Jack Absolute by C. C. Humphreys
‘Apples thrown by children at a garden fence.’ Até had risen from the rear rank of Natives to join him. He was as disgusted as Jack, not least because he had persuaded a goodly number of his relatives and clan members to join the expeditionary force on the promise of watching the vaunted British army in action.
‘I know. I’m going to try to persuade St Leger to get it stopped.’
‘And then what, Daganoweda?’
Jack sighed. ‘I wish I knew.’
And he also now wished that, at the outset, he had made clearer to Burgoyne the obstacles that lay ahead of them. Like all optimists, the General had only foreseen the progress he desired. And indeed, initially, Jack had found the optimism justified, his orders easy to obey.
He and Até had left Quebec on the first day of June, with two pack horses, amply provisioned, and loaded with all the goods and presents his native brothers could desire. It was vital for Até’s prestige that when he returned to his people, he returned as if from the most successful of trading trips and as befitted his status as a member of one of the ‘royal’ families of the Mohawk. Indeed, Jack knew that if Até had remained in his homeland, and not followed his white brother to India in 1766, he would be a senior sachem by now. By bringing gifts, he re-established his status and drew warriors to him as a ‘Pine Tree Chief – unelected, but able to lead men to the war path.
And men did rally. Many had promised to join them at the meeting of the tribes at Oswego in the third week of July. Most would come – few Iroquois would miss such a party. Some talked with excitement of the coming war. This generation of young men had not had a fight in which to prove themselves and they did not fully consider themselves men until they did.
But despite the sunshine on their progress, as they had moved out of Canada and into the forest fastnesses of the northern American colonies, there were hints of darkness along the way. They had met others of the Six Nations of the Iroquois, especially Oneida and Tuscarora, the tribes who lived closest to the Americans and were most influenced by them, who were sullen, even hostile. They learned that the Supreme Council of the Iroquois League, made up of the chief sachems of all the tribes, had been unable to decide unanimously on which side to take in the war. In that Council, if unanimity wasn’t agreed, no action could be taken. Thus, neutrality was declared. This was unacceptable to many warriors who sought the glory and spoils of war, and to honour their old allegiance to the English. The Iroquois League was split.
The meeting at Oswego, however, had been a qualified success. The British Commander, St Leger, with his Loyalist subordinates, had brought enough rum and gifts to buy allies. Many had joined when his force marched from Oswego en route to the Mohawk River. Ominously, many of the undecided had come to share in the continuing handouts of presents and rum, and to observe the promised easy victory at Fort Stanwix.
How had Burgoyne described it? Close to a ruin and defended by half-trained Militiamen, at best. Jack wished the General was there to see the sturdy bastion, the well-armed and obviously well-trained troops. But Jack had not spoken out, and he had not warned that once the meeting at Oswego was called, their intended target would be clear to the Rebels. The Americans he’d fought beside against the French all those years ago were intelligent enough to recognize the strategic threat posed by a third British force striking down the Mohawk Valley and would have prepared accordingly. As, indeed, they had.
Now, as he and Até walked through the rudimentary siege lines, his despair increased. The King’s army was a shambles – and they’d only been there three days! Emplacements had been half-dug then abandoned, as the Colonel thought first of one point of attack, then another. Men lay about the holes and little caves, smoking pipes, some playing cards or dice, all swigging ceaselessly from canteens. The early August heat lay heavy on the land. It was hard to tell Native from Loyalist, as all were wearing as little as possible – tattered shirts, aprons, or leggings, feet bare. Some flapped caps in futile attempts to ward off the clouds of tiny black insects that tormented. Others slapped and cursed, as the bigger horse flies or mosquitoes savaged them.
In many ways the Regulars’ lines were as bad. There was order to be sure – tents set up in even rows, latrines dug, a cook tent gushing smoke – but the soldiers drilling were in full campaign uniform, an insect head-dress around each, unable to break ranks and swat them away, sweat turning their scarlet almost to black. Those who had fainted lay to the side, a growing number, while the officers and sergeants controlling the drills were becoming more and more irritable, striking out with stick and boot. Jack could sense fury building like an electrical storm within the persecuted ranks.
