The Iron Chain
Page 11
"We will go down via another route," said Busch, finishing the thought he had started before slipping. "I have to scout the area first. Keep guard." The captain reached into his bag and took out some thick artists' pencils and sketch paper, as if he were about to copy the Pieta at St. Peter's. "There were rumors that the rebels intended to place a boom here, but I do not see one. Can you? Are they building it by the shore?"
It was difficult to tell exactly what was going on near the far shore, and Jake would not have said even if he could tell. He posted himself a few feet away, his carbine ready — though if some Continental group approached, he planned to train it on Busch, not the patriots.
An old, misshapen elm jutted from the edge of the promontory like an overgrown bristle on a hairbrush. It was easy to climb, and Jake soon had a crow's nest overlooking the near hillside. The only thing patrolling the woods between here and the water seemed to be some hawks and a squirrel or two.
The smoke of various encampments to the east and south wended its way lazily in the light afternoon haze. Peekskill, where General Putnam's headquarters were, lay too far inland for Jake to see from here. Likewise unseen, Continental Village, with its munitions depot and barracks, was located further east over the mountain and a little south of their backs.
They were sitting in a perfect, hidden pocket, as isolated and peaceful as the Garden of Eden. The serenity was so tempting, Jake felt it would be easy to forget he was in the middle of a life and death mission, whose success could determine the outcome of the Revolution.
But even Paradise was disturbed after the Fall, and Jake was shaken from his complacency if not the tree by the echoes of angry shouts and thick gunfire.
-Chapter Sixteen-
Wherein, the source of the commotion is discovered, and Squire van Clynne is grossly insulted.
Jake's first instinct was to jump from the tree and seek safer cover. But he quickly realized that the loud volley of musket fire was not only directed toward the river, but had originated nearly a mile away. The sharp, loud crack that made it seem so close was merely a trick of the echo produced by the rock-faced hills surrounding the water.
The patriot spy climbed higher, the tree branches leaning over as he craned southward to get a better view. Busch came running up in the meantime, a pistol in each hand. He put one of the guns down and slid the other into his belt, climbing up after Jake.
From the straining elm, the pair could just make out a small battery of men gathered on the shore to the south, reloading for another volley. But what were they aiming at?
The answer came in the form of a thunderous roar similar to what must have been heard when volcanoes devoured ancient Pompeii. This was followed by a loud whistle, which ended in a tremendous thud, accompanied by a shaking so severe Jake thought an ax blade had struck the tree. A cloud of smoke on the river below the hills pointed the way to the source of the disturbance — it was the Dependence, the murderous galley Busch and his men counted on so highly.
The boat was a peculiar beast. Though double-masted with triangular lateen sails, it strode through the waves on a caterpillars' set of oars. At her bow sat a thick, immense pipe, which erupted with fire and black smoke a second time as Jake watched.
The pipe was a 32-pound cannon. Those unversed in the art of sea warfare will perhaps find a single weapon unimpressive. They should know first that, like land cannon, the rating of the weapon is rendered by the size of the shot it typically fires; a 32-pounder fires 32-pound balls, though it can be loaded with shot and other particularly nasty devices designed to obliterate masts, sails, and limbs. The average 32-pounder weighs perhaps 5,750 pounds, and measures a good ten feet. It is an entire order larger than the 24-pounder, which under the French Valliere system is considered the largest practical caliber for a land gun. The Eagle, the most potent ship in the British American fleet — and the admiral's flagship — could mount her 32-pounders only on the very bottom of the vessel; the massive ship quite shuddered when those guns spoke.
Small wonder the rangers at Stoneman's had compared the galley to a fire-breathing dragon. St. George faced easier foes.
Naturally, the British could not have designed and built such a successful and deadly vessel. The Dependence— then named the Independence—was captured by the perfidious English during their siege of New York. Refitted and manned by British marines as well as seamen, she roamed the lower Hudson at will. Just at this moment, she was raining her shells in the general vicinity of Peekskill, much to the consternation of the local militiamen.
Even though it was too far to see them, the soldiers' affiliation was obvious. They yelled and cursed aloud and fired volley after useless volley, never in unison, wasting their valuable powder and shot.
"Excellent," said Busch in a hushed whisper. "We're right on schedule. Major Johnson could not meet us, but his portion of the plan has been put into effect."
"Do you think he was captured like the corporal?"
"Most likely he'll be waiting for us aboard the Richmond, " said Busch. "You probably helped him escape."
"I'm glad," said Jake, who would have been happier still had he been able to "help" Johnson before he'd arranged the operation.
The battle proceeded as if a staged play. The militiamen stopped shooting, finally realizing that their bullets weren't even reaching the river, let alone their target — or perhaps they ran out of powder. The battery at Fort Independence and several across the river had about the same effect. The Dependence, meanwhile, continued to give birth to a series of earth-shaking eruptions. The sounds of disarray and retreat echoed throughout the valley.
"They're going ashore!" yelled Busch, descending a few feet in the tree and then jumping to the ground. "Let's go, Smith; we've no time to lose."
