Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence (16 page)

Chapter 7

W
ill froze as two burly British soldiers climbed up and joined them on the loft. One of them, a sergeant, pointed at Leduc. “I asked you what you were doing up here?”

Leduc smiled thinly, “Just trying to avoid work while minding the store for my friend, Sergeant. Is there something you wish to buy?”

The sergeant looked around and then out the window. He took in the view of his army’s headquarters. He turned and glowered at them. “There was, but not anymore. I don’t know what you were doing up here, but I think it’s possible you’re all spies.”

“Sweet Jesus,” exclaimed Leduc, “How can you say that? You must have seen me before. I live here. I have a farm just across the river. How can you dare call me a spy?”

“Maybe you are loyal and maybe I’m King George.” The sergeant smiled wickedly and pulled a bayonet from its scabbard. They did not have their muskets, which was normal if they were simply running an errand. To counter the soldiers’ bayonets, Will and the others had their hunting knives. Will noted that Owen had slid to the soldiers’ side and a little to their rear. Will tried not to look at him. The two Redcoats had apparently dismissed the short and shabbily dressed Owen as a possible threat.

“What I think,” said the sergeant, “is that we should have the provost talk to you.”

Will’s spirits sank. If they were taken, he had no idea how he would get out of this mess. Owen’s accent was Welsh, and his own was from the east, while he had his branding scar. No one would believe they were farm help for Leduc. He saw another prison for himself and hanging for Owen, and God only knew what for Leduc.

“Non!” screamed Leduc as he hurled himself at the sergeant. At the same moment, Owen took the sergeant in the rear and wrapped his powerful arms around the man’s throat. Will grabbed the second soldier, who was shocked by the suddenness of the assault. He kicked the soldier in the groin and he dropped like a sack, gasping and clutching his crotch. Leduc fell backwards and Owen tightened his grip on the sergeant’s neck, which gave with a sickening crack. Will took out his knife and rammed it into the other soldier’s chest. In seconds, he was as dead as the sergeant.

“Jesus, Major, what have we done?” Owen’s eyes were wide with astonishment.

Will was gasping. He’d never killed a man so close up like that. “I think we’ve outlived our welcome. We’ve got to leave, right Leduc?”

Leduc’s answer was a groan. He lay on his back with the sergeant’s bayonet sticking out of his stomach. “My God,” said Will. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“Too late,” gasped Leduc. “A knife in the gut kills. It may take a while, but it always kills.”

Will sagged. Leduc was right. If the rising stench was any indication, the bayonet had ripped his stomach and bowels. The wound would be fatal and agonizingly painful. Nor could they move him out of the barn. There was no way they could hide such a seriously wounded man.

“I will die here,” Leduc said with great difficulty. “Hide the two bodies.”

Will and Owen buried the two dead British soldiers underneath a pile of straw.

“Now you will leave me,” said Leduc. “You will take the boat and slowly row across the river like nothing is wrong. If anyone asks, and it is most likely that they won’t, you will tell them that I am fornicating with a whore and you will come back for me in the morning. They will believe that because it is what I have done in the past. Now go.”

The statement exhausted Leduc. Blood continued to seep from the wound. If they removed the bayonet, it would gush. Leduc was indeed dying.

They made Leduc as comfortable as they could. He asked for his pipe and some flints and they left them beside him. They walked out of the barn, down the street, and past the guards at the gate. The guards, of course, were not at all concerned about people leaving the fort, only those coming in, and made no notice of them.

They pushed the boat out into the water and rowed slowly across the river. It seemed ten times wider than before. Poor Leduc. Will hoped he was dead before anyone found him and could question him. Of course, someone was bound to recall that he’d come across with two companions and, sooner rather than later, someone would miss the two British soldiers. He and Owen would pack up and return to Fort Washington as quickly as they could.

