Wanting to keep his accounts even, the American agent tucked a few of van Clynne’s continentals — at three percent interest — into the man’s shirt.
“ He’ll have a tough time explaining those if he’s a Tory,” said van Clynne.
“ Truly a shame,” answered Jake, taking up the reins and leading the horse and wagon forward.
They stopped three blocks away at a small but crowded store. Van Clynne stayed with the wagon, grumbling about the difficulty of finding a good parking spot in the overcrowded city.
“ Still talking to yourself, Claus?” asked Jake when he returned a few minutes later.
“ The city was never like this under the Dutch,” van Clynne claimed.
“ The traffic will be lighter near the jail,” said Jake, taking a jug of pitch he’d just bought and pouring it into the back of the wagon.
“ What are you doing?” exclaimed van Clynne as Jake placed a candle in the middle of the sticky black puddle.
“ Just get going — make a left at the end of the block and drive north. Hurry.”
The British inevitably took the same path from the docks to the jail; Jake had scouted it several times previously. That preliminary work proved handy now; they crossed town in the space of five minutes and found an alleyway along the narrow street two blocks from the prison’s portals.
While van Clynne drove, Jake turned the wagon into a mobile fire bomb. His plan was a simple one — van Clynne would light the candle, then drive the burning coach across the roadway, blocking the street. Jake would launch his noise keg from the rear, temporarily paralyzing the British guards.
“ And not us?”
“ You should be far enough away, if you stay with the wagon.”
“ While it’s on fire?”
“ You’re afraid of fire, as well as water?”
“ I’m afraid of dying prematurely.”
“ Here, stop this candle wax in your ears. The concussion can shatter your eardrums.”
“ So we’ll leave the man we’re rescuing deaf?”
“ Just temporarily,” said Jake, jumping down. “Remember to light the wick back here before you pull into the road. It will take a few seconds to flare up, and I want the flames impressive enough to catch their full attention before I launch my bomb. Don’t forget to curb the horse’s reins and when the bomb goes off, grab our men and run up that alleyway. I’ll take care of any guards who are still standing.”
“ Perhaps it would have been better to steal a coach instead of this wagon,” said van Clynne. “A man with strong legs could bolt over this, even if it is on fire.”
“ If he’s unconscious, these salts will revive him,” said Jake, handing van Clynne a small potion bottle he had purchased at the store. Be careful with it — under normal circumstances it’s used as a rat poison.”
“ But — “
“ Just don’t let him drink any,” said Jake, untying their horses from the back of the wagon. He secured them to a side post, and then quickly worked some wax into their ears as a precaution against injuring them.
“ I’ll meet you three blocks north by the church,” said Jake. “I know a place where we can stay until it’s dark. With luck, the commotion will bring a few of our friends forward, so escape won’t be difficult.”
“ Perhaps we should enlist them beforehand,” suggested van Clynne. “In my opinion — “
“ I can’t hear your opinion,” said Jake, stopping his ears. “Wait until the first man passes Kiefer’s there, then pull out. Put your ear stops in!”
Van Clynne’s complaints continued, but Jake was oblivious to them — why hadn’t he thought of this simple expedient days ago?
As he trotted down the street to take up his position, he saw shutters were being shut on the street above — the procession of prisoners, was nearing.
This was a poor street, and before the British invasion, many of the folk here had supported the Revolution. Trapped by the quick occupation, they had learned to keep to themselves, especially during the almost daily marches to the gaol. By the time the patrol and its five prisoners appeared at the head of the block, there was no one on the street.
Except for Jake, who took up a spot in the doorway about ten yards from the alley where van Clynne was waiting. A few strikes of his flint and he had the small candle in his hand lit; his only other chore now as to wait.
The candle was necessary to light the bomb, whose fuse was too short and quick burning to let it be set in advance. Jake could not rely on flint to ignite the fuse at the last moment; he needed his hands free. HE set the candle down on the ledge of a small window that looked into the doorway; the effect was much like lighting a votive at the altar of the cathedral in Paris.
“ Why are you putting a candle on my window, mister?”
Jake turned around and saw a young girl, five or six years old, tugging inquisitively at his leg. He had to take the wax from one of his ears to hear her.
“ You don’t want to burn down my house, do you, sir?”
The prisoners, with their redcoat guards behind, were dragging themselves forward not twenty yards behind her.
Jake could have ignored the small girl, trusting that Fate would keep her out of harm’s way once the small riot he planned began. But there was something in him that could not ignore a child wandering innocently toward danger. He took the wax from both his ears and stopped it in hers, then quickly picked her up in his arms and pushed at the latch on the top of the split door, intending to shut her inside.
The latch would not give way. He had to step back and kick at hi, not once but twice, and then finally place all his weight behind the thrust before sending the top flying inward.
“ Stay inside, sweetheart,” he told her, forgetting that she could not hear him. “The patriots are fighting for Liberty today!”
Have you ever heard such overwrought words? “The patriots are fighting for Liberty today!” With a very large exclamation point at that. In the middle of a fight, when his own safety hung in the balance. At any moment he might be discovered. At any moment he might be killed.
“ The patriots are fighting for Liberty today!”
Corny? But whose fault is that, if that was the reality? Does not everything noble sound, under some circumstances stripped of its context, overwrought?
Such words build revolutions and legends. They inspire minds and warm hearts in the cold realities of the trenches, keeping blistering feet trudging along the line toward the most distant goals.
“ The patriots are fighting for Liberty today!”
Jake jumped back out into the street, right behind the rear guard, just as van Clynne pulled his chariot across the road in all its fiery glory. Jake leaned back and lit the bomb as the troops and their prisoners began shouting in alarm and confusion.
The explosion, loud to begin with, was amplified by the closeness of the buildings to the street. The shock waves were such that the ground trembled and people ten blocks away thought the world surely had come to an end. No glass within a hundred yards remained intact, and two-thirds of the British guard fell over like bugs catching a whiff of Dr. Pete’s Miraculous Fly Powder. The rest were dazed, groping for their weapons as well as their senses, and had been rendered suddenly deaf.
As was Jake.
At least he had been expecting the blast. He shook his head a few times and ran forward, pistol in hand. The disposition of the force was not immediately clear in the smoke and dust, and he moved cautiously, still getting his bearings as he hopped over the prostrate bodies of the fallen guards.
Van Clynne, meanwhile, had been thrown from the wagon by the concussion. Spitting out a mouthful of dirt, he rose and grabbed his musket, standing in the center of a silent street.