by James McGee
Lawrence, ignoring the stabbing twinge in his back, wondered if the fall had reopened his other wound. His side felt damp, but that could have been from the snow.
The buckskin-clad man straightened. There was no expression of surprise, though when he looked at the body of his companion and then back at Lawrence and caught sight of Lawrence’s moccasins, he frowned. As his gaze shifted to Lawrence’s face, his eyes hardened. “You’re a hard man to kill, Major.”
Lawrence smiled grimly. “Not for want of trying, though, eh?” His pistol aimed at the bearded man’s face, he walked forward. “Forgive me, we weren’t formally introduced.”
“Amos Walker. Captain.”
“Your servant, sir,” Lawrence said wryly. “Now, I’d be obliged if you’d drop the gun.”
Walker looked at the gun in his hand and then up at Lawrence and gave a rueful smile. “It’s empty. Didn’t get a chance to reload. But then you’d guessed that; right?”
Lawrence wondered if he shouldn’t remove the smile by simply shooting the man there and then, but at the back of his mind there hovered the thought that if he could save the shot he should do so. He wasn’t sure why.
Walker shrugged and lowered the weapon to the ground. His eyes narrowed as they tracked the woods over Lawrence’s shoulder. “Well, I guess this explains why my observers never reported back. No Hooper?”
“No,” Lawrence said. “On your knees; hands behind your head.”
Walker hesitated then did as he was told. “Ah, well, one dead out of two ain’t bad.”
Keeping the pistol aimed at the other man’s chest, Lawrence hoped desperately that the surviving horse wasn’t about to bolt. Its ears had pricked up and it had pawed the ground when he’d taken his shot, but to his relief, it had remained in place, allowing him to grasp the saddle horn with his left hand. Pain flared again and he wondered if he’d be able to lift himself up without falling flat on his back. He saw Walker’s shoulders tense and knew the American was probably thinking the same thing.
Using the reins to guide the horse around so that its body was between Walker and himself, Lawrence gritted his teeth, and raised his left foot into the stirrup. Then, resting his right hand, which was still clasping the pistol, on the cantle, he hoisted himself up. His back protested but he could tell the pain was easing.
“Nicely done,” Walker observed. “Now are you going to shoot me?”
Lawrence shook his head. “It is tempting. Believe me, it is, but I’ve seen more than enough killing for one week.”
Without waiting for a response, he kneed the horse into motion.
Walker stared after him, then, moving quickly, he scooped up the musket and let out a sharp two-toned whistle.
Lawrence was already accelerating into a canter as the three painted, scalp-locked figures ran from the trees in front of him.
No time to think, only to act. Praying his mount would obey, he spurred the horse forward.
The nearest Oneida scout looked mesmerized by the half-ton of horse flesh bearing down upon him. As he fell beneath the hooves, Lawrence turned the pistol on the second attacker. There was hardly time to aim but he was too close to miss. The gun spoke and the Oneida spun away clutching his groin. The third warrior raised his carbine to his shoulder.
His discharged pistol now transformed into a dead weight, Lawrence employed it in the only way possible. He threw it. He knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that it would hit its target from the back of a moving horse, but it was all he had left.
It missed, though not by much; passing close enough for the warrior to flinch and alter his aim for a second. As Lawrence galloped past, the Oneida threw up his carbine once more.
Lawrence heard the crack and felt the burn as the ball shredded his sleeve and then he was clear and galloping. His heart flew.
As behind him, another report sounded.
It had taken Walker eleven seconds to re-load and his target was at the limit of the weapon’s effective range when he fired. Through drifting smoke, he saw Lawrence duck and cursed as the fleeing horse and rider were swallowed up by loitering fog.
Lowering the gun, he moved quickly to the body of the warrior Lawrence had shot. He bent down and laid his hand on his friend’s arm. Cornelius was a war captain and had been recruited by the Continental army back in the Revolution. His first scouting mission had been for General Sullivan during the ’99 campaign to lay waste the Iroquois homeland.