We will let Jake and his Tory captain climb down from their trees as we travel several miles eastward, where we left the good squire Claus van Clynne attempting to recover from the effects of Major Dr. Keen's drug. The Dutchman has made considerable progress since we were last with him, managing to select the proper direction to return to the Loaded with Mischief Inn, where his horse was still tied.
He did not make it to the inn, however. Instead, he came upon a company of soldiers under the command of Colonel Israel Angell, members of the same unit whom Jake and the Dutchman had met the day before. The three Rhode Islanders forming the advance guard were more interested in finding food than enemy soldiers, and at first ignored what appeared to be the drunken shouts of a wayward madman. But van Clynne, even in a dazed mental state, is nothing if not persistent — he grabbed one of the young soldiers by the tatter of his worn coat and demanded to be taken immediately to his commander.
"Or there will be hell to pay! Hell to pay, and at a high interest rate!" thundered the Dutchman.
"We'll shoot you if you don't let go of Christian," said one of the privates as the main body of troops drew near.
"Shoot away!" declared van Clynne. "You will be killing as loyal a patriot as the war has ever known, but shoot! Shoot! Go ahead, do your dirty deed. I command it!"
He let go of the soldier and grabbed another's musket by the barrel, pointing it straight at his heart — or more accurately, the thick purse protecting his heart. The poor boy began trembling — he had not yet seen his sixteenth birthday, though he swore to his captain he was over eighteen.
"I do not understand why you feel obliged to cockade your hats so," said van Clynne, addressing the captain after letting go of the gun. "My friend Jake Gibbs likes to do so as well. What is it about those corners that attracts you?"
Christian, the soldier whom van Clynne had first accosted, took advantage of van Clynne's momentary interest in hats to leap on his back, hoping to wrestle him to his knees. Acting purely from reflex, with no harm intended — he made a protracted point of this later — van Clynne flipped the private over into the officer in front of him, sending them both in a tumble.
"Stop now, or we'll shoot," commanded a sergeant.
"You promise to leave off attacking us if I take you there?"
"Attack?" Van Clynne whirled around suddenly. "Who is attacking us? Where? How? Man the battlement! Rally the troops! Protect the strongboxes!"
The confusion continued for a few minutes longer, as van Clynne fought off the lingering effects of the drug. In truth, his befuddlement was mild in proportion to the strength of the concoction, and should have been of great clinical interest to the author of the potion, Major Dr. Keen.
But Keen, who not coincidentally was witnessing this spectacle from the nearby woods, was interested in something else. For the Dutchman's shouts had made it quite clear which side he was on.
"An interesting adversary," said the doctor as the troop fell back. Keen brushed some brambles from his coat and walked to his carriage, only a few hundred yards away. The size of the rebel force meant he would have to postpone apprehension of the Dutchman, but he was pleased to have determined his loyalties so easily. The man's clever antidote, whatever it was, had only shortened the effects and placed them in reverse.
"We will have to construct a most peculiar way for him to die," Keen said to Percival, directing him to hide the carriage and follow along by foot.
"You're Dutch? Then how can you be on our side?"
"How could a Dutchman be on the side of the British, who robbed our birthright, stole our land, and contaminated our best ale?" protested van Clynne as he stood before Colonel Israel Angell.
A man of average build with a light face and auburn hair nearly hidden by a dignified white wig, Colonel Angell stood straighter than a fresh ramrod as he interrogated the Dutchman in the small hovel that served as Second Rhode Island headquarters.
"No insult intended," said Angell, whose blue eyes and Roman nose gave him an almost Caesar-like presence. "But you must admit, if we were to use the Philpse family as an example — "
"The Philpses are imposters and traitors to their race," thundered van Clynne, who face turned bright red at the mention of the aristocratic family. "They stole the rights to their land from Jonkheer Van der Donck and his descendants in a most despicable manner. There is not a more criminal clan in all of New York. It grieves me to say this, sir, about a family purported to have Dutch blood in them, but if the Philpses have not made a pact with the devil, then the devil does not exist."
Van Clynne was so adamant in his denunciation that the amused Angell had to take a step backwards. A neutral observer might have found his claims somewhat exaggerated, though it cannot be denied that Frederick Philpse had lately spent time in a Connecticut jail for his impudent support of the British cause. Two hundred and seventy families, along with thirty-one slaves, lived in medieval bondage to the rapacious family, whose main house lay near the intersection of the Saw Mill and the Albany Post Road near the Hudson — a shameful situation in a democratic land, van Clynne asserted.
The squire's ire cooled when Angell asked if he would like some ale. The colonel's experience had shown that a man who began angry could be calmed by drink, while a calm one would likely undergo the opposite effect. "We have some beer brewed by a local housewife," he suggested.
More magical words could not have been uttered, and van Clynne was soon not merely calm but in jolly form. The beer was a top-fermented ale that had a deep redness to it, which under other circumstances van Clynne might have inquired after, since the only housewife in these parts who made such a brew was a certain Margaret Schenck. But business was pressing.
