camp.
Jake had only just the time to fling himself onto the bed before a soldier with a lamp came inside the tent. Jake pulled a blanket over himself with one hand and fumbled for the Segallas with the other.
“ Get up, get up,” said a redcoat, kicking at his feet. Come on. The captain is forming search parties!”
“ Oh,” mumbled Jake, his hand shielding his face from the light — and detection. “Coming.”
Fortunately, that was enough to satisfy the redcoat.
But the patriot had no time to congratulate himself on this slight indication that his luck had once against returned. This phase of his mission was both clearly over and clearly a failure; it was time for him to practice that famous military maneuver, hasty retreat.
He pushed up the bottom of the canvas tent side opposite the entrance and rolled into the brush. The redcoats were still in great confusion, running back and forth in the dark. This made it somewhat easier for Jake to proceed through the woods, back toward the field where he had left van Clynne.
He knew that the loud explosion must have come from his sleeping bomb pie. Obviously he had used too much gunpowder and packed the paper too tightly, since it was meant to be nearly silent.
It was also not meant to be lethal. The volume of the blast tended to be in direct proportion to its explosive power; from the sound of it, there would be no living survivors within a dozen yards or more.
Jake was surprised at the hint of actual remorse he felt about the possibility of losing his erstwhile ally and assistant. But his foreboding did not adequately prepare him for the sight he came upon as he reached the edge of the woods near the road. Four redcoats lay head to toe in a perfect line, each sleeping like a baby. At the head of this line lay the good squire van Clynne, whose snores we have already established as being at least as bad as his singing.
He proved impossible to wake. Jake considered whether it might just be best to leave him there, but the Dutchman knew too much about his mission now to be discarded. And — dare we suggest it? — the American spy was becoming just slightly attached to the grumbling Dutch merchant.
Never suggest it, for Jake would deny it strenuously, citing instead his duty as an officer and gentleman not to leave a fellow soldier on the field of battle, whether wounded, dead, or sleeping. HE took off his singed coat and shirt, leaving them on the ground next to van Clynne’s body. Then he removed the Dutchman’s shoes — an event that proved as much a test of strength a anything that followed.
Relieving one of the redcoats of a flint and striker, he set his shirt once again on fire, then picked up van Clynne and began running down the road.
“ Running” might not be wholly accurate. “Waddling” would give a better description of their escape. Jake had considerable strength, but van Clynne had a more considerable waist, and these qualities worked against each other. By the time Jake was fifty yards away, “dragged” might provide a better picture than “carried.” Perhaps the word “rolled” might also be used.
But literary precision was sacrificed for speed. Jake and his somnolent companion proceeded through the woods at the best pace he could muster, until finally reaching their horses.
Chapter Twenty-three
“ You cannot deny, sir, that my intervention played a crucial role in the operation.”
“ I was just about to grab the bullet when you set the bomb off. If it weren’t for you, I’d be on my way back to Albany by now.”
“ The explosion was a result of a faulty mechanism for which I clearly cannot be blamed. You were the author of the weapon. I offered my advice, but you declined it. ‘An expedition had but one chief,’ I believe you said.”
“ Why did you light the damned bomb?”
“ I lit it to cover every contingency.”
“ I thought maybe the redcoats set it off in retaliation for your singing.”
“ part of a well-designed plan, sir. As was your appearance. Perfectly on cue.”
“ I see. You planned that.”
“ I knew you would arrive and spirit me away, yes. Now, your decision to make the scene appear as if I had spontaneously combusted — brilliant, sir, truly inspirational. I begin to wonder if you have some Dutch blood in you.”
Jake pulled back on his reins, stopping his horse. “Why is it that you attribute every good quality you come across to the Dutch, and every bad quality to some other nationality?”
“ I simply speak the truth. It is well known that the Dutch are a superior breed of people.”
By now it was well past noon. They had spent the early hours before dawn in the barn of a tradesman whose house was a half mile south of the redcoat camp. Van Clynne had vouched for the man upon rise — it should not take much to guess that he was Dutch — and they approached him for breakfast. After satisfying their hunger and borrowing a pair of shoes for van Clynne, and a shirt for Jake, they returned to their quarry, shadowing their movements south.
The problem wasn’t finding the British troop — apparently unperturbed by the occasional patrols the Americans sent through this no man’s land, the redcoats marched loudly along the road. The difficulty was in coming up with some plan to change the bullets without Herstraw catching on. Jake began to worry that he would have to admit failure and simply assassinate the devil.
Which itself would not be an easy task.
“ The Dutch are the most advanced race in learning,” van Clynne proclaimed as Jake pushed his horse up a hillock to check on the troop’s progress. “The world has not seen the like of our technological achievements since the days of the Chinese. I would have told you of the design for a spring-loaded fuse, had you expressed the slightest interest.
A pair of British soldiers were proceeding as the vanguard. Behind them, the main body with Herstraw and the other officers were just pulling off the road to rest. The foot soldiers were burdened with heavy packs and made slow progress. They were still some twenty-five miles from Manhattan; if they continued at this pace, they would not make the city until nightfall, if by then.
“ Such a bomb can even be constructed with an instantaneous fuse, working on impact,” continued van Clynne, prodding his poor horse in Jake’s footsteps. The animal strained under the added burden of gravity, but it was a patient beast, not complaining despite the boot heals in its side.
“ What are you muttering about?”
“ Noach Vromme, a fine Dutch inventor whom you should meet. He lives in the woods near Skenesboro. Took a wife from the Mohawk — scientists are eccentric, you know. So, there they are, camping again,” he added, spotting the British soldiers for the first time. They have the stamina of chipmunks.”
Jake shook the reins and his horse carried him away from the road. Van Clynne’s mount struggled to catch up as they continued south, aiming to get ahead of the lead element on the highway.
“ So what is our plan?” asked van Clynne when they returned to the road. “Another sleeping bomb for the entire regiment?”
“ That’s hardly a regiment,” said Jake. “But I think not. I have only a few grains left in my snuffbox.”
“ Poison their water, perhaps?”
“ Killing them would defeat our purpose,” said Jake. “Besides, I don’t have any poison.”
“ Surely we can rally a few militiamen in the vicinity and waylay them before they cross King’s Bridge.”
Inspiration works in very mysterious ways. The Greeks had invented the muses as its agent, picturing loosely dressed nymphs whispering in artists’ ears. AS an attempt to explain creativity, it had its flaws — what poet would bother writing with a partially clad woman in the room? More likely, inspiration worked as a thunderbolt thrown by…
A fat Dutchman with a big mouth?
“ Of course,” said Jake, snapping his fingers. “I’ve been going about this in the wrong way. Howe doesn’t