Walker had been a lieutenant with George Read’s 2nd New Hampshires when they’d met, at the battle of Newtown, where Cornelius had saved his life during Joseph Brant’s counter-attack on the slopes above the Chemung River. They’d scouted together ever since, leading reconnaissance missions for the rebel army throughout the rest of the war. And now, with a fresh conflict having broken out between old enemies, they had resumed their duties, scouting enemy territory, working in advance of the main force, from Tippecanoe to Gananoque and from Queenston to Quebec.
When Cornelius’s eyes blinked open, Walker gasped.
The Oneida chief frowned. Cautiously, he sat up and reached a hand to the back of his head. It came away bloody. He peered at it in mystification, then at Walker. His eyes widened. Grasping the gorget that hung round his neck, he stared at its engraved surface. The dent made by the musket ball was plain to see.
“Son of a bitch,” Walker breathed as he realized what must have happened. Lawrence’s shot had hit the gorget with sufficient force to knock Cornelius off balance but then, by a miracle, had glanced away. As Cornelius hit the ground, the back of his head had collided with whatever hard object lay covered by the snow beneath him. Walker looked. It was a small flat-topped rock. Droplets of blood patterned the snow that had settled on top of it.
He helped Cornelius to his feet. A red trickle ran from the Oneida’s scalp lock down on to the back of his neck. He ignored it. Both men turned as the surviving warrior who’d run from the trees approached, carbine in hand. He did not ask after Cornelius’s health, but muttered under his breath, as though castigating himself for having missed his shot. His eyes moved to the body of the Indian Cornelius had dispatched with his knife, at the ruined throat and at the three decorated braids that sprouted from a four-inch square tuft of hair on the dead warrior’s crown. Walker and Cornelius followed his gaze.
“Kanien’kehá:ka,” Cornelius murmured softly, his lips curling with contempt.
Walker frowned. What, he wondered, was Lawrence doing in the company of a Mohawk?
As the crackle of musket fire came faintly from the south, all three men turned.
The column was under attack.
Bent low over the horse’s neck, Lawrence could feel the blood trickling down his back.
Walker, you bastard.
The ball had hit him high on his right side, in the meat of his shoulder. The impact hadn’t been that great. No more than if someone had struck him with a clenched fist. At first there had been only a slight numbness, but then, aggravated by the movement of the horse beneath him, the pain had started.
With his guide dead, there was no option but to stick to the road. Where he was in relation to his destination, he had no idea. He’d seen no signposts, though the snow could well have covered them. The woods remained thick and impenetrable on either side. There were no buildings, no farmsteads, just the snow and the forest. And then more forest.
With every movement, a spasm of pain shot through him. Each time, he grunted at the shock of it. His hands braced either side of the horse’s withers, he pressed down, forcing his weight into the stirrups. It was all he could do to hang on. Every hoof thud was agony.
The end was not long in coming.
Lawrence knew his strength was failing and that his mount had sensed that all was not well. Cold was creeping into every pore of his body, from his legs to his back and from there to his arms, hands and fingers. It was becoming harder to concentrate. Even the horse’s head was cast down, as if it had been made weary by the weight of the injured
man on its back. Little by little, Lawrence could feel himself slipping away.
He’d tried compensating by adjusting his grip on the reins but each time he did that the horse had sensed his indecision. As a result, progress had slowed from a canter to a trot and finally to a plodding walk.
They were close to a standstill when he eventually relinquished his hold. He’d tried desperately to loop his arms around the horse’s neck in an attempt to hang on, but as the animal turned its head and looked at him with its big brown eyes as if to query what it should do next, his strength finally gave out and he slid sideways out of the saddle and on to the unyielding ground below.
He lay there, unmoving, the snow wet against his cheek, vaguely aware of the horse standing over him, as if it was waiting for him to remount. He tried to push himself up but fell back. It was probably easier, he decided, not to move. It was certainly less painful. Sleep, he thought, would be a blessing. All he had to do was close his eyes and drift away. Why fight it? He felt the horse’s warm muzzle on the back of his neck. In the same instant, there was a faint vibration in the ground beneath him.
