Soul Seekers (14 page)
‘Get ready!’ Cas shouted.
He passed them each a strip of the canvass and a piece of bamboo tube, and then gestured to the lantern. ‘Light them, and then use the alcohol as a flame thrower.’
He dipped his bamboo into the barrel once again and filled it with alcohol before he clambered up the steps to the deck above and sprayed another cloud of it across the burning patches on the deck. The spray caught in clouds of flame that spread swiftly.
A sailor ran toward him with a pale of water in his hands. Cas whirled and sprayed a cloud of burning vapour in his direction before he could swing the water. The sailor cried out and tumbled away from the heat and flame, spilling the water uselessly in the opposite direction across the deck.
Cas leapt out of the hold and dashed straight for a lantern hanging from the corner of the foredeck. He unhooked it, opened it and then hurled it. The lantern crashed and skittered across the deck, spilling oil as it went, and Cas blew the last alcohol in his tube across the spilt fuel.
Flames curled like writhing snakes and spread across the foredeck as more screams echoed down from the masts high above.
‘We’re aflame! Abandon ship!’
The ship’s bosun charged at Cas, his whip held high above his head and his face contorted with fury and pain, his skin hanging in tatters from his face that fluttered as he ran. Cas stumbled away from the giant man in time to see Siren slide across the deck with one leg stuck out in front of her.
The bosun tripped on Siren’s foot and crashed down onto the deck amid burning pools of oil as Cas dashed around him and joined Siren. Clouds of billowing smoke and flame writhed across the entire deck, climbing the masts as sailors dived from the rigging into the water of the bay around them.
‘We need to get off the ship before the alcohol barrels blow!’ Cas shouted above the chaos.
Jude and Emily dashed across to them, and Cas looked out over the starboard deck to where Dorchester Heights loomed through the cold mist.
‘It’s too far to swim and the water will be freezing!’ Jude yelled.
Cas turned and saw a huge spiralling vortex of flame soaring from the deck hatches, the hold now burning furiously. They had only moments before the whole ship went up. Many of the crew hurled themselves over the side into the freezing, choppy water.
There was nowhere else to go.
‘Over the side,’ he shouted. ‘Now!’
Cas ran at the ship’s starboard bulwarks and vaulted over the side of the ship. He felt his stomach tingle as he fell and then he plunged into the waves. The cold bit deep into his body and he gasped at the shock of it as he came up for air. Three more splashes in the water around him and Jude, Emily and Siren were in the water.
‘Now what?’ Jude shouted.
‘That way!’ Cas pointed toward Dorchester Heights. ‘Just keep moving away from the ship!’
They began swimming through the choppy water, fighting against the waves and the bitter, icy cold that had already numbed Cas’s fingers and toes. His breath felt hoarse in his throat and the salty water stung his eyes as he laboured through the cold waves.
A series of deafening bangs crashed out from somewhere behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder to see the ship enveloped in a seething inferno that was sending a towering column of black smoke into the featureless and foggy grey sky. Countless kegs of alcohol were bursting in the heat and spilling their contents into the fire, fuelling it ever more. From behind him a thunderous blast cracked the sky and Cas felt a wave of heat wash over him as the ship exploded and sent an expanding cloud of burning timbers flying overhead and crashing into the water around them.
Cas saw a large panel of burning wood splash down into the water nearby, sizzling as the cold waves extinguished the flames.
‘Get hold of the timbers!’ he shouted. ‘Use them as floats!’
He got hold of the wooden panel and began kicking again for the shore with renewed vigour as the panel helped to keep him buoyant. Two minutes later they hauled themselves ashore onto the soaking mud of Dorchester Flats, dripping with sea water.
Emily was shivering, her blonde hair flat across her shoulders and her teeth chattering. Jude’s shoulders were slumped with exhaustion, and Siren was sitting on the cold mud looking up at Cas.
‘We still won’t make Lincoln in time,’ she said. ‘It’s too far and we’re too tired.’
Cas looked around him through the mist. It was impossible to tell the time, the sun invisible. He guessed they had maybe an hour or so and then it would be too late. The snow had stopped, but it was still bitterly cold.
‘We’ve got to try,’ he said finally, and started walking.
