More than most men, the squire lived in a universe of noises — a good portion of them of his own making — and for a brief moment he was as dazed as anyone else on the block. But the heat of the nearby fire quickly brought him back to rights; he unpacked the melting wax from his ears and was once more himself.
There were shouts on the next block over, and someone was calling, “Fire!” The smoldering pitch and dry timbers of the wagon combined to produce a flow of dark smoke and flames. The poor horse that drove the wagon had been knocked unconscious, and van Clynne had to step gingerly between its legs as he looked for the prisoner he was to rescue. Before he reached him, he found the four other men lying chained together in a heap on the ground, so close to the burning wagon that they were almost hot to the touch. Fearing the men would combust, van Clynne tried for a moment to rouse them; when that failed, he reached for the potion bottle.
Bottle, as in glass — it had been shattered by the squire’s fall.
Cursing, van Clynne doffed his coat, thinking to wave the sodden corner under the stunned men’s noses. But in order to do so, he had to put down his gun — which left him awkwardly unarmed when he looked up again and found a British sergeant measuring his sword against his belly.
Van Clynne smiled and followed his first instinct, tried to talk his way out of the situation.
Whether that would have worked under other circumstances or not, it certainly could not here — the sergeant had been rendered deaf by the blast. Fortunately, he’d also been knocked a little dull. Van Clynne tossed his jacket into the man’s face and the sergeant stumbled backward, dropping his sword.
The sharp scent of the rat poison in van Clynne’s pocket worked as well as Jake had predicted; after no more than two steps the man had full control of his senses. Fortunately, by then van Clynne had full control of the swords and began tattooing his insignia on the man’s chest. He disposed of him with a swipe so hard, the sword broke at its hilt.
“ Damned inferior British metal,” grumbled van Clynne, scooping up his coat and gun as he returned to the prisoners. “How can they claim to rule the world, when they can’t even find a decent ore deposit?”
At the other end of the confusion, Jake came upon two soldiers who had survived the blast with some shadow of consciousness. HE fired into the chest of one of the redcoats, who was holding his bayonet forward in a stunned, senseless pose. He grabbed the barrel of the gun as the man collapsed to the ground, mortally wounded; then he swung it around for a bayonet duel with another soldier. The sharp knives and metal barrels crashed against each other with heavy clicks and bangs, but both Jake and the soldier were oblivious to the cacophony.
The soldier was shorter than Jake, but he was stocky and strong; the American’s quick victory owed more that the lingering effects of the blast than physical superiority.
Two other redcoats were rushing forward in what looked to Jake as an attempt to kill the prisoners where they lay. He ran the first through the back with the bloody bayonet. Caught by surprise, the redcoat jerked to his right so quickly that the musket flew out of Jake’s hands. The soldier’s own weapon, propelled by his death spasms, caught Jake flat in the chest; it was fortunate indeed that he had been close enough to be struck by the barrel and not the blade, for the blow might well have chopped him in half.
Jake, surprised and with his injured knee hurting again, fell to the dirt on his back. The dying redcoat lunged forward, trying with his last gasp to cut Jake’s throat with the knife at the tip of his weapon.
A sudden burst of energy propelled Jake’s elbow into the ground and levered him out of harms’ way. The soldier fell into his place, destined never to rise until Gabriel sounds his final trumpet.
With a cringe of pain, Jake stumbled to his feet. He found it easier to hop than walk, and took two steps, looking for van Clynne and the Liberty man who had saved his life. The smoke from the fire and dust from the battle combined to turn the roadway almost as black as the night, but there was no mistaking what he saw next — a bright officer’s sword, pointed directly at his nose.
Chapter Thirty-five
Jake stepped back gingerly, the pain in his knee momentarily vanquished by the officer’s sword. He had his pocket pistol hidden beneath his shirt, but the officer gave him no opportunity to grab for it, keeping his blade at Jake’s face as he retreated backward. Theirs was a slow, steady procession, a study in precision greatly in contrast to the pandemonium nearby. The officer was grinning, obviously confident that he had the advantage. Possibly he hoped to take Jake alive, for otherwise he should have pressed his advantage with considerably more vigor. He could at least have slashed a few times in front of Jake’s face to increase his fear. Instead he moved forward with the steady pace of the grim reaper, intent on his duty and confident he would eventually have his man.
A strategy presented itself to Jake as he felt the wall of the building behind him. A candle tossed in someone’s face has the effect of drawing his attention away from everything else. Jake could then whisk his gun out and fire at leisure.
The officer followed him as he edged along the building. He had not yet called on Jake to surrender, and as Jake backed up he realized why. The officer’s eyes were crossed in psychotic wrath; the blast had knocked some part of his psyche loose, and he meant to back Jake against the wall and slowly, gradually, run him through the face with his sword. He would make the American an example of what happened to traitors to the Crown.
Jake fully intended to be a model for others, but with a much different outcome. He reached the window where the candle was, put out his hand — and came up empty.
The candle wasn’t there.
Jake took his eye off the officer for the briefest of moments, a mindless reaction at losing the item he most sought. But inattention as certain moments is nearly always fatal.
So it would have been in this case, had not the officer been hit squarely in the head by a round ball made of lead, approximately three-quarters of an inch in diameter. The bullet left a vast splatter of red and a look of puzzlement on the officer’s face as he fell to the ground.
“ The patriots are winning,” said a fair, slim-waisted woman in her mid-twenties, standing in the open door with a musket in her arms. The little girl Jake had helped inside earlier peeked from behind her dress.
Jake still suffered temporary deafness, but there are certain thoughts so profound they can break through any disability. He kissed the woman’s cheek in gratitude, then grabbed the officer’s sword and rushed back to the prisoners and wagon.
Given the circumstances, the kiss was a long delay, and though Jake did not berate himself for it, van Clynne certainly might had he seen it. In the event, however, the Dutchman was much too busy trying to rouse the chained prisoners by rubbing their faces with his antidote-drenched coat. He managed to revive one, but the potion had lost its potency, and he soon realized that his only hope of saving them was to drag them down the street, away from the fire and confusion.
By now the nearby citizens were rallying to the situation. It is true that the crowd was far from unanimous in its support of the patriots, and it will be duly recorded somewhere that a few Royalists ran to aid the soldiers. But van Clynne found his efforts to haul the prisoners to safety assisted by three or four strong lads, one of whom was already yelling the way to a smithy. He let them take charge of the men and turned back to find the fifth Liberty man, the one who had saved their lives aboard ship.
He found him lying on the ground, still dazed. Van Clynne hoisted the man on his back — it was easy enough, if you thought of the man as a pipe of beer — and was just scanning the street for an escape route when Jake came up running.