Yet it was not the soldiers of the 8th or the 34th regiment that concerned Jack. When the time came, they would rally and fight and kill and die as they always had, as Jack had witnessed them do on many occasions and marvelled. It was not even the two green-coated Loyalist battalions under Butler and Johnson who were exchanging insults and shot with their former neighbours, friends, even brothers, within the fort. It was rather those warriors who made up the slight majority of the allied army that worried him, their situation that the Colonel must now address: His Majesty’s Native Allies.
He approached the tent through crowds of them. They sat – some swaying, others chanting. One group was vying with another to create ever more elaborate paintings on their bodies, for war paint was highly prized and St Leger had obtained a panoply of colours for them. A small number had formed a circle, each man playing a Jew’s Harp. Many Natives delighted in the instrument, its strange humming a rival for the buzz of insects. Most had flagons of rum, swiftly passed, swiftly drained, this ‘darling water’ the most prized gift of all – and the most dangerous. Jack had seen it happen before: rival tribes, too much liquor, too little space.
The Iroquois kept to their tribal groups: Seneca with Seneca, Mohawks with other Mohawks, the Cayugas, Onondagas equally separated. Try as he might, Jack could never convince his superiors that they could not deal with the Iroquois as one body, just more individual regiments for their forces. And that didn’t even account for the other tribes – Delawares, Shawnees, Missausauga Algonquin, and many others – who had gathered to partake of British hospitality. Even if they were uncommitted to the fight, as the Senecas were, for instance, they knew they would still receive their share of gifts. Especially the rum. If the British turned them away, the enemy would not.
All these dark thoughts swirled through Jack’s head as he approached the Commander’s tent. Standing near its entrance, sucking hard on a pipe, was St Leger’s adjutant, Captain Ancrum.
‘A word with the Colonel, Ancrum?’
His fellow officer winced, then tamped out his tobacco on his boot heel. ‘I’ll try, Absolute. You’ll, uh, wait here, yes?’
He twitched the flap, went in. Why Jack had to wait outside had been made very clear to him at his most recent meeting with St Leger. Men chose different methods to ward off the near-constant biting of insects. Some stayed near fires, despite the already ferocious summer heat. Others, like Ancrum, buttoned their uniforms tight and smoked continuously, thus keeping their faces relatively unbitten at least. Jack and Até had chosen to revert to Native ways. On their first day in camp at Oswego they had tracked and killed a bear. They had not eaten of it, for a rutting bear’s flesh is bitter. But its grease covered them now, the most effective ward against bites; no creature would choose to come near them – either winged or two-legged. It sometimes amused Jack to think how his friends at Boodles Club or the Turk’s Head Tavern would react if he came, thus fragrant, into their company. Much as St Leger had reacted, probably, when Jack had entered his tent for the first and only time.
‘Egad! You reek, sir. Out. Out!’
So now Jack awaited him outside, Até squatting behind him. The tent flaps parted again, the Colonel emerged, and Jack reflected on yet one more option for keeping away the insects.
Pickling. Barry St Leger, despite the early hour, and the necessit
‘Absholute!’ The Colonel stepped very carefully out of his tent, his eyes seeking a point on Jack’s right shoulder. He was a tall man, forty years old, though the effects of his drinking made him seem closer to sixty. He halted about six paces away, swayed, steadied. ‘Close enough, I think, what?’ he declaimed, glancing back with a smirk at Captain Ancrum, who had relit his pipe in the tent’s entrance. He smiled weakly, then shook his head slightly as he caught Jack’s eye. Though he was obviously being warned off, Jack felt he had to try.
‘I was wondering, sir, if just this once …’ He gestured to the privacy of the tent.
‘Certainly not. Took me three days to clear the stench at Oswego. Well, man, something to report?’
Jack sighed. If it had to be in public, then so be it. ‘Yes, Colonel. I was wondering about the guns.’