"You must send a detachment of soldiers to the Great Chain immediately," said van Clynne. "I have it on the best authority that the British are planning a massive attack on it this very evening."
"An attack? Who told you this?"
"None other than the Revolution's finest spy, my assistant, Lieutenant Colonel Jake Gibbs," said van Clynne. "I sent the good man out on a mission to break up a nefarious ring of Tory salt stealers, and he came up with this piece of intelligence for me."
The reader will be spared, as Colonel Angell was not, Claus van Clynne's narrative of his role in winning the Revolution single-handedly. While Angell realized he must discount by half everything van Clynne said, that division still left plenty of concern for the chain. And so on his authority two companies of men were mustered and sent marching triple time north to the river, told explicitly to brook no interruptions or diversion, and to fight to the death anyone who threatened the defenses.
-Chapter Seventeen-
Wherein, Jake is an unwitting guest at a brief family reunion.
Busch rode his horse at a quick pace through the woods despite the high undergrowth and looming rocks, plunging toward a narrow road on the northeastern foot of the mountain. He wove his way downward too carefully for his speed to be the product of mere haste or excitement; Jake, struggling along behind him, realized that Busch knew these mountainous woods better than most men know their own homes. The sun was now steadily sinking, and the slant of the landscape meant the ground before them was in heavy shadow. Nonetheless, the Tory's pace continued to increase until Jake lost sight of him. With only sound to guide them, horse and rider followed blindly, branches and bushes grazing their sides as they rode.
Busch was waiting at the edge of the road, his horse barely winded.
"We will have to trespass on a farmer's acres to reach the chain," he said. "He'll shoot us if he sees us."
"He's a rebel?" asked Jake, who was as thankful as his horse for the rest.
"It has nothing to do with the war. He's quite mad, and has been that way for ten years. This is the safest route, though, since the rebels avoid his land. It's a pitiful hard-scrabble farm, strewn with rocks and lying on a sheltered nick of the hillside. The ground is treacherous, and there are two vicious dogs. Be careful about your horse. Ready?"
"Ready."
"Let's go then," said Busch, and he set off in a gallop down the road. Jake's horse was more comfortable on this comparatively level ground and he caught up with Busch. They rode side by side until they came to a field on the west side of the road. Once more the Tory dug his heels into his horse's flanks, steering the beast toward the low fence to his left. The animal bounded the rails as if they were twigs on the ground. Jake followed, urging his mount to do the same; the pair was soon flying across the dimly lit pasture toward a small orchard that overlooked the river. It was here that Jake heard the farmer's shouts, and then saw from the corner two black streaks heading in their direction.
The reader is no doubt acquainted with Hercules, who during his many labors came face to face with the giant Eurytion and his two-headed dog. The animals chasing Jake and Captain Busch had but one head apiece, yet they were nearly as fierce, snarling and snapping as they ran. They were also extremely fast, and though the two horsemen had the advantage of a head start, the pursuers gained on their winded mounts with every step.
Jake pushed his stallion faster, flattening himself against the animal's neck and urging it onward. His helmet strap broke with the jostling and the wind groped at his head, swirling its tangled fingers through his hair. The horse's body had turned hot beneath him, convulsing with each footfall, nearing the end of its endurance and strength. Jake dove tighter to its neck, trying at once to soothe it and urge it faster. The pair went over a small hedge and into an open field, but still the dogs came on. Their yaps and growls mixed with the pounding of hooves and the rush of air in Jake's ears, as if hell itself were closing behind him.
All at once he felt himself flying forward: one of the dogs had thrown itself at the stallion's legs.
The ground came
up before Jake could properly prepare for it; his chin bashed hard and he felt a floating sensation in his brain.
His horse tumbled over in a somersault. It broke both its neck and a leg in the fall, but managed somehow to cling to life, screaming its agony in a wrenching whine.
The dog that had thrown itself at its legs had broken its ribs and gotten its muzzle mashed, but its venom was hardly choked; it raked its front claws on the horse's vulnerable stomach, trying to inflict more damage, unfazed by the injured animal's weak kicks.
The other dog descended on Jake, who had just risen to his knees when the demon barreled into his back. Still dazed, he had just enough sense to fall forward, trying to protect his neck. The dog raked its snout back and forth across his head, looking for an opening. These were not teeth, they were the hot fire of a glass furnace, withering all before them. The fangs slashed at the side of Jake's neck, ripping through the fleshy part of his earlobe; he just managed to duck enough to throw off the dog's aim as it clamped down, so that the animal ended up with his ponytail instead of his throat.
The hound growled as Jake shook himself free momentarily, spinning the black, furious shadow to the ground. In a flash it had rebounded back at him, stronger and more furious than ever, and for a brief second Jake felt the cold, wet sensation in the pit of his stomach he had felt only once before — on the cold cliffs near Quebec, when a redcoat's ball had taken him through the leg and he feared it was his turn to die.