on the sly. For this reason, she didn’t expect to see Major Clark grab another person by the collar and yell “Who are you working for?” in his best Jack Bauer voice.

  She glanced over at Brad. So far the two of them had done a pretty decent job of surviving this whole bizarre day. She wouldn’t admit it out loud—at least not to him, not today—but they actually made a pretty good team. And they’d done a darn good job of helping to keep history intact. Secret military information to be delivered? Check. Potential spies to throw off track? Check.

  The Everhearts had done the job. It was ‘Jack Bauer: the Teen Years.’ She bet the long-suffering counter-intelligence agent could not have done better than she and Brad had done.

  Obviously they weren’t the only heroes of the day; they weren’t even the main characters in this little drama. Rebecca was the one who took the big risk in delivering the information on the British attack. And Jacob had been instrumental in getting them all where they need to be safely and quickly.

  And their work wasn’t over yet.

  The siblings had walked at least a mile when they saw Jacob and Rebecca heading toward them. Brad and Kris stopped and waited for the other two to catch up.

  “Did you miss us?” Rebecca asked teasingly. “We were on our way back to where we’d left you. There was no need for you to come this way.”

  “What’s wrong?” Jacob asked. Not surprisingly, he could tell something was up.

  Okay, maybe he’s part Jack Bauer, too. He can hunt and tr
ack—and he’s armed.

  “It’s the Brits. General Howe suspects he has a leak somewhere, and he’s watching the roads around Philadelphia.”

  Rebecca smiled. “That doesn’t concern us. I already delivered my message, and I have a pass, remember? To get flour.” She indicated the flour bag, now full, which Jacob was carrying.

  “You don’t get it,” Brad said, just as he’d said to Kristen earlier. “He’s looking at everyone—anyone who goes in or out of the city.”

  Clearly, Rebecca didn’t understand, just as Kristen hadn’t at first, as her brow wrinkled prettily in confusion. “But I’ve got my flour. That proves that—”

  “Brad is right,” Jacob cut in. “The bag of flour proves only that you went to the mill. It doesn’t prove that’s the only place you went, or that that’s all you did.”

  “You’ve been gone all day,” Kristen put in. “It can’t take ten, twelve hours to go a few miles to a mill for flour. Even if you tell them what Mr. Tyson said, about the river being flooded.”

  “Then I’ll go back to town by another road.”

  “That won’t help. They’ll be watching all the roads. If you show up now, even with flour, they’ll know you’ve been gone all day. And that’s a big red flag.”

  “A red flag for what? I don’t see how my coming back with a sack of flour—even at this hour of the day—how that could affect anything, or make them suspicious. All it means is that I dawdle or that I’m not very efficient. You think they’d try to put me in jail? For that?”

  “No,” Jacob said, and he put a hand on her arm. “Chances are the British may say or do nothing to you—today. But they would no longer trust your family. At the very least, they could confine your parents to their house, or not allow them to have visitors, that sort of thing.”

  “And you can forget Howe having meetings in your dining room,” Brad added. “You told me your mother sometimes sells baked goods to some of the officers; that would probably stop, too.”

  Rebecca looked scared. “No, that can’t happen! My mother depends on that extra money. I can’t let that happen. I can’t allow Howe and his men to become suspicious of her. But—you say I can’t go back now, when the patrols are there. So what am I going to do? I can’t stay gone. I have to go back.”

  “Don’t worry,” Brad said. “We’ll get you back. Somehow.”

  They were all silent for a moment. This day—this long, interminable day—had looked like it was just about over. The secret spy message had been delivered. Rebecca had gotten her flour. They were literally within two miles of getting her home to Philadelphia.

  And now this.

  Jacob led them into the trees so they weren’t standing in the middle of the road.

  “Let’s think about this,” he said. “Rebecca has to get back into the city. But all the roads are being watched, and people are being stopped as they return.”

  “Is there a way to get her into the city by some way other than the roads?” Brad asked.

  “I’m sure there is,” Jacob said, “but we don’t have time to make a scouting expedition and check every road into and out of the entire city.”

  “What about by water?” Kristen asked. “Didn’t there used to be—er, I mean, isn’t there a river that goes through the town? I don’t know what it was called—er, is called. Or, what about the Schuykill?”

  Jacob shook his head. “Most likely there will be guards along any river or stream large enough to carry a boat.”

  “Not to mention, we don’t have a boat,” Rebecca added.

  “Yes, there is that,” Kristen acknowledged sheepishly.

  They were each silent again, thinking.

  “Okay, let’s go back to Jacob’s idea of using simple logic,” Brad said finally. “Here’s what we know: Rebecca has to get back to the city. But we have to avoid guards. There are guards on the road at each entry point. And we can’t use water or any way in other than the roads.”

  Jacob nodded, and snapped his fingers. “The problem isn’t the road. It’s the guards. We need to find out how they’re doing their job, so we can do ours.”

  “How do you propose we do that?” Rebecca asked. “Walk up and ask them?”

  Jacob smiled. “Something like that.”

  * * * * *

  “We shouldn’t have let him go,” Kristen said. “Not without knowing what he was going to do.”