Through half-closed eyes, Lawrence saw a shadow appear between the horse’s legs. There was movement on the road and the sound of hoofbeats. A second shadow appeared behind the first, then another. The horse whickered. A voice called out; an order or an exclamation of warning. He couldn’t tell which. The words were indistinct. A shaft of pain lanced down his back. He tried lifting his head, but the effort proved too much.
A pair of boots stepped into view, then a second set – black military-issue – along with the hem of a coat and the tip of a scabbard. Voices sounded, faint, the words no clearer than they had been the first time.
The boot-wearers made their way towards him, scuffing up snow. Someone bent down. Lawrence felt a hand on his shoulder. Pain flared. He tried to speak but all that came out of his mouth was a dry whisper.
Another voice spoke, close enough to him so that this time Lawrence heard every word. Words that pierced him like a knife.
“Qu’avons-nous ici?”
“C’est un cheval Américain!”
“Il est blessé! Récupérez le chef de bataillon! Vite!”
No! Lawrence thought as his exhausted brain absorbed what he was actually hearing. It wasn’t possible! It couldn’t be, not after all they’d been through. He tried to rise, to struggle, but strong hands held him down. A wave of despair swept over him at the thought that they had battled this far, overcoming obstacle after obstacle, to be so close to freedom.
Only to be taken by the Goddamned French.
Cageaga regarded the black paint smeared across Hawkwood’s face and smiled wolfishly. “Like old times, little brother.”
Cageaga’s features were broken up by three horizontal black bands, across his jawline, nose and the ridge above his eyes. Tewanias’s face was divided by two colours: red from chin to cheekbone, black from cheekbone to brow. The other warriors were similarly daubed. The reason for the paint was threefold; as notification that the men were on the war trail, to put fear into the enemy and to break up the shape of the face so that skin tones – most relevant in Hawkwood’s case – were not visible against the darkness of the forest.
There were bloodstains on Cageaga’s hands and wrists. Cageaga had led the assault on the van. The war club he carried across his shoulder was the same one that had killed Lieutenant Nevens and the Oneida warrior who’d been an inch away from removing Hawkwood’s scalp. The club head still bore traces of the Oneida’s and the lieutenant’s blood, darkly visible beneath the new stains caused by the blood and brain matter that had leaked from the skulls of the dead troopers.
Hawkwood was glad Lawrence had not been there to see Nevens’ death or the attack. The major might well have rescinded his new-found admiration for Tewanias and his warriors had he witnessed the savagery that had been employed. Clubs and edged weapons caused hideous damage and Hawkwood had told Cageaga to employ them to good effect; an instruction the Mohawk war captain had obeyed to the letter, even to the taking of scalps, four of which now hung from the warriors’ belts. If Quade wanted a war, Hawkwood intended to see to it that the bastard got one.
Cageaga touched Hawkwood’s arm. “They come,” he whispered softly.
Hawkwood looked behind him. It was unlikely the morning sun would break through to any great effect, but if it did, Hawkwood wanted it at their backs. Even low in the sky, its rays would be diffused and broken by the trees and, when reflected off the snow, would throw multiple shadows which, like the face paint, would help confuse what was surely an already unnerved enemy.
Oneas and Lawrence’s departure meant they were now twelve. Engaging the column in a pitched battle, therefore, was out of the question. That would amount to facing Quade on his own terms, an option that was not only impractical but monumentally foolish, not to say suicidal. The column obviously possessed the greater firepower and in a face-to-face confrontation the Mohawk couldn’t hope to prevail. But what they lacked in numbers they would make up for with stealth manoeuvrability and surprise.
Under the cover of the fog, Tewanias had recalled all but one of his warriors to the east side of the road and placed them some thirty paces inside the wood and roughly five paces apart. While it gave each man a view of the track, the trees provided cover, like arrow slits in a castle wall. The intention was that by firing and then moving swiftly to a new shooting stand, the troops would be fooled into believing there were more attackers than there actually were. That masquerade wouldn’t last long – it couldn’t – but until the realization set in, even if it took just minutes, the plan was simple: kill as many of the enemy as possible, starting with the officers and NCOs.
