by Jim DeFelice
The Dependence fired a few shots from her smaller guns above the ferry at Verplanck's Point, which was lightly and in truth poorly manned. A few muskets answered from the primitive earthworks, but the British forces didn't tarry long enough to be bothered by them. The stretch of river north of Verplanck's was ordinarily a calm lake, lying placidly below Dunderbury Mountain; the Dependence and her accompanying boats made their way slowly along the eastern shore, conserving their strength for the coming attack as the weather steadily rose against them.
The river forms a V here, with the Peeks Kill at the vortex. As the assault was launched, the Dependence would draw the attention of the defenders near the riverside and inland at the camps near Robinson's Bridge that have come to be known as Continental Village. The marines and rangers, meanwhile, would come ashore in the relative calm of Lent's Cove, an easy landing area removed from the main rebel positions. This would allow them to form up before proceeding inland. The strategy followed roughly the same pattern taken during a raid earlier in the year, and the marines could walk through it with their eyes closed.
Busch and his bomb canoe, meanwhile, would slip upstream to the chain. He would have to stay as close to the eastern shore as possible to avoid Forts Clinton and Montgomery, which lay directly across the narrow neck of the river from his target.
Lieutenant Clark, the master of the Dependence, inspected his vessel as they reached their staging area. Already the night was falling, and the pistol which would launch the attack was loaded and stuck in his belt.
Busch, walking the long deck and scanning the empty river, kept to himself. This day was the culmination of many weeks of planning; now that it had come, he felt a certain stillness inside his chest, a quiet even more profound than his studied outward manner. He had no doubt that he was about to strike a death blow to the Revolution; in so doing, he would also win much glory for himself. But his thoughts were not focused on that, nor even on the difficulties of the mission ahead. For one brief moment he looked southward on the river in the direction of the Richmond. Smith — or Gibbs, if that was his true name — would be dead by now. A twinge of regret wandered through the depths of the Tory's soul, for he recognized that under different circumstances the two men might have been good friends.
But Gibbs had made a fatal mistake, placing his own ego before that of his sovereign's; all of these rebels had done this in their hubris, and now they must pay for it.
Lieutenant Clark met Busch at the bow of the ship, standing near the massive gun that made the galley the most fearsome raider above New York. Even in the growing shadows and light rain it was an impressive weapon, with a bulk that belonged to a living thing. The wooden carriage that cradled it seemed a squat elephant, taken from the Hindoo wilds. The large iron pipe was a lion's prone body, coiled and ready to strike.
The deck around her had been cleared and made ready for action; the gun crew stood to one side, watching as the captain studied the far shore with his spyglass. Many of these men had been with Clark aboard the Phoenix when the galley was captured, and were the hardened salt of the sea, prepared to follow him up the River Styx if necessary.
The marines, bayonets sharpened and musket locks covered with protective cloth against the weather, stood amidships, trying to pretend that they were not nervous about the pending battle. A supply of whale oil, as well as candlewood and kindling, had been stored in a row of casks; half the countryside would soon be on fire, if the weather allowed.
The rest of the ship's complement was at battle stations, straining their eyes to see if the rebels on shore had spotted them. There were no signs that they had, though they fully expected word of their arrival would have been passed by now. "Are you ready?" Clark asked Busch. "More than ready," said the captain. "Then let's go."
He nodded at the gunners and the crew instantly sprang to work, readying their large cannon. As the match was raised, Clark handed Busch the pistol from his belt. The Tory captain smiled at the honor, and nodded in appreciation at the finely crafted gun — then fired. Instantly, the gunners answered with their own personal hurrah: the thick, throaty roar of the massive lion by their side.
Even before the huge ball struck through the roof of one of the homes along the river, the British boats had begun to strain for the western shore.
Though neither Rose nor van Clynne had managed to alert them, the patriot defenses were not idle. Even before the gunfire at Verplanck's, lookouts had spotted the Dependence and the other boats heading north, and had signaled an alarm with the aid of a series of tower signals and beacon fires that formed a chain of their own up and down the valley. The fires became more pronounced as the dusk approached, and before the British rangers had reached the shore near the creek, Americans as far north as Fishkill knew something was up.
But it was one thing to know an attack was underway, and another to meet it effectively. Twice this spring, the area around Peekskill had been attacked by well-coordinated raiding parties. While there were now more American troops and a new overall commander here, the general result was much the same. The mobility of the British force and the disposition of the American camps meant the shoreline was practically conceded to the attackers. The inland village itself was protected, but when the marines and rangers touched shore not a single bullet crossed their path. The Dependence and her round-bottom hull floated directly south of St. Anthony's Nose, in roughly the area she had been the day before when Jake observed the feint from the hillside. She switched her target from the houses on shore to the gun works eastward at Fort Independence at the head of the Peeks Kill Creek — though perhaps it inflates the post's strength to capitalize its name.
Van Clynne and the Connecticut men did a good job keeping up with Jake, and in fact were no more than a few rods behind him as he approached the riverbank near Lent's Cove. But the enemy army had been ashore for nearly a quarter hour by then — a fact announced to Jake by two small balls of lead sailing just above his head.