The flats were strewn with craters from the various artillery bombardments exchanged between the enemy forces, a bleak landscape of freezing mud and pools of icy water. Cas laboured across the open ground with his friends behind him until they reached the outskirts of Roxbury. The snow was starting to fall again as they surveyed the cold landscape. Cas was shivering now, his thin clothes poor protection against the biting cold.
‘Lincoln’s probably twelve miles from here,’ Jude complained wearily. ‘Four hours’ walk, if we stay on the roads. It’s too far.’
Cas was about to reply when he heard a soft sound, a rhythmic crunching drifting ghost like through the mist. He looked up and to his horror he saw the distant gates of Boston open. Ranks of soldiers marched out, barely visible through the rolling fog banks.
‘It’s an ambush,’ he whispered. ‘They’re going to attack Dorchester Heights.’
‘They’ll cut us off too!’ Jude said.
Cas broke into a run across the muddy ground until he could clearly see the advance guard of the army marching down toward the Boston neck, the Hessians with their Lieberegiment flag hanging limp at their head. Siren, Jude and Emily laboured behind him.
Cas realised that Washington’s forces, high on the fog enshrouded heights, would not be able to see the Hessian army advancing on their position.
Cas pointed to the north. ‘Get away from here,’ he said. ‘Stay in the fog and head for Crazy Jo’s in Lincoln!’
‘What are you going to do?’ Siren asked.
‘I’ve got to go back for my father and Kip,’ he replied. ‘I can’t leave them here.’
‘You can’t reach them and get back to Lincoln in time,’ Siren insisted.
‘I’ve got to try!’
‘How?’
Cas stared at her for a moment before he answered. ‘Take on an army.’
Siren looked to her left at the army, and then before Cas could react she hurled herself at him as the deafening crack of a gunshot shattered the air. Cas felt himself propelled backwards as Siren ploughed into him. He landed hard on the freezing ground as he heard a dull thump and Siren cried out and crashed down into the mud alongside him.
Cas turned and saw a distant Hessian soldier aiming a smouldering rifle at them, perhaps a sniper who had been hiding in the undergrowth. The sniper turned and ran toward the oncoming army, pointing frantically at Cas and his friends.
Cas rolled over and saw Siren lying on her back, breathing heavily and staring in shock up into the sky. ‘Oh God, no.’
Siren’s shirt was stained with blood where the musket ball had hit her.
* * *
Cas scrambled to her side and stared down at the wound as she looked up at him.
‘I think he got me,’ she rasped.
Cas struggled for words but it felt as though something was lodged in his throat. He was able only to nod his head in response as Jude and Emily rushed to their side.
‘Get her out of here,’ Cas said. ‘Hurry!’
‘Can you walk?’ Jude asked Siren.
Slowly, Cas help Siren up into a sitting position. She winced in pain as Jude got under one of her shoulders and Emily got under the other.
‘We’ll never make Lincoln,’ Jude repeated. ‘Not now.’
‘Keep moving that way,’ Cas said. ‘Stay in the fog. The Hessians won’t follow you while they’re tied up with their attack on Washington’s men.’
‘You can’t go up there,’ Jude said. ‘If Washington can’t hold the hills you’ll get nothing and be stuck here forever.’
Cas looked at Siren, who stared back at him from behind hooded eyelids.
‘Go,’ she rasped weakly. ‘We’re done anyway if you don’t make it.’
Cas began running toward Dorchester Heights. He crossed the road near Roxbury as the Hessian army reached the end of the Boston Neck. Through the swirling mist and swilring snowfall the advance guard were visible, their Hessian uniforms distinctive in the pale morning light.
Cas looked straight into the eyes of Lieutenant Du Pont, whose enraged glare seemed to burn through the mist like laser beams. His mouth gaped open as he raised an arm to point directly at Cas and screamed at the top of his lungs.
‘Kill him!’
Cas whirled and sprinted for the safety of the treeline at the base of Dorchester Heights, the towering trees sheltering him from view as he heard the Hessian advance guard charge in pursuit. Cas’s heart raced in fear as he struggled up the hillside, weaving between the trees as a single thought repeated itself over and over in his mind.
Keep running.
The words flashed through the Cas’s mind as fast as the tendrils of mist that swirled past like ghostly hands reaching out for him. Dense ranks of towering trees reached up into the cold grey sky, the depths of the forest obscured by a thick blanket of fog. His skin felt numb beneath his tattered clothes as he ran through the dense foliage clogging his path.