Hawkwood eased back the hammer on his musket. The fog had thinned considerably, revealing a restricted but advantageous view of the road and the bodies of the infantrymen strewn across it. He turned his eyes to where a phalanx of soldiers was setting off across the bridge.
Unless Quade was even more callous than anyone supposed, he would not march his men past the scene of the attack. To do so would mean the column would have to step either around or over the bodies. No commander in his right mind would order his men to do that. The likely scenario was that Quade would halt and deploy troops along the road to protect his flanks, thus allowing the wounded to be assessed and the dead consigned to collection by a burial party, which suited Hawkwood well, for it would present the Kanien’kehá:ka with their second killing field. It would, however, put the ambushers at greater risk, bringing them within closer range of the column’s guns.
He kept his eyes on the bridge. The first troops had crossed the creek and were advancing cautiously, but with determination, in two single files, one on either side of the road.
Hawkwood glanced to his side. Cageaga was crouched over to his left, Tewanias to his right. Hawkwood could see a pulse beating along the line of Cageaga’s throat. Beyond Tewanias, the rest of the warriors were well concealed within the trees.
Hawkwood looked for Quade. Two mounted officers rode behind the advance party but neither of them was the major. The likelihood was that Quade was holding position on the south side of the creek, awaiting word that the enemy had dispersed.
The forward troops arrived at the first body. At the sight of the bloodied corpse, a corporal stumbled away and vomited into the snow. As the advance party took up outward-facing positions along the edges of the road, fingering their weapons nervously, a squad of troopers moved in to check for signs of life.
Hawkwood, knowing there would be none, sensed movement to his left. Cageaga was regarding him expectantly. Hawkwood shook his head.
Not yet.
On the road, one of the troopers – possibly a surgeon’s mate – turned to the mounted officers. The lead officer – a captain, probably, though his rank was not apparent from his coat – nodded brusquely, murmured something, and watched stone-faced as the bodies were lifted and deposited at the side of the track. The second offi
cer glanced about nervously, scanning the wood. For a moment it seemed he was staring directly towards Hawkwood’s position. Lowering his face and narrowing his eyes so that the whites were reduced in size, Hawkwood remained still. The officer’s gaze moved on.
As soon as the bodies had been removed from the line of march, the lead officer raised his hand to indicate that the column should proceed. The troops fell back into step; even from a distance, they looked relieved to be on the move.
Hawkwood waited until the first section had passed. Only as the mounted pair drew abreast of his position, did he turn to Tewanias. Acknowledging the signal, Tewanias cupped a palm to his lips and with the tip of his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth, emitted a string of short, staccato bird calls.
The first shot came from within the forest on the west side of the road. Even as the lead officer began to topple, another shot sounded and a second stab of flame and a billow of powder smoke appeared a couple of yards to the right of the first report. The men in the column were already turning towards the threat; a move which left their backs unguarded.
Using the trunk he was crouched behind as a brace, Hawkwood sighted and fired. The shot took the second officer between the shoulder blades, pitching him from the saddle.
And the Mohawks’ guns began to speak.
A sergeant and two privates went down beneath the first volley. Hawkwood, already reloading, counted under his breath. “One … two … three …”
He was at four when the second volley crashed out.
Two more troopers went down.
Hawkwood and Tewanias had split the warriors into three groups. By alternating fire, it gave each group the opportunity to move position and reload while the others took their turn to shoot. Allowing time for reloading, three to four shots every five to six seconds were never going to persuade the column to turn tail, but it was one way of maintaining a rate of fire. Not a fast or a heavily concentrated one, admittedly, but the consistency would cause some of the troops to keep their heads down. At best, it was only a delaying tactic, but if it stymied the column’s advance even by as little as a yard it would have served its purpose.