‘Guns?’ St Leger’s face took on a parody of concentration. ‘I am aware of many aspects of your … remarkable career. Dragoon. Sepoy. Tree fighter.’ The last was delivered with an unmistakable sneer. ‘Never knew you for a gunner though.’
‘I am not, sir. I was merely observing that we seem to be expending a lot of powder to little effect. We are underpowered, sir, in that branch of the service.’
St Leger swayed, spluttered. ‘False information. Your damn savages, Absholute. Told us the damn fort was virtually a ruin. Otherwise, would have brought bloody bigger guns. Never trust a bloody Native, what?’
Behind him, Até stirred and muttered under his breath. Other tribesmen drew closer. Many found the Colonel’s love of his ‘milk’ amusing.
To speak more quietly, Jack took a step forward, but the Colonel took an equal one back, stumbling slightly as he settled.
‘Then I was wondering, sir, since we cannot hope to penetrate the walls—’
‘Not being a gunner, Absholute, you wouldn’t know the effect shot has on an enemy. It demoralizes him, sir. And it impresses the savage.’ St Leger waved a limp wrist at the gathering Natives.
Jack knew the cannonade was making the reverse impression, but he could see no words of his would halt the paltry bombardment. Yet he could at least attempt to remove part of the unimpressed audience.
‘Another point then, sir. If I may return to the suggestion I made yesterday?’
‘Eh?’ St Leger looked as if yesterday had been the year before.
‘A reconnaissance in strength, sir. Take the Mohawks, at least, up their valley to see what the enemy is about.’
‘Set them loose on the population, you mean. Let them indulge in every type of barbarity.’ Phlegm was flying from the Colonel’s mouth and he was swaying alarmingly with drink and passion. Ancrum took a cautionary step towards him, arms outstretched. ‘When we know that thousands of Loyalists in that valley are ready to rise up and meet with us, you wish to set these bloody heathens upon them, to ravish, butcher … scalp?’ He was virtually screaming now. ‘No, by all that’s holy. God and England would never forgive me.’ He looked to the heavens, sighed deeply. ‘And God and England would be right!’
Passion expended, he did slip then. Ancrum’s arms supported him, guided him back towards the tent. At its entrance, St Leger turned again. ‘I will not split my forces. We shall deal with Stanwix and only then will we begin our march to Albany. But you, Captain, since the sound of cannon so displeases you, may return to your watch in the woods.’
The Colonel disappeared inside. Jack stared after him. Até rose at his side.
‘“As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.”’
‘Hamlet, I suppose.’
Até smiled. ‘Proverbs. Chapter Twenty-Six, Verse Eleven. You are the greatest heathen here.’
Jack laughed, feeling the tension within him ease. He had done his best. And now, at least, he had received some kind of order.
‘And you had Christianity crammed down your throat at that charity school of yours. It was the main advantage of a Westminster education. We were all bloody heathens there.’
It was an old debate between them. Até grunted. ‘Well, Daganoweda. Shall we continue the argument at the camp?’
‘Aye.’ They had set up an observation post an hour’s march down the valley. There they could fend for themselves, clear of the tensions of the siege.
As they were moving away, Jack felt a tug on his elbow. ‘A word, Captain Absolute, if I may?’
The Mohawk who now stood beside Jack was as tall and as old as he. Like many of his people, centuries of contact with the Whites had sharpened the flatter Native features. Even with the copper of his skin, he would have passed nearly unnoticed among the darker denizens of Cornwall. This was emphasized by his European style of dress, his shirt, breeches, and waistcoat. An officer’s gorget swung at his neck, and beneath it dangled a medal. Presented, Jack now recalled, by King George himself when this man, Joseph Brant, had visited London the previous year. It was said that he had refused to bow to the sovereign because he was an ally, not a subject. His English, as befitted one educated at the same school as Até, was excellent, although his accent differed. Society had befriended him on his English tour. Romney had painted his portrait, he had moved among the court and now sought to emulate their tones in his speech.
The man turned to Até. ‘James,’ he said, drawing out the word as if he were at tea on Piccadilly.