Distant shouts echoed back and forth behind him. His heart hammered inside his chest, his breathing laboured. The shouts became louder and then the forest trembled in the wake of a deep boom that rolled like thunder through the trees. Something screeched through the forest above his head and crashed through tree limbs to explode in front of him. Cas ducked down as chunks of frozen earth were blasted over his head and a shower of cold soil sprayed down around him.
He looked back over his shoulder and through the fog saw a distant, snarling tongue of flame spit another howling cannonball into the air. Ranks of men advanced in his direction like shadowy phantoms, the bayonets of their muskets glinting with wicked shards of light.
Cas turned and ran. Tree trunks shattered with cracks as loud as gunshots as cannonballs slammed into them, crashing down all around him like meteors from the sky. The earth trembled beneath the blows and he stumbled, his ears ringing from the blasts.
Ahead, the trees thinned out and the featureless grey fog beckoned him into its cold embrace as he sprinted out of the forest and across a hillside of thick grass and sodden mud. The hill was covered with the fallen bodies of soldiers long dead, their twisted corpses haunting the lonely wilderness as far as the eye could see.
The thick, wet grass slowed his tired legs and the cold air seeped into his bones, dragging him backwards as though he were in a terrible dream where no matter how fast he ran, he travelled nowhere. His legs finally gave way beneath him and he collapsed to his knees in the deep grass, his chest heaving. The shouts and cries grew closer and Cas somehow found the strength to get to his feet and turn to face them.
Through the thick fog a line of soldiers advanced out of the forest toward him.
Hundreds of them
. Ranks of uniforms, heavy greatcoats and long barrelled muskets tipped with lethal bayonets. The Hessians spotted him standing alone in the centre of the grim field and with a great cry that soared into the sky above they charged toward him. Their bayonets flashed like the teeth of some gigantic monster racing across the field, rushing ever faster behind the war cry that chilled the blood in his veins.
I shouldn’t be here. This is not my time. I can’t die here.
Cas trembled as from his mouth fell a single, whispered line.
‘You can’t fight your way out of everything, but you can
think
your way out of anything.’
Above the terrible cries came a deafening boom, then the howling whistle of a cannon ball as it soared across the field toward him, louder and louder until he could hear nothing else.
Cas closed his eyes, and a moment later the world exploded around him.
* * *
The earth blasted skyward as the cannonball ploughed through the ground in front of Cas and slammed into the front row of Hessians with a blast that threw chunks of frozen earth high into the sky. The soldiers were hurled aside as from behind Cas a deafening musket volley crashed out.
Cas whirled to see lines of patriot soldiers advancing down from the heights, the great guns somewhere behind them firing down onto the Hessian positions with thunderous blasts that rolled across the sky.
The Hessian’s line broke before the onslaught, and Cas saw mounted officers swinging their cavalry sabres as they tried to keep their men from fleeing the bombardment. Lieutenant Du Pont rallied his men, his face bright red with exertion and his eyes wild with fury as he rode up and down, but his soldiers scattered in disarray back toward the treeline.
Cas stood up on weakened legs, and as he did so Du Pont spotted him and turned his horse. With his sabre in his hand and unspeakable rage on his face he spurred his horse up the hill into the face of the bombardment.
Cas whirled and began running up the hill, but his legs were exhausted and his lungs ached. He heard the thundering hooves bearing down upon him, heard the lieutenant’s accented cry bellowed out behind him.
‘Die, Cas!’
Cas stumbled in the damp, cold grass, and twisted his head to see the horse looming above him and Du Pont’s sabre flash as it swept down toward him. Cas threw himself flat down onto the grass and heard the sabre swish through the air just above his head as the horse thundered past.
Du Pont let out a strangled cry of anger and turned his mount, the sabre flashing in the light as he swung it over his head and charged back toward Cas.
The horse loomed over him again, and Cas leaped to one side past the flying hooves and the flashing sabre. He felt the blade slice through his shirt and nick his shoulder as he hit the hillside hard and rolled over.
Du Pont yanked his horse up short as cannonballs churned the hillside all around them, and then jumped from his saddle and rushed at Cas. Cas crawled backwards up the hillside but he could not hope to escape the Hessian’s charge, and he stared up in terror as Du Pont reached him and swung the sabre high above his head.
His face screwed up with rage and malice, Du Pont brought the sabre crashing down toward Cas’s face.
* * *