He dove off his horse to the ground just ahead of a more concerted volley. The Connecticut troops followed suit, van Clynne's curses ringing in their ears.
Jake's brain realized he was too late. Not only would Busch already have a head start but he now had to fight his way past a considerable force of rangers and British marines. But it was his heart that motivated him, pushing him through the bushes and the rapidly darkening woods, telling him he must not give up no matter what the circumstances.
Chapter Forty
Wherein, the British marines are met with a sharp counterattack, while the navy is serenaded.
The troops who were firing at Jake were marines, members of a small party who had stayed close to the shoreline to prevent a flanking maneuver. They were tough soldiers, well trained and battle hardened, but even they could not see very far in the darkening woods. They held a makeshift line in the trees just down from the road, inland from the cove. Jake reckoned there were at most a dozen of them.
He pushed through the brambles as quietly as possible, hoping to sneak to the riverside and find a boat. In an instant, he had given up hope of taking his troops with him; there was simply no time to waste, and the unflappable patriot was prepared to fight Busch single-handed if necessary.
Jake snuck south twenty yards before turning back to the east, and was in sight of the river when he came under fire from a picket behind a rock across a narrow ravine. He just barely found cover beneath a tree trunk as a shot parted the leaves above him. Now a second picket took up the cause, and a third; the patriot spy was pinned beneath the cross fire. He crawled forward a few inches on his belly, but then could go no further; even in the looming darkness he would be an easy target on the barren ground that ran down to a small rivulet feeding the nearby creek. The rain was still light but steady, and his face as well as his clothes were smeared with reddish brown mud.
Even as Jake began to curse the redcoats who had trapped him, his salvation was at hand. Van Clynne and his men had overwhelmed a marine position and
pressed their attack. The Dutchman grabbed an unfired British musket and pushed his way through the trees, grumbling and grousing like a bear whose hibernation had been interrupted. This drew the attention of a good portion of the force, and left the Connecticut men free to engage in a classic out-flanking maneuver.
The troops saw the gap open in the defenses and rushed it, and with a shout the fight erupted into hand-to-hand combat. The marines who had been sniping at Jake turned to hold down their flank, and the patriot spy ran forward, grabbing one of the lobster-coats by the neck as he reached for a new cartridge.
The Briton fell back against the rocks. The cloth of the cravat and collar he wore around his neck dampened some of the fierce force in Jake's fingers, but no coat would protect against the weight of his blows. As the marine continued to struggle, Jake grabbed his fallen musket and slapped him in the mouth with its stock; a more substantial blow to the forehead finished the struggle.
The Connecticut men in the meantime had begun rolling up the flank, sending the British into a confused panic northwards. There were shouts from the other side of the creek, and calls further inland as reinforcements began to take tentative steps toward a counterattack. But the growing night and the ferocity of the assault, as well as the woods, made the situation chaotic enough that a rally was impossible, and the Americans turned to mop up the stragglers.
Van Clynne, meanwhile, was operating more or less on his own, by now well west of the main troop. After discharging the Brown Bess musket into a receptive enemy body, he fell back on his favorite weapon, the tomahawk. The squire was as good with the hatchet as any woodsman alive, and had more than held his own during competitions with Indian companions, where a good showing tended to lower the price of proffered beaver pelts.
His showing now was applauded by a Connecticut soldier who found himself hard-pressed by a pair of marines. Van Clynne's two axes made their marks in the oppressors' foreheads; Cain was not sent upon the land with a grosser sign of his perfidy.
But as the Dutchman advanced to retrieve his weapons, he was confronted by a marine sergeant, sword in hand. Van Clynne just managed to grab one of the hatchets and hold it up in defense; the sergeant's blade glanced off the blade head with a sharp clang. His weapon was severely dented, but the Dutchman was left in a worse position — the force of the blow knocked the tomahawk from his hand.
"I can tell by your breath that you've been drinking rum," declared van Clynne loudly. "And cheap rum at that."
"I'll send you to hell," answered the sergeant, launching the sword in a forward parry. The Dutchman was able to avoid it, thanks to the shadows and a young stripling tree he let fly into his attacker's face.
"Really, sir," said van Clynne as the marine whirled back, "I would have expected a bolder threat from a member of the British marines. Who is your commanding officer?"
While his patter was completely characteristic, it was not without purpose. The Dutchman meant to keep the swordsman off balance and with any luck flustered until help arrived or a weapon presented itself. He thus inquired into the sorry state of the British armed forces, desiring to know why they were equipped with swords that could not hack out a few paltry weeds.
The sergeant spent several strong blows against the bushes between them trying to disprove this theory. Van Clynne found it expedient to retreat from each until at last his path was blocked by a large rock.
Even with the light fading, the glimmer of the British sergeant's eyes were unmistakable. The Dutchman was an inviting target; the most difficult task was deciding which limb to sever first. The sergeant drew the sword over his shoulder, aiming straight for van Clynne's tongue. "Perhaps, sir, we can negotiate a cease-fire," suggested the Dutchman. The smirk on the sergeant's face changed to a grotesque death mask, blood spurting from a gash in his neck.