They were pulling the boat onto the Canadian shore when they heard a strident clanging behind from the fort. Alarm bells? Had Leduc and the dead soldiers been discovered? No. A plume of black, greasy smoke was starting to billow upwards and it came from behind the stockade and just about where they’d left Leduc.

“God bless that man,” Owen said softly, and Will agreed. There would be no alarm for them and no one would chase them, at least not right now. Jean Leduc had set fire to the barn and it was beginning to rage furiously. It was the funeral pyre of a hero.

* * *

Dispatches, reports, and orders that needed to be registered and copied were the bane of any staff officer, and Major James Fitzroy was heartily sick and tired of them all. He wished that neither the printing press nor paper had ever been invented. Damn Gutenberg and damn the Egyptians. Or was it the Phoenicians? He longed for the moment when his day would be over and he could leave the stifling atmosphere of Burgoyne’s headquarters and return to the loving arms of Hannah Van Doorn. At least he thought that her arms were loving. Sometimes he had the nagging feeling that she was using him, but then, that was only fair since he was using her.

Love was unlikely, but he was fond of the little Dutch wench, and felt that she was fond of him. He would settle for life as it is, rather than as it could be.

He yawned. He was tired, bored, and the fire in the stove was overheating the room and making him drowsy. He shook himself awake. It would not be good to be found napping while at work. Burgoyne might laugh, but Benedict Arnold was around and that arrogant turncoat shit would tear him apart.

Danforth entered the little room off Burgoyne’s office and dropped another pile of papers on Fitzroy’s desk. “It never ends,” Danforth commented.

“I’d rather be in battle,” Fitzroy muttered. “This is no fate for a soldier. In battle I might die honorably. Here I might die of boredom or worse, be suffocated under piles of paperwork.”

“Then you shouldn’t have told anyone how literate you are. Then you could be an infantry officer out there in the freezing muck with your men who, of course, would hate you and would, if the opportunity arose, run a bayonet up your ass and call it a regrettable accident.”

Fitzroy laughed. “Thank you for your perceptive observation. You’re right. At least we are both warm and dry. Now, is there anything of note in that pile of rubbish?”

“Nothing of importance, but one item that is mildly interesting. It seems we are to be honored by the presence of one Erich von Bamberg, a colonel in the army of the Kingdom of Hesse.”

“I thought Hesse was a duchy. One of a hundred or so making up that chaotic mess called Germany.”

“I don’t know and I don’t rightly care,” said Danforth. “It can be a caliphate run by fucking Hindus for all that it matters to me.”

Fitzroy told him the Moslems had caliphates, not the Hindus and received an insulting sound for his efforts. He checked the clock on the table. It was almost time for him to be able to stop working without getting anyone upset at his leaving early, especially since Burgoyne, Tarleton, and Grant, were elsewhere. “And why is the Caliph of Hesse descending on us?”

“He has been sent to capture soldiers from Hesse and the other German states who have deserted and who have been reported to be with the rebels at Fort Washington. Apparently their collective Germanic majesties are insulted by such treasons. They are further upset because they no longer have the soldiers to hire out to the highest bidder.”

“I wish Herr Bamberg well,” Fitzroy said insincerely. Like most Britons, he thought little of the innumerable petty German princelings. They were almost as bad as the countless minor royalty in India. He sniffed the air. A pungent smell assailed his nose. Burning wood and burning meat? “What the devil is that?”

At that instant, an alarm bell began to clang and the two men grabbed their coats and ran outdoors. A fire was burning on the second floor of a barn a little ways off. As they watched in horror, flames erupted and the wind began to whip burning ashes through the air.

“This is going to be bad,” Danforth said grimly. A dozen small fires were already beginning on the tightly clustered wooden roofs. With fire suddenly everywhere, people were running around in a panic.

Fitzroy grabbed Danforth’s arm. “Run back in, grab what you can of our sacred papers, and then run like the devil for the eastern gate. This whole bloody town is going to go up in smoke.”