‘Joseph.’ Até, colouring slightly, nodded. Though they had been part of the same force travelling down from Lake Ontario, Até had been thus far able to avoid his old schoolfellow, for Brant was the one man in the army who would call Até by his baptismal name. They were of the same tribe of the Iroquois, the same clan of the Wolf. But Jack knew Até felt, like many others, that Brant was trying to become a white man … and despised him for it.
Jack had no such concerns. Brant may have affected all things English but he was still a tough Mohawk warrior, the well-dinted tomahawk at his waist testifying to that. And he was tireless in his devotion to the King’s cause. Jack also knew that Brant commanded a good following among his tribe, warriors, who, like himself, were not content with the neutrality the Council was trying to impose.
Brant turned to Jack. ‘I heard what you were saying to our drinking leader. You are right, and he is wrong.’
‘Can you and the other sachems not get him to agree?’
‘When we cannot agree among ourselves?’ Brant swept his arm around the dispersing tribesmen. ‘Your Colonel said to the Senecas at Oswego, “Come and watch us smash the Rebels. You do not even have to fight. And we will give you equal shares of gifts, of rum.” Equal! To the Mohawk who raises his war club for King George! And since the Senecas are without honour they accepted this spectator’s role. As if they were in a box at Drury Lane. But at least the Seneca are Iroquois.’ He pointed at another group. ‘All these others … Shawnee, Delaware, Missausauga Algonquin with their filthy tongue – how can we get them to unite under the Union Jack?’
Though this tirade had been pronounced in almost Oxfordian tones, Brant now turned and hawked very loudly in the direction of the Senecas, some of whom muttered and fingered their tomahawks. Jack took Brant by the elbow, led him slightly apart.
‘I know how you feel, Taiyendanaygeh.’ Jack had reverted to Iroquois, feeling Ancrum’s gaze upon him, newly emerged from the Colonel’s tent. ‘But these divisions will only make the Rebel enemy glad. Is there nothing we can do to unite us?’
‘Fight.’ It was Até who spoke. ‘Throw them into battle. They will all want glory if the bullets begin to storm.’
‘My brother is right,’ Jack said. ‘This siege, these toothless cannon, this is not the tribes’ way of war. But we are going out now to our camp. We will have first news of any enemy who march to relieve the Fort, as I think they will do. If I send back to the camp, will you come?’
Brant smiled for the first time. ‘I will. And you are right. They may lack the honour of the Mohawk. But even these others will fight.’
‘Amen,’ said Brant.
They went to the Quartermaster’s tent where they had left their own weapons. Stripping off the shirt, breeches, and boots he felt obliged to wear when in conversation with fellow officers, Jack was soon dressed – or undressed – like Até; a hide apron around his waist, reaching to mid-thigh, moccasins on his feet. Até was painted in red stripes right up to the scalp lock, the single bunched tail of hair that ran from his crown down his back. Jack had decided that the tattoos he’d acquired as a young man were sufficient painting and that his hair had better remain uncut since he had his dual role to think of. A shaved British officer would not be invited to sit down, even at Burgoyne’s table. But he gathered the thick hair back, tied it with rawhide. It reached down his spine nearly as far as Até’s.
Cross straps held three pistols apiece. They dropped their powder horns over their shoulders, the pouches that contained ball and grain to eat on the trail. There would be plenty of water and game in the woods. Finally, they picked up their fusils. Point 65 calibre, they had been taken from the French years before, much lighter than the Land Pattern Firelock issued to British soldiers, far better constructed and with shortened barrels. Among the trees, one needed accuracy and speed rather than distance, and a shorter barrel was easier to wield.
‘Ready?’ Até was grinning at him from the tent entrance.
‘Oh yes,’ said Jack. ‘Let’s see if we can start some trouble.’
– SEVEN –
Hunters
Within the silence of the trees, the wolf howl pierced like musket shot. Roosting pigeons exploded from branches, careless of the canopy, wings hammering the leaves aside in panicked flight. A squirrel, which Jack had been studying with the idle curiosity of the slightly hungry, disappeared into the higher reaches of a black walnut with a flick of its tail.