The rock van Clynne had backed up against was the same outcropping used earlier by a marine as cover against Jake's assault, and the patriot spy had found himself in the vicinity when the Dutchman began his commentary.
Those complaints were now renewed with great vigor, van Clynne concluding that, if the present army and navy were to have fought against the Netherlands for control of New Amsterdam, the lands here would still be Dutch and there would be no need for the Revolution.
"Think of it this way," suggested Jake, cleaning off his thin assassin's blade. "If you were alive then, you'd be dead."
"That is a most slippery form of logic, sir," declared van Clynne. "I believe it pure sophistry, and denounced specifically by St. Thomas. A live man cannot be dead, especially if he is Dutch."
"You're welcome," said Jake sarcastically.
"I was indeed about to thank you," said van Clynne. "You saved me a certain amount of exertion, though I would have defeated the heathen dog in due course." "By talking him to death?" "I would have thought by now, my friend, that you understood the brilliant subtlety of Dutch battle tactics." Their conference was interrupted by Private Martin's arrival.
"All present and accounted for, sir," declared the private. "We've a few nicks and bruises, but no bullet holes."
The main British force had marched further inland and was fighting in the hilly area above, between the village and the creek, where it had met militia and Putnam's regulars. They were undoubtedly so preoccupied that an assault from their rear would wipe them out, but Jake had other priorities.
"Which way to our friend Green's?" he asked van Clynne.
"I believe that is his abode yonder," said van Clynne, pointing toward the settlement on the riverbank. "There should be a boat or two in the yard. If you knock on his door — "
"No time," said Jake. "Martin and I will find a boat. You take the soldiers and continue north across the creek. Advance up the shoreline as quickly as possible. Send a man to Fort Independence and tell them to direct snipers to the chain."
"Begging your pardon, sir," asked Martin, "but if the Dependence is on the river, won't we have a difficult time in our boat?"
"I wouldn't be surprised."
For a stretch of land under violent attack, the shoreline was remarkably peaceful. In truth, the few local inhabitants had wisely fled for their lives. With the British marines vanquished, Jake and Private Martin had their pick of the vessels beached along the cove.
Their pick of one, that is, which was perched precariously on a group of rocks overlooking the water. It was the only craft in sight, if one excepts the British whale-boats, which were too large for them to maneuver successfully, and the equally impractical galley well offshore.
As it happened, they would have chosen the boat even among a million others. For the craft in question was a birch bark canoe.
Were there more time to praise the construction of this genre of vessel, several pages could be filled regarding the sturdiness of the hull and the effectiveness of the very lightweight structure, which made the boat highly maneuverable. Jake lifted it without Martin's help and launched it immediately into the river, where the doughty private quickly joined him. The two men pushed their paddles into the water and the craft seemed to jump beneath them, hurrying northward as if its Indian maker had bestowed a supernatural spirit within its ribs.
The weak fires ashore, hampered by the drizzle, were now the only source of illumination. Behind them to the west, fierce Bear Mountain growled in the wet darkness, throwing fits and shadows across the channel as they broke into the open water.
A brilliant red and yellow flash lit the river above them, and the waves reverberated with the sound of the Dependence's 32-pound cannon unleashing an awesome missile. The round iron ball groaned and whistled as it rent the air, and for a moment even Jake feared that the cannon had been fired at them. The dull thud of the projectile crashing harmlessly against rock and mud was not so much a reprieve as a warning; they had a long way to go before fulfilling their mission.
Fortunately, the British vessel seemed to be concentrating on Fort Independence and was busy maneuvering at the mouth of the creek below
it, seeking to draw as much attention as possible. The current and the rising wind made it difficult for the galley to stay in position to fire.
It also made it extremely difficult for Jake and Private Martin to paddle upstream, as the rain now started to pick at their faces like a swarm of angry bees.
"Pace yourself with long strokes," Jake instructed his bowman. "Lean against the left side of the canoe and I'll compensate back here."
Martin did not answer, but Jake noticed a better pull. He hoped that the heavily laden bomb canoe would find the going several times as difficult.
Their small boat shook with the reflected reverberation of another round from the Dependence. Jake looked up and realized that the vessel was considerably closer to them than he had thought — and in fact was speeding south on a collision course with their canoe. "Stroke, Martin, stroke!" commanded Jake, going at the water like a grave digger in the last moment before Armageddon. The private responded not only with strong strokes, but with a cheery hum meant to revive his sagging spirits. The song, naturally enough, was "Yankee Doodle."
Before Jake could order the private to keep quiet in hopes the enemy might miss them, an alarm rose on the Dependence. As a swivel was manned and aimed in their direction, Jake took up the chorus of the song — and bent hard over the canoe, tucking the boat closer to the rocky shore.
The Dependence, which had been changing position to cover the force that seemed to be under attack at the cove, came on strong. But Jake managed to slip the canoe to the side, escaping the collision and clearing the long arms of the sweeping oars.
"Fire, damn you!" shouted the master of the galley, barely ten yards away. "Sink that infernal boat and its blasted singing!"
Chapter Forty-one
Wherein, the chase proceeds in the dark currents of the North River, and even darker events transpire on shore.