  Brad and Rebecca looked up from where they sat. The three young people had retreated into the woods as a group of farmers had come along the road on their way back into the city. And not long after Jacob had left them, a couple of officers on horseback had gone past. Luckily the military men had been too busy talking and joking among themselves to look into the trees and see anyone huddled there.

  “We couldn’t really stop him,” the colonial girl said in response to Kristen.

  “Besides, if anybody can take care of himself around here, it’s Jacob,” Brad added.

  Kristen sighed. “I hope you’re right. It’s getting darker by the minute as the sun goes behind the trees.”

  And Jacob had been gone for quite a while.

  They lapsed into silence again, but came alert a few minutes later at the sound of a whistle.

  “Here he comes,” Rebecca said, peering down the road where the tavern boy should soon appear.

  Brad whistled in return and he and the two girls came out of the woods back onto the road.

  Rebecca gasped and ran over toward Jacob. “My word! What did they do to you?"

  Brad looked dismayed at the appearance of the other boy. “Oh, man, they got a hold of you, didn’t they?”

  “What? No, I only went to—” Jacob looked down and laughed as comprehension flooded his features. “No, no, the soldiers didn’t do this. I did it to myself.” He began to brush dirt off his pants and shirt, and straightened his neck-cloth, which had been askew. Finally he used his hands to comb through his disheveled hair and rubbed more dirt off his face.

  “You did this to yourself?” Kristen repeated. “What did you do, roll all the way there?”

  Brad smiled. “Maybe he climbed a tree and catapulted himself. Hey, now there’s an idea.”

  “What, turn Rebecca into a human cannonball?”

  “No, what I was thinking—”

  “Stop!” Jacob cut in. “Brad, I think I know what you’re thinking, about the tree, and, as crazy as it sounds, why don’t we leave that for later, maybe as a fallback plan. But let me tell you what I did and what I think should happen next.

  “First, I did make myself dirty and disheveled-looking, trying to look the part I was going to play. I kept to the woods, staying out of sight and going a little ways down that other road, the one that crosses Germantown Road and leads into the city, and then approached it from that direction. And I used this as my prop.” He reached into his leather bag and brought out a small flask.

  * * * * *

  The young man, unkempt as he was, staggered down the road toward Philadelphia, singing to himself and brandishing his flask.

  “Hey there, mates,” he called to the two guards on duty. “How goes the war?”

  One soldier nudged the other and sneered. “Look at ‘im. One of the colony’s finest. Bugger off, wastrel.”

  “Where’d you come from anyway?” the other soldier inquired. He didn’t seem as dismissive as his buddy, and used his bayonet to keep the drunken lout at a distance.

  “Here, I mean no harm!” the young degenerate protested. “I just been at me friend Jem’s house, celebrating the occasion.”

  “Yeah? What occasion is that?”

  “The occasion that we got our hands on some of the good stuff. It be Saturday, be’n’t it? That’s occasion enough. In these times o’ war, a body has to celebrate when he can.” The young man hiccupped and stumbled.

  “Hey, what you soldiers a-doin’ out here anyway? Aren’t you s’posed to be protecting the city?”

  “And what d’ye think we’re doin’?” came the
belligerent reply. “We’re keepin’ drunken sots like you outta town.”

  “What, you two?” The young man laughed and hiccupped again. “You think you can keep me out of the city? You and what army?” He laughed loudly at his own joke.

  One of the soldiers—bayonet-man—advanced on him. “Aye, we can keep the likes of you out. You ain’t gettin’ past us to pollute the streets of Philadelphy.”

  “I’ll just go by another road, then.”

  “Not bloody likely. All roads into town is being guarded, and some of the other blokes ain’t as polite as we are.”

  “Why you want to keep respec’ble people like me out of Philadelphia?”

  “We’s doin’ our job. We been told to not let anyone in without a pass.”

  “An’ how do you know I ain’t got one?”

  “Ha! The likes o’ you?” The soldier snorted. “Even if ye got a pass—which I’m bettin’ you ain’t—we ‘as to take you to our cap’n for questioning, and we’ll see what ‘e has to say.”

  “Why would I care what he has t’ say?”

  The soldier got angry that the young lout was questioning him. “He’ll have some questions for you, right enough. Ye’ll have to tell ‘im where ye been, and what your business is here in town. And then he’ll decide if he believes you.”

  “So--” the young man paused to belch—“you’re telling me that even if I got a pass, all right and tight and legal-like, I still have to be questioned and I’d be a suspect of some sort? Like some nefarious thief or spy or somethin’?”

  Bayonet-man raised his weapon again. “Who said anything about spies? Why you mention that?”

  “Well, you did, I expect. You mentioned it. Leastways, you’re talking about a body bein’ questioned as if they’re suspected of doin’ something wrong.”

  “Ah, I ain’t wastin’ no more time on you, you buggerin’ sot. Get movin’ down the road, one way or t’other. You ain’t passing into town by us.”

  The young man sneered. “Well, there’s more’n one way to skin a cat, so they say. Don’t you worry, mates, I’ll find my way in. I got a tankard of ale waitin’ for me at the Blue Anchor. And I’ll be sure to stop and say hello on my way out again.”