The two men ran in and in only a few moments were outside with important papers stuffed into bags and anything else that would hold them. Others in the offices were doing the same thing. The roof of the headquarters was smoldering and a half dozen other buildings were in flames. The barn where the fire apparently began was a raging inferno. Fitzroy thought he could smell burning flesh. It had to be a horse or cow, he thought. It couldn’t be human, could it?

“Get out of the stockade immediately,” Fitzroy ordered as loudly as he could, and the others ran to comply, joining a rapidly growing exodus from inside the walls of Detroit.

More and more flaming ashes were falling and Fitzroy needed no further urging to depart. A swirling downdraft covered him with embers. The smoke blinded him and made him cough. He staggered through the fort’s gate and out into the open air. In front of him, a soldier was on fire. He hurled himself into a muddy puddle and rolled over to put it out, cursing, crying, and terrified, but not badly hurt.

Fitzroy checked himself over and saw that his uniform was singed, but not burning. The back of his left hand was red and blistering from a falling ember, but he was otherwise unharmed. More and more people thronged out and gathered in the fields outside Detroit. They stood in shock as the cramped wooden buildings of Detroit were devoured by flames.

By the river, Fitzroy saw Benedict Arnold leading soldiers as they frantically pushed the precious barges into the water. A couple of the raw wooden craft were on fire and workmen were frantically trying to put out the flames with buckets of water drawn from the river. All around, British soldiers were striking their tents so the ashes wouldn’t land on the canvas and set them aflame as well. Winter was nearly on them and they would need the tents to survive. Fitzroy continued to move farther away from the fire. Finally, he was out of the smoke and falling ash. He took several deep breaths and his lungs began to clear.

A filthy and demoralized Danforth appeared beside him. “Bloody hell,” Danforth said. “If this is sabotage, someone will hang for it.”

Fitzroy watched as the flames consumed precious supplies and material. Barrels of gunpowder exploded while hundreds of soldiers continued to run or mill about in confusion and panic. The British Army had been routed by fire, an enemy far more fearsome than the rebels. “This is as bad as a defeat on the battlefield.”

“Indeed,” said General Burgoyne as he approached the two men who snapped to attention. The general’s uniform was likewise filthy from soot. His face was set in anger. “Fitzroy, I want you to find out just what the devil happened.”

“Yes sir.”

“You will do that while the rest of us assess our losses and try to recoup them. It does look like General Arnold managed to save at least some of the barges, although at least several hundred of us will need a place to sleep tonight.”

For a guilty moment, Fitzroy wondered just how Hannah Van Doorn had fared. He’d been too busy to think about her. Then he realized that the wind that had fed the fire had come from the west and that the rooms they shared were in a warehouse outside the stockade and to the west. With just a little luck, both she and their quarters were safe. It would be ironic if he had a bed tonight, while General Burgoyne did not. Then he realized that beds and cabins could be rebuilt. If anything had happened to Hannah, he’d be deeply saddened.

* * *

Across the river, Will and Owen continued to watch and to plan. Dozens of others had gathered on the Canadian riverfront and were watching the fire with morbid fascination. Despite the size of the blaze, they were safe, even though it appeared that the fire would rage for some time before running out of fuel.

“We should leave, Major,” said Owen.

“Not yet,” Will replied softly. “We’ll wait until tonight. If we leave now, it’ll look suspicious. Tonight we can take a couple of Leduc’s horses, pick up our men, send the horses in a wrong direction, and be miles away before anyone realizes it. Besides, we should watch and assess the damage.”

Owen nodded. “I wonder how the hell they’re going to catch those barges?” Several were drifting downstream and didn’t have anyone on board. “Maybe we could find one or two and set them on fire as well.”

Will conceded that it wasn’t a bad idea since they would have to go downriver to cross in the first place. Of course the odds of them finding even one of the barges were incredibly small, but it was a thought. More important, however, was the need to report to General Tallmadge at Fort Washington.