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